Episode 78: How To Live Well In A World That Encourages Us To Be Unhealthy with Blake Carter

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Blake Carter:

Your body is a self healing mechanism so that you if you have gotten in your own way, all you have to do is now kind of get out of your own way, you know and create the conditions for your body to take over and do the rest of the work to heal. So know that your body you know, it can’t just take on anything is very resilient. But it cannot just take on anything. Okay. And at the same time though, if you have maybe fallen, you know away from Peak Performance health, you can regain it by just creating the right conditions and kind of getting out of your own way.

Christine:

Hello, lovely listeners. It’s Christine Gordon here, Practice Administrator of capital, integrative health and avid yoga and herbalist. I’m thrilled to announce an amazing podcast episode all about how to stay healthy in a world that bombards us with unhealthy messages and products with my friend Blake. Blake is a true believer in the power of food and thoughts. He has made it his mission to spread the word about how we can use food as medicine and use our thoughts, words and meditation to take a holistic approach to wellness. In this conversation, like discusses his favorite practical tips and advice for cultivating a healthy diet and lifestyle, and how to tap into the incredible healing power of food and thoughts. So sit back, relax, and get ready to be inspired by this insightful and uplifting conversation. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

I welcome Blake Carter benevolent blues. So good to see you.

Blake Carter:

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.

Christine:

I am so excited to have you here to share your work and your gems that you are spreading spreading the love I see on Instagram all the time. So thank you for being here.

Blake Carter:

Well, thank you again for having me. And once again, it’s a definitely an honor and a privilege to be here. Thank you for taking me

Christine:

Oh, yeah, sure. Let’s start let’s share with the audience how we met. And I can go first or you can go first,

Blake Carter:

I’m sure well, we can we can do it together. Okay. But, you know, we met at the amazing herb shop of smile herb in College Park, Maryland. Yes, great herb shop. And, you know, I think I met you when you first started there. And I believe us I remember us talking about some green e zu macho ceremonial grade that you I think got into the shop. Because for lack of a better word, and no disrespect, I think we’re a macho snob and they had to get some ceremonial grade, we had to get it. So um, so yeah, you started off doing an amazing job there smile? Yeah, I remember kind of like it was yesterday. Is that how you remember

Christine:

I do. But I remember a couple of things. I remember that conversation or those conversations. And I also remember, you coming in with your girls, they were little, just the two of them at the top, the little girls and your list of herbs, you know, and we got to we got to a point where you were calling ahead with your list. And it’s like, what is this guy doing with all this stuff? You know, like you’re getting some good stuff. So I think that kind of ties in probably to the work that you’re you continued doing and probably taken to the next level? Yeah. So why don’t you share with our audience what you do do? Yeah, you

Blake Carter:

know, well, years later, I’m still trying to think of a cool term with some alliteration or something to it, but for lack of better terminology. I am a Holistic Health and Wellness activist and entrepreneur. And also, you could say mainly, at this point, an author. So I’ve authored six books, just finished a new one that we’re going to try to get out by the end of this year, and got a bunch of ideas, ready to keep me busy for in terms of writing books, but um, basically, we just try to help people in different ways to level up their mind, body and soul and coming to a place of peak performance, health and wellness and homeostasis. So we do that primarily, like I just said, through books, but also video modules and online courses and workshops on Zoom. And we’re hosting a second annual benevolent one day retreat on the 10th of next month. So you know, we just think of all these different ways to try to help people out. But primarily it is through books and, and workshops right now,

Christine:

so many ways you’re spreading this information. And yeah,

Blake Carter:

I’ve tried to try to reach as many people as we can in as many different ways as we can to be of service.

Christine:

So is it more about community outreach, or are you working with it? individuals,

Blake Carter:

which definitely say both, but more so individuals, especially at this point, you know, we did a lot of community work when we were in College Park, and we’ve moved a buoy, and we have a really private home now and we find ourselves often just there at our home nowadays, kind of in, in the boonies in privacy that is that, but, you know, community is always first. And so we like to work in words, and then, you know, take it outwards. But, you know, I do work a lot on an individual basis. So, yeah, I would say both, you know, again, we have this epic retreat coming up. You know, and a lot of the community will be there and involved. But then again, we do work a lot with people personally, one on one and privately.

