The Liz Moody Podcast - Ask The Doctor—Balancing Hormones, Fighting Inflammation, Detoxing From The Pill, Telling If Supplements Work & More with Dr. Will Cole

Episode Date: November 13, 2019

This will be the first edition of what I’m calling Ask the Doctor, where I have on one of my favorite functional medicine professionals and ask them all of your top questions about health and wellness. My doctor this episode is the amazing Will Cole, who has been both a friend and a source for my stories for years and years. He’s the author of two best-selling books, Ketotarian, which is all about doing a plant-based keto diet, and the newly released The Inflammation Spectrum, which helps people put together a custom plan to fight inflammation. He co-hosts the goop fellas podcast, and he’s a regular source and contributor to goop, mindbodygreen, and a number of other wellness websites. We cover a lot in this episode—I wanted to pack in as much information as possible. This includes: The top 3 foods that fight inflammation Lifestyle changes that take less than 5 minutes a day to fight inflammation How to get high quality sleep How to balancing hormones after birth control, including how long it takes + how you can help clear hormones from your body The healthiest type of birth control The super common drink Dr. Cole consumes every day for longevity (you can find it at any grocery store!) The 3 easiest ways to support hormone balance The best workouts for anxiety, gut health, hormone balance and more The bare minimum amount you should work out What lab tests you need to get an idea of how healthy you are, and how to get them without going to a doctor Dr. Cole’s personal anxiety journey and what he does to deal with it How to tell if a supplement is working, and how long to give each type What to do for better gut health generally, or if you have IBS or more severe issues And SO much more! You can find Will on Instagram @drwillcole, and I’m @lizmoody—we’d both love to hear what you think of the episode! Enjoy! PS: Healthier Together is officially a number one best-seller! You can get your copy on Amazon or at lizmoody.com/cookbook. Please keep sending me your creations on Instagram—they make me so happy! This episode is sponsored by Better Help, an online therapy platform that I use and love. On their website, you answer a few questions and are matched with a licensed, professional therapist, who you can be chatting with within 24 hours. You can also schedule weekly video or phone sessions, so you have multiple ways to have therapy in a way that’s convenient for you. Join over 500,000 people using the super affordable serving worldwide by using the link betterhelp.com/healthiertogether to get 10% off your first month of service. It’s changed my mental health and I truly hope it helps you! This episode is also sponsored by Simple Mills, a company that makes some of the best grain free snacks and baking mixes you can buy. On this week’s episode, I shared how to make a healthy cheese board with grain free crackers, and how to make delicious Thanksgiving leftovers pizza with Simple Mill’s pizza dough, but honestly, you can’t go wrong with any of their products! You can get a whopping 20% off your order on SimpleMills.com by using the code “heathiertogether20” when you check out. Healthier Together cover art by Zack. Healthier Together music by Alex Ruimy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Healthy Together podcast. My name is Liz Moody, and I'm a cookbook author and long-time journalist living in Brooklyn. This podcast is normally all about interviewing amazing people who are living their healthiest, happiest lives and figuring out exactly how they got there, whether it was overcoming a gut or hormone issue or sorting out their career, relationships. But today, we're actually going to take a little bit of a different approach. This will be the first edition of what I'm calling Ask the Doctor, where I have a have on one of my favorite functional medicine professionals and ask them all of your top questions

about health and wellness. I wanted to do this for a few reasons. The first being that it can be really, really expensive to actually see a functional doctor. So I wanted to give you as much of that game-changing, health-altering information here for free as I possibly could. The second is that I have this amazing network of doctors from my years in journalism and I wanted to find a way to share their wisdom with you. But often I'll listen to podcasts about a health topic and I'll put in like 60 minutes and feel like I got maybe one salient takeaway. And I wanted quick to the point, pragmatic solutions to some of our biggest health problem. So that is exactly what this episode is. My doctor, this episode is the Amazing Will Cole, who has been both a friend and a source for my

stories for years and years. He's the author of two bestselling books, Ketotarian, which is all about doing a plant-based keto diet, and the newly released the inflammation spectrum, which helps people put together a custom plan to fight inflammation. He co-hosts the Goop Fellas podcast, and he's a regular source and contributor to Goop, MindBody Green, and a number of other wellness websites. But what I love about Will the most is that he actually still spends most of his days seeing patients. I think studies are super useful, but honestly, you can only tell so much from them and actually seeing real effects and real people is irreplaceable. So I love that Will spends so much time actually helping people see real changes with their health. Actually, okay, the thing I love

most about Will is that he is the world's sweetest human and he is obsessed with his wife and his perfect children. But seeing patience is still pretty high on the list. We talk about a lot in this episode. Like I said, I wanted to pack in as much information as possible. But just to give you an idea of what you're in for, here's a sampling. We talk about the top three foods that fight inflammation. Lifestyle changes that take less than five minutes a day that fight inflammation. The easiest low-hanging fruits to get good quality sleep. How to balance hormones after birth control, including how long it takes and how you can clear those hormones from your body, the healthiest type of birth control, the super common drink he consumes every day for

anti-aging, the three easiest ways to support hormone balance, the best workouts for anxiety, gut health, hormone balance, and more. The bare minimum you should work out, which I was very interested in, what lab tests you need to get an idea of how healthy you are and how to get them without going to a doctor. Dr. Cole's personal anxiety journey, which I was also very interested in and what he does to deal with it, how to tell if a supplement is working and how long to give each type to see if it's actually working in your body, what to do for better gut health generally, and if you have IBS or more severe issues, and so much more. I am so excited to share this episode with you and curious to hear what you think about it. So definitely leave me a review on iTunes

if you like this format and you want me to do Ask the Doctor episodes more often. We can have Willback or we can mix up the doctors. And also remember, I am still giving away my care packages of my favorite wellness goodies, things like beauty products and healthy food and more for anybody who leaves in iTunes rating and review. So just screenshot it when you're done and share it on your Insta Stories and tag at Liz Moody so I can see it. I'm picking three or four people a month. So there's definitely a really good chance that you'll win at some point. Also, one more quick thing. I just released my ultimate healthier Thanksgiving ebook.

I'm very proud of this. This was a labor of love. It has a ton of healthy recipes for the holiday, including apps. There's a pecan brittle brussels that is just like heavenly. I've been eating it all weekend. There's main dishes. There's a veggie one. I could not find a good vegetarian Thanksgiving main dish.

there were all just things like risotto or pot pie and I was like that doesn't have the wow effect of a main dish. So I made my own and I'm very proud of it. And then I talk about turkey as well and of course desserts. I also included healthy travel tips, conversation starters that work for basically anyone, even that strange uncle that you only talk to one time of the year. And I also have my favorite drink to help digest all of that delicious food. It's only $2.99 and it is totally free to anybody who leaves a podcast review. I wanted to make this as accessible to as many of you as possible. So you can definitely check all of that out at Liz Moody.com slash shop. All right, that is all that I have for you today. As always, I would love to know your reactions to this episode. So please

screenshot and tag me at Liz Moody. And Will, he's at Dr. Will Cole on Instagram so we can continue the conversation. Enjoy. All right. Today I have Dr. Will Cole on the podcast. I have known you, God, how long have I known you at this point? Long time, I think lifetimes. We first met in the Mesolithic era. We worked together when I was an editor at MindBuddy Green, and I feel like you were awesome because whenever I was like, I have a question, so I will write an article about it

and you would solve all of my health issues. So I thought it would be really fun to have you come on and solve all of our listeners' health issues today. I'm ready. So we asked everybody on Instagram, to share their health issues. And we were like, there's no issue too hard. I asked Will if you wanted all the questions in advance to prepare.

And he said, no. That's right. I like on the fly. But this is what you do all day, sort of in your practice, right? Yeah. So my day job is consulting patients online via webcam. And I don't get, I don't know what questions I'm going to be asked. Well, and it's like, I always think of it as like detective work because it's people come to you

after they haven't been able to figure out what's wrong with them for a really long. time, right? Yeah. So it's I, my main of my, like, bulk of my patients are people that, as you said, they're people that have done a lot of work on their own. They've had to be their own health investigators. So they know more than the average person. And despite all the good things they're doing, they're still not where they want to be. So I'm used to the, the nitty gritty for sure. Do people, like, correct you? Are they like, oh, I read this on, oh, that's Bella. we were like waiting to see if Bella was going to settle down before we started recording because she's the loudest cat on the history of the planet.

But she will. She will. Do you get people trying to like stump you and be like, you know, I read this on Google, so you're probably not right, doctor? Yeah. I have a lot of patients that look at research and show me research. And we have a discussion. I like informed patients.

I like having a discussion and I like really being being informed but also informing people and having an open honest conversation. I feel like part of the problem for people in mainstream medicine when they're going through that process is not being heard, not being listened to. Bella's meowing and I just paused it and Will was like, we can call it a podcat, which she's our podcast. She's our podcast. She's going to be quiet now.

Okay. So we're going to try. we're going to be informed patients and we're going to try to stump you. Okay. So also I want to mention, I'm going to probably mention this in the intro, but I want to mention anyways that you've written two books because some of the questions are about keto specifically. So you wrote a book called Ketotarian, which is a vegetarian take on a keto diet.

And then you wrote a book called the inflammation spectrum, which is all about inflammation and how to fight that. And I think some people on my Instagram are your fans because we have stuff about that. So we'll start with something similar to that. I know that Dr. Cole is a keto fan, but take all labels off and just tell us the foods that fight inflammation. Yeah, that's a good question to start off with. Well, the inflammation spectrum, the book, it has, it's not a keto book at all. I talk about this concept of the inflammation spectrum, like this continuum of, like from low-grade symptoms to diagnosable health problems and everything in between in ketotarian, because beta-hydroxybuterate, the ketone, down-regulates, he's,

inflammatory pathways and brings up these antioxidant pathways. So we had that discussion in ketotarian, but the inflammation spectrum book is a deep dive in all the other things that help to lower inflammation levels. Food things and non-food things, just as you know, I mean, it's not just about foods. We talk about stress, we talk about sleep, we talk about social connection, we talk about screen time and toxins and all these other things that impact inflammation. So I'm definitely not, like, as a functional medicine practitioner, I'm not a ketogenic doctor. We use it as a tool when it's appropriate. We use it as a tool that works for the person on an individual basis.

And I see the ketogenic diet, just so the person asking the question is clear, I use it as a tool to gain metabolic flexibility. And most people are always in sugar burning mode, and they don't even have the potential or the ability at this point to become a fat burner. So the way I advocate it in ketotarian is just to get some metabolic flexibility, burn fat for fuel, get the brain cognitive improving benefits and the anti-inflammatory benefits. But then you could do a cyclical approach or moderate your carbs or do it when you want to sort of a down-regulating inflammatory, like experiment for yourself. So I don't think that everybody should be in ketosis forever and ever. That's definitely not what I write about in ketotarian. It's not how I even eat.

So in the inflammation spectrum, the goal of the book is to find out what your body loves and what your body hates. We are all different. It's the heart of functional medicine. It's bio-individuality. So I can name some anti-inflammatory foods, but they could be problematic for some people. So I really want people to go through the experiment in the book to really find the food medicines that their body loves. But with that said, there are some things that they're scientific. literature points to being anti-inflammatory.

