Episode 196 – Unstoppable Balanced Performance Professional with Dr. Susan Lovelle

I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Susan Lovelle through Facebook. While I got to know her a little during our initial conversation I had no idea of how many great and universally usable life suggestions and observations she would provide us all during our episode that you now get to explore. Susan knew from the age of six years old that she wanted to be a doctor. However, along the way she also discovered ballet and was a professional ballet dancer for nearly 17 years. As Susan explains, any kind of such an activity as ballet takes a toll on the body. Near the end of her ballet career she ended up being in the hospital intensive care unit three times. She then began to realize that something had to change.

She remembered her interest in being a doctor and went back to become a physician. After experiencing many rotations she settled on becoming a plastic surgeon. I leave it to her to tell you the whole story.

After working in plastic surgery for 20 years she decided she needed to go in a new direction and became a life medicine professional. Dr. Susan covers popular topics that directly affect productivity and well-being, from work-life balance strategies to the significance of self-care. She emphasizes the impact of personalized nutrition, sleep, and hormones on productivity and energy levels, while also offering effective stress reduction techniques to cultivate a more balanced life.

Our discussion is quite straight forward, down to earth and full of ideas we all can use. Dr. Susan has quite an engaging persona about her which will, I am certain, draw you in. I hope you enjoy her observations.

About the Guest:

Dr. Susan Lovelle, a former plastic surgeon, is the Founder of Premiere Wellness and Balanced Performance, offering all-in-one lifestyle health solutions for busy professionals and innovative companies. She specializes in boosting their personal energy, optimizing weight, and balancing hormones to unlock peak performance in every aspect of life.

Dr. Susan covers popular topics that directly affect productivity and well-being, from work-life balance strategies to the significance of self-care. She emphasizes the impact of personalized nutrition, sleep, and hormones on productivity and energy levels, while also offering effective stress reduction techniques to cultivate a more balanced life.

Her unique gift is to inspire audiences to prioritize their well-being and embrace a lifestyle that nourishes them holistically throughout each of the 1440 minutes in their day.

Dr. Susan has been featured on The Doctors, the docu-series Exhausted, Lifetime TV, Forbes, KNOW Women, and Good Morning Washington. Her book, Thrive! The Five-Week Guide to Mastering Your Energy At Any Age is available on Amazon.

Ways to connect with Dr. Susan Lovelle:

Phone: 919-925-5910
Email: drlovelle@premierewellness.com

https://ww.premierewellness.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/drsusanlovelle/

https://www.facebook.com/premierewellnessdrsusan

https://www.instagram.com/premierewellness_

About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.

Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.

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Transcription Notes

**Michael Hingson ** 00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I’m Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that’s a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit
www.accessibe.com
to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we’re happy to meet you and to have you here with us.

**Michael Hingson ** 01:21
Well, hi once again, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. And we’re recording this in later in 2023. But this is going to appear to you in 2024. Can you believe it? It’s been two and a half years since unstoppable mindset began in August of 2021. Geez. Well, anyway, we are so glad you’re here. And today we’re talking with Dr. Susan Lovelle. And Susan is the founder of Premier wellness, which is changing its name to advance performance, balanced performance. And she’ll have to tell us why she’s changing the name. But I see that happening all the time. My blindness was caused by something that used to be known as retro lento fibrodysplasia. And somewhere on the line, they changed the name to retinopathy of prematurity, and I got it, that’s fine. But gee, I loved retro retro Fibro pages. So I still don’t know why they changed the name, but I’m sure they’ll say it was more accurate. And who knows what, but people send up to change names. What do you do? Anyway, we are so glad that you’re all listening. And Susan, we are very grateful that you’re here with us today.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 02:34
I’m excited to be here. Thank you so much, Michael.

**Michael Hingson ** 02:37
After that long dissertation about grousing about name changes. Well, why don’t we start by I love to do it this way. Why don’t you tell us some about some of the early Susan growing up and all that sort of stuff?

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 02:52
Oh, goodness, I

**Michael Hingson ** 02:53
know. Does that take back memories? Or what does? It

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 02:57
does? Well, I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. And before we left in the 2020, no 2002, we lived in four out of the five boroughs, both my husband and I, but grew up in Brooklyn and loved it. I knew though at the age of six that I was going to be a doctor because I used to have a sore throat all the time. And so whenever I didn’t want to go to school, I would say, Oh, my throat hurts and it was always read. And so they take within a doctor, the doctor will say yeah, she’s got, you know, the sore throat, and I got to stay home. But I also fell in love with my pediatrician. And I told him at the age of six that I was going to be a doctor. And he said at that time, okay, when you’re ready, you come back and literally 20 plus years later, when I decided to go to medical school, I went back he was still in practice. And he actually wrote me a letter to get me into medical school. So I think that a lot to do with me getting in. Wow. Yeah. Nice to have friends. Yes, yes, it was. But in between six years old and going to medical school, I was a professional ballet dancer for 17 years. And that was because Saturday mornings, I used to get up and watch television and watch cartoons all day. And my mom was like, oh, no, no, no, this is not what you’re doing. You’re going to be doing something of value. And so she started taking me to dance classes. And I fell in love with ballet. And I ended up with the Dance Theatre of Harlem traveled the world with them to Europe, the Caribbean all over across the United States. And it was a total of 17 years that I danced professionally. Wow. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, anything hard on the body dancing is sports, our you know, professional sports, anything like that. You can’t do it forever. And so it got to the point where I knew I wanted to do something else and I remembered Medicine. And so that’s when I decided to take all my classes. You know all the pre med classes that I needed and went back and got that letter and went to Columbia medical school in New York City. Dropped

**Michael Hingson ** 05:13
the sore throat excuse.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 05:14
I did I did.

**Michael Hingson ** 05:19
That, that is pretty cool. And so you went off to medical school? Well, before we get there, have to ask since you’ve lived in for the five Bureau boroughs? Yes. Where are the best bagels? Oh,

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 05:32
definitely Manhattan. H H and H bagels. That was that was at least what I was there. That was where you went. They used to have lines around the corner for H and H bagels. Loved

**Michael Hingson ** 05:43
nowhere, whereas H and H I have? Well, they’re

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 05:47
usually on street corners. I mean, they may I think they had one store where like I said the line would be around the block. But they would also sell them on like these little stands will be on the corner and you would just get this spectacular bagel off of cart. They were just amazing.

