Smart Athlete Podcast Ep. 171 – Dr. Alyssa Salava

[00:00:00] We’re just so disconnected with our bodies. And our bodies, like patients, will come in and they’ll be like, “I threw out my back. I didn’t do anything. I was just picking up my shoe” or something. And it’s like, well, what was happening in the months before like your body was trying to tell you something. You might not have been able to hear it, but it was trying to. And eventually, the whisper gets louder and louder until it literally, like smacks you on your butt.

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Jesse: [00:01:19] Welcome to the Smart Athlete Podcast. I’m your host, Jesse Funk. My guest today is a runner. She’s gotten into mountain biking after she’s made a move across the border, which I’m going to ask her about. She is a doctor of chiropractic with a focus in pre and post-natal care. She’s also developed an online resource for postpartum moms to get back into running, which is something I would never experience being man. But I know running is almost part of my soul at this point. So if that is you, you’ve had a baby, you want to get back into running. Stay around with this episode, maybe check down in the description. We’ll probably have a link to that for you to check out. So welcome to the show, Dr. Alyssa Salava.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:02:04] Hi. Thank you for having me.

Jesse: [00:02:06] Yeah. Thanks for spending time with me and said through the intro. I know I kind of get wordy sometimes, and you’re eagerly awaiting to actually be able to say anything. But  as so —

Dr. Alyssa: [00:02:17] The one thing I want to add so I do pre and post-natal, but also babies and kids, that’s all.

Jesse: [00:02:25] No. Yeah, no, perfectly fine. So the first thing I just got to give you a little bit of a hard time because you grew up in the US so and then move to Canada. You’ve left us, you’ve crossed the border and I just have to ask you why, why, why did you abandon us for “greener pastures”?

Dr. Alyssa: [00:02:50] So I’m from Minnesota and I went to chiropractic school in Portland, Oregon, and I met a Canadian boy in chiropractic school. It’s one of those stories. And he practiced in Bend, Oregon for a few years and we just wanted to explore somewhere else. And Squamish was just always a place that I found really fascinating. I ran at that time it was just the Squamish 23K, but I was like obsessed with the thought of running the 50/50, which I have done now. And we just, yeah, we wanted to make Squamish happen and a couple of years later, here we are.

Jesse: [00:03:37] I know that the immigration process isn’t always the smoothest thing to get into Canada and become resident. I guess. I don’t know if you’re on track to do dual citizenship or whether —

Dr. Alyssa: [00:03:50] Yeah, so I am common law with my partner and like I’m super fortunate that my application process was easy peasy. Like I started it and like within six months I like got approved and I actually, like I got my letter on American Thanksgiving. So like, like a month or two before COVID hit and like, had I waited any longer? Like it could have taken years to get in because they were so backed up. So yeah, I was really lucky.

Jesse: [00:04:24] Yeah. So good timing on your part to get it all sorted out. Get crossed, say which it’s hindsight, right, because at the time forward looking, you’re not like we’re going to have a pandemic here in a couple of months. I better like get a move on. It’s just that’s how life works out, which is kind of nice sometimes.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:04:42] Yeah, definitely.

Jesse: [00:04:44] So maybe this is not interesting to the listener. It’s a curiosity of mine though, so I know like Canada will not recruit but give preference to skilled workers coming to the country because they don’t want you to just come in and be a bum and not produce for the economy. That’s part of the immigration process. So is it difficult with the credentialing since credential start in the US? And is it did they make an easy transfer to?

Dr. Alyssa: [00:05:18] Oh, yeah. So like you’re talking about like my chiropractic correct? Credentials, right? Oh yeah. So I met my partner. He was like my first friend in school and like, our relationship grew and we both took American and Canadian boards throughout school because we knew that like we were together and we want it to have options. And so, like, I had already gotten all my Canadian boards done long before, like we moved here. And so it was super easy. But had I not done all that, I would have had to spend a lot of time studying biochemistry and microbiology and all that again.

Jesse: [00:06:04] That’s just it escapes me now who I was speaking with, because I think it was a several years ago on the show, but we were talking about. He is a doctor in a different country and he wanted to come to the US, but it was like credentials weren’t going to transfer. He would basically have to start over like year one or a resident of like medical school all over again. And he’d been a practicing physician for a number of years. So it was like he was like, that doesn’t make any sense at all.

