Nutritional Wellness

00:00
Valerie Federwitz
It’s not widely talked about, but I think stress is one of the biggest threats to overall health. 

00:17
Rich Rudowske
Welcome to the essentially translatable podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible translators. I’m Richardowskny. 

00:22
Emily Wilson
And I’m Emily Wilson. 

00:24
Rich Rudowske
And we have a great episode today with Valerie Federowitz talking. You know, you are what you eat, kind of, although she would never say it that way. But before we get into that, Emily, if people wanted to be sure that they have essentially translatable showing up wherever they want it, where would they go and what would they do? 

00:41
Valerie Federwitz
Right. 

00:42
Emily Wilson
Well, you’ll definitely be able to find all of our podcast episodes at slash podcast, but a lot of you guys are on the go and you have an app already on your phone or on your smart device. So we recommend finding us. We’re on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, all the like Amazon music. 

01:07
Valerie Federwitz
Yeah. 

01:07
Emily Wilson
So if you find us at essentially translatable podcast, make sure to subscribe and then you’ll get an alert every time we release a new episode. 

01:16
Rich Rudowske
Yes, faithfully, every two weeks. Oh, yeah, we’ll be there, we promise. 

01:20
Emily Wilson
Friday mornings, 05:00 a.m. Central time. 

01:23
Rich Rudowske
All right, so we got to talk with Valerie. Valerie serves as a nutrition and wellness consultant here at Lutheran Bible translators, serving the Lutheran Bible translators community, both here in the Concordia offices and all around the world. So Valerie Federowitz was here in the studio with us, and she talked to us all about different aspects of nutrition and wellness, her story and how she got involved. So we know you’re going to enjoy listening in. 

01:54
Emily Wilson
So today on the podcast, we have Valerie Federowitz joining us. Welcome to the podcast. 

01:59
Valerie Federwitz
Thank you. 

02:00
Emily Wilson
So you began serving at Lutheran Bible translators more recently earlier this year, as our nutrition and wellness consultant. So what inspired you to pursue those studies? And can you share a little bit about that background? 

02:15
Valerie Federwitz
Sure. My husband and I served in Ghana for 17 years. When we arrived in 2003, we had been married four years. We had experience with being adults and running a house, and I thought I knew a lot about cooking. And when I went on my first trip to the market in our village, I looked around and I thought, where’s the food? Because it was completely different than what I was used to. It’s not that I didn’t expect there to be differences, but it was just a shock. Let me just say that I quickly realized that the few groceries I had picked up in the big city were not going to reach very far. My five pounds of flour was going to be gone in a week if I had to make my own bread and pancakes for breakfast or whatever, we decided to do. 

03:12
Valerie Federwitz
So there was a lot of re strategizing at that time. I had a few cookbooks in my arsenal. One was called more with less. That’s a very popular among missionaries. There was also a cookbook put out by Wycliffe Bible translators, and my mother in law, who had served in Liberia for a very long time, had put together her own cookbook. So there were a lot of recipes in those cookbooks that I could access the ingredients to, and they provided a lot of guidance, and we didn’t starve in those first years. It was a big learning curve, going from making food with things that contained ingredients, like a bag or a box of something, a mix of some kind, to actually starting with the basic ingredients. 

04:09
Emily Wilson
Yeah, I made brownies last night, and I can attest to the fact that, like, oh, yes, this is very convenient. Everything’s already pre packaged. 

04:18
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. That was actually a learning experience the first time we made brownies in Botswana. And like, oh, that’s what all goes into this thing anyways, right? Yeah. 

04:26
Valerie Federwitz
So, I mean, I had to learn how to make my own bread, my own yogurt, granola, tortillas, you name it, I had to learn how to make it. Ended up being fun in the end, but at the beginning, there was a lot of stress. Right? It took a long time for me to learn to appreciate certain foods, like the different kinds of beans. For a long time, I just thought they tasted like dirt. But then I realized, well, we can do things with this. We can make it better. And now I make beans like three, four times a week. So gotten over that. Okra and cabbage were some of the other ones. I’m like, that’s not food, but it really is food. I’ve grown a lot in that. 

