The Truth About Health: Melt Belly Fat and Supercharge Testosterone (Watch This) Ft Charles Poliquin

What I'm going to do in the future because of what we're doing with Artists for Addicts and the Platform with addiction. Charles can speak to a variety of different subjects on health and exercise and fitness and supplementation, but he also knows a ton about the brain and about human behavior. And so I want to do a whole episode with you in the future when we launch the Platform to help people with addictions about. Because, like, for instance, the supplements. If someone has an alcohol problem and they want their body to kind of reject alcohol, what is it?

The best two are the combination of two amino acids, which is thyrosine and D L phenylalanine. And if you take 3 grams of each on an empty stomach in the morning, people will find that they don't find alcohol tasty anymore, so they naturally take it out of their regimen. You will find that pretty much anything that has to do with the brain is fixable with a certain combination of the omega 3s and certain amino acids. Because with fish oil, if the fish is big and comes from a warm water, it tends to contain more EPA. And of the omega 3s, EPA down regulates inflammation. So if you have arthritis, high blood pressure and so on, you want to use a fish oil with a lot of epa. But if you have attention deficit disorder or bipolar disorder, there's at least 16 brain disorders that we know are manageable with the right type of fish oil. But that fish oil has to have an IDHA content. And where do you get a high DHA content in the fish oil? They tend to be small fish in very cold water, like sardines and herrings and so on. But when you go to the store, if you go see your doctor, your nutritionist, you can look at the ratio between EPA and dha and that will decide actually which tissues are affected with it. If you don't have anything particular with your health, I would say every time you go through a bottle of fish oil, pick another brand with a different ratio and that will lower the odds that you have any sort of disorder. One thing you should know about omega 3s is that there's not a single disease known to man. And I've known this since 1994, that is not helped by Omega 3s. So if you don't believe me, you could go to PubMed, which is the biggest library of scientific papers, and put in any weird disease you, you know, put omega 3 is the second keyword. And you will find at least one study, if not minimum 14, that show that that fish oil is beneficial for any ailment known to man.

Is there any way to know if fish oil is good? I've heard that a lot of the fish oil you buy in stores is rancid and you should just never eat it.

It's actually worse than not eating it.

I used to do it until I heard that. And, you know, you hear so much bullshit advice. Worst advice is, you know, bad advice is the worst thing you can take. So how do you know whether fish oil is good or bad?

The best way to find out is available through a health practitioner only. So basically it means that you can't buy on the Internet. The only company there's an exception to the rule. And I don't get paid by this company. It's called Nordic Naturals. Okay. They have very high quality. They really standardize the way they make fish oil. But in Canada, the rules are very different. So in Canada, you can actually buy a store bought fish oil, and probably the best company to buy is called ATP Labs. But they make a fish oil that already has carnitine in it. It's called Omega Carn, and I think that's the best product for your brain. One thing we know from research is that any brain disorder is actually an electrical problem in your brain. And research backs up the combination of carnitines and. And omega 3s is probably the best healing agent for any brain disorder, ranging from dyspraxia to dyslexia.

And you're saying 6 grams per day.

That would be a minimum. I mean, it depends on your percentage of body fat.

Right.

So at higher body fats have used as much as 45 grams, but that means your body fat is 45%. As you get leaner, you will use less and less fish oil. Okay, so it's relative.

If you got 10%, do 10.

Yeah. Typically when you start off, but you could be at 10%. You've been on fish oil for six months. If I measure your fatty acids in your blood, you may be down to 3 grams. But usually one of the guys I was recommending 30 or 45 grams for at least two decades. And then I remember Mark Houston is probably one of the best vascular health specialists in the world. That's three to eight times more what the literature recommends. But the problem literature never tried high dosages. And one of the best compliments I ever had is that in 2008 there was a KN study that showed that in the average person, 60 grams of fish oil was the best dose. Okay. So he sent me an email that.

Says in the Bottle of the day, huh?

Now if you use liquid, it's not so bad. But the thing, the interesting point that Mark put in his email is clinicians always had of the research, okay, but when we were cavemen or cave women, we consumed 3 to 400 grams of omega 3s a week. But where they come from came from animal brains. Because if you're in South Africa, in the middle of the savannah, you're not going to have access to a lot of fish. So what would happen is that the caveman would wait for the lion, lions would eat the entrails of the antelope and leave the rest alone. So what the caveman would do, he would split the skull of the antelope and eat the brain. And 60% of the brain is actually omega 3s and 80% of that is DHA. So that's why what you find in research is that where humans, early humans consumed the most Omega 3s, the faster their brains developed. There's a strong correlation between omega 3 content in a native diet and IQs. So, for example, the bow and arrow concept was developed where there was more better developed brains.

So in all this period of time, what has the diet, I don't know what has really changed in terms of we have so much more understanding about how food affects us. But from what you were teaching in the beginning, what you knew in the beginning versus recent days, like what, what have you, what have been the big discoveries that we used to think were right, that aren't, or how much has it really changed in terms of how one should eat?

What I do has changed a lot. What the industry does has not changed much, right? Because now what are we on keto, we're on paleo? It just keeps on rolling over to another oddity, right? And I think sometimes the mere oddity of these programs is what attracts people to them to begin with. I'm still there after 40 years. I've seen the Scarlet's diet come and go. I mean, this is way before your time. The cabbage soup diet, we're still there. But what I would say we've changed and what's starting to emerge now is the concept of eating management versus diet. I think you're starting to hear that message a little bit out there. And I really do love that because I know I'm sort of the forefather of eating management versus the, you know, the guy behind the diets.

Can I also ask you because, like, instead of just eating, really nutrition, because there is so much, there are so many people that gobble Supplements. And there's so much a push for supplements like Geeta, my partner, she says even in the medical world, or even in the world of all kinds of different medicines, a lot of it's just a pill for an ill. If you're not given a medicine, you're going to be given a supplement. So in the world of consumption, it's not just the food, it's the liquid, it's the pills. What are your thoughts? I mean, a lot of people think you can't live a health. They've been programmed to believe the food is so deprived, the soil is different than it was 100 years ago. There's pesticides, there's GMO, I mean all the different things. And so therefore you can't consume food and get the nutrition you need, so you must consume pills. What is your take on all of that?

Well, first of all, I think of food as medicine. You know, it cures diabetes, it cures high blood pressure, it cures all kinds of things. But what has to happen is the right information has to be given to the person, right? Because if you're operating from a position of the wrong information, you're never going to be changing. Now, I do believe in, we're clinical nutritionists, so I believe in blood workup. We look at a lot of different factors. If you came in to see me and you didn't lose weight, I'm turning to your blood workup because weight loss is always a product of four things. It's either your food, it's your exercise, it's a hormone or it's a drug. There are no others that I know of. Supplements are sort of in my world, kind of down on the bottom of the pyramid. Not way up at the top is the most important thing. Because I'm going to look at if you don't eat any dairy, are your calcium requirements being met, magnesium and stuff like that. But let me show you how hard it is for people to really change. Let's take a look at this. How many of you would look at a food like this and go into your grocery store and buy lean ground turkeys, 7% fat, 93% fat free, and, and believe you're eating a low fat food, raise your hand. Is that a high fat food or a low fat food?

It's a low fat food.

Okay. All right. When you see the 7%, okay, I'm going to teach you. You might want to write this down, by the way. Just write down grams of fat times nine divided by the calories. Because without that formula you will never know what you're getting. So let's look at this food. Okay? You can see that 8 times 9 is 72. 72 out of 160 makes that food 44, 45% fat. That food has the exact same fat content as T bone steak. In other words, I couldn't get you any better results dieting on T bone steak than I could on that food. Because in regards to the percentage of fat and how your body would handle it, they're equivalent, right? Grams of fat times nine divided by the calories equals the percentage of fat. And what I want my clients to do is just make sure they keep their fat around 20% or so, mainly getting them from good fats. Now, notice they're not telling you what they ground up. You'll never know, right? Now watch this one. Okay, so we see that's 45% fat. Notice suddenly they're more than happy to tell you this is the ground breast. They didn't want to tell you what the other one is. This is the one you want to look for. But let me ask you something. One and a half times nine is 13. Thirteen out of 120 is like 10%, 11% fat, right? That's a good food because it's under 20. It doesn't matter if you eat a high fat food here or there. But what is happening if you're eating the wrong one all the time? Now notice that the first one said it was 7% fat when it was actually 45. And this one's saying it's 1% fat when it's really 13. Does that seem strange to any of you?

Yeah.

Okay, take a look at this though. Okay? Okay, so we see 1 is 7%, 1 is 1 when they're really not. Okay, now notice this one. 17 times 9 is a little around 150 out of 250 makes that ground turkey 60% fat. That ground turkey burger is as high in fat as bacon, right? If I wouldn't eat bacon to get lean, why would I eat that expecting a different outcome? Now, it's not about the fat, but it's about your ability to identify what's truly healthy and good for you. Right? Now watch this. Let me explain what the percentage of fat means, because we would all think that 7% means it's 7% fat.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a Link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

By law, that term means that the foods displaying its fat by weight, not its fat by calories. And those are completely different things. Okay, so watch this and then we'll move on. But okay, so percent fat by weight. See up there in the serving size is 112 grams. 112 grams times 7% is 7.69. Rounded up to the nearest hundredths, it's 8. Is all that 7% is telling you is that there's 8 grams of fat in a serving. How crazy is that? You know, we don't discuss food by weight, we discuss it by calories. So if you came in and said, hey Keith, I ate 4 pounds of protein, 3 pounds of carbs and 2 pounds of fat, I'd have no idea what you're saying to me. If we don't discuss food by weight, why are we displaying its fat by weight? Right, so there's tons of this stuff going on in front of you. But how can you move forward if you don't know what you don't know?