Turmeric, which most people know about. Yeah, that's like the famous one. It's the famous one. Because there's hundreds of hundreds of studies done on it, but the curcuminoytes, the curcumin, uh, oils are all good at downregulating inflammation. Okay, two more. How about? Okay.

Second one, let's say tarotil bean, which is like risveratrols. That's the one that's like teradactyl, right, where it has a pee at the beginning? Yeah, it's like the, it's like teradactyl. phytonutrient. But it helps to help lower inflammation levels too. And what? That's in blueberries, they want to say? Yeah, it's in different plant foods. But you can get Terastil bean supplements as well. That's concentrated, just like the curcuminoid are standardized for so you have a higher potency and bioavailability, the same as Terosilene. And third, let's say adaptogenic mushrooms, because they are good anti-inflammatories as well. Do you have favorite mushrooms?

Yeah, Lions main, specifically for the brain and its ability to improve brain cognitive function and lowering neuroinflammation and chaga from an immune standpoint. Those are two of my favorite. Could you give us, you just mentioned that there's like a lot of other stuff in the book. Can you give us like three very low-hanging fruit ways to fight inflammation? Like stuff maybe that would take less than five minutes a day that you could change today that would fight inflammation? Food or non-food ways. Either anything that like literally is less than five minutes a day. It won't affect your life that much.

So food-wise, start leaning into bringing in more healthy fats. So things like avocados, olives, avocado oil, olive oil, wild-caught fish are all good at calming inflammation levels. Increasing vegetables and lowering sugar, let's put that as one. I think that especially from a digestive standpoint, people should be cooking their vegetables and having them soft and cooked in stews and soups or at least saute to some degree to make them more bioavailable and digestible the nutrients that they do have because a lot of people have impaired gut problems. They're not handling raw vegetables very well. But focusing on that and those are ketotarian principles for sure, but we talk about it in the inflammation spectrum too, not in the context of ketosis but just

lowering inflammation using these food medicines. Some non-food things would be bringing in acts of stillness into your life, whatever that means. It's things like Tai Chi, things like mindfulness meditation, things like yoga, cultivating a daily practice of stillness in your life, whether that's just getting a cup of tea and having 15 minutes to yourself to just be and use the tea as a form of meditation, which is quite an ancient practice. But I think bringing those acts of stillness in your life is profoundly important from a down-regulating inflammation standpoint. And then another non-food thing, which is a really low-hanging fruit, but should be mentioned is getting quality sleep, restorative sleep. I don't think that's a low-hanging fruit.

I think that's like, I think there's this interesting sleep movement happening where everybody is like, oh, if we just tell you that you need to get enough sleep, you will. Like, it's just that people sort of forgot that it was important. But for me, working in the wellness world, I never had any sleep issues until I started reporting on and doing a lot of work with sleep. And then I had sleep issues. Because in my head, like if I woke up a little bit in the middle of the night, I used to read, like, magazines on my tablet. And I'd be like, no, you can't do that. And then I'd be like, no, you can't be in your bed anymore. You need to go to the couch so you don't, you know, associate your bed with not sleeping.

And I had all of these things in my head that put all this pressure on having high quality sleep and then I couldn't sleep anymore. Interesting. You're stressing about the whole thing. And I think for me, any sort of sleep issues I have are completely anxiety related. And so then adding that anxiety to sleep was. hugely problematic for me. Yeah. It is a problem, but people need to get restorative sleep. Just one night of poor sleep's been shown to increase high sensitivity C-reactor protein, the inflammatory biomarker, just one night of poor sleep, let alone the epidemic of sleep problems that people

have. Are there low-hanging fruits that you think can help people get good sleep? Yeah. We're going to have to renegotiate our relationship with technology. I think that's a major problem. So whether that's blue light blocking glasses, like those amber colored glasses, to positively improve the circadian rhythm, or turning off your technology before bed, an hour before bed, two hours before bed. It's not possible for everybody or not desirable for everybody, I should say, but it's something that one should consider if they're not getting the sleep they're looking to get. And then improving what we call sleep hygiene, but it's really just practices that improve circadian rhythm, the serotonin converting into melatonin,

and properly supporting a good night's sleep. So I love essential oils at night. You can put some on your pillow like lavender or other things that are calming to you. Just find maybe a smell that you like that's calming. But lavender pretty well researched to be beneficial there. And I have like a blend with orange peel and lavender and probably eel. long e-long. I think that's what's in there. And you can have it diffusing, obviously. You can rub some on the bottom of your feet. You can put some under your nose. And at the beginning state, you can bring in sort of a mindfulness app, like calm or headspace. And they have specific sleep apps too. And then once you get the hang of it, you don't need the app. Maybe you should put the

technology away and just do it without it. And what if you do all that stuff and you lay down, and like your mind is racing and you just can't fall asleep. I think breathing exercises can be quite therapeutic to break the thought pattern for a lot of people. It's not going to do it for everybody. And there's people that have legitimate anxiety, anxiousness issues and they should be digging into what's driving that. Oh, we're going to talk about anxiety. We're going to talk about it. You better believe we're going to talk about anxiety.

What type of are you big, do you like, my dad likes, my dad's psychologist. He likes the like three, five, eight, I think, or four, five. Yeah, timed breathing exercises or the box breathing. I think that those are good. And what's been a game changer for me, sleep-wise, has been a gravity blanket or weighted blanket. Oh, my God. I have one, too. I which brand do you have, you know? I'm not sure. Do you have the gravity one is a brand. Yeah, okay. So I guess that's it. Yeah. I have the Berbe one, which this is not sponsored at all. But it's, it's like, it looks like a big knit blanket, but it's made of cotton. And I love it because it doesn't. All the other ones I've had, have had little beans inside and they make like a crinkly noise as you

turn. I don't know if the gravity has that, but this one doesn't. It's just like soft cotton. Okay. And I love it. It's made so much of it. Do you sleep with one every night? Yeah. And then when I travel, like I'm in New York right now, I don't sleep as well when I'm in a hotel. So I'll normally ask for like two beds and like a two. And then you'll take the thing. And will you make the room like freezing then? Yeah, I normally have the room colder. Is there anything else you do to sleep while when you travel? Because I find that such a hard thing.

I have like my little white noise machine. Yeah, I have that. I have an app on the phone. But we actually know my kids have the little machine. It's like a circular machine we got on Amazon. That is nice. You can have it plugged in or not plugged in. And it's a white noise machine basically to, you know, dampen the sounds outside to make it more conducive to sleep.

So those are my top things that I do. And I know some people have legitimate sleep disorders. There's the people I typically consult. So the things that I'm talking about for them, they may help, but they're probably going to need more of investigation of what's driving that. Right. But just as like a basic. Just a basic starting point you should try those things. Okay. Let's talk about hormones. A lot of questions about balancing hormones after birth control. First of all, can you speak to? Do you think when you go off birth control, you're like good to go? when you go off an IUD, you're good to go. Or is there a length of time that it takes to rebalance your hormones after?

This is something that I see a lot. Either women are considering coming off of birth control, have just come off of it, or have been off of it for a long time, and their periods are not back. So amenorrhea or a lack of period, something that I see all the time for various different reasons, one of them being, okay, post-birth control, this hasn't come back. it takes time. Look, some people, it doesn't take time and it's a quick response and the cycle comes right back. They're some of the lucky ones. Those aren't the people that I'm consulting. So I don't know the statistics completely because I'm seeing the people that. You have a skewed sample. I have a skewed sample for sure. But they're the people that it's not coming back. And we have to look at their hormones. We have to check in. We typically do some blood tests and we do urine and saliva like a Dutch hormone test to get a really in-depth perspective. A Dutch hormone test? Yeah, they call it Dutch, which is an acronym for like dried urine, something. Something that's not as nice sounding it's Dutch.

It sounds so European, but it's really just dried urine and saliva. So we're looking at all the estrogen metabolites, E1, E2, and E3, looking at progesterone. We're looking at the balance of estrogen to progesterone and testosterone levels and cortisol levels. All of those sort of interconnectedness of female hormones and hormones at large. So I'm at home. I can't afford functional medicine practitioner. I can't afford these tests? Or can I, can I just go ask for these tests if I'm not seeing a function?

The blood tests, yeah. So the blood tests are actually quite low cost. Does insurance cover them? Insurance will cover them most of the time. Depending on people's insurance carrier, everybody has different plans. But yeah, oftentimes insurance will run those with the proper ICD10 codes on there and the proper coverage. Now, blood is not the best when it comes to hormones. Blood is a literal just a snapshot in time.

So when you're talking about your cycle, where were you at 8 a.m. on the Thursday that you got the lab, like you don't know where you're out the other 23 hours and 59 minutes where you're not getting tested and then let alone the whole 28 or so day cycle or longer or shorter. So it's really not extremely helpful from a female hormone standpoint. It's okay from a thyroid standpoint. We look at thyroid hormones via blood. We look at the total and free.

It's quite helpful. We look at things like free testosterone and total testosterone, which is appropriate for women to via blood. But estrogen and progestone and lutanizing hormone, FSAH, all of these hormones are not the most, it's not the most practical and like real life, like what the heck do I do with this data on a lab standpoint from blood alone. So that's why we do the urine and saliva.

But, I mean, to say, we are making a huge effort in our clinic and other functional medicine clinics to improve the accessibility and affordability of these tests. But if I'm just at home, I definitely can't afford anything. I have not had my period in six months since I went off the pill. What would you recommend I do? Well, if it's been six months and the body's not cleared out those hormones and your body's, you've given your body's, you've given your. body a decent amount of time to rebalance. And which is how long would you say? I would say six months through a year is a decent time for us to say, okay, we've given the

body some time to sort of clear out and do the proper, you know, recalibration aspect of coming off of a pill. I think at that point, you're going to want to find a functional medicine practitioner. If you can't, look at the foods you're eating. Obviously, you have to be supporting healthy hormone balance from a food standpoint. point, a lot of people have higher inflammation levels which are impacting their receptor sites for their hormones. So a low cost, very low cost thing would be something like a book where we talk about hormone imbalance in the inflammation spectrum. So in lieu of running labs and actually knowing

for sure, for sure from a doctor, I think a low cost something like a book would be a good thing because they can kind of see. And that I designed the book. The start of the book starts at the quiz. It's adapted from questions that I ask patients. So I'm not there in the book form. But you can go through the methodology of looking at your hormones and kind of seeing, oh, where am I at on the inflammation spectrum? And that specific hormone section on the inflammation spectrum may be higher for this person that has gone six months without a period. And then they'll have their own hormone toolbox and they'll have a food plan that's tailored to that approach. So that's why I wrote the book is for people that don't want a functional medicine doctor, can't have access to it, aren't ready for it, whatever reason, they can start making changes in their life. And we look at food, we look at non-food, we look at lifestyle changes that can support hormone

balance by lowering inflammation and getting those receptor sites to pick up the hormones appropriately and helping the brain speaking to the endocrine system appropriately. Both of those, both the resistance pattern on a receptor site and a brain adrenal, brain estrogen, brain ovarian axis, brain thyroid axis has to do largely with inflammation. Okay. So we're going to unpack some of the lifestyle stuff for hormone balance and all of in a second. But first of all, is there anything you can add into your diet or supplement routine to help clear artificial hormones from your body after you go on the pill? Yeah, for sure. Or off the pill. Yeah, coming off the pill. So yes, bringing in green, different

types of greens, like bitter greens can help with liver function. And milk thistle is another one that can help upregulate liver detoxification pathways. And acetylisitin, which is another co-factor you can get by itself or you can get it in blends of different detox blends. So those are a couple. What are your thoughts on the pill in general? I think it obviously should be readily accessible and available and affordable for women who want to do that. I just feel like there's a lack of open, honest dialogue with the patient and their doctor about

it. And I think to have informed consent and be properly educated, you have to know both sides of that. You have to know, hey, this could happen. And I don't think it's happening. It's just like, oh, take this. Yeah. And a lot of times it's, oh, take. Like, I was given the pill when I was 15, not because I was having sex, but just because I don't even like, I think maybe I had a slightly irregular period or something.

