Well with Arielle Lorre - 42: ROB YANG - Gut Health, Hormones, Stress, Fasting, Food and How it's All Connected

Episode Date: February 5, 2020

Rob Yang is BACK and we are getting into everything you want to know about the gut, hormones, stress, exercise, fasting and what the heck to eat. We talk about issues like SIBO, how hormones affect the gut and vice versa, how stress affects the gut and vice versa, sleep, elimination, exercise, skin problems, what to do if you think something is off, and how to navigate it all. This episode is JAM packed with information and tips to help you feel your best! Please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe if you are enjoying the show! ❤️   About Robert Yang: Robert Yang earned a postgraduate degree in Human Nutrition from the University of Bridgeport.  He is a certified nutritionist and a certified strength and conditioning specialist.  With over 2 decades of experience he has worked with an array of athletes from the NFL, MLB, NHL, X-Games, PGA & LPGA.  Robert is in high demand as a nutritionist and strength coach for professional athletes, golfers and celebrities. He specializes in resolving gut issues, hormonal imbalances and achieving optimal performance. His integrative programs are based on a thorough health history evaluation and use of laboratory testing to determine the individual needs of a client. www.robertyang.net www.instagram.com/robertyang    Follow me! www.instagram.com/ariellelorre www.instagram.com/theblondefilespodcast www.theblondefiles.com    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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on Sunnycars. I'm Ariel Lori, and this is the Blonde Files podcast where I talk to experts, influencers, and inspirational people in the world of wellness and beyond. Whether it's mental health, spirituality, nutrition, gut health, hormones, exercise, meditation, entrepreneurship, beauty hacks, and procedures, I cover it here with real conversations and even realer guests. I know you're as curious as I am, so I'm asking the questions for you and you get to listen in. Welcome to the show. I am so happy you're here. I'm super pumped about today's episode. It is something that

everybody always asks me about. People always want to know about gut health. So who better to talk about this with than Rob Yang. If you've been with me since day one, he was my first guest here on the podcast. He has helped me with my gut health over the years. And I know after he and I started doing a lot on Instagram together. You guys have worked with him too, so I had to have him back on and talk about all things gut. So we get into a lot here. We talk about SIBO. We talk about hormones, how hormones affect gut health, and how gut health affects our hormones. What to do if your gut is off. We talk about stress and its ramifications, exercise and stress, how to tailor exercise for your body. I know this is something that a lot of people are curious about. We also talk about elimination,

of course. Sleep. We talk vegan protein sources, meal and snack ideas. You get it. This episode is just chalk full of information and so many helpful tips, so I really think you're going to find it useful. As always, if you enjoy this episode or the podcast in general, please take a second to rate, review and subscribe, it really makes a big difference for the show. And I really, really appreciate you and your support always. So without further ado, Rob Yang. Okay. Rob Yang is back on the podcast. I am back. I think you were my first guest ever on the podcast. I can't remember if it was you or Kelsey Wells, because I recorded you guys around the same time. But, no, Rob was the first. Okay, Angie is saying

Angie is saying Rob was the first. So pretty crazy that we're back here again. I know. Really excited to chat. It's been what a year now? Almost a year. It'll be a year in April. I think we recorded in like February though.

Okay. Something like that. I would say go back and listen to that episode, but the sound quality is much better now. We're going to talk about some of the same things, but I think it'll just. be a better quality conversation overall. So I'm really excited to chat. I announced on Instagram that you were coming on and asked people what they wanted to hear. And of course, the resounding answer.

Something to do with the gut. Rimes with mut-mouth. Yeah, gut health. Everybody wanted to hear about gut health, which is a really broad topic, as we know. Yep. But we will try to kind of simplify it and talk about the main points that are relevant to a lot of people today and then maybe segue into some fasting. That's a really hot topic right now. And we've talked about that on IGTV, which we also did a while ago. And we'll just see what else happens. Okay.

See where it goes. Yeah. So why don't we begin by you just introducing yourself to you, the listeners? Okay. So thanks for having me on. So my background, I wear different hats in my practice. So sometimes, like, we're sitting in my studio, which is a gym. And so sometimes I'm working as a strength coach with an athlete or it could be, you know,

someone who wants to just improve their golf game. And then probably, I would say, 60% of my time I'm working with clients, you know, globally, Skype, FaceTime, about nutrition, gut health, hormones, detoxification. Normally I find, though, is if we can help someone with their gut health, then oftentimes hormones start to stabilize. We still need to probably do some work if it's someone who has some major issues going on. But that in a nutshell is what I'm doing in my practice. That reminds me of actually one of the questions that I had way down here,

but about gut health and hormones and how they're interrelated. And even like I know for me, when I first came to see you a couple years ago, I thought my main problem was PCOS. Right, right. I had gone to doctor after doctor getting a diagnosis of PCOS, and I thought that all of my symptoms, my brain fog, my fatigue, my bloating, my nausea,

all of it was attributed to that because that's what I was being told. And you told. me otherwise and that completely like opened my eyes to all of this and it's crazy I think a lot of people have the same experience yeah I think um you know normally someone's well my my menstrual cycles off or you know my hormones are off or I'm getting tired all the time and so normally what they want to do is they usually say hey Rob I want to you know test my adrenal glands or my hormones and normally that's why I have people felt paperwork because oftentimes

sometimes there's questions that I have them answer. And if they start clicking off different things like they've had acid reflux or they're having a little bit of constipation or diarrhea, then oftentimes we need to go with the gut first. And I've made the mistake of addressing the hormones first. And it's sort of like, the results are kind of just average. So sometimes people feel better, but they still don't feel like they resolve the issues and so the and I think the main question is well how does it got affect the hormones and so I tell people before like for a female like if we're looking at the mental cycle

and estrogen progesterone and luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone yes there may be some kind of dysfunction there but we need to take a step back and say okay well look let's let's see what the adrenal glands are doing. Let's see if there's any sort of dysfunctional levels there. Because ultimately, if someone is highly stressed, so they have a lot of stress in their personal life and professional life, then that's going to impact their hormonal output already. So we need to look at that.

