Speaker 1: Continually eating foods that don't love you back is like
Speaker 1: staying in a toxic relationship and wondering why you're still miserable.
Speaker 1: But avoiding foods that don't love you back isn't restrictive,
Speaker 1: it's self respect. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose,
Speaker 1: to number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to
Speaker 1: each and every single one of you that come back
Speaker 1: every week to listen, learn, and grow. And I am
Speaker 1: so excited to be talking to you today. I can't
Speaker 1: believe it. My new book Eight Rules of Love is
Speaker 1: out and I cannot wait to share it with you.
Speaker 1: I am so so excited for you to read this book,
Speaker 1: for you to listen to this book. I read the audiobook.
Speaker 1: If you haven't got it already, make sure you go
Speaker 1: to eight Rules of Love dot com. It's dedicated to
Speaker 1: anyone who's trying to find, keep, or let go of love.
Speaker 1: So if you've got friends that are dating, broken up,
Speaker 1: or struggling with love, make sure you grab this book.
Speaker 1: And I'd love to invite you to come and see
Speaker 1: me for my global tour Love Rules. Go to j
Speaker 1: sheedytour dot com to learn more information about tickets, VIP
Speaker 1: experiences and more. I can't wait to see you this year. Now,
Speaker 1: if you've been listening lately, you've been hearing me repeat
Speaker 1: this mantra, happy, healthy, and healing. This is something I've
Speaker 1: been repeating to myself a lot recently. I'm happy, I'm healthy,
Speaker 1: I'm healing. It's been making a big difference in my life.
Speaker 1: And I know that you're here because you want to
Speaker 1: be happy, you want to be healthy, and you want
Speaker 1: to heal. Now, today's guest is someone who talks about
Speaker 1: that in such a phenomenal way, and everything from the
Speaker 1: gut to the brain, to what we digest every day,
Speaker 1: to our feelings and our traumas and how they affect
Speaker 1: the chemicals inside of our body and our mind. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about Doctor will Call, a leading functional medicine expert
Speaker 1: who consults people around the globe, starting one of the
Speaker 1: first functional medicine telehealth centers in the world over a
Speaker 1: decade ago. Named one of the top fifty functional and
Speaker 1: integrative doctors in the nation, Doctor Wilcoll provides a functional
Speaker 1: medicine approach for thyroid issues, autoimmune conditions, hormonal imbalances, digestive disorders,
Speaker 1: and brain problems. Doctor Wilcoll is also the host of
Speaker 1: the popular The Art of Being Well podcast makes you
Speaker 1: check it out, and the New York Times best selling
Speaker 1: author of Intuitive Fasting, The Inflammation Spectrum, and the brand
Speaker 1: new book Gut Feelings, Healing the shame fueled relationship between
Speaker 1: what you eat and how you feel. If you don't
Speaker 1: have that book here, I want you to go in
Speaker 1: order right now Gut Feelings. We are going to put
Speaker 1: the link in the show notes. Makes you grab a
Speaker 1: copy as you're listening right now while watching Doctor Will call,
Speaker 1: thank you for being here. I need you to be
Speaker 1: my hate man. That's a great way to start your day. Oh,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you well. I always say to my guests,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you had to live all of that, so
Speaker 1: you actually had to do it. But I also want
Speaker 1: to Can I call you Will? Of course. I just
Speaker 1: want to say for everyone's watching. Will took a flight
Speaker 1: this morning from Pittsburgh to New York City to be
Speaker 1: on the show. I appreciate him so much for doing that.
Speaker 1: I really really value that. I love connected with people
Speaker 1: in person. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I can't wait to dive in good I was just
Speaker 1: saying too earlier that our community our audiences are on purpose,
Speaker 1: really loves learning and really loves getting really practical applicable
Speaker 1: tools when it comes to their health. I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that by the way, I love the
Speaker 1: name of the new book, like gut Feelings. I think
Speaker 1: the gut has often been so ignored in the conversation.
Speaker 1: We often talk about how do you feel up here?
Speaker 1: What's your head saying? And then we feel about the
Speaker 1: heart versus the head, and I feel like the gut
Speaker 1: was forgotten for so long. Why is the gut so
Speaker 1: important in that conversation and why should it not be ignored?
Speaker 1: You're right, and even I think we've come a long
Speaker 1: way in the past twelve years since I been in
Speaker 1: functional medicine, people growing awareness, but still scratching the surface.
Speaker 1: I realize I'm probably talking to more of the health nerds,
Speaker 1: and it's not the general population. So we have a
Speaker 1: far way to go. And our gut is a major
Speaker 1: part of our health. But you don't necessarily have to
Speaker 1: have extreme digestive symptoms to have underlying gut components to
Speaker 1: why you feel the way that you do. So your
Speaker 1: gut and brain are actually formed from the same fetal tissue.
Speaker 1: So when babies are growing in their mother's room. They're
Speaker 1: formed from that same fetal tissue, and they're inextricably linked
Speaker 1: for the rest of our lives through what's known as
Speaker 1: the gut brain axis, or the connection between the gut
Speaker 1: and the brain. Serotonin our happy neurotransmitter, it's made in
Speaker 1: the gut, stored in the guide. Fifty percent of dopamine
Speaker 1: is made in the gut, stored in the guide. And
Speaker 1: if you think about it, the intestines kind of even
Speaker 1: resemble the brain and the vegas. Nerve is what really
Speaker 1: innervates and connects both the gut and the brain. Researchers
Speaker 1: call the gut the second brain. We have to understand
Speaker 1: to understand so much of what ails modern society, we
Speaker 1: have to understand gut health. And at no coincidence that
Speaker 1: most of probably your listeners would know. Hippocrates, the father
Speaker 1: of modern medicine. He said, all disease begins in the gut. Well,
Speaker 1: if disease begins in the gut, then so does healing
Speaker 1: begin in the gut. And it's also home to seventy
Speaker 1: five percent of the immune system. Inflammation is a product
Speaker 1: of the immune system, and you look at the epidemic
Speaker 1: rise of autoimmune problems and really inflammation. It is the
Speaker 1: commonality between just about every health problem autoimmune issues, metabolic issues,
Speaker 1: hormonal problems. To really research looking at what's known as
Speaker 1: the Cytokind model of cognitive function, how inflammation impacts how
Speaker 1: our brains work. So things like anxiety and depression, fatigue
Speaker 1: all have the roots and not on the inflammation but
Speaker 1: also the gut brain connection. So it is the far
Speaker 1: reaching implications of this is vast. We have to understand
Speaker 1: it to deal with it. And what are some of
Speaker 1: the biggest mistakes who are making when it comes to
Speaker 1: our gut Like, what are the things that I think
Speaker 1: you would say that we're just so unaware of or
Speaker 1: unsure about that are causing gut challenges. I think the
Speaker 1: interesting thing about gut issues is that when you figure
Speaker 1: out that you have something you're concerned about and you
Speaker 1: start talking to your friend or someone, you realize everyone
Speaker 1: has it, but no one talks about it. Right. It's
Speaker 1: not like one of those things that people share very openly, right,
Speaker 1: But you start recognizing, Wow, everyone has digestive issues, everyone's
Speaker 1: having some sort of inflammation, everyone's having this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the habits, traits that you
Speaker 1: think have kind of become widespread that is actually taking
Speaker 1: us down this road that maybe we're just not aware
Speaker 1: of enough. I'm always telling my patients is just because
Speaker 1: something's common doesn't necessarily mean it's normal. Just because it's
Speaker 1: your every day doesn't mean you should settle for it.
