Introduction
[00:00:00] Detective Ev: All right. Hello everyone. Welcome to another live episode of the Health Detective Podcast by Functional Diagnostic Nutrition. As always, I’m your host, Evan Transue, AKA Detective Ev. We have a special and repeat guest on today to tell her personal story as an FDN health coach, our friend Kim Heinz. She was actually on episode number 205 when we did an HTMA test analysis, which is hair tissue mineral analysis. That was an excellent episode.
I promised we’d have her back on eventually to tell her story. Normally people share their story first and then we do something more specific. We’re doing it backwards. Just make sure you’re subscribed to our YouTube and Facebook so you can see these things live.
A little bit about Kim to preface this. She is an FDN who primarily helps her clients reverse debilitating gut issues. She has been an FDN for 4.5 years, but her own health journey began long before that. She began getting migraines early in life and they intensified in her 20s to the point where she was getting them three to five times a week.
That is not fun. Migraines were never a main symptom for me, but I got them at five, six years old. That is a different ballgame than the headaches thing. I don’t think people really get that unless they’ve been through that. Three to five times a week, that’s a nightmare.
When she was 28, she had a migraine that lasted an entire year straight. Okay. Got to talk about that. On top of this, she dealt with a myriad of other symptoms, including insomnia, brain fog, chronic fatigue, anxiety, and depression.
FDN Health Coach: Life Changing Experience
She was told by a doctor that she would have to deal with chronic migraines for the rest of her life. Determined to not accept that fate, she ultimately found the functional health space and it changed her life.
Through functional lab testing, she uncovered a lot of gut issues, food sensitivities, and nutrient imbalances. Through addressing these, she no longer gets migraines and all the other symptoms disappeared as well. Not only did her symptoms disappear, but she has taken things to a completely different level.
In addition to running her business, she is also a top competitor in long distance mountain biking in the Midwest of the United States, often taking a podium spot. She feels better at 42 than she ever did at 32 and even 22. Her own life changing experience is what led her to become an FDN so that she could help others experience the same freedom she has.
And for those watching live, my reaction is genuine. Maybe this is stupid, but I don’t read the bios beforehand because I want it to be genuine. But it really stinks if there’s a grammatical error and then I mess up. So, thank you for having perfect grammar. Welcome back to the Health Detective Podcast, my friend.
[00:03:27] Kim Heintz: Thank you. It’s good to be here. It’s good to see you again. I love HTMA. So, I was glad we got to talk about that last winter, but now it’s good to be back and share my story.
[00:03:37] Detective Ev: Yeah. We always start the story based podcasts in the exact same way. Obviously, we got a little hint of this with your bio, but I’m sure there’s more to dissect there and unpack.
FDN Health Coach: Immense Pain
When did these first health symptoms, like any symptom, begin for you and what exactly did that look like? Was it just the stuff in the bio or was there some other things that were going on prior to that?
[00:03:58] Kim Heintz: My migraines were the first thing that I remember, and I was 8 or 9 years old. I distinctly remember visiting my paternal grandmother and missing out on all of the activities for the weekends. I was lying on the couch with a washcloth over my eyes and just being in immense pain. That was the first thing that started for me. Then all the other things just came about over the years from there.
[00:04:22] Detective Ev: Then just really to define this for people because I never want this to be a podcast where we’re dwelling on the things that we dealt with, but I do think this is a place to validate the experiences of individuals and also connect with others and let the listeners know that the people that are on here really get what they’re talking about.
So, I could be wrong, but I’m assuming if you’ve had migraines this bad in your life, you’ve also probably had what would be defined as a headache, or at the very least, you would know how to differentiate between the two. For those out there that think oh, I get headaches. I take an Advil for it and I’m good to go in an hour or two. What is the difference between the normal or standard headache and something that’s an actual migraine? What’s the difference in feelings and symptoms?
FDN Health Coach: Attempting to Power Through
[00:05:02] Kim Heintz: The first thing is that migraines show up differently for different people so I’m just going to share my experience. But what you just said, I take an Advil and I’m good to go in a couple hours, that’s not the case with migraines. Advil never did make much of a dent in my migraines for me. And yeah, I have had headaches in the past, so I do tell the difference.
For me, I could feel it coming on. I could feel it building in my neck and behind my eye. And I would start to get very nauseous, light sensitivity to the point where I would have to wear sunglasses inside. My nerves would hurt. That is so weird, because I never dealt with chronic body pain like that really. But I could feel my nerves, I wanted to crawl out of my skin almost as those things would come on. And then all of those things would intensify.
There’s this thing called auras. I only got auras a few times, so my experience with auras isn’t really there. But the nausea, and I would also sometimes almost lose vision in one of my eyes where I would get blurry in that eye. Because most of my migraines were very much on my right side of my body, I very rarely got them on my left side. It was weird sometimes when they did jump, but it was mostly a right-sided thing.
Those things would intensify to the point where, because I got them so frequently in my 20s especially and early 30s, I would try to work, power through. But I was usually pretty miserable and not really at my best, if you will, during those types of things.
