Welcome back,
Vical
Your DNA panel, your assessment, and everything we've worked through together, built into one rhythm you can actually live. Not a diet. A day that works with how you're built instead of against it.
Look At How Far
You've Already Come
Before anything else, I compared this against your last assessment, ten months ago. You've moved, and I don't want that to go unnoticed.
- Your symptoms are less severe overall. You rated their impact a 7 out of 10 before. You rated it a 5 this time. That's a real drop in how much this runs your day.
- Your gut scores came down. Your digestive symptom list is shorter than it was at your last assessment.
- You fall asleep better now. Trouble falling asleep was on your last form and it isn't on this one. Staying asleep is still the piece we're working on, but getting there is no longer the fight.
- Movement went from a frustration to a strength. Physical activity used to be on your least-fulfilled list. It's now on your most-fulfilled list. That's not a small move.
So we're not starting over. We're getting strategic. The foundation is there. Now we fuel it properly and protect it better.
One Problem,
Not Five
The bloating. The weight that won't move. The fatigue. The sleep that doesn't restore you. The foods you've started reacting to. These look like five separate issues, and they're not. They're one, and your panel names it clearly.
You run inflammatory, and you clear it slowly.
Three markers tell that story. IL6 rs1800795 · GG governs interleukin-6, one of your body's primary inflammatory signals. CCR2 rs3918358 · AA shapes how immune cells get recruited to inflamed tissue. And AMPD1 rs17602729 · GG affects how your muscles handle energy stress. All three carry the strong-effect version. Together they put you in the slow recovery category, which means after any inflammatory load, your body takes longer than average to return to baseline.
Now add the second layer. COMT rs4680 · AG and BDNF rs6265 · CT sit in your stress pathway, and they put you in a lower stress resilience profile. Your stress response fires harder and stays elevated longer than most people's. Cortisol is itself inflammatory. So stress feeds the fire, and the fire takes longer to go out.
This is why your symptoms cluster the way they do. Chronic low-grade inflammation slows digestion, which is your bloating. It drives insulin resistance, which is your stalled weight. It disrupts deep sleep, which is why eight hours doesn't restore you. It creates fatigue directly. And it lowers the threshold at which your immune system starts reacting to foods it used to tolerate.
Here's the part that matters most: none of this is a willpower problem, and none of it is permanent. Genes set your tendencies, not your outcome. Inflammation is enormously responsive to what you eat, how you move, how you sleep, and how much sustained pressure you're under. Every single recommendation below is aimed at the same target.
What Your Genetics
Actually Showed
Your full report runs over a hundred pages. Here is everything that changes what you do.
Runs High
Your primary inflammatory signaling carries the strong-effect variant. This is the thread everything else hangs on.
IL6 rs1800795 · GGCCR2 rs3918358 · AA
Lower
Your stress response fires harder and stays up longer. Movement is your most effective regulator.
COMT rs4680 · AGBDNF rs6265 · CT
Higher Highs, Lower Lows
One warrior copy, one strategist copy. You feel more at both ends, and you're prone to looping thoughts at night.
COMT rs4680 · AGPower & Strength
High power, high strength, lower endurance. Boxing is close to a perfect match for how you're built.
ACTN3 rs1815739 · CTSensitive To It
You carry a variant on the receptor caffeine acts on that's linked to lighter, more disrupted sleep. Worth keeping caffeine to earlier in the day.
CYP1A2 rs762551 · ACADORA2A rs5751876 · CT
No Health Benefit
Some people get a small heart-health bump from moderate drinking. Your variant means you're not one of them, so there's no upside here to weigh against the costs.
ADH1C rs698 · TTSensitive
You carry the raised-risk variant for salt-driven blood pressure, so sodium affects you more than most.
AGT rs699 · GGACE rs4341 · CG
Both Sensitive
High sensitivity to both, which rules out every extreme. Balance genuinely is your answer.
FABP2 rs1799883 · TTPPARG rs1801282 · CC
Non-Taster
You register bitter flavors less intensely than average, which means bitter vegetables tend to be easier and more enjoyable for you.
TAS2R38 rs713598 · CCGenes Yes, Testing Says Go Easy
Genetically you're lactase persistent, but your testing showed mild sensitivity. Your body gets the final word. About one serving a day works well.
