The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – The Chef’s Recovery by Chuck Hayworth, Tanya Stockton

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

The Chef’s Recovery by Chuck Hayworth, Tanya Stockton https://www.amazon.com/Chefs-Recovery-Chuck-Hayworth/dp/0989635945 Realmedicalmeals.com In his early twenties, while pursuing a career as a chef, Chuck Hayworth was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Years of painful and slow recovery motivated Chuck to find a better way to fight his disease. Combining his knowledge of the culinary arts with a strong will to succeed, Chuck was able to fully heal his stomach. In sharing his triumphant and cancer-fighting recipes, Chef Chuck hopes to help many others win their fight against cancer.

You wanted the best... You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready, get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

Because you're about to go on a monster education role. roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hello, this Voss here from the Chris Foss Show.com. Ladies, gentlemen there, and the Iron Lainty Sings that makes official welcome to the big show. As always, for 16 years. Count them.

Man, my back is hurting now. I can't feel my legs. 16 years and 2,800 episodes, we bring in the Chris Voss show with 48 new shows a month, with one of the oldest still regularly broadcasting podcast. It exists. It's like a handful of it. us left. And I don't think anybody puts out the numbers we do. So anyway, guys, that's my plea.

That's my beg. That's my ask. Please, for the love of God, I'm on my knees. Or further show of your failing friends and relatives. Go to Goodrease.com, Forteous, Christch, Christfuss, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Christchisvast, YouTube.com, Fortress, Christfuss, and all the other places we're on the internet. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Christfoss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's on endorsement or review of any kind. Today we're doing amazing young man on the show. We're going to be talking about his amazing journey and story of survival, cancer, overcoming cancer, and how to

eat better, how to treat your life better, your body better. And as you guys probably know, over the years, I've been on a similar journey of health. And this guy's right up the alley and prove positive that stop eating McDonald's, folks. At least, you know, I don't know, you can do one day every few months or a quarter or something I say. Anyway, guys, this amazing young man, his book is entitled The Chef's Recovery, January 27, 2014 by Chuck Hayworth. We're going to get into with him, talk about his journey and some of the things you can learn from him. And this is an important thing to learn, guys, because it's changed my life and it's made my body so much more happier and enjoyable. And we actually get along now, me and my body.

It's kind of cool. Chuck Hayworth is a medical meal strategist, private chef, and the founder of real medical meals and culinary wellness collective. With over 20 years of culinary experience, he specializes in turning complex medical diets into chef-crafted meals that support real health outcomes. A 25-year cancer survivor, wow. Chuck brings both professional expertise and lived experience to his work, helping individuals and families use food, as a tool to recover performance and longevity. His mission is simple. Prove that food can either accelerate or decline or defend life.

Welcome to the show. How are you, Chuck? I'm great. Thank you, Chris. It's great to be here with you and your viewers. And congratulations on that longevity of the show as well. That's huge for you. You know, I guess so, I don't know.

We've done one or two of these shows. Just a few. Give us a dot-coms where you want people to find you on the internet web. sir. You can find me at realmedicalmeals.com, realmedicalmeals.com, and then you can send me a message directly from there that will come straight to my phone and you'll be able to get in touch with me right away. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's in your book? It curtails my entire journey. It tells, it talks about the importance of individualizing and having people that are caregivers and loved ones by your side as you go through your journey with something like what I went through,

which was a rare cancer diagnosis. I had a gastrointestinal stromal tumor, which was the size of a large grapefruit found in my stomach in the early 2000s. How old were you at that time? I was 22 years of age. So that's like something you normally have at that age, right? No, not at all. In fact, it was a very rare type of cancer then,

even more rare than it is now. They say of the types of rare cancers that there are in the world, the different varieties of cancers there are in the world. It's something like 0.003% of the population of diagnosed individuals with cancers. And that was early 2000 statistics. It's even more rare now. But yeah. And so the chef's recovery curtails my entire journey, how I was working as a food service

professional, you know, living that unhealthy 14-hour-day lifestyle without really eating healthy with eating a lot of inflammatory ingredients and things high in sugar, saturated fats, things like that that led to my cancer diagnosis. And it curtails my journey from liquid diet all the way back up to lean solid proteins and everything in between. I share little tidbits in the book about recipes and things like that that that I wrote in 2014 when I wrote the book, I wrote these recipes with the ingredients that were easily found in the neighborhood supermarket and farmers markets in most communities around the U.S. I've had people speaking of around the U.S. the Amazon platform was really good for me to release this book because it actually helped me be

able to find a global audience for this type of cancer, which was really amazing for me, Chris, because I was able to release the book on Amazon and people from all over the world and all over the country, all over Europe, all over the United States, North America, South America, and, of course, you know, Asia, we're reaching out in Australia, reaching out in New Zealand, reaching out, telling me that, hey, this book has really made an impact in their lives. It's really been amazing. Yeah. And one of the things you focus on is the anti-inflammation sort of food.

You know, there's, we've talked a lot about this and had a lot of people on that talk, you know, we talk about gut health and anti-inflammation. And, you know, we've had pediatricians on that have been, I mean, they're not quacks. These aren't conspiracy theories. Exactly. around for 20 or 30 years. And some of them actually found that gut health inflammation leads to brain inflammation because there's, I guess, a sensory system that goes up to the brain. Yeah, it's a neural system. I'm actually studying that currently as a PhD candidate in naturopathic medicine where

it's actually a gut mucal barrier in your gut microbiome that affects your neural system and your entire cardiovascular system, your neural system. There's really, and of course, digestive system, there's really no system in your body that isn't affected by your gut microbiome. That's exactly right. Yeah. Yeah. I spent a lot of years, I spent a lot of years putting rot gut foods from the road in my stomach. So, yeah, that rock gut experience is never fun when you.

Oh, yeah. Never easy. Never easy. You know, but here's the thing, though. There's a lot of people that are out there that are affected differently by the food that we, you know, they know what to look for. there's a lot more opportunity and variety, say, in your neighborhood truck stop that there didn't used to be. I was on the road last week and actually saw potato chips fried in avocado oil and,

and, you know, things fried in coconut oil. And I went, wow, this is, this is different for a, you know, for a truck stop to have these kinds of snacks, whereas it used to be just seed oils in the cheapest possible oils you could find in those snacks. So there are healthy opportunities out there for the road snacks as well. Yeah. You know, so how did you discover through your journey of, I'm assuming it was during your cancer that you discussed journey of healthy food and stuff like that, map us out a little bit deeper on, you know, what was the aha moment that put you into food and where were you at in that cancer journey? You know, the, you know, a few decades ago when I was diagnosed, you know, it was the Wild Wild West. We didn't really have the research on gut health that

we have now on hydration, on all different kinds of foods, the dirty dozen, et cetera. When you look at the different types of foods and what's clean to eat traditionally grown versus organically grown, things like that. So it really was the Wild Wild West. It really came down to, for me, came down to really taking a look at everything and going, okay, what can my body tolerate? I had a good portion of my digestive system removed surgically. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I had to do. to learn to really eat solid food all over again, Chris. It was an amazing, and that's mentioned in the book as well that I had to learn to eat solid food over again. So I started on a liquid diet, and I

started with things like bone broths and ferments like miso and other types of broths that helped fortify my gut, what was left of my large intestine's gut microbiome. And then over time, as we know, our organs in our digestive system are muscles. So I had about a third of my stomach removed. And so my stomach had to learn to regrow again. Really, I had to learn to digest food all over again. And it really was a dangerous journey because I wanted to return to things that 20-year-olds eat, you know, 20 and 22 years. You know, I wanted to return to your pizza and pasta and burgers and fries and all that great food that you can have in your 20s because you're immortal in your 20s. And I couldn't do that.

And then holding down a career in food service was difficult, too, because those were the types of meals that were available to people like me. You know, when you worked those long hours. Oh, absolutely. You talked about being on the road and road food. It's the same thing there, you know, for the truckers that are out there and folks that love show and watch the show mobily. I mean, it's, you know, it's a difficult lifestyle, you know, and you have to eat when you can, you know, and sometimes the healthy food is not available for you. But I had to learn the hard way. And that hard way was when I was, when I first woke up from the surgery and I realized life will never be the same.

I've just, I've just had a cancerous tumor removed from my digestive track. And I've just, the surgeon described it as square peg, round hole your digestive system. And I went, yeah, that's pretty much that that's the expression I still use today is that, you know, most of my digestive tract was destroyed by this cancer. and so I had to learn once again how to do this. And part of how I've learned to heal my body, heal the cells in my body, heal my digestive track. We talked a little bit pre-show about fasting. That's been a huge part. And of course, broths and liquid diet, as I touched on just a few minutes ago, that's been a big part of it.

