Carol, a participant in our Coaching Program, shares her inspiring journey. She discusses significant lifestyle changes that have dramatically improved her rheumatoid arthritis symptoms.

We discuss in this interview:

• How Carol experienced severe pain and limited mobility when diagnosed but has since made incredible progress
• Working with a coaching program, and the benefits of professional support and a supportive community
• The crucial role played by exercise and diet in Carol’s transformation, helping to reduce food sensitivities and improve joint health
• Gradually expanding diet to include a variety of nutritious, plant-based foods
• Hanging exercises and yoga to enhance strength and mobility
• How Carol successfully tapered off methotrexate, with her energy levels increasing significantly afterward
• The importance of functional exercises and incorporating movement into daily activities for physical and mental health
• The value of support from family and the motivation she received from various success stories

Clint – If you have rheumatoid arthritis and you want to listen to a story about having a recovery where inflammation is way down, and in fact, someone has less pain off their medications, than what they did have on their medications using 100% lifestyle strategies. Well, you’re in the right place because today I’m interviewing Carol. She did our coaching program over a six-month period, and she’s got a tremendous story to share, and she’s going to go into all the details with us on this episode. So Carol, welcome.

Carol – Thank you.

Clint – Let’s let’s kick off with a before and after. How bad were you, and how are you now?

Carol – Um, when I first was diagnosed, I was pretty bad. My hands were so painful that at nighttime I couldn’t sleep, I actually always had to have a hot water bottle. If that didn’t help, I had to get up and put my hand in the freezer just so I would feel no pain because I was scared to take medication as well, just Panadol. And now I’m just, I’m fine. I wake up in the morning and my hands, I can make fists. I mean, I’m not not, you know, not 100%, but I’m fine. I basically can do everything and can open bottles, um, cut things, crochet, knitting, anything. So major difference, major difference. Yeah. Really happy.

Clint – Amazing. So we’re going to go into deep all about your story. And I want to know exactly what you did. Okay. And just to set the scene here, Carol started working with us with a discovery call where we talked about how we might be able to help her. Sounded like a good fit, and so the two of us went on a journey together. She got help from not just myself, our medical doctor, physical therapist, psychology as well, and connected with the entire group of people on the same journey as her. And here we are now, celebrating what we set out to achieve originally. Let’s get you so healthy that you need the least amount of external interventions in terms of supplements and medications and so on. And that’s what we’re going to go into. So that’s the journey that she’s taken. So to put this into context as to how this all came about. So Carol, when you started with us, you were on methotrexate. Set the scene at that point, please.

Carol – I was, I was diagnosed in October 2023. I broke my humerus and I was going well with recovery physio, but I noticed I couldn’t close this hand. So, long story short, I see a chiropractor, a hand therapist, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid, um, and I was actually relieved because I was afraid I would had MS not realizing that I won second prize. And, um. Yeah. What were we on about again? Oh, yeah. So I went to see the rheumatologist wanted to put me on medications. At the same time, I started googling a lot of stuff online as you do the Facebook help groups and all that. And that was just so horrible, that was just the future was so bleak. And I thought, no, it has to be something else. So I started looking other things came across your video, which totally resonated with me straight away. Um, but at the same time, I knew because I my CRP was 110, which was very, very high. So I had a thought, as you said, to, in one of your videos, you know, major things get inflammation down. So I thought, I’ll take the methotrexate and the prednisone and but they’re also going to do the program at the same time. And I did I watched a lot of podcasts. And um, they were very, very inspiring to me. They were, um, light at the end of the tunnel. And also, um, should I go on?

Clint – Yeah. Continue.

Carol – Yeah, because the things you said and your diet and exercise, the grounding, the barefoot walking made so much sense to me because I have been intermittent fasting by then for about a year, feeling really good. My inflammation was really high, but I think in relation my symptoms were not as bad as a lot of the other people I saw, like I was, I felt horrible, I felt like my body had been ripped apart and put together the wrong way, you know, like vice. But I didn’t have the terrible pains and the swelling and all that. So I thought, well, maybe that’s because already I’m a vegetarian. Maybe I was already doing exercises every day to get my shoulder better, but doing a lot of yoga and walking barefoot. And it’s like, maybe those things I’m already doing, I already have those in place and that sort of is already helping me, you know? But I knew I had to go a couple of steps further to actually really try to conquer this somehow.

