Unlocking Longevity With Four Essential Foods and Anti-Aging Strategies EP 1465

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It's something I don't think people realize that the food you eat, and not only the food you eat your lifestyle. Obesity itself causes low grade inflammation. Changing someone's diet can also improve depression Depressive scores, particularly the combined two is even more robust, which makes sense welcome.

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Food is extremely important because it's directly linked to obesity. And obesity itself causes low grade inflammation and foods that are really high, particularly when you combine a high saturated fat with a high refined sugar. So let's say you're eating your, you're drinking your glass of milk with your cookie, like that's the worst because you're getting the saturated fat and the sugar.

That's my whole job.

And that's been shown to cause a very high, what's called postprandial inflammatory response. We've been talking about postprandial glucose response, which is after you eat. So postprandial, there's a inflammatory response that also occurs after eating. And inflammation itself has been shown to inflammatory molecules cross the blood brain barrier and they play a role in, in basically depressing dopamine signaling and serotonin and all sorts of, you know, affecting neurotransmitters and brain function. And there's been studies directly showing that if you inject a person with an inflammatory cytokine, it causes depressive symptoms versus injected with saline. Yes.

So the more inflammation we have in the body, it increases depression.

Exactly. Inflammation. We used to think again, the brain was separate from the body and that, you know, the immune system and all that didn't, didn't, you know, affect the brain. Turns out that was all wrong. Absolutely wrong. And these inflammatory mediators do get into the brain. And they get into the brain and they change, you know, they're changing the firing of certain neurotransmitters and things like that. They're also activating the resident immune cells in the brain called microglia, astrocytes. A microglia, a type of astrocyte. And you know that that also is linked to depression. And so we put out a little short video on this, on an animated video actually, on depression, inflammation and depression. And talk about a lot of the studies, because it's something I don't think people realize that the food you eat, and not only the food you eat, your lifestyle, you know, being obese and overweight, being sedentary. Being sedentary. You know, exercise is one of the best anti inflammatory medicines you can get, period. And it also happens to be one of the, you know, best lifestyle remedies for depression as well. And I mean randomized controlled trials showing that all sorts of evidence.

So is this any type of exercise or are you a hiit training cardio, 30 minutes, 60 minutes. What's your opinion?

Well, there's been, there's been studies looking at, you know, I would say the large body of evidence seems to show aerobic exercise is really important with respect to depression. And that is because aerobic exercise leads to increases in what's called brain drive neurotrophic factor, BDNF as it's called. It's basically um, a growth factor that's produced. You can, after just 20 minutes of a moderate intensity workout, you can increase your level. You can find levels increase by like up to 30% in plasma. It crosses into the brain and in the brain it does a lot of things. Not only does it do what IGF1 does, it actually grows new neurons. It helps you grow new neurons and it helps your neurons survive. So it plays an important role in preventing brain aging. But something else very unique that it does, it plays a role in what's called neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is like your brain's ability to adapt to stressful conditions. You know, I mean this is what children can do pretty, pretty good. As you get older, neuroplasticity goes down as does everything. But neuroplasticity is important for being able to cope with stress. Like the stress of a pandemic, for example. You know, more neuroplasticity helps with those, a stressful divorce people are going through, you know, are losing your job, lots of, lots of stressful things. But neuroplasticity helps the brain cope with that and brain derived neurotrophic factor helps increase neuroplasticity which decreases with age. So again, aerobic exercise was important. But you know, there's been studies linking strength training to lower depression rates as well.

Yeah, any type of exercise will help.

Exactly. I do, but I really think that aerobic there is, that there is a place for aerobic with respect to the bdnf, the brain drive neurotropic.

I always tell people that every day I try to put myself through Some type of physical pain that makes me feel discomfort, whether that's sweating for 10 minutes or a two hour workout or playing basketball, hiking, whatever. I try to put my mind and body through something where I'm like, gosh, I don't want to do this. But by putting myself through pain, controlled pain, it sets me up to be more under control when there is chaos and pain. I think that's the key we should get to is like controlled pain, healthy pain, so that you're not out of control when there is chaos and pain in the world.

What you're describing scientists often refer to as hormesis and that is basically a little bit of stress on the body like exercise. Basically because our body tries to maintain home, what's called homeostasis. A little bit of stress will cause our body to respond to that stress with a lot of anti stress, anti inflammatory, antioxidant, growing new brain cells, all these beneficial things. So a little bit of stress gives you a lot of good stuff.