And I don't necessarily promote enough the plant-based aspects of my healing that I did give my digestive track a little break from meat. did have a plant-based lifestyle that I was living for about three years because I could not digest, Chris, any form non-liquid of meat at all. Meat or any type of meat protein, poultry protein, any of that. The only thing I could really tolerate was broth. And as we know, the bone broth helps to stimulate the mucal barrier in the gut microbiome and begins to heal. It begins to heal your body from the inside out. Broth were a particularly important part of my healing. But yeah, I mean, It's taken me, by the time I got to about year 10, I was on my 10th year of healing, I was able to incorporate meat proteins and fish proteins, lean meat proteins, lean fish proteins,

pasture-raised meats. You and I talk pre-show about local food and the local infrastructure. I'm here in North Carolina, and I started purchasing from local farmers markets, foods and produce items and meats and proteins and fish from the coast that was here locally from North Carolina. And that's part of how I've been able to heal my body from this rare stomach cancer over the multiple decades that I've been able to do that. And that's one of the things you advocate buying your food locally and farm related. Is that correct? Absolutely. I really was one of the early chefs here in North Carolina really pushing the local movement, the local food

movement. You know, back when when everything was still quasi-industrialized in the 90s and early 2000s. I was really teaching a lot of chefs and a lot of families how to where their local farmers market was, number one. And number two, how to bulk purchase different proteins so that they're continuing to keep that money and that infrastructure in their, in their agricultural infrastructure, in their communities going. So it's really been a joy of my life to visit local farmers markets on Saturdays and Wednesdays and really help support these small family businesses. Yeah. I can really second to the motion and advocate for what you're talking about. My audience has heard over the years, multiple people we've had on that talked about gut health like we're talking about today and validated it,

you know, inflammation of the brain. There was a couple people that were on that had been pediatricians for 20, 30 years, and they'd found they could lower autism, the autism experience. Let's put it that way. Sometimes, in some cases, they claim they cured it, but it was still latent, but, you know, a lot of it, was diet related. And they found that some of the autism or some of the things that will acerbate autism and make it worse in conditions and experiences is gut health. Absolutely. Absolutely. If you're putting rock gut into your gut, it's going to give your brain, it's going to give your second brain, they call it. Yep, the gut microbiome. That's exactly right.

It's going to make it inflamed. And then when that's inflamed, it sends signals to your brain then inflame your brain and say, hey, stupid, probably quit putting this crap in our system. What are you doing? What am I like a trash compactor? Absolutely. Absolutely. And you'd be surprised. I think Americans want to eat healthy. They just need a little guidance to how to eat healthy. And in extreme cases, as I mentioned earlier, I got started as a private chef with everything that I do. I started as a cancer patient myself and working with my fellow cancer patients and their caregivers. That snowballed into people. people that have been diagnosed with autoimmune disease and diabetes and other types of diseases

over the years to where this has become medical meal specialists is really what my specialty is in the culinary world of things. I can provide you an anti-inflammatory meal that tastes very similar to something that you'd have in a restaurant that in a fine dining restaurant or even a casual quick service restaurant in the case of a lot of the families that I work with that's anti-inflammatory ingredients help your gut microbiome not hinder it as some of the other inflammatory ingredients from restaurants do. So it's been a lifelong, really the second half of my life now has been all about introducing families to these ingredients. Yeah. You know, I really should keep some props around the house because of what the salads look like in food that I get at my local farm.

But I'll just paint a picture here. So if you buy a head of lettuce at the store, you go there, and it's this sickly looking pale, off green looking thing that you buy. And you've just learned to come to accept it. Okay, that's how lettuce looks like. No, that's how lettuce looks like when it shipped on a ship from, I don't know, where they bring lettuce, South America, Africa, wherever they're bringing lettuce from now. I think it comes from all over, depend upon the season. Exactly.

And it just looks sickly. It looks, it looks, it's faded. it looks kind of, you know, it's kind of an off green. And when you bring it home, you might have a couple days before that thing hits the wall, right? It's been all over the world, and God knows what they've sprayed on it to get it to preserve that long and all that stuff. And, you know, you have to wash your salads. I mean, Jesus, half these viral outbreaks now of Ebola, cola, and whatever, I don't think we've had. Maybe we have had Ebola in America.

But, you know, we have these ecoli outbreaks. and usually it's around life foods like salads and stuff. And Salmanilla, yeah, Salmanilla was the latest one of those fields. Yeah, it was one of the fields in Mexico with salmonella. Somehow, some way, you know, got mixed in. And then, of course, E. coli comes from, you know, from human waste, from the agricultural workers, not having any clean restrooms and clean facilities to use in the field. So all of that transfers into our food.

When you can trace, when you have traceability on that lettuce and you know that you're eating that lettuce, when it's in season in your own, in your own farmer's market or from your own farms in your own community, you have traceability. And I think that's, yeah, that's something that's rarely touched upon when it comes to eating seasonal and eating ingredients that are locally grown where you live. That, you know, no matter where you live, you're diversifying your gut health, number one, and you're eating with the seasons number two. So you'll, you'll rarely have to purchase in the grocery store that lettuce that is is not locally grown. You know, that lettuce, as you said, that came from Africa or South America or whatever the season is. If you're,

diversifying what you eat through the seasons, and this is part of what I use in my therapies as well in the medical meals therapies for my clients, I always touch on the fact that if we can keep it as local and as regional as possible, that the produce that we use, that the ingredients that we use have traceability to where they can be traced back to the farms where they were grown, the better our health is, the better our health is. And it makes all the difference. And a few, somewhere during COVID, a friend of mine turned me on to a local farm that's only five blocks from me in the middle of the city.

And it's one of these just old surviving farms. And they used to sell their salad, they make a hydroponic, their hydroponic farm. So they can literally go year round because in like in places like Utah and I buy from farms of Vegas too. I have some great farm farms down there. And it's funny too. They're these old farms that have been around for like 100 plus years and they're in the middle of urban sprawl. And so sometimes you don't even know you there. It's like, yeah, this guy has a cute farm.

And then they'll have a little sales booth out front. Absolutely. In Vegas, you go over there on Saturdays. In fact, in Vegas they have huge picket yourself fields. So if you want. Oh, the you pick. Yeah, that's huge. Yeah, that's huge.

It's a bit of pain in the ass. I'm like, I tried it at one time and I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to pay extra at the booth there. Yeah, but you're supporting them nonetheless, you know, because whether you buy at the booth or you do the you pick, I think the U-Pick is more of a family activity. Yeah. You know, when you have young children, it's a great opportunity for them to see where their fruits and vegetables come from and actually pick them out of the ground. When you can't have your own, your own, or maybe you don't have the ability to be able to grow your own garden, maybe you live in a, apartment, something like that. You pick are a terrific way to get kids introduced to fruits

and vegetables at a young age and go do that. For the rest of us, we'll buy from the stand. Plus, you know, I mean, that's what I did with my kids. It's an easy way to abandon them if you don't like them. Because you know they can pick their own food and survive. They're not going to die on the streets. Plus, maybe the farm

are going to adopt them and put the work. Yeah, it's funny. Yeah, it's funny to do. When my children were young, it's, it's funny, they were a part of my cancer journey. I have three kids. They're all grown now, but they've all been a part of my cancer journey. My oldest, I used to stroll him around in the stroller, and this was during the very early parts of my cancer journey. And I would stroll him around the farmer's market,

and he would be grabbing things off of the shelves of the farmer's market, and I would just have to throw money at the farmers because he would want whatever daddy was reaching for, you know, whatever we wanted. So it was a great way to introduce my kids at a young age to take them on a Saturday, or Wednesday afternoon or, you know, whenever we had free time to walk, we do have, where I live here in North Carolina, we have year-round farmers markets. So it's great because I'm able to introduce them to seasonal ingredients at a very young age. You know, knock on wood, they still have that, you know, teen and 20-year-old diet, but they're still eating, you know, they're diversifying the ingredients that they eat throughout the year. They have the ones that they like, you know,

the potatoes and the sweet potatoes and things like that. But, you know, there's also great things that I introduced them to at a young age like Swiss chard and greens and other anti-inflammatory ingredients that will hopefully prevent either, you know, any of the kids from being diagnosed with the rare cancer that I was at their age. You're giving them such a great toolbox of life to work for it. Yeah, absolutely, because they watched me all of my kids, my youngest being 18. She and her brothers, I have two other sons. they all watched me grow and they watched my journey. I met my wife, and I also mentioned this in the book as well. I met her, you know, maybe two years off of,

a little less than two years off of stomach cancer, off of this rare type of stomach cancer. And, you know, it took a very special woman to kind of go, you know what, I don't care that you've had cancer. I'll be here through your journey. And, you know, she and I've been together, you know, 24 of the 26 years that I had, you know, that I've been a survivor. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, like I say, three grown kids that are amazing that in and of their own way eat their healthy foods and are into exercising and exercising their bodies as well, which is important, you know, to combat inflammation in your body, exercise and diet go hand in hand. And, you know, they've seen that from a very young age with my cancer journey. Yeah. And, you know, you made me realize something. I just had epiphany here is, and this is what I love about my show. Oh, yeah. I learned so much.