**Michael Hingson ** 06:07
I will have to get back there sometime and see if they’re still around. Now I’m intrigued. I used to get Einstein Brothers Bagels in New York. Yes. Yeah, we visited Salomon Brothers and when they were still around and and so we went to Einstein, of course, part of the issue was they were fresh, which is really what helps the the flavor.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 06:29
Oh, yeah, you got to get them like right out of the you know, right out of the office.

**Michael Hingson ** 06:33
We used to when I was growing up go to a bakery in Palmdale, California where I grew up on Saturday mornings, we would get rye bread literally. So hot out of the oven. They couldn’t put it in plastic wrap. So it came in paper bags. And all that. took it home, put butter on it. And a whole loaf did not last the whole family very long at all. Of course not good. Bread is great. Yeah. And I love to still do that with a bread machine. But so it’s not quite the same, but not bad, either. No, it’s not. And then I also, I buy stuff from a company called Wild grain which makes sourdough products. And they par bake it and then they send it to you frozen in dry ice. So you have to finish cooking it. So you get all the benefits of bread hot out of the oven, which is wonderful. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Well, okay, so you went to medical school? And what did you decide that you were going to focus on in medical school, having been a ballet dancer and all that stuff.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 07:36
It was very interesting, because when I first went, when I went to medical school, I thought I was going to be a neurologist. There are some neurologic things that have been in my family for decades. And so that’s where I started. And then I, when you’re in your third year of medical school, you rotate through all of the different specialties. And I rotated through surgery, and I was like, wow, this is like the best thing ever. And then in the fourth year, you get to try different specialties within surgery. And I, when I did surgery, it was really fun. But there were a lot of sick people. And then I did plastic surgery, I did my plastic surgery rotation. And that was like the ultimate people would come in one way you did their little thing. And then they went out a different way. They were happy, they were healthy, because you couldn’t have plastic surgery if you weren’t healthy. And I just said, this is what I’m going to do for the you know, for my career, and that’s what I did for the next 22 years. Wow.

**Michael Hingson ** 08:40
And, and enjoyed it

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 08:42
and loved it. Loved it. And still, if I could still do just the surgery without all the other stuff. I might still be doing some surgery. What what other stuff? Well, you know, charting and all of the regulations that have changed since when I first wanted to medic medicine. Yeah. It’s changed a lot. Unfortunately.

**Michael Hingson ** 09:03
I’m a fan of old radio shows and listened a lot to Gun Smoke. And of course, doc on Gunsmoke. And you’re right. He never complained about charting and doing all those other sorts of things. Not at all, not at all. a simpler time, as they say was yes, it was. Did you ever do any plastic surgery on anyone who we would all know?

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 09:27
Well, no, there was some that were kind of known in their fields. Let’s put it that way. So yes, yes.

**Michael Hingson ** 09:36
Well, that is kind of cool. Yeah, it is. And, and you enjoyed it. What really made it special for you that made you feel besides the fact that you got to deal with healthy people?

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 09:49
Well, I mean, it was also the other big reason that I went into plastic surgery was because you also rotated I mean, I also rotated through internal medicine, family medicine. And I knew that that wasn’t what I would like to do, because people would come in with a particular condition, say they came in with diabetes or high blood pressure. And you would give them a pill or whatever. And then they would go away. And they would come back the next month, with exactly the same thing going on if they weren’t even worse. And I said, I can’t do that for the rest of my life. I wanted to make changes in people’s lives. And so that was the other main reason that I went into surgery and specifically plastic surgery because I wanted to be able to help people change. And that has so much to do with what I do now. So

**Michael Hingson ** 10:38
you did plastic surgery for 22 years, and I appreciate that. But what What made you change

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 10:45
that into what I do now today, it was actually a first it was a personal change. And so if you can imagine, as a plastic surgeon, you’re busy, you know, you’re in the operating room for hours on end, some of my cases were 368 hours, I think the the record, there was a 24 hour case. So can you imagine it’s this was teens, it was three different teams. But 24 hours, we were working on the sprint, so long cases, very grueling. And for the last two thirds of my career, I was a solo plastic surgeon without any other plastic surgeons nearby, you know, the closest would have been maybe a half hour, 45 minutes, very unlike, say, New York City. And so I was very busy in the operating room all day long. But then especially, you know, a little while ago, and maybe 1015 years ago, I’m still raising my children as well. And so I would operate all day or being seeing patients all day and then come home. And then I was still taking care of my kids because I didn’t want them to suffer because I chose to be a plastic surgeon. So now I’m a soccer mom go into debates and ballgames and things like that. Which would have still been okay, if if I weren’t the only plastic surgeon in the area. And so when you are at two o’clock in the morning, when the child gets bitten by a dog or falls off the table and gets a cut on their face, who are they calling, they call him the plastic surgeon. So now this is me working almost 24/7 Because there’s nobody else to pick up that slack for me. And so it got to be really grueling after a while. And what eventually ended up happening was I no longer was taking care of myself. So I’m taking care of my patients, I’m taking care of my family, but I wasn’t taking care of myself. And that’s something I see a lot with the people I work with today. In me it presented with me being very inflamed, and eventually ending up in the intensive care unit three times in the space of one year. And I tell people, you know that third time, I almost didn’t make it out of the intensive care unit out of the hospital, my I had gotten septic, which is a raging infection throughout your whole body. And there was nobody watching me at the time. And if my husband hadn’t come unexpectedly, to see me later that night, you know, no one would have known and I may have just slipped away. So that was my final wake up call that third time. And that’s what I said something has to change. And you know, initially what I changed was how I was eating, you know, I started eating better, because I had gotten falling into that I’m busy so I don’t have time to cook real meals, just eat junk food. And you know, I had gained about 35 pounds, which on a five foot two woman is a lot of weight. So you know, I started changing how I was eating and then I started moving more I started getting better sleep. And eventually I healed myself for what was going on. And I tried to do this with I wanted to show this to my my patients because this to me was the true transformation. Not just having surgery on the outside, but changing how your body is actually working on the inside. And you know people come in from plastic surgeon surgery don’t necessarily want to change their diets. They just want to have this surgery. And so eventually I switched altogether to lifestyle medicine, which is what I do now.

**Michael Hingson ** 14:32
Where were you practicing plastic surgery that you were the only one in the area?

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 14:36
Ah, the first six years was in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. That is northeast North Carolina. And then we were we had moved out to Wichita, Kansas so I was at a place called Newton which is about a half hour outside of Wichita. And there were no other plastic surgeons. There were some in Wichita but there were nothing new He was about a half hour away. So for that 1015, almost 16 years, I was the only one within at least a half hour. Wow. It was an hour. Yeah.