Christine:

I love the community outreach aspect and going inward first, and then, you know, sharing after, after you’ve done that work, yes. What type of people are you working with?

Blake Carter:

Well, you know, that’s the cool thing about what I do, or the field or whatnot of health and wellness is, you know, it transcends color and age, and, you know, all demographics, it seems. So, I work with all types of different people, old and young, and, you know, all different colors and creeds. You know, first many years ago, when I started coaching and teaching and whatnot, I would do a lot of one on ones. And I was blown away, it was a lot of teenagers that reached out to me to do one on ones and, you know, they got the money from a job that they were working at, at like 14 years old, washing dishes or something, and, you know, multiple youngsters, you know, I coached one on one. And so I, you know, I just was blown away that they’re taking their heart first of all, that they have a job. At that age, I don’t even know how they got a job 15 and 16. Anyway, you know, the taking their money that they worked hard for, and investing in yourself at a young age, investing in health and wellness. So yeah, we definitely reach all kinds of different people and ages and colors and creeds, like I said, for sure, that is so great. I think that’s so cool. You know, my wife is we do these events, and she’s really taken aback when we do in person events, because there’s always a very mixed crowd of old and young. And all types of different nationalities and whatnot. So

Christine:

yeah, I can see how you, you appeal to the younger audience, you know, some of what I’ve seen some of your content on Instagram, you’re doing really great fun stuff people should check out, like on his Instagram, whenever it was, but yeah, so this kind of is a good segue also into one of my favorite things that you do is go into different places and tell us why we should or should not be eating. Yeah. So I’m wondering if you might share some of your top tips for navigating a world where we’re surrounded by processed food all the time. I know, that’s a large topic, but I love when you do the swap this for that, oh,

Blake Carter:

yeah, people really love that I get it. Cuz, you know, people don’t want to just know what the problem is. But they want to know what the solution is, as well. So so, you know, swap this for that, you know, involves both. So that’s why I think people really love that. But, you know, I kind of alluded to it right there, I go into the supermarket a lot and do a lot of videos in there, kind of exposing, it’s maybe not the right word, but just trying to, you know, raise awareness, I guess, for people to be aware of what they’re consuming. So to take a look and see what’s back there. Because, you know, there’s, like you said, it’s a process world and a lot of processed foods. And I think many people most people, unfortunately have been very disconnected from the whole food process, and the food industry and where their food is coming from. And they kind of just take for granted that it’s safe and you know, the label and if it’s on the shelf, it’s probably okay for me because otherwise they wouldn’t have made it to the shelf, I think is what a lot of people think. I

Christine:

think that’s a common misconception. Yes. So,

Blake Carter:

um, you know, one of my biggest tips is to read the ingredients of what you’re eating. If you want to, you know, reach peak performance health and, you know, try to have as much longevity as as possible and your potential for you. I think that is a very important that you aren’t taking into consideration was going into your body and not taking for granted that. You know, some of the ABC organizations always have your best interests in mind, because oftentimes, they may unfortunately have The bottom line in mind, rather than your health and well being no bottom line, meaning the dollar, yeah. And then they kind of go hand in hand, you know, they don’t have your best interests in mind, they can kind of keep the bottom line going, because then they can kind of carousel you into, you know, another industry that goes hand in hand, unfortunately, you know, pharmaceutical industries and whatnot, they do have revolving doors, you know, a lot of them go from the FDA back to the, you know, pharmaceutical companies and CDC, and they just kind of just keep looping around. Yeah, I don’t think many people are aware of this. So I

Christine:

appreciate you spreading that awareness related, something that maybe we should all be a little more mindful of. I was wondering if you could give specifics, because I, I feel like I’m pretty well informed. I mean, I work here at Capitol integrative health, I’m surrounded by medical providers, nutritionist, you know, people who are in the know, you know, and my I, myself am a clinical herbalist, and I feel like I should know these things, right. And one day, I saw you on Instagram, and you picked up the bread that I buy. And I thought, oh, my gosh, Blake’s got my bread. What is he saying about my bread? And so I learned from you that day, you know, it was great. It was fantastic. So I’m just wondering if you could give us like, maybe one or two examples of things that we commonly are getting from, you know, upper, you know, not, you know, just the supermarket, but some common things that we think we’re doing okay, with, you know, making pretty good choices with but they’re probably not? Yeah,

