What Is This Episode About…

Long before becoming a Code Red Certified Coach, 40-year-old mother of 4, Kristin Small would crawl on her belly from her bed to the shower each morning. Her crippling psoriatic arthritis caused every joint in her body to seize up. Hear how she went from $26,000/mo in chemotherapy medication to complete healing and restoration from CODE RED.

Psoriatic arthritis is an autoimmune inflammatory condition that affects the joints and the skin. It is a serious condition that is treated with chemotherapy. It impairs mobility and may even lead to permanent joint damage.

Kristin suffered from crippling pain from Psoriatic arthritis for a long time, to the point of crawling around her home. She couldn’t do the normal day to day tasks. She sought treatment and was prescribed a cocktail of expensive drugs, which led to liver problems.

All along her medical journey, no one mentioned having to look at her diet. All this changed when a friend recommended Code Red. She bought the book and joined the challenge, and that’s when her true healing began.

In eight and a half months, she had lost 135 pounds. She was completely off her medication, and her blood pressure, cholesterol, and liver enzymes were back to normal. She got her life back, and everything got back to normal. She is now in Code Red’s maintenance program.

Tune in to this episode to hear the amazing story of her complete healing and restoration through Code Red.

 Key Takeaways

• What is Psoriatic Arthritis and some facts about it (00:27)
• Kristin’s journey and how she was diagnosed with Psoriatic Arthritis (05:34)
• Being so seized up in the morning to the point of crawling to the bathroom (09:16)
• How Kristin go to her breaking point and sought treatment (12:01)
• Living on a cocktail of drugs that cost $26,000 a month (13:47)
• How all these drugs caused problems with her liver (19:23)
• Doctors refusing a gastric bypass surgery for her weight loss due to her medical condition (23:36)
• Finding about Code Red from a friend and finding some hope (24:48)
• Getting her life back after losing 135 pounds in eight months in Code Red (27:07)
• Learning about foods that heal and foods that poison and importance of sleep and water in the 30-day challenge (35:02)

Learn More About The Content Discussed…

Get the Code Red On-The-Go Guide here.

Join the next 10-Pound Takedown Challenge here.

When Was It Released…

This episode was released September 02, 2020

Episode Transcript…

The Transcript Is Auto-Generated And May Contain Spelling And Grammar Errors

Cristy  0:00  

Code Red author, entrepreneur, and retired professional boxer and welcome to rebel weight loss and lifestyle. I am your host and I’m really excited about this part one of a two part series I’m doing on psoriatic arthritis, psoriatic arthritis. Have you heard of this? Have you even heard of this? This is a really serious condition. In fact, what I did on my phone as I pulled up some facts about psoriatic arthritis, I want to read them to you what is psoriatic arthritis and why the heck should I even be doing this because there’s a really serious condition that’s treated with chemotherapy. psoriatic arthritis is an inflammatory autoimmune condition that can affect both the joints and the skin. While the specific causes are not fully known, which you’ll hear, I call bullcrap on that. It’s believed that there are multiple proteins blah, blah, blah, okay, let me skip down a little bit. When these proteins become overproduced, they cause inflammatory response that contribute to pain and swelling in the joints and tendons and sometimes even Read thick, scaly, itchy skin, and if left untreated, psoriatic arthritis may cause permanent joint damage. Here we go. Here are the symptoms. Look at this you guys, joint pain, swelling, reduced physical mobility. There are two words here I can’t pronounce so I’m just going to skip them. Skin plagues and nail changes, fatigue, permanent joint damage. You’re going to hear from two people. Today you’re going to hear from the first person and next week you’re going to hear from the second person. Both certified coaches. Both have dealt with crippling psoriatic arthritis. This first one is the one that you’re going to hear from today is Kristin small. She’s a code red certified coach with us. But let me tell you, her story will blow you away. I just let her we already recorded this and I just let her just take off and talk I said I’m gonna I mean I interrupted her like two times just to ask for clarification on something and I just I want to hear everything about what happened and guys, your job will be on the floor this girl. I can’t I, I’m not going to try to tell you because I wouldn’t be able to do it justice. But this girl, her life was totally 180 degrees changed. Her life was saved. She is completely healed from her psoriatic arthritis. And it is remarkable. So she’s going to walk you through how it started, what was going on in her life, what she had to go through on a day to day basis just to get out of the bed. She couldn’t wear shoes, like it was just awful. She couldn’t even you guys, she couldn’t drive because she couldn’t wrap your hands around the steering wheel. She couldn’t wrap your hands around the shopping cart. So she couldn’t push the cart. She had one of her kids puts pushed a cart. I mean, it was just every single task of every day at every minute of every day was debilitating. It was awful. And when she was certifying, I was sitting in the room with her we were going through the certification course. This was over a year ago at the time of this recording, and I know I got to kind of hear bits and pieces. But she actually sat here for 20 minutes and told me the entire story. And I just you could have knocked me over the feather I couldn’t believe it, and how Code Red was able to save her. She saved herself through using Code Red methods. So I really want you to understand psoriatic arthritis and share this podcast with anybody who might be struggling with some sort of a rheumatoid arthritis or autoimmune disease, or something like this. Because truly, it’s not the doctors, the traditional medical doctors aren’t talking about it. They’re not talking about your diet. Nobody brought up diet to her. Nobody brought up what she was eating and drinking and how she was sleeping. Nobody brought that up. And yet when she changed to real food, water and sleep,

