Avanti Body’s Debbie Olson on Red Light Therapy: Wellness, Weight Loss & Healing

On this episode of the We Share podcast, Alex and Julie sit down with Debbie Olson, owner of Avanti Body, a wellness and weight loss center specializing in red light therapy. Debbie shares how red light therapy provides both expected benefits, such as fat loss and body sculpting, and unexpected advantages, including improved mental health, reduced inflammation, and better sleep. They discuss the science behind red light therapy, how treatments are customized for individual needs, and the importance of body scans to track progress. Debbie also talks about her personal journey with red light therapy and her passion for helping others through wellness and DNA coaching. Tune in to learn how this innovative therapy is making a difference in people’s lives. 

Transcript

We have a few women who have come in initially for that, lost her weight loss and say they're staying because they're they can tell that they're depression and anxiety and things that they suffer with that way are improving. Today on the We Share podcast, we are joined by Debbie Olson, owner of Avanti Body, a wellness, weight loss and rejuvenation center.

We talk expected and unexpected benefits of red light therapy. That's their specialty at Avanti.

Welcome to the We Share podcast. I'm Julie. I'm Alex. We share ourselves and we provide a platform for others to share. We believe everyone has a purpose and a story to tell. And we're back on the We Share podcast. I'm Julie and I'm Alex. And continuing with our well just yeah just love. Yeah love all the things. Taking care of yourself.

Loving yourself. We have another guest with us this week. Yes we do. Welcome. Debbie Olson. She is a mom, a wife, a business owner of, a new business in town, which I wanted her to come on and share why they brought this to town. It's amazing business called Avanti Body. They're doing great things for people and wellness exclusively like red light therapy.

She's going to dive into it and. And give you the nuts and bolts of why their place is better than anyone else, right? Like but also just the healing properties of of wellness. Hello, Debbie. Thank you for being here. Let's get let's let's just get started. So Avanti Body, how did you come upon it? Like how did it happen?

So, my husband and I own the business, and we have we're part of a net working group that's, people throughout the United States are involved in. And we meet quarterly, usually in San Diego. And so we've, made some business acquaintances through that networking business, business networking place, organization and one of the women in the group is Terry Simpson, who owns of antibody.

And she was she herself was suffering with some illnesses. She was due to have, both hips replaced. She was overweight. She was, you know, just really struggling with some different things. And she started seeking out, ways to heal her body without surgeries, without medicines. And she discovered red light therapy. She lives in California, so she was driving an hour each way, 2 to 3 times a week to get these red light treatments.

And she started doing research and investigating and eventually opened her own business. And from that decided she wanted to franchise. And that is how Shane and I got involved this through Terry. Okay. I know I've heard stories about red light therapy, helping people break it down for us. What are the actual physical benefits? And, well, let's start. We'll get to the physical benefits.

I'm going to ask you a twofold question. Tell people how they actually participate in red light therapy and then the physical benefits. So with our in our business in our center, we have medical grade pads that we physically wrap you in. So proximity to skin is important. The pads are against your skin. That's how we do our treatments.

We have other things that we can get into as well, but but specifically with the red light sessions, we wrap you in pads for 20 minutes, and that's what we how we do that. I want to I want to just interject here and it's delightful. Does it just feel so warm and good. So warm and good. Debbie, I had asked her because I've been doing red light for a while.

It was at the at the apple. You can do it for free with your membership and it's like a tanning bed. And so you're just standing there and, you're on a shake plate type thing. And I felt benefits from that. But but then talking with Debbie and learning that about the proximity and then actually feeling a difference, like I've been doing it for a solid month now and I've seen changes in my body and felt healing that I have not had.

Okay, I think that's interesting because I had no idea. Proximity was, a value portion of it that in order to get the most out of the therapy, it actually needs to be close to the skin. Right. I always say some red light therapy is better than no red light therapy. So if you are using a bed or you know something like that, don't stop, right?

But if you can, you know, proximity is important and the the strength of the lights, those kinds of things are going to make a difference. You're going to see benefits quicker. Everybody has different goals, things that they're hoping to gain from the therapy. But the proximity and then also beneficial. They a volunteer body. They have this anti-aging mask that they put over.

Since we're both into like we're almost 52 longer looking younger longer and you can add masks and whatnot, but it just feels amazing. They put waves or I choose the waves sound. So I literally pretend like I'm at the beach. I just close my eyes. It's a 20 minute power nap. I love this. It's. You need e.

