Explore Biohacking: A Conversation with Lauren Sambataro | 067
In this episode of the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast, Toréa Rodriguez sits down with Lauren Sambataro, a fellow FDN and Chek Practitioner, to dive into the fascinating world of holistic health and biohacking. Lauren shares her journey from a background in dance and personal training to becoming a holistic health coach. They discuss the significance of integrating metabolic and mental health, exploring tools like continuous glucose monitors (CGMs), meditation, and microdosing to optimize wellness. Lauren's approach emphasizes the importance of curiosity and listening to one's body to tailor health practices to individual needs. This episode is packed with insights into how to harmonize your health practices for better physical and mental well-being.
In This Episode
[01:11] - Introduction to Lauren Sambataro, her background, and how she became an FDN and Chek Practitioner.
[02:55] - Lauren's transition from personal training to holistic health coaching, influenced by her father's background as a biological dentist and OG biohacker.
[10:00] - The integration of objective data (like CGMs) with subjective feedback to optimize health practices.
[12:49] - The role of curiosity in health practices and the unique challenges women face in the biohacking space.
[19:29] - Key takeaways from using a CGM: the impact of meal timing, post-meal walks, and high-protein breakfasts.
[21:51] - The concept of "Choose Your Own Adventure" meals for families with different metabolic needs.
[22:58] - The transformative effects of meditation and microdosing on Lauren's practice and client outcomes.
[36:39] - Upcoming events: Lauren and her sister will emcee the Dragonfly Women's Health Conference.
[40:04] - Discussion on the benefits of the AmpCoil, a biohacking tool that uses sound frequencies to tune the body's organs.
[43:23] - Where to find more about Lauren and the Biohacker Babes podcast.
Resources Mentioned
Connect with Toréa
Website: https://www.torearodriguez.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/torearodriguez/
Threads:https://www.threads.net/@torearodriguez
Transcript
Toréa Rodriguez 0:00
Welcome to the Wildly Optimized Wellness. I am your host Toréa Rodriguez, and I've had a lifelong fascination with the natural world, and its impact on our well being. For over a decade, my work as a functional practitioner has been exploring how our relationship to our environment, to our thoughts, beliefs and emotions can have a profound impact on our physical and mental wellness. And because of that neurology, and brain based rewiring is a core focus of my practice. I am passionate about helping people not only feel better, but actually achieve that vibrant, no holds barred version of themselves. They've been missing for a long time, and how we actually get there. Well, that is what this show is all about. Please keep in mind that this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. And if you liked what you hear today, I would love it. If you would leave a review, hit that follow button or share it with a friend. Because we never know how much we can impact others when we do. Let's start today's adventure, shall we?
Toréa Rodriguez 1:11
Welcome back everybody to yet another episode of the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast, and I'm pleased to be joined today by Lauren Sambataro, who is also an FDN and Chek Practitioner and I would love it if you would give us a little bit of your history and how you got into being an FDN and Chek Practitioner and what is a Chek Practitioner?
Lauren Sambataro 1:33
Oh, well, thank you for having me. It's lovely to be here. Where do I start? So a Chek Practitioner, my mentor and ultimate health guru, his name is Paul Check. He has started an institute started like it was recent, he has been in the game for a very long time, perhaps, since even before I was born, and he started out as the trainer trainer of the Army Navy boxing team, and had a long history with personal training turned into corrective exercise and rehab. Really interesting to watch his evolution. Because I think it mirrors a lot of people's evolution in the health space.
Toréa Rodriguez 2:10
Yeah, Yes it does.
Lauren Sambataro 2:10
But he's miles ahead and then he got into nutrition and the all the holistic stuff and the sleep and then he, he got very spiritual. And that's where a key is currently. And he is just such a fantastic mind and inspiring man. But anyways, he has started the Chek Institute and so he trains practitioners to holistically address the entire human being. So a really amazing school.
Toréa Rodriguez 2:38
Yeah, it's amazing, amazing stuff and I've heard about it for a long time. I haven't elected to do the training per se and is that the first training that you did before you did the FDN?
Lauren Sambataro 2:52
I was a personal trainer first.
Toréa Rodriguez 2:55
Okay.
Lauren Sambataro 2:55
So I grew up dancing. I've been a performer my whole life and when I graduated from college, I wanted to start dancing with companies, dance companies and I went into a local gym, the New York Sports Club, and I wanted to get a membership just to take care of my body. I was always very interested in how do I avoid injury, protect my health. And someone snatched me and said, Do you want to be a personal trainer? I was like, Sure. Sounds fun.
Toréa Rodriguez 3:22
Okay.
