Improving Gut Dysbiosis, Mitochondrial Function, Sleep and Overall Health: 25

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. Today I am joined by Ryan Kennedy, and he is a practitioner of one of my favorite subjects, which is functional medicine. If you've heard me talk about that before, loves to get to the root cause. So we always enjoy talking to people like that. Ryan, welcome. And if you could just maybe give a little introduction for people that is beyond the bio that I already read, that would be great.

Thanks for having me, Cheryl. Yeah, I got into functional medicine after several years in more of the physical therapy fitness space, studied kinesiology in my undergrad, and just realized after working with patients in the clinic and, you know, helping people with the physical side of things, that if they weren't addressing their sleep, their nutrition, their environment, targeted supplementation, stress management, all these other tools, then they really weren't getting that much better. I mean, their results were really limited. So I went back to school and studied naturopathic medicine and functional medicine. And that brought me to where I am today, where I run a practice, work with patients in various settings, one-on-one, in, in groups. I have some online courses, and really just to deliver the tools and resources many people are missing, along with that support and accountability to really take action to improve their health and to correct all sorts of underlying challenges that so many folks suffer from today.

Right. And we were talking a little bit before we actually started the interview in that you mentioned that quite a few— I mean, there's a lot of topics obviously that you're passionate about and that we're going to touch on. But the first one that comes to mind is you mentioned that a lot of your patients have this underlying issue of some kind of digestive or gut dysfunction. And that is something that is obviously really popular in the health space. Like right now, what we're learning about how the gut and the microbiome affect overall health is is really quite amazing. So maybe you could share with people kind of what you've been learning about that lately and what you're seeing are the main ways to help people that have these sort of different gut dysbiosis situations.

It's overwhelmingly common. And, you know, I want people to understand that so they don't feel like alone or isolated, isolated. And a lot of individuals, Cheryl, in our society have just come to associate gut imbalances and different digestive issues as the norm. You know, of course you feel bloated after you eat. Of course you are gassy at night before bed. Of course you have, you know, sporadic bowel movements and all sorts of issues in that regard. But it's definitely not normal. It might be common, but it's not optimal. And it's not the way that we should be functioning. And it's really at a root cause of so many other downstream issues with people's energy levels, with people's brain function, with your skin. You know, our skin is a direct reflection of a lot of our microbiome in our gut and so many other factors. You know, everything from hormone imbalances to sleep problems to you name it. Because if our guts aren't working right, we're not absorbing the nutrients that we're eating from food. 'Cause we're not just what we eat, we're what we absorb, right? And we're also running into all sorts of other issues when it comes to our immune system and when it comes to our mental health. Because a lot of people, when they look at mental and emotional challenges such as depression, anxiety, uh, panic disorders, they think of talk therapy and you need to really just sort these things out. And I love psychotherapy. I think there's a lot of benefits to it, but a lot of the times it's really a, a result of poor imbalances in the body because so many of our neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, they're synthesized in in the gut. And so if your microbiome is off, you're going to have neurochemical dysfunction, which is going to lead to a lot of these different issues. And that's how I've helped so many people. I'm not a therapist, but I've helped so many people resolve long issues with depression and anxiety and things of that nature. And so I really believe that one of the first steps to figuring out what's wrong with your gut is testing, because if you're not testing, you're guessing. And I'm a big fan of targeted functional medicine tests that help us to determine what is the culprit, what is imbalanced in your microbiome, because we're all different. And just throwing probiotics at people doesn't usually work, Cheryl, as I'm sure you've probably gathered with your work with people, is a lot of times people have too much bacteria, a condition called SIBO, small intestinal bacteria overgrowth, and probiotics make those individuals worse usually. And then if you don't know what is off, whether there's too much yeast or too much fungus or, you know, pathogenic bacteria like Clostridia difficile or parasites, you don't really know how to attack the equation. And so based on symptomology, I can make a lot of great educated guesses and we could take a good course of action that's probably gonna be a good, good fit for most, most people. But when you do the right testing, you really figure out, okay, this person has excess Candida. They also have a little extra bacteria. In their small intestine. So here's how we're going to attack this. Or you can really make the, the best protocol design based on what's on the test data, what's going on in that person's body. You'll know, I'll know exactly what enzymes, what herbs, what probiotics, and what diet and lifestyle changes I need them to make in order to resolve that imbalance. And it just completely shifts everything in that person's life. Because when you— your digestive system starts functioning again and you're feeling great and energized and good after you eat, your quality of life, it just completely skyrockets. And then all these other things get better. Your brain function, your energy levels, all of these metrics that are so foundational to our quality of life, of how we feel every day. When that starts to just massively improve, I mean, it is the greatest thing ever.

Now, I think a lot of people that you know, they want to feel like that. They want to feel better, but they're always, you know, kind of cost conscious, and rightly so, because a lot of these types of functional tests are not often covered by insurance. But I want to make a statement. I want to see if you agree with this, is that, for example, you, based on everything that you just said, if you did that test from the beginning, you're going to save yourself so much time and energy and money not doing protocols that aren't even going to fix what the problem is, right? So, and like, like you said, you're not guessing anymore. So at least once you get this test, you have a very targeted plan that could actually save you money in the long run. Do you think that's accurate or?