FDN Health Coach: Depression and Anxiety
A lot of times just making it to the end of the day, or as late in the day as I could, taking a prescription migraine medication, laying in a dark room, and sleeping it off was basically my way of trying to mitigate it. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes I woke up and started it all over again.
[00:06:51] Detective Ev: It’s such a weird thing hearing all these different symptoms and stories, getting to host this podcast, because it’s always like a grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side thing. There are some people that might not get how serious this is because of what they have. And then it’s vice versa.
This is a debilitating thing. To power through the days is pretty dang impressive because for some people that are dealing with these things, and I’m sure you’ve had this, this can induce vomiting. You’re in so much pain that you’re actually sick to your stomach. It’s really not a joke.
I’ve had headaches like that, let alone the migraines. It becomes your main focus. It’s hard to do other things while this is going on. And this started for you, like you said, at eight to nine years old, it got really bad in the twenties.
Between, let’s say roughly eight and those twenties, were there other health symptoms that you had, or was it always back to these migraines?
[00:07:39] Kim Heintz: I didn’t know what this was at the time, but I started dealing with a lot of depression specifically when I was in my middle school years and into high school. A lot of anxiety came on probably in my late high school years and into college. I dealt with that really bad, honestly.
FDN Health Coach: A Year-Long Migraine
And I didn’t even know what anxiety was at the time. I just knew I was constantly on edge, stressed, and worried about everything all the time. Those were the primary symptoms I experienced. Add some insomnia and stuff too, I would say. But I also sometimes think that might have been self-induced going into high school and college. But later in my twenties and early thirties, I couldn’t go to sleep no matter how hard I tried.
Yeah, but up until my twenties, I think anxiety and depression were the biggest things that came alongside the migraines.
[00:08:30] Detective Ev: A lot of those other things that were listed in your bio were stacking on over time, which again really common themes, something I relate to, something almost everyone on this podcast relates to. It might start out with one or two main things, but if we aren’t aware of how to get that natural help for it at the time, which who the heck is the first time they have a symptom, all this other stuff starts coming up over time until the point you can’t really ignore it.
Then just to be clear, so we continue with the story, it was this migraine that lasted for a freaking year that was maybe a huge wake up call. First, let’s define, what the heck does that even mean? Literally a year you’re in constant pain or just every day it’s happening, what does that actually mean?
[00:09:09] Kim Heintz: The way it showed up for me is most mornings I would wake up with either a dull pain, the nausea. All those other symptoms I talked about weren’t really there yet. But throughout the day, it just got progressively worse until I was just not functional.
FDN Health Coach: Searching for Answers
Sometimes I would miss work, or I’d work from home. At that time, I was working in corporate. 2010 was when this happened, and remote work was a little bit more common at that time. It just repeated itself day in and day out for that entire year. It basically was, just like I said, it just built throughout the day till I really couldn’t handle it.
I would go to work. I’ve always been an athlete, so I would try to work out first thing in the morning, because that was the only time I could actually get a workout in. There’s no way I was going to get a workout in later in the day. So, I might go to the gym and lift weights for 30 minutes or something, do a couple-mile run if I wanted to, something like that.
By the end of the day, I would come home. I was married at the time and my husband would cook dinner for me. And I basically would just lay on the couch and maybe research how to fix migraines. I was in a lot of online forums at the time. Facebook groups and stuff weren’t really a thing back then, but a lot of online forums and blogs and stuff like that was basically all consuming for the better part of a year.
[00:10:35] Detective Ev: That was really a thing back in the day, especially before Facebook, there was all these forums for specific conditions. They had it for acne. Obviously, they had it for migraines as well. It’s cool that people are congregating trying to help. But man, it’s sad on some of the forums because people are trying some crazy things sometimes without results.
FDN Health Coach: Talking Directly to Me
You already talked about in your bio that, obviously, you got into the functional space, you’re an FDN, I get that. It’s one of my favorite concepts and questions on this show of how people make this transition paradigm-wise into looking into these things, because this is not the default. The default is, go to Western medicine, take the medications, which no one here is condemning. Obviously for you, it didn’t work, or it wasn’t a complete solution.
At what point do you start really realizing, I have to think outside the box with this and maybe do something I haven’t done before? When do you make that leap into more natural things or functional things?
[00:11:29] Kim Heintz: It was actually several years later.
At the time I was plugged into the coaching world a bit because I had picked up a side hobby of building websites and helping coaches with the tech and their business. Through knowing people and everyone friending each other on Facebook at the time, I saw somebody posted something. And I had just been to the doctor again. At that point, my migraines were only back down to a few times a week. The doctor had offered me a different medication. I was just like, here we go again, because I had taken all the medications at that point, I felt.
It was right after I had been to that doctor’s visit where I just felt like, here I am getting put back into that cycle again, where I saw this person posting about a program that this woman was running. I wasn’t really looking to invest in anything, but I read her sales page, and I felt this woman wrote this for me. I need to do this program.
FDN Health Coach: The Functional Health Journey
Detective Ev: Good marketing.
Kim Heintz: I know. I told her that too. It was amazing.
I worked with her; she had a group program that was to go through the holidays at the time. After I did that program, I noticed some changes in myself. I would say, at the time, I was dealing with really bad fatigue too.