I need to go. We need to go. We have so many people that say that because we put noise canceling headphones on and there's lots of choices. Ocean waves is one of them. And so we have so many people that like that setting. And they'll say that I just pretend I'm at the beach. Well some of the things as we feel like we don't have enough time to get everything in.

You could combine meditation with red light therapy and you're doing two at once. 100%. Yeah. It's it's just everyone should do it. So we had to have her on and get the word out. Yes. Okay. Let's talk about those benefits then. So everyone should do it just simply because it feels good. But what other things am I going to get in my life.

Because I'm bringing red light therapy on board. So many things. Again, everybody's different. Everybody's looking for something different. I think that initially people come because they want to lose weight or they want to lose fat. So we tend to focus on that quite a bit. With red light therapy, after being under the pads for 20 minutes, it can actually melt and or cause your fat cells to disintegrate.

There's some there's some stuff that goes along with that. You know, they're not going to just melt off and you're going to lose 20 pounds immediately. For example, if you're doing red light therapy, you can't go eat pizza afterwards and think you're going to not that you're going to lose weight. It's calorie free pizza after that, however, yeah, that's not necessarily how it works.

But with fat loss, we you're going to see so many benefits that you don't think about. Oftentimes with red light therapy you'll lose fat, but you won't lose pounds. So we do body scans and it's important to pay attention to the scans to see maybe you're losing inches or maybe you're gaining muscle. There's different things that it's going to do for you in that way.

It can help with arthritis, can help with neuropathy. It can help with so many things. I'm trying to think I will. My very first thought was autoimmune diseases because people are traditional drugs aren't always helping these these new versions of autoimmune. And it's not necessarily the autoimmune immune diseases or new. It's just the discovery of the branches of the different autoimmune issues.

So yes, it can help autoimmune. Yes, it can help with pain and inflammation in the body, which is oftentimes something people with autoimmune diseases suffer from. Right. So it can help ease those those things as well. Those symptoms those symptoms and that type of stuff. Yeah. How about overall well health like does it benefits sleep patterns. And because I know light is so important to how we relax and our cortisol levels and when they dip and come back up how about that.

So it helps improve the melatonin in your body which then is going to help you sleep better. What was the other question you asked. Well anything like even with our mood elevation, is it affecting those kind of like just serotonin on cortisol levels and what's going on in your body with that? It does help with, depression, like vitamin D, is there any area?

I think so I don't know specifically. So I don't want to say yes, because I would think that, like, I know how important sunlight is and we don't get it during the winter. Not even close enough. Like it's so socked in most days. And so that's the benefit. I've been feeling like just for that light, it's like so good.

Yeah. So that is a benefit. It does help with, seasonal depression and depression. In general, we have a few women who have come in initially for fat loss or weight loss and say they're staying because they're they can tell that they're depression and anxiety and things that they suffer with that way are improving. So now they're more focusing on their mental health rather than, you know, they're focusing on both of it, but just seeing that additional benefit for them has made a difference.

I want to add also so customizable mats like they place them up for you so they have a formula for you. You can change it right. And they've mixed it up a couple of times on me. Like for my legs that were tired from skiing or say my shoulders had been bothering me from tennis. But one of my favorite things to also do is the thyroid.

Just because we're at that age where hormones are shifting and changing. And so there's one on on my neck. I think the neck would be such a great place to have that if I'm trying to like, level myself and calm myself, I always push on my chest. I take a big, you know, several deep breaths and push on my chest.

I that's like a just a warm blanket around that area that I push on anyway. Right. So like I said, we can customize the pads. They're modifiable. So the first few times you wrap we might do one thing and then you might say, oh, I actually want to focus on this or that. And we, you know, might wrap a bit differently.

And that does kind of go back to consultations and what people come in for. When we do the consultation, we ask lots and lots of questions so we can make sure we're focusing on the things that you are hoping to gain from red light therapy, as well as things that you might not know so we can move them around.

We have clients who have been with us for, you know, the year that we've been open, and they will wrap one way, one week and one a different way another week, or we'll just change stuff around and, and so that's, that's another really nice benefit is you don't it's not the same thing every time. We can adjust for the needs.

Yeah exactly. Is it always a 20 minute session. Yes. Okay. So because I think it's important for people to know what they would be blocking out in their life. So always a 20 minute session right. So we wrap in the pads for 20 minutes and then we have you stand on a whole body vibration plate for ten. So there's lots of benefits to vibration.

One of them specifically with red light therapy is when we're inviting those fat cells to leave the body, we want to push them into the waist system. And so standing on the vibration plate encourages them to do that. And so we have you stand on vibration for ten minutes. So one appointment is 30 minutes depending on if you don't do other things we offer as well.

