101: Losing His Mom Inspired This Author’s Life Mission


A Cookbook That Enhances Your Body’s Ability to Heal

As a functional Medicine Practitioner and Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist, Ryan Kennedy takes a holistic approach to helping his patients improve their health by utilizing results-based natural therapies.

Ryan implements nutritional and lifestyle interventions to correct underlying imbalances in the body and help you in every aspect of your health. Unlike addressing symptoms like conventional medicine, Ryan uses natural approaches to address the root cause and enhance your body’s ability to heal. 

Ryan has authored the book, PROOF: Beyond Nutrition and he is also the host of The Thriving Wellness Podcast.

What We Discuss with Ryan Kennedy:

  • What drew him into health and nutrition
  • Why people are misguided when it comes to nutrition
  • Why he decided to write a cookbook
  • Ryan’s coaching program
  • His writing process
  • A look into his client journey
  • Getting the book out there

[01:34] The Beginning of Transformation

When he was 14, his mom was diagnosed with cancer and went through the standard of care – chemotherapy surgery and Western medicine recommendations. At that time, her medical practitioners looked down upon nutritional therapy or any type of natural modalities deeming them as ineffective. 

Over the course of the next two years, in large part due to a lot of the pharmaceutical agents and toxic chemotherapy drugs administered to her, she ultimately passed away. 

This became a turning point in Ryan’s life realizing the importance of health. This set him off on a journey to learn everything about health. He also wasn’t at his healthiest at that time so he wanted to improve his health in the process.

There are so many people in our society who really mean well, they really want to improve their health, but they’re just being misled down the wrong path. 

Ryan then set his mission to work against some of the dogmas and misconceptions floating around to bring people to truth. He dedicated the next decade of his life learning everything he could about health – research, postgrad in naturopathic and functional medicine, mentoring, and attending conferences. This wealth of knowledge has led him to write his book PROOF; Beyond Nutrition.

[05:04] Why People Are Misguided About Nutrition

A lot of the confusion really stems from the big food conglomerates and a lot of the special interest groups’ underlying mission is to make money. We live in a capitalistic society so they sacrifice food quality to increase their bottom line. 

Many of the most nutrient-dense foods we can consume aren’t all that profitable. All the profit when it comes to selling food is in these refined, processed food – crap that people are then recommended to eat. 

These companies have so much power and so much money. They can influence our government officials and they can have a really big voice in terms of the news and the media telling people what they should be eating. A lot of it comes back to the corruption in those different groups that really don’t have the consumer’s health as their priority. So our government guidelines are not very accurate. 

[06:42] Focus on Aesthetics Over Nutrition

Many people think of health and fitness as improving their body composition to improve their aesthetics. But that’s just the byproduct if you focus on your overall health.

There are so many people in the fitness industry that are spewing things that will transform your body but in a very unhealthy way. It will help you build muscle and lose fat. But at the end of the day, that stuff really doesn’t matter. 

What’s most important is your quality of life, having energy, being able to sleep well, having good sexual performance, having a good mood and a stable mindset.

You have to dial in these lifestyle practices that are going to enable you to thrive in all aspects of life, not just what you look like but just how you feel.

[09:05] Why He Wrote a Cookbook

Ryan found that giving people information about nutrition recommendations is only part of the puzzle. There’s a missing gap between those recommendations and actually putting it into practice. And that’s where recipes come in.

Recipes bridge that gap and enable people to take these nutritional recommendations and actually create a meal that’s both delicious and healthy. 

You have to provide people with a step-by-step approach so that they know you know how to navigate to a store and how to shop and buy proper ingredients, where to source them, from what terminology to look forward to get high-quality food – and then how to take that food and create meals out of it. 

Ryan created recipes that really taste great because none of us want to eat bland, boring food. We want to eat delicious food. We want to make it an enjoyable process because that’s one of the keys to sustainability. 

[10:55] Beware of “Gluten-Free” Flour and Natural Sweeteners

There are a lot of recipes that will incorporate gluten-free or dairy-free ingredients and natural sweeteners. 

Those gluten-free flours are still loaded with a ton of starch that’s going to impact your blood glucose and cause that insulin response. And those natural sweeteners they’re using are maple syrup, honey, or still pure sugar. 

Ryan created recipes that will:

  • keep your blood sugar stable
  • enable you to supply your body with the right types of:
    • healthy fats
    • high-quality protein (so you can get the amino acids you need for recovery, repair, rejuvenation)
  • make your food taste good in the process 

[13:00] Leveraging the Book from a Business Standpoint

Ryan found coaching as the key to growing business, creating more revenue, and being more successful from a financial standpoint.

Putting the book all together was not a cheap process. But he found it to be a really good way to give people the best possible information in an easiest-to-consume manner. Then if you want to notch it up a level and you want customized help, there’s one-on-one coaching and consulting.

The book is a great avenue for getting his coaching clients. It’s a great way to demonstrate credibility and authority. But beyond that, it’s a great way to provide value. 

Just by helping people, you’re really going to grow your business, grow your brands, and improve your financial situation.

[14:54] The Book Writing Process

It took two years for Ryan to complete his book. He initially posted recipes and put out content and got massive positive feedback from his audience. They asked him to put it all together into a book.

Whether people decide to make the recipes or not, the book gives a clear and concise roadmap of how to improve their diet, how to eat better, and how to live better.

The book gives them all these essential practices that they dial in – meal timing, hydration, fasting,  sleep, etc. – all these other things that go well beyond just recipes. 

[17:11] A Look into the Client Journey

Ryan works with clients from all walks of life. But a larger percentage is comprised of everyday people who have just let their health fall by the wayside over the years.

Mental health is a big component of the work that Ryan does. Our mental health really mirrors our physical health. When you have an imbalance in your gut, you have a lot of hormonal dysfunction. This oftentimes results in anxiety or depression or any number of other disorders that are now so widespread.

Depression has now become the number one leading cause of disability in the United States and it’s a growing epidemic. 

Western medical establishment tries to bandaid this by using pharmaceutical agents. But it’s not getting to the root cause of the problem. It’s not correcting the imbalances causing the different shifts in your neurotransmitters responsible for why people feel down and people are not feeling good. 

Ryan brings a holistic approach to the table, dialing in every lifestyle factor to improve every facet of your health – because it’s all interconnected.

Episode Resources:


PROOF: Beyond Nutrition

The Thriving Wellness Podcast

Follow Ryan on Instagram @RyanCKennedy

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