LCT rs4988235 · AGNight Owl, Lighter
You surface more easily during the night, so routine does more for you than it would for most.
ADA rs73598374 · CCB6 & Vitamin D
Higher needs for these two only. Every other nutrient tested came back normal.
NBPF3 rs4654748 · CCCYP2R1 rs10741657 · AG
How You
Start
Everything below is a rhythm, not a rulebook. Learn the shape of it, then flex it to your life.
Lemon chia water, first thing
Before coffee, before food. Juice of half a lemon, a tablespoon of chia, a full glass of water, and a few minutes to let the chia soften.
This is small and it does a lot. After seven or eight hours without any fluid coming in, the body is running low on water before the day even starts, and hydration is one of the simplest levers there is on energy and inflammation. The chia adds soluble fiber that feeds gut bacteria and slows the blood sugar response to whatever comes next, which matters given your carbohydrate sensitivity PPARG rs1801282 · CC. Chia is also one of the better plant sources of omega-3, and your own panel flagged omega-3 intake as direct support for the inflammatory response we just talked about.
Breakfast, three ways
Pick whichever fits the morning. All three do the same job.
- Eggs, kimchi, and an orange Two hard boiled eggs, kimchi on the side, and an orange. On days you're training or you wake up genuinely hungry, make it three eggs. Be intuitive with that. The orange is part of the meal, but it doesn't have to be eaten at the same moment. Before, after, an hour later, all fine. And if deviled eggs make it something you look forward to, make deviled eggs.
- Egg bake Batch it on Sunday and you've solved for a few mornings, and it sets you and Courtney up for success. You're both better when you're doing it together. Eggs, spinach, mushrooms, bell peppers, and a little cheese. Goat or sheep's milk cheese, or a well-aged hard cheese, since those are naturally lowest in lactose and tend to be easier to tolerate. Keep the cheese modest, mostly because most cheese is salty and sodium is one of your sensitivities.
- Your shake You already do this, so keep it. Put the berries here. Make sure there's real protein in it, not just fruit and liquid, so blood sugar has something to hold onto.
Why eggs and kimchi, specifically
Eggs give you complete protein plus choline, and protein first thing sets blood sugar for the whole day rather than starting on a spike and crash. Kimchi brings live fermented bacteria into the gut, and fermented foods are among the most consistently supported interventions for lowering inflammatory markers.
One honest note: kimchi is salty, around 500 to 700mg of sodium in a decent serving. It's worth it and it stays. Just count it, and pull sodium back somewhere that's giving you less in return.
Dairy, in practice
Your genetics say you produce lactase into adulthood, but your testing showed mild sensitivity, and the body gets the final word over the gene every time. About one serving a day. That looks like one cup of milk, or half a cup of yogurt, or an ounce of cheese. One of those, not all three.
Worth knowing: they're not equal in lactose. A cup of milk carries roughly 12 grams, half a cup of yogurt around 4 since fermentation breaks some of it down, and an ounce of aged hard cheese is under 1 gram. So hard cheese is by far the gentlest option, and milk is the one most likely to cause you trouble.
Your two non-negotiables
One cup of berries and one orange. Every single day. If you do nothing else on this page, do these two.
This isn't generic produce advice. Berries are one of the densest sources of anthocyanins, the polyphenols most directly shown to lower the exact inflammatory signaling your IL6 result flags. Citrus brings vitamin C plus flavonoids that support both antioxidant capacity and the collagen repair your connective tissue depends on. And you live in California, which means you have access to genuinely good local versions of both, nearly year round. Use that.
As you get more active, eat more
This is important and most people get it backwards. The more you train, the more real food you need coming in. Not less. Under-fueling a body that's already inflammatory and slow to recover is how you stall out. If you're hungrier on training days, that's information, not weakness. Add more real food. More protein, more vegetables, more fruit, more of everything whole.
How You
Build A Plate
Lunch and dinner both work the same way. Protein anchors it, vegetables fill it, carbs flex around your activity.
Protein first, every time
Aim for 5 to 6 ounces, roughly 35 to 42 grams, at lunch and again at dinner. Salmon, sardines, chicken, eggs, good beef, lentils. You already love seafood, which is convenient, because oily fish does double duty as your best food source of omega-3.