And you think by now, after 200 shows, I know everything. I don't. Probably just scratching the surface, like 1% of what you should know. To be in the kitchen for multiple decades, you're always learning. You're always learning. You're always going. And if you think you know everything, you certainly don't. You're just...

Man, there's always a new recipe. There's always a new journey with food. The thing you were talking about, I realized that when I was a child, that's what my parents did. We went, we would go to the Orange Groves in, in, in, in, in Orange, California. And we, yeah, so that was back when you had Orange Groves in, yeah, in the, you know, you go down. I mean, Disneyland was surrounded by Orange Grove. I think it was built in Orange Grove.

Absolutely. Disney World, too, in Orlando. Absolutely. Yeah. And you, you go down and we, they give you like these cases and you, we'd pick our own oranges and. fruits and vegetables and my parents regularly did that and you know it was during the 70s when there was kind of a economic crisis there recession and the oil embargo oh i remember i remember well yeah yeah it was it was a big thing where you would you would do all that but that actually really helped me understand

stuff but the local farms that i buy from i buy from two of them one of them when you get the lettuce the hydroponic lettuce that these guys make it is luscious green juicy looking I mean, it's very enticing. And when my brain sees it, my brain goes, oh, I want to eat that. It's flavorful. Yeah, exactly. Almost subliminal, right? It's subliminal.

Yeah. And when you hold the two up, like I say, I wish I kept props maybe or something, but I don't buy that lettuce. But if I were to hold you the two up, you would see how grossly, ugly green that head of lettuce is that comes to you from the grocery store and the beautiful local farm lettuce. And that head of lettuce, if I buy it, it's probably, going to be good in the fridge for a few days, maybe three.

If this stuff that I buy from the farm, it literally off, and it's all separate, it's not still on the root. It's all like in leaf form. It literally will live for probably two to three weeks in my friend. Absolutely. Yeah. It's still alive. Yeah.

It's been circumventing the world. But the taste of it is so rich. And your brain looks at that ugly lettuce and goes, yeah, that thing looks. Yeah. Why did I ever eat that? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I look at it now and I'm just like, oh, my God, what is that?

Yeah. It's that Frankenstein shit that's there. And they put out, you know, arugula, which is good for gut health. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. They put out all sorts of these micro seed, sproutish sort of stuff. And they make all sorts of stuff. And then from the other farm, I buy the meats.

I get my dogs some of those bone marrow stuff, so they like to chew on those. Fantastic. And they have bacon. and eggs, and that's where I buy my bacon and eggs. And I could really tell the difference. I swear to God, maybe I could be, I could be BSing myself with what's that called the placebo effect, where I believe it's just better because I believe it. But I swear to God, those eggs do not screw with my stomach. No, I'll back you up on that because studies are starting to show that when you purchase from your local agricultural sources, that you're going to have less irritability in the gut because, again,

it's not part of this transportation system that you touched on with the lettuce subject. It's a situation that you're eating eggs from chickens that have the same soil that probably your water comes from, you know, that probably you're, you know, if you're on a well that your well comes from, if you're not, you know, from your city water, they're eating this, they're drinking the same water, they're eating from the same soil. And, and you're working, you're working, to diversify your gut microbiome by using something that's grown in your ecosystem. And that's in an agricultural ecosystem. And vice versa. That's part, that's been a huge part of my, I started my recovery in South

Florida, worked my way up the Eastern Seaboard as a private medical chef working in households up and down the Eastern Seaboard. And it was tremendous for me because I was able to go to local sources, local farms, and pick up things like eggs and dairy and other. the things that I used in the course of my, in the course of my recovery, especially produce items, that were grown in the same soils that, you know, that I was living. And it was tremendous part of my recovery. So I can definitely back you up, both from lived experience and also from the latest data that's out there that studies are showing that that is absolutely a healthy way to heal yourself. Yeah. And there's a big picture you have of salad being put into a salad

bowl on your website at real medical meals.com. That's, That's the colors that I'm talking about. That's that vibrant, rich looking. I mean, your brain wants to eat a salad. And for most people, they're like, no, they don't like salads. Let me tell you, you get this high quality salad, your brain just lights up and goes, this color is good. This is, we should eat this.

Exactly. And it's not just greens, but it's like vibrant green, you know, beautiful purples and reds. in within colors that you didn't even realize were available in nature in a lot of different sources. When I, when I used to describe, I used to describe to my kids what Swiss chard was, which is, you know, basically, it's a spinach hybrid, but it has the most beautiful colors in nature because it's almost like beet greens. It's a relative of beet greens. And it's the same type of thing. You look at it, it's all the colors of the rainbow, your yellows and reds and beautiful, you know, white colors and just gorgeous colors. And that kind of vegetable also helps you and helps boost your immune system. The vitamins and minerals from that type of food from your lettuces and greens helps boost your immune system.

As well as diversifying your gut microbiome through the seasons, yeah, I know exactly what you mean. Now let's talk about some of the offerings you have on your website. How do people, what type of client out there if they're listening is your type of client? Do they need to have usually an average income or spend? How does it work with you and how do people find out more? We customize every experience. We usually use that when it comes to medical meals, the specialty that I have, it's usually physician and dietitian guided.

So if you're out there and you're a caregiver and you're over your head or perhaps you're a patient, maybe recently diagnosed with not only with cancer, but autoimmune, diabetes, renal and kidney issues, anything like that, or even if you're just looking for longevity diets like what you find in the blue zones, you can contact me directly at realmedicalmeals.com. I'll pull together with my team a proposal based on what your goals are and what your physicians and dietitians' goals are. And then we send, we customize the proposal and send it over to the client. And obviously, I am a traveling chef, so there are some fees associated with my travel that will be in every proposal that I send to my client. and potential clients. That should be awesome to take and do that. And so they can reach out to you on your website. You show your different services that are there.

And you have several different pillars. You talk about clinical alignment, inflammation, and metabolic stability, implementation, infrastructure, and live resilience. You know, I can totally second what you're doing here because once I, I just broke one day. I was drinking 15 mountain, 10 to 15 mountain news a day. I would start, you know, the first shot the morning was one to two mountain dews. And I was just, I was almost 400 pounds, probably 400 pounds.

I was drinking half a bottle of vodka every other night to try and, you know, be a successful entrepreneur and do more work. And I was eating shit. I just, I'd just go out and eat the worst crap, you know, Taco Bell, McDonald's. You know, I'd go to a lot of restaurants, but even then, you know, a lot of trans fats and stuff used to be in there. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. inflammatory ingredients galore. Absolutely.

And the moment I went to nothing but salad for a while and quit the mountain dews, I started losing three to four pounds a day. I started posting every day my weight and using Facebook as an accountability group. And boy, do people hate me, especially women. Yeah, but you know, the thing is, Chris, what they don't realize is that's you're bettering yourself. You know? It's the day I walked back into a professional kitchen, having lost a few hundred pounds myself because of this rare cancer and because of not being able to eat solid food. What I can tell you is with eating the lettuce and eating the different vegetables that you did, I mean, that's not only getting hydration to your body because what Mountain Dew does is it dehydrates, right? Soda pops and things like that. They rehydrate. You're getting more hydration. You're getting more fiber. You're getting vitaminization. You're getting vitamin, and minerals we touched on before. All of that was coming to your body,

probably for the first time in years, since you know, since you were eating all that inflammatory food. Yeah, yeah, but it's true. The same thing happened to me in a very similar journey. People started looking at me like, you know, what's this guy got? What is going on with this dude?

I mean, he lost a few hundred pounds. He's walking in, feeling better, more energy, you know, doing, you know, living a more productive, you know, lifestyle for him. You know, you get people going, I want to be like that. And there is a lot of jealousy associated with that as well. You know, I did, I did television cooking in the, in the early days of, you know, the early days of reality TV. I had a, I still stuck with instructional television. And I introduced people, our viewers. I was on a MAV TV network for four years.

