CLICK FOR AUDIO OF PODCAST

Guest: Allison Jackson

Release Date: 4/9/2025

Welcome to Trulyfit the online fitness marketplace connecting pros and clients through unique fitness business software.

Steve Washuta : Welcome to Trulyfit. Welcome to the Trulyfit podcast where we interview experts in fitness and health to expand our wisdom and wealth. I’m your host, Steve Washuta. Co Founder of Trulyfit and author of Fitness Business 101.  

Steve Washuta   Steven, welcome to truly fit. Welcome to the truly fit podcast, where we interview experts in fitness and health to expand our wisdom and wealth. I’m your host. Steve Washuta, co founder of truly fit and author of fitness business 101.  

Steve Washuta   On today’s episode, I have I’m Rebecca Washuta, who is my sister. She is a weight loss and longevity dietitian. Healthy snacks and wellness Hacks is her little tagline. You can find her at happy, healthy nutritionist on Instagram. Her and I will be talking about the following topics today. Brian Johnson, who is he?  

Steve Washuta   What is the craze about his longevity? Guinea pig lifestyle. Instacart. Is it taking over synthetic breast milk? Is there high grade versions of this, if not, why not? And working from home as a health and fitness professional, as a reminder, I love to hear from people, so email me at social, at truly fit dot app at any time with suggestions or critiques.  

Steve Washuta   Totally fine, and I will certainly get back to you. I will, 100% get back to you within 72 hours with no further ado. Here’s Rebecca and I. Hey, Beck, welcome back to the truly fit podcast. For those who haven’t heard you, why don’t you give a brief bio on who you are and what you do in the health and fitness industry before we get into our topics today.  

Rebecca Washuta   Hi there. Yeah. Thanks for having me back on the show. My name is Rebecca Washuta. I am Steve’s sister. The last name is not a coincidence, and I am a board certified, state licensed dietitian, and I have my own private practice here in Miami Beach.  

Steve Washuta   There’s no hiding the subjects if you’re watching the video, because I will have a rundown on the screen in which we’ll be talking about if you’re listening only, I will tell you the subjects in advance we’re going to be talking about. First we’re going to talk about Brian Johnson.  

Steve Washuta   Who is he? Sort of the craziness that’s now surrounding him. This Netflix documentary out about him. And then Becca has some special insights that I just found out about, specifically with Brian Johnson. Gonna be talking about Instacart. I got sucked in recently. I found out about Instacart from you.  

Steve Washuta   And we’re going to be talking about breast milk. Is there synthetic grade, high level breast milk? If not, why not? And working from home, positives and negatives in the health and fitness community, we both do it.  

Steve Washuta   What can we pass on to others? What do we see that’s maybe a lie in the industry concerning this, working at home and working home, specifically in our industry. But let’s get started right away with Brian Johnson, right away with Brian Johnson. I’ll do a little background on him, a general background.  

Steve Washuta   If you feel like I’ve missed anything, jump in. Tell me more, and then we can go right into it. But he was a tech guy who invented a software that was similar to PayPal, and it took off, and then he bought Venmo and stayed in there, and that’s how he made majority of his money.  

Steve Washuta   He’s worth, who knows, 400 $500 million maybe more at this point, because of his notoriety. But now the money he’s making is not his notoriety from owning these, you know, pay this, pay these payment softwares. Is because he is like the ultimate guinea pig for a bio optimizer and longevity.  

Steve Washuta   His goal is to live forever, so to speak. Now this isn’t a novel philosophical concept. A lot of people have talked about living forever, but he is taking it to the absolute extremes. There’s a Netflix documentary on him. What are your first thoughts about him? What do you know about him?  

Steve Washuta   And how do you how do you see this, maybe without diving into, like, the micro stuff, which we will the things he takes, just from, like, a macro philosophical perspective. How do you think about this? Yeah,  

Rebecca Washuta   well, I think it’s easy to criticize him, right? I think people, if you’ve seen the Netflix documentary, or if you’ve seen the trailer for it, it’s easy to write him off as crazy. And I’m not, I’m not disputing that, right? I think he could be a little bit crazy, but because I think the natural inclination is to criticize him, I do want to come to his defense on a couple things.  