Treat that number as a starting point, not a prescription. I want you to notice how you feel on it and tell me. Too full, not full enough, just right. We'll adjust from your answer, not from a chart. This is the single most useful piece of feedback you can bring to our next call.
Why protein matters this much for you: it stabilizes blood sugar, which lowers inflammatory load. It supports muscle, and muscle is metabolically protective. And your combined carb and fat sensitivity FABP2 · TT PPARG · CC means protein is the macronutrient your body handles most cleanly.
Vegetables wherever you can
Half the plate when it's realistic. You have an advantage here most people don't: you're a genetic non-taster TAS2R38 · CC, so bitter vegetables that other people struggle to eat taste mild to you. Kale, broccoli, cabbage, brussels sprouts, cauliflower. Aim for three to five servings of the cruciferous ones each week, since those directly support your phase two detox pathways GSTM1 rs366631 · AG.
Carbs, moderated to your day
You're genuinely sensitive to carbohydrates, so the rule is simple: match them to your activity. More on days you train hard, fewer on quiet days. Quality over quantity, meaning the ones that come with fiber attached. Squash, beets, quinoa, rice, oats, lentils.
Spread them across the day rather than loading one meal, and always pair them with protein or fat so they release slowly.
The salt situation
Two results collide here. You carry the raised-risk variant for salt-sensitive blood pressure AGT rs699 · GG, and you're a non-taster, which means food registers as flatter to you and reaching for salt is a completely rational response. That combination is genuinely tricky, and it isn't your fault.
The move is getting intensity from somewhere else. Lemon, lime, vinegar, garlic, chili, fresh herbs, mustard. Acid and heat give you the punch you're looking for without the sodium. Practically: fries stay occasional rather than default, and crackers are worth a hard look since they're sodium and refined carbs in one package.
How you cook matters too
Small thing, real effect. Your CYP1A2 rs762551 · AC result also means you generate certain compounds faster when protein is charred or smoked, so keep grilled and blackened meat to once or twice a week. Acidic marinades with lemon, lime or vinegar substantially reduce those compounds. Convenient, since that's already how we're replacing your salt.
You Are Built
For Boxing
Your genetics are power and strength dominant ACTN3 rs1815739 · CT, which is essentially a description of what boxing asks for. You found the right sport before any test told you to. That's worth sitting with for a second.
And it's doing more for you than fitness. For a profile like yours, regular exercise is the single most effective stress management intervention there is. Your BDNF rs6265 · CT result sits directly on that pathway, and exercise is one of the few things known to support it. Your training is already medicine.
So we keep all of it, and we add two things around it.
- Boxing, two to three days Exactly what you're doing. Keep it, and try not to stack two hard days back to back.
- Strength, one day a week Twenty minutes counts. Genuinely. Moderate to heavy loads, lower reps, real rest between sets. This builds the muscle that protects your joints, your bones and your metabolism. Make sure to up your protein a little on these days.
- Endurance conditioning, one day a week Swimming, hiking, dancing, pilates, Zumba, that whole genre. The goal here is to find something you actually love, because that's what makes it consistent. One day a week of this is all we're adding.
Here's why that endurance day matters. It protects you. We need to keep you safe while you're doing all the things you love and traveling the world. Conditioning alongside boxing lowers your injury risk, and the cardiovascular work is straightforwardly good for your heart. This is the piece that lets you keep doing everything else for a long time.
Walking stays underneath all of it. It's not a lesser activity, it's the base everything else sits on.
Start thinking like an athlete
Because you are one, Vical. Right now. You're investing back into yourself, into your physical health, your mental health, your spiritual health. One day at a time.
And athletes don't follow rigid schedules. They train intuitively. The real goal here isn't a fixed weekly plan you either hit or fail. It's getting fluent at asking one question each morning: what does my body actually need today?
Some days the answer is obvious. I've got energy, I want a hard hike, where am I going. Other days it's I need more recovery than usual, but I still want to move, so I'll go for a gentle swim. Both of those are correct answers. That's the skill we're building. Not discipline. Attunement.
One adjustment for hard weeks. When work is genuinely brutal, swap a hard session for a hike or a swim. Not because you're backing off, but because on those weeks your body is already near its load limit and a third hard session becomes a withdrawal instead of a deposit.