But even going a step further, the reason why we have to look at the guise, because if there's any sort of either pathogenic overgrowth or food sensitivity, or lack of acid enzymes, whatever the issue is, that's going to overall affect the adrenal health and stress, and then that's going to also affect your hormones. So, and the reason why the gut has such a huge impact on hormones

is that when you have, let's say, a yeast overgrowth or someone's struggling with bloating, they have SIBO, with that, that's with someone 24 hours days, seven days a week. So that internal stressor is something that is sort of flying underneath the radar. It's not really dealt with. And so oftentimes that has a huge profound impact on someone's adrenal health over the long haul. So a lot of people that don't do well on the whatever adrenal program that they put on, per nown dHA and all these other things and all these supplements,

most likely it's because, well, you had to deal with whatever gut issue there was. I'm curious, and I don't know if you can answer this, but like out of all the people that you see that have gut issues, obviously they have, like you said, the stress of having that going on 24-7, but then how many people also have a lot of external stress or perceived stress? Like, how prevalent is that? Is it always, is it like the exception or is it the rule that people that have gut issues also have a lot of stress? Yeah, I think it's usually the rule. And so that's why when I... Oh, yeah. So that's why when I evaluate someone initially, I always do a thorough history.

So I always say, well, when did your symptoms start, whatever they are? And they go, oh, I started about a year ago. And normally, if I go backwards and I talk about their history, you know a year ago whatever it's normally always going to be you know what's very common is they have a lot of stress with maybe their finishing exams at school and then you know their favorite uncle passed away and then and then they just said screw it I'm just going to you know drink like a fish and I'm not watching my diet at all and the exercise goes out the window and so usually there's an accumulation of a culmination of events that happens

and then they start getting a lot of symptoms after that. Yeah. Okay. So let's kind of simplify this for the listeners, because we hear the term gut health thrown around everything. It's very hot right now and it's great for marketing, right? But what exactly do we mean when we say gut health? Yeah, that's a very good question.

I think with gut health, you know, it's not just the extent. So normally we see the extremes of someone with IBS or IBD or Crohn's or ulcerative colitis. And obviously those are major gut issues where there's a very unhealthy gut. But what the definition of gut health should be is someone that digest their food well, like they have a bowel boom every day. That's the first sign that you have good health. And within the bowelm every day, the consistency should be. pretty, you know, normal.

So, like, I, my perfect bowel was like a brown banana, basically. That's what I tell people. And then we have one spectrum of constipation and other ones like diarrhea. So we want to be right in the middle with a brown banana. And then obviously they shouldn't have any sort of irritation to their stomach or they shouldn't have any distension going on. So they shouldn't have, feel like they have to unbutton their, you know, their, you know, their belt buckle or anything like that after they eat their food.

Oftentimes people, and mostly men don't really aren't paying attention to that. So that's why I would say probably 90% of my clients for gut health or female because they, you know, when they wear tight clothes, they're very aware of their bodies. And so you shouldn't have those things. Like you shouldn't have excessive belching or excessive farting, things like that. So I think there has to be, you know, someone who's feeling comfortable in their body in terms of gut health. So it's not just the absence of ulcer to colitis or diarrhea or constipation. Like it goes beyond that for gut health.

Yeah. And most people, they'll tell you, you know, like you came to me and said, you know, having some gut issues, you know, going on and they vary from person to person. but ultimately a person will know whether they have healthy guilt or not, just by their symptoms. So what are some of the less obvious symptoms, though? Because those are kind of more acute ones, but like we were talking about before,

when I came to see you, I also had fatigue and nausea, brain fog, you know, things besides the obvious loading and all of that. Yeah, I would say one of the not so obvious symptoms is the skin. so people that have eczema atopic dermatitis dry itchy skin those are all definite signs that okay something is going on within the gut that needs to be addressed whether it's food sensitivities or a pathogenic overgrowth those are things that definitely need to be looked at another one is joints. So I've had quite a few people that once we start to improve their gut health,

then a lot of their joint pain starts to decrease. So they're going to see, you know, the massage therapist, the acupuncturist, the orthopedic, and, you know, some people do have some structural issues, but some people that don't have structural issues or they have, you know, issue with your medium meniscus, oftentimes you start to take care of inflammation within the gut and then their pain starts to dissipate and goes away.

So those are, you know, the scan joints would be one. You mentioned brain fog. So we know that if your gut is inflamed, your brain's going to be inflamed. And vice versa, you can go the other way. So if someone, for example, I had a young man who

played football for a number of years, very successful in college, college and so a lot of head traumas and then he had another event on a jet ski and he had severe digestive issues after that so it can go both ways right yeah and so sometimes with someone like that you almost need to treat both ends so it's not it's kind of like chicken or a day what came first right well who care we just they're just a gut issue and there's a brain issue so you got to do both. Yeah.

What are the long-term implications of gut issues? Like what, if it goes untreated? Oh, if it goes untreated. Yeah. Well, I think some of the issues long-term are going to be an overflow into other systems. So, for example, I would say the biggest factor for, for example, like if we just take constipation, as an issue is that because constipation, you're, someone's backed up. So they're not properly limiting every day.

Well, that becomes an issue overall systemically and then eventually it overloaded the liver. So with someone that is constipated for long period time, they're going to have liver issues. And then there's, you know, there's more research showing there's a, I wouldn't say cause and effect, but typically the high percentage of people with Alzheimer's are constipated. constipation they're saying is sort of an early sign of possibly someone having a possible risk factor for all termers. So from the long-term perspective, you do have to be concerned with those things. Obviously, with bowel movements and, you know, we're always talking about poop, if you're not properly limiting every day, then it's just one way that you're toxifying your body

every day. And so we need to be on release those toxins. Right. And what if you're eliminating too much? Right. So that's the other spectrum. So then that, what we're concerned with is malabsorption. So obviously people losing weight or not maintaining their muscle mass. And that's very important. And not just from an aesthetic point of view, but just from a anti-aging effect.

