Realfoodology - 66: A Heart Surgeon’s Guide to Staying Off His Operating Table with Dr. Philip Ovadia

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

Dr. Philip Ovadia is the Author of Stay Off My Operating Table: A Heart Surgeon’s Metabolic Health Guide to Lose Weight, Prevent Disease, and Feel Your Best Every Day He is a board-certified Cardiac Surgeon and founder of Ovadia Heart Health. He works to save patients with chronic heart conditions through open-heart surgery. His passion is helping the public to stay off his operating table. He coaches clients in optimizing their metabolic health to avoid heart issues and cure their diabetes. Dr. Ovadia joins us to give us insider tips on how to stay healthy and off his operating table! Check out Dr. Ovadia: New Book: https://www.amazon.com/Stay-off-Operating-Table-Metabolic/dp/1737818205/ https://ovadiahearthealth.com/ https://twitter.com/ifixhearts https://www.instagram.com/ovadia_heart_health/ https://www.heart.org/-/media/healthy-living-files/heart-check-files/monthly-grocery-list-2021/heart_check_certified_product_list_october2021.pdf?la=en

On today's episode of the Real Foodology Podcast. They don't have meaningful, you know, recommendations to make behind that because they know that the recommendations that we have been making for 40 years, you know, eat less, move more, eat a low fat diet are not working. They do not work. saw it personally, and many other physicians see the same thing in themselves and in their patients, but they just don't know what else to do, because that is the only message they've ever heard. Hello, welcome back, you are listening to the Real Foodology podcast. And I am your host, Courtney Swan. I'm an integrative nutritionist with my Master's of Science in Nutrition and Integrative Health. And I started my journey of health around 15 years ago when I really started waking up to just the corruption in our food system and our health care system, which I refer to as sick care system. Because unfortunately, as a population, we are very unhealthy and many people are turning to hospitals and their doctors for chronic disease management.

And doctors were not trained for that. And this is not at all to vilify doctors. We need them. So of course, like if you're in a car accident or God forbid you break your leg or if you need heart surgery, of course, that is what our doctors are here for. But we need to start seeing them in that role and then recognizing that for everything else with our chronic diseases that we are seeing so prevalent now in the US, we need to be turning to registered dietitians, nutritionists, and people that are trained on how to advise you and guide you into a healthier

lifestyle and a healthier diet. Now, look, of course, there are absolutely doctors that you can see for diet and lifestyle advice, but you need to make sure that you are seeing a doctor that has actually been trained in that area. Doctors that I recommend that do focus on food and lifestyle are functional medicine doctors and integrative doctors, also naturopathic MDs. The reason I'm going off on this tangent is today's guest is a cardiac surgeon. His name is Dr. Philip Ovadia, and he is the author of Stay Off My Operating Table, a heart surgeon's metabolic health guide to lose weight, prevent disease and feel your best every day. That's right. You heard it right. This is a board certified cardiac surgeon that wrote a book. That's a guide to how you can stay off of his operating table. I was so happy when Dr. Ovadia

reached out to me because I really, I'm so excited that more and more doctors are waking up and realizing the important role that our diet plays in our overall health. You know, in our standard conventional allopathic medical system, we still really don't recognize the role that diet plays in our health. But I'm seeing this more and more doctors are really starting to wake up and realize the role that our diets and our lifestyles play in our overall health. And sadly, it's because they're seeing so many of their patients that are walking through the door that are suffering immensely as a result of our poor diet and lifestyle choices. You know, anytime I talk about stuff like this, you know, there is personal accountability and we can absolutely do the best that we can to feed ourselves, nourish ourselves and eat healthy. But, you know, we're we're living in a country and a system that really doesn't help us out at all.

In fact, they make it incredibly hard for us to eat healthy and stay healthy in this country. There's accessibility issues, and really a lack of education and awareness around the importance and the role that our diets and our lifestyles play in our overall health. And this is why I get so excited about conversations like this. Because you know, at the end of the day, it all starts with awareness and education, because we can't change the things that we are unaware of. I find this conversation incredibly inspiring. Dr. Philip Ovadia, like I said earlier, is a board certified cardiac surgeon, and he is the founder of Ovadia Heart Health. He works to save patients with chronic heart conditions through open heart surgery, but his passion really lies in helping the public stay off his operating table.

He coaches his clients in optimizing their metabolic health to avoid heart issues and cure their diabetes. So we talk all about his story and how he was, in his words, morbidly obese, and he struggled through every diet imaginable to lose the weight. He has seen firsthand the failures of mainstream diets and standard medicine. He also realized that the medical system in America has no idea how to help people avoid some of the diets and standard medicine. He also realized that the medical system in America has no idea how to help people avoid some of the most preventable deaths. Seven of the top 11 causes of death in America are fully preventable, and most can be linked

back to our diet and lifestyle choices. So we dive into his story, we talk about how he lost the weight and he has kept it off ever since. We talk about what it means to be truly healthy. And more importantly, we talk about metabolic health and the information that helped him lose over a hundred pounds. And this information that he believes that could have prevented most of the thousands of open heart surgeries that he has performed. So now he's really on a mission to spread awareness and educate people on the importance of metabolic health and how to stay off the operating table. It's a really great conversation. I think you guys are really going to love this. With that, let's get into the episode, guys. Imagine having a metabolic coach in your pocket that you could access at any point, any time in the day,

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offers a 100-day trial with free shipping and returns. I'm not shy about controversy, so. Yes, neither am I. That's great. I'm always like, bring on the controversy because I'm just, I'm always in search of the truth. I just want to know what the truth is. And I feel like, and I'm sure you've found this as well, that especially in our medical system, we're being lied to a lot and we're being misled and we've made it really complicated and hard to figure out how to truly eat healthy and be healthy, which is, I'm sure it seems like what kind of brought you to this place. So before we dive into that, Dr. Ovadia, can you tell everyone what you do and what's your story? Like, how did you get into this and how did you come to the place that you're at now? Sure thing, Courtney. So I am a

heart surgeon, a cardiac surgeon. I've been in practice now for over 15 years and my personal and professional, you know, sort of background have come together to bring me where I am today. And it's certainly, you know, become a little bit of a nontraditional place that I find myself in for a heart surgeon. So, you know, going back to my childhood, I was always overweight. And that was despite the fact that my family, you know, ate in line with the U.S. dietary guidelines. I have an older brother who's a type 1 diabetic. And so we didn't have sugar in the house. We, you know, ate low fat foods, skim milk, margarine, the heart healthy, you know, no sugar cereals. And I was always overweight. And I was also very active as a child. You know,