Speaker 1: And I really can't tell you how many times when
Speaker 1: I'm talking to somebody online and we're going through the
Speaker 1: systems of their body and they have these aha moments
Speaker 1: of WHOA. I thought that was just me. I thought
Speaker 1: that was just my lot in life because I have
Speaker 1: it every day. But I think they need to we
Speaker 1: as a human race, need to take inventory and kind
Speaker 1: of get in our bodies. Know that you teach about
Speaker 1: this so eloquently of just being aware and mindful of
Speaker 1: how our body works because it maybe you're every day,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't mean it should be normalized. So I mean,
Speaker 1: we could talk about digestion, and you're right, people don't
Speaker 1: want to talk about it. It's very normal for me
Speaker 1: to talk about poop at my office. It's like and
Speaker 1: then I look across the telehealth across the internet, and
Speaker 1: I realize it's not as normal as I think it is.
Speaker 1: I see their partner like we've ever talked about this before.
Speaker 1: You know, we get real, real fast. But it's important
Speaker 1: because it's a window into probably lots of other things
Speaker 1: in your body. But it's normal to have one to
Speaker 1: two we say snakes a day. As far as bowel
Speaker 1: movements are concerned. On the Bristol chart, many people go
Speaker 1: to three days without a normal balbu movement, or it's
Speaker 1: always loose, are always really strained in like pebbles. That's
Speaker 1: not normal. Your bowel movements window into your overall health,
Speaker 1: So we start there, but then we look at energy
Speaker 1: levels throughout your day. Do you need lots of your
Speaker 1: sugar and caffeine to get through the day. That's not normal,
Speaker 1: but that's a lot of people's every day. Certainly. Do
Speaker 1: you have ravenous cravings of food? Do you have trouble
Speaker 1: losing weight? You have hair lost, your skin problems? These
Speaker 1: are all we call un functional medicine. These are like
Speaker 1: check engine lights, check engine lights on. But why the
Speaker 1: body's telling us something. We have to go upstream or
Speaker 1: get to the root cause of why you have the
Speaker 1: problem in the first place. Yeah, and I think for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. It becomes hard because I found
Speaker 1: for a long time as well that as I became
Speaker 1: more aware of these things, yeah, and as I sort
Speaker 1: off to help, it was really difficult to find good
Speaker 1: personalized advice because you'll see everyone say, well, you have
Speaker 1: to drink this one thing, you have to do this
Speaker 1: one thing right. It becomes this fad and something's helping,
Speaker 1: some things don't, and you don't know how they're all interconnected,
Speaker 1: and I feel like people get quite stuck. And that's
Speaker 1: why I love books like yours in podcasts like yours,
Speaker 1: because people can kind of follow along and go, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with this challenge. One of the things that
Speaker 1: I love that you talked about was the process you
Speaker 1: call shame inflammation, and I wanted to talk about how
Speaker 1: can one begin to confront that so shame inflammation. I
Speaker 1: you know, you know this as writing books and educating
Speaker 1: people and speaking, You'll wake up in the middle of
Speaker 1: the night like, oh, that's a good way of conveying
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say, because you see it play
Speaker 1: out in people's lives all the time. I see it
Speaker 1: on an hourly basis when I'm consulting patients. People that
Speaker 1: eat really clean, they are working out, they're doing all
Speaker 1: the wellness stuff. They go to RWAN, they do all
Speaker 1: that they're just supposed to do. That's me, by the way.
Speaker 1: So I'm one of those people that I'm like, I
Speaker 1: eat cleaner than nine episode of My Friends. I work out,
Speaker 1: I stay healthy, I don't drink alcohol, I don't smoke
Speaker 1: like I have a very clean life, and I still
Speaker 1: had high forms of inflammation. I work with Mona Sharma.
Speaker 1: I didn't know if I love. Ana is my healthcoach,
Speaker 1: and so I work and my wife is my health
Speaker 1: coach too. She's been a dietitian and nutritionist and iravatic
Speaker 1: health practitioners. So my wife and Mona kind of tag
Speaker 1: team on my life. You're good hands. I'm very fortunate.
Speaker 1: But you know, so, yeah, let's talk about that because
Speaker 1: I'm actually that person. I'm that person who's I'm like, guys,
Speaker 1: I pretty much don't have any bad habits. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: let's let's do are shameflammations. Yeah, so that's ninety percent
Speaker 1: of my patients as well. You're not alone, is that
Speaker 1: you have very aeradite people that are trying to do
Speaker 1: the best things that are probably most of them better
Speaker 1: off than they would be if they weren't doing these things.
Speaker 1: But there's these missing pieces. And what I explore with
Speaker 1: my patients and what I get to talk about in
Speaker 1: Gut Feelings is these missing physiological and psychological missing links
Speaker 1: to what is keeping you stuck at that plateau, what
Speaker 1: is keeping you back from leveling up how you want
Speaker 1: to feel? So shameflammation is this convergence of the mental,
Speaker 1: emotional and the physical. And really the conversation that I
Speaker 1: get to have with patients and I also get to
Speaker 1: have in this book and Gut Feelings is the fact
Speaker 1: that mental health is not separate from physical health. Mental
Speaker 1: health is physical health, and our brain is a part
Speaker 1: of our body just as much as anything else is.
Speaker 1: And as I mentioned earlier, the implications of the vagus
Speaker 1: nerve the gut brain axis and inflammation and its role
Speaker 1: in our health, but our thoughts and emotions on one
Speaker 1: end of that coin, stress, shame, trauma, even intergenerational trauma.
Speaker 1: That esoteric, non measurable stuff impacts the measurable, meaning it
Speaker 1: will spike inflammation levels, it will impact how your vegas
Speaker 1: new work, Vegas nerd works, It will impact how your
Speaker 1: hormones are expressed. So we have to look at what
Speaker 1: I call for my patients shameflammation, and what is our
Speaker 1: relationship with food, What does our relationship with our body?
Speaker 1: What is our relationship with ourselves, and start shifting paradigms
Speaker 1: around how we live life. Because you you could be
Speaker 1: doing amazing things for your health, eating good foods, working out,
Speaker 1: but if you're going into it with such a sense
Speaker 1: of dread and obsession. And you know, something that I
Speaker 1: say in the book is you can't heal a body
Speaker 1: you hate. You cannot shame your way into health. And
Speaker 1: many people try to and they're doing good things that
Speaker 1: even makes sense on paper, but they're going into it
Speaker 1: with such a negative sense of intention, And yeah, intention
Speaker 1: it's sabotaging, it's producing a completely opposite result. So I
Speaker 1: want to bring good things, but let's do it with
Speaker 1: a good intention. And that's a shame inflammation that concept
Speaker 1: is all about. Yeah, I understood. What are some of
Speaker 1: the quick things that if anyone's thinking I'm feeling inflammation,
Speaker 1: what are some of the things in all physical like
Speaker 1: things that we're consuming that are likely to cause inflammation? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's the physiological and the psychological again, So the physiological,
Speaker 1: let's go on that side, so that we start to
Speaker 1: the foods that we eat. I mean, every food we
Speaker 1: eat either feeds inflammation or fights it. There's so there's
Speaker 1: no neutral food, there's no Switzerland meal. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: serving your aiology. It's doing something, maybe in incremental ways,
Speaker 1: maybe in negligible ways, but it's some in very major ways.
Speaker 1: So we have to take inventory of every food we eat.