Rebecca Washuta   He talks about wanting to live forever, right? But he also talks about, you know, how our lifestyles today, not only are taking years off our life, but they are giving us all poor mental health, right? He talks about how lonely we all are, and that, like our lifestyles today, are making everyone more lonely. He talks about burnout, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   Because he was in that tech world. He was working, you know, crazy hours, and he experienced that. And then he talks about the high levels of chronic disease, right? So all of that can’t really be disputed, and I agree with him on all on all of those things we do need to change our lifestyle in order to, you know, in order to overcome this, right we are, I think now our life expectancy is declining for the first time in in history.  

Rebecca Washuta   Right? We we may not live as long as our parents for a number of reasons, and so it is something to focus on, right? And in addition to these like pillars and protocols and supplements, he also talks about community, and I think that’s pretty huge as well, because, you know, there’s been multiple books or in multiple studies. Is talking about community as you know, really the the key to longevity, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   Having living a long, happy life depends on your relationships, because that affects your your emotional health and your mental health as well. So I do, I think there’s a lot of good in in what he says, Before we jump into how crazy he comes across.  

Steve Washuta   I agree. I think there is a lot of good in what he says. And I you know, without talking about him as the person right away, which we will from a philosophical concept, yeah. I mean, we all want to be healthier so that we can live longer, right?  

Steve Washuta   If you just look at some of the numbers that he talks about, he’s like, Hey, listen, I basically got four months for free this year. He looked at his biological age and the things that he did and said, I’m most likely going to live now just from the things that I did at least four months longer, four months longer than I was previously because of the things that I did.  

Steve Washuta   Right this all makes sense. I do think, however, you know, there is a little bit of do as I say, not as I do with him, wherein there’s not a lot of community with him, there’s not a lot of strong relationships. If you go to bed every day at 830 and wake up at 745 which he does, and then you spend the next two hours working out, and then you spend the next hour taking your heart rate variability and all these other metrics.  

Steve Washuta   And then you meet with your first doctor and your second doctor, and then you go here and there, and there you could watch a full day in the life of him. He doesn’t have that, right? He doesn’t have great friends, he doesn’t have a significant other. He doesn’t have a relationship with at least two of his kids, so it seems, from the Netflix documentary.  

Steve Washuta   So I do think when you get so invested in the physiological you lose those other things that he’s talking about, and there’s a give and a take, right? If you’re going to spend all this money and all this time on only worrying about the physiological health, you know, is this, is this a guy you want to invite to your bachelor party, right?  

Steve Washuta   There’s somebody you want to even have, like, over your house on the weekend, like he doesn’t. Yeah, he’s not. He’s not a very charming, fun person, right? So, from a, you know, from the science perspective too. It’s really interesting, because the scientists don’t really like him, because what they say is, if you have all this money, we can do actual clinical studies, and we can have we can limit the variables.  

Steve Washuta   If it’s just you, by the end of this, we’re really not going to be able to tell much, right? Because you’re sort of like an n is one experiment. We don’t it’s we need, we need multiple entities to be studying here at one time. So it is interesting. I don’t think he’s a charlatan. He might turn out to be, because now he’s selling all these things. I just think there might be more than what meets the eye psychologically going on with him and why he’s doing this, rather than just 100%.

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah,I think he’s, he’s way too extreme. And I think on any level, when, when you reach that level of, on any topic, when you reach that level of, you know, extremism, it’s unhealthy. But what he is trying to emphasize right now is you can have fun and be healthy, right? So I went to, he has a summit called don’t die.  

Rebecca Washuta   So they did that in Miami a couple of weeks ago, and he is trying to promote community. They had, like a sober rave that morning. I did not attend the rave, but, you know, he is trying to sort of get people together, at least now. So I admire that. I think it’s, it’s, you know, less more people are paying attention to their health and they, you know, people are drinking less, right? They’re young.  

Rebecca Washuta   People are drinking less, doing less drugs, and so, you know, sometimes that does become isolating. So it’s nice to see any type of social event where they’re really focused on having a good time without, without those types of things, you know, in a healthy way.  

Rebecca Washuta   But yeah, I agree with you, overall, his, you know, he’s not altruistic, right? He’s doing this for himself. He he does say, Listen, I’ve spent millions of dollars on this, and a lot of you know, the information that I found in the conclusions that I’ve come to, I’m publishing for free, so I get that right.  