**Michael Hingson ** 15:11
So being from New York, why did you end up going to North Carolina? And then Kansas? Yeah, yeah,

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 15:17
it was. The first move to Elizabeth City was the year after 911. And for someone who was born and raised in New York City, it, it just the city completely changed. The whole, there was so much tension was almost like it was a police state. And we just didn’t want to raise our children there. And so I think we kind of went a little bit too much in the opposite direction, because when we were in that first place in northeast North Carolina, we were living right next to cornfields. So we went from New York City to living in cornfields in a county that had three traffic lights, 6000 people, and three traffic lights. So that was a bit much. The second move was the year, right around 2008. So we know what happened across the country. And in small, you know, small cities, plastic surgery. Yeah, maybe not as important. Right, exactly, exactly. So we moved to where there was a greater need for us at that point.

**Michael Hingson ** 16:26
Well, when September 11 happened, of course, I was there. And we were up in the tower and got out and stayed. Really not for an inordinately long time. But what happened was other job opportunities came along. We weren’t afraid to be there. So I didn’t get to see. However, I think a lot of the things that you saw on the times that I’ve been back to New York since then, it it changed. But in general, we found it to be a little bit quieter and a little bit more reflective kind of city than it that it had been ahead of time, which is also not a little bit of a surprise.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 17:07
Oh, yes, definitely right after a head was very, very much reflected very quiet. And everything was that later aftermath of honestly, maybe the fear. You know, growing up in New York, I tell people that we left our doors open all day long. In our neighborhood, we didn’t lock our doors, we didn’t shut our doors, kids ran in and out of all of our homes, this thing in New York City, you know, but that’s the way we were raised. And that is not the way it was after 911, it really changed a lot.

**Michael Hingson ** 17:43
I remember, for at least the first month after September 11, Rudy Giuliani was everywhere. And he really did help lift the city up, of course, a lot changed with him over the years, too, which is extremely unfortunate. And he had only kept on the path that he did, but so many people change and, and that’s the other part about it. We allowed fear to overwhelm us collectively. And, and that’s a problem. And now we’re really allowing fear to overwhelm us. And we do so much based on fear rather than really looking at things in a in a more reflective and substantive way where you stand back and look at things now we go, well, this person is clearly in the know and telling us what we need to know. So we’re not going to believe anything else. And that is so unfortunate.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 18:40
It is we’ve we’ve if you look about we’ve collectively stopped using our minds, our individual minds, and we’ve started just being in collectives, you know, the group thinks this, and therefore, I must think that as well. Yeah, it is, as you said, unfortunate.

**Michael Hingson ** 18:58
Yeah, I mean, I look at the economy, and people are saying how bad the economy is, okay. Where’s the evidence of that? We’re spending more than we ever have. Our income is up to above pre pandemic levels. And while some prices are up, basically most things are not and it’s just crazy.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 19:21
Exactly. Well, like you said, it’s that that fear that kind of takes over and it blocks out reason. Good

**Michael Hingson ** 19:30
does. It does, definitely. And and that’s why I started in during the pandemic, and it’s going to come out next year. I’m, I talked a lot about not being afraid, on September 11. And that’s because I learned what to do. I understood the process, and really created a mindset that said, You know what to do in an emergency, and if the building comes down, and Rania, there’s nothing you’re going to be able to do about it anyway. So you might be afraid for that last second before tons of stuff falls on you, but, but you know what to do. And so I was able to escape. And what I’ve realized over the years is I’ve never taught other people how not to be blinded by fear as I describe it. And so we wrote a well, we’re just about done with it a new book, entitled live like a guide dog, which talks about the lessons to learn about fear from my eight guide dogs. And then we also had a breeder dog for guide dogs for the blind to talk, who was also part of the family who became my wife service dog, Karen was in a wheelchair her whole life. And being Fantasia figured out how to fetch things for her and do other things for her. But all of these dogs had so many lessons that I observed and helped me understand how to live and not be afraid, or how to be afraid. But how to use that fear and focus it and not be blinded by it or paralyzed by it or overwhelmed by it, or however you want to say it.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 20:59
Oh, well, I will be looking out for that book.

**Michael Hingson ** 21:03
plan is for it to come out in the July timeframe.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 21:08
Oh, so soon? Yeah. Well, I say that because the years go by so quickly.

**Michael Hingson ** 21:13
I know don’t Yeah, time flies. It does. It does. But But I think that we we really have just allowed fear to completely take away our reason. And it’s so unfortunate that so many people don’t want to think for themselves anymore. And we’re better when we think for ourselves, and really draw conclusions based on solid evidence and real things.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 21:40
Absolutely. Absolutely.

**Michael Hingson ** 21:42
So you went off and you decided that while you had been doing plastic surgery that things were happening to your body. And so that’s what sort of made you decide to change.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 21:53
Yes, that was the that was the beginning. You know, when I had to is metal fact, when I came out of the hospital, the that third time, I was so exhausted, so weak that I had to have a couch, put in my office right next to my exam room. So I used to have my exams at one end of the hall. And then my office would be at the other end of the hall. And so when I was feeling well, I would walk back and forth, you know, in between patients. Well, after that third time, I was so exhausted that I had to have my couch moved to the the office right next to where I saw people, so that all I had to do was walk out of the one office and into the next one out of one room and into the next so that I could sit there and rest before the next patient came in. And that was ridiculous. And so that’s when I knew I had to change what I was doing. Because, you know, it is something that I see in a lot of the executives that I work with a lot of the the people that I work with, where we’re so focused on doing what we do, you know, doing what we love to do, not wanting to stop that when our health starts to suffer. We ignore it until it’s a disaster. You know, some people call it burnout. Some people call it a breakdown, whatever you want to say that your body breaks down, your mind breaks down or both. You know, we keep going until we can’t anymore. And what I want is to get people to understand that we can get ahead of that. We don’t have to wait until it’s it’s a disaster or a bad thing.