Cristy  3:45  

she got off the drive thru and she got off the chemical process crap. Oh, my gosh, that’s when her condition completely reversed. So I hope you enjoy this. She is such a sweet woman, married for kids and has been with Code Red for a while now, and just absolute just a sweetheart. So I hope you enjoy this. I hope it really touches you share this podcast, rate review, share this podcast with anybody you think needs to hear this. Remember, don’t just preach it people just share the podcast. Let the podcast speaks for itself. Let her story speak for itself it’s a testimony and hopefully the person may be you or someone you know this testimony is going to resonate with them. So this is part one of two parts next week we’re going to have Part Two and I hope you enjoy this you guys rebel weight loss and lifestyle. Thank you for tuning in. Here is Kristin Small.

Intro  4:43  

I’m Cristy Code Red and you’re listening to rebel weight loss and lifestyle where we believe food pulls the power to heal or poison and we believe our society has been misled regarding proper nutrition and weight loss. You’re in the right place if you’re looking for some straight up truth because I’m here to shed light on the lies and brainwashing that is taking place over the past five decades. Thanks so much for listening.

Cristy  5:11  

I really appreciate Kristin, coming at you. Thank you for being here with us. And, you know, I’m gonna ask you to really share some down deep, dirty, personal stuff with all of us. And I know that that’s going to get into some areas, maybe some darker areas of your life and thank you for being willing to do that.

Kristin Small  5:34  

Absolutely. Cristy, you know, it’s an honor and a privilege to be sitting on this side of the experience that I’ve been through. And I’m so grateful and thankful for you your knowledge, the years you spent sifting through the the truth in the lies, to get us to where we are right now and to bring Code Red to the masses. My journey started seven years ago when I was pregnant with our fourth child. I had to Terrible pregnancy, it just everyday was something new. It’s something worse and I just kept thinking that I would bounce back. After having my baby I was just going to bounce back like I did the other three times. I’m a mom of four. And it just didn’t happen. He was born. There was no change. It just continued to get worse and worse and worse. I just, I was a mom of four like I said, my husband traveled and he was gone three to four weeks out of the month. So it was all on me to take care of the kids you know, 24 hours a day all the meals all the cleaning the yard work the vehicles, whatever you name it had to be done. It was on me to do plus I had the newborn. So there were times when I would think to myself you know, there’s no way I could go another day. I had brain fog. I had pain I my sleep was about 20 to 30 minutes in a chunk at a time. Yeah, I would fall asleep at night. And it would take me forever to fall asleep getting comfortable because the pain was just, it was in every joint The muscles, the tendons, the ligaments, it was everywhere. So as soon as I would fall asleep, I’d have 20 to 30 minutes, I’d wake up something would just be just counting me or, you know, digging into pain was awful. I would rub that cliff a neck, you know, it’s like an anti inflammatory ointment all over whatever that spot was, and try to get back to sleep. So my sleep was you didn’t know that.

Cristy  7:23  

You didn’t know that the pain was you just had pain everywhere. You didn’t know what it was at this point.