So we want to be able to maintain our muscle mass because the more muscle mass you maintain, the more you're increasing your metal block rate, the more you protect your hips, your knees, your joints, just in case you fall. So that's one of the concerns that I have long-term for people. Okay. So we know that it's very specific to whatever the issues are going on and everybody is different and our bodies and bio-individuality and all of that. If somebody thinks that they have something amiss,

what's the best place to start? Maybe like walk us through the phases. Yeah. I would say, I mean, the best place to start is you do have to establish some foundational principles with people. And so, you know, my book, Whole-in-1 Nutrition, it's obviously geared towards golfers, whole-on-one. But a lot of my colleagues say, hey, Rob, you need to write this and just rename it, you know, for it could be whatever is for athletes or energy issue. but the principles there are very, very important for gut health or hormonal health. So my sort of food pyramid at the bottom tier is water,

and then the second tier is whole food, and then the third tier would be supplementation. And so I would say the simple foundation of just drinking water is so important. From a number of perspectives for joint health, more specifically, just recently found an article that one glass of water was just as effective as taking tombs for reflux. So if people are struggling with reflex out there, instead of reaching for the tombs, reach for a glass of water.

Imagine that. Right, right. And there's a guy, Dr. Batman Yelich, who wrote a book, Your Many Cries for Water. He talks about treating people with dyspepsia with water. Wow. Yeah. And so, you know, that foundation has to be there. So I've always said half your body amounts of the water.

If you're on the metric system, it's one liter per 30 kilos, water per day. And that's your foundational intake of water. And that helps a number of different, you know, aspects of brain health. It actually will help with stress reduction in terms of cortisol production and so forth. So that's really, I say it all the time, but to me I'm like, gosh, it sounds so simple, but really, it's simple and it's effective. And water first thing in the morning. Yeah. So simple.

So effective. It's just nobody wants to do it. Everyone wants to reach for the coffee or the tea or whatever that has the caffeine because I think that's going to wake you up. But I drink a huge bottle of water first thing in the morning. And it helps everything. Yeah. And it helps me feel more alert before I even have to get my matcher or any of that. And it helps elimination and all of that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it helps a tremendous amount. I mean, I can't tell so many people that even extremes where people are like, oh, my God, I used to have to drink three cups of coffee in the morning. And I had drink half a cup now when I drink my 25% of my total intake first thing in the morning. And I'm going, wow, it is that simple, you know, when I keep hearing those things. Because sometimes I forget and then I'm like, oh, no like clients to keep telling me hey rob it and water really made a difference you know so yeah um that

that really is that foundational principle that people need to follow whether they have gut issues or hormones or skin issue whatever it is okay so say that they're doing that and they're still experiencing whatever symptoms right so when is it well let's kind of go step by step so what would be the next thing to do yeah the next part of that would be obviously looking at food, right? Because that's what we do at least three times a day, if not maybe four or five. So I've always said what's really critical when it comes to food is stabilizing someone's blood sugar. And so, and that is across the board for even with someone with PCOS or someone, you know, who's just struggling with energy. And so what I've told people, and you've heard me say this,

your BFF for bloodstream control is PFF. So we're talking proteins, we're talking fats, and then we're talking fiber. And the reason why I came up with that is that I was trying to think of something that was obviously simple and something that would be easy for people to remember. My clients to remember and athletes to remember. And so all those different macronutrients, proteins by itself, fat by itself, fibered by themselves, by itself has shown to really kind of cause a slow release of blood sugar. And then when you combine all three of them, it's a synergistic effect.

And so that's why I recommend that sort of a principle-based plan. So it doesn't have to be 40% protein and 32.1% fat, you know, like it's a principled program. And the reason why that's so important, because it helps stabilize blood sugar. and whether it's someone with gut issues or whether it's someone with hormonal issues, stabilizing blood sugar is really, really key because if you're not stabilizing your blood sugar, so whether you're skipping meals or whether you're eating the wrong type of meals that cause your blood sugar to go up and down, that in essence is a minor stress to the body. Obviously, if you really have a bad diet, you're drinking sugar all the time and coffee and donuts and stuff like

that, then your blood sugar is really kind of like that big roller coaster effect. And that itself is a massive stress. And then because your blood sugar is skyrocketing and it's peaking, you're going to valley. And once you valley, as it starts to valley, your body is trying to seek homeostasis, right, a balance. And so that's the job of cortisol is to help to balance up blood sugar. But if you didn't eat all that crap food or if you didn't, if you stabilize your blood sugar to begin with, you wouldn't have that stress. So now cortisol is able to do its other many jobs in the body. And so that's why a lot of people go, oh my gosh, like, I don't know what it is,

but ever since you changed my food around, I'm sleeping better. And I tell them, well, the reason why you're sleeping better is because you're stabilizing cortisol, and now cortisol levels are in a better rhythm. And so now your body is probably producing melatonin at a more efficient rate at night. And your blood sugar is not a little place. So something about PFF is that there's animal protein usually involved. So I know that a lot of vegans follow me, and I'm sure you get this question a lot. Yes, I do.

But a vegan diet is carb heavy and not very rich in protein unless you're eating a ton of nuts and tofu and legumes, right? And stuff like that. Right, right, right, right. So without telling people to, you know, eat animal products, what's like a good thing? solution for that if you have one. Well, I mean, I'm not a huge proponent of going vegan. I think people need some animal products. And there's some people that do really well.