100% accurate. And you also have to look at the opportunity costs. What is the low energy or, you know, brain fog or digestive issues in your life now? How is that hindering your ability to be a better provider for your family and for yourself? Maybe get a raise in your position at work, maybe grow your business, grow your career. Maybe start a side hustle. You know, there's so many ways to always generate more money. There's endless amounts of money in the world, Cheryl, but our health and our time, those are two limited resources that are at the end of the day, the most important things we have as humans. And so it's really important to look at, okay, if spending a couple hundred bucks is going to save me time, it's going to make me feel better, it's going to make me perform better in everything I do, that is the greatest return on investment any of us could ask for. And so it really comes down to your priorities. That's, that's the bottom line is everyone has the ability. I don't, you know, even people who are very in a position where they're very financially distraught and feeling like they're struggling to pay their bills, a lot of times they just are spending money on things that they shouldn't be going out to eat, buying alcohol. Many of these people are also, you know, buying designer handbags and things that we don't need. But they want it, you know, so it's just a matter of priorities. Almost anyone could figure out a couple of ways to, ways to save a couple hundred bucks to apply towards a test, apply towards a supplementation protocol, apply towards some health consulting. So it's just a matter of does it really matter to you? Is it really important to you? And when someone comes to the answer of yes, they'll find the resources. It's never about because it's not like this stuff costs tens of thousands of dollars, Cheryl. I mean, we're talking about a pretty reasonable amount of of, of money to invest in something that can really change your entire life.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And that's, that's my, always my perspective. And when I— this is kind of a side note and a separate conversation for people, but I'm kind of glad that you brought it up because, you know, that's the pushback I hear a lot on whether it's coaching, whether it's supplements, whether it's, you know, buying a new book that might help you change your mindset or habits or anything like that, is that it's a money thing. And then I'll see those same people on social media and I'll see like what they're doing or what they're spending their money on. And it always kind of makes me just laugh inside of my head, like, oh, you just don't— you're just not there yet. But that's okay. Everybody gets there in their own time. And obviously, there are real serious financial situations and changes that have been happening in the world the last 2 years. So we're not discounting that at all. There are very real conversations where people might not be able to afford certain things. But I think what you said, for a lot of people, like really hits the nail on the head is just coming to this realization that health is a priority. It's really the only thing we got. I think you and I can both appreciate that as much as anyone, given that both of our parents ended up passing away from cancer. And I don't know about you, but I would trade just about anything to change that situation. But anyway, that's kind of all a little aside, but I would really love for you to go into that specific test that we were talking about. So back to the gut dysbiosis and back off of the sidebar is that And you kind of basically almost throw in your interpretation and coaching with that almost for free because the test itself is quite expensive and you bundle it together, which is a really nice feature for people. But I think they'd like to hear about what kinds of things is it identifying? If you could explain, I think you said it was an organic acid test or something like that, but I'll let you take the wheel now.