Speaker 1: Every meal is another opportunity to bring inflammation up or
Speaker 1: bring inflammation levels down. So what I call the inflammatory
Speaker 1: core four are the four foods or food ingredients that
Speaker 1: are most likely to disrupt that gut microbiome all the
Speaker 1: trillions of bacteria in our gut that regulate our inflammation levels,
Speaker 1: regulate hormones, regulate our brain and neurotransmitters. So that's going
Speaker 1: to be. Gluten containing grains would be number one, and
Speaker 1: I have a nuanced conversation about this. There are better
Speaker 1: versions of gluten. You can get ancient grains, you can
Speaker 1: get sour dough bread that ferments some of this. A
Speaker 1: lot of the foods that I'm gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: here are what we've done to the food, not necessarily
Speaker 1: the food in and of itself, for the sake of simplicity,
Speaker 1: gluten containing grains looking at that in your life. Number
Speaker 1: two would be industrial seed oils, things like soybean oil,
Speaker 1: vegetable oil, canola oil, palm oil exactly. Yeah, I've just
Speaker 1: been taken off a lot of those because that was
Speaker 1: somewhere where we hadn't got to yet. So I'm off
Speaker 1: palm oil, canola oil. I can only eat things in
Speaker 1: olive oil, avocado oil. Love it. Yeah, thanks mona yea
Speaker 1: YEA conventional day area would say that. And added sugar,
Speaker 1: which is no surprise. I'm short of people. But even
Speaker 1: the nice sounding euphemisms for sugar, you know that are
Speaker 1: hidden very cleverly on labels that they may be better
Speaker 1: for you options. And I'm not demonizing this entire sugar industry,
Speaker 1: but I'm saying, look, the amount of added grams of
Speaker 1: sugar you're consuming in a day, you may be surprised,
Speaker 1: so decreasing that. And if I could make the core
Speaker 1: for a plus one, I would add alcohol to that list.
Speaker 1: Is people oftentimes they eat cleaner, they clean up that diet.
Speaker 1: They know about the inflammatory core for but they keep
Speaker 1: in alcohol in their life as like, oh that's my
Speaker 1: one vice, but they are kept back. Their guts are
Speaker 1: still struggling, their mental health is still struggling, their energy
Speaker 1: levels of weight loss resistance still struggling. So I would
Speaker 1: at least look at alcohol as a role into these
Speaker 1: as well, because it's becoming quite normalized within the wellness
Speaker 1: world specifically, and the end of the day, there's no
Speaker 1: healthy amount of alcohol. There are better for you options, certainly,
Speaker 1: and I have to be pragmatic, but it's something that
Speaker 1: I would take into consideration. Yeah, no, that's great. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's so practical and anything. Everyone who's listening to that,
Speaker 1: I think we've all heard about a friend. I'm gloom
Speaker 1: free too, but heard about friends being gloom free, and
Speaker 1: this is that we often laugh about these things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's it's interesting to hear just how simple it
Speaker 1: can be. Right, these are not huge changes. None of
Speaker 1: these changes are like hard to find. Necessarily, these things
Speaker 1: are becoming more and more common, at least at a
Speaker 1: grocery store, and we can start making healthier choices in
Speaker 1: a simple way. Let's talk a bit a bit about
Speaker 1: gut microbiome, because so I've recently had a surgery and
Speaker 1: I had to take traumadol and a bunch of other
Speaker 1: stuff to let pain killers to try and deal with
Speaker 1: the pain. And Mona was all, we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: start with your microbiome all over again after this is
Speaker 1: all over. What is that relationship between pain killers and
Speaker 1: all of that with our gut microbiome as well? Like,
Speaker 1: where's the connection there? Well, I mean, your gut is
Speaker 1: just a major regulator of so many different pathways in
Speaker 1: the body, so it is such a central role. But
Speaker 1: when you're taking either end sets or antibiotics or other
Speaker 1: pain medications, they could really do a number on your gut.
Speaker 1: They can really impact the gut lining as well as
Speaker 1: the microbiome metropolis, this gut garden within our gastro intestinal system.
Speaker 1: So that doesn't mean we shouldn't be on those medications
Speaker 1: when they're properly prescribed. There's surgeries where we need to
Speaker 1: be on things like that. But just as Mona said,
Speaker 1: what are we going to do afterwards, what's sort of
Speaker 1: the long game here to start supporting gut health again?
Speaker 1: Because pragmatically, those medications, just like certain foods and either
Speaker 1: everything we do in life, influences this gut garden. So
Speaker 1: there's some things that hurt it more than others, and
Speaker 1: especially people that are on medication. Some medications long term,
Speaker 1: specifically antibiotics and some pain pills as well. They really
Speaker 1: can do quite good damage on the gut that we
Speaker 1: have to work on rehabilitating over time. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: that's just something to be conscious of as Yes, something
Speaker 1: to be conscious of talk with your doctor about, because
Speaker 1: oftentimes there isn't the conversation about gut health when it's
Speaker 1: no take this, see later. But I would just want
Speaker 1: to be empowered as a patient and be informed as
Speaker 1: to your options and have choice. Yeah. And you've talked
Speaker 1: a bit about how the connection between alcohol and intuition,
Speaker 1: and I was intrigued by that, Like, what have you
Speaker 1: seen as the connection there? Well, well, I think again,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned earlier, I think alcohol people don't want
Speaker 1: to go there, right, That's how they socialize, that's how
Speaker 1: they hang out with their friends, that's how they wind down,
Speaker 1: it's how they deal with the background anxiousness, and they
Speaker 1: don't really want to see how this drink can impact
Speaker 1: how they feel and how they truly can know what
Speaker 1: their body loves. When their body doesn't love. So alcohol
Speaker 1: can impact both your body on both the physiological and
Speaker 1: a psychological level. It's going to impact your gut microbiomes certainly,
Speaker 1: what's it doing, what's happening? It could do a few things.
Speaker 1: It's going to disrupt the microbiomes. The microbiome is depending
Speaker 1: on the study that you look at, it's upwards of
Speaker 1: one hundred trillion bacteria and we have about ten trillion
Speaker 1: human cells. So we are all about ten times more
Speaker 1: bacteria than human And when we drink alcohol, it is
Speaker 1: really especially people that are consistently drinking, it is quite
Speaker 1: disruptive to this microbiome balance, and it can breed things
Speaker 1: like bacterial overgrowth. People a lot of the times people
Speaker 1: that I talk to they have something called CEBO small
Speaker 1: intestinal bacterial overgrowth, and alcohol is a component. It's certainly
Speaker 1: not the only driver of that, but it is a
Speaker 1: disruptor and breeder of bacterial overgrowth by messing up the
Speaker 1: balance of this microbiome component. And it also can increase
Speaker 1: intestinal primeability or increase at what they call leaky gut syndrome.
Speaker 1: It's when things are passing through the gut that shouldn't
Speaker 1: be able to pass through the gut like undigested food, proteins,
Speaker 1: bacterial toxins called lightpopolysaccharides, and then that's the seminal event
Speaker 1: that a lot of things. When the immune system sees
Speaker 1: undigested food and bacterial toxins in the bloodstream, then there's
Speaker 1: something called molecular mimicry. It's sort of the case of
Speaker 1: mistaken identity when the immune system starts as cascade of inflammation,
Speaker 1: and that's what can trigger autoimmunity, when the immune system
Speaker 1: loses recognition of self, which I think that's happening on
Speaker 1: a physical level, but then you think about what's happening
Speaker 1: on a mental, emotional, spiritual level with so many people
Speaker 1: losing recognition of self, and we have this epidemic rise
Speaker 1: of autoimmune conditions. Fifty million Americans at the at least
Speaker 1: have an autoimmune disease, millions more somewhere on that autoimmune
Speaker 1: inflammation spectrum. So alcoholic's implication in that is it really
Speaker 1: is something that allows it can be a trigger for
Speaker 1: a lot of people, not only on a mental emotional level.
Speaker 1: We know, but I think people's relationship with alcohol exists
Speaker 1: on a spectrum and you may not be a full blown.
Speaker 1: Alcoholic people need to look at them themselves and say,
Speaker 1: how am I using this tool in my life? And
Speaker 1: is it in alignment with how I want to live
Speaker 1: my life? Is it in alignment with how I want
Speaker 1: to feel? Yeah, that's a great message to get people
Speaker 1: to reflect on. Yeah, that was the physiological What are
Speaker 1: some of the psychological things to be aware of? Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think the research around stress is very fascinating. I mean,
Speaker 1: we know when your body is in a state of
Speaker 1: stress and looks there. Stress is normal, it is good
Speaker 1: in measured amounts. What I'm talking about here is chronic stress.