I played sports years around. I walked, you know, almost everywhere, rode my bike. And so, you know, all the stuff that should have kept me healthy, and it clearly wasn't. And that continued to worsen as I went through college and medical school, and the difficult training that it takes to become a heart surgeon. I just found myself getting more and more overweight and more and more unhealthy. And I tried to lose weight many times. You know, I did what I was told to do, what I had learned in medical school. I ate less. I moved more. I tracked my calories. I ate a low-fat diet. And I would have some short-term successes, but I'm sure

many in your audience are familiar with, you end up gaining back the weight you lose and more. And about five years ago, I really realized that I was going to end up on my own operating table. I was morbidly obese at that point. I was pre-diabetic and I knew that I was headed down the same path that my patients, you know, all had taken. Thankfully, I came across some alternative information about, you know, weight loss and obesity at that time. I was fortunate enough to hear Gary Taub's talk at a medical conference. Gary, as you probably know, is a scientific journalist. He had written at that time, The Case Against Sugar and Why We Get Fat.

And for the first time in my life, I heard about that it may not be so much how much we're eating, but the types of food that we're eating that are influencing our health and our weight. And I immediately, you know, read Gary's books and went on, you know, first a low sugar diet and then a low carb diet, ultimately evolving to a carnivore diet. And over the past five years, I lost over a hundred pounds and have maintained that now for many years. More importantly, I think I started to realize that all of the patients I was taking care of as a heart surgeon did not get there

because of what I had learned was the cause of their heart disease. What I had learned was that cholesterol was the primary cause of heart disease. And in order to prevent heart disease, we needed to lower cholesterol. And again, the same low-fat dietary advice, you know, that I had been giving for years, because that's all I knew to do. I realized that there were a lot of flaws in all of that. And I have now come to realize that metabolic health is the key determinant of whether or not we develop heart disease and whether or not we develop many of the chronic diseases that we suffer from as a society these days. And, you know, with that new information, I am now on a mission to help people stay off my operating table. That's amazing. Well, I mean, so much so that you wrote a book that's coming out soon called Stay Off My Operating Table, right? A Heart Surgeon's Metabolic Health Guide to Lose Weight, Prevent Disease, and Feel Your Best Every Day.

So this is what really caught my eye because I was like, okay, here's a heart surgeon that's basically, it's like your livelihood, you know, to operate on people. And now you're trying to keep people off of your operating table. I mean, that's pretty incredible and really telling. So what have you found? Like what are, what would you say is driving heart disease and what really helped you to lose that weight? Yeah. So it's clear, you know, when you look at all of the evidence we have that metabolic disease, metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance, essentially, and we can talk about, you know, what that is in more detail, but this is the main driver of heart disease and most of the

other chronic diseases that we face today. When you look at things like diabetes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer's disease, many types of cancer, they are all attributable to poor metabolic health and insulin resistance. And so, you know, ultimately what I came to realize is obesity is a part of that. And again, we'll get into, you know, some of those details that it's not exactly the same. But metabolic health is ultimately at the root cause of most of the chronic diseases that we face. And if, you know, we want to start lowering the incidence, lowering the impact of these diseases, we need to start focusing on metabolic health.

Yeah, I mean, it's really interesting. I feel like this has been the forefront of conversations, a lot of conversations that I've been having recently, I think we're finally really waking up the waking up to, like you said, the importance of metabolic health. And for people listening that don't really understand what that means. Can you explain that a little bit? You know, it's blood sugar regulation, insulin, and why are we seeing such an incidence of metabolic dysfunction in this country? Yeah. So, you know, the basic definition of metabolic health that I like to explain to people is that when we are metabolically healthy, our bodies are properly utilizing the inputs we're giving it, mostly in the form of food. So when we eat, one of three things is supposed to happen to that food. Some of it gets converted immediately into energy to, you know,

fuel all of our activities, all of the little cellular activities that are going on within our bodies constantly. Some of it is used to build and rebuild the tissues. You know, our bodies are constantly turning over and being rebuilt. And then some of it is supposed to go into storage in case there are times when food, energy is not available to us. When we become metabolically unhealthy, what tends to happen is too much of that gets stored for future use, but we never tap into those stores. And because of the food environment we live in these days, because the fact that food

is always available to us, and because of the specific types of food that we are eating, we have gotten to a point where 88% of the adults in the United States are not metabolically healthy. And that is just a staggering statistic. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's sickening. You know, and I, right before we got on this call, I was looking at the American Heart Association's list of, you know, quote unquote, heart healthy foods. And I was horrified to see things like Cheerios,

they have margarine on there still. And I mean, this is what is, I think this is a large part of what is contributing to this confusion around what it truly means to be healthy, because someone's going to go to the grocery store and they're going to pick up, you know, this box of Cheerios and it has this little stamp saying like, oh, the American Heart Association says that this is healthy, so it's good for me. But what I don't think people realize is that this is a paid stamp that a company just pays money to have that on there. It's not any sort of indicator of health. I'm sure you have a lot of thoughts about this. Yeah, exactly. You know, the first thing to realize is that, you know, the American Heart Association turns out was actually at the forefront of all of this, of what led us down the path we're at.

But, you know, what happened was, you know, in the 1950s, roughly, you know, we were starting to see a rising incidence of heart disease in this country. And a theory was put forward that the fat that we eat in our diet, specifically the saturated fat that we eat in our diet, was causing that rising incidence of heart disease. And there was some science that was, you know, put, that was kind of put out there supporting this evidence or, you know, supporting this theory. it turns out that that science was very poorly done, bordering on or maybe fraudulent, depending on kind of what sources you believe. But either way, it was very poorly done. And what happened was, you know, we started down a path

where we started to believe because of the messaging from the American Heart Association and following that, the U.S. dietary guidelines came out that were based on the same evidence, the same theory that the saturated fat in our diet was causing obesity, heart disease, and all of these chronic problems. And here we are 50 years later, and we've built a whole system around this. So the food industry is, you know, geared towards producing these foods that are supposedly healthy for us. The American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association, all of these, you know, large organizations that, you know, play a part in educating doctors and setting the guidelines that doctors follow, they are all, you know, built on this theory that saturated fat is, you know, is harmful to us. And the reality is, is that the science does not support that. And the evidence to the contrary is now, you know, 50 years later that