So many tests have come out, Cheryl, over the last several years claiming to look at microbiome, and I've used and experimented with many of them over the years. Companies like Viome and and Wellness FX and all these companies that I think are doing good work, but I didn't find a lot of useful clinical data. And the accuracy of some of these tests was very questionable from what I was seeing in the trenches, working with patients, running the test, making the changes, and just not seeing the results and the overall information being that practical. So I don't recommend everyone just go out and buy as many tests as they can buy, because oftentimes they may not be helpful. It's about knowing what's going to be the best use of your resources, because The testing also involves a time and energy commitment, you know, to go through with all this. So the one that I found that I run for almost every person I work with is called an organic acids test, like you said. And this is measuring with extremely good accuracy, your urine metabolites. So it's an at-home test, it's really easy to do. You don't have to go into any clinic or draw any blood, you literally pee in a cup and send it back to the lab. It's as easy as that. And it measures a whole gamut of things that I think is just the best single test to assess how you're doing from the inside out. And it measures a whole bunch of things, Cheryl, that you're not going to get from blood work. So this is not looking at your triglycerides, your lipid profile. It's not looking at your, you know, complete blood count. It's not looking at your liver enzymes. And those things are valuable. I don't want to discount blood work. I think blood work you run with your primary care physician is very helpful. But many times it's not going to be skewed unless you're in really bad shape, or it's not going to be skewed unless you have a specific issue with the things they're testing. And they're not testing anything to do with digestion. They're not really testing much to do with energy or to do with a lot of the problems people have in our world today with their sleep, with their hormones. And so this organic acid test, it's like 80 different markers. And I'll give you a brief run-through and then we could kind of rabbit hole down any areas, Cheryl, that you see would, you know, benefit your audience in terms of elaboration. So the first section is really looking at your gut markers. So it's looking at what's imbalanced in your microbiome. And so it's measuring for things like Candida or yeast overgrowth, which is really, really common in people today. It's measuring for things like small intestinal bacteria overgrowth, SIBO. It's looking at any small intestinal fungal overgrowth, SIFO. It's looking at mold or mycotoxin exposure, really common environmental toxin that really wrecks a lot of people's gut, their immune system, their energy, and oftentimes goes undiagnosed. It's looking at Clostridium bacteria, these pathogenic bacteria that cause chronic diarrhea and all sorts of other things. So that is really helpful to kind of see what's going on so that I, I as a practitioner know, okay, here's the best probiotic strains that are going to work based on what came back on the test. Here are the right biofilm enzymes that we're going to use and the, the targeted herbs that we're gonna use and botanicals to kill off this overgrowth or to rebalance this, this issue that you have. So it's very helpful from that perspective. And then it also looks at your sensitivity to oxalates. Something we could dive into is a common plant chemical defense system in kale and spinach and certain foods people think are so healthy, but many folks can't metabolize the oxalic acid. It causes a lot of issues, joint pain, things like gout or symptoms similar to gout, as well as GI distress and a whole bunch of other things. The thing I really like about it is it measures your mitochondria. I'm sure you've spoken on the show about mitochondria, Cheryl. They— these are really one of the most vital components of our cells in terms of our cellular function. And mitochondria dysfunction is really at the core of a lot of chronic illness like cancer, like other chronic issues where our cells begin to essentially malfunction and replicate in a very haphazard way. All— a lot of that, as far as the latest theories, come back to mitochondrial dysfunction. And it's our energy source. So if your mitochondria aren't working optimally, you're going to have a lot of fatigue, you're going to have a lot of other issues because your cell signaling is now not working properly. So that's really important to look at. And then it takes a look at your neurotransmitters, which is really cool. You know, it looks at your serotonin, your dopamine, your epinephrine, and your norepinephrine. This is really important to know, hey, And while we're working on the root cause, this person has low serotonin, it's no wonder they're dealing with some depression. I'm not going to throw any Prozac at them. That's not the way I run my practice. But we might bring in some 5-HTP. And maybe someone who's dealing with low motivation, they just don't have that drive to get after it. And then I see on the test, oh yeah, they got low dopamine. This totally makes sense. How about we bring in some dopamine precursors like some L-tyrosine or some dopaminergica, natural amino acids and natural herbs that help to facilitate the increase in certain, you know, neurotransmitters that are low or out of balance. And then as you progress on the test, you know, it looks at all of your essential amino acid levels to see if you're getting enough protein and actually absorbing the protein. It looks at your vitamin levels, you know, looking at your different B vitamins, vitamin C, and measures your glutathione. So it's just this really comprehensive panel that's just kind of giving me a good look of like, what's wrong here? Let's fix it. So from that perspective, I just think it's really valuable even if someone doesn't have a lot of digestive issues. Maybe they want to see, hey, what nutrients should I supplement with? I want to see where my vitamin levels are at. Maybe they want to see, hey, I've been feeling a little moody. Maybe they're feeling a little low energy or low in terms of their mental and emotional health. And maybe they want to see what could be imbalanced in their neurotransmitters. So there's a lot of utility just by getting all that data and then being able to make the most accurate courses of action for that specific patient.

Yeah, that's a really interesting conglomerate of different tests there that you mentioned. And before we move on, I want to have a— I have a follow-up question about the mitochondria test, but I wanted to mention for people that aren't as familiar with this stuff, you mentioned 5-HTP, which is basically a precursor for serotonin, and serotonin is kind of, you know, you can consider it your happiness neurotransmitter in a way. So just a little background there for people who may have not heard of the 5-HTP before. You can actually buy it in the drugstore. I don't really recommend that for a couple reasons, but it is available as a supplement. And like Ryan said, that's if you're working with a practitioner and that they've identified that that's something that could really help you, then that might be a more natural way to approach some depression issues. But anyway, back to the mitochondrial function, because I actually am super into this. I had a guest recently that is really focused on the effects of linoleic acid on the mitochondria, which is pretty interesting. And so I'm just curious about this test. Like when you say it looks at the mitochondria, is it seeing how much energy they generate? Is it seeing like what the mitochondria is made of? Because one of the things that this guy is saying is that linoleic acid kind of integrates into the cell cellular cover. I'm not thinking of the technical name for that. Thank you. I was like, why am I blanking on that? But it integrates into the membrane and also causes some dysfunction in like generating energy from ATP. So I'm just kind of curious with this test, like, what is it about the mitochondria that it's looking for?

It's looking at a couple different things, but they're ultimately measuring downstream metabolites that correlate with mitochondrial dysfunction. So if your mitochondria are not functioning quite properly, you're going to have metabolites that are produced in excess. And by measuring the elevated values, you're going to be able to see the mitochondria is not working optimally. Now, you won't be able to determine specifically why. You won't be able to say, hey, Cheryl, this is because you eat so many omega-6 seed oils here, you're loading your body with this linoleic acid, which I agree with your past guest is very pernicious to our metabolic health and our overall well-being. You won't know that based on the test. But if I do see that, and then I look at your diet, and then I look at some other variables, I'll say, okay, Cheryl, here are the likely culprits I think we should cut out. And here's the mitochondria support nutrients I think we should bring in, things like PQQ and CoQ10. Maybe we bring in some additional antioxidant support. Maybe we bring in a couple things that are going to stimulate mitochondria from a lifestyle perspective, like high-intensity interval training, sensible sun exposure, maybe some sauna or some cold exposure. These are things that I would recommend to virtually everyone because it's going to benefit just about anyone. Even if your mitochondria are functioning just fine, it's going to help enhance their function. So that's kind of— does that answer your question in terms of kind of how it's figuring things out? And then from there, I just make— based on what I see in their— in the patient's intake forms, based on what they shared with me, I make some appropriate recommendations of things I know will help their mitochondria health.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. And then have you— I mean, I'm assuming obviously when you work with people, especially when you're working with somebody that's highly motivated, so you do this testing and then maybe some period of time later you test again to see if the changes that you've made have had an effect. Are you able to see that when people change or add these things in to support their mitochondria that they actually have success with that?

