The School of Greatness - The Top Foods To Avoid & Which Ones To Start Eating Today EP 1345

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

Dr. Sten Ekberg covers health tips like healthy foods to eat, nutrition, weight loss, healthy keto diet, low carb foods, intermittent fasting, holistic health tips, lower blood pressure, reverse insulin resistance, reduce stress, how to exercise, thyroid issues, brain health, stretches & more to help you you master holistic health, stay healthy naturally, live longer and have quality of life by learning how the body really works. Dr. Ekberg currently resides in the United States where he works as a chiropractor and nutritionist at his office Wellness For Life in Cumming, Georgia.He educates millions of people around their health on his YouTube Channel, Dr. Sten Ekberg.In this episode you will learn,What foods you should eat and what foods you should avoid.The best natural ways to increase human growth hormone.Why more doesn’t equal better when it comes to exercise.The most common mistakes people make with their health.For more, go to lewishowes.com/1345Casey Means on How to Recognize and Fix Unhealthy Habits: https://link.chtbl.com/1252-podGabrielle Lyon on Why Building Muscle Is The Key To Lifelong Weight Loss & Higher Life Expectancy: https://link.chtbl.com/1267-podSal Di Stefano on How To Forever Change Your Relationship With Exercise: https://link.chtbl.com/1341-pod

So yes, top 10 foods would be like the ones we talked about. But then in addition to that, which is really hard for people to understand, the number one food to avoid for you is... Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

There's so many new Frankenstein foods out there, you know, new manipulated foods, processed foods that people think are healthy that maybe aren't healthy. So I wanted to dive in first and talk about really what you think the top five or 10 foods or the categories of foods we should be thinking about eating for optimal health in all sense of the word from mental health, brain health, to physical health, to spiritual health. Yes. What would you say are those top five to ten foods we should be thinking about and categories? Yeah.

So first of all, there's no difference between physical health and spiritual health and mental health. If it works for the body, it works for the body, right? And it depends on where people are so the the number one rule would be to eat real food and people don't even know what that is anymore 60 70 percent of calories consumed are white white flour white sugar and and flavorless semi-synthetic seed oils that have been over-processed. There's no food value, nutritional value in those. It's all empty calories. 60% of calories are from that.

Yeah, I saw some numbers. 60% to 70% of calories are from fake food. So then, and the rest of the 30, 40% aren't necessarily that great either. So the first part is just to teach people to eat real food. And if the earth produced it, if it walked the planet or it grew on the planet and you don't screw it up then it's pretty good food. And then what I talk a lot about is low carb because not because everyone has to have low carb. Like China and Asia they got around they got along for centuries eating a bunch of carbs but they centuries eating a bunch of carbs but they didn't add sugar on top of it and they didn't eat six meals a day with constant snacks and they had physical labor. So we have to put it in perspective, in context for the whole lifestyle. So the sugar, the calories, the empty calories with sugar and white carbs,

and then low carb is what you're saying is to think about to start. Yeah. And the reason I talk so much about low carb is that somewhere around 80, I think Ben Bickman quoted 88% of the US and probably a large part of the world's population is insulin resistant today and if you are insulin resistant that only means one thing you ate too many carbs for you and that could be 20 grams for one person or 200 grams for another but if you're insulin resistant you ate too many carbs and that's it's not a few hundred million it's most people on the planet really I mean it's billions in the U.S. it's probably somewhere around 88 percent I think if you go around the globe it's

probably still 60 percent are insulin resistant? Yes. And what does insulin resistant mean? What happens to the body if you are that? So it's an adaptation. The body will adapt to circumstances, to whatever conditions you throw at it. The body will make an intelligent adaptation. And if you eat a carbohydrate, it will raise your blood sugar more than other types of foods and if you raise blood sugar now the way to control that blood sugar and get that blood sugar into the cell is to release insulin so if you eat eat carbs I use my hands a lot

so this is what I tell people that if you eat a carbohydrate your blood sugar goes up and then your body produces insulin to get that carbohydrate into the cell and now if you wait a few hours that insulin will come back to baseline and you can start all over. But if you eat that carb and you produce that insulin to bring the glucose down but then you eat again while the insulin is still high, now it's a stair step. Now you're just driving it higher and higher and higher. So insulin resistance is simply an adaptation where your body starts resisting insulin and I've done a couple of videos where I liken this to a salesman right or a friendly neighbor you're new in your house the the

neighbor comes knocking on your door and says welcome to the neighborhood here's a pie it's like you go great I'm so happy I feel welcome here someone brought me something I need so it's like the cell wants this fuel if it's occasional if it's appropriate but then you have a thousand neighbors and they're all just lining up outside your house and every one of them brings a pie. So after a couple of hundred pies, you're pretty tired of this. You start developing a resistance to neighbors bringing you pie, right? So anything that the body gets too much of, it starts resisting. It's just, it's the way it's supposed to work.

And when it resists the thing, what happens to the body? Is that when you store fat? Is that what that's meaning? Correct. Correct. So insulin is a storage hormone. It's an anabolic hormone. Its job is to get the glucose from the bloodstream into the cell and whatever glucose the cell can use in the moment it will use but anything that's in excess of what it can use in the next near near future is going to be converted to fat because we can only store a tiny little bit of carbohydrates and then the rest has to be stored as fat. So we can store somewhere around 1500 calories as carbs but we have an unlimited storage for fats. Really? So like half a million calories and I call that a fortune of energy reserves right because the body is smart. It wants to put on

of energy reserves. Because the body is smart. It wants to put on some extra weight for the winter when there's less food. So the body is super, super intelligent and if you put on fat there's a there's a reason. But a lot of people would like a little bit less of a fortune. Exactly. So I want to talk about losing fat in a bit, but I could go off course there, but I want to stick to what I was originally asking about the top foods we should be eating and the foods we should be eliminating. So we talked about eating real food, low carb, and eliminating kind of the white, I guess, sugars. What would be the top foods you think are necessary? So I believe humans are made to eat meat Right. So I think that's a foundation for humans. I think our ancestors were hunter-gatherers

And it doesn't really matter what you eat I think meat lamb pork fish poultry It all has roughly the same protein and nutritional value. I think variety is really good. But then I think there are lots of other things that we can eat. I think we should be very limited on grains. Humans, I don't believe, were really made to eat a huge amount of grains. Why is that?

And I think it's because there's this thing called paleo that most people have heard of. And paleo, some people turn it into a religion and a lot of diets become religions like keto and low carb and paleo become religions. But it's a philosophy and the paleo philosophy says that humans have been around on the planet for a while and during that time wherever our ancestors were how far ever you want to go back to the to the African savannah whether you want to put that limit like a couple of million years back or a quarter million years back, our DNA is mostly unchanged since that time period.