we've had low fat foods, low fat diets, drugs to lower cholesterol, all of this. And yet we are still at a place, like I just said, that 88% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy and heart disease has been the number one killer of Americans and worldwide now for the past, you know, 30 plus years without any meaningful impact on that. So we need to take a step back at this point and say, we must have gotten something wrong and it's time to try something else. Yeah. I mean, it's so funny as you were saying that I was literally just about to say, at what point are we going to stop and recognize that what we're doing is failing? Not only is it failing, but we have a lot of unnecessary deaths happening. I mean, you mentioned this earlier, and I would love to talk about this. The seven of the top 11 causes of death in America are fully preventable. They're all based on lifestyle and diet, you know, changes that we could make. And it's so infuriating that we're in this position that we know that what we're doing is

wrong, but it almost feels like we're too far deep and too far in. There's a lot of money involved that it's really hard to turn this ship around. Yeah, that's exactly it. You know, there, like I said, there are lots of powerful forces now behind this, the food industry, the pharmaceutical industry, the whole healthcare industry is all built around taking care of unhealthy people. And we really have lost sight of the fact that we should be keeping people from being unhealthy in the first place. And there's very little, you know, talk about that in healthcare. I can tell you as a physician, you know, going through medical school and everything that I've done, you hear very little about preventing people from, you know, becoming unhealthy. It's given a little bit of lip service, you know,

and, you know, you always get sort of the advice from your doctor. Oh, you just need to eat healthier, you know, but they don't have meaningful, you know, recommendations to make behind that because they know that the recommendations that we have been making for 40 years, you know, eat less, move more, eat a low fat diet are not working. They do not work. And, you know, I saw it personally, and many other physicians see the same thing in themselves and in their patients, but they just don't know what else to do, because that is the only message they've ever heard. Do you want to hear the biggest discovery of our time for promoting healthy aging? Of course you do, because all of us are concerned about aging. There is a class of ingredients called senolytics that were discovered less than 10 years ago, and they are being called the biggest discovery of our time for promoting healthy aging and

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Astragalus, elderberry and propolis. These are all really great for overall immune health. If you wanna try the products that I talked about today or any of the Organifi products, go to organifi.com slash realfoodology and use code realfoodology for 20% off. Again, that's Organifi. It's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash realfoodology. Yeah. I mean, so how do you approach this with patients? And also, I mean, I don't know if this is a question that's like too prying, but how do you make your money then if you're now keeping people off your table? I mean,

you probably still operate a lot because we are very sick. But how do you Yeah, how do you kind of like advise your clients? What do you tell them to do to stay off your operating table? Yeah, so you know, I do continue to work as a heart surgeon. I continue to be very busy as a heart surgeon. You know, unfortunately, there is a nearly endless supply of patients that need those services. And I feel very blessed that I can help those people, you know, at that time that they need that.

But what I realize is no matter how good a heart surgeon I am, no matter how good all the other heart surgeons are, and, you know, the other cardiologists that take care of these patients are, we can never get that patient back to, you know, the place they were before they had heart disease. We make them temporarily better. And, you know, we do extend their life and we do, you know, help them to have a better quality of life, but we never get them as good as, as, you know, if we had prevented the heart disease in the first place. And the same goes for, you know, you could say the same for diabetes and, and, you know, all the other chronic conditions that we face. So I, you know, have this

new mission, have this new calling, I would say. Once I realized this information, once Iine practice that, you know, allows me to get to people before they develop the heart disease and, you know, teach them about metabolic health. Try and I, you know, I wrote the book, I get on these podcasts now, and I talk about this to try and get the information out to people what they need to know about metabolic health so that they can go to their physicians and say, you know, am I metabolically healthy? You know, are we doing these things? And, you know, what are we doing to prevent me from getting heart disease and diabetes and high blood pressure and Alzheimer's and all these other chronic diseases. Man, I mean, I just have to say I'm so grateful for doctors like you that are waking up to this, you know, because I think we have really conflated acute care with chronic disease management.

And what was once considered health care, I now consider sick care. And we're facing this problem, which you and many doctors are waking up to, is that for so long, you know, we were not focusing on preventative measures. And now we have all these very sick people that are dealing with chronic diseases. And now suddenly doctors are put in this position that they probably should have never been in the first place where now they're having to care for these chronic diseases. And we have doctors like you, thank God for acute care, you know, like, God forbid, I was to get into an accident or like, I had a heart attack, or, you know, like, thank God we have surgeons. But we're in this interesting place now where, where we're faced with, like, we're not, we're not teaching people how to be truly healthy. And we talked about this a little bit, but I want to know if there's more that you have to say about this.

How is the medical system complacent in keeping people unhealthy? Well, you know, the medical system is complacent because, you know, the medical system ultimately is a business. You know, we like to have this thought that it's, you know, some sort of altruistic entity that doesn't need to make money. But the reality is, is that hospitals need to make money. You know, doctors need to make money. And the way that they make their money these days, unfortunately, is taking care of sick people. There's no real reimbursement, you know, there's no real monetary incentive built into the system to keep people healthy and it's you know understand that i don't think that doctors are bad people

certainly no you know all doctors are trying their best uh but they are trapped in a system that just doesn't let them do this you know they are too busy because there are too many sick people to put in the effort that it takes, the time and the effort that it takes, you know, to talk to people about being healthy. The reality is, is that, you know, when someone comes to the office of their family doctor and they have high blood pressure, let's say, the doctor can take, you know, five minutes and write a prescription for a medication that's going to treat the high blood pressure. Or they can take, you know, my typical visits are about an hour and a half of explaining, you know, metabolic health and why it's related to the food that we can reverse your high blood pressure if you, you know, work on your metabolic health, if you eat the right foods, if you start exercising and, you know, reduce your stress and

get good sleep and get good sunlight, all of these things. But they're not a quick fix. You know, I don't have that five minute, you know, just do this thing and, you know, send them off. So, you know, the whole system is working against people being healthy. And, you know, send them off. So, you know, the whole system is working against people being healthy. And, you know, the other aspect of it is that we no longer even expect to be healthy. You know, when we look around us and 88% of us are unhealthy, the majority of people over 50 years old are taking not one medication, but multiple medications. And when you look all around you, you know, the average person just says, well, everyone else is, you know, taking medications and has diabetes and high blood pressure and all this. So I guess it's

normal. There's nothing I can do to prevent it. And that's another message that I'm trying to get out to people that it is not normal. It should not be normal to get sick as you get old.'s really sad because, um, like we keep saying, it really is, it's, it all comes back to our food. It all comes back to our food. And then a lack of, of education around what it truly means to be healthy. And I really believe that, um, a lot of people are just very confused. There's a lot of conflicting messages. There's a lot of stuff like we talked about the American Heart Association or, you know, the food pyramid that is total garbage. And we just don't really have any great guidelines for true health and what it really means because we haven't updated them in like 60 years. And there's also a lot of lobbying going on and there's just a lot of money in the food industry. So when you, when you talk with your