But it wasn't even like a real, they were just like, oh, yeah, here, I have this pill. And I'd have sex till three years later. So it was just like, oh, that's three years of having some hormones in my life. So common. It's just whatever reason, whether it is cycle irregularities or painful menses or skin issues, whatever, or contraception, they're just flippantly given it without education. And I think that there has to be a discussion to really understand what you're getting into, potentially. What do you think is the best option for birth control for women's health these days? I would say condoms. Okay. And that's would be.

without a doubt the most beneficial for women's health. Maybe not men's pleasure. And like there's a conversation there and that's definitely leaving it up to somebody else for your own contraception, which not everybody likes that. But I would say definitely the least insulting to women's physiology. The second best would be a copper IUD and I say that with reluctance. I just say that because it's non-hormonal. It's still causing irritation.

It's still causing low-grade inflammation. It's still impacting your hormones. Well, and we had another woman on this podcast, Courtney Swan, who's Real Foodology on Instagram, and it's a really great episode if you want to listen to it. But she had copper toxicity from her IUD and had a ton of symptoms and ended up having to get it taken out. Yeah. No, it totally can happen. And those are the things we monitor as far as heavy metals are concerned.

And that doesn't happen to everybody. But I think in general, it's still disturbing. in a way that is not going to be good. But I think it's generally less problematic from a coming, when you come off of it, I see the, your cycle come back quicker than the hormonal ones. And like the marina or the pill. Okay. And then let's talk about hormone balance. I want to do some like some more of those like low hanging things. If you had five minutes in your day right now and you were sort of worried about your hormones and you just wanted to do a few things that would make them, that would support hormone balance, what would you do?

Hormone things that I would do for hormone balance? Yeah, low-hanging. Okay. Easy things. So super easy things. I definitely go back to the hormones. You have to have healthy fats for healthy hormones. So going back to this healthy fats, and I mentioned earlier, wild-caught fish,

avocados, olives, grass-fed beef. Some people don't do well with lots of grass-fed beef, but bring that into your life from a B-vitamin standpoint. iron standpoint, a bioavailable form of iron, that said, and fish offers that as well for more of a pescatarian option. And I would say I'm a fan of from a hormone balance of adaptogens, and there's quite a bit of research, both in the scientific literature and just anecdotally, just seeing. Specific ones? Yeah, Tulsi. I love Tulsi. Me too. Does Tulsi tea, like that's what, So it's holy basil tea or Tulsi tea.

I drink like organic India has one and Paka has one. Is that like enough to make a difference if you're drinking like an herbal tea? Yeah, totally. I think when you look at certain studies, you will see like a couple cups of day oftentimes. Oh, I drink it all. Like I drink like 12 cups of caffeine free tea a day. You're living the dream. She's floating right now.

But that's like, so even just in like a tea versus supplement, it's enough to sort of make a difference. Oh, yeah. And that's how in traditional Chinese medicine and in Ayurvedic medicine, which is where Tulsi or Holy Basil is traditionally used, that's how they typically are given in teas. And a lot of times they're loose leaf teas and then you push them down. And you also like steep them for. That's my thing with caffeine-free. So with like green tea, black tea, you don't want to steep them forever because they just taste really better. But with caffeine-free tea, you can make sort of like a decoction and steep it for ages.

So I always, my tips for caffeine-free tea is always to, I'll boil it for like a while and with the lid on so the stuff, the volatile oils don't escape. And then I'll sip it as like a much stronger, like 10-minute boiled brew. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. If I'm, it's also nice because you can forget about it. Like you. Yeah, totally.

And that's funny. I drink the caffeine tea. I live on the wild side. But I love that. Because I like the bitter. I like the longer, steep black tea and green tea. Really? Oh, yeah.

tell everybody your, I love, he has this Earl Grey. I was interviewing you for, I think, your last book, and you said your Earl Grey trick. And I thought that was like the fun story. And then I wrote an article about it. Did I have made you like great? Yeah. I was like, this is great. Everybody needs to know. So tell everybody your old gray check. So Earl Grey tea is black tea with Bergamont in it and sometimes like lavender notes as well. But Bergamont is a citrus from Calabria and Italy that's been shown in the scientific literature to enhance something called autophagy, which is if you break that word on auto, phagy, it's self-eating. It's your healthy cells gobbling up and recycling the dysfunctional

messed up cells. So it's your body's own like recycling system. It's your body's own anti-aging mechanism. It's your body's own anti-inflammatory anti-disease mechanism. So Earl Grey tea does that both from a Bergamont standpoint and a catechin standpoint like the polyphenols in the black tea. And fasting does that too. So I do time restricted feeding or intermittent fasting in the morning most days like today I am where I would just have tea like you've made me some green tea so I'm having that or I'll have Earl grade tea or black tea in the morning but normally Earl Grey tea is my jam in the morning because of that so fasting ketosis and Bergamont all has been shown to increase atopathy and if you wanted to increase atopagy and I

don't drink caffeine because of my anxiety would like Roybo's Earl Grey work? It's just anything with the burgom? I've never had Roybois or gray. Oh, yeah, it's great. Oh, my goodness. I need to try that. It's like delightful. So I've been telling people just to get the Bergamont essential oil and just adding it to

Oh my God. I get so nervous about consuming essential oils. Like, just because like you really want the tiniest, tiny and tiny smell, right? You don't need that much. You don't need that drop. And then, yeah, I just get, I get very nervous about it. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, you have to make sure it's pure and it's food grade and all the good stuff.

Are there ones you recommend? Yeah, Dutera's. brand. I used Deutera's Bergamont oil. But yeah, make sure that it's certified, pure and food grade and meant to be ingested. So do your research on that. So yeah, I think for hormones, polybasal, and the other thing I wanted to mention was some other ones like Shashandra, which sounds like someone's name, and Shilajit are two other adaptogens that are widely recognized to be good at hormone balance. Okay.

And those are those just like supplements you'd want to take? Typically, you could get those in T's as well. Okay. I don't see them very often, but if you... I think Pucka makes one with Sheila G. Okay. And they have, like, I know a brand that sells, like, in liquid form. It was amongst other ingredients, too.

It's quite bitter tasting. So I think supplements may be appropriate there. Capsules or powders. You can mask it in other things. And what about like, is there a best workout for hormone balance versus inflammation versus like anxiety? Or is there just like one universal workout that you think is best? Or is the best workout just like one you'll do? Yeah.

I do agree with that. I think the best workout is the one that's sustainable for you and brings balance to you and doesn't stress you out. So for some people, it's, you know, going and doing birth training and like orange theory or something like that. And for some people, that's going to stress them out and cause problems, so they're not there athletically. So they need to do something more gentle. But, yeah, I think the sweating and moving, getting cardiovascular work, getting oxygen in your body, improving brain-derived neurotropic factor, BDNF, that helps to lower inflammation levels,

which is really good from a hormone balance. Again, that brain, hypothalamic, pituitary, adrenal ovarian thyroid axis, and helps with cellular receptor site sensitivity because it's also enhancing autophagy too and the more you move. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. Let's talk about the holidays. This is one of my absolute favorite times a year because it's all about coming together over amazing, delicious food to nourish our bodies and our relationships. I always spend Thanksgiving with my mom's family in New York and Christmas with Zach's family

and my dad in California with a sneaky bit of Hanukkah thrown in the middle. So I have ample opportunities to celebrate. One of the brands that I really rely on during this time of year is Simple Mills, who makes some of the best grain-free snacks and baking mixes out there. On Thanksgiving, I love to put out a super simple cheeseboard for people to nash on throughout the day because otherwise people get really hungry by the time the actual meal rolls around. I use the Simple Mills grain-free crackers. I love the cracked black pepper, almond flour crackers,

and I also love the rosemary and sea salt ones and the sun-dried tomato and basil for like the perfect cheeseboard spread. All of the crackers are fully free of grains, soy, corn, dairy, gums, and emulsifiers, plus they have way more protein than typical crackers, which helps keep that hanger at bay. I'll put those out with some pastured cheese, some plant-based cheese, and some dried cranberries and maybe some pecans to keep it seasonal, and then everyone can graze throughout the day and I don't have to prepare any more food for them. I also love to use the Simple Mills grain-free pizza dough to make the world's best Thanksgiving

leftovers meal. This is truly game-changing, okay? You can just top the pizza dough with everything you have left from the night before, whether it's pastured turkey or mashed potatoes or cranberry sauce or stuffing. I also love adding any fresh herbs I have around. It is so good and so easy, and you can whip it together even if you're so tired of cooking that you never want to see your kitchen again. I honestly like it more than the actual Thanksgiving dinner, and there's something so lovely about how casual that day after is, and you can really enjoy. hanging out with your family and friends and sharing pizza and stories and jokes. You can get a whopping 20% off your order on Simplemills.com by using the code

healthier together 20. That is the number 20. Do not write it out. Healthyer together like the name of this podcast, 20, like the number 20 on Simplemills.com. Use that when you check out and you'll get 20% off. And if you make anything, definitely tag me and at Simple Mills on Insta. I want to see and compliment your work. I will be sharing a few of my favorite ways to use their mixes on Insta over the next few months as well. So definitely let me know if you have any requests. I would love to make something for you.

They are one of my all-time favorite brands and I cannot wait for you to try them. I know that you'll love them too. All right. Let's get back to the episode. So if you just like go for a walk for 20 minutes every day, is that like like what's the the barest minimum workout that is still sort of supporting all? the stuff in your body you want to support it. It depends on what your baseline is.

So if someone's coming in and they have done nothing, I would just say lean into whatever you're doing and progress. So try to sweat, I think, is a good barometer for where you're at fitness-wise. So someone's sweat threshold could be a lot lower. I mean, if they're not moving at all, they could just walk up and down the steps twice and they'll sweat. Okay, that's good. They're starting to move.

