Transcript:

Intro (00:01):

Do you struggle with what it means to be successful in your retirement? Trust us, you're not alone. Welcome to the Retirement Success in Maine podcast. Here you'll go in depth with guidance point advisors, investment consultants to hear stories about how retirees in Maine are navigating a successful retirement, get insight into the inevitable challenges of aging and define what a successful retirement looks like.

Ben Smith (00:26):

Welcome everybody to the Retirement Success in Maine podcast. My name is Ben Smith and I'm one of your co-hosts here on the show. I hope you are all doing well today. If you'd like to join in on our conversation, you can reach out at benSmith@guidancepointrs.com, and you can connect with us on YouTube, Facebook, or LinkedIn just to search Retirement success in Maine podcast. You can find some more about our show, some more of our content right there. But for now, let me introduce the vitamin C to my potassium. Curtis Worcester, how are you doing today, Curtis? I'm doing well, Ben. I'm doing well. How are you? Good, good. Well, of course with that analogy there, vitamin C in my potassium, we of course are going to dive into a topic that's crucial for all of us as we age, which includes balancing medications, nutrition and fitness to live healthier and age better.

(01:20):

So as we grow older, medications often become a regular part of our lives, helping us manage chronic conditions and improve our quality of life. But how do we know we're using medications effectively and not relying on them at the expense of healthier habits like nutrition and exercise? So we're also witnessing a trend. I know around me, I'm seeing it a lot, medications like Ozempic that are being used as shortcuts for weight loss, raising important questions about their long-term sustainability and effectiveness compared to traditional approaches like proper diet and fitness. So I know our guest today is uniquely qualified to guide us through this conversation, and she's an expert in pharmacy, nutrition and fitness, and she's here to share insights and how we can take control of our health by making smarter choices about the tools we use, whether that's medications, food, or fitness routines. So if you're looking to strike the right balance and live a longer, healthier life, I think you're in for a treat. We're going to jump right into this important discussion.

Curtis Worcester (02:20):

So that's exactly right, Ben. Our guest today is known as the nutrition coach Pharmacist. Our guest combines her expertise as a licensed pharmacist with her passion for nutrition and fitness to help people prevent and reverse disease through lifestyle changes. Our guest today also guides individuals to make smarter decisions about their health, balancing medications with practical approaches to diet and exercise by using the faster way to fat loss program. Today's guest is on a mission to help people take charge of their health without relying solely on medications by making sustainable changes that promote longevity, vitality, and overall wellness. Whether it's addressing the rise of weight loss medications, managing geriatric prescriptions, or creating healthier routines, she brings a wealth of knowledge and practical advice to the conversation. And I will say like all of our guests, we're going to have a blurb rate in our show notes here and on our blog where you can go and find our guest, follow her directly on socials by searching for the nutrition coach pharmacist. Again, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, or even go to her website. And now I'm going to spoil her name amy k wilson.com, where she has a blog in her email newsletter. So with that, please join me in welcoming Amy K. Wilson to the show today. Amy, thank you so much for joining us.

Amy Wilson (03:42):

Thanks Ben and Curtis, I'm excited to be here. This is probably my biggest passion to talk about, so this is going to be a good conversation.

Ben Smith (03:48):

Nice. Well Amy, so we're excited to have you too. And by the way, my wife works in pharmacy, so she does operations. She started out of college as a pharmacy technician and has worked in pharmacies, her whole working career. So I am really interested to hear your vantage point today, and especially this combination of nutrition coach and pharmacists is a really neat combination as well, because I think those are very two siloed things probably too often. So love to hear a little bit about your background and what inspired you to combine pharmacy with coaching around nutrition fitness. I've

Amy Wilson (04:25):

Been into fitness since I was 16. I started, I'm going to give my age away, and I'm much older, naive guys started teaching aerobics back to time with Jane Fonda, that kind of era.

Curtis Worcester (04:37):

Okay,

Amy Wilson (04:37):

Alright. Went to University of Toledo College of Pharmacy, taught aerobics because that was such a better job than being a job in the library, which was so boring. And when I got out of pharmacy school, I kept teaching. The problem with back then, this was the eighties, so this is with a lot of things that started becoming sugar-free, fat free. You would work out, workout, workout, cardio, cardio, cardio. And nothing was really, you did kind for cardio health, but you really didn't do it for health. Health. It wasn't really put two and two together. We didn't have nutrition, we had all these kind of little gamuts. So I still had these separate boxes, pharmacist, fitness instructor, and it wasn't until I would turn 29 that I blew my back out being an exercise addict. Not a great thing, but I would learn my lesson. I did not. I was trying to out-train a bad diet, so I would use cardio and work out excessively to negate the scale so much more now. But that's what I did. Fast forward going into two thousands, I'm still doing fitness. I was a master trainer, still doing pharmacy. I'm now a board certified geriatric pharmacy. So I deal with the older population