Blake Carter:

that’s a great question. Um, well, I think some of the main culprits are things that are in many processed foods that are not very serving to the human body is maybe going to be gluten, you know, and soy are in everything. And you know, I’m not here to bash soy or again, to a soy, is it good or bad, but the forms of soy that are in most of these foods are is not, you know, it’s, it’s hard to argue that they are helpful and beneficial for you, you know, soy left this in. And first of all, over 90% of the soy is genetically modified. So if the soy is not organic, it’s likely that you could be consuming a GMO corn, I’m sorry, soy bean. And also corn as well over 90% of corn is genetically modified. And the corn, they throw the corn and the soy, you find it in most products from high fructose corn syrup, to texturize vegetable protein, and, you know, soybean oil, and you know, they’ll have the high fructose corn syrup and fructose corn syrup, and the same thing. So these are some of the main things that I recommend to avoid corn, soy gluten, gluten is very damaging to the, to the gut, and in my opinion, and the gut in the brain, many people now are connected. And so you know, corn, soy, gluten, processed sugars, artificial flavors, even natural flavors.

Christine:

Yeah, some of those. They are like, they sneak them in, right?

Blake Carter:

Yeah, they sneak him in. And the problem is, you don’t really know what the natural or artificial flavor is comprised of, it could be a host of different chemicals and natural flavor. For instance, it means it only has to be derived originally from a plant or animal sources, a very vague term. And under that umbrella, it can be a lot of different things. And it could be a total chemical, Shi T storm. And that one ingredient alone, numbers, you know, numbers aren’t ingredients, numbers are food, you want to avoid red light, love

Christine:

that say that again, already,

Blake Carter:

you know, numbers aren’t food or ingredients, so they shouldn’t really be in your food at all. And they are in many foods. So yeah, those would probably be some of the top things that I recommend trying to avoid if you’re looking on the back of a package. And then you know, boil it down to generally speaking, something that you can recognize and pronounce. Maybe you want to stay away from it. Yeah, not consume it. Good advice. And one last thing is that our ingredients are listed by weight. So keep that in mind as well. So if a food item, you know, the first second, maybe even third ingredient is sugar oil, then it’s going to be largely comprised of sugar oil, maybe you want to stay away from that product as well. So yeah, that’s maybe kind of just in general. Good tips. Quick Tips. I guess I would try to keep in mind while in the grocery store shopping. There’s so many things you know, we talk a lot about that. That would be probably the main ones though.

Christine:

Yeah, I pretty Shouldn’t you sharing those? Those are good tips to be to start with, you know, you could always do a deep dive and I love the number one, that’s the red dye number 40 And all those others that

Blake Carter:

yeah, totally unnecessary linked to, you know, ADHD, and, you know, a lot of not desirable attributes that, fortunately is associated with,

Christine:

right. Yeah, I know, You’ve written several books. And so you have a lot to say on this topic, but what do you consider to be essential for a healthy lifestyle?

Blake Carter:

That’s a great question, what do I consider to be essential for healthy lifestyle, top three things I would say our high quality, hydration, high quality, nutrition, and high quality sleep, and repairing so that all is based upon your circadian rhythm. So, you know, from 4am to noon, you’re trying to eliminate from noon to 8pm you’re trying to build and then from 8pm to 4pm, again, your rest and rejuvenation period. So, you know, it all goes hand in hand, your circadian rhythm and those top three tips, I think, you know, so the building is the nutrition and when proper nutrition, you know, that cycle of the rest and rejuvenation from 8pm to 4am. You know, and then I guess you could add in detoxifying, you know, but we’d like to just recommend living a detoxifying lifestyle rather than going on detox and now you turn into like a dog chasing your tail because you just keep spinning in circles and hustling backwards and we go from detox to you know, go back and put the things in our body that we’re trying to detox again and then detox and then then you know, so we’re just keep spinning the circles. So I think it’s better to take a detoxifying lifestyle approach you know, which you know, get the body moving sweat you know, we eliminate through our skin or Oregon or you know, our armpits so we want to get the body moving. So yeah, my top tips though would be proper hydration living water you know, water from living fruits and veggies I think is