We had a call and I just told her what was going on with the migraines. She was like, I know I can help you. So, I ended up working with her one-on-one after that. I signed up with her in maybe mid-February. And I would say by April, my migraines had gone from about three times a week to a couple of times a month.
And I would say within 6 months, I was getting maybe 1 a month, maybe 1 every couple of months. After I found FDN a year later or so, and I did some additional functional testing and got to some more underlying root cause, that was the thing that really solidified it. But I attribute the start of my journey into this functional health space by just scrolling on Facebook one night and seeing that post.
[00:13:26] Detective Ev: Wow! By the way, thank you. You just gave me my clip for social media, that’s for sure. That’s an amazing testimonial, right? I think people will really resonate with that.
So, it was no naturopaths first or anything like that; it’s, I’m scrolling, I see something that talks to me. I’m just going to take the leap. Cause at that point, what do you have to lose? I suppose you’ve already tried a bunch of stuff.
FDN Health Coach: Wanting Something Different
[00:13:42] Kim Heintz: Yeah. I didn’t even really know what a naturopath was. There’s migraine clinics and stuff. I thought about going to those, but I just didn’t have the energy. And I don’t know, there was something that spoke to me. Deep in my core I was like, I have to do this.
[00:13:59] Detective Ev: I know this isn’t a business episode, but it’s worth just planting the seed for people because we do talk about the business side of health coaching a lot.
A lot of people are very resistant to the whole idea of a niche or talking to one specific person. But guys, this is why you do it. Because you literally said it; I felt like she was talking to me. That’s the point. It’s not to manipulate that person into buying something. It’s to let them know that you can help them. And thank God that person did. That’s beautiful. That’s how you do business. You let them know that you can help them, and you deliver on that promise once you get on the call and then start working together.
But you took it a step further than a lot of people. You decided, I’m going to go do something like FDN. When you pursued that, was that to get that final bit figured out? Or did you have an idea that maybe I want to do this as work? Cause people come to FDN for both reasons.
[00:14:48] Kim Heintz: I didn’t want to turn the tech side of the side business I was doing into a full-time thing; 100 percent knew that. I was pretty happy in my corporate job at the time. But I knew I wanted something different; I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do health.
FDN Health Coach: Getting the Knowledge Out
So, I said to myself when I signed up, I was like, if the worst thing that this does is let me help myself and I don’t help a single other person then it’s the best money I could ever spend. And if I turn it into something else and I can help other people, then amazing!
Going through all of the training, working with the mentors, just being part of the whole process, seeing the transformations other people were experiencing, and then just tuning in deeper into my own transformation and seeing the migraines go away completely, I was like, we have to get this knowledge out.
I spent so much time on the internet looking for this stuff. At the time, there wasn’t as much information. I still, at the time, felt like there wasn’t enough people spreading the message like, hey, there are alternatives. If the conventional medicine model isn’t working for you as well as you’d like it to be, maybe there’s other areas that need to be explored to make that whole well-rounded picture for yourself to get the results that you desire.
[00:16:02] Detective Ev: That’s amazing. That’s very similar. I got into FDN, honestly, never really with a 1 percent thought that I wanted to go do this as work, I don’t think. But I came in because I looked at it as a program that could help me as well.
And for those that don’t know, we do include labs in the cost of tuition, actually more so now than ever before. People get way more labs than you and I got. It’s four or five at this point, versus two, I think back then. So, you really get the full FDN program tuition, which is amazing.
FDN Health Coach: Making Those Decisions
Now looking back, would I change anything? No. But I think you and I were on track. We had done self-healing first before we got into FDN. I don’t know that I’d be starting FDN on my sickest day, I’ll put it that way. But if you made some progress and you’re feeling good enough to get through a course and you can manage that time in your schedule, that’s a good time. That’s an okay and appropriate time to go through something like FDN.
But I love this revelation that you had. You’re going through this; you’re realizing the message isn’t out there enough. It’s what happened to me, now they can’t freaking get rid of me. I sound like a dad because I just make this joke all the time that I went through this, now they can’t get rid of me.
But literally, for those of us that went through our specific conditions or symptoms, and we didn’t get help and couldn’t even find answers even when we were going online and going away from Western medicine, when you finally find that formula that can help you, I think it is the most natural human thing in the world to say, I want to go do this for other people. I want them to know.
I always say I want a level playing field. You know, I don’t give a crap what choice you take. If you want to use the medication from the doctor, please do that. That’s a decision you need to make. If you want to get a surgery that you don’t have to, that’s not my preference, but again, you could do that.
FDN Health Coach: Setting Up the Business
What I don’t want is for someone like you, Kim, to be going into doctor after doctor, getting offered medication after medication and never once hearing that. Have you looked at the food sensitivities? Or have you looked at the gut stuff? Everyone should be entitled to their choice, but they need to actually make a choice, right? And they have to have options for a choice to be made.
So, you graduate FDN, you decide you want to do this. That’s awesome. Was it shortly afterwards? Were you starting the business side of this and coaching side of it immediately after graduating, or was there a bit of a transition?
[00:18:06] Kim Heintz: No, there was no transition. Because what you said, like you wanted to spread the message or you’re just saying, I wanted to shout it from the rooftops and wanted to graduate as soon as I could, once I really realized I wanted to do this.