Speaker 1: It's that I'm being chased by this tiger, but there's
Speaker 1: no tiger. Many people are stuck in various degrees of
Speaker 1: sympathetic fight or flight stressed state, and their bodies and
Speaker 1: overdrive all their time, and we need a balance. We
Speaker 1: need the sympathetic nervous system just as much as we
Speaker 1: need the parasympathetic, the resting, the digesting mechanism. But many
Speaker 1: people are just an over accentuation of a sympathetic nervous
Speaker 1: system response and cortisol levels coming up because their body
Speaker 1: is in that fight or flight mode. Cortisol is not
Speaker 1: inherently bad, just like inflammation is not inherently bad. We
Speaker 1: need inflammation to fight off viruses and bacteria and heal wounds,
Speaker 1: but it's the chronic inflammation that's a problem. Same with
Speaker 1: chronic stress. Cortisol being high for too long is not good.
Speaker 1: That is cortisol by itself as an endogenous immunosuppressant, which
Speaker 1: means it's a natural anti inflammatory. So inflammation comes up.
Speaker 1: Cortisol comes up to try to abate and attenuate the
Speaker 1: higher inflammation levels and to help you to actually get
Speaker 1: you out of that state. But it's just unsustainable because
Speaker 1: there's no real threat from many people, but they're not
Speaker 1: sleeping well. They are eating out of alignment with what's
Speaker 1: working for their body, and they are i would say
Speaker 1: unhealthy relationships with technology, and all of this will be
Speaker 1: what researchers call an evolutionary mismatch. There's a genetic epigenetic mismatch.
Speaker 1: Our genetics haven't changed in ten thousand years, yea, Our
Speaker 1: world has changed very dramatically in a very finite period
Speaker 1: of time. And you're putting that into context with the
Speaker 1: totality of human history. So if our genetics haven't changed
Speaker 1: in ten thousand years. Just think of how much how
Speaker 1: world has changed in a few generations, whether it's the
Speaker 1: foods we eat or the foods we're not eating, our
Speaker 1: stress levels, our exposure to toxins, collective and individual trauma.
Speaker 1: All of these things are the confluence of factors, the
Speaker 1: perfect storm of variables that are giving rise these inflammatory, autoimmune,
Speaker 1: brain health, mental health problems. So the psychological side of
Speaker 1: how I see these stressors play out in people's lives
Speaker 1: is chronic stress. But it's a lot more nebulous, right,
Speaker 1: it's a lot more insidious because it's easy to say,
Speaker 1: don't eat those four foods because they're going to spike inflammation.
Speaker 1: It's another thing to say, well, don't stress, and then
Speaker 1: they're stressing about not stressing. So you have to really
Speaker 1: like bring context and practical tools, and what I call
Speaker 1: them in the book is metaphysical meals, because you need
Speaker 1: to treat these acts of stillness just like you would
Speaker 1: meal time, which I know we're in the same page here.
Speaker 1: You have to just like you show up for breakfast, lunch,
Speaker 1: and dinner, and or you show up to the gym.
Speaker 1: You need to start feeding your head in your heart
Speaker 1: just as much as you feed your body, and it's
Speaker 1: very much a part of healing, and you have to
Speaker 1: deal with both sides of the coin, both the physiological
Speaker 1: and psychological so stress and whether that be bringing healthy
Speaker 1: boundaries in or having a better relationship with technology, or
Speaker 1: prioritizing you're asleep, or bringing in self care practice in
Speaker 1: your life that are nourishing to you, that are feeding
Speaker 1: you on a mental emotional level. That's just one, but
Speaker 1: there are many levels to that, but we have to
Speaker 1: look at both sides. Yeah, no, definitely, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for walking us through those And when if anyone's
Speaker 1: like me while I'm listening to that, whenever I sit
Speaker 1: down with someone who's an X men in this space,
Speaker 1: I'm like, there's a part of you that just gets
Speaker 1: more stressed because you go, oh god, I'm doing all
Speaker 1: the wrong things right like, and I'm sure people are
Speaker 1: listening or watching at home or at work, or if
Speaker 1: you're traveling, and you're going, of course, I need to
Speaker 1: change so much. And I think that's kind of where
Speaker 1: our problems perpetuate, because we go, Okay, I need to
Speaker 1: change everything, and then we end up changing nothing. And
Speaker 1: I think that's always the issue. Right when you feel
Speaker 1: you want to change everything, you end up changing nothing.
Speaker 1: And as people are listening to this, like, where's a
Speaker 1: good place for someone to start? Like, and I'm sure
Speaker 1: you work with so many people are on this journey.
Speaker 1: And I always say to people like I don't think
Speaker 1: we have. The real crisis we have in the world
Speaker 1: today is a crisis of habits and conditioning. Because most
Speaker 1: people I know no what they want to change, or
Speaker 1: know who they want to be or how they want
Speaker 1: to change. They just can't make it through that path, right.
Speaker 1: They can't stick with it. So where's a good place
Speaker 1: for someone to start? They're listening right now and they're saying,
Speaker 1: doctor will call. I can hear that I have a
Speaker 1: ton of those physiological and psychological challenges. I need to
Speaker 1: figure this out. Where does someone stop? I would first
Speaker 1: start with your headspace, because it is you do not
Speaker 1: have to be perfect, quote unquote, you don't have to
Speaker 1: have it all together to start making positive action in
Speaker 1: your life. And if you're waiting for the right time,
Speaker 1: it's now. Because there's always going to be some reason
Speaker 1: why we should put it off. There's a vacation holiday
Speaker 1: around the corner, there's a birthday party, there's a whatever
Speaker 1: holiday around the corner, and that is many people who
Speaker 1: have that paralysis of analysis. Oh I'll start at the
Speaker 1: new year. Oh I'll start at this date. But the
Speaker 1: reality is I find that there's a stance to that
Speaker 1: rule of maybe there's a certain date within the next
Speaker 1: few weeks that's practical for you. But if you're looking
Speaker 1: at really putting it out in the calendar, I very
Speaker 1: rarely see people need to do that because I need
Speaker 1: you to realize that how are we going to navigate
Speaker 1: through those times? Because it's always going to be something,
Speaker 1: and I would really what I say is just lean
Speaker 1: into it. You don't have to have it all figure
Speaker 1: it out, because what I find is when you get
Speaker 1: the ball rolling and people get their head a little
Speaker 1: bit above water, they want to keep doing the things
Speaker 1: and make them feel good yea, And they start to
Speaker 1: realize what I call in the book and for my patience,
Speaker 1: I call it food peace and body peace, because I
Speaker 1: want people to not come into this wellness thing, whether
Speaker 1: improve their energy or improve their digestion, or improve their
Speaker 1: brain health. I want them to see this as a
Speaker 1: form of self respect, using self care as a form
Speaker 1: of self respect because it's the sort of toxic dieting
Speaker 1: culture that tells us, well, you can't have that. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of shame around that, right, that's like very
Speaker 1: much breeding ground for shame inflammation. That's the antithesis of
Speaker 1: sustainable wellness. The genesis of sustainable wellness is really realizing
Speaker 1: that you get to do things that make you feel good.
Speaker 1: And I said recently on social media that I think
Speaker 1: I think is the paradigm shift that I want to
Speaker 1: say here is that the continually eating foods that don't
Speaker 1: love you back is like staying in a toxic relationship
Speaker 1: and wondering why you're still miserable. But avoiding foods that
Speaker 1: don't love you back isn't restrictive. It's self respect. And
Speaker 1: that's if you want to talk about the first thing.