Christine:

two h co2 Okay, yeah, let’s

Blake Carter:

water structured water it’s the kind of water this in ourselves is the kind of water that helps to transport nutrients throughout our body

Christine:

how do we get that letter

Blake Carter:

from fruits and vegetables any water inside of a fruit or vegetable is a stereo to living structure water and in my opinion, it is superior to a h2o and it’s more more serving more nourishing and it’s also more detoxifying on its way out it also pulls more toxins out of the body. So it’s like a beautiful double edged sword so to speak for lack of a better term but it also nourishes and on the way out detoxifies more than just regular h2o

Christine:

Yeah, I love this concept of living a detoxifying lifestyle. I mean, it just sounds so much more in alignment you know and more in alignment with nature more in alignment with you know, just making better choices so all the way around

Blake Carter:

and I don’t think it’s quite as hard as people think you know, it’s just like you said starting to swap this for that. So we swap a toxic product for product which is you know, not going to harm us so in the process we’re starting to detox from whatever that product was that was harming us you know, so just making those swaps is part of the detoxifying lifestyle and there’s a limiting your toxins limiting the chemicals in your home you know yeah, that’s pretty much that’s what the name of the game is about limiting your exposure to the toxins.

Christine:

So this this nutritious water that you’re talking about coming from fruits and vegetables you know, I’m thinking of watermelon or where can I get all this from watermelon? What else is kind of juicy coconut

Blake Carter:

coconut is one of the best structure waters Yeah, so

Christine:

tell us a little bit more. Yeah, so we can I mean

Blake Carter:

you can structure regular h2o, h2o, you know, you can throw it to vortexes and all kinds of different things to help restructure it and take it to the next level. But yes, and every fruit and vegetable again is the eighth throw to in my opinion, I think that the watermelon juice see the watermelon juice is one of the superior ultimate forms of hydration. It’s you know over 90% of water. We recommend to get a seat of automounter because the seas are full of nutrition, the full of vitamins and minerals the good for libido. Amino acids. Are you grinding those seeds? Yeah, so we purposely blend the watermelon juice so that we can consume the seeds because if we were to juice the watermelon seed of watermelon juice, the juice was going to discard all the valuable seeds Um, as well as we like to keep some of the fiber purposely intact so that it can help to regulate the fructose in the in the drink. Okay,

Christine:

so blender not juicer

Blake Carter:

blender now juicer, in my opinion for a lot most of your fruits in general, but definitely for melons, we blend those, it’s also much easier, you just throw it in the blender, and it’s going to basically blend it to liquid, it’s gonna just taste like juice anyway, it might you know, just be, you know, obviously, you know, you’ll get a little bit of the texture will be a little bit different a little piece here or there. Yeah, but it basically will be, you know, a pure liquid, and you’ll keep those valuable vitamin C’s intact, and you end up consuming them that way if you blend it. Great. So yeah, we recommend to blend it for those reasons to consume the seas and to help to regulate fruit, the fructose a little bit from the fruit,

Christine:

is that with most fruits and vegetables, yeah, they do that with the seeds as well.

Blake Carter:

Yeah. But you know, we use a little bit of fruits, and for sure, you know, it’s not the end of the world. But we don’t want to just make we try to steer away from making just like a straight fruit juice, and the juicer, you know, so maybe we’ll make an apple juice, that’s a great source of H 302. But we’ll throw like some ginger and fennel in it as well. That sounds amazing. Yeah, and maybe like a lemon or lime. So it was just straight apple juice, and that you do in the juicer and we will do that in the juicer. And we will strain that though. Okay. Yeah. Well, because when we add the ginger and the fennel, it won’t be so desirable. If we did a strain that one.

Christine:

I know people are gonna be curious about where we can get these recipes.

Blake Carter:

Yeah, so um, like I said, I’ve written six books. And my second book is all about this topic of living waters, I call a title, the book Holy Water, a guide to washing your insides better than you wash your HSS. So that’s the subtitle. Yeah, so it teaches you all about how to use liquid elixirs to basically detoxify your body and nourish your body. It’s not just juice. This book is also including smoothie recipes. You know, infused waters, infused teas, plant based milks. So it’s got like pretty much all types of holy waters. And they’re not just us

Christine:

for this, but where can we find it?

Blake Carter:

You can get the book of benevolent blaze.com.