Absolutely. Uh, and it's, it was really cool too, especially when we look at retesting, uh, to see the, the values and the changes. And that's something that people love, Cheryl. I mean, I'm the type of person where I'm like, listen, if I'm feeling better, that's all I really care about. Like, I, I, I love data and I love tracking and tracking my sleep and tracking other sorts of things. But at the end of the day, the thing that really matters is your objective or your subjective quality of life metrics. If you come back to me in a month or two and say, Ryan, my energy is so much better, I'm sleeping through the night again, my sex drive is back, I'm feeling freaking fired up to get going on the day and I'm just jazzed on life. I'm like, that's a win. That's what I care about. I don't care what the numbers say. I care about that type of feedback, right? And most people would relate like the testing is great. But what I found is just because of human nature, we like to see the objective data, the differences of like I started here, 'Now I'm here. The test said I had SIBO. Now it shows normal levels of bacteria with no elevations.' And that is something that just people freaking really enjoy, seeing the, the data. So it's not just like, 'I think I'm feeling better. I, I feel better. I think it's fixed.' But to have that confirmation gives people a lot of peace of mind.

Yeah, I'm, I'm definitely one of those people. I'm totally guilty of it. If there's anything I can test and test again later to see if I'm doing better, I of it. But that is not to say— and part of the reason I asked that is because I think one thing, you know, in my space, it's focused a lot on weight loss or nutrition kind of stuff, right? And people will often say, you know, about any specific diet change, they'll always be like, well, it's not working. It's like, what they really mean is they're not losing weight as fast as they want to, or they haven't lost any weight yet. But it doesn't mean that positive changes aren't happening in your body, in your mitochondria, in your waistline, that might not be showing up on scale. Um, so to put that in a different perspective of, you know, another topic that we were touching on, so say you have a person like that and they're doing these things or doing some of the protocols, but they haven't really experienced that, oh my God, I feel so much better yet. Can you talk a little bit about one of our common passions, which is stress and sleep, and how that can affect people's outcomes?

Sleep is especially important when it comes to the weight loss journey. People don't understand the differences in your metabolic burn rate as well as your hormone your insulin sensitivity, so many variables that are thrown off if you're not sleeping well. And in our society of do, do, do, do, you got to do more, be more, become more, people think it's a good idea to just wake up extra early, get 5 hours of rest so that they could go crush a workout at the gym and then go do all these things. But in reality, it's looking at the equation from such an inaccurate perspective where you got to understand the importance of fixing your body from the inside out so that your metabolic machinery is working properly so that weight loss becomes effortless. If you're just so hyperfocused on calories in, calories out, how many calories you're burning during your, uh, cardio session— those things have a place and time to look at, and I'm not saying they're worthless, but there's so many other variables that get thrown off to the wayside of like, okay, if you're chronically stressed and your cortisol is ramped up, well, as a man cortisol and testosterone work antagonistically. So your testosterone is going to be low. Your testosterone is low. Well, guess what? You're gonna have a much harder time building muscle, which is our metabolic currency, which is one of the number one keys to sustain weight loss, fat loss. You're going to be low energy. You're gonna have a hard time burning fat. So you got to look at that equation and say, okay, you're not sleeping well and you're chronically stressed, where your testosterone has plummeted and is that of like an 80-year-old man Well, we need to fix that in order to make the weight loss happen, in order to improve the body composition. And the same thing goes with women. You know, there's obviously different hormones at play, but it's the same ideology where if you're not looking at these foundational elements to your health and you're approaching weight loss from strictly a weight loss perspective of like, it's all about the fitness, it's all about the nutrition, that's all that matters with weight loss. It's like, no, those are two things that matter. But there's so many other things that are just as important, if not more so. And so we get this myopic lens of like, exercise more, Cheryl, eat less, exercise more, eat less. That's it. It's like, oh, that's why 90+% of people fail in their weight loss journeys is because they're being misled with poor advice. It's really not their fault. It's really a, you know, a result of the fitness industry and the media headlines and all these different people that are coming out saying like, it's all about this, it's all about that. But really, you need to take a step back and look at things from a holistic lens.