Yeah okay. They offer lots of other things okay. Let's get to those. But I have a TMI question before we get to here. So I have heard about this that the vibration helps to flush the body. Do you actually see that physically. Like do you see more. Does it change your digestive system. Haven't paid more, but I've seen changes in my abs that I have not like.

Literally. This is the only thing I'm doing different. Okay, I might even have your active. I might not even sound a little less, over the holidays. Right. And Ian and had a few drinks, but my abs are popping more than they've ever pumped. My gosh, that's great. Like, and I, that's not why I started going. I was going for a lot of the other reasons.

So just to the benefit of like that fat evening out like and thinning and then like you can see my six pack. Okay. So, what other. Not that I'm just. Yeah, yeah. No you should I know, I know right. Yes you should. Yes, but I wasn't. That's not why I, what I went in for. And then that's a side when if I'm like oh my gosh my abs are popping I of that.

Okay. What other things are available at about what we do initially when we have people come in is we do a 3D body scan. We have a body scanner and we do a body full body scan. We review the whole scan with the person. The scan gives us great information on that content in your body. Probability for disease, those kinds of things.

My favorite thing as women we're always thinking we need to lose, you know, ten 1520, 35 whatever pounds. Right. And women come in and we're able to say, well, you want to lose this much weight, but look how much. Just losing this much is going to help you and just really show them. And I think that's so helpful for not just women, but, you know, women and men.

But it's it's most and it shows you your lean muscle. So, so as you can watch that that can increase as your fat decreases. Like I'm excited to get my second scan done to see the differences. The bone density is so important too, because we don't, make as much natural collagen and our calcium levels are wonky. And then we change our diets and we're starting to miss minerals when we do that.

So that would be a great piece of knowledge to know, right? So with red light therapy, it helps your muscles improve and your bone density improve. And so sometimes back to the weight loss. If you're weighing yourself and you're like, I've been doing red light therapy and I'm not losing any weight, well maybe your muscle mass improved and your bone density improved.

And you know, there's different thing and things. And that's why the body scan is so important, because we can compare them right next to each other and see exactly what's going on. Awesome. It's literally the color scan I love this where these located in East Idaho. We are on Maryland Drive. We're back in the Chantilly Business Park off of Sunny Side.

I can walk, yes, you could walk for me, I can walk and they're intro special. I mean, it's $29, right? To come in and try it. $29. You can will do a full body scan. That is ridiculous. Right? That is I hate you just blew me away saying $29. Yes. Yeah. Wow. Okay. There is always that. There is no reason that somebody shouldn't at least come have the first session.

Right. And there's more. Okay. So yeah. So we have we do the the scanner does red light session with the red light therapy session. We also do it anti-aging treatment. So we have separate lights that don't touch your skin that we put over your face. They're a little less intense than the pads. But you'll get an anti-aging treatment as well.

And so there's, you know, the red lights that are going to be directly on your face. It helps, like you mentioned collagen earlier, it boosts the collagen in your skin, helps with fine lines and wrinkles, that kind of thing. So we do that as well. And then we have a machine that we call the fab shaper or the fab roller.

It's a big machine that sits on the floor. It's a I say it's a circuit. It has 17 different positions. You start with your thighs and you, I'm sorry, your calves. And then you do your thighs front, back, middle, outer, your glutes, your waist. Your abs. Yeah. I'm trying to think of lower, upper lower and upper abs waist.

Each arm you do separately. And then you do your back and shoulders so that if you do, that whole circuit takes about 20 minutes. This machine's very interesting. It works with your lymphatic system. That's what I was just going to say. This has got to drain your lymphatic system. So it has the barrel and it rolls one way, and then it rolls the other way depending on the position.

And it's in there's red light in it too, right. It's an infrared light. Oh infrared. So the light that's in there is an infrared light that keeps your muscles warm while you're using the machine. When the barrels are only one way, it's pushing things to the lower lymphatic system. Other way, upper lymphatics. It works with surface level fat, like cellulite.

That kind of thing can kind of help with body shaping your fascia. It's like a big fascia blaster. People kind of know what that is. So it's kind of like a big fat blaster helps with muscle recovery. People that go to the gym like to come and use it because it helps their muscles recover a bit quicker. In fact, we had a guy that fell and hurt himself and he was all bruised up and he wanted to use it, but he was a little concerned.

And I'm like you, you do it if you want to do it. Like if it hurts to stop, right, we can just turn it off. And he used the machine very softly and carefully and his bruises recover was so much quicker. And he's like, I'm a swimmer, like I was. So it's so interesting how that thing works. Okay, I'm, I'm it's amazing.

