The Vet Reset

Dr. Maggie Brown-Bury is an emergency veterinarian in Newfoundland in the midst of a big career transition - and she made the final decision to make that transition while on a long run. 

Maggie and I chatted about her big plans, the challenges she's leaving and the ones she's facing, and how she fits training runs in around her ER schedule. We worked together this fall in preparation for a 10 mile race, which she totally crushed - thanks to being smart about resting when she needed rest, being flexible when life got nuts (she got married!), and not being all-or-nothing about training.  

Maggie also loves food, books, puffins, semi-anonymous cheering, and the sea. She says she can't figure out how to be anyone but exactly who she is, and that seems like a pretty great deal to me. 

I'll be taking a break over the holidays as I've got big changes on deck myself! Please reach out to me anytime:

Email: [email protected]

Facebook/Instagram/Twitter: @thevetreset

Kelsey Beth Carpenter, also known as Vet Tech Kelsey, is known in veterinary circles for her original songs that showcase the humor, humanity, and sometimes horror (health certificates! NOOOO!) of vet med. In this conversation, you'll meet Kelsey in a new way. She talks candidly about the chronic illness and chronic pain she's been living with since last year, why she's learning to give herself the same grace she gives frightened pets, and how what we assume about other people, often unintentionally, can cause harm.

Find Kelsey on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube!

Find me, as always, on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @thevetreset or email me at [email protected] - I'd love to hear from you!

Rose Alaimo is a musician, a veterinarian, and one of those people who makes you feel like magic is possible. If you've ever felt like you were trying to fit in a space that wasn't made for you, trapped in a job you didn't think you were allowed to leave, or out of touch with the inner voice that used to know what it was you wanted out of life, Rose's story will find a foothold in your heart. She's listening to her inner voice these days, and it's led her to a place she always wanted to be but maybe never would have predicted she'd find.

The amazing song in the intro and outro of this episode is Elevate, the first track on Rose's album Grow. Find it and all of Rose's music at https://linktr.ee/rosealaimomusic

Follow her and send her a DM on Facebook and Twitter: @RoseAlaimoMusic

The book we discuss: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, by Elizabeth Gilbert

Reach me at:

Email: [email protected]

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter: @thevetreset

Our guest from Episode 29, Dr. Amy Porto, straight-talker, dog mom, registered dietitian, professor, and intuitive eating counselor, is back - and this time we're tackling the complex phenomenon called "functional medicine." Katie's got her own story to tell, and Amy weighs in on some heavy issues surrounding this controversial, yet increasingly popular, piece of wellness culture.

Please let us know what you think about this discussion - it's a hot topic and we know there will be strong opinions! 

Reach Amy at her website, www.amyporto.com, where you'll find information on her courses coming up this winter, including her wildly popular Empowered Eater Essentials - sign up for the waitlist at www.amyporto.com/eat - and on social media:

Facebook: Dr. Amy Porto, Registered Dietitian

Instagram: @dr.amyporto

Twitter: @DrAmyPorto

As always, reach me at:

Email: [email protected]

Facebook/Instagram/and now Twitter (God help me) @thevetreset

Dr. Audrey Hoffmann is a practice owner and veterinarian who cares fiercely for her team and patients - and she is just as fierce in the gym. She is a recent Pan American medalist in Olympic weightlifting, which she works on in her basement gym when she's not working on running her busy practice. Audrey makes space for both of her passions by giving herself grace, knowing her boundaries, and working with a coach who understands that her work life won't ever be predictable. 

Audrey's realistic but serious approach to her business and her sport are inspiring, and it's easy to hear in her voice that she's confident in her body and grateful for what it can do. In a world full of messages telling us we need to be smaller, she is proud of her strength and isn't about to compromise it to fit in an arbitrary mold. 

Follow Audrey on Instagram @ajoyfulvet to see her amazing lifts (and other adventures). 

Don't forget to check out the Uncharted Veterinary Community and Conference at https://unchartedvet.com/ and @unchartedvet!

Reach out to me at:

Email: [email protected]

Facebook/Instagram: @thevetreset

I heard Dr. Ross Palmer tell a story in a webinar about a dog named Griz, complete with video montage, and I knew I needed to meet him. Luckily, he's the kind of guy who answers emails from complete strangers AND gets up early to record with them at 7 AM before a day of teaching. 

Ross and I fit a lot into this conversation, including his own health wake-up call and reset and why Griz and his owner continue to inspire him, not just in the exam room but in other areas of his life as well. Turns out we both have some compulsive tendencies, and he shares why sometimes life stressors that get in the way of achieving those big goals can actually be a gift. 

I think everyone can take something away from this episode. For a start, try this exercise: take a blank notebook and fill the front with things you love and the back with things you don't - find out what Ross does with his toward the end of the conversation. 

Some links to CE in REALLY cool places:

CSUVetCE - "Learn Well, Live Well"

International Veterinary Seminars

Find me at:

Email: [email protected]

Facebook/Instagram: @thevetreset

I coach runners! If you're looking for accountability, hoping to learn to love running (or get that love back), or training for a big goal, send me a message! 