Christine:

Lincoln submerge, and I’m sure we’ll make sure when people can access.

Blake Carter:

Sure. Great, thank you. I sign every book that I ship out.

Christine:

Oh, I love that personal touch. So good. So we talked about we kind of touched on the next topic that we have on our list of things to discuss decreasing toxins, increasing movement, focusing on whole foods and hydration and limiting stress. So I know you are a busy person, you’re a dad with four small people. What do you recommend for this one limiting stress?

Blake Carter:

Well, first of all, those are two major keys that I want to piggyback and just reiterate, limiting stress and what was the other increasing movement? Yeah, just I just want to just drive home, the importance of movement. And exercise is very important as well, when we’re talking about living a healthy lifestyle. I think it’s important to at least try to get your body moving in an enjoyable way to you three to five times a week, if not every day. You know, you play it by ear, see how you feel. Of course, if you need a rest, you take that break. But I think that’s important to get some kind of movement that you enjoy as much as possible, or as many times at least a week as possible. And limiting stress. So yeah, I’m big on that as well. You know, I wrote I wrote some books that largely have to do with that as well. And one of the biggest ways that I think it’s beneficial to limit stress is meditation. Meditation brings elation. Meditation. Also brings manifestation but that’s another story but um, I would

Christine:

love to talk with you about that. We’ll have to have you back to talk about manifestation.

Blake Carter:

Yeah, sure, love talking about all of those topics as well. But um, let me see stress. I think meditation is a great tool to limit stress. Simply deep breathing using your breath can be very very beneficial to relieve stress quickly, not always, you know it can kind of make things worse even so you got to play it by ear and you know, take a situation by situation but just simply using the breath maybe even using a box breathing which could just be like in three in for a count of three hold for a count of three, exhale for a count of three and then hold again for counted three or four or five or six seconds whatever works for you. What else moving the body again, you know moving the body exercising going for Ron, you know, going for a bike ride. And music music is very helpful for me. I don’t know where I would be if I was still be here without music. It’s gotten me through a lot of tough times and stressful situations,

Christine:

listening to music or playing music listening

Blake Carter:

to music. Yeah. You know, I wish I was more musically inclined to play personally. I probably would, if I could. But so yeah, listening to music, and then, you know, there’s also foods and herbs that I’m sure that you know, of course, that could help you with balancing your stress. Certain herbs, you know, ashwagandha you know, cat nip, maybe we’ll add lemon balm, you know,

Christine:

good nighttime, I

Blake Carter:

was gonna say some of those are more moving into sleep and do. But yeah, a lot of options to help them lose stress. That’s important.

Christine:

Can we circle back to the decreasing toxins we talked about, you know, ways to do that through food. And I know you really, really focus a lot of your work on hydration. And before we got started, we were talking about water purification and things like that. So and the young people that are coming to you, I see all the young people walking around with water bottles with the plastic water bottles. Yeah. And can you just talk about that for a second? plastic water bottles?

Blake Carter:

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, it’s funny, or it’s kind of I don’t know, I guess it’s a little bit sad, you know, it’s great that they’re drinking water, but unfortunate that this out of the plastic bottles. So, you know, or you may or may not know that the plastic leeches. And what people do need to know and many people don’t know is that it doesn’t matter if it says BPA free or not the BPA free is a total marketing scam, BP the BP and BPA stands for Bisphenol A and basically they have to use the BP the bisphenol to make the plastic and what they do is this simply swap the a compound out with B through Z. So now you have BP s for instance, and BP s actually has been shown as less studied Okay, and in the studies that they have done though, is shown to be even more detrimental than the BPA the replacements so it’s a total marketing ploy. And at the end of the day, you need to just remember the Plastic is plastic and the plastic is leaching into whatever product that pretty much is coming in freezing something leeches heating, the plastic leeches, acidic things leach cans are aligned with the BPA lining. Boxed waters in all these things align with this with this plastic box water two box water is definitely lined with a BPA lining, you know, the box would disintegrate, disintegrate get soggy and whatnot. So, so yeah, people need to know that. You know, regardless of BPA free or not, do not be fooled by BPA free, you just want to avoid the plastic because it’s leaching BPA into your water. And what that is, is mimicking estrogen. And, you know, we don’t want to over balance our hormones, especially with synthetic versions of things, you know, synthetic version of estrogen. You know, it’s not going to help us it’s going to throw our homeowners off balance is going to be an endocrine disruptor. And there’s a lot of other associated side effects in our economy want to get into you know, like, it’s a lot I know, forming manboobs have been shown, you know, all kinds of horror stories. Yeah, and then you know, there’s stuff in the water as well. before it’s even bottled in the plastic oftentimes and he’s in these bottled waters so you want to be very careful.