So I'm sold. Here's the thing. Touches is important too. And a lot of people don't get enough touch or you can't go get a massage, you know, every day or every week or so, that fab roller, it literally for the first time I used it, it did kind of hurt because I just was figuring out that my pressure and how much to lean into it, but it feels amazing.

Like it just needs all the knots out of my body. This is great. Okay, now this is a completely selfish question. You're going to have a new client, right? Yeah. Like if I want to just show up today, how what's availability, what's the book out time like that kind of thing. So you can you can't really show up because the consultation the first one, if you want to come in and try everything takes about an hour and a half.

Okay. Again, we like to sit down with you, kind of find out what you're hoping and looking for. You know, we like to explain everything when you're using. Of course, we you know, we want to take that time with you. So we schedule people out. So we have a person that can do the consultation with them and spend time with them.

So we're usually just a couple days out. We can usually get you in okay within a couple days. And then after that people can just book like a reoccurring appointment, come every Thursday and then it's about an hour if you do everything right. Yeah. Once you're used to it, we don't hold your hand per se anymore. You always get wrapped.

We have client care specialists. We call them. Our girls are amazing, and they'll always physically wrap you and make sure you're doing well there. I say they're water pushers. They're always going to make sure you guys have water to drink. And I've got that one time. I've got that one covered. Yeah. Chairs next up now. But then you do vibration alone and you do the fab roller kind of alone you know.

So okay, more TMI because I think people will want to know this. What are you dressed like. Like, do you get naked for the for the the red light therapy. Like what do you dress like for the phone or for the roller with the good questions. When we do the body scan, you're going to want to wear form fitting clothing so that you can get an accurate scan.

So gym wear gym wear leggings sports bra you know got it. Men want to wear like tighter briefs. When we wrap you, we encourage you to just wrap in panties that you can keep your bra on if you, you know. Yeah. For any reason. Don't want to take it off. We provide towels and coverage so that you're not just laying on the table naked.

Right. And they have the little disposable ones. We don't. It's not what you use. Yeah. Like this isn't a big deal to me, but I think it would be a big deal to some people. So the first couple of times when people wrap this a little intimidating, we've had people wear slimming suits before because that's what they're comfortable in.

And we always want you to be comfortable. So if that's what is comfortable for you, then that's what you should do. But generally just in panties and then. Yeah, just gym wear when you're using the vibration plate. The vibration machine or the fab roller, the fab roller, you're going to want to be able to put your body against it.

So having leggings on or tank top, that kind of thing, not loose fitting clothing is going to be the most because the least. But like roll up right. Yeah, that would make total sense, which is I, I figured that you didn't have any clothes on for the pads, but I wondered with the, the foam rolling, I mean, I'm that's probably the wrong roller.

Fab roller. It's a weird little kind of thing. Yeah, that it would have to. You couldn't have that bulkiness, right? Right in there. And we have bathrooms. We have ladies that come in on their lunch hour and they'll of course, undress when they do their session, put their gym clothes on to finish and then go in the bathroom, put their work clothes back on to go back to work.

Okay. So we have stuff available for people. Super nice facility. Have I missed anything? Because I feel like I've, I've like learned so much that there is so much. Well, they also offer supplements and other things. We have some we have some skincare products that, are sort of manufactured along with the lights that we carry with the lights, the anti-aging lights we use.

So we do have those things available that we can, talk about. Again, it's kind of we like to talk to people about what they're hoping for. And so if you are, you know, oh, I want more hydration on my skin or I want less wrinkles or, you know, kind of whatever. We can talk about that stuff. I have acne, we have, you know, things that we can gear towards that, we provide a product called Energy Bits and their spirulina and chlorella bits.

I have replaced all of my, supplements with them. They're 100% natural. There's no chemicals. The woman who created this company did it because her sister got cancer, and she was trying to find healthy ways for her sister to, survive cancer. The sister did, by the way. So we have those, three. The beauty bits are helpful for, we like to call them room service or housekeeping room service.

You come in, you take the beauty bits you're going to. It's going to be beneficial before you wrap the recovery. Bits are, housekeeping. It's going to flush. Help flush that stuff out of your system. And then we also have a growth and weight loss program, which is, a little challenging to talk about in a Reader's Digest way.

But we do have a weight loss program as well. Seems like you can get a weight loss program anywhere. What I like about this one, and what I always say to people, is because I have so many people that are on the, the shore. Yeah, we know a lot. And I'm my follow up question to them is, is somebody helping you through this process, a trained individual helping you through this process?

