Restore the Real

Dr. Melanie Stein is a licensed naturopathic physician in Portland, Oregon, a leading clinician in cell membrane therapy for complex and chronic illness, and the author of Breaking Through Chronic Illness. After waking up paralyzed in naturopathic medical school, then being told her symptoms were “all in her head” before eventually being diagnosed with Lyme disease and mold toxicity, she built a practice around restoring health at the cellular level.

• The role of limbic system retraining, trauma work, and nervous‑system safety in healing when your brain has learned to see everything—even supplements—as a threat.

• How waking up paralyzed in naturopathic school—and being told it was “all in her head”—pushed Dr. Melanie into treating Lyme and complex illness at the cellular level.​

• Why damaged cell membranes and mitochondria sit at the root of chronic symptoms, blocking detox, scrambling cell “antennas,” and leaving the immune system offline.​

• How Lyme, mold, and co‑infections hijack cells differently in acute vs. chronic cases—and why being in mold makes almost any Lyme protocol fail.​
  

Katie Hardie is a board-certified holistic nutritionist and FDN practitioner who helps high performers reclaim their energy, optimize nutrition, and achieve sustainable results through bio‑individual, science‑driven programs.​

• How 90s “low‑fat, more cardio” culture pushed Katie into overtraining, and hypothalamic dysfunction.

• Why more minutes and miles don’t equal better performance—and how intelligent intensity, volume, and recovery transform strength, speed, and body composition.​

• The real role of rest: sleep, micro‑breaks, and nervous‑system regulation as performance tools, not signs of laziness.​

• How chronic stress, overtraining, and “hustle” living wreck cortisol, sex hormones, and gut health long before your labs look “broken.”​

• Why fasting insulin matters more than you think, and how dysregulated blood sugar drives fat storage, anxiety, and hormone imbalances (including estrogen dominance and PMS‑like symptoms).[]​

• Practical daily anchors—like breath work, HeartMath, walking, and boundaries—that make metabolic health and recovery actually sustainable for real people with real lives.​

This episode is about redefining what it means to be a high performer: not the person grinding 24/7, but the one who can hit 100% output because they’ve learned to respect recovery, metabolism, and their nervous system. Through Katie’s story and clinical experience, we unpack how rest, smart training, and metabolic focus turn “always tired, always pushing” into a body and brain that actually have the capacity to live—and work—at a higher level.

Katie Hardie

From chronically ill patient to the strategist behind 9-figure wellness brands, this conversation with Allie Chandler is about what it really takes to heal when your body.

Allie is the founder and CEO of Upsell Health, a marketing agency helping functional medicine practitioners and supplement companies scale to 60–100M in revenue, after years as the “mystery patient” navigating chronic Lyme, mold toxicity, and hyperadrenergic POTS.​

• How a tick bite in Switzerland led to years of debilitating symptoms and delayed Lyme diagnosis.​

• The emotional toll of medical gaslighting—and the words patients actually need to hear.​

• Why drainage, parasites, and mold often have to come before “going after Lyme.”​

• How perfectionism, self-talk, and nervous-system work can either block or unlock healing.​

Veenu Keller is an entrepreneur, behavior specialist, and “Parent–Child Whisperer” who helps families heal patterns of self-harm, suicidal ideation, anxiety and much more, by addressing the root emotional wounds between parents and children.

How unhealed wounds in parents quietly shape their kids’ behavior and mental health, and how curiosity, regulation, and root-cause work can transform “problem kids” into connected, resilient humans.

Topics:

• Veenu’s story of bullying, suicidality, a psych hospital at 15, and choosing to live

• How parents unconsciously parent from their own unresolved wounds

• Curiosity vs. criticism as the foundation of emotional safety

• Respect, boundaries, and raising kids who feel both seen and accountable

• Letting kids struggle, self-regulate, and become resourceful instead of rescuing them

  
  

  Veenu Keller

Nicole Bell is an engineer, entrepreneur, medical advocate, and author of What Lurks in the Woods, whose life was transformed when her high-performing husband developed rapid cognitive decline that was repeatedly misdiagnosed. Drawing on her background in engineering and diagnostics, Nicole brings a clear, systems-level lens to the failures of conventional testing, the complexity of Lyme and co-infections, and what it really takes to demand better care inside a dismissive medical system.

