300th Episode: How to Strengthen Your Immune System - Wim Hof, Barbara O'Neill & More!│TUH #301

Today is our 300th episode, and I'm very, very, very proud of that. And a lot of that goes thanks to you guys. Somewhere along the way, I've sat across from a nightclub owner, an 11-time world champion surfer, a woman with 25 grandchildren, a 2-time UFC champion, my own wife, a man who's walked into the ice every day for 50 years, 2 people trying to fix the food supply from inside the federal government, and a guy who wrote a book With a little curse word in the title. 300 episodes, 8 guests today, but really 300 people who trusted me with their story and millions of you who trusted me with your time. If you had told me when I started all of this years ago that these completely different people coming from completely different lives would land on the exact same conclusion about the human body, I'm not sure I would've believed you, but they did. And if I'm honest, that's the only reason why I still do this. Not the numbers, not the attention. It's watching people who have nothing else in common agree on the same handful of things that Hey guys, welcome to the Ultimate Human Podcast. Today is our 300th episode, and I'm very, very, very proud of that. And a lot of that goes thanks to you guys. Somewhere along the way, I've sat across from a nightclub owner, an 11-time world champion surfer, a woman with a PhD in neuroscience, a former Navy SEAL, a former Marine, a former Navy SEAL, with 25 grandchildren who still treats a nail wound with a grated potato, a 2-time UFC champion who rebuilt his body from the ground up, my own wife, a man who's walked into the ice every day for 50 years, 2 people trying to fix the food supply from inside the federal government, and a guy who wrote a book with a little curse word in the title, and different religions, different politics, different corners of the world, but most of them have never met each other and never will. And that's the whole point of today. Because if you had told me when I started all of this years ago that these completely different people coming from completely different lives would land on the exact same conclusion about the human body, I'm not sure I would've believed you. But they did, every single one of them. And if I'm honest, that's the only reason why I still do this. Not the numbers, not the attention. It's watching people who have nothing else in common agree on the same handful of things that actually keep a person alive and well. Let's get into it. We started this list with the guy who sat in this very chair for my very first episode. David Grutman didn't come to this show to talk about running nightclubs. He came to talk about what actually holds a life together, and that's relationships. Here's David. Where do you think a lot of entrepreneurs that have their head down, sort of shoulder to the grindstone, are going wrong in building the foundation of their business?

Where do they go wrong? I think, One thing I really like to talk about, Gary, with this whole thing is I've had more issues with success than I have with failure. I think that's one thing in the book that they don't tell you in school and in life. Everyone's like, oh, everyone gets up and they talk about their failures, their failures, their failures. And of course, I've had many failures. I have great success, but I have many failures. And what people always want to harp on is, you know, oh, I, you know, I failed, but I got back up and I did it. And yeah, of course, that's, that's how we are as humans. I don't know many people that, that did it once, failed, and didn't try to get back on the horse.

Right.

Okay, that's fine. But what they don't— people don't talk about enough is once you're on top of the world, how do you— how does that affect you? Because that's where, for me, was the most challenging, right? I opened LIV, I was on fire. That's when your ego comes out. That's when you think you're unstoppable. That's when you don't for help because, oh, you know it all. Look at you, you're on top of the world. Why would you need help? And that's also when you get very cocky and you forget about where you came from.

Hmm.

Did you recognize that?

Oh, I took a really good friend of ours, Wayne Boytz from Reserve, to say to me one time, hey, my man, in the middle of, you know, when LIV was just kicking off, he's like, um, you're not, you're not saving lives. It's not heart surgery you're doing here. It's a nightclub. And I'm like, Okay, you're right. And then, as you're so cocky and your ego's so driven. But you know, the ego is a funny thing, Gary, because the ego drives you to do things that normal people wouldn't do and things that if you wrote it down on a piece of paper, probably didn't make sense, but you did it anyway because that was your ego. And that's what changes the world, right? Those are the things that where the miracles come out. It also is the thing where, again, you don't ask for help and you don't look at things in a business sense. You just do it for ego and that later on hurts you later on. So it's having the people around you that keep you focused but also in line.

Same idea, different language. Wim Hof didn't build his life on relationships with other people. He built it on control, the kind most of us were told we don't even have over our own bodies. Here's the moment that changed everything for him.

I saw, by a gut feeling, the ice on the— it was wintertime in Amsterdam in a park. and a thin layer on the ice. And I felt attracted to go in.

Wow.

Why? I did not know. But I looked around, I stripped myself of the clothes, I went in, and there I felt without words, this is it. I was looking for this without knowing I had found what I was actually looking for in books. And it is the cold. The cold that opens up a deeper realm of the physiology, both in the brain and in the body. But back then, I did not have any scientific knowledge about this.

Yeah.

I just felt it that way. I felt euphoric afterwards the whole day long. The other day, I came back with the expectation, is it maybe not going to feel so good like yesterday? That is just a new thing and all. And I went in and it happened.

Wow.

And since then, 17, almost 50 years ago, I am every day in the ice when I can.

Yeah.