Speaker 1: It's having that pivotal paradigm shift to say, look, oh,
Speaker 1: I thought it was about all these things I can't have,
Speaker 1: No have whatever you want. But I want people to
Speaker 1: love feeling great more than they thought they were going
Speaker 1: to miss something that dimmed their light. So from that
Speaker 1: place of self respect, I find people make better choices
Speaker 1: for their life because if they know their analogy that
Speaker 1: I use in the book is like, if you realized
Speaker 1: you were a Lamborghini and not an old beat up jelapi,
Speaker 1: how would that impact how you fueled yourself. Owners of
Speaker 1: luxury vehicles know how to take care of their car.
Speaker 1: They don't need to be taught that. They're parking it
Speaker 1: way in the back, they are cleaning it, they're fueling
Speaker 1: it appropriately. Many people see themselves as the old lemon
Speaker 1: and not the luxury car. And that's the paradigm ships
Speaker 1: that I want people to have, because then all the
Speaker 1: rest falls into place. They don't have to be perfect
Speaker 1: because they just want to continue to pick themselves up
Speaker 1: and they have their why is bigger than their excuses.
Speaker 1: That is such a good point. I'm so glad that
Speaker 1: you went there because there were a few points that
Speaker 1: I just want to unpack for everyone. The first one
Speaker 1: you said to start with the headspace, and I think
Speaker 1: that's really powerful, and everyone who's listening to on Purpose
Speaker 1: right now is already naturally doing that by being here.
Speaker 1: Is because if you're stressed, you eat badly, and when
Speaker 1: you eat badly, you get more stressed, and you get inflamed,
Speaker 1: and then everything else they're using and then you get
Speaker 1: more stressed, and it's just this never ending cycle. And
Speaker 1: so when you figure out what's going on up here
Speaker 1: and then you can start changing what's happening here, it's
Speaker 1: it's a great way. So I think that was a
Speaker 1: fantastic point. The second thing that I really took away
Speaker 1: from that is this idea of self respect and how
Speaker 1: we see ourselves. And it took me a long time
Speaker 1: to recognize what that really meant personally. So I grew
Speaker 1: up addicted to chocolate, I ate and sugar obviously, So
Speaker 1: I ate a chocolate bar, a chocolate chocolate yogurt, and
Speaker 1: a chocolate ice cream pretty much every day while I
Speaker 1: was a kid, up until when I went to university,
Speaker 1: where I would eat a chocolate bar and like a
Speaker 1: liter of Sprite every single day. Like that got me
Speaker 1: through university and I was healthy and I was lean
Speaker 1: and you know whatever that then and you thought, I'm fine,
Speaker 1: and then you start to see things not catch up
Speaker 1: with you, but you start to see the impact of
Speaker 1: certain things. And I think people still have this in
Speaker 1: the well. I just want to have fun, I just
Speaker 1: want to enjoy life, and I don't want to have
Speaker 1: to think about this, And I think, what's so interesting,
Speaker 1: is what you're saying is that that actually isn't enjoyment
Speaker 1: because it's damaging. And when you start realizing that the
Speaker 1: fun you're having is actually not fun genuinely for what's
Speaker 1: happening inside, you just can't see that party. And I
Speaker 1: think that took me a long time to connect that
Speaker 1: it's not like starving yourself from what you want. It's
Speaker 1: actually like your body doesn't actually want that, yeah, which
Speaker 1: takes so long to kind of fix our mind because
Speaker 1: we're so conditioned to believe that, Oh, I love pizza
Speaker 1: and I love this, and I love that. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: you don't. You've just been conditioned through your tastes. Like
Speaker 1: I always talk about one of my friends, their kids
Speaker 1: look forward to blueberries and grapes as their reward because
Speaker 1: that's how they've been brought up. Like for them, like
Speaker 1: blueberries are like sour patch kids, right right, Like that's
Speaker 1: their sawer patch kid. Was for me, it was sauer
Speaker 1: patch kids, which are terrible for me, and I still
Speaker 1: love them. And when I go to the theaters, my
Speaker 1: wife really asked to like. And so my wife was
Speaker 1: the one who helped me change my habits when she
Speaker 1: met me, she goes, you can't eat chocolate every day,
Speaker 1: Like you can't have that. She was like once a week,
Speaker 1: you can't have every day. And it took me ages
Speaker 1: and then and then we got there, and then she
Speaker 1: replaced it with monk fruit. And I used to do
Speaker 1: these cacao nives sweetened with the monk fruit. Now I've
Speaker 1: got to a point where i'm if i'm at home,
Speaker 1: I'm barely I don't removed refine sugars from my diet,
Speaker 1: and it took up long process. And now I found actually,
Speaker 1: when I go back and have an indulgent dessert, it
Speaker 1: doesn't taste as good to me. And that was a
Speaker 1: huge journey from I was like, oh, wow, it's not
Speaker 1: And sometimes I'll still crave like a burger. I really
Speaker 1: like juicy fried burger. I'm plant based, so I'm talking
Speaker 1: about plant based burgers, and when I have it, I
Speaker 1: actually not enjoyed the feeling. After us, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: actually didn't miss that at all. Yeah, and so I
Speaker 1: don't know if that aligns with what you've been saying,
Speaker 1: but I was just trying to give a very genuine
Speaker 1: reflection of dealing with a lot of these vices myself absolutely,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of people can resonate with that,
Speaker 1: and like, that's that repairing that gut feelings connection that
Speaker 1: I'm talking about, you know, the gut and the feelings.
Speaker 1: There's things that were changing on a physiological level when
Speaker 1: you start cleaning up your diet, eating nutrient dense foods,
Speaker 1: regulating your blood sugar, lowering inflammation levels, supporting your gut health.
Speaker 1: And then also when you make that connection, you go
Speaker 1: back to those foods and you may not like them
Speaker 1: at all. I hear that many times for patients and
Speaker 1: they're shocked these things that they loved, things that they
Speaker 1: thought they couldn't live without. They could They say, I
Speaker 1: could take it or leave it. Yeah, that's food peace.
Speaker 1: It's like that you're not bound by that food if
Speaker 1: you want to have it. But I would just say
Speaker 1: use all food as a mindfulness tool. Eat it consciously.
Speaker 1: Did it love you back, Maybe it didn't love you back,
Speaker 1: but you love socializing with your friends, or it brought
Speaker 1: you some enjoyment in the moment and it was worth
Speaker 1: the payoff of maybe the blow or the inflammation, then
Speaker 1: eat it and move on. Shame is worse than any food. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But maybe you take it and eat it mindfully and
Speaker 1: realize afterwards, now it actually wasn't worth it, So maybe
Speaker 1: next time I'll have less of it, or I won't
Speaker 1: have it at all, because, like you said, like cacao
Speaker 1: nibs and monk fruit, there's so many better options that
Speaker 1: taste really freaking amazing. Absolutely yeah. You don't have to
Speaker 1: eat like a boring rabbit to be healthy. Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1: I've been loving the huge kitchen bars as well, so
Speaker 1: it's so good. Like that's one of the sad parts
Speaker 1: of New York City is Huge Kitchen closed down. I
Speaker 1: mean remember that place. Yeah, the pandemic took it out.
Speaker 1: Well there's bars. They're still alive and strong with the
Speaker 1: chocolate bars. Yeah, yeah, they're talking about's great, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like they're You're so right that there are
Speaker 1: so many other alternatives, so many other places that you
Speaker 1: can discover the things and even spending time with friends,
Speaker 1: Like recently I've been trying to and of course there's
Speaker 1: there's access here and things that are in your city,
Speaker 1: but I found like, like my wife, she'll go to
Speaker 1: a workout class with a lot of her friends, and
Speaker 1: that's like their way of socializing together, or me and
Speaker 1: my wife will go to a cold plunge together, or
Speaker 1: go find an infrared sauna together or something like that,
Speaker 1: where even doing health and wellness with friends has actually
Speaker 1: become a fun way of socializing, where it's easy to
Speaker 1: be like, oh, let's just all go out for dinner,
Speaker 1: which by the way, I still love to do, and
Speaker 1: it's not that we don't do it, but it's the
Speaker 1: idea of there are so many alternative ways to spend
Speaker 1: time together where your friendship actually improves too, because now
Speaker 1: you're not just doing dinner in a movie every time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think there's I just think the idea
Speaker 1: of experimenting is healthy. Whether you went to a cold
Speaker 1: plunge and enjoyed it or not, that's up to you.