(05:52):

And I started seeing a correlation two and two, okay bad working out all the time and myself too, not getting the results I wanted. It's like spinning your wheels and it's horrible when someone says, well, all you have to do is eat less and work out more. Dude, that's all I was doing and still gaining weight. I mean this is not right. And it was happening to me. It was happening to my students. And then I'm old, older, so I went through perimenopause, menopause, things started backfiring and I had to become a student again. I had to figure out what was going on with me because people would come to me as a pharmacist would come to me as a fitness professional and say, Hey, what can I do? Well, when I became a student again and going back into the science is where I should have went through in the first place, realizing that it doesn't always equal calories and calories out.

(06:44):

There is a hormone component, there is a strength training component. And as I was going through my own journey, I started realizing that the people in my nursing homes, I'm a consultant pharmacist, I work in long-term care. We're getting younger and younger and younger. It's crazy when I'm seeing someone's date of birth and my date of birth and younger, I shouldn't be seeing 30, 40, 50 year olds in the nursing home as long-term care residents. And it was lifestyle, diabetes, it's strokes, it's heart attacks. Yes, there's some other things that go in every once in a while, but when you start seeing these lifestyle diseases causing people to be a permanent resident in a facility, I'm like, wait a minute, it's not just about me anymore. I kind of found the key, my mission is to keep my clients that I work with both men and female out of a nursing home.

Curtis Worcester (07:34):

It's

Amy Wilson (07:34):

Not about the number on the scale. And that's what we are so determined in the United States especially about, well, let's lose weight, let's lose the pounds. But we're not thinking about what's inside, what's going on the health concept, and we're not thinking about longevity. And so that has become my mission as a nutrition coach, putting kind of like a triple threat. I'm putting the pharmacy, I'm putting the fitness, and I'm putting the nutrition together so that the outcome that I see that happens from poor nutrition being the nursing home is what I'm preventing for you.

Curtis Worcester (08:07):

Love that. I love that. Thank you so much for that. Diving into that there and I like that the triple threat. That's good. So I want to ask Amy, just again, just generally here, building a little bit of background for our listeners. What gaps did you notice in traditional healthcare or traditional pharmacy practices that made you really want to focus on that's more holistic approach to helping people age better

Amy Wilson (08:29):

Without stepping on toes but stepping on toes? Yeah. I'm a pharmacist who would prefer people not be on medication. Now that doesn't mean that there's not a purpose for medication. There absolutely is. The problem is that, think about it. You go in the doctor's office for something and if you don't leave with a prescription, you feel you were

Curtis Worcester (08:46):

Cheated.

Amy Wilson (08:47):

You're very much a pill society. If there's something wrong, there's a pill for that. If you do this, there's a pill for that. The problem with that is that a pill is a treatment, not a cure. So let's think about that. It's a treatment, not a cure. You have high blood pressure, you take a medication to help lower the blood pressure. It is not curing it, it's just treating it. So I'm very much about root cause. Let's get to the root cause and let's see if we can get you to the lowest effective dose or maybe even off the medication or not start the medication period if you're at that point that we can prevent disease.

Ben Smith (09:24):

Well it sounds like obviously Amy, just even the couple minutes we've been talking to, sounds like you're obviously very passionate about helping people prevent, but also as you said, reverse diseases through nutrition and fitness. So love to hear a little bit about the soft side here. What's been the most rewarding part of your journey in guiding people towards healthier lives?

Amy Wilson (09:44):

The aha moment, it really is when the aha moment hits, whether it is the blood pressure went down and no longer have to be on the medication or it went down or it decreased or someone is pre-diabetic and they're no longer diabetic. And then my favorite is the aha moment when someone realizes it's not about the scale anymore, that

(10:04):

It really is about health. It's looking at the whole picture. And I used to think it was only females that was having such an issue with the scale, but now with a lot of my male clients, I see the same thing and that's changed a lot. It used to be the men didn't care about the scale and they didn't care about this, but it really does seem we're having the same issues, male and female about that number on the scale. We're thinking you should be a certain size and not realizing that it's the health concept is having muscle, it's having decreased body fat and not worrying about that number so much that's on the scale.

Curtis Worcester (10:41):

Interesting. So again, our kind of goal today for the conversation is a lot of our listeners and I think a lot of the people Ben and I work with on a day-to-day basis really just balancing medications, nutrition and fitness, this whole package together. So again, a question for you that we kind see a lot as we age or as people age, many of us start taking multiple medications to manage chronic illnesses. And I know you just said these prescriptions and medications, their treatments, right, they're not cures. What are some of the most common mistakes that you see in your practice when it comes to managing medications in older adults?