Kristin Small  7:28  

That’s right. And I had a doctor who was willing to prescribe me this ointment just for the pain just for the pain just and I think that honestly, I thought I was a little bit out of my mind because I was an athlete growing up. I knew nothing slowed me down. I was willing to take big risks and do all kinds of fun and crazy things. And I thought how in the world could something like this? All of a sudden, I mean, it came on fast, how others all of a sudden, could I just be this person who would just stare at a wall and not feel Figure out what to do next. It was a mental fog that was that alone was debilitating but I couldn’t wear shoes. I wore flip flops. Even in the winter. I couldn’t the pain of actually the movement of getting my foot in a shoe. I just couldn’t do. Yeah, there was I went through all kinds of men’s flip flops because they were wider and bigger and they didn’t put pressure anywhere on my foot. So I went through, you know, the pain of not being able to wear shoes. When my little guy was, was a newborn. My thumb’s got so bad, I couldn’t you know, you have to the diapers you have to actually hold them with your thumb while I had to pinch on like a crab kind of you know, I had to pull this way. I could no longer play basketball, volleyball, tennis, the things that I love to do with my husband because my elbow would not go straight. It was close to a 90 degree angle at all times. It was just that stiff. It just wouldn’t straight out. When it got to the worst point. I had all of my fingers were a swan neck. I don’t know if you’ve seen that deformity. But and if you can see him now I’ve got my fingers are completely normal and functioning but they were Swan neck when I went in, I should back up a little bit. So my husband and I, he was traveling. And so one night This was my I’ll get to my breaking point how I’m going to share this with you though because I mean we’re going to be real and raw, I would get those 20 to 30 minute chunks asleep, but then I couldn’t wake up with my kids and just have a normal you know, they can pile in bed with mommy and cuddle. There was none of that because I’d have to wake up about three to four hours before them and I would find a way to get to my bathroom. Cristy sometimes it was an army crawl. Sometimes I had to inch with my shoulders and push with my feet. It just depended on what was hurting the most. But I would slither out of my bed and pull myself to my bathroom and I would get on the shower floor. I would lay there under the hot water until my muscles my joints were relaxed enough to be able to stand and start my day I would lay there Cristy until the water would run cold most days because I just had no other way to start my day.

Cristy  10:14  

So you’re saying Kristin that you’re You are so seized up in the mornings and so much pain your body was just so stiff that you had to just any way you could sometimes scoot on your bottom sometimes army crawl any way you could into the bathroom to the where the warm water would warm up your body. That’s how seized up you were

Kristin Small  10:31  

Yeah, absolutely. I would have terrible nightmares at night. If I lay on my back just that the pain was so bad that it just I just ended up in nightmares. So I was not really wanting to sleep very much because it was just to me. It was pain. It was fear. I knew that as soon as I laid long enough and was still long enough that seizing up that stiffness would happen. So I would I would do that every morning until I was well if and I sent my husband gotten he was traveling. So I had no choice but to do whatever I could. I was a little stubborn little hard headed, you probably know that about me. But I, I didn’t think for some reason I just was kind of not in my my right mind thinking about the severity of it. I didn’t go see a specialist. So I just put that off and put that off. And then one night, this was my breaking point. One night, there were sirens, lots of lights, you could hear the roar, you know, the loud rush of the fire engines, and they were next door. And I had a knock on my door Cristy, and and that moment, I was overcome with fear. I was completely paralyzed because I knew if they were coming to tell me that I had to get my kids out of the house. There was no way I was going to be able to save all my children. And that as a mom, I was going to be forced to choose which one I was going to attempt to save That was my absolute breaking point. I refused to be that mom. And so I called my husband the next morning and I said, Honey, we’re moving. And so we moved out of our beautiful 4000 square foot house into a home about half the size, a one story home where I knew all my kids were on one floor. My laundry was on the same floor. My kitchen was steps away and I could function better. So because of my crippling situation with psoriatic arthritis, we had to leave our family home. And it’s something that I’ve felt a lot of guilt about, but it motivated me because at that point, I decided I was going to seek treatment. So this was the first the first I don’t want to say healing because it was really just a bandaid, but I went and saw an amazing doctor who referred me to an amazing rheumatologist and the doctor. I just I didn’t have a family doctor. We just moved to Boise, not long before from The East Coast. I had no family here. I didn’t know anybody. So I had no friends. So I didn’t have people who could come and help me. Or if I didn’t ask for referrals. This was a very private suffering of mine. And so I actually went to the first urgent care I could get into with this with these symptoms. And the doctor was looked at me like, What is wrong with you? Why have you not been helped before now? And so she actually called her friend who was a rheumatologist and he said, have her come up, I’ll see her on my lunch break. So I did. And I walked in. And he took a look at me. And I started sharing with him just what had happened and kind of what my responsibilities were and why I couldn’t live in this situation anymore. And he started me on treatment. And so what my treatment was initially was Celebrex if you’re familiar with the anti inflammatory drug Celebrex and I took the full dose of that twice a day. I took Tramadol Three times a day, I was on initially a loading dose of Enbrel, which is a biologic drug. And when the loading dose time ran out, we backed off. And that month, my body reverted back to a good deal of the symptoms. And he said, we can’t do this.