Right, Interesting.

Whereas low grade chronic stress all the time, it doesn't do anything. You're not getting that, you're not getting that powerful.

Yeah, this is power. This is amazing. I'm going to say something that I hope I don't offend anyone when I say it, that I am all about self love, self care, loving yourself for who you are, accepting yourself for where you're at in your life, physically, emotionally, environment, financially, all that. The more I hear you talk about this, the quote unquote self love movement of accept who you are and accept where you're at with your body and what you eat and it's okay to eat whatever you want. Just love yourself for who you are. Is that self love mentality, that specific type of mentality, killing people and hurting them if they aren't willing to adapt. A no, it's not okay to continue to eat whatever you want all the time and just love yourself and accept yourself for who you are. You have to make sure you arm your body and your mind and your health with the nutrients, the tools, the exercise in order to decrease depression and increase happiness.

I think that there's the, you know, absolutely. If you're going to just eat what you want and accepting obese that you will, you'll be causing yourself more harm and both physically and mentally. And that also probably affects your loved ones as well, you know, that care about you or perhaps that you're interacting with and you're in a terrible mood. And so you know, when your neighbor's happy, you're Happy. Right. You know, so I think that there's part of this movement, I think there's a fine balance between. You don't want to have your expectations so high that you can never be happy.

Yeah, I'm never going to look perfect and someone's always skinnier than me and.

I'm never going to have blue eyes. I'm never, I'm never, you know, so if I'm always like, well, only people with blue eyes are the prettiest, like, then I'll never be happy. So like that's an unreasonable expectation. Right. In my mind. So I mean there are things where, you know, like, I'm never going to be a billionaire and if that, if that's all I wanted in life, to be happy, I'll never be happy. So there are things I think that you can, there's a certain balance between. And you want your expectations to be high in a way. You want to always aim for what you, you know, aim for the stars in a way and try to like, work hard to get there. So what I'm trying to say is I think that self love movement came from somewhere. Right. I think there was, there was something to that. Right. But I think it sort of spiraled out of control. And what's happened now is you're saying, well, accept things that I don't want to change rather than you can, because you can change that. You can lose weight, you can eat.

Different foods and get different decisions.

People that are eating refined sugar, people that are drinking these sugar sweetened beverages, you know, and there's, there's a lot of people, maybe not so many people listening to the podcast or watching it, but there are people that do. And you know, there's been studies that have shown refined sugar acts on the reward pathway in the brain, dopamine pathway in a very similar manner to controlled substances drugs like nicotine, methamphetamine, not to the same degree, but they're acting on the same systems and they're, it increases.

A feel good hormone when you take it for the moment, but then it makes you decline afterwards and crash.

Right, it does. And you know, I think the important point to realize with that is that when you take that away, when you stop, what happens is there is a withdrawal. And, and it's been shown, at least with, for example, with nicotine studies, that your dopamine is getting constantly fired, fired, fired. And so your, what's called dopamine receptors, which basically dopamine axon to make you feel good, those start to decrease because your Neurons are going, oh, well, I have so much of this around, I don't need so many of the receptors. So when you take away that thing that's causing the dopamine all the time to go away, you have fewer receptors and now you don't feel as much. I mean, it's just really bad. You're not feeling any amount of dopamine. Right. But it's been shown that that sort of normalizes within three months. And three months is a long time, but it's actually not that long of.

Cutting out the sugar.

You mean this has been shown with nicotine? I'm just drawing, I'm drawing a parallel saying, look, it's not going to be easy the first month.

It's so hard. It's so hard.

It's not going to be easy the first month. It may not be easy the second month, but it's going to get easier. And it's not only is it going to get easier, you're going to be happier.

Your body's got to regulate itself. The hormones are going to regulate, right? Things are going to self regulate.

Yeah, things start to get back to normal. Exactly.

And very challenging. But it's necessary to get healthier and happier, right?

It is. I don't think people realize that, you know, depression, it's not just a genetic disorder. It's not just something that can't be fixed ever. Now in some cases, you know, there are, you know, there are definitely genetic cases of depression. And I'm not saying that that's not the case.

But can you heal depression through food and nutrition and exercise?