patients, what are some of your recommendations? Like what would you say maybe your top three things are that people can do to not end up on your table? Yeah, so number one is eat real food, eat whole real food, I tell people. So you want to eat the food that grows in the ground, and the things that eat the food that grows in the ground, animal products, plant products, and you want to eat them as close to their natural form as possible. So you need to eliminate processed foods. And, you know, there's, there's some debate that goes on in the, you know, sort of health community about, you know, is a vegan diet better? Is a carnivore diet better? Is it

sugar? Is it, you know, vegetable and seed oils? And the reality is, is it's probably some of, you know, all of that. But the commonality that you find, you know, and in my book, I don't actually give the Dr. Ovedia 28 day diet plan. But what I do do is I look at, you know, all the popular diets of the day, literally everything from vegan to carnivore, Atkins, keto, you know, Mediterranean, low carb. And, you know, what are the things that are common between them and what are the things that are metabolically healthy with them? And then what are the things that are in each of them that are not metabolically healthy. And, you know, the number one thing that comes out of it, whether you're vegan or carnivore, is eat whole real food. You know, so again, you can eat as much animal product as you want, or as much, you know, vegetable matter as you want.

But if you just stick to eating those, you're going to end up being healthy, and you need to eliminate the processed food. That is clear. You know, and again, it's amazing. You know, there has never been a scientific study showing that processed food is good for us. You know, processed food, when it, you know, basically first started coming out, you know, they did some tests. It doesn't kill you right away when you eat it. It's not poisonous. So it was said, okay, it must be safe. But, you know, every study that has looked at it, you know, processed food continually comes out as bad for our health. Yet when, you know, I start talking about just eat real whole food, you know, eat a carnivore diet or eat, you know, a, you know, a vegan diet that's all whole real food. People, you know, say, well, that's crazy. You know,

you can't eat like that, you know, and it's, it's just like, you know, the, the, they call it a fad diet. And the reality is, is that the standard American diet is the fad diet. You know, we were eating a largely carnivorous diet for 99.999% of our existence as humans. And in the past, you know, 100 to 150 years, we've introduced these processed foods. We've clearly, our health has worsened during that time. Yet, you know, we're at a point today where if you start to say eliminate the processed foods, you know, people tell you you're crazy, you're anti science, you know, you're going against the guidelines. You know what I find so funny about statements like that? When someone tells me that they think that it's too extreme to eat healthier and to make better lifestyle choices. I say, I think it's incredibly extreme

to have your chest cut open and your heart worked on, um, when you're in your sixties. And because we know that the majority, obviously there are people that are born with certain things and there are genetic defects. And of course, there are always going to be anomalies. But for the most part, we know that what is driving it is lifestyle and diet. And to me, that's extreme. And look, I don't say that to like shame anyone that's had to have heart surgery. Again, like I said this earlier, thank God we have access to that. But if we can avoid that in the first place, to me, I'm like, I will happily eat, you know, no processed foods and good, healthy, organic meats, whole real foods and vegetables and make sure that I eat really healthy so that I can avoid the extreme nature

of having heart surgery. Yeah, exactly. And you know, I get the same thing. People will say, oh, you eat such a, you know, it must be so hard to eat the way you do. And I say, no, it was hard being 100 pounds heavier than I was and constantly struggling and never feeling well and always being worried about what I eat. You know, I eat when I'm hungry, I eat foods that I enjoy. And I stay healthy, I feel, you know, better than I did 20 years ago, I have all the energy I need to, you know, get through my busy days, you know, play with my kids. And, you know, my life is much easier now than it was back when I was sick and overweight and unhealthy. Wow. I mean, it's really incredible. And we don't hear a lot of people talk about that. But that is a reality is that when you when you get healthier, and you know, if you're carrying extra weight, and you're able to lose that weight, the difference in how you feel in your body,

and the energy that you get and just overall the life changes. I feel like there's not a lot of conversation around that because it's almost like we're not allowed to talk about it now. And I think it's so important that you say that. Yeah. And, you know, people also, you know, don't understand that because all of the ways that they have been told to lose weight and improve their health in the past were hard. You know, just count, just cutting your calories and trying to eat a low calorie diet is very hard. You know, I did it. I had very short term success with it. And ultimately, it failed me many times. So I know that is hard. And I understand that people say, well, you know, dieting doesn't work, because they've gotten lousy advice in the past.

But, you know, what I try and get through to people now, what I hope comes through in the book is that, you know, the way that I am advocating for people to eat. Is easier because it is the way that our bodies, you know, were designed. We are truly feeding our bodies what they need, what they want. And therefore, it is not a struggle to eat this way. Can we dive a little into what you did that helped? How did you lose the weight? Yeah, so for me, like I said, it started, the first thing I did was I eliminated sugar. And of course, you know, that basically gets you to a low carbohydrate diet, you know, when you're eliminating all the processed sugar and the processed food

from your diet. You know, I went through phases where I did sort of the traditional keto and I was counting my macros and, you know, adding extra, you know, doing the bulletproof coffee and adding extra fat to everything. And then ultimately, about three and a half years ago, I came across the carnivore diet. And again, it sounded crazy to me at first. I heard Sean Baker talking about it with Joe Rogan. And I'm like, he's an orthopedic surgeon. And I'm like, this other doctor, he's crazy. But then I started to think about it. At that point, I was doing very low carb keto, I was probably eating less than, you know, 20 grams of carbs a day. And I said, you know, it do I really need that little handful of broccoli that