Cristy  14:20  

So you’re you’re in your 30s you at this point, I think you’re barely 40 right now at the time of this recording, or so you’re in your 30s where you completely like, what is happening. I’m in my 30s and I’m seeing an an arthritis doctor.

Kristin Small  14:35  

And so I was 35. When I mean when all this came on, when I was being diagnosed, I couldn’t believe it. And Cristy Like I said, I was an athlete. We grew up on steak and potatoes. My dad hunted we had a garden. We worked hard I was I work we have a family hotsprings and I would work every summer, you know scooping cow pies, I’m not kidding. I would shovel them into wheelbarrows and you know, we weren’t hard and we ate Good deal off the land. Honestly, I was just a very good healthy diet. When I was in my early 20s I started working in you know, in the workforce, and I was on my own as a young adult and the fast food industry was very appealing. It was quick. I didn’t have to cook for myself. I was in a drive thru, you know, it was, it was instant gratification to I didn’t have to go home and grill a steak, bake a potato, you know, chop up the kale and spinach. It was all right there. Even the salads and drive throughs it was all just right there. So for years, I lived on that until I met my husband and we started a family and I started to cook again a little bit but but honestly that those years, I felt things coming on and when I would play tennis with my husband, i’d i’d injured myself easily end up with plantar fasciitis or tennis elbow or you know all these little things that start happening golfing, I would you know, tweak my hip So it was all these little things that happened. But then yeah, when I was in my pregnancy and that pregnancy everything just kicked in. Yeah.

Cristy  16:10  

So I was always got you on these drugs how you guys have good insurance like what would it what what is it costing with the insurance? What would it have cost without?

Unknown Speaker  16:20  

Okay so these were weekly drugs and at one point weekly drugs and $5,000 was easy a month but I’ll tell you what Cristy listen to what happened though. I know. I know. So when I was on that Emerald and I was on that loading dose and it was working well I went from not being able to go grocery shopping. I could not physically walk into the store and grab a cart. I couldn’t put my hands around the cart and push I had to take a child with magnetic one of my kids with me. I was mortified. Not one of my my oldest daughter had to help me by pushing the cart. I was always praying I would not run into anybody. But I knew from their school because I didn’t want them to see me literally limping because it was so far to get from the car into I mean, into the grocery store and walk around. So yeah, that was like to drive. It had to be a good day for me to drive very far because I just couldn’t have control. My thumb’s were so bad. I couldn’t, you know, my kids were at their basketball game. If I was able to sit there, I couldn’t clap for them. I had to pretend like I was clapping because I couldn’t hit my hands together. They hurt so bad. It was there were just so many so many things that you don’t think about hairbrush. You know, I had three daughters with beautiful long hair. And I got to the point where I couldn’t braid their hair. I couldn’t ponytail their hair. It was the little things I couldn’t Okay, here’s one that’s I couldn’t use vegetable peeler to peel carrots potatoes, you know, because I couldn’t hold it. wrapping presents. at Christmas time. I couldn’t cut it. Use the tape. And it was just all the little things Cristy and all added up. So but when I was on embro I went from not being able to walk two blocks to the park by our house to being within two weeks being on this loading dose. I was able to walk 35 miles. I went from Yeah, unbelievable. I couldn’t I that’s how much it helped me. So when I went, so I went from the loading dose back to the normal dose. My body started to revert my doctor said, No, no, no, we can’t do that. So he put me back on the loading dose. And I lived on the loading dose for two years. Oh, yeah.