**Michael Hingson ** 23:33
All too often it sneaks up on you because it’s happened so slowly. Yeah. And we tend to not be nearly as aware of our bodies as we should be. I remember when Karen became ill in 2014. She had bronchitis. And it kept getting worse. And she said no, it’s going to get better. And I had to actually go out of town and while out of town. It really got worse. And her sister who was a CCU nurse, actually, I called her and said this is going on and she called Karen and listened to her for just a few seconds and said either you call an ambulance and go to the hospital or I will and they she went in and they said it was the fluid first and didn’t do a lot. But they monitored her. So that was on a Saturday and Sunday. Suddenly they had to put her in the ICU intubate her she had double pneumonia and acute respiratory distress syndrome. No. Yeah. Oh my goodness. What what I learned, what I learned is that pneumonia can really sneak up very quickly because I say, Well, you didn’t see any of that Saturday and the doctor said No, it wasn’t there.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 24:49
Wow. Well, yes, it can. It can it can definitely blossom and bloom very quickly. But you know, that’s that’s one of the other things is that it’s You know, you luckily your wife had somebody who could hear her and told her, you know, told her what to do. But a lot of us don’t. And so one of the things that we need to be able to know is what our own bodies, what our own bodies are trying to tell us. They’re feeling well, when they’re working well, and when they’re not. And whether or not then we need to be able to go and get help. But

**Michael Hingson ** 25:22
she wasn’t listening to me, which was unfortunate. But but her sister gave her an ultimatum. But it was so bad. Her lungs were like 90% occluded, and they actually had to use an incubator, and have a peeps level of 39 just to get air into her lungs. Wow. Yeah. And you know, normally that would just explode lungs and badly. But, but she did come out of it. And family then convinced us we should move from Northern California to Southern California. We love Northern California. But we moved to be closer to family. And it’s worked out very well. It’s worked. I was

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 26:02
wondering if there was a difference between the you know, the northern, because the weather is different, too. I didn’t know if that was it? Well,

**Michael Hingson ** 26:07
and we live in a town that’s 20 150 feet above sea level. And so it’s it’s different than like LA because we’re up in what’s called the high desert. So for example, this morning, it was down to 40 degrees. And, and we we we do put up with cold weather.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 26:28
Even in Southern California, I guess, okay, okay. Yeah, it happens. Where we are now in North Carolina. It’s getting into the 40s in the mornings, too. And we’re like, Whoa, this is this is kind of nippy here. Yeah. But that’s okay. To cope.

**Michael Hingson ** 26:44
Well, and, and unfortunately, Karen’s body finally just she was in a wheelchair her whole life. And her body just finally kind of started giving out and we lost her last November 12. So it was a year on Sunday. And as I tell people, she’s still around. And if I don’t behave, I’m going to hear about it. So I try to make sure I’m a good kid. Definitely, definitely. Yeah. But we’re in a house that we built together, we had it made completely accessible. And it’s well insulated. And it’s got solar. So

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 27:18
we do Okay. Excellent. Excellent.

**Michael Hingson ** 27:22
Well, so you, my gosh, you’ve had essentially three careers to a degree, although plastic surgery and life medicine are sort of similar, but you made this jump from belay to medicine, which is a huge thing. And you explain a little bit about that. But tell us more about life medicine, and what that’s really about. And you know, we can we can obviously spend some time talking about that,

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 27:46
Oh, absolutely. I love it, too. So I call it lifestyle medicine, because people will get a better grasp of what I do, it’s changing things in your lifestyle that will help your health. So for instance, it’s changing what you’re eating. And a very simple thing that can help everyone is to eat whole foods, you know, eat foods that you actually recognize in the form that they’re coming. So instead of a processed potato chip that fits all in a can, because they’re all the same size, eating a potato, an actual potato. So that’s like one of the biggest things you can do that will change your change your health. As far as movement, a lot of us think that we have to go to the gym and spend hours in the gym every day. Well, we don’t, we just need to get up and move ourselves. You know, sometimes what we do in Premier wellness, which is now balanced performance, and I’ll tell you why that is the wall in a second. What we do there is just have people move, say every hour, get up in the mood for an hour for a minute or two. And if you do that throughout the day, by the time you get to the end of the day, you have booked yet 30 minutes that is recommended that we all do sleeping more, you know getting your hormones in shape, lowering your stress levels, these are all very simple things that we we kind of pushed to the wayside or they aren’t very important, but they have a huge impact on our health going forward. So that’s lifestyle medicine.

**Michael Hingson ** 29:19
Well, I will admit that I still from time to time eat potato chips. And that’s a good thing. But I can go to Costco, but I can go to Costco and buy a bag of ruffles. And it will last a month to six weeks.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 29:37
Oh my goodness are longer.

**Michael Hingson ** 29:43
Because I love I love to eat more whole foods. I don’t need probably as many like baked potatoes as I should. But I just don’t need that many potatoes in general. But by the same token, I hear exactly what you’re saying. What about things like so Sweet potato fries I hear a lot of people say, Well, they’re they’re healthy. They’re okay. Yeah.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 30:04
So here’s the thing if you’re making them yourself Absolutely, yes. However, if you’re buying them at, you know, like a regular restaurant or something or even frozen in the in the frozen department, they often put additives so that they don’t stick together. So yes, the sweet potato part of it is fine. But what they do to make the fries not stick together in the bag can be not as healthy. So it’s really a matter of reading what the ingredients are, and also the oil that they’re frightened. But we don’t want to go too far down, down, down into the weeds. But different oils have different price, you know, do different things with your body. As far as inflammation. I

**Michael Hingson ** 30:48
use this new oil called airfryer. Yes, yes, exactly. So they’re oxygenated. And I we got an airfryer, about three years ago. And I think actually, for the first time, in four or five months, I actually turned my oven on because I had something that I wanted to do in the oven as opposed to the airfryer just because I thought it wouldn’t fit in the air fire. But I love the air fryer. It’s one of these that does everything from baking to boiling and air and and even air frying. So it is my main say for cooking and love it. Oh,

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 31:26
they’re wonderful. And you use so much less oil and you still get that crunch, which is what I think most of you really want. We don’t necessarily want all of the fat. We just want the crunch.

