Rewilding In Miami, How To Rid The Body Of Calcification, Cacao Nootropic Elixirs, Iridology & Much More With John Schott.

Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield here. If this audio sounds a little bit different than usual, it's because I am recording it on my special. My super special travel microphone. That's a teeny tiny microphone, Phenomenal cosmic powers, meaning that I can sit here in Hawaii. I'm in Hawaii. I'm bow hunting and spearfishing for the week in Hawaii. But I wanted to get an episode out to you, and this episode is with my friend Jonathan Schott, a real wealth of knowledge who lives down in Miami, Florida, who is kind of a fellow health geek, super strong guy, amazing bodywork practitioner, kind of into some of the woo woo stuff like infrared lights and putting special things in your water. In other words, a man after my heart and your heart in this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

And then from there, he taught me a lot about the walker, the calcification, how to break up the fibrosis, and all this stuff that we accumulate that's unfortunately more common than not. The iris is one of the most complex tissues that the body has, and it's connected to your brain and your spinal cord. And if there's any inflammation, tissue degeneration, or anything happening inside the body, basically it sends a signal through the nervous system into the eye. And I read alike. Map.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

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Hey, John, you got your lights on.

Are.

Are you. Are you bathing yourself in infrared light right now like I am?

I am 100. Are you?

I'm doubling up, bro. I got one on the front and one on the back. I'm literally surrounded by infrared light right now. Can you. Can you even keep up with that?

I just got it behind me and circling the whole room, so you one upped me on that one.

Well, the last time I was down there in Florida and you did bodywork on me, you were just blasting me with infrared, which was really cool, honestly, because. And we can talk about this later on the show, it kind of warms tissue and softens tissue and seems to have a pretty profound effect on deep tissue work specifically. I never thought about Shining infrared light on myself while I get a massage or while I do deep tissue work. But it actually, it worked really well. Yeah, you're chock full of a whole bunch of very cool ideas like this and, and I know we just jumped right in. So let me introduce Jonathan, for those of you who don't know of this cat. Two years ago I raced the South Beach Triathlon in Miami. And afterwards I met up with this local body worker and gourmet whole food chef who had offered to come work on me. I think you like, you like emailed me or tweeted at me or something like that, John. And that happens to me a lot and a lot of times it's like some kind of like, you know, soft handed hippie playing any music who comes up and like gives me a rub down and is a podcast fan and then has me sign a business card or whatever. So I kind of expected the like a ho hum rub down with like a maybe a coconut beef jerky kale snack. But dude, you showed up, you had a walker, like the kind that old people or surgical recovery patients use that you then proceeded to use for like teeth grittingly deep body work. All over my body. You were holding a walker and like using a walker all over my body. And literally folks, we're talking about like the kind of walker that you put tennis balls on the bottom and yeah, like the old people walker. You showed up with like this cornucopia of friggin like I don't remember what you had yet. I mean you introduced me to bone broth baked donuts and organic local beef tacos and fermented vegetable salads. I mean all I remember was just like this spread. People were giving us weird looks as they walked by because it was literally like a gourmet whole food spread on the ground there in the park in Miami at the South Beach Triathlon. And then you were filling me in on like iridology and eye reading and a special kind of water that you were drinking and some really interesting thoughts about the fascia and infrared and so anyways, for those of you listening in, in case you hadn't figured it out yet, we're going to talk about some cool things today. My guest is Jonathan Schott. S C H O T T shot S C H O T T and he opened South Florida's first gourmet whole food restaurant. And now he works with a bunch of high profile celebs and athletes and executives down there and leads workshops and detox retreats from Florida to New York City to South America. His wife has a really good podcast as well called the Pima Culture Podcast. And John for the past 12 years has been in the alternative health field studying with a whole bunch of really good practitioners on nutritional cleansing and body work and wellness and lifestyle and trigger points and fascia and infrared and a whole bunch of longevity strategies. So he's a wealth of knowledge and I have a feeling that there may be some copious shownotes to go along with this episode. So if you want the shownotes for everything John and I wind up talking about today, just go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com shot that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com S C H O T T as in Jonathan's last name. BenGreenfieldFitness.com S C H O T T if you can't spell it. I'm sorry you're gonna miss out. John, welcome to the show, man.

Thank you brother. It's an honor to be here and happy to share as much knowledge and you know, information here with you and everybody else who's listening. It's privilege.

Yeah, for sure, man. And I guess there's so many places that we could jump in, but I just want to start here because this was like my most memorable first experience of you. What, what's with the walker, dude? Like walk, walk me through that.

Pun intended as you, as, as you mentioned it before, the darn walker. The walker is a nice tool, man. And I like it for many reasons. Number one, when it comes to the process of doing the bodywork on somebody, it's a really good leverage tool for me. I'm using my feet basically to dig deep into the fascial networks and start to break down fibrosis calcium deposits, things that are embedded in us because of numerous amount of reasons. But the walker is good because I can hold my weight on the walker while I use my feet and strategically dig into certain areas, especially the big muscles of the legs and things like that. That could be harder or more taxing for me to do it with just my hands or my elbows and things like that, which I also use on a table.

Now did you make this up? And by the way, for people listening, this is called a. I think the technical term for this in the industry is a two button walker. A two button walker, meaning it's got like the four little legs coming off it. You can lean on it, but you can. I mean it didn't seem like you were working hard at all and you were getting so deep into my body.