Five minutes for your knees
Your panel shows moderate genetic ACL risk COL1A1 rs1800012 · CC and boxing involves constant pivoting. This is part of the keeping you safe piece. Single-leg balance work, controlled lateral movement, and a few landing drills in your warm-up. Your Achilles and lower back both came back very low risk, so the knees are the one area worth the attention. We'll go through the drills together.
The Load
You're Carrying
This is the hardest part of the page and the one most likely to move everything else. It has nothing to do with food.
You've spent a long career inside demanding systems. Law school, practicing, and then the legal side of entertainment. That's decades of sustained pressure with very little built-in recovery, and those environments run on exactly that. They're designed to take output. They're very good at it.
Career was your least fulfilled area at your last assessment, and it's your least fulfilled area again now. Ten months, no movement. Both times, the thing you said you wanted most was balance. That isn't a side note next to your health. It's the load.
What your genes say about that
Cortisol is itself inflammatory. Your IL6 rs1800795 · GG and CCR2 rs3918358 · AA results mean you generate inflammation readily, and your AMPD1 rs17602729 · GG result means you clear it slowly. Add COMT rs4680 · AG and BDNF rs6265 · CT in the stress pathway, and the picture is a system that fires hard and takes longer than average to come back down.
Put plainly: you need more recovery than the average person, and you've spent a career in environments that offer less of it than average. That's the tension, and it's worth seeing clearly rather than pushing through.
You're someone built for slower living. For presence, for space, for days you're actually inside of rather than getting through. That isn't a weakness and it doesn't cancel what you've built. It just means the boundaries have to be deliberate now, because nothing in that world will create them for you.
These systems will take as much as you let them. That isn't cynicism, it's just how they work. It's business, it isn't personal, and the only limit is the one you set.
You've given a lot of years to it. Now it's time to really invest in you. One day at a time, focusing on these few things.
A hard stop, and a marker
Pick a time work ends on weeknights. Actually pick it, not aspirationally, and accept some nights it won't hold. Then build something small immediately after it, because the nervous system needs a signal, not just an absence. A ten minute walk, changing clothes, music, stepping outside. What it is matters far less than it being the same thing every day.
Work off your phone at night
Email and messages off the phone after your stop time, or notifications silenced. Small, and unreasonably effective. Every check restarts a stress response that then takes hours to settle.
Being mindful with alcohol
Here's the simple version of your result. Moderate drinking gives some people a small heart-health benefit. Your genetics mean you're not one of those people, so there's no upside sitting on the other side of the ledger. And alcohol itself is inflammatory, which is the exact thing we're working to bring down.
So this isn't a rule and it isn't about how much you drink. For the next three weeks, just be really mindful with it. If there's a celebration and you want a glass of wine, have the glass of wine. Outside of that, leaving it be for three weeks will help, and it gives us a clean read on what's actually driving your symptoms.
The part I want to do with you
Breathwork is one of the most effective tools for this exact profile, and it's what I do. Let's spend real time on nervous system regulation at our next session rather than squeezing it in at the end. Four corner breathing, downregulation before bed, and something short you can use in the middle of a brutal day. For you this isn't a nice extra. It's a primary intervention.
Protecting
Your Sleep
Your ADA rs73598374 · CC result puts you in the moderate sleeper category, meaning you surface more easily during the night than average. And ALG10B and related chronotype markers show a night owl bias, so your natural rhythm runs later.
One thing worth knowing: interrupted sleep affects mood more than short sleep does. So protecting continuity beats chasing total hours. Six unbroken hours serves you better than eight broken ones.
Caffeine and your sleep
You carry ADORA2A rs5751876 · CT, a variant on the receptor caffeine acts on, which is associated with lighter and more disrupted sleep after caffeine. You also carry CYP1A2 · AC, which affects how quickly caffeine is processed.
What that means practically is that caffeine can be affecting your sleep even when it doesn't feel like it's doing much during the day. Keep the coffee. Just limit it to before 1pm. If you notice a difference in how you sleep, that's your answer.
For the 2am loop
Your COMT rs4680 · AG genotype is associated with rumination, particularly at night. That's a real documented pattern, not a personal failing, and it responds well to being interrupted.