**Michael Hingson ** 31:36
Yeah. Well, I don’t use any oil when I’m using the airfryer. Cuz I don’t see any any need to do that. Yeah. And it tastes pretty good. It does. It does. But I hear what you’re saying in general. What about things like he teaching people to be more introspective and reflective during the day to one of the things I tell people and we talked about it in the book is about slowing down taking time at the end of the day to think about what happened. Don’t view things as failures or negative view things as learning opportunities. And even the things that you did really well. What could you do better? The things that didn’t go like you thought they should? Why? And what do you do, so that won’t happen again, and take the time to do that every night? Exactly. I

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 32:23
love that, you know, the fact that you actually think about as you’re going through your day. And then when you get to the end of your day, what actually happened. So it’s not just a blur, because we’re just talking about how fast the time goes, how fast the days and the weeks, the months go. And if you’re not doing some of that introspection is gonna fly in pasture. One of the things that I like to say to the people that I work with is I call it Listen, let go and live. So you want to listen to what your body is trying to tell you, you know, just just listening, sitting down. And maybe it means taking some time off going off by yourself. And just listening. Sometimes it means writing things down, someone may not know if a particular food is is irritating them. Well, if you write it down, you can follow pattern. So listening to what your body’s telling you. The second is to let go of whatever isn’t serving you. And that can be hard. If there’s something that we that we just love, or a you know, elbow is not doing our body’s well or not doing well for us, we need to be able to let it go. So whether that’s a food, or sometimes it’s a job, or sometimes it’s even a relationship, just being able to let things go that are no longer serving us. And then the third one is to thrive, the LIS let go and then you live and so you’re going to live your own version of thriving, you know, whatever that is. And I say it is an example I use hot yoga, because I don’t like being hot. I love yoga, but I do not like being hot. And so I’m not going to do hot yoga, I’m just going to let that go and live my own version no matter how many people tell me it’s wonderful for you. So it’s really just a matter of doing the things that are that you enjoy that bring you joy that bring your body health and vitality and life gets better like that just gets better that way. Well

**Michael Hingson ** 34:23
in the reality is that not every single thing works exactly the same way for every single person.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 34:28
Absolutely, absolutely. Yes.

**Michael Hingson ** 34:32
And it’s and it’s important to to again, look and listen to your body and we just don’t know nearly as much as we ought to read out.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 34:42
Yeah, and one of the biggest things you know the the perfect diet because there is no such thing. First of all, we shouldn’t be on diets anyway. But there’s no such thing. It all depends on the person what their body likes what they like and we’re so much Listen to this, well, I only do keto and keto is going to work for everybody or I do paleo or I do vegan, or whatever it is, we get these into these camps where we can’t see what works for other people as well. What works for us, well works for us well, and we shouldn’t be forcing it on anyone else. Yeah.

**Michael Hingson ** 35:21
And we should be open to the fact that if it’s working for someone else, then that should be a good thing, which is kind of the same thing that you’re saying. Exactly. Exactly. Yes, yes. But it’s kind of crazy the way the way we do stuff again, it gets back to not really paying attention to the things around us. Now we know we we I think there are commonalities that are bad as you point out, eating potato chips all the time, or other things like that are not not good for you. I remember a baseball pitcher. Oh, gosh, when did Denny McLain pitch in the 60s? It’s in the late 60s or mid 60s. And one of the things that he was known for was drinking 30 or so bottles of Pepsi every day, which did affect his teeth after a while. Oh, he did win 30 games one year, which is why he was very famous. But still. Danny? Danny drank a lot of Pepsi. I you know, I have just never been much of a soft drink drinker like that.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 36:28
Exactly. Yeah. Well, would you say that I have. I have my my very first client used to drink 25 cans of diet cola every single day. 25 cans so didn’t want her teeth. But it sure didn’t knock her energy out. Because she thought that was the only way that she could make it through the day. So you’re right. We get into these these habits that we think are really helping us. And they don’t necessarily Yeah.

**Michael Hingson ** 36:56
Is this the time to say that I have a friend? Who years and years ago when the LA Rams were first in LA would sit down with a case of beer every Sunday and drink the whole case while he watched the Rams game. Oh, wait, wait case? Yes. 24. Oh, my goodness,

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 37:16
I can’t even make it through. I can much less.

**Michael Hingson ** 37:18
I’ve never liked beer. I love water though. I drink a lot of water during the day. And just I’ve always liked water. And I do drink tea in the morning. But tea and caffeine has never bothered me. But I like a hot drink. And so tea is less in the morning. Yes, right? Yeah. And it has a whole lot less calories than hot chocolate. So I’ll stick with the tea most of the time. Exactly,

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 37:42
exactly. Yeah. But when we when you were talking just before about how different things can affect people differently. It reminded me of you. We’ve all heard the stories of people who were in their 90s who still smoking their their cigarettes and having a drink every day, but and it worked for them. But we know that that is not what works for the majority of people. So it’d be it’d be more realistic, I think. And

**Michael Hingson ** 38:09
maybe they didn’t get cancer or anything from the cigarettes, but it doesn’t change the fact of what cigarettes do to people. Exactly. And if they lived it into their 90s. That’s great. One could only wonder how much longer they might have lived if they didn’t do it at all.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 38:25
Exactly, exactly. Yes. Yes.

**Michael Hingson ** 38:29
It’s one of those things. So clearly, though, it’s it’s more than eating and it’s an it’s more than sleeping, it is really a holistic approach that we need to look at and learn about for for ourselves and figure out what works for us, right? Yes,

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 38:45
absolutely. And, you know, I tell people, when someone starts to work with us, we have a an assessment that shows them what works, what’s working well in their lives and what’s maybe not working so well. And then they have the option of either making the things that are working well like the best they can possibly be. Or they can start with the things that they are struggling with a little bit and see if they can get those to be better. And that’s often what people will choose, you know, because they’ll see, oh, my goodness, you know, I’m not sleeping well enough, or my hormones are out of order or you know, my relations, whatever it might be, they want to get those better. And so it gives them the opportunity to choose what they’re going to do. And that’s the main thing is because when we try to change everything all at once, usually nothing gets happening, nothing happens, because it’s just too much in our bodies get overwhelmed. But if we choose one thing and work on that systematically, then we usually are able to to achieve those things going forward.

**Michael Hingson ** 39:47
Why is it that more traditional medicine doesn’t tend to focus nearly as much on the whole idea of a holistic approach? Well, if I open up a can of worms I’m saying

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 40:02
we will, we will say that the secret Big Pharma, but no, usually, what tends to happen is that in medical school you were taught, here’s the disease, here’s how you treat it. Okay, here’s you, here’s the shot, take aspirin, exactly. Here’s the therapy, the medication, the drug, whatever it might be, to fix it. And so I almost think of it as especially like when, as I was mentioning before, when people come in with diabetes, you’d give them their pill, and they’d go away until the pill didn’t work. And then you give them another pill. And then finally, they’re on insulin. And so it’s just like this, this wheel that keeps going down and down and down. And so I think of it almost as if our health of the leaves on a tree, and when the when we don’t have our health, the leaves are brown, you know, they’re brown, or they’re about to fall off. And traditional medicine is taking a can of green paint, and painting those leaves green again, so they look good, you know, that we’re taking that medicine, the leaves look good, they look green, but they’re not any healthier. And until we change, what’s causing that, you know, until we change, what’s causing diabetes, or the high blood pressure, whether it’s stress, or sleep, or nutrition, or movement, or relationships, whatever it might be, until we change those things. We can’t change the actual leaves on the tree and make them healthy again.