Some people, that's going to be nothing and they should progress a little bit more. So wherever you're at right now, I would say find the sweat threshold and do that consistently. And is there an amount of time you think is a minimum that people should be spending per day and the week? I would say 20 minutes, 15 to 20 minutes, be kind of the lower end of the threshold of what you should be doing moving wise. Not everybody is going to even be there right out of the gate. Probably most of your listeners will be. But I'm just thinking of people out there. They can't be.

I was not a worker out or I was very much like food, filtered like water, non-toxic beauty, all of that for so long. And I didn't start working out until I ran into my sleep issues, which was probably like two years ago. And it's only been in the last year. I've made it regular in my life. So I do think sometimes it's interesting to me the things that are the last thing for people. And working out is it's so easy to swap all your beauty products. It's so hard to be like, get up off the couch and go do this thing for 20 minutes.

it's every day. It is. Yeah, but I think there's, that's why I like working out from home because there is some people need that accountability and they need to get out and like go have someone hold them accountable. I'm, I'm going to do it or I'm not going to do it. So I like, I use the T-Mac fitness, our friend Todd McCullough. He has some great workouts online and I like- And he's like really nice to look at. Yeah, I don't think of that so much. He is a, he is a stud. He is a stud. He's a Massively tall stud. He can hold me in one of those. He looks like if Ken was like more buff.

Yeah. I feel like a Ken doll. He could hold me in a baby Bjorn all day long. I'm so small compared to him. And I like Peloton too. Oh, yeah. Kate Fagan, I had an episode with her and Catherine. And she said Peloton was like her number one purchase she made.

I've heard that from Kate. Yeah. She's very, that and oat milk, I think, or her. It's her jam. High grade, low grade thing. Yeah, I do home workouts too. I've started doing this thing where I won't let myself turn on my phone until I've worked out in the morning.

And I love it because the thing that always got in the way was I'd just be like sitting there scrolling in social media. And then I'd be like, oh, now I have to go to work because it's late enough in the day. So I literally wake up. It stops that time we're just laying in bed and like not doing anything but not getting out of bed. So I get bored in bed very quickly. Yeah.

And then I go work out for 20 minutes and then start my day. And 20 minutes is just like, you can do that. Yes. You know. Totally. It's very easy. And there's so many free videos on YouTube. On YouTube.

Yeah. Oh, my God. YouTube is like, I'm such a YouTube. Me too. Fan. Like there's so many good workouts on YouTube. Yeah, yoga by Adrian is a great one. Allo Yoga actually has a ton to like Kaila Lissa, who we're both friends with.

She has great workouts on YouTube that are totally free with Allo Yoga, which like some of the best yoga classes I've ever done. Yeah, it's amazing. What about, so my dad will get off workouts in one second. But my dad says that, like, high intensity has been shown in studies or high intensity interval training has been shown in studies to be specifically good for anxiety. Yeah. Do you know about anything about, like, specific workouts that track to specific problems or is it,

again, just, like, move your body? I would say moving body is the commonality. It is fascinating of certain types of study looking at certain types of workouts. But I would be interested, you know, if all the studies were done in different types of workouts. so you probably would find similar things. But I do agree. I think there's something to be done, something to be said for high-intensity interval training

or burst training or whatever you want, hit training, where you are pushing yourself to that upper limit of what your body's capable of doing, that it is really activating the parasympathetic system after, like the resting, digesting, because your body is working on recuperating post-workout in a way that I have found personally, too, to be very helpful for anxiety, which I've been open, as you have been, about having anxiety over the years and finding different ways to manage it.

Okay, we'll get into that in one sec, because I love, like, when people have found stuff that actually works for them, which is also why I like you, because you have this huge background of patients that you've seen success in versus just the studies. And I think that's really important. but you were saying the rest and digest after working out, which makes me think about how people always feel like they need to like eat certain stuff before workout and eat in certain stuff after workout and like due to a certain time of day. So let's close out workouts by saying should you eat before and if so what? Should you eat after? If so what? And is there a best time of day? That's a good question. So my favorite phrase before any answer is it depends and context matters. But I would say generally speaking,

it depends on how long the workout you're doing and how much fuel you need. So if some people really need some extra fuel, they're going to need some calories before the workout, or they're going to get fatigued and tired, and they're not going to have the stamina and the ability to the endurance to go through the workout. With that said, I think that there's some exciting research around fasted workouts. As long as you're not, I'm not talking about starving yourself, but just giving your body some, like not eating before a workout, even doing it in the morning before you eat any anything and then waiting a couple hours afterwards.

I think that there's a good amount of research showing those morning workouts, specifically fasting workouts, or even if you can't do that, do a non-fasted morning workout. It tends to be more beneficial as far as a researcher's concerned. And also what I've seen clinically, it really be a modulator of moving your health in a positive direction in a more powerful way. But if you can't get it done in the morning, I'd rather you get it at some point in the day. So don't stress about it if you can't get it in the morning. But if you have a full day, if you're a princess, then you can fit it in at any point.

Good morning. Yes. For this princesses out there, have at it. I would love if I had a princess. If you're a princess and you're listening to this, can you just message me on Instagram so that I know? Yeah. Megan Markle's really into health. Yes.

I'm sure she listens occasionally when she's not doing royal things. Yeah, of course, of course. Okay. You mentioned that you have anxiety. I have anxiety. A lot of my listeners have anxiety. Can you talk about your sort of anxiety journey and a few things that have been really helpful for you on it? Yeah.

So food is first from me. And that's not everybody. You know, from a functional medicine perspective and a personal perspective, we have to see anxiety as bidirectional. In most cases, there's physiological components to anxiety. And there's a whole field of research looking at that. It's called the cytokine model of cognitive function. Basically, how does inflammation impact how my brain works? And I have autoimmune conditions of both sides of my family.

I know for me, inflammation is a driver of my anxiety, at least a component to it. And I see that a lot of times with patients. I see neurological autoimmune components like reactivities, not autoimmune diseases, but autoimmune reactivities where the immune systems actually tagging something called GAD-65, which is an enzyme that has a precursor to GABA, which is your anti-anxiety neurotransmit. I see that significantly, high numbers, surprisingly, over the course of a year. And then not everybody has that. Some people have other components to it.

So I have to look at the gut brain axis, have to look at the hormonal, the transmitter aspect, chronic infections, things like that. For me, things that have helped me is food. I don't have an autoimmune condition, but I have the predisposition for higher inflammation levels because of my MTHFR, I have basically a double mutation or double gene snip. It's not really a mutation. It's a variant for the MTHFR gene at the C677T location, which just means my body really sucks at detoxing and lowering homocysteine levels. And it's associated with different anxiety disorders and autoimmune thyroid issues and other problems like that. So I need to make sure

that I'm really supporting that gene variant. And overall health beyond the gene variant. So going back to healthy fats, going back to more of a ketotarian way of eating, and that's why where the book came to be, because it's how I eat. So lots of good clean plant fats, lots of clean protein, and lots of vegetables, cooked vegetables primarily. So that's played a major rule. And the research around ketosis and brain health is really exciting. And that was one of my favorite, like, parts of the book because of it hit close to home as far as the research is concerned.

So that, to me, has been the biggest game changer. And then mindfulness meditation. Do you do 20 minutes every day type of thing? I don't do a set, like, schedule at all. I should. I'm not the best patient when it comes to this kind of stuff. But I do it throughout the day, in between consults. I do it several, like 10 to 12 times a day, but they're just whenever I need to in between

consultations. And what does that look like? It's really based very simply on Eckhart Toley's principles, which aren't really his principles, but he's the teacher that I've heard it through. But it's just ancient stuff. But it's just concepts of anything that's going to anchor you into the present moment. So whether that's breath awareness, just being still and being mindful of your breath, because your breath's happening involuntarily,

so you are just being mindful of your body's own rhythm. What he calls inner body awareness, which is just being still and filling the aliveness in your body, or just present moment awareness and allowing things to pass through you. So meaning if there is an annoying noise, you just are having non-resistance towards it. So I've, more than any book under the sun,

the new earth and the power of now have been the biggest non-food game changers in my anxiety and mental health. I love that. Okay. Back to reader questions. Somebody wants to know how long you should wait to see if a supplement's working and if there's like a definitive way to tell that you're not wasting your money on it. That's a good question. Expensive pee is what would people want to avoid that.

They probably couldn't sell that expensive pee. But basically, it's going to take a couple of weeks at least. It depends on what supplement you're talking about. So, for example, there are adaptogens that you can see pretty quick turnaround. So let's just say a couple days of consistent use or a couple weeks of consistent use. Most adaptogens in most people, you will see an accumulative effect, but you'll see improvements earlier on with adaptogens, which are basically for people that don't know. There's herbs, plant medicines, earth medicines

that help to balance out stress hormones in the body and lower inflammation levels. Something like CBD can take longer. So they say up to four weeks, five weeks of consistent use to really allow that accumulative effect happen. And some people can notice changes really early on. And that's talking about the liquid tinctures. They sell the vape pens, obviously, that are supposed to be more short-term immediate use.

So I would say a good four to six weeks for the average supplement that you're talking about. When you're in your practice with patients, do you do like one at a time? Or would you recommend people add in one at a time? So it depends on the person. There are, like during an initial intake and taking health history, there are some patients where I know instinctively. and based on clinical experience, that they should be leaning into supplements. Meaning if they're reactive to a lot of things,

or if, like you said, they just want to know if what's working for them or not, you can lean into things. You totally can lean into it. And that could be a supplement a week to see if you have a negative response against it, against it for people that are really sensitive to different herbs or anything that could be in the supplement.

but going back to what I said earlier, if we're talking about four to six weeks of seeing changes, it's going to be a really long leaning in process. So if we're talking to some basic stuff, depends what we're talking about, because if you're talking about like fish oil or vitamin D or methylated B vitamins, I think a lot of those people should be on to various degrees anyways.

Yeah, are there any like supplements that you think everybody should probably be? It's those fish oil, methylated B and what was the last? fish oil, methylated B, D, K2 would be on that list. I put these, people kept asking me like, what are the essentials?

So I put, we have that on the website. It's called the collection. So it's basically a probiotic, methylated B vitamins, amegafish oil. Those are the top ones. And then I think,

not to everybody needs to be taking this, but I think adaptogens are widely beneficial because they are so safe for so many people. Yeah, I just think people, it's the cost. I mean, I think adaptogens have become very affiliated with this sort of like hoity-toity, like fancy wellness. And I think that that's why I think people are willing to spend that money, but they really want to know that it's worth their money.

Yeah, so that, that's a good point. And I think adaptogens should be phased in because of that. So give it. Just to know it's like really worth your spend. So going back, the basic stuff, the D, the B vitamin, mega fish oil to me would be the top three essential things from most people. And again, you can get some of that from food. So if you're focusing in high quality and nutrient-dense foods, you don't necessarily need all those supplements.