So the DNA is what determines what kind of enzymes you can make, what kind of digestive tract you have to break down those foods. So if we go a quarter of a million years on a certain type of food and then all of a sudden we change it, the body has no idea what to do with that. That's foreign. It's an experiment. So agriculture with grains was basically introduced some 10,000 years ago. And for most of those 10,000 years, we had what's called ancient grains, which were rye and spelt and einkorn and so forth. the last hundred years or even the last 50 years, which in the big scheme of things and in the evolutionary scale, it's not even a blink of an eye. And now instead of four ancient grains,

we have 25,000 different kinds. Really? Yeah. So when they've started hybridizing all these modern wheats, they're not looking for health benefits. They're not looking for what humans can tolerate. They're looking for what is sturdy to grow and what has the highest yield and so forth. Wow. So you're not a fan of grains? I'm not. I think some people can tolerate some grains. And I think if you do reasonably well with them then I think you can eat some but if you have any sort of sensitivities or digestive issues or allergies or brain fog or anything that isn't quite right I think grains would be the first thing to go. Really? Where does oatmeal fall into that? Oatmeal is it's a grain. It is one of the friendlier grains because it is,

it does have some benefits. It is naturally gluten-free, which is, and it's not the only thing that people react to in grains, but it's the number one offender, so to speak. So normal oats are gluten free but it's still a carbohydrate, it's still almost all starch and again it goes back to the 88%. If you're insulin resistant then you need to avoid oats. If you're not, if you're super insulin sensitive, then you can probably have some oats. Right. And so does all carbs turn into sugar at some point? Yes. Or most carbs or some carbs? Yes. Yes, they do. Now there's this thing, I might look into this and do a video on something called resistant starch. Because there's a lot of talk about it. I've kind of kept it in the background for a while.

But yes, basically all carbohydrate turns into glucose. And what the argument with the resistant starch is that, well, some of it doesn't get digested and becomes food for your bacteria in the large intestine. But the key word there is some. So if 30% reach the large intestine that still means 70% becomes glucose. So again it's the people who are insulin resistant need to watch it. And you need to understand where you are on that scale so that you can monitor. And if you're getting results, fine.

Then that's kind of what it's all about. If you're getting the results, then keep doing what you're doing. If you don't, then get a little stricter. Right, right. So what about the, you're saying meat is kind of the main category you're saying, or one of the top foods categories. What about all the different people coming out in the last five, 10 years

talking about vegetarianism and veganism and the benefits of that eliminating meat? Because I see different sides. I see people saying the lion diet only, it's like all meat. And now they've gotten rid of certain diseases and skin conditions. And I see other people, vegetarian and vegan, who eliminate things. But also people that go that far extreme and have more issues.

So what are your thoughts on that perspective? I think people find the arguments that they want to find. So a lot of this is philosophical and ethical. So I was a vegetarian for seven years back in the late 90s. And I read a book and it was very convincing. And one of the arguments was that, I mean, there were lots of them, but one of them that I've later sort of had a different perspective was that look at World War II. There was no meat around and people had way less heart disease and they had way less problems and they lost weight. Well, they didn't have much of anything. They didn't have any sugar. They didn't have any white flour. They didn't have any processed food. So you can't. And that's the argument that is made erroneously so often. They pick something that's not a causative factor, but just a correlation.

versus carnivore, I believe that plant food can have some cleansing properties. So if you have cancer for example and you have a toxic liver, it's a fatty liver, it's an overwhelmed liver, it's just congested and toxic in so many different ways. I think that you should go vegan. I think you should try that for three months, six months, maybe 12 months until you can re-evaluate because I think there's some powerful cleansing properties. But animal products are more rebuilding. So what are we looking to get from food? We're looking to get fuel to turn into energy. We're looking for building blocks to become tissue because your body constantly breaks down and you have to rebuild it. Right. and you you tree falls on your house and and the brick wall is damaged you don't rebuild that with foam right you need the right stuff and and we are built from the foods that the planet produces so we need genuine replacement parts and then we also need vitamins and minerals those are the

catalysts that help us convert the fuel and the building block into energy and tissue right and we get way more of that from animal foods right they have a higher food value much more of the genuine replacement parts and and it kind of makes sense if you think about it because you are meat right your body is your tissue is primarily meat and if you eat something that's close to your tissue it's going to be less of a transition for your body to turn that into your tissue so yes your body can turn vegetables and plants into protein and body parts, but it doesn't happen nearly at the same percentage of conversion or absorption. I mean, you're an elite world athlete, champion of the decathlon, arguably the hardest sporting

event there is in the world. You ate meat during that time, I'm assuming. And then after your career, you went vegetarian for six, seven years, you said. And now you're back on meat. So you've probably, I'm assuming you've studied and seen all the documentaries about veganism and these elite athletes that turn into vegan athletes and they have this superpower and then other people that turn into vegan athletes and they have this superpower and then other people that are meat eaters. And you've done it yourself as an elite athlete, as a doctor and a nutritionist. So what did you notice when you became vegan for seven years or

vegetarian and then now back on meat after that? I did fairly well on it. The biggest challenge for me was that when you don't eat meat, then you tend to be more limited. So if you're out somewhere traveling, now you're eating a lot of bean burritos and French fries instead of real food. Carbs. Yeah, correct. But I don't think I really, I don't know that I really suffered. But what happens with a lot of people is that it might take 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years before they really become deficient in something, before they become anemic, before they're missing vitamin D and B12 because you have reserves of most of those. And in my case, I wish I'd known half of the stuff that I know now because I was

not an educated athlete. Well, back in the 80s, they weren't really teaching that stuff. Back in the 80s, you were taught to eat carbs. Eat your Wheaties. Yep. Eat your carbs over breakfast. I kid you not, I probably ate more than a thousand grams of carbs per day on average. I mean, I was working out four, five, six hours a day eating five, six, seven thousand calories. And you burn it all off. So you think that, hey, there's no problem here. But you stop working out, you keep eating that way.

That's what happened to me. It's like, oh, get the... Yeah, I never really gained the weight. I mean, I gained some. I got a little fatter than I was because I didn't maintain 3% body fat exactly. But I didn't really learn about food until much later when I was in chiropractic school and started putting it together. Yeah.

That's interesting. So you may not see the deficiencies in the first number of years, but what I'm hearing you say is you're probably eventually going to be more deficient. It's just going to be harder. And what you see as a clinician is that there is no black and white. Everyone is looking for, well, just tell me what to do. Well, you can't do that. You have to understand where you are on the scale. And for some people, I'm sure there are super strong weightlifters who are vegans because their body can tolerate it, at least for many years.

at least for many years. But then you have all these people who have been vegetarian or vegans for 10 years and they start having all these issues, especially thin females who might have stress issues and digestive problems and so forth. So on the other, so yes, top 10 foods would be like the the ones we talked

about but then in addition to that which is really hard for people to understand and which we test a lot in the offices the number one food to avoid for you is the one that you react to right because that creates for everyone that creates inflammation. That wreaks havoc. It doesn't matter how healthy that food is for someone else. But if you can't tolerate it, if you have a reaction, a hypersensitivity reaction, that's the absolute worst food for you. Okay?