05:15
Valerie Federwitz
So starting off with cookbooks, about seven years later, another cookbook came into my life, and that book was nourishing traditions, and it challenged a lot of what I thought I knew about food and nutrition. There was a lot of information in there about different vitamins, minerals, things that, like, how you find these things in your food. And some of it was about how modern processes have really destroyed some of the wealth of our food. Overprocessing has taken out vitamins and made things less available to us. I was not really ready to hear those things at that point. I was happy to have those recipes, but I had a nickname for that book, the propaganda book. I think I started out thinking that it was the propaganda. 

06:16
Valerie Federwitz
But what I realized is that, no, it’s fighting against the propaganda that we have entrenched ourselves with our modern food processes. Around that same time, I had two friends, one in the United States and one in Ghana, actually not far away from us, who were both using some drastic food changes in their lives to improve some situations that they were in. My friend in the States had a baby who just could not keep any food down at all. So there was a lot of trial and error, a lot of sleepless nights, a lot of worry, but she was able to sort out what things she was eating that was causing that problem. And then once she was able to remove those foods, she had a much easier time with her baby. 

07:15
Valerie Federwitz
And then my friend in Ghana, she had Lyme disease, and she was really struggling with a lot of symptoms. And she also found that making some changes in her diet was really helpful to her. And she was able to get out of bed in the morning and take care of her family, whereas before she was not able to do that. So that was kind of my introduction to, maybe there’s some connections here, and that as the years went by, as I would look at nourishing traditions, I became more receptive to the things that it was saying and began to question things that I thought I knew about white flour and vegetable oils and pasteurization and homogenization of milk and other things. 

08:06
Valerie Federwitz
And I also became interested in, okay, how can I maximize nutrient intake using these different foods and different ways of making them, like fermenting and stuff like that? How can I use this as, like a multivitamin rather than just something that we put on our plate to fill our stomachs? So, yeah, that was kind of my start into becoming interested. I’m not sure if just this objective curiosity would have taken me this far if I hadn’t actually then had a very personal experience in my own family. That left no doubt in my mind that nutrition and food was incredibly impactful to health and wellness. So, my husband and I have four children, and our third child, ever since he was able to really communicate with us, he would talk about pain, stomach pain, joint pain. I had no idea where this was coming from. 

09:18
Valerie Federwitz
It would come and it would go, and after a couple of weeks of not hearing about it, you’d kind of forget about it, and then it would come up again. It’s like, well, that’s kind of weird. Sorry. Maybe you need to take a break from playing, or maybe you need to. I don’t know what. The pain would come and go and weren’t really sure what to make of it. And it honestly took a couple of years before I saw that this was a pattern we did not want to keep continuing. So I reached out to my friends who had made these changes in their lives and were finding benefit from it and just asking, what have you been doing? Where do you get your information? What are the steps that you took? 

10:04
Valerie Federwitz
How can we maybe start implementing some sort of changes that were going to help him? And so they gave me some guidance, and we tried gluten free, we tried dairy free, we tried different things at different times. And sometimes it would seem to help, and then we’d think, okay, we’re on our way. This is good. And then the problems would come back. So there was a point, it was about six years ago, maybe, that he and I were both like, we have to do something. This is really having a negative impact on my life. And so we got really drastic, and we pared down his diet to some very basic foods, just chicken and a couple of vegetables, some olive oil, salt, pepper. And it took three weeks before he had a day without pain. And at that point, then were seeing hope. 

11:08
Valerie Federwitz
Not that we wanted it to stay the way it was. Certainly not. When you go about something like this, you always want to have in mind adding it back in, adding things back in a very systematic way so that you can keep track of what’s happening. What are the feelings going on. It was a very long journey. There were times we had setbacks, certainly. There were times when he could not get up and play. He had to support himself on furniture. It was hard. And I am happy to say that today he is a cross country runner. He is leading his cross country team. He led them to state, the state competition last year. There’s no evidence of. Of the pain that he was in before. And he’s my inspiration. He’s my why. He is the one who. 

12:18
Valerie Federwitz
This whole process made me so excited to share stuff with other people, to give them the hope that we found. And I didn’t want to do that necessarily from just, well, this is my personal experience. I wanted to get education, to have a real science based place to share information from that. People could be like, okay, she’s got certification, she’s got education. Maybe she’s onto something. 