Rebecca Washuta   And now, now he does have his own supplement line and his own, you know, preteen powders and things. So from a science perspective, it’s pretty sound, right? He’s not doing this on his own. For people who aren’t familiar with him, he has a team of doctors and PhD scientists like there’s a lot of hard evidence and research behind what he does.  

Rebecca Washuta   That being said? You know, nutrition, physical fitness, supplements have to be personalized. What’s right for you and your lifestyle is not going to be right for everyone. So I think, yeah, people need to look at that and really take it with it with a grain of salt.  

Steve Washuta   Yeah, I want to go back into talking more about him and the philosophical side, but let’s for the audience, also talk about, maybe the the more tangible things that matter here. So he spends, I believe, two and a half million dollars a year on over the counter supplements alone.  

Steve Washuta   That’s not including like the doctors and the the other, the other things he takes. He takes things such as Metformin, which, for those of you don’t know, is for people who have type two diabetes. He takes rapamu. Niacin, which is what they give people who are having organ transplants, so that their organs don’t fail. He goes through gene therapy again.  

Steve Washuta   These are slightly risky things, so it’s just interesting, because you have so many different ends of the spectrum in health now, right? We have the vanity end. We have the hippie end, which is nothing like him, right? There are people who say, I want to live longer, but they’re like people who are about grounding and not and not using supplements. And you know this is you need to revert back to what your ancestors did.  

Steve Washuta   No, no. He’s the opposite. He’s saying, Give me every little bit of technology you can. I’ll use it for my advancement, and it’s just just an interesting way to when you look at that sort of the health community. Now, people may be doing the same things, but they’re really not the same, right?  

Steve Washuta   The three communities I just named, the people who are worried about vanity, the people who are who are all about ancestral stuff, and the Brian Johnson’s of the world are completely different ends of the triangle, so to  

Rebecca Washuta   speak, for sure. Yeah, yeah. I totally agree with that. So, you know, in in, in figuring out what you can take away from his routine, I guess you need to think about where you fit right in those, in those three silos, where are you?  

Rebecca Washuta   But either, you know, the reason there’s a Netflix documentary about him is because he’s gone to these extreme lengths, right? And he is using himself as as sort of a guinea pig. But you You’re right. Some of the therapies that he’s using, like the, you know, definitely the rapamycin, that is new, even in the longevity space.  

Rebecca Washuta   And, you know, it’s not something that you or I could do on our own like that, has to be medically supervised, because there can be some serious implications there.  

Steve Washuta   I’m thinking of a Vince Lombardi quote. Everything relates back to sports with me. So something to the extent of in the pursuit of perfection, you will come about excellence, meaning you’re never going to be perfect.  

Steve Washuta   But you know, by trying to be perfect, you’ll be excellent, right? By trying to live forever, you will live longer. That’s he’s going to die, right? If anybody was unaware of this, he will die, I promise you, at some point, but he will live longer. He will go about this. But also, speaking of that, it reminds me his process a little bit.  

Steve Washuta   Why I was watching the documentary reminded me of an idiom that you actually said to me. I already knew it, but you reminded me of it a few weeks ago. Do you remember what it was the man working?  

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah, yeah, for sure. But you know, ultimately, I guess high level, it’s like quality of life too, right? It’s not just how long your life is. So there’s a story about a businessman who goes down to Mexico, and he meets with this little fisherman who, right, who lives in this sweet little fishing village.  

Rebecca Washuta   They go out in the morning, and the business man is like, this is amazing. This is great. Like, you know, you could really scale this business. We could, we could get you more boats, we could get you more fishermen. We could, you know, grow this thing big.  

Rebecca Washuta   And the fisherman’s like, why would I do that? And the businessman says, so you can make all this money, and then eventually you can retire, and then you can just, you know, do whatever you want. And the fisherman’s like, but this is what I want to do, like, this is what I love, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   So it, you know, it begs the question, like, what really, what’s the outcome you’re you’re looking for, you know? Like, yeah, so you live another 60 years, but you’re lonely, you don’t have any friends, you’ve gone through all these painful procedures. Is it worth it? Like, what’s the quality of your life at that point?  