But those are things that I would say most American or Western adults could benefit from. And then somebody else wanted to know if it's possible to be a vegetarian and not take supplements and like be a healthy vegetarian. vegetarian yeah you can because if you tolerate egg yolks and ghee you're going to be getting some nutrients from those you know something to consider would be b12 if you're not getting ample amounts of that where would you find that in natural food you're going to be getting some of that in the egg yolk but you would have to be eating a lot of eggs and not everybody does well with eating tons of eggs so I would err on the side of you're probably going to have to supplement unless you can tolerate

lots of eggs. And that's B's. If you're going to take A supplement as a vegetarian or vegan, that's a methylated. Yeah, methylated B complex with methyl folate, methylcobalamine or some other methylated. Can you just briefly explain? You talked about the MT, what I like to call the mother effer gene, and then other people would probably call it that. I'm always like, I like to call it that. And then we're saying methylated Bs for people who don't know what the heck that means. Can you just explain that briefly? Yeah. So it's basically a form of the B vitamins that are more, make it more bioavailable.

So for example, MTHFR is the gene that makes the enzyme that converts folic acid, the synthetic form of the B vitamin, into folate. people with MTHFR, especially a homozygous double gene allele at the C617 location and not the A1298, both of those are significant, but I have the more problematic one, which is like inhibiting that genes function by like 70%, meaning or more potentially. But basically the majority of that gene is not working at optimal function, meaning if I'm taking in these B vitamins from foods, my body's not as good as absorbing that and utilizing. that and making better use of it, especially if someone's supplementing with like a B vitamin with folic acid, their body's not converting that very well with MTHR. And isn't that also what something people would recommend for pregnancies?

So then it's like if you're taking it for pregnancy and then not assimilating it, that's like bad news. It is not good. Yeah. So it's more ideal to be bioavailable for the body. So more like whole food based prenatal vitamins, you will. You won't see folic acid. You will see folate in there because of that.

Okay. But in general, if people are taking a B vitamin, you recommend a methylated B. And it'll just say that on the label. You'll read that on the back on the ingredient section. Cool. Okay. Somebody else wants to know what they can do to improve bad allergies. So bad allergies, to me, you have to look at where the predominance of the immune system resides.

And that's 75% of the immune system is in the gut. So to understand allergies, you have to look at the gut and what's going on there. So looking at dysbiosis, looking at any candida overgrowth, looking at leaky gut syndrome, looking at what's referred to as mass cell activation, which can be contributed, a component to certain people's allergies or histamine intolerances. So we look at gene snips that can predispose people to this as well as what's going on in the gut. And then other environmental exposures, something that I find significant enough and frequent enough

are mold problems in people's homes or in their car or at work or all three of those places that's basically causing a tipping point in that person's immune system where when you start emptying things from their glass, so to speak, it's not overflowing and it's not stressing out and already stressed out system. So what people should do is really look upstream and find out what's causing it because allergies to me are like a check engine light. Okay, what about this is personal, but I know I'm allergic to my cat and I have cat and a lover. And it's like, you know, we're 11 years and it's too late for me to just put her back in the dumpster that she was found in. So like I know she's causing my allergies.

What do I do about that? Or like if you live in a place that has a pollen that you know is going to be in the air. Yeah. I think really focusing on gut health and getting your immune system is as healthy as we can be. So that's things like I'm a big fan of soups and stews, which I know you are as well, like really focusing on gentle things for the gut to get the gut nice and strong to have your immune system be as strong as possible. I think there's different homeopathic.

Remedies can be beneficial to basically provide your body low doses of irritants that can downregulate the allergic response. Where would you find that? What? Health food stores. Like whole foods. Look for homeopathic. Honeopathic, yeah. And then speak to the person in that department and look at different blends. There's

tons of different blends, but depending on the type of allergy that you have, you're going to want to go for those. And acupuncture is another one that I've seen be very beneficial for allergies. But look, if the source isn't removed, it may not be enough for some people. But if it's low grade, you could build up an immunity to it, a tolerance to it. The thing I always wonder is if I'm getting more positive benefits from having this, like, creature that I love so much in my life, because I know that having a pet is supposed to be great for you. Totally. And you're stressed and I'm, you know, you're anxiety and all of that.

But I also like, knees every day. Yeah. You know. She's helping your microbiome out for sure. Oh, thanks. Yeah. Thanks, Bella. What is other, just because we talked about gut health, let's talk about a few, like, yes

or no's for gut health thoughts on bone broth. I think it's good. Longer cooked bone broth can be a problem for people with histamine intolerance. The body's not breaking down histamine, which is a compound found in foods. So people that, we measure this on lab, but you can measure diamine oxidase levels and lower diamine oxidase is the enzyme that breaks down histamine. That can be a problem for some people. And you can measure histamine in the blood and this mass cell activation that I mentioned.

Generally speaking, it's way more good stuff than bad stuff, making sure that it's good quality bones, obviously, organic grass-fed, all that stuff. Collagen, yes or no. Same thing. It can be a problem for people with histamine issues, but generally speaking, way more good than negatives. I like marine collagen, like wild-caught marine collagen, which is from wild-caught fish. Yeah.

What about protein powder in general? I think it's something to consider for people that are more plant-based. I always worry about, like, the heavy metals and, like, the other stuff. in protein powder. Sure. Yeah. No, I mean, definitely you want to make sure that things are tested and reputable and good sourcing and ones that are just very much well respected in space that are looking for these sort

of things. And some people say, though, that we as a society have become like way to focus on protein and that most people are just like getting more than enough protein based on what we would have needed and sort of have. What do you feel about that? I do agree with that for somebody that's not eating a more plant-based diet. So the essential amino acids is really the question. It's not so much protein because not all protein is created equally.

So if you just look at the grams of protein, if you're measuring on like chronometer, which is a fitness tracking app or My Fitness Pal or something like that, you can look at the grams of protein and you're right. From a general macronutrient standpoint, most Americans would hit that mark. but not everybody's hitting the optimal marks for the different essential amino acids that you're not getting from food. You can get that pretty readily available if you're eating clean animal protein throughout the day. But if you're not eating that, if you're not having wild caught fish, if you're not having, you know, eggs, if you're not having grass-fed beef, then you should look at the essential amino acids. How much? A lot of questions are about sort of like how much is too much.

So like if you're eating really healthy and then you take a trip to Italy for a week and eat a lot of pasta and pizza and or if you do like a cheat day on a Sunday, like what is sort of something you can get away with and you're not causing a lot of harm in your body? What's that balance between like really using food as a source of pleasure and using it as a source of healing your body? So I would, this goes back to bio individuality. Some people have a great tolerance for a lot of stuff. Some people don't. So the analogy that I use in the inflammation spectrum is different glass sizes. So some people have big glasses. Some people have small glasses or bowls or whatever.

I said cups on a podcast and they're like, you can't talk about cup sizes on a podcast. So I'm avoiding that completely. But bowls glasses, anyways, that's your genetic tolerance for stressors. Some people have really big tolerance. Some people have really small tolerances and they can't get away with anything. So it depends on that because you can't change your bowl size. You can change what you put into it. So, for example, if someone's eating the 80-20 rule, like that's very much talked about in the

wellness space, not everybody can do the 80-20 rule. They will feel horrible if they eat only 80% good and 20% whatever they want. Now, everybody has that wiggle room. That's a lot of my patients. So we have to find the balance that works for your body. My goal as a functional medicine doctor is to get your body to the place of as much resilience and strength as your body will allow. Some people based on their genetic variance, how long they've been going through health problems, or just the trajectory of healing, they're never going to be fully resilient. They're never going to be, I can do whatever I want.

I can drink. I can eat junk food. They're going to pay for that. And then some people can. Some people can smoke and drink and eat whatever they want. And you're like, how the heck can they get away with that? That's the variability. That's bioindividuality.

But specific to Europe, it's actually quite interesting. I see a lot of patients that are sensitive at home, and then, like, meaning that they have obvious food reactivities at home. But when they go to Europe, they don't have it. So they can eat things they never would eat at home. They eat the baguettes and the pasta and drink the more wine in Europe, and they're fine. You have to look at the glyphosate, the spraying of our,

crops, the hybridization of the wheat supply, and they're less stressed on vacation oftentimes. I think the stress is a huge thing. Like I think that because they, I think the glyphosate is huge, but they're also like, people are like, oh, the grains in Europe are like ancient grains. And it's like, that's becoming less and less and less true with time. But I do think that the way we eat and enjoy our lives on vacation is so different than sitting in a car and like shoveling a sandwich in your mouth between picking the kids up at school, you know? Yeah. The environment in which you eat determines the outcome in a major way. Yeah, can you like science me into not being on my phone or watching TV while I eat my dinner? Yeah. So your body should be, your body should be as calm and

relaxed and chilled and focused on the present moment when you're eating because it's going to be activating your parasympathetic system again. You're resting and digesting. And if you're always being you know, visually stimulated with like, FOMO and social media, work emails and the stress of that, that's activating sympathetic nervous system, which is not ideal from a digestion, absorption, assimilation,

and just optimal homeostasis in the body. So, okay, to your previous point, though, it's really about, like, what, it's paying attention to how you feel. Like, if you eat a chocolate bar and you don't feel shitty, then there's no reason that you,

I mean, you probably wouldn't want to eat just chocolate bars, but you don't need to, like, eliminate that from your, world. Yeah. And same with alcohol. Well, I, this is really why I lean into this approach in the inflammation spectrum is to do an elimination diet approach because it's sometimes hard to tell

what your center is when things are out of balance. I want people to get to a place of intuitive eating. But it's hard to eat intuitively when things are imbalanced as far as hormones and stress levels and inflammation. And it's like, is it intuition or is it hangariness? Is it intuition or hormone imbalance? And emotional eating is an intuition. You know, stress eating is an intuition.

So I would say doing an elimination diet approach and not just looking at food, but looking at these non-food inflamers that we've been talking about too, to bring your body to center. And at that point, you can reintroduce and see, oh, I feel great when I have. I don't, I feel, I love this chocolate and miss it. I want to bring it back in. Or I feel really lousy when I have that cup of wine. I'm not going to do that.

What about if somebody has disordered eating in their past, would you still recommend an elimination diet for them? I would in certain cases. And then for some people, that shouldn't be on the top of the list. They should just focus on real foods and do the best they can under that paradigm of using food as medicine and feeling great and loving their body enough to feed it good things. With that said, if you have disordered eating, I or have a history of that, I think it oftentimes is a good idea to work with somebody, whether

that's a functional medicine doctor or a health coach or somebody that's experienced in wellness in that way and disordered eating to walk you through it because it's very easily you can go down the road of orthorexia, which is stress and shame around healthy eating. And it's basically becomes like an eating disorder again disguised as wellness, which is a problem. And I'm our space. But with that said, I think that you just have to make sure that you're having proper boundaries and you have to make sure that you're going in with a proper headspace. And that's why in the inflammation spectrum, for every like sobering statistic and like clinical nutrition like facts and step and tool that you can bring into your life, I'm layering it

and surrounding it with context of grace and loving your body. enough to not feel good. Loving your body enough to feel great. Loving your body enough to want to overcome feeling lousy. So it's definitely a delicate conversation. I think there's an eating disorder spectrum. It depends on what we're talking about, just from mild, you know, stress and body shame to full-blown serious eating disorders.