But, you know, I tell people, look, if you're doing well, then you wouldn't be asking me a question or you wouldn't be seeking other advice, right? And so I tell people, look, you know, the couple issues involved is that, one, if you're seeking just vegan sources of protein, you're quite limited or like you just alluded to that, well, it's very carb heavy. Like it kind of has to be because if you're going to do legumes, yeah, you get protein, some protein, but the ratio from protein to carburet is quite high. Granted, you get a decent amount of fiber, which is good. So that's where people struggle with. in the very few cases in terms of working with vegans what we probably need to do is probably use more protein powders than what I would like

and I've never really advocated tons a ton of usage of protein powders even if someone didn't have digestive issues and people said oh man you could recommend this protein butter make a lot of money I'm like well that doesn't do me any sort of um I mean financially we'd have help me, but it doesn't help my client. You know what I mean? And I found that, yeah, you can use some protein powders, but in the grand scheme of thing is probably not the best issue. That's why I always say, hey, whole foods first, and then I would look at protein powder more as a supplement rather than, you know, a whole food. But, yeah, I mean, with, with vegans, they're probably going to need to go with more protein powders. I'm not a big fan of soy just because it's such a processed food.

protein. And so, you know, there's obviously fluctuations of different hormones that can happen with estrogen as well. So we have to be careful of that as well. So yeah, in a nutshell, I'm not a huge fan of vegan proteins because they're an incomplete source of protein as well. So that can become a problem. People ask me on Instagram for specific meal or snack ideas that are PFF, do you have anything that's like a go-to? Like, I think people really struggle with breakfast, especially, like, we'll probably talk about some common irritants, but if somebody's having an issue with eggs, what a good breakfast idea would be.

Yeah. Are we talking in the context of a gut issue probably or not? Yeah. Okay. Let's go with that. Yeah. So, I mean, I would first say that what's important in terms of the, you know, the question of the concept of breakfast and PFF is to really try to change your mindset. It's only in

American where it's eggs, bacon, sausage, toast, blah, blah, blah, pancakes, right? So I would try and really, I tell my clients to say, hey, you know, you tested positive for eggs on your food sensitivity. However, you know, I know you love eggs, you have a rude day, but let's venture out and let's try to have some different types of food. you know, I would say the easiest thing is to have dinner foods for breakfast, just because from preparation point of view, it's easy. You just heat it up on a pan, and then, you know, there's not much prep involved. So I would say that would be the first option.

So you could do that, you know, twice a week, maybe three times a week. The other option, and this could be actually a first option, especially with someone with gut issues, is to probably do anywhere from one to two cups of bone broth first in the morning. And it could be anything, you can do chicken, beef, doesn't matter. Every cup has about 10, 11 grams of protein, and you're getting a good amount of glycine. What's really important for people with gut issues is that they really try to minimize a lot of cold foods. So avoid your smoothies and raw veggies, things like that. So you want to go with cook food because you're, you're, you're,

really want to get foods that are almost just easier to digest. You don't want to have the gut work over time. And so that's where smoothies, raw veggies are not an ideal situation. Usually most people get bloated. They get gas towards the end of the day when they do that first thing in the morning. So I say bone broth, if you do that two or three times a week, that's actually really, really beneficial. Can you speak to why smoothies and raw veggies can be hard for people because I think that's another concept. Yeah. You know, Instagram loves its smoothie bowls.

I know, I know. It's huge. I mean, I saw this one idea. I don't know what company was, but it, you know, it came in a little container and everything was frozen. Daily harvest. Okay. Yeah.

I was like, oh, my gosh, that's brilliant, you know. I'm sure they're killing and doing well. But they actually do have hot foods too. Oh, okay. Really good. Like, not a whole lot of, like they have a cauliflower rice one that has like a Pesto and some veggies and stuff like that. But yeah, that's good.

They're branching out. Yeah. But yeah, it's, I mean, I'm not an expert in traditional Chinese medicine, but the little that I know, I know when there's a sort of digestive issue or gut issue, they consider like dampness within the system so that you don't want to create more dampness. You want to create warmth. You want to create, you know, so that's why I find in clinically working with people, that I noticed, God, they always have smoothies all the time.

And once we take the smoothies out, then their digestion starts to improve. You know, and they go, well, getting your health back is not always easy. You know what I mean? So you're going to have to sort of bite the bullet and go, okay, well, heat up bone broth. You know, go get some bona fide, you know, frozen bone broth, heat it up, have two cups in the morning. That's a good way to start the morning. or you can even just do, you know, cook that vegetable soup and then have that in the morning couple times a week.

But yeah, the smoothies are a problem because they're so cold. And then what people have to realize, too, and it's not the only cause of digestive issues, is that all vegetables, seeds, nuts, grains, they all have lectins in them. And so obviously with like seeds, nuts and grains, you can soak them overnight, and that helps to reduce, not the lectins so much, but the phytic acid, but you still have the

lectins, and so sometimes the lectins in the context of someone who's really struggling with gut issues can kind of overwhelm the system. And so that's why cooking the vegetables, although maybe takes out some of the nutrients, it does help to reduce the lectins. So that would be more ideal for someone to do that. What about juices, like green juices? Yeah, if someone likes it, if someone likes to do that and they and they don't react to them then I'm okay okay but that kind of goes on the same lines of you know something that's cold and so forth because most people aren't going to drink a warm juice yeah no that sounds really not doesn't sound too appealing yeah I like that so kind of detach from what we traditionally think of here in this country as breakfast foods because when you

do that there are so many options oh it's it's it's unending I mean just I mean you can do fish soup in the morning or you can do like I mean for me I just do sardines I don't go you know with the bones and skin but I do boneless skinless you know sardines because it's easy you know I know some of oysters I won't don't do that but wow you know first thing yeah but I don't know about that yeah I don't know I couldn't do it but um you know doing that and just getting something you know it doesn't and that's the key thing is that people when they start to do that they don't have to do huge amounts And I think, you know, for some of the listeners that are, let's say, vegetarian or vegan, like, I always tell people, look, if you're going to start to include animal products, you start very small. Right.

