Today on Wedding Secrets Unveiled!, we’re joined by Dr. Jessica Hehmeyer, also known as Dr. H, from Well Empowered. She’s here to guide you in not just looking your best but feeling your best on your big day! Major life events can bring up a range of emotions about your relationship with your body. Dr. H is passionate about helping you heal that relationship and feel truly empowered during life’s milestone moments. When you feel your best, you’ll naturally look your best!
Meet Dr. Jessica Hehmeyer!
My name is Dr. H, and I practice data driven Functional Medicine. I serve people who are dealing with health challenges and conundrums, and use a data driven approach to identify the root cause of their challenges and address those challenges naturally. So
Tell me a little bit more about that!
A large portion of the people I work with are struggling with their weight in some way, shape, or form. It’s not the only thing that people seek my guidance on, but it’s a big portion. Many of them have ridden the weight loss roller coaster for years, or even decades. They have the sense that there must be another solution, right? Another solution, instead of the “all or nothing” approach that they’ve inherited and been marinating in.
When they come to seek my care, what we’re doing is a few things. First of all, we’re diving in and understanding, on a physiological level, what the barriers are. So now this is true whether we’re dealing with weight or digestive distress or skin or hormones. We are going to get labs to understand what’s going on with the body at a physiological level. And then we’re going to address things then remove barriers, and amplify opportunities to support healing.
We’re going to do that through nutrition, through supplementation, through lifestyle, but equally importantly, we’re going to do this in a manner that leaves the people who I serve feeling empowered. My deep devotion is leaving people with the experience of knowing what to do, how to do it, and having insights about themselves such that they can produce the outcomes they came to get, and they can sustain them.
This really comes from shifting the viewpoint from the all or nothing approach – or what I like to call self-aggression. It’s born of self-aggression, when people are either engaging in overindulgence or deprivation. Those are two different sides of the same coin. We’re stepping into a whole new way of relating to the body, to itself, to food, to all these different aspects, from a place of self-love. So, it radically shifts the journey itself.
You mentioned you use a data driven approach?
We’re going to order those lab tasks. Labs don’t lie. We’re going to understand what is going on in the body that has created this situation – what’s going on or what barrier to healing and amplifying the situation at hand, whether it’s slowing down the metabolism or bloating or leading to acne or psoriasis, all these different things… The labs help us really understand where the barriers and opportunities lie. So, we take that data and we put it to use.
I love it because a lot of our listeners right now, they’re at a very important milestone and point in their life where they are getting married, or maybe their child’s getting married, or someone they love is getting married – but we got a celebration on the horizons. You always hear people say being “wedding ready”. So, I think this approach to that is really interesting.
I know everyone is different, but are there any common issues that you’re finding in those labs?
They really are all different. So that I know, I could just give you one answer, right? But you know the reason for digestive distress or acne, or weight challenges. The same symptom can have many different, root causes, and when I get a notification that I have lab results available, I’m like a kid before Christmas, like I can’t wait to open it up – because the gems we discover in labs we cannot get in any other way.
You know, sometimes someone’s fatigue is because they’re simply put iron deficient. Well, pretty quick fix, right? But sometimes it’s because inflammation is super high and it’s interfering with their body’s ability to produce energy at the mitochondrial level. Sometimes it’s because their B12 is “lab normal”, but it’s not optimal for their body and for someone else, it’s because their cortisol is super high, even though they don’t feel stressed. Their body is just being taxed and drained by this chronically elevated cortisol. So I know I’ve just given a lot ideas there, but it’s really just to say the same symptom can have many different root causes.
Can you work with anyone, no matter where their geographic location is, or do you specialize in a certain area?
I do work with people throughout the country. Most of the people who I work with are from my home state, Illinois, but, but I do work with people throughout the country.
Alright, so now let’s get into it. Where are we going to take them on their journey of being feeling empowered on their wedding day?
Well, first of all for your listeners, whether it’s the bride or you the mother of the bride or the bridesmaid, whatever your role in this wedding is: I think we can all say when we feel our best and when we look our best, we can be our best. We can be fully present. We can fully experience the joy, the love, the wonder of the moment, and we can step into it with a sense of peace and ease and openness. To me, that’s what this work is all about. My mission at Well Empowered is people: thriving and inspiring others to do the same. So, on the wedding day, let’s have you shining from the inside out, so that’s you’re there – soaking up experiencing and being part of the beauty and the magic of the moment.
So pretty much, you’re creating a new era and how they relate to their body and food with their weight. Tell me more about this.
So I mentioned a little bit earlier – we have inherited a perspective, an “all or nothing” perspective. When I work with people, we put that “all or nothing” era in the past. We’re no longer going to be dancing between overindulgence and deprivation. To me, both of these overindulgence and deprivation are an expression of self-aggression. It’s the solution that most people are familiar with in this area of their lives. So, stepping into a new era means that we are authoring a new era born of self-love. When I work with people, I guide them in discovering what I call their “vision of vitality” for their health and in their life. You might also call this your intention.
