Episode 89- What My Genetic Testing Revealed About My Health, Nutrition, and Fitness Journey
Episode 89 Show Notes
Today, I’m sharing something incredibly personal: my genetic testing results and how they've completely changed the way I approach my health, fitness, and nutrition.
In this episode, I dive into what my DNA says about my metabolism, blood sugar regulation, fat and protein processing, and even my risk for future conditions like Alzheimer's. Spoiler: my genetics are not on my side when it comes to getting lean or building muscle easily—but I’m here to show you how knowledge is power (and how it’s not a free pass to give up).
If you’ve ever wondered if there’s a “why” behind your struggles with weight loss, energy, cravings, or fitness progress, this is a must-listen. I'll walk you through how I'm using this data to work smarter, not harder—and how it’s validating so much of what I already knew intuitively.
Tune in to hear my real story—and why understanding your genes is one of the best gifts you can give yourself.
Thank you for supporting my small business. Here are some brands I trust and use myself with a discount for you:
Equip Protein - 15% off with code WICKES
Masa Chips - 20% off code STRONG $50 or more
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Hey, welcome back to the podcast. I am going to share with you my genetic testing results. All right. So here's some things to keep in mind and how it works. The wellness report analyzes how my DNA influences my health. So DNA loads the gun and health and lifestyle choices will pull the trigger. So just, you know, take this stuff with you know, some level of analysis, but it isn't like predictive per se. similar to like DNA reports and stuff, your DNA is like an instruction manual. It has a lot of information and you can think of it more like a blueprint for your body. There are genetic variants that are parts of the DNA that differ from person to person and some can make you more vulnerable to certain health issues while others can influence traits like eye color, hair color.
So in total, you know, there are up to like 83 million genetic variants that can be analyzed and So yeah, there we go. Let's go ahead and talk about you know, they for my particular test I use the plexus DX and the macronutrients like for each macronutrient. It tells me how well I respond to it each bar has three segments and they each correspond to a worse, typical or better response to that particular macronutrient. And the gauge for each macro displays a percentage of my daily energy needs, right? So, and what I should do to be meeting those nutrient needs. So for example, 40 % carbohydrates means, you know, that 40 % of my energy should come from carbohydrates on a typical 2000 calorie diet.
So it also talks about food sensitivities. The bar will tell me how likely I am to be sensitive to particular foods or nutrients. And so there's two segments of those and they correspond to lower, which is typical and a higher sensitivity. It talks about vitamins, minerals and omegas. It talks about my eating habits like tendency to overeat or binging, which is kind of funny because... I'll get to that in a minute. So some things to keep in mind when you're listening to this is the scores and gauges are using scientific studies, but they're not perfect. And things can change as their particular model improves and changes also. And not everyone with a risk variant is going to develop a particular health condition. knowing what I know about my own body and my own blueprint has definitely informed me on how I might do things differently with lifestyle and food choices, which I'll tell you about later. All right, so let's see. It's not diagnostic, by the way, either. My particular test had 118 genetic results. And when we talked specifically about metabolism, it turns out that my response to carbohydrates is better than the other macros.
Okay, my response to protein is actually worse, which means my body just has a harder time breaking down and utilizing protein. And my fat metabolism is typical, like my body metabolizes fat in a typical way. However, later on I come to observe that my body doesn't like to use fat as a primary fuel source. It likes to use carbohydrates.
However, on my gut microbiome test, which I will go over in a different episode, because I think it would be too much for this one, talks about how my body's not breaking that macro down very well either. So I don't know where I stand. My body doesn't like to use protein and break it down well. And it doesn't like fat, but I have a typical use of fat. However, it likes carbohydrates, but isn't breaking it down well. So let me tell you what.
All right, so this test does tell me what my optimum diet is. And my optimum diet, just based off my genetics, is a Mediterranean diet, which doesn't surprise me at all. If you don't know what that is, it's based on a traditional cuisine from the Mediterranean, like Greece, Spain, Southern Italy, Southern France. So it gained a lot of popularity when the whole lower heart disease movement was moving on, and for good reason.
