If you’ve ever been told your cholesterol is “a little high” and wondered if there’s a more natural way to support it — you’ve probably heard of red yeast rice.

Let’s talk about what it actually is, how it works in the body, and why it deserves both respect and caution.

What Is Red Yeast Rice — Really?

Red yeast rice is made by fermenting rice with a specific yeast. During that fermentation, the rice produces compounds called monacolins.

One of those compounds — monacolin K — is important because it’s chemically the same as lovastatin, a prescription cholesterol-lowering medication.

So while red yeast rice comes from a natural source, it’s not “gentle” in the way many people assume. It works on the same pathway in the liver that statin drugs do.

That’s why it can be effective — and also why it needs to be used thoughtfully.

How Red Yeast Rice Supports Cholesterol & Heart Health

1. Helps Lower “Bad” LDL Cholesterol

Multiple studies show that red yeast rice can significantly lower LDL cholesterol — the kind that contributes to plaque buildup in arteries.

In research settings, LDL levels dropped by 15–30%, which is similar to what you’d expect from a low-dose statin.

This is the main reason people turn to red yeast rice.

2. Supports Total Cholesterol & Triglycerides

Red yeast rice may also help lower:
• Total cholesterol
• Triglycerides (another blood fat linked to heart disease)

Some studies even show small improvements in HDL (“good”) cholesterol.

3. Supports Overall Heart & Blood Vessel Health

By improving cholesterol numbers, red yeast rice may help reduce strain on the heart and support healthier blood vessels — especially when paired with nutrition, movement, and stress management.

4. An Option for Some Who Don’t Tolerate Statins

Some people who experience muscle pain or side effects from statin medications have used red yeast rice successfully under supervision.

That said — because it works like a statin, it can still cause similar side effects in a small amount of people.

Very Important Things to Know

This part matters just as much as the benefits.

Not All Supplements Are the Same

Red yeast rice supplements are not regulated like medications, so the amount of active ingredient can vary widely between brands.

Some products contain very little active compound.
Others may contain more than expected.

That means results — and side effects — can be unpredictable. At the Wellness Training Institute’s all the supplements are third party tested and researched to make sure  they are of the highest quality.

It Can Have Statin-Like Side Effects

Because red yeast rice works like a statin, it can sometimes cause:
• muscle aches
• liver enzyme changes
• digestive discomfort

And it should not be combined with prescription statins unless guided by a healthcare provider.

“Natural” does not always mean risk-free.

Talk to Your Provider First

Red yeast rice is not appropriate for everyone — especially if you:
• already take cholesterol medications
• have liver or kidney issues
• are pregnant or breastfeeding
• take medications that affect the liver

If it’s used, labs should be monitored.

Our Perspective as Wellness Practitioners

We view red yeast rice as a powerful tool — not a casual supplement.

It may be helpful for:
✔️ people with mildly elevated cholesterol
✔️ those exploring alternatives with supervision
✔️ individuals also committed to nutrition, movement, and overall health

But it’s not something I recommend casually or without guidance.

Cholesterol support works best when we also address:
• whole-food nutrition
• fiber intake
• inflammation
• stress and sleep
• consistent movement

Supplements can support the process — but they’re never the whole picture.

Bottom Line

Red yeast rice can significantly lower LDL cholesterol and support heart health — sometimes in a way similar to low-dose statin therapy.

If you’re considering it, the safest approach is an informed one — with your provider involved and your lifestyle foundation in place.

You can buy here.

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Larry left the cardiologist’s office that day with bad news. If he didn’t get his blood sugar under control and lose some weight, he was going to have to go under the knife for an aortic transplantation.

He left with the warning. But what he didn’t have were any ideas about how to get his health under control.

His first experience with Nicole and Mickey at the Wellness Training Institute’s Dinner Seminar left him skeptical… until they started talking. It was at that point—when he realized that he’d been getting bad health advice for his entire life—that he realized he needed what they were offering. Namely, education.

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Joy woke up one morning and couldn’t walk. The pain in her joints was overwhelming… She was terrified by not knowing what was happening to her.After visiting doctor after doctor, she was eventually diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. To treat her condition, the doctors put her on a whole laundry list of medications.And that’s when things started to get really serious. She gained weight and developed a number of conditions that she hadn’t had before going on all the shots and pills.So, she turned to The Wellness Training Institute, and by changing her lifestyle, she was able to take back her health. Watch Joy’s story to find out how she was able to change her life to the point that her rheumatologist was shocked at her transformation!

