Two years into practicing as a naturopathic doctor, I hit a wall I didn't expect.

I could help. That part felt good. Someone would come in exhausted and not sleeping, and a chamomile tincture would actually help. Someone with recurrent migraines, and a higher dose of magnesium would take the edge off.

But I kept asking myself the same question after every visit: what about the rest of their life?

I wasn't wrong to treat what was in front of me. I just wasn't changing the trajectory. I could keep practicing this way indefinitely, helping with the cough, the cold, the thing that brought them in that week, and never actually touch the bigger picture of how they'd feel five or ten years from now.

That's not the kind of practitioner I want to be. I don't want to just treat diseases. I want to improve someone's life for the long haul.

And I didn't want to build that on a foundation of supplements that cost a fortune and don't teach anyone to stand on their own. I wanted to teach people something that costs almost nothing and pays off in nearly every part of their life: how to lift, and how to actually fit movement into a real day.

So I got certified as a personal trainer. Not instead of being a naturopathic doctor. Because of it.

Root-cause medicine tells you why something is happening in your body. Training tells you what to do about it, today, with a plan you can actually follow. I wanted both, because I'd watched too many people get a correct diagnosis and still not know what to do on a Tuesday morning when they didn't feel like moving.

If you were in my position, treating people well but not changing where they end up, what would you shift toward?

Dr. Katie B., ND, CPT