How to Control Inflammation for Long-Term Wellness with Dr. Lori Shemek

Welcome to True Grit and Grace, a podcast designed to empower you to claim your resilience and thrive through life's challenges. I am Amberly Lago, a mindset coach, fitness expert and bestselling author. Each week, I'll dive deep with the world's brightest thought leaders and elite performers to share tangible tools and practical advice to inspire you to keep your eyes on the prize and forge ahead. So get ready to conquer your fears, heal any trauma, lead with your heart, and elevate your life with grit and grace.

Hi, and welcome back to True Grit and Grace. I'm Amberly Lago, and today I have Lauri Schemick on with us. She's a bestselling author, radio host, coach, and weight loss and health transformation expert. She's been featured on The Doctors TV, CNN, Fox News, Dr. Oz, and more. She is Huffington Post's top top diet and nutrition expert, and her articles have been featured in places like Oprah.com, Shape Health Magazine, and you are just such a beautiful person on the inside and out. Thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show and welcome here.

Oh, it's an honor, and I've been really looking forward to this. So thank you, Amberly.

Thank you. Well, we originally met when we were both speaking on a panel for a health and wellness event, and I was like, oh, Oh my gosh, who is this amazing lady? And I loved everything that you shared, especially so much about inflammation and how you connect the dots with fat and inflammation. And so I want to ask you about that. But first, I'd like to ask you just kind of how you got to where you are, like what, where you came from, what led you to be so passionate about health and wellness and, and change people's lives the way that you do?

Yeah, well, thank you for asking. So I was raised with a mother who was ill most of the time, most of my life, in fact, that I lived with her. Most of the memories I have of my mom was of her having a constant stream of different health conditions.

Really?

And yeah, and she was always suffering. I remember often just walking into her dark room, seeing her laying there suffering, but I was so young, I didn't know really what to do, but I did know intuitively she could have made different choices, right?

Mm-hmm.

Because she was smoking a pack and a half of cigarettes a day, she was verging on obesity, she had no support in her life, she had no husband. My father, we didn't know where he was. She and her family lived out of state, and we had very little money, and her diet was comprised mostly of, you know, coffee cake and coffee in the morning, and, you know, sugar was a mainstay. And, you know, you can understand why. She was under stress, but little did we know that that type of diet was making things worse.

Mm-hmm.

And so, as time went on, the stress level increased. You can imagine raising 3 young children all on your own in that type of situation. And so, I was the eldest of— I have 2 younger brothers, and so, you know, it was just very sad situation for all of us. And because my mother wasn't able to be present emotionally, I pretty much took over the caring, nurturing for my 2 younger brothers. I did the cooking and cleaning, and my brothers still hate eggs to this day because that was my go-to meal. And so I, you know, continued to live like that. And as time went on, my mother's health got worse and worse, and she very sadly died at the young age of 36.

Wow!

3 young children with really nowhere to go. We had no—

How old were you when she died?

I was 16.

Oh my goodness.

And my brother, my middle brother was 14, just turned 14, and my youngest brother Lance was 9.

Oh my gosh.

And so what was really sad about it as well is that we were never to live together again. So my— they found my father And my brother went to go live with my father. My youngest brother went to go live with a friend of the family's housekeeper. And I went to go live with my grandparents in Texas. That was, you know, we didn't get to see much of each other after that, and it was really sad. Now we're all close and in contact all the time. But, you know, it's really sad because at my mother's memorial service, I knew that she could have made different choices.

Mm-hmm.

That was the key. I knew she— if she had made different choices in her life, things would have been different for her and for us.

Mm-hmm.

And so I really made it my mission because of that to ensure that people understood that they always are at choice. And so I went into the helping profession. I, um, became— I got my doctorate in counseling psychology and helped at-risk families for many, many years in doing that.

Yeah, I mean, that— your story, just growing up, I got a little teary-eyed because that's one thing, you know, I did not want my daughters to feel like they had to take care of me. I grew up with a lot of responsibilities and helping out with my younger siblings. And, you know, sometimes My husband will say, I'm leaving, take care of your mom. And I'm like, don't tell her to take care of me. She doesn't have to take care of me. But my youngest daughter has never, you know, she's seen me through in and out of the hospital so many times, in and out of the ER so many times.

Mm-hmm.

Yesterday we were playing in the pool and she accidentally kicked me in the leg and I thought I was just gonna throw up from the pain immediately because I have complex regional pain syndrome. And it was an accident. And when you're telling me the story, story about how you would see your mom suffering, I'm like, you know, I choose to not suffer. Yes, I have pain, but I choose to make different choices. And that's been a hard road.

That is the lesson, isn't it?