You don't go, you know, go eat a eight-ounce filet mignon. You know, you start real small. Yeah. What about coffee? Yeah, coffee. That's always a fun topic. Controversial. Well, it's sort of, I guess this can be controversial.

I mean, years ago, I used to be like, okay, no, you shouldn't have coffee. at all. But when I started doing the research on it thoroughly, there are some benefits to it. And normally tell people with coffee consumption, I want people to thrive on it, not survive.

So if people are surviving on it, and what I mean by survive is they have their two, three cups in the morning, and that's the only way they can function. And then at one o'clock, they're starting to crash, so they have have a red bull or they have to have five-hour energy, that's a problem, you know. And so usually, like most of the research that says, oh, yeah, it helps with diabetes or helps with, you know, these conditions or whichever. It's what we call it just a bell curve. So, you know, it's anywhere

from probably two to four cups around there. And if you go anything over that, then you're going to start to get symptomatic. Now, with that, we talked about biochemical. chemical individuality with one person another. And so, like, my brother-in-law can drink coffee at 7 o'clock at night and go to bed. And other people can't. They drink, you know, coffee past 10, and they're, like, wired at night. And that has to do with genetic mutations of a certain, what we call SNIP, single nucleot polymorphism with SNPs.

And so if someone obviously is very sensitive, then you have to be cognizant. some of that and probably have your coffee first thing in the morning. That's it. Don't think beyond that. Whereas you have the fast metabolizers. And so with that, you have to make sure that, you know, they're not, because there's sort of a line that you can start abusing it. So you have to be careful of that. And that's why, you know, I think it's good for people to maybe go off coffee every once in a while and see how you feel. Yeah. You know, and, but that's why I I always tell you, look, water before your coffee. It's such a simple thing, but that's not going to make a difference.

It makes a massive difference. Yeah, because if you hydrate first, you go, oh, well, you're getting your energy, you're getting your clarity, your focus from the water, or you're getting your bowel movement from the water, right, and then you enjoy your coffee later. Yeah. Okay, so let's kind of go back to gut health. And so say that somebody is having issues and they're drinking water and they're eating PFF and maybe they've eliminated the common irritants, right?

So gluten, dairy, corn, soy, legumes, sometimes eggs, maybe refined sugar. And they're still experiencing symptoms. When is it time to see a practitioner and get the appropriate testing? Yeah, it's a great question. I would say probably about 80% of people that I'm working with already doing that. So they're doing the, you know, half your bodyments are water. And then they are eating PFF most of the time. And then they avoid the big six.

So gluten dairy, soy, corn, legumes, and eggs. With someone like that, it definitely becomes more complicated. So, you know, there's a certain percentage of people that they get out of gluten. And they're like, oh, my God, I'm cured. I'm so much better. But unfortunately, there are other issues. involved. So with someone like that, most likely we need to probably do further possible food sensitive testing would be maybe one step. And then the other part was to probably do a stool

analysis. And I mean, collecting your poop is not your fun activity that you want to do, but it's one way to address some of the issues that could be involved. So whether it's back. bacteria overgrowth or yeast, candida, or maybe someone picked up a parasite from eating too much sushi or, you know, just going to Mexico. You never know. So that would probably be the next step that I would take with someone. So somebody gets tested and say that they have a pathogen or yeast or whatever. What are the next steps usually?

And again, it's so different because it depends completely on the, on the pathogen, but. Yeah, I mean, when the stool test comes back, a result for a person, normally say, okay, there's probably going to be a digestive detox involved. And so, I mean, there's, you know, there's all sorts of protocols that are out there or people use oil of regno.

I'll use it all the time. There could be combination products that are out there. I would say the only, I think, issue that people might have is you also have to look at the other factors involved, not just taking the herbs and maybe a probiotic if they need that. But you also have to look at the other thing. So, for example, it could be as little as, okay, well, what do you do when you eat? And they look at me like, what do you mean? I use my fork and I'm using my spoon, whatever.

I go, no, but physically, what are you doing? Are you sitting at your desk? you at, you know, the break room, are you at your computer? Like, all those different things matter. Because normally when I, when we're getting someone who has been doing all the other stuff, they've been doing everything right, you know, and they're still having issues, then it's, it's probably a culmination of other factors involved. So they probably have to go eat in peace. Like if they're just answering e-mail all the time at lunch, well, you've got to go take a break and not work through lunch and do that.

It could also mean, okay, well, are you chewing your food enough? Are you producing enough hydrochloric acid? Because those are a huge factor. Is your body producing a bile acid because that emulsifies your fats? So it's not as easy as, okay, just taking an herb. Or, you know, if someone gets test positive for SIBO, well, they just can prescribe a refaxamine. But it goes well beyond that. Like you only get, I think, a 30% improvement for a lot of people.

and then usually the research shows that about two-thirds of those same people that go on refaxamine, they have a reoccurring Cibo. And usually that's because they're not addressing some of the other things that are going on. Right. So what are some of the other things going on? Because CBO is another one of those really hot things right now. Everybody, it seems like, is getting diagnosed with it. And everybody wants to know what the solution is because nobody, I think, so many people just go to their GI or whatever and go on refaxamine.