Yeah, and that's what I love about functional practitioners is that you, you guys all really get that. And I think it's more like our mainstream, particularly in the US medical, um, and, and, you know, a lot of it's not the doctor's fault. This is something I've talked about before. They have like 5 to 10 minutes with a patient. They can't go into a lot of this background about what Are you sleeping well? Is— how is your stress level? But I do want to touch on before we move on from this, you mentioned probably something that might be happening more in the last 2 years than maybe ever before in people's lives. And that is this sort of this low-level ongoing stress due to the obviously lots of world situation kind of things happening. Can you talk a little bit about cortisol and how people can begin to normalize those? Because I have a feeling that even if they never experienced this in the past, that people's cortisol is really kind of acting unusually over the last 2 years with all this stress from the pandemic. And I would love to hear if you have any tips or tricks outside of, you know, testing to know if you have that problem. But just, I think, probably some of the practices that you could do to mitigate that are just good practices for health in general. So maybe talk about how you work with people on that a little bit.

It's a spectrum. So I don't want people to think it's black and white, like you have a problem or you don't have a problem. You know, it's 10 out of 10 or 0 out of 10. That's really not how this works. And that's not how anything in health works. It's like, I don't care how chilled out you are, how low stress your lifestyle and your work is, you could still benefit from some of these stress management practices I'm about to cover. And just like if you're on the other end of the spectrum, you definitely are going to— I don't want people just to think like, oh my gosh, I either have a cortisol issue or I don't. It's like, no, no, no, this works on a spectrum. So there's a lot to unpack here, Cheryl. I think that the number one thing people get crazy when they hear is just to calm down, you know, chill out. The worst advice you could ever give anyone. So if you are, you know, wanting to help your husband or your wife or your kids, Don't do that. It only makes them— makes things worse and makes them upset at you. So come at it from a place of compassion and empathy. And rather than telling them what they should do, uh, lead by example is a really good way to practice this for people in your life. And it's— if it's for yourself, understand that a lot of the practices I'm about to cover are really the best way you could be spending your time to get more out of life and to really optimize so many things. And many people associate these things as like esoteric practices, but there's just so much research demonstrating the efficacy of these things. So, the number 1, I'll go through kind of a list and I'll start with what I would consider the priority, Cheryl. Number 1 thing you can focus on to manage and mitigate stress is your breathing patterns, your breathwork. And there's lots of things that I can unpack here, but the most important takeaway for anyone listening to this is breathe through your freaking nose. That's it. Close your mouth, breathe through your nose. Simple as that. I can go through breathing counts, I could go through patterns, I could go through a million things. But if you just stopped chronic mouth breathing, and maybe used a piece of little mouth tape at night before bed, which is becoming really common, maybe you read a book by— I had James Nestor on my podcast called The Ryan Kennedy Show, where we talked about his book Breath and the science and the evidence that just doing more nasal breathing calms down the nervous system because we have nervous system receptors in our nostrils. It oxygenates the body better. And it's this shallow chronic mouth breathing that really is at the detriment to a lot of stress and just exacerbates the issue. Even if you're like, Ryan, breathing is not my problem. I'm going through a divorce. I had a car accident yesterday. I got a million things, you know, that are going wrong. I guarantee your breathing is probably making it worse. So breathe through the nose. Very helpful during times of chronic stress. I really like to double the length of exhale versus inhale. So what that would look like is doing a 3, or 4-second count in through your nose, deep into the belly, and then do— following that by a slow, prolonged exhale where you're doing 6 to 8 seconds on the exhale. That really helps drop your body into more of that parasympathetic state. Very, very effective, very simple. And as little as 5 or 6 of those deeper breaths, real slow and controlled like that, will be enough to lower blood pressure, lower resting heart rate, and really start to reduce the physiological stress load on your body.. And then there's other things that I don't know if we have time to go into, but I teach holotropic breathwork. I have a lot of different dopamine and energy activation breathing techniques. I just think the breath is the number one tool in the human operating system that people aren't taught about. And it's such a sad thing that we're taught all these things in school, yet we're not taught how to use the most important function of our bodies. So I love breathwork, Cheryl McColgan. Uh, moving beyond breathwork. And feel free to stop me if you want to go follow up questions about any of these different categories I'm going to cover. But moving beyond breathwork, we have what I would consider to be the next best thing, which would be some sort of movement. Movement in general is just such a way— good way to reduce stress. Now, if you're chronically stressed, you probably don't want to be going and doing 75 minutes of HIIT training every day. You're going to beat the body down more because exercise is a hormetic stress. And in small amounts, it's very beneficial to reduce chronic stress. But if you're already chronically stressed out, and you're stacking all these other stressors, like 2-hour workouts, we're doing heavy deadlifts all the time, and just crushing your body, followed by, you know, fasting, followed by, you know, tons of coffee and stimulants, followed by a lot of these things that people, you know, are healthy, can be healthy practices, right? But you start to stack all of them together, and now you're just jacking up your nervous system. You're jacking up your cortisol, and they're not helping you, they're hurting you. So I believe in really like short, intense exercise sessions. Like my workouts, Cheryl, are typically about 10 to 15 minutes in length from start to finish. I'm all about short, efficient workouts, and I have a free training guide on my website I could give you the link for, for people to learn more about that.

Awesome.