Amy Wilson (11:20):

So as someone gets older and you start on one medication, more than likely that is going to be a cascade effect. You have one medication, two medications, three medications. Those medications cause side effects and they get more medications. The problem is is that especially as you get older, you may have more than one doctor.

(11:37):

They're not talking, they're not looking. And you might be getting your prescriptions from Costco, you might be getting it from Walgreens, you might be getting it from someplace else. Amazon and I get it, we're all trying to save money, so we're going to wherever have the cheapest. The problem is nobody has a complete record of what's going on. You might not be feeling good and you go to the doctor and they give you another pill, but that may be caused by a medication that you're already on being very, very, very in the know of what you're on, having a list of medications, taking that to whoever your pharmacist is or your doctor so that there can be a complete record where we're going to start seeing the problems. That's where as older adults start falling,

(12:25):

Start bringing hips, knees, a lot of the falls are caused by sometimes overmedicating also as we age, and I know it's like my husband came back from his checkup and he's like, do you consider geriatric? And I'm like, yeah. He's like, no, I'm not. And I'm like, yeah, 55 to 60 start when you start considering being geriatric. I'm like, yeah, I hate that word. It is like older adults. But yeah, that's when you start thinking. And so a medication that maybe you were taking in your twenties, you're like, oh, but I've always taken that and I've never had a problem. As we get older, as our body composition changes, medication changes on how we interact with it, and so where you never thought you were getting those side effects, now you are

Ben Smith (13:09):

Interesting. So Amy, obviously we're going to the medication side and I want to now switch over to the nutrition and fitness side because obviously you've already spoken about that the power of nutrition and fitness that you can prevent or even reverse certain diseases, blood pressure medication and pre-diabetic and things like that. We can maybe do a little bit better in reversing here. Can you explain just a little bit about how these lifestyle changes can reduce dependence on medications and improve long-term health outcomes?

Amy Wilson (13:40):

Yeah, so first I want to say if you start anything, make sure that you are tracking your medications, tracking how you're feeling. If you're on blood pressure medication, you're tracking your blood pressure. If you're on glucose medications, you're checking your blood glucose because when you start eating whole foods, replacing whole foods from maybe processed foods, ultra processed foods, when you start moving your body, inflammation will decrease. And inflammation is the cornerstone of disease. It's the cornerstone of high blood pressure, it's cornerstone of diabetes, high cholesterol. When you start decreasing that inflammation, when you start giving your body the chemicals it needs, yes, food is chemicals but the right kind of chemicals, our body is one big chemical reaction. You give it the right things, it will go. I always say if you remember organic chemistry or chemistry and things went boom, that's what we want.

(14:29):

You have a car, let's say you have a Ferrari, you go to the gas station, you're not going to give it the cheapest gas. It's not going to last the block. We give our food constantly, give our bodies constantly the cheapest overprocessed food. So how do we expect our bodies to work? But you're like, Hey me, I feel okay. Okay, but are you sleeping? Do you have brain fog? Are you having to take several naps throughout the day? Do you have to grab the energy drink and the coffee several times a day? Do you have headaches? Do you have rashes? Are things just not as clear as they used to be? All of that catches up with you and increases that inflammation. So once you start eating right, once you start getting rid of maybe some the soda and it's just baby steps. But once you start doing those little things and it starts adding up, you decrease the inflammation, you're going to decrease your blood pressure, decrease your blood glucose, and you're going to get to a state where your body is happy.

Curtis Worcester (15:21):

I love that. Great. I was trying to rattle off as you were going through the symptoms there of how many I applied for me, and coffee is a big one for me right now, but we're working on it

Amy Wilson (15:31):

And I say I drink a lot of coffee, but I love coffee,

Curtis Worcester (15:35):

So Alright, me too then. I'm good. We're good. So another thing that Ben and I hear and see with many retirees is the struggle around balancing their medications, diet and physical activity. Can you just share some general strategies you think that people can use to one, integrate healthier habits and also doing that without feeling overwhelmed?