12:57
Rich Rudowske
So where did you get your certification? Tell us a little bit more about that and the coursework involved to be certified in this kind of field. 

13:04
Valerie Federwitz
I attended the nutrition therapy institute, which is located in Colorado. They have nutrition therapist master certification program. They offer in person classes as well as online with a group and online individual start. There were 13 classes in my program. They were each ten weeks long, with my last course was an independent study and that was 20 weeks. I started in January of 2019 and it took me three and a half years. So I just graduated in June of this year. I could have taken it quicker, but my goal was to learn. Certainly I wanted to finish, but I wasn’t rushing to finish. I wanted to take as much time as I needed to actually learn and get in depth on the information. 

14:06
Valerie Federwitz
We started off with a lot of the basics, anatomy and physiology, biochemical foundations, just a study of nutrients, the vitamins and minerals and all that kind of stuff that makes up our food and that our body needs. We had skills building classes in developing and utilizing different kinds of forms as we would look ahead to interacting with clients, how to get the information that you need to start exploring things with them, a little bit of coaching and business research and communications, and also understanding basic lab reports. And then there were the application classes, learning a lot about human life cycle, sports and weight management, and different pathologies that people deal with like autoimmune conditions or hormonal imbalances, metabolic challenges, and what the body needs to really be supported when those systems and those problems arise. 

15:19
Emily Wilson
It’s just amazing to me you’re using all these terms that I’ve heard before, but like you said, you took time to actually get to know these concepts and delve in deep to learn and thinking about. Anytime any of this was brought up in classes, it would just be like onto the next unit and not truly understanding, which is so ironic because this is so deeply pivotal to the way we’re able to live and to thrive and being able to manage ourselves well. So you serve as the nutrition and wellness consultant now at Lutheran Bible translators, and you’re able to speak into all of these topics that maybe we have taken for granted. So can you share a little bit about what this role entails within the organization? 

16:14
Valerie Federwitz
Sure. So I have kind of two areas that I focus on. One is more general, presenting different materials on different topics to the wider audience, our missionaries and our staff. I have done a few presentations at our summer mission conference. A shorter presentation to our staff, which then becomes available to everyone, just gets presented specifically to the staff. I have hosted something we call a lunch and learn. So we get together and we enjoy lunch together and we also learn about a specific topic and then have conversation about it. We have an intro organizational social media platform that I host a group on. And so I post recipes and articles and research and podcasts and all that kind of stuff just to kind of get those things to other people. 

17:19
Valerie Federwitz
They might not necessarily go and search out a podcast on blood sugar, but if it’s there, and if I do a little write up about why this is important, they might go, oh, well, I could take a listen to that. I’ve got 45 minutes or whatever. And that could be an introduction to them to, well, what does this mean for me? And then one of, I think, the most fun and engaging things that I’ve done so far is we did a diet diversity challenge. And what that was is anyone who wanted to participate would, within a seven day period, write down every plant based food item that they ate, whether fruit or vegetable teas. 

18:06
Valerie Federwitz
Teas are made with leaves and they come from plants, different spices, and just keeping track of that for a week and seeing how diverse can you make your diet, because diversity is one of the keys to getting different compounds from different sources. So I had a lot of good engagement, and I think people had a really good time doing that. 

18:32
Emily Wilson
I was going to say, rich, you got really competitive on that one. 

18:35
Rich Rudowske
I think I did. Yeah, I did. I had baobob seeds as one of my things. So that was kind of fun. 

18:44
Emily Wilson
Not everyone can. 

18:47
Valerie Federwitz
Certainly had some interesting submissions, which is great because it just gets you thinking about, well, maybe stepping out of your comfort zone a little bit and also knowing that, okay, maybe different types of apples have different things. So if you just stick with your favorite kind of apple and you don’t branch out, maybe you’re missing something. So it might be like, well, let me try this apple for a change and maybe you’ll find something you like. Yeah. So that was really fun. And I also offer individual, one one support for missionaries and office staff, as well as families in any area that they are interested in improving their health or reaching their goals. So, in that, I do utilize the forms that I built during my classes, and that’s a very detailed health history, a five day food, mood and activity journal. 

