282. Burnout Isn't Weakness - It's Biology (w/ James Marr)

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Cool. Today on the HPF podcast, we're joined by James Ma, a highly regarded accredited naturopath and nutritionist based on the central coast in New South Wales. He specializes in helping busy stressed men reclaim their energy, vitality and resilience by fixing the real causes, not just masking symptoms. Better be careful. This intro, James, is like five pages long, mate. Because of all the success, I might have to shorten this one up.

Sure, give the brief version.

Yeah, that's right. Thanks for joining us today, mate. How are you?

Oh, very well, thanks, Alex. I'm really, really happy to be here with you, especially with your demographic. Yeah, I feel like, you know, a lot of guys out there need some help with their health and yeah, I love to help people reclaim their wellness.

Yes. And doing so well with some of our members already, mate. And one of those being myself too, I've really enjoyed, which I'll dig into a bit later. Some of the work we've done, mate, which has been pivotal for me given the, the. The growth of HPF, entering my 40s, having another, another child, my fourth. So juggling the stress with not only my wife. Hopefully Quinn doesn't listen to this podcast. You don't cause me any stress, darling. You're not at all my other three kids and then little Flossy. Um, so can't wait to dig into that stuff as well and how you've helped me. So, guys, James is the founder of James Marr Neutropathy. What what I love most about James Z Blend's evidence based functional testing with targeted practical herbal nutritional and lifestyle medicine to address Issues like chronic fatigue, sleep disruption, gut dysfunction, metabolic imbalance, problems that often lie underneath what standard medical testing misses. With over two decades of studying clinical experience. James holds a Bachelor of Health Science in Neutropathy along with advanced diploma Tropathy, Herbal Medicine, Homeopathy, nutritional nutrition, Remedial massage. A bachelor, even a Bachelor of Arts in Communication which does and I will say I was extremely impressed on our, on our first call mate gives you an incredible skill set and rare ability with most people who are high level technicians, so to speak, in their field to actually translate complex health science into real world actionable plans for everyday men. Mate, we'd love to expand on some of this stuff. What I've got here as well from the stuff we've gone through in my notes is your approach focuses on finding and addressing root causes such as chronic stress, adrenal strain, gut imbalance. That was a big one for me. Metabolic dysfunction, another one for me. Rather than just chasing numbers on blood work, you're known for helping clients, even those with normal quote unquote blood tests, finally feel restored with their energy, improve with their sleep. More motivation by uncovering the hidden drivers of their symptoms. That's why I love this and I can't wait to dig into this with you mate. With all of you men listening here, you know whether you're talking about fatigue and no matter how many coffees you have, it doesn't fix it. Gut issues that you just shrug off that do come back and bite you in the ass. Me being one big a victim of that, unfortunately chasing elite sport, all sorts of things from years of any inflams to just out training a poor diet, which you can actually do even though people say you can't, you can because I'm a perfect example for that. But everything catches up to you. You can't do it as you get older, that's for sure. But what I love mate is in, in the field and the, the scope of the men you work with. Mainly all of you men listening to this as well and almost all of you. If you do work with James one day I'm sure you'll get your wives on board too because he does phenomenal work for fathers and their families. He helps you understand men, what's really going on. That's my biggest takeaway so far under the surface and how to actually how to address it properly and not just out supplement it and think she'll be right or just accept it. But there's some of the biggest takeaways because I made some notes from Even our consults we've had, mate. But I guess my first thing is for you would love to just understand your background in your words, mate, even going into your upbringing, whatnot, but what got you into this line of work. And then I guess from there we'll take it into some of the biggest lies that men like me have been told about health and the health and wellness industry. Things that we think we should be doing, but shouldn't. Things that we shouldn't be doing, but we are. But we'd love to learn a little bit more about you first, mate, and then dig into some. Some powerful stuff these boys will get some great value out of.

Sure. That was a amazing intro. Thank you. I feel like you've talked me up more than I would ever talk myself up. So I appreciate your kind words, Alex. So look, a bit of just general background on me, my family, really on both sides of my family. Both my mother's side of the family and father's side of the family, actually very medical. My mother's father, my grandfather was a doctor. He was an obstetrician. My mother's a physiotherapist. My. On my dad's side, his. His mother was a physiotherapist. His sister's a physiotherapist. My father's other sister, my aunt, is a doctor. So lots and lots of, I guess, conventional medicine through both sides of the family. And I think that started sort of leaning me into an interest in biology generally. That was sort of one of my favorite subjects at school is a human body and how everything works together as this amazing machine that, you know, quite frankly, we still know so little about, you know, anyone. It's always a big red flag if you ever have someone say, but this is what the science tells us, and we know everything about this when it comes to human physiology. I can guarantee you there'll be a new finding in six months that completely blows that theory out of the water. And all of a sudden the whole, you know, zeitgeist or opinion changes. But yeah, lots of. Lots of medical background through the family. But I didn't actually end up moving into a sort of a health field initially. After school I did my Bachelor of Arts because, quite frankly, I didn't know what I wanted to do. And Bachelor of Arts seems to be a kind of typical, you know, when your parents say you have to go to university, but you don't know what you want to do at university, so you end up doing a Bachelor of Arts. But I actually loved that and it did, you know, you mentioned it was a Bachelor of Arts in Communication, and that actually did. It's really helped me in what I do now because communication is so important when it comes to health and translating what can just sound like gobbledygook from a medical and science perspective into what actually is practical and actionable for people. Um, so I did that. And then I. I actually had a career in advertising in film production. TV and film production in advertising pretty soon after university. And I. That was pretty much where my interest in neutropathy came from, because I was in a hugely stressful field. Um, I was kind of early on, I was put in charge of these TV adverts with massive budgets. I felt like I didn't know what I was doing half the time, but I was in charge of large amounts of people to get their job done properly. And often people didn't do their job properly, but it was my fault when they didn't. So you can imagine the amount of kind of stress and pressure that would have come in that field. And I started getting lots of digestive issues, so lots of IBS and gut pain, indigestion. And initially I sought help from. From a more conventional medical perspective. And so I was prescribed, and by the way, without any kind of testing, which I take massive umbrage with now, but prescribed antibiotics, prescribed anti inflammatories, prescribed IBS drugs, antispasmodics, all sorts of things, and they didn't fix it at all. You know, maybe sometimes I got some symptom remission, and then it would just come charging back in again. So that really made me start looking at other ways to actually fix myself. And I had some interest in natural medicine already, mainly because I have had a couple of good friends who were quite interested in that field. And that moved me into looking into how I could fix myself. And lo and behold, through a combination of nutritional and herbal medicine and dietary modification, I fixed the problem. And that was a big light bulb moment for me, which was, okay, maybe, you know, conventional medicine's amazing. You know, it saves lives all the time. But for things like chronic gut issues, for example, which was what I was experiencing, maybe there's a better way. And I kind of guess that was where I realized, oh, there's definitely a better way. So as part of that, I realized a big issue was the stress that was driving my gut problems. So I needed to change fields. And through that own personal experience, I decided, well, I want to learn how to do this professionally. Because I saw the results that I achieved and I wanted to help other people achieve the same thing. So that's what moved me into initially doing remedial massage because I kind of, it was halfway through, I think, the, the term of study that I realized I wanted to be a naturopath. So it was too, too late to join that sort of intake. So I did remedial massage instead, which was a really good way to get a foundational understanding of anatomy and physiology, especially biomechanics. And then after doing that for six months, then I started studying as a naturopath. And as you said, I decided to do it at the university level because I'm naturally very logical and science minded in the way I think. So I knew I never wanted to be and I don't want to. I'm not belittling any other practitioners that do practice this way. But I knew personally I never wanted to be the kind of woo woo approach to neutropathy, which is more that sort of energetic medicine or muscle testing or, you know, looking in people's irises to figure out what's wrong with them. I wanted to be very science based in what I did. So I decided to do it at that, at that level through the degree process. And then, yeah, I didn't go straight into practicing in clinic. I actually ran a chain of Go Vita stores for a number of years as an area manager and I was essentially their trainer. I did a lot of education of stuff on supplements and what supplements do what and how to in a very brief time on a shop floor, figure out what someone needs and give them the right products to help them get better. Because that's a real testing ground. In a retail space. You've got a very little period of time to try and give someone the biggest bang for their buck. So I did that for a number of years and then moved into clinical practice. I think you made me feel very old earlier, Alex, by telling me that I've been doing this for two decades. So running a clinical practice, I would say I've never really looked at the. It would have to be 15 years in clinical practice, probably creeping closer to 20 years in clinical practice. I would say now at least the sort of higher teens and yeah, and loving it. I'm just so grateful. I love what I do, you know, I genuinely feel like, I know it's not that common that people get to really love what they do and I do. So I'm so glad I quit advertising, no regrets at all, and now run a clinical practice helping with a range of different health issues. I'm very general in what I do in terms of. I don't necessarily intentionally specialize in any particular area. I naturally gravitate towards specialization in some areas because there's a much higher propensity of health issues in certain areas. And I'm sure we'll dig a bit deeper into that. But yeah, see a variety of people across different genders, different ages from little, little, little kids, you know, from six months onwards all the way up to I think my oldest patient might have been, I think in their early 90s that I've had and both men and women. So yeah, I don't know. Hopefully that gives you enough information about me and where I come from.