Yeah, yeah. Like I said, using this tool is. It gives me a lot of leverage with my feet, so I can manipulate my weight of my legs to dig in places where it would be usually pretty difficult to do without with just your hands or even a tool, which I've used tools, too, doing bodywork. And that's. That has its place. But I like it, too, because it also. It serves as a really nice visual, too. We see a lot of people who are a little bit more advanced in age who are stiff, man. And they're, like, really calcified. They have so much fibrosis and calcifications that they can hardly move. And you see it a lot here in Miami, where I'm from, where I live, where you're getting a lot of old people who can barely walk, and they're actually using the walker, but not the way I use it. So it's kind of like a really good visual to showcase the polar opposites or the extremes of what's possible if you don't have any of that stuff in your body and you can age gracefully, 60s, 70s, without any of that fibrosis, without needing any kind of walker. And you mentioned before you asked me if I invented it. I wish I did. But the truth is, that style of bodywork I learned from a gentleman in California called Glenn Calkins, and he has a place which is fantastic there in Laguna beach, and he calls it the GC method. But basically, he really taught me how to use that walker in that way. And previously from that, the walker is somewhat of a popular tool and body work in the area of what's called mashing. So a lot of people use the walker to mashing.

That sounds exactly like what you were doing to me, mashing.

But what we do with the GC method or the way I use it and stuff like that, is we take that up to a whole other level. Because if you work with somebody who uses the walker to do some mashing, they usually go in a somewhat superficial level. And their intent with the walker is to just. To stretch out the fascia and stretch out the tissue, which is very valuable as well. But you don't really experience the depth that I use to kind of give you that experience that you. That you had. And with my experiences, look, bodywork doesn't always have to be painful. There's different modalities. There's different things, and I use different elements to it. But when you take. When you want to go hardcore and you want to, like, just see other levels of circulation, Other levels of flexibility and mobility and all this stuff. Sometimes you have to go that deep. Especially if we have, like I said, calcium deposit because of nutrient deficient soils, inflammation, stress, electromagnetic frequencies, lack of light and all this genetically modified foods and the stuff that they're spraying on the crops and all these things that we have been challenged with because of the way we live our lives now. And just to finish up with that, with the whole image of getting away from the walker. This gentleman who I mentioned, Glenn, he's, he's very impressive.

You said his name's Glen Caulkin. C A U L K I N like that.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And he's a character, man. He's. He will blow your mind if this guy is like impressive in many ways, but one of the ways is that he's 64 and he's as flexible as a 10 year old gymnast. This guy's doing pull ups and doing all these things at his age and I've walked on him and he feels no pain. So that's what got me. That was the thing that got me to go, my God, this is what's possible. Like I was digging into this guy hard like I did to you in south beach, and he was laughing at me. He's like that, Is that all you got? Now he's a character. He's over the top and he's done. So his story is like when he was 40, he was basically sentenced to, oh, you got to be on these medications, you're stiff as bored, you can't do anything else, you know, and you're done. And he didn't take that. So he has, he has a lot of body work in his belt from age 40. So it's not like I'm going to walk on you and say overnight, but it's, it's a system. And it so happens that I've used his water system, which we can talk about a little bit later, which to this day I still feel is one of the best water systems you can get because of the nature of how it's put together. And I can talk a little bit about that whenever you want. But yeah, the walker, man, the walker is impressive. And I use it. I have my daughter use it on me.

Yeah.

And I need her to use.

I want to buy one. They're like 20. You can get them for like 20, 30 bucks on Amazon. I actually, I'm writing a note to my, myself right now to get one because I actually want to teach my kids the same way you've taught your daughter. How to, like, walk. They'd probably get a kick out of it, honestly. So it's kind of a cheat. My kids have fun, and I get a free massage out of the deal. Hey, so this Glenn guy, John, how did you hook up with him in the first place? Because from what I understand, you know, youyou already dropped the word calcification, which is something I would love for you to explain because you said I had a lot of calcification when you were working on me down in South Beach. And was that what Glenn was fixing in you, or how did you come to kind of hook up with Glenn and begin to fix your body using these methods?

Well, I first hooked up with him through the water, believe it or not. That was in the days when I was running my restaurant and I had a lot of the food principles down packed. And I started looking at the paradigm of wellness with different eyes. You know, I was one. It's just all about food, food, food, food, food. And at some point you're like, this is not just about food, because my knees hurts. You know, I have this perfect, pristine diet, but I still have this problem, and I still have this and that. So I started opening myself up. And water, of course, is something that a lot of people are talking more about now, thankfully. But 10 years ago, it wasn't even in anybody's radar. So I set out to find the best water system that you can get, and I found Glen. And then from there, it was like thing after thing after thing that this guy's doing, and he actually has a whole system of longevity and decalcification strategies precisely to get yourself to the. To the youngest form you can and the flexibility and yet the amount of optimum wellness that you can achieve. So I hooked up with him, and I've known him for many, many years, and his system and his products and things. So that's how I got a hold of him. And then from there, he taught me a lot about the walker, the calcification, how to break stuff, the fibrosis, and all this stuff that we accumulate that's unfortunately more common than not. A lot of people need work in that, in that area. And that's just part of the complexity of this whole wellness paradigm that I've taken on since then.

Yeah, so when it comes to this idea of you meeting up with Glenn on your search for, like, the best water and then how that ties into calcification, I realize this may be kind of like a detailed topic for you to delve into, but we've got time what was it that you were looking for when it came to water? What was it that you found? And what does that have to do with this whole idea of calcification?