And so, I had 2 or 3 test clients or like friends that I had reached out to that just as soon as I was graduated, I said let’s do this process on you. We’ll take you through it; I’ll get some good practice and then I can turn it into a business. So, I had clients waiting for me to get that certificate.
I worked with them for a few months, figured out how I wanted to set myself up, and started working with paying clients within a few months after that.
[00:18:47] Detective Ev: Excellent. Very nice. See, it can be, I don’t want to say easy, but it can definitely be that simple, right? We don’t want to overcomplicate this.
FDN Health Coach: Starting with the Gut
There are plenty of people to go out and help. We don’t need to sit with this forever, hide this knowledge. I think people don’t realize how many other individuals there are out there suffering that are just waiting for someone like us to come across their feed, just like that woman came across for yours.
An audience member actually beat me to my next question here. The question is, “what were some of the things that helped you the most?” And I would add to this in the sense that it’s clear that this woman helped you very much but then you also mentioned that FDN maybe got those final parts for you.
So yeah, I’d love to hear from both that practitioner and an FDN perspective, what were the main things that helped you get to a point where you can say you don’t deal with this, this is amazing.
[00:19:32] Kim Heintz: Right. And like we talked about earlier too, the migraines were a big piece, but then also all the other symptoms that you listed off. Because when I signed up with her, I think this will help make my point about what those things were that helped me, I was dealing with brain fog, still dealing with anxiety, depression, insomnia.
So, I actually have a slide that I’ve put up in presentations I’ve done, and I list out 24 symptoms or something like that. I will always be like, how many symptoms do you have? Raise your hand. I had 15 of them. There were a lot of different symptoms I was dealing with at the time. So, I saw really good progress working with this woman. We did start working on the gut. That was where we started.
FDN Health Coach: Finding Multiple Healing Opportunities
But when I ran the labs through FDN, I uncovered, beyond just general gut health, these underlying root causes that we talk about so much when we refer to FDN.
I saw that I had a pretty significant H. pylori overgrowth, pretty bad dysbiosis, leaky gut, hormonal imbalances, estrogen dominance, lots of food sensitivities to foods I was eating every day, like healthy foods – spinach, ground turkey, and strawberries were three things I was eating fairly regularly. Obviously, those weren’t helping at all which is amazing. Food sensitivities, even if it’s a healthy food, may not be healthy for you. So, those were the big things.
Later on, we go back to the conversation you and I had earlier this year about HTMA. I learned that I also had copper toxicity, a pretty significant calcium shell, like high calcium in the tissue built up and really low magnesium, sodium, potassium. All those things combined were working together against me, if you will, to lead to all of these different symptoms. That’s what I uncovered through the testing.
[00:21:12] Detective Ev: Amazing! I know anytime we post something that’s more specific, because on this title for the live we have it as a more general thing. But I know for the audio version, I’m going to put migraines right in the title so that people that are out there suffering know to click on this. And they can say, what the heck’s going on with me?
I’d love to break this down a little further. What are some common themes that you see with your own clients? I’m sure you’ve attracted plenty of people with the migraine thing. I’m sure you work with others as well.
FDN Health Coach: Test Result Patterns
But with migraine specifically, are there patterns that might be more unique to those individuals that you’re seeing on the labs? Is it identical to what was happening to you? Or are there other patterns you’ve noticed over time with these people who deal with this stuff?
[00:21:50] Kim Heintz: I do attract a lot of people. I talk a lot about gut health on my Instagram account. That’s where I primarily show up. There’s a lot of connection to the gut and migraines. So, I see a lot of people who have migraines who also have anxiety, and we do see a lot of the similar patterns.
I do see H. pylori pretty frequently in my practice. Probably, 70% to 80% of my clients do have some sort of H. pylori overgrowth and dysbiosis. Leaky gut tends to run pretty strong. Digestive insufficiency, low digestive enzymes, poor immune function, things like that, I do see is a pretty typical pattern in my practice. Nutrient imbalances are pretty common as well.
I do HTMA on all my clients as well, and we do see that. And I do see a fair amount of copper, sometimes deficiency, sometimes toxicity, a mix of that. So, I do work with that. Estrogen dominance is also pretty common. So yeah, pretty similar patterns to myself with regards to that and what we find through testing.
[00:22:54] Detective Ev: So, say I’m a lay person and maybe I’m smart enough, but I don’t have any background in these things and there’s a lot going on here. I want to work on this stuff. Obviously, one of the main ways is they can go work with someone like you. We’ll shout that out at the end where people can find you.
FDN Health Coach: No More Migraines
In terms of action steps that they can take, and really even more importantly, understanding what we’re getting at here, this might be completely new to them. No one has ever told them necessarily that any of the things that you just listed off could be a contributing factor to the migraine thing. And I’m not necessarily expecting some PhD level answer here, but I’m curious.
A migraine is intense pain. There’s a ton going on. And again, if I’m a lay person, I’m not necessarily understanding the connection fully. So, if you have an understanding of this, what is the mechanism by which people are having these migraines triggered? Why would something in the gut, necessarily, lead to intense pain that can be unbearable or even induce vomiting or just be debilitating? That’s interesting to me.