Christine:

The message is clearly try and stay away from plastic.

Blake Carter:

Yeah, yeah, I think it’s better to source the water, maybe from either get like a water distiller or Berkey or you know, maybe even you have them deliver the spring and a big five gallon glass to your home. If you can afford it I think those would be some of the best options or you go to a grocery store and refill into glass bottles with the machines that they have with a reverse osmosis.

Christine:

This is just a curious little anecdote I want to get your opinion on it and see if you know about do you know about this the water at Berkeley Springs West Virginia it’s kind of local you know not too far. Yeah, no, um, yeah, that’s a natural spray and it’s loaded with minerals and people go there and just stock up on their their water and yeah, I don’t know a lot about it. But

Blake Carter:

yeah, I don’t know I’ve always been a little sketched out by those to be honest, because, you know, I don’t know what’s at the top it was trickling down finding its way down to the bottom. But you know, I don’t know Guess they test those maybe semi often and we’d hope Yeah, we hope you can go to find a spring.com and find a spring near you.

Christine:

Oh really? I didn’t know that what is that? So

Blake Carter:

find a spring find a spring.com Find a spring.com

Christine:

Stay and have you done that? Yeah,

Blake Carter:

yep. All right well you’d be surprised there’s lots and you’re probably you know 30 minute 30 mile radius I bet 30 to 60 miles I bet most people have a spring near them

Christine:

we can go exploring see we can find

Blake Carter:

Yeah, yeah, just just make sure bring glass bottles not plastic.

Christine:

Yeah, right. I saved my I save everything glass anyway. Yeah, I’m loaded up. So yeah, let’s talk about what offerings you have we talked you alluded to in the beginning and you have some things coming up offerings what you have going on and how people can get involved with your work

Blake Carter:

yeah, um, so you can find me on Instagram primarily is my that was where I’m most active on line on social media and that is at benevolent BENEV o le anti the word benevolent underscore Blizz be li ZZ benevolent underscore Bliss is my ad on Instagram, and Blizzard short for Blake so you can find me there gifting a lot of free information and content on there how to live a healthier lifestyle. And then you can find any of my literature at benevolent bliss.com have books on there. And I also just released recently a new coaching program. It’s a six week coaching program. So we have about you know, over 10 hours of video professionally filmed video modules that include everything from juicing to meditation. And then what we do is coach people for six weeks one on one through the sessions if they have any questions or whatnot. And what I call the Trinity transformation program, signature program it also comes with one copy of each of my books. So that’s a new program that I’m just released a lot of people are finding great value

Christine:

I’m sorry, I just want to know that is that a program for professionals or for anyone

Blake Carter:

for anyone? Okay yeah for anyone looking to just basically level up any part of their mind body or soul and or Yeah, so yeah, benevolent bliss.com is where you can find any my literature and benevolent underscore Bliss is my free content. So

Christine:

you got to check it out.

Blake Carter:

And I’m also on YouTube, but I have some content up there. But it’s kind of you know, I need to get some new stuff up there and be a little bit more active but I technically do have a Youtube as well. And I also have a sorry, I know where I’m headed. We did two albums, mixtapes they’re called Mottram mixtapes to divine nine and find those on YouTube or Apple or Spotify and places like that as well

Christine:

what did they call it again?

Blake Carter:

What’s the mixtape is titled The the divine nine modular mixtape Okay, we have a volume one and Volume Two Volume One is it’s just got like different tracks, I guess. You know, all you know, kind of based on holistic health and in the Part Two though, is a chakra healing mixtape. So we have a track for each chakra, where we kind of have a mantra, or it’s music, it’s music. It’s very unique, you know? It’s almost kind of like spoken word. But yeah, I have a producer who, you know, he lives in Hollywood. And he produced it. So it was just him and I was on the East Coast, sending him voice memos and and he put it all together in Hollywood. And you would think that we were in the same room. Amazing producer. He’s worked with some some, some really big names. So I’m really fortunate to work with him. And so yeah,

Christine:

I’ll check it out. I’m sure our audience will as well. Yeah. appreciate the support and events. Yeah. So I know you have a retreat coming up. So what happens at this I know you’ve done these retreats before? What what happens? Where are they typically? What is it like is it one of those ones one day?