Expect to learn:

• How Nicole’s training as an engineer and experience in diagnostics shaped the way she investigated her husband’s symptoms.

• Why standard Lyme testing often fails and how co-infections and other pathogens can masquerade as dementia and psychiatric issues.

• Practical ways to advocate for yourself or a loved one when doctors say “everything looks normal” but you know something is wrong.

• The emotional and logistical reality of being a caregiver, and how to think about asking for help without feeling like a burden.

• Why “demanding better” from the medical system is not being difficult—it’s necessary for finding true root causes and real healing.

  Nicole Bell

Giovanni Bartolomeo is a serial entrepreneur, founder of Elemental Breathwork, and a transformational breathwork teacher whose work helps people use the breath not to control experience, but as a gateway into regulation, awareness, and lasting change. 

In this episode, Randy and Gio unpack how a single breathwork journey became the inflection point that pulled Gio out of a “successful but empty” life and into a path of purpose, service, and heart‑centered leadership.

 Expect to learn

•  How breathwork differs from simple “breathing exercises.”

•  Why unresolved emotions quietly drive anxiety, burnout, and even physical illness.

•  How rhythmic breath and visualization can rewire beliefs at a subconscious level. 

You will also hear Gio’s wild stories of ayahuasca, Wim Hof, out‑of‑body experiences, and auto‑immune shifts, along with practical guidance on nervous system regulation, navigating crises of meaning, and following the subtle pull of curiosity into your next chapter.

Dr. Keiko Finnegan, Co-Founder of Kinfolk Optimal Living

What if your body isn’t broken and never was?

Dr. Randy Michaux sits down with Dr. Keiko Finnegan to explore vitalism not as a philosophy, but as a lived, embodied relationship with life itself. Together, they unpack trust, pause, awareness, and the quiet intelligence that animates healing when we stop trying to be fixed.

Rather than chasing solutions, this episode invites listeners to slow down, listen inward, and rediscover the wisdom already at work within them.

In this episode, we explore:

    •    What vitalism actually feels like in the body

    •    Why trust is layered and learned through experience, not effort

    •    The power of pause in a culture addicted to urgency

    •    Why no one can heal you and why that’s actually good news

    •    How symptoms can be reframed as information rather than betrayal

    •    The role of chiropractic and nervous system regulation in creating safety

    •    Why healing often begins with embarrassingly simple practices

    •    How play, nature, and presence restore connection

    •    What it means to witness rather than fix

    •    How small awareness shifts can change generations

Key Takeaway:

Healing isn’t something someone does to you. It’s something that unfolds when you are seen, supported, and willing to listen.

Resources & Mentions:

    •    Kinfolk Optimal Living

    •    The Vitalist Podcast

    •    Compassionate Inquiry (Dr. Gabor Maté)

    •    Meditation, play, nature immersion, and nervous system regulation practices

Reflection Question for Listeners:

What might change if you trusted that your body already knows the way?

Hunter Ziesing is the co-founder of Longevity Health, a preventative-medicine platform combining advanced testing, and emerging AI tools to help people take control of their long-term health.

After two decades in finance and a personal wake-up call when his father passed from pancreatic cancer, Hunter turned his focus to fixing the failures of modern healthcare—starting with prevention.

Expect to learn:

• Why our healthcare system is built for sick care, not health
• How AI can enhance clinicians and possibly replace them
• The surprising metrics that actually predict longevity
• How accountability and behavior design change health more than information
• Why your body needs longitudinal data, not one-off labs
• How your health data could become a personal “check engine light”
• Why prevention is a scalable solution to chronic disease

https://ai.longevityhealth.me/

Hi! Dr. Randy, here. Thank you for being here! I'd like to invite you, my podcast listeners, to our thriving private health community, Empower Act Heal, on Facebook. It centers around YOU claiming your personal power and gaining momentum on your path to vibrant health! We're a supportive, judgement-free community where you can show up as you are and find greater success. I do weekly LIVES and bring in experts, just like on my podcast, but in a more personalized setting. Just follow this link into our Community, we can't wait to see on the inside!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/empower.act.heal

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Work with Dr. Randy and Total Body Wellness Clinic

Visit the Total Body Wellness website: https://www.totalbodywellnessclinic.com/


Want to be a guest on the Restore the Real Podcast?