Speaker 1: But the idea that you went and tried something new
Speaker 1: with your friends. I promise you, whatever you do, trying
Speaker 1: something new with the people you love is going to
Speaker 1: be a win either way. Yeah. Absolutely, And I think
Speaker 1: that that's a key point too. When people want to
Speaker 1: start making healthy choices, they're afraid of it changing what
Speaker 1: they do for fun yea, or changing her relation ships.
Speaker 1: How you mentioned alcohol, Well, if everything I do with
Speaker 1: my friends is centive around unhealthy food and alcohol. What's
Speaker 1: that going to look like? You look if they're your
Speaker 1: true friends, are going to be there for you. And
Speaker 1: I've seen so many people start bringing the healthy food
Speaker 1: to the party and really being a light. It's my
Speaker 1: wife you basically describing, and people are like, wait, what
Speaker 1: is healthy? What the heck? Because it it really shifts
Speaker 1: hearts and minds around this, or maybe go to the
Speaker 1: cold plunge and they never they thought it was weird
Speaker 1: at first, but now they all want to do it.
Speaker 1: People want to feel good. It's just just because it's
Speaker 1: been done over and over again doesn't mean you to
Speaker 1: keep doing it, Like start leveling up and be the
Speaker 1: leader for your friend group, because it really thank you
Speaker 1: in the long term, for sure, for sure. And I've
Speaker 1: seen whole family and friend groups change because of one
Speaker 1: person deciding I want to live a different way. I
Speaker 1: want to start doing things that love me back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: trust me. In the beginning, my mainly ego with my
Speaker 1: wife telling me that my wife would see me like
Speaker 1: grab a chocolate by putting my mouth just give me
Speaker 1: the look. And everyone be like, Jay, you are you
Speaker 1: literally gonna let her do that? And I'm like, she's
Speaker 1: actually doing it for my own good, Like I feel
Speaker 1: so much happier. Yeah, since I've let go, you know,
Speaker 1: of refined sugar, Like it's made such a big difference
Speaker 1: in my life. And I've still got a long way
Speaker 1: to go. I'm working on lots of different things. But yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I love that. I wanted to ask you because I
Speaker 1: feel like you're one of the few people actually talks
Speaker 1: about this connection. How are hormones the internal communication system
Speaker 1: for the body, because I feel like hormones are not
Speaker 1: talked about enough and there's not enough of a conversation
Speaker 1: about them. But that's been something you've been leading, sure,
Speaker 1: and that's part of the psychological, sorry, the physiological side
Speaker 1: of things that the psychological coal can impact. So hormones
Speaker 1: are kind of akin to biochemical emails. And if you
Speaker 1: look at your body as this sort of corporation, the
Speaker 1: different systems of the body are not always communicating appropriately.
Speaker 1: They're either communicating too much because bodies in that sympathetic
Speaker 1: nervous system over drive, whereas cortisol levels is being really
Speaker 1: secreted quite a bit. You we have what's called the
Speaker 1: hypothymic patunitary adrenal axis. So this is something that we
Speaker 1: can quantify on with patients via labbed and see cortisol
Speaker 1: levels and cool circading rhythm issues. Cortisols too high when
Speaker 1: it should be low, which would be a nice S
Speaker 1: shaped curve, or it's always low or it's always high,
Speaker 1: and it's that imbalance that breaking up the Goldilocks principle.
Speaker 1: It's homeostasis. It's you don't want hormones too high, you
Speaker 1: don't want hormones too low, but you want them high
Speaker 1: when they should be high and when they should be low,
Speaker 1: just like our gut microbio bacteria, just like inflammation levels.
Speaker 1: It's all subject to this law of the of Goldilocks principle.
Speaker 1: So it's really hormones are a major influencer in how
Speaker 1: we want to feel, but both the physiological and the
Speaker 1: psychological will impact how hormones are expressed. So if somebody
Speaker 1: has an unhealthy gut, if they have things like chronic convections,
Speaker 1: idea a lot with people that have chronic lime disease
Speaker 1: and people that have mold toxicity quite often because they
Speaker 1: have different genetic variants that make them more sensitive to
Speaker 1: things like autoimmune problems. So we can find and measure
Speaker 1: this on labs. Higher levels of mold toxins, line bacteria,
Speaker 1: different environmental toxins like glyphosate in the body that's shifting
Speaker 1: their nervous system in that stress state as well. That's
Speaker 1: going to really impact hormones tremendously. So then I can
Speaker 1: measure hormones on a hormonal test, which I would, and
Speaker 1: you'll see cortisol levels all off. You'll see typically estrogen, progesterone,
Speaker 1: testosterone very low. Sometimes estrogen will be high with estrogen dominance.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, when you're in a sympathetic
Speaker 1: fight or flight stress, say, most hormones will be sluggish.
Speaker 1: They'll be on the low end of normal or really low.
Speaker 1: But then if you just saw the hormones happening in
Speaker 1: a vacuum, you'd think, well, it's a hormonal problem. Well, no,
Speaker 1: there's a bigger context as to why the hormones were
Speaker 1: off in the first place. So that's why context matters
Speaker 1: when it comes to all these different aspects of health.
Speaker 1: But supporting hormones are certainly imperative when you're talking about
Speaker 1: somebody's mood, when you talk about somebody's gut feelings, hormones
Speaker 1: are those biochemical emails, so I have to measure them,
Speaker 1: I have to optimize them. Thyroid is another major player too,
Speaker 1: because many people they're just getting basic thyroid labs. They're
Speaker 1: not really getting complex thyroid labs. So we have to
Speaker 1: really look at the complexity of thyroid hormone metabolism. But
Speaker 1: is this something that like at least and I'm asking
Speaker 1: as someone who was born and raised in London obviously,
Speaker 1: like how much of this is accessible in the United
Speaker 1: States or across the world, Like how do people ask
Speaker 1: for these labs? Where did they get them? Because I
Speaker 1: was one of those people for years that got checkups
Speaker 1: done and got my blood test done and things like that,
Speaker 1: and they'd always be like, Jay, you're fine, And I
Speaker 1: was like, but I don't feel fine, Like yeah, I
Speaker 1: know something's going on. And they were like, no, maybe
Speaker 1: you're a bit stressed. And I'm like, yeah, I'm sure
Speaker 1: i am, but it's more than like I can feel something.
Speaker 1: And it took till I started working with Darshan at
Speaker 1: Next Health. I don't know if you know Next Health,
Speaker 1: I've heard of them. Yeah, Next Heal an incredible facility
Speaker 1: in LA. But again, it's it's something that requires like access,
Speaker 1: and it's expensive, and it's not you know, it's not easy.
Speaker 1: It's in LA, it's in Miami, it's it's not something
Speaker 1: that everyone can access. And so I go, well, how
Speaker 1: does someone get those tests? And the same as me,
Speaker 1: I was just told for ages, I was told, Oh,
Speaker 1: maybe you're stressed, you know, just just relax a little bit.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, I don't feel right. So how yeah,
Speaker 1: how does someone get those tests? How does someone get
Speaker 1: that detail? I know volumes a great source to gun
Speaker 1: test that they send to a house and you do
Speaker 1: the stool tests, but yeah, how do people get access
Speaker 1: to that? Yeah? I think we're living in a time
Speaker 1: where there's still a massive gap to democratize this where
Speaker 1: it should be. But in the past twelve plus years,
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot improving then. And the reality is
Speaker 1: most of the thyroid labs and the hormonal tests actually
Speaker 1: are conventional tests, meaning they are mainstream tests that if
Speaker 1: you ask your doctor your conventional PCPG, they will do it.