Cristy  18:38  

Yeah. Nobody taught you about your diet or anything. And you’re pretty big. At this point. You were trying to remember what your what your starting weight was.

Kristin Small  18:48  

Yeah, I was 285 pounds. When my baby was born. I was 290 9.8 and I had my son. You know, I lost the baby. Not the baby weight, the weight of the baby. But then I will level out at 285. And just my Wait, you know, a year and a half after he was born, and my blood pressure was 189 over 145 was awful. And this was I know so many times they would reshare we shouldn’t run you to the ER and I’m like, nope, nope, this is where it runs. And it it was impacted also by the drugs I was taking. So I was on medication, the ones I’ve mentioned, plus I was on a blood pressure medication. I was on a blood medication for acid reflux. And I had a lump in my throat from the the acid reflux. So I mean, it was just a barrage. It was a cocktail of medications. But what happened so I was on these, this Emerald for two years, and my insurance company didn’t say anything. Everything was going just fine. Except my liver function. My liver numbers, like yeah, the enzymes that indicate liver failure, scream and high every time I’d go in. They were higher and higher and higher. I said I can’t, I just don’t want to hear it anymore. Unless it’s an emergency. Just don’t tell me because I can’t think about it. But then my insurance company switched. I had to have a new insurance company. And the new insurance company did not approve my Emerald.

Unknown Speaker  20:16  

Christian.

Kristin Small  20:18  

Yes. And I was in that because I had gone from not being able to walk, not being able to function properly as a mom, to my kids Finally, having a mom again, finally having somebody who was vibrant, I could vacation and I could throw the ball with them and I hurt still, I was still in pain. But I got through it because I knew I had lots of years of being able to, you know, piece things together. But the insurance company denied my Emerald. They and I was shocked because we’ve been on this great two year run. And they said that it was not an FDA approved dose. So I had been on a double dose basically double what the FDA approved for two years, but it was working for me everything except my liver. So anyway, what happened was I started burning through biologic drugs because I had psoriatic arthritis. I had the psoriasis which covered when I went in the first time to see the doctor all over my arms, down my from my elbow down my to my wrist, down my shins, my knees, the backs of my knees, my scalp was completely covered my ears, it finally started coming across my face through my eyebrows. And so I was a mess. My skin was awful. So the Emerald was amazing because it it helped all of this and what it does Cristy what these biologic drugs do is they basically turned down your immune system, turn off your immune system, so that it’s no longer fighting against your own body. And so that’s it I needed to have a big dose of that to really shut it down. So during all this time if my kids came home from school sneezing, I got Got it. You know if there was any kind of infection or viral back or whatever, I got it. So I was constantly on antibiotics also, which was killing my gut. Yeah. Yeah. So I was burning through these biologic drugs like crazy. I was just going through one after another. Finally, my doctor said, Kristen, we need to talk because we’re out of options. There’s no other next option. And I wasn’t really that stable at that point, because I was having to switch the biologic drugs, they would help a little for a few weeks, six, eight weeks, and then that I would suffer for a month before we’d switch it and the insurance would approve it. These are expensive drugs. At the very highest Cristy right before I found Code Red $26,000 a month. No.

Cristy  22:49  

Yes. $26,000 a month.

Unknown Speaker  22:52  

Yes. Yeah.