What’s your intention for your health in your life? What I have found over the course of decades of working with people is that people think they just want to lose weight, but that’s not actually true. I mean, yes people want to lose weight. But it’s not the only thing that’s true. So, we dig deeper and envision the future that they want: walking down the aisle, being in the front row for your child getting married, whatever the case may be. Then we get really connected to what it would be like to feel and look your best. What bcomes available to you by having this area of your life handled?
So, yes – people want to be wedding ready. People want to feel great. But my real enthusiasm for working with people in this new era is to have a happily ever after and a healthfully ever after. In other words, let’s get you tooled up with the information you need to know how to care for your unique body, and do so in a manner that really is an expression of love. It’s neither overindulgence nor self-aggression. It’s really relating to yourself in a whole new manner and carrying that with you into your marriage.
How would you start with your clientele on this journey?
When I work with people, we go through an exercise that I call “Authoring your Vision of Vitality”. I encourage your listeners to start the activity with me. We won’t do it all, but we’ll do a very meaningful portion of it. I prefer for people to actually write this with pen and paper, not a keyboard, if possible. You’re going to be doing a bit of time traveling. I’m going to invite you to time travel to the five year future. So, standing in this five year future, get in your mind. How old are you in five years?
Tell the story of what it is to be you with your health and vitality as you intend – feeling your best, being without any symptoms that you deal with now, and what else you are hoping for. You want to tell the story in first person, present tense. So you might say: “My body is strong and resilient, and I move about my days with confidence, ease and joy.”
What’s the second step?
Well, the second step is doing a different kind of future, so a five-year future, that would be a downward cycle, because it’s useful to get connected to the other side. How would a “downward spiral” look for five years from now?
Then we want to master the middle ground. Your middle ground is really finding that sweet spot where you’re not too tight and not too loose. When you’re neither engaging in overindulgence nor deprivation, you’re actually living your life.It’s finding that sweet spot that really feels self-honoring for you and lets you experience being part of this wonderful life and the way we celebrate together.
Can you talk about how our nutrition can impact our overall mood?
There’s so much we could say about this. But on a very foundational level, I’m going to speak to the most powerful aspect of nutrition that your listeners can master, in service of supporting their mood and feeling calm and present on their wedding day. So, that’s supporting their blood sugar stability. When our blood sugar is balancing all over the place – too high or too low – it’s a tremendous source of physiological stress for our body. When our body is physiologically stressed, it’s just going to be churning and burning through cortisol. Cortisol is our stress hormone. Cortisol is one of the defining hormones of our fight or flight response. So keeping your blood sugar level stable is important.
I’m sure a lot of your listeners are very savvy in this area, but I’ll give you a few little tips. One is prioritizing a breakfast that is protein and fat centric. And by protein fat centric, I mean at least 20 grams of protein, at least 10 grams of anti-inflammatory fats. Those can come from chia seeds or nuts or avocado or eggs. Then being mindful of how much sugar, even if it’s from fruit, is in that breakfast.
Also, I like to kind of encourage capping it around 9 or 10 grams of sugar. It’s going to depend on a few different factors, but that’s a decent guideline to move from. When you start your day from that foundation of blood sugar stability, you are going to be creating a solid foundation for the rest of your day. You certainly want to continue that throughout your day. But, just starting from that point could really provide some benefits as you move throughout your day.
What about people feeling a little anxious or giving them that calming feeling?
One thing if you know that you tend to run anxious, then you want to start ahead of the game. You’ll want to start a couple months in advance to get yourself ready. Whether that’s through movement or through meditation, talk therapy or there are certainly some supplements that can be super useful (like magnesium) and getting high quality sleep – those are common things that you want to work on. A couple of common things that can interfere with high quality sleep are things like alcohol or caffeine later in the day, and engagement with our electronics. These are things that I’m sure your listeners are well aware of. But, being aware of it and actually taking action are two different things.
There’s a great quote, “knowledge is effective action”. So you might know that scrolling on social media in your bed until you shut out the lights is not great. But are you honoring what you know or not? So, finding your way through that in terms of promoting rest and digest calming response. Sleep is such a powerful point of leverage, because when we sleep, our brain takes out the trash. Our brain has its own glymphatic system, from the neck down. The Lymphatic System is from the neck up. So one of the many reasons why sleep is such a powerful way to support our food and whether we feel anxious or peaceful is because of that physiological cleansing that’s happening when we sleep.