It is because— but I was doing what your mom did for a little while. I mean, to try to numb out the pain when nothing was working. I started drinking wine more and That was a vicious cycle because I would drink and then I would just become more inflamed and more swollen and the pain would increase. And it was this vicious cycle. And so I eventually was like, something's got to change. I stopped drinking and I really cleaned up my diet. But I'm so glad that you have a strong connection and you get to see your brothers now.

And we are still very much family. So I just— to wrap it up, I went back to school. I got after I became Vice President of Family Outreach. I saw that my Clients, literally, their mindset changed, their energy level changed, their children's, their activity level was balanced. Everything was so much different when I gave them a grocery list, right? So, I decided my love in my life has been helping people and also health. So, I was always very much into that. And so, I went back to school. I became a nutritionist and went also received my doc— my certification in life coaching. And so I decided with all of that, I would create my own company, which was my intent, and using my background in psychology to help other people get better. Yeah.

Yeah, because it is definitely— it goes hand in hand. You say something powerful about— I'm quoting you— you control the food, not the other way around. Where'd you find that? You know what, girl? I'm a big fan of yours and I watched your interviews on— I mean, you guys have to check out her interviews on The Doctors and podcasts and everything that you do and share is such great wisdom. And that one statement is so powerful because it really allows us to go, oh, well, wait a minute, I have a choice. And I think when we realize We have a choice, then we take our power back. But what if you have someone that's like, well, I want to control my food, but I feel like my food has control over me. Like the brownies are calling my name and I can't control myself. I need that chocolate, or I got to have Doritos right now. And I think a lot of people are using food as a vice with all the uncertainty.

I know.

going on in the world, have you seen a spike of people that are like out of control with food? Yes.

In fact, I have Clients that I hadn't seen for a while that are calling me back. And that's because it's, you know, like you said, the uncertainty. When we're uncertain, we're fearful. When we're fearful, we want to comfort. And that means alcohol, food, what, you name it. Anything that's comforting to you is going to be there. And so this is where, you know, you need You need to really design your environment to benefit you. And it really is a flip of a switch that has to happen. Because if you feel that you are powerless, then you will be.

Mm-hmm.

And so that's the key, is to empower yourself with the tools that you need to understand that, you know, I really am powerful. I really don't have to bring that food into the house. Because we know when the food's in that house, things change, right? We eat the unhealthy foods and I've been there, believe me. I know. I used to be addicted to sugar. And so—

Oh, me too. I was for sure. Yeah. I mean, I don't know about you growing up in Texas, but when I grew up in Texas, we had dessert after every meal and we didn't have a lot of money growing up. And so like some of our staple foods was like Bologna sandwiches, fried Spam, right? Eggs. Like, I mean, terrible food that I would never eat now. But that's what— that's all I knew. And so I remember when I moved to California, kind of, I worked at a restaurant and waiting tables, and I would go in the back where the cooks were, and they would teach me how to make different foods. I had no idea how to— make these different, you know, I didn't know how to, I didn't even know what salmon was. I'd never had salmon. I thought that I always hated seafood, but it was because I'd only had fried catfish. And it's like, no, there's so much delicious food. So I learned how to cook different things. What are some of the—

Empower yourself.

Right there. Exactly. Yeah.

Well, what are some of the tools that you suggest to empower yourself? Well, you want to re-engineer, if you will, your environment. And I always say that it's really important to really structure your environment so that you can't fail. If you decide that, you know, you're going to keep these— you're going to keep that chunky monkey stashed in the freezer, in the very back of the freezer, it doesn't matter because you always know where it is. And you— when you're vulnerable, when that vulnerable point comes up, you will pull that chunky monkey out. And so that's why we don't want to bring it in the house. That's my very— that's actually my second rule. My first rule is to get rid of all the foods, and we can talk about those, that are going to create this vicious cycle of wanting more. And a lot of people feel like they're powerless over these foods. And that's true. It's a very real feeling when you're in the thick of it, you know, because— There's a lot of hormones that are neurotransmitters that are being affected by these types of foods. So the key to empowering yourself, number one, is to get rid of all of these foods that you love so much right now. Okay? But I promise you, when you stop bringing them into the house, your life will change and you won't want them. Rarely will that ever happen. And if you, if you Really take time to get rid of all those foods that we'll talk about in a little while and bring in the foods that you know are going to stabilize your mood, stabilize your cravings and your hunger. Then things change for you. You're optimizing your health, you're reversing inflammation, and the list goes on.

Yeah, and I am such a firm believer in that. Like, I call those trigger foods for me. I just call them trigger foods. And for the longest time, like waffles, frozen waffles, like the worst food, frozen waffles. I had bought those for my daughter, my oldest daughter, when she was little. And there was something that I would eat one waffle and I could literally eat about 8 waffles. And I got to where I am like, oh my gosh, it was controlling me. I had to have waffles.