The diets today don't typically represent the way people in Mediterranean regions eat because there's so much influence from Western dietary habits, but a proper Mediterranean diet has tons of vegetables, lots of fruit, lots of whole grains, and olive oil as a primary fat source, which I thought was fantastic because just intuitively, if I were to eat intuitively, these are the foods I would choose, okay?
The foods that we're eating in more moderation, which makes sense for my body now, is like fish and seafood, eggs and dairy. Those are eaten more in moderation. It's a diet largely, mean, Mediterranean is largely like a vegetarian based diet with animal proteins thrown in there in moderation. It makes complete sense. Intuitively, that's just how I eat on my own.
So red meat, sweets, those are eaten very sparingly. That's not a problem for me because I am not a sweets girl anyway. And I'll eat red meat, but it's not like I'm like, damn, I could go for a steak. That's just not where I would lend torque. So anyway, the Mediterranean diet, it has a great balance ratio of carbs, fats, proteins. It is one of the healthiest diets due to a diversity of whole foods. And it delivers a lot of essential nutrients like vitamins, minerals, polyphenols.
Other antioxidants, and especially since I grind my own wheat into flour, has tons of antioxidants and lots and lots of dietary fiber and healthy unsaturated fats, such as olive oil. All right, this particular test did come with a like menu option. It was like, here's a bunch of things you could have for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And you could formulate your own meal plan off of that. And it does have recipes too. So I thought that was pretty cool. I told you what my overview was of my, my macro response, which makes sense too, because when I did my blood test, it showed that I had a lot of extra ferritin in my blood, which is like components of protein. And I was like, interesting. My body, was at the time of the test.
I had increased my macros to a point where I was trying to put on a lot more muscle, right? And I was like, I was getting stronger, but strength generally comes before hypertrophy, which is muscle growth. And I was getting confused as to why my muscles didn't appear to be getting bigger. I was burning some extra body fat, but I was like, well, where's all this protein going? Well, now I know where it was going. It was just sitting in my gut undigested. So I had to do some stuff to clean that up and...
You know, my dreams of being like this big muscly girl are probably not going to happen because just genetically my body does not want to do that. OK, so now I'm going to be like a lean, mean fight machine kind of girly. The lean part, it's got some work because of the insulin resistance that I'm also working against right now. That is most and I'll tell you that too with this genetic test. There's a piece to that puzzle here and it's good to know.
All right, so this has a whole breakdown of individual fats. I won't go through them all because there is a ton of individual fats, but it does say that I typically will have an increased need for a gamma-linoleic acid, a higher-linoleic acid, and archaeodonic acid.
So do I know what those are? Absolutely not. I'm gonna have to look them up and figure out where these individual fats are located and then add them into my diet. But I have a pretty typical and ideal response to most all the other fats that it tested for. So it did give me an overview on food sensitivities and said that I'm likely to have more food allergies.
Okay, I am not aware of any food allergies that I have right here, but it also says I'm sensitive. I have a higher sensitivity to salt. So I have not noticed that personally. My blood pressure is great. I don't have any swelling. I don't appear to hold on to any more water weight than normal. So like I said, you take this information. It does say that I'm caffeine sensitive, which I thought was interesting and is now validated by the fact that I cannot drink anything caffeinated past about noon, maybe 2 p.m. Otherwise, it will keep me up at night. Like my body is exhausted. My brain will keep on humming. So that just validates what I already knew about my body. It does say that I'm more likely to have a dairy sensitivity like casein, but not likely to have a milk allergy.
So there's two different components in dairy. There's casein and then there's whey. I'm fine with whey, but apparently might have a higher likelihood of being sensitive to casein. I don't drink just milk by the glass, so I don't think that affects me much. I eat cheese pretty minimally. In fact, I'm not even really drawn to cheese unless that mess is on a charcuterie board. I cannot get enough of it. I will pile. my gosh, charcuterie boards. I love them so much. All right.