Lauren Sambataro 3:24
And so by chance, you know, a door opened and thank goodness because I just instantly fell in love with exercise science, and learning how to manipulate the body and listen to the body. So that became my personal training career and then much like Paul check, but you know, 30 years later, started understanding that there was more to the health game than just exercise. We can't just show up to the gym, as you know as FDN's know. So I learned about Paul Chek, I guess pretty early on in my personal training career and I guess to answer your initial question, I came into this because my dad is a biological dentist. So I grew up in a pretty health driven family. My dad we call him the the OG biohacker. He was always doing like some weird style home.
Toréa Rodriguez 4:14
Yep
Lauren Sambataro 4:15
Low level laser and PEMF Mats. This was in the 80s in our living room and my sister and I were just like, play.
Toréa Rodriguez 4:20
Wow you have PEMF Mats growing up. That's amazing.
Lauren Sambataro 4:23
Yeah, we were like, with to our friends come over and play with our toys. We don't know what they're doing. But they're cool. So I had this very early exposure to experimentation to curiosity to alternative health methods. And I don't know that I appreciated them when I was a child, but through osmosis, and through that exposure, I learned that there was always another way that we didn't always have to take the conventional medicine route, even though it's very valuable in a lot of ways that if we hit a roadblock or ran into a wall, we could turn left or right and find another answer or opportunity. So it's really my dad that got me into it and my very first Chek training, my dad took our whole family to the level one holistic lifestyle coach. So I found him through the personal training role, but also my dad was like, let's do it as a family and so that's started my yeah, entrance into Chek and I've done many of the certifications, the exercise science, the holistic lifestyle coaching, and it was through him that I found FDN. So that was the evolution keeps going. But I have to thank my dad, and then also just this curiosity to really take care of my body as a dancer and performer.
Toréa Rodriguez 5:33
That's amazing. I think that's something when I met you, and we'll talk about that later on. But when I met you, that was one of the things that struck me the most is that you have this mindset of curiosity., and early on in my, you know, training, I don't even remember when I first heard it, but it was somebody who said, you know, what's really cool about curiosity? And I was like, no, what? You cannot simultaneously be in a state of judgment. While you're in curiosity, and I was like, Whoa, mind blown. You know, it's like trying to teach a dog to not jump up, you teach them to lie down first. Because they cannot simultaneously jump up when you're lying down. And I was just like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. But it really struck a chord because I have always been that kid that is like crawling around the yard. I'm curious, where did the ants go when they go underground? You know, and so I'm like taking the stick and trying to follow it and always using curiosity in the natural world around me. In fact, today, I'm wearing my shirt curiosity as a constant.
Lauren Sambataro 6:40
Oh, oh, oh, I love that and love you. What synchrony I love it.
Toréa Rodriguez 6:49
Yeah. So I love that you have had this pathway, so to speak, to follow that was following your curiosity along the way.
Lauren Sambataro 7:02
Interesting, though, maybe we can kind of workshop this, I would love to just like throw it on the table and have like an open kind of forum around it. But I have always been curious. I always felt that very deeply. But in a lot of ways, I felt misunderstood. I think like a lot of us feel misunderstood. But especially in the health, if you've had health challenges, you may feel under misunderstood. And my curiosity has often been mistaken for judgment, which is interesting. It's like they could look the same on the outside. The intent could be completely different and so, there's a little bit of a joke in my family. It's like, oh, what notes does Lauren have about this event or show? And my fiance always says like, Do you have another question? Like, you're always asking questions. But it's curiosity. I think we pin the open forum for later. But I just that's just a reflection back after hearing you say that that I think it can be misunderstood.
Toréa Rodriguez 7:55
There are people that can be, I would say very direct, or maybe not as open to curiosity, that we'll see the questions seeking as, or the question asking, as somebody to I've been misunderstood as somebody wanting external approval, from asking my questions, you know, so it's like, no, no, but really, I'm, I'm just curious. So I just want to know, like, how does this work? And and it's been interesting, an interesting path for sure. How would you, because we haven't quite finished your introduction, but how would you introduce yourself around what it is that you do now? Because I'd love for people to understand a little bit more about how you help people in the world.
Lauren Sambataro 8:44
Yeah, it is ever changing. But what I spend most of my time doing right now is metabolic health coaching and that is quickly evolving to encompass mental health, because we know they are so intimately connected, perhaps intertwined, so much, you can't take them apart. But I do a lot of glucose coaching. So a lot of clients come to me with continuous glucose monitors for various reasons. But I think my introduction is that I'm a holistic health coach. So I look at the entire spectrum of healing and I really like to pull in both objective data. So that could be through a CGM. But I also like to use sleep tracking. All kinds of metrics like blood chemistry, lab work as an FDN. But then pull in the subjective piece through listening to the body, listening to our intuition, maybe it's just journaling to start a practice to get quiet and start getting that feedback because I believe that we can be our own best guru. Some people need a little more data, heavy balance. Some people need a little more of this objective, but ideally, we can marry the two and fill in the gaps. So I am a holistic lifestyle coach that pulls in all aspects of healing so we can optimize our health potential.