Oh, wow. And yeah, yeah, television was an awesome journey in and of itself. That was a 10-year cancer. They call it cancerversary every time you're cancer-free every year. It was a 10-year cancer-versy. for me that a producer came my way, said, I want to put you on TV. I want you to introduce people to this food that you're making, this anti-inflammatory food that you're making. And so I introduce people to a lot of different ingredients. I think there's still an episode out there. Thankfully, local with Chef Chuck. It's probably out here on YouTube somewhere. Y'all, y'all Google it up and watch that sweet potato show and meet these wonderful people, the farmers who grow our food. But yeah, I mean,

when you introduce your body to ingredients, anti-inflammatory ingredients, the weight, natural begins to drop off. You know, then your, then your gut microbiome begins to heal. And once it begins to heal, and I speak this, this is, this is part of the lived resilience part of the site that you see on there, the website. The live resilience is I have healed my gut microbiome from, literally from a disease like cancer all the way back to where I have a very, very healthy gut. And I'm eating seasonally, lots of seasonal ingredients.

And like I mentioned before, lean proteins, lean fat. fishes and completely changed my lifestyle. I'm doing a little bit of exercise here and there, some different yoga and different things like that that are very helpful. I never exercised before, but you're changing your entire circulatory system, your digestive system, and your cardiovascular system, which probably was your, your truth is you were probably feeling like you had a much healthier cardiovascular system as well with the changes that you made. I mean, dropping weight and weight loss can be very difficult as we get older and age. But when I work with weight loss clients,

I'm working with largely cardiovascular clients and orders from doctors, hey, so-and-so needs to lose such as such amount of weight. So we're putting very specific caloric intakes into these clients and very specific proteins and vegetables and things like that. But the biggest thing for me that I think probably made the huge difference for you was the use of fibrous fruits and vegetables again. You know, when you add that back to your diet, that one thing, when you add fiber back to your diet, it is really a game changer. When you're adding fruits and vegetables and diversifying through the seasons, it's an even bigger game changer.

You begin dropping weights. And especially when you do it the way you did on a microsystem where, you know, you're purchasing from local farms in your area. I mean, that is, that's everything that I have told people for the last 20 years is how I've been able to heal. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it makes all the difference in the world. And, you know, I was 400 pounds, so there was plenty of fat to lose, you know, when you're, if you're a man or woman and you've got, I don't know, 5, 10% body fat or whatever, you know, you're not going to lose that type of weight because you don't have the ovage there.

But yeah, it's changed my life and extraordinary thing. So how do people on board with you or find out more about working with you? Come on over to realmedical meals.com. Real Medical Meals.com. If you're in the Carolinas, you can visit my local brands, which is thankfully local private chef.com and also the resort chef.com is my catering handle, the resort chef.com. But realmedicalmeals.com, we've been talking about anti-inflammatory foods. We've been talking about therapies and food therapies that I provide for private chef clients

and longevity clients. Realmedical Meals.com is how they can find me. Eat healthy people. It makes all the difference in the world. And quit eating the crap that you find at the store and dead foods. That's the other great thing about these farm fresh foods is their live foods. Yes. They haven't been, you know, all this stuff put into them. Even like tomatoes, they, tomatoes in other countries, they'll use methane gas. They'll cook them basically to freaking ripen faster so they can get them off the show.

And it lessens what we call, you know, and dietitians call prebiotic fiber. It's lessening the quality of the prebiotic fiber. which is kind of eliminating the point that you're eating an off-season tomato in the first place or an imported tomato in the first place, right? I mean, isn't the whole point of eating that for the nourishment and what it will, the long-term effects in your body, the effects of the long-term effects of eating a tomato, right? The lycopene and for your cardiovascular system and the anti-inflammatory aspects of that. But, you know, when you're eating out of season, that's what happens. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah.

Got to eat and season. So thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. Chris, I'd love to come on again. We'll have to do it again. The chef's recovery out January 27, 2014 by Chuck Hayworth. You can worry up now. And folks, I've lived this life.

You know, eat. There's a reason all the healthy foods are on the outside of the store, and that's where you should spend most of your time on the outer rim of the store. And the close you get into the store is the more dead food. One of the best tricks I ever learned years ago was don't go into the dead zone. Don't go down the chip aisle. Don't go down the candy aisle. Don't go down the fake cracker aisle.

I just skip those. I just don't even go. Absolutely. If it's in your house, it's in your mouth. So don't buy it and bring it home. Don't make Fostian bargains with yourself over only five Oreos when I bring the whole bag home. No, you'll clear the tray. You're like me.

Yep. Yeah. Just if you can't trust yourself, don't trust yourself. Don't bring it home. That's what I do. I mean, if I want a Coke or if I want a candy bar or something, it's not in the house. I have to go get it. And I'm fairly lazy, so I build on that.

Yeah, no, I mean, and that's what we call programming in a cheat code. You know, you program in a cheat day. You know, I'm not going to tell you that I'm the perfect eater, Chris, not at all. Or your viewers that I'm the perfect eater, that I'm the perfect example of somebody who, you know, doesn't return to foods like that. I love my comfort food. I mean, pre-show we were talking about burgers and fries. and things like that, hey, you know, from time to time, that doesn't hurt you.

That sends that dopamine signal that, hey, I remember how good this is, but I'm just gonna have it every once in a while. And if you can actually make that type of food in your own house, like for example, making a protein bar, you know, using the same ingredients you'd have in a candy bar, dark chocolate, cacao, for example,

we know the health benefits and the anti-flammatory health and benefits of cacao. So you can make your own kind of protein bar that tastes similar to that, you know, using dates and hunting honey and things like that that are less inflammatory, if not, you know, anti-inflammatory ingredients. It really, really goes a long way. And the same goes true with making your own burgers and fries in your home.

Or, you know, in my case, you know, having somebody like a chef as a buddy to come in and cook for you. That always helps. Yeah. And one of my favorite tricks, folks, is if you got this sugar cravings, because we all do that, that's usually what you're doing when you're after Coke or you're after, you know, some sort of dopamine hit. of candy and stuff. And in reality, you just want a sample taste of that. You just want the taste.

You know, a friend of mine is really big on, she doesn't eat the burger, but she'll taste the burger and then spit it back out. But she realizes that that's what she's really after. She's not looking to poison herself with some nasty franken meat burger, whatever, and put it in your system to rock gut. I call anything rock gut that will sit in my gut and will just rot. Absolutely. One of the things I buy from the farms is bacon.

And so it's local, you know, fresh bacon doesn't have nitrates. And God knows what else they put in that stuff. But man, I tell you, if I buy off the shelf store bacon, I will have the worst rock gut. It is just like, I may as well just start eating isotopes of plutonium. It is just the worst of those things. But I can eat the bacon from the local farm. And it tastes great. No kickback.

Wonderful stuff. You know, uncured is important. Yeah, I mean, you know, looking at the food ingredients, looking at the labels and asking the farmers, you know, you know, like, you know, I know you smoked this, this bacon, but did you cure it? Did you use any kind of chemical agents to cure? And, you know, 99.9% of them should be the ones going, you know, what are you talking about? I don't do that, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that. Hey, you know, bacon and eggs, you know, when, when you use that that's from your local infrastructure, there is nothing wrong with that. that protein, there's excellent protein in both of those.

Yeah. Absolutely. And like I said, I don't know with the eggs if I'm, if I'm BSing myself with stuff, but I swear to God, they digest way better for me. Absolutely. Mine too. I mean, I've had this similar experience where I couldn't eat eggs for the longest time. And then one of the farmers gave me a, you know, a dozen eggs this time of the year, you know,

was Easter and he had a bunch of extra extra eggs. I said, yeah, sure, I'll take some. And I'd take them home and cook them. And I'm like, wow, I can actually digest these. Because the industrial package, even the pasture-raised industrial packages, you know, I get that gut rot like you talk about. But, you know, with my local eggs, not at all. Not at all. Yeah.

Yeah. It makes all the difference, folks. And your stomach in your body will love you. My body and it loves me for the most part. It has its days. But, I mean, it just makes such a difference in health and your metabolism and losing weight. Thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate Chuck.

What a pleasure, Chris. Thank you for having me. Thank you. And thanks for us for tuning in. Order up the chef's recovery out January 27th, 2014, and reach out to him and eat better. I mean, health is wealth. I mean, that really freaking is, especially as you get older, you know, there's no way I could, I'm surprised I'm still alive with all the bullshit. Me too.