Amy Wilson (15:57):

So the problem is, is that we just came off of January. So what happens in January, I almost come called the biggest loser phenomenon. You go in and you expect to do everything. You wiped out your pantry, you wiped everything out. This is the day where I'm going to do something. And then day two you're like, oh, what did I just do? I don't know what I'm going to eat. I don't know what I'm going to do. Or you join a gym, you're like, I don't know how to use this equipment. That's the problem. It's so overwhelmed that you get that almost over analysis. You're paralyzed,

Curtis Worcester (16:33):

You have

Amy Wilson (16:33):

No idea what you want to do. So start in baby steps. Maybe it's going for a walk every day or just work doing, going on the treadmill. What I love with my coaches or what I do with coaching is it's a six week and we go one step every week. So we add a little bit more and then also includes a workout program. So if you can find something that is plug and play that you can find something that is, you don't really have to think about it is going to be much easier If you can get up every morning and just have a glass of water, just have a glass of water, do that for a week, and then maybe you have a better breakfast. If you've been doing the fruit loops and some of those other kind of sugary cereals, not such a great idea, maybe start with some oatmeal and some Greek yogurt having things that are a little bit better for you. And once you incorporate one thing and it becomes second nature, then you start incorporating something else. And once you start building on those blocks, it gets better and better and better and becomes a lifestyle and not so much a diet

Ben Smith (17:31):

That, because Amy, I know just from my social network and people that I know is that weight loss medications like Ozempic and Wegovy are kind of very popular because just kind reacting to what you just said is, Hey, I can still do the stuff I was doing and I can take this medication. So win-win is, hey, I just do a little bit less of it or it makes me feel fuller more quickly. So I want to just hear your take because again, we got nutrition and we got the pharmacy piece. Now we have 'em pitted against each other at odds. So I'd love to hear a little bit about you talking pros and cons of using these drugs for weight loss versus focusing on diet and exercise.

Amy Wilson (18:18):

So pros and cons are, and if you listen to all those commercials, it will say, this only works with a fitness and nutrition program. It says it right there in the directions. The problem is we lost that in translation. Ozempic bound, they all have a purpose, especially if somebody is extremely type two diabetes, they can't get their A1C down. And this is, I almost want to say last resort. The problem is is that the general public has now seen this as, okay, I can't lose weight, so I'm just going to take this. Here's the problem. Remember I said you have to fuel your body with the right chemicals, the right food. Oz will stop your appetite. It will. So if you're eating less Doritos or less processed foods, it's still processed foods. It's still crap ingredients going into your body. The other issue is that your body needs protein, your body needs fat and your body needs carbs. It needs protein to help keep and build your muscle. It needs fat for your nerves. It needs fat for your hormones and it needs carbs for your brain and energy. It's science. When you do not give your body protein, your body's going to figure out, because our bodies are freaking smart and their job is to survive somehow it's going to start taking it from muscle as we age. That should scare you because the lack of muscle increases. Increases how fast you age.

(19:44):

You want to stop aging, you want the fountain of youth, it's muscle. You're not losing body fat, you're losing a little, you're losing a little, but the majority of what you're losing is muscle because that's the quickest form of energy. So you're replacing, you're not really replacing, you're getting rid of muscle and you're keeping the body fat and you're losing just a little bit. That's why ozempic face, ozempic butt is a real thing. It's not losing the fat. There's muscles. These cheeks have muscles. Your cheeks have muscles. So that's where they're losing the problem is the less and less muscle you have as we age, fractures

(20:20):

Falls, you can't get out of your chair. So the problem with that, yes, you've lost weight, but your body's going to need vitamins and minerals. Where's it going to take it from the bones? So now you got osteopenia, osteoporosis. What I'm afraid of, we're going to see next four or five years, it's been out now a year or two, is we're going to start seeing these disease of what's called frailty. As you get older, you see someone who's frail and they look tiny. It looks like the wind could just blow 'em away. We're going to start seeing that in 30, 40, 50-year-old because of the fact that they haven't been eating, they haven't been providing the right nutrition for their bodies. And that's scary.

Curtis Worcester (20:59):

Yeah, it's very scary. And I have a follow up question to this, and I think I know the answer to the first part, A pretty simple yes or no. I think based on that response, but just anything else you can add. Again, the question is using medication like Ozempic for weight loss, how sustainable is that in the long term? I think you just gave us a pretty clear answer that it over time can't be that sustainable or shouldn't be. Are there

Amy Wilson (21:24):

Any other Yeah, it should be.

Curtis Worcester (21:26):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But there any other, does relying on drugs like that for such a long time create any other challenges that people should be aware of?

Amy Wilson (21:36):

It's going to cause a physical and mental dependence. So just like someone who is addicted to cocaine or something like that or alcohol, it's going to be the same thing and it's going to be very much a psychological dependence. I mean, I had a friend who I was talking to and she was having somebody who came to her wanted to be coached and because she couldn't get off the couch because she didn't have any energy, but she was finally the size in the end, the weight that she's always wanted to be,

(22:02):

But she didn't want to go off the medication because she didn't want to increase weight, but she can't get off the couch. And that to me is just you're not living life. And I think you guys are financial with financials and working with older people, they're looking at chapter two. I'm looking at chapter two. I want to be able to be healthy. I don't want to go to assisted living, which is around four to $5,000 a month or be in a nursing home, which is about 10 grand a month. It's like what we're doing is training for our second chapter so that we can be independent and doing something like wegovy and zeep bound ozempic, you might be putting, you think you're doing one foot forward, but you're actually maybe doing several steps back. And it depends if you're willing to do that risk because being skinny doesn't necessarily mean being happy or healthy.