Well, I was looking for the element of water. I was looking basically for at that time what you would call the best water. So then with that came the onslaught of the market, right? And then you start looking at ionizers, you start looking at distilled water, you start looking at just RO water, and you start looking at, you know, Berkey filters, this and that, and then you start to analyze the whole spectrum of things and it's like complete education. So I went to him just for the water as I. He was one of my last steps in this whole thing. Because for me, you know, I have a very inquisitive mind. I have, you know, I'm like a geek. I've been studying this stuff for a long time and I love to read like you. And just one layer of it, like, oh, this guy gives me a presentation for water ionizers and that they're using in Japan and blah, blah, blah. And that wasn't enough for me and I tried all of it. So what impressed me about his system and what he did is the way he put it together. Because everything that basically he's putting together is basically mimicking nature as close as possible. So the filter is designed after the hydrological cycle of the planet, which when we're talking about food, when we're talking about what we're going to ingest, and even supplements and things like that, we want to recreate what nature has created as close as possible. So some of us don't have access to what's called aquifer, deep, deep spring water. And even at this day and age, that's even questionable in several places because you got to take into account fracking, you have to take into account acid rain that's been falling our planet for a long time. So the next step was, okay, so how do we recreate the best water we can get that approximates that pristine, like what they call Hunza water, which is one of the elements that he used to model the system. And that's what impressed me the most. What I found was something that brought that into the hands of a person living in the city in a very close proximity, what's called living water or natural based water. So the system, what I've learned is for you to have pristine water is not that hard. You know, in a laboratory setting, all you need is a couple deionized filters, not Ionized, but deionized filters, which basically strips the water.

Deionized filters?

Yes.

Okay.

It basically strips the water out of every single contaminant that it has. In a laboratory setting, you need that kind of water. Because when you're doing experiments and so forth and so on, the water has to be completely neutral, but that's not necessarily the ideal.

And you're not saying deiodize, you're saying deionized.

Deionize. Right.

Okay.

Dual resonate mechanism that basically changes the mineral composition and it takes the fluoride out, heavy metals and all this stuff from the water. Now that's part of this guy's filter. That's a stage in it, but that's not the whole thing. Because after you get to a point where you want to clean the water 100%, you want to make it into what's called a living water, something that has that element of nature. And there's a couple steps to achieve that. One of them is you want to vortex the water. Usually that's the mechanism that nature uses to structure or give the water the hexagonal pattern. Gets it close to that four phase of water and all those elements. And vortexing is what you see everywhere in nature. When it comes to water, even you see it in your own. In your own body. Not to get too graphic or anything like that, but when you go to the bathroom, you pee. If you ever notice the stream of how the pee comes out of your body, it actually comes in a vortex or tornado style of movement. That's internal water inside. Yeah, yeah. Notice it next time you go pee.

I gotta pay closer attention next time.

Yeah, yeah. It comes out in a spiral, and that gives you an idea of the pattern and the hexagonal shape of the water and all this stuff, which is akin to like honeybees and things like that in their hives. But anyways, so that's one of the mechanisms that the system actually does for you. It puts magnesium by carbonate in the right ratio and all the electrolyte living salts. And then it runs it through lodestone and quartz crystal. So lodestone is a stone that comes from, you know, space that breaks down as it falls into. Onto the earth. And it gives it like, a magnetic effect to the water and then the quartz with that gives it an imprint of something that's living or something that's from nature. So in the end, you've taken, you know, municipal system water, which is. We don't. We don't even need to get into that, but it takes that and converts it into what's called living water. You can even say tons of water because it's, you know, it's using the bicarbonates. And that's. That's what impressed me the most, man. And then I've been drinking that water for over eight years, and you feel it.

You're calling it. You're calling it Hunza water, which is really interesting. A lot of people are talking about this Hunza water these days, because the population of Hunza is an area that's a blue zone, the Hunza Valley. Do you remember where the Hunza Valley is, John? I don't remember. It's like the South America somewhere, I believe.

No, no, no, no. Hunza is more, if I'm not mistaken, close to Pakistan.

Yeah, it's close to Pakistan. Yeah. And they found out these people are drinking this water that's got a bunch of negatively charged hydrogen ions. And hydrogen is an extremely potent antioxidant for neutralizing free radicals. A ton of what are called mineral colloids, which means that the water has minerals in it. But from what I understand, the water's like, you know, moving over rocks and in streams and underground springs. And so it doesn't just have minerals in it, but the minerals have been charged, so to speak, from all this movement. It's got a very low surface tension, which is actually based on very similar to University of WASHINGTON Research by Dr. Gerald Pollock on the lower surface tension of water in plants or even in cardiovascular vessels within the human body having less resistance to flow, relatively high pH and a higher net charge. And so what you're doing is you're figuring out how to take those same minerals that have been exposed to sunlight, rocks, etc. And what you use is a filter that essentially creates that same type of scenario through mineralizing the water, through structuring the water. And you also deionize the water prior to that taking place to remove all the contaminants. That's kind of similar to my water setup, dude. Because I don't know if we've talked much about this, but my dad is big time into water filtration technology, and he develops these structured water filters that. Just like that vortex you described. And actually that vortex has been described by multiple previous podcast guests, including Dr. Thomas Cowan, who talks about how the heart is not a pump, and the heart actually relies on a vortices like flow of blood through it to actually move blood through the body and experience less resistance to vessels or to vascular resistance right. With each pump. And so this Idea is that my dad develops these structured water filters. I structure the water in my home. I have a little bit different setup than you do, but it makes sense. You know, we want to drink mineral rich water that has the right type of charge on it. And if we, if we live pretty much anywhere where we're getting municipal water or like me, live in a place where we're getting well water but want to restructure it after it's sat in, you know, pipes and cisterns and tubes and stuff like that, it makes sense. This, this particular water system that you're talking about, I just want to do like full disclosure here. Is this something that you sell? Is this something people can like piece together themselves on like Amazon, ordering the right equipment or how does it actually work when it comes to someone figuring out how to make this water for themselves?

Well, they actually sell the system from California, so that's part of their business. So.

Okay.

And I'll give you a link to their website that describes the water and all that stuff. Off the top of my head, I think it's livepristine.com so it is their proprietary system that they put together. So you can't find it on Amazon.