You know, just for distinction too, what is your current, how do you eat? What is your diet? And maybe explain why if there is a. Because there are people in the room. Like Geeta, for instance is vegetarian. So I would love to try to get her to eat a big, but she won't.

I retired from bodybuilding in 1990. I won every title I ever entered. I never lost a show. And back then it was solely about the look and the titles. Right. As I've gotten older, my sole goal now is not about that. And I do care about how I look. But what has happened now is I'm more concerned with longevity and quality of life. You see, nobody in my family made it past 50. I'm in my 60s, I'm the first. And so already I've proven that by changing the food I can change the history, the outcome. So today I'm kind of more of a plant based eater. I mainly eat pescatarian egg whites and fish is my dominant sources of protein. Occasionally I slip in some chicken. So I move to more of a plant based diet because my goals have changed. I want to see how many more quality of years I can get out of my life.

Yeah.

What'S that?

That backfired for you?

Oh no, no, it's exactly what I want because there's a lot of vegetarians and vegans that eat terrible carbs, they eat shit food.

I mean, you see vegans that are massively overweight, but it's no surprise because when you go in the supermarket is all you gotta do is look in people's cart and look at them and go eat that way, look that way. You know, you can see it right in front of you.

Right, right. Okay, so what you're known for is your groundbreaking work which you refer to as nutrition.

Partitioning.

Nutrient partitioning. Yeah. Can you explain what the hell that is and how to pronounce it again?

Okay, so when I was in the diabetic ward, what we understood was that a diabetic could eat only so many calories, grams of fat and protein at one time. And when you gave them smaller, more frequent meals, many instances, you reverse type 2 diabetes. So my philosophy started to evolve. That's this. Your body can only utilize so many calories, grams of fat, carbs and protein at one time. We all know that if you overeat at that one time, you gain weight. So let's say the average woman can assimilate around 300 calories. Now if you cook that food, it's a lot of food. That's a four to five ounce grilled chicken breast smothered in pico de gallo with a six ounce baked potato with fat free Greek yogurt and chives and a cup of grilled asparagus and all that food is just right at 300 calories. Now if you ate that meal, none of it would feed a fat cell. There's nothing in that, what I mentioned, that could feed a fat cell. If you were within that parameter. The idea that all weight loss is predicated on a caloric reduction does not work. Because what I'm saying is this. If someone said, Byron, you're supposed to eat 1800 calories a day, and I know his body could probably assimilate about 500 one time. Now if he ate two meals a day, he's eating 900 calories at each meal. He hit his caloric requirement for the day. I'm telling you, he's going to get fat and he won't be able to retain his muscle. Now that's 1800 calories a day. But if I put him on 5 feedings at 500 with that kind of parameter, 5 times 5 is 2500. I have increased his calories, his vitality, his energy and his muscle and he's losing weight and he's never hungry. So if caloric reduction was the premise on all weight loss, that shouldn't work, but it does. So my clients actually end up eating more food to give them control over food.

Yeah.

Awesome.

So let me ask you about all of the different. I mean, there's so much intermittent fasting, and there's so. I mean, just fasting in general. And a lot of people that I know that never would have done this in the last year or so are trying it. What is your take on?

Well, even the originator of that program admits it's not good for women. Right. Because that can really mess up your hormones. I think each person has to find their own individual style of how they feel they should eat that's right. For them. That also creates the result they want.

Right.

And so at the end of the day, I really don't believe in eating less meals. As I just explained, I believe in the concept of eating more quality, wholesome foods to generate better health and longevity. I don't want to slow down your metabolism. The biggest people I meet in my clinic are. Are two meal a day eaters. Right? One meal a day eaters. So I understand the fun of the latest current craze. But listen, I've seen them all come and go, and I'd say in another couple years, it'll be gone. But remember, when you affect blood sugar by going too long without food, it really interferes with female hormones a lot. So I'm not a big proponent of it.

Let me ask you also about just so much emphasis. There's so many documentaries out about food and about the farming industry and about the treatment of animals and about pesticides and GMOs and organic. What's the difference between an organic chicken versus a non? How much does that play into your eating and your selection of food?

Well, first of all, all of our cancer patients, we work with a lot of cancer patients, we immediately do go organic because we can't be certain whether their cancer is being contributed by factors in their diet like pesticides or whatever. But again, I let people make their own decision on that. I have a natural tendency to go more towards natural whole foods. I want my clients to do that too. But you can't get everybody to do what you want them to do. So what I'm really a big proponent of is what I call better bad choices.

Right.

And so Eunice said, when I call, oh, my God, I remember you from all those years of better bad choices. Just small changes can yield huge results. Let me just show you one. A can of Coke has, let's say, 40 grams of sugar. Okay. Raise your hand. If you know how many teaspoons of sugar exactly, that is 11. Okay, you write this down. Grams of sugar divided by four equals packets or teaspoons. So 40 divided by four means there's 10 packets of sugar in a can of Coke. If you drink two cans of Coke a day, you're drinking 20 packets of sugar. So I put 20 packets of sugar in here, and. And that's how much sugar is in two cans of Coke. Now, if this person just found a small, different beverage to drink over the course of time, this small change would yield huge results. Because if they just drank two cans of Coke a day, at the end of the week, they drank 140 packets of sugar.

Oops.

Excuse me. And that's how many oops. That's. Don't worry about it. We'll get it at the end. That's how many packets of sugar they're drinking every week just from two co cans of Coke a day. See? And so the premise is not to get people to give up everything, it's to show them. Because once you show somebody the real truth, it's hard. Once you know it, it's hard to kind of go back there.

Yeah.

Right. Okay, so let me ask you about the second thing that you're most known for, which is relapse prevention. So it's your psychology in that area. Why is that so important?

Because, as you all know, because it's the same, right? If you don't change the way you think, you cannot change what you do. And we're all aware of that. Right? Let me share with you some of the common little statements we all make to ourselves that sound productive. And look at what I'm going to do. Raise your hand if you've ever said, I'm going to start my diet on Monday. Right. Okay. I would change that thought to be more accurate of what you're really going to do. Instead of saying, I'm going to start my diet on Monday, what I think you should really say is this, I'm going to see how fat I can get before Monday. Because the thought occurs to me, I have to stop eating bad by Monday, so I better eat as much food as I get my hands on by Monday. Right. Another one is, I know what to do, I just don't do it. Right? So that sounds right. Right. That's rooted in the pain pleasure principle of psychology 101, which we're all very familiar with here. Right. The idea is this. If you're saying, I, I know what to do, I just don't do it. What you're really saying is this. Although I'm uncomfortable, the way I look and feel right now, what you're asking me to do is more uncomfortable because their association with changing their food has always been rooted in the negative. And that's what I change, is it shouldn't be negative. It should be a joy to make this change. And you should love your food.

Yeah.

Awesome. Okay. So in terms of the better bad choices, most people here travel quite a bit, and so they're in airports a lot. And what I have learned to the best of my abilities is I always package food with me and carry it with me. And I fly first class a lot. And they'll even serve stuff in first class, but most of the time it's crap. It's not good food. And so I have learned to carry a lot of healthy foods with me. Most people do not. And there are certain situations. And it's easier when I'm leaving my home because I have the food with me versus if I happen to be somewhere and getting access to good food. So what advice would you give in terms. Because sometimes you're in an airport, you have no food, do you fast? What's a better bad choice than that sort of thing when you have such a selection of a bunch of mostly crappy food?

See, that's a great question. So what we really work on from a psychological viewpoint is coping skills, right? And if you master your coping skill, you can master whatever it is you're working on, right? So what we're going to do first is we're going to teach our clients literally how to go into any restaurant and order cleaner food when they want to, and it's going to be better. And so remember, a small change can yield big results if you started ordering better. Secondly, we're going to give you coping skills to let you know, today we live in a society of ease. It's easier today than ever. There's a company called iconmeals.com you can literally call them up and say what you want to order. They'll cook all the food for you and they'll show up at your hotel on the day you arrive. So if you stay in an Embassy Suites or place where they have a refrigerator, microwave, they cook the food, they weigh the food, they measure the food, and it shows up on the hotel doorstep. And they're very good at that. So there's companies like that that exist that we give access to our clients to let them know that it doesn't have to be impossible, but the Real one is how do you walk in any restaurant, navigate it and order? Well, let me just give you an example of what I would ever order in a Mexican restaurant. How many chips do you think it would take to get to 300 calories? 14. Not very many. Swipe it in guacamole. It's even radically higher in calories.

Right.

Look, I sit down at a Mexican restaurant, they want to bring the chips. I never say I can't have that. I simply say, I just don't eat that anymore. And how my brain handles and processes that is quite a bit different. So secondly, I never order off the menu. I just set it aside. I say, do you have shrimp today? They say, yeah. Can you just grill it without butter and oil, but season it? Sure. I wait till he writes it down. Just bring me a basket of corn tortillas with pico salsa and shredded lettuce and I make my own shrimp tacos. That or the white fish are the only two things I'd ever order in a Mexican restaurant. It's easy, right? But I love that food, you know, it's flavorful, it's seasoned, it's not all dry. I can put pico, I can put salsa on it, I can put tomatillo on it.