Carol – So I started the program. I remember I had a look yesterday what really inspired me was the story of Roger, if you remember, he was a South African guy, a young guy who was a really bad went on a two-week fast, et cetera, et cetera. I thought, I’m not going to do that. So I did a five-day fast and I just stuck to it, I stuck to the diet and the plan religiously. I went on like that for a couple of couple of months, and I have slowly, slowly had less pain. I had the prednisolone started at 15mg. I had to taper down to nothing, and in nine weeks, I think, I did that. I didn’t really even think much about it; it was something I had to do, so I did it. I never increased my methotrexate because, I realized I found out that a lot of my flares were very emotional, like caused by emotional things. And the methotrexate scared the hell out of me because they said you have to stay out of the sun, I absolutely love the sun. You can lose your hair, well, that would have been, you know, a disaster for me. So I thought, I’m just going to stay on 10 mg and see how I go, which I did.

Clint – That was ten milligrams of methotrexate tablet dose.

Carol – Yeah, nothing else really. I took some Ayurvedic pain pills for inflammation, and they helped my daughter find me some that were really good. Mainly, I try to manage the pain with hot water bottles, you know, old fashioned hot water bottles. And I was already doing, looking at your video, little finger flicks and all that, and I could tell that it was helping, I could sleep at night, I wasn’t consumed by pain. I just felt stiff and restricted in a lot of ways. But I knew it was going to be a long journey. And all those podcasts some people have, like within four weeks, they, you know, some people take a year to get better. So I thought, well, maybe it’s going to take a long time for me. So by October, I thought, I needed more help. I really need more help because you feel very alone with this disease. I think I did and didn’t know anybody who had it. And because I lost the weight, everybody was saying, oh, you look so good. So. Yeah great, you should know what my life is like, you know, I mean, it’s very hard because you’re constantly making food basically, and doing, trying to do the exercises. And, you know, as I said, making a smoothie or making a juice, all these things, it’s actually really, really hard when your hands are not working properly. So it takes everything, takes a lot of time. So a joint job, support program in October, and that was great. I felt I’m not the only one, you know, not that that’s a good thing you don’t wish on anybody, but you felt less alone and you thought, oh, those people know exactly what it’s like. So I got a lot of good information, I got the hang ons were one of the best things that you mentioned, that helped me so much. I never thought I could do it. The exercise regime, like the Bulgarian split.

Clint – Yeah. What we did, didn’t we, is we went through a comprehensive review of everything that you were doing at that time. And so, yes, there’s a legacy program, an old program, which is the do it yourself where you’re working through and trying to get on top of things. But at the time, you still had symptoms, you still are on the methotrexate, and we needed to expand your diet. So we had to get a lot more diversity in your diet so that you could eat all the delicious things that we want to get to, like burritos and curries and nuts and seeds, avocado, all this sort of stuff we wanted to get that into your diet. And then we also wanted to put on several kilograms of muscle because you were underweight, and we needed to improve your grip strength and get pain out of some joints that were still active, even with the methotrexate in place. And you were very, very tired. So we have we had those sort of four things, maybe some other bits and bobs, and then we just rolled up our sleeves and got to work. And it took time to expand your foods.

Carol – Yeah.

Clint – It took time to expand your foods. Yeah.

Carol – I was very scared, very, very cautious, and there are still some things I don’t eat yet, but that’s fine. Like, I still don’t have the oats yet, but I put them in my breads. I make these breads with seeds and everything, and I put oats in there. So I’m microdosing and I think it’s fine, you know, because I get so much other stuff in me. And I have this lovely quinoa flakes porridge in the morning that’s really, really nice, too. Where were we?