Steve Washuta   Yeah, yeah, that’s exactly right. And I think, you know, the idiom also talks about, there’s something I forget. It’s, it’s more, it’s obviously longer. You’re just, you’re cutting it short on purpose for the sake of time. But something like, Well, what do you do at night time?  

Steve Washuta   He’s like, Well, I go home, I eat dinner with my family. I play the guitar on the beach with my friends that come over. And he’s like, Well, he’s like, Well, you can do that all the time, or something like once, once we retire. Just have to work harder and work harder. He’s like, Well, I already live the life I want to live.  

Steve Washuta   Like, this is what I want to do. I want to go to work, come home, eat with my family, play the guitar on my beach with my friends. So it’s like, well, what is Brian Johnson actually trying to achieve, except living longer? Is living longer for what?  

Steve Washuta   To spend more time with this kid, okay, to, yeah, you know, to achieve some sort of goal that, that he wants to outside of that, that goal, that micro goal, of living longer. I don’t know, do each their own. I don’t care if it makes them happy, go for it. I just think, from again, uh, the perspective of what we do in the health and fitness industry, if somebody comes and says, like, oh, I want to follow his routine, it’s like, routine, it’s like, no, that’s not. It’s just that’s not accessible, right?  

Steve Washuta   The money, the time, the effort, you want to do maybe a fifth of what he’s doing, right? You want to take the like you said, what can you take from this? You take from it, the less risky things, right? What does he do that’s really important. Sleep is a very, very important sleep pattern.  

Steve Washuta   He prioritizes that. Of all the things this millionaire prioritizes, that’s the number one, right? Yeah, prioritizes sleep. What? What are the supplements that he takes that you can get over the counter, that are, that have research that that are we know not to be dangerous, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   There’s a bunch. Yeah. So he takes, so just answer that question. He takes ginger and. And curcumin and Red yeast, rice and garlic, like all things that have been, you know, proven time and time again to be safe and effective.  

Rebecca Washuta   Lots of you know, he promotes a lot of veggies, berries, not drinking alcohol, not eating red meat, right? So things that, things that are accessible to most people, and are widely agreed upon to be very healthy.  

Steve Washuta   And his exercise routine, if you watch what he does, sorry to say, people who think otherwise, he’s not, you know, bench pressing 250 he’s not back squatting. He’s not doing these things right. He’s doing it. He’s focused on his heart. He’s focused on, you know, core strength and flexibility, mobility.  

Steve Washuta   I don’t know how big he is. If I were to guess, I would say he looks maybe 510, to six foot, maybe 180 ish pounds, right? This is not he’s not walking around 22, 3240, he’s not carrying a lot of muscle. Yes, he has very little limited body fat, but he doesn’t have a lot of muscle. He’s not jacked.  

Steve Washuta   He looks ripped because he has low body fat, but he’s not, but he’s but he’s not very strong. He’s just strong for his size, if that makes sense. So, you know, these are just some things I think we can take from, from looking at what he does in a more, you know, realistic, practical way  for sure.

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah. And the last thing that I’ll say is, you know, he emphasizes tracking, right? So he gets his blood work done very often. He’s tracking his heart rate. He’s teeth tracking everything possible. And I do think everyone should do more of that to the best of their ability, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   So whether you have, like, an aura ring, or you have an Apple watch or, you know, whatever works for you, you know you’re getting your blood work done once a quarter. We know more about our cars, right than we know about what’s going on in the inside of our body.  

Rebecca Washuta   And, like, that’s crazy, right? So you should, you should understand, like, what, what does my blood work look like? What’s my cholesterol? What’s my blood pressure? What, you know, what is my what is my A, 1c, and I think that can help drive and direct what health behaviors are right for you.  

Steve Washuta   Yeah, couldn’t agree more. Very important also to compare yourself to yourself, not yourself, always to others. Yes, there are general numbers inside of labs. It doesn’t matter if your numbers are not exactly what those are, you should know your numbers compared to yourself.  

Steve Washuta   You only do that if you take labs on a regular basis and no but what I’ll also add to that is you don’t have to take the next step in the sort of intervention process. If something is off, you can make that decision, but you should at least have the opportunity to make that decision.  

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah, for sure.  