Because I've, I've got friends who are ordering it from California. Nobody's even watching what's going on with them. And I think that's crazy sauce. I really like therapy specific to the shot when oftentimes when people are using the shot, they're losing muscle as well as fat. And the red light therapy is going to help build their muscle back up.

That's great. Certainly be a benefit of somebody who's using that type of day. And if you're visiting once a week to the to avonte and you're part of this weight loss, someone's watching you, someone great paying attention to what's going on with you. It's not a, hey, I just picked this up at the pharmacy and Willy nilly, I'm injecting it into my thigh or my belly or whatever.

So she did just mention once a week. Do you recommend once a week? Twice a week? It depends on what your goals are. Everybody's different. And so that's another reason why we have the consultation. So we can sort of decide what would be the best fit for you when you come in. Once a week you're going to see benefits of course, but depending on what you want to achieve from it 2 to 3 times a week for sure.

I always think two times a week is the best. At least two times a week. But again, it just depends on what your goals are, what you're trying to achieve. All right, I love this. Okay, let's give a little teaser before we close out the podcast. Because Debbie has more than this. She's got some. She's we have to have her back.

We do have to have her back. There's going to be a Debbie 2.0 that shows up. Just give us the briefest like that little order of the nugget of what we'll talk about in the next episode. So I'm a life coach, and I help people who have had DNA surprises. Five oh, I guess I was six years ago, I took a DNA test and found my biological father alive.

After being raised to believe he was deceased. And from there I have. I've really, grown in that community. I love the people in the community. I love helping them, and I'm on the board of an organization called Right to Know, which is right to know your genetic identity, those kinds of things. So, while I do love red light therapy and all that we're doing with that, the DNA stuff is really a passion of mine.

I love learning more about my friends is good. Well, I think she's amazing. Well, isn't that the whole purpose of this podcast? Because how many people I would really challenge the people that listen to this podcast. Did you know that something like that even existed, that you could have someone hold your hand through a DNA surprise? There's a few of us in the city of Idaho Falls.

We have a little we have a little a little network. Network. And then how come it is this I felt this way that women, we tend to not talk about our great things or the things we're doing because we think it's braggy or something, but I don't hold back at all. No. And so I'm just so excited to learn this about you and then have you come back on and and then our audience will help more people.

It's going to be fun, right, to know. Yeah, yeah. So that will be up and coming in the next few months. So we'll talk about DNA surprises which can be good, can be bad, can be scary, can be financially weird, can like they're all over the board. All the things. Yes. Well. And where you have done it yourself.

Yeah. You have your personal story to tell. So that'll be fun. Yeah, that'll be great. Okay. We ask every person who visits us here at the We Share podcast to share their their little bit of life advice and nugget that you have that you could share with our audience. And it can be anything. Could be it doesn't have to be about a vanity.

It could be about family life, whatever I would say, celebrate yourself. I think that we really hold ourselves accountable to a higher standard than we would others. And I see it a lot in advent. I have a goal to lose weight and you do good for 3 or 4 days, and then you fall off the wagon, if you will, and eat pizza, and then you just want to throw it out the window and forget about it.

And your failure. And I think it's just really important to be mindful of. I did so well. Yeah, I had a hard day or I took a break or whatever that might look like, but just really celebrate yourself for the things that you do do well and be mindful that you are amazing. Yeah, let's expand that for just a second before we close out.

Every day you do something good even on your worst days. And if you'll just breathe through it I think that's some things that people do when they meditate is they self-reflect. And I think it's so important in that meditation to self-reflect on the positive things that you accomplished, whether it be the day or the week or whatever.

Couldn't agree with you more and then just let go of what didn't go right, move forward. But by the way, pizza is amazing. Love it. And also people are watching, right? People are paying attention to you and they're seeing that you're trying hard and doing these things. And so it's important not to give up because I'm sure someone is admiring you.

It's true. You never know who's watching. Oh yeah. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Oh. You sure you felt. Oh. How do people get a hold on to. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I get that. I almost felt yourself. Yeah. So you can reach us directly at the center. Our phone number (208) 589-5585. That's probably the easiest way to get us right.

Or leave a message with the message. Yeah. Yeah, we're we're busy. We're actually getting another phone. Okay. Set up so we can, be better about getting phone calls and things like that, but leave a message or you can email us at Idaho Falls out of antibody.com and we'll get you back to get that way as well. Okay.

And is there a website where people can learn all about the services that they want to read more than what we talked about here? It's Avonte bodycon okay. Yes. Thank you Debbie. Thank you. Thanks.

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