Oh man. Incredible, incredible intro. And what I love most is your love for the human body. Like in. In a clearly different way because I'm not experienced and don't have the, the accolades and, and the acumen like you do in your field. What I, what I love is the human body, James. And that was a huge thing for me being the really fat kid when I was younger, just figuring things out which ironically went to really. This is when even markets getting access to meat. We go to the local farm out western Sydney and we get like goat milk straight from the ladies farm illegally obviously because of the way they try and squash down on that, you know and just, just commercialize milk through the, the main supplies I guess because there's nothing wrong when we had it. But my brother and I mate, we were just a quality dairy, meat, vegetables. And I went from that big fat kid who was, who was obese to an elite athlete. So it seems the common thread that we share is a love for the human body and what it can do. And in different ways for me it was absolutely that wow, look at what can happen. The transformation and then the performance. You know, it's a, it's incredible. But what I got from everything you shared was I'd say the biggest or. And could be wrong. But one of the most attractive things for you would have been the light bulb of separating symptom to root cause. And you mentioned some of the notes and stuff we've gone through. You've got a bit of a model of, of looking for smoke versus looking for the fire. You know, a lot of, a lot of people, they'll treat the symptom as the cause. And mate, this is symbolic of life, right? Like we get men who reach out and they're. The marriage is problem. It's like your marriage might be a symptom. But the cause isn't your fucking wife. Don't worry about your wife for now. Let's focus on you and re. Establishing your own personal authority, healthy boundaries, develop yourself, learn skills to be more valuable. Stop assuming, giving what you, your wife needs and actually listen and provide that, Provide it at a, at a, at a structured and stable, stable level. You're not here to be anyone's puppy dog or. Yes, man. So it's across life. It's, it's, it's, it's paramount to understand the difference between a symptom and root cause. But when it comes to health and well being, we're just looking for the quick hits, man. Like we treat the symptom as the enemy. Let me just alleviate that and I'm, I'm good. But, but it sounds like you had some great breakthroughs, although not sustainable. But then when you actually mastered the field. But today, what you do on a professional level. Do you want to walk us through, I guess. Like what? Like explaining that smoke versus the fire and what you've seen in your experience on, on that. And actually getting to the root cause of things when it comes to health and wellbeing in your experience.

Absolutely, yeah. So this is a. I was going to say analogy and now I want to say metaphor. I can never remember which one I should be saying for this, but this is something I always tell. Well, I frequently tell to my male patients who come to me and maybe they're a little bit reticent about seeing a naturopath because they think we're waving crystals and burning incense and whatever else. And some probably do. It's certainly not what I do. But you know, if someone's been very entrenched in the conventional medical system, which again, they save lives when there's an acute life threatening issue, please see a doctor, don't go see a naturopath, you know, go see your doctor. But for chronic long term health issues, really conventional medicine is not that well armed to deal with it. And the best analogy is imagine your car, right? Your oil gauge in your car is right down to zero, okay? And your car's sputtering and jolting along and shaking as you drive and shuddering. And you're like, oh, I gotta get this fixed. So you pull into the workshop and you go up to the top, you know, your top dog mechanic there, the best in the business, and you go to him, you say, mate, there's something really wrong with my car. It's having all sorts of issues. I think it's about to fall apart. He's like, oh, what? You know, what's. Apart from the shaking and shuddering, what's been the obvious sign that there's a problem? You say, oh, well, the oil gauge is on zero. He's like, oh, I can sort that out for you. No worries. And he pulls out a pack of band aids, and he puts a band aid across the oil gauge so you can't see it anymore. And he goes, there you go. Taken care of. Now your car's all fixed. You're like, so if someone did that, if you went to a mechanic and they did that, you would obviously say to them, you haven't fixed the problem at all. Like, at the very least, you need to fill the oil tank up again because it's out. And also, there's probably been a lot of damage on the rest of the vehicle from being low on oil for so long, so we need to fix that as well. But essentially, it is not really different to what the conventional medical system's doing in that if you're presenting with symptoms, you know, be that high blood pressure or you're getting lots of IBs, or you're having issues with sleep at night, you know, if. If the only solution that's offered is a drug that artificially fixes, you know, I'm gonna say fix in inverted commas, artificially changes that symptom and masks it so you no longer feel it anymore, it's clearly not fixing the core problem, right? You're band aiding it. You're not fixing the core problem. So if it's a gut issue, if you're getting gut pain and bloating and loose stools and cramping and nausea, and they give you a drug that's just shutting down those symptoms. Whatever's driving those symptoms is still there. That's not being resolved. And so let's say, for example, it's an infection, some sort of infection in your gut, and that's not being taken care of, then the issue is that you could keep masking those symptoms. So therefore, that's the smoke, but that fire is still simmering. And the thing about the body is it's always trying to tell you when something's wrong. So if you ignore those signals from the body and you just artificially suppress them, they will find ways to resurface in other ways. You know, you'll get other symptoms start to crop up. And essentially, if that just keeps happening through someone's lifetime, you end up as a really sad, all too common kind of picture, which is an old person, you know, old way before their time, shuffling around on, you know, 10 to 15 different medications that are. Half of them are in place to deal with the other medications that cause side effects and starting to get some really, really serious health issues at way too young an age, you know, from. From mid-60s onwards. And they're lo the quality of their life. And unfortunately, that might drag out for 20 to 30 years. And it's a really hard ship to turn around at that point if they've had a lifetime of that ignoring those symptoms and continuing to suppress them. So that fire always finds a way to come out in other ways. And it is sad that that's almost the rule rather than the exception in Western society these days. And I think that everyone listening to this, if I just say to them, just think about. And it might have only happened a couple of times to them, they've met an older person, say someone in their sort of 70s or even 80s, who's actually been the exception rather than the rule. And they've kept themselves fit and strong. They've maintained their muscle mass as best they can intentionally. They've avoided loads of processed food, they've eaten healthy food. And when they've started to get symptoms, they've listened to it and they've actually dealt with the root cause before it grows into something else. And when you meet those people, it's almost a slap in the face because they're such an exception. You see those people that are vibrant at that kind of age. And, you know, I love it when I meet those people because I'm like, yeah, like, I idolize you because you are walking the path that I'm walking in my life. And I very much hope that's how my life goes when I'm older. I'm doing everything I can to make that happen. But we should all aspire to that, you know, we all should aspire to be. And, you know, and the other thing is, we're almost led to believe that that's almost impossible to attain. You know, we're almost led to believe that we should be decrepit and, and, and, you know, stooped and weak when we're old and struggling to walk up and down stairs. You know, that that is not true. Our, our ancestors, you just look at any kind of ancestral, tribal kind of group, and man, those old blokes, they're ripped, they're strong, you know, and typically, if you follow that kind of lifestyle, you will remain strong and fit and well, until you're not. And then you go, you know, and it's quick and it's not a lingering sad decline into decrepitude. So, you know, that's the bigger picture for me is that I want, I really want everyone in society. But I think men are the most prone to this because they're not really encouraged to be health focused the way that women are. You know, our, our circles, our influences, often in general kind of circles, they don't encourage health as much as I think women. Naturally there's more of a drive to be. Well, I don't know if that ties into needing to bear children and you know, the need to be healthy because of that biological drive. But I feel like men is not nearly as much focus on their health as there should be and not nearly enough focus on taking care of themselves as well as they take care of their cars. You know, most guys, I feel like, take care of their cars way better than they take care of their bodies. And this, this machine that we live in is a much more high performance, amazing machine than the best car on the road. So I feel like I kind of might have rambled and gone a bit off track there. But you know, that, that is, that is really what drives me. I want, I want to see everywhere these 70 to 80 year old blokes who are still ripped and strong and switched on and super alert and staying active and able to carry heavy bags of groceries and walk up and down stairs and have that light about them, that vibrancy, you know, that's what we should all aim for. And I just think we're generally discouraged from doing that, you know, and it's, and it's really sad and it's,

you

know, it's like dying well before your time, having 20 to 30 years of sad decline where you should just be like chucking your grandkids around and you know, jumping in the pool with them and running on the beach with them. And we can do that. Our bodies are capable of that. But you got to work towards that. You got to put in the effort and you got to have the knowledge and know if you're getting some smoke, you know, know there's a fire there. Let's find the fire, let's get that fixed so that that doesn't turn into more and more issues down the line.