**Michael Hingson ** 41:29
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, it is it is an issue and, you know, you’re right, I know that a lot of it has to do with people want to continue to sell drugs and so on. And, and, and medicine can be helpful. But are we learning collectively and medical science and elsewhere? That maybe there’s there really is more to it than just taking more drugs? Or have we really started to alter our, our attitudes I’m gathering? You have an answer for that.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 42:05
I don’t think we’re quite there yet. And I say that in mainly because, as I mentioned, I’ve been lifestyle medicine. Some people call it functional medicine, integrative medicine, holistic medicine, whatever name you want to give it, where we’re not just looking to a medication or a pill to heal, we’re looking at other the entire body, the mind, the soul, the you know, the everything. And it’s not until it’s we have these two camps still. And those of us in the lifestyle integrative side are still looked at a little bit asked once by those who do still treat with traditional medications, almost as if, you know, like, what’s wrong with them? Or who do they what are they trying to do? Because that’s not the way we were taught in medical school.

**Michael Hingson ** 43:00
And then the reality is that, I think what you would say is, there’s nothing wrong with medications, but there’s a lot more to keeping the body healthy than just medication. Absolutely.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 43:14
So you know, when when someone starts to work with me, a lot of times we’ll give them supplements, a specific supplement to support a need, say, for instance, they might need magnesium. And so I will give them magnesium initially, but not with a thought that they will be taking magnesium for the rest of their lives. It’s still until their bodies get healthier. Whereas that’s not necessarily the thought with traditional medications is that the traditional medications are thought to be the solution to the DIS ease that the person has

**Michael Hingson ** 43:52
rather than being a bridge. Exactly, exactly. Well, obviously, a lot of what you really encourage people to do is to change their their mindsets. Do you have a story that you can tell about any kind of a specific example where a mindset change really dramatically changed a person and obviously for the better? Oh.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 44:18
There are so many, one of my favorite, just because it illustrates the ripple effect is a woman who had rheumatoid arthritis. And one of the first thing that we were doing that whole let’s go to Whole Foods, let’s get away from the processed sugars and carbohydrates. And at first it was hard for her, she said because she really really, really loved what she was eating. But she tried it for a week and felt so much better that her it’s like a switch had flipped in her head. And so she was able to say okay, this is so much better for me that I’m going to come I struggle through until my body realizes that that, you know, it doesn’t need this stuff anymore. And so she did. And that was, you know, she changed herself. But the thing that was so amazing was that people around her, you know, her mom saw her then eating the way she was. And her mom said, okay, you know, maybe I need to change this too, because maybe I don’t have to struggle anymore, either. And so she literally had this ripple effect in her family of health. It was amazing.

**Michael Hingson ** 45:34
And it’s nice to have a support system. So when you’ve got several people doing it, they obviously help each other. Yes,

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 45:40
yes. As opposed to, you know, someone else’s is going to bring up the box of cookies. You know, your favorite cookie, whenever you sit down? Yes, I’ve had them in both ways.

**Michael Hingson ** 45:51
I know people think I’m crazy, but not this year. Last year, I bought a case of Thin Mints from the Girl Scouts. And I think there are still out of the 12 boxes 10 Either in my freezer or on a pantry sales.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 46:11
Oh my goodness,

**Michael Hingson ** 46:12
I’m you know, it’s easy out of sight out of mind. Right. So unless I touch it, I keep forgetting about it. But you know, but but I do find them up there and just plain don’t go after them. They’re a great treat. And and I love it as a treat. But I have grown out of needing to have lots of that stuff. And occasionally, if I catch myself really wanting to have more sugar and more of those things. It’s a conscious effort, but I can stop. But the Thin Mints are still up there. And they’ll they’ll be devoured over time. Actually, I feel more guilty every year because I have too many boxes of statements to buy more from the Girl Scouts to support them. Oh, no. Yeah. Yeah, I

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 46:56
think we we feel especially with sugar. Because sugar really is very addictive. It’s been proven to really turn certain receptors on in our brain. Yeah, but we feel that we can’t do without it until we kind of get over. It’s almost like we go through withdrawal. Yeah, once you get on that other side, though, you know, then you’re able to say, you know, I don’t really need that, and people will look at you and they’ll go, really, but it’s, it’s true.

**Michael Hingson ** 47:22
So for me, I have something sweet when I want to, but I’ve gone days without. And, and I’m not trying to brag, but rather I understand exactly what you’re saying. And it’s so much better and fulfilling. Because I know that I can eat and I weigh myself every day. So I also make sure that I don’t gain weight, which is another reminder. But I do like to not have to rely on eating some of that stuff. So the Thin Mints are there, but they will slowly go down. And you know, worst case, I can buy growth Thin Mints and give them to somebody else. And I’ve done that too. Exactly, exactly how to support the Girl Scouts. That’s right. I love that got to deal with the important things in life. You know, needless to say, well, so you do you get a lot of criticism from traditional medicine Do you? Do you get a lot of people saying you’re obviously a screwball, or anything like that, or

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 48:30
to my face? No. And I think a lot of that has to be, you know, I was a former plastic surgeon, and I’m a physician. But I do hear from other traditional practitioners, when they’re talking about, say, a health coach or someone that they may not know that they’re put down just a little bit so. And I to be honest, I do remember when I was in the hospital, and I was still trying to do both both plastic surgery and lifestyle medicine, trying to do them together. There was a little bit of friction between my practice and the hospital, because they just didn’t understand the reason for it. So yeah, there is a little but I haven’t been, you know, totally ground down into the ground about it. I think it really has to do with a lot of my own. You know who I was in the in the scheme of things. My

**Michael Hingson ** 49:28
fifth guide dog was Roselle. She is the one who was with me in the World Trade Center on September 11. And when we moved back to California, the we actually lived in an area just a little bit of ways while we were in an area called Bell marine keys, which is built to be like Venice, Italy. So every house was either on a lagoon or a waterway between lagoons and so across the lagoon from us was a family the Wilsons who among other things, had adopted rosellas father, a breeder from Guide Dogs for the Blind Seaver. So they introduced us to their vet, Dr. Cottington, who was a holistic medicine type of person. And he might as much as anything encouraged Eastern medicine even on Roselle, it very various times, and there were some times that she needed supplements and so on. And so I got a really great opportunity to learn from him. Both in terms of dealing with Roselle, but obviously other things that helped philosophy that I was able to adopt, and Karen was able to adopt in our lives because he made such a difference in Ravel’s life. Hmm,

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 50:40
I love that. Yes.