It does break down vitamins, like which vitamins that I would typically need, like a typical need for or an increased need for. So it looks like I have an increased need for vitamin E, which I thought was interesting, and niacinamide, which is vitamin B3, and then vitamin B6, because my blood test did reveal that I was low on vitamin B6, and I thought, that's bizarre. I eat a lot of foods that are high in an entire array of B vitamins, looking at this genetic, okay, well, that's why it was still low. So I do take a supplement for vitamin B6. And by the way, getting these genetic testing and microbiome testing, I think is fantastic because so many people ask, what supplements should I be taking? And I'm like, grr, I cannot tell you what supplements. I could give you a list, I guess, and maybe I'll do that on another episode of supplements I think everybody should be taking, but
You need to test, not guess. Figure out exactly what it is that your body is in a deficit of and then take that. People are taking way too many supplements. I went over to my parents' house in Arizona a few months ago. My dad has hundreds, no lie, hundreds of supplements lining every room in his house. I'm pretty sure he watches somebody on TikTok and says, I need to get that, get that.And then he just buys a bunch of supplements. I'm sure he takes them all I mean, it's got if he did I'm sure he'd be a hundred supplements a day I'm taking a handful of them right now, but it's not nearly that many. All right, it does break down minerals and What your typical need for minerals are it looks like I have a pretty typical need for things like selenium potassium zinc magnesium iron iodine sodium manganese copper chromium chloride molypedin don't even know what the flip that is, but it says I have a typical need for it. So I probably ought to look that one up too. So it does say that I have a higher than normal need for calcium, which is interesting, right? Because previously it said that I was sensitive to certain parts of dairy. Now, dairy is not the only place you can find calcium. You can find that in, know, cruciferous vegetables and a lot of other non-dairy sources, but that just, I think, backfills the recommendation that a Mediterranean diet is something that my body will thrive off of. So here's what I have done with that information so far is I have begun to add vegetables to every meal as if I didn't already eat enough, now I'm eating more. I don't typically add vegetables to my breakfast unless it's like spinach or kale that I'm throwing in with eggs, but now it's going to be 100 % lots of vegetable volume with every single meal. There will not be a meal in which there is not at least a two cup volume of vegetables with it. And I love fruit, but I have really narrowed down my fruit to sticking primarily with berries. And most of that is because of the blood sugar stuff. All right, so essential amino acids. There are nine of those and when it says essential, like you have to have these. All right. And I have a higher need to consume isoleucine in 3 and 9. Interesting. There are other nutrients that it tests for like choline, betadine, glutathione, coenzyme Q10, which it says I have a higher need for and lycopene, which, or I'm predisposed to have higher levels of lycopene and coenzyme Q10.
You know, I have a typical creatine levels, beta-alanine and beta-carotene. So eating habits. This was this was interesting part to me because it talks about snacking. It says that I'm more likely to be a snacker than not. In my previous life, I would have had I would have had to agree with that. Yes, I was a snacker. However, now as a grown, trained adult, I know that snacking for adults is rarely necessary. OK.
If you're still hungry, you need to have bigger meals. I recall being in my maybe early 20s or teens when this dietary mantra was to eat six to eight small meals a day and it would increase your metabolism. Have you heard that? By the way, that's been completely debunked. So you do not need to eat six to eight times a day. That would be a little overwhelming and a lot on your gut to be like, my gosh, we're digesting again. Like give it a rest. All right, sister.
You don't need to snack. What you need is higher volumes of food at meal time that are nutrient dense and are macro balanced. It says that I'm having I have a less likely to crave sugar, which is absolutely true, and that I have a typical likelihood to overeat, but that I am more likely to have an eating disorder and I am more likely to binge eat. Facts. I did have an eating disorder in my early 20s. I've talked about that in a previous episode.
And I will typically binge eat on during times of stress or fatigue. So knowing is half the battle. OK, don't look at your life and then be like, I don't want to see the parts of me that are less optimal and that are creating dysfunction. I just want to forget that that entire sleeve of Pringles happened in the pantry behind the door while my kids screamed outside of it and banged. Like that's very specific.
100 % that has happened. I have done that. So chips are my weakness. And I know you guys are like, aren't you an affiliate with Massa chips? Yes. Yes, I am because I love them. And by the way, I have found that I do not binge eat Massa chips because their process of how they create their chip with the corn, the nutrients are so bioavailable and it's so satisfying that I eat less of it.