19:51
Valerie Federwitz
So they write down or somehow record everything they eat, how they sleep, what their mood is like throughout the day, whether they’re feeling really on top of things, or whether they’re feeling like, oh, I just need a nap so I can get an idea, what are their daily habits? What are their daily feelings? And then we can talk about those things. Is this normal for you? Do you usually need an afternoon nap? Or do you usually sleep this well? Or is this a fluke? Or are you on vacation. Maybe that helps sometimes in some areas and not in others. 

20:33
Rich Rudowske
Do you always eat at 10:00 p.m.. 

20:35
Valerie Federwitz
Yes, those are important things, because when you eat is sometimes as important as what you eat, and it’s not always well known, those kind of things. Another thing that can be a part of the one one support is looking at lab work, both from the past and from the present, in order to look for patterns or red flags or indicators of something that might be brewing beneath the surface. My certification does not give me any leeway to do any diagnosing of conditions or anything like that, but I can share what I see and especially advise someone how to approach their doctor about talking about these things and maybe requesting additional labs that might clarify things, because I think talking to doctors is sometimes very intimidating, and it can be really helpful to have that, just a little bit of guidance. Right. 

21:46
Valerie Federwitz
So as I go through these different assessments with people, we might come up with strategies for improving nutrient intake or eliminating certain foods or adding certain foods in to fill in some gaps. Strategies for physical activity, whether they’re sedentary and they don’t know where to start or whether they’ve been doing something, but it just doesn’t seem to be helping them anymore. What are some other strategies, some other activities? Maybe recommending some supplements, hydration, sleep, stress, all those things. They play important roles in health and wellness. So to be able to address those kind of rounds out the approach instead of just focusing on certain things and ignoring others. 

22:47
Rich Rudowske
Okay, so I’m one of Valerie’s clients, and I found one of the most useful things for me is the ongoing tracking of everything and just being more aware of what am I eating, how am I sleeping, other things that you record and the exercise, and some biometric things like what’s weight looking like, what’s blood pressure looking like. Just being more aware of those things is really helpful. And I think it’s an important thing to just be more conscious of that. Yeah. Anyways, that’s my experiences. And I can say that when I’m doing that things are better. And then if I get out of the habit of keeping track of stuff like that, it’s very easy to just be like, forget what’s happened and then be like, why am I feeling this way? 

23:31
Rich Rudowske
And, yeah, it’s a challenge in the US context, with the vast array of nutrition choices and things that you have available. There’s good choices and not great choices. Depending on who you are and what’s going on with you, it has seemed. 

23:46
Emily Wilson
Like there is more of a mindfulness. I’ve caught you a couple of times, like what you doing? Logging my food and being able to have that practice of slowing down and not consuming without thinking about it and reflecting. Because your story about your family, that’s how key of being able to bring it down. See the base elements, what’s going on here, what changes are made? Because otherwise it’s just a trial and error guessing. But being able to be more mindful is huge, right? 

24:18
Valerie Federwitz
And I think if you do some kind of tracking and recording of your habits, your food, things like that, you learn about food and you learn about yourself and you learn about, okay, maybe my neighbor can handle this, but I can’t, or this makes me feel bad. And if you know it, you ultimately have to make a conscious decision, am I going to enjoy this food for a moment and suffer for it later? Or am I going to pass it up and not experience that negative consequence, whatever it may be. 

25:00
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. And it’s just such an amazing thing. I was just talking to my wife last night about. I forgot exactly how, but were talking about foods and that had to do with dairy. So dairy is a thing I found just doesn’t work for me. And as I think back my entire life, even as a child, I can remember I associated like, I love to eat ice cream, but I always didn’t feel good when I did. Or I’d love to eat like a piece of pie with ice cream. And there’s stuff with the pie and gluten and stuff that bothers me now, but I can just remember I always didn’t feel good after that. 

25:31
Rich Rudowske
And it’s so strange that anyways, just being more mindful of it and then saying, okay, well, like you just said, if this doesn’t help me feel good, why would I keep doing it? Or what could I do instead? And those are. Yeah, I don’t know that idea too. 