Which brings us to the carnivores. And I don't, I think meat is a great foundation and this is just like a personal feeling. I don't think that carnivore is optimal forever for most people. It might very well work but I think for most people I think a good variety is probably better. You mean only carnivore? Correct, correct. But the people who get results from carnivore, the reason it's such a huge movement and it undeniably produces results is that if you eat something you're sensitive to you get inflammation. Then those are the worst foods for you.

And some people are so sensitive that they react to everything except meat. Right. Right? So it's the ultimate elimination diet. So now you've eliminated, like if you go paleo, you're going to eliminate dairy and processed foods and sugar and grain because our ancestors didn't have any of that. But if you're super sensitive, you might still react to lettuce and bell pepper and all of these things. So the people who get the tremendous life-changing results on carnivore they're the ones who only

tolerate meat right that's the ultimate elimination so now for some someone it might be that they ate meat and lettuce and it still didn't work and when they cut out the lettuce then they got the results but it doesn't mean that carnivore is the best for everybody. I think anyone who has some issues that haven't been resolved and they have some autoimmunity, they have digestive issues and brain fog, I think they should try carnivore and see if it changes something. But again, then we go and we turn these things into religions and we say it worked for me so you should do it too.

This is the answer for everyone. Yeah. But that's not the case, right? Yeah. So what are some other meats that you recommend that we should be eating? Meat is, I'm sorry, foods that you recommend that we should be eating. Foods.

I think then the next best would be tubers, like roots, sweet potato, rutabaga, parsnip, turnips, etc. Because they're generally fairly low carb. Sweet potatoes are? Sweet potatoes are a little bit higher in carbs. They're way less than grains. But a lot of these, like the rutabaga and so forth, they're fairly low carb.

Sure, gotcha. And they're also gluten-free, and they pretty much fit into any regimen. So if you're on an autoimmune diet, if you're on a lectin-free diet, if you're avoiding nightshades, the tubers are still safe. What are the top tubers? Sweet potatoes? are still safe. What are the top tubers? Sweet potatoes? Sweet potatoes, potatoes, rutabaga, turnips, parsnips. What's the other one? The celery root. Okay. So those are generally pretty good. And again, if, so the sweet potato is generally more safe than the potato because the potato is a nightshade. So if you, again, have those sensitivities and you're avoiding nightshades, then potato has to go as well. Okay.

So we got the tubers. What's the next category you really like? So then assuming that you're not sensitive to nightshades, then I would go with all of the non-starchy vegetables. So now we got eggplants and bell peppers that I think for most people are good foods. But again, they have some lectins. Then I think the broccoli and cauliflower are like staples uh in in my house for sure that you can look those i mean those are like very low calorie yes nutrient dense but also low carb too right yes broccoli cauliflower they're like four five percent% net carbs. So it's very, very low. And of course, avocado,

which is really a fruit by definition, but it has quite a bit of fat and very, very low carbs. It's like 2-3% net carbs. Okay. And what's the deal with the nightshades because i know there's a big uh um you know conversation about that right now where these these foods actually are hurting you you know these nightshades or it depends on your sensitivity level correct they're hurting some people plant paradise right correct yes so then i don't know what the percentage would be, but I would not. I think gluten hurts everyone, right? But I don't think lectins hurt everyone, not at those doses. Again, it's all about dosage. So nightshades have lectins. And if you are sensitive to something, if you have inflammation, if you have some issues,

then I think sort of like the carnivore, carnivore is more extreme but before that you want to try cutting out the lectins, cutting out the nightshades. But again it's not, some people sort of pick their little niche and say, I'm going to be the lectin guy. I'm going to be the nightshade guy. And they promote that as the solution for everyone, but it's not. And low carb is not the solution for everyone. I have some skinny patients that need to eat carbs? They don't need to eat sugar and white bread, but they would probably do better eating 70, 80, 100 grams of carbs. Because they're very, very insulin sensitive. Their body has trouble putting on some weight. Right.

Are there any other categories you think we should be eating? The leafy greens are kind of in the non-starchy vegetables, but they're sort of a little subcategory. And then I think some people kind of count the eggs with the meat, but I think it's a separate category because very few people are sensitive to meat a lot of people are sensitive to eggs people are sensitive yes okay yes and and again it's not a majority it's not like not like with wheat or or pasteurized milk but i don't know 5 10 15 20 percent and and it it's hard to tell because the people that come to my clinic, they're the ones who have the problems. So they're probably way more sensitive than the general population. Sure.

Are you a big fan of eggs yourself? Yes. As a food group? Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I think quality is huge. I think a lot of problems develop because people eat really, really poor quality. So

I think if the chicken or the hen had a healthy life and produces a healthy egg, I think you're much less likely to ever develop a sensitivity. But if that chicken is eating chemicals and hormones and was raised under horrendous conditions, I think your body is much more likely to develop a sensitivity to that because of whatever might be in there. Right, right. Any other final category you like as a food group? The most nutrient-dense foods. Yeah, I do think even though dairy is a very common allergen, I do think a lot of people do well with some forms of dairy. So I typically recommend yogurt and sour cream because it's very rewarding.

If you're doing a low-carb diet, then adding a little sour cream to something is super tasty. I think cheese is okay for a lot of people, especially if it's like a good quality cheese, not the melty singles and all that. Not the nacho cheese dip at the movie theater, which tastes so good, but it's not that good for you. Yeah, I don't even know about that. It the nacho cheese dip yeah movie theater which tastes so good but it's not that good yeah i don't even know about that i've been cheese yeah yeah i think i've trained myself into just associating chemicals with i know with that stuff i know but yeah i i

try to get things as close to nature as possible so if i have the option i'm going to get pasture-raised eggs. I'm going to get raw cheese with as few additives as possible. Because nature made things for us. We are nature, right? And all the other animals on the planet, they graze off the planet. They don't process things. They don't alter things. So as soon as we change it it we increase the likelihood of screwing it up and the more we change it the more we screw it up so the closer we can get to to the source

the better yeah what would be three foods that you would recommend everyone eliminate if you could eliminate or have very very little every once in a while but if you could eliminate or have very, very little every once in a while, but if you could almost eliminate these three foods from your diet, it would help you in a big way. So I don't know if we can call them foods, but obviously sugar. Sugar in the quantity, refined sugar in the quantities we eat is absolutely toxic to the body. Number two would be processed fats so healthy fats are natural fats butter meat fat pork avocado olive oil etc because we don't change them we don't mess with them but anything that we make an oil from

that doesn't necessarily that doesn't come easily like a seed or corn corn has just a couple of percent fat in it so it takes a lot of heat and chemicals and processing to get any oil out of it so it tastes terrible and then you have to bleach it and deodorize it and all that so it's not a food anymore and those foods are extremely toxic so soybean oil, corn oil, canola oil all of those processed oils and especially if they're turned into a food product like margarine or shortening or something like that. So I'd say sugar and seed oils. And then something, again, that's not really a food, but I would put it up there.