Steve Washuta   On to the next year Instacart. I first heard about it through you when I was visiting you over the holidays. You know, using you used Instacart a few times, and I never really thought to use it. I enjoy going to the grocery store. It’s actually just very therapeutic for me to go around feel like I see some sales and save a few dollars.  

Steve Washuta   And, you know, be able to pick out the fresher fruits and things of that nature. Right? When you’re picking out fruit, sometimes you want to touch them or see them. See the new brands in but now, with my schedule, having a four month old at home, it’s just impossible to do that during the week.  

Steve Washuta   So I’ve used Instacart a lot, and I’m wondering, as somebody who’s used it a lot longer than me, do you think everyone’s going to be using this eventually, when it’s more, you know, accessible, let’s say financially, because it is a little bit pricey. When you look at how they up charge you 20% on almost all the food. Do you think this is just a trend for the certain demographic? I feel like once you use it, you’re gonna, you’ll, you’ll never stop using it.  

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah, and I’m surprised it took you so long to hop on. I think there is nothing more important than your time, right? So yes, they are up charging you, but like, what is your time worth? If it takes you two hours to go grocery shopping, driving there and back and doing that, what could you be doing that’s more productive in those two hours?  

Rebecca Washuta   So I’m like you in that, you know, as a nutritionist, I like going to the grocery store, but I like going to the grocery store on, like a Friday night, right when it’s dead and, like, my daughter’s asleep and there’s no one there, and I can take the time to look at labels and go slowly through the aisle, I think, yeah, dealing with crowds and people and traffic is is not fun, is not something I want to do. So I think they definitely need to optimize, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   Like, they need shoppers who are better at it. Because sometimes, I don’t know if you’ve had the situation where they replace things, but I’m like, I asked for this, and they give me something totally different, right? Because I’m not by my phone to answer, to answer the message.  

Rebecca Washuta   So I think there could be maybe different levels of it, like, right? Like a concierge level service, right? Like, really, like five star people who are like you and me, who are passionate about groceries, and we know where things are, and we know what a good replacement is. But you know, I should be really easy.

Steve Washuta    Sorry to interrupt. That would be really easy if you put a little bit more emphasis on the buyer’s end. So what they would do with someone with someone like you is items, items that are typically out more often than. Not, it’s easy. It’s really easy to see that, right? Yeah. And then they would have you, when you click an item, give a second or third option already on the front end.  

Rebecca Washuta   They do they do that. They do that in the app. But sometimes the second or third option isn’t there, or sometimes the shopper still gets another thing right. Like, it’s just, it’s not as organized as it could be. Because I think, you know, they’re working through, like the grocery stores, data on what they have in stock and what they don’t so it’s not like one system, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   When you order from Amazon, it’s one system, and they’re able to keep track of everything. So it’s not perfect, but I think we are all so busy these days that everyone could save time. So yeah, I think, I think that is, that is the way the future, for  sure.

Steve Washuta    I haven’t had any of the issues that you have concerning them not getting the right product or not replacing it with a like product. For lack of a better term, I’ve they’ve been really good so far with me. I’ve probably only used it a dozen times, but I have had issues of them finding my house because it’s a new build and it doesn’t come up on certain GPS systems.  

Steve Washuta   And now I’m relying upon the driver being a normal, competent, capable human being. And again, I’m going to be ageist here, and most people do, at least over the age of 30, is send you a direct message, Hey, I can’t find your house. What a 22 year old does is they don’t want to communicate with a human being. No, they don’t know, they don’t know how. So then they contact customer service, right?  

Steve Washuta   And they drop, they drop a pin somewhere, and before you know it, your food is, you know, two towns over on a different on the same name street. So, yeah, there, like anything else there, there’s a human component that’s going to get messed up, and because there’s so many variances.  

Steve Washuta   That was a really good point in if you’re taking the grocery store data, how, how quickly are they updating their their software in the background, in order for Instagram to pull, to re pull that software appropriately, to know what is in house and what is in stock, especially, let’s say on like a Saturday afternoon or something, right, where things are going rapidly, as opposed to like Tuesday at 10am where maybe nobody’s at the grocery store.  

Steve Washuta   So I do think if Insta if Instacart, gives incentives away for people to start using this, it really is one of these things where once you’ve used it, you just even if you’re not going to use it every single time you go to the grocery store, it’s still in your back pocket, so to speak.  