Ben Smith (22:58):

Sure. And I've seen the movie like Dope Sick and you see the Oxycontin epidemic and the waves afterwards and what happens there and you go, geez, there's some kind of echoes here where you have this coupon program and people are getting on this, right? It was like 25 bucks and you can get on this medication and you then have to go up in dosage because your body's reacting to it and I have to go higher and higher and higher, and now the coupon goes away. So it feels like there was a building of a market is kind of what was happening with this, and it just seems like it was becoming a very low friction way to lose weight and I can just kind of do this and boom, and I'm lost a lot really quickly.

Amy Wilson (23:45):

Well, and we all want that easy button. We really do. We want something that just like it finally works because we have been dieting for years and it comes off and it goes back on. The problem is we've been dieting for years. That's the problem. We never looked at as nutrition. We never looked at as building muscle. We never looked at, maybe size two is not meant for me. Maybe I'm not supposed to be that size, but my blood pressure's good. My A1C is good, my cholesterol is good. I feel amazing. I can lift. It's like were we doing a bathroom? And I was helping my husband take out this gigantic sink and I was like, yeah. He's like, do you think you can do this? I'm like, absolutely. I can do this. And I think that's what we need to start focusing on instead of how skinny can I get?

Ben Smith (24:31):

Well, Amy, I want to go back to something we were talking about a little bit earlier, and it's talking about geriatric medications. I think that's something where I think as we're aging, and I've just seen relatives and grandparents myself or even my parents is just they start with one medication then to your point, then they get prescribed the second and the third and all of a sudden they got the pill trays with every day and it's like, and here's 43 medications I have to take today. So I just want to hear a little bit about if you're guiding one of your clients around helping them work with healthcare providers to ensure they're only taking what's necessary and then avoiding over medication or dangerous drug interactions, which I know is a big pharmacy question here as a pharmacist.

Amy Wilson (25:18):

So the big thing is that you have to have to go and ask questions. Unfortunately, we're in a era where doctors are mandated by the insurance companies. They don't have much time. They know that you're expecting a pill. I mean, that's why a lot of times they're giving ozempic and we Gobi because people have been asking for years to lose weight. And doctor's like, okay, well here you go, do this, do this. And they don't do it. Now they have a prescription they can just give you,

(25:43):

If you're getting something, ask, what is it? Why do I need this? Because guess what, maybe it's for blood pressure and you saw somebody two weeks ago when they put you on a water pill to help you with your blood pressure, but this doctor didn't know, or maybe they looked at your chart and didn't realize you were already on it because people make mistakes and it's like ask why. And then if you're having depression, what's going on? Are you talking to somebody or are you just going for the pill first? Make sure that you're doing a whole 360. And I don't want to sound woo woo, but medication has its purpose, especially for certain situations and it's absolutely needed. But if you can use that with nutrition and fitness, because we know depression, anxiety, Alzheimer's, dementia, a lot of that starts with inflammation. A lot of that starts with not having a community, not talking to people, not working out, not going outside and seeing the sunshine, eating processed foods. So if you can start those little baby steps and then ask the questions every time you have a prescription, what's it for? How am I taking this? Why am I taking this? What's it supposed to do? What are the side effects and what do I need to look out for?

Ben Smith (27:01):

Amy, I want to make a point too, and I want to hear your reaction to it because I think this could be just something where it might be just local to us, but from a national perspective, just be interesting to hear your take on it. But one of the things that just we're seeing locally is those primary care physicians are turning over a lot is they're come in, they're out of school, they start here, then they go to some other locale and they go more metro area from rural. So they kind of move around a bit and there's just a lot of turnover, which means it's not like I can go to that doctor I've had for 20 years and they know me and they know this is what Ben's journey has been and this is what Ben's challenges are and how we work on those together. It just feels like, as you said, now the insurance company is saying, you have 15 minutes, get in, take the vitals, talk for a quick moment, see if you're healthy and get the heck out of there.

Amy Wilson (27:57):

But

Ben Smith (27:57):

Also it feels worse than that because now as you said, I can go to a healthcare provider, do a tele or e visitor or health visit, and I could just not have any relationship and I could get prescribed, I'll pick back into the weight loss medication ozempic because I say, I've tried everything and it doesn't work and just prescribed me this and 10 minutes later I can get a prescription for a medication. So it feels like it's very siloed and now the power is back on us, the consumer, to have that charge of our health because the doctor's not out there in the relationship. Say, Ben, you're really not taking care of yourself. You really need to be doing better. I've seen this trend for you over the years. What's your opinion about that? And just as a larger theme,

Amy Wilson (28:44):

I mean you are so right with ai, with everything else going on. We were watching something on TV and there were three different commercials on how to get Z bound.