Okay. I experienced the exact same thing when I was in full-time wine sales. I would have clients come to a wine tasting and talk about how they've got to drink like an entire bottle of wine to, and I'll get to alcohol later in this, this little, breakdown. but anyway, people would come to a wine tasting and they'd say, I have to drink like an entire bottle of wine that I get at the grocery store to even start feeling relaxed and everything. And I'm like, well, this wine, which is Scout & Seller's wine, has a higher volume of alcohol per mil than the typical bottle. So you actually drink less of it and start feeling the effects of alcohol, which like, let's be honest, some alcohol does taste good, but I think most people are drinking alcohol because they're looking for that like...
You know, that what you think is a nervous system down regulation, you know, because there is toxicity in the breakdown of acetyl aldehyde and alcohol, it ends up stressing your body out. But in the process of the drinking and the feeling, the effects in your brain and like, my gosh, I feel like I can just relax into this couch. The kids are put to bed. mean, I used to love it. I used to love drinking a glass of wine while I was cooking dinner. And then I would have a second glass, you know while I was cooking dinner, maybe it was after dinner, and it just like chilled me out. I also have more information about chilling me out, okay? But it just chilled me out a little bit more so bedtime wasn't as hairy for me. The kids would just be being kids and I'd be like, don't really mind, you know? And it just really did make me more chill. The problem is that one glass now turns into two glasses. And then once two glasses doesn't quite get you there, now you need three glasses. And the next thing you know, I was drinking a full bottle of wine before I put the kids to bed. And I'm like, okay, like where does this end? Where's the upper limit? Where's the ceiling? Well, the ceiling doesn't exist. You will just keep requiring more because your body gets used to it. So I have pretty much all but cut alcohol out of my life. Not because I didn't love it.
And I have not noticed, by the way, I have not noticed that there was any change in my in my body composition. The biggest change I would say that was noticeable that people started commenting on is that my skin looked better and looked brighter. That's really the only thing I can say. Like my digestion doesn't appear to be any different. I actually had a really great gut microbiome score despite, you know, like I said, different episode. But despite being needing some extra keystone species added back in, it was actually pretty good. Moving on. It did talk about nutrition genes, all right? And it's good to know that I have a typical MTHFR activity. However, I have low folate methylation. So it will be very important for me to pay attention to what my folate levels are.
And there are multiple genes that work on methylation and that my body is lower in the vitamin B12. But here we are back into the array of B vitamins, right? Well, we already showed that I had a lower amount of vitamin B12 or vitamin B6, but in vitamin B3. But my blood test revealed that too. It also shows that I am likely to have a lower GC activity. And the GC is the gene that metabolizes vitamin D. Again, not largely surprising because my blood serum levels revealed the same thing, that I do need to focus on vitamin D consumption from a quality source, because that's huge. I did get a vitamin D injection at the beginning of the winter, and I highly recommend that, by the way. If you can't get a prescription for a really high vitamin D. Just take it like once a week. Getting an injection at the beginning of the season where you're experiencing less sun. And I get out every day. I am in the sun every day. I don't wear sunblock, but even still, just genetically, my body doesn't use it as well. So I'm going to have to have more of it. So what my body will process will be used. All right. And here it is the MTNR1 the gene, okay? Diet and blood sugar. So what it's telling me is, and then there's also the C, G, excuse me, G, C, K, R, which is also blood sugar related. And the CD36, which is a fat preference slash weight. And then there's another one that talks about weight and diet. So what the genetic markers tell me is, girl, your genetic default is going to be high blood sugar and fat. Awesome. That explains a lot actually, because there for a minute I've been like, cheer Lord, why is it so hard to cut body fat? I'm doing all the right things. Why is it so hard for me to put on extra muscle? Why is it so difficult for me to lean out? Well, that's why, just genetically, my body doesn't wanna do that.
It wants to be a little chunky. Okay. And it doesn't want to a lot of muscle. I'm not okay with that, but you know what? It's like at some level you gotta be, you gotta get okay with it because that's, you know, like I said, genetics will load the gun. Lifestyle will pull the trigger because my lifestyle is so clean because my nutrition is so dialed in. That is probably the only reason I'm not 300 pounds and I have tons of medical issues. Okay? It is locked in and it has to be because my genetics will push me over the damn cliff. Not cool, genes. Not cool.