Clint – Okay, so let’s provide some help to people who are listening or watching and they think, okay, so what exactly did you do? So let’s talk about the diet. So at the time you’re eating a whole foods plant based diet when we connect it. Okay. Rolling back six months from today, and the diet was limited. So you had not as much diversity in the diet as what we’re looking for. And maybe I can’t recall right now, but there were maybe some things that we knew weren’t necessarily helpful. And so we needed to maybe modify some of those I’m not sure. Can’t remember the if there were anything outside that we had to take out, or whether or not we just had to add.

Carol – Not so much. I was just very, very cautious. Like, as you said, you start with one pistachio. Next day, two pistachios. I mean, I’m probably overcautious, but, you know, to me, it was worth it, you know?

Clint – Yeah. So we went through that process. From that limited diet, what do your foods look like now? Everyone asks under the YouTube comments. Can you please find out more about your guests, what they’re eating? What does breakfast lunch dinner look like now?

Carol – Well, I said bread. If you would have asked me before I got sick, what’s your favorite meal? It would have been a nice Dutch bread with a Dutch cheese. That would be my absolute favorite meal – bread and cheese. And now I make my own bread, I put Vegemite on it and nutritional yeast. And that’s sort of to me, it’s very close to bread and cheese. So that’s one of my go to things. I always make my breads slice them and put them in the freezer, so I’ve always got bread ready when I need it. Furthermore, I have um, well, curries start with curries and lots of steamed veggies, sweet potatoes. I’m very lucky and happy I can eat regular potatoes. I eat a lot of potatoes, lentils. I love the chana dal that is like the chickpea without you know that that’s so easy and quick to cook. At the moment I just keep expanding my diet, there are so many recipes online. There is basically so much you can do, there’s so much information out there. You can basically remake your favorite dishes without oil and without all the other stuff. You know, instead of sugars, I use dates, I use maple syrup. You know, I make chocolate muffins, you know. It’s it’s really, there is so much information, I’m happy to share some stuff, but, you know, I make nice stuff.

Carol – Now my family is starting to eat it as well. I mean, mashed potatoes, what’s easier than mashed potatoes with a vegetable in it and lentils on the side or chana dal or, um, you can make some sort of sausage breads. And I realized that a lot of the things that you like that taste wise, is just the spices and the herbs is what makes it. So as long as you find out what it is, you can sort of recreate things. And also when you don’t have time to spend in the kitchen every day, so you make a big batch and freeze them. So there’s always something to eat for you. That’s my experience. It’s harder when you go and stay somewhere, you just have to take. I usually take 1 or 2 meals already made. So I’m happy to go then and there. I just add some rice or something. I’m very lucky I can have tea. I have bonsoy soy milk that agrees with me, it has no oil, no sugar in it. So I can have a turmeric later.

Clint – Okay. Awesome. And then to get to this place where you’re able to eat all these different foods, you have used exercise a lot. What we find is that exercise helps to diminish food sensitivities and food intolerances. So as you get stronger, it’s much, much easier to be able to add foods that previously we were reacting to. In addition, of course, to that benefit, there are all of the direct benefits around the joints of increasing strength, increasing range of motion, and so on. Talk to us and help our audience understand the physical therapy side of things that you did.

Carol – Well, I realized that, I said to hang on. So that was the biggest the first eye opener. I’m like, oh, I’m hanging. Oh, I feel this power, you know, going through my arms and my hands. So I realized that if I wake up in the morning and I’m a bit like, you know, I just got I’ve got a bar outside in the tree and sometimes I just the first thing I do in the morning I go and hang and I feel I feel better, I always feel better. And just I’ve followed all the exercises with resistance bands, all the leg exercises, it definitely helps. I mean, you always feel better after exercise. You know, I mean it’s it works. But you have to work at it, it doesn’t happen by itself. But it’s so worth it, you know? And to me, it’s very it’s always whatever it is, it always has to be very important that you can do things yourself. You know that you’re in charge. So you take charge of that, and you just do it.

Clint – Yeah. Without having to, I don’t know, ask permission or to drive somewhere and have access to a building or you can just do everything at home, which you’ve done. You’ve done everything at home. I think you’ve been really humble here. Your transformation has been amazing. Can you talk about before you like you can now hang for what? A dead hang feed off the ground. How long can you do that for now?