They do that. You know, they have actual food engineers that are hired to create what is called the bliss point of foods, meaning that they want to create— the companies want a food created so that you will want more and more and more of this food. It's intentional. And because—

Well, it worked. I could not buy waffles anymore. I had to, like, get them out of my house.

Yeah, I'm like that with pretzels, right? I mean, give me— if I had my choice over sugar and candy now, it would be pretzels I would choose. There are things that I know Yeah.

And then it got to the point where I can have them in the house, but I just don't eat it because I know if I eat one bite, I'm going to want more. So I just, I just don't eat it. But what are some of the foods that you should eliminate right now that are just pure junk, unhealthy, that people might even think, oh, this sounds healthy, but it's just not? The worst food for you.

People are gonna be shocked when they hear this. Some, some will. There are really well-meaning people that don't know that when they go to the grocery store, they're gonna just pick out the healthiest foods, bring it home, feed it to their family or themselves with the intention of creating better health. But the problem is, for example, they'll go in, they'll pick up a loaf of whole wheat bread, pick up some yogurt and some juice, right? Well, that whole wheat bread is packed with With sugar. It has so much sugar it can raise your blood sugar as much as 2 tablespoons of table sugar.

Wow.

Most breads are full of sugar. Very important to note. And also the worst kinds of sugar, like high fructose corn syrup, for example, or corn syrup, or just fructose. These are— I can talk about that in a little bit if you would like, but those you Must, if you do anything, stay away from those. They're affecting your neurochemistry. They're creating cravings for you. So that's the bread that they think you should avoid.

What about sourdough bread? Is that better?

That's better. Yes, much better. Because if it's the real sourdough bread, it's fermented. It's called— it has the good, healthy bacteria in it, right? That's good for your gut health, which is crucial for optimal health. And then the next thing they'll pick up is some yogurt, which has more sugar than a candy bar if it's not plain yogurt, right?

Mm-hmm.

So what I always tell people to do is to just defrost a bag of berries if you like that fruity flavor in your yogurt. Put some of the juice in the defrost— from the defrosted bag in some of the berries, mix it up, and you can't hardly tell the difference, right? It's delicious. And so then they'll pick up some juice. So they'll pick up some orange juice, and that is simply liquid sugar right there. It is again an excess amount of fructose with no fiber at all. It's just sugar. And no matter what type of sugar you're ingesting, the body doesn't care what it's called, what the name is. It still metabolizes it just like sugar. Wow.

I'm just like, oh my gosh, I have that kind of yogurt in my fridge right now. My daughter loves that Because it is. It's like candy. And I would love— you mentioned something about gut health, and that is something that I'm trying to learn more about. I know how important it is, and I know there are so many of us right now that have something called leaky gut.

Right.

I have been doing more research on drinking celery juice first thing in the morning to help repair my gut. And I'm so curious to know what you think about— first of all, could you explain what leaky gut is? And then can you give me what you think is a good remedy for that? Right.

So there are things that we're eating in our diet and there are things applied to crops, for example, such as grains that we ingest that have an effect effect on our gut health, including our stress level. That, that, you know, you name it, environmentally, internally, we can create a leaky gut, which is a permeable situation where little microscopic pieces of protein, little molecules get through the gut lining, which is only a cell thick.

Okay.

And this lining is crucial to allow— it needs to be intact because we don't want poisons like viruses and foreign invaders to get through this membrane, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so what happens, however, is that, for example, sugar— when you eat sugar, it creates a gut that has microscopic little holes in it that is allowing these proteins to then get through into the bloodstream, where then it can set up anywhere in the body as an autoimmune disease, for example, joint pain, weight gain. It's all inflammation, essentially.

Yeah.

Which is my main focus. But it's a very important area for people to pay attention to, okay? Gut health. Because 90% of your immune system resides within your gut. 90% of the serotonin, which is what I call the happy transmitter, it makes you feel good and calm, is made not in the brain, but it's made within the gut itself. itself. In fact, there's a gut-brain axis. We now know, in fact, that depression and our gut health are directly related. So it behooves anybody to really take good care of their gut. And that means you want to eliminate the offending foods. And these foods are like sugar, white flour, junk, pastries, crackers, cookies. All of those foods, the bad gut bugs That create an unhealthy, overweight you need to survive. So essentially, when we eat those foods, we're feeding those bad, unhealthy gut bugs. And the very first step, I call it pulling the weeds of your gut garden because you're kicking them to the curb. They don't have any source of food, essentially, to survive. And so when you do that, then you start out by what I call planting your gut garden. All right. And you do that with probiotics. And those are healthy bacteria that when in the gut and in abundance create a healthier, leaner, smarter, happier you. All right. So that's planting your gut garden. And that can come in the form of cheese. It can come in the form of—

Yogurt.

cottage cheese, of yogurt, of what's called kefir, you know, kombucha.