I can't even believe it. I just, I just, ugh. Anyway, thanks for tuning in, folks. Go to Goodrease.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com. for chest Chris Foss. Chris Foss 1 on the tick. Talkity and all those crazy places in the internet. Thanks to Daniel. Medical chef. I love this calling it from LinkedIn there.

Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain lead. Great show. You wanted the best... You've got the best podcast.

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Hello, this Voss here from the Chris Voss Show.com. Ladies, gentlemen there, and ladies, things that makes official welcome the big show. As always, for 16 years. Count them. Man, my back is hurting now. I can't feel my legs. 16 years and 2,800 episodes, we bring in the Chris Voss show with 48 new shows a month, with one of the oldest still regularly broadcasting podcast.

It exists. There's like a handful of us left. And I don't think anybody puts out the numbers we do. So anyway, guys, that's my plea. That's my beg. That's my ask. Please, for the love of God. I'm on my knees.

I'll further show of your failing friends and relatives. Go to Goodrease.com, Fortress Christchristch, Christvost, LinkedIn.com, Fortress, Christvust, YouTube.com, Fortress, Chris fuss, and all the other places we're on the internet. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Faw show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, we're an amazing young man on the show. We're going to be talking about his amazing journey and story of survival, cancer, overcoming cancer, and how to eat better, how to treat your life better, your body better.

And as you guys probably know over the years, I've been on a similar journey of health. And this guy's right up the alley and prove positive that stop eating McDonald's folks, at least. You know, I don't know, you can do one day every few months or a quarter or something I say. Anyway, guys, this amazing young man, his book is entitled The Chef's Recovery, January 27, 2014 by Chuck Hayworth. We're going to get into with him, talk about his journey and some of the things you can learn from him. And this is an important thing to learn, guys, because it's changed my life and it's made my body so much more happier and enjoyable. And we actually get along now, me and my body. It's kind of cool.

Chuck Hayworth is a medical meal strategist, private chef, and the founder of real medical meals and culinary wellness collective. With over 20 years of culinary experience, he specializes in turning complex medical diets into chef-crafted meals that support real health outcomes. A 25-year cancer survivor, wow. Chuck brings both professional expertise and lived experience to his work, helping individuals and families use food, as a tool to recover performance and longevity. His mission is simple. Prove that food can either accelerate or decline or defend life. Welcome to the show.

How are you, Chuck? I'm great. Thank you, Chris. It's great to be here with you and your viewers. And congratulations on that longevity of the show as well. That's huge for you. You know, I guess so, I don't know. We've done one or two of these shows.

Just a few. Give us a dot-coms where you want people to find you on the Internetweb. sir. You can find me at realmedicalmeals.com. Realmedicalmeals.com and then you can send me a message directly from there that will come straight to my phone and you'll be able to get in touch with me right away. So give us a 30,000 overview. What's in your book? It curtails my entire journey. It tells, it talks about the importance of individualizing and having people that are caregivers and loved ones by your side as you go through your journey with something like what I went through, which was a rare cancer diagnosis. I had a gastrointestinal stromal tumor.

which was the size of a large grapefruit found in my stomach in the early 2000s. How old were you at that time? I was 22 years of age. So that's like some you normally have at that age, right? No, not at all. In fact, it was a very rare type of cancer then, even more rare than it is now. They say of the types of rare cancers that there are in the world, the different varieties of cancers there are in the world, it's something like 0.003% of the population of diagnosed individuals with cancers.

And that was early 2000 statistics. It's even more rare now. But yeah. And so the chef's recovery curtails my entire journey, how I was working as a food service professional, you know, living that unhealthy 14-hour-day lifestyle without really eating healthy with eating a lot of inflammatory ingredients and things, high in sugar, saturated fats, things like that that led to my cancer diagnosis. And it curtails my journey from liquid diet all the way back up to lean solid proteins

and everything in between. I share little tidbits in the book about recipes and things like that that I wrote, you know, in 2014 when I wrote the book, I wrote these recipes with the ingredients that were easily found in the neighborhood supermarket and farmers markets in most communities around the U.S. I've had people speaking of around the U.S. the Amazon platform was really good for me to release this book because it actually helped me be able to find a global audience for this type of cancer, which was really amazing for me, Chris,

because I was able to release the book on Amazon and people from all over the world and all over the country, all over Europe, all over the United States, North America, South America, and of course, Asia, we're reaching out in Australia, reaching out in New Zealand, reaching out, telling me that, hey, this book has really made an impact in their lives. It's really been amazing. Yeah. And one of the things you focus on is the anti-inflammation sort of food. You know, there's, we've talked a lot about this and had a lot of people on that talk, you know, we talk about gut health and anti-inflammation. And, you know, we've had pediatricians on that have been, I mean, they're not quacks. These aren't conspiracy theories.

Exactly. Exactly. We've been on for 20 or 30 years. And some of them actually found that gut health inflammation leads to brain inflammation because there's, I guess, a sensory system that goes up to the brain. Yeah, it's a neural system. I'm actually studying that currently as a PhD candidate in naturopathic medicine where it's actually a gut mucal barrier in your gut microbiome that affects your neural system in your entire cardiovascular system, your neural system. There's really, and of course, digestive system, there's really no system in your body that isn't affected by your gut microbiome. That's exactly right.

Yeah. Yeah. It's been a lot of years. I spent a lot of years putting rot-gut foods from the road in my stomach. So, yeah, that rock-gut experience is never fun when you. Oh, yeah. Never easy. Never easy. You know, but here's the thing, though. There's a lot of people that are out there that are affected differently by the food that we eat, you know, they know what to look for.

There's a lot more opportunity and variety, say, in your neighborhood truck stop that there didn't used to be. I was on the road last week and actually saw. potato chips fried in avocado oil and, and, you know, things fried in coconut oil. And I went, wow, this is, this is different for a, you know, for a truck stop to have these kinds of snacks, whereas it used to be just seed oils and the cheapest possible oils you could find in those snacks. So there are healthy opportunities out there for the road snacks as well. Yeah. You know, so how did you discover through your journey of, I'm assuming it was during your cancer that you discovered a journey of healthy food and stuff like that?

map us out a little bit deeper on, you know, what was the aha moment that put you into food and where were you at in that cancer journey? You know, a few decades ago when I was diagnosed, you know, it was the Wild Wild West. We didn't really have the research on gut health that we have now on hydration, on all different kinds of foods, the dirty dozen, et cetera. When you look at the different types of foods and what's clean to eat traditionally grown versus organically grown, things like that. So it really was the Wild Wild West. It really came down to, for me, came down to really taking a look at everything and going, okay, what can my body tolerate?

I had a good portion of my digestive system removed surgically. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I had to learn to really eat solid food all over again, Chris. It was an amazing. And that's mentioned in the book as well, that I had to learn to, I had to learn to eat solid food over again. So I started on a liquid diet and I I started with things like bone broths and ferments like miso and other types of broths that helped fortify what was left of my large intestine's gut microbiome. And then over time, as we know, our organs in our digestive system are muscles. So I had about a third of my stomach removed. And so my stomach had to learn to regrow again.

Really, I had to learn to digest food all over again. And it really was a dangerous journey because I wanted to return to things that 20-year-olds eat, you know, 20 and 22 years. You know, I wanted to return to your pizza and pasta and burgers and fries and all that great food that you can have in your 20s because you're immortal in your 20s. And I couldn't do that. And then holding down a career in food service was difficult too because those were the types of meals that were available to people like me, you know, who worked those long hours. Oh, absolutely. You talked about being on the road and road food. It's the same thing there, you know, for the truckers that are out there and folks that love show and watch the show mobily.

I mean, it's, you know, it's a difficult lifestyle, you know, and you have to eat when you can, you know, and sometimes the healthy food is not available for you. But I had to learn the hard way, and that hard way was when I was, when I first woke up from the surgery and I realized life will never be the same. I've just, I've just had a cancerous tumor removed from my digestive track and I've just, the surgeon described it as square, peg round hole your digestive system and I went yeah that's pretty much that that's the that's the expression i still used today is that you know most of my digestive tract was destroyed by this cancer and so i had to learn once again how to do this and part of how I've learned to heal my body heal the cells cells in my body heal my digestive track we talked a little bit pre-show about fasting that's been a huge part

and of course broths and liquid diet as I touched on just a few minutes ago that's been a big part of it And I don't necessarily promote enough the plant-based aspects of my healing that I did give my digestive track a little break from meat. And I did have a plant-based lifestyle that I was living for about three years because I could not digest, Chris, any form non-liquid of meat at all. Meat or any type of meat protein, poultry protein, any of that. The only thing I could really tolerate was broth. And as we know, the bone broth helps to stimulate the mucal barrier in the gut microbiome. them and begins to heal, it begins to heal your body from, from the inside out. Ross were a particularly important part of my, of my healing.