Blake Carter:

Yeah, so this is a one day and it’s in Bowie Maryland and it’s at this space called forest it I don’t know if you’re familiar with forest it No, tell me about Oh, man. It’s just such an amazing space forest. It is a food up sorry, a forest garden a food forest,

Christine:

a food for food forest

Blake Carter:

or forest garden? I think he likes to refer to it as the forest garden. Okay, so it’s a basically like a sounds a big land, piece of forest that the founder Lincoln, he basically saved this piece of land from going into development and you know, colon townhouses or something crazy. Yeah,

Christine:

where is it?

Blake Carter:

It’s simple. We have Uh, around enterprise and, you know, I don’t know who for whoever is familiar, it’s around enterprise.

Christine:

I’m sure there are gonna be plenty people who want to learn more about it. So

Blake Carter:

yeah, well, so it’s forested, you can find, I believe their website is forested.us. If you want to learn more about what do we got going on, but this is the coolest space. And basically, in this space, Lincoln is growing anything that will grow there. So he has like kiwi berries, and all kinds of like pear trees that he’s grafted, and persimmon trees that he’s grafted, and all kinds of herbs, and it’s just a totally amazing space. And you know, he has some covered awning there where he does, you know, his own kind of permaculture workshops and stuff as well.

Christine:

Like another hidden gem, I’m always getting the most

Blake Carter:

amazing space. I mean, this is an amazing space. And, you know, it’s got a big tree house that overlooks the space, it’s really high up. And, you know, he’s got like a pond down there, where he’s beginning to grow water crest, and down to the pond. And, I mean, this is the most amazing space, he’s got a solar dehydrator, that he’d dehydrate some of the herbs and fruits and stuff out there. So this is where you’re hosting. Yeah. So that’s where we’re hosting the retreat. And yeah, so it’s a one day retreat. And we’ll start at around noon, and we’ll end around seven. And we’re basically going to do a bunch of different workshops, with little breaks in between, there’s going to the founder is going to take us on a tour of the space. And, you know, he’ll be showing us some things that we could forage.

Christine:

Is this a regular offering? Because I know by the time this podcast airs, we will have passed September the 10th. Yeah. So is this something that you will be doing again,

Blake Carter:

do them twice a year? Fortunately, this one was scheduled for May and it got rained out. And this is actually a reschedule? Or else, you know, we would have tried to have our second one happening now. We’ll be on the next May, we hope to plan another and make it a third making it we hope to make it an annual thing. So we’re here on our second annual, and actually, we did two last year. So I don’t know if annual is the right term. But anyway, sounds good to me. Hope to do it again next year.

Christine:

So stay in touch with capital, integrative health. When it comes around again, we’ll be happy to spread the word I’m sure our audience

Blake Carter:

thank you. This is an amazing space that you have here, by the way. And I think that this is a very valuable space. Because when you explain to me how many different types of practitioners you have, I think this is a very valuable space for anybody to come and find wellness. Because you know, everybody has different approaches to how they want to heal and reach homeostasis. And it sounds like you cover all the bases here. So

Christine:

we try. We try and do that. And yeah, I’m very grateful, very grateful to be a part of this work with everyone here. Sure. They’re

Blake Carter:

grateful to have you as well. Thanks, Mike.

Christine:

Happy to have you as well here joining us.

Blake Carter:

There’s been a slurp in the mics.

Christine:

So this is a may take a little bit of thought. What is one thing you wish people would know about living well, in a world that encourages us to be unhealthy?

Blake Carter:

What is one thing that I wish people knew more

Christine:

about living well, about living well, in a world that encourages us to be unhealthy? Yeah. Wow, that is a great question. Thank you, Jen.

Blake Carter:

Well, this is just one thing.