(28:58):

And yes, there's always, okay, think about this. Three different commercials, three different practitioners, pharmacies, hello. It's the dollar billion people. I mean it is. And you're going to fork out the money and they know this. So take some responsibility. Take charge. It is expensive or a little bit more money on the forefront to learn how to change, to learn how to eat, to be able to lift some weights. Yeah, it's going to take time and time is expensive, but you're going to be preventing things later on and you can't rely on the, unfortunately we've seen this in the last several months. You can't rely on the medical system to take care of you. You just can't. It's broken. We know it's broken. I'm not sure how it's going to be fixed, but you really do need to take charge and be your own self-advocate. If you want to get healthy, don't wait, get healthy.

(29:59):

Don't wait until a doctor says, Hey, do you know you have high blood pressure? Hey, do you know your A1C came back and now you're diabetic because your body's been telling you probably for five to 10 years that your blood pressure is going up, your diabetes or A1C is going up. And my favorite is when the doctor says, we're just going to watch this. Watch what? It's trendy. Where's it going? It's not going now we're just going to watch this. Okay, well if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, it's by different results. It's insanity. So why would you think that we're just going to watch this and people go down bs,

Curtis Worcester (30:35):

Right?

Amy Wilson (30:35):

Okay. It doesn't work that way. So take charge. If you want to get healthy, you, it will take some effort. It will take some knocking your head against the wall a couple of times because learning something new, especially as you get older, is a little bit more difficult. But embrace that. Embrace the journey, embrace the health and understand your why is because you want to live your second half being vibrant energy with purpose and you want to stay out of my nursing homes.

Ben Smith (31:03):

Yeah, Amy, because I think we hear that all the time. A lot of the purpose of people is when they're retiring is they say, one of my main goals is to stay living independently as long as possible. So I think everything you're saying goes to that. And I want to go back to something you said about making choices and especially nutrition in today's day and age too, where of course tariffs are all over the news and costs of food is going up. If a look at eggs and you have avian flu, which is now making eggs become more and more expensive, but eggs are a really nutritious form of food here. And so this is something where I could see just from people on the budget side, I could see people going, I'm going to substitute out healthier food that might be more expensive to lower cost food that's more processed or just because it's cheaper. But I guess what I want to go back to you on is doesn't mean that they're making long-term financially savvy decisions or healthier decisions because of that change. Right?

Amy Wilson (32:07):

So I'm going to put on, because I'm big financial, so I'm going to put on my financial hat here for a second,

Ben Smith (32:13):

Please. Yeah,

Amy Wilson (32:13):

Yeah. How many times a week are you going out to eat? How many times a week are you going out for coffee? How many times a week are you ordering DoorDash, Uber, whatever. That one meal is going to be more than 18 eggs.

Ben Smith (32:27):

Yeah, absolutely.

Amy Wilson (32:29):

I stopped by my Walmart grocery store today. I picked up a rotisserie chicken, already cooked. It was $3 97 cents cold. If I get cold, if I get hot, it's $2 more. If I get cold, it's 3 97. All right, so 3, 9, 7, that's going to be several meals for this week. Okay? Eggs, you don't eat all 18. So think about it per serving. What are you going? And maybe you go to Aldi's, maybe you have a Costco or BJ's or Sam's and you buy bulk because eggs are going to last a long time. But you're saying, oh my god, eggs are $7. Okay, you just went to Starbucks and paid 12 bucks for that grande. Absolutely. That vente. So it's pick your poison, pick where you want to save the money, where you want to spend the money, but there's some things that you are spending that are not serving you.

Curtis Worcester (33:21):

Yeah, well it's just the excuse game is all it is. It's mean they look for an out is all they're doing. But I appreciate that and I want change gears a little bit here. I know we, we've been building up, I think this kind of question answer about over-reliance on medication as we get older. So I want to put ourselves in the position of maybe somebody who's there in retirement feels like they're just relying way too much on medications at this point in life. They come to you, they want help developing these healthier habits. Where do we start? Right? I know we said there's effort and I completely hear you, but is there just kind of some small practical, I know you referenced baby steps that we can take along the way and kind of start now.

Amy Wilson (34:05):

So let's think about some things we can do. Just real easy stuff. So one, can you have a glass of water first thing in the morning?