But then doing lots of movement in terms of low-level physical activity. Going for a walk in the sunshine, doing a little stretching outside, doing things that are going to be more restorative, but you're still moving your body because being sedentary is just going to exacerbate the monkey mind and the inner dialogue and the stress. So I like to call these things working in instead of working out, something I learned from one of my mentors, Paul Chek. And working in is movement that you can do that's going to be restorative to your body's vitality, to your body's chi. And that's gonna be things like I said, walking, maybe some mellow cycling, maybe some swimming, maybe you do a little stretching, not like an hour-long freaking Bikram hot yoga class, folks. I'm talking just some basic stretches, something that's gonna open up the body, relax, could focus on your breath, all those sorts of things. And then I love sauna. I, I use, I have an infrared sauna I use every day. I think it's just one of the best health optimization tools that we could use, and I freaking enjoy the heck out of it. So I gotta throw some heat therapy in there as on this list. I think meditation is very hard for people, Cheryl. I find that if you can meditate, great, not— no arguments about it. But I've worked with so many people in my practice, and myself as well, like I could speak honestly and openly about this. Meditation is hard. Like, it's not easy to just sit there and meditate. And it's Very difficult. And so that's where I like some of the breathwork techniques. There's a 5-minute breathwork technique I teach people to do in the mornings because breathwork is doing something to do nothing where you're at least focused on your breath. Like you're doing something to then quiet the mind as a result. Meditation is trying to do nothing to do nothing. And that is hard as hell.

So I teach it a little differently.

Yeah. For that reason, it's, you know, to just tell people to use like one of these apps to go meditate, I don't find it ton of compliance with my— the people I work with. But I do love it. I do support it. I do think it's a great stress management tool. And there's so many varieties of it that you could probably find one that works for you, whether it's a mantra-based like TM, whether it's some other sort of meditation. I think that those are great. And then there's a million other things I can go into. But what's also important to understand, Cheryl, is you don't want to get stressed about stress management, right? Don't try and like put 50 things in your day to manage stress, which only overloads your schedule and causes you to be more stressed. Like there's such a thing as too much of these things. So just start with one, maybe two, just make a few tweaks. You know, maybe at night you do some stretching and deep breathing. And that's, you know, where you start, and then you slowly kind of add layers as you progress. That's what I've seen to be a very effective way to bring some of these things into your lifestyle. And then there's lots of other ones I could share. But I think that's a great starting list. You know, there's obviously nutrients and adaptogenic herbs and mushrooms and different botanicals I'll utilize in my practice from a supplementation perspective. One of my favorite formulas is called Vital Adapt, and it's a combination of medicinal mushrooms and adaptogenic herbs that's really, really helpful to support the adrenals and to support the cortisol response in terms of managing stress in your biology. And then there's, you know, lots of other things I'm a huge proponent of, of just sensible sun exposure, grounding, going for a nice walk on the beach or, you know, by, by a lake or some things of that nature that I think are just way underestimated in their healing impacts on our bodies.

Yeah. And just, this is a follow-up in case people have not heard this term before. I don't know where you've been if you haven't, but I'm just going to say it just in case. But these adaptogenic herbs, they're kind of, they're like a system balancing kind of thing, right? So they kind of, if something's too high, it kind of can bring it back down. If it's too low, it can bring it up. So it just kind of stabilizes the system is the way that I like to think of those. Um, ashwagandha, holy basil, there's a whole bunch of them, and you probably have your favorites. And then the other thing I just wanted to, um, say about meditation, I do think— so I've been a yoga teacher for, I don't know, like 11 or 12 years now. I don't teach public classes anymore, but— and I've been doing yoga for like really a ridiculously long time at this point, like 30 years. But, uh, I think that I have— and my background is in clinical neuropsychology, so I have a lot of focus on the brain anyway, which is one thing that always attracted me to meditation despite it being kind of quote unquote hard. And I do think that people really struggle with it. But I would just say to that as a follow-up that you can find ways to do it that are maybe like slightly less traditional, but I think still have the same effects. It's just kind of doing it. And I think the thing that you said is actually perfect is what I work with people on is like doing those kind of doing those breath practices and doing the meditation at the same time. It's like you're just focused on your breath. You just keep bringing your mind back to that. I actually have a couple of, you know, beginner meditation videos on my YouTube channel, but it— people just overcomplicate it, is my experience. It doesn't need to be all that hard. It's just— it's like literally just sitting without like scrolling on your phone for 5 minutes, just taking that same 5 minutes and just, you know, breathing and relaxing and, you Maybe you do other self-care practices at the same time, like put a nice face mask on or one of these red light therapy things that goes on your face while you're doing it. So it still appeals to the Type 8 people that don't want to slow down. Like they can still do several things, but they're getting the same benefit. So anyway, I don't know if that's useful to anybody, but it's— there is a very different way to think of meditation where it doesn't have to be scary and it doesn't have to be hard. And you know, and it is actually— there's so much research to back that up. So I think for me, that's one of the best things that people can do that don't— doesn't cost anything to do it. So, um, well, Ryan, that you covered a lot of really amazing things there, and I think you mentioned earlier in our conversation that you do have some different, um, resources and online courses. Can you just talk a little bit about that so that people know how they can work with you, or what are your sort of specialties as far as, um, certain problems that people have that you can work with them either online or, or in person?