[00:23:57] Kim Heintz: Yeah. And it’s funny too, because not all migraines show up as pain either. You have a migraine because you have all these other symptoms too. But it’s a neurological condition, and I always like to use the bucket theory with that.
One thing I didn’t mention is mold too. I do probably see mold in about half my clients as well, mold and mycotoxins. But if you’re already predisposed to migraines, they say once you have migraine, you’ve been diagnosed with migraines, you’re going to have them for the rest of your life. Which I’m going on six years now with no migraines, close, five and a half years.
But the bucket theory is that you’re predisposed, right? And actually, I have a bucket right here. I did not plan this. I have a goal to make a reel with this and it just happens to be here.
[00:24:45] Detective Ev: A good practice.
FDN Health Coach: The Bucket Theory
[00:24:47] Kim Heintz: So, here’s your bucket. When you spill over the bucket, that’s when you experience a migraine.
You have to think about all the things that go into this bucket – first of all, your daily stressors in life, work stress, family stress, stress with friends, coworkers, whatever. Then you also have to think about the other things we’ve talked about here, gut infections, food sensitivities, poor sleep, all the different types of stressors that you can have.
Some days your threshold is really low, it spills over, and you have a migraine. Whereas other times, and this is why sometimes if you eat a food, there’s this thing about migraine triggers and food triggers, sometimes it causes it, sometimes it doesn’t cause it. It might not be that the food itself is the problem. It’s just that you were already so close to the edge that’s why it spilled over versus a different day it didn’t spill over. That’s why it can feel so inconsistent.
The idea behind this is we need to lower our threshold. That’s what I’ve done through FDN and continue to do on myself to support my body so that I don’t go back to this spillover.
The idea is to work on reducing that load through eliminating all the different stressors on the body. We do that through a whole 360-degree approach addressing stress, removing inflammatory foods on the diet, making sure your detoxification system is working properly, getting good sleep. And if you’re not sleeping well, how do we optimize sleep so that you can start to sleep better? Addressing pathogens or nutrient deficiencies and things like that.
As we start to lower the burden on the body, the frequency of the migraines, ideally, is going to go down.
FDN Health Coach: Unique Genetic Makeups
[00:26:24] Detective Ev: It’s a perfect analogy because in a sense it’s just worded differently. This is FDN 101. The idea that we have all these things going on, stressors, then they start contributing to each other. You might not ever even figure out the root cause a hundred percent, or the root cause might be misleading.
I love what you said about the food thing. I think a lot of people, even myself, sometimes I can still fall into this trap. You might think it’s this one thing, but really, it’s only this one thing if your bucket’s full. If your bucket was not filled up, you might be able to do this food, no problem, or do this other thing without a problem.
All this to say, is it realistic then that a lot of the migraine stuff, just like many of the symptoms or disease states people get into that go through FDN or don’t go through FDN, but are still dealing with it, is there a genetic component likely here that is getting activated by that bucket being too filled? Just like some people will never get a headache in their life, but they could still get cancer and all these other things, another person might get autoimmunity. All of their buckets are way too filled, it just leads to a manifestation of different symptoms based on their unique makeup.
Kim Heintz: Absolutely.
Detective Ev: All right. Someone said, “the bucket threshold makes so much sense.” Yeah, I really like that. Even if you’re on audio, that’s still a great visual to think about. I think that’s useful for clients too, because we always have to take these super sciencey nerdy things and break it down for them in such a way that makes sense.
FDN Health Coach: Client Success Story A
If I’m a client that helps me. I’m like, all right. How bad’s my bucket right now? And it’s, I didn’t sleep, I slept four hours, I didn’t eat well, I drank over the weekend. Holy crap. The bucket’s just piling on.
So, you’ve worked with plenty of clients. You graduated, like you said four and a half years ago, which is amazing. I always like to ask this if we can, if you’re able to share, do you have any cool client testimonials of people that maybe came to you at the end of the rope, and you were finally the practitioner that was able to help them resolve whatever they were dealing with?
[00:28:11] Kim Heintz: I do; I have quite a few actually. So, I went online because I wondered if I had any testimonials, and I went and counted. I have 44 testimonials on my website right now.
Yes, I tend to be a practitioner that a lot of people do come to that have been on a journey for a while. I have a client who came to me with a very similar story. We actually have a lot in common to the fact that even our education background and stuff like that. She had been dealing with severe anxiety and chronic migraines and we were able to completely shift that for her.
I think when we stopped working together at the end of our time, she was only dealing with a migraine here and there where she was getting them sometimes for days on end. So that’s one.
FDN Health Coach: Client Success Stories B & C
Another story is about a woman who came to me, she had been dealing with chronic diarrhea for 17 years to the point where she had to give up everything she loved. She wasn’t really able to go anywhere without making sure she knew where all the restrooms were going to be. And she used to be really into horseback riding and couldn’t do that.
Within two months, after 17 years of chronic diarrhea, she was able to completely eradicate that. She got back into horseback riding and just completely changed like 180 degree turn in her life.
Like I said, I’ve got plenty more stories, but those are a couple that really stand out for me.