Curtis Worcester (34:11):

Can

Amy Wilson (34:12):

You start, if you're doing a diet coke, diet, mountain Dew, Coca-Cola, whatever your advice is, can you start replacing one or two of those with water instead, if you're doing coffee or split creamer with your coffee or coffee with your creamer, it's like start decreasing that and just starting to go with black coffee. Are you moving your body or are you sitting all day? What are you doing if you're just sitting all day watching tv, get up and move, clean your own house. You guys are in Maine, I'm sure you guys have snow.

(34:45):

Sure do. Sure do. And it's what can you do? Our body, what is it? Is it physics, body and rest tends to stay in rest. A body emotion tends the same emotion. So it's the same thing. It's like if you're sitting all day, you're not going to be able to use your muscles, you're not going to be able to, your metabolism is going to slow down. So think about those things and then, okay, what'd you have for breakfast? Did you have fruit loops? Could you replace that with oatmeal? What'd you have for lunch? Did you have McDonald's or Wendy's or something real quick? Hey, can you go just get a red toast to your chicken and have take the skin off, have a chicken breast, make a baked potato, have some rice. Yes, you can eat carbs and you need carbs. And a good example is for saving money is that you can go to the grocery store and get something called simply potatoes or the potato hash or whatever that's frozen for two something dollars a pack. But I can get a 10 pound bag of recipe potatoes for four bucks. All these things just replacing one thing with something that's in the more we say if it comes from the mother comes from the ground, it's fair game. So going back to the very, very basics and you would be surprised at how quickly you're going to start to feel better.

Ben Smith (36:02):

I love that. So Amy, I love that as the practical small steps piece. Love to hear about from a coaching perspective here, because I think a lot of the listeners we have in the clients we have in our client base that I'm newly retired, I have time now. This is a good reset. This is the best time to reevaluate everything, look at my life and repurpose what's working, what isn't working. So if you were kind of taking on that person as a client of yours, just thinking long term of I'm trying to create a balance myself between health and medications, nutrition, fitness, you've just talked about some small steps. Where are you going? How are you trying to build them? That kind lifestyle and getting them that balance.

Amy Wilson (36:52):

One, it's getting that mindset that it's not a diet. This is your journey and this is your journey for the rest of your life until you are no longer on this planet. So we don't have a stop and start date, that's dieting. You start and you're going to keep going. Now does that mean you might, life happens, chocolate chip cookies happen. They do. Okay.

Curtis Worcester (37:12):

Yep.

Amy Wilson (37:12):

It's okay. And it's not to feel guilty. You can incorporate those things, but now that you have the time, invest in yourself, invest in yourself. Because someone like me for coaching, which doesn't really cost a lot and keep going with it, is much cheaper than the copays, than the assisted living, than the long-term care. And understand there's going to be a learning curve. We are so much in the now, we're Amazon Prime. Two days get it. Come on. It's not going to happen that way. Muscle takes time to build muscle takes time to save. And so you're not going to learn new habits overnight and you're not going to get rid of those habits or those belief systems that you had for years overnight. Believe me, mine still come back up. It's like, oh, I can't have this. I can't eat this much because I'm going to gain weight, but I have to eat this much or else I do gain weight.

(38:06):

So those belief systems are there. They've been programmed in our head for so long and be okay that they're there, but start to let them go and be okay with letting them go and be okay being the student again. Be okay learning again because if you knew everything, you wouldn't be here. That's why I had to keep telling myself is that if what was working, I wouldn't be here. And I had to keep telling, especially because I was like, I'm a pharmacist, I'm a fitness person. I have done other nutrition programs. I know everything. Are you going to teach me? And I'm like, oh, okay.

(38:39):

I had a humble pie. It's like just be okay being a student and learning and be excited about it because there's going to be these different little things that happen. Maybe it's lifting a sink, maybe it's just taking your carry on and putting it on the overhead bend without having any help. All these little things are amazing. And then when the inflammation starts going away and your blood pressure goes down or the joint pain goes away or the headaches go away, or all of a sudden the brain fog is gone, you don't even realize how bad you felt until you start feeling good.

Ben Smith (39:08):

And Amy, I want to make a point too, obviously I can just kind of getting a flavor for how you work, even just with your students here and as you coach, just as financial advisors, that people hire us as they go, I don't know everything. I think that's the first step is say, I don't know everything about this thing. I need help. I want to go to an expert that can help me to save time. Whereas I don't want to make mistakes that cause really irreparable harm to myself, which is the same thing I'm sure from a health perspective as it is from a financial lens.

Amy Wilson (39:45):

Absolutely. I always say my financial planners also my therapist right now because what's going on that way too? I talk people off the ledge. It's like, okay, wait a minute, what's going on? How's my body reacting? Why am I doing this? And it's that you need someone beside you. I'm not going to be a babysitter. I'm not going to be the one that says, oh, I can't believe you did that. I'm going to be beside you guiding you and coaching you along the way. Just as I'm sure as financial planners, you're like, okay, this is what you have and if this is what you want to get here, these are the steps that you need to take.