Toréa Rodriguez 10:00
Well, I love it so much and it's so parallel to the kind of work that my practice has evolved into. And, you know, being the scientist type background, and the person who likes a lot of data and numbers, I am the first one to go out and get the aura ring when it gets announced, you know, and be able to start tracking my data. And I'm always really curious to correlate not only the what is the data was that number, show me, but then how does that feel in the body? Because that is the piece that I think, you know, we can look at blood glucose is like the best example because it's very hard to be aware of high blood glucose levels, unless you are verging on the diabetic side. It's very hard to be aware of what that feels like somatically in the in the body. But when that crashes, Oh, you bet your bottom dollar, I know exactly what that feels like. Right? hanger is a real thing. And so is like feeling like I'm nearly going to faint. And so starting to put those two things together, learning what, what is what does an 89 blood glucose feel like? Right? For some people that might induce shakes for some people, it won't, and so starting to understand what each one of those individually means. So that's kind of where my practice has ended up to a little bit. Also bearing on the mental health side, but yeah, it's super cool.
Lauren Sambataro 11:30
It's so important. I so it's interesting. Paul Chek really doesn't believe in biohacking. One because he thinks that the term is very harsh and aggressive and we should talk about bio harmonizing rather than like that he disagree. I think it's just a word. I think biohacking is a way in, and a curiosity and an experiment. But the next step is he doesn't believe in data quantification. He believes your body should do it yourself. Unfortunately, our society and our cultural conditioning has not set us up for success in that way. We've been taught and not listened to our bodies. So a lot of literally Jews need that entry point. They need it because as you said, we don't often feel the high blood sugar and how many people walk around with high blood sugar all time all the time all day long, even though they're eating quote unquote, healthy, right? It's, it's mind blowing. And so you need that number on paper to go, oh, I need to take a pause and re configure this I need I need to choose a new path and try something different.
Toréa Rodriguez 12:33
Yeah, absolutely and I I love the data harmonizing. That's a really cool way of of talking about it. I think the so you do your podcast is called the Biohacker Babes. Yes. And that is with your sister, am I right?
Lauren Sambataro 12:49
Yes, she is. My sister. People are so surprised about that. She has a different last name. She's married. And we haven't lived in the same city household since we were teenagers. I'm two years older and our paths took slightly different routes. But we ended up in the same place. She is also a nutrition practitioner, health coach and we've been wanting to collaborate for so long and one day we were like, well, podcasts, we can do that virtually on Zoom and have a business together. So yeah, we started that four years ago and and you are coming on our podcast or when this airs would be you've already been on the podcast
Toréa Rodriguez 13:25
I don't know we'll figure it out. But a time warp will happen. And you can go check out that interview over there too. So yeah, yeah, I love that you are able to do this with your sister. And what's really cool is that in the biohacking world, there are a lot of dudes. There's just a lot of dudes, and nothing against dudes. But you know, my prior career to this was in aviation, and there were a lot of dudes there too. So it's just kind of like you start to wonder, are these things that are being recommended, mended fasting, for example, is that going to work with the female physiology, in the same way that it works with male physiology, and I've fallen flat on my face a couple times by following bio hacks that were really studied and well known for male physiology and totally crushed me on female physiology. So I love that you guys have this resource that you're creating for women and just biohacking in general because you bring a whole different perspective, if you will, to the biohacking world. So awesome. I love it.
Lauren Sambataro 14:33
Yeah, well, it is very analogous to like the masculine and feminine differences, like masculine is the framework and it is the structure it is the progress. And the women are the creativity and the flow that fill in the gaps and that's what has happened in the biohacking space. The men have started that which is awesome. They are the pioneers and we are so grateful to them for that but there needs to be like a whole lot of space for the females. Because you're right it's not directed to was female physiology no matter how much they study it and read the literature, which we could talk about that, like women just aren't in research and not because they're difficult, not emotionally difficult, they're like, physiologically difficult. Yes. But they don't know how it feels. And so we need to create more space and it's happening slowly. It's happening. But I hate I hate to say it, but there is some not sound there's a lot of ego in that space. So but women we are coming in, but I just want to say like it is valuable sometimes to fall flat on your face. Like that's how we learn. Oh, yeah. Want to harm our health? Yeah. Like, all and get back up. Yeah,
Toréa Rodriguez 15:40
I was not permanently injured. In that fall. It was definitely a big learning experience, especially for me to understand what works with my body and what doesn't. Because as you know, we progress through through this life and everything, our practices, our bodies, it all goes through an evolution, right, our career paths, it all goes through an evolution. And so what worked for me in my 30s, and what worked for me in my 40s doesn't necessarily work for me in my 50s. I just started in my 50s. So now I'm kinda like, Oh, interesting, okay. And a case in point, right with the blood glucose and blood sugar monitoring. I kind of crested 4849 and weights creeping up weights creeping up. So what do I do, I do more intense exercise, and I start fasting and weights creeping up weights creeping up. And I'm like, Okay, I don't really understand what's going on. Lo and behold, CGM has become a hell of a lot more mainstream. So I start working with a CGM. And I'm like, oh, classic sign of insulin resistance, like, Oh, that is what's happening, right? So I wouldn't be able to see that kind of stuff. So being able to go through these evolutions, if you will, and start to not throw the baby out with the bathwater of what used to work for us. But take that and apply it that maybe be open minded to tweak it, because everything's going to be an evolution.