Yeah, absolutely. Couldn't agree more, mate. Especially with like, what better combination than wisdom and vitality mixed together 100%. It's, you know, it's. I just turned 40 last year and I still feel like I'm in my early 20s. In, in, in, in, in in heart or in my mind or. I don't know if you guys feel the same, but I remember asking my dad, my dad on, for a podcast, James, and he's 70. I said, how do you actually feel? Said, because I feel like this is like, you know what? Like if you'd asked me, just pinpoint back in my head, in my mind somewhere, I'm still in my, like late 30s. That's just where my head is at the moment. But here I am, I'm 70. And when you look at life, mate, it's so quick. It's so much quicker than people think. But why the unnecessary acceleration in decay? Because what I see with thousands, thousands of men now, James, is they're burning. Even in their 30s, they're burning and they're burning, they're burning too hard. And then like, and maybe that's not the word, but it just comes to mind like these, these men, they're just not burnt out, but they're burning out. And then in their 40s, they're breaking. And then in their 50s, they're crippled. And yeah, you might be mentally tough and maybe one of your legs and two of your arms works well, but then you've got like. But the other leg is, you can't run anymore or even ride a bike or just these little things. When I say crippled men in their 50s or like you said, in their 60s, like, mate, you could be alive for the next 30 years. Like, the quality of life is like, that's so. And then the example that is not being set for your children, you know, and your grandchildren. And it's. It's tough, man, because like I said, I've just turned 40 and I'm trying to make up for the sins of the past, which I've been doing some work with you on. 10 years, 10 years of anti inflammatory. So I could compete with rugby league and CrossFit due to my knee operations. And I get the needle like every, maybe every two to four weeks, I get the big needle in my knee, pull out this. I think it's the symbiotic fluid, big yellow bit of fluid just so I could drain the knee and go play again. And stupid stuff, mate. There's your symptom right there. What are you doing playing rugby league out every two to three weeks? You got to get your knee drained, mate. Like, just stupid, but young and dumb, right? But as we get older with men and these responsibilities, you've got to be smarter. And that's what I love with the work I'm doing with you, it's like you got to be smarter. And the craziest part is, mate, despite having not a lot of sleep at the moment with Florence, I mentioned to you in our consult the other day, my PBS are going up in my lifts and my strength, endurance. Now what is suffering is my endurance. So I'm good till about 3, 4 in the arvo and I notice an absolute dip. But like I said to you before we hit record last night, Flossy woke up once. Mate, I'm charging all day. Like we're recording this at five o' clock in the afternoon. I'm sweet. So even then with deprived sleep, just you working on. Which we can cover or not. Maybe another day. But you're helping me. Absolutely. With my hormones and with my, my gut health and my metabolism as well. But like they're two pretty big drivers. It's been incredible to see the changes in less than two months. We'll talk about the timeline stuff though. We definitely will with these men and what you can expect when you actually nail the right stuff. But is that the biggest lie though? Like what is the biggest lie that we're being sold as men? It's, you know, yeah, your bloods are within, quote, unquote, a normal range. You just need more testosterone. Like men think that's it. Or my bloods are okay, but not, not really. It's by pretty general poor standards. Like what are the subtle signs that you've seen and what I guess is that the biggest lie. Men just, it's like they think it's just more testosterone that they need, which. Which I don't think is absolutely the answer at all. Or they get told it's different things or just to accept certain things. Like what. What are the signs you see and what are the big discrepancies that then fixes the mindset of these men to, like you said, not be as invested in their health as much as women.

Yeah. So I guess the first question in terms of the biggest lie that we're told in terms of health and wellbeing, especially as men, is. I mean, I couldn't, I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, but there is an interesting thing in us, particularly the males of our species, which is there's an element of self destructiveness in what we do as men and we, we sabotage ourselves not just from a health perspective, but from, in a lot of areas. And it, yeah, it's a smarter person than, than me to figure out why we do that. There's some very interesting writings about what drives us biologically to have that in us. Um, and I think the, it's not, I suppose it's not so much a lie, but it's almost like, I think it's almost like a self talk that men can have particularly, which is, you know, my health should not be the priority. My body will take care of itself. And if, if I'm having issues, there's a quick fix there. And I think actually if there ever was the biggest lie, it's using the word fix with the word quick when it applies to drugs and conventional medicine. So it's not a fix, it's a cover up of a deeper issue. And so the biggest, I guess if you take what I do, if I take what I do and I step as far away as that I can from it as I can and kind of give the broad overview of my view on health as a general kind of philosophy, it's that the first thing would be all the body systems are interconnected. That, that is, that is a big difference between naturopathic medicine and other fields of integrative medicine and your standard conventional medicine. So the word integrative is used a lot when it comes to natural approaches to medicine sometimes because it's saying that there's different modalities that integrate together when people see people in that kind of setting. But more importantly, it's actually meaning all body systems are integrated. Everything's connected, everything talks to everything else. Right. So that is a really important thing when you're trying to get someone. Well, if you're not coming from a place of realizing that everything's interconnected, it's very difficult to achieve full wellness in somebody. So that's one of the core guiding principles of what I do and what a lot of other practitioners in my field would do. But the other really, really key guiding principle in what I do is test. Don't guess. You know, I really think a huge part of my practice and the success I get with my patients is due to the fact that I'll get to the point of knowing what testing we need to do through a very thorough intake process, which you're aware of. Alex, you had to fill out my massive new patient intake form that asks hundreds of questions. And that's to really get a good baseline understanding of someone's complete health in all body systems before we even have a chat and sit down and have that first consultation. And then through that initial consult, we take time to talk through in detail symptoms and history and timelines and what makes things worse and what makes things better. And really understand, not just physically but also psychologically what's driving those issues potentially. And then taking all that data and, and I, and I look, quite frankly, using my clinical experience to go, all right, well, look, from everything we've discussed and everything that's indicated in your intake process, these are the body systems that seem to be having problems. Right. So I guess an example could be someone presenting with fatigue and let's say, like, here's a good example, anxiety. But this happens so much in my clinical practice. People present with anxiety as one of their symptoms. And there's a really key differential, which is, is that anxiety cognitively driven, I. E. Do you feel like you get anxious because you have a thought process first, and then you're anxious because you've been thinking about something that triggers the anxiety? Or does that anxiety just surface like a bubble out of the deep water with no warning and no obvious cognitive driver behind it? And it's amazing how often people say the latter. And. And then almost inevitably, those people also have gut problems. And so what happens in those situations is there's actually a pathogen in that person's gut that's producing toxins that are aggravating their nervous system. And the problem isn't, you know, if you go to a doctor. I'm sorry, I really do respect the conventional medical system. I really want to say that because they're. They say, I don't save people's lives acutely. Doctors do that all the time. So I'm so grateful we have doctors in a conventional medical system. But if you go to a doctor with that kind of presentation, they'll give you a drug for anxiety. Right. They're not thinking about your gut. They're not thinking what's happening in your gut that could be driving your anxiety. It's just not on their radar. But I can tell you it's amazing how often in those situations there is a specific pathogen in that person's gut that's producing toxins. It's aggravating their nervous system and driving their anxiety. And AI know that because there's lots of medical research around that now. Things like Streptococcus and Clostridium klebsiella, a number of gut infections that they know produce these toxins. They've even identified the specific toxin, like Clostridium has a toxin called 4Cresol that they've shown in clear studies, aggravates the nervous system. So it's all there in the, in the scientific literature. And you a. You need to do the Gut testing to know what, what you're dealing with in terms of pathogen, but then you know how to target that pathogen to effectively clear it. And it is profound how often, like just as that example, people's anxiety just melts away, Just goes, it goes. And you know, if, if you went and just got a, a antidepressant that's, you know, there's a number on the market now that are more geared for people with anxiety. That's not clearing the pathogen out of your gut. You know, it's gonna tweak your biochemistry so you don't feel the anxiety as much. But that pathogen's still there, it's still pumping toxin into your system. And then maybe six to 12 months later you wonder why you suddenly start getting an autoimmune disease. You know, because you've had this high degree of toxicity in your system that has created this low grade inflammation that's caused havoc in your immune system. And unfortunately you've had a bit of molecular mimicry between the pathogen protein and self tissue and you get an autoimmune process. So that's, that's, that's, that's a prime kind of example of what happens when you ignore the fire. So I was very hard to keep myself on track because I do ramble. Alex.

Sorry, but it's not a ramble, mate. It's very valuable.