If you go to ryankennedyhealth.com, I'm sure we could put the link in the show notes. People could learn more about my private practice, becoming a patient, what areas I focus on, how I work with patients, and even book a free intro call to chat more and see if, you know, I can help you out, see if it'd be a good fit.

Mm-hmm.

And then there are, I have a, a men's program and a women's program kind of categories, you know, and within that I have like group programs where there's weekly coaching calls and, you know, online coursework. And then I also have some actual just online courses that really go into a lot of the things we touched on today, Cheryl, you know, go into a lot of the mindset component to habit formation and behavior change, go through morning and evening routines and daily habits to implement. Goes through nutrition and exercise and really bringing in a lot of the resources of like, here's a shopping list, here's a nutrition plan, here's, you know, a lot of, you know, healthy snack lists and a lot of these different kind of handouts and downloads that I've produced over the years that enable people to really take action on what they're learning. You know, make it crystal clear of like, here's a one-page quick checklist of like what you should be doing during the day to really hit a lot of these different, you know, milestones, so to say, or these different objectives without feeling scattered. That's the biggest thing, Cheryl, I find is there's so much noise and so much stimulus in people's worlds with social media and blogs and email newsletters and podcasts and YouTube. I mean, people are learning so many freaking things, right? Information is not a shortage. It's an abundance. But because of that, They're hearing like keto from this person, vegan from that person, HIIT training from this person, yoga from there. And they're hearing all these things from all these different people and they don't know what's right for them and they don't know how to systematize it either. They're just like, I know all these things are generally good. I've heard like 5,000 freaking things at this point, but I'm not even doing 5 of them because they don't know how to really bring it into a system of like, here's my day-to-day routine, here's where I could implement this. Here's what I can do that's going to be time efficient. Here are the most important things that are going to move the needle with the least amount of time and energy input. And that's really what I specialize in with my consulting I do with patients one-on-one. It's like, okay, open up your calendar. Let's see what time allotment you have. Let's see what you're currently doing. And let's make some tweaks. Let's talk through this and let's see what is going to be the best plan of action that you can stick with that's sustainable, that's not overthrowing your lifestyle, but rather integrating nicely into your lifestyle. And, you know, I have a bestselling book. I'll have to get you a copy, Cheryl, called Beyond Nutrition, and that's available. I think we sold out of hard copies that are on backorder, but it is available on digital version currently, and we should have hard copies back soon. What else? That's, that's the main thing. I love to share content, long-form content like this, Cheryl. I'm pretty active on Instagram, but they're just little snippets here and there. I'm much more, you know, into the podcast than YouTube style. So I have my own show, Ryan Kennedy Show, that I go through all these topics. You know, I have interviews weekly. I have solo episodes that are short, 5 to 10 minute episodes answering questions from listeners and going through a lot of just quick actionable tips and tricks that people can start to implement to better their lives and ultimately better their health.

Yeah, that's some amazing resources. And before I let you go, I'd be remiss since everybody knows that my favorite topic of conversation is nutrition. So I'm just interested, and you know, and you know, I have a bias, but I will, um, and this is coming up, but I've tried it all over the years. You know, I was the no-fat person, which my brain did not function well. That's a whole nother story when you're talking about depression and, you know, years of being a vegetarian. And of course, you know, now that I'm very focused on low-carb and keto nutrition. So I would love to hear your perspective. And my thing I always say to people, like, hey, even if you don't want to— if you know, if you want to go all the way to keto, that extreme, or you don't want to go all the way to vegan, what I say to people is eat whole foods for the most part. Like, nobody ever got really probably super sick from eating a lot of whole foods outside of— there are some vegetables, like you said, that have defense chemicals. And everybody knows my bias on that too because I listen to Paul Saladino a lot, and I think he makes some good arguments.. But now I wanna hear Ryan's arguments for these things. Like what, what are you focused on? What do you think people could have the most benefit of changing in their diet?

Yeah, I'm sure we see pretty eye to eye based on what you shared there. I would say the most, the, the mainstream diet that most people would be familiar with that aligns most closely with my philosophy would be called Whole30, which is essentially whole foods, lots of high quality animal foods. I think that's really should be the, a foundation. And just to be clear, this does not necessarily mean that you should be eating lots of animal foods right now. What I found, Cheryl, is because meat is really difficult to digest, it requires a lot of stomach acid and digestive fire to break down meat. If you have someone with a gut imbalance that's not producing enough stomach acid or enzymes, and you throw them on like a carnivore-ish type diet or like a heavy meat diet, Well, guess what? They're going to feel absolutely terrible. They're going to have lots of fermentation, lots of bloating, lots of gas because they can't break down the heavy, heavy protein. Doesn't mean meat is bad. It's one of the most nutrient-rich foods on the planet, but it means that it's not okay for that person at that time. And that's the big caveat to understand, is that while I can tell you what my ideal diet would be for humans in general, it doesn't mean that everyone listening to this would benefit from that in this present moment. Sometimes I have people follow— and I'm about as far from a vegan person as you can be. I think it's just one of the worst diets because you're missing out on so many essential fatty acids and micronutrients. But there are some times when I have people follow a more vegetarian-based diet where they're eating easy-to-digest proteins. Maybe it's, you know, mixing in some eggs and some fish, but they're not doing any red meat. They're not doing any chicken or turkey or things like that because they can't really break it down. As far as the plant side of things go, I am a big proponent of whole fruits, which I wasn't always. I came from more of a low-carb background years ago and have recently adopted a different approach that I see working better for most people long-term. I think that the low-carb approach of doing, uh, closer to a ketogenic diet— I would call it a high-protein ketogenic diet— is very effective for the initial stage of someone's weight loss journey. For the first 1 to 3 months. I see that work like incredibly well. They redevelop insulin sensitivity, their glucose management gets back under control, they lose weight very quickly, they develop that metabolic flexibility. But then long term, you need to bring back in some degree of carbohydrate. And it's not like you need to bring in bread and pasta and cookies and crackers. You need to bring in whole fruits, root vegetables. I'm a big fan of clean burning starch like potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, yams, these things that are really, they're higher in carb carbohydrate load, but they tend to be very low inflammatory. I would also include white rice in that list, different squashes. These are foods that I recommend to people, but just depending on their activity level will depend on the amount. I always tell everyone, Cheryl, earn your carbs. If you're sitting at the desk all day, you don't need carbs. You know, get your vegetables.