But yeah, I mean, it's taken me, by the time I got to about year 10, I was on my 10th year of healing, I was able to incorporate meat proteins and fish proteins, lean meat proteins, pasture raised meats. You and I talk pre-show about, you know, about local food and the local infrastructure. I'm here in North Carolina. and I started purchasing from local farmers markets, foods and produce items and meats and proteins and fish from the coast that was here locally from North Carolina. And that's part of how I've been able to heal my body from this rare stomach cancer over

the multiple decades that I've been able to do that. And that's one of the things you advocate buying your food locally and farm related. Is that correct? Absolutely. I really was one of the early chefs here in North Carolina really pushing the local movement, the local food movement. You know, back when when everything was still quasi-industrialized in the 90s and early 2000s, I was really teaching a lot of chefs and a lot of families how to, where their local farmers market was, number one, and number two, how to bulk purchase

different proteins so that they're continuing to keep that money and that infrastructure in their agricultural infrastructure in their communities going. So it's really been a joy of my life to visit local farmers markets on Saturdays and Wednesdays and really help support these small family businesses. Yeah. I can really second to the motion and advocate for what you're talking about. My audience has heard over the years, multiple people we've had on that talked about gut health like we're talking about today and validated it, you know, inflammation of the brain. There was a couple people that were on that had been pediatricians for 20, 30 years and they'd found they could, they could lower autism, the autism experience. Let's put it that way.

Sometimes, in some cases, they claimed they cured it, but it was still latent, but, you know, a lot of it was diet related. And they found that some of the autism or some of the things that will asherbate autism and make it worse in conditions and experiences is gut health. Absolutely. Absolutely. If you're putting rock gut into your, into your gut, it's going to give your brain, It's going to give your second brain, they call it. Yep, they got microbiome. That's exactly right. It's going to make it inflamed.

And then when that's inflamed, it sends signals to your brain that inflame your brain and say, hey, stupid, probably quit putting this crap in our system. What are you doing? What am I, like a trash compactor? Absolutely. Absolutely. And you'd be surprised. I think Americans want to eat healthy.

They just need a little guidance to how to eat healthy. And in extreme cases, as I mentioned earlier, I got started as a private shift. death with everything that I do, I started as a cancer patient myself and working with my fellow cancer patients and their caregivers, that snowballed into people that had been diagnosed with autoimmune disease and diabetes and other types of diseases over the years to where this has become medical meal specialists is really what my specialty is in the culinary world of things. I can provide you an anti-inflammatory meal that tastes very similar to something that you'd have in a restaurant that in a fine dining restaurant or even a casual quick service restaurant

in the case of a lot of the families that I work with, that's anti-inflammatory ingredients, help your gut microbiome not hinder it as some of the other inflammatory ingredients from restaurants do. So it's been a lifelong, really the second half of my life now has been all about introducing families to these ingredients. Yeah. You know, I really should keep some props around the house because of what the salads look like and food that I get at my local farm, but I'll just paint a picture here. So if you buy a head of lettuce at the store, you go there and it's this sickly looking pale, off green looking thing that you buy.

And you've just learned to come to accept that, okay, that's how lettuce looks like. No, that's how lettuce looks like when it's shipped on a ship from, I don't know, where they bring lettuce, South America, Africa, wherever they're bringing lettuce from now. I think it comes from all over, depend upon the season. Exactly. And it just looks sickly. It looks, it looks, it's faded. It looks kind of, you know, it's kind of an off green.

And when you bring it home, you might have a couple days before that thing hits the wall, right? It's been all over the world and, and God knows what they've sprayed on it to get it to preserve that long and all that stuff. And, you know, you have to wash your salads. I mean, Jesus, half these viral outbreaks now. of Ebola, cola, and whatever. I don't think we've had, maybe we have had Ebola in America. But, you know, we have these ecolibre outbreaks. And usually it's around life foods like salads and stuff.

And Salmonella, yeah, Salmanilla was the latest one from one of those fields. Yeah, it was one of the fields in Mexico with Salmonella. Somehow, some way, you know, got mixed in. And then, of course, e coli comes from, you know, from human waste, from the agricultural workers, not having any clean restrooms and clean facilities to use and. the field. So all of that transfers into our food. When you can trace, when you have traceability on that lettuce and you know that you're eating that lettuce when it's in season in your own, in your own farmer's market or from your own farms in your own community, you have traceability.

And I think that's, yeah, that's something that's rarely touched upon when it comes to eating seasonal and eating ingredients that are locally grown where you live, that, you know, no matter where you live, you're diversifying your gut health, number one, and you're eating with the seasons number two. So you'll rarely have to purchase in the grocery store that lettuce that is not locally grown. You know, that lettuce, as you said, that came from Africa or South America or whatever the season is. If you're diversifying what you eat through the seasons, and this is part of what I use in my therapies as well in the medical meals therapies for my clients, I always touch on the fact that if we can keep it as local and as regional as possible, that the produce that we use, that the ingredients that we use have traceability to where they can be traced back to the farms where they were grown,

the better our health is, the better our health is. And it makes all the difference. And a few, somewhere during COVID, a friend of mine turned me on to a local farm that's only five blocks from me. That's incredible. In the middle of city. And it's one of these just old surveillance. surviving farms and they used to sell their salad. They make a hydroponic, their hydroponic farm.

So they can literally go year round because in like in places like Utah and I buy from farms of Vegas too. I have some great farms down there. And it's funny too. They're these old farms that have been around for like 100 plus years and they're in the middle of urban sprawl. And so sometimes you don't even know you there. It's like, yeah, this guy has a cute farm.

And, you know, then they'll have a little sales booth out front. Absolutely. In Vegas, you go over there on Saturdays. In fact, in Vegas, they have huge picket yourself fields. So if you want... Oh, the you pick. Yeah, that's huge. Yeah, that's huge.

It's a bit of pain in the ass. I'm like, I tried it at one time and I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to pay extra at the booth there. Yeah, but you're supporting them nonetheless, you know, because whether you buy at the booth or you do the you pick, I think the you pick is more of a family activity. Yeah. You know, when you have young children, it's a great opportunity for them to see where their fruits and vegetables come from. and actually pick them out of the ground. When you can't have your own, your own,

or maybe you don't have the ability to be able to grow your own garden, maybe you live in an apartment, something like that, you picks are a terrific way to get kids introduced to fruits and vegetables at a young age and go to do that. For the rest of us, we'll buy from the stand. Plus, you know, I mean, that's what I did with my kids. It's easy way to abandon them if you don't like them. Because you know they can pick their own food and survive.

They're not going to die on the streets. Plus, maybe the farm is going to adopt them and put the work. Yeah, it's funny to do. When my children were young, it's funny, they were a part of my cancer journey. I have three kids. They're all grown now, but they've all been a part of my cancer journey. My oldest, I used to stroll him around in the stroller, and this was during the very early parts of my cancer journey. And I would stroll him around the farmer's market, and he would be grabbing things off of the shelves of the farmer's market.

and I would just have to throw money at the farmers because he would want whatever daddy was reaching for, you know, whatever we wanted. So it was a great way to introduce my kids at a young age to take them on a Saturday or a Wednesday afternoon or, you know, whenever we had free time to walk, we do have, where I live here in North Carolina, we have year-round farmers markets. So it's great because I'm able to introduce them to seasonal ingredients at a very young age. You know, knock on wood, they still have that, you know, teen and 20-year-old diet, but they're still eating, you know, they're diversified. finding the ingredients that they eat throughout the year. They have the ones that they like, you know, the potatoes and the sweet potatoes and things like that. But, you know, there's also great things that I introduced them to at a young age, like Swiss chard and greens and and other anti-inflammatory ingredients that, you know, will hopefully prevent either, you know,

any of the kids from being diagnosed with the rare cancer that I was at their age, you know. You're giving them such a great toolbox of life to work for it. Yeah, absolutely, because they watched me all of my kids. kids, my youngest being 18, she and her brothers, I have two other sons. They all watched me grow and they watched my journey. I met my wife and I also mentioned this in the book as well. I met her, you know, maybe two years off of, a little less than two years off of stomach cancer, off of this rare type of stomach cancer. And, you know, it took a very special woman to kind of go, you know what, I don't care that you've had cancer. I'll be here through your journey. And,

And, you know, she and I have been together, you know, 24 of the 26 years that I had, you know, that I've been a survivor. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, like I say, three grown kids that are amazing that in and of their own way eat their healthy foods and are into exercising and exercising and their bodies as well, which is important, you know, to combat inflammation in your body, exercise and diet go hand in hand. And, you know, they've seen that from a very young age with my cancer journey. Yeah. And you know, you made me realize something. I just had an epiphany here is, and this is what I love about my show. I learned so much. And you think by now after 200 shows, I know everything. I don't. Probably just scratching the surface like 1% of what you should know. To me in the kitchen for multiple decades, you're always learning. You're always learning. You're always going. And if you think you know everything, you certainly don't. You're just. Man, there's always a new recipe. There's always a new journey with food. The thing you were talking about, I realized that when I was a child, that's what my parents did. We went, we would go to the Orange Grove in, in, in, in, in, in Orange, California. And we, yeah, so that was back when you had Orange Grove in Orange. Yeah.