and then it recurs, and so nobody's really getting relief. Yeah. Well, I think part of it is it's multifactorial, so you do have to obviously address the bacteria overgrowth. So you can do the refaxamine. There's good research on different herbs that will help with that. So you can use other herbs besides refaxamine. But I think the biggest factor is once you do that, is that you,

you know, most people are already falling low FODMAP. So that's a good way to help with the symptoms. But at one point, what needs to happen is that there needs to be probably a reintroduction of probiotics or gut flora. But then there's also needs to be a slow reintroduction of different types of vegetables, possibly fruit later on. Because at the end of the day, we want to create a lot of gut diversity. because when you are limiting yourself too long with vegetables and fruits and everything else,

then long-term you're not going to get that guide diversity that we need. And that takes a little bit of time because you don't want to introduce things too quickly. And I see the biggest mistake is people just kind of go full on. So they just introduce everything at one time where you have to do it very, very slowly. And that's where you get people like, you know, they can do some garlic once they take care of some of the issues, whether before they couldn't. But you have to do one thing at a time and do it very slowly. Again, this is probably really specific for every person, but in general, how long does it take to treat SIBO and then get to that phase where you can reintroduce? Yeah, I would say if you know you have SIBO and then let's say.

say, like normally what I like people to do, I have people do is probably eight weeks on some kind of herbs. And then usually within that time period, they should notice that the blowing should go start to diminish a bit. And at that standpoint, then I would suggest that we start to slowly introduce some vegetables at that point. And we only do, I would, I'm almost conservative now these days where I just may introduce one new thing once a week. Or before I would do maybe every three or four days, but I would do almost once a week to see how they do. So I'm curious what does a SIBO diet tend to look like if it's low FODMAP and it's also no dairy, gluten, corn, soy, all of that stuff. Well, and that's the thing for me is that I know most of the, most people will say low FodMap and Sibo.

Mm-hmm. I actually wouldn't do that. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's just that most people come. to me saying I've already done it put on a low fod map yeah so I would rather that if possible if we can we do the blood work to do the food sensitivity test okay that's more important to me first to look at that because I mean as you know low fodmap I mean geez what can you eat it's tough it's really tough

yeah I mean it's like okay don't eat anything right yeah but yet there's things that you know some dairy sources and things like that that it could, in my opinion, probably are a bigger culprit of the issue. So that's why I'd rather do, if we can, the food sensitivities first and rule out any potential causes of things or lectins that we can test for and say, hey, yeah, you're reacting to rice, you're reacting to, you know, chickpeas or whatever else that's going on. And then if we have to, my last resort will be low phabot.

Got it. I'd rather go food sensitivity, and then, if let's say there's other things that pop up on the stool test then I would say okay let's take the sugar out for a period of time even fruit sugar and then I would go to low FODMap got it I think just from a practical point of view it's just it's pretty hard it's like the stress of having to eat low low Fod map it's probably worse than eating the FodMap yeah yeah exactly my brother had really bad gut issues a few years ago and he was put on low FodMap and he's still on it And I'm like, and he doesn't have the issues necessarily, but I'm like, I don't know, that's tough.

And like onion, garlic. I mean, there are things that are found in everything, right? So it's so limiting. It's pretty limiting. So I would try that. That would be kind of my last resort for how to do that. Yeah, I would go more. Okay, food sensitivity test.

Okay, yeah, let's take out the sugar and fruit and then see how you do. So let's talk about the food sensitivity. testing. That is something that's controversial. Some people say it's bullshit. Yeah. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, I was one of those people that say it was BS.

And it depends on the technology. So a lot of times that colleagues and I, we would do a lot of split samples on different companies, and this company would say, oh, yeah, art is really good. And then we send in our blood samples, and then the split sample is totally different. You're going, oh, my gosh.

And by the way, split sample, basically that means I put my blood into two different test kits, but one would be my name and one would be your name. So same blood, but it should come back the same. They're giving you different results. Yeah. So that was an issue. And then the other issue is that, like, for example, just a simple explanation is that your immune system is basically you can think of like the arm forces. So Army Navy Air Force Marine Corps or Coast Guard.

So most traditional immunologists, they're looking at an IGE as an Edison, and so they're doing the skin scratch test, prick, or they're doing blood work and looking at your IGE and seeing if you're reacting. That's a straight-up allergy. So that's, you know, Will Smith in the movie Hitch, right? His face blows up, has a drink benderill. So that's not really what we're talking about. we're looking at a more delayed response,

and we're looking at two branches, typically IGA or IGG. And so the reason why people say that it typically is BS or whatever is that sometimes what happens is that you can test someone on IGA, for example, eggs, and they're negative. Like there's no reaction. So the person's like, oh, yeah, you can eat eggs. They're like, damn, like I notice when I do eggs, I'm reactive.

and what ends up happening when you're in IGG, they're positive on eggs. So that's why I run a lab I like that runs IGA and IGG at the same time. So they don't miss it. And then also one of the reasons why some of the things are missed or they come up negative is that, for example, with wheat, with any type of wheat product, most labs are only looking at alpha gliadin. Gliadins is the actual protein that potentially is indicated that someone's reacted to wheat or gluten.

But we know that there's alpha beta-glytid, there's omega-glided, there's all these different sub-fractions. So you have to look for those. Otherwise, they can show up negative. And the person is like, I don't know, I feel like I'm still reactive to wheat. But the test shows on negative.

Another reason why food journaling is helpful too. Yeah, yeah. So that's what food journals is helping. And like I said, I've told people all the time that testing is not perfect. But it's one way that we can try to pinpoint what may be the issue. What about when people say that you can come up positive for things that you just eat a lot? Oh yeah, that's and that comes back to probably you know, I was just doing a video when you came in about

food sensitivity tests. And so you know, common question I guess Rob, so do I need to avoid this forever? And I said, not if leaky guts involved. And so the reason why I say that is if someone has reoccurring gut issues and they have leaky gut, well, yes, food sensitivity or their reaction to eggs or whatever else, almonds, yes, it's part of the problem. But the question we have to ask is, well, why are they reactive to almonds and then eggs. And normally in the context of leaky gut, because they have the porous intestinal lining that has bigger holes than it should, what tends to happen is that whatever food is most

frequently consumed and eaten on a daily basis, day and day out, those are the foods that usually show up on a panel. Right. Because those are the ones that constantly are being exposed to the immune system. Yeah. Okay. So that's the sort of caveat as well on the flip side. So, you know, if, like, a doctor suspect someone has seed-like disease and they've been on a gluten-free diet for six months, they'll say, well, I need you to eat gluten for the next two weeks, and then we're going to test you.