**Michael Hingson ** 50:43
was kind of cool. So what today, would you suggest to people as initial steps to starting to overcome maybe some of their health issues or deal with getting their life more in balance?

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 50:58
Whoo, I love that question.

**Michael Hingson ** 51:02
If you have besides eating bagels from New York,

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 51:05
that’s where you gotta you gotta eat New York. What I would say first is to know your numbers. Okay. And I say that because I deal with so many people who have no idea what their blood sugar is, or what their hemoglobin a one C is, which is, you know, related to your blood sugar, they don’t know what they’re, you know what their cholesterol is, or they just don’t know. And if you don’t know, you can’t change things you can make better if you don’t know. So just to know, a lot of times, what I hear is, Well, I had my blood work drawn, but my doctor told me everything was fine. So I didn’t even look. Instead, you are your own, you are your best physician, you know your body best. And so when you know your numbers, when you know the trends that you’re seeing, you know, because it’s trends about trends as well, if if every year you know your blood sugar’s getting a little higher and a little higher and a little higher, eventually is going to flip over that where it’s not okay anymore. So looking at trends is so important. So that’s the probably the very first thing. And you know, once you’ve got that and in, and sometimes it requires a little push with your primary care, to ask them to really explain your labs and not just say everything’s fine to really explain them, and to have them look at optimal levels, not just normal levels, because there’s a lot of what I call dis ease in the normal in that normal range. So we want numbers that are optimal for our bodies. That’s probably the first thing. And then the second is, like I said, start listening to what your body’s telling you. So if you’re exhausted, why are you exhausted? Is it that you’re not sleeping enough? Is it you’re not eating well enough? Is it that you’re that you’re running yourself ragged? Is it that you have too much stress? Why are you tired? So don’t just accept the symptom, but try to start delving deeply into why you have that symptom?

**Michael Hingson ** 53:10
Well, the the interesting thing, in what you’re saying about all that, at least from my perspective, is that I love numbers. And I, personally, fortunately, have a medical plan that allows me access to automatically all of that we use Kaiser. And so whenever we go and do lab tests, all the results are sent to or are stored in our records. And we get messages to say, here’s Here are the numbers. And I always look at the numbers. And I think that’s extremely important to deny. I don’t remember what my cholesterol is. I don’t remember the number right now. No, no, but I also know that it was considered to be well within the normal range. And and whether I’d call it optimal or not, I don’t know, it could be considered that it was but I appreciate what you’re saying. And it’s really important to, to know the numbers, and to get the data for yourself, even with your doctor who may be a great expert. You still need to know that information directly.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 54:19
Yes, yes. Yes, absolutely.

**Michael Hingson ** 54:23
And that’s all happen happens all too often that we don’t get the numbers.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 54:29
Mm hmm. And the other thing is that the the second part of that is, we often believe that if mom had diabetes, I’m going to have diabetes or dad had high blood pressure, I’m going to have high blood pressure. And so the second thing that I always share with people is that you are your own person, and you can change what your genetics are how your genetics are expressed. So you can’t change your genes, but you can change the way they are expressed. So you don’t have to just because everybody in your family has diabetes, that does not mean that you have to have diabetes. And so just knowing that you are the captain of your own ship, if you’re going to put it that way for your health,

**Michael Hingson ** 55:14
well, so if everybody in your family has diabetes, it seems to me what you need to do is to, if you’re truly concerned about it, and want to address it, start to look at what your options are. And then it also goes back to the numbers, keep an eye on the numbers to see if you’re really having a positive effect on your body. Exactly,

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 55:36
exactly. What are the anyway, there are some new technologies out there now that that make it so much easier. Because before, if you want to know your blood sugar was on a routine basis, you have to stick your finger and let’s be honest, that’s not fun. It’s not fun. But now they have little devices that you can put on your arm. And it will tell you continuously, what your blood glucose is for a period of two weeks. So you can do something like what happens when I eat this particular food? What does it do to my blood sugar, and then you can change your meals and your and your nutrition? Depending on real data, not just guessing or, or looking at what somebody else is saying that you should do, you’re going to see what your body particularly loves.

**Michael Hingson ** 56:25
And, yeah, obviously, how it’s affecting you and act accordingly. Again, it gets back to do the basics yourself.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 56:32
Exactly, exactly. What should people do more

**Michael Hingson ** 56:36
in the community and getting more community support to help them deal with with issues and help the community deal with issues? Yes,

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 56:44
yes. I like to look at the blue zones as a as the beacons, you know, as far as community is concerned. So the blue zones are these areas around the world where people consistently live into their 90s and are healthy, you know, so they’re not just clicking through and barely making it, they’re living full and vibrant lives well into their 90s. And one of the things that they noticed, one of the big things that they notice is they all have strong communities. They all you know, they have families, that groups that all live together, work together, enjoy life together. And so when we bring those things back to our environments, it just changes. You know, I asked people do you know your neighbors? Do you know the people in your in your neighborhood, and if not, go out and start introducing yourself, start becoming connected with the people in your area, so that you will all can support each other going up. If that doesn’t work, then you go and find things for groups that you’re in things that you’re interested in, you know, whether it’s one golf, not a golf, baby music, or my husband and daughter just joined in astronomy astronomy group, I mean, it’s just a lot of you join what you’re interested in and grow together. So that’s a huge thing for community.

**Michael Hingson ** 58:16
You have a family, which is cool. How do you deal with personal life balance and balancing that with professional work?

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 58:23
I do is so much better now. Well, when I didn’t do it so well, it’s when I was burning the candle at both ends, you know, I was the surgeon they everything all day, and then the mom and thing all night, that does not work. What I have learned since then is that there is balance and what balance is is not necessarily going to do everything exactly even all the time. What it does mean though, is that some days your work is going to take precedence. Some days, your family’s going to take precedence, and you need to be able to alter your life in a way that that’s possible. So if you’re in a position or a job or something where you can’t make that change, then maybe it’s time to start looking at a way to make that happen. Maybe it means you need to move your job maybe it means you can change your job or you know, change things within your job. But it’s balanced is all about give and take. And you know especially now I think a lot of us are you after the last couple of years with working from home. A lot of us got into that thing where work and home were just one big conglomerate, you know that sort of thing. And we need to be able to separate it so for me when I’m working at home, I have a hard stop. You know I stop at and I will determine whether it’s five o’clock six o’clock, one time to 7pm but whatever it is, that’s when when it stops and then then I I’m home, even though I haven’t left the location that I’m home. And if you don’t do that, then you do get into that place where it’s just 24/7 nonstop. And that’s not sustainable. That doesn’t help at all. Yeah,

**Michael Hingson ** 1:00:13
it really doesn’t. What are some innovations that you’re seeing some positive innovations that are really helping move the whole concept of wellness forward?