Lauren Sambataro 17:13
Oh, that is such a good point. I would love to hear like kind of the, the newness that came up for you. But that's such a hard thing. Because as humans, we want to find the answer and the solution. And when we find it, we're like, that's it hold on tight. Never change. But the body is dynamic. Like we are not, I wasn't, I am not who I was two minutes ago, right? Like, our cells are constantly turning over or blood is changing. And so yeah, we have to keep like listening and respect the dynamic nature of the human body. But it's also like cool invitation and opportunity to do something new. But it's time consuming. So I get both sides. But I'm curious what like the biggest takeaway was for you with the CGM?
Toréa Rodriguez 17:53
Oh, gosh, two major big takeaways. I think, maybe three. I did not realize that the body metabolizes food differently after the sun sets in the evening. So that was a big takeaway. So I was like, oh, I should try and have dinner before the sun sets, which is, I'll be it is challenging in the winter, but sometimes I can get it done. And that made a huge difference. And just the simple basis, it's mind boggling to me how much people forget and how much I forget. So when I say people, folks, I mean, me that sometimes the most basic things that people are suggesting that you do, can have the biggest amount of leverage. So taking a walk after meals, that was huge. So meal timing in terms of circadian rhythm, and taking a walk after meals was huge. And then the third thing that I learned that works really, really well for my body now is stacking the day with high protein. So if I start the day with high protein, I can manage my blood sugar regulation a heck of a lot better. If I start with oatmeal. It's gonna be a roller coaster the whole day, no matter how much protein powder I put in that oatmeal, or how many egg yolks I put in that oatmeal, it doesn't matter. It's it goes kind of crazy in one case. So that's kind of the stuff that I've learned. And so now I'm, you know, practically eat eggs every day for breakfast, but it works right now. And that who knows.
Lauren Sambataro 19:29
It's all matters is what works for you because we're so bio individual and as an FDN. Like your audience knows that so deeply. I only know I do know a handful of people that can eat oatmeal for breakfast, so I never want to say flat across the board oatmeal is bad. But then there are people a lot of people that no matter how much they stack, it's just gonna work but so I try not to be dogmatic with that stuff. And that's why we were the CGM. It's like you are your own entity. Just pay attention to you Yeah, let me that mean that little girl that was like worried about yourself like that, for metabolic health.
Toréa Rodriguez 20:05
That's the headline Oh, so true. And it becomes challenging because if you live with a partner or live with the family, everybody's bio individual. And so something my husband and I learned is like I can, I can eat a little bit of corn and my blood sugar goes way up, whereas he can eat a lot of corn and he's fine. But I can do the opposite with rice. And so it's this balance of like, how often or how we proportion the various different carbs when we're eating them in that way. So it was a fun experiment for us both to really learn that about each other.
Lauren Sambataro 20:41
Oh, that's, that's interesting. So I love like a choose your own adventure meal, if you are serving a family and or having dinner with a partner with different metabolic needs, like set up the calendar with stations, and encourage everyone to get to know their bodies and like choose your own portions according to what you've learned. Rather than giving everyone the same scoop of this same stuff. To me, I love our empower your people to make their own choices and put what they need on their plate
Toréa Rodriguez 21:08
is such a great suggestion. First of all, you said my favorite word adventure. But the second piece of that is just allowing families to have that flexibility. Because I think part of the challenges that a lot of our clients can have is that they feel like I need to create one menu item and serve everybody the exact same thing. Or we find those clients who are like, I'm creating three different dinners to satisfy everybody. And that can cause somebody to go crazy. So you know, it's like finding that middle balance. So I like the Choose Your Own Adventure dinner. So that's amazing.
Lauren Sambataro 21:46
So I'm sure it's not perfect all the time. I don't have children. But yeah, an idea.