Now, that can open a whole can of worms because I've had people do that, and then they blow up. Like, their gut issues just go through the roof. Their, you know, the eyelids are all inflamed and red and all kinds of other things. And the doctors, well, we have to confirm that you have an issue. And the person's like, I have it, it's true of gluten, you know. So that's the only caveat. Yeah. And so that's why people say, well, I've been gluten free for three months.

We're doing the food sensitivity test. I go, well, I don't want to like inflame you. Right. But there's a chance that it may not show up on the actual food synthesis. So that's the only, you know, problem we might come across complication. So what about like our lifestyle? So say that you're healing from a gut issue or you're just beginning to or whatever. Where does exercise come into play here?

Yeah. Exercise is, I mean, exercise, everybody thinks exercise is great. And it is. I mean, it's great for brain health. It's good for obviously muscles, tendons, ligaments, provide you do the right type of exercise. But when we're talking about the context of gut health, you know, I've looked at this extensively. And there's all sorts of research showing, you know, long-term internist training, like ultra-interns athletes, as well as even like 20 minutes of hit training on a, like a bicycle, shows that it does cause a stress to the gut.

So now, obviously, we have to look at, okay, who was involved in the study and the age group and so forth and all those different things. but I think in the context of someone's gut health, you have to consider everything involved. So for some people, if they have, you know, massive amounts of mental emotional stress and they're stressed out from their kids and they're getting divorced and then they're trying to train for, you know, I don't know, Kona, Iron Man, right?

Well, that's a massive stress that has to be induced every day because in order to complete that event, you have to perform a certain amount of swimming, cycling, and running, right? Now, that's an extreme case, but sometimes what happens is for some people when they exercise too much in terms of volume. So that's either, like, let's say if we're taking a running, for example, like they're trying to run five miles every single day,

well, that may be too much for someone at a certain period of time of their life. It's not that it's bad, but it's just for them, like it's just pushing them over the threshold. Like with everything else that's going on in life, it's just too much. It's too stressful to the system. You know, or maybe they're, you know,

they're on a project that's due in six months and they have to get it done so they're basically only sleeping five hours a night. On the context of that, maybe exercise is too much for them or just the amount of exercise too much. Yeah. So do you recommend that people,

if they have gut issues going on, and if they have other stressors in their lives, do you recommend that they stop exercise or just walk or just reduce or what do you do? Yeah, it's a really, really great question. Because I'm not an exercise fanatic, but for me, since I was 12, it's just part of who I am now.

It's part of my DNA. So I will normally try to exercise on a daily basis or at least five, six days a week. But what I tell people I recommend is, look, if you're in that state where you've got so much going on, you're stressed out, go exercise still. It's just instead of running the five miles every day, maybe twice a week you run five miles,

but the other four days a week, you run two and a half miles. You know what I mean? Because it's usually the, it's not the intensity, but it's the volume that usually kills people. Right. And it's just too much. And so they can't recover from it or it's just too hard on their hormonal system and their digestive system.

I was talking to Dr. Marisa yesterday and she had Hashimoto's and she had, you know, so adrenal issues and all of this. And she was like, yeah, I just go to workout classes, but I leave after half an hour. And I was like, wow, I never even thought of that. Totally. Perfect example. Did you know that's a thing that people can do?

I mean, I never, she's like, yeah, you just tell them beforehand, like, I'm done, I'm out. Yeah. And you just walk out and leave it. It's like, oh, imagine that. Yeah, that's a great thing to die through the whole thing. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, you just kind of go get your volume of exercise or your dose and then you're out.

Yeah. And the other thing that people can do, too, is if they still want to exercise hard, you know, they're really kind of like that's their thing. That's fine. But then what I would suggest people do is, you know, instead of, you know, doing CrossFit five days a week, okay, do it three times a week, but then the other two times go take a really like hatha yoga, where it's the whole like, it's not, you know, at 150 degrees, you know, but it's the namaste, like it's like, okay, breath and slowing everything down, because when you slow down your breathing, what you're doing is you're shifting your body

completely away from that fight or flight state and you're going into more rest and digest. Mm-hmm. And that's important to do after a really hard workout, too, to bring your body back down, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, so you can literally sit there at home if you're working out or at the gym, put a towel of your face and just do some deep, you know, diaphragmetic breathing for five minutes, and you'll shift your physiology within that five minutes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Otherwise, you're running around in fighter flight. Yeah, totally. Okay, so I want to shift to intermittent fasting really quick just because so many people want to. to hear about it. It's kind of like kind of funny that we're doing gut issues and then like

fasting. It's like let's not do if you have gut issues maybe focus on that. But I know for like Sebo people you know like to make sure that you have long breaks between meals and you're not snacking right and and fasting can come into play with that. So can you talk about fasting and like when it's appropriate, who it's appropriate for and what it can actually help? Sure. With intermittent fasting, I would say, I'll take a little different approaches. I would say the two situations where you want to be very, very careful is if someone doesn't have good eating habits. Because with intermittent fasting, if people don't know, usually people stop eating at 8 o'clock a night and then they break the fast at 12 o'clock the next day. Usually there's a lot of different protocols, but 16 hours of fasting, 8 hours, refeed is normally like the go-to. If someone has really bad to eating habits, the problem is when they break the fast, they kind of want to do the seafood diet. They just can eat everything in sight or if they're going out to eat with their colleagues, they, I'm just going to the French fries, you know, which is not ideal. Like it's not the license to just eat whatever you want.