Ben Smith (40:18):

Exactly. And it is not to judge along the way. And then as you saying, you're not kind of berating them for bad decision. You're saying, okay, well this happened. How do we proceed forward to get you back? Or how do we get the best outcomes possible? So again, I want to be a great golfer. I'm not a great golfer, but I hire a coach. It is like I want to be trained. So if I need help in fitness, I'll go hire a trainer. And it feels like all those areas of your life, whatever you want to put value towards that, there's a lot of importance to this kind of thing of coaching. And I wanted to make a plug for obviously your website, Amy K. Wilson. You can reach out to you there and find you on socials. And it's just kind of finding your personality and finding the person that you feel jives well with you is more as important as everything else. So I want to push that up there too.

Amy Wilson (41:11):

Exactly.

Curtis Worcester (41:12):

Well Amy, again, so we've reached kind of the tail end here of the show. I do have one question left for you. It's going to be a little different than the questions we've been asking you. So I want to warn you, obviously again, the name of our show are all about retirement success. I want to ask you, Amy, how are you going to find your own retirement success when the time comes?

Amy Wilson (41:35):

Okay, I haven't announced this yet. Okay, uhoh breaking news. We're moving. So I'll tell you that I'm a frugal person. I save, save, save, save, save. I have a hard time spending, so this is very hard for me right now. And I'm sure you have clients that way too. It's like your whole life, you're like, come on. That's very, very hard for me. It's extremely hard. We are going to move to Costa Rica.

Ben Smith (42:07):

Wow. Oh, fabulous.

Amy Wilson (42:09):

It's incredible.

Ben Smith (42:10):

We

Amy Wilson (42:10):

Bought a house, we close next month and I will eventually, I'm going to still coach, so don't worry. That's the beauty about being a virtual coach. I have clients all over the world, all over the United States and I actually, I am excited Toll be coaching full time and retiring from pharmacy.

Ben Smith (42:28):

Wow,

Curtis Worcester (42:28):

Congratulations. Well congrats.

Amy Wilson (42:30):

My heart's beating. I haven't announced that to,

Curtis Worcester (42:32):

So retirement success is Costa Rica. We got it. That's the answer. We got it. No, that's incredible.

Amy Wilson (42:38):

And keep coaching people to get healthy and stay out of the nursing home so they can do something like this.

Ben Smith (42:43):

Yeah. Oh, that's awesome. Well, I think that's the first time we've had breaking news as part of the success. That's pretty cool. But Amy, thank you so much for coming on our show today. This is such a fun conversation to have. And again, kind of good to blend your personality with these functions in these areas is it's really important to hear. And I know our population, this is top of mind a lot and I know that this is going to be a key library piece for us going forward. So thank you so much for coming on our show. We really appreciate it.

Amy Wilson (43:18):

I love being here. Thank you so much.

Ben Smith (43:20):

Alright, take care. So episode 1 0 9, Amy K. Wilson. Again, kind of interesting, I got a wife that's in the pharmacy world, so kind interested to hear kind of the intersection there on obviously medication, nutrition, fitness, all that. And again, what's pretty cool about the people that come on the show is there's usually a little bit of a coaching component on the side of what they do. So you get a little feel of maybe that's something that you struggle with and need help with. And you can go to their website and check it out. So in this case, amy k wilson.com. You can also just look up the nutrition coach pharmacist. Again, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, all that. And just have a blog and email newsletter you can send up for. So that can alert you there. But we are going to have all those links on our website as well, our blog. So if you go to blog dot guidance point llc.com/ 1 0 9 for 109 and you can find all that information there, transcript. Listen to the audio part right there. We'd love to have you. If you have any suggestions or things you want to contribute, just let us know. Again, go back to the early part, you can drop us a line and find us on socials there. But thank you so much for tuning in. Hope you got something out of today. We sure did, and we'll catch you next time.

Outro (44:47):

Ladies and gentlemen, you've just listened to an information filled episode of the Retirement Success in Maine podcast. While this show is about finding more ways to improve your retirement happiness guidance point, advisor's mission is to help our clients create a fulfilling retirement. We do financial planning so that people can enjoy retirement and align their monetary resources to their goals. If you are wondering about your own personal success, we invite you to reach out to us to schedule a 45 minute listening session. Our advisors will have a conversation with you about your goals, your frustrations, and your problems. Make sure you check out guidance point advisors on our blog, Facebook and LinkedIn, and you can always check out more episodes of this podcast on iTunes and Spotify. And of course, keep on finding your retirement success.