But yeah, that's, it's, it's really important to understand that every part of the body talks to every other part of the body and it is very common. And that's just one example, the gut and anxiety and nervous system connection. But there's a myriad of examples like that, where one organ system is actually driving symptoms that seem completely separate in terms of where they're occurring in the body. But actually where it's coming from is a completely different part of the body. So it's sort of like, you know, sometimes I think I'm doing a Sherlock Holmes in these sorts of consults with people with. I see really the majority of my patients have really complex health issues and they've been in the conventional medical system, in and out of it for a decade and they finally find their way to me. And quite frankly, I love that. You know, I love figuring out those difficult cases and putting all the pieces together and going up, seeing that whole timeline, see how all those health issues have played out. And I guess when you've done this long enough, you can just see it, you can see those little pathways, you see those maps and how these issues play out. And it's tracing it all the way back and going, okay, well, here's where it all began. Obviously, we need to fix that. And unfortunately, in those situations, there's a number of other problems that have happened along the way because there have been more fires that have been occurring. So you've got to also fix all those other organ systems that have been caught up because of the complexity that snowballed over time. But, yeah, it's that. Yeah, it's really. I remember when I was younger, I loved that House TV show. I don't know if you remember that. The doctor who was like the super. Like, he was the one who could figure out the problems when no one else could because he could sort of see things other people couldn't. And I'm no House, but I love doing that. I love seeing these complex health issues and being able to really unravel them and get to the heart of the problem and fix that. That issue. And just seeing this burden lift from people, whatever they've been carrying for so long, and then it's how that translates into not just their general health, but it's. It's being able to connect with your life again. You know, there's chronic illness is. Again, it's that saying, you know, you don't. Health is the most important thing. Right. You can have all the money in the world, but if your health is in the gutter, you don't. You don't enjoy that money, you don't enjoy your life. You're in pain, you're struggling to focus on things. You can't hold your attention, your sleep's poor. You know, you're getting headaches all the time. Whatever it is, it's very hard to enjoy anything when you're unwell. So that's the priority. And that's what I love seeing. I love seeing people like, they're, like, reclaiming their lives. That sounds like a very, you know, bold or maybe exaggerated statement, but I legitimately feel that. I think if you get your health back, you get your life back. And I love seeing people get their lives back.

Absolutely. We're big on leadership made inside of hpf. Right. So everything you mentioned was how that person who is decaying much faster than he should is feeling. But then what is he to others? Like, what value could you possibly have to your wife, to your children, to your clients or people that you impact? Workers, colleagues, employees. It's, it's. It. Everything else is more important. So you lose your health and nothing else is more important. Right? That's right, exactly. What you're saying then. But yeah, the, for those, obviously on the podcast, James is wearing the hat and he's got a monocle and a pipe, so he's Sherlock Holmes. He just can't see it.

That's right.

At least you're real, though. House is an actor, mate. Like, what you're doing is real, real work. And, and I knew, I knew, I knew when I first met you, went through our consult, how much you love the investigative stuff, but just how quickly you made everything make sense. And I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, but also I've worked with lots of people in the, in the health space, so to speak. But geez, mate, you're, you're pretty quick in, in nailing it. And, and, and that was, and has been, it's been awesome. But we'll talk on timelines too, actually, because, yeah, so I'm coming up to two months. So I know you say there's no quick fix, but I think it's possibly more in reference to maybe the medical industry are trying to give you silver bullets where you probably shouldn't be having them. Because if we're looking across the span of time and how long, I wouldn't say abusing my body, but how long I've, you know, neglected or not had the awareness or insights that I should have internally as opposed to just looking at my body fat percentage and how much I can lift in the gym and how well I ate for the week. I've had some pretty, pretty good turnarounds, man. Again, I haven't abused my body for, for decades and I don't drink alcohol or smoke or do other things that could chronically create bigger problems. But I had, I had some, some serious concerns that we had to address. Right. So, but what would you, I guess, you know, I know you've got confidentiality, but walking us through, like, what are some of those other you mentioned, like there's different systems that it could be one, but it's actually the other. Or, or if you wanted to walk us through maybe a real case or real life example made of like, how long before that person felt different, what did you prescribe? Like what. And again, it doesn't have to be an actual person, but yeah, I guess I'd love to know the timeline on what changes first. Or what, what was the diagnosis? An example of a man, he's middle aged, you know, he's fatigued, he's flat, he's irritable, he's grumpy. What did you do? What did you find? Obviously, could be anything, but what's something you have found before? How long did you. How did you treat it? What was the turnaround? We'd love to get a bit of an example, I guess, mate.