Carol – Minutes. A minute. You know, it varies every day. I just yesterday, two days ago, I went to a gym because it’s a beautiful new gym here in Byron. And I tried all the machines, so I have to talk to Carl. Do you know what I can actually use? And I’m looking forward to actually have a assisted chin up, I’m very excited about that. Before that, I just jumped on the bike in the morning, stayed there for an hour, do the stretching, do the exercises. I used to love yoga, and that’s slowly coming back. Like, every day I have this checklist, can I do child pose? Yes. Can I do camel pose? Yes. Can I do this? Yes. I try to expand on that, so every day, not every day, it takes a long time, it doesn’t happen overnight. But I can do more and more like standing splits, that’s what I do. And now my resistance bands, I think I’ve come to the limit of those, so I have to join a gym. And I wasn’t looking forward to it, but it looked pretty good, it looks pretty good, you know. Yeah.

Clint – That’s very exciting, so I like the word graduation here. So you graduate through the eating plan until you can get to these foods that everyone wants to eat, like nuts and avocados and seed. Right. And you’ve graduated through all that can be done at home with resistance cables. And you’re now heading to the gym. So this is progress upon progress. And what I love about the exercises that you are doing and that we provide is that there’s no limit to it. So I have just come now before this episode where before we’re sitting here, I’ve just come from the gym and I do the same exercise sequence, I just add more weight. I’m adding as much weight as my muscles can handle, whereas it used to be as much weight as my joints could tolerate. And now I’m just like anyone else. It’s now it’s about just can’t do anymore because the muscles can’t do it because you’re physically at your maximum strength. And so that’s what awaits you now at the gym. And rather than being a little afraid or reluctant, it’s as you said, it’s exciting, it’s a wonderful opportunity.

Carol – Oh, definitely. Yeah. And another thing I might say, but Carl said that, functional exercise he talked about, like, you’re doing something that has an outcome. Like I go around sweeping the yards and then picking it up with a dustbin and then, so you have to bend over and do it. Just cleaning and I do a lot of crochet and knitting for my hands, and I realized that really, really, it really helps, you know, really, really helps to actually do something that you, um, apart from the exercise, you see a result as well, like the, the, the place gets cleaner or whatever. And I listen to a podcast, and I look forward to it. Even before that, you know, music, music helps to, you feel bad, you put some music on, and you dance. Even if you can move a little bit, just dance, you know, just let yourself be guided by music, as it were, you know? And I mean, all those things help.

Clint – I do the same thing. If I’m going to wash the dishes and I look and I’m like, oh my gosh, we really do have a family of five. I’ve got so much to do, it’s going to take me 45 minutes. I will find something to listen to or sometimes I even just watch something with the earbuds in, and I’ll set the little phone in front of the sort of position where I do the dishes. I’ll collect everything, put it all in one place, and then completely just drift off into some form of of audio or visual while I’m doing it, subconsciously, and it makes it enjoyable. But you, again, you’re not giving me enough for people to feel like they can do this too. I want you when you tried to do the hanging, you couldn’t take your feet off the ground first.

Carol – No, I couldn’t, I couldn’t.

Clint – Was it hands, shoulders, wrists or elbows. What was or just strength. What was it?

Carol – Everything, everything like I couldn’t, I was lucky I could stretch them out. I’ve always had my legs, always have been a lot stronger than my upper body. Like I could never, you know, I could never do it as a child. But now I feel stronger than I’ve ever felt. No way I would have thought I can do the monkey bars, no way. But you know, I can, you know. Like the grip, this grip, I couldn’t even do this. I couldn’t even hold them, you know? And now I can actually hold myself up now. And also, maybe that might be helpful to, I don’t know if I can say this, I’ve always been taking laxatives basically all my life, you know, or all my life as a teenager. And now I’m just sort of I’m like a normal person, a regular. It took a while, it took about 4 or 5 months to get that normal. And I think that makes a huge difference, like I had to have cigarettes and I had to have black coffee. No, I mean, I don’t smoke anymore, obviously, but I’ve got no excuse, no excuse at all to do things like that. So. Yeah, I think I’m healthier than before it sounds ridiculous, but I am healthier than before. Like, my cholesterol is halved. I feel great, I’m old, but I feel great. I feel like I could take boxing. I want to go study things, I want to go to the gym, I’m going to go out, I want to dance. I feel great.