But if it's serious, then you definitely should talk to a professional about what's appropriate for you. Yeah. Do you get a lot of people with, I think orthorexia is particularly becoming so, so much more common in our space. And I think that's something I struggle with is as helping people find that boundary between eating to nourish their body and feel really good and then feeling like, oh, these foods. And I think elimination diets always are scary for me, not personally, but when I talk about them with people, because it's putting food groups off limits. And that's the scariest thing about orthorexia for me is putting food groups off limits for people. Yeah, and that's why the reintroduction to me is just as important as the elimination phase,

because I want people to see if their body feels good on it or not. So when they bring it back in, how do you feel on it? And to me, if something makes you feel lousy, not eating that isn't a bad thing. You're listening to the Healthier Together podcast. You all know that I've been really open with you about my struggles with anxiety. I shared my whole anxiety story on my Instagram, so definitely head over there if you're like, what? Liz has anxiety, but basically I was completely agoraphobic for a while and I still struggle

with generalized anxiety disorder. While I think there are a ton of wellness practices that can help with anxiety, I truly believe in the power of therapy. And not just because both of my parents and both of Zach's parents are therapists, which is definitely a story for another day. The only problem, it can be super hard to find a good therapist and then seeing said therapist can be crazy expensive. That's why I'm so excited to share BetterHelp with you. Better Help is an online professional counseling platform that I've been using for a few months now. You go on their site and you answer a few questions about the state of your mental health and what you're looking for and then they match you with a licensed professional therapist.

And if you don't like that therapist, no worries, it's totally free and super easy to change to a different one. Within 24 hours, you can be messaging that therapist and I have been so impressed with both the quality and the timeliness of the responses that I've gotten. Beyond that, you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions. And I have to say, I was skeptical about this at first. I thought there was no way it could be as helpful as sitting in the room with an actual therapist. But it really is. I love my therapist so much.

And I also love not having to lose an hour of my day to get all the way to the session and back. With therapy consistency is so important. And being able to fit my sessions way more easily into my weekly routine has been a total game changer. It's also way cheaper than traditional therapy, like less than a third of how much you would pay here in New York City, which I absolutely love because I do not think that taking care of your mental health should be a luxury that's only afforded to people with a ton of money. Plus, they have financial aid, so if you don't feel like you can afford it, definitely send them an email.

They really want to make sure that therapy is available to all people, which they're doing a pretty good job of because there are already 500,000 people using the service worldwide. They were kind enough to give me a code so that healthier together listeners can get 10% off of their first month of service. Just go to betterhelp.com. That's better help, the word help.com slash healthier together to get the discount. It's really easy to sign up and you can start therapy right away, which means that you can start feeling better right away. Also, if you are struggling with mental health issues, I want you to know that you are not alone at all. So many of us are in it with you and I am in it with you. And if you're feeling lonely or anxious or depressed, know that you're not weird or damaged

and you can still have an amazing, amazing life and know that I am 100% there for you. All right. Let's get back to the episode. Okay. What if somebody came to you and they're like, Doc, I feel great. Like I don't notice anything when I eat anything. I have plenty of energy, whatever, but I just want to like live forever. What do you do?

Talk to Dave Asprey, I think he has the same goal. I would say a ketotarian lifestyle to me is quite compelling as far as keeping insulin lower, improving autophagy levels, lowering inflammation, which are all things you want to improve from a longevity standpoint. And what if they say, Doc, that does not sound like a life worth living. I want to keep doing all this stuff I'm doing, but I want to, like, add in a few things that'll make my, or like do tiny tweaks that will make me live till I'm 180. Well, I don't think tiny tweaks would do that for most of us. I mean, that would be nice, wouldn't it? But, you know, I think bringing things in to improve antioxidant function into your life. So I'm a big fan of tea. I think there's a compelling amount of research showing that tea helps to improve lowering inflammation and improving antioxidant function in the body. And that's like actual tea, not tazans, like black tea, green tea, white tea.

Yeah, and then the decaptease will still have the catechins in them. So if you can't have caffeine, then try the decaf teas. I think that lowering stress levels is something that's very people should look at. And what does that mean? I think that the human race has been here, you know, made it this far because we could handle a certain level of grit and stress. And in many ways, most of us in the West live a pretty unstressed life compared to what humans have gone through for eons.

The problem is this different type of stress, the sort of insidious chronic stressors that's problematic. I think stress that our modern life has brought, which our genetics haven't caught up to. So looking at technology, looking at proper sleep, going back to that, making sure your body's sleeping, and you're not inundated with too much blue light and stress from. technology. So I don't know if you're going to live to 200 years old by doing that. But I think increasing longevity is one simple thing to do would be to lowering stress levels.

What about if like I have to be on, I was reading this article recently about how blue lights like making your skin terrible and aging you. And I was like, I have to be on my computer all day. That's my job. I get, you know, an hour and a half break where I get to talk to somebody in a podcast, which is super great, best part of my day. and I have probably a few hours in the kitchen, which is really nice too. But for five to six hours a day, I have to be in front of my computer.

And I think that's true of so many people. Yeah, there are settings on your screen that you can change it and make it more. Yeah, I have flux on my computer. Do you think that makes a difference? Yeah, totally. Okay. And there's different apps if you're on your smartphone. There's the glasses as well.

So you do the best you can to, you know, avoiding it. entirely. You're not, as far as skin exposure, you're not avoiding it entirely. But from an eye standpoint and a connection to the brain standpoint, you are improving them. Yeah. Do you think we're all going to be blind in like 20 years? I hope not. But we're basically one big social experiment right now.

It's crazy. It's crazy just how many things we're doing right now that has never been done before. And I just feel like we have no idea for a lot of things. We do not know. We act like we know, but we don't know. What do you do at home? Like, do you do the glasses at home? Yeah. And do you do them from like sundown to sleep?

No, no, I won't. I honestly haven't been looking at screens when I get home. I'm normally just hanging out with my kids. But if I am, I will wear them. If they were watching like a family movie or something before bed, then I'll do it. And do you have, are they the actual like red or orange ones that look sort of like worker goggles? Or do you have like the chic sort of? During the day, they look like the worker goggles at night.

So I true dark, which is again, this is not sponsored, but true dark sent me some and I've been wearing those. That's Dave Asprey's favorite brand, I think. Yeah, it is. Yeah. So that's what I. But they have different ones during the day. You don't have to look like you are like in you two in the evening with Bonnev's glasses. They have like shaker ones that are lighter for the day during the day.

Yeah, I've seen those. Sometimes I look at them though and I'm just like, oh, Dave Asprey doesn't like want me to have a sex life. They're just like they're so not cute and he wears he came to the MBG office and he was like wearing his red ones I think and I did it once to the airport and I literally felt like I was like in a video game like everything just looking at it's like I don't know I'm going to go blind but I don't go I don't go that far I lean into these practices but I'm not obsessive about it. Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Okay. What about endometriosis? It's getting more and more common. Is there any sort of. sort of top level things that people who are living with endometriosis or a lot of pain around their periods can do? Okay. Endometriosis and adenomyosis are two different autoimmune issues that are impacting female hormones.

So it's really, when you look at the rise of endometriosis, the adenomyosis, it's the rise of autoimmunity. It's really across the board. So it's, you have to deal with the autoimmunit. against the endometrial lining in this case. But, you know, it's not a simple thing. It's multifaceted. There's no simple solution.

There's no, like, take this supplement that's going to solve your endometriosis. It's a major deal. It's one of my top patient bases. But it's a lot of things. And it's different things for different people. Yeah, I have a friend. You know Jess Mernan.

She, like, had a lot of success with going plant baits for endo, and it completely changed her life. And it made it. I've seen her right about that. Yeah. And it like made it so that she couldn't, she could like get out of bed and stuff like that. But then I know other people who like have gone paleo for endo and had equally amazing effects. But the commonality there is going off of sugar.

Oh, interesting. And grain, like so many grains, like refined grains specifically. So I think sugar is definitely a major disturber. And it's been shown to cause flares in people for sure from an autoimmune standpoint. So yeah, decreasing sugar across. the board's going to help a lot of things. I love this one. With no scientific research on celery juice, but with all of the success, anecdotally, what do you believe?

I think it can be really good from a digestive support standpoint. I don't think it, like, cures all of our woes. I don't think it, like, does everything that the medical medium says it does. But it's a good thing. I use it in my clinic for people that have low-stableness. stomach acid, it helps to rebuild stomach acid, and helps support healthy digestion, just generally speaking. It helps to support a healthy balanced microbiome.

I like it for that reason. But some people don't tolerate it. And then he says, Anthony Williams says, it's because it's too detoxing and it's killing off Epstein-Barr virus, and that's the reason why it's causing the problem. When it's really not, these people have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or sebo, and the higher phodmap, like sugar, fermentable sugar, that are in cellar juice are causing them to have horrible problems because of the bacteria and the guts overconsuming it. So not everything, it's not going to work for everybody.

Yes, those people could go low and slow and work their way up and find their own tolerance. Certainly, I'm not saying they shouldn't have celery juice, but they can't have it in the amount that he's saying. He's saying have like two big glasses, I think it's like 16 ounces a day. Not everybody can do that for sure. But that's the heart of functional medicine. finding out what works for you, it doesn't work for you, and even healthy things, what works for one person may not work for you. Way more good than bad. It definitely helps support healthy digestion. This is a great question for that, which is how should people navigate all of the trends? So you hear about keto, intermittent fasting, you hear about charcoal, you hear about

celery juice. How should you just like dive in and try it? How do you find out if it's worthwhile? You could experiment with it as long as it's reputable and it is variable depending on the person. A lot of these things are, I would say most of these things, or if not all these things in wellness are safe, meaning that they're not going to kill anybody. And it's just a matter of, is it working for you or not? Is your body tolerating it or not? I don't want to be overly like arrogant here, but I think looking at us in functional medicine, and not just me, but Mark Hyman, David Perlmutter, and Alejandro Younger, and a lot of these guys in

this space, to me, are a good middle ground for a lot of these things where we, a lot of us still see patients, some of us still see patients there. And I think looking at what we say on these things because of not just the research, whether there's research or not research, but just what have we seen work in people's lives. I think looking at those voices in wellness, not just those guys I mentioned, but people in functional medicine are looking at this as part of their job. That's what I always recommend to people. I think that the websites and stuff are great. Obviously, I write for a number of them.

But I think going straight to doctor websites is also a great way to get sort of less, like, enthusiastic information, like less click-bady stuff. So I always recommend yours. Also, let's shout out some women, Sarah Gottfried of Vibraam. Um, so I think there's some Jolene Brighton is great for all sort of like hormony type stuff. Amazing. Some of the best people around for sure. Um, so I think going directly to doctor websites is a really great way to. Um, I've also been really impressed.

Even before I was writing full time, sometimes I would email doctors and ask them their thoughts on something and they would almost always, I remember when I was having really severe anxiety, I emailed, um, like the head of neuropsychology at Stanford and he like, row back to me and gave me great information. And I think that, uh, you can often get good risk. So if you're just like, hey, doc, like, what do you think of this? I think that's kind of cool. Very cool. Um, Robin Berzen. I didn't mention her. Oh, yeah. Robin Berzen. That's great. Okay. Let's do maybe one more. And then I'll ask you the questions that I ask everybody. Um, let's do two more. Um, can you speak to IBS and sort of severe gut health issues?