I was just gonna ask you, kombucha, or I call it kombucha. I've never known how to say it right. You say it the right way?

Yeah.

Yeah, I've been curious to see because I love Erewhon, and I was just there the other day, and they've got really organic, healthy food, and they have this whole aisle with all these different probiotic drinks and everything.

Wow, nice.

And I picked up a drink. I was just in a hurry and I was just like, yeah, let me grab a few of these. And I got home and I drank, I started drinking one and I thought, oh, this is really good. And then I looked at how much sugar it had in it and it was full of sugar. So I wondered what you thought about those. Are there specific ones? Do you prefer homemade Kombucha, or are there ones that are better than others that you can buy at the store?

Yes, and this is where, you know, part of one of the ways that you can really benefit your health and your life is to do what you did. Before you buy it, though, is to read the labels, right? Read the ingredients, because the grams of sugar on there are really high with these fermented, these kombuchas or kombuchas. They're very high. And this, again, I didn't talk about this, but Sugar is your direct link to inflammation and poor gut health. And low— this type of inflammation I can talk about in a little bit if you want— is crucial if you want to live a long, healthy, happier life. You must keep that inflammation level down. And there, you know, it's, it's really sad that food manufacturers do this, but they know we love sweet things, right?

Mm-hmm.

So the sweeter, the better for most people. When they first came out, They were fine. 2 grams of sugar, mostly eaten up by the friendly bacteria within the drink. But now it's become like a soda. So it's close to drinking a soda essentially if you buy them now. It's hard to find a really low sugar one anymore.

Yeah, and I just read an article because I'm sober and some of them even have alcohol. You know, most of them have a very low percentage, but then I picked up one can and looked at and I thought, oh, I can't drink this. Now, there probably wasn't enough alcohol to alter my mind, but I thought, wow, how important it is to read the labels because this drink wasn't even in the section. It was in the health food section.

Yeah.

It wasn't with the wine coolers and bottled beer. It was in the health food section, but I had to read the labels and then I saw all the sugar in it and then some of them that had alcohol in it. And so, yeah, I really do want to talk to you about the inflammation because not only that it does make you, inflammation makes your fat cells fat. I learned the hard way about inflammation. If I showed you a picture of me, like when I was eating sugar and started drinking to try to numb out my pain, I look like a different person.

Mm-hmm.

I was so inflamed. My My face was puffy, my hands. I remember going to the gym one day and I was checking in and a guy saw my hand. He goes, oh my gosh, what's wrong with your hand? My hands were so puffy. I was blown up and I could see a difference.

That's a great example.

I mean, I was so puffy and when I cut out the alcohol and the sugar, in one week I lost 10 pounds. And I don't think it was like 10 pounds of fat. I think it was a lot of bloat. It was fat, probably a little fat, but it was a lot of bloat.

Yes.

And that inflammation made me hurt worse. And we have a lot of listeners that live with chronic pain due to CRPS or fibromyalgia or other diseases. And I want them to know just how much they're in control of how they feel. I mean, we can't always control a flare-up, but I can better control my pain by what I eat. And I would love to talk to you about the link of the inflammation and the pain, whether it's your joint pain or leading down to chronic illness, because you really specialize in that. You have a book about fatflammation, about inflammation.

Mm-hmm.

So if you could please explain a little bit about inflammation and what that means to our body.

Sure. So I think it's important for people to know that no matter where you are with your health or your weight, that you can reverse this inflammation. You can reverse the symptoms that you're having. And so you'll feel better. You can improve your situation. And that's really, I think, very important for people to know because inflammation is not— it's not fun. It's a good thing to have. But it's also— it can be very painful and life— it can ruin your life. So there are 3 types of inflammation, and I'll talk just quickly, give you an overview. The first type is called acute inflammation, and it's not so cute because it gets your attention. It hurts, it stings. It's that scraped knee, that swollen, throbbing sprained ankle, it's that cut on the finger. That's acute inflammation, and we need it. in order to heal. It's necessary for us to be alive. Without it, we're sitting ducks, really.

Mm-hmm.

So let's take that cut on the finger. When you cut your finger, an enormous amount of inflammatory molecules are released, and soldiers, if you will, rush to the site to repair the wound. They repair the wound, the wound heals, the soldiers go away, the inflammation goes away, and all is well, right?

Mm-hmm.