[00:06:34] And I don’t think I don’t even think it was like, I really wish I could remember who this was. I don’t even remember him. It’s not like it was like a small country, like it was a well-developed nation. It wasn’t like you would think there wouldn’t be any issues. So that’s something that just I remember having that conversation with him, and that was kind of my curiosity of like, is it easy? I know many things are relatively easy between the US and Canada since we’re neighbors as opposed to like across the pond neighbors.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:07:08] Yeah. And luckily, like, you know, I’m like, I’m working on the body. Like, I’m not like cutting the body open or prescribing, like, harsh medications. Like, you know, it’s not. I think it would transfer pretty easily. Yeah.

Jesse: [00:07:27] Yeah. So I think I need to touch on this a little bit before. But for our listeners, maybe they are not familiar with you. Can you talk a little bit about I mean, why get into chiropractic at all, like your history and kind of what led you to that?

Dr. Alyssa: [00:07:46] Yeah, I have a very long running history and I’ll just kind of give you the cliff notes. I started running in high school and I’m a very competitive person. And, you know, with running, the harder you work, typically, the better you get. And so I was kind of in that cycle of really pushing myself and getting better and getting better. And I ended up becoming quite good in the, like, high school level.

[00:08:18] And I was plagued with injury after injury. I would push my body too hard and then I would end up getting a stress fracture or whatever. And so I saw lots of different providers. I saw PTs or physios, we call them in Canada, I saw chiropractors, I saw medical doctors, like trying to figure out what was wrong with me, why was I always getting injured.

[00:08:50] And the only person that ever actually addressed, like my issue, was a chiropractor. He looked me straight in the eye and he’s like, “Are you eating?” Like, “Do you have an eating disorder?” And nobody else had ever asked me, and I did. But nobody knew about it. And so I’m like that. Typical.

[00:09:16] At that time it was the female athlete triad. Now it’s the Red-S that was I was that to a tee. And I just kind of like kept pushing my body, not fueling it enough and was injured all the time and I saw what it was like to go through the medical system and to just be given or just be told that I need to take medication because I have low bone density or not ever run again.

[00:09:52] And all these options just never resonated with me. And it was  — the chiro it was various chiropractors in my life that really showed me the potential of the human body and how like I can heal and I need to address the root cause of it. And it was this imbalance in my life and all of that. And so I, I went to college and I ran for the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and that was also super toxic.

[00:10:28] Our coach also had an eating disorder. And just like judged us based on how we looked, whether we would be fast enough. And again, it just didn’t resonate with me. And I knew that there was something more, but I didn’t know what, and I was deciding whether I want it to be a doctor, a physio, a chiropractor, and it just kind of cut back to all of my healing journey has been like, facilitate it through chiropractors. And that’s not to say that others aren’t amazing as well, but just what aligned with me most. And I became a chiropractor because I needed chiropractic and chiropractic like mean it changed my life and changed just like the connection that I have with my body and like my physical and my emotional state. It is a long version.

Jesse: [00:11:32] It’s a long history. So a couple of things you mentioned. So I talked to a number of and now it is typically more prevalent for women, but there are still men with eating disorders. But so two episodes for you, the listener that you might check out. Sarah McMahon Episode 134. She’s an ultra runner. She talks about her struggles in getting through an eating disorder and coming back to a stronger place.

[00:12:04] And I think much like you, wasn’t in an environment where it was like you’re judged on your looks. And then also that there’s this like temporary boost of performance where like you cut weight and before things get totally broken, like you get this kind of bump up in performance because you cut weight, power is still there, but then there’s no nutrition. So everything like breaks and just blows up. And so it’s just like really terrible situation.

[00:12:35] But the initial one I thought of was Alex Coates episode 111. She’s actually a former Canadian pro triathlete, and she is by the time this is out, she’ll have finished her PhD. But she’s doing research specifically on Red-S, and I know her sister as well was a Canadian pro triathlete. And so that’s another episode to check out if that’s like your kind of alley or situation.