I guess I have one more that just happened. A client, she’d been seeing practitioners in the functional health space for eight years. Last May, she started seeing even more issues and her hair started to fall out and stuff. So, she reached out to me.
We worked together and found that she actually had mold. Now, we just retested her mold, and everything’s clear a hundred percent. It was such a wonderful test to get back just to see compared side by side what they were versus where they are now on the markers. And she’s obviously feeling significantly better too.
It just excites me so much to just see these people experience this kind of freedom, which we talk about because that’s why we’re here.
FDN Health Coach: Favorite Functional Labs
[00:30:17] Detective Ev: Yeah. If you’re on video, let me know in the chat if you saw this. Because what I noticed is we’ve been having more of a casual conversation the entire time so neutral looks for both of us. And the second I asked you about the testimonials, I love people who love their work, because you lit up. You got like a kid smile on your face. You’re like, yeah, this is amazing that you can go deliver this to other people now and help them in the same way. That’s the whole point of this.
So, what is your favorite test to run now? I know that you came on for the HTMA, but someone in the audience asked. So, I’m curious. It’s not a great question in a certain sense from an FDN perspective. But if you do have a favorite test, what would you say it is?
[00:30:57] Kim Heintz: Yeah. To finish what we were just talking about, I actually felt myself choke up a little bit as I was talking cause I just get so excited.
But as far as my favorite test, that’s tough. I love the GI MAP. I just really love that test. I think it’s really fascinating especially the way it correlates with people’s symptoms. But I also am partial to the HTMA like we talked about a few months ago on this podcast, because there’s so much correlation too. So, it’s really hard. I’d say it’s a tie between the two.
And if people only have a certain amount of funds to be able to run tests, I think those paired together can be amazing just because they really help. I see a lot of change in people with those.
FDN Health Coach: Foundations Matter
[00:31:40] Detective Ev: One thing I wanted to ask in the spirit of knowing that people with migraines are listening right now hoping for something. I’m sure many people are interested in the labs, maybe they’re looking for something more immediate. I think that’s just wise from our perspective on the podcast because if we can give them something that works, that builds that trust, they know these people know what they’re talking about.
So, with the migraine specifically, I know we’re using science 90 percent of the time, but there’s also anecdotes that come up in the world of functional medicine where you just notice that certain people do really well if they do certain things. You might not be able to prove it 100 percent. But stuff that I’ve heard through the grapevine as someone who does not work really anytime with people who have migraines, I’ve heard through the grapevine about certain red-light techniques. I’ve heard of people wearing these special glasses that flash red light. Gluten was a huge one, which I mean, go figure, that’s a huge one for a lot of us.
Are there maybe secret tips such as those where you’re like, if I had migraines again, I would definitely be trying to do this thing or these things? Even if you can’t do the lab testing, you can’t do the coaching right now, I would definitely go give this a shot because it seems to work a lot of the times.
[00:32:52] Kim Heintz: Just the foundational things I think are huge. And that’s why I talk about gut health so much. I feel like the gut is rooted in so many of the health issues that people experience.
FDN Health Coach: Doing the Little Things Consistently
I think gluten is really inflammatory for many people, depending on who you ask. Dr. Tom, he believes it’s inflammatory for everybody. So, eliminating it in the right way, I think can be very helpful. It was a game changer for me. I know I didn’t mention that earlier, but that was a food sensitivity for myself.
Something else that I think is really helpful for people because dehydration tends to also be an under talked about trigger for a lot of people with migraines and anxiety too, and in other health conditions. When waking up, put a pinch of sea salt with some lemon and some warm water, that’s like the simplest thing you can do. If you think about it, you were sleeping hopefully for eight hours. You haven’t drunk anything in eight hours. So, you’re dehydrated when you wake up.
If you can do that, which is going to stimulate your digestion, your liver, your adrenals, it’s going to give you some good nutrients and also start to hydrate you. I think that can really start your day off on the right foot. And then other things, I know Jo just said in the chat, lifestyle changes, for sure. Just really thinking about how you can do little things.
One of my favorite sayings that a business coach that I had years ago says, and she still says to this day is, little things add up in your favor over time. We’re always looking for the big thing. But if we can really focus on the little things, doing these things and being consistent with these things over and over again, are going to add up in your favor over time and hopefully lower that threshold for you.
FDN Health Coach: What We Were Meant to Do
[00:34:40] Detective Ev: It’s a really good way to say it. Sometimes it is fun to dive into the labs and the supplements and these therapies that we can use. It’s like sexy, right? It’s good for clicks and good for advertisements. But a lot of the most profound stories of healing that I’ve heard on this show, including my own, it’s just changing what you’re doing and really sticking to that.
It doesn’t mean that you can’t ever go away from your routine. We don’t want to become neurotic. But there’s a certain level of acceptance, I believe, that needs to come around. We are not doing, as a society, what we are supposed to be doing. So, stepping away from that is not you being inherently neurotic or weird.
You’re doing the right thing, right? We shouldn’t be staring at screens past dark. So, you’re not the weird one for either going to bed early or wearing the blue light glasses, but red tints, and stuff like that. It looks weird to society, but the truth of the matter is we’re the ones trying to do it how we were meant to do it.