Okay.

Wow, we found something you can't find on Amazon.

Yeah, I'm going to show it to you. I'll show it to my dad. I always run this water stuff by him. But, but bigger picture, let's say somebody goes and buys one of these filters, they understand what you're saying. When it comes to the importance of ionizing water, structuring water, and also consuming water that has a proper electrical charge that is slightly alkalinic as well, all of this makes sense. But what does it have to do with calcification?

Okay, so one of the things that has to do with calcification is, number one, water is if it's pristine and if it's in that state, the theory behind it is that it starts to gently dissolve the excess calcium that we started to accumulate. Part of it is the magnesium bicarbonate portion that's in the water. Now, in my experience, just the water by itself is not enough to dissolve the calcium, but the idea is that that bicarbonate, which is basically a complex of hydrated salts with all the other electrolytes that we need, and silicic acid starts to internally dissolve itself from the body. So it goes in there and starts to clean the arteries down. It starts to take down the accumulations that we have in the tissues and things like that. Calcification, like I said before, it's. There's many reasons why we develop this. The older we get, the more it accumulates in our body, in our tissues, in our arteries and things like that. But part of the. So you mentioned Dr. Cowan. He was talking about the heart. One of the things that impresses me about this approach is that it's one of the things that impacts the circulatory system and the delivery of oxygen through your blood to the extremities, especially because of the dissolving of this excessive amount of calcium. So it's a tool. I use the bodywork in conjunction with more concentrated forms of magnesium and the water to start to get people to the optimum level of circulation and the optimal level of dissolving some of this fibrosis and just basic rock formations inside the body. So imagine I'm here in Florida. Imagine a coral reef, and a lot of us have been exposed to either visually or have touched coral, and it's really, really sharp. So the theory behind this whole calcification thing is that we create some of this sharp coral inside our cells and inside our tissues. So when I run my feet through your tissues using the walker, a lot of what you're feeling is me polishing down that coral inside the body. That's what hurts. So when you dissolve this stuff out internally with the water, with the bodywork and the magnesium, that pain starts to go away.

So if someone's gonna. If someone's gonna get massage work done, they've got areas where they're sore, they have aches and pains. What you're saying is that this concept of calcification, in the same way that calcium can build up in the arteries, for example, and cause calcification in an artery.

Yeah.

Calcium can lodge anywhere in your body. And if it lodges in bones and joints, it would mimic arthritis or, you know, if it would be in muscles, it would perhaps manifest itself as like fibromyalgia. And the idea is that magnesium displaces calcium and allows, for once the deep tissue work is being done, more efficient removal of the calcium, which is actually causing the limited range of motion and. Or the stiffness and pain.

Exactly. You nailed it.

Okay, gotcha. And I would imagine it probably helps out a little bit. A lot of people are taking high dose vitamin D, which they don't realize increases the risk for calcification, or even some people, high dose calcium supplements. And if those are taken in the absence of, say, magnesium and also vitamin K2, to a certain extent, you do get elevated risk of hypercalcemia so it sounds like it's not just about getting adequate magnesium and adequate water, pairing that with deep tissue work, but also being careful with things that that might cause calcium deposition, like extremely high dose vitamin D in the absence of vitamin K, or perhaps consuming too much of a calcium supplement.

Absolutely. 100%.

Okay, got it. So you hooked up with this cat in California. You learned this about water, you learned this about calcification. Did you start to do a lot of this stuff with your own body?

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It was a game changer.

What do you mean when you say it was a game changer?

It was a game changer because I had. Previous to meeting him and his system, I had. I feel like I had reached a plateau with what I was doing, which was mostly just food. Right. And superfoods. You know, I was, like, doing all these superfoods. Spirulina, chlorella, I was doing. You know, I even knew about shilajit, which we can talk a little bit about later. I even knew about shilajit back then. But I started to megadose a little bit initially with the shilajit after I met Glenn, because he was using it, too. So it was a game changer because a lot of the things. I had some challenges myself. Look, I really haven't. You know, I'm very grateful that I haven't been faced with any kind of health challenges that makes your life transform and things. But I am very intuitive with my own body. I've gotten to know my body very well, and I got to a point with just the diet where it wasn't giving me the return that I was looking for. And I started getting a few pains here, a few pains there, and I was like, you know, I'm doing everything right. Why is it that I still have this knee pain? Why is it that I have this and that and it all pointed out to that? And when I had my first session on that walker, it was very similar, man. It was like the most agonizing thing. Now you can walk on that, on my tissues, on my legs, with that walker, and it's night and day. Major difference. I hardly feel any of that pain anymore. So it does get better. And it gets to a point where, man, most days I feel like I'm still, like, 17, 18, you know, and I'm pushing 40.

That's really cool. Yeah. I mean, you look great when I've hung out with you in Florida. I mean, you're very full of vitality, and you move well, and you can tell, like, your Body's not all stiff and sore, but you're very strong too. I can attest to this because you've done the deep tissue work on me. So it sounds to me like people like athletes who are listening in, they may want to consider, for example, looking into this concept of mashing and perhaps even buying a walker and giving it to like their loved one, having their spouse learn how to, how to walk on them both front, side and backside to kind of knead the tissue. Pair that with magnesium rich water intake, preferably water that's been structured and has a good amount of minerals in it. Be careful with excess calcium intake while you're also eating a good whole food diet. And that's kind of like the next thing I wanted to ask you about, John, was where the cooking came in. Like, how did you learn to cook and prepare the type of meals that you've made for me when I've come down there? And that. Oh, by the way, everybody, at the time that you're listening to this show, John and I are currently planning a possible half day little workshop down there in Miami. So if you want to come eat some of John's food, then stay tuned for the end of this show because we'll talk a little bit more about that. But John, how'd you learn to cook these type of meals? What's influencing you as far as the cookery is concerned?