So that's acute inflammation necessary. And despite the fact that it's not comfortable, we need it. And then there is silent or chronic inflammation, or sometimes referred to as low-grade inflammation, where 75% of our population is walking around with this type of inflammation and they don't even know it. And it is the core underlying cause of most illness, disease, faster aging, and weight gain. And it's diseases like heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and health conditions, and Alzheimer's disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, you name it, almost every single one is a result of this type of inflammation. And so it's— you can look at it like having a sore on the inside of your body that never heals.

Hmm.

That's the scary part. It's silent. We don't know it's there. And so unless we stop and do something to intervene, it's just going to get worse and worse as time goes on. And then the next type of inflammation is called fat cell inflammation, or what I refer to as fatflammation. And that's—

you have a whole book on that.

A whole book on it, right. And it is important because it too is leading not just to weight gain, but it's leading to poor health conditions as well. So like silent inflammation, which emits just a trickle of inflammatory molecules, and you would think, well, that's better, right? It's not a whole lot, an abundance of them like with acute inflammation. It isn't. Because it goes on 24/7 unbeknownst to you. And with weight gain, you can see it visually. But with silent inflammation, again, you don't know it's there until the symptoms occur. But we have fat cells that are about the size of a period on the end of a sentence, about 100 billion of them. And they are all really tiny until we start eating. The standard American diet, right?

Yeah.

A diet that's packed with carbohydrates and, you know, fruit, the high fructose corn syrup, and the sucrose, and all of the other types of sugars, white flour, the— any refined processed oils like corn, vegetable, canola oil is one, and soy oil. These are the 4 top ones for me that I think people need to get rid of immediately because it's a condensed form of inflammation, essentially.

Wow. Can you repeat those again? So you said canola oil, corn oil.

Which sadly has a health halo, and it's, it's the most offensive one of the group.

Wow.

So they're all highly processed, deodorized. If you saw how they were made, you wouldn't even want them. So it is canola oil, soy oil, corn oil, and vegetable oils. Which has no vegetables in it.

Wow. Okay. I use coconut oil and avocado oil and some olive oil. Are those okay? Perfect. Yeah.

Those are the ones. And butter is excellent for your health as well.

Okay.

And I love butter. And my—

Gut health, in fact.

Really?

Yeah. It has butyrate that is really crucial to optimal gut health and overall health and weight.

Okay. Well, I'm hoping my husband listens to this episode. I'm going to make him listen to this episode. He uses something.

What is it?

Smart Balance. I don't even know what that is. It's like fake butter.

It is fake margarine. Yeah.

And I'm like—

well, margarine's fake anyway. But yeah, it's— these oils that I just described are high in omega-6 fat as well. And so we need omega-3 and we need omega-6. We need both. They're both essential. We can't get them anywhere from our diet. But the problem is, is that when we have an excess amount of omega-6, omega-3 can't do its job of reversing inflammation in the body.

Right.

So right now we have an imbalance of omega-3 and omega-6, 27 to 1, right, in favor of omega-6. And on top of it, these— this omega-6 fat produces a compound called arachidonic acid. And arachidonic acid has some benefits, but in this case, it gets stored in the fat cell with a lot of other things which are bloating this fat cell, which I'll get to in one second. And it's creating more inflammation within the fat cell, which slows down the metabolism, creating weight gain for you. But that's the problem when we eat these kinds of foods that I went down a rabbit hole with, that it is bloating the fat cell. It's acting as if it's sick or infected.

Wow.

And inflammation is an immune response, and our body releases inflammatory molecules, and it's slowing your metabolism down, causing inflammation. And, you know, researchers have found that they can determine somebody— if somebody's going to gain weight or not 6 months in advance.

Wow. That is unbelievable. But you know what? It gives— talking to you about this gives me hope because just by changing a few things, you can reverse it.

Oh, no. It's unbelievable. Even like I said earlier, if you— okay, if you change 2 things, you get rid of those oils, stop using those unhealthy oils, and stop ingesting The fructose products, which are in most every product. That's why you have to read the ingredients, right? The fructose factor is a big problem, and most people are unaware of the amount of sugar. Fructose is sugar, so the amount of sugar. So many people might be thinking, well, if, you know, it's a fruit sugar, is fruit bad? And no, it's not bad at all.

Okay.

It's not bad. It is bad in excess, of course, because again, it's an excess of sugar. But the good thing about fruit is that it is— it has fiber and it slows down the release of sugar into the bloodstream. And so you get all the benefits of the fiber for your gut health, and you get the vitamins and nutrients, the phytonutrients, phytochemicals, and So it's, it's much better to eat fruit than— the whole fruit is the way to go if you're going to eat fruit juice.