And every time I make a video on this, I get a lot of backlash. And it's artificial sweeteners. Oh, man. Why are artificial sweeteners not good for us? Because they are chemicals. They're foreign substances. They were developed by companies who made pesticides.

And the latest and greatest, so aspartame got a bad rap, so then they had to hustle to come up with something else, so they came up with sucralose and they were very careful to name it in a way that sounded yes sucrose sugar sucralose but the fact is and and then and then they said that well you know it's just like sugar and then it just has some chlorine just like sea salt well in nature sodium chloride is only bonded through like an electrostatic charge I forget exactly what it's called but it's not like a tight bond so yes sodium chloride perfectly natural but when we bind chlorine to a carbon nature never does that basically every form of a chloro carbon is a pesticide and one of the most famous ones was ddt which was banned as a cancer causing agent It almost wiped out the national bird, the eagle. And it's so

toxic, it's in our environment 50 years later. So chlorocarbons are pesticides, and that's what sucralose is. It's a chlorocarbon. Wow. So eliminate refined sugar, eliminate processed fats, which is mostly seed oils and artificial sweeteners. Are there any non-sugar sweeteners, natural, that you like or recommend that in the right doses are okay for you? Yes. So I use quite a bit of Stevia. That's not an artificial sweetener or it is?

No. bit of stevia. That's not an artificial sweetener? No, no. So some people bundle it together with artificial sweeteners just because it's a non-calorie sweetener. But it is a plant product. It's just a refined leaf basically. And the thing to watch for though is that they don't mix it up with a lot of other chemicals. that it's the concentrated version. It's one ingredient, not ten ingredients. Yeah. And another similar one would be monk fruit. That is also very similar in the way it tastes and looks and so forth.

It's super, super concentrated. And it's also a plant extract. So if you're going to add something to a coffee or a drink or something, stevia, monk fruit, you say is okay in the right doses. Yes. And then in the gray zone, I would also put sugar alcohols. Interesting. Right?

Some of them are better than others. I think the best one would be erythritol because it is very slightly metabolized by the body so it doesn't really affect blood sugar but it doesn't really cause any other problems. Some of the other sugar alcohols, they sort of stay in the digestive tract for a while and then those sugar alcohols become food for your intestinal bacteria and that's where you get a lot of bloating gotcha so i would say sugar alcohols are okay if you eat them in moderation so this this is always the trick in recommending food when you you make a list and people want to know the best one and so forth and you you

categorize and rank them and now they say that is a good one I'm just going to eat that or Dr. Ekberg said sugar alcohols are okay so now I'm going to eat that every day I'm going to bake with it I'm going to buy the ice cream with it. And that's the thing. Everything in moderation. So sugar alcohols, if you eat a teaspoon or a tablespoon here and there, I think it's totally fine. But if you start baking with it and doing the ice cream and you start getting half a cup a day, now you're definitely going to upset the biome a little bit. Now, what matters based on your age range? You know, if someone's in their 20s versus I'm in my late 30s, almost 40,

you're in your, I believe, 50s, you said. Yeah. Does it matter based on how old you are, of what you should be eating, how much you should be eating, types of foods, or is it pretty consistent throughout the decades? I would say it's pretty consistent throughout. And one analogy would be that, I mean, there's so many people, they say that women should fast this way and teenagers should fast this way and women over 40 or under 47. It's like we love to complicate things, right? But

are there different foods on the savannah for one giraffe versus another? An older giraffe. Yeah. Does the male and the female giraffe eat from different trees? It's like not really so I'm not saying that there's no value to that but I think we tend to over complicate things I think we if we just understand that it's like 99% the same and then that last percent is where if we want to really pick it apart then there may be some benefit there. Gotcha what about when it comes to fat loss? You know, I think, what is it, over a third of the U.S. is now categorized

either pre-diabetic or obesity or something like that, right? It's the statistics. Yeah, obesity is somewhere around 40%. 40% now? Yeah. In the U.S.? Yes. Do we know what that is globally or is that just um I keep looking it

up I keep forgetting okay but it's increasing everywhere because I thought it was 33 percent like five years ago yeah and now it's 40 percent yeah that's kind of scary it is it is and what I talk a lot about though is the the pre-diabetic That's the gray area that nobody understands. So we have 10% diabetics. And over a certain age, it's more like 25%, 30%. But that's 10% of the entire population is full-blown diabetic. And then they say, I forget the number, I think it's like a third of the population

is pre-diabetic. But they base that off of blood sugar only, right? But the only way that you really know where you are on the scale is to do some form of insulin resistance test. And there's some complicated ones that you could do if you want like oral glucose tolerance tests and all that but the simplest insulin resistance test is just a measure fasting insulin and see where you are sure and this goes back to to the model that I use my hands for where glucose goes up insulin goes up and pushes glucose back down so you could have a person who is has a good glucose and a healthy insulin level but then they eat too much carbs for them and 10 years later their insulin is three four five times higher but their glucose

is still normal so that person is not going to make it into the statistics for the insulin resistant or the pre-diabetic it takes 20 years to get there so if we So if we actually measure the insulin and we say we're a little bit more sensitive to the gradient, now we're going to see that probably 80% of the population has some degree of insulin resistance. Gotcha. Right? Wow. So how do we eliminate that? Is it burning the fat? Is it changing the foods to eliminate that? Or what is that? It's reducing the insulin because the insulin is ultimately the fat storing hormone. How do we stimulate the insulin. And the other thing is to eat fewer meals because insulin rises in response to food. So when you don't eat, you're giving the body a chance to drop insulin.

But most people people the only time they don't eat is when they're sleeping at best they get eight hours of fasting and then during their waking hours they just keep topping off the insulin but if you can just extend that fasting window by a few hours you've already made a huge difference. So if you go, instead of eating your last meal at 11 and your first meal at 7, what if you just skip that evening meal? What if you don't eat after dinner at 6 o'clock? Now you've just extended that period where insulin could drop by five hours. More than 50% increase, right?

So those are some simple tools. And that's why intermittent fasting is so popular. And I would say it's even more powerful than low-carb because fasting is zero-carb. Now, like most diets and trends we see out there in the health world, you know All these different names of diets is intermittent fasting going to be another Fad for a decade and then go away or do you think this is something that people will actually use because there's so much pain With you know, pre-iabetes and fat storage? I think when people learn to eat real food, then intermittent fasting almost becomes natural. It becomes so easy. It's such a no-brainer.

And everyone who tries it, who gets to the point where they might eat twice a day, they might have lunch and dinner and then there is no there's no temptation there's no urgency to go back because it feels so normal and if we look again we go back to our ancestors quarter million years how did they eat well they didn't wake up to a stocked fridge they they might have had some nuts or a little bit of meat left over from the day but I don't believe that they would eat it because they had a healthy metabolism they were metabolically flexible so they woke up and they went out to catch something before they ate again. So I think it's very logical to assume that we ate once or twice a day for almost all of human history. Until like 100 years ago or something.