Keep a notepad by the bed. When something starts looping, write it down. You're not solving it, you're telling your brain it's recorded and doesn't need to keep circling. If you're awake more than twenty minutes, get up, go somewhere dim, do something boring, come back when you're sleepy.
Otherwise: same bedtime, same wake time, screens down an hour before. And if your work allows it, lean into the night owl thing rather than fighting it. Save your hardest thinking for later in the day when you're actually sharp.
Foods To Navigate,
Not Fear
Your allergy panel came back positive for ragweed, birch, mugwort, orchard grass and timothy grass. I want to be very clear about what that does and doesn't mean, because it would be easy to read that list and stop eating.
Testing positive to a pollen means you're sensitized to that pollen. It does not mean you react to every food that cross-reacts with it. Cross-reactivity lists describe what's possible, not what's happening. Most people with broad pollen sensitization react to only a handful of foods.
So your avoid list stays exactly what your body has already told us.
One thing to ask your allergist
Avocado and sweet potato reacting together isn't well explained by any of the five pollens that came back positive, but both sit in the latex cross-reactivity group. Standard pollen panels don't include latex, so ask whether it was tested. If you're latex sensitized, that's worth having on file for any dental work or surgery, completely separate from food. Bring me whatever they say and I'll update this page.
Let's Test,
Not Guess
Your panel tested thirteen nutrients. Eleven came back normal, which is genuinely good news and means you can stop wondering about the rest. Two showed elevated need, and rather than putting you on a dose, I'd rather we find out where you actually are.
Get it checked
Vitamin D acts more like a hormone than a vitamin, and there are receptors for it in nearly every cell in the body. It's involved in immune regulation, inflammatory signaling, mood, and bone. Your variant affects how efficiently you convert and transport it, so sun alone may not get you where we want you.
CYP2R1 rs10741657 · AGGet it checked
B6 is a cofactor in neurotransmitter production and hormone metabolism, which is why it touches energy, mood and PMS all at once. Your diet may already be covering it. A plasma test tells us instead of guessing.
NBPF3 rs4654748 · CCAsk your doctor for vitamin D, 25-hydroxy, and plasma B6. On vitamin D, the conventional lab range calls anything above 30 ng/mL sufficient, but functional practitioners generally want to see people meaningfully higher, in the 60 to 80 range. We don't want to push above 100. Send me the numbers when you have them and we'll build from there, rather than me guessing at a dose that might be far too low to do anything.
Omega-3, realistically
Let's be honest about this one. Omega-3 is genuinely hard to get enough of from food alone unless you're eating oily fish several times a week. The chia in your morning water helps, and it's a good source as plants go, but the form in plants converts into what your body actually uses at a fairly low rate.
The good news is you already love seafood. Salmon, sardines and mackerel are the best sources there are, so let's get those in more often. Omega-3 is directly relevant to the inflammatory picture we've been talking about, and your own recovery panel flags it specifically.
If getting oily fish in a few times a week isn't realistic with your schedule, tell me and we'll look at other options.
And if you ever want recommendations on brands or forms for anything, just ask. Happy to send some over.
Something Greater
Than The Day
Spirituality was on your most fulfilled list at your last assessment, and it's on your most fulfilled list again now. It's one of the few things that hasn't wavered for you in ten months. That's not incidental. That's your anchor, and I want us to use it on purpose.
Because here's what a high-pressure path does over time. It narrows you down to output. The day becomes something to get through rather than something you're inside of. And you can eat perfectly and train perfectly and still feel like life is happening at you.
We're meant to be present and fully alive in the days we're given. Not just enduring them. Connecting to something bigger than yourself, whatever that looks like for you, is what makes that possible when the day itself is demanding. It restores proportion. The brief that felt enormous at 9pm is smaller when you've placed it inside something larger.
Gratitude, specifically
This one isn't only philosophical. Your COMT rs4680 · AG genotype means you experience higher highs and lower lows, and it's associated with rumination, particularly at night. A structured gratitude practice is one of the specific interventions your own genetic report recommends for this exact genotype.
Three things, written down, at the end of each day. Not thought about. Written. They can be small, the weather, something someone did for you, a moment that landed. The research suggests roughly ten consecutive days before the effect really sets in, so consistency matters more than depth here.