Speaker 1: They have to do it, they can do it. They
Speaker 1: get mine doing it. But if you have a decent
Speaker 1: relationship with your doctor and if it's clinically appropriate, they
Speaker 1: should be able to run this panel, even if it's
Speaker 1: slightly outside of what they're routine labs. Look, the conventional
Speaker 1: model of care is largely trained to diagnose a disease
Speaker 1: and match it with the medication. So it's the extra labs.
Speaker 1: The other labs that we run in functional medicine is
Speaker 1: slightly superfluous to a conventional medicine doctor because if it's
Speaker 1: not going to change the treatment, why would they run it.
Speaker 1: For example, to use the thyroid as an example, they
Speaker 1: just need a TSH a thyroid stimulating hormone, and maybe
Speaker 1: a T four to give the person that leaves a
Speaker 1: ROX and that synthroid that pharmaceutical thyroid replacement hormone. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's all that they need. So if we want
Speaker 1: to look at all the other conventional thyroid labs, they
Speaker 1: are available, But if the end result is still going
Speaker 1: to be that medication, then why would they run it?
Speaker 1: So I understand it from a model side of things,
Speaker 1: but these are conventional tests. Most of the ones that
Speaker 1: I'm talking about are very widely access and offset through insurance,
Speaker 1: are completely covered by insurance. They just have to be
Speaker 1: ran and coded appropriately and be clinically appropriate for you.
Speaker 1: So full thyroid panels, something called thyroid stimulating hormone like
Speaker 1: I mentioned T four, but then what we would add
Speaker 1: in functional medicine is total T three, something called free
Speaker 1: T three, free T four, and then what are called
Speaker 1: thyroid antibodies, the leading drivers of low thyroid function in
Speaker 1: the West, or autoimmune nature hashimotors disease or autoimmune thyroiditis
Speaker 1: is the most common autoimmune disease as a whole let alone,
Speaker 1: the most common driver of low thyroid function. So we
Speaker 1: have to run thyroid proxidase and thibrod globulin to C
Speaker 1: because it's in that case it's not truly a primary
Speaker 1: thyroid problem. The thyroid problem is because the immune system
Speaker 1: has lost recognition of self again and its attacking it.
Speaker 1: So engraves disease is the other type of autoimmune thyroid problem.
Speaker 1: And then I have to rhun what's called reverse T three,
Speaker 1: which in states of inflammation, your body can make these
Speaker 1: basically thyroid break molecules that slow down thyroid function. So
Speaker 1: the point being, it's a lot more complex than just
Speaker 1: a TSH. And to make it more accessible, and you know,
Speaker 1: I mean that's what we've done for the past twelve
Speaker 1: years is to try to make this as democratized as
Speaker 1: it can be, to decentralize this so people can have
Speaker 1: agency over their health and be empowered with this information.
Speaker 1: It's their body, they have a right to know. So
Speaker 1: we have different telehealth models to make it accessible for people.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of direct to consumer labs to
Speaker 1: be honest with you, even if you don't have access
Speaker 1: to functional medicine doctor, or if you don't want to
Speaker 1: functional medicine doctor, there are great labs. There's one called
Speaker 1: inside Tracker. I have no connection to these brands. Inside
Speaker 1: Tracker and Base are two that I've had them on
Speaker 1: my podcast before. They are brilliant and you don't need
Speaker 1: a doctor for it, so you could just order it yourself.
Speaker 1: And it's just good to know, right. This is so
Speaker 1: useful because I think it's good to know what to
Speaker 1: ask for, what to look for. I think as someone
Speaker 1: I consider myself someone who's fairly uneducated as a recipient
Speaker 1: as a patient of these things, because until you study yourself,
Speaker 1: I would say, until I started studying myself and reading
Speaker 1: myself and interviewing people that I wanted to learn from,
Speaker 1: I had a very limited understanding. Because that's how I
Speaker 1: grew up, and so I think for me at least,
Speaker 1: I find it very interesting to be like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: these are the tests I need to ask for. These
Speaker 1: are the tests I can do, because even the other
Speaker 1: thing I want to ask you is what are the
Speaker 1: most missed healthy food intolerances? Because that's a whole other
Speaker 1: thing that I think we're not aware of it. So
Speaker 1: the inflammatory core for that I mentioned, that's an obvious one.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't even call those healthy foods, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: most of them are really processed or fine boxed foods.
Speaker 1: But I would say that healthy food sensitivity is or
Speaker 1: food intolerance is the food reactions. And this is really
Speaker 1: pertinent to most of the people that I talk to,
Speaker 1: because they are eating better than most people, but they're
Speaker 1: still struggling. So the number one and let me bring
Speaker 1: a caveat to all of these foods. It's not necessarily
Speaker 1: these foods fault. The heart of what I do in
Speaker 1: functional medicine is bioindividuality, and even healthy foods, what works
Speaker 1: for one person may not be right for you. And
Speaker 1: I would say also what serves you today and what
Speaker 1: your body loves now if we're actually fixing the problem
Speaker 1: of why you have the problem in the first case.
Speaker 1: Then over time you'll be able to do more things.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to say these foods with that preface,
Speaker 1: don't be fearful of these foods. Don't become orthorexic, which
Speaker 1: is a massive problem within wellness. That's orthorexy is sort
Speaker 1: of disordered eating around healthy foods. That is not what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to convey here. So that's important to know.
Speaker 1: But also for the people that are struggling with these issues,
Speaker 1: it could be a massive game changer for them because
Speaker 1: they may be think, Oh, I've been doing what I
Speaker 1: thought was healthy, but I was unintentionally sabotaging my health.
Speaker 1: So number one, people that have cbone small intestinal bacterial
Speaker 1: overgrowth that I mentioned. It's linked to things like anxiety
Speaker 1: and depression. It's linked with other autoimmune problems. It's also
Speaker 1: the leading cause of things like IBS irritable bowe syndrome.
Speaker 1: It's linked to bloating, like uncomfortable bloating. People will tell
Speaker 1: me they feel like they're nine months pregnant even though
Speaker 1: they're not pregnant. As far as uncomfortable bloating and things
Speaker 1: like acid reflux and gourd so there are there's a
Speaker 1: class of foods that are known as higher FOD map foods.
Speaker 1: Fod maps is an acron that stands for fermentable oligosac rides,
Speaker 1: diosac rides, monosac rides in polyols, which is just a
Speaker 1: robose way of saying fermentable sugars. So things like onions
Speaker 1: and garlic really healthy foods, right, Chrociferous vegetables like broccoli, asparagus,
Speaker 1: Brussels sprouts, really healthy foods, but they're all higher in
Speaker 1: these fermentable sugars. So people that are thinking they're doing
Speaker 1: the good things with sea bowl onions and garlic, and
Speaker 1: they're getting so bloated, they're getting so much gastro intestinal upset.
Speaker 1: So look is the problem that I get to heal
Speaker 1: the seabo so you can bring those high FOD maps.
Speaker 1: So FOD map to be a lot for our people
Speaker 1: that are probably a lot of our listeners right now.
Speaker 1: It's just people that are very well read, but they're
Speaker 1: still struggling with these problems. They're eating healthier, but they're
Speaker 1: still struggling. So look at higher FOD maps and potentially
Speaker 1: look at cibo as the driver of that FOD map intolerance.
Speaker 1: And then I'm mentioning a lot of people that have
Speaker 1: mold toxicity. Mycotoxins is what they're called. Higher mold foods
Speaker 1: can perpetuate flare ups too. So a lot of grains,
Speaker 1: even healthy grains like gluten and gluten free grains, can
Speaker 1: be higher in mold. Coffee can be higher in mold. Wine,
Speaker 1: other alcohols can be higher in mold. And people that
Speaker 1: have a sensitized immune system should look if they have
Speaker 1: a mold problem, look at foods that could potentially contain mold.