Steve Washuta   As as this like out when things happen, right? Because life happens, like you said, you get pulled you get you know, you expect it to go food shopping on Saturday morning and one of your kids is sick and you can’t go, you know, you need food in the house.  

Steve Washuta   What do you do? And if you’re eating relatively healthy, which we do, and I hope most of the people listen to this, do your food goes bad, right? It’s not all food in your pantry. This is food in the refrigerator. So we’re people who have to go food shopping every week. I can’t, I can’t store food because my food goes bad.  

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah, and you know, just one more point, it’s like we are, we’re more isolated now than we’ve been right, where we used to grow up in these, like, small towns and communities, and if you needed something, we literally used to borrow sugar from our neighbor, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   Like, literally, we’d walk across the street and borrow sugar. And I think, you know, in a pinch, you could be like, Hey neighbor or family member who lives close by, can you go get X, Y or Z from the grocery store? And now we don’t have that, right? Like, we don’t have, we don’t live with our with, like, family members.  

Rebecca Washuta   And so it’s kind of nice, you know, I’m just thinking, like, a couple weeks ago, Aurelia was sick, so me and my daughter was sick, so I’m here with her, and she needs, we were out of Tylenol, and her, you know, her fever was spiking, and I don’t want to bring her to the store with me when she’s sick and she’s cranky and she’s, you know, potentially a public health risk.  

Rebecca Washuta   So I can Instacart that right where, maybe 30 years ago, I would have asked my mother or my sister or somebody else who lives nearby to go get that for me, right? And I we just don’t have that anymore, so unfortunately, we have to outsource it and pay for it. But I definitely see a benefit.  

Steve Washuta   Yeah, last point on this too. A lot of times in the past, the only food that we can get rapidly, fast food was bad for you. Now, if you can get the same exact food that you plan to get from the grocery store very fast, right? Because you can pay an extra $3 and get it there really fast. Yeah, it’s worth it now. Now you can start to eat healthier and not have the excuse of, of like you said, wasting another hour or two to go about this process.  

Steve Washuta   Of course, you still have to cook it right? That’s, that’s, that’s a different saying, but, but you, but you do avoid that, that time constraint that some people have, I don’t feel like going to the grocery store to get this food. It takes too long. Well, now you don’t have to.  

Steve Washuta   Now you can do two things at once. Yeah, breast milk. I was doing a lot of random research on breast milk. It seems like the longer you potentially breastfeed a child, the less neuro development issues and all these different things could possibly happen.  

Steve Washuta   Obviously, studies are flawed. But I don’t know a lot about formula and breast milk, right? If you told me to break down exactly what is, what is in these components from a scientific perspective, I have no idea. You can tell me a little bit more. But what I do know is that most formulas, if you look on the back of it, like a like an end fill, at the cheapest formula, is just what, like some sort of milk powder and vegetable oil and and protein, whey protein or something, right?  

Steve Washuta   So it doesn’t have all the micronutrients and all the things that you know that breast milk would have. Why don’t we have high level synthetic breast milk? Do we have it? Are they working on it? Is it really expensive? And just give me your first thoughts on all that.  

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah. Yeah. Great question. So we are, I think, uniquely qualified to talk about this, because your daughter, Mackenzie, was, like, exclusively breastfed, and my daughter really was exclusively formula fed. So it’s like, nice to have both sides of of the coin here. We don’t currently have synthetic breast milk.  

Rebecca Washuta   We could we have the technology, we’re in the same way we have the technology to grow milk in the lab, to grow steak in a lab, but we don’t. And so there’s two reasons. One, I think, is public opinion, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   Because, for the same reason that if I put a stake in front of you and said, this was grown in a lab, some people you know feel weird about that, rather than it came from a cow that you know lives in a pasture, but you know the truth is, lab grown food would solve a lot of our issues, right? The climate issues, the overpopulation issues, all of that.  

Rebecca Washuta   But the other reason we don’t have it currently is because there’s a lot of regulations around formula. It’s regulated differently than just your standard food. So there was a company that was very, very close, called Bio milk, B, i, o, M, I, L, Q, but they just filed for bankruptcy. So won’t want there. There goes that. So yeah. So the best alternative, right? Is, is baby formula. I will say European formulas are different than American formulas, so I exclusively shifted formula from Germany to give my daughter.  