Yeah, of course. All right. So it's interesting because as much as I'm very focused in my clinical practice on never being dogmatic about things, never falling into that trap of, oh, I've seen this before, this is going to be the same as that last patient I had with similar symptoms. You know, that's. That's. I think when you start doing that as a practitioner, it's either time to retrain or retire, quite frankly, because you always need to take every patient as very unique in their own case and draw no conclusions based on what you might have seen that looked the same previously. And I'm glad I hold to that philosophy because I reckon I would have fallen into some big traps if I had thought that way, because I've had a lot of. Let's just keep it as, you know, men coming to me with health issues. And on the surface, those issues all look really similar. And it is what you've already said, you know, fatigue, that's often a very primary concern. Libido is another big one. You know, I just don't have any libido anymore. Don't feel like, you know, ever having sex with my wife. You know, like, I hear that a bit, especially in contrast to how they might have been when they were younger. You know, they see that real difference. Gut issues are really common. Lots of digestive issues. Very, very common. And just feeling like I just don't have any drive anymore, you know, that's a common thing I hear from men. The wind has been taken out of my sails in terms of work performance, particularly. I just don't have that tenacity I had when I was younger. I don't have that fight in me anymore. Um, so that's sort of the general presentation. I see. So I'll. I'll give you a couple of case examples. Um, so let's. Let's. Age bracket wise, I would say with both of these cases, they were in their mid to late 40s. Um, the first case was someone who came to me primarily because of digestive issues. Um, and it's interesting how often this happens. But they. The form they filled out really only listed digestive issues as their health concern. Because that's, as you remember, Alex, it's the sort of. One of the first things you fill out in my intake form is what Give me, there's five spots and I say give me from one to five. Your major health concerns. And they only filled out number one, which was gut issues. They had digestive issues, bloating, discomfort, alternating loose and hard stools. So when I went through the rest of the form and it's a lot of box ticking, interestingly, there were lots of digestive issue boxes, but there were also lots of boxes being ticked for sleep disruption and fatigue and problems with irritability, short tempers and yeah, issues with drive and libido and performance and all those sorts of things. So in that one hour initial consult, we talked through things in detail and yeah, there were definitely some gut issues. But as I said to that patient, we'll get that sorted in a way, that's the low hanging fruit. We can quite easily get your gut issues sorted. But I said I'm a bit concerned about how many boxes you're ticking for what looks like a lot of nervous systems dysfunction. And so what we ended up doing was, did, did a very, very thorough gut testing which we're probably going to talk through later. But we did that, that investigation into their digestion. But we also ran some detailed testing around their adrenals and their cortisol production. Not just a one off test, which is what you'll get through a doctor if you get it done. They just take usually a morning blood sample. But this test looks at multiple levels of cortisol through the day. So you get a really good, what's called diurnal rhythm tracking of cortisol as a reflection of their stress response. And we also looked at their hormones and did a very detailed hormonal breakdown. So it turned out that this person did have a number of infections in their gut. They had a lot of damage in their gut lining. And what was kind of interesting as well though is in this case, they didn't have any of those gut pathogens that typically affect the nervous system, but their cortisol was way out of whack. So what your cortisol should do is be high in the morning when you wake and it should steadily decline into the evening. And the reason for that is think of cortisol like you get up and go hormone and melatonin is your sleep hormone. Right. So they really should be at opposite ends of a seesaw. So when cortisol's up, your melatonin's down and as your cortisol falls during the day, your melatonin starts to lift and then that's what helps you sleep soundly at Night. So this person was the inverse, very low cortisol in the morning. So they were really struggling to wake and get going in the morning. And then it wasn't until around the middle of the day that they felt like they actually kicked into gear. And then what was happening was their cortisol was shooting up in the afternoon and into the evening and essentially suppressing melatonin. So they. They had that sleep suppression. But then also, interestingly, they were feeling really fatigued in the evening, despite the testing showing really high cortisol. So this is sort of getting into the weeds a little bit. But this is a very particular situation where someone's pumping out massive amounts of stress hormones, but essentially the body stops listening to it. Because one thing your body's always trying to do is keep balance. So if you have excessive amounts of something being produced at a time where that shouldn't be happening, your body will initially try to encourage all those mechanisms that make you produce less. But if that doesn't work, plan B is often, well, let's just stop listening to it, turn off the receptors so you don't listen to that anymore. So in this case, they were making massive amounts of cortisol because the receptors were turned off. They were getting no benefit from it. So they were massively fatigued in the afternoon and evening. But then, guess what? Despite being massively fatigued, they couldn't sleep at night. And that makes no sense, right? Like, if you're really tired all day, you should get into bed at night, and your head should hit that pillow, and you're out like a light. You should sleep like a baby all night because you've been so tired during the day. But that's always a massive red flag. Someone's fatigued all day and then they can't sleep at night. It's your adrenals, it's your stress response. So we got that gut pathogen issue cleared quite easily. And their bowels return to normal, their gut pain went away. We had to do some dietary modification because I was definitely eating some things that were causing lots of gut aggravation, but not massive dietary changes. What was more important for their gut was actually just clearing those pathogens with the right herbal medicine and certain nutrients, and that already made them feel better. But for that person, and this is something they very clearly said to me when we got this fixed, when we got their adrenals fixed, and we got that cortisol pattern back to how it should be, and they were sleeping soundly at night again. And it took. I think it was about three to four months to get that adrenal pattern fixed, Whereas the clearing the gut pathogen only took about six weeks. That was the easy part. Resetting that stress response and their nervous system took a bit longer, but they stuck to their guns, they followed the plan. And I just do remember them saying to me what I was already thinking, which was, I came to you for these gut issues, but, man, that was nothing compared to what that nervous system dysregulation was doing to me, because they could kind of soldier on with the gut problems. They were inconvenient and uncomfortable, but they weren't affecting their function nearly as much as all those nervous system issues were. So they. They were just so grateful that, you know, I could easily just go, okay, what. What do you have concerns about? And I'll just fix what you're concerned about, you know, and then you'll think I'm doing a good job, but. And I don't know, maybe this upsets people sometimes because I keep asking them questions and digging deeper, but I'm not happy till I've fixed someone's root cause issues. That's. I'm like a dog with a bone. I do not let go of that till I've fixed the core problem. And I remember him, yeah, saying, I'm really grateful that you didn't give up and you kept looking. And because that was the problem, that was actually much more of an issue. And they felt like they, you know, again, they felt like they got their life back because they were functioning again well. And you get so used to dysfunction. That's the big danger. It's like the whole, you know, lowering a frog into boiling hot water, it jumps straight out. But if you put it into lukewarm water and then you slowly turn the temperature up, the frog doesn't know it's boiling because it happens gradually. And they just think that's the new normal until they're dead. And that's what's happening with a lot of people's health. They just got these layers and layers of dysfunction. And because it's happening slowly over time, people forget what it's like to be vibrant and well. And it's such a satisfying thing to fix these core issues and see that veil lifted for people and go, I've forgotten what this feels like. You know, I thought I was okay. And all of a sudden, all those issues go away and they're like, that's right. That's what it really feels like to be. Well, you know, it's great to see that light Bulb turn on for people and then they never want to let go of it again because they remember. Um, so that, I guess that's one case example. Um, another one was actually I had a gentleman who. This is a very specific issue, but it might pertain to a number of men in your group. And that is that it's kind of in keeping with that, that principle of the body going into resistance to certain things when they're being overproduced. For too long, this individual had been on testosterone replacement therapy. Not under a doctor, it was sort of someone else doing it. But the problem was that they definitely did have low testosterone when they went in to getting this therapy applied. But. And I don't know whether it was the patient steering it or whether it was the practitioner prescribing the testosterone that was doing it, but they, the philosophy was, we want that testosterone as high as possible. You know, that seemed to be the philosophy. The more the better, right? And the problem was for this guy was that when he first started it, he felt this massive boost. He felt amazing. You know, his gains in the gym went through the roof. He had more libido and drive, he had more energy. You know, it was like a miracle thing. But within about three months, all of a sudden it was like the tap just got turned off. His libido gone, just stopped. It's like it stopped overnight. His energy plummeted. He didn't want to go to the gym and when he did, his performance was terrible. He was weak, he had no stamina. So we ran more testing and lo and behold saw that he was still on the TRT at the time. We did that follow up testing. Yes, his testosterone was through the roof. And I explained to him, you've been flooded with so much testosterone that your body has gone into plan B, which is stop listening to it. You know, your body knows that that is not biologically sound to have that much testosterone hitting your system. So he'd gone into testosterone resistance. Essentially his receptors had stopped listening to it. So his numbers look great on paper, but at a cellular level it was like he had none. He had no testosterone. So sometimes it's not that complicated in that for this, for this bloke, we just needed him to reduce his TRT quite significantly and he didn't do it suddenly. He did it steadily and slowly and already that made a big difference. And then what we needed to do was some additional herbal support. Because actually a big part of the problem with his testosterone wasn't that inherently his testosterone production and output was low. It was actually more that he had high levels of what's called sex hormone binding globulin, which locks up testosterone and stops it working in the body. So if you think of it like, you know, you can produce adequate testosterone, but if this S H B G is finding it and encapsulating it and stopping it doing its job, again at a cellular level, it's like you've got none. So what was more important for him was actually addressing that shbg, which is a whole different issue. If you've got high shbg, it's usually because you've either got too much adipose tissue, fat tissue in layman's terms, and that's estrogenic, it's producing estrogen and it's actually estrogen that stimulates the production of shbg. But ironically, SHBG would much rather lock up testosterone than estrogen once it's produced. So that can be part of the problem or sometimes it's exposure. What are called xenoestrogens, which are chemical estrogens in plastics, particularly, you know, people drinking out of plastic water bottles all the time, especially if they've been left in hot environments. Classic way to get loads of xenoestrogen into your body that stimulates shbg, that locks up your testosterone, your actual production might be fine, but you're locking it all up and stopping it working. So we worked on his SHBG and after doing that for a couple of months, he was actually, he, he felt like from just a sort of what you would associate with testosterone and good testosterone, he actually felt like he was getting a much more profound sense of a strong amount of testosterone in his system than when he was on trt. Yet his numbers were way lower. You know, he was getting to a really good range on his testosterone again, but his SHBG was right down, so it was able to do its job properly. And he wasn't triggering red alert in his body that he was over overproducing. Like his body thought he was overproducing testosterone. You know, that's. Your body doesn't know you're injecting it. His body thought he had a glandular problem and he was producing way too much testosterone. So that, that feedback loop was broken in a good way. And his body was like, oh no, this is good. We don't want to turn off the receptors, turn them all back on. So his, his testosterone didn't need to be through the roof. We just needed to optimize the way his body deals with it. So, yeah, I guess that is a key thing. A lot of men think they've got low testosterone and sometimes that genuinely is the problem. But it's definitely the minority of the time. If men are tired and fatigued and they've got low libido and they're not feeling motivated at work and all these issues, I can tell you, it's nine times out of 10, probably more than that, but let's be conservative. Nine times out of 10, it's a nervous system issue, it's an adrenal issue. It's potentially a gut issue as well, affecting those organ systems. It can even be a thyroid issue sometimes. It's not as common in men, but I've definitely had cases of men where their problem was actually they were hypothyroid. And we got that fixed and all of a sudden everything resolved. It had nothing to do with their testosterone. So it's a. It's a dangerous thing when you think, oh, it's low testosterone. Without the right kind of testing, it's. It. It's not necessarily where you should be going. Cause you can actually. It can blow up in your face. If you seek again, that kind of quick fix of just shoving the testosterone into your body artificially. Sometimes it works really well, but it can definitely backfire. In my clinical experience, the.

On. On that, mate. Not that I consider that a supplement per se. Cause that's. That's starting to get pretty hardcore, getting into that stuff. But, like. But what would you say, like, what. What would be like, the top three supplements or things that men just should stop buying blindly or, or grabbing and thinking it's the answer? Or, you know, like, because. Because for me, I think when we did my bloods and I took a little bit of boron, right, which was just a supplement, which is found in raisins and turkey and other things. And I said, oh, that might help with freeing it up a little bit and whatnot. But. Yeah, but also there's. There's been times where I look back now, I'm like, you know what? A lot of these little, little subs I didn't quite need. And, and fish oils. Yes. But they're not too much. And like, there is a real, like, more is not better. Is what I've learned too stupidly through any inflammatory tablets. Mainly, like, man, I'd be doing sometimes 100. Is it 100 milligrams? It's measured. That's like four tablets. Like, it's so stupid, mate. Like, I look back, I was like, mate, Jesus, like, you're so lucky that you didn't just completely destroy yourself. But. Oh, and that's like almost every day because I'd be training five, six days a week with CrossFit. But what, what would you say would be on that? And then there's another thing. When you talk about the boiling frog man, there's a couple of shares that or there's a share in my timeline that I've definitely seen that and just accepted. This just is what it is where there's so much more Vibrance available to you. But yeah, what would be like, the. What like, would be the top supplements that men just need. It could be making it worse or they just should stop just going out and saying, yeah, this will fix it. Because the industry says so.