I'm eating every day? You know, can I eliminate it? And I said, You know what, I'll give it a try. And, you know, I said, I'll give it, you know, 90 days. And, and I noticed even more improvement when I did that. And so ultimately, now, three and a half years later, you know, that that remains sort of my baseline, that I, you know, am pretty much almost exclusively carnivore. But importantly, I don't tell all my patients that you have to be carnivore. You know, as I said, in my patients that you have to be carnivore. You know, as I said in my book, I talk about how you can do this as a vegan, you can do it as a carnivore, you can do it, you know, many different ways in between. What I tell people is you need to be metabolically healthy. So we need to look at your metabolic health markers and we need to find a way of eating that you are happy with is sustainable for you,

and is going to support your metabolic health. And like I said, whether that ends up being vegan carnivore or somewhere in between, you know, that that is my goal. And that's what I work with my patients on. That's amazing. Yeah, I mean, that I will say for me personally, getting my metabolic health in order and really making sure that my blood sugar plate stays pretty stable throughout the day was the biggest game changer for me. Cause I, you know, I've been in pursuit and kind of on this health journey for, I would say maybe the last like 12 years and it's taken me all, you know, done a lot of different avenues. I was vegetarian for a while. I was vegan for a very hot second pescatarian. Um, and then I ultimately went back to eating meat because vegetarianism really did not serve my

body. Talk about throwing my blood sugar out of balance. Wow. Um, it was not great because you, I mean, you think about it and unless if it's done very precisely, it's very, uh, carbohydrate heavy and all of this kind of comes back to sugar. And so when I found this balance in myself, I mean, it's really crazy. It's what you were just saying. Um, a second ago, I went from really struggling to, um, find any sort of energy. I was starving all day. I remember I would have to pack snacks with me everywhere I went because within like an hour and a half, my blood sugar would drop and I would just be starving. So I was eating literally all day. I was carrying extra weight around that I didn't, that didn't feel good on my body. I just didn't feel good. And I felt kind of inflamed. And, you know, now I'm at this place where I sometimes don't even eat lunch until like 1 p.m.

And then, you know, I'll eat dinner around like 6 or whenever I'm hungry. I'll sometimes have a snack. But food doesn't rule my life anymore. And it's become such a freedom for me. But then I still, I mean, I love food. And I really don't limit the things that I eat outside of. I just make sure that I get really good organic grass fed meats. If I do have carbohydrates, it's like a black rice or a fermented gluten free sourdough bread, something like that. And you know, vegetables, and I try really not to follow

any sort of diet outside of just making sure that I'm eating whole real foods. And I mean, it's a game changer how much it has changed my life. Yeah. And, you know, that that kind of brings up another of the principles that I outlay in my book that, you know, you need to look at your health as a system and not a goal. What I find, you know, another kind of mistake that we make too often is we're focused on those shortterm goals. You know, I want to lose 20 pounds. And you start restricting things with the goal of losing 20 pounds. And one of two things happens. You lose the 20 pounds and you're like, great, you know, now I can kind of go back to what I was doing. And invariably you end up gaining back to 20 pounds and usually more. Or you don't lose the 20 pounds and you get down on yourself and you're like, well, why bother? I can't, you know, I can't lose the 20 pounds and you get down on yourself and you're like, well, why bother? I can't, you know, I can't lose 20 pounds. I might as well just be,

you know, back doing what I was doing before. But when you look at your health as a system that I want to be metabolically healthy, and then I'm going to find the foods and the habits that support me being metabolically healthy, you know, that is a positive way to find the foods and the habits that support me being metabolically healthy. You know, that is a positive way to think you are doing the things that support your metabolic health. And, you know, like you said, I am eating the foods that support my metabolic health. I enjoy eating these foods. I know they are serving me well. And so it's not that I am not eating the other stuff. It's not that I'm stopping myself from eating processed food. It's just know that it's that I know that when I eat processed food, that's not supporting my metabolic health. It doesn't make me feel good. So why would I want to do that? And I think that's another key principle, you know, that we need to reframe how we think about all this. And when you get metabolically healthy, you're going to lose the weight if you need to lose the weight. You're going to get all these other outcomes you're looking for, feeling good and having the energy to make it through your

day. But, you know, just look at your health as a system and find what, you know, the habits that support your goals. Yeah, that's a really good, great point. And I was just, I was thinking as you were talking, I'm sure a lot of people are going to be listening, thinking, okay, well, how do I, how do I figure out what works best for me? And how do I get my place to a point of healthy, of, you know, of that like, sweet spot of metabolic health? What would you say? Yeah, so you need to know how to measure metabolic health is the first step in

that. And there are five measures that we look at for metabolic health. The first one is something you can measure at home, it's your waist circumference. So you take a tape measure, just above the level of your belly button, best to measure it first thing in the morning. And if you're a man, you want that to be less than 40 inches. If you're a woman, you want it to be less than 35 inches. Then you look at your blood pressure as our second metric. And again, you can measure this at home, you can go to any supermarket or drugstore, or you can go to your doctor's office and get it checked. But you want that to be less than 130 over 85. And that needs to be without taking any medications. If you are taking medications to lower your blood pressure, that is already a

sign that you are not metabolically healthy. And then there are three blood markers that we look at. We look at your fasting blood glucose level. So the amount of sugar that's in your blood when you haven't eaten for, you know, eight to 12 hours, and you want that to be less than 100. This is the United States common units, milligrams per deciliter. And again, that needs to be without medication. So if you're type two diabetic and you're on medication to lower your blood sugar, you are not metabolically healthy. And finally, we look at the cholesterol numbers. But interestingly, we don't look at the one cholesterol number that every doctor focuses

on, the LDL or the bad cholesterol number. It is not a measure of metabolic health. We look at the other two common cholesterol numbers on your cholesterol or your lipid panel. We look at the HDL cholesterol, which is usually called the good cholesterol. You want that to be higher. The higher, the better. Specifically, if you're female, you want that to be over 50. And if you're male, you want that to be over 40. And then finally, we look at the triglyceride level, and you want that to be less than 150. So those five measures are the key metrics to be tracking. If three or more of those are abnormal, you have what we call metabolic syndrome. And it means that you are at very high risk of developing all those chronic diseases that we talked about. Diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease. Yep. If you have one or two of those abnormal, that is a warning sign because we know that people who have one or two abnormal are highly likely to go on to, you know, have three or more abnormal. So, you know, use that as, use those as your

metrics to gauge what you're doing and is it improving or not? And ultimately, you know, it does take some experimentation. You know, there is no one right diet for everyone. And even for each individual, what's right is going to change over time. So you know, it takes a little bit, you just have to be invested in it, you have to be making that intentional effort to change your health. Yeah. And I'll say for people listening, there's there are a couple tips that have really helped me. The first one was dropping sugar. And you said this as well, that really, when I became aware of how much sugar is in everything and I started cutting it out in my life and, you know, very slowly because sugar is hard. Sugar is really addicting. And I, I mean, I'm a, I'm a recovering sugar addict. I used to have to have candy every single day and I do not eat like

that anymore, but it took me time. And you know, the first thing for me was realizing that there was so much sugar and things that didn't need to be in there. So like my ketchup, for example, now I buy unsweetened ketchup. I buy unsweetened coconut milk. So like my non-dairy milks don't have sugar in them. Um, my peanut butter, like there's little things there that sugar kind of sneaks in. And I always say like, I like to save my sugar for where it really counts. So I try to keep my sugar down as low as possible throughout the entire day, which means I'm really not eating any sort of like packaged stuff. And if it is, it's like, you know, an organic food bar that's, you know, sweetened with monk fruit. So there's no sugar in