All right, so carbohydrates are the main source of energy in a modern diet. So, you know, my results is that I respond better to those. Okay, there you go. So healthy carbs, what does that look? Root vegetables, sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, legumes, beans, chickpeas, lentils, peas, pasta. I mean, I'm not pasta per se, unless you're making your own pasta, I'm just gonna exclude that. So whole grains, brown rice, wheat, barley, oats, rye.
Some pseudo grains are like quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat, and fruits and vegetables. Those are great sources of carbohydrates. That I have a worse response to proteins and they are essential amino acids for building muscle and all sorts of other processes in your body. And protein sources come from eggs, nuts, seeds, legumes, lean meats, fish, you know, soy products, which I don't consume a lot of those because of the estrogen side of it, which maybe I should actually increase my phytoestrogens because my blood test revealed that I was lower in bioavailable estrogen. And although there's not a direct response of phytoestrogens to your serum estrogen levels, it could impact them. mean, the data is still out on that.
All right, so I have a typical response to fat metabolism, but throughout these results, it was saying like, keto, that's not your diet, girl. And now I know, now I know. It does talk about different fat breakdowns, like I said, and where these are found, and like why I need more of them. Let me see if the gamma-linoleic acid is on here. Let me see it, unsaturated fats that I have a typical response to those. So anyway, this document, you guys, is 248 pages long. It's a very long document. And a lot of them, I'm like, my gene table, like, I don't know what that is. Just tell me what the hell I need. And like, let's move on here. But that's big picture, okay? If you're interested, I mean, I have a nutritionist that I work with.
Okay, so linoleic acid is the most highly consumed omega-6 fatty acid. So it's an essential fatty acid because humans can't produce it. And so you've got to get it from food, right? So linoleic acid supports healthy skin, heart, health, and apparently I have a higher need for that. Well, would you look at that. Vegetable oils, which I don't consume vegetable oils. Nuts, seeds, meats, and eggs. All right, well, I eat a lot of eggs, so that's not a problem. Nuts and seeds are on point. They're talking about, obviously, vegetable oils, which I don't consume, but there you go.
There was another fat, but whatever. I don't want to bore you with all my fat stuff. So anyway, yeah, it does talk a ton, I mean a ton about where your food sensitivities are. Like for me, it says also that I am more likely to have a shrimp allergy. Funny enough, I did eat shrimp last week and my stomach got all crampy and weird. So I was like, all right, well, maybe I'm going to stay away from that little crustacean and just stick with salmon. Cause I love salmon. do, I do fish really well.
So perhaps that's where I will live is with the fishies and not the crustaceans. So it does say I'm more likely to have all kinds of food allergy issues, which a food allergy or test might be in my future. That might be a good thing to do. And it says that I do not have any issues with gluten, or at least my genes say that I don't, but my gut microbiome test revealed that I don't either, which is awesome.
It says I have a typical sensitivity to alcohol, which is really good to know, I would think, because there's a lot of people that think they're sensitive to alcohol when what they're really sensitive to is all of the sugars and chemicals that are put into the processing, more specifically wine. Okay, that's where I'm talking about, because that's my kind of zone of genius. That's where I know a lot about is there's a lot of additives that are used in the wine making process, a lot of colors and a lot of sugar that's dumped in there, mostly to mask imperfections in the grape. So you already have nasty grapes that aren't done organically. You're not farmed biodynamically. So you've got gross grapes where you're trying to make into wine. It tastes like shiz. So now you're going to use a bunch of things to cover it up. And marketers like to have a consistent look of their wine in the bottle on the shelf time over time over time. Well, realistically, that's not even possible.
You can't get that from nature because nature is never consistent. You'll never see anything that's consistent year over year over year. On March 5th, had sunny sky, maybe, I mean, there's a trend. You can look at weather trends, but you'll never get the exact same crop over and over and over again unless you scientifically manipulate that crop so that you do have a consistent flavor, taste, profile, and appearance over time, right? Scout and seller wine doesn't do that, actually the batch you get out of that particular vintage, you will never taste that again because the grapes that come out of 2023 are going to be different than the ones that come out of 2025, which is another reason why if you are going to drink wine, Scout and Seller is where you need to be. All right, moving on. You get the picture.