Yeah. And you know, I really think that once— because I used to be addicted to sugar, I had sugar every day. And then back in the day when I was a dancer and everything, the fad was the fat-free diet. I lived on like SnackWell's cookies. I don't know if anybody remembers those, but they were Full of sugar.

It was all sugar.

It was all sugar. It was fat-free, but it was all sugar. And so once I cut the sugar out, you start to notice things that have sugar. It's very powerful when you cut out sugar and then all of a sudden you have some salsa that they've added sugar to or some tomato sauce that they've added a bunch of sugar to. You can taste it and you feel it too.

Yeah, that's a good point. And, you know, and it's in things that people, you know, I, you know, the other day posted on my Twitter feed about these unhealthy toxic foods, right? And there was a huge table full of products where people could literally see what was unhealthy, right? And so there was the peanut butter, and we all know it starts with a J, right? And we all know it's also full of sugar. And somebody said, peanut butter? I mean, there's sugar, you know, and people do not know that these foods— ketchup, for example, anything you can think of— is packed. That's why it's crucial, vital, to really uplevel your health and reverse the inflammation in your body, to look at labels. Really start taking— once you know what's in one product, you'll never have to look again. You know, maybe 2 times and that's it.

Well, I think we need to go over to Twitter and see that picture that you tweeted so we can have that visual of—

It's a popular one because people love visual when they don't have to, you know, think about, oh, peanut butter. Well, you know, and, you know, there is a transition, however, when you go from a sugary peanut butter to a no-sugar peanut butter. And I did that. And I remember the transition was a little rough at first, but you get used to it and you understand. You can actually taste the natural sweetness of the peanut butter. And I know a lot of people might be going, yeah, right, natural sweetness of peanut butter, but it's in there. It is. It's really in there.

So, mm-hmm. What do you think about almond butter? Because I actually prefer almond butter. Is that okay?

Absolutely. Absolutely. It's fantastic for you.

Yeah.

Excellent for your health. Some people have a peanut sensitivity. So if you love almond butter, good. That's fantastic. Yeah.

Okay. And then the celery juice, do you think that that's good to have celery juice to heal your gut?

Oh, I do. I think it's fantastic. Yeah. It's a good choice. It's very healing to the gut. You know, it's similar to the You know, it also has a lot of phytonutrients in it as well. So that's— you're doing yourself a huge favor reducing blood pressure as well. But collagen powder is very similar when for gut health.

Oh!

Tighten those junctions that have loosened up. I talked about the little slippage of the proteins through these tiny little holes. Collagen helps to tighten those, what they call the tight junctions, up. up, make them impermeable, you know, so that only what needs to get through into the bloodstream can get through, like nutrients, right, can get through. So yeah, collagen powder, bone broth are excellent.

Okay, well, speaking of collagen, if you guys are listening to this or you're seeing her here on YouTube, you can see how gorgeous she is. You're beautiful.

You're so sweet.

And I'm like, I just Whatever you're eating, I want to eat that. And now I started drinking collagen, you know, mixing it with water and drinking collagen because this is like the first time in my life I'm seeing a difference with my skin.

Isn't it? Yeah.

Oh my God. Well, no, no, I just started the collagen stuff.

You look absolutely gorgeous.

Oh my goodness. Thank you. I'm gonna tell you something that my daughter said. The other day. So we were outside and she looked at my leg and I— now I did have a skin graft on my leg. So that skin is very sensitive, I will say. But she looked at it and she goes, Mom, your podcast could be like sponsored by Elmer's glue. I'm like, what do you mean? And she started laughing. She goes, well, it looks like you put Elmer's glue on your skin and it dried up and crinkled up.

Oh no.

And I'm like, you little booger. Because it looks creepy. And I'm like, oh my gosh. What can I do for my skin? And this whole, you know, aging gracefully for me is like, oh gosh, I'm trying to just embrace it. You know, it is what it is.

It is what it is. And I'll be 63.

No way. Are you kidding me?

No, but I know exactly what you're talking about. Like, you will see the changes happening.

You look incredible. I never— I didn't know that you were Yeah, not yet.

I'm about to be 63.

Oh my gosh, yes, please share. Oh, you look incredible.

Thank you.

What, what are some of the beauty secrets that you can give us? So I want to look like this. Oh, you look incredible.

Absolutely gorgeous. You don't need anything.

Believe me.

Trust me on this one. But yeah, I think it's really important to reduce the sugar. Right? To, I mean, avoid it, eliminate it. I eliminated sugar like 25 years ago.

Wow.