it. And then if I really want to treat, like, let's say I want a cookie or something, you know, and I, I usually make them at home with organic ingredients, then that's my sugar for the day, you know, and I didn't waste it on like salad dressing and ketchup earlier in the day. So that's the one thing that really helped me. And then also starting to eat more good, healthy fats. And I want to hear from you as a cardiac surgeon, how do you feel about good, healthy fats? Yeah, I think that good,

healthy fats are exactly that. But I think we've gotten it completely wrong about what are the good, healthy fats. I think the saturated fats that are, you know, mostly in animal products that we evolved eating as humans is what is healthy for us. And you're right, you know, if you're going to eliminate sugar, which I think is a great step, you need an energy source. And you know, fat is the other choice for that, basically. So you know, it's important to eat enough fat, you know, what I tell people is my overall dietary strategy, you know, we said eat whole real food, and then you want to prioritize protein. So you need to make sure you're getting enough protein in your day. And largely, we don't get enough protein anymore.

It's another food that's been vilified, another food category, I'll say, that has been vilified. But you need to get enough protein. And my general rule for most people is you want one gram of protein per pound of body weight. So, you know, that comes out to a lot more protein than most people eat. And then the fat that comes with that protein, you know, I think should be mostly natural fats. So in your animal products, you're going to have fat. In some of your vegetable products, you're going to have fat like avocados, for instance. But it needs to be the unprocessed fats. The vegetable, and I put vegetable in quotes all the time because they

really don't come from vegetables, but the vegetable and seed oils, these highly processed fake fats, are, in my opinion, the primary thing that has damaged our metabolic health. Our bodies simply do not know what to do with these things. They are completely foreign. We did not evolve eating them. They were only introduced to our food supply, you know, recently. And so you need to eliminate them. And that they are literally in every processed food you buy. Anything that comes in a box or a bag, it is, you know, you're going

to find some vegetable or seed oil in there. You know, these are your canola oil, your sunflower oil, your safflower oil, your peanut oil, you know, all of these things. So the only non animal fats that I think people should be consuming are coconut oil, avocado oil, and olive oil. Those are actually fruit oils. So they, you know, they take a lot less processing to, to get them out of the fruit. And the only, you know, warning sign there is that much of the olive oil and the avocado oil we get in the United States is not real olive oil and avocado oil. It's cut with these vegetable and seed oils because that increases the profit margin for the food companies. Makes me so mad. And this is not even a conspiracy. I've seen a segment on 60 Minutes about it, that they cut canola oil with olive oil. It's like a real problem. debate, the whole saturated fat debate gets very interesting when you point out to people that coconut oil is pretty much universally agreed upon to be a healthy, you know, fat for people to

consume. Yet coconut oil contains more saturated fat than any animal fat. Coconut oil is actually just about the highest saturated fat, you know, oil or fat that you can buy. And yet we say that coconut oil is healthy, yet saturated fat is unhealthy. So it's just another thing that makes no sense. And but, you know, again, I agree with you. I think people, you know, shouldn't be afraid of eating fat. Eating fat is not what makes us fat. Eating sugar, you know, and processed food is what makes us fat. Eating sugar and processed food is what makes us fat. So don't be fearful of eating animal fats. You don't have to be trimming all of the fat off of your steaks. You shouldn't be limiting yourself to chicken breasts and lean fish.

Our bodies need fat. And so don't be afraid of it. Yeah, I mean, Our bodies need fat. And so don't be afraid of it. Yeah, I mean, our brains need fat, you know, for cognitive function. And what's so interesting is that, you know, I remember growing up our, you know, our parents generation were taught to cut off the fat off their steaks. And I think I look back on that now. And I'm like, no, that was like the worst advice ever. Because if you're getting a good, this is actually really important for people to know. You want to eat that fat if you're eating it from a really good high quality meat. So if it's an organic grass fed, like pasture raised steak, then yes, you want that fat. Because the

problem is that if you are eating a conventionally raised animal, you do not want to want that fat. Because the problem is that if you are eating a conventionally raised animal, you do not want to eat that fat because guess what? They were making that fat with very low omegas and usually their omega sixes are going to be higher than the omega threes. And that's usually because of what they are being fed in the feedlots. So, and it's interesting, they've done studies on this, that the, the fat that an animal creates when it's healthy versus when it's unhealthy, well, guess what? It's going to be unhealthy for us too. And think about when we have factory farmed conventional animals and they're in these feedlots, they're being injected with growth hormones. They are being fed genetically modified corn and soy, which their

stomachs are not designed to eat. They're designed to eat grass. They're meant to be outside grazing in pastures in the sun where they can, you know, synthesize vitamin D. And my point in all this is that your meat is only going to be as healthy as what it ate and its lifestyle. You know, I was going to say controversy, but it's not really controversial. But, you know, ruminant animals like cows and bison can actually convert polyunsaturated fats in their diet to saturated fat. So when you look at, you know, and it turns out that even the factory farmed, you know, cows, and I am no way supporting factory farming, I think it is a horrible way to raise animals. But, you know, even the traditionally raised factory farmed, you know, cows, the reality is, is that they are grass fed for most of their life. They're only grain finished for the path for the last few months of their lives. They're fed grains. And the reason they're done that is because they know that grains make them fatten them up, you know. so why do we think they have any different effect on humans but you know the magic the magic of

ruminant animals and again this is largely what we evolved eating as humans is that they can convert those you know the corn and the soy that might be in their feed to saturated fat. So the difference, you know, in the saturated versus, you know, unsaturated fat levels in their fat, and it gets a little confusing because we're always, we're talking about different types of fats, but those differences are actually fairly small. For non-ruminant animals though, pigs, chicken, you do need to be very careful about that. Because if they are fed a lousy diet, it is going to end up as you know, very poor quality fat that you're getting, you know, with that meat. Yeah, that's really interesting. I want to look more into that. Because if I'm being honest, I've actually never heard that perspective before. I have heard that,

yeah, when you when you consume a grass finished animal, they are just going to be leaner. But I was told that that was, I mean, that's just because they're literally, they're not injecting them with the hormones to fatten them up. And then they're not doing the feeding at the very end to fatten them up to, you know, send them to slaughter quicker. So yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense. I just read that from a inflammatory perspective that if you are consuming those grass or the grain finished animals, it's not going to be as good for us because what happens, like I said, is it causes the omega sixes to be higher in the fat than the omega threes. You want that ratio to be the opposite. You want the omega threes to be higher