Christine:

That it’s so good. There it is. Yeah. I mean, you there’s so many things that you’ve talked about

Blake Carter:

which one to pick, I guess I would have to go with, you know, people just realizing that you live you, you have a self healing machine mechanism of the healing body. But, you know, and he’s the right fuel. And so I guess I wish that people would know that, basically, you are what you eat. And it’s very important to take into consideration what you put in your body. And to piggyback with a maybe one a on that one or to know that again, your body is a self healing mechanism so that you if you have gotten in your own way, all you have to do is now kind of get out of your own way, you know, and create the conditions for your body to take over and do the rest of the work to heal you. I think that’s great. So know that your body you know, it can’t just take on anything. It’s very resilient. But it cannot just take on anything. Okay? And at the same time, though, if you have maybe fallen you know, away from peak performance, how you can regain it by just creating the right conditions and kind of getting out of your own way, doing something different than you were doing before. Yeah.

Christine:

No, that’s great. But I think the message is, I mean, the way I’m hearing it is small changes, right? We are all capable of making small changes that will add up. Yeah, you know,

Blake Carter:

I think that’s the problem, people get overwhelmed. And then they get a little bit daunted. And then they kind of fall into a place of kind of throwing in the towel and giving up. But like you said, that was so important, I think, is to know that the baby steps and you know, Rome wasn’t built overnight, as they say. So, you know, we can just slowly get to that place of where we don’t have to make a lot of changes. Now, you know, we will fall into that place, much sooner than we think if we just keep making little changes,

Christine:

small changes and working our way up to the detoxifying lifestyle, I’m totally adopting that.

Blake Carter:

Or maybe that’s the one thing. It’s important to live a detoxifying lifestyle. If you do one thing, it’s very important to live with detoxify lifestyle, and that goes deeper than just the foods that you eat. So meditation, so maybe we could just summarize that to me, it’s important for you to exclude toxins. Maybe Maybe that’s,

Christine:

yeah, yeah, I do want to just note, because we have been focused on you know, food and hydration and things like that. I do know that, you know, as a holistic lifestyle advocate, you do also create awareness around your environment, our environment.

Blake Carter:

Yeah, you know, that’s what I’m thinking about cleaning supplies, you know, even the water that you’re bathing with, doesn’t have a shower filter, or you just sucking in all the fluoride in tap water into your skin while you’re in the shower, you know, things like that. So yes, bigger, at the end of the day, then your food. So that’s why we come back to detoxifying lifestyle, instead of on a particular diet, so to speak, I guess. Yeah.

Christine:

So we went over how people can learn more about you, and how they can work with you through your website and your Instagram. Anything else you want to leave us with today? Like?

Blake Carter:

Um, well, I just want to say thank you once again, and, you know, reiterate that this was an honor and a privilege for me, and, you know, just what we ended with the one thing that they should take, or that I wish people would know, I guess, you know, piggyback off of that again, and you know, just hope that everybody can try to become more aware of their environment, and what is going into their mind, body and soul, because what we didn’t speak on and touch on is that it’s important to take in consideration. What’s going into your mind as well, not just your mouth,

Christine:

I think we can take a second. Yeah, I mean, that really is important. I mean, I know, you just dropped it this big thing at the end. But yeah, what are how, what are we thinking? What are our thoughts? Right, right? How is that affecting? How? How can we detoxify that part of our

Blake Carter:

Yes, very important. And then, you know, I wrote a book, and it was all about health and food. And then you know, moving forward, I realized that it’s more about the mind, because you couldn’t even have made any of those changes on your plate, if it wasn’t for the thought first. So the thought just pretty much trumps everything. And it really does create your future and your reality. And you know, it’s the first law of universal law. And the most primary universal law is the law of mentalism, which basically states did all his mental. So everything starts in the mind. So honestly, forget everything I just said today. Take into consideration your thoughts. Yeah, are more important everything honestly,

Christine:

like with so much gratitude and reverence for your work. So good to see you again. And thank you so much for joining us here and our space and look forward to meeting you next time.

Blake Carter:

Thank you, Kate. Thank you, you can can’t wait to hopefully be here again when they can’t wait. Thank you.

Dr. Andrew Wong:

Thank you for taking the time to listen to us today. If you enjoyed this conversation, please take a moment to leave us review. It helps our podcasts to reach more listeners. Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss our next episodes and conversations. And thank you so much again for being with us.