[00:13:03] But like super common. I don’t know how. Like, I think I tend to overeat as an athlete, which is the opposite of most people’s problems. But that’s because I think I was like most people under eight in high school got injured, flat performances, all these kind of things. It’s so common, I think more common for especially endurance athletes to undereat than it is to overeat.

[00:13:35] And I’m not sure, I often ask people that have kind of been through the ringer, for lack of a better term. How do we address it? How do we — Like stem the flow — stem the blood flow. Like how do we. Reduce the number of people that are, I guess, subject to kind of this like toxic culture or these bad environments where they’re ending up beat up broken, disheartened because working so hard and getting nowhere. Because they’ve been or are being kind of led down a straight path.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:14:21] Yeah, I definitely think the first step is talking about it. I’ve been out of undergrad now for like over ten years and before, you know, it wasn’t something that was talked about. Like it was something that I learned about in my undergrad textbook, but it was like we went over it for 5 minutes and then we kept going, you know, And like, I felt so isolated and like, I was the only one that was going through this, right?

[00:14:53] But fast forward ten years, you know, I can name probably ten people like close friends that have gone through this as well. And we just we didn’t know others were struggling. And so just being open about it. And I think had I known that what I was doing was I lost my period, I had low bone density. Like what I have changed. You know, probably not, but at least I would have known that I was having, like, significant effects on my current health, but also the lifelong trajectory of my health, too.

[00:15:38] And maybe, like my coaches would have known about it, maybe my parents would have like, been aware of, like warning signs or friends or if more people just knew about it, they would maybe just like question it a bit. But with my chiropractic background too, like it’s so much more than just about like that time in your life, because I’m taking this course right now in learning on how to, like, optimize a baby’s neurodevelopment.

[00:16:14] And we are so susceptible for the first thousand days of our life from conception to age two. And if you’re born into a state of stress or if there’s an imbalance in your biochemistry, like these can have lifelong effects on you, you can change them if you know what to change and like you can change the way that your brain is wired and how you respond to stress. But I mean, you typically don’t do that in the first 17 years of your life.

[00:16:51] It’s later on when you’re like, oh, I don’t actually identify with how I’m responding. I don’t like having this constant set, like set point of stress and disease in my body. And, you know, that’s a healing journey in itself. But it’s just I really am trying to empower my pre-conception moms to those first few years of like really optimizing that home environment to support these babies and these kids so that they have a more balanced nervous system and can adapt more to stress when stress becomes a bigger part of their life.

Jesse: [00:17:36] You know. I know, you know, I know that this is kind of a developing field. Part of it is just because data collection. Longitudinal data collection takes forever. Like you have to wait. You can’t speed it up, but, you know, trying to set your kid up for good life, I think is a tall task for many people. I’ve spoken with many parents. I’m only a very new parent myself.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:18:14] How old?

Jesse: [00:18:16] She just is three months old. Just last week.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:18:19] Congrats. That’s amazing.

Jesse: [00:18:23] But I know, like. When I speak with, say, like athlete parents, because that’s who I get to talk to with the show. You know what? Especially when I speak with the Olympians, they’re always just like. The anti-helicopter parent, at least in our conversation. I guess I don’t live with them. I don’t see them on a day-to-day basis. But how they present themselves is like like I’m not going to like I’m going to support my kid, but I’m not going to push them to try to be the next me.

[00:18:54] Like if they want it, they’ll figure it out. But like versus I think thinking about like that initial environment and then. As you’re growing, parents go overboard. They want the best for their kids, but then they are like, try too hard and push their kids too hard into things that they don’t necessarily want to do or harder with things they want to do.

[00:19:24] And, you know, I. I wonder how much of its culture, because we’re competitive by nature, at least in the US. And I wonder how much of it’s like that kind of. Maybe internal instinct. I know like I see my daughter and I go like, I want her to be all the things that she wants to be, right? But you also can’t, like, force it upon or like it will be as she grows up to her to kind of grow and discover and find and choose. So it’s interesting, like trying to. Figure out how to set up, I guess, a good environment for a kid without being too laid back and not being too overbearing —

Dr. Alyssa: [00:20:11] Yeah, and it comes down to one, you being in a balanced state of safety and love and confidence and then you just, you know, being there for her, providing, you know, her basic needs, giving her attention, giving her love. And I mean, I think that every parent is going to, in some degree, mess up their kids. But, you know —

Jesse: [00:20:36] Like I’ve said before, all parents screw up all children.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:20:39] Yeah.