than the omega sixes. Otherwise it leads to inflammation in the body. Yeah, that is exactly true. But the majority of the omega-6s that we get in our diet these days come from the vegetable and the seed oils and the processed foods. So, you know, ultimately what I tell people is that, you know, eating meat instead of processed food is always going to be better, even if it's not the best quality meat. And sometimes the reality is that high quality meat can be expensive. And so sometimes people can't afford that. But I would rather have them eating low quality meat than more processed food. Absolutely. So I you know, I think that's an important message to get across to people. Yeah, that's a great message. And I'm so glad that you bring

that up because I really try to make this as accessible for people as possible, you know, and I'm so glad that you have really hammered in the thing about processed foods because that I believe personally that the reason that we are in this mess, metabolically sick, unhealthy nation, is because of our consumption of sugar and our consumption of processed foods. Because you think about these processed foods are genetically engineered to be more highly palatable. They are literally engineered to be more addictive. So that, I mean, think about all the times that, I mean, I can speak for myself of like opening a bag of chips and just literally physically feeling like I can't stop eating and I will eat the whole bag. Yeah, no one has ever I don't think ever like

binged on wild caught salmon or you know, a grass fed steak like it. You don't feel this same like, ah, like addiction, like I can't put the bag down. It's like, I can put the steak down. I'm full, you know? Yeah. Well, you've never been to a Brazilian steakhouse with me, but fair enough. No, but yeah, you're exactly right. You know, um, the food companies hire, um, food scientists, they're called, it's a, you know, job description, uh, to specifically figure out, you know, the combination of ingredients that is going to make you eat more food. And again, you know, we can kind of get conspiratorial, but the bottom line is that food companies, you know, their mission is to make more money. You know, they are like any other industry. And the way to make more money is to get people to eat more food and to, you know, have that food be as profitable as possible for the food company.

And that turns out that, you know, these processed foods serve both of those purposes. Because the processed foods are so devoid of the nutrients that our body needs. You know, our body ultimately doesn't sense calories. It doesn't, you know, really sense how much we eat. Our bodies are looking for the nutrients, you know, the vitamins, the minerals that we need to survive. So if you're eating these processed foods that are devoid of those, your body's going to keep telling you you're hungry, you're hungry, you're hungry. And that's, you know, and that's exactly what the food company counts upon. So how do we get out of this mess? I mean, how do we how do we turn this

ship around? Yeah, you know, ultimately, it's going to take a long time to change the system. You know, I am hopeful that that is going to occur. You know, there are more and more doctors like myself who are waking up to this. You know, other activists and journalists and, you know, you hear about this more and more. And that's great. But in the meantime, you know, my mission is to get to as many individuals as possible. You know, ultimately not worry about what the system is telling us to do. Because if you follow the advice from the system, you're going to get the same results that everyone else is getting from the system. And again, that's 88% of us are unhealthy.

So, you know, ultimately, you know, through the book and, you know, appearing on podcasts and all the other efforts that I'm doing. And quite frankly, more and more physicians that I interact with, that I talked with are doing as well. We need to get to the individuals. And when enough individuals are changing what they are doing, the system is going to respond to that. If the food companies see that no one is buying processed food anymore, they're going to stop making processed food. They're going to figure out how to make profits off all the other stuff, you know, and that will probably lead to other problems. But we'll deal with that. I guess we deal with those.

But ultimately, I think, you know, each individual has the power within themselves to make these changes. And hopefully, you know, when they get the right information, they're going to, you know, make the changes that they need to make. Yeah, it's so empowering. I mean, this is why I find conversations like this so empowering, because we were not completely helpless, we there's a lot that we're in control of. And there's a lot that we can do, you know, and it really starts with us. And, you know, no one is going to come and save you, even your own doctor. Ultimately, it comes down to an individual personal choice to start making better food

choices. And that doesn't mean that it's going to be easy in the beginning, you know, but I will say I speak from personal experience, someone that, um like I said earlier, I was very, very addicted to sugar and was eating Taco Bell. And, you know, I was really like not healthy in college, but I don't even find myself craving that stuff anymore. And, and that's really a genuine, honest statement. I just, you, when you start eating healthier and more whole real foods, your body, your palate changes and your body craves those foods. So then you, yeah, you just find yourself wanting it. Like I, I feel like I eat the most, the wide variety of foods that I absolutely love. I'm not like choking back,

like weird green smoothies and stuff. I'm eating meals that I genuinely love and enjoy. And I think that's a really important part of this message for people to understand too. And hopefully I'm assuming you feel the same way where it's like, I love everything I eat. I'm not, you know, I'm eating things that make me happy. Yeah, that's definitely true. And like I said, you know, I eat when I'm hungry. I eat until I'm full and I enjoy all of the food that I eat these days. And even more importantly, I enjoy how that food allows me to feel. Yeah, that's a great point.

So is there anything that we haven't covered in this podcast that you think it's really important for people to know? Well, I just, again, I think it's important to, you know, understand what metabolic health is. Take that information to your physician and say, you know, what, you know, look at these five measures, you know, have we measured these things? You know, how do they look? And, and quite frankly, if they just kind of give you that blank stare, they're like, I don't, you know, I don't know what metabolic health is. I don't know what you're talking about. You know, you may want to consider whether you need another partner in your journey, you know, whether it's a physician or another healthcare practitioner, you know, or just finding the community, you know, that's all around these days to help you get through this.

And then just, you know, don't accept that you need to be unhealthy. If they, if the only message you're getting from your physicians and the people around you is, you know, just just accept that you're unhealthy. You need to not accept that and you need to find the information that's going to allow you to get healthy. I love that so much. You know, you reminded me of something that I wanted to mention quickly for people that have the ability and have the access to this, I want to also be sensitive because I know not everyone has access to this, but there is this new movement of these continuous glucose monitors. Have you seen those? Yeah, I use them frequently with my patients.