Correct. And even less than that, and that's why we've had this explosion, Correct. And even less than that, and that's why we've had this explosion, even into through the 1950s and 60s and even into the 70s, people ate mostly three meals. And then is when they told us to eat low fat. That's when the low fat craze came. And what do you do high carb when exactly when you can't eat the fats now you gotta eat something else and those carbs are very transient right they raise the blood sugar and your body has to get it out of there and as soon as blood sugar drops now you're hungry again so this is part of what got us on this roller coaster. When did diabetes become a thing in the U.S.? Like, when did it start becoming a real problem?

Originally, when they talked about diabetes, it was type 1 diabetes, right? Because that's a failure of the pancreas to produce insulin. And those people used to die. There was no treatment. There was no cure. If they ate extremely low carb, they could live a little longer. But basically type 1 diabetes is starvation in the midst of plenty. That your blood sugar is 700, but you can't use it because you don't have insulin so insulin is not a bad thing but type 2 was unheard of even at the really even in the 1800s they may they might have known what it was but it was so rare that it wasn't like a concept or anything and it really wasn't until the 1970s that it became like a problem.

The 70s? Yeah. So we're talking 50 years ago. Yeah. Type 2 diabetes wasn't a thing before then. They knew what it was and they had some insulin to treat it, but it was such a small percentage that it was, I wouldn't say it didn't exist, but I mean, it was such a small issue compared to what we have today. The stats are, it's exponential. So do we have a metabolism problem where people aren't able to metabolize as efficiently what

they're bringing into their body and their system? And that's why the weight, the belly fat, the obesity is happening? Or is it an insulin problem? Or is it a lack of movement problem? They all tie together. They all tie together. And the sad part is that it's so much harder to reverse the manifested problem. And I've talked about this in some videos. I call it your body has a carbohydrate tolerance or a carbohydrate processing machine. And it works to a point, but if you break it it now you're out of luck right so if you've if you've broken your machine now it you have to be so strict and and this is where you're you're you're talking about the the metabolism problem now it's so difficult to get that body to start working healthy

again, to become insulin sensitive and heal your metabolism. And that's why there's so many people who have trouble losing weight, so many people who have stubborn weight. And stubborn weight is basically that you broke your carbohydrate processing machine, if you will. So how do we get rid of the stubborn weight then? And that's the trick. And this is like the last few percent of the population. Like if you check the comments on my videos, there's all these people say,

hallelujah, this works works this is so great I lost 60 pounds in two months and and all I did was just I followed your advice I cut out the sugar I cut out the white bread but then there's there's this other group that I really really sympathize with and they're the ones who go keto they go low carb they do intermittent fasting for years and they lose like three pounds really why is that because their bodies are so stubborn and and part of it i do sympathize with and part of it I think is that it is so tough for them that it's challenging to be consistent. That if they truly, truly were consistent on the low carb and the exercise and the intermittent fasting they would probably see some changes.

But then there are these people who get close to zero results even though they're they're meticulous and now we get into some of the things I'm testing in my in my clinic is to try to figure out some of these patterns and and I find that there's these relationships between the the stored body fat and the hypothalamus for example and between the pancreas and the hypothalamus, for example, and between the pancreas and the hypothalamus, between the liver and the pancreas, where the organs are kind of stuck. They're just not talking to each other properly. And then, of course, there's hypothyroid, which is pretty common. But yeah, I do feel for those people. And there is a small percentage that just have so much harder time than the rest of them.

Interesting. And what about the connection to losing weight, healing the body with psychological traumas, emotional heartache, or other things that have hurt you in the past. There's a great book, The Body Keeps the Score. Is relationship trauma, childhood trauma, breakups, breakdowns in life tied to losing weight as well? Yes.

Everything is tied to losing weight as well? Yes. Everything is tied to everything. It's like that's the first thing that you learn when you're in clinical practice and you do the stuff that I do is anything can cause anything. And what I try to teach people is the holistic approach. I call it holistic health. And some people, they say, oh, you lost me when you said holistic. Now they think it's about burning incense and crystals. But holistic simply means addressing the whole, right? You are a whole body. You want your body to be whole. So you need to look at all the aspects that tie into that. And some people, when it comes to weight, obviously they look first at the food, which is like the chemical, the biochemistry. about the exercise which is the physical mechanical and then now you're mentioning the third which is the emotional we have to understand we are chemical structural and emotional it's like three legs on a table and for some people they might have enough of a balance already that they just address one thing and they get results. But to truly get optimal health, we need to address all three for a period of time to get the results. When you do all of it

for a period of time, that's when you can get that optimal health. So with weight loss, I don't think it's ever, well, I shouldn't say ever. For most people, it's not the primary component, but it's definitely a contributing component. Because we know, for example, that stress contributes to a hormone called cortisol. And the purpose of cortisol is to raise blood sugar. If you raise blood sugar, you're going to trigger more insulin, more insulin, you become more insulin resistant. Right. I mean this is so plain and so documented that you give someone cortisol and they become

insulin resistant. So if you are stressed for whatever reason, now you will become more insulin resistant. It's more difficult to reverse these processes if you are stressed at the same time. So high blood sugar, let me make sure I'm understanding this, does not necessarily come from the foods you eat, but it can also come from the stresses you have with your thoughts. Yes, absolutely. Does it also come with foods also or is it more from thoughts turned into stress and emotions? It's definitely more from food. Okay. And I don't think, I think it'd be a very, very rare case of someone who is metabolically healthy and insulin sensitive and has stressful thoughts to create a metabolic problem. That by itself is probably not going to do it. But for people who are insulin resistant,

now if they have stress on top of that, that becomes a very significant factor. Mm-hmm. And same thing with exercise. I've done some videos on this where too many people think that exercise is all about blood sweat and tears. That yes if you're going to be an elite athlete you need to go through some pain. You need to challenge your body to become better. But that's not necessarily the healthiest way. And more isn't better. So for the person who has stressed their body, they've depleted their body, they got this mid-weight gain, midsection weight gain, those people should not go to a boot camp in the gym.

That's not going to help them because this this midsection weight gain is too much cortisol really right you can gain weight everywhere but if you have it in the midsection that's very indicative of of cortisol so now if you go join a boot camp and they you got this motivated great trainer to whip you along, then you're just going to make tons of cortisol that's going to make the problem worse. Really? So what type of physical activity should we be doing to lose the midsection weight? aerobic exercise. And aerobic means with air, which means that it's at an intensity low enough that we can breathe comfortably and supply the oxygen. So as soon as you start huffing and puffing, that's not a bad thing for short duration, but if you go and you do a 45-minute spin class every day and you're just huffing and puffing, you're going to make way, way, way too much cortisol.

Really? Yes. So you might be hurting your chances of losing the weight if you're doing that intensive workout every day. Correct. If you're doing a HIIT training two, three times a week for 45 minutes, is that okay? Do you feel like that's still intense? If it's 45 minutes, it's not HIIT. Gotcha.