25:47
Emily Wilson
Of being prescriptive of just cut out gluten entirely. Everyone needs to cut out gluten. And like how you were saying our neighbor might have a different reaction than we do, or maybe that it’s, whether it’s dairy or gluten or whatever kind of intake we have, it may have a different reaction than our neighbor. It’s just really interesting to me too, because how many diets are out there that this is the latest thing and being able to break it down of what does this look like for me? Is kind of what you’re bringing into focus, it sounds like. 

26:27
Valerie Federwitz
Yeah. So one of the things that was brought up time and time again throughout my classes was the idea of bio individuality. So every person has a unique makeup that influences how their body handles certain things. And there are some generalizations we can make. Like, everyone would probably do well to avoid as much sugar as they eat, but when it comes down to certain challenges that they might be going through, they might need maybe more vitamin e than their neighbor does, and maybe their body doesn’t process folate like other people. So they need to maybe take certain supplements to support how their body handles these things. So yes, just getting into their very personal details can really help get a good approach going for them that’s going to really help and support. 

27:43
Emily Wilson
I used to say that we’re just walking chemistry sets. Would you agree with that? 

27:49
Valerie Federwitz
To some measure, yeah, I would agree. 

27:53
Rich Rudowske
So why is it pivotal for a missionary to be mindful of their nutrition and wellness? 

27:58
Valerie Federwitz
Well, this is a Generalization. I will say that right now I only have experience in living in one country and only a certain region of that country. But I think in general, medical support and resources tend to be limited in the areas that our missionaries go to. They might have a local clinic that could give them malaria treatment if they get malaria or do some kind of hydration IV if they’re severely dehydrated. But to really get down to some maybe doing lab work or things like that, they might have to travel hours a day, depending on their location, to get to one of these hospitals that can kind of dig deeper into whatever they’re going through. 

28:51
Valerie Federwitz
So I think knowing and having and utilizing numerous different aspects of health supporting activities and strategies can reduce the time and energy spent in getting maybe medical attention where if they had been more aware of certain other things that maybe they wouldn’t have gotten to that point. It’s not widely talked about, but I think STress is one of the biggest threats to overall health. Stress is one of those things that it’s like a spider or an octopus, it has a center, but then it has these legs or tentacles that just reach throughout our whole body. And I don’t think it’s fair to say that missionaries have more stress. 

29:50
Valerie Federwitz
I think I might have said that when I was living overseas in the thick of it, but now having lived in the United States for a couple of years and not necessarily my own stress, but just seeing others around me and what they deal with, I don’t think it’s fair to say that missionaries have more stress than other people, but language and culture really adds a level to the stress. That maybe kind of ramps it up a little bit. You need a lot more mental energy. Sometimes you need more time. Sometimes you need to go farther distances to get your issues worked out. There’s protocols that you’re not going to be aware of because it’s not your culture. 

30:37
Valerie Federwitz
So in addition to just that stress aspect, I think that people in servant type jobs, such as missionaries, pastors, teachers, nurses, doctors, even moms, they tend to exert so much of their own personal energy outward to taking care of the people that are put in their charge, and that is absolutely needed. But they often do it to the detriment of themselves. Sometimes they can get into habits that burn them out. Losing sleep because you’ve stayed up too late doing one thing, because you’ve spent too much time during the day doing another thing, or skipping meals or just grabbing a quick something because you’re running out the door trying to do this other thing. 

31:33
Valerie Federwitz
So being mindful of nutrition and wellness starts with having knowledge, first of all, and information about the things that can be a support or can be a saboteur of your health. And then it at least gives a base for making better decisions, such as do you need to hydrate more, do you need to go to bed early? Do you need to say no to that piece of cake and yes to that orange that’s going to give you vitamin C. Not that you always have to say no to the cake and yes to the orange. So knowing about different strategies that can support your body, especially in times of stress or sickness, it’s not going to solve the stressor. 

32:29
Valerie Federwitz
Like if you go to bed early, it’s not going to fix your plumbing problem, but it will help you the next day to be more patient, maybe more realistic, more just able to face that and anything else that comes, because it’s usually not just one thing I. 

32:53
Emily Wilson
Feel seen right now. 