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 1:00:23
Well, the things like the the continuous glucose monitor that I just shared with you, there’s more technology now that we can use. So that’s, that’s a good thing. I do like to caution people, though, because I am a, I’m a tech nerd kind of that you don’t want to just depend on those as well. So even you know, no matter how good the tech is, there are things like another thing that I use is what’s called a brain tap. Where are you using light and sound and beats, to help reduce your anxiety to increase motivation to increase sleep better, things like that, that there are technologies that can assist you in getting your body healthier and stronger. So those things are just amazing that they’re coming out now as well. But I say with everyone that they the most important thing is knowing what works for you. And working with that first. I

**Michael Hingson ** 1:01:26
love that people are also starting to learn or some people at least are starting to learn more about things like meditation, oh, seeing the value, which goes back to being reflective, introspective, and so on, but that they’re recognizing that taking that time to meditate is extremely important. Yes,

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 1:01:43
yes. And it’s interesting, you should say that was, I didn’t even that didn’t come to mind. Because that’s so long been a part of what I do. I think about it. But yes, definitely meditation. However, what I do hear a lot, especially from people who are busy, and haven’t yet learned how to slow down and de stress, they’re like, I can’t meditate, you know, I’m tired, I am too busy, I can’t stay quiet enough to do that. And that’s why I felt sometimes the technologies can help a little bit because they get past that you don’t just listen, you know, and it’s going to take you there. Once you get to that point where you can, where you know what it feels like to slow down, slow your breath, slow your heart, slow your brain pattern where you slowly be able to do that, then you can go into something like the traditional meditation and reap the benefits there as well.

**Michael Hingson ** 1:02:39
How do you stay resilient, you must have a mantra or something that they you use or a philosophy they use to keep yourself resilient and positive in life.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 1:02:47
You know, it’s funny, it’s what I was thinking about that it’s nothing lasts forever. That’s it. Not the good stuff, but not the bad stuff either. So life Life flows, it ebbs and it flows and you go with that flow,

**Michael Hingson ** 1:03:01
and the good stuff changes. That doesn’t mean that it’s going to go away. It’s going to be different good stuff. Exactly.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 1:03:08
Exactly. And I I’m probably a Pollyanna anyway, by heart, but that that has taken me quite away.

**Michael Hingson ** 1:03:20
We named the book that’s coming out live like a guide dog, because one of the most important things is dogs live in the moment. Dogs don’t do what is. And it’s something that I learned after September 11. When we were concerned about how all of that would affect Roselle, I talked with the guide dog trainers and they said, did anything affect her directly? Did she get hit or anything? And I said no. And they said, well, then it’s done. It’s over for her. It’s all gone. Wow. That’s Wincham, which is so true. We we worry about all the things that we don’t have any control over. We’re afraid of so many things. And as is pointed out so often, none of those things ever come to pass. We just worry about things way too much.

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 1:04:03
Yes, yes. I think there’s a saying this is where he is just praying for things you don’t want. Yeah.

**Michael Hingson ** 1:04:10
Yeah, absolutely true. Well, this has been really fun. I’ve enjoyed it. I hope you have if people want to reach out and find you how do they do that? Oh, boy. Well, let me go ahead and answer that. And then I have one more question.

1:04:26
So that actually leads into what I was saying. I was gonna mention before why we switched our name. That’s what I was just gonna ask you Yeah, we’re in the process of switching our day from premier wellness to balanced performance. And the reason was premier wellness is we thought kind of generic and speaking about wellness and it was a good thing and loved it had been that for six years. But what we found people are really looking for they want the balance in their lives, and they want to be able to perform they want to be at the top of their game. both at work, but they also want to be, I call them the superheroes at home, you know, they want to have both, but they want it with balance. And so we have literally literally in the process of changing the name of our company to balanced performance, because that’s what we’re going to teach you or help you and assist you to get to. So by the time this comes out, which will be mid January, we will be balanced performance dot Pro, as in balanced performance professionals. And that’s where you’ll be able to find us.

**Michael Hingson ** 1:05:34
Wow, so people can go to balance performance dot Pro. Correct. And are you on things like LinkedIn and so on where they can find you or I

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 1:05:43
am on LinkedIn. I’m Dr. Susan Lovelle on LinkedIn. L O V E. L L E. Okay. Dr. Susan Lovelle Dr. Susan Lovelle, we’re on Facebook, it is still premier wellness. Probably by then that will also be switched over. Well, I’ll give you the info. And we’re on Instagram as well. And that’s pretty rare wellness underscore at this point. Yeah. Well,

**Michael Hingson ** 1:06:11
thank you very much. I hope people listen and they’ll reach out to you do you work with clients all over? We

**Dr. Susan Lovelle ** 1:06:18
work all over if they’re out of this state out of North Carolina. I can work either as just a simple consultant. Or if they want to work with me one on one as me being their lifestyle physician, they would have to meet me details. They would have to meet me at least once in North Carolina or meet once in person. And then we can do the rest virtually. Cool. Yep.

**Michael Hingson ** 1:06:41
Well, every one, there you go. So meet up with Dr. Susan, I think it would be a lot of fun. And I’ve enjoyed very much and value very much all the insights that you brought us. So thank you for being here. And I want to thank you for listening. Hope that you enjoyed this. I’d love to hear from you. Please email me your thoughts, your observations, your comments. You can reach me at Michaelhi, m i c h a e l h i at accessibe A c c e s s i b e.com. Or go to our podcast page www dot Michael hingson.com/podcast. And Michael hingson is m i c h a e l h i n g s o n all one word. So wherever you’re listening, please give us a five star rating. We value the ratings. We love them. And we love hearing your thoughts and your feedback as you’re getting ready. So please do that. In wherever you’re listening. We really appreciate it. And I’m sure Dr. Susan does as well. And and again, one more time. Susan, we really appreciate you being here. And thank you very much for your time. 

**Michael Hingson ** 1:07:42
Thank you so much, Mike.

**Michael Hingson ** 1:07:49
You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you’ll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you’re on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you’re there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit
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