Right?

So ordering is easy in the restaurant if you have the skills.

Well, talk about your lean body coaching program, your online program, because you've done a lot of the stuff face to face. There's all different formats. So how do you, how do you do it with people now? How do you train?

Okay, so this is my legacy, right? I wanted to leave behind my life's work. And so online, we replicated my clinical work online. And so everybody has their own nutritionist that's trained by me. And the first three months is devoted entirely on how to eat to get lean. And the final three months are devoted entirely to relapse prevention, how to keep the weight off. We have tons of recipes because I want to show people there is nothing you can eat if you make it. And so at the end of the day, all of my psychological work is on there in video format, Right? All the recipes are in video format. If you don't know how to cook, our coaches are there to teach you how to cook and all that kind of stuff. So all of that 40 years. Let me show you one other little thing. Because it's the little things sometimes we don't know. I just want to show you a slide that we did here a while back. Raise your hand if water packed tuna is lower in fat than oil. Just raise your hand if it is. I'm not scamming you. Yeah. Water packed tuna. So this is water packed tuna and spring water. And I bought these two cans at the same store at the same time. And the first can you can see 1 times 9 is 9 divided by 70 means that's about 13% fat. Okay. Now the exact same food. How many grams of fat are in the same food? 5.5times 9 is 45. Divided by 195 is 47% fat. But oil packed tuna is only 33. If I went eating an oil to get lean, why am I eating water when it's actually higher than that, which is an oil? Expecting a different outcome. This represents the different times of year they catch the fish. That's been going on your whole life. So what we're doing in lean body coaching is we're giving you access to information you just won't find anywhere else. Because they won't put that on tv. They'd lose their advertising dollars. Right. They don't want to know that stuff. But it's these little things that start that I just want my clients not to give up anything. Right. But just be more aware so that it can lead them down a path of just making better choices.

They both say spring water.

They are both spring water.

They're at different times of the year.

Yeah. Do you know every November through March, water packed tuna becomes higher in fat than oil right now, this time of year because of their migratory season.

Look at the ingredients. They're different. So one uses vegetable broth and salt. The other one uses hydrolyzed casein.

Yeah. You know, that's a protein, that's not a fat.

I mean, it's so obvious to. There's so many experts that just know. The food labeling is such a bunch of propaganda horseshit. How. I mean, why is it so hard to get it?

Because of lobbyists.

Right.

Lobbyists are in Washington to protect. Protect the interest of the companies they represent over your health. Now listen to this. Are not labels. The guidelines by which we have to choose to use, you know, to get healthy foods. If the very labels themselves are deceitful and misleading, how can you ever choose healthy foods? So if you put me in that position, I'd wipe out all the loopholes. I know them all. Check out this. You know, and this is not. These are just little things. Right. It's not a big deal. Okay? Zero calories. Fat says zero. How many calories and grams of fat are in that container?

Zero.

Well, if I see Zero. Why wouldn't I just uncap it and pour it on my baked potato? This has 900 calories in 90 grams of fat. It is perfectly okay in America to tell you that a food is fat free when it's 100% fat. That's the law. Now, the law states that if in your serving size it has a half a gram of fat, you can just say it has none. Let me read a serving size that I'd have to have Parkinson's disease to be able to do this. It's one and a quarter spray, right? Just a quarter spray, right. So I'm supposed to get 905 servings out of this little thing, right? I don't mind that you use it. I mind that you use it. Thinking it's one thing when it's really not. That's all we're there for, is an educational resource to help you find your way to a healthier body without deprivation and giving up.

And honestly, that's why so many marketers get lumped in, because there are some really deceptive people that use marketing to just manipulate and lie. And it's unfortunate. And grab a mic if there's anything you guys want to. I want to.

Grab that water.

I just want to say a couple things. First of all, what you said, I actually eat exactly like you do. So was it interesting you said that? Because I went through plant based with pescatarian, a little bit of eggs for all the same reasons. Because my wife and I did a lot of research over a number of years. So we went four years ago to change our entire diet around. It's a pain in the ass. I mean, it's total change. But here's the thing that's not talked about, and I want. Maybe you can answer. This is what I Learned about maybe 25 years ago through. I can't remember where it was exactly, but this is basically the thing about habits. And this behavioral change in this area is very, very difficult in all areas. It's very difficult when it's substantial behavioral change. And behavioral change is based on changing habits. You know, little things at a time. So when you make a major change, this is a major change on diet. Most people think, well, a habit is formed in 14 to 21 days. There's different stuff out there. Again, that's misleading because it's formed a habit is not known. This is scientifically proven for two full years. So. So anytime I've made a major change in my life, my wife and I did this four years ago. I said, honey, we have to do this for 730 days. We have to do this straight for 730 days. And then it'll be a permanent change in our life. If we want to get our health to where it's going to be. We go on this diet, completely changed everything. Went off to a place for three weeks to do that. So we got all the right education besides what we already knew to do it. But we came up with the exact same diet that you came up with. And my wife was on diabetic medicine. She was also on, what do you call it, Statin. Thank you. And she went off both of those and still off both of those because of those dietary changes. And then our weight went down to our normal weight. And every time we do a DECA stand or anything else, we come out exactly perfectly in the middle of what we're supposed to be for our body type and everything else.

So, you know, the power of food.

Right. So I wanted to support you, but I also want to make sure everybody know in this room, if you're going to make a change, any major change in your life, it's two years, it's not 14 days, it's not 21 days.

Actually, it's not. It's lifetime. Right.

I meant to get it, so it's gonna stick.

But I don't see that, that it takes that long. Right. Because here's what I'd like to see.

Well, this is statistics through the insurance industry on driving and everything else. When you see the rates, they've learned this over time that your, your kid doesn't know to step on the long skinny one or the fat horizontal one. When they're trying to make a decision on driving and they make mistakes and they found it after two years, all the rates come down because they've done millions of these and that's when they know how to drive versus they have been taught how to drive two different, entirely different skills.

I'm not using that. But I gotta tell you, it's not looking at how you teach somebody to make a simple change. Right? So if I, if you leave my office and I just say, listen, do you think, do you want to make those two little changes? Yeah, go do it. And then once those two changes are in place, let's make the next ones. So it's a process. And you know, when I watch how people change, no two people change at the same rate at the same time. Right. But I did notice that successful people go through a series of steps. The first one is awareness. Right. They become acutely Aware that what they're doing is no longer working for them. But that's not enough to change. Because how many people are aware they have a problem? They're still not changing. Right. We heard your drug stories. Right. The second step though is contemplation.

Hell, we haven't even got into the hookers yet. That's all.

The second step I watch successful people go is to contemplation. What you have to do is you have to think about how this change is going to affect you. Is this going to be more fun or less fun? Is this something you really think you can do in the face of socializing? The next step is knowledge. And this is where I see a lot of people fail because they take in the wrong knowledge. Every step they take going forward fails them. So if you can give people straightforward, accurate information, their success rate's going to be higher just based on that. The next step, then they move into action, they start making the changes. But this is where most people are deluded. You don't go into the final step. On average, most people go into from action back to contemplation three or four or five times, depending on how long it's going to take them to get what they didn't learn to go on to the final step, which is self accountability. So I watch what successful people do. There's no mystery to me as to why they're successful. I watch what unsuccessful people do. There's no mystery as to why they aren't. I'm not disputing that research at all. But what I'm saying at the end of the day is I think we have to look at how we're educating people to make the appropriate changes that they're willing to make at the time.

I agree with you, but what I'm finding is people are coming to me after a month or two months at the gym, trying to work out all the time or one of these things, thinking that after a certain short period of time it's going to set in when they don't recognize there's a lot of other elements. And I love your whole step process in that. But it's a long term process, it's a lifetime, it's not short. And I think a lot of us are under this misguided, you know, that this is just going to happen after.

A month or two, fast, easy. But wait, that's not long.

Yeah, it's at least two years for most people, if not long.

Yeah. You know the thing is that it's really weird because we Live in such an instant gratification world. See, it's a lot easier to get a hit by eating a pepperoni pizza than it is to go to the gym and drink water and work out.

And cook your food.

Yeah. I mean, so the more that we become a culture of instantaneous, just the more difficult it becomes psychologically. And here's the whole reason that I bring you here and talk like this and that sort of stuff is, is that you mentioned it is coping. How you eat has everything to do with how you cope with life. And you may be doing a lot of wonderful things in your life. You may be reading the best books, you may be highly educated, you may even be doing your best to sleep and you have rituals. But if you insert shitty food, infrequent eating, if you don't nurture yourself well, your ability to cope physically, psychologically, emotionally, so much of it is affected by exercise and eating. So what I'd love to do is have you give some suggestions, some things that would deliver relatively quickly so that they can. And I don't mean quickly, like, oh, these are quick fixes, what I mean. So I'd love for people to be able to leave here having a paradigm shift on how they think about food and about exercise, that they could start seeing results. So it literally becomes a lifetime improvement. Improvement in how they operate.