Kristin Small  22:55  

And on that one, I wasn’t even in complete relief. It wasn’t doing everything. everything I needed. So, I want to tell you this, it’s kind of funny. I was leading a Bible study, which was, I was that, that gal who they, there was a two storey building and they put all the younger gals on the second floor because that’s where, you know, it’s easier to get up and down the stairs and I had my room on the first floor. The stairs were not easy for me to navigate. You know, there was all these little things in my life. But in my Bible study, a friend Robin said, Kristin, you know, I’d shared little bits and pieces of my story through the you know, in the study, and she said, Kristin, I know of something that could help you, Cristy I had been on. I’m not going to name the names every weight loss pill shake, john, I mean, I even ordered this stuff once that was, I had to actually sign a disclosure saying I would never talk disparagingly about the company publicly, so I won’t say the name. But what it was was a substance that was like a powder that you mixed with a water and you choke it down and it became a solid ish. Like a almost like a hard jello I know in your stomach it was it was called the gastric bypass alternative. I am telling you I had tried it all. And so this friend of mine said, Kristen, you should look into Code Red. And I said, Oh, another I’ve done them all, you know, sweet friend trying to help me and she had no idea how much I’d been through. And so I said, Well, you know, I’m actually looking at getting gastric bypass and our some kind of stomach surgery. So I researched them a little bit. And I had called down to a clinic in Mexico to have my stomach done. And they told me that I wasn’t a qualified candidate because of how sick I was medically how there were just too many chances. They said, for something to go wrong because of the load of medication I was on and everything else. So when that was a fail, I said Robin, tell me more about this. And she actually sent me j Gallagher story. Jade is also a coach who has suffered from psoriatic arthritis and when I heard her story, the interview you did with her. I said, Well, you know what, there’s hope for me. And it was the first time since all of us had started that I actually felt like there might be hope, for real, true relief of the symptoms on my own my own body, being able to have this kind of really. So I ordered your book, and I, it was I let’s see here October I ordered your book. I didn’t open it. I actually ended up sat there on my nightstand. And I finally wrapped it up and put it under our Christmas tree for myself. And I remember thinking, gosh, I wish I had that book. Now. You know, for weeks it was under the Christmas tree. And that Christmas morning, I opened the book, and I had it finished before I went to bed. I just was sucked in it was like that you couldn’t pull me away from that between, you know, the playing with the kids and everything I was, but I stayed up late. I think finished your book. And I knew that I knew that I knew that this was for me. So I signed up for the challenge that was starting January 14. And a gal who had taught my girls in school, you know, Michelle Knight, she ended up in the same challenge. And we ended we found each other in there and started January 7. So January 7, I started Code Red. And my first week I lost 14 pounds. And having that 14 pounds gone, you know what it really, because that was a good deal of inflammation, too. So I felt a whole lot of relief. And my brain fog, even though I was doing better being on the medication, and my brain fog was gone. And my doctor called and, and he said, Okay, the next option, Kristin is chemo, you’re going to have to go on chemo. Yeah. And so I said, You know what, let’s wait, let’s week and just see how I do. I’m feeling A little bit better. So he called me again two weeks later. I said, No, let’s hold off. So he called me again, a week later. So at this point, I was 30 days into code read, and I was down 27 pounds, and I could put shoes on.

I was feeling like a new person. And I said, You know what, Doc, actually, I’m going to move my appointment. I didn’t see him on my regular scheduled appointment. So I didn’t see him until I’d been on Code Red for over six months. And you know, my four month mark, I was down 80 pounds. And by the time I finished in eight and a half months, it was 135 pounds. I had completely off every medication, every medication, that’s $26,000 worth of medication, and completely off every medication within 60 days of being in your maintenance program. I had a normal blood pressure, I had normal cholesterol. My liver enzymes were completely normal. Which absolutely shocked my doctor made me draw labs a second time, just to make sure that everything was legit on my labs. I mean, every thing in my life was back to normal plus I was in normal weight. I was for the first time in my adult life. I wasn’t obese.

Cristy  28:16  

I don’t know about anybody listening right now but I have heard this story before and yet my jaw is on the floor because it’s we’re talking 130 this is like so far down the list but 135 pounds in eight months, but completely healed if I can say that. I mean, of her psoriatic arthritis and all the things that the plantar fasciitis, everything that went along with it off all medications, $26,000 worth of medications off. And so the relationship with your kids, how did all that change your relationship with your husband? How did