That's amazing. So I actually, I used one for, uh, for almost two months and I have to tell you, it was really helpful. And for anyone listening that doesn't know what that is, it's a little monitor that you stick on the back of your arm and it connects to an app on your phone. And what it does is it monitors your glucose levels throughout the entire day. And, um, and also while you're sleeping. So 24 hours. And what happens is over time, you're able to see, uh, what foods you're eating are spiking your blood glucose levels and what foods you're eating are spiking your blood glucose levels and what foods you're eating that are really helping to kind of maintain a more steady glucose level. And that's really what you want. If you're able to, and you have access to that,

I highly recommend it. But like I said, I want to be sensitive because I have had conversations with people that are type one and type two diabetic that have a hard time getting it through insurance. So I know that there is kind of this like struggle right now with them. But if you're able to get one, I really highly recommend it. It helped me see a lot of things in my diet that were really causing my blood sugar to spike. Yeah, and I use them with all of my patients. I think they are a great tool. You know, and unfortunately, again, you know, the medical community has sort of pushed back against them some, you know, they say if you're not diabetic, you don't need it. And that's simply not true. You know, one of the other things that

we didn't really get to talk about is that, you know, metabolic health or, you know, the lack of metabolic health, metabolic disease can be seen if you're looking at the right measurements, you know, up to 10 years before you get diabetic, before you get, you know, high blood pressure. So a thing like a continuous glucose monitor is a great tool to show you, you know, whether or not you're metabolically healthy because if your sugar level is spiking every time you eat, and it's going up and down and up and down throughout the day, that is a sign that you're not metabolically healthy. So we need to get tools like that, you know, more in the hands of people. And it is unfortunate that they can be a little difficult to obtain. Like I said, I use them with all my

patients. I get them for all my patients. There are some other companies that are coming out that are trying to get them in the hands of more and more people. And, you know, there are even rumors, you know, that, you know, Apple is trying to build it into, you know, the Apple Watch. But I think that would be if I could have one tool that we could give to everyone to use to get them metabolically healthy, I think the continuous glucose monitor is it because it shows you in real time, you know, how you respond to the foods you're eating. And I think lots of people would, you know, benefit, it would be a lot easier for them to make those changes. If they had that real time feedback. Absolutely. I mean, I wish this is something that insurance

would cover for everyone. And it was just kind of considered standard care for everyone, you know, because think about all the insight that we get from that and how much it could help people. Because if you can see in real time, the foods that are affecting you, then you're going to start being able to make the correlation between like, oh, when I eat that my blood sugar goes up and then I crash and then I don't feel good. I lose energy. And it just kind of helps you get a step closer to making that true connection of, you know, of, of what our food is actually doing to our bodies. And it's unfortunate that it's, it's been so hard and I'm, I'm hoping that it will become more and more accessible and,

uh, yeah. And more and more people will be doing it just to try to figure out, cause you brought up a really great point. Most of the time, not even most time, always you see markers along the way. It doesn't, it's not like someone just, you know, shockingly all of a sudden wakes up one day and they're, they have diabetes type two, you know, there are markers along the way that show you, and if you can get ahead of it, then you can prevent that diagnosis altogether and bring back your metabolic health. Yeah, exactly.

And that's why I always stress to people the importance of starting to pay attention to the metrics that I laid out, and there are other ones, but start to pay attention to your metabolic health, the earlier, the better. It's never too late to change it, by the way, because even, you know, I now talk to my patients, you know, after they have the heart surgery, and I explain this all to them, and I say, you know, it's not too late, you know, we can't undo the damage that's been done, you've had, you needed the surgery, you know, it's not too late. You know, we can't undo the damage that's been done. You've had, you, you needed the surgery. We, you know, you've had the surgery, but we can still improve the path moving forward. Uh, so it's never too late. I've, I've worked with people in their seventies and their eighties, uh, who have improved their metabolic health, reversed, you know, chronic

conditions, you know, feel, feel better, have a higher quality of life, are able to interact with their grandchildren better, all of those things. But you know, the earlier you start, the better. Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, it's so makes me so happy to hear that you're able to, yeah, you're able to work with people, even after heart surgery, and just to hear stories like that, you know, like the and I think it's really empowering for people to hear stories like that, you know, like the, and I think it's really, um, empowering for people to hear that it's never too late. You know, we, we, it's funny how our, our bodies are very resilient and I don't even think we give ourselves enough credit. You know, I mean, we can, we really, we, we treat our bodies not that great, you know, um, just in modern society. And it's pretty

amazing to see how quickly we can bounce back when we give it the right tools and the right food and the right nutrients. We just take care of ourselves. Yeah, that's, you know, largely true. You know, if we just stop damaging our bodies, our bodies have an amazing ability to, you know, heal themselves to get us to the right place. We just need to stop actively, you know, getting in the way of that with the foods that we're eating and, you know, with the other lifestyle problems that, you know, are common in our society these days. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so I want to ask you a question that I ask everyone at the end of the podcast. What are your health non-negotiables? I can imagine as a surgeon, you are really busy, You probably have a lot on

your plate, but what are things that you do either every single day or on a weekly basis that you make sure that you get in no matter what that prioritize your health? Yeah. So I would say, you know, number one, like we talked about is the eating whole real food. Uh, and you know, that is to the point that if I'm in a situation where there is not whole real food available, I'm just not going to eat, you know, and that's one of the other sort of powers that comes with being metabolically healthy is that you can fast, you can, you know, spend some, you can spend some time not eating. And then I think it is important to move a lot throughout your day.

You know, I don't necessarily do a, you know, a dedicated exercise session every day, but I'm always trying to move whenever possible. So, you know, people might notice I'm standing up for this podcast. I use a standup desk whenever I can. I take the stairs instead of the elevator whenever possible. You know, I always try and get, you know,

walks in with my family, you know, I always try and get, you know, walks in with my family, you know, after we eat, just things like that, moving more throughout the day and eating whole real food. And that those are probably the two biggest things that allow me to live the healthy life that I want. I love that those are top on my list as well. So for everyone listening, where can they find you? And when is your book coming out? Yeah, so the book is being released November 11. It's going to be on Amazon, you know, Barnes and Noble, all the major online sellers, it is a print version, ebook, Kindle version and an audiobook. And it's called stay off my operating table. It should be up for pre-sale by the time

this releases. The website OvadiaHeartHealth.com has kind of all the information on, you know, my practice, my blog posts, my podcast appearances, and I have now also launched the Stronger Hearts Society. So if you go to strongerhearts.co, that is an online community. We have twice weekly, you know, Zoom calls that we talk about all these principles of metabolic health. We, you know, and answer individual questions about it. And so that's a great way for, you know, that I'm trying to, again, extend the reach. I can only work with so many people one on one. But the society is allowing me to work with, you know, larger groups of people.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for this conversation. It was great to have you on. All right. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you. Thanks for listening to today's episode of the real foodology podcast if you liked this episode please leave a review in your podcast app to let me know this is a resident media production

produced by drake peterson and edited by chris mccone the theme song is called heaven by the amazing singer georgie spelled with a j love you guys so much see you next week the content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only it is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider patient relationship i am a nutritionist but i am not your nutritionist as always talk to your doctor or your health team first you