Rebecca Washuta   And goat milk is better than cow’s milk because it’s easier for babies to digest. But the regulations in Europe are just more strict, right? So they don’t allow corn syrup. They have very strict regulations about the amount of DHA, which is a, you know, a healthy fat necessary for brain development.  

Rebecca Washuta   American formulas don’t have any requirement for DHA there. There’s also not a cap on how much sugar is an American formula. So European formulas are different. They have caps on on all and all of those. So they’re, you know, regulated in a different way.  

Rebecca Washuta   They’re using healthier oils. They are, you know, their agriculture system is different than ours is in the US. So, you know, I would say even the non organic formulas, there are a better choice, but majority of them are organic anyway. So if you are looking to do a formula, I definitely, I recommend to all of my clients to do a European formula. There is an American brand that’s fairly new.  

Rebecca Washuta   It’s called booby, B, O, B, I, E. That is, you know, trying to close that gap and be a healthier version for American formulas. And it’s easier to get right, because sometimes shipping things in from Europe, it’s hard, it’s hard to do, especially now with tariffs and things like that.  

Rebecca Washuta   So it’s, I think, you know, as far as what you said about breastfed babies, and, you know, does it? Is it protective against developmental disabilities? For sure, I think you know breast breast milk is the best option. However, formula is great, as long as you’re taking a, you know, a great formula.  

Steve Washuta   Yeah, I think they did a small study on, like, the professional athletes. And actually, like, majority of professional athletes are formula fed. So, like, there’s not, there’s not really, like, like data saying that one way or the other, and I’m not telling people there’s anything wrong with your formula fed.  

Steve Washuta   Again, this is above my pay grade. I don’t know much about it, except this brief article that I ran across. That’s why I brought it up more. I’m more asking questions here than certainly telling but I think there’s probably a financial component. Hence the reason that company failed in order to get something like that off the ground, because you also then have to think about on the buyer’s end, right?  

Steve Washuta   What is the pricing that you were going to set, spending all this money creating this, and how does that fit into the market? Who’s going to be buying this? Because formula is already kind of pricey, right? The amount that people need, you also need it to stay good for a certain amount of time.  

Steve Washuta   Like you said, there’s, there’s going to be, you know, FDA people overseeing this. So I just think it’s probably a price component that doesn’t allow a company to step into that market and say, Is it worth it, right? Because I’m not going to invent something if I believe I’m not going to make my money back and then some is it worth it for me to invest all this money and then come into a market that that doesn’t allow me to then recruit.  

Steve Washuta   That money. But you would hope that if the government was going to intervene somewhere, they would right, we would only try to make formula better and better and better. Right? You like, I would think this should be an industry in which every year we find out there’s an improvement in Formula. I just feel like that’s not the case.  

Rebecca Washuta   No, it’s not, because it’s expensive, and I don’t think you know, companies want to do that, working from home.  

Steve Washuta   You do it, I do it. Doing it for a while. The industry in the nutrition world certainly takes to it very well. The fitness world’s a little bit different. You know, me having to train live virtually. I certainly don’t have the what my 100% capacity to do what I do. I can’t necessarily see cues and cues and mannerisms the same way I would, but I still enjoy it. I like it.  

Steve Washuta   I do think, though, some people talk about it as if it doesn’t have any negatives, so there’s only positives. And I push back on that. But what are your thoughts if you were to talk to somebody who wanted to start working completely virtually, what would you say to them if they were nervous about it or maybe too overly excited about

Rebecca Washuta   it? Yeah? Yeah. This is, I think this is a great topic. So I have been working from home since 2014 which I think is rare, right? I think most people after COVID transition, but I’ve been doing this for a very long time. So I can tell you the pros are this, you have flexibility, right? I can start my day when I want. I can do different things around the house, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   I can throw it a load of laundry before clothes. I can empty the dishwasher before I get on a call. I can, you know, there’s a lot I can do around the house. I can also spend time with my daughter, right? When she, like, comes home from school. I can play with her a little bit before I before I hop on a call. You can be with your pets.  

Rebecca Washuta   So a lot of a lot of pros, you don’t have to get dressed for most people, right? You put on a shirt and you can wear your pajama bottoms. But I will say this, there is no separation between your work life and your personal life, right?  