Speaker 1: And then another one that I see are higher histamines.
Speaker 1: Foods that are higher histamines or histamine liberators or histamine
Speaker 1: releasing foods can definitely be problematic for people that have CIBO,
Speaker 1: these gastri intestinal gut problems and people that have I mean,
Speaker 1: there's other there are symptoms of histamine intolerance, like anxiety
Speaker 1: because you're gut in brains gut feelings. Connection Again here,
Speaker 1: people that have lots of kombucha, people that have lots
Speaker 1: of bone broth, people that have lots of fermented, pickled foods,
Speaker 1: even avocados can be higher in histamines. So these are
Speaker 1: the gray areas that we need to look at, because
Speaker 1: that's what you need to diagnose yourself effect right and
Speaker 1: or if you're doing all the things and still struggling,
Speaker 1: these are the areas you need to look at to say,
Speaker 1: what are these check engine lights in my life? Why
Speaker 1: is my body reacting to kombucha? It's not kombucha's fault,
Speaker 1: but is it the body telling me that this is
Speaker 1: releasing histamines right now? And then I have to ask
Speaker 1: the question why do I have histamine intolerance in the
Speaker 1: first place? Which unrestsolved trauma can be part of that
Speaker 1: cebo mold, toxins can be a part of that chronic line,
Speaker 1: the psychological and the physiological. So this is what I
Speaker 1: see sadly play out in people's lives. But it's only
Speaker 1: sad until you find out and give it. When you
Speaker 1: give them answers, then it's anything but sad because then
Speaker 1: it's this, Ahamed, I'm like, wow, I can do something
Speaker 1: about it. I mean, that's exactly how I feel like
Speaker 1: everything you've been talking about, like this is the journey
Speaker 1: of being on because it's that feeling of I feel healthy,
Speaker 1: to that feeling of recognizing, wow, there's so much my
Speaker 1: health that I did not understand then getting accurate tests
Speaker 1: that actually tell you what's going on, because I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like, oh, you just need a
Speaker 1: bit of this, so you need a bit of that,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't work. Like the accurate testing is such
Speaker 1: an important part of this, because then the recommendations can
Speaker 1: be healthier. Yeah, I think a lot of recommendations are
Speaker 1: just based on basic symptoms and that doesn't necessarily always
Speaker 1: go the right way. And then of course consistency and
Speaker 1: the recommendation that feels like the full journey. Absolutely, And
Speaker 1: I think, look, if what you're doing is working for
Speaker 1: you and you feel great, don't look for problems whether
Speaker 1: there isn't any. But I think we have an epidemic
Speaker 1: rise of people that are doing all the things that
Speaker 1: are really compliant, people that are doing things or doctors
Speaker 1: are telling them to do, but they're still spinning their wheel.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm talking about here. We have to do
Speaker 1: better here. So I think that these are what I
Speaker 1: find clinically to be missing links for people. Then they
Speaker 1: fix a few things and it really kind of allows
Speaker 1: their body to take their health to the next level
Speaker 1: and start feeling the way they want to feel well.
Speaker 1: And when you start repairing these things, whether it's repairing
Speaker 1: their gut health or regulating their nervous system or whatever
Speaker 1: we're talking about here. All of those foods I just mentioned,
Speaker 1: almost all of them can be reintroduced. So temporarily maybe
Speaker 1: avoid them, but longer term, let's fix the problem that
Speaker 1: drove it in the first place. Yeah, everyone makes sure
Speaker 1: that you grab the book Gut Feelings and subscribe to
Speaker 1: the Art of Being Well podcast. But will doctor will call.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to ask you, is anything that you
Speaker 1: haven't shared on today? Is something that's on your heart,
Speaker 1: your mind, or in your gut that you feel like
Speaker 1: you need you need to share that we haven't touched upon. No, Man,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate the opportunity. It's been great. I have
Speaker 1: to have you on the Art of Being Well. I'd
Speaker 1: love to. I'd love to, But this has been so
Speaker 1: useful because I think you've given us a very three
Speaker 1: sixty degree approach of so many different aspects of our health.
Speaker 1: Of course, everyone can read the book Got Feelings to
Speaker 1: go in depth and all of this and listen to
Speaker 1: the podcast to understand more about everything we've discussed today.
Speaker 1: And I hope this is the first too many times
Speaker 1: we'll sit down and get to do this, but thank
Speaker 1: you so much. We end every episode with a final
Speaker 1: five WHI should the fast five rounds? So you have
Speaker 1: to answer these in one word or one sentence of
Speaker 1: maximum so you can do one sentence, all right, one
Speaker 1: word and one sentence is kind of nervous. Let's go.
Speaker 1: Let's go for it, okay. Question of all one, what's
Speaker 1: the best health advice you've ever received or heard? It's
Speaker 1: what I actually said earlier. It's one that I'm always
Speaker 1: telling myself and I'm telling my patience is you can't
Speaker 1: heal a body you hate. It's a pointer to work
Speaker 1: that we need to do as reframing our relationship with
Speaker 1: our body and with food and with wellness itself. Love that.
Speaker 1: Question number two, what's the worst piece of health advice
Speaker 1: you've ever heard or received? Well? The antithesis of that
Speaker 1: that somehow you're going to shame your way into wellness.
Speaker 1: It's not going to work. Yeah, okay. Question number three,
Speaker 1: something you used to value for your health but you
Speaker 1: don't anymore, probably taking tons of supplements. I have a
Speaker 1: simplified version. I know what I feel the best on.
Speaker 1: So to me, food is first supplements are a great
Speaker 1: bonus targeted, but food is primary. So I think streamlining
Speaker 1: and figure out what are the biggest needle movers for
Speaker 1: myself is definitely that for me. It's a great answer
Speaker 1: question number four, what's your current purpose in life? It's
Speaker 1: hopefully being a light for God and it is in
Speaker 1: What that means for me is just hopefully staying in
Speaker 1: my lane in the best of ways and just enabling
Speaker 1: me to bring hope to people that are really struggling
Speaker 1: with silent health problems. And I get to see a
Speaker 1: player all the time. This is more than a sentence,
Speaker 1: but I love what they get to do. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Fifth and final question. If you could create one law
Speaker 1: that everyone in the world had to follow, what would
Speaker 1: it be? Be kind and think before you speak health law.
Speaker 1: Have any healthlws that will help people social diseases right
Speaker 1: as social relationship disorders bring about physical disorders too. But
Speaker 1: if you want something a little bit more on a
Speaker 1: micro level, I would say a lot. You said a
Speaker 1: lot to people should live by, I would say use food.
Speaker 1: Eat foods that love you back and find out what
Speaker 1: they are. Be curious about what they are, because when
Speaker 1: you focus on that the rest of the stuff kind
Speaker 1: of is put into perspective. Yeah, Doctor will call everyone.
Speaker 1: The book is called Gut Feelings, the podcast is called
Speaker 1: The Art of Being Well. Doctor will Call on Instagram
Speaker 1: as well. Make sure you follow him. Everyone's been watching
Speaker 1: or listening. Make sure that you tag me and Doctor
Speaker 1: will Call on Instagram, on TikTok on Twitter. Let us
Speaker 1: know what resonated with you, what you're going to try,
Speaker 1: what you're gonna try and shift. Remember you don't have
Speaker 1: to change everything all at once. She's going to try
Speaker 1: and put one thing into practice and watch how your
Speaker 1: life changes. Thank you so much for being here, So
Speaker 1: grateful for you, and I love this conversation. Likewise, if
Speaker 1: you love this episode, you will enjoy my interview with
Speaker 1: doctor Daniel Ayman on how to change your life by
Speaker 1: changing your brain