April Tabor, CPT, CES (certified personal trainer and corrective exercise specialist), is a kick-ass personal trainer, a small business owner, and, most importantly, a loyal and passionate friend. She gave me a place to try my hand at group fitness instruction and a push to get that first certification, and I'll always be grateful she gave BollyX a chance in an area where no one even knew what it was. 

April and I talk about her "reset" when she left accounting to open Omni Fitness, her studio here in central PA, and how it feels to leave the field you've done your formal schooling in and do what's in your heart. We also talk about how even though many women still shy away from strength training, especially heavy weights, there's no reason to - and every reason to dive in with the right training. 

Enjoy this chat with April - sorry about the echo - and then, in the words of April's phone, "Go work out and meditate." 

Reach April at www.omnifitness.club - if you're interested in joining her virtual workout group, send her a message there! It's still going strong even though the studio at Omni is open for business.

Reach me: 

Email: [email protected]

Facebook/Instagram @thevetreset

Think you might be interested in a running coach? Send me a message!

This episode's guest is NOT a veterinary professional, but there are more than a few parallels between our lives in vet med and Dr. Amy Porto's work as a registered dietitian, professor, and certified intuitive eating counselor. Amy is also a dog mom, cycling instructor, bookworm, and otherwise multi-dimensional human who, like many of us, has seen her relationship to food, health, and body image change significantly over the course of her life. 

I wanted to chat with Amy for two main reasons. When I first started this podcast, I had a list of guests I had in mind to invite, and she was one of them. I think it's important to know where to look for reliable, grounded information on nutrition, health, and wellness for humans, because even though we hate it when our clients slip into the clutches of pseudoscience and misinformation, I've noticed that we often (myself included) do it ourselves in these areas. The other reason is that my own relationship with food and body has evolved over my adult life, but this past year has forced me to take a hard, honest look at how I was seeing my own body and health and it's led me to people like Amy. 

We talk about things like intuitive eating ("In a world without diet culture, intuitive eating would just be eating"), health at every size (HAES), and the war on obesity ("You're really talking about eradicating a group of people from the earth"). We mention quite a few resources, listed below. Please reach out if you have questions or would like to know more. 

Amy's website: www.amyporto.com (Note her purpose statement: "Disrupting the mainstream diet, health, and fitness market with real science, a dash of humor, and a little bit of common sense.")

Amy also teaches a live course called Empowered Eater Essentials. You can get on the wait list at amyporto.com/eat 

Books we mention or that are great places to go for more of this content: 

The Joy of Movement by Kelly McGonigal

Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison 

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon

Health at Every Size by Linda Bacon

Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch

A great podcast to check out: 

Maintenance Phase

Find me, as always, at:

Email: [email protected]

Facebook/Instagram: @thevetreset

And let me know if you'd like to chat about run coaching! Never try, never know!

This mini is a shout out to coaches everywhere and a reminder that we don't need to do hard things alone. We've talked about the value of coaching on the show before - Josh Vaisman is a big fan and discussed it in Episode 9 - and the more I learn, the more I think coaching is a life-changing tool that can't be overvalued. Coaches don't just tell you WHAT to do (a lot of times, we already know what to do or can look it up) - they help you through bumpy patches, provide accountability and experience to help you keep small setbacks and self-doubt from turning into big time bummers, and see things from an outside perspective that can sometimes change everything. 

Running coaches do this for ALL levels of runners, from couch to 5K first-timers to people who are running at the highest level. I'm a certified RRCA running coach and certified personal trainer and would love to help you learn to run, improve your running, or find joy in it where you aren't seeing that right now. Hit me up via email or on social if you're interested in a consultation or if you've got questions for me. I'd love to hear what your goals are!

Email: [email protected]

Facebook/Instagram: @thevetreset

You probably already know Dr. Lauren Smith - through her brand The Vetitude, she talks about communication, empathy, and the intersection of the client and vet team experience, and she also does a whole lot of keeping it real. She's not afraid to voice an unpopular opinion, and when she does, it's always worth a listen, because it's undoubtedly going to teach you something important about yourself or about other people. 

In this conversation, Lauren drops serious wisdom about some of the more difficult aspects of client communication - and of being an extroverted introvert in a profession where you talk to people all day. We talk about loneliness, which is a big part of life for many of us in vet med in general, but which looms large for much of the planet during this COVID era. (Did you know the UK AND Japan both have appointed "Ministers of Loneliness" in the past few years? It's a real job.)

But I am most grateful that Lauren, a lifelong runner, took this opportunity to open up and talk with me about some subjects we don't discuss enough in vet med: weight stigma, body image, and diet culture.  There's actually a lot that traditional vet med culture and diet culture have in common, and we both think it's worth working hard to shift those cultures to a place where toxicity is the exception, not the accepted norm, and where inclusion and empathy are the basis for everything that comes next. 

Find Lauren:

Email: [email protected]

Facebook/Instagram: @thevetitude

Find me: 

Email: [email protected]

Facebook/Instagram: @thevetreset