Clint – Yeah. It’s awesome. We’re going to talk about the methotrexate in a minute and how you came off that methotrexate. You feel great, how’s mental health? Talk about how the mind and emotions change as the pain starts to go away and future looks better gradually.

Carol – Yeah. Um, pain can have an enormous effect on your well-being, how you feel. I feel a lot better obviously.

Clint – Maybe you’ve already answered it by saying that now you want to go and do things. The discovery calls that we do with people who are interested in getting our help often we will say, where would you like to be in six months from now? And they just say, ah, I just want to get out of pain. And we’re like, okay, sure, we can help you.

Carol – Yeah.

Clint – But beyond that, like I say, like we want to get excited about your journey too. Like, is there somewhere you’d like to go, a trip you’d like to do, someone you’d like to visit? Maybe. Do you want to pick up your grandkids something you can’t do at the moment? Yeah. Sometimes people can’t even think that far ahead, they’re in so much pain.

Carol – Well, the funny thing is, like, it’s with childbirth, you know, you forget about pain. I know that may sound silly, but you forget about the pain. You know, I was looking back through my notes and every day pain here, pain that. Oh, I wish I had a pain-free day. I forgot about the pain, it’s ridiculous, but I knew it was there because it’s written. I wrote it down, but, you know. I mean, that’s great in a way. I’m sorry I can’t help you more, but, um. Yeah. I don’t have to think like, oh, I can’t go on that walk because halfway, I know I’m going to have to sit down because I’m in so much pain. You know, it’s. I just do it. I just do two things now.

Clint – Awesome okay let’s talk methotrexate. So, just to reframe this, because some people might be new to these conversations that we have on this podcast. Our mission is never to make the absolute priority to get off a drug. The priority is always to achieve maximum health, and it is a little bit of a challenge for some people to understand. But when we have raging RA symptoms, that’s a sign of ill health. We have ill health in the bowel, we have ill health with our antioxidant systems, and we have ill health with our nervous system. Those are out of balance, that’s not healthy. Once we rebalance those, we then can restore proper functionality in those areas and we have dramatically less pain. So that was our mission is to get maximum health and then as a side effect, now we’re going to or as an outcome if you like a trophy if you like, but not the original mission, you get to require less medication in your case. How did this discussion come up with the rheumatologist, if at all, and how did you taper it? What happened as you were tapering it? Or did you just stop it? And of course, I know a lot of these answers because I’ve worked closely with you, but just share with the group your journey with the drug, how it made you feel, and all the other answers to those earlier questions.

Carol – Well, my rheumatologist wasn’t open to any diet; he was not. You know, I thought I was going to impress him but he wasn’t interested at all. Basically, you know, I said, that’s your opinion, I have my own opinion, it’s my life. So I started to get all these gut pain here and I didn’t know what it was. And then we realize with all the blood work that my liver, the ALT, was really rising. So I thought that that’s what it is, because I had this gut pain for a couple of months and couldn’t work out what it was. Remember, I had things done and all that and I thought maybe that’s it. And the gut pain is more painful than any RA symptoms I have which was ridiculous. And that can come from methotrexate, that’s why you have to check it all the time. So come Christmas last year, I got shingles and but at that time, I already asked my GP. She gave me methotrexate in two and a half pills so I could taper off because I was determined to taper off. And she was fine with that, she’s not a rheumatologist, but she was more open to my opinions and the way I wanted to do things. So, anyway, I got shingles, I’ve got a Eustachian in my ear, my hearing was gone, so I thought, oh, my God, my body is just falling apart. You know, my immune system is totally shut. I couldn’t get in to see a doctor here because it’s holiday time, it’s very, very busy. And going to the hospital, talk to the people there. And anyway, long and short of it, I just decided I’m going to stop the methotrexate, that’s it I’m not going to take it anymore and just see what happens. And within 2 to 3 weeks, the pain was gone and I felt so much better. Like I didn’t have that every night at 9 -00, you just crash because you’re just so tired. And my kids came over for a visit and actually, I was running on the beach with my grandchildren. They’re like, oh wow, look at, I felt so much better within 2 to 3 weeks. And um, that’s it I haven’t looked back since, you know, I haven’t taken any medication since then and, um. Yeah.