So it's been an evolution of sorts because when I first started making food, I'm not just talking about cooking, but making food was actually after college and when I was in New York studying with a gentleman called Dr. David Jubb, who had a center there which was mostly about liver cleansing and doing like these liver gallbladder cleanses with olive oil and herbs and things like that. And he had like a small basically raw food or live food cafe. And from there I was like fascinated by a lot of these concepts. And that's when I first started to create things in the kitchen because I thought, okay, so if the food is part of our, you know, makeup and nutrition is so important, man, this is an area that I need to master for sure. So my first step into creating food was actually in the raw food, vegan or life food vegan world, which, which taught me many things about working with oils, working with herbs, seeds and nuts and all these things. But also as I evolved and came back to Florida, I started, I actually started making food at a farmer's market and, and then I open up a restaurant. And throughout this whole process as my evolution and into my health and my discoveries happened. My food approach also started shifting in that way. So going back to when I said I hit a wall, there was a point where I hit a major wall with the whole raw vegan thing. I pushed it really too far. I was vegan for almost eight years, and I'm mostly raw food vegan. And I've tried all the vegan programs, you know, fruitarian, natural hygiene, gourmet, raw, junk food vegan. Thankfully, that was like, a few months. But throughout that whole process, I also started getting some limiting health factors come into play. Like, my libido went down. I couldn't put muscle anymore. My energy started tanking. I was detoxing way too much. I was like, you met me and imagine me with 25, almost 30 pounds less of who I am now. I was.

You mean like. Like less muscle, less everything?

I was like 30 pounds lighter, about 25 pounds lighter, and most of it was muscle, so I didn't see it, but I was way too skinny and I had some issues and stuff like that. So that was another thing. Not to get, like, cross ideas. But the iridology, one of the things that got me from that was the first time my iris got red from one of my teachers. She. She scared me a little bit because you. You can't fake reactions, you know, body language and stuff. And she gave me, like, this look at this, like, reaction of like, oh, my God, what, You know, what have you been doing? Are you okay? Have you had a hard life? And at that point I thought, hard life, I wouldn't consider that I had a hard life, per se, but. And so she started saying, well, because I'm looking at this and you're having, like, you know, you're losing calcium from your bones and you have bone density issues and your gut and this and that. And I was like, but wait, that's impossible. I'm a raw food vegan. You know, like, I'm doing all these things and I'm eating the best pristine diet, and you're telling me that I actually have issues.

So that my tofu and my green beans, baby.

Yeah, so. So that was. That was a very humbling, like, slap in the face. So from there, I started looking at the Weston A. Price Foundation. At that moment, my wife was just getting pregnant. She had less time being a vegan. But when you start to have a kid, man, it's one thing to experiment with your own body and your own adventures and things like that, but when you have a child, that's another game changer. And that's where you have to be like, okay, I need to step back here. I need to be a little bit more wise about this. And this is a responsibility that of epic proportions. Do I want to play with my child's health? And the answer was, of course no. And at that point, I put all my geek, you know, glasses on again, and I started diving into what I was missing. And it turns out I started going deep into, like, primal Paleo, Weston A. Price.

Now, when you say you started going deep, like, what were you doing? Were you. Were you doing, like, self quantification and blood testing? Were you just kind of like researching what the effects of different diets were? I mean, when you say deep dive, what do you mean? Because, I mean, some people just like, you know, hunch over a keyboard in their mom's basement, just read about diets all day.

I did d. All of the above. So I did read a lot about it. I did experiment, I tried all the diets. I did do some blood work, which, you know, I haven't done blood work in a little while, but back then my cholesterol was like 165. And you know what they say about low cholesterol. It's an issue, you know, and it explains why I wasn't making the hormones that I was supposed to be making. My testosterone was probably super low. I didn't test for that. But with cholesterol 165, which is not, you know, that it's not just the number and this and that, but even just a low cholesterol, you start to think, man, this guy's not making the right hormones. And it was obvious with my body makeup, my energy, my libido is like, I wasn't too interested in being with my partner and all this stuff. And I was like, no, this is not right. So again, I started diving deep. So I started raw dairy, for instance. I started experimenting with that and getting food directly from Amish farmers. And then I did the whole Paleo diet. I did ketosis. I did the whole gamut of all these diets. I didn't. And I got a lot of feedback from clients of mine too, that I worked with at that time. So it was a multi level growth experience.

Okay, so coming out of all that, I mean, in terms of what you learned, what's the actual dietary philosophy now? I mean, because you make delicious food, I'm just curious if you have any type of rules that you follow. You're just pretty much like an eat real food kind of guy now.

I'M mostly eat real food kind of a guy. You can even say something like conscious omnivorous diet. And basically approaching it with the concept of binding ancestral foundations with modern day innovation. So basically I mix both together as the foundation and from there we, you know, I individualize it based on myself, my kids, my clients and all this stuff. But the real food is the foundation of it. I also approach it, I like to approach it with the perspective and awareness that there's four kingdoms of food that we have access to. Plant foods, animal foods, the fungi, which is the mushrooms, whether it be edible mushrooms, medicinal mushrooms, and the bacteria. Bacteria, basically cultured foods, things like coconut water, kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi and all those things. And I try to place a little bit of those elements in most meals that I make. You know, not nothing's ever perfect, but I try to approach it in that sense. So that's, that's kind of my approach. And you know, like then after that you can individualize it depending on where you're at. I'm a huge fan of context, you know.

Now one of the things that I noticed, John, I think this was the second time I hung out with you. You gave me a shot before we ate and it was this, this shilajit stuff that you already brought up. Is shilajit much different than like humic acid or fulvic acid that you see in a lot of these like soil or mineral based supplements these days.