Yeah. HIIT, high intensity, means that it's so intense. To me, my definition. It's like 10, 15 minutes. It's not, well, maybe the total duration would be 10, 15 minutes. But if you do interval,

high intensity interval training is what HIIT is, then the intervals should be so intense you can't even do them for more than 30 seconds. Like they should be so intense, provided you're fit enough to do that, of course. 30 seconds and then you do 30 second rest and then 30 seconds, you should be able to bring your heart rate up to maximum in maybe four or five intervals. That is hit. Now you're done. You've created your positive hormones, your growth hormone to stimulate fat burning, your growth hormone to stimulate muscle building to produce and to stimulate new brain synapses to enhance learning and focus. All the good stuff in the brain depends on hormones and two of those hormones are human growth hormone and BDNF which is brain derived neurotrophic factor and those two hormones are necessary to make new synapses

right so your brain is constantly remodeling and every time you learn something, whether you're 20 years old or 80 years old, you make new synapses. And the synapses you use, they get stronger. The ones that you don't use go away. But these two hormones, which some of the strongest ways to produce them is high-intensity exercise and fasting, are pretty much required to build a brain and to learn, really. So what type of high-intensity exercise are you doing on a weekly basis? My favorite to really get the heart rate up is I go to my favorite mountain close to where I live where there's a trail and it's like four miles around and I walk a little bit, I jog a little bit, I walk a little bit, jog a little bit, just kind of enjoying the movement and my heart rate probably stays around 100 to 120, 130 maybe. And then there's some hills. And then I do some sprints up the

hills. So now I push it a little bit. And 30 second push and my heart rate's 160. And then I walk a little, jog a little, there's another hill. And I push it a little bit more and my heart rate hits 165 170 and and that might I might do that in 30 seconds or it might take a minute to to get to that heart rate and then I'm done you do a few hills yes what if you did 20 hills then too much a 10 to 30 second that might be okay if you're 20, 25 years old, you're an elite athlete and that's part of of your event. But if you're 45, 50, 60 and you just try to stay as healthy as possible, I think that's too much. Really? And in any event it's unnecessary And in any event, it's unnecessary because it's not about the quantity.

Quantity is good for fitness, but not necessarily for health. Interesting. So you only need a few sprints every couple, is this every day or every few days? I would say it's no more than twice a week. Twice a week. For the average person now. If you're watching this, you have to understand if you're in the elite athlete category or in the 50-year-old trying to stave off degenerative disease. Yes, yes. Yeah. So if you're more of a, you know, if you're an athlete, even in your 40s and 50s, you could push it a little farther. If you're competing in stuff or doing triathlons or marathons or just wanting to stay lean, it's important to be doing that a little bit more.

Yeah. So there's no doubt. I mean, I talk a lot in my videos about moderation. Like you do these HIIT exercises, you do it twice a week, you keep it short. But obviously that doesn't apply to someone who has a goal in an event. If you're going after fitness, there is no substitute for punishing yourself. Right. You've got to do it. Yeah. Because if you're're gonna perform in an event, you need to do something similar to that event at

that level of intensity and duration. So fasting and high intensity exercise, but it's not doing a, you know, crossfit every day, five days a week. Yeah, because that creates too much cortisol. Correct. Especially if you're older, you know past 30 or something, it's probably not as good to do that. Is something like that, a 45 to 60-minute CrossFit type of training once a week, you think okay? Or is it still creating too much cortisol? I think once or twice a week for the average person, if you feel good, I think is fine. for the average person if you feel good I think is fine but again I when I have people come in to my clinic those are people who have been to 20 different doctors they have tried vegan and carnivore and low-carb and and yo-yo

dieting and gluten-free they've done all that. So these are people with challenges. And now if you're a little frail, now that's where you really have to be careful and get everything right. But yeah, if you're in your 30s, 40s, 50s, you're feeling fine, then go for it. Do one or two of those spin classes. And what I would caution, though, is pay attention. Notice how your body is reacting. How do you feel after the class? Are you exhausted? Are you stiff in the morning?

Do you have trouble getting out of bed? Do your joints hurt the next day, then you're probably doing too much. Dr. Doing too much, yeah. And what about, you know, we talked about fasting a little bit here, what are the top three benefits of intermittent fasting or longer fasting, you know, 24-hour, 48-hour fasting that you've seen in your research so number one is lowering insulin number and and with that lowering blood sugar losing weight etc the other big thing is that you induce something called autophagy

but that's with that's with longer fasting autophagyy is called self. Autophagy stands for self-eating. And that's where if you're putting food in your body, if you're putting especially protein in your body, there's plenty of resources. Your body knows, hey, there's some more coming. I can just use that to build tissue and to do the stuff I need. But if you stop putting it in, I can just use that to build tissue and to do the stuff I need. But if you stop putting it in, now it becomes a very, very scarce resource.

So now your body has to figure out where else can I get this. And that's where autophagy, self-eating comes in. So now your body upregulates its recycling mechanisms. How long does it take to fast before autophagy starts? So again, that's what everybody asks. And it's not a black or white. It's a continuous, it's a gradient. I would say that it barely starts around 16 to 18 hours. That's where you get like a trickle.

But then it increases pretty fast where there's a significant change between 18 and 24 hours. And then it sort of takes off from there. So 48 hours into it, it's very significant. 48 hours into it. So the longer you can go every extra few hours, it continues to self-eat. Yes. The fat stored in your body more and more. Yes. Yeah. So the self-eating now, part of what it eats is fat, obviously, because you're not adding any fuel.

But the key with autophagy is protein because you need protein to build the tissue. Your cells have so much of a lifespan. They break down, and then you have to make new ones. And you need protein for that. So when you don't add any now, you have to go look for that. So when you don't add any now you have to go look for some and a lot of people will say oh well that's where fasting is dangerous because you're going to eat up your muscles. The body is too smart for that because you need your muscles to go on the next hunt. So we have all these mechanisms to spare muscles and that's why growth hormone increases also exponentially along with autophagy and growth hormone is muscle sparing it's basically telling

the body one of the mechanisms that tell the body don't use the muscle go find something else find something else. So now it gets much better at recycling these broken cells. It gets much better at finding any kind of resource like virus and bacteria and parasites that may also be made out of protein. Really? And kind of eating those things, the bad things first. Correct. Interesting. What's the longest you've gone fasting? The longest I've done is five days or four and a half. No food, water only. Just water. Yeah, I've done three days. And you see the benefits a lot after a day and a half. You really start to see and feel the benefits. By day three, I went right up to three and I was like, okay, I was starting to get a little tired.

And I think I pushed it because I worked out twice, which you're probably not supposed to do. But I did like an incline walk for an hour, which I don't recommend. But I was trying to be extra. Yeah, that's probably too much. Yeah. And this is where we come into this muscle sparing thing. That I'm all in favor of doing some exercise while you're fasting. Because you're going to increase your ketones. You're going to increase your growth hormone. But if you're not adding any protein and you do something intense enough to break down a muscle, now your body has to sort of juggle the resources.