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The numbers speak for themselves. At 50, Paul’s cholesterol was at 350.The doctors told him not to worry. Just do the following and you’ll be fine:Switch to skim milk.Only eat egg whites.Eat more fish.Switch over to olive oil.All standard medical advice, right?Well, by 55 things hadn’t gotten better. In fact, they’d gotten much worse. And it was only after a life-threatening medical emergency that Paul made the one change that, by the time he turned 60, had lowered his cholesterol from 350 to 100. A change that’s also given him more energy than he had at 30!Watch how Paul changed his lifestyle, and in turn, changed his life!

The post Paul: Change Your Habits, Change Your Life appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

Liz always considered herself a healthy person because she never got sick. But then, she started to gain a lot of weight.

She’d never had a weight problem, so she started to wonder if something was wrong.

So, she turned to The Wellness Training Institute and a whole new world of health opened up before her.

Watch Liz’s story to find out how such simple things as education, support, and encouragement revolutionized not only how she ate… but also how she lives now!

The post Liz: Change Your Mind, Change Your Life appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

Paul’s story started with a moment of incredible pain. The pressure on his chest was like nothing he’d ever felt before.

He quickly found out that he had a hundred percent block in his right artery, a left bundle block, a heart murmur, sarcoidosis on the right side, an enlarged heart, and leaky valves.

His life hung in the balance. And he was running out of time.

It was a miracle, he says, that at the Cleveland Clinic he got the cardiologist that he did. As Paul lay in a gurney, getting ready for surgery, the cardiologist looked down and told him, “You know, I’ve only done this serious of a surgery twice in 20 years. Would you be willing to try something different?”

Paul replied, “Yes, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do.”

And in that moment, Paul’s life changed for good.

Watch the rest of his inspiring story.

The post Paul: Change Your Nutrition, Change Your Life appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

Marc and Kim of chickpeaandbean.com are back to talk about how to fuel your body and mind… the right way!

In this video Marc shares how our bodies are incredible machines. Machines that, if they’re broken, can heal themselves.

But to do that, to get our bodies working for us and not against us, we need to give them the right fuel to run.

Watch as Marc explains how to take back your health and live a better life by making just a few small, but life-altering changes to your lifestyle!

(For more information on his and his wife’s health journey, visit their fantastic website www.chickpeaandbean.com)

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Many of us are stuck on that hamster wheel of fad diets. And Marc was no different. He’d go on a diet, lose a little weight, but after the diet was over he’d gain it all back. Plus, by 43, he had a long list of medical issues that robbed him of living the life he wanted.

We’re all different. Different conditions. Different needs. Different levels of health. But in this video Marc—who, along with his wife Kim, runs the nutritional support site chickpeaandbean.com—shares how he broke out of the “diet” cycle and took back his health, once and for all. And beyond that, he shows you how you can do the same, no matter what age you happen to be!

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In this video, Marc and Kim of chickpeaandbean.com talk about Marc’s health journey…

Marc grew up in a big Mexican family, with eight brothers and sisters. And except for one sister, every one of his siblings and his mother were diabetic. He knew that his fate would be the same. It must run in his genes, right?

Well, by the time Marc reached adulthood, what he thought was his fate turned into a reality. Even beyond the type 2 diabetes, Marc had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, was taking 5 different medications, was on insulin, had erectile dysfunction, psoriasis on his scalp, was obese, didn’t sleep well, and had heartburn all the time.

By 43, Marc was a mess.

For many, that’s where the story ends. They’re sick. They’re tired. They’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, but have no idea how to break the cycle.

But for Marc, that misery was only the start of his incredible story. Seven years on and he is in the best shape of his life. And he owes it all to one decision.

Watch Marc’s story to find out how he regained his health and completely revolutionized his life!

(For more information on his and his wife Kim’s health journey, along with some great, plant-powered recipes, visit their fantastic website www.chickpeaandbean.com)

The post Marc and Kim: Change Your Fate, Change Your Life appeared first on Wellness Training Institute.

Most everyone wants to lose at least a little weight. But fad “diets” aren’t the answer. Instead, you have to start in a completely different—and deeper—place to find real health.

I recently had a woman come to one of our Wellness Dinner Seminars. She’d been struggling with her weight and some other serious health concerns for a number of years. She was skeptical if anything would ever work for her, but she was desperate for a change. When she left the seminar, she was excited and ready to enter our Healthful Evolutions program.

But a few minutes after walking out of our office, she walked back in with a worried expression on her face.

When I asked her what was wrong, she said that she thought we had a great program but she was going to try to solve her health issues in another way. When I asked what she meant, she said that she’d talked to some people outside (who had just come to our seminar for the first time as well) and they had convinced her to try a diet they’d just read about. I didn’t press her very hard… but I did want to know what she was going to try. And honestly, I was worried she was heading down a path that would not get her to her goals.