Use this link to apply to be a guest on the show.

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Dr. Ashley Beckman — Doctor of Chinese Medicine, acupuncturist, and functional wellness expert — joins us to talk about the hidden sources of burnout, chronic fatigue, hormone imbalance, and unexplained symptoms that so many women face today.

Dr. Ashley shares her personal healing journey, beginning with severe chemical sensitivity, joint pain, and autoimmune-like symptoms that went undiagnosed by conventional medicine. Her search for answers led her through homeopathy, Chinese medicine, and ultimately the discovery of mold toxicity and Lyme disease as major root causes behind her health collapse.

We explore:

• The truth about mold exposure
  How mold silently impacts the brain, skin, hormones, mood, immune system, and even childhood conditions like eczema, OCD, and tics.
• The misunderstood link between mold, Lyme, Epstein-Barr, autoimmune symptoms, and chronic burnout
  And why mold often must be addressed first before heavy detox protocols.
• The nervous system piece
  How mold disrupts safety signals, creates internal chaos, and why regulating the nervous system is foundational for recovery.
• Real self-care vs. “performance” self-care
  And how many women unintentionally burn themselves out trying to heal.

 https://drashley.com/

Hi! Dr. Randy, here. Thank you for being here! I'd like to invite you, my podcast listeners, to our thriving private health community, Empower Act Heal, on Facebook. It centers around YOU claiming your personal power and gaining momentum on your path to vibrant health! We're a supportive, judgement-free community where you can show up as you are and find greater success. I do weekly LIVES and bring in experts, just like on my podcast, but in a more personalized setting. Just follow this link into our Community, we can't wait to see on the inside!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/empower.act.heal

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Work with Dr. Randy and Total Body Wellness Clinic

Visit the Total Body Wellness website: https://www.totalbodywellnessclinic.com/


Want to be a guest on the Restore the Real Podcast?

Use this link to apply to be a guest on the show.

-----

For all media, promotional + affiliate opportunities, please email [email protected]

Dr. Allen Linsley — functional medicine practitioner, clinical nutritionist, and specialist in chronic illness — breaks down why long COVID leaves so many people unable to recover, even when the initial infection is long gone.

In Part 2, we dive deeper into the physiology behind post-viral dysfunction, the hidden stress loops that keep the body stuck, and what traditional medicine still overlooks about long COVID.

Expect to learn:

• Why long COVID behaves like a systemic energy crisis, not a lingering infection
• How mitochondria, oxygen dynamics, and cellular stress disrupt recovery
• The role of the limbic system and why the nervous system “locks” into survival mode
• What conventional labs miss about chronic inflammation
• How chronic stress, emotional load, and past trauma influence physical symptoms
• The patterns Dr. Linsley sees in patients who can’t bounce back
• The practical steps that help restore resilience and “unstick” the healing process

Hi! Dr. Randy, here. Thank you for being here! I'd like to invite you, my podcast listeners, to our thriving private health community, Empower Act Heal, on Facebook. It centers around YOU claiming your personal power and gaining momentum on your path to vibrant health! We're a supportive, judgement-free community where you can show up as you are and find greater success. I do weekly LIVES and bring in experts, just like on my podcast, but in a more personalized setting. Just follow this link into our Community, we can't wait to see on the inside!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/empower.act.heal

-----

Work with Dr. Randy and Total Body Wellness Clinic

Visit the Total Body Wellness website: https://www.totalbodywellnessclinic.com/


Want to be a guest on the Restore the Real Podcast?

Use this link to apply to be a guest on the show.

-----

For all media, promotional + affiliate opportunities, please email [email protected]