I think one good way to do that is to call this the method of simplicity. What I do is take notes in the original interview, and I would like you to write down the top five things you think are holding you back from getting what you say you want. What are some of them? I eat out too much. I don't cook. I eat too much red meat. I eat too much fried food. I drink too much alcohol. Right. I mean, whatever that list is for you, if you make that list out and you list four things, I would encourage you to look at that list and ask yourself which one you're ready to work on right now. Spend two or three weeks or a month just fixing that one thing before you move on to the other. I will share with you this. What the most successful clients learn is that there's one thing on that list that if you focused on the list I just gave you, there's one thing if you focused on, it changes almost all of them. If you cook your own food and carry it, you, you will have massive results. I watch people fight and defend their position to remain overweight. At the very same time they tell me they want to lose weight. Let me show you that conversation will go. It could be even with drug addiction, because this is so parallel, so much, Right?

Yeah.

Honestly, I think so much of people's obesity is literally rooted in addiction.

Yeah, but unfortunately with food, you can't give it up. Right. With drugs, you can get it out of your life. You can make new associations, relationships. So that's why it can be a difficult change. But I will tell you this. I will watch people fight and defend their position to remain overweight even when they say they don't want it. I will say to somebody, listen, if you just cook and carry your own food, your problem will go away. Oh, I can't cook. I don't have time for that. That point of resistance, trust me, is the area you should focus the most attention on. Wherever your points of resistance are, that's where you need the most work. And that's what we do as clinicians. We really listen to what you're saying, how you're saying it, and then try to get in there and figure out how we could help you overcome that particular resistant point.

The way that I currently eat is more. Now, I'm not super religious, hell bent on any particular method of eating, and I've interviewed people on every type from raw foods to vegans to, I mean, you name it, to Paleo people to whatever. And my current diet is close to like a Paleo sort of diet with very healthy food in the sources of where they come from. And so what Isis? Gluten, the devil? Is dairy the devil? I mean, like, how do you now certainly. And I don't eat processed foods. I mean, it's very rare that I will eat something out of a can or a bag unless I'm stuck in the airport. And if I do, I'll probably get nuts or something like that.

Right.

And so how do you recommend people eat? And what are the things that you 100% know to be healthy? Or is that even too much of a stretch? I mean, because it seems like every decade. I mean, look what happened to coconut. I mean, I remember going and seeing what's Tim Allen, the comedian. We had a backstage pass and he did this whole skit. He's like, kale, everyone's eating kale. He's like, when did kale get an effing publicist? I won't say. There's so many things about food. So what do you know are just, this is the way to eat or does it depend? I mean, how does one answer this? Because there's so many different opinions about this. And I've interviewed Very smart people that.

Look very divergent ideas.

Yeah.

They're intelligent and they are healthy. It appears completely different opinions.

Isn't that wild?

Yeah.

So there's really two questions that you had in there, and we'd like to tease those apart, one of which is, is this the devil? And the other one is, what's the solution?

Right.

They're actually separate. So I don't argue that any one simple food caused the crisis that we're in. I don't find that evidence compelling. You know, I don't see the time frame of 1990 to 2000. I don't see evidence saying that we suddenly consumed too much animal protein and that was the culprit, or that that's when we first discovered wheat. It's probably not when we first discovered wheat, nor was that when we first discovered dairy foods, nor was that when we stopped eating animal protein. Not starting or stopping it. So I don't think anything does clear single causes, but I think food can be a solution and we've got to eat something anyway. So I would argue probably the simplest step is to really avoid processed foods, you know, things that have weird chemicals. And I think few would debate about that. Another thing I think everyone would agree upon is that we're served by getting a variety of produce, you know, lots of colors, fresh leafy greens. The paleo and the vegans, they're in alignment on that. The part where I really kind of forge off on my own really comes down to carbohydrates. So people tend to be in the nutrition world either all for or all against. Back in the 80s, I was a runner and this was like the low fat craze. And I remember being in a friend's house.

Lots of sugar, but low fat.

Lots of sugar, but low fat.

Yeah.

So I was at a friend's house, totally fit gal, and she served us these snacks and it was jelly beans and pretzels because they were fat free. So this was like all good food and you have all you want, you don't worry about it. So now we've kind of gone the opposite way to where bacon and coconut are the new health foods. And chocolate.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And I would argue that carbs are a tool. It's not carbs. Fat, protein, neither good or bad, they're all tools. And carbs have a unique effect upon our daily rhythms. There's so much data showing that. And intuitively imagine if you have pancakes, syrup, some waffles, some fruit juice for your breakfast, and then you want to go be productive. You're gonna crash, you know, you're gonna feel tired. So when you have a lot of carbs, what happens is your body makes a lot of insulin. You know, no mystery, no debate. So that insulin causes you to lower your cortisol output. Cortisol raises your blood sugar, insulin lowers your blood sugar. So if you eat carbs, insulin comes out to lower your blood sugar. Well, that makes you have to not make as much cortisol, otherwise your sugar would go back up again. They fight each other. So in the morning, when you shut down your cortisol, you're not mentally alert, you're not energized, and you're going to want to take a nap after a little bit. On the other hand, in the evening, you really need to have a good suppression of your cortisol. That's how you sleep. Everyone knows that you write about in.

Your book, if you're not getting enough carbs, you sleep. Some people, they just can't sleep.

Right. There have been studies on that. If you drop your carbs in even just a couple of days, the quality of your sleep suffers. And there's really well known chemical pathways by which our neurotransmitters that allow us to sleep, our serotonin and our melatonin, they depend upon healthy carbs. We need some carbs to drive them to be made and to get into our brains.

Well, what I've noticed, like when I go and lift weights, if I will eat some brown rice or even white rice, the strength I have when I'm working out is this grater.

Sure.

And I'm a pretty clean eater and I'm always trying to test things. Again, as much as I've interviewed people and I've read a lot and I think I know a lot more than the average bear, I'm always trying to fine tune it and try to see what works with me for me. And there's obviously what you very much describe in your book, there's other factors than just the food you're putting in your mouth. It's also timing too, because one of the things that I've learned from you about eating carbs, it's not even eating carbs, it's when you do it. Whereas some people be like, don't eat any carbs, eat them in the morning. And you say the exact opposite. Right, Explain that.

Yeah. So in the morning. The logic behind that idea is that, well, if you eat them in the morning, you can burn them throughout the day. And the reality is we burn fuel in different ways and Our very best fuel source is stuff called glycogen. That's a stored type of carbohydrate in our liver and our muscles. Now, that's our best fuel. So when you're training hard and you have the rice, you generate more glycogen. That's our greatest, most powerful fuel source. It takes us a long time to form it. It doesn't go from our mouth to our leg in a matter of minutes. It's more like about eight to 14 hours at the quickest, may be a lot longer. So the meal you have in the morning is actually a super important thing for your brain chemistry, for your energy, for your blood sugar, but it's not your fuel for that day. You're not really burning it for fuel that day that you ate it. But the stuff you have in the evening, the night prior, that can form glycogen, that can form this good muscle energy that you can get the most power from.

Okay, so across the board, advice that you would give for anyone listening to this on the podcast or watching the video, because we're obviously recording this on video also. What advice would you give them about, starting today, how to look at eating food? I mean, obviously read your book if they want a deep understanding of all of this. But what are some basics that people would be well served to hear?

You know, simple foods, unprocessed foods, solid breakfast, protein for breakfast, and have some healthy carbs. They can be from vegetables such as squash or sweet potatoes or turnips or parsnips. I actually really like beans and legumes, and I love intact whole grains. They've really got a place in the intestinal flora. And they work better in the body in the evening as opposed to earlier in the day.

Well, you know, I can't remember who I asked this to, but gluten. There's a whole attack on gluten and stuff and lots of books with a lot of evidence. It appears that wheat and gluten is a bad thing. And I'm pretty much wheat and gluten free. What is gluten? I mean, people hear it, but I also see how a lot of packaged food companies are using it to produce really crappy food that is gluten free. What is gluten and what does it do to the body? And who. Who does this apply? How do you find out if you're gluten intolerant? And I say this playing devil's advocate here because I've done a lot of tests, and I know certain things in my body responds to and what it doesn't. But I'm asking this question more for the listeners.

So gluten comes into a category that I call the sticky proteins. So you make dough and you need flour and eggs and milk. They will make it all stick together and bind up with it. So some proteins are just really hard to pull apart. And yeah, gluten is a very sticky, almost like snot, so to speak. It's very tenacious and holds onto things.

That's very exciting. I like this description.

The downside is that if we're not all the way digesting it, it can hurt our immune system. It can activate our immune system and trigger inflammation. And you're right, it's hard to really divorce the effects of it from processed foods. And I would also agree that many could focus on just that one issue and still not be on a healthy diet. There's a lot of gluten free crap nowadays. I talked to someone earlier that I diagnosed for the first time having very advanced celiac disease. And I told her, I said the gluten free thing, it is very popular right now. The good part about that is for those to whom this is a real condition, there are more resources, more options and they're not all healthy. So. So you always want to think big picture. And I'm really a fan of just simple foods, intact whole grains, vegetables and fruits as they come, fresh meats, nuts and seeds and really building your diet around those. Not even the packaged things you get from the health foods market, just not even packaged things in general. Yeah.

Well, certainly one of the best pieces of advice, I don't know if I heard it from Michael Pollan or whatever, is just, you know, eat foods that have one name, like broccoli. Doritos is not one name. Doritos is like a bunch of chemicals with. Yeah. So just not eating processed foods. That alone will change your life. Do you have to have money and be rich in order to eat really well and to do all this stuff strategically?