Jesse: [00:20:40] To a greater or lesser degree.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:20:41] You just do your best and like, your hope is that, like, you just let their light shine.

Jesse: [00:20:52] So. This is where I wanted to ask you, because I saw this and my wife and I were actually discussing this the other day because, number one, I think chiropractors in general get a bad name because I think there are bad chiropractors. And then it just kind of becomes a joke. But like, I’ve been seeing like a chiropractic person or a chiropractor, but like. We mostly are working on like physical therapy kind of things like that’s 95% of the visit is like stretches, muscle scraping.

[00:21:30] I’ve talked about this in other episodes in kind of a more holistic approach to trying to get me back to full running health. Anyway, so my wife and I are discussing this the other day and going, what? Like why do babies need any kind of adjustment or help or anything? So we’re obviously ignorant of the situation. It’s what you specialize in so I’ll give you, I guess, a moment to stump for yourself.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:21:56] Cool. So I first want to like, explain first that you know. Just like chiropractic physios, massage therapists, like there’s “good ones” and there’s “bad ones”. However, you know, the one that you had a bad experience with doesn’t mean that they’re bad for everybody, right? And there is a huge span of different people’s philosophies and beliefs and what resonates with them in the chiropractor. 

[00:22:36] Well, in just like in medicine, there’s kind of like in chiropractic, there’s kind of two branches. There’s the mechanistic view where, you know, that’s a little it’s like, my knee hurts, I want you to work on my knee. And then there’s the vital artistic side that, you know, my knee hurts, but how’s your sleep? How’s your diet? How is your stress? Like all of these other things? And one is not better than the other.

[00:23:06] If you have a marathon to run in a week and you need your knee fix so you can run like you’re going to do whatever you can. But you know, why is your knee hurting and what are you doing in your life that’s affecting that? And it can be a physical thing, but it can also be an emotional thing. And I definitely like to tap more into that vitalistic, that emotional side of things because I have found that I’m just a very energetic, emotional person and that doesn’t jive with everybody and that’s totally fine. But so I just wanted to say a little bit about that.

[00:23:49] And then as far as babies, why do they need chiropractic? So if you think about so stress can be physical stress. It can be emotional stress and it can be chemical stress. And we have all of these stressors surrounding us all the time, whether we consciously know it or not. And we do things to minimize these stressors. But they’re still here. And it’s not just the stress of that person or that baby. It’s the stress of mom or the family.

[00:24:24] And when babies are in the womb, they piggyback on mom’s nervous system. And if mom is in a constant state of stress, well, that’s going to be that foundation of baby’s nervous system. Or if the labor and delivery didn’t go as smoothly as planned and maybe it was they needed a vacuum or forceps or it ended in an emergency C-section. The birth process is a very important process for the neurodevelopment.

[00:24:59] It helps to prime reflexes. It helps to flourish like micro bacteria, like all of these things. And if we don’t have that or if it’s skewed a bit, that can already be just taking them off of their, like, optimal pathway. It can lead to stress in their body and that can show up as feeding breastfeeding issues and that can show up as babies favoring turning their head to one side over the other. And if that’s left for long periods of time, baby’s head shape can change.

[00:25:36] It can affect their milestones, it can affect them not enjoying tummy time, not being able to roll, maybe not crawling or not crawling in that proper cross crawl opposite arm and leg movement. And we know that movement is what allows our brain to grow. And so if they have an imbalance in their movement, we know that the wiring of their brain and their nervous system is imbalanced.

[00:26:06] And that might sound a little scary, a little far out there. But if we can have those movements be better balanced, their brain is going to be able to hear everything that’s going on and be able to elicit proper responses. And that can look like later on in life, you’re a distance runner and every time you step, there’s just muscles that are just slightly not activating or over activating a little bit.