Unknown Speaker  28:49  

all that oh my goodness, I think the one of the best side effects of this if I can use that word for this. My husband saw it during this time. I hadn’t mentioned it before. My husband was the sole breadwinner for our home. And he had to leave his job, a very good paying job, but he was traveling. And he had to take a local job that paid 75% less than what he was making, because I could no longer take care of the home and the kids. So that was all happening in the midst of all this. So as I was getting better, and I was on the drugs, and you know, it was I was seeing some improvement, he was able to get his job back and go travel. But he I think in the back of his mind, he was very nervous. They had a fear of like, what if you know what if she has a bad day? What if something happens and it just you know, comes out of left field and she can’t handle it? Or she can’t? I can I’ll tell you what, what did happen one day after being on Code Red for two months, just two months, we were having some work done on our one of our vehicles, one of our SUVs and and so where I was using the backup SUV that we don’t usually dry, and so I drove my son to preschool and he just Two days a week, you know his little he was only there for two and a half hours. I got back home and I did some stuff prepping our dinner. And then I went to go get him and I was just gonna, I was just going to go to the library first run a couple errands, but I was going on my way to get him in the car. The Tahoe didn’t start, it didn’t turn over. Cristy, you know what I did? This is crazy. I went on YouTube, and I figured out how to take the battery out of the tahoe. I put it, wrapped it in a towel, put it in a backpack, put it on my back, rode my bike two miles to the auto parts store, and I plunked it down on the counter. And I said I need one of these. And they looked at me like are you kidding me? You just rode from where and I had. So I don’t know if you’ve ever held a car battery. But those are like 50 pounds. Yeah, super heavy.

Unknown Speaker  30:47  

Anyway, and

Kristin Small  30:49  

that was kind of I told my husband what I done. And I think at that point, he was like, she can do it again. You know she can handle it because he was gone. He was out of town. There was nobody for me to call So my relationship with my husband, you know, I’m back and he has his wife again. And that by itself is just worth everything but my kids. Oh my goodness, I don’t know if you so I have a 13 year old and she used to have these bumpy you know what they call chickens in the keratosis pilaris, you know, on the arms, and that cleared up and her mood changed. She’s been just a, you know, a teenager. Teenagers, mind and body, but she’s not that cranky highs and lows like a lot of teenagers are. And then

Cristy  31:34  

I met Kristin at Code Red event.

Unknown Speaker  31:37  

Yeah, all of them. Were there. Yeah, the oldest Okay, so yeah, so the oldest, that’s the oldest. And then my next daughter, she is just an absolute joy hearted goal. Mother Teresa. I mean, just you meet her and you just know why everybody is drawn to her. But she struggled, struggled in school with focus. We actually held her back a year in first grade and by third grade. She’s scored a four on her I sat which is the highest you can score in Idaho, because her diet changed Cristy it was she was a whole new kid. And then my nine year old during all of this, she was seven at the time, you might remember because she actually prays every night. Thank you, Lord for Cristy Nickel. Thank you. She created Code Red. Thank you that Mommy loves veggies. So she has this long prayer she does every night. She’s done it for two years. And she was diagnosed with celiac disease during this process. And so when she got the diagnosis, yeah, at eight years old, she got the diagnosis of celiac. She’s I said we were talking about she said, what does this mean for me Mommy, because she knew what being diagnosed with something could be because she saw what happened to me. And I said, sweetheart, I don’t have to do is just keep eating the way you’re eating. She was like, Mommy, are you serious? I don’t have to live in pain anymore. I don’t have to go back to that pain just yet. So she was pretty severely. Her numbers were really high on the celiac chart. So she’s doing amazing, my little guy. He’s a Spitfire. He’s so smart. And I think all of you It’s just the good healthy diet. So my kids, they have their mom back too. We also have cut our grocery bill down tremendously, we’re not buying junk and in the drive thru, so we’re buying real whole healthy food. And I’m in control of that. So I, you know, I buy the groceries, so they eat what I buy, and, and they’re eating good food. So in June, everything,

Cristy  33:22  

I mean, you have to be careful. You can’t get away with, you know, grabbing a handful of chips out of the bag or just yeah, I’ll just get it. I’ll just get a burger from McDonald’s because you have that you have that tendency to have a flare up. And oh, and your kids do too. So you you guys are you have to be careful. You guys are careful.