You do not. And that's the thing, is that the unprocessed foods, many people have done analysis on this, that if you're doing some simple shopping and some batch cooking, no, it can actually be more cost effective and more time effective, believe it or not.

Yeah. At my Genius network meeting, the last one that I did here at my office, we had Dr. Joel Cotton, who's a big heart specialist, writes for Reader's Digest and his specialty is the heart. And he was giving a 10 minute talk and one of the things he Talked about is eat vegetables, eat your vegetables. I know people are going to complain, I don't like the taste of vegetables. He's like, well, I wonder if you'll like the taste of cancer. I wonder if you like the taste of chemotherapy. I wonder if you like the taste of diabetes. And it was a really interesting analogy because a lot of people are like, well, you know, I don't have the money. I mean, if you don't take time out for your health now, you're going to take time out for it later and it's going to be painful and it's going to be costly and your life may not be long. And so you'd be really well served to learn about eating and about something that every human being needs to do day in, day out and understand how it affects your body. So I mean, that's of course, that's.

My perspective, that same thing from the opposite angle. I had a long term patient who has a yard maintenance company and he was in early diabetes and some dietary change completely cured him of that. He had seen a general doctor and was put on medications. They weren't helping, they were causing side effects. And he went on a program like I've outlined and he was non diabetic after about a month and a half. And I know he had some favorite foods and his name was Joel, also coincidence. But I was talking to him and I said, well, how are you doing on, you know, staying away from the big swigs and this and that and. And he said, are you kidding? He said, nothing tastes better than being healthy. You know that feeling good and being energy was more pleasurable. It was more positive than what it was he was giving up. And that was his discovery.

Yeah, well, I had this, I used to have it on my refrigerator where it was a saying, nothing tastes as great as being lean feels. Now certainly there's things that taste really damn good. There are certain behaviors that are very indulgent but are very destructive. And it's really about building in the rituals because there's a period of time where I think it's like you have to work through the burn. I mean, if you're addicted to sugar, you're going to go through withdrawals. I mean, you're going to make a shift. But that's why we don't have everyone walking around looking awesome, being super wealthy and having great relationships because all of those things require a certain level of work and commitment. And the challenge though, in what you identify here is the road to get there is those not guilting yourself in the saying, oh, I'm just a bad person and I've got bad habits. It's really understanding that we're a walking biochemical machine. We're a pharmacy, our brain's a pharmacy. And a lot of these things are affected. Your goal here with the adrenal reset is to reset that. So it gives people, okay, shut this thing off and start a new sort of thing. Well, not quite in that way, but it's really about just giving people a new lease on life if you want to take it to that level.

One of the most beautiful things I learned was from very hardcore science. Our body is a mass of tissues made up of organs made up of cells, made up of molecules made up of atoms. And it's all totally transitory. It's all in a state of dynamic flux. So right now, who you are, what your physical, physical body is on the very most material level. If we went back a year prior, none of the same stuff was there, the same identity that you identified as being Joe Polish that didn't physically exist. Less than 1% of those actual atoms have carried through and stayed with you to today. We're constantly in this process.

Why do I have the same looking nose, though?

All the structural parts come back in the same place, but the building blocks and the actual chemistry of us, it's in a state of dynamic flux. So the cool thing is that if we can identify things that are disrupting us and just change the big blocks, the big barriers and supply the needed pieces, then transformation is normal. It's not mystical. It's just the normal state of affairs.

Yeah, no, that's awesome. Well, you know, you're a real expert on thyroid and hormones. So how do our adrenal hormones relate to body weight? Let's talk about that.

So the adrenal glands are the biggest single factor for the largest number of people. For body weight, they control just that, burning and storing stuff. The thyroid gland, it's a big deal for a certain number of people, and it may be a quarter or so of the population. So the adrenal glands are affected by just life and by stressors. The thyroid gland can be affected by a disease, and that disease makes it not able to generate enough hormones. And these hormones control how much we warm our bodies, you know, how much energy we generate warming our bodies. So when they're lacking, we burn less fuel. And for many, that can be a source of weight struggle as well.

Can diet help correct adrenal rhythm?

It can.

And so what does that mean?

So we Did a clinical trial on this. You, you know, I've always been my own guinea pig. And I checked my cortisol via saliva, hair, blood, urine, all these things, and I checked my blood sugar all throughout the day, and I saw that I could change it by shifting the carbohydrate intake. Then I had some patient friends who were early diabetic or had weight struggles. They saw the same things. Then we did a formal clinical trial and we had people that all of whom had had at least three diets just not work for them the last few years. They were all struggling with their weight and none of them had had an easy time managing it. We measured their adrenal cycle and there was not a healthy rhythm amongst a bunch of them. They all had very poor circadian rhythms. So only by doing diet, there's a lot of things that can help the rhythm that I talk about in the book that are not diet. But I only wanted to see what the diet did. So we just did the diet with them. And a month later, the average rhythm was more than 50% healthier than it was before by just the food thing. So we saw that diet can correct that. And I'm not aware of data apart from that study showing that that can actually happen.

So when you say circadian, what does that mean?

Thank you. That means things that change throughout the course of the day. So we're awake and we've got one mode of functioning. We're asleep and there's a different one. And we are daylight creatures, and there's this bigger rhythm, properly called a diurnal rhythm. And being daylight creatures, we have a circadian cycle. So we wake up with the sunlight, we go to sleep with the darkness. And all these orchestrated events of our digestion, our immunity, our metabolism, are all linked to that sunlight cycle.

So if I'm gathering this right, it's our rhythm, our adrenal rhythm, that will dictate how we weight gain, how we respond, how we think, how we sleep, how we feel. Is that correct?

Yup.

Okay, so what ways other than diet? Because you describe the diet and give recipes and everything in the book, what are other things that people can do to regain or put themselves on the best rhythm?

I mentioned the sunlight is one trick that morning sunlight. And in many parts of the country or the world, that's not an option. It's not bright, bright sunlight when you wake up. They've got really good light boxes. Nowadays you want ones that generate 10,000 lux or greater.

You mean like the Philip blue light box or things like that or are you talking something else?

They're not blue, the ones that are best researched, but they generate high amounts of bright light. And the better ones have stands that allow them to be above the height of your head, like on a table.

Like this video camera behind you that's bright, blinding me just so we get the proper lighting here and hopefully I look less attractive or something, I don't know, pretty much.

So you get something like that. And in the morning you have your breakfast or you have your tea, you read the paper and you've got a light going like that. Or when you can, you do those same things outside. And of course, bonus points to go for a walk or be active. But just the light exposure passively by itself is huge towards that. Another thing along those same lines is temperature changes. So some researchers have argued that another big change that's caused weight gain is the fact that we don't get cold anymore. You know, that we're the same temperature all day and all night. And that was not true for our ancestors. So part of our daily rhythm was burning calories in ways to warm us at night. So when we're not getting cold, that does not get engaged. So a simple habit is to cool your environment by at least 5, preferably 10 degrees greater than your daytime environment for nighttime.

Okay, gotcha. What are you currently working on? And how would someone define integrative medicine? Because when you hear that, it's like, what does that actually mean?

Well, I think that this is a new system which I think is clearly the way of the future, that places great emphasis on the human organism's potential for healing. So that I think most people have very little confidence in their body's ability to heal. So that's the first thing, a strong emphasis on healing. It also looks at patients as more than physical bodies. It's whole person medicine that looks at the mental, emotional aspects, spiritual aspects of being. It places great emphasis on lifestyle. So when you sit with an integrated physician, they will ask you about diet, sleep, what you do for fun, you know, all that stuff. Then we make use of all available therapies, wherever they come from, as long as they're not going to hurt people and show reasonable evidence of efficacy. And we don't reject conventional medicine and we don't accept alternative treatment uncritically. I am absolutely certain this is the way of the future. Because the great promise of integrative medicine is that it can lower health care costs by bringing, bringing in treatments that are not dependent on expensive technology, including pharmaceuticals. And as well as through its attention to lifestyle, really practice real prevention. And I'm also confident that one day we'll be able to drop the word integrative. It'll just be good medicine.

Good medicine. Okay, let's kind of talk just that term, good medicine. So there's a lot of doctors medical, and there's a lot of. There's functional medicine doctors. There's all kinds of different doctors. And there are, I think, like in any industry, there's some amazing ones and there's ones that just aren't a lot of it. Is this a pill for an ill? It's either medicine or it's some sort of supplement. And to what degree do. Because we live in a culture where they want a magic pill.

Right.

And a lot of people are trained that way. And you see so much advertising that way. And of course, your emphasis on food, and I believe food is medicine. So how do you think about supplementation and exercise and eating as it all works together? I mean, what are your thoughts on this?

Well, you know, I think the big components of healthy lifestyle, certainly diet. And there's a lot of information that we have about what is a good diet. I see an awful lot of people today who follow extreme eating patterns that I think are unwanted in the long term. I think physical activity is critical to good health. I think it's also important to change the nature of physical activity as you age. In my 20s, I ran, and then I got signals from my knees that they didn't like that anymore, and I changed to cycling, and I did that for a long time. Now I'm a swimmer and that's my main activity. I also have two big dogs that walk me every day, But I love so many. But I think it's important to be physically active. I think that managing stress is key, and there's lots of ways of doing. You can't live without stress, but you can practice methods that neutralize its harmful effects on your mind and body. My favorite are simple breathing techniques because they're so time and cost efficient.