Toréa Rodriguez 21:51
It's, yeah, it's going to be an experiment, if you will. Right. Apply some curiosity. I wonder if this will work tonight. I would love to segue a little bit. Both of our practices have started to include a lot more of the mental health and in fact, you and I met through mycology psychology. So Lauren is also a practitioner, and mycology psychology along with myself. And so we are colleagues there. And I would love to hear your experience as you've been doing microdosing yourself what your experience has been, but more so how has it changed your practice? Because I know for me, it is. I don't want to say dramatically changed my practice. But it's shifted the focus quite a bit. Because I've started to really pay attention to the psychoneuroimmunology, which is what's going on in the mind is having that downward cascade in cytokines and hormones and neurotransmitters down into the cellular function of the body. So how has this shifted for you?
Lauren Sambataro 22:58
Just through my own experience in my health journey, when I discovered micro dosing? Actually, no, there is something before this, before I discovered micro dosing, I discovered meditation, which changed my relationship to my body. I it's kind of unbelievable to think back and think like I was working so hard to exercise and get the body that I wanted. And when I discovered meditation, everything became easy. Truly, I couldn't say that confidently became easy. And so then when I found microdosing, it was just this whole other layer, like you said, it's like top down, it comes from the brain. And if we can get our mindset and our nervous system and these top down controls, or our immune system or inflammatory system or hormones, synchronized, aligned, optimized, everything becomes easier. And so it's kind of woven itself into my practice, where I've had actually a lot of health coaching clients. People come to me for various reasons, but specifically for weight loss. I've had some dramatic results with people that are trying so hard. Want to count every calorie which was never my thing. Like I'm like, Please don't tell me. Don't ask me how many calories you're supposed to be eating. Don't do it.
Toréa Rodriguez 24:21
I agree. But sometimes getting to a state, like, gouge my eyeballs out if I'm asked to count my food.
Lauren Sambataro 24:27
Yeah, but we know we get into a conversation about it. And so you give the clients like a little bit of what they want. And yeah, I've had some interesting client cases where when we leave the microdosing and suddenly, we don't care about counting calories. We don't care about walking exactly 15.3 miles every day. Sorry, steps 15 2000 miles, walking a certain number of miles every day. And there is just like, this release that happens in the body. I just think that's so powerful, because our food culture and our society at large is so focused on isolation and reductionist approaches, and we're not zooming out and looking at the whole. And when we look at the whole, it comes back to exactly what you said, it's this top down approach where we can just release and I keep, like kind of sighing, because I think that creates safety in the body. And that's really what micro dosing and meditation affords us, it makes your body feel safer, and if our body feel safe, and it does what it wants to do, naturally, so much better.
Toréa Rodriguez 25:38
And when we are not feeling safe, or if we are so intent on measuring every little thing and trying to be as perfect as possible, then you know, what is happening in the nervous system, right? We all know that it's shifting into that fight or flight. And when we're in fight or flight, there are a whole slew of biochemical processes that actually cannot occur in sympathetic nervous system state, they only occur and parasympathetic. And so what you're saying with through the meditation and through microdose microdosing, is you've actually experienced and witnessed clients, finally be able to access that parasympathetic state of their nervous system so that their body can do some of the metabolic processes that are found in parasympathetic, right?
Lauren Sambataro 26:29
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Toréa Rodriguez 26:32
That's amazing. That's amazing. And so are you. I'm just curious, are you talking to all your clients about this possibility? Are you letting, letting them come to you? Like, is it formally integrated? We're in this weird gray area with the space like, how does that work?
Lauren Sambataro 26:52
It is super gray. So I tried to sneak it in. I think like, you know, having conversations on the podcast, I send emails out to share education, I drip things out on social media, because I think that's how people really, if you have a strong narrative or opinion about something, it needs to be shifted, it has to like, just kind of trickle down into your environment. Like direct conversations don't always go so well. It's sort of like when you try to help someone that's really close to a partner or family member, it doesn't go so great. You have to hear it from everybody.
Toréa Rodriguez 27:24
Oh, yeah. I remember what it was like when I tried to preach gluten free to my husband when I first started. I didn't imagine well, because here he was, you know, he loved my husband. He was nine different species, I guess, if you will sourdough, like nine different strains of sourdough. And he was culturing all these different things. And he totally loved his craft. And I'm like, Hey, we gotta go gluten free. And he's like, peace out. I'm gonna do my sourdough. Yeah, that was, anyway.