Yeah, I would say the number one again, because I see so many of these issues in men. And you flagged it, Alex. You said these guys who are just, they're burning themselves too hot. You know, they're racing towards burnout. They're not burned out yet, but they're burning themselves out. And that's all very nervous system based. You know, that's all adrenal based. Essentially, that's stress hormone based. So the biggest mistake you can make is I'm fatigued, therefore I need to stimulate myself more with usually caffeine or sometimes other things. But I would say that's. That's one of the key supplements that men who feel burnt out should be very careful with because it circles back to that idea of hormone resistance. If you've got a situation, I'll just briefly touch on something which is the different stages of adrenal fatigue. So as your adrenals start to have issues, as your stress response starts to have issues, you can go from early stage dysfunction, where you're effectively overproducing stress hormone and your body's in a state of fight or flight consistently. And then over time, those high levels of stress hormone can start to peter out and drop away and become low level. When that gets really severe, you get what's often diagnosed as fibromyalgia from a clinical or conventional perspective, which is essentially, I'm sore all the time and I'm tired all the time. That's basically what fibromyalgia is. It's an adrenal problem. Fibromyalgia is Adrenal Dysfunction 100% every time. So you've got that spectrum, right? And when men are feeling burnt out, but they're still active and performing, but they're feeling like a shell of themselves, they're feeling hollow and there's not much more left to give. But they're still going. Usually that's that more early to mid stage where they're still overproducing stress hormones. So the problem is if you stimulate yourself more, if you drive more stress hormone production, you just accelerating the movement towards that late stage dysfunction where everything tanks and all of a sudden you can't function anymore. You just gone, you shattered. So stimulants for fatigue is a bad idea. That is almost always a race towards the finish line you don't want to be racing towards. Another one would be testosterone boosters. I mean, there's a lot on the market. Some, some are fine. Um, I'd be wary of a lot of the claims that are made about supplements that boost testosterone. And it's a twofold thing. One is that, as I said, it's probably not low testosterone. You know, it's probably not the problem. Um, but the other issue with those supplements is a lot of them just don't work. They really just don't. Um, and so even if it is a low testosterone issue, there's really only two or three herbs, it's really only two actually, that I've got some clinical confidence in being able to boost testosterone. And it's. Yeah, it's never a great idea in isolation anyway because there's always other factors. But I'm happy to say them. Essentially Tribulus is one herb that seems to work fairly consistently for people. And the other one is fenugreek extract. There's a patented one called Testofen, and they're the only two that I've seen enough research on to make me somewhat confident in them as ways to raise testosterone. But even that's a misstep because you're actually gonna get a much better response in terms of testosterone by addressing someone's nervous system if you, if you calm someone's stress response. Let me put it this way. Biologically, this is very true for women, but it's also true for men. Your body does not want you to reproduce when you're in a stressful environment. That is basic evolutionary biology. If the environment is stressful, your inherent biology goes, this is a bad time to make babies. This is a threatening environment to be in, and it will shut your libido down. And that's why stress is the biggest, you know, thing that blows up libido. It's not low testosterone, it's stress because it is just basic biology. Very, very true for women. You know, hats off to any bloke that's managed to convince their partner to have sex with them when they're, when that partner's really, really stressed. Because that is an uphill battle. So you know, that, that's, that's almost more importantly why testosterone boost is usually a bad idea. Because they're often just a waste of money. You know, that's not the core problem. And I guess the third category of supplements that often do more harm than good are detox. Like quick detox supplements.

In a way.

It's such a stupid phrase, detox, quite frankly, because you know your body's detoxing all the time. Your, your inherent detoxification capability is way more powerful than any 14 day kit that you're ever gonna buy off the shelf. You just need to stop putting the toxins in. You know, that's if, if that toxification of your body is coming from what you're putting in your mouth, that, that's number one. Don't do a 14 day detox, stop toxifying yourself. Because your body's perfectly capable. If you stop putting toxins in, it can do a great job of detoxifying you just on its own. The bigger issue is when you have internal processes generating toxicity. So if you have, say, pathogen in your gut producing toxin, you know, you need to clear that if you have mitochondrial dysfunction and mitochondria are the little energy producing units in all the cells of your body and they're actually bacterial. It's a symbiotic relationship we have with. It's kind of weird to think that we're more bacteria than human, but we are. So we have all these little bacterial units in every cell of our body making energy for us. And they're doing that because we're providing them food and a safe environment. So it's a, it's a nice relationship. But the problem with the mitochondria is they're like nuclear power plants. They're very, there's a lot of oxidation going on all the time in those mitochondria. So if you've got damage to those mitochondria, it's like broken nuclear power plants all through your body. And that produces a lot of toxicity. So, you know, it's not like your body doesn't sometimes need detox support, but it's more figure out what's driving the toxin overload and fix that as the priority. If your priority is, I've just did a 14 day detox and I'm all fine and good, I'll go back to eating McDonald's and drinking Coca Cola, then clearly that's not a sustainable solution. And that's the problem, you know, it's address again. It all comes back to the root cause. What's the root cause? What's the core problem? Let's stop band aiding stuff. Let's. Let's all. I had an interesting interaction with an older gentleman. He would have probably been in his early 70s, I think, from memory. He was an absolute classic guy, one of those, like real salt of the earth guys. And he came to me because he was overweight and he was run down, and it was our first consult. It was really good actually, because we had a really good chat. I got along really well with him. And about halfway through, we were talking about strategies and dietary modifications and maybe some investigations we need to do. And he just like had this moment. He looked away and then he looked back at me and he's like, hang on a sec, I just need to stop being a big baby. And I said to him, what do you mean? And he said, I'm just being a big baby, aren't I? I'm not taking responsibility for my health. I'm doing things which I know are bad for me, like a baby, like a young child, you know, I need to man up and. And actually take responsibility for myself. I don't have mummy looking after me anymore. Sorry, this. I don't mean this as a mean thing. You know, like everyone's got different life situations and things that are driving them, but it just. In this situation, it was, it was, it was a brutal way of putting it, but it was also really important because, you know, it's basically like I said about cars, if we're taking better care of our cars than we are of our own bodies, something's wrong. You know, we need to fix that because this is the most important vehicle, right? This is the vehicle that lets you see your grandkids grow up and hopefully gets to see your grandkids go to university, you know, and then that's probably a pretty good innings by then, quite frankly. But we want this to last. And in order to do so, you gotta be proactive. You gotta. You gotta take responsibility. You gotta step up and go, I've gotta start saying no to things. You know, there's a. There's a part of me that might want to say yes because they taste good or, you know, it dulls my, you know, my tension. Drinking 10 beers at the end of the day or, you know, that that cigarette is a good stress reliever for me at work. I get to go stand outside and smoke a cigarette or vape or whatever. But you know, we need, we need that inner voice that says there's more important things here. There's more at stake here. There's, there's, you know, what do you want, where do you want to be when you're 80? What do you want to look like? Because you can see examples of what I can tell you you don't want to look like all the time. Just look around on any street, anywhere, plenty of those. But let's find those beacons, those older people that are vibrant and just stand out. And when you see them, it's that epiphany moment. Let's aim for that. But you got to put the work in. It doesn't come easy. You gotta make the effort. That's just how it is. Nothing comes easy. But the good thing is that you quite quickly get rewarded for your efforts. It's not like there's massively delayed gratification. You feel the benefit when you start taking better care of yourself, not just physically, but more important, you feel it cognitively, you're thinking clearer. And then the great thing about it is it's like a compound interest theory. As your thinking becomes clearer, as your health improves, as your, as you feel more positive. Because that's the other thing, you know, as your health improves, you feel more positive about life generally. And all of that makes it easier to make those decisions. It makes it easier to say no to the bottle of Coke because you're not like this sort of, you know, think of that kind of like weighed down individual that's stressed and worried and sick and unwell and inflamed. And it's really hard sometimes to get yourself out of that. But as you start to lift out of it, it's easier and easier. It gets easier, but you just got to start moving forward and making the changes.

I love how you cracked me up, man. I hope we don't put all of this on YouTube because some of those examples and things you said, I love how you just so politely cut things to pieces. I don't know if you guys have picked up on that. This is a very, it's a very honorable approach of just, just politely cutting the. Yeah, it's, it's funny. Like, so you and me, obviously, we're, we're working together, right? And for me, it's like funnily enough how with what you're presenting on low cortisol, which is as bad as high, and so on and so forth on some of my Test results, like, whilst we've got some adrenal support in, in store for you, you should. Keto will actually charge you up even more. And that's our commitment right, for the next month. Very first thing, man, very first thing. And disgust is not the word, but I was a bit pissed off. Very first thing in my head was, how can I gamify this? Because I got a sweet tooth naturally. I'm like, no, no, just eat. Yeah, excuse the French, say to fucking kilo of meat, mate, have good fats and just do it again and again and have some veggies. Had a massive zucchini that my in laws brought so homegrown. I don't know, 7, 800 grams of some beautiful lamb steaks. I don't know, there's various fats you can have, but I was like, mate, it's great, awesome. It just, just, just do it. Like you said, just do it. Don't be a. I mean it's not rude that you shared it because he was the one who said he was a big baby. But it's so true, man. And so what is that we get fatigued. But there was a thing I wrote here, James. I wrote the words health and fitness industry. And mate, honestly, because I've, I've been, I've, I was in the industry for, well, for decades as well actually, you know, and health and fitness. So I was in the industry. But I look at that term now and it actually fucking pisses me off, mate, because it's like people have just branded aesthetics, body composition and the latest high rocks that you can do with actually having an optimal level of well being and living a long and fruitful life. And, and this is so true, man, because like I said, I've been in the industry and seen it and the reason why it pissed me off, and what I'm saying is, because it's so true, is that entire stigma or front of what it actually means or what success looks like because we've bunched the word health with an entire industry of all different modalities and methodologies on what's deemed to be cardiovascular fitness, strength and powerlifting. It's so overwhelming. So one, it's so overwhelming and two, what is portrayed and presented are all these young people who maybe don't even have to work as hard, who are jacked with abs, all this sort of stuff. Instead of showing these glowing 70 and 80 year old people saying this is the health and wellbeing industry. Honestly, man, like I look back now and even that to me was Exhausting. Even when I was doing CrossFit, I was like, oh, there's the next thing and then there. Then there's F45 and then there's. Or is it called B Fit or B Stop and then all the other ones. There's so many of them. And I reckon that's really hard for people especially like middle aged men, fathers going through. It's like you see all these younger people, they've got less responsibilities than you. You look at the health and fitness industry as a whole, everyone's full of. You don't know who to trust, what to trust. And the actual measure of success is your aesthetics and how hot you look in the clothes you. In the clothes that you're wearing whilst you're doing your workout and it's on Instagram and sharing it with everyone. It's like that's such a. It's. It's actually deflating because it's so overwhelming. The mental bandwidth just leads to you being scattered and then going for the quick fix or doing not. I truly believe that, man. That's.