Well, there have been studies that have shown that exercise can be a treatment for depression. There have been studies that shown changing someone's diet can also improve depression. Depressive scores and particularly the combined two is even more robust, which makes sense. You know, so there's something for people to realize. People that are maybe eating not so healthy diet, that are overweight, you know, overweight, definitely obese. And if they, if they do have depression, that there, there, there very well could be a link between, you know, between the, the diet, the lifestyle, the obesity, you know, you know, fat cells itself, they also increase, they, they produce inflammatory cytokines. So independent of the whole eating the diet and the postprandial inflammatory response, just having fat, like particularly visceral fat like around your organs and stuff like this stuff, this stuff is causing low grade inflammation. And do you know what low grade inflammation is? It means that you're basically activating your immune cells a little bit all the Time and activated immune cells require a ton of energy. So you're taking energy away from your.

Brain, from defending itself.

Yeah, from, from just, just having, you know, having a great day. From. I mean energy is just having energy. It's like a sink. Exactly. Just having energy. It's a sink. Low grade inflammation. I mean you were telling me this, you know, we were chatting a little bit earlier about how you were eating this terrible diet back when you were doing your arena football and you were always tired.

Always tired.

Low grade inflammation. It's an energy sink because it requires so much energy to activate your immune cells and there's only so much energy. It's like a triage. Right? It's triaging there, it's taken somewhere else.

And it takes you away from your mission, from your vision of your life, from your career, from your energy with your family, your friends.

Yeah, you have to have energy. I mean it takes motivation to want to go to the gym. It takes motivation also to want to like do stuff or to talk to people, to, you know, is there a.

Genetic thing that, or DNA thing that holds someone back from losing that weight if they've tried for years or is this still, you know, they're just lacking the discipline? What is that?

There's absolutely many genes that regulate obesity. And I'll just tell you, my mother in law, she is also little, not obese. She's you know, has in the past had an overweight problem and has tried. I mean she's the kind of person that tries and goes all in and she has tried every diet, just everything and just nothing seemed to work.

So I mean how does someone like that, if they try, try, try. And it's just like, you know what, I'm beating myself up. The diets I'm trying, the exercise is not working. What do they need to shift?

Well, I just, you asked about genetics and there is a really important role for genetics as well. But I think that in order to know that you're going to have to measure biomarkers in your blood. So you're going to have to measure lipids like your LDL cholesterol, different particle sizes of those cholesterol, inflammatory biomarkers like high sensitivity reactive protein, your triglycerides, your HbA1c which is a long term measure of your long term blood glucose levels, measure those things and also you can get a genetic test. There's a variety of genetic testing services out there. 23andMe ancestry, DNA. I do have a genetic that basically we look exclusively or looking at genes that are affecting basically interacting with diet. So people that are eating a high protein diet, some people with a certain SNP which is a one change in one nucleotide of DNA in the gene basically can gain more weight and the opposite is true, like I mentioned or eating the ratio of saturated fat to polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats or saturated fats found in foods like dairy, red meat, fatty cuts of red meat, polyunsaturated fats found in fish, monounsaturated fat is found in olive oil, olives, you know, nuts. So these things like even the ratio of those things can affect, depending on someone's genetics, their ability to gain or lose weight and more so like people, there's some people have it where they eat a high carbohydrate diet and they gain more weight.

So is there, is there a, is there a. So it's not as simple as what I'm hearing you say as just eat less calories a day and you should lose weight.

Not always.

If you suppress the calorie intake, you're going to burn more and eventually you're going to burn.

You know, I think that's the one thing that's pretty tried and true is that your caloric restriction most of the time people will, you know, lose weight.

Lose weight. Gotcha.

But you know, the question is how sustainable is that? You know, so you maybe, maybe what you would need to do, you know the other thing is that a lot of times obesity, there's, there's a dysregulation in hormones. Hormones like insulin, leptin is another big one and you have to reset those hormones in order to like have a normal biology. And sometimes resetting those hormones takes a reset that's kind of a strong stressor. Like, like a long fast. A long fast, you know, where you're basically, you're basically resetting those things. And that's what did it for my mother in law. So that was my long story.

A long fast and help reset a couple of them.

So she did. Now by the way, you know when I say a long fast, typically intermittent fasting is, is anything less than 48 hours. A longer fast would be longer than 48 hours. Three days.

Three plus days.

Yeah. No, she did the first time she did a three day, she started out by doing sort of a caloric restriction, low calorie diet to kind of get her into it. And then she did a three day fast where she didn't eat anything. A little bit of salt, she would take a little bit of salt in and drink some water. And then she did four days and she did this like, you know, separated by like a month. And that reset her metabolism and all of a sudden she started losing weight, you know, and this has also been the case for a few other friends of mine, particularly one that was morbidly obese and he lost like 180 pounds.