So if you want to learn more about what just your genetic stuff is, oh, and it does tell me, I don't even know where it was, that I do have the gene for Alzheimer's. right. So when I talked about alcohol consumption, you guys, I've always loved wine. I sell wine. I still do. I love the company. I love their mission. I love how awesome they are to the earth. I mean, it's like philanthropic meets free market capitalism. And I love that because nobody has told Scout and Seller or their consultants what they have to believe in. But we are all fairly similar in what we love and what we're drawn to and what we want to promote. So at any rate, with me knowing that I have a gene for Alzheimer's, which puts me in a higher category of likelihood of getting Alzheimer's, I know that alcohol is not something that's going to be in alignment with my life anymore because of that gene expression. just, I mean, and alcohol affects your brain.
And there's lots of studies being done about lesions created on the brain through regular alcohol use or even minimal alcohol use. And for me at this point, it's just not a risk I'm willing to take in my 40s and to put myself into a higher category of, I almost said mental illness, but that's not right. Putting myself into a state of mental decline earlier than what would be ideal. I don't know if it's ever ideal to be in a state of mental decline, but I don't, I don't want to like, you know what I'm saying? Genetics loaded the gun. I don't need to drink the wine or the beer to pull the trigger, right? If I just eliminate that, that's one less thing. However, I still have this, I still have this blood sugar dysregulation that's happening in my body.
And that could be in response also to lowering amounts of estrogen in my body, I am still breastfeeding our youngest. So my estrogen is naturally lower because of that, but even still it's lower than what it ought to be for being low. You know what I'm saying? So like I said, it's dynamic. There's a lot of pieces to this puzzle, just like there will be a lot of pieces to you as a puzzle and a human. And my recommendation is test, don't guess, because there's too many things to possibly guess from to even come close to hitting the target, right? So there you go. Genetic testing, I found it incredibly helpful. I found it eye-opening. I think it backed up some things I already knew, but who doesn't appreciate just a little bit of validation and saying like, oh, I've always kind of felt like maybe that's the route I should go up. And now I feel validated in feeling that way or, know, or whatever, you know, if you're like, I'm naturally low in this particular vitamin, mineral, fat, whatever, like I need to focus on really getting those extra servings of beans in there this week. So that's what I'm doing. I'm using this data to inform how I currently live my life. It hasn't changed how I use the app. It hasn't changed how, you know, I do my fitness. It has changed how I think about what's possible for my individual body. Okay.
I did a live on Facebook where I talked about this lady who just came after me online because aren't they always coming after you online? Ladies don't do that ever. Anyhow, and she started telling me how this other influencer, like she looks better than you. What are you even like? You have no place. You have no place here in the fitness or wellness space because this chick, you know, looks better than you. And I'm like, okay, well, we have very different bodies. She's incredibly petite. It's probably far simpler for her body to get leaned out than it is for mine. And I'm like, actually, I mean, that sounds like just a defense, right? Like a sour grape scenario. Well, it's just easier for her than it is for me. Well, I have a genetic test that actually proves it is easier. It is far more difficult for me to get lean than it will for somebody else who's already genetically predisposed to being able to get lean. It does not mean that you are going to, you have to live your life fat, unhealthy and immobile. Okay?
You can't take a genetic test and then say, see, here's my fat pass. No dog. We're not doing that. Okay. You have a genetic predisposition, but that is not your fortune. It's not your future. Change it. If you don't like it, change it. What that will mean is you're going to have to work harder. Okay. You're going to have to be even more dialed in than skinny mini down the road who can eat six cheeseburgers in one sitting and not even gain a single flutter of an ounce. We can't do that. You and me. People.
Maybe you can, but I can't. It will mean you're gonna have to work harder. And if you're ready to work, make sure you contact me, look in the show notes for when my next coaching starts, because I'm ready to get going with you. I'm ready to show you what's possible and I'm ready to show you how this program is going to change your whole freaking life. Have an awesome day, stay strong, and remember, show up. Ciao.