So you're a swimmer. One thing I And you mentioned you used to run in the beginning. I have to bring this up, and I didn't have it as a question, but what I found when we were talking when we went out to lunch in Tucson is that you were a fan of Dr. John Sarno's work when it comes to physical pain. And I'm a huge believer. I think the vast majority of the way that pain is treated and diagnosed is wrong. And I lived in chronic Pain for most of my adult life. Which the way Sarna would describe what he called in the beginning, he called it tension myositis syndrome. Then it became tension myoneuro, then the mind body syndrome. And you're an expert in this area. And he said that the pain is caused by oxygen deprivation and brought on by repressed emotions, predominately anger and rage. And so Steve Ozanich, who wrote recent books on it, he sent you some of his books. Could you explain that from your standpoint about how much the mind and emotional states affect the physical body?

Well, to me, this is one of the great limitations of conventional medicine is that it is totally stuck in the biomedical model which sees only that which is physical as being real. And in that model, if you observe a change in a physical system, the cause has to be physical. The idea of non physical causation of physical events is not allowed. And for that reason, all of the whole realm of mind body medicine is viewed with great suspicion by conventional science and medicine. And that enormously limits their ability to manage these conditions. With back pain particularly, one of the most striking facts about it is that you can see, you can look at X rays and scans of people that look so horrible, you can't imagine that they are not crippled by pain and they have no symptoms whatever. On the other hand, you can look at scans and X rays of people that look completely normal and the people are disabled by pain. So there's a very low correlation between physical findings and subjective experience. And that's one of the things that Sarno is based on. So this is a major component of integrated medicine. I call it whole person medicine, where you don't exclude the mind. That's like it's key. Let me tell you one story. A couple weeks ago I was in Japan and I spent time in Okinawa, which is one of my favorite places. When I was doing research for my book Healthy Aging, I made a number of trips there because Okinawa has had the highest concentration of centenarians in the world. And it's very interesting to look at their. What is it about that? It's awful hard to tease all those things apart. It's a tropical Pacific paradise with clean air and water. The Okinawan diet is one of the most interesting diets I've ever seen. Very different from mainland Japanese diet, but incredible variety of sea and land vegetables, unusual foods. Okinawans get great physical activity all the time, not by going to gyms and using exercise machines. They're calling in fish nets and carrying water and chopping wood and hoeing in the garden and stuff like that. But I think especially there is an enormous influence of the way that aging is thought of in that culture. The old people in Okinawa are honored. They're living treasures. They're made part of all community activities. One story I collected there, which I think is very telling, is that a common cause of sibling fighting in traditional Okinawan society is over who is going to get to take care of the aging parents. Very different from here. Anyway, I was in. There's a village in Okinawa called Ogimi which is celebrated as the longevity village. I had been there a number of times, but I went back this time and they paraded out a number of their old centenarians, which they do. And all of them were asked what was the secret of their longevity. And one of the things that they all said was eat everything. Interesting. However, in the past couple of years, Okinawan longevity has plummeted and now Hong Kong has surpassed them, which is hard for me to believe. And the fall in Okinawan longevity is entirely attributed to McDonald's that there has been a sudden appearance of American fast food and people go for it. So when these people say eat everything, I don't think they meant mc. I think it was their traditional diets. But how dramatic to see this change in such a short time.

No doubt. Wow, that's fascinating.

One woman who was 102, I think another secret that she had, which I've started to practice, she says you want to move your fingers all the time. She was always doing things like this. She said it's very good for the brain.

We're going to talk about kids, you know, I'll come to kids because people may not realize how children are truly being poisoned with foods that are actually marketed as healthy and nutritious. And it's really screwed up because not only see, children don't have the mental ability to really even determine long term consequences of what that's going to lead to later in life.

Well, they also generally don't have a car or a bank account. So someone's giving them this stuff. They're not going grocery shopping. They might get in the cart and then bug their mommy for the sugar coated cereals. But again, it's not the ones. You just point out really well that it's not the foods that we think are bad that are creating the problems. It's the foods we actually think are healthy. And one of the things that drives me insane is the fact that we can put no sugar added on a label. Now I'm going to show you one. I have three. You've got props here, but I just want to show you. So this says no sugar added on this label, okay? So if you look at the ingredients on this thing, it says no sugar added yet. It's. And this is called green machine, Right? Boosted green machine. No sugar added yet. It's got apple juice, mango puree.

If you look at kiwi, pineapple, banana puree. And these are all the fruits and the sugars in the beginning. And then you get to spirulina, natural flavors, alfalfa, broccoli, spinach, barley. But those are at such low levels.

So they did a little bit of green to give it color. So they could call it green machine. But in reality. And they put purees of fruit juice in there. So fruit juice concentrate, fruit juice purees. You can put these things into products and say, no sugar added. So those little dried fruit snacks that they do like, check this one out. This. I mean, does this not look. It's organic, made in nature. I'm not sure where else you'd make cranberries in a lab. Like, where would you make them? But they say no gluten and no nuts and no sugar added. No sugar added. Now, I'm not sure how you could have gluteny cranberries, but it's such a good marketing thing. Now we'll put no gluten, I'm sure.

Yeah, you put no gluten on something.

You put it on a potato. No gluten. Remember when they did that with cholesterol? They'd have a potato with no cholesterol. It doesn't have a liver. Never had one. But no sugar added. It's got apple juice concentrate. So let's talk about apple juice. Apple juice. I'm going to go on a total rant here, because this is a kid's drug of choice. Kids drug of choice is this. And I'm going to talk Oreos in a minute, because Oreos are crazy. But let's say this is a kid's drug of choice. This is worse than this. This is worse than this. You're going to say, why, jj? Why would that be?

Well, if people are listening to the audio version of this, there's a can of apple juice.

A can of apple juice, and there's a Coke. Now, how could a. Oh, that was a diet Coke. Well, let's pretend.

For.

Let's pretend. Let's suspend disbelief here in TV land. Say that was a Coke. So an apple juice is worse than a Coke because it's higher in fructose. So again, you've got kids with fatty livers. We've got kids. Right now, the obesity rate in children, one in three kids is either overweight or obese. Do you remember when we were growing up that it was like there was one fat kid in class and it was the weird, it was like the rarity. And they teased them and they weren't even obese, they were overweight. Right now we've got one in three being overweight or obese.

Oh, it's dramatic. I mean, the way it is humans.

It just, it breaks my heart.

In the last couple decades, yeah, that.

Whole evolution thing has gotten way worse than anyone ever would have projected that evolution picture. But we've got this quadrupling now in teens. Like obesity is now quadrupling over the last. From 30 years ago to now, obesity has quadrupled in teens, doubled in kids. This should not be happening. The fact that we've had to change the name of adult onset diabetes to type 2 diabetes because children are getting it should be sign enough. But what we're doing is when you look at exposure equals preference, we are creating drug addicts with our kids and realize that if you are an overweight or an obese child, the chance you'll be an overweight or obese adult is 70%. Now, a lot of that is okay. We've exposure equals preference and realize that again, the kids aren't getting in their car and driving to the store. So how are the Oreos getting in the house? Right. I mean, we don't have the stuff in the house. So I will tell you a funny story. I get these Oreos because. And I'm going to take tell you the drug story about the Oreo in a minute. But I get these Oreos and I bring them to my studio house because we're going to tape this whole kitchen makeover where we throw the bad stuff out and we bring the good stuff in. So I get the low fat Oreos and I get the double stuff Oreos, which in reality, the low fat Oreos are worse than the regular Oreos because when you take fat out, you bring more sugar in. I mean, that is one of the biggest problems that's happened over the last 20 years is that we decided that fat fat was the villain because of Ancel Keys, who really took down our health nationwide. We pulled the fat out, we put sugar in its place because high fructose corn syrup is so cheap and devastated the health of the nation. So I have these Oreo cookies and Bryce my 17 year old comes into this studio house. He's like, wow, like he has walked into heaven. He's like, what is all this stuff? Because there's sodas and cupcakes and all just trash. He thinks mommy has finally lost her mind.

That's funny.

He's like, can I have some of those? I go, they're props, Bryce, they're props. You know? He goes, please. Pretty please, Pretty please. He wants these Oreos. Like he's going straight to the Oreos. Apparently this is the number one cookie Oreos. Amazing. With this thing inside that whole. Even knows what this white stuff is. Anyway, he eats two of these Oreos because I just contained. I'm watching, I'm going to watch what happens here. Eats two of them. And I'm looking over him, he says, I can't eat anymore because I feel sick. Score. Score one for the home team. So they did this study of rats at Connecticut College. And what they found in the study, they compared morphine to Oreos. And what they found was that morphine and Oreos both have the same effect on the brain. They both light up the reward center of the brain. They trigger endorphins and dopamine and serotonin. But given the choice between the morphine and the Oreos, the rats chose the Oreos.

Interesting. That is interesting.

Frightening. I mean, just scary stuff. So, I mean, think about that when you're giving your kid apple juice and Oreos.