[00:26:38] And if you do that 100 times, not a big deal. But if you do that 10,000 times every single day for years and years, that can create tension and patterns and then that can lead to injuries. And so my hope is that when I work with babies, I am trying to create this balanced nervous system so that their brain and their body can create the optimal connection and so that they can elicit proper motor responses and hopefully help them just be more balanced nervous system-wise, but also in a biomechanical way.

Jesse: [00:27:20] So there kind of brings me backwards to my thought about, like, overbearing parents. How do you decide — Okay, I think maybe my baby needs help or like, my baby’s fine because there’s this — there is the possibility of the tendency of just being like, like I said, like trying to over optimize or you’re like, I need my baby to be an Olympian, so therefore I’m going to go see you and she’s going to make my baby the next superstar. Like, how do you — where is that balance? How do you figure that out?

Dr. Alyssa: [00:27:59] I mean, yeah, that’s totally a great question. I think it comes down to what the parents goals are. Right. And, you know, we said, fine. Are you like your baby’s fine? Yes. Like we know your baby’s growing and everything, but like, are they operating at their highest potential? And that highest potential doesn’t mean that they’re going to be an Olympian or the best at their sport, but it’s going to be that their internal environment is in a balanced, confident state.

[00:28:35] They trust themselves, they trust their body. They’re able to feel their body and have that connection. And when we have stress in our body, it hinders that communication. And the more stressors we have, the farther away we are from, like our highest expression and, you know, there’s different philosophies. Like I — I’m lucky that my partner is also a chiropractor, but even if he wasn’t, like, I don’t think I would ever stop getting adjusted or getting body work.

[00:29:10] And it doesn’t have to just be chiropractic. It can be acupuncture, it can be massage, it can be physio. Like there’s always going to be stress and we always want to be our optimal self. So I’m going to do things to continue to take care of myself so that I can continue to run and be active throughout my entire life. And you know, if a patient, a baby, a baby’s parents come in for breastfeeding support, and I tell them all these things that we can do to help them throughout their milestones, throughout their life, and, you know, they only want breastfeeding support and after that, they don’t keep coming in.

[00:29:52] That’s okay. You know, because I know that I still did a really good job at supporting that baby. And that’s going to have long lasting effects. Yeah, they’re going to fall when they’re younger. They’re going to hit their head, They’re going to have those things. And I mean, they might still come back later on in life. But yeah, everybody just has different goals and I just work on supporting everybody at whatever stage that they’re at in their life journey.

Jesse: [00:30:23] So I want to jump forward, I guess, in the life cycle and maybe ask about your personal experience. So you talked about being, I’ll say, chronically injured. You didn’t say that. So I’m kind of putting words in your mouth there.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:30:37] Now, I was chronically injured 100%. I’ve had over ten stress fractures.

Jesse: [00:30:44] So it’s like you see them kind of what you were alluding to. So chronic injuries kind of coming to this like more holistic place. So, you know, I guess there are people that advertise like I’ve never been injured or I don’t get injured. And sometimes I wonder whether it’s genetic. I’ve had chronic injuries over the years when it came to running a triathlon, I seem to be a little bit better off, but when I just run, I seem more prone to injuries.

[00:31:19] So I guess I wanted to ask you about. You know, now that you know a little bit more about a little bit more is an understatement, but more about the body movement, preventive measures, all those kind of things. How do you keep yourself operating without running into that history of chronic injury and it kind of recurring?

Dr. Alyssa: [00:31:43] Yeah. Well, the first is definitely, you know, nutrition. And I definitely don’t err on the side of under eating anymore. And like, you know, like I definitely probably like I overeat but like I’m incredibly active and I just really I listen to my body like if my body is craving. You know, pizza or mac and cheese or whatever, like, I will eat that.

[00:32:09] But I also really just work on, like eating nutrient dense foods, like organic, local grass fed meat. You know, just I’m just feeling my body and listening to what it’s meeting. I like I mean, yeah, I’m still super active and like to the average person, like I probably do too much, but I also balance it now with like, I knit quite a bit and so like at, like for my best time, like I’ll watch TV and I knit or like I now have a garden and like, I do things that keep me grounded and slow me down so that I can still be out in the mountains for 7 hours and know that it’s okay. So just a balance between my activity and my rest.