Kristin Small  33:43  

Yeah. Cristy, the roadmap that you gave our family. I don’t know if you have any way to know but it completely saved our family. It saved me. And it saved them from so much pain and suffering and it’s not just us. I know there are hundreds and thousands of families out there. Just Like us, people with autoimmune disorders, people who are just dealing with all kinds of mental emotional like anxiety, the food that triggers this anxiety in these teenagers is unbelievable. And you know, I learned as I was going through this, but when you have this damaged gut, and it’s, you know, the bacteria that gut bacteria leaks out into your system. I read a study that they found the gut bacteria in the joints of patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and it was actually destroying the joints. And I thought, you know, it’s doing this all over, it’s just wreaking havoc in our bodies, not just somebody who has an autoimmune disorder like me and so many others. But in general, it breaks people down and so the healing what you’ve put together and Cristy the years you did all the hard work you did the heavy lifting you did you went to college, you did you were a professional, you know, trainer to the stars, you were a professional athlete, you’ve seen it all and done it all and you’re able to read through it, you’re able to read through it and provide this incredibly simple system for us to follow. And in my first 30 days, I told you that my first 30 days I lost that 27 pounds. But I learned why sleep was important. I learned how to properly hydrate my body. I learned about foods that heal and foods that poison and why we choose foods that heal. I learned all of these things in that simple 30 Day Challenge. And I said, you know, why would I not go to the next level with this person, she knows what she’s doing. So I bought the custom program and my husband was all in, you know, he’d seen me spend thousands of dollars on treadmills and stair climbers and this junk that bloats your stomach. He’d seen me spend it all and he did not bat an eye. When I said I wanted a custom program with Cristy. And so, I mean, the custom program hands down was what sealed the deal for continuing at the rate that I was I didn’t have those big blips and stalls that eliminated all that and then learning how to maintain so I’ve been in maintenance now for almost a year and I’ve just been felt amazing.

Cristy  36:02  

And you have taken it all the way with Code Red, you went into a leader and then you went and you became a code red certified coach. And now you work full time for Code Red, bringing the message of hope and healing to thousands of people all over the world through our program through our challenges to our custom program to people in maintenance. And it’s it is such a like a rags to riches story, almost, you know, and actually speaking of money, you do have as an independent contractor for a skincare line on the side. And that worked well with being a mom and not you know, being able to work with your schedule, but you weren’t able to do you know work at Home Depot or do things like that you weren’t able to do that because of this. So this has enabled you physically to do anything

Kristin Small  36:45  

you want. Absolutely. And something that you gave me that there you probably don’t even know because it’s just not something I share often but my I found what I was made for. I found my voice You know what God put me on this earth to do. And you know, without my struggle, I didn’t have the vessel I needed in order to share what needed to be shared through my eyes and through you know, to help those people who have a similar situation. So it’s it is it’s an honor and a privilege to be able to do what I do because I get to help you share your your program with thousands of people, people who desperately need to get their health back, you know, and it’s great to be a size for size six, or, you know, a size eight if, for me, I started out in a size 24 and I were size four, six. That is great. Don’t get me wrong, but that’s not why I’m here. You know, that was just a bonus. I was truly just a bonus. The real meat of this was the healing and then my body was able to do the rest. But there is no program out there like code read. I’ve done them all. I know. I know. There’s nothing that delivers the information, the support and the community You put together with Code Red.

Cristy  38:03  

Kristen, I cannot thank you enough for sharing your story with us. Thank you for being here and letting it all hang out. And Gosh, I just truly appreciate this. This is part one of the psoriatic arthritis, the prison of pain. And Kristen, you’re no longer in that prison. And it was a pretty you would probably describe it as a prison.

Kristin Small  38:24  

It was worse than prison. It was hell. Yeah, it

Cristy  38:27  

was hell. Exactly. Yeah, maybe I’ll yeah, I like that. I like that better. Thanks, guys. Stay tuned for part two next week. Thank you again, Kristen. What a great story.

Unknown Speaker  38:37  

I’ll talk to you guys soon. Bye, everybody.

Intro  38:41  

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of rebel weight loss and lifestyle. Do you have a question that you’d like me to answer raw and uncut on the podcast? Then all you have to do is head over to Apple podcasts on your phone or computer and do three simple things. leave a rating and review you telling me what you think of the podcast. And in that review, ask anything you want related to help, weight loss or mindset. And if you want a shout out, leave your Instagram handle or name, that’s all. Then listen in to hear your question answered live raw and uncut on the next q&a episode, so, I’ll see you on the next episode of rebel weight loss and lifestyle.

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