When I'm traveling or something, sometimes I cannot, but that's all right because it changed my life. It changed the circuitry in my brain.

If Wim Hof taught the world to control the breath, Barbara O'Neill has spent her life teaching people to trust the body. 25 grandchildren deep into providing the basics that still work today. Here's the woman they call the goddess of health. Grandmother of the world. How do we strengthen our immune system?

That's a good question. Very good question. It needs us to be well hydrated, and that's water. And it needs us to go to bed ideally a couple of hours before midnight, because that's when our batteries, our body, our immune system, our cells revive and recharge. Healing accelerates at twice the rate. in those 2 hours and about 1 or 2 after midnight.

Really?

And that's where, that's where many people are missing out. And nourishment. It's like asking my sons, a lot of them are tradesmen, builders, to do an extension on my house, but I've just got the cheapest building materials. Even though they're good tradesmen, how can they build without proper building material? Same with our body. We need to give nourishment. Ideally in organic foods, high fibers, great proteins, great fats. Hopefully fat phobia is out of most people's minds today.

I thought high fat caused cardiovascular disease.

Oh no, that's been proven wrong. But probably one of my favorite, and I do it wherever I can, is that cold dunk every morning.

Really?

Oh yes.

Now this one is personal. My wife Sage sat down with me to talk about something nobody wants to talk about on camera, and that's menopause. And I'll be honest, we had a lot more fun filming this than either of us expected to. But there was quite some time before the hormone therapy where we were in the thick of it.

We were really—

I did a lot of apologizing. Um, here's my advice for menopause. Uh, if you're a man and your wife is in menopause, as soon as you wake up in the morning, just say you're sorry. Say you're sorry.

Yeah, just for waking up.

Just for waking up, because you probably did it wrong. You probably did it wrong. Maybe you sniffled. Maybe you moved the bed too much when you got out of bed. Maybe your feet hit the floor so hard that it was rude and inconsiderate. And we're just rude and inconsiderate. We're like bears. And so when we wake up, we get out of bed and it seems like a normal thing.

Or you're just like giant children that are just loud and messy.

Yeah.

Definitely don't burp. No, don't do that. Don't leave dirty dishes in the sink. If you wash the laundry and fold the laundry, put it back where it belongs, not in the wrong place. So yes, you can wash the laundry, you can fold the laundry, and you can put it back where it doesn't belong.

But mention it to me.

And everything is wrong. From hormones to waves, 11-time world champion surfer Kelly Slater came on this podcast and barely talked about surfing at all. He talked about what it actually feels like to be that connected to something Bigger than yourself?

I think anyone in their own way can find that. You know, they say you're in the flow or whatever, flow state. Flow state, yeah. But in surfing, it's kind of more personal 'cause you and the ocean and there's not other people playing this game that you're in, but you know—

There's a lot of danger too.

Yeah, and there's all that stuff too. That's what's up.

That's—

Yeah.

Well, that adds to it.

There's sharks in 100-foot waves.

That's part of what drives, you know, there's definitely adrenaline junkie in all of us surfers that love it like that, you know.

Mm-hmm.

But there is a thing where you don't feel like you're— there's no time between the thought and the action, or there's not— you're not even thinking, you're just feeling. And when you really are feeling, like what he's just saying is like, he's just going by feeling. That's what we were talking about earlier with great whites. You know, great whites on the West Coast through into the fall, they stay in California and then they, They migrate south. They think that they mate out off of Mexico, and then some of the females go to Hawaii and blah, blah, blah. This is so wild. So, how does a great white find its way down to that place out in the ocean where they mate in the breeding grounds area, or, you know, maybe one of the islands off Mexico they go to, and then swim underwater for a couple thousand miles and find Hawaii? Those tiny dots in the middle of the ocean. So, there's this, I think humans, I think most humans nowadays with what we have with technology and the way life is and how fast-paced things are, we've lost that feeling to some degree. And so, with surfing, I think you have such a connection with nature and you're back in it all the time and you crave that thing. It is a drug.

Yeah.

I remember I got hired to do this thing with Disney one time where I went and spoke to a bunch of people. They were having a convention. I was telling him how I am an addict. I just got addicted to something healthy. And I did compare surfing to a drug. And I felt a little weird about saying that at a Disney convention or whatever, but I was like, it really is.

Cold plunging, my drug of choice.

Yeah, exactly. But it's, yeah, I think everyone has, everyone desires to feel deeply, but I think, We all have our emotional reasons why we're scared of that with relationships and stuff like that. And then with our life being so fast-paced, you're not really connected. Most people don't do something where they have those kind of feelings very often. And surfing, it's not hard to get that. It's a rush, you know, whether it's just the speed of the wave or you're riding nature.

Kelly Slater stayed on top of a sport for 3 decades. TJ Dillashaw got knocked all the way down. 2 blown shoulders, a suspension, an identity stripped away overnight. Here's the walk back.

Um, it takes, it takes a strong mental fortitude to be able to do it. Um, I feel like a lot of people maybe would have got broken and just did something else, but I think that mental toughness that has turned me into a champion has also got me back into the line. And I also, I also felt like I had to do it, right? Because I was being questioned so much. It was like, yeah, I have to come back.