“It’s called the Plant Paradox Diet,” she said. “My friends said it’s supposed to work.” I wished her luck and told her she was always welcome back.

That encounter has stuck with me. Honestly, it makes me sad. Why? Because I know she’s not going to find success with that—or any other—”diet.” (As an aside, if you’re interested in Dr. Stephen Grundy’s Plant Paradox Diet, as well as all the various “lectin blockers” he sells at a premium on his site, watch this—and then read this—first.)

All fad “diets” promise only one thing. That you’ll lose weight. And, often, people do lose weight… but only for a little while.

But, let’s actually dig a little deeper here.

Can losing weight help you’re overall health? Sure, in certain situations. But, does just losing weight mean that you’re healthy?

Not at all.

And that’s what made me so sad about this interaction with this woman. She needed to lose weight, of course. But the weight was just a symptom of deeper issues. And the “diet” she chose to pursue isn’t going to help with any of those underlying issues. If anything, in her situation, that fad diet is probably going to only exacerbate her underlying problems.

When you’re looking to get healthy, to be around longer for your kids, to find happiness and live life to its fullest, weight loss can never be your primary goal.

Why?

For two main reasons. First, going on a fad diet doesn’t work to begin with. And second, that’s not how we’re built as humans.

Reason #1: fad diets don’t work

For evidence why this first reason is true, take a look at the following statistics (all pulled from here):

• The average adult American attempts a fad diet four times per year
• One in four Americans give up after less than two weeks
• More than 97% of people gain the weight back within three years
• 65% of people who even “finish” the diet end up regaining at least as much back

From all of these statistics, a couple things become clear. First, Americans go on fad “diets” a lot. Now, couple that information with the fact that we are only growing more and more obese. Add in the following statistic and you’ll begin to get an idea of why weight loss can’t be your only goal:

The diet industry pulls in $61 billion annually.

Why don’t fad “diets” work? Because they’re marketed to us constantly… and then designed to fail. Every time.

Because, what would happen if they worked?

For one, we wouldn’t be, on average, trying a new one every three months. And, what’s maybe even more telling, we certainly wouldn’t be spending tens of billions of dollars on them if the first one got the weight off and kept it off.

Reason #2: Here’s How we, As People, work

For the second reason as to why weight loss can’t be your main goal when considering your options, let’s just take a quick look at how we all tick.

First, know that I have been there… so no judgement! Newton’s first law of motion goes something like this: For people sitting on the couch dipping into a family size bag of Sour Cream and Cheddar Ruffles, something has to make them get up and decide not to live that way anymore.

(I’m paraphrasing the physics here, of course, but you get the point.)

Meaning: There needs to be a reason you want to lose the weight. We need to connect to a purpose to give up the chips. Otherwise, why not? They taste good!

Now, let’s take a look at some of those potential reasons. For one, maybe summer is coming up, and you want to go to the beach. Or two, maybe that 35th high school reunion is just around the corner, and you want to shed some of the extra pounds before you see your old classmates. Whatever it is, there are plenty of (perfectly legitimate!!!) reasons to want to lose a little weight. Nothing at all wrong with that.

But here’s the question: What happens when that event is over? Nine times out of ten the answer is that you regain all the weight you lost and you’re no better—or healthier—for it.

Why? Because your goal had both a time limit and an expiration date. Once both of those are exhausted? You have no reason left to keep the weight off.

By the way, that’s what the diet industry is counting on. They love the short term. The myopic makes them tens of billions of dollars each year.

Getting back to Newton, the way we as humans work is that to change, we need a reason. And for long-term, life-long change to happen? That reason needs to be a big one.

Going on vacation matters. I totally get that.

But it’s not your ultimate WHY.

WHAT WE DO AT THE WELLNESS TRAINING INSTITUTE

That’s really what separates what we do in our programs here at the Wellness Training Institute from every other program out there.

First, we find your WHY.

And second, we focus on every part of your health. Health is more than weight loss. In fact, weight loss is really just a tiny part of it. If you’re ready to make the changes you need to make, and you do the hard work of making the changes you need to make, of course you’re going to lose weight.

But that’s not ALL you’re going to get. That’s honestly just the start.

Instead, you’re going to take a journey that will change you forever. And along the way, you’ll find happiness, life, health, and community.

Going on vacation matters. I totally get that.

But it’s not your ultimate WHY.

You’ll get out of the dieting loop. You’ll have the freedom to know what your body needs—and why.

All without depriving yourself of anything. All without having to starve yourself.

And all without having to finish your next fad diet only to have to start the cycle once again—and feel the shame the diet industry knows will bring you back, once more, with your wallet open.

You need a plan. You need support. You need a guide.

That’s how real change happens. And that’s what we offer.

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