Like it has to repair those muscles and where's the protein going to come from? So it might break down some other muscles to repair that. Interesting. I haven't seen specific research on this or anything. It's just kind of common sense. What would the body do sure so i i would exercise but i would keep it to purely aerobic i wouldn't even do hit not even brief hit during those times right right what did you do for those four and a half five days

uh i probably not didn't do much of anything. Probably just, yeah, maybe a little bit of walking, but basically just my everyday activities. Did you feel pretty sharp after two, three days? Or did you start to feel a little slower towards the end? I don't feel as great as people tell me they feel. Yeah, I feel so much energy. Yeah, so I do okay. I don't feel any dramatic improvement in focus,

but I do know that it happens because I get the testimonials. And I do know, especially for people who might have insulin resistance, when they fast, they're going to increase their ketones which becomes the the alternative brain fuel right and it also kind of helps heal certain things the if you've been driving the insulin it's allowing that to recover more right yes yeah yeah yeah your your whole carbohydrate processing machine is recovering because you're not adding anything. Right, right. And one more thing about autophagy and fasting is for brain trauma.

And this, I've hardly ever heard it spoken about, that the brain is kind of its own little world up there inside the cranium. We have the blood-brain barrier, and a lot of things that go on in the brain are different than the way they work in the body. So the reason, for example, that spinal cord injuries are so devastating is that the nervous system is really poor at repairing itself right it's not it's it's encased in bone for a reason it's not supposed to get damaged you're not supposed to crack your

skull or or break your spine and and that sense that that tissue is a little different. It's sensitive. And it doesn't have the capacity to repair itself very well. But if you have a concussion, for example, you get some tissue brain trauma. You get some inflammation. And about the only way that the brain can clean that up is through autophagy, the self-eating. Interesting. Right? is through autophagy, the self-eating. Interesting.

So when people have a brain trauma, traumatic brain injury, that's the number one time that they want to absolutely not have any sugar. Really? Fast at that time? Yes. And if they can throw in a 24-hour fast or something, then that's going to be huge to reduce that inflammation. And what about when you hear, like, you know, sometimes you might feel lightheaded or a little tired or lethargic, and you'll hear people say, well, I have low blood sugar. I need to, like, have a piece of candy. It gives me more energy in that moment. What is that scenario?

moment. Yeah. What is that scenario? That's when you have trained your body to depend on carbohydrates, right? If you go year in and year out and feed your body sugar or carbohydrates every two hours, your body is going to upregulate all of the pathways to deal with carbohydrates. It's going to downregulate any pathway to pull from fat. So now, after so many years of that, you cut out the carbohydrates, you have no fuel source because the backup system is dormant. Your body doesn't know, now what do we do, right? So it's because you trained your body in to depend on carbohydrates and it's so easy for most people the vast majority of people can get out of that in three to four days just by cutting out the carbs eat more protein eat more

fat teach your body to up regulate the other system which is fat burning and that is where you have metabolic flexibility. Gotcha. So most people probably going to take a few months to get like totally back to metabolic flexibility. But you'll break a huge part of that carb dependence just in a few days. What would you say the top three ways to

increase human growth hormone? They're pretty simple other than injecting it, which I'm not a fan of. Right, right. Naturally. Yes, naturally. So fasting is the most powerful. Human growth hormone occurs when you fast over, I think you said, 18 hours or roughly around there? It's the same as autophagy. It increases gradually. I think you hit the maximum somewhere after four or five days or up to seven days. Then I think it's pretty much plateaued at a high level. So fasting and the other one is the exercise, the high intensity exercise.

Sprints. Yeah. Is that also with like heavy lifting or is it just more sprints? Yes. So here's how we want to think about this. Why, and this is what I encourage people to do, this is what I'm trying to do with my videos, is try to think like the body what would i do if i was the body why is the body doing this so what's the purpose of growth hormone right it's to grow tissue and why would the body want to do that because there is a need, right? So if you're sitting on the couch and you're eating potato chips, why would the body make growth hormone, right? But if you challenge your body, if you push it, if you do push-ups until you fail, like you get a million dollars if you can do one more and you can't do it. That's pushing your body till it fails to exhaustion. And now what's the message? The message is I got to get better. The body says if he's going to do this again, I want to be prepared next time he does this. I better build some muscle. And to do that, I need some growth hormone. Same thing with fasting. Okay, they're not putting in any other fuel right now. I have to be smart about this. I have to get my energy someplace else from fat. So growth hormone is fat burning.

I have to protect my muscles so I can go on a hunt tomorrow. So let's protect the muscles. So when you challenge your body, when you scare your body, you're telling it what you're doing right now isn't quite good enough. You got to get better tomorrow. That's it. And there's so many other little ways like Wim Hof breathing. That's a stress. Anything that's stressful is going to increase growth hormone. You can even just sit and hold your breath for as long as you can, and you're going to increase growth hormone. Interesting. Don't pass out, but yeah. and you're going to increase growth hormone. Interesting. Yeah.

Don't pass out, but yeah. And it's probably not at the magnitude that you get with fasting and high intensity, but there's all these different things where you challenge your body, your body has to get better. What about cold showers, hot steam? Same thing. Same thing. Anything that stresses the body,

but you don't want to be stressing it for hours is what I'm hearing you say. Correct. Because that creates cortisol, which spikes your insulin. Yes. And there is eustress and there's distress. And the founder of, the guy who came up with the stress and the adaptive stress response was Hans Selye. He did tons of studies on this. stress response was Hans Selye he did tons of studies on this and he found that short-term stress I mean eustress is good stress right your body needs stress to get better if your body

constantly breaks down you have a turnover of cells so it's going to break down now you need a reason to make new cells that's the you stress right you need to use your body you need to use your brain you need to use your liver every every tissue needs to have a purpose use it or lose it right so that's the you stress we need a moderate amount of different kinds of stress like gravity and weight bearing and so forth that gives the body a reason to make new healthy tissue but distress is when we're stressing the body too much or in a chronic way now it becomes instead of adaptation,

it becomes maladaptation. And it's like exercise. So many people, they say, they think that exercise is what makes you strong. But it isn't. Exercise breaks you down. And it gives the body a reason to build a better body right so it's it's not the exercise that does it it's the recovery yeah the sleep recovery yes so after a really really hard workout like if you if you beat your body to pulp in the gym you need 72 hours to recover before you do

that again 72 yeah i mean it depends on how how much do you break it down like how many fibers do you break but you can typically tell and I'm sure you you know this that the day after you're sore the second day you're more sore. Exactly. Right? The third day it starts to go away. Your body hasn't healed in that time period. So you shouldn't push it again the same muscle groups. Correct. The next day or two. Correct. Depending on the intensity again. Right. You can do some if you're doing a leg day you can do some you know walking and stretching I guess the next couple days but you don't want to be doing another leg day back to back. Correct. And this is the trick for athletes to find that balance of Yes, you have to break it down, but then they get they get into the blood sweat and tears mentality