I just had this conversation with my husband. Yeah.

But if you're, if you're like a hard-training weekend warrior that's crushing CrossFit workouts, good luck on keto. You're gonna, you're gonna feel terrible. So it's really dependent on the individual and dependent on a number of variables. But honest, the, the premise that you shared at the beginning of just eating whole foods is, is definitely that, you know, where most people just need to start. And then finding foods you like, you know, like that's the biggest thing is just making it, I've gotten to a place with my nutrition, Cheryl, where I go out to eat at restaurants maybe once or twice a month because I just don't enjoy it compared to what I prepare myself. It's not like I have this tremendous willpower. I'm some sort of freaking, you know, freak of nature. I literally would rather eat the food I prepare because I've gotten pretty dialed in the kitchen of knowing what I like, what I don't like. And, you know, obviously I'm using ultra-high-quality ingredients. I know exactly what's going into it. Health aside, I would— the food that I prepare, I like more. I'm not saying I'm some world-renowned chef. Other people, if you came over and ate, you might not agree with me, but I really tailored my meals to be things that I'm like, there's no restaurant— I live in San Diego— I'm like, there's no restaurant in San Diego I'd rather be at if all else was equal. Health aside, cost aside, all else was equal, I would rather be right here in my kitchen eating what I just prepared. Than any other fancy restaurant, you know, with all the other hoops and whistles and things like that. So that's where I really try and get people to. It's like, how can we make it so that you want to eat this stuff? Like, this is your choice, not just like some diet or some, you know, short-term thing you're trying to follow. I want it to be like you wake up and you're like, oh, I cannot wait to get to dinner because I got this, these fish tacos planned that are gonna blow your freaking socks I totally feel you on this so much because anybody that's been around my Instagram knows that I cook all the time, and I actually have a cookbook coming out this summer.

And but I always worry about that because I'm like, well, I love what I eat and I love the flavor profile that I love, and I'm like, I can't guarantee that that means that you will like it. Um, hopefully these people that buy the cookbook will like it, but, um, but it is getting— and, you know, people overcomplicate that as well. I mean, one of the things I think is a beauty of getting to into this sort of thinking and paradigm on your, on, and eating for health is that now quite often I will just put a piece of protein on my plate. That can be a meal. There doesn't have to be all of these sides and extra things. If you just have one really delicious thing that you love, like you said, finding the thing that you love. There's, there's a lot of like old food rules that just don't necessarily apply. And I'm not saying like never eat another vegetable again or something, but it certainly from a sustainability and time standpoint, they're— hey, some meals maybe just need to be simple and be one thing or two things, and you don't have to make it overly complicated.

So, and one more tip on that that I think gets overlooked: you gotta up your sauce game, folks. I'm telling you, it doesn't— I mean, you could eat any meat, any fish, any vegetables, but if you have the right lineup of sauces— I am like the pesto king, Cheryl, and then I also love, like, I get to make this buffalo sauce that's like a cauliflower carrot base with like some seasonings, and all— it's out of this world good. And then to And you know, there's so many great sauces. I used to use a lot of Primal Kitchen stuff. I've kind of shifted to other sauces that I just love. But having a variety of really epic sauces, you can put just about any animal food or any plant food, like any vegetable on my plate, and I'm gonna be a happy camper because I got my sauces. So that's clutch. That's clutch. I think people just don't, don't pay enough attention to that and don't prioritize it enough. And once you find some, like, you know, a handful of sauces you really like, you can fluctuate between, all food tastes good at that point.

This might be like the best tip that you've given this whole interview. It's all about the sauce. I love it.

You gotta get sauces. Yeah.

Yeah.

That's, that's absolutely essential.

Well, Ryan, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you. We already said all the places that you're active online, but I will have all of that in the show notes and maybe even I won't hold you to this, but maybe I could even convince you we could share that little sauce recipe that you were just talking about, or a sauce recipe. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Okay. All right. Well, thank you again. And I hope to be— keep in touch and just enjoy your work.

Appreciate it, Cheryl McColgan.

All right. Thanks.