And a lot of my best progress, it comes slowly. Those initial things that happened in the first functional medicine protocols, whether it’s removing a food, running a test, you might feel 70%, 80% better in the first few months, I always say this. But that last 10% to 20% for a lot of people, especially if you’ve been sick for a while, my gosh, you had symptoms for decades before you really dove into this. Guys, that takes time.
FDN Health Coach: Adding Up in Your Favor
And when I say it takes time, it means doing those seemingly small, seemingly insignificant things over a long period of time, making sure you’re getting to bed on time, making sure you’re eating the right food. I appreciate you saying that.
Because, especially with something as intense as a migraine, of course, I can totally understand and empathize with someone who wants the quick answer. But it’s really, okay, let’s change this stuff and let’s stick to it. Let’s make a dedication to just shifting our lifestyles around permanently.
[00:36:20] Kim Heintz: Yeah. When someone starts working with me, we’re not waiting for the labs, we start working on those little foundational things. Tracy says, “little hinges swing big doors.” Love that. It’s so true. And so, we start on day one with all these foundational things because you’re setting your body up for success.
Like I said, little things are going to add up in your favor over time. And so, if you can start working on those things right away, it’s only going to just get you to your goal a lot faster and get you to that 70%, 80% faster. Then obviously we keep working until we get to that goal that we can get to.
[00:36:52] Detective Ev: Sure. If we can, like the last five to seven minutes here, only because this is such a cool story with someone who not only has a very real health side, but you also nailed the business side. We get mixes of guests on where they might be really good at one and not so much the other. We get plenty like yourself as well. But I like to take these times to show people what the FDN program can do.
FDN Health Coach: Full-Time FDN
Cause if they’ve been listening, 40 minutes in, I’m sure they may be interested in how they could go do this, whether it’s for self-healing or helping others or both. Most likely it’s going to be both. That’s 99 percent of people that come here.
So, you went from someone that, from my understanding, did not have a huge background in business. I know you were creating things for other people. Maybe that was more your own business type of thing. But you finished a certification, you decide this is what you want to do, and you go out running with it.
Is this now what you do full time? Are you just FDN and practicing on your own?
Kim Heintz: Yep, 100%.
Detective Ev: Nice. And how long’s that been going on, roughly speaking, where it’s been a full-time type of thing?
[00:37:50] Kim Heintz: Really a couple months. I still had my toe in a couple other things, if you will.
But the last couple months, I made that jump to, I said, yep, this is it. This is it. I’m going to do this full time. I don’t want to be distracted with other things. It was more based on fear of letting go of who I used to be or what I used to do. But I finally made that decision a few months ago and started working towards that.
[00:38:16] Detective Ev: And just to be clear, and whatever the answer is, the answer doesn’t matter. So, the fact that it was only a few months ago, you even just said possibly fear, was that then more a hesitancy that was self-imposed and you actually could have done this full time a while ago?
FDN Health Coach: Falling into Place
[00:38:30] Kim Heintz: Yeah. I kept coming up with reasons why I wasn’t doing it. I was doing it very full time. I mean I was working full time. I was also working another full-time gig where I was just working like a lot, which obviously goes against some of the lifestyle stuff we talk about sometimes.
I was really just trying to get past that fear and also work through some of the mindset stuff because I had a career that I did enjoy. I was having trouble saying goodbye to that. Once I really made that decision, I actually declared it a few months ago, everything fell into place, and it really was a lot easier to let go of than I thought it was going to be.
[00:39:12] Detective Ev: Thanks for the transparency, because I think that’s extremely relatable to 90 plus percent of people that ever do their own business, especially when it’s something like this. It’s almost hard to digest, like I did it. I actually turned this into something where I can do this as work. I think it’s very special for people when they take that leap.
This is where I want to shout out your business and where people can find you. So, let’s talk about that, where they can find you, but also who is your ideal client?
This is a part of the podcast where people got to hear and they would know already, most likely, if they’d want to work with you. But I think you have the right to say who you want to work with.
FDN Health Coach: Kim’s Ideal Client
There might be certain personality traits that just don’t really resonate, or maybe people have to be super committed before coming to you. I don’t know what you like to do. So, who’s an ideal type of client? What would they look like personality wise?
[00:39:58] Kim Heintz: Yeah. To piggyback off of what you just said, and then I’ll say this too. I did have a fear around quitting or being transparent about having other work.
I actually worked with a business coach and he’s like, honestly, it’s so glamorized to just build the plane as you’re flying it. But the smartest thing you can do is work until you feel like you can actually let it go financially so you’re not putting that energy into the world. That was a big changer for me. Because I was just like, all right, I’m going to own this and I’m going to do two jobs until I feel like I can let it go.
As far as who I like to work with, most of my clients are between the ages of 30 and 50. I would say most of my clients are women, but I have been working with more and more men. And I’m happy to work with both men and women.
A lot of my clients are dealing with some sort of digestive distress and related GI issues. As I mentioned, so much is connected to the gut. So, I work with people who have chronic constipation, chronic diarrhea, IBS diagnoses. Those are conditions that we are learning more and more tend to be connected to gut dysfunction. So, I see a lot of anxiety, depression and migraines and fatigue. Those are some really big ones that I see.