No pain no gain mentality. So they always think that more is better, which it isn't It's like it's the recovery. Yes, you need to break it down, but it's the recovery that makes you stronger. So much has happened in the last decade in the health, nutrition, and exercise world that has seemed to be evolving, new science, new research, different fads that have come and gone. What do you see is coming over this next decade with nutrition, the science of health, optimizing the body, all these different things? Do you see anything new emerging that is actually going to be beneficial? Or do we just need to keep doing the same, you know, eat real food, work out consistently,

recover well, and take care of your emotions? work out consistently recover well and take care of your emotions if i have anything to do with it which i hope i will then we're going to start developing some common sense there's always going to be fads that people want the quick fixes which is why the the yo-yo diets they think that you can i i've abused my body for five years. Now I'm going to do something for three days to reverse all that. I'm going to lose my 20 pounds because it says so on the tabloid. And then I'm going to go right back to abusing my body and I'll be fine again. That makes no sense to anybody. And yet we do it. So I think my mission is to teach health, to teach some common sense, and that's where we want to go back to historically what have humans done, what is our DNA designed

for, what does a human body need, right? It needs the replacement parts, it needs the replacement part it needs fuel it needs vitamins minerals it needs stimulation use it or lose it it needs a productive mindset it needs a purpose it needs joy and it doesn't matter if it's a rat in a lab or it's a human. If you stress it continuously, it will break down. You cannot get health in that situation. So again, chemical, structural, emotional, and then we need to find that balance. I love it. And it's not optional. It's not like do this if you get around to it it's a human requirement

it's a law of nature you can't you can't fight it or ignore it any more than you can gravity like the human body has requirements in the chemical, structural, emotional aspect. And if we understand what those are, then we can do something good with it. Absolutely. I've got a couple of final questions for you, Dr. Egberg. All right. But I want people to follow you first over on your YouTube, Dr. Egberg, and also your website, dragbergaswell.com. You're all over social media, but YouTube is the main thing and your website you've got so many great informational educational videos teaching how to optimize the health diving into the research and the science of these things so i won't be able to follow you over there we'll have it all linked up as well how else can we be of support to you today before I ask these final questions? I would say look at my YouTube channel and

take an active interest and then share that information. I tell people often in the office that see here here's the thing with health it's like air we we don't value it until it's gone right but when it's gone nothing is more important so people will give lip service to the fact that when you want to be healthy is health important everyone's going to put it number one on their list and then they're going to ignore it until they get a scare right but all these processes that we're talking about the insulin resistance the the cancer the the dementia they hit people hit people at an epidemic scale in their 60s and 70s but they start in the 30s and yet we don't care until it's too late so that's that's what I would like for people to understand is that these things take here's the problem they don't kill us fast enough right yeah the if you eat poison and and it kills you if you have an anaphylactic shock to peanuts you'll know about it but this stuff takes 20 30 years so everyone ignores it until it's too late or much, much harder to change. And all these things, a hundred years ago, people

died from infections and poverty and starvation and natural disasters. Today, we don't die from that. 95%, there's still some unfortunate places, but most of the the world we die from man-made conditions. We die from things that 95% of them are degenerative disease that could be avoided if we just understood what to do. And why don't we care about health? Because we shouldn't have to. The body is so magnificent, it is so incredibly smart, that it fixes almost everything for us. It's just not invincible, and it takes 30 years to break it down. But the reason that we can't afford to just trust the body anymore is that the world has changed more in the last 50 years than it has in the previous 50,000.

There's no other animal on the planet that has to worry about it because they live in their natural environment and they graze off the planet. We don't do that. We spend half our lives in front of a screen. We eat chemicals and processed foods. We have no connection with nature. We have changed the world. But I don't want to sound like a doomsday prophet either. I want people to understand that if you do something with this while there's plenty of time, I think we can have quality of life into our 90s and beyond. Right? Instead of people say that we live so much longer today. It's like, no, we don't. We die longer.

we live so much longer today. It's like, no, we don't. We die longer. For so many people, life is over at 60, even though they hang around for another 30 years. They can't move the way they used to. Correct. They don't enjoy life the way they used to. Exactly. They can't go do things. They can't play with their grandkids. They can't reach up and take something off a shelf. They can't reach up and take something off a shelf. And there's huge numbers of people who just don't have that quality of life. But we have to understand that it's in our power to do something. If we just learn what the body needs and we don't take it for granted.

Wow. That's beautiful. Well, I want people to follow you on your YouTube, dregberg.com as well. We'll have it all linked up. But I've got a couple of final questions for you. This is called the three truths question. Oh, wow. So imagine a hypothetical scenario. It's your last day on earth many years away.

You live as long as you want to live. But you got to call it quits on this world. And you've accomplished all your dreams. You've created everything you want to create. But but for whatever reason we don't have access to your creations all your content your videos anything you make for whatever reason it's gone in this scenario but you get to leave behind three lessons to the world three things you know to be true and this is all we would have to remember your information what would be those three truths for you you have been gifted

the most incredible healing machine ever devised your body is a representation of of infinite intelligence and i don't know if i can come up with three things, but the second would be respect it and understand what it needs. And this carries over to prosperity in every way because they're not isolated principles for health or wealth. It's like when your body is working, when you feel good, you're more productive, you feel more worthy, you can pursue things better. So it's like everything ties together. Yes.

That's beautiful. Was that the third one or was that the second one? Respect your body. Is there one more? Was that the third one or was that the second one? Respect your body. Is there one more? Well, here's a, we kind of talked about this,

but I'll, and it's sort of a repeat, but I tell people that healing is a law of nature. So it's sort of like water flowing down a hillside that the water is going to flow because of gravity and it's going to keep doing that no matter what it's not it's not optional it's not going to do it sometimes it's going to do it all the time because that's what it does that's how healing works also now you can build a barrier you can build a dam on that hillside and you can slow the water you can keep it from running for for a while and and that's what the the obstacles the the stress the toxicity the lifestyle that we have but if you on the hillside now if you remove that obstacle from the hillside the water is going to start

running again healing is going to just pick up where it left off you don't have to teach the water to do what it does. It's built in. It's the only thing it knows how to do. That's beautiful. Just remove the obstacle. Correct. Allow your body to heal. Correct.

Dr. Eggenberg, I want to acknowledge you for a moment for everything you've created in your life and how you were an elite athlete, you know, and then you use that knowledge to continue to serve and help more people become athletes of their own life. You know, maybe not as elite as you, but the athlete of their life. Correct. To realign to their natural habitat. Health champions. Health champions. Yes. I love that. And I want to acknowledge you for your consistent dedication. You know, you continue to learn, you continue to develop, you continue to serve so many people. So I appreciate all that you do for the world and how you help so many of us

give back to that habitat. My final question is, what is your definition of greatness? When you are honest with yourself and you realize what you can be and you go after the ultimate version of you. There you go. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's show with all the important links. And also make sure to share this with a friend and subscribe over on Apple Podcasts as well. I really love

hearing feedback from you guys. So share a review over on Apple and let me know what part of this episode resonated with you the most. And if no one's told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.