You still have to eat, you know, good foods, PFF, protein, alpha fiber. So that would be the first situation. And the second situation, if someone has really bad energy levels, then I would probably not recommend something like. that. There might be issues with their adrenal glands or so they may not be able to compensate with the right amount of cortisol to help stabilize their blood sugar throughout the day. But I do find people with, you know, CBO or gut issues, they find that it does help by taking that break and fasting, which I have no problems with as long as they're recovering well from exercise and they're doing well and

they're able to keep their blood sugar stable. And that's not a problem. And what about for hormones? Yeah, hormones is a little bit different situation, especially if there's a lot of mental, emotional stress with someone, then it's probably not the ideal sort of plan. And I look at intermittent fasting as a tool. So it's not right or wrong.

It's just what's your situation and, you know, what's your goal? And are you able to handle that type of plan? You know what I mean? for me for years I used to I mean I've done I have since 2010 and so before it was trendy yeah I mean my colleague John Barardi a lot of people I've heard of J.B but really good guy precision nutrition and you know he we were speaking to conference and then we were just training together and I'm like what are you doing and he's like I'm fasting and he was the guy who was known for six meal a day like you have to do this but he's very open to new ideas and so

He said, Rob, you should try it, so I started playing around with it. And so for me, for periods of time, it was just convenient. I wanted to get going on writing a book or a project or article or whatever. So I wake up at 5 and then start typing away and not have to worry about food until later. But the other thing that people have to be aware of, and, you know, people are listening to this is probably fairly active. They work out. You have to make sure you time your exercise. So what I see often a big mistake is that people will try to do,

the, you know, eight hour, to 8 p.m. to 12 p.m. fast, but they train in the mornings. So they train from 6 to 7, and then they don't eat from 7 to 12. And that's a pretty big mistake, because by that time, either their energy level really suffers, and they crave all kinds of foods, and then the other thing is that they start to really suffer in the gym. So their strength level goes down, their nurse level goes down, and that's not ideal. So what is the solution to that if somebody has to go to the office at, you know, eight or nine in the morning and then they have, and their only time to work out is first thing in the morning. Yeah, so the other option would be, I guess you could think of it as a reverse IF.

Right, so eat in the morning and then. Eat in the morning and then basically you would finish at, let's say, your last meal at 4 p.m. Right. Or something like that. And then you would break the fast at, I guess, 8 p.m. 8 p.m. the next day. Yeah, so that would be to do. But then, you know, you do have to consider family life, right?

So if you're coming home and your wife's preparing this great meal, you know, which my wife always does, which I'm so grateful and blessed for, then that's a problem. Yeah. Right? Because you're not spending time with your family and your kids and everything else. So that sucks. I mean, I wouldn't want to do that.

So you kind of have to weigh things out with that too, you know? Yeah. Well, to close, I'm curious. if there is something that you think a lot of people are doing that they should stop doing for their health? I mean, I think the biggest, just because people keep asking me and saying, oh, I'm doing this and that is, I think the biggest mistake is for people to watch these documentaries like game changers and what the health. And they go, oh my gosh, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger says I shouldn't be eating meat. anymore or you know like the Tennessee Titans are doing this and that and you know coming from an expert in the field I've done a lot of research and so you have to be very very careful with the

documentaries because they sensationalize what's going on and so oftentimes you look at the research and I mean just because of who I am like my wife and I kids we watched the movie the documentary and I sat there literally I had probably 15 pages of notes on a notepad going, oh my God, this, this is that. And just one simple example that sticks out to me is that one of the researchers that said that, you know, the only thing that has been shown to reverse heart disease is a plant-based diet. Right. Is low protein, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, that's an absolute lie because if you look at the Mediterranean diet, it has shown to reverse diabetes, It's been shown to reverse heart disease, hypertension, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And that is definitely known for olive oil, obviously, but they also recommend fish. They do lamb. They do all kinds of other animal products. So to say that blanket statement, it's incorrect. And so unfortunately, what I'm seeing is a lot of young kids seeing the movie documentary and going, oh, my God, I need to stop eating meat. Right. And they're not in this phase to do that.

They need animal proteins because they have certain amino acids, certain fats, for their growth cycles. So when they're going through their growth spurts, it's very, very important that they have that, especially for a connective tissue because the main amino acids that's missing in non-animal protein sources is lysine, which is very much involved in collagen synthesis. So that can become a problem long term, especially for a lot of the athletes that are trying to do that. Yeah. And then people also watch the documentaries and become internet experts. Correct.

And what's interesting, or whatever the issue is. And what's really interesting is I was lecturing just a couple months ago and one of my colleagues who's, he is one of the paleo guys. Like he studied under Lauren Cordane. And he was going back and forth with a colleague because they're going to write a rebuttal. And he says, yeah, he was Rob, my colleague, he was watching the documentary because he had to know what it's about. and he literally the first research study, you know, they pop it up on the screen, he paused it.

And he went on PubMed, which is basically looking at all the research journals. And he looked up the article and he's like, Mark, Mark Smith is my colleague. He goes, Mark, that study doesn't even say what they said it did. Wow. Right. But it shows up literally for like a tenth of a second, right? And they go, oh, my God, there's research. That's crazy.

Yeah. So that's why it's, you've got to be very. very very, very misleading. Yeah. Okay. And last thing. What's a good PFF snack? Ah. I would say like my favorite is going with like homegrown beef turkey. They're a local company and I really love what they do and what they stand for. I love that because they have like they have a paleo one. They have all kinds of different version, low sugar ones too.

But that and then I would go with either nuts or seeds. If you can't handle nuts, then go with seeds. Another company really good locals go raw. So they do sprouted sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. So that, you're getting a little bit of protein. You're getting the fiber from the seeds. And then you're getting some of the fat too. So that's really kind of simple, easy, doesn't melt in your bag or anything for that.

And it's easy to take on the go. Perfect. Amazing. Well, thank you for coming on again. Thank you for having me. I'm sure I will. Sounds good.