It's similar, it's similar, but shilajit is the actual organic ingredient of it. So shilajit naturally has that. The hulmic, fulvic and omic acids that are, they're basically gentle organic acids that help the body maintain a level of cleanliness and bioactive processes in the body and so forth. So the shilajit itself, it's a mineral pitch that's harvested from elevations of anywhere from 8,000 to 13,000ft. And it's a breakdown of an abundance of microbial life and activity typically around Himalayas and things like that. So it naturally has those fulvic minerals in there and eight, like 84 organic trace elements which are missing in the soil nowadays. That's why I take it. And honestly, it's like I'm a big, how does it feel? Person as well. So out of everything I've tried in this whole journey, shilajit is still the thing that I noticeably feel energized with. And there's something that, there's something to it every single time I take it. So, you know, it's Called the Destroyer of Weakness for a reason. So I'm a big fan of it. But, yeah, it's the full complex of all those things. It's basically the actual original food.

Yeah. The interesting thing about shilajit, I interviewed this guy from Lost Empire Herbs, John. His name was Logan. And he went into how when you take a shot of shilajit with other supplements, it helps to drive those into the cells a little bit better. Like, it's actually one of those things. I guess it's not synergistic. I forget the name of the. I forget the term used when a compound enhances the absorptibility of another compound that is taken with kind of like copaiba oil is another common one. I'll remember. But anyways, yeah, so it's interesting how if you, like, kind of like, take your supplements with a shot of shilajit, it would technically assist with the actual absorption of it.

Yeah, I. I concur with what Logan says. I usually mix it up with many different things, too. Like, for instance, today, right before we started, I did an elixir that I often take, and I call it my cacao nootropic elixir. And basically, I take cacao paste, cacao butter, I put a tiny bit of honey, and then I put shilajit, bacopa, mucuna, a little bit of tribulus and a little cacao powder, a little maca. And I mix that in, and it gives me, like, a natural nootropic effect without having to use any kind of synthetic nootropics, which I like better. You know, like, the cacao synergistically mixes with these things. And then when I add the shilajit to it, not only do I get the minerals and the fulvic acid and all these elements, but it does. I feel that it does bring all these things together and kind of sets it up, like, in a nice bowl. And it gives me an effect that's unparalleled to any other kind of nootropic that I've tried. And so I. It helps. It helps me get going, too.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm a big fan of using my little nutribullet and just blending a bunch of stuff together, like cacao and mushrooms and a little bit of fats to make them more absorbable. And everything hits your system a lot more completely when you do that. But I had. I've got some. Some shilajit, actually, up in the. Up in the fridge, like this black pitchy stuff. I should try throwing it in there and see If I notice anything different with it, with the shilajit added in.

Yeah.

Now you also, I definitely want to address this elephant in the room. You read my eyes, I believe the eyes of both me and my wife. And I again, pun intended, kind of have a raised eyebrow about some of this stuff. But you, you did what's called an iridology report based on some pretty high resolution photographs that my wife and I sent to you. You even had me buy a special little thing on Amazon. You have to remind folks what it is that I slid over the camera on my iPhone to get an even more in depth resolution of my eyes. Then I sent those to you. Now you sent me a report back. And normally I would be somewhat skeptical of anything like that. However, your entire report agreed perfectly with all of my blood work and all of my lab work, saliva, urine, stool, everything that you were unfamiliar with. So I put, I put a little bit of credence into this iridology stuff, but fill me in on what iridology is and how this actually works. Like, what was it that you did when you got this photograph of my eyes?

Yeah, look, it's one of those things that is more on the quote unquote alternative, holistic. And yeah, it garners a little bit of skepticism, but I've used it as a tool. Again, I use it as a tool. This is not like, oh, I'll read your iris, get this report, and that's it. That's your diagnosis? I'm not a doctor, I'm not, you know, licensed to do that. But again, I use it to individualize this, individualize people's programs, simply because it's immediate access that I get to biofeedback mechanism that the body has built into it. The iris is one of the most complex tissues that the body has and it's connected to your brain and your spinal cord. And if there's any inflammation, tissue degeneration, or anything happening inside the body, basically it sends a signal through the nervous system into the eye. And I read it like map. It sounds far out. But man, like, the amount of valuable information I've been able to extract from people has, like with your example, has been, has been fascinating. I mean, it humbles me. Again, every time I use it, it's. So, for instance, there's people who have signs in their iris that possibly point to infection. I can't tell what exactly the infection is per se, but I can send them in the direction of, okay, maybe we need to do this test. Maybe we need to do a stool test. For this, so we can find out what exact parasites are.

Get a little bit more in depth with me, man. Where'd you learn how to do this? And what's the actual science behind it? Like, how's it actually working?

Okay, so iridology started late 1800s, more or less with a physician that I'm pretty sure he's from Hungary. His name was Ignaz von Pexley. I think he's a physician, he was a doctor. He started noticing marks on an owl that got injured. I think it was an owl that got injured in his presence or something like that. And he started to notice a mark at the 6 o' clock portion of the, of the iris, which is the colored part of the eye that coincided with an actual injury that he had as well of the legs. And from there he started studying these different elements. And then there was other Swedish and German practitioners as well that were doing parallel to him, the same type of research into it. And it started to develop in that way with pictures and building iris charts, which you can easily find online. And they're very, very complex. Like for instance, the heart is at 3 o' clock on the left iris, liver is on the right iris, and so forth and so on. The little fibers in the iris start to separate or form shapes or color variances and different things that basically tell the iridologist or the person reading the eye a lot of information of where to look for weaknesses, tissue, tissue wear and tear things, things like that. So in the United States, Bernard Jensen is called the father of iridology. He did a lot more research into that. And as time has gone by, there's, there's been a lot more scientific, scientific outlooks into what iridology can be. I mean, I can see.