Yeah. You know, I was actually talking to someone earlier today about addiction and about drugs because, you know, as I've talked about publicly, I was a really bad drug addict. When I was 18 years old, I would free base cocaine and I literally would wake up to get high and I would get high to go to bed. I mean, I literally was just. That was my coping mechanism. You know, I wanted to get rid of the pain, the anxiety, the, the stuff I was experiencing, the boredom. I just chose a really bad way of doing it. And we were having this conversation, it was with a dentist. And it was funny because I said, well, you know, they found out in the 50s that if they hit the dopamine, serotonin centers of a rat with drugs, the rat will push the pellets and keep hitting it to get the highest over sleep, over food, over sex, over everything. And a rat doesn't have the ability to make a moral judgment. I mean, they don't sit and think, well, what I'm doing is right or wrong. They just want that hit. And so what's going on in the brain is biochemical. And so people that are, you know, really beat themselves up or other people that beat up addicts. It hijacks the brain and food hijacks the brain.

It hijacks the brain. And that's. Then they sneak it in everywhere. So you don't even realize you're doing it. You think, I'm having that green drink. I'm doing a great thing. You know, I'm having, oh, I'm supposed to start today with this skim milk and cereal. And so you don't realize. So your brain, you're addicted to this. Now you have to eat every two to three hours because you've got the brain issues put together with your biochemistry, because now your blood sugar is going up, your insulin's up, your insulin's high. You can't. You can't access stored fat for fuel. So your blood sugar crashes, you have to eat again, and all of a sudden you can't even use stored fat for fuel. You're a sugar burner and you're addicted to the sugar. And your biochemistry is starting to shift. You're becoming insulin resistant. Right now in the United states, we have 86 million people who are insulin resistant, pre diabetic. 86 million, 29 million people are diabetic. And of those 29 million people, 8 million don't even know they are. And. And a sweet drink. If you drink one or two sweet drinks a day. So that could be that green drink. That could be this. That could be this vitamin water that you're having for focus that has 31 grams of sugar.

So let's talk about this. I mean, I think, oh, this one's lower.

This one. No, it's 31 grams of sugar.

31, gross. So vitamin water, it's called vitamin water. That sounds very healthy. Is that healthy?

It's vitamin water. Focus, by the way, this is for focus. Because actually. And it's naturally sweet. Sweetened. It's naturally sweetened. I just want people to understand how duped we are by marketing. I mean, shame on them for doing this. And this is why I'm taking this on. I'm in need a lot of help. Because as you can imagine, I'm taking on all of these companies with all this marketing that are taking our health down. And I mean, we have an economic crisis. Our economic crisis is because of these things. This is what's happening. It drives me crazy. Because if you drink one of these every day, you are going to increase your risk of diabetes by 25%.

Interesting.

And you thought by drinking this or that green drink that you were doing a good thing for yourself and it makes it even worse.

Yeah, see, that's the whole thing. It's one thing to know, oh, I'm just drinking a milkshake or I'm drinking. But there's a lot of.

But what about Insure Active? That's the muscle health one.

So talk about that.

Okay, so, so I actually, and this.

Is, that was my question is what are these liquids?

Now here's what's so ridiculous. You can't even, even with my glasses on, I wouldn't be able to see this. So in order to. So I have this huge magnify. But if you look at it.

So guys, real quick, just for the camera.

Because you can't see this. But look at, here's this thing. It's 200 calories, 250 calories for this little bottle. And there are 22 grams of sugar in it. And the first ingredient's water, but the second ingredient is sugar. And then there's corn, which is basically corn maltodextrin, which is also sugar. Okay, so it's got sugar and sugar and then it's got some soy protein just to lower your thyroid along with it. So we'll raise your insulin and lower your thyroid. Bam. Bam.

That is a muscle building liquid and that's muscle health.

How on earth can.

But you're sure just goodness in a bottle, isn't it?

All this stuff, it just makes me, it makes me crazy. It just makes me crazy.

And it should.

I mean, it's bullshit. I mean, well, but here's the deal.

I have so many this. I mean, we talk about sugar as a drug and people are like, I'm not eating that much sugar. I'm not eating that much sugar. We're not eating this anymore. I mean, our table sugar consumption thankfully has gone down, but we are getting 22 teaspoons of sugar in a day and kids are getting in 34 teaspoons a day.

Can you.

Because when you talk about grams, like 22 grams or 18 grams or 30 grams or whatever in a bottle, can you explain what that is? Like, I think in a soda, like a Coke or Pepsi, there's something like 11.

Is it 11 tablespoons? So 16 ounce soda has 44 grams, which is about 140 calories of sugar. I mean just, it's a little heap of sugar. What I like to look at it how I did this for a great visual for people because I think no one's going to get up and have an Ice cream cone for breakfast, I would hope. But if you got up and had your cereal with your skim milk, a glass of orange juice, maybe put some sliced bananas on that cereal because that's got good potassium, right?

Right.

That's basically about four ice cream cones worth of sugar.

Four ice cream cones worth of sugar, bowl of cereal, skim milk, a banana and what else?

And some orange juice. The calcium fortified orange juice. Let's make it even better. Or let's say you were just going to go get a skinny latte and a muffin. A skinny latte and a muffin is three ice cream cones. Now, that muffin in reality, if you wipe the frosting off a cupcake, take a look at it. What is it? It's a muffin. Right? So a muffin is just a cupcake without the frosting on it. But all of a sudden you called it a muffin. And what if it's a whole grain muffin and you just. Now you have a little halo. And I think that's where the biggest damage is coming from is all these things that are agave sweetened or there's no sweetener added. You know, a low fat little strawberry yogurt, 26 grams of sugar, that's nearly two ice cream cones worth of sugar. And again, these are things that we're doing to be healthy. That's why we've got this crisis. We've got a crisis of misinformation where we are being duped. It's creating this addictive cycle with all of us and then destroying our biochemistry along with it. So all of a sudden we're going, I cannot. Why am I pre diabetic? You know, I just had someone come to me and she was using a health shake every day. She can't figure out why she can't lose weight. I go, you know, it's probably just a couple simple tweaks. I usually just can catch a couple little things. And she every day had been given this shake that was supposed to help control blood sugar and it had 17 grams of fructose in it. This is where you get into trouble, right?

Totally, totally. So here's what I like to do. Just because I'm sitting there thinking to myself, all right, if someone. This is like new to them. They never heard this before. And I know a lot of people that I interview, lots of health experts and stuff, they're familiar with it, but they may not have gone this deep with it or heard this perspective as it relates to sugar. And some people are like, you know, I mean, you're talking about stuff that I eat every day. I love the way this tastes. And I don't want to trade that for, you know, because the brain is still cooked.

And we don't like change either.

Oh, absolutely not. And when you're addicted and I think a ton of food stuff, it is addictive.

It's built to be addictive. That way we sell more of it.

Yeah, I mean, you know, I mean, look, you look at the McDonald's playgrounds, I mean, they don't just want the people hooked on the food. They want them hooked on the environment. They want them hooked on the Happy Meal, the toys.

Well, we put gluten on the French fries. Yeah, there's gluten on the french fries.

Yeah. And I think even. God, 20 years ago, the Chicken McNuggets, they were injected with six different sort of liquids, one including real high sodium to give flavor.

Yeah.

Usually we've got a sugar, salt, fat combo that, like, if you look at a lot of the sodas, it's sugar and salt, because then you want more.

And more and more.

So there's reasoning behind all of this stuff, and it's so that you'll want more, more and more. But here's the thing, and I kind of get where you're going with this. And the deal is it's simpler than people realize. What I wanted to do was make this. If it's not easy to do and if they're hard to find foods or it's expensive, or it doesn't taste good, no one's going to do it. What I hear from people over and over again is they actually like the swaps better because it's really just trading habits. You're used to eating one thing, you're just going to. Going to shift it out for something else. In the first couple days, you might be going, all right, where's the, you know, I'm missing the skinny latte, but instead you're having either your bulletproof coffee shout out to Dave, Dave Asprey. We love Dave Asprey. So either you're having that and you will never miss that skinny latte again, or you're having some coconut milk and an espresso. It's not hard to do. It's just knowing which things to make the shifts from. But the bigger thing that I've heard is that within two weeks and really during. So I have people. I'll kind of back up. I have people first test just by doing that simple sugar impact quiz and doing what I call The Sneaky Sugar inventory, where I go through the most common medium and high sugar impact foods. We talked about some of them pickle relish and balsamic vinegar and these no sugar added jams. We go through all that just so you can get a feel for how much you're eating in a typical week. Because it's an eye opener, even for the most healthy eater. And if it is, what I tell people, similar to the virgin diet, is that's awesome, because if you are absolutely flawless and still feeling like crap, you know, then we gotta go look for some real deep, deep lying health issues. If you see that these things have been sneaking in, how awesome is that? Because in two weeks you can be in a totally different place. Now, what I think makes this different from everything else is what, when I looked at these programs, I went, wow, they have you go cold turkey. That doesn't work with someone who's now trained their body to be a sugar burner. Because the minute you pull these foods out, your energy is going to crash and that's going to send you searching for a cookie. So the first week I have, you just learn to live by the sugar impact plate, which means eat clean, lean protein and healthy fats and some low impact carbs to give a nice steady supply of energy to the brain. Do that, but taper from high sugar impact to medium sugar impact, you're not going to go low right away. You're just going to start creating that awareness. And then you take two weeks and you go low. And it is the most exciting thing because this is where you make this transition from being a sugar burner where you have to eat every two hours and your whole life is about food to being able to go four to six hours. In fact, Jeff Moore told me that. He said, jj, I don't even. I have to remind you myself to eat. This was a food addict guy who dieted as a hobby for his whole life. I mean, he's probably lost a couple thousand pounds in his life. He needs to remind himself to eat again. But the bigger thing that happens during that time because we drop fructose down to almost zero, is you reclaim your sweet sensitivity. And at the end of that time period where we go back and we start to match you up and go, okay, let's try some higher sugar impact food. They taste too sweet, you recognize how bad they make you feel, but they taste too sweet, you don't want them anymore. And it sounds incredible to say that. I'm sure if you're listening, you're like going, yeah, that sounds crazy. But again, I took these die hard sugar addicts. I didn't do this the easy way. When I tested it on 700 people, I basically went out and went, all right, if this is your problem, if you feel like you cannot quit sugar, it's taking you down. You're the one I want.