Lauren Sambataro 27:56
Yeah. Don't take the bread away. Yeah, I understand that. So. And I think also, because we live in this gray area, and it's all changing so quickly, I think this is just the natural flow to let it just disseminate naturally. And the people that are ready, present themselves. So I've just been kind of holding that space and waiting for the door to open again. I mean, I'm curious to hear how it goes for you. But I don't feel like it's my responsibility to knock on someone's door about it. And we could, I could, I could choose to do that. But I'm not
Toréa Rodriguez 28:34
Sure, and I do see people out on social media that are being very vocal about it, and being very forward about it. I have no insight as to whether or not that's a successful strategy. So please do not come to me for social media strategy. That is not my expertise. But for me, it's been very much a very similar kind of thing of holding that space. If people are curious. They'll hear the one or two episodes on the podcast that we've talked about it, or they'll notice the posts that I might be making for the mycology practitioner course, or, you know, any of those things that are happening. And they'll ask if they're curious. And again, curiosity kind of wins the name of the game for that day of like, people are going to be curious, and they're going to ask a question. And if it's appropriate, great, if it's not appropriate, we'll let them know. I mean, there are definitely cases where microdosing is not for everybody. And so it's can benefit a lot of people. But it's, it's definitely not for everybody. So having that understanding. And I think what I loved so much when you joined the practitioner group at mycology, psychology is you come from a kind of a science background here with the check in the FDN and everything else of really looking at this from a holistic perspective to understand if we add this element in is this And then be appropriate thing for that particular particular person's bio individuality. So, that was really cool. And I was really happy that you were coming on board.
Lauren Sambataro 30:10
Oh, yeah, you were my sidekick from the beginning. So for your audience when I came into the network and found out that you were an FDA, and I hired you to do a microdosing journey with me, because one, I was like, you are holding this functional medicine space, I want to see how you're doing this. But also, like, as a practitioner, I have to keep showing up and doing the work. And so that was so valuable for me to drop into that space, and continue my journey. And also like, learn how, how are we integrating this? Because it is, it is all so new. But it's it really is exciting. And I suppose just to loop back to your comment before about the curiosity and knocking on doors, I a counter argument would be like, what about the people that we feel like really need it, but are just so kind of boundary it in this way that it's a bad thing? It's dangerous. I've actually had several people that I thought there's no way that they would ever and just by letting that information trickle out. They did like they showed up. That's the audacity and they're like, Tell me more. And that's my favorite and people are like, I want to know.
Toréa Rodriguez 31:15
Yes, totally. I love it when people reach out and ask questions and want to know more deeply about something because information while we're in an information rich society, and sometimes I'm telling my client's like back off on the information, because right now what you need is just to be right not to know. But there, there can be a lot of power in having more information around some things so that we can feel safe. Like we were talking before, the body's gotta feel safe in order to feel that invitation. And I think what's really fascinating to me, I've taken over the summer, I took a psychedelic neuroscience course, because of course, I had to get geeky about it and really understand what's going on. But we're in a really interesting place in our society along the timeline right now, where we are completely shifting a narrative, the one from the 70s, and the 80s, where, you know, psychedelic drugs are bad, and you're gonna lose your mind and have a psychotic break, if you even think about it. Versus really starting to understand now, because now we have functional MRI, we didn't have that in the 70s or 80s. Right? So now we're really starting to understand what is happening in the brain, what is happening for people. And we're starting to have a whole narrative shift in the research world, in the legal world, like all of this stuff is really shifting. So for me, it's very fascinating to see, once again, here we are with our evolution of things, that it's, it's becoming more and more a sought after solution for people. Because the solutions that we have, I won't say, especially for mental health, but also for physical health. Sometimes those solutions are working for that particular person. It's not dissimilar to when I first got diagnosed with Hashimotos. And I don't know if you know this part of my story, Lauren, but when I was diagnosed with Hashimotos, I was still flying and working as a pilot. And I really had to, I had to pass my aviation medical. So I put a lot of pressure on my endocrinologist. And he finally was just like, well, I don't know what else to do except for a radiate your thyroid and cut out the rest of the tissue. And I was like, Well, no, that is not the path I want to go down. And so we see this model with Western medicine, both in mental health and physical health, and veterinary science and everything else where we're applying all of these different approaches, but they may not actually be helping the person. And so people are really looking for alternatives.