32:55
Rich Rudowske
Again, the mindfulness piece here is just really critical in all of this. Again, just from my own experience, because I log how long I slept. I know when I come in here if it hasn’t been enough, that I just need to be more careful for the day because I haven’t probably slept enough and so things may hit me differently. So anyways, just to affirm what you’re saying, the mindfulness and keeping track of stuff is really important. 

33:21
Valerie Federwitz
Yeah. And I think it again comes down to learning about yourself too. And I was talking to a colleague here in the office just yesterday, and she was recounting how during a celebratory cupcake event, she declined the cupcake because she felt like maybe she just might be coming down with something. And she knew that sugar depresses the immune system, and she just wanted to give herself all of the opportunity to overcome whatever might be trying to set in rather than setting herself on a path to, yeah, I can’t come in tomorrow because I just don’t feel good. It takes a long time. We’re not trained to listen to our bodies. We’re trained to take a Tylenol or an ibuprofen when you have pain. We’re not trained to go, I have pain. 

34:31
Valerie Federwitz
I wonder why, what is causing it and what can I do to help it not to happen again? Maybe you do need the Tylenol to finish out your day, but maybe you also need to say, what did I do? Was I maybe not hydrated enough? Maybe the lighting was bad and I need to change the lighting and to not get this headache again. So it’s a trial and error. But it’s also realizing that there’s so many things that impact how you feel and what ultimately shows up as pain or as some kind of symptom that you don’t want. 

35:14
Emily Wilson
So in all of your experience so far of your training, you’ve more recently had that rubber meets the road kind of experience. What kinds of consultation have you provided for people so far? In their context? 

35:31
Valerie Federwitz
Yeah. So in my official capacity, the list isn’t. Well, as I’m looking at my list, it’s actually kind of long, but I know there’s more in the future. I have talked to people about things like acid reflux and gerd, gastroesophageal reflux disease, diverticulitis, high blood pressure and other heart disease risk factors. Autoimmune conditions, constipation, osteoporosis, always. Weight loss is a concern among a lot of people. Low energy brain fog. I mean, that’s the list I could think of as far as just in the last eight months that I’ve conversed with people about. But sometimes it’s more general, like stress management or how to maybe tamp down your seasonal allergies or reducing sugar or increasing vegetables. Yeah, those are some of the common topics. 

36:36
Emily Wilson
Have you noticed a difference between us context versus missionary context so far, has there been, like, overlap or is it mostly different? 

36:45
Valerie Federwitz
There are some differences in maybe how I would approach certain strategies because overseas, our missionaries tend to have less access to maybe getting specialized lab work done or supplements that they’re easy enough to get here in the states, but maybe more challenging. Either they have to plan ahead to take them with them or to get somebody to bring them or just say, you know what? We’ve just got to work harder to get it from our food when possible. Then there sometimes are cultural barriers to implementing certain strategies. Like in some places, it would be very improper for a woman to go out running in shorts, but running in a skirt is not all that easy. So if you want to do something like getting outside and being active, you have to think about, what am I going to wear? 

37:52
Valerie Federwitz
And that’s going to be culturally appropriate. And sometimes that just leads someone to say, you know what? It’s not worth it. So in that case, what can you do within the four walls of your home? Or how can you mitigate some of those things to get benefit elsewhere? Also, if you have decided to maybe avoid certain foods, but you go to eat at someone’s house, can you culturally say, no, thank you? And different cultures have different ways of doing things, and it’s not maybe that you can’t ultimately avoid that food, but how do you go about communicating your desire, your need, your whatever? And those are challenging things that, yeah, they’re sometimes like, it’s not worth it. It’s too hard. 

38:48
Emily Wilson
Kind of jumping off of that. When our listeners are processing this information, they might be having some questions in their minds. Where would you recommend that they start on this journey of nutrition and wellness? 

39:03
Valerie Federwitz
If someone takes a very honest and critical look at themselves and how they see their lifestyle and their choices, they could probably find something that they say, you know what? This might not be the best for me. Maybe I need to be a little bit more physically active. Maybe I shouldn’t have ice cream at 10:00 at night. And there’s only one place to start, and it is where you are. And if you have a close friend or someone who you know will support you, share your thoughts, maybe they also have an impression that if you ask them to be honest with you and are truthful about wanting that honesty, they might have some input, too. There are a lot of people, I think, who try to start where they’re not at. 