Oh my gosh.

I don't know what the percentage would be, but I would not. I think gluten hurts everyone, right? But I don't think lectins hurt everyone, not at those doses. Again, it's all about smaller doses dosage. So nightshades have lectins and if you are sensitive to something, if you have inflammation, if you have have some issues, then I think sort of like the carnivore. Carnivore is more extreme. But before that you want to try cutting out the lectins, cutting out the nightshades.

Okay.

But again, it's not. Some people sort of pick their little niche and say, I'm going to be the lectin guy, I'm going to be the nightshade guy. And they promote that as the solution for everyone, but it's not. And low carb is not the solution for everyone. I have some skinny patients that need to eat carbs, right? They don't need to eat sugar and white bread, but they would probably do better eating 70, 80, 100 grams of carbs because they're very, very insulin sensitive. Their body has trouble putting on some weight, right?

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The the leafy greens are kind of in the the non starchy vegetables but they're they're sort of little subcategory and then I think some people kind of count the eggs with the meat but I think it's a separate category because very few people are sensitive to meat. A lot of people are sensitive to eggs.

People are sensitive to eggs?

Yes. And again, it's not a majority. It's not like with wheat or pasteurized milk, but I don't know, 5, 10, 15, 20%. And it's hard to tell because the people that come to my clinic, they're the ones who have the problems, so they're probably way more sensitive than the general population. Sure.

Are you a big fan of eggs yourself?

Yes.

As a food group?

Absolutely. And I think quality, huge. I think a lot of problems develop because people eat really, really poor quality. So I think if the, if the chicken or the hen had a healthy life and produces a healthy egg, I think you're much less likely to ever develop a sensitivity. But if that chicken is eating chemicals and hormones and was raised under horrendous conditions, I think your body is much more likely to develop a sensitivity to that because of whatever might be in there.

Right, right.

Any other final category you like as a food group? The most nutrient dense foods?

Yeah. I do think even though dairy is a very common allergen, I do think a lot of people do well with some forms of dairy. So I typically recommend yogurt and sour cream because it's very rewarding. If you're doing a low carb diet, then adding a little sour cream to something is super tasty. I think cheese is okay for a lot of people, especially if it's like a good quality cheese. Not the, the melty singles and all that.

But not the nacho cheese dip at the movie theater which tastes so good, but it's not that good. Yeah.

I don't even know about that. Yeah. I think I've trained myself into just associating chemicals with that stuff.

I know.

But yeah, I try to get things as close to nature as possible. So if I have the option, I'm going to get pasture raised eggs, I'm going to get raw cheese with as few additives as possible because nature made things for us. We are nature. Right. And all the other animals on the planet, they graze off the planet. They don't process things, they don't alter things. So as soon as we change it, we increase the likelihood of screwing it up. And the more we change it, the more we screw it up. So the closer we can get to the source, the better.

Yeah.

What would be three foods that you would recommend everyone eliminate, if you could eliminate, or have very, very little every once in a while. But if you could almost eliminate these.

Three foods from your diet.

It would help you in a big way.

So I don't know if we can call them foods, but obviously sugar. Sugar in the quantity, refined sugar in the quantities we eat is absolutely toxic to the body. Number two would be processed fats. So healthy fats are natural fats. Butter, meat fat, pork, avocado, olive oil, etc. Because we don't change them, we don't mess with them. But anything that we make an oil from that doesn't come easily like a seed or corn. Corn has just a couple of percent fat in it. So it takes a lot of heat and chemicals and processing to get any oil out of it. So it tastes terrible and then you have to bleach it and deodorize it and all that. It's not a food anymore. And those foods are extremely toxic. So soybean oil, corn oil, canola oil, all of those processed oils and especially if they're turned into a food product like margarine or shortening or something like that. Okay, so I put, I'd say sugar and seed oils and then something again, that's not really a food, but I would put it up there. And every time I make a video on this, I get a lot of backlash. And it's artificial sweeteners. Oh man.

Why are artificial sweeteners not good for us?