Lauren Sambataro 34:08
I think that's why the holistic health model and there are some other branches of the VAT like biological medicine, functional medicine, there's a lot of crossover here. But I think the benefit of all of these is when we zoom out, and we have this entire wheel, this holistic wheel we can see what those biggest the biggest opportunities for people are, we're not gonna apply all of them to all people. But I think what has been really cool about my evolution, I would assume yours is kind of the same as we kind of pull in these tools to our toolbox. So that we know when we need client, oh, you're gonna need these shoes rituals. This person is going to need a different for tools. Right? It's It's so different. And with glucose monitoring, specifically, I have a lot of people that come into it because they heard that you could lose weight. I have great one put a CGM and I'm gonna lose weight. And then we look at their glucose and it's pretty it's pretty good. And that wasn't the thing, we get kind of bummed because we've been offered this magic solution. And that's not the thing. Well, we got to zoom out, I think microdosing is the same thing. It may not be the answer. But I think the cool thing is, it's probably going to open up a conversation that will illuminate and enhance and amplify some other opportunities. So may not be a bad thing. But it's all about the conversation and really just tying all these things together. And I think that's really where I live is like, how do we tie all of these pieces that we've been culturally conditioned to think are isolated and separate from one another? How you pull them all together into this one, like beautiful basket called the human experience?
Toréa Rodriguez 35:39
Yep and I know that the Chek training is all about that. And the FDN training is all about that. It's really about listening and making all the different connections and creating what I call the 30,000 foot view, mainly because I was pilot and I knew what that view would look like. But we do we have to zoom out a lot to really get an understanding of what's going on. And I agree with you, I think microdosing can help somebody to zoom out. Because when we're in fight or flight a lot, our vision literally narrows we get tunnel vision, it's very hard for us to see peripheral vision when we are stressed out. And to me, the microdosing allows us to get that peripheral vision and really take a much bigger look at what's going on. So yeah. I'm curious, do you have anything new coming up in the new year new programs or anything, any events coming up that you would like to share about?
Lauren Sambataro 36:39
Oh, so I am really jazzed to be an emcee at this women's health conference called dragonfly with my sister are going to emcee that. But to be honest, I'm getting married in two weeks. And so there hasn't been a lot put on the catheter. You know, Julie's so really, yeah, fully steeped in this ever evolving thing with mycology. It's growing quite fast. We've been in it. We've been in the thick of it, you and I Yeah. And so I really am just trading my life like I am a student. And I am just trying to keep my perspective open and listen and let things kind of flow so nothing hard other than this conference in Denver in November. It's called the dragonfly Conference, which it's geared towards women, but all are welcome. Sort of that as we're doing biohacking, it's for everyone. Yeah, like we're gonna focus a little bit more. I mean, because they think they need just a little bit more attention.
Toréa Rodriguez 37:41
Yeah, I love it. I love it. I would love to know, since you are part of the biohacker babes. What is your favorite right now in this moment? I'm sure you've got a litany of favorites over time. But right now, in this moment, what is your favorite bio hack that you're using for yourself?
Lauren Sambataro 37:59
Can I get you two?
Toréa Rodriguez 38:01
You absolutely can.
Lauren Sambataro 38:04
This is the argument, the war that my sister and I always have, how many do I get? I can't give you one. Because you can actually that's great. Um, well, I always like to start with a free hack, because I think that we need to make health more accessible to everyone. And sunshine, I think is the utmost best biohack of all time, and I would call it a bio hack, because not enough of us are doing it using it. Light is so powerful for a million reasons. I know that your audience knows this. But we can disrupt and also synchronize and align so many patterns and communication signals in the body simply by connecting with light. And so I use that frequently. I use it when I travel to reset my circadian rhythm. I use it when I'm little brain foggy, I use it when I'm tired. I use it when I just need to calm down. It's powerful. Yeah, I will go to the complete opposite end of the spectrum, something that's actually quite an investment. But I have what's called an amp coil. It's a Tesla. It's a tesla coil that delivers sound frequencies. So essentially, if you think of our body, like a musical instrument, if all of our organs are different notes, if they get out of tune, then they don't do what they do so beautifully. And so the amp coil tunes these organs tunes our organs to their optimal frequencies, so that they can do the natural healing abilities. So it is quite expensive, but it has been hands down the best investment I've made in my entire life was an opportunity to just kind of chill out I was like a what I call a live flat moment. horizontal moment. Yeah. And you know, you can meditate but sometimes I watch TV while I do it, but it is incredibly harmonizing to the nervous system. And there's all kinds of journey that's on here for immune or brain get digestion And, and the coolest part about it. Are you familiar with the amp coil?
Toréa Rodriguez 40:04
Well, I looked into it. Let's see, probably six years ago now, and it was out of my price range back then. And so I kind of put it on the shelf. And so to hear you talking about it and loving it, of course, my immediate question is like, has it come down in price? Any? Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't. But I've never met somebody in person until right now in this moment, who uses it and finds benefit from it. So this is amazing, because I knew it was out there. But I just wasn't really into it. Because it was a cost prohibitive thing back then.