It also happens to pair perfectly with the notepad we're putting by your bed for the 2am loop. Same notebook. Worries on one page, gratitude on the other.
Prayer, presence, whatever it is for you
Prayer, meditation, scripture, time outside, silence in the morning before anything else touches you. I'm not going to prescribe the form, because you already have a relationship with this and you know what it looks like. I just want it back on the calendar rather than left to whenever there's room, because there won't be room. There's never room. It has to be made.
Start smaller than feels meaningful. Five minutes. One day at a time, which is the only way anything like this is ever done.
Let it compound. Faith, rest, real food, movement you love, and a life you're actually present for. None of these produce much in a week. All of them together, held for months, produce results that are undeniable.
You can do this, Vical. Not all at once. One day at a time.
Your First
Three Weeks
Everything above condenses into this. Please don't add to it.
Morning and Boundary
- Lemon chia water before anything else.
- One cup berries and one orange, daily. These are the non-negotiables.
- Pick your work stop time and the small thing you do right after it.
- Caffeine before 1pm. Book the bloodwork for vitamin D and B6.
Plate and Mindfulness
- Be really mindful with alcohol for the next three weeks.
- Protein at breakfast and 5 to 6 ounces at lunch and dinner. Note how it feels.
- Add the strength day. One session, nothing heroic.
- Notepad by the bed. Start swapping acid for salt.
Hold and Observe
- Keep everything steady and let the data come in.
- Add the cross-training day, whatever sounds good that week.
- Three gratitudes written down each night. Ten days straight is the target.
- Bring your tracked markers and your protein feedback to our call.
- We adjust from what actually happened, not from what should have.
Track Three Things,
Not Twenty
One line a day. That's all I need from you.
How heavy work was
One to ten, end of day. This is the one I care most about, because it lets us line your symptoms up against your actual stress load.
Morning energy
One to ten, first hour after waking. The clearest signal of whether your body is clearing inflammation overnight.
Sleep and bloating
Did you wake in the night and roughly when, plus a yes or no on bloating. Patterns, not perfection.
Plus one piece of feedback, whenever you're ready: how does the protein amount feel? Too much, too little, about right. That answer shapes what we do next.
You've Done The Work
You Could Control
Look at what's actually happened. Your symptom severity came down from a 7 to a 5. Your gut scores improved. You fall asleep better now. Movement went from something that frustrated you to something that fulfills you. You took control of the things that were in your control, and your body responded.
Which means we're at a different point now. You've largely optimized what's on your plate and in your week. The food gets more strategic from here, the training gets more deliberate, and those things matter. But there's one thing that keeps showing up on every assessment and hasn't moved.
So let's talk about it honestly on our next call. What's the dream outcome here? Not the realistic one, the actual one. If this went exactly how you wanted, what does that look like?
And then the fun part: what would you have to do to get there? Is there a timeline? What's a girl gotta do? I want to know what you're actually thinking, because until we say it out loud it stays background noise, and background noise is the thing your nervous system never gets a break from.
What do you think the next chapter looks like, and what would have to be true for it to be possible?
One practical place to start
Options come from having room to maneuver, and room usually starts with money. So this month, a light financial cleanup. Go through your subscriptions and cancel whatever you're not genuinely using. Look at where you're grocery shopping, because some places are quite a bit more expensive for the same food. Cooking at home a bit more will probably help more than anything else, and it happens to be the same direction everything else on this page is pointing.
Nothing drastic. Just tightening things up a little, so that when an opportunity shows up, you have the flexibility to take it.
This isn't about doing more. It's about being fueled properly, recovering deliberately, and staying anchored to being fully alive in the day you're given, on your mission. Let it compound. One day at a time, and the results will be undeniable.
Just do your best. I know you can do that.
With you in it,
Jenna
A note on what this is. I'm a health coach, not a doctor, and this report covers food, movement, sleep and lifestyle only. It isn't medical advice and it doesn't diagnose or treat anything. Genetic variants describe tendencies, not destiny, and no single gene determines an outcome. Every amount here, including the protein targets and supplement doses, is a starting point we adjust based on how you actually respond. Your allergy diagnosis and its medical management stay with your allergist, and anything involving medication stays with your doctor. Please tell me about any medications or supplements you're currently taking so I can make sure nothing here conflicts, particularly before starting the B6.