Clint – Did you notice any symptom increase after coming off it?

Carol – No.

Clint – No, but you just noticed massive amounts of energy come back.

Carol – Yeah. Lots of energy, and also I think I wasn’t scared about the sun. I mean, taking that drug it’s very scary for people, you know, even if it’s a very even though it’s a very low dose, it’s scary. I mean and I think that was affecting me a lot. No, maybe there is not a drug that I can take or whatever, but you know, I think every drug would have some side effects. And at the moment, I mean, of course I’ve still got RA, I’m not perfect, but I can manage it very well this way. And I hope I will be able to do that for a very long time because it’s like you have it in your own hands, like, oh, I’ve got a pain here. I’ve got to work at it. I’m gonna, you know, I mean, that’s what it’s like for me, I’ve got to fight, it’s a fight. But at the moment I’m winning, and in that sense I intend to keep on winning.

Clint – And you’re about to take things up another notch. That’s the thing we constantly want to be on the offense non-stop. We’re winning. Let’s crush it. We’re crushing it. Let’s crush it harder. That’s the mindset. Because we know that the moment we become complacent, we’re opening the opportunity for a little niggle here, a little symptom there, which we want none of. But whilst we’re pushing, we’re winning. So how long has it been now since you’re off the methotrexate?

Carol – Well this Christmas, Christmas last year. So that’s six months. Yeah.

Clint – Six months off the drug. What’s it like when you get out of bed in the morning? Describe how the joints feel, what your outlook is like, and your general outlook for the day.

Carol – My hands are a bit like not 100%, but as I said, I can make a wrist first thing in the morning, which I couldn’t do beforehand. Um, I just got out of bed. Um. I’m fine. I’m fine. If I feel anything, sometimes I just go and hang, and I’ll instantly feel better. And I’ll jump on the bike, do the exercises, have breakfast. I don’t work but I’m always working myself basically. I do all the things I have to do, and I spend about 2.5 hours exercising every day altogether. But it’s enjoyable, you know? I don’t resent it. I mean, better you spend an hour? Sitting at a cafe or an hour exercises? I know, but I would prefer. I feel fine. I really, really feel fine. Yeah.

Clint – Yeah, it’s a lot of exercise.

Carol – There’s a lot of exercise.

Clint – I reckon you could get away with less if you wanted to, but it does really sound like you enjoy it.

Carol – I do when I’m with my grandchildren, I obviously do less, you know, a lot less because I don’t have to bike there. And but then again, you do other things, you know, we dance with the grandchildren and things like that. And, um, yeah, I should do maybe try to do a little bit less sometimes so that there’s room for other things in my life as well. But then again, beforehand, before I got sick, I would easily spend two hours doing yoga and stretching, and it was really enjoyable to me.

Clint – Yeah, it’s kind of what you do. You like it.

Carol – And I take my dog for a walk on the beach and it’s just it’s what I like. I’m lucky, I consider myself really lucky. I live in a nice warm climate at the moment, but a warm climate, nature around me. I’m lucky. I consider myself very lucky.

Clint – Your husband. When we first did the discovery call, he popped in and sat down for a minute. You guys had a chat about if you wanted to do this. I remember providing him with great certainty that things were going to be good for you, And how is he now? I haven’t seen him since then. He hasn’t wandered past the zoom call or anything. And any of the group calls that we’ve done over the, you know, 26 weeks or something together. How does he describe to friends and family how you are when you get brought up?

