7: Headaches, Brainfog, Body Odour - Brian’s Story

Filly is joined by Brian, one of our awesome clients who worked with Chris & Filly Functional Medicine a couple of years ago.

Brian is one of the biggest-hearted people you will ever meet. He is also a highly successful entrepreneur, and is currently the founder of VA Platinum, an outsourcing business. VA Platinum specialises in hiring virtual staff for business owners to win back their time, make more money and improve their happiness. (Segway: We’re lucky enough to have some of Brian’s awesome VA’s working for us! Shout out to Gerson for doing all the background work on this podcast + MORE in our business!).

But…running fast-growth businesses came at a cost for Brian: his love for helping people, initially affected his health. Brian shares his ending body burnout story, and how he overcame chronic daily headaches, brain fog, fatigue, anxiousness, and stress-triggered body odour.

These real-life stories are super special. We are lovers of words and the power of stories to heal and to create a transformation. And the research is clear: telling your own story and listening to other people share their story has mental AND physical healing benefits. Stories also metabolise trauma - which is what a lot of people struggling with chronic body burnout and “mystery” symptoms experience on a day to day basis. 

So we are incredibly grateful to Brian for coming on the show today, to spread the love and healing with others, as he shares his own ending body burnout journey. 

In this episode, Brian chats to Filly about:

• Being a Dad, husband, adventurer & now living the nomad lifestyle.
• The health issues Brian was struggling with, before reaching out to Chris & Filly - headaches, brain fog, fatigue, anxiousness, and stress-triggered body odour. Brian also talks about how this was affecting his life - how the headaches and brain fog and poor energy were affecting his ability to get through work and enjoy family time. How he was waking up most days thinking: ”not another f&% day!”, and how as the founder of a fast-growing business, he felt like he couldn’t tell anyone this. How he was experiencing extreme lows during the day, and had no energy or desire to exercise or look after himself. 
• Brian talks about his tendency to over-give to others - martyrdom syndrome, empath, people pleasing - and how he genuinely loved helping friends and clients, but how he realised that his own health benefits, family relationships and lifestyle were going down the drain. Filly & Brian chat about this pattern, and how it is often a deeper metaphysical root-cause of body burnout. 
• Brian then talks about what he had tried before reaching out to Chris & Filly, including doing a full blood-count with his GP. Brian was relieved nothing sinister, like cancer, showed up on the test results, but he was still confused about the cause of his failing health. In the meantime he “managed” his symptoms by pushing through work, grinning his way through family time, and popping pain killers once a week when the headaches got too painful. 
• Filly and Brian chat about the Answers phase of the Ending Body Burnout Method, which includes connecting the dots of symptoms and his health history, and getting answers around body systems using functional lab testing. Brian had an unusual adrenal stress hormone test, which showed super low cortisol and very high DHEA. Brian also had extremely low serotonin, a huge amount of opportunistic bacterial overgrowth in his gut, and extremely low glutathione stores which were affecting detox pathways (interesting, as his GP blood test results for liver function were fine - Filly chats about the difference between GP testing and functional lab testing for the liver/detoxification). Brian describes how impressed he was about the level of data he received through the labs - and how validating it was, especially when all his GP tests came back as “fine”.
• Brian and Filly chat about root-causes - what actually caused his body systems to burn-out in the first place. One of the major root-causes was Brian’s stress/work load, and the patterns of over-doing for others, which led to addictively overworking. This behavioural pattern is not natural for Brian, who would much prefer to read a book all day or go for a hike. He felt pressured to “do more” because of pressure from others - and the pressure he put on himself to please others. We chatted about how mindset coaching helped him get clear on his values so he could align his behaviour to self-healing and health-promoting behaviours, as well as regular meditation. Filly also highlights that Brian’s genetic liver condition, Gilbert’s syndrome, which was diagnosed when he was 15 years old, would’ve played a part in Brian’s detox results. Filly chats about epigenetics and how you can turn genetic mutations on & off through the way you live, think and feel, and the health of your body systems.
• Brian shares moments when he realised our Ending Body Burnout Method was working. How his body odour disappeared (which his wife greatly appreciated!), how his headaches and brain fog lifted after a few months, and how his energy became more sustained, so that he was able to get through work and still have energy to spend time with his son and wife. Brian shares a beautiful moment when his son noticed Brian had changed because Brian was smiling again.
• Brian shares what was different about our Ending Body Burnout Method - first up, he’d NEVER heard about functional medicine, and was hooked by the scientific lab-based approach of peering into body dysfunction. He also loved the “jab-jab…hook” approach that he got working with both Filly and Chris - the body-mind holistic approach, addressing body burnout from both angles at the same time. 
• Finally, Brian shares a message of encouragement to our listeners: if you’re currently struggling with body burnout, pick up the phone and reach out for help! There’s no point waiting. You can get back on track faster, and in a safer and healthier way (as opposed to the standard medical route). Brian wishes he had done this work years earlier, when he first experienced signs of burnout after building and selling his first business.

Show Note Links: 

Are you a business owner looking for more time, money & freedom? Check out Brian’s outsourcing company, VA Platinum, to see how you can grow/run your business, without doing more. Brian had such amazing success using virtual assistants in his first business, that he ended up only working 1 day a month and was still highly profitable! 

Sign up for Filly’s “Root Cause of Emotional Eating” Masterclass on 22 May 2023, held for Natural Medicine Week

Take our Ending Body Burnout Assessment at: https://chrisandfillyfm.scoreapp.com/

Check out how you can work with us here: https://www.chrisandfilly.fm/work-with-us 

Disclaimer: This Ending Body Burnout Show podcast and any information, advice, opinions or statements within it do not constitute medical, health care or other professional advice, and are provided for general information purposes only. All care is taken in the preparation of the information in this Podcast. Chris & Filly Functional Medicine does not make any representations or give any warranties about its accuracy, reliability, completeness or suitability for any particular purpose. This Podcast and any information, advice, opinions or statements within it are not to be used as a substitute for professional medical, psychology, psychiatric or other mental health care or natural medicine health care. Chris & Filly Functional Medicine recommends you seek  the advice of your doctor or other qualified health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Inform your doctor of any changes you may make to your lifestyle and discuss these with your doctor. Do not disregard medical advice or delay visiting a medical professional because of something you hear in this Podcast. To the extent permissible by law Chris & Filly Functional Medicine and the Ending Body Burnout Show Podcast  will not be liable for any expenses, losses, damages (including indirect or consequential damages) or costs which might be incurred as a result of the information being inaccurate or incomplete in any way and for any reason. No part of this Podcast can be reproduced, redistributed, published, copied or duplicated in any form without the prior permission of Chris & Filly Functional Medicine.