40:06
Valerie Federwitz
Like, they try to start from zero and jump to 60, and they might be able to do it for a week, but it’s going to get overwhelming and it’s going to be strange and it’s going to feel like I’m not myself. And that leads ultimately to quitting. And then you just say, well, I tried it. I couldn’t do it. 

40:27
Rich Rudowske
Yeah, there’s kind of a principle that applies in lots of areas of life. But it’s that the small discipline changes that you make have a cumulative effect and you can’t make up for. If somebody’s doing the self assessment that you’re saying and they realize, like, for ten years I haven’t eaten right or exercised, you can’t say, well, starting today, I’m going to make up for ten years of not exercising and just going to do it all at once. So that’s kind of what you’re saying too, is the cumulative effect of small discipline choices over time has a positive effect. But if you try to say, I’m just going to bite up this huge piece all at once, it’s very difficult to do that for most people, right? 

41:09
Valerie Federwitz
So in the beginning, when you first start trying something new, starting to make a change, it’s not necessarily going to be that you see an outward and obvious impact. If you are completely a sedentary person and you decide to take a walk around the block every day, you’re not going to see weight coming off or a big impact. But if you take that as this is a step toward a goal, this is forward movement, this is easing in, this is establishing a new thing that I’m doing, and then don’t be satisfied with that, but build on it. And then eventually you will start seeing thing changes. You will start seeing maybe that you’re sleeping better at night, maybe your mood is improved. Maybe you have a bit more energy, which might seem weird if you’re expending energy to take a walk. 

42:18
Valerie Federwitz
But sometimes just being out in nature, appreciating a new view can energize you and can give you clarity of thought. And I think it’s really important to think about progress rather than perfection, because nobody reaches perfection. Even olympic athletes, they’re always striving to improve, to just to recognize any forward movement as improvement in anything that you see that you could do better at. Maybe you’re sleeping 5 hours a night. Well, the recommendation maybe is that you sleep 8 hours a night. Well, trying to gain 3 hours of sleep just right off the bat is going to be difficult. Start with a half an hour. Maybe there’s something that you are doing that is also making it more difficult to get some sleep. So you might have to look outside of, okay, what time do I go to bed? 

43:25
Valerie Federwitz
But maybe what am I doing in the hour before I go to bed that could be keeping me from sleeping well. So there’s many directions that you can go. Making small changes that will eventually lead to an improvement, that you will appreciate. 

43:43
Rich Rudowske
How can our listeners support healthy changes for the loved ones in their lives? 

43:47
Valerie Federwitz
I think there can be some awkward dynamics when someone we’re close to starts making changes. It can be something like you’re feeling guilt that you’re also not making those changes. Shame, maybe for times that you’ve made poor decisions. Maybe fear of losing some kind of common ground with that person. So, for example, say there’s a group of people from the office that like to go out to lunch and they’ve got their certain favorite places, and one member of the group decides, I would really like to cut back on my fried foods or some aspect of the menu that is really popular at those particular restaurants. They might feel like, well, I need to pull away from that activity in that group because they like to go and eat at these places, and I’m making different choices now. 

44:48
Valerie Federwitz
And that group of friends might feel like we’re losing our connection with our office mate. And there can be just bad and sad feelings on both sides. So just being honest with yourselves and with each other can really go a long way. Perhaps the group of friends can say, we miss having lunch with you. Is there a place you would rather go and try a new place? Maybe that friend who’s making the dietary changes could take a really critical look at the menu and say, well, there are a few things that I can eat. I don’t need to choose these other things that I have been choosing. Or maybe I can talk to the kitchen staff or put in a request about. Maybe we can do change the dish a little bit to make it more in line with my goals. 

45:51
Valerie Federwitz
So it takes effort, and we’re all human beings. And sometimes it’s easy to say, oh, come one of these, this, that, or the other thing is not going to kill you one time. Why not? Don’t be a party pooper. Those comments, I think we can all realize, are not helpful. But if we can give ourselves grace and each other grace and say, you know what? That wasn’t really fair. Or the person could say, that was a little bit hurtful for me. And maybe sharing this is the change I’ve made, and this is how I feel. I feel like I have more energy. I’m able to do my work better. These are benefits that I’m seeing. Can you be happy for me? 