Carol – I think he’s very proud of me. He was, I think, a bit sceptical in the beginning, but I thought, no, I really have to do this, I have no choice I have to do this. Okay. But now he realizes like how big a fight it was really. That I stuck to it and he’s really proud of me, I think. I hope so. My family’s been great, my daughter, my son, and my grandchildren. Can you can you bend over now? Yes, I can. You know, I just yeah. No, it was everybody been really helpful and supportive.

Clint – Amazing. Have we missed anything, Carol? Is there anything that we should discuss that you feel is important for everyone to know about reversing symptoms of this condition?

Carol – Well, as I said, the hang on’s Bulgarian splits, the exercises I think are not a story. I remember seeing the banana brothers, the podcast about the. I think they had Crohn’s disease. After that I started eating banana really slowly, like I have at least 2 or 3 bananas in my green smoothie every day. And I think that made a big difference, for my stomach. Carl is great, he’s been so helpful. I haven’t been able to attend his sessions before because of the time difference, but he’s so helpful and so much information. It’s just like, right? Also, I want to mention Lisa, that story that sort of helped me a lot, too. I used to watch all the podcasts and it just pick things out like, oh, I’m going to try this, I’m going to try that. And then you just see if it helps. Taking vitamin D, taking a lot of vitamin D, realizing that it’s not a harm, that it’s actually it’s a hormone, is it? Anyway that it sort of doesn’t store in your body, even though, you know, we have the sun and all that. But I think that made a difference. I didn’t make that list, the wish list, I didn’t do that until much later because I thought, oh, I have airy fairy. Sorry. But once I did it and I wrote things down, Actually, things started to improve. And now if I go down the list now there’s a lot of things I can tick off. You know, one of the things is that I don’t have to think about it all the time. Like, I’m not somebody who has RA and is managing it. I don’t feel like a patient. I’m so sick of being a victim or a patient. There is space in my life for other things. And that’s what you want, isn’t it?

Clint – Absolutely, absolutely. That’s a huge one. Because when we’re trying to get well, sometimes it’s all we do. It’s all we think about, and every little setback feels like a catastrophe. And we can then get into a real slump. And so when we get out of that, we’re starting to do things like you’re doing your crocheting, you’re spending time with the kids, you’re walking the dog, probably not thinking about health whatsoever during these times.

Carol – No, no.

Clint – And you get that mental break so that when you go back to your exercise or eating, whatever it might be that reminds you that you’re doing this for a health reason. You’ve had that piece and it’s like, okay, now I’m I’m back doing this, but I’ve had a mental break. So that’s massive. And it’s a real indicator of success too, because when you forget that you’ve had it for chunks, sometimes hours.

Carol – You do. Yeah you do. And that’s great. You know that’s that’s yeah. That’s great.

Clint – Awesome. Well, thanks for spending some time with me today and recapping all you’ve been working on and all the achievements that you’ve had over the last six months. And it’s been absolutely awesome to be able to get to know you and all of the ups and downs.

Carol – Thank you, you saved my life, you know what I mean? But I knew as soon as it was finished. That’s it. I have to do this. You know, I have to do this. And sometimes. Yeah, it can be very. I’m very easygoing, but at the same time, when I make up my mind, I’m going to be very stubborn. And I think you have to be a little bit to do this program. You know, you really have to commit to it, you know?

Clint – No doubt about that.

Carol – I see it as a fight. A fight and I’m winning, and that’s it.

Clint – Amazing. Well, thanks, Carol, and maybe one day I’ll meet you in person up there in Byron. Obviously, everyone in the world wants to go to Byron Bay, home of the Hemsworth’s of Marvel fame, Thor and, uh, and all of the beauties and health retreats and yoga and great food and vegan movement and beaches and climate. I mean, it’s a gorgeous part of the world. So, yeah. Um, maybe we’ll get up there one day again. My wife certainly would be, would be keen.

Carol – Definitely. Jump in.

Clint – All right. Thanks, Carol. Appreciate it very much. Bye for now.

Carol – Thank you.