Yep. 100%.

When you, when you share that, it's like there's such a deeper and whilst the method can be complex and actual simpler outlook on what defines success in. In your life. We say on the inside, got to be 100 to give 100, that sort of stuff. But boys got some good news. So James, James also on the side, he's a relationship coach. He's actually got a remedy for you to give your wives to let their adrenals have support at night. You just put it in their water at dinner time. Get lame. The first thing I thought was like

that sounds like a roofie, Alex.

This guy could become a relationship alchemist. It's like, hey, voice. This is because you're right anytime when you're. If your wife is stressed, mate, you don't even try. Like it's your fault.

No. The barbed wire fences are up.

Oh, mate. But look, we made I. Not. Not to wrap it up in the next two minutes but. But also. Jeez. There's some things we can cover. I think we'll definitely do another episode. But there was one. There were a couple of things I did want to cover though. Like you talk about like the gut testing. There's. There's some stuff I definitely want to dig into another episode. But one thing that I, I'm just very, I'm very interested with, mate, is this caffeine thing. Right. I do enjoy a coffee. So you explained it very well. But ah, should we never have caffeine. Like how do you know? I guess just quickly like how would you know a diagnosis? You did say if you're having it because you're fatigued. But also like it's no surprise that when I do have coffee there is a lift in energy. So like where is that sweet spot? I guess like, or what's a couple of things just for these men, key takeaways as well that they could go and start exploring themselves. But before that, I guess just starting with this, this coffee or caffeine thing. What, what is that? Measure to self diagnose or a sweet spot. If it, because it's not, it's not all evil, is it? Like there's got to be that, this, this, this balance where it's, it can help you instead of hinder you. But there's definitely a threshold which I've been. Mate, I, I've, I've, I've definitely crossed before in the past. But yeah, I was just curious on that. And then maybe some good takeaways guys could start to. Yeah, yeah, explore or, or, or, or, or dive.

So firstly, good news. Coffee is fine. It's okay, it's not all bad. Um, there's actually some really good positive benefits to, to coffee. You know, maybe chemical caffeine in energy drinks, probably not so good, honestly, but mainly because of the chemicals and high sugars that come with those drinks. But when we're talking about good quality coffee, it's a very high antioxidant substance. There's some really good studies on it actually being specifically liver cancer. It's very good at reducing rates of liver cancer. But there's other cancers that seem to be reduced in populations that have consistent coffee intake. So absolutely not all bad. And coffee is generally okay. I think a big red flag with coffee and caffeine intake is if you know a situation where you're taking it because you're fatigued and you drink that coffee and you get that kick from it. And then roughly 60 minutes to 90 minutes after having that coffee, you tank hard, you know, you feel your energy plummet. That's, that is a red flag that you are essentially riding the cortisol roller coaster and you're artificially pushing your adrenals beyond what they're able to do. And so they're trying to, they're trying to give it, give you what you're asking for with that caffeine and they're getting a lift and then big sharp drop at the other side. So it's kind of like blood Sugar, you do not want to be on that roller coaster pattern. That is not the diurnal rhythm. The again cortisol should be high in the morning, gradually decline, that's what you want. So caffeine generally does not have to interfere with that. A rule would be typically not to have coffee in the afternoon. Better to stop having anything caffeinated after lunchtime. That's a good principle to live by because obviously at a time where you want your cortisol to be declining, you don't want to be giving it a push again in the afternoon. And I know that very common to lean on a mid afternoon shot of coffee to keep you going through those last couple of hours where you feel the fatigue hit. But you know, at the very least, if that's what you're used to doing and that's your pattern, start reducing the amount of coffee in that afternoon coffee that you have have less. If you have two shots normally start cutting it down to one shot and then cut it down to half a shot. And pretty much guaranteed because that will reset to some degree the cortisol pattern, you'll find you can get by without it after a period of time unless there's deeper work that needs to be done. But that's a good first step. So yeah, caffeine particularly, that's an easy change that, that any guy can make. That's rely if you're relying on coffee in the afternoon to keep you going, just try to start reducing that. Don't go cold turkey. You can if you want to, but you'll probably suffer. So just start reducing that. Another thing and it ties in with that cortisol rhythm is try to get, you don't have to get up at the crack of dawn, but try to train your body to get to bed earlier. So if you're currently going to bed at 1am, that's not ideal really. There's that principle that every hour of sleep before midnight is worth two hours of sleep after midnight. So we're still biologically wired to the sun and sun and moon and night cycles, right? So what you really should be trying to do is once the sun's gone down in the evening a start dimming the lights a bit so you don't have heaps of bright light flooding your eyes in the evening because that will keep your body thinking it's daytime. Try not to stare at phone screens and tablet screens, particularly late at night because again that blue light stimulates receptors that make your body think it's daytime and will keep pumping out cortisol and slowly but surely, if you can. I don't want to sound like I'm on my high horse, but, you know, I'm just saying what can be helpful. Try to start bringing that bedtime earlier. If it's 1am now, then for the next week make it 1230 and then the week after that make it midnight and then the week after that. Be a bit more bold, make it 11. And I would say ideally, aim to try and hit the Hay at about 10 if you can. And then ideally your sleep time shifting so that you're starting to wake up more with the rising of the sun. Not sunrise, but sooner to sunrise. And when you do get up in the morning, especially when the sun's out, get out there and get sun in your face. Because that kickstarts that cortisol production rhythm that gets the surge of cortisol happening when you need it to happen in the morning and it will kickstart the pattern. So you want to get sun on your face. Don't stare directly into the sun. I know that's something that some people advocate. I don't think that's ever a really good idea. But at least get sun on your face and get those receptors working that get that cortisol production happening properly. Oh, and the third tip, protein at breakfast. That's my third tip. Have protein with your breakfast. Do not. Again, I'm sounding like I'm on my high horse. Ideally, don't have a breakfast that consists of wheat bix. You know, it's just. Or muesli. If what you're having for brekkie is predominantly just grain based food, which is breakfast cereals essentially. When it comes to breakfast food, what you're doing is you're giving yourself. It's like you're throwing paper on the fire, right? You get this big burst of energy from it and then it dies off really quickly. And that's because your blood sugar spikes really hard and then it plummets and that is not good for you. So what you want to be doing instead is putting hardwood on the fire instead of paper and that's protein. So even if it's just sprinkling a bit of protein powder on your breakfast cereal to start with, get some vanilla protein powder or something you like the flavor of, whether it's whey protein or whether it's collagen protein or pea protein, whatever floats your boat, it doesn't really matter. Just get that protein in and then if you can start transitioning to less of that grain based food in the Morning and more like breakfast smoothies instead. So some berries and banana and good quality protein powder. Some good quality fat. That could even be half an avocado. You don't taste. It sounds weird. You don't taste it. It just gives you that healthy fat or even a tablespoon of coconut oil. Just that healthy fat's really important too because that also slows the release of blood sugar. But that's, that's hardwood on your fire and that'll burn longer and you will not be as hungry. You won't get those mid morning carbohydrate cravings because if you're on the blood sugar roller coaster and you hit that low point, your body's gonna scream at you to eat carbs again to get it up again. So if you can make that more of a steady drop off of blood sugar with the protein and the fat makes a big difference. Your energy will improve and you won't eat as much. And you've got the kind of, if you're trying to lose weight, you'll have the nice side effect that you will likely lose weight because you won't eat as much carbohydrate. So I think they're my three hot tips. That would be the three things that people can do right now.

Yeah. Awesome. And just add to that, guys. So Cocoa pops have a high protein brand now where it's, it's gone from 1 to 2.3 grams per serve. Mate. Some of the, you, you walk past and like you go through the different aisles and you see like all these cereals claiming high protein. Then when you look at the stats, you're like, mate, you get more out of one egg.

Yeah. And that, and so I didn't mention that a cooked breakfast, you know, the, the, the demonic breakfast, the demonized breakfast that, that the conventional medicine said for about two decades. That is terrible for you. Bacon and eggs for breakfast, have toast and margarine instead. And then all of a sudden rates of heart disease and diabetes go through the roof. You know, it's, you can always with diet. It is not rocket science. And I know there's lots of people on social media marketing that they've got the brand new hot diet. And this is the new thing and this is the best diet out there. All you need to do is eat lean protein. You need to eat lots of different colored vegetables. You need to eat nuts and seeds. Healthy fat mainly like coconut oil, olive oil and a little bit of fruit. That's it. That, that's it. That's all you need. If you, if everyone eats that, they will be so much healthier. And I don't. All the diet fads, it's all just BS marketing. It's all people trying to put their own little spin on, you know, and there are situations where you need to do a more tailored diet for people depending on what's going on for them health wise. But generally that core principle that I just said, that 95% of people, if not more, will experience massive health improvements just doing that with their diet.