FDN Health Coach: Guiding Clients
I talk a lot about gut health and its connection to everything. I would say most of my clients fall within that bubble with some of those, I don’t want to say secondary conditions because they’re not secondary whatsoever. I never would have said a migraine is a secondary condition at the time, but those connected conditions to that.
[00:41:34] Detective Ev: Okay. And then in terms of maybe what they bring to the table. The reason I’m saying this is some FDNs have more of that coaching background while others would prefer someone to be in the right mindset already.
Is your preference to have someone that’s, hey, I’ll do whatever it takes already. I just want to know what to do. Or are you someone that kind of guides them more from the coaching side with those lifestyle changes?
[00:41:55] Kim Heintz: It’s a little bit of both. I think there’s a bit of mindset that does go into it. But I would say most of my clients and clients that tend to resonate more with me and my style, they just need the guidance. They maybe need some mindset. Sometimes we’d have a conversation about that to point them in the right direction, but once they have the ball, they’re ready to pick it up and start running with it.
[00:42:17] Detective Ev: Roger that. And I think that’s pretty fair, right? A lot of FDNs, even kind of myself included, I prefer the mindset to already be there because that’s how mine was. And then if you need help, additionally, we have a million referrals we could give someone. It’s all good. It’s better for everyone to do what they feel strongest with and resonate with most that’s the most effective thing.
Where to Find Kim Heintz
So, you said you’re very active on Instagram. I’m sure you have a website and stuff. Where can people find you if they’d like to get connected or possibly work with you?
[00:42:40] Kim Heintz: My Instagram handle is just kim.heintz. If you follow me there, if you have migraines, I have a whole PDF guide on migraines, about six underlying root causes that your doctor may not have explored related to your migraines. I’ve got a gut healing guide too. So, reach out and ask for those if you’d like.
My website is kimheinz.com. You can book a free consultation right there on the website if you are interested in learning more about how this approach can help you.
[00:43:09] Detective Ev: Very cool.
Kim, my final question for you today, because I doubt that I asked this since we were doing more of an intensive last time on just one lab test, I could be wrong. Either way, I’d still like to hear the answer.
Our signature question on the show is if we could give you a magic wand, and now we’re talking general health, not just gut, not just migraines, but if we could give you a magic wand, you could wave it and get every single person in this world to do one thing for their health, so you could choose to either force them to literally do one thing, or you can force us all to stop doing one thing, what is the one thing that Kim would get them to do?
[00:43:43] Kim Heintz: Believe no matter how long you’ve been dealing with whatever condition that you’re dealing with, that this is possible for you too.
Signature Podcast Question
As Evan said, early on in the podcast, I was told at age 28 by a doctor that I was going to be stuck dealing with chronic migraines. He said you need to accept the fact that this is going to be your life. Here I am at 42, 14 years later, and I haven’t had a migraine in close to six years. If I had accepted that fate that day, who knows where I’d be right now.
But the fact that I didn’t accept it and I continued to believe that there was a solution out there, I’m working a business that I love with clients that make me choke up when I talk about them, cause I’m so excited about them. And I’m pain free and doing all the things that I love to do.
So, it all comes down to, if you can just continue to believe and not give up hope, I think that is something that I wish everybody could do.
[00:44:42] Detective Ev: First of all, great answer. I’m always amazed that after 270 something episodes, people have unique things.
And I love that you brought that up. I don’t think anyone’s ever said that before. Because someone can misinterpret that to think it’s just the mindset woo-woo side and grant you placebo is very real. But I think what you meant that as, and correct me if I’m wrong, and then we’ll finish up, there’s a practical side to this, right?
Because if you don’t believe that you can heal, you’re never going to take the steps of someone that ends up healing. You just say, this is it. I take my medication and I stop. So, belief is very practical in healing. You need to have that to take the steps.
Conclusion
[00:45:15] Kim Heintz: And it’s practical and everything.
To become an FDN, you have to believe that you’re going to graduate high school or graduate college. Or to get a job, you have to believe so that you apply so that you get it. You know what I mean? Like it really is very practical. And you keep showing up for yourself, even on your worst days, because you believe that it’s possible for you to.
And I’m not special. It really just comes down to just keeping going, keeping on.
[00:45:43] Detective Ev: That’s why, as many facts as we share and as much science as we do, that’s why we always start with the stories. Because literally the stories are meant to instill that belief. When they hear from someone like you, that’s been told these things, that was dealing with this for decades, that’s a very real and natural belief that starts happening in us where you start wondering if I could do that too.
So, thank you for having a wonderful mix today of the story with the science. Another amazing episode. I’ll drop your HTMA one in the show notes when we are sending out the recorded version of this so people can see that. I’d highly recommend it as a follow up. Kim’s just a wealth of knowledge. We appreciate you being here with us.
[00:46:17] Kim Heintz: Thanks for having me. It was great to connect with you again and thanks for listening.
You can always visit us at functionaldiagnosticnutrition.com, on YouTube @FDNtraining, on Instagram @fdntraining, or on Facebook @FunctionalDiagnosticNutrition.
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