NFL Cheerleader turned EMPA | Award-winning Health Leader | Functional Medicine Advocate | International Speaker | Media Contributor | Podcaster Extraordinaire 😉

Summer 2021. I was practicing medicine in the ER drowning in lockdowns, mandates, and the special kind of despair that comes from watching a system you believed in eat itself alive.

I'd spent years in the trenches — running CDC's National Diabetes Prevention Program across four states, overseeing clinical research with Hopkins, working on the very drug trials that were shaping policy in real-time, and then treating patients in hallways who were bearing the brunt of a completely failed 'public health response' I'd always believed would save us. 

I felt powerless to fix what was broken.

So I did what any rational person would do. I started posting on LinkedIn after 14 hour night shifts with zero followers, zero strategy, and a whole lot of opinions about everything that was wrong with American healthcare.

(Spoiler: it was a lot.)

What happened next still doesn't make sense to me.

Platform reach of 300K+ weekly. A healthcare communications firm Sims Tillirson & I built from nothing. Press access covering FDA and HHS — which, for a policy nerd who geeks out over price transparency and regulatory reform, is basically the Super Bowl.

I'm not a marketing genius. I didn't have a plan. I just showed up, told the truth in plain English, and refused to shut up about fixing healthcare.

Turns out that's the job.

Translating complex policy into stories real people understand. Building coalitions of credible voices. Setting narratives instead of just responding to them.

Your clinical expertise is the competitive advantage. The system just never told you that.

Nobody is coming to save American healthcare except us. 

LFG.

Tiffany Ryder

My kiddo spent 5 minutes fixing her opponent’s headgear, then got pinned in under 60 seconds.

She didn’t find the situation as endearing as I did. 

But that’s ok. I know what I saw. 😇

Not long ago, I’d have been on shift in the ER, missing this. 

I didn’t leave clinical medicine to work less- I left to own my time.

Yesterday this is what that choice looked like. 🥰

NFL Cheerleader to ER. Independent Media giving DC health policy a voice (and a personality). The government is not my doctor.

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The year I became an NFL cheerleader, I lost 20 lbs in 12 weeks and got into the best shape of my life.

I didn't do it with a perfect macro split. I did it by becoming someone who lived like an athlete.

Here's what actually moved the needle.

🏡 I changed my environment before I tried to change myself.

I stopped keeping food in my house that I'd regret at 2 AM. I can diagram gluconeogenesis and run a code. Neither has ever helped me at midnight staring at the fridge. Willpower is a limited resource. Design around it.

👯‍♀️ I changed who I spent time with.

This one's awkward to admit. But the friends whose default hangout was getting wasted? I saw them less. The people doing active things for fun? I found more of them. You become the environment you tolerate.

📕 I changed my evenings.

A walk instead of Netflix. A book instead of doomscrolling. You can't force sleep, but you can control what you feed your nervous system before you ask it to shut down.

🔥 I stopped negotiating with myself.

If I said I'd work out, I worked out. If I committed to logging food, I logged it. No exceptions. No "I'll make up for it tomorrow."

The physical transformation wasn't the real change. The real change was learning to keep promises to myself.

That's what I'd do again.

A year ago I asked for help learning how to pray.  

Having been brought back to God unexpectedly after years away, I felt lost. 

I’d sit there in silence, not knowing what to say or how to say it.

11 months later (shortly before Christmas) this book showed up in my mailbox with a note that said:

“Sending you love and encouragement”

With a personal note & some suggestions on how I might go about incorporating it into my routine.

Turns out it makes me feel incredibly loved and encouraged every single day. 

People say social media is a game. Superficial. Total time suck. Fake. 

That’s true- sometimes. 

But other times, it’s where you find connections that God and your soul need you to find.

And it’s life changing 💕

My teenager started a group chat with her sister called "Mom's Food Pyramid Fan Club."

It's been less than a week since I watched nutrition policy finally change at HHS, and my kids have already had enough.

"We freaking GET IT. The food pyramid is upside down now."

They're calling me a nerd. Rolling their eyes when I start talking about it. Texting each other jokes about becoming vegans out of spite. 

But I can't shut-up.

10 years as a professional dancer. Another 10 in medicine. 

I've seen plenty of health policy changes but this one hits a little differently. 

Maybe because I grew up on free lunch - rectangular pizza + chocolate skim milk. 

Maybe because I've been the overweight, prediabetic patient following guidelines that made me sicker. 

Maybe because I'm a mom & I know now 30 million kids will eat better because of this.

I have a draft article ready to publish. But every time I open it, I get too emotional. Ridiculous, right?

But when the government finally admits it was wrong for 40 years and the Secretary of HHS says "Eat Real Food" to a standing ovation?

I guess, I get to be weird about it.

My kiddos can deal.

My 2026 resolution is now... 

- more line dancing 
- more time with friends 
- more songs that talk about purple people eaters.  

Let's Gooooo!

My only question for Secretary Kennedy at tomorrow’s press conference: 

Who made this video and are they accepting new projects? 

🥓🥗🍳🥑

Big Food's new lobbying group is "Americans for Ingredient Transparency" Their mission? Fighting transparency laws - obviously.

Clever. 

But industry's got a BIG problem. The Americans they assume are too dumb or divided to notice - aren't.

Left/right, blue/red... parents are done with chemical garbage in their kids' food.

- West Virginia banned synthetic dyes.
- California banned ultraprocessed foods in schools.
- Texas requires labels on ingredients banned in other countries.

AFITs leader (catchy acronym) is Julie Gunlock. 

She yells 'ALARMIST' when moms ask about chemicals in mac & cheese.

She also works for an org that's partnered with Monsanto & takes money from Big Tobacco.

Hmmm.
Same playbook. Different poison.

Parents. Politicians. Truth.  All aligned.
It's only a matter of time, Julie. The kids are going to win.

taplio