Yes. Oh, and look, you got me on keto for a month, but I'm not going to stay on it. Right. It says exactly what you.

It's not a good long term strategy.

No. So it'll be awesome for me for four weeks, but it'll be. But yeah, like, like you said, that's been a specific tailored approach based on the testing and everything I've done. And then tying into that, which a lot of we've spoken a lot about that which has worked well for me in the past. It's a lot of like almost Mediterranean diet for me. It's been awesome and I just. But, but yeah, I love it, mate. It's been, it's been great episode. The one thing I want to just touch on, fellas, is the, the frog in the water thing. So 33, I noticed a rapid dip, I guess was like, oh, wow. Think things are harder than what they used to be. I don't know if that was like being an elite athlete for 15 years catching up with me or what, but there was that and then there was 37. So back in the end of 2022, I had that severe throat issue which is inside my podcast. In a couple of years it was just, mate, horrendous. But then just accept that. But it's like last year was the 39 into the 40 and, and yeah, it's been tough with flossy and sleep and whatnot, but it's, it's so important like what, what James is saying, guys, to just not, not accept the way things are, which is so hard to see because it just becomes part of your everyday living. Like mate, to the point where again, I'm getting dexes and other things. So I'm genuinely fascinated by this. I found my old Dexa from 2015, which was initially depressing, but then also gave me something to shoot for. But, but, but I look at that and it's like, man, you just, you just forget like even putting on a couple of kilos of muscle again from lifting weights. I thought I was still big back in 23 and 24, even though I couldn't really train because of my throat. But, but I look back now, I was like, oh no, my shoulders are popping, my triceps are popping. I was like, oh. And then I got a few photos of, you know, in my early 30s when I was still doing high level CrossFit and other things. I was like, oh, you know, and it's not that I'm trying to compete with young Al, it's just that you do quickly forget how well you can actually perform and how optimized you can be. Like I said, even with me having bouts of broken sleep. And then some nights like last night was a miracle because Corinne handled that one get up. So I got a great sleep despite that. Mate, all these things that you and I are doing, there's always ways forward, there's always workarounds. Not that all of you men have newborns either, but just don't, don't settle, I guess is my, my biggest last takeaway. But. But yeah, don't, don't settle just because other people are doing it as well. Like what a horrible. Like you said, it's like the rule instead of the exception. Don't, don't, don't, don't settle because you see everyone else's standards when you go to the shopping center. Yeah, horrible. Their choice. Don't judge them for it. But you can certainly judge actions and observe outcomes and that's, that's what we're looking at with society. Unfortunately, we're observing the outcomes of poorly aligned actions to one's health and wellbeing for the longevity and vitality of their, their livelihood, their life. The only reality you'll have a shot at. Right. And you're butchering it. Crazy, crazy man. So. But there's levels too, right. Which is why I want to go that next level with you as we are and really just, yeah, I want to be the strongest, most powerful grandfather I can be. Not because of other grandfathers are worse or better, but what I can be. What's I guess mate like, you know, is there other areas like I know you've got some, some cool blogs and stuff or ways to reach out. I mean you might have a website. Any final, final thoughts, mate, and pieces of advice for men listening and then if they wanted to reach out or get in touch with you, James, what's the best way to do that too, mate?

Sure. Yeah. So generally, I guess the first thing is if you've heard my approach and it resonates with you and you just like, yep, I want to get my health sorted and I'm ready to take that step, do some investigation, do some good quality functional testing to find out what's really wrong and actually target the problem and fix it properly. Go ahead and book in for a consultation with me. It's the easiest way forward. You can do it directly through my website and the easiest way to find that is just to enter jamesmar.com in your search engine and that'll take you to my clinic website and you can just book in directly there. There's a big box link there to just take you to the online booking page and book a consultation. But I also offer free 10 minute, what I call phone discovery sessions. So if you're sort of like, maybe, but I'm not 100% sure, happy to have a 10 minute chat, one on one. And you can book that the same way through that website. That's an option on the booking link to be able to just have a chat with me and we can figure out what's going on in your life. And hand on heart, I can tell you if I'm not the guy to help you. If you have a issue that I feel like I can't help you with, I will 100% tell you. Because the absolute worst thing you can do for someone who's trying to find their way to health is pretend that you're the one who can help them when you know you can't and completely derail that journey for them. I think that's an atrocious thing to do to people. So I'll always be honest with people if I feel like there's someone who might be more helpful for them, you know, and help them find that person. But I'm happy to say that I sleep very well at night because I feel like I get really good results for my patients and fix problems for people that they'd almost got to the point where they thought there was no hope. And there was obviously a bit because they've still booked in with me. And I'm so happy to say that I'm the one that helps those people, which sounds like a really egotistical thing to say, but I promise I'm not an egotistical person. I just love seeing people be well. So, yeah, that's really the easiest way to find me. I'm not, I'm not a big social media guy, to be honest with you, Alex, I don't. You know, I've got an Instagram. Don't ever use it. I've got a Facebook, don't really ever use it. Which you know, I'm, I feel like I'm a very good naturopath. I'm a terrible business person but that's okay because I focus on what I love which is helping people be. Well luckily, you know, I've got people to help me along the way. But yeah, that's the best way to get in touch and yeah, always happy to have a, have a 10 minute chat if you want to talk things through a bit before that commitment to actually making a consultation.

And life finds a way to help those that are genuine too, you know. Right. Like it's. And I've laughed in one of our consults talking about this podcast where we said the same thing. It's like, you know, phenomenal what you do but obviously at marketing if you don't even use your social media accounts. Right, but, but no but with a bit of tongue in cheek. But, but then here we are, you know, like you've also helped and I don't get anything out of this. Jamesmar.com Go direct and it's with two Rs so J-A M E S M A double R.com but you've helped me with, with Florence and some struggling issues with, with her and her gut and we've been and out of hospital like every four days, five days since she's been born. Man, it's been pretty, pretty tough to be fair. And, and Corinne as well having to be on antibiotics just before the birth because she had a severe chest infection which was leading to horrific coughing. But given was a fourth cesarean she cannot cough so something I had to act on and so mate, thank you. You've helped me and my family already. I'm sure you'll get to meet the others in due course. But yeah, the crazy ones. But, but, but I truly believe in you, mate. And that's, that's what I mean by it's funny how life can find a way to support you because I, you know, I, I vouch for you to. So much so that boys who are listening to this who are members. James is actually our latest expert we've recruited on the inside. So you guys will be seeing him shortly. Coming into the inside of HPF and, and running more sessions and more tailored and even more specific sessions like we've done today in this podcast. So I hope you boys listening who are HPF members are pretty bloody excited because, because I am mate, to get you on the inside and do some more great work with, with the Men of HPF too. But thank you, mate. Thank you for joining us and giving the time and above all else, obviously helping me and my family. But hopefully for you men listening out there, you got some value out of today and you can apply some of the key things you spoke about and you have more awareness about yourself and your own journey and what matters most too. We talk about be a hundred to give 100 men. Put your family first. Sure. Put your family first by giving them the best of you, not by just saying it and sacrificing your body because you're giving them more time. It's not the answer. It's given the best of you and that. But thanks, James. I hope you enjoyed it, mate. Thanks for coming on and part of the podcast as well, mate.

Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciated it.

It's been an honor. Thank you, mate. Thank you guys.

We'll talk soon. Thanks, Alex.

I just want to say a big thank you to those who are obviously supporting our podcast. Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of downloads now. It's phenomenal with the hundreds of episodes that we've put out there now, just the amount of energy and the feedback and the rapport we're being building with so many people, fathers and mothers, mothers, the wives, seeing the different perspective and starting to understand more. Because it's important that we know that within the family nucleus and for a man and a woman and being on the same page in all facets of life, it's important to understand that perspective is a powerful thing. So thank you for giving your time and energy and effort and ultimately investing in yourself by listening to these words. But don't just stop the there, take action, apply them. And also look at the other ways that we can assist and help you in your life. It could be our YouTube channel, could be Facebook, could be Instagram. There are so many different areas where we give so much of our stuff away for free. We're looking to help fathers the best way we can to spread this message far and wide. And I need your help, man, not just in listening, but in taking action and being the message yourself. So thank you. Massive credit and respect to you for standing up and looking to take action and initiate change by the listening to these. But don't just stop there, jump on, give us a review. Share this with someone who needs to listen to it. Keep taking action, look at our other platforms and above all else, mate, make sure you back yourself back yourself all the way and go all in. Some of you go all in on hpf.

Awesome.

That's great. Good for you.

But go all in on yourself.

Go all in on life. You've only got one. Don't waste your turn.