Yeah. So IBS is definitely on that inflammation spectrum without a doubt. And for some people, it's on that autoimmune inflammation spectrum where IBS is really some level of inflammatory bowel issues and it's just labeled as IBS. So there's IBSC or IBSD, IBS that are, it's more constipation and more diarrhea. It's highly linked in the literature and I would say I can confirm this both on a lab standpoint is running labs on people is that you'll see CBO a lot at the times for IBS. Not everybody, certainly not everybody. But small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, we do a CBO breath test, and you can do a stool

test to look at dysbiosis. You'll see this quite a bit. So you have to deal with the underlying driver what's causing the IBS in the first place. So we would do that, whether that's an antimicrobial protocol to kill off the bacteria overgrowth, whether that is obviously having foods that are gentle and soft and tolerable to the gut while the gut is healing. If it's IBSC supporting GI motility, like getting the body clearing out and not going two or three or four or five days without a bowel movement, making sure that's more

consistent. And if it's IBSD, slowing things down from a flare-up. So it's something we work on. It's not a quick fix. The gut takes time to heal for sure, but it's something that over a course of months, for some people closer to a year or beyond to get the place of optimal function. That doesn't mean they're waiting that long to feel better, but it means that they are incrementally trending in the right direction by dealing with these problems. Anybody that's on the other side will tell you is definitely

not a quick fix. But most people go to their doctor and they're just like, well, what's, you know, you have IBS. Well, it's like, well, thanks. I know my gut is irritable. Why? And that's the question we ask in functional medicine. And for CBO, I have to shout out my friend, Phoebe Lepa podcast. She's working on a book about Sibo as well. I believe you're a guest on the podcast, right? It's called Sibo Made Simple, and it is Sibo made Simple. Like, she really, she interviews all sorts of doctors. She teaches me new stuff about, and she personally had Sibo and has been sort of dealing with it in her own life. So I think that's a really great resource. So I was the second guess. And I don't know if I can say this or not, but I probably can. I'm going to be writing the introduction

to that book. Really? I'm pumped about that. Oh my God. That's so cool. So we'll hopefully. Yeah, she's a great. She just, I just think she understands and is able to explain stuff often better than even a lot of doctors that I speak to. Yeah. She's brilliant. Yeah.

So yay, Phoebe. She listens too. So I hope she's here. Okay. And here's the last one. We've talked a lot about like labs and tests and all of that. And I know that there's some great at home tests these days. There's like thyroid tests at home.

Are there certain tests that you definitely recommend people get to get an idea of where their health is at? how do people navigate that world? Really good question. So this is a sidebar in the inflammation spectrum for people that want to just have it visually written out. And to know, because a lot of these, you don't need a functional medicine doctor for. These are tests you can order on your own through different direct labs and online lab sources where you just pay for a fee and then you go to a local lab or your general practitioner

and have it covered through insurance or PCP. High sensitivity C-reactive protein would be one. That's an inflammatory protein. We want it under one. Homocysteine is an inflammatory marker. We want it under seven. That has to do with methylation and the MTHFR and the other methylation gene snips that we look at that I talked at before.

And that's another one too. It's not covered by insurance. But 23 and me, you can look at the raw gene data and look at some snips there. I know I really want to do it. But that like if there were another like Holocaust that, you know, like the Nazis would have used genetics against people if that were an option. It's, I don't, not to get too conspiratorial right now, but it's happening right now. I just read it.

They're doing the two migrants, actually. They're collecting DNA on migrants. And I don't even, that's how, that's mainstream news to talking about that. So they're like, well, they're not going to do it for children. They're not going to do it for citizens yet. Yeah. So that like, and I guess the idea is that if the government turns again, not to get like into this type, but if the government hurts against you, they could get your DNA.

So maybe it doesn't matter to do 20. Yeah. To me, that's my opinion is that they're going to get it anyway. So ultimately, at this point in the space where it is safe and these companies are providing good content, but you're right, the data itself could be used against people, for sure. But at this point, it's not for citizens, but it's really, honestly, it is crazy that we even need to think about that. Yeah.

But it's also, we're only like, what, five or six years into people not being able to be denied health care because of preexisting conditions. So then if you have your entire genetic history, imagine if they started denying people health care based on that. Totally. No, there's definitely some pitfalls on that. But you still think it's like the juice is worth this week? I think that you can get more good stuff than negative stuff from it at this point.

So I totally respect people that want to not do it. I've done it before. I was helpful for me to understand certain parts of my health that I didn't know. And I could support my body in ways to mitigate the potential risk factors that are associated with certain gene variants. And look, I don't want to be overly reduction. to methylation, gene snips. Methylation or detox or fatty acid metabolism is a lot more complex than just looking at one

biomarker on a lab, one gene snip. But these are tools that research shows that you can support and optimize your wellness. And ferretin is another one that you can go through insurance or... F-ferritin? Ferritin. It's a biomarker for stored iron, F-E-R-R-I-T-I-N. But it is a biomarker to gauge for stored iron, but it's also an acute phase reactant. So basically, in states of inflammation, ferritinic can spike.

And then a very simple glucose, blood sugar, like fasting. We want it under 90 in functional medicine. We want the A1C below 5.6, 5.5. And would that just be like waking up in the morning, taking a finger prick, you'd want it under 90? Yes, yeah. You could go to the lab to get a full workout. But yeah, if you have a glucometer, you want it under 90. Now, some people have a DOM phenomenon, meaning that glucose is slightly higher in the morning.

And it could be normal for them. It's just the variance of cortisol rhythm, which is upregulating glucose, and maybe normal for them. People that fast, their lower carbureketo, they can have a higher DOM phenomenon, and it's what's considered physiological insulin resistance, not pathological. And it's completely normal. It's basically a glucose-bearing effect in the brain. But generally speaking, if you talk to IFM, the Institute of Functional Medicine, they'll say under 90. But you have to put it in context with the health history and what the person's doing.

Triglycerides under 100. That's the optimal range. H-TLDL. And then if you're going to go a little bit step higher, running an NMR test, which is the nuclear magnetic resonance, it measures your particle of the carry cholesterol. All these tests are low cost or covered by insurance. And the process is you go to your normal doctor and you just say I would like this list of tests? Yeah, you would mention those labs and say, I want these ren, and they have to be willing to run them and put the proper diagnosis codes on there.

But from a screening standpoint, it's really beneficial to get a really basic metabolic panel, looking at insulin levels, seeing where your insulin levels are at, because that's a sign of longevity is having healthy balance insulin levels. So, yeah, those are some metabolic and inflammatory markers that anybody can run. And obviously in functional medicine, we can run more expanded versions of that. But I'm talking about if someone's not seeing one. And what about those like other at-home tests? Like there's at-home thyroid, there's the poop test for like your microbiome.

There's food sensitivity tests you can take at home. Are those legitimate? They are legitimate. I don't know many people in functional medicine that use those labs from like a practical application standpoint, specifically the microbiome test, it's a really a lot of good data. Generally speaking, you look at bacterial diversity. It's interesting. I don't know many of us in functional medicine then to say we take that information and we go make lifestyle changes off of that. Why? Because it's not looking at, we don't understand the full breadth of how we modulate the microbiome in a positive direction.

We can see this certain strand is associated with this or this certain colony form and unit bacteria is associated with this. It's very much we don't know the practical application of that. In theory, you can do all sorts of things. I'm sure certain practitioners have certain theories on stuff. But generally speaking, the things that I'm looking at for on a microbiome test is, is there dysbiosis? And then in some cases, what are the colony forming units? What are the types of neighborhoods of bacteria that are having dyspiosis? Is there pathogenic bacteria? any yeast and fungal overgrowth, how's digestion and absorption, how's inflammation in the gut, whereas intestinal permeability or leaky gut syndrome, those are the things they look at.

You're not getting all those biomarkers on those at-home tests. Not to say you couldn't, there may be there's other labs out there that could provide that data, but the ones that I am aware of don't provide that data. So I'm not saying it's not good. I still look at it and I still understand it. I do think it's so interesting, though, because we're so big on, we know the gut is so important, but we do know so little about it. Do you fall on the side of like probiotics are generally good for everybody

and that there's no negative effect of taking a probiotic? Well, there can be negative effects of taking probiotics. People that have some dysbiosis and SIBO could have flare-ups in theory from that. But probiotics or beneficial bacteria are regulatory. They can have sort of a herksime response for some people with a dysbiosis. They can cause sort of the detox symptoms in some people. And obviously if there's added prebiotics or something in the probiotics, that can cause a flare-up for some people too. But generally speaking, they are safe.

And the research shows they do improve probiotic bacterial diversity. But once you stop taking them, it tends to kind of go back down. So other than getting a fecal transplant, and even that's not one and done, it takes time too. There's not much that's going to improve bacterial diversity. other than a fecal transplant and looking at prebiotics for people that should be taking them from the foods that we eat. So I'm actually, from a bacterial diversity, I much prefer prebiotic foods, fiber from plant foods, more than probiotics.

Do you take a probiotic every day? Not every day. But like... Yeah, I do occasionally. The thing I always wonder about probiotics is like whether, because we don't know exactly what's supposed to be in there and like the makeup of it if we're taking like the same seven strains over and over and over if we're creating our own dysbiosis by doing that. Yeah, and that's me why I don't take it every day.

I like diversity. I'll have fermented foods some days. I'll take probiotics some days. I think variety is important. Bacterial diversity is important. So I actually have a lot of patients do rotating different proletics. I take like three or four different types and I rotate between them, which I like to do. And then I do fermented foods as well.

All right, a few questions I like to ask. everybody. What is there a place that you've been in the world where you feel like the people that live there really got it right in terms of living a healthier, happier life? And if so, where was it? Yeah, I would say Hawaii, there's something really magical and spiritual about like Maui. I think, look, there's a lot of, it's still part of the United States and has a lot of dysfunction, too. but I think that there's something culturally going on from an ancestral perspective,

like the traditional Hawaiian culture that has a lot of things right. Like what? Just a slower pace of life, a concept of community, a love and mutual respect amongst other people, there's a certain level of peace to that and their connection to the earth. those to me are things that I've been impressed the times I've been in Hawaii. Didn't you go there on your honeymoon or something? Yeah. Yeah, I did. Good memories. Maui. Yeah, Maui's my place. So we went there, we just went in September though, too. A couple of times. It's fun. With the kids? With the kids, family. My wife's from L.A., so for those Californians, her family, it's like quite an easy flight.

For us on the East Coast, it's like, oh my gosh. Eleven hours from here if you go to act, which is like the longest flight I've ever done. But it was worth it when you get there. Why is one purchase you've made that you feel like has made your life healthier or happier? Is that food or anything? Literally anything. Like Kate said her peloton and oatmeal. Okay. Well, I don't want to take Kate's answer, but I love my peloton.

I really love it. I know. I want one. They're just like, they're so expensive. And then also you're in my apartment right now. But like, I'm like, where would I put this? But they are. I've stayed at hotels that have them.