If I tell you what sugar does to your skin, it's called the glycation effect, right? So when you ingest sugar, there's something, it's like caramelization of food that we've seen in the pan, right? The onions, the caramelized onions, the browned a grilled steak, you know, the potatoes, right? That same effect happens within our body, that caramelization effect. It's also called the browning effect in the body. And it literally changes the nature and the structure and function of the tissue, not just on the inside of your body, but on the outside of your body as well. And so it's really important to not just sugar Right? All, every form of sugar, but the white flours and all of the junk foods that I've talked about that cause inflammation. Because there's a thing called inflammaging, or ages. I don't know if you've heard about it, but it's appropriately named because it is inflammation that accelerates aging.

Oh my gosh.

When you keep it low, when you keep it tamped down, we all need some inflammation to keep us alive and healthy. But the problem is we here in America are Just, we're eating 24/7 and we have— we're eating a lot of junk and sugar and, you know, especially during COVID right?

Mm-hmm.

But like we talked about earlier, just eliminating the sugar from your diet and the junk food and those omega-6, those really unhealthy, horrible oils, processed refined oils, you're doing an incredible benefit to your health. It's incomprehensible what you're doing in terms of reversing the inflammation. So, yeah, I think it's really important. And like you, I use collagen and trying to think what else, you know, always try to get— oh, supplements are really important. You know, as you get older, you use targeted supplementation. So I use turmeric, the curcumin.

Actually, when you spoke at the panel, after you spoke and you shared that, I went right online Yes, yes, especially during COVID because it's an antiviral as well.

Yeah, really beneficial for really every area of health.

But okay, so could you repeat those again? So you said—

You can either get turmeric or you can get the curcumin, but I recommend the curcumin even though it's more expensive. It's the active component of the spice turmeric, right? And so it's really excellent. You need to get a really good quality one because it has fat in it, which helps bioavailability. Otherwise, you're just wasting your money. Very important. Cumin is one that I think is really important as you get older. Green tea. I take a green tea extract, a decaffeinated one, which gives you the compound EGCG, which also reverses cellular inflammation, promotes a lean body mass, and Brain health and the whole— the list goes on, you know. And I'm just thinking, what else do I take to minimize aging? You know, and there are also a lot of other things you can do. And I use red light therapy. Oh, you do? I'm not sure if you've heard about red light therapy.

Yes, I have. I have a friend that does that.

Yeah. So I I have the little— it's about this big, and it helps build collagen within the body.

He's got like a sauna, like a red light sauna that he gets in. Yeah, and there are different ones. Like, he's super conscious about like where the lights were made, where the actual box is made. I mean, so yeah. That's a good reminder. I would love to have one of those here.

Yeah, it's easy. They have them at gyms and they have them at dermatologists' offices, but you don't have to if you have one at home, you know. Yeah, and it's easy. But yeah, so it's really important to make sure that, you know, you eat well. You need to balance your hormones, especially if you're over 40. Even nearing 40 is a really important time No matter what your age. But it's crucial because when you hit over 50, you know, things change for you.

Yeah.

Menopause happens and hormones get out of whack and then aging is accelerated. So we want to make sure that we're really in the best of health when we go through. And if we're not, we can always get there. It's all about inflammation really in the end. And really, this— it's really small steps. It's not a whole load of things you have to do. It's just small daily steps. Drinking ginger tea or, you know, green tea, for example. Those are small things that we may not feel like that immediately, but they all add up down the road in terms of how we look and feel.

Okay. Well, I have just one more question for you. I just appreciate your time so much.

Absolutely.

There is the keto craze out there, like the keto diet. Well, I guess this is 2 questions really. I'm sneaking a second question in there. There's something I'm confused about. So I always grew up with breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And when I was doing fitness training full-time, I would always say, eat like a king in the morning, a queen, and then a pauper at night. Like just tailor off your food. Like there's so many different ways of eating, but I would like to know what you recommend the most for fighting inflammation, how we should be eating.

Okay, so I've written a book on everything, right? Every area, different areas that fight inflammation. And the one is the book on how to fight fat inflammation that talks about a diet that's high in nutrients, and it's an anti-inflammatory 3-week plan. That optimizes your health and helps reduce weight, right? Reverses inflammation in the body.

You've got 3 books, right? 4.

4?

How did I miss one? Oh, my gosh.

The 4th one is Fire Up Your Fat Burn, and it touches on inflammation. It's not, it's not like it doesn't delve into it specifically, but it does revolve the whole, the whole eating plan revolves around that. And then the 3rd one is What I really highly recommend is intermittent fasting.

Okay. That's what I wanted to know about.