Like, I have to come back and prove myself.

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a little bit of that that fired me up as well too, like Wanting my identity back, wanting my self-purpose back.

'Cause 2 years is not that long of a time when you start thinking about dual shoulder surgery. If you stop training and let yourself get outta shape a little bit, maybe you were drinking, you were taking pain medication, you know, you were in kind of a dark place. But then you have to, from that ground zero back into the octagon, is not that long of a timeframe, maybe a year.

Yeah.

Right? And so, Where was your family in all this? Like, were they like, hey TJ, it's okay if you don't want to go back? Or was your wife like, you're a world champion, I want to support you all the way? Like, where— what other support systems did you have going on? Or was this just all inside of TJ's head?

Mostly it was inside of my head, but I do have a rock of a wife that has supported— we've been together for 20 years now, all through my wrestling career. She's seen like all of it. She knew my mindset. She knew I was— that was never a question if I was going back. That was just like, she knew that, right?

Yeah.

She knows my personality. She knows my mentality. Like, I don't shut off. I don't stop.

Right.

So that was nothing. But she's always been a rock there to support me.

Not every guest on this show is talking about their own body. Some of them are fighting for what's on your kids' plate. Callie Means and Kyle Diamantis are inside the federal government right now trying to fix the food supply. And this is the story that stuck with me the most.

This announcement is an example of what Kyle's team and Secretary Kinney's team throughout the government is doing.

Mm-hmm.

So we ask, you ask about our Maraha framework, we ask, where is government spending money and how can we influence and nudge the system into a better direction? So we've talked about school lunches, we've talked about military food. Hospitals are a big one. So hospitals are dependent on Medicare, Medicaid funding. Their lifeblood is government funding. And if you go to— every patient knows this, you've talked about it. I was at Stanford Hospital with my mom, the Mayo Clinic with my mom. They served her Coca-Cola, and she was a diabetic dying of a metabolic condition from cancer. It is absolutely disgraceful what hospitals are serving patients. And we have asked a simple question to hospitals, which is, why is the government paying you trillions of dollars? Over $1 trillion, almost $2 trillion.

Wow.

Why are we paying you this to serve food that is fueling the chronic diseases that 90% of those payments are going to. 90% of healthcare spending, of the government healthcare spending, goes to treating metabolic chronic diseases that are highly tied to ultra-processed food and highly processed food. And ultra-processed food, sugary drinks, refined carbohydrates, fried food. It's what hospitals are serving. So what can happen? CMS, can issue conditions of participation. They can write letters saying what we expect for paying these trillion-dollar-plus of government money. And for the first time, the government is issuing a letter to hospitals saying, if you are gonna take government money, you cannot be serving diabetic and obese patients sugary drinks. Cut down and eliminate the refined carbohydrates, serve whole grains, and cut— you look at the food, it's all fried inflammatory food.

Mm-hmm.

Let's get whole food protein. The principles of the dietary guidelines, and we're pushing that in hospitals.

Love it.

And the hospitals are billing Medicare and Medicaid up to $400 per day for food, the government. So this is not an affordability issue. This is just a common sense issue. And frankly, as Kyle said, and I credit the hospital CEOs, they've come to us and said, this is ridiculous. They've actually welcomed it. And we're working with them on voluntary commitments for just general food that they serve at the hospitals. Hospitals are the largest employer in the United States. More Americans are employed in the healthcare hospital system than any other industry. So, actually—

So, we see this trickle into the cafeterias.

Yeah, it trickles into healthcare workers being sicker than the average American, and that's tens of millions of people. So, this is a very important act for patient health, but also just general American public health, because tens of millions of Americans are eating at hospitals every day.

And we'll close it out with Mark Manson, because after 300 episodes about biohacking and supplements and blood panels, It's worth remembering that none of it means anything if your mind isn't lined up too. So I wind down all of my podcasts by asking my guests the same question. And there's no right or wrong answer to this question, but what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human?

Oof.

I'll give you a t-shirt if you get the right answer. If I get the right answer? Oh man, the pressure's on.

The pressure is on.

100% cotton.

I would say being the ultimate human is to live in alignment with your full potential, both physically, psychologically, and emotionally.

300 episodes, 8 guests today, but really 300 people who trusted me with their story and millions of you Who trusted me with your time. I'm not going anywhere. If anything, I wanna bring you more people, more perspectives, more of everything that actually works. So here's my ask. Subscribe, follow, whatever the platform calls it, because I'm not done. I've got a lot more guests to bring you, a lot more conversations about health and biohacking and everything in between, and I want you along for every single one of them. Thank you for the 300 episodes. Here's to the next 300. And one more thing before you go. These episodes are a starting point, but your questions are specific to your body, your blood work, your life. That's exactly why we created the Ask Gary Anything. For $27 a month, you can get me, my protocols, my research, my answers on demand whenever the question hits you. And if you want to take it further, the VIP community is where I work with people directly. Both are linked below. The best investment you'll ever make is in the vessel you live in. And until next time, guys, that's just science.