And it's really cool. And I also just love how, like, easy it is to work. out every day. Yeah, I love the simplicity of it. But I think in many ways, like, my laptop and just going on YouTube and doing workouts is like such a cool. I use it so much. Like I am such a YouTube freak for workouts, but also just learning and literally you can learn anything on YouTube. Like I love, do you like no crash course or sci show? They're like these like literally online shows that are designed to teach you about everything from like US history to like your microbiome. And they create lectures on it.

and stuff. I just think it's, I love YouTube so much. So much. It's not so much wellness, but from an intellectual standpoint. And I learn a lot of wellness stuff on YouTube, too. Just different people, hearing different people's views on things. It's fascinating. Yeah, so those are two things that I really love. I love a sauna too. You have a sauna? Yeah, I have the- Oh my God, I'm so jealous. But I don't have room in my home for like the big proper ones, but I have- Are you live out in the country? Yeah, I do, but I'm like, my helmet isn't that big, isn't really big. It's bigger than like a New York apartment.

Bigger than my house. You and everybody else in New York. But it's still not big enough to like have it. It would be crammed. I don't have the best spot for it. But I do have one of sunlight and solo systems. What's that? Which is like a semi-circle.

You could totally have it here. No, I can't. Really? You can collapse. because it's just like basically a plastic, not plastic, but fiberglass. I don't know what it's made from. Metal, like semi-circle, and you just literally get into it like a mummy and it's... And you think sauna is like worth the hype too?

Yeah, I don't sweat enough being in an office. Like, I only really sweat when I'm working out. I try to bring more of that in. And why is sweating good for you? Just support detox pathways is the main reason. Yeah, because back to that methylation problem I have. So supporting detox is a good thing. I'm sorry about your methylation problem.

What is the best way to spend 20 minutes every day in the name of health or happiness? I think our culture needs more stillness and silence. So I think off of technology, closing your eyes and just being mindful of your breath for 20 minutes would change our world in many ways. I agree with that. Okay, two more. Do you feel successful? Yeah, I do. Why?

I feel successful. I'm first and foremost successful because of my kids. When I see them, I'm like, okay, you're the best project that I've done so far. You're like the, it's really cool to see them like grow up. Like they're 13 and 10 now. I know. I'm so curious. They're such like perfect kids and maybe they're not if you live with them.

They're not perfect. But I'm curious to see if they ever go through that period. Like it's really cute. They travel with Will and they like he uses, you know, coming to New York for an event as an opportunity to take like a solo trip with a kid and go to a show or a restaurant or something like that. But I'm curious if they're ever going to go through that thing where they're like, I hate you. I don't want to hang out with you. It probably could happen. And every kid's going goes through the journey and looks different. But yeah, but I feel totally successful because of them. And I've just been blessed

that I can do what I love and impact people around the world through consulting them and writing books and talking about it. So I feel successful in all those categories. Do you, does have Having more fame or money impact that at all for you? No, it doesn't. It influence impacts that because you can know you're impacting more life, but it's not about like fame or it's not about people. It's just the influence that it is. But I guess it goes hand in hand in our social media culture maybe,

but it doesn't have to be. Because to me, like influencing patients and improving their life and talking to them about these things, to me is like the most rewarding thing ever. But like the podcast or the books, like to me it's like I just keep thinking about, wow, like when you look like the Amazon book number on like how the book's doing, I just think of all the people I'm never going to be able to meet getting something positive in their life.

That's really cool because we're not like in you too. We're not talking about something like that's not enriching someone's life. We actually are edifying people's lives in many ways. Yeah, but it is interesting how quickly you can lose sight of that when you're not meeting. Like when I have my live events, I feel like I'm making a way bigger difference just because I'm meeting the people I'm talking to versus when I write an article that I know I can see the numbers as read by like 200,000 people. It still just feels like numbers, you know?

Yeah, it is. You're right. We have to go past that. Which is why I'm sure seeing patience is like. Yeah, patient. I won't. I never want to trade that. because it keeps me sharp. It's like so good and it's so enriching. I get to start my day off

every day like talking about all the people we're going to impact. It's my favorite part of my job. What about when you're like hanging out with Guineathalda? Does that make you feel cool? That doesn't hurt. Do you have any Guineathalachian gossip? Whenever anybody's like friends or a celebrity, I'm always like, give me your Oprah gossip, give me your Jessica Alba gossip. That's the Marie Forleo and Kelly Levec episodes if you need that gossip. But do you have any Gwenath Gossip? Gwanaeth, she's a cool person. I mean, she loves wellness just as much as us.

And it's cool to see somebody that, like, I was walking around L.A. the other day, and I saw, like, her in a billboard of one of the politicians show that she's in on Netflix. And I, in the context of Goop and all that, I just see all the cool things are doing in the wellness space that I forget that she's, like, an actress first. So, yeah, it's cool. But no, she's no, no dirt on it, no gossip. Pretty boring.

She smokes like a cigarette a year, I heard. Oh, really? I don't know. Yeah, I think she smokes like one or two a year. She hides that from me. I don't know that. Okay, and this is the last one. What is one big mistake you've made and what's one thing you really feel like you got

right? What's one mistake that I made? One big mistake and do that one first. So we end on a positive note. And then one thing you really got right. Okay, this is good. So the one mistake that I made, and I make it all the time, it's not trusting the process. It's part of my anxiety.

It's feeling like I have, like it's not the way that I wanted to be or it's not the way that I thought it was going to be or it's not the way that I planned and fretting about it and have anxiousness about what's to come. That's the mistake I make every time I do it. And I tend to do it a lot, but less than I used to. And then is there a mental dialogue you do when you find yourself? doing that? It's to me going back to that centering like mindfulness breathing. To me, that's clarity and realizing I'm not my thought and my emotions, but the observer of them. To me, that separation, observing awareness is so much better than being so locked up into your physiology that you are thinking that your emotions and your thoughts are, are you who you are. So that's going back

to the mindfulness practice. But what's one thing you really got right? Oh, wow. One thing that I got right, I guess meeting my wife, she's the best thing that's happened to me. Because she's just amazing. Like, I look at people that have partners that maybe aren't as supportive or don't get it or I can imagine it be really difficult. Like, do what you love or, like, for me, like, being consulting patients all day long, then traveling on a long weekends. Like, that tough. She's so selfless. and like holds her own. Like she's doing amazing things like holding women's groups and she's just amazing. And I want to be like her when I grow up.

She is very sweet. All right. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast well. Thanks for having me. All right. That's our first episode of Ask the Doctor. I hope that I answered your questions. I definitely tried to get to as many of the ones that I got on Instagram as possible.

And I hope that you guys love this format. I'm thinking maybe do it once every quarter. I don't know. give me feedback on Instagram. If you loved it, definitely please leave an iTunes rating or review. And remember that you can screenshot those and tag me on Instagram to be entered to receive one of my little wellness favorite products care packages. And then also, if you would like a free copy of my Healthy Thanksgiving eBook, you can get

that with your review of the podcast as well. All right. I'll see you guys on the next episode. I hope you have a great one. I very rarely get genuinely excited about skincare, but this is one of the most innovative products that I have come across in years, and I'm so obsessed with it. I've been telling all of my friends to get it, so now I need to tell you guys. Here's some science first. Your skin isn't just getting older. It's being actively broken down by something called senescent cells. These are cells

that have stopped functioning but refuse to die. They sit there releasing inflammatory signals, breaking down your collagen, degrading your skin barrier, and accelerating every visible sign of aging. Scientists call them zombie cells and as they accumulate, they are one of the primary drivers of how old your skin looks and feels. The team at one skin, a group of female longevity researchers and PhDs, spent five years testing over 900 peptides to figure out how to help reduce the accumulation of senescent cells. And they finally landed on it. OSO1, the first peptide scientifically studied to reduce skin's biological age at the molecular level. OSO-1 goes in and it clears out the senescent cells so it helps skin function like

healthier, younger-looking skin. It is not masking the signs of aging. It's not targeting one thing. It is actually rolling the clock back at a cellular level. I've been using the face moisturizer for almost six months now and I love it so much. It feels amazing. It goes on really smoothly. It's not tacky at all. And I actually see a difference, which I just feel like is never the case with skincare. You want to always like see a real difference and you're kind of like, do, do I? Do I? And this I genuinely do. Because it's clearing the senescent cells, it doesn't just target one thing. So my skin looks firmer. It looks glowier. The texture feels dramatically smoother. And I feel like you can see that too. I also love the body moisturizer. It dries down really

quickly, which is always a pet peeve of mine with moisturizers. I hate that like sticky feeling when you go to put your clothes on. This does not do that. But it does moisturize really, really. well. And then again, I'm reducing my skin's biological age. I am not making it just look younger. I am making it actually younger. One Skin has four peer-reviewed clinical studies in over 10,000 five-star reviews. The data backs everything up. For a limited time, get 15% off with code Liz at oneskin.co slash Liz. Again, that's 15% off at oneskin.co with code Liz. The mattress that you sleep on is one of the highest exposures that you have. Like if it's off gassing, you're breathing that in for basically a third of your life.

And most conventional mattresses are loaded with synthetic foams, flame retardants, microplastics, and more. Plus, if it's not comfy, you're going to be tossing and turning. You're going to be really hot. And sleep is the foundation of health. It is so important. Because of all of this, if I were not going to invest in any other part of my house, no other things in my house, I would invest in my mattress.

And in fact, I have four years well before I had much money to spend on any of these things because it is such a big needle mover. The birch mattress is incredible. It is made with organic cotton, natural latex, and ethically sourced wool. So it has literally no off-gassing. You can not smell anything right when you unbox it. It has no micropastics, no synthetic foams or flame retardants. And the wool makes it so breathable, which if you've listened to this podcast for more

than five minutes, you know that I run very, very hot. Like I am a furnace. Zach has basically accepted that sleeping next to me is like sleeping next to like a little fire. And the birch mattress has been a game changer for that. It's made me sleep so much better. Like I can see my sleep score going up because I'm not hot all night long. It's also hypoallergenic, which is really worth paying attention to if you find yourself waking up stuffy or congested. Dust mites in a conventional mattress can actually impact your breathing and your sleep quality without you even realizing it. And again, we need. need to be able to breathe to get good sleep and getting good sleep is the foundation of our health. And then comfort-wise, Zach sleeps on his back and then I sleep on my side and my stomach. So

we have two completely different sleep styles and we both wake up feeling really good, no aches and pains. CNN actually named the Birch mattress, the best mattress for side sleepers and Wired named it the best organic mattress period. So there you go. Burch has options for every kind of sleeper in your household. They have three firmness layers. I like the lux natural, which is the medium one. And then parents, they even have a Birch kid's natural mattress. Burch ships right to your door. It sets up in minutes and it comes with 120 night risk-free trial. So if it is not for you, they will pick it up for free. You have nothing to lose here. I want all of you to enjoy a deep, restful night sleep with a new mattress from Birch. Go to birch living.com slash Liz Moody for 20% off.

That is birch living.com slash Liz Moody. And you're going to get 20% off birchliving.com slash Liz Moody.