Because they are chemicals, they're foreign substances. They were developed by companies who made pesticides and the latest and greatest. So aspartame got a bad rap. So then they had to hustle to come up with something else. So they came up with something sucralose. And they were very careful to name it in a way that sounded yes, sucrose, sugar, sucralose. But the fact is, and then they said that, well, you know, it's just like sugar and then it just has some chlorine, just like sea salt. Well, in nature, sodium chloride is only bonded through like an electrostatic charge. I forget exactly what it's called, but it's not like a tight bond. So yes, sodium chloride, perfectly natural. But when we bind chlorine to a carbon, nature never does that. Basically every form of a chlorocarbon is a pesticide. And one of the most famous ones was ddt which was banned as a cancer causing agent. It almost wiped out the national bird, the eagle. And it's so toxic it's in our environment 50 years later. So chlorocarbons are pesticides and that's what sucralose is. It's a chlorocarbon. Wow.

So eliminate refined sugar, eliminate processed fats, which is mostly seed oils and artificial sweeteners. Are there any non sugar sweeteners, natural that you like or recommend that in the right doses are okay for you?

Yes. So I use quite a bit of stevia.

That's not an artificial sweetener?

No, no. So some people bundle it together with artificial sweeteners just because it's a non calorie sweetener, but it is a plant product. It's just a refined leaf, basically. And the thing to watch for, though, is that they don't mix it up with a lot of other chemicals, that it's the concentrated version, it's one ingredient, not 10 ingredients. Yeah. And another similar one would be monk fruit. That is also very similar in the way it tastes and looks and so forth. It's super, super concentrated and it's also a plant extract.

So if you're going to add something to a coffee or a drink or something. Stevia. Monk fruit, you say is okay in the right doses?

Yes. And then in the gray zone, I would also put sugar alcohols. Interesting, right? Some of them are better than others. I think the best one would be erythritol because it is very slightly metabolized by the body. So it doesn't really affect blood sugar, but it doesn't really cause any other problems. Some of the other sugar alcohols, they sort of stay in the digestive tract for a while and then those sugar alcohols become food for your intestinal bacteria. And that's where you get a lot of bloating.

Gotcha.

So I would say sugar alcohols are okay if you eat them in moderation. So this is always the trick in recommending food when you make a list and people want to know the best one and so forth, and you categorize and rank them. And now they say, that is a good one. I'm just going to eat that. Or Dr. Ekberg said sugar alcohols are okay. So now I'm going to eat that every day. I'm going to bake with it, I'm going to buy the ice cream with it. And that's the thing, everything in moderation. So sugar alcohols, if you eat a teaspoon or a tablespoon here and there, I think it's totally fine. But if you start baking with it and doing the ice cream and you start getting half a cup a day now, you're definitely going to upset the biome a little bit.

Now, what matters based on your age range you know, if someone's in their 20s versus I'm in my late 30s, almost 40. You're in your, I believe, 50s, you said.

Yeah.

Does it matter based on how old you are, of what you should be eating, how much you should be eating, the types of foods, or is it pretty consistent throughout the decade?

I would say it's pretty consistent throughout. And one analogy would be that, I mean, there's so many people, they say that women should fast this way and teenagers should fast this way, and women over 40 or under 47. It's like we love to complicate things.

Right.

But are there different foods on the Savannah for one giraffe versus another?

An older giraffe and a younger giraffe. Does the.

Does the male and the female giraffe eat from different trees? It's like, not really.

What was the things that you saw when you went to these blue zones that they did that maybe you weren't even thinking they would do? Like, what were the surprising things they did or the unsurprising things?

Yeah, I mean, there were a few things I saw. They were kind of striking to me that made sense. But one was that Ikaria, which was one of the Greek blue zones, they eat so much wild food. So they had wild greens, summer greens, winter greens, they had wild mushrooms, they had wild sage tea, they had wild fish. They had so much wild food in their diet. And we know that wild foods are much more nutrient dense. Why? Because they're stressed. And stressed plants make more protective compounds. Those protective compounds are called phytochemicals. They give the color and the richness and the flavor. What people don't understand is the more flavorful a food is, naturally, the more phytochemicals it has.

Interesting.