Yeah. So, A Beginner's Guide to Intermittent Fasting. It's— I use it. I use intermittent fasting. And I really, you know, all of the research I've done on it, everything that I've seen, and I've seen a lot of research, it is an excellent way to optimize your health, cellular detox, Mm-hmm. It creates something called autophagy, which means cellular housekeeping. You know, when our mitochondria, for example, are working hard creating energy for us, there's a lot of cellular debris that happens. We also have dying cells in our body, okay? And they're called senescent cells. And all of these types of things are cleaned up when we're not eating. So the body— a lot of people don't realize when we eat, That eats up a lot of digestion. The cells have to really take care of what's going on from the effects of digestion as well, right? Has to transport nutrients and all sorts of things. Intermittent fasting is fantastic and you don't have to do a lot of it. You can do, you know, just skip breakfast and eat lunch. That's it. Okay.

So when would you stop eating at night and then when would you start eating again the next day?

Well, it just depends on what you want. So when you eat, when your family eats, you know, so what I always So what I say is just, if you're, if you're new to it, my book will walk you easily through it. Delay it by 1 hour for the next coming week. Delay your breakfast an hour and you will begin to get used to not— your body is working on a circadian rhythm and expects the meal at the time you normally eat, right?

Yeah.

So that's why your stomach starts growling normally at the time you eat. So ideally start out to have a health effect at 12 hours.

Okay.

So if you stop eating at 7, say your last meal is at 8, your next meal will be at 8:00 a.m., right? So that's just— and the good news about doing it that way is you're fasting through most of— you're sleeping rather through most of that fasting.

Mm-hmm.

That's your 8 hours of it right there. So just a few hours to go and you're good to And then once you feel more comfortable, if you want, you can go to 14 hours, you can go to 16 hours, you can go to 18 hours, you can go as long as you want. But for women, it's— a lot of women don't respond as beneficially as men do after 16 hours. Generally, 14 to 16 is a sweet spot for women.

Mm-hmm.

So that's what I recommend. Okay. Thank you.

I love how you explain everything and you explain everything like it gives me hope that, well, I can do that. You break it down into simple steps. And so—

You can.

Yeah. And you know what? Y'all check out her website because you can find her interviews there. You can find your blogs. Your articles that you've written are so informative.

Thank you.

And I want to read every one of your books. Tell us the best place if somebody wants to go get your book because you really do explain things so well. Or I saw that you have coaching available. I don't know if you have any time available for coaching right now, but if you guys want to coach with her, I just love your approach. You have a very gentle but firm approach, and this is all you have to do. We got to pull the weeds, we got to do the weeding and plant new seeds. And so I love how you explain things. But what, what is your website so people know, or the best way to reach you?

Sure, thank you. It is drlorischemek.com. So it's L-O-R-I-S-H-E-M-E-K.com. And you can find all of my books. My latest book just came out called The Ketogenic Key. So if you are interested, another way to reverse inflammation markedly because it stops the NLRP3 inflammasome from doing its dirty work throughout the body when you're not ingesting all of those carbohydrates. But if you don't want to do a very low-carb diet like the ketogenic diet, it helps. There are other options in there too for you.

In your book. Yeah.

So we talk about the 4 different options to create ketosis within the body. And it's not just— you don't have to do the ketogenic diet. Ketosis is the key. And we should have really named the book— I wrote it with my co-author, Stephen Welch— that is really important. And when you're intermittent fasting as well, you're in ketosis. So that's important information for people to know. But you can find all of my books on Amazon. And I'm on social media every day. I put out really practical, usable tips for people, information that you really need to know to live a better and healthier life. So, @LoriSchemick on Twitter and Dr. Lori Schemick on Instagram and Dr. Lori Schemick on Facebook.

Yes, and I love seeing your posts because I learn something every time you put a post up. I feel like I love yours too. Oh, thank you. Well, I can't wait to read your, your new book too, because I want to learn more about ketosis, especially because I think—

You'll love that then. It's really because it gives you options. You know, there aren't many people that can do the ketogenic diet and sustain it. And when they do do it, they're having marvelous success with it. I mean, truly, They're healing diseases, you know, acne, psoriasis, and serious diseases. So it's really a really fantastic way to optimize your health. But if you don't want to do that, you can do other things too.

Yeah. Well, I love that. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. And I will include some of the things that you recommend in the show notes. notes so people can find that. And you can also, if you're listening to this and driving, you can go back, look at the show notes and get the link to find her and her book. So thank you so, so much for, for being here and sharing your wisdom.

Wonderful. Big hug.

Oh, I know.

I want to see you.

I hope to see you in person someday soon so I can give you a hug. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Thanks so much for joining us this week on True Grit and Grace Podcast. If you like it, please rate it or share it with your friends. That would help too.

If you're not yet on the newsletter list, come over to amberlylago.com and jump on it. While you're there, you can grab a free download. downloadable gratitude journal, and you might just want to check out my book or even check out my monthly motivational membership. Thanks again for tuning in, and we'll see you next week.

Bye.