[00:33:04] And then of course, like, like body work and I get adjusted at like at least once a week. My partner is a chiro and he specializes with, like, concussions, neuro rehab, vestibular stuff. And he’s helped a lot. And then I see lots of different chiros I see chiropractors for like when like my knees, a little twinge and like, “hey”, like “I need someone to, like, do some dry needling on my knee.” But I also see chiropractors that kind of support my nervous system and help my body to release the stored energy and emotions that I’m not great at releasing myself.

[00:33:49] I see acupuncture. I said physio already. Like I probably have at least one appointment like once a week or once every other week to just continue to support my body. And I mean, I’m fortunate that like I do trades with people, but I would also pay for it because I think that. You know, I’ve beat up my body for so long that it needs extra love and support so that I can continue to ask a lot of it for many more years.

Jesse: [00:34:23] You know, one of the things you said is sort of like listening to your body. And this is something that like. I think that we kind of understand. But then I also think kind of chronically, again, when I say these things, I always think about like US culture because I don’t know about globally, but like, I think people just don’t really get that.

[00:34:48] Like if you take like just a cross section of our culture as a whole, I don’t think it’s like, well understood. And one of the things I’ve been working on is like it’s often referred to as like intuitive eating. I really had this conversation with Sarah Schlichter episode 78, which is several years ago now. She’s a registered dietitian working with runners specifically to try to figure that out, where it’s like, yes, you’ve got a nutrition plan, but you’re also like paying attention to “Am I hungry?”, “What am I hungry for?” Like those kind of things, those cues.

[00:35:30] And I certainly haven’t mastered it by any stretch of the imagination. But since that conversation a couple of years ago, I try to be mindful about like. Like like many people, I love sugar, like I love sweets, those kind of things. But I do notice that, like, maybe I have a candy bar or a couple of candy bars and then like, if I’m an adult, I can buy whatever I want. So if I have a whole bag. If I have like a third or fourth or fifth piece, then I go like, it doesn’t it just simply doesn’t taste as good.

[00:36:03] Is that an initial one? And it’s like. My body going like, “Yeah, we don’t really want that anymore.” Like it’s still good because it should. You still get that like hit kind of, but like paying attention to that, like more subtle signal that it’s like, no, like it’s time. Like I noticed recently that like just, definitely times where it’s like. I feel like, yeah, I think I need just like a big bowl of vegetables. Like I just need a really, like, hearty meal in some of it, I guess, at least for me, is simply like new food experience because I didn’t, you know, credit to my parents for doing the best they could, but like, I didn’t grow up with the colors of the rainbow, I guess I would say.

[00:36:51] And so it wasn’t until college, post college, really, that I was try to eat a wider variety of things. Much credit to my wife. She’s expanded many of the things that I’ve eaten. And I think that that comes back to that intuitive eating thing. We’re like, if you don’t have experience eating the food so you’ve never eaten kale before, like your body doesn’t necessarily even know what kale is or to ask for it. So like. To me, part of the solution of finding out listen to your body is like going on this journey of discovery with new foods first.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:37:29] Have you — I’m sure you’ve heard of the cookbooks Run fast, eat slow, right?

Jesse: [00:37:35] It’s I don’t know if it’s behind me and it’s not behind me. It’s upstairs.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:37:38] But the message that they have for runners is just so empowering. And like, I recommend those books to so many people because it does introduce different foods, different spices, different experience around food, and how food is meant to nourish us and support us in our activity. And food isn’t a punishment. It’s not something we need to restrict or whatever. And it has just a beautiful message around food and the recipes are amazing.

Jesse: [00:38:14] One of the things I think is, is a little bit of a tangent, I guess, but that’s kind of what I do. One of the things I think is really. Great about. I guess I’ll say this age, I always say we live in the future. It’s just like the abundance of recipes, the abundance of people that can help you learn how to cook, learn how to cook new things.

[00:38:38] I think part of the aversion to vegetables, the like kind of mocking like plant based diets, those kind of things historically are based on people that don’t know how to cook. Like if you cook vegetables poorly, they don’t taste great. But if you cook them well, there’s many different ways to go about it. They taste good, like, you know so —

Dr. Alyssa: [00:39:05] It comes down to like spending time and like preparing it to and intention. And I think that we live in a world that wants results yesterday. And, you know, we have just have such a fast paced life that. Yeah, we really need to slow down again and be appreciative of the food we have and put time and energy into it so that it can support us.