You mean they've actually, they've actually studied this?

Well, some people have studied it. This is not something that, that, that has like clinical, you know, peer reviewed, medical. Even though some doctors are getting more interested in something like this, it's still, it's still question even. We Wikipedia, if I'm not mistaken, calls it a pseudoscientific practice. So I use it as a tool. That's all I do. And then I talk to people. So instead of just taking an intake form with a client, for instance, and ask them, you know, what are you eating? This and that, which I do as well, we look into the iris as well. So we stop. We don't need to guess. It's very reliable. It works on the acupuncture, meridians, and you know, it's almost like reflexology through the eyes. So it has a lot of potential, really, like with the technology and all that stuff, I can kind of see how we, you know, how people get into wearables and things like that with the, with the, with the ring and measuring HRV and things like that. I can see really high quality cameras starting to be paired up with a software that. Which they use now there's iridologies who just rely on software, and I use both. Yeah, I like to see the actual fibers and the person also. But even a picture is. If you take a really good quality picture of the colored part of the eye, it gives you incredible amounts of information. And it usually correlates with blood tests and all these other things that people do. For somebody who doesn't have the funds to invest in, let's say thousands of dollars in blood work and urine test and even hair mineral acids, which that's not that more expensive, but, you know, it's a tool. It's a tool that could be. That could be very profound.

Yeah, so. So for people who don't really understand this, the iris is the. It's like the part of the eye that surrounds the people, like the black part and then the white outer part is the sclera. Right. And so basically the iris has, if you look at it really closely, there's all these little lines and all these little colors coming off of. And then there are these iridology charts where you look at all the lines, all little colors and certain defects in those or breaks in them or changes in color, et cetera, might be associated with like colonic inflammation or an inflamed liver or things like that. And so you then after you have the photograph of the eye, you go through it, you identify all these areas or you use like you were saying, John, like software. You could then do you get some clues about things that are going on. I wouldn't put all my eggs in the basket. But, you know, if you do iridology and you get, let's say something back that whatever you have an inflamed prostate, maybe you should go get your PSA checked or, you know, get a doctor to stick their finger up your butt. So, I mean, there are, there are certainly things that I think can give you clues about. And again, like, I was kind of floored when I got my results back from you, and they actually agreed with everything that my bloods were saying. What was the little camera? You. You had me like buy a little camera for my phone for this.

It wasn't a Camera, it was just like a macro lens clip on, which is like, I think those cost anywhere from 15 bucks to, like, I don't know, 50. And you put over the lens. Yeah. So it basically, the macro lens basically gives you a really close up picture of the eye.

Okay, got it. Now, your wife does this podcast called the Pima Culture Podcast. I took a listen to it. She does a lot of, like, you know, holistic, healthy living for, you know, kind of seems like it's a little bit for chicks, but it's, it's. It's a pretty good podcast probably for. For men and women. And your wife's awesome, by the way. I met her the last time I was down there in Florida, and you did some, some body work on me. But you guys kind of seem like you're very into this concept. I think you call it rewilding. And I'm curious, you know, down there in Florida, living in fricking, like, Miami, if you can give me a few examples of how you're actually doing that while living in a relatively urban environment.

Well, thankfully, I have a backyard. I'm big into the elements, the traditional elements. Fire, water, air and earth. And part of the whole idea behind rewilding, again, is what I do with the food, right? I take the ancestral approach and combine it with what's in front of us, which is a more technological, modern based approach. And the idea behind rewilding is just to mix that up and get nature back into your life and also dispel some of the taboos that a lot of the programming that we've been handed down, you know, could become limiting. And we're all about getting freedom back into our lives and the lives of people and getting people healthy enough to make better ethical choices and helping and having more compassion and things like that. So the way I rewild here in the city, which I actually opened up another Instagram account, which I'll start feeding it at some point, called Rewild the City, because most of us are living in a city. And I've noticed that in the whole rewilding camp, which is not my idea by any means, there's usually two extremes. There's one that wants to just go out, unplug, and get into hunting, gathering, and live off the land and have nothing to do with society. And then on the other opposite extreme is more of the technological, printed, 3D printed food. Reliance on everything has to be technology. Who cares about the trees and everything else? But mostly in the middle is a lot of us who live in the city and rewilding it is basically being mindful of the circadian rhythms. Getting sun in the morning and grounding to the earth, getting the right water. So my rewilding strategy for the water is this system because I have no access to natural deep aquifer spring water. So I'm trying to recreate that water the best way possible. So that's my rewilding strategy for water. Get infrared light. That's why I use these lights that are behind me with the red 650 to 850 nanometer range, because it's the antidote to the excessive light that we have. That's a way of rewilding. We're getting that heat element back into the mix.

So that's why you do that. That's basically because you're surrounded by like, you know, the mall lights, when you go to the mall in Miami, or the, the indoor fluorescent lights at the doctor's office or the grocery store. Basically what you're doing by using infrared light is you're combating the effects of excessive blue light without requiring you to just like fry your skin all day long in the sun.