Someone might feel anxious for a variety of different reasons. We talked about nutrition, but maybe they are anxious because they’re not getting sufficient sleep or sufficient high-quality sleep. Or maybe they’re feeling anxious because certain nutrients are depleted, and that’s something we would uncover in a lab test. Maybe they’re feeling anxious because they’ve got a job that’s super demanding, and they’re at their desk all day, and they’re just haven’t yet been able to figure out a way to get enough movement in, right? So, there are a lot of different possible causes for anxiousness. For any of your listeners who this resonates with, my invitation for you is really just kind of in listening – do you see a next step you could take that could support your levels of calm move you more towards a rest and digest calm response?
Can you provide a few tips to help our couples feel calm and present, especially when it has to do with a wedding day?
One is thinking ahead and being prepared. Being prepared with the food you need to feel well for a wedding day. Please eat on your wedding day – get up and have breakfast, even if you don’t have much of an appetite, make sure you have a snack that will keep your blood sugar level stable.
Making sure you’re set up with the fuel you need to feel well on your wedding day is important. Another is looking at opportunities to support your sleep. There’s so many great resources out there – from sleep mediation, bedtime stories, to apps and things like a little bit of magnesium before bed can go a long way. I just want to make sure your listeners know that if sleep is your Achilles heel, there are solutions, and it’s just a matter of figuring out what the right one is for you. Then, looking at your wedding day, do you have people with you who are going to help you feel calm? Do you have someone who you can step aside with and help you take a breather? Be supported in whatever way you see fit.
A lot of it comes from just preparing, not just the logistics, but your physiology ahead of time, so that when you’re there that day, you’re just cruising along and enjoying every moment of it, soaking it all up,
When should they start to think about their journey if they want to lose weight or tone before the wedding, and how far in advance should they even start thinking about this?
It’s going to be a little bit different for different people, right? Some people are like, I’ve been focusing on my health my whole life. I have a feel really great about my body. I just want to do a little bit of tweaking. So, then maybe four months would be okay. But for most people, it’s going to be at least six months, because, again, we’re not just looking for a short-term fix. We are looking at remodeling your relationship with food and your body and the scale, and getting you tooled up with information and insights.
When I work with people, I actually give them weekly homework assignments that are custom crafted for them. It’s like people are taking a course on their body and their health when we partner. So, it takes time. The reason that the diet industry is self-perpetuating is none of it works. It’s just one more quick fix after the next. And the truth is, there is no quick fix to transforming your relationship with your body and taking new actions from that perspective and with new information.
So Dr, H, you talked about starting with your clients from the very beginning. But what about the listeners that feel that they do have a handle on this, but they just want someone to help them to bring it to the next level. What type of solutions do you offer to those types of people?
That’s going to be very customized. One of the things that I do when I work with people is have them track details of their life on a shared Google doc: symptoms, nutrition, sleep, movement. That gives me gems that I can’t get anywhere else, and it allows me to look at the low hanging fruit. What are a few customized tweaks we can plan for your body?
I know that everybody’s different, so this might be a loaded question: but what is somebody looking at for a possible investment if they really want to work on their health with you?
Just like you said, it depends on where they’re starting. The person who has struggled for years or decades, and this is really a new era for them, they’re doing something they’ve never done before… that’s probably a $4,000-$5,000 investment range. We’d be working together anywhere from 6-8 months. I’m thinking about the possibility of Specialty Tests that might be relevant, right? These might be things like food sensitivity assessments or looking at sex hormones in a unique way, the microbiome or investments in supplements.
Now, other people, it could be something more like $2,000 to $3,000 right? When I work with people, my commitment is to provide the amount of guidance that makes a difference. It’s really important to me that people get what they came for, and the amount of time and care that takes is going to vary depending on the person and what they’re dealing with.
Wrap Up Question
What are some key points that couples should be asking health coaches when they’re inquiring to make sure that they are working with a professional company or individual to make sure that their wedding day is an absolute perfect event?
Ask about their training and credentials. There are a lot of health coaching programs out there these days. I have six years of graduate school and a number of certifications to go along with it. Make sure you’re working with someone who knows how to understand how your body is working, and is not just taking what worked for them and applying it to you
Get really getting curious about their process. Is it a plug and play process? Or are they going to gear you up with the information you need to be able to produce outcomes and sustain them over time?
Does it feel like a good fit for you? There’s intangible chemistry, and that’s important. That’s going to be important for you to make sure that you feel like you can really win and thrive in the hands of the person who you’re entrusting with your to care well.
What We Discussed
Meet Dr. H (2:11)
Functional medicine (3:12)
Preparing for a wedding day (8:54)
Nutrition and mood stability (19:54)
Managing stress (21:55)
Tips to feel calm on your wedding day (25:29)
Wrap-up question (32:33)
Links Mentioned in the Episode
Find Dr. Jessica Hehmeyer at Website | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | LinkedIn
You can subscribe to this podcast from wherever you’re listening so you never miss an episode. And, we would so appreciate it if you left a fabulous review for our show on Apple podcast! Even better, share it with a friend. It’s a great way to show your support and let us know what you think. Thank you so much for listening!