Jesse: [00:39:38] So that I guess it maybe is a little more pointed question but do you have any like go to food you like? I know we’ll get to this here sooner than later, but so like, I think it was the very first season I used to ask people if you could only leave with one recovery food for the rest of your life, would you choose? So not necessarily that specific question, but something like that.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:39:59] I mean, that would be like cheeseburger, a generic. That is what I would pick if I could only eat one food. But I mean, like it’s more about like the quality of the food, where it comes from, how it’s grown and a variety. Like I you know, I’m fortunate that I’m able to buy organic food. I also have a garden that we’re able to get a lot of our fresh veggies from.

[00:40:29] But if I’m not there, like I try to buy local stuff, I really try to have like high quality meat where it’s local grass fed, not pumped with antibiotics. And it’s it’s much more the quality of it. I try to eat lots of healthy fats and now that it’s becoming fall again, bone broth is like my favorite thing. I make my own bone broth. I put it in like as much stuff as I can, or I just like, drink it with a little bit of salt.

[00:41:05] But really it’s just like just eat lots of different foods and there’s going to be foods that you like and there’s going to be foods that you don’t and don’t eat those ones eat the ones that bring you joy and feel good eating. I mean, maybe try to like, limit sugar a bit. But, I mean, like, if you were to eat like a whole package of Sour Patch kids, like, you’re not going to feel good after it. And if you do feel good or if you don’t feel any change, it’s probably that your body so like, run down already that you just don’t feel those changes.

[00:41:44] And I actually I wanted to bring up something to you talking about. Yeah. Like there’s something that made me just remember, like we’re just so disconnected with our bodies. And our bodies, like, patients will come in and they’ll be like, “I threw out my back. I didn’t do anything. I was just picking up my shoe” or something. And it’s like, well, what was happening in the months before. Like your body was trying to tell you something. You might not have been able to hear it, but it was trying to. And eventually the the whisper gets louder and louder until it literally like smacks you on your on your butt and like, it forces you to not move.

[00:42:24] And so I think with like my experience with chiropractic is like I just have that better connection with my body and in the physical realm and the emotional and like what it needs to be better support it. And I really try to bring that message to my prenatal patients and, you know, telling them like, nobody knows you and your baby better than you.

[00:42:50] And I’m trusting that intuition, trusting your body, because if you’re wanting to give birth, if you’re wanting to try a vaginal birth, especially if it’s unmedicated, like you need to feel your body and you need to let your body do what it’s meant to do to safely birth you and your baby. But it’s when we block things out or when we try to do and go and not like be that, you know, that’s when we mess with Mother Nature.

Jesse: [00:43:29] Alyssa as we’re running down on time. As I mentioned, we were going to get to this sooner rather than later. The question I’m asking everybody this year, which I’m asking all my guests for the season, is how do you celebrate your wins?

Dr. Alyssa: [00:43:45] Well, how do I celebrate my wins? Oftentimes it’s with a ginormous burger or pizza. And really, just like for me, it’s showing my body gratitude. You know, every season in high school and college, I would have an injury and, you know, never knowing that, like, if I would ever be able to run or if I would be able to do big races. And last year finishing the Squamish 50/50. Like, just like being so grateful for how far my body has come and that it was able to do something so tremendously hard. And I survived and I wasn’t injured. And yeah, just, just being so grateful for where I am right now.

Jesse: [00:44:45] Alyssa if people want to get in touch, see what you’re up to, find that course, any of that kind of stuff. Where can they do that?

Dr. Alyssa: [00:44:50] Yeah, so I have a website. It’s called runningwildchiro C-H-I-R-O dot com. And then my Instagram is dralyssasalava S-A-L-A-V-A.

Jesse: [00:45:04] Web links for that stuff down on description, whether you’re on YouTube or if you’re on YouTube. We’ll also link to this YouTube channel, which is got some yoga videos or if you’re a runner, useful for you there as well. Some other stuff. So, Alyssa, thanks for hanging out with me.

Dr. Alyssa: [00:45:23] Thank you for having me.