Yeah, well, see, that's one of the reasons why I really am happy that we're doing this interview, because I've referred a lot of people to your work, to your books. Jeff Moore. I introduced you to Jeff Moore. And the cool thing about him is this is a guy that runs a multimillion dollar food company. I mean, he sells wild things.

Seafood.

I mean, he sells seafood, he sells meat, grass fed, all kinds of stuff. And this is a guy who you would think, like, has access to all kinds. I mean, he has all the food he could want, healthy or whatever. And he's lost at this point. And this is a few months ago, over 40 pounds.

But I think the funniest thing of all, and it just shows what a problem this is, is here was Jeff, he said, I've got your book. I just don't know, you know, what will I eat? I go, what do you sell? You sell wild fish? So he sent me a picture and I talked about this, actually, in my public television show. This just shows how far you can go. He sends me this picture of this sea of cheesecakes. He is at this event and there is a sea of cheesecakes, every flavor, surfing the sea, surfing. Oh, my God. I mean, every flavor. They're beautiful with cookies in them, like just cheesecake. And I'm looking at this and he sent me this picture and I'm thinking, oh, right, oh, like, this is going to be. This is going to be his takedown shot. And he sends me this. He goes, I don't feel anything. I'm sitting here in the sea of cheesecakes and I have no cravings, no desire, no nothing. I mean, this is a sugar addict, right? Right. And that just shows you that you can get there. And it just. It's like, just say, hey, I've got two weeks. I mean, what if in two weeks you could break that control that sugar has had on you for your whole life? Because for all of us, I mean, if you look at it, I don't have a sweet tooth. But I was raised because some people genetically do. I was raised on Pop Tarts, Captain French and Cocoa Puffs. And when I thought I was doing better, I switched to frozen Yogurt and black licorice. I just kept shifting my vices, thinking I was doing better, until finally I went, this is not working. It hasn't fixed the problem because I'm still getting sugar. It just is in a different wrapper.

Many people spend their health creating their wealth, and then they have to spend their wealth trying, trying to regain their health. What if we just valued health number one. Hello, fellow Genius members. Genius network members. We're so excited to be part of your family. You heard. I'm Jennifer Carroll.

And I'm Jessica. And we are J and J. And we are going to talk to you guys today about how to live large and live long. So this is a room full of entrepreneurs. Now raise your hand if you live life, go big or go home kind of way. Yeah, I kind of thought it was about everyone. Well, that was my dad's life motto. Just like you, my dad was a rock star entrepreneur. He lived large. And actually, according to this poster right here, entrepreneurs are the new rock stars. Just like you, my dad valued success at a very young age. Travelers who loves to travel in this room. Yup. Dad loved to travel. Just like you, my dad loved his sports. He ran marathons, he wake surfed, and he cherished all 18 summers with his family. Just like you, my dad was a thought leader who wanted to make a difference. Dad lived to give. And actually, for the past 20 years, we've been going down to Mexico building homes for homeless families in Mexico. Just like you, my dad loved his life and he loved his wife, his playmate. Entrepreneurs. You guys take care of everything. You take care of your business, you take care of your staff, you take care of your family. But do you take that same care of your health? I ask you, do you value health as number one? Because you know what? My dad didn't. My dad lived large, but he never went to the doctor, as you see right here. He's a 6 3, 220 pound guy. He worked out every single day. But he bragged about not going to the doctor. And I do believe that if he did go to the doctor and if he actually got checked and if he was actually proactive about his health, he would be in this room right here and that he would actually be one of the 97% of men who survive prostate cancer if detected early. So, yes, I encourage you. And I know you guys live large, but live long. My dad made his first millions in his 20s, but he made his first widow in her 40s.

You're probably asking yourself, what on earth could this grieving widow and her darling daughter share with you today, that could be worth $250,000. It's an excellent question, but I have a question back for you. Do you want to be unstoppable? Do you want to go on and make $250,000 again and again, living our live large, live long philosophies?

Yeah.

Okay.

Then imagine, if you will. You're not here at a genius network meeting. Sadly, you're on your deathbed, surrounded by your family and friends, your loved ones. You're fighting for your last breath. And in that moment, I want to ask you, what would you do? How much would you pay for more time? How much would you pay for 250,000 more hours? That's 28 and a half more years. I know my Philip would have paid a lot more than $250,000. How much would you pay for more time? Time to scale up our businesses. Scale up your businesses. Time to keep living large as entrepreneurs. Time to watch your son live out his dream. Time to walk your daughter down the aisle. Time to grow old with the person that you love. Like you. My Phil thought he was unstoppable. By the age of 52, he was stopped by prostate cancer.

Steve and I in Forbes magazine.

Bill.

Carroll was 25 years old. Richest cheesecake vertical on our Marina. Dave and I in Flair magazine, Wayne Gretzky. He's with us. That's cool.

I know that footage is hard to watch. It's excruciating to remember. Now, you had a chance here today to meet my darling little mini me daughter, but I also want you to know that I actually gave birth to a human truck. Yes. And as my husband was holding the screaming newborn. I'm panting. I said, is it a boy? And he goes, it's a hockey player. And that's exactly what he became. A professional hockey player. Six' four, 220, missing teeth, power forward enforcer, professional hockey player. A couple months before, I went up to Canada to see Austin. And when I was up there, one of his practices, one of his coaches, Coach Jeff, comes up to me and he says to me, I'm sorry. I hear your husband is really sick. And Austin says, he's fighting for his life. Can I ask what he has? I said, prostate cancer. He looked at me like, I'm sorry. I thought everyone survived prostate cancer. I said, yeah, if you go to the doctor and you get checked early enough, you can be one of the 97% of men that survive this time disease. But, yeah, my husband wasn't that guy. By the way, Coach Jeff, how old are you? 48. You get checked regularly, right? Oh, no, look at me. I'm in great shape. I'm on the ice with the guys every day. I eat organic. I don't drink or smoke. And besides, I hate going to the doctor, and I don't need a doctor going there, if you know what I mean. Well, I watched this big, burly Canadian hawkpoise, and he just. He metamorphed into my fill. So standing there healthy, and I just lost it. I'm like, what? I just said. No, you go in and you get checked. And if you don't do it for you, you do it for your wife and your kids. You do it so you can watch your son live out his dream, and you can walk your daughter down the aisle, and you can grow old as the person that you love. Because, you know, my Philip, he can't do that anymore because he's home and he's dying. No, you go in and you get checked, and you bend over and you take it like a man.

He's like, whoa.

I'm usually yelling at your kid on the ice like that. Fast forward a couple months, Phil's passed away of prostate cancer. We're back in Canada and watching one of Austin's hockey games, and Coach Jeff comes up and gives us his condolences. But then he leans in and he kind of whispers, and he looks around. He says, jen, I went in and I got checked. Bent over and took it like a man. And, you know, when the doctor was putting on his glove, I said, doc, I'm doing this for a woman, and it's not my wife. A lot of information there.

How many of you guys have children? Raise your hand. You guys would do anything for your kids, right? Hey, dad, will you teach me how to drive? Hey, mom, will you help me pick out my prom dress? Hey, dad, will you help me pick up my new cool shoes? Hey, dad, will you watch me as I play my first NHL hockey game? Hey, dad, will you walk me down the aisle when I get married just like you guys? My dad would have done anything for Austin and I, but he can't do any of those things anymore because he's not here.

When we hold our crystal ball and we ask that infamous question, what do you want? We see a man putting on a bow tie. He picks up the phone, he says, I read your book. We saw you speak, got checked, went to the doctor, found out I had cancer, got treated, and I'm a survivor. I'm about to walk my daughter down the aisle, and I had to reach out and say, thank you for making a difference. If I could give this book to one person, just one person, I would give it to my Phil 12 years ago because I believe he'd be sitting here in this room as a genius network member if he knew the stories in this book.

Now, this message is not just for the women or for the men. Also, it's all for the women. And you know what? Right now it is breast cancer awareness month. So, yes, I want you to live large and make magical memories, But I also want you to live long and take care of those memories. Health number one for everyone in this room.

We're here today to share our stories in hopes of encouraging you to take action, to not only continue to live large as entrepreneurs, but to live long and value health number one and get checked.

And there's actually something you can do right now to add time to your life and your loved one's life. So I actually want you guys to take out your phones. Seriously, Seriously, I want you to do this. And in the past 10 minutes, you've been thinking about someone, and it might have been yourself, which is totally okay. But I want you to send this message to that person. I love you. Live long, get checked, and bend over and take it like a man.

Okay.

I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here. Go ahead. They're over here.

Do it now.

Come on. Thank you.

Watch them.