46:41
Valerie Federwitz
Not that everyone else has to make those changes, too, but just to recognize that people need to do what is best for them. 

46:54
Emily Wilson
So as you’re kind of guiding people in this grace non judgment journey, being able to take steps towards progress even if it’s not perfection, what is it that brings you joy? And how is it that you really feel yourself leaning into this idea of God’s calling and vocation for you? 

47:16
Valerie Federwitz
It is a true and genuine privilege to be a part of this organization in this way. I really enjoy sharing information that empowers people to positively impact their health and wellness. There’s a lot of insights out there that are not being accessed. Everyone has their own interests, and not a lot of people’s interests go in the direction of health. I think it’s really easy for people to feel like they’re stuck in a rut, like they’re helpless to help themselves, like maybe they’re doomed by their genetics or their situation. And I want to speak into those feelings and give as much support as I can. That might just ping on somebody in a certain way. 

48:12
Valerie Federwitz
I mean, not everybody is going to be needing everything that I have to say, but if I speak about stress and somebody’s like, wow, I needed that, or I speak about sleep, and, yeah, I could really do that. Just having those points of connection with people. I believe that when we utilize the gifts that God gives us, which includes food, which includes water and sleep and other things, Sabbath rest, that we honor God’s design of our bodies. And he didn’t give human beings food after they sinned. He gave human beings food before they sinned. So to me, that says, God created our bodies with needs, and he gave the world, the earth, the means to fulfill those needs. So when we access those things, we participate in the processes that God put in our bodies to be healthy. 

49:22
Valerie Federwitz
I love to help people connect those dots, how to tap into those things, how to see them and how to use them to really maximize their abilities to do things. And the healthier we are, the less time we have to spend on sickness, the more time and energy we have for the work that he has given us to do. 

49:46
Emily Wilson
Thank you so much for sharing your journey so far, Valerie, and for enlightening our listeners, but also our organization. 

49:55
Valerie Federwitz
Yeah, thanks for letting me be on the show today. 

50:02
Emily Wilson
So in our interview with Valerie, it was just really reassuring. I know that she talked about people being maybe a little like, okay, is there any judgment? Our health, our wellness, our choices can be very sensitive or private subjects, but to be able to build that trust and that community, because ultimately having a partner come alongside and walk through, like, hey, this is what’s been happening to me. And to be able to evaluate our life choices in healthy, productive ways. And it’s been amazing for the people who have walked with her and said, this is making such a difference. I don’t feel as overwhelmed about my decisions, or it’s like, oh, okay, I can make these decisions in confidence. So it’s really incredible. And she just has this heart for that. 

50:56
Emily Wilson
And just, it’s contagious of making just wellness oriented attitude life decisions in humble ways. It’s not like lording over you in any way. 

51:08
Rich Rudowske
Yeah. Sometimes you just need somebody who has done all the work for you in a way to say, here’s an approach or here’s a thought or an idea based on what you’re telling me and what I’ve done. And there’s just not sometimes somebody there to talk with about things that are so personal about, like your nutrition or your exercise habits or just the very human being things that we deal with day in and day out. So it’s really a pleasure to work with Valerie. 

51:38
Emily Wilson
Yeah. And we hope that you are encouraged. 

51:41
Valerie Federwitz
By it as well. 

51:42
Emily Wilson
And as you’re thinking about Lutheran Bible translators and our missionaries and our staff, we do appreciate your prayers for our health and our wellness, and your words of encouragement really do make a difference as well. So we appreciate you. 

51:59
Rich Rudowske
Thank you for listening to the essentially translatable podcast brought to you by Lutheran Bible translators. You can find past episodes of the podcast@lbt.org slash podcast or subscribe on audible, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Follow Lutheran Bible translators’social media channels on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Or go to lbt.org to find out how you can get involved in the Bible translation movement and put God’s word in their hands. The essentially translatable podcast is produced and edited by Andrew Olson. Our executive producer is Emily Wilson. Podcast artwork was designed by Caleb Rotewald and Sarah Rudowski. Music written and performed by Rob Bite. I’m Rich Radowski. So long. For now.