Lauren Sambataro 40:40
Yeah, I think it has come down a little bit. And they're always making updates and the newer models are I don't want to see stronger because we don't necessarily want more of something. But they are more optimized. Yeah, so I've heard a lot of cases of people that aren't happy with them. They they send them back. They said the sink didn't make me feel anything. And I would say the invitation there is like we're not always supposed to feel something. Especially in the biohacking world. We're working looking for this like big kind of wow factor. But not everything's
Toréa Rodriguez 41:13
going to be at a tropic that you're going to notice right away. Yeah.
Lauren Sambataro 41:18
Yeah. Like if we're getting into true healing and like harmony in the body, it's going to be really subtle. That being said, my first experience with the amp coil, I'd had like lightning bolts shooting down my leg, I didn't know what was happening. Wow. But I ran just kind of the demo journey on there. And basically, the machine was going to communicate with whatever part of my body needed the most attention. And I had an old ankle injury, and it found it and it was like, there, were gonna give you energy to your leg. I was like, Oh my gosh, being electrocuted. It wasn't, it really wasn't that dramatic, but there was a huge sensation and I was pretty, pretty turned on after that experience. But I was gonna say the coolest thing about the amp coil is that there is a diagnostic feature, they use a voice print, so you can record your voice. And it will give you recommendations on maybe what needs the most attention. And much in the same way that I use my CGM and my aura ring, I always like to predict or tap into my intuition. And listen to my subjective feedback before I look at the data. I will do that with amp coil, I kind of feel like this is happening. And quite often, the scan matches up with what I subjectively perceive or assume to be going on.
Toréa Rodriguez 42:37
That's amazing. That's amazing. That's cool.
Lauren Sambataro 42:40
So we get a diagnostic. And then we get like the protocol, the treatment, the healing. So I so it's a price point that's not accessible to everyone. But I would say if you are dealing with it was created for people that are struggling with Lyme. So it's very sick. And that's why I was looking into it. Yep, yeah. And can be quite intense, because there's a lot of detox and then definitely knock you down. But you know how to use it. I think it's fabulous.
Toréa Rodriguez 43:09
That's amazing. That's so amazing and where might people find out more about you? Or go listen to more of your podcast? Like, tell people where to find you?
Lauren Sambataro 43:23
Yeah, so I spent some time on Instagram. It's @lauren_sambataro. And then I also have a biohacker babes account share with my sister @biohacker_babes. And then websites, I'm sure if you just type in all those letters are long, but you'll find me on there and yeah, I would say what I share kind of bounces around like sometimes people are like, what do you do? But hopefully this podcast kind of explained like it really, there's just so many tools in the toolbox. So sometimes I'm talking about microdosing sometimes I'm talking to you about glucose monitoring, which if you haven't tried it, please try it. I think it is for everyone at least once in your life, I promise you'll find something that surprises you.
Toréa Rodriguez 44:03
I agree it is such a you learn about your body with that tool. That is what I love the most is that you learn something about your own body. It's a great.
Lauren Sambataro 44:16
It cuts through the noise. I think with all the opinions and trends out there. It's like well, what's right for me? Well, a CGM will certainly cut to the chase and tell you what's right for you very quickly.
Toréa Rodriguez 44:27
I wish that we had CGM way back in the day when all the elimination diets were the only way to do it. Right. So you know, it's like, oh, you need to be vegetarian. No, you need to go keto. No, you need to do AIP. No, now you got to do the Candida diet because AIP wasn't working. And honestly, I think if we just learn how our body reacts to food that is much better tool.
Lauren Sambataro 44:54
I agree. I agree. Yeah. But the way in is definitely listening to your body and trusting that At All right, like you could still use a CGM and be a disbeliever. Or, you know, be more inclined for Nocebo effect, like your body's gonna know best. So like, be open minded. Like you said earlier, I think that's kind of the best thing about being a biohacker. If you can go in with curiosity and an open mind, and just chest and lean on authorities and thought leaders, so you're not harming your health and falling flat in your face all the time. But like some healthy self experimentation is the way forward. That's how we optimize and really, like, respect the bodies and the physiology that we have.
Toréa Rodriguez 45:40
It's okay. I think you and I could probably talk for hours about all of these different things and many, many topics in depth. But, folks, go listen to the Biohacker Babes podcast. It's amazing. Go check out Lauren and all the different ways I will definitely have all of that in the show notes. And Lauren, thank you so much for joining us today.
Lauren Sambataro 45:58
Thank you. This is lovely.
Toréa Rodriguez 46:02
Hey, thanks for joining me for this episode of the Wildly Optimized Wellness podcast. If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your wellness, you can check out my website torerodriguez.com. Want to have a peek into what it's like to work with me? Check out the Wellness Curiosity Collective or any of my other programs or retreats. And if you found something helpful in today's episode, don't forget to leave a review hit that follow button or share it with a friend because they're gonna love that you thought of them. Until next time, See You Outside.