And the, you know, you go down, I mean, Disneyland was surrounded by Orange Grove. I think it was built in Orange Grove. Absolutely. Disney World, too, in Orlando. Absolutely. Yeah. And you go down and we, they, you go down. and they give you like these cases

and we'd pick our own oranges and fruits and vegetables and my parents regularly did that and you know it was during the 70s when there was kind of an economic crisis there recession and the oil embargo Oh I remember I remember well Yeah it was a big thing where you would

you would do all that but that actually really helped me understand stuff but the local farms that I buy from I buy from two of them one of them when you get the lettuce the hydroponic lettuce that these guys make it is luscious, green, juicy looking. I mean, it's very enticing.

And when my brain sees it, my brain goes, oh, I want to eat that. That looks really healthy. Yeah, exactly. Almost subliminal, right? It's subliminal. Yeah. And when you hold the two up, like I say, I wish I kept props maybe or something, but I don't buy that lettuce. But if I were to hold you the two up, you would see how grossly, ugly green that head of lettuce is that comes to you from the grocery store.

the beautiful local farm lettuce. And that head of lettuce, if I buy it, it's probably going to be good in the fridge for a few days, maybe three. If this stuff that I buy from the farm, it literally off, and it's all separate, it's not still on the root. It's all like in leaf form. It literally will live for probably two to three weeks in my friend. Absolutely. Yeah. It's still alive.

Yeah. Yeah. It's been circumventing the world. But the taste of it is so rich. and your brain looks at that ugly lettuce and goes, yeah, that thing looks. Yeah,

why did I ever eat that? Yeah, absolutely. I look at it now and I'm just like, oh my God, what is that? Yeah. What is that Frankenstein shit that's there?

And they put out a, you know, arugula, which is good for gut health. They put out. Oh, fantastic. Yeah. They put out all sorts of these micro seed,

sproutish sort of stuff. And they make all sorts of stuff. And then from the other farm, I buy the meats. I get my, some of those bone marrow stuff, so they like to chew on those. Fantastic. And they have bacon and eggs, and that's where I buy my bacon and eggs.

And I could really tell the difference. I swear to God, maybe I could be, I could be BSing myself with what's that called the placebo effect, where I believe it's just better because I believe it. But I swear to God, those eggs do not screw with my stomach. No, I'll back you up on that because studies are starting to show that when you purchase from your local agricultural sources, that you're going to have less irritability in the gut, because, again, it's not part of this transportation system that you touched on with the lettuce subject. It's a situation that you're eating eggs from chickens that have the same soil that probably your water

comes from, you know, that probably if you're on a well that your well comes from, if you're not, you know, from your city water, they're eating this, they're drinking the same water. they're eating from the same soil and you're working to diversify your gut microbiome by using something that's grown in your ecosystem and that's in an agricultural ecosystem and vice versa that's part that's been a huge part of my i started my recovery in south florida worked my way up the eastern seaboard as a private medical chef working in households up and down the eastern seaboard and it was tremendous for me because i was able to go to local sources local farms pick up things like eggs and dairy and other things that I used in the course of my, in the course

of my recovery, especially produce items that were grown in the same soils that, you know, that I was living. And it was tremendous part of my recovery. So I can definitely back you up, both from lived experience and also from the latest data that's out there that studies are showing that that is absolutely a healthy way to heal yourself. Yeah. And there's a big picture you have of salad being put into a salad bowl on your website at real medical meals.com, that's the colors that I'm talking about. That's that vibrant, rich looking, I mean, your brain wants to eat a salad, you know, and for most people, they're like, no, you know, like salads.

Let me tell you, you get this high quality salad, your brain just lights up and goes, this color is good. This is, we should eat this. Exactly. And, you know, it's not just greens, but it's like vibrant green. you know, beautiful purples and reds, in, in, within colors that you didn't even realize were available in nature in a lot of different sources. When I, when I used to describe, I used to describe to my kids what Swiss chard was, which is, you know, basically, it's a spinach hybrid,

but it has the most beautiful colors in nature because it's almost like beet greens. It's a relative of beet greens. And it's the same type of thing. You look at it, it's all the colors of the rainbow, your yellows and reds and beautiful, you know, white colors. And, you know, and just gorgeous colors. And that kind of vegetable also helps you and helps boost your immune system. The vitamins and minerals from that type of food, from your lettuces and greens helps boost your immune system, as well as diversifying your gut microbiome through the seasons. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.

Now let's talk about some of the offerings you have on your website. How do people, what type of client out there if they're listening is your type of client? Do they need to have usually an average income or spend or how does it work with you and how do people find out more? We customize every experience. We usually use that when it comes to medical meals, the specialty that I have, it's usually physician and dietitian guided. So if you're out there and you're a caregiver and you're over your head or perhaps you're a patient, maybe recently diagnosed with not only with cancer, but autoimmune, diabetes, renal and kidney issues, anything like that, or even if you're just looking for longevity diets like what you find in the blue zones,

you can contact me directly at realmedicalmeals.com. I'll pull together with my team a proposal based on what your goals are and what your physicians and dietitians' goals are. And then we send, we customize the proposal and send it over to the client. And obviously, I am a traveling chef, so there is some, there are some fees associated with my travel that will be in every proposal that I send to my client. and potential clients. Well, that should be awesome to take and do that. And so they can reach out to you on your website. You show your different services that are there,

and you have several different pillars. You talk about clinical alignment, inflammation, and metabolic stability, implementation, infrastructure, and live resilience. You know, I can totally second what you're doing here, because once I just broke one day, I was drinking 15 mountain, 10 to 15 mountain news a day. I would start, you know, the first shot the morning was one to two mountain dews. And I mean, I was just, I was almost 400 pounds, probably 400 pounds.

I was drinking half a bottle of vodka every other night to try and, you know, be a successful entrepreneur and do more work. And I was eating shit. I just, I'd just go out and eat the worst crap, you know, Taco Bell, McDonald's. You know, I go to a lot of restaurants, but even then, you know, a lot of trans fats and stuff used to be in there. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. inflammatory ingredients galore. Absolutely.

And the moment I went to nothing but salad for a while and quit the mountain dews, I started losing three to four pounds a day. I started posting every day my weight and using Facebook as an accountability group. And boy, do people hate me, especially women. Yeah, but you know, the thing is, Chris, what they don't realize is that's you're bettering yourself. You know? It's the day I walked back into a professional kitchen having lost a few hundred pounds myself because of this rare cancer and because of not being able to eat solid food. What I can tell you is with eating the lettuce and eating the different vegetables that you did, I mean, that's not only getting hydration to your body because what Mountain Dew does is it dehydrates, right? Soda pops and things like that. They rehydrate. You're getting more hydration. You're getting more fiber. You're getting vitamins and and minerals we touched on before. All of that was coming to your body probably for the first time in years since you know, since you were eating all that inflammatory food. Yeah, yeah, but it's true.