Rebecca Washuta   So everyone I know who works from home ends up working seven days a week, because you just bleeds into all seven days like, you know where before it was like, you close your laptop, you come home, you maybe aren’t checking your work emails, but if your laptop is on the dining room table, right, or just, you know, in your home office, you’re more likely to sort of stay connected and Stay checked in, even though you do have that flexibility.  

Rebecca Washuta   I’ll also say that, you know, even if you’re working for a virtual company, which I did, I worked for Noom, a big company, yeah, you’re having zoom calls and things like this, but it is a little bit isolating, right? Like it’s it’s different to actually get lunch with a colleague, or, you know, talk over coffee, or, you know, gossip at the water cooler, right? Like there.  

Rebecca Washuta   There really are some benefits to that. I think I’ve, you know, everyone talks about having work friends, and it’s hard to do virtually, right, even if you are working for a company.  

Rebecca Washuta   The other thing I have found is that I don’t have good focus, right? I definitely have ADD, but I think all the pivots throughout the day make it harder, right? Where you go to work and you’re sitting at a desk for eight hours, maybe you have some meetings, but you’re not thinking about stuff at home. For me, it’s like, I’m in the middle of this meeting.  

Rebecca Washuta   Okay, the dryer is done. I got to go do this, and I’m going to go do that and like, oh, I should go check the mail. And, you know, there’s, oh, the dogs need to be walked, right? So it’s, like, hard for me to actually focus and do deep work. In order to do that, I have to, like, put on my headphones, like, put a slime on the door, you know, like, the deep work, I think, is, is really hard, because there are so many distractions at home.  

Steve Washuta   What I took from that, in summation, is all the pros can easily be cons given the day and the time, right? So every pro you can turn into a con if you don’t handle it properly. Oh, yeah, I get to work in isolation. I don’t have anybody bothering me. I don’t have a somebody sending me, you know, someone in the office stopping by my desk.  

Steve Washuta   That also kind of sucks sometimes, right? Because I don’t have anybody to talk to. I don’t have anybody to come stop and talk from the desk, right? Oh, I get to do my laundry midway through, and, you know, maybe I’m throwing something in the oven, but now I have two or three tasks I’m handling, so now I have to go handle that other task, and that interrupts me from my work.  

Steve Washuta   Oh, I get to spend extra time with my child, which I do as well, but if there’s something going on with the child, now, I’m not the person who gets to stay at work, right? If you’re a, you know, if you’re, I’m just making up. Insert here, you’re, you’re an accountant, and you work 25 minutes away, right?  

Steve Washuta   There’s something going on with the child that you’re not, you’re not coming home from work. Unless they’re actually really, really sick, and you get calls from school or something, or if the child’s home, well, now that takes precedent over working.  

Steve Washuta   So I think the environment can can go one way or the other if it’s not controlled. All those pros can be cons. I don’t like when people try to make it out to be this thing. Like, oh, you can spend more time with your family and this and that. Like, yeah, but it’s not quality time necessarily, right? If, if, if you’re.  

Steve Washuta   Trying to manage work and and them at the same time. Because now you’re not dedicated to your work. Maybe you’re angry that your kid is not letting you do your work. So you’re not spending quality time with them. So now you’re distracted, right?  

Steve Washuta   Yeah, exactly. Like anything else you have to sit down talk like, like, really think about these pros and cons. Like, like we did, and say, How do I how do I keep them in the pro category. How do I avoid them being const Exactly?  

Rebecca Washuta   How do I set up my environment to make to make this work? Because it’s not, it’s not as easy as people think, because there are so many distractions,  

Steve Washuta   lot of distractions. Well, this has been a great conversation. Beck, why don’t you let everyone know where they can find more about you, personally or professionally?  

Rebecca Washuta   Yeah, absolutely they can check out my website, happy healthy nutritionist.com. My Instagram handle is the same, happy healthy nutritionist.  

Steve Washuta   I will put all the links in the description. Thank you for joining the truly fit podcast. Thank you so much for listening in. And remember you can subscribe the truly Fit app on YouTube to watch the Monday interviews. See you guys soon.

https://www.happyhealthynutritionist.com/

CLICK FOR AUDIO OF PODCAST