Exactly, exactly. So that's the idea. And then as far as the earth element, that's more in conjunction to what, what foods we eat. So I'm trying to bring as much wild food into my diet, whether it be through things like wild caught fish, wild herbs, shilajit and all these things. And you do the best you can, like wild coconuts. You know, I have a plethora of coconuts here in South Florida. And that's a good semi staple food for us here. So I use that. And that's the whole idea behind it. And those are ways that are rewild here in the city. Now also inside, we put plants, indoor plants, to recreate the air. We use the HEPA filters and all these things to recreate a better air environment inside the house. But I go outside a lot in the yard with the kids and just hang out there for a little bit and take in deep breaths and do breathing exercises and things like that. So all these things make the human animal a little bit more feral. You know, like if we were being kept in a zoo, it's a better step than being in a factory farm, for instance. And there's a lot of humans that are, you know, in a factory farm environment right now, and they, they might not necessarily know it. And there's other humans like us that are trying to be rewilded and bring them over to a more you know, zoological adept environment that can get us back closer to a sustainable, regenerative planet that is just going to be a little bit more, you know, the best of both, both worlds. So that's, that's kind of the idea behind all that.

So it sounds to me like, big picture is you're not just like walking outside in your backyard in Miami in a loincloth and digging a hole to find water. You're instead using, you're almost using, ironically enough, things like, you know, fancy water filters and infrared light generators and you know, some, some of these supplements that you're getting from frickin, you know, Pakistan to, to fight the uphill battle against living in a relatively urban area that's kind of, you know, de wilded, so to speak.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay. I kind of do that up here at my own place. You know, a little bit of ancestral living outside, but also a little biohacks inside to engage in natural, better living through science. Now this, this idea behind near infrared and using that during massage work and deep tissue work. What's the reasoning behind that?

Well, my understanding is that the near infrared spectrum travels about three layers deep into your tissues, activates your lymphatic system and all these other mitochondrial processes inside the body. So as I'm having these red lights penetrate the tissues as I'm working, it makes the collagen more malleable. It makes me have a better ability to take that calcification and break it down more efficiently. So I'm basically stacking some of these therapies together so that we can get a better outcome faster.

So there's the near infrared. Penetrate more deeply into the body and have a better effect in your opinion, compared to the far infrared, therapeutic wise?

Yeah, my research says near infrared is better for that aspect. Now far infrared is amazing too. So if you have access to both, why not use both? But the near infrared tends to be more detoxing, deeper penetrating to. Basically, if you use it as a sauna, which I use it as well, I use the same platform and I put it in the, in the shower with the water off, obviously. But I have to say that because some people actually ask me that and I sit on a stool in front of it and I put like a sheet on top so that the heat doesn't escape in a matter of 20 minutes, 25 minutes, that mean I'm sweating like crazy. And again, the theory is that I'm digging deep into the tissues to extract any kind of heavy metals, you know, chemicals and things like that. That we're all exposed to. I mean, there's no way around that. So it cleans the body out that way. And I use the same infrared lights for that purpose as well. So I love it. I mean, it's a part of my lifestyle.

Okay, so near infrared, basically what it comes down to is that's better for like tissue penetration and pain relief and cellular or fiber, like, pliability, Whereas far infrared would be better for like a full body. Kind of like a heating detoxification effect. Might not penetrate quite as deeply, but it's actually warmer.

Yeah, it's warmer.

Okay.

Even. Even though the heat lamps do activate, you know, heat shock proteins and all these things too. So, you know, somebody on a budget, I always tell them, go to Home Depot, get the lights, put them on a socket or something and use them. You know, that's another thing I like to do a lot. You know, the joov is great, for instance, but it might be out of the price range for a lot of people. So if I can give them a tool that they can use safely that doesn't cost them a whole lot. I mean, these lights are like 11 bucks. And they're near infrared lights. The 250 watt red lights that you can get at Home Depot, they can get three of those three sockets and clamp them on something and then they have, you know, red light therapy right there within the time they spent to get them and hook them up. You know, I'm a big fan of detox baths, for instance, to use them once in a while where you take the, you know, good water, put it in a bath and put Epsom salts, baking soda and borax in it and that starts to cook. Clean your skin, which is one of the biggest, you know, it needs to breathe. Right. You know, liposomal vitamin C. You know, it's just a matter of getting sunflower lecithin, which is and vitamin C, and putting in a nutribullet with something and you get a bioactive form of vitamin C. These are things that I like to do with people to give them options, you know, and I'm pretty passionate about that. Cool.

I like it. And I'm taking some notes as we're talking, obviously. And you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com shot that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com S C H O T T to dive into some of the things that John and I talked about or to just get yourself a walker that you can hire someone who you love to use on your body for Deep tissue massage therapy while you throw back a glass of decalcified water. Also a couple of other things. If you're listening to this podcast when it comes out, I am going to be in Miami. And if you stay tuned to the calendar over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com calendar then you'll be able to get the details or if you subscribe to the newsletter over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com of a little meetup where John and I are going to do some near infrared therapy, bodywork, excellent food and just kind of, kind of do a little Miami meetup for people down there who want to dig more into John and what he does and say hi to me and come hang out, party like people who are healthy party. And then also if you want to try out Iridology or you want to hook up with John on any of his other services, whether that be having him look over your diet, do nutritional consulting, help you to rewild yourself, any type of consulting that you want. He does a lot of stuff. He also does deep tissue work. If you're down in the Florida area, I'm going to put a discount code and a discount over at BenGreenfieldFitness.com shot BenGreenfieldFitness.com S C H O T T that you can use on those type of services with John too. I'll put all of that into the show notes. So if you want to hook up with John, whether you're in the Florida area or if you want to talk with him on the phone, send him a photo of your beautiful eyes, anything like that, I do recommend the Iridology. It's actually really interesting. He does a good job. All that is over@BenGreenful Fitness.com S C H O T T Jonathan, thank you for coming on the show and sharing all this stuff with us. You're a, you're a fascinating guy. I love what you're up to and I have a love hate relationship with your walker. But ultimately I'm a fan, man. Keep doing what you're doing.

Thank you. It's my pleasure. And thank you for having me here, man. It's an honor.

All right, folks. Well, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Jonathan Shod signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

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