The same thing happened to me in a very similar journey. People started looking at me like, you know, what's this guy got? What is going on with this dude? I mean, he lost a few hundred pounds. He's walking in, feeling better, more energy, you know, doing, you know, living a more productive, you know, lifestyle for, you know, you get people going, I want to be like that. And there is a lot of jealousy associated with that as well. You know, I did, I did television cooking in the, in the early days of, you know, the early days of reality TV. I had a, I still stuck with instructional television. And I introduced people, our viewers. I was on a MAV TV network for four years. And yeah, yeah, television was an awesome journey in and of itself. That was a 10-year cancer, they called

cancerversary every time you're cancer free every year. It was a 10-year cancerversary for me that a producer came my way, said, I want to put you on TV. I want you to introduce people to this food that you're making, this anti-inflammatory food that you're making. And so I introduce people to a lot of different ingredients. I think there's still an episode out there. Thankfully, local with Chef Chuck. It's probably out here on YouTube somewhere. Y'all, y'all Google it up and watch that sweet potato show and meet these wonderful people, the farmers who grow our food. But yeah, I mean, it's, when you introduce your body to ingredients, anti-inflammatory ingredients,

the weight naturally begins to drop off. You know, then your gut microbiome begins to heal. And once it begins to heal, and I speak this, this is part of the lived resilience part of the site that you see on there, the website. The live resilience is,

I have healed my gut microbiome from, literally from a disease like cancer, all the way back to where I have a very, very healthy gut. and I'm eating seasonally, lots of seasonal ingredients. And like I mentioned before, lean proteins, lean fishes, and completely changed my lifestyle. I'm doing a little bit of exercise here and there, some, you know, different yoga and different things like that that are very helpful.

I never exercised before. But you're changing your entire circulatory system, your digestive system, and your cardiovascular system, which probably was your truth is you were probably feeling like you had a much healthier cardiovascular system as well with the changes that you made. I mean, dropping weight and weight loss can be very difficult as we get older and age. But when I work with weight loss clients, I'm working with largely cardiovascular clients and orders from doctors. Hey, so-and-so needs to lose such and such amount of weight. So we're putting very specific caloric intakes into these clients and very specific proteins and vegetables and things like that. But the biggest thing for me that I think

probably made the huge difference for you was the use of fibrous fruits and vegetables again. You know, when you add that back to your diet, that one thing, when you add fiber back to your diet, it is really a game changer. When you're adding fruits and vegetables and diversifying through the seasons, it's an even bigger game changer. You begin dropping weights. And especially when you do it the way you did on a microsystem where, you know, you're purchasing from local farms in your area, I mean, that's everything that I have told people for the last 20 years is how I've been able to heal. Yeah. I mean, it makes all the difference in the world.

And, you know, I was 400 pounds. So there was plenty of fat to lose, you know, when you're, if you're a man or woman and you've got, I don't know, 5, 10% body fat or whatever. You know, you're not going to lose that type of weight because you don't have the overage there. But yeah, it's changed my life and extraordinary thing. So how do people on board with you or find out more about working with you? Come on over to realmedicalmeals.com. Realmedicalmeals.com. If you're in the Carolinas, you can visit my local brands, which is thankfully local

private chef.com. And also the resort chef.com is my catering handle, the resort chef.com. But real medical meals.com, we've been talking about anti-inflammatory foods. We've been talking about therapies and food therapies that I provide for private chef clients. and longevity clients, real medical meals.coms, how they can find me. They eat healthy people. It makes all the difference in the world. And quit eating the crap that you find at the store and dead foods.

That's the other great thing about these farm fresh foods is there live foods. Yes. They haven't been, you know, all this stuff put into them, even like tomatoes. Tomatoes in other countries, they'll use methane gas. They'll cook them basically to freaking ripen faster so they can get them off. And it lessens what we call, you know, and dietitians call prebiotic fiber. It's lessening the quality of the prebiotic fiber, which is kind of eliminating the point that you're eating an off-season tomato in the first place or an imported tomato in the first place, right? I mean, it isn't the whole point of eating that for the nourishment and what it will, the long-term effects in your body, the effects of the long-term effects of eating a tomato, right? The lycopene and for your cardiovascular system and the anti-inflammatory acid. of that. But, you know, when you're eating out of season, that's what happens. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Got eating season. So thank you very much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it.

Chris, I'd love to come on again. We'll have to do it again. The chef's recovery out January 27, 2014 by Chuck Hayworth. You can worry up now. And folks, I've lived this life, you know, eat. There's a reason all the healthy foods are on the outside of the store, and that's where you You spend most of your time on the outer rim of the store. And the closer you get into the store is the more dead food. One of the best tricks I ever learned years ago was don't go into the dead zone. Don't go down the chip aisle. Don't go down the fake cracker aisle.

I just skip those. I just don't even go. Absolutely. If it's in your house, it's in your mouth. So don't buy it and bring it home. Don't make Faustian bargains with yourself over. Only five Oreos when I bring the whole bag home. No, you'll, you'll, you'll call it.

clear the tray. You're like me. Yep. Yeah. Just, just, if you can't trust yourself, don't trust yourself. Don't bring it home. That's what I do. I mean, if I want a Coke or if I want a candy bar or something, it's not in the house. I have to go get it. And I'm fairly lazy. So I build on that. Yeah, no, I mean, and that's what we call programming in a cheat code. You know, you program in a cheat day. You know, I'm not going to tell you that I'm the perfect eater, Chris, not at all. Or your viewers that I'm the perfect eater, that I'm the perfect example of, of somebody who, you know, you're going to tell you. who doesn't return to foods like that. I love my comfort food. I mean, pre-show we were talking about burgers and fries and things like that. Hey, from time to time, that doesn't hurt you. That sends that dopamine signal that, hey, I remember how good this is,

but I'm just gonna have it every once in a while. And if you can actually make that type of food in your own house, like for example, making a protein bar, you know, using the same ingredients you'd have in a candy bar, dark chocolate, cacao, for example. We know the health benefits and the anti-flammatory,

and benefits of cacao so you can make your own kind of protein bar that tastes similar to that. You know, using dates and honey and things like that that are less inflammatory, if not, you know, anti-inflammatory ingredients. It really, really goes a long way. And the same goes true with making your own burgers and fries in your home or, you know, in my case, you know, having somebody like a chef as a buddy to come in and cook for you. That always helps. Yeah. And one of my favorite tricks, folks is if you got this chauviger cravings because we all do that that's usually what you're doing when you're after a coke or you're after you know some sort of dopamine hit of candy and stuff and in reality you just want a sample taste of that you just want the taste you know a friend of mine is

really big on she doesn't eat the burger but she'll taste the burr and then spit it back out but she realizes that that's what she's really after she's not looking to poison herself with some nasty franken meat burger, whatever, and put it in your system to rock gut. I call anything rock gut that will sit in my gut and will just rot. Absolutely. One of the things I buy from the farms is bacon. And so it's local, you know, fresh bacon doesn't have nitrates and God knows what else they put in that stuff.

But man, I tell you, if I buy off the shelf store bacon, I will have the worst rock gut. It is just like, I might as well just start eating isotopes. of plutonium. It is just the worst of those things. But I can eat the bacon from the local farm and it tastes great, no kickback, wonderful stuff. Uncured is important. Yeah, I mean, you know, looking at the food ingredients, looking at the labels and asking the farmers, you know, you know, like, I know you smoked this, this bacon, but did you cure it? Did you use any kind of chemical agents to cure? And, you know, 99.9% of them should be the ones going, you know, what are you talking about? I don't do that.

You know, and there's nothing wrong with that. Hey, you know, bacon and eggs, you know, when you use that from your local infrastructure, there's nothing wrong with that. That protein, there's excellent protein in both of those. Yeah. Absolutely. And like I said, I don't know with the eggs if I'm, if I'm BSing myself with stuff, but I swear to God, they digest way better for me. Absolutely. Mine too. I mean, I've had the similar experience where I couldn't eat eggs for the longest time. And then one of the farmers gave me a dozen eggs this time of the year.

It was Easter and he had a bunch of extra extra eggs. I said, yeah, sure, I'll take some. And I'd take them home and cook them. And I'm like, wow, I can actually digest these because the industrial package, even the pasture raised industrial packages, you know, I get that gut rot like you talk about. But with my local eggs, not at all. Not at all. Yeah.

Yeah. It makes all the difference, folks. And your stomach in your body will love you. My body in it, you know, loves me for the most part. It has its days of the mold. But, I mean, it just makes such a difference in health and your metabolism and losing weight. Thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate Chuck.

What a pleasure, Chris. Thank you for having me. Thank you. And thanks for us for tuning in. Order up the Chef's Recovery out January 27, 2014. And reach out to him and eat better. I mean, health is wealth. I mean, that really freaking is, especially as you get older.

you know, there's no way I could, I'm surprised I'm still alive with all the bullshit. Me too. I can't even believe it. I just, I just, ugh. Anyway, thanks for tuning in, folks. Go to Goodrease.com, Fortchus Christchristch, Chris Foss, 1 on the tick, talkity and all those crazy places in the internet. Thanks to Daniel.

Medical Chef, I love this, calling it from LinkedIn there. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning.

Consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed. Great show, Chuck.