If you go to your garden at the end of August and pick a cherry tomato that's ripened in the hot sun, that explodes in your mouth like the most incredible flavor. But if you go to a store bought tomato and you cut it, it's like cardboard, tasteless. What's the difference? It's the phytochemical. So flavor always follows the phytochemical richness of a food. So, so not the stuff you put on it or sauces or salt or fat or sugar to make it taste better, which food industry does, but just the natural flavor. So, you know, the more flavorful the food is, the better it is. So it's wild. They eat a lot of wild food and it's so flavorful. The other thing was interesting was that shepherds, you Know had this culture of, of going and knowing exactly which plants to feed their animals at which time of year to graze them. So we shepherd them. They'd eat all these wild plants, but they knew if this was, this herb was coming in at this time of year, they'd go eat this herb. And if this plant was coming at this time of year, they'd go eat that thing. I'm like, why are you doing that? He says, we know because the meat and the milk tastes better when we. Yeah. And so it kind of, you know, they were not doing it because it was better for them or because it was for longevity or because it tastes better, right? The cheese. Yeah, it tastes better. So it turns out that we know now that phytochemicals are not just in plants. And phyto means plant. They're not just in plants, they're also in animals. So the work of Fred Provenza and Stephen Van Valette from Duke have clearly shown that when animals are eating a wide array of wild plants or a wide array of planted grasses and flowers and different things, they will seek out medicine in the food. So they will literally go and eat major like, you know, calorie crops, let's say, but then they'll go and sample from like a hundred different plants to get their medicines. And so these, these wild animals, these wild plants are being eaten and the phytochemicals are accumulating in the meat and the milk of these animals. So studies have shown, for example, that you can have as high levels of the catechins in green tea in goat milk. That's from goats eating certain wildflowers. Yeah. So it's mind blowing and there may be ways that even these get transmuted. So eating regenerate raised meat. I went to a restaurant here in LA last night called Matu where they have regeneratively raised meat.

Was it amazing?

It was amazing. Now it wasn't as like fatty and kind of like marble, like corn fed meat, but it was delicious and it was tasty and yummy and amazing.

What was this place called?

Matu M A T U. I'll have.

To check it out.

Really good. Beverly Hills. And it's. You'd love it. It's so good. And you know you can eat that and know you're eating from an animal that's been well taken care of, that's living out in its natural habitat, that's regenerating the environment, that's restoring the ecosystems, increasing biodiversity, conserving water in the soils, that's reducing climate Change that's producing more nutrient dense food that enrich in phytochemicals and good fats and more antioxidants and more minerals and just pretty much everything south.

Incredible.

So that was a sort of a. I think a key to part of their longevity was they lived on this stuff. You know, they base were shepherds and goats and sheep were their livelihood.

What was about their relationships? Yeah, how did that play in? Did they have certain types of relationships with family members? They have intimate relationships. Were they married for long periods of time? Did they have. Yeah, 10 wives? You know, what was the whole process?

One couple I saw had a. At a collective age of 210. That's crazy. So I don't know. I think being married is definitely a key to longevity for men. For women, not always depends on if they're happy or not.

Oh man.

So I think having a happy, healthy relationship is such a key part of longevity. And they were very much in the realm of community. It wasn't just like this isolated relationship. They were embedded in a context of a community that was totally supportive, that celebrated together, that played together, that worked together, that harvested together, that shared sheep together, that made cheese together. They were just doing stuff together as part of the way of life. And they would just stop and talk and hang out and chill and it was like nobody was starting a company or nobody was, you know, getting ahead in social media for likes and followers. I mean they were just, they were just living life. They weren't striving or trying to get anywhere. They were just being interesting. And so their culture was, was all about the power of these incredible moments where you share with people you love and care about and celebrate life and enjoy life and talk. And we were, we were driving out of this one town in Sardinia that had these two guys that were really great and they were local Sardinians. And this car like stops in front of us and like blocks us. And this old guy gets out, he walks over this stone wall and he like waves us to come over and what's going on here? And he just waved us over. He wanted to talk. He saw us in the car behind. He's like, he just wanted to talk. So we sat in the stone wall for like an hour or so and chit chatted about life and about his life. And he was karma. He was 85 years old and super vibrant, fit guy. And he started telling us about his life and how, you know, there was a mudslide that destroyed the village he grew up in which they moved the town A little bit higher on the mountain, but he still had his farm on that old area, his old family. So he took us down. He had, like, six sheep, and he had a pig, and he had some chickens, and he had orchards, and he had a whole garden where he grew eggplants and peppers and tomatoes and zucchini and herbs and spices, and it was amazing. He literally took care of his entire property by himself at 85 years old. I mean, I would. I don't think I could do it. And I'm chasing this guy up this hill after his sheep, and I'm like, I can't keep up with this guy. He's 85 years old, and. And so he was super vibrant, mentally sharp. You know, he's. He. You know, he lived with his. His family, and. And they just. They just had this incredibly deep culture. There wasn't nursing homes. I meant old woman Julia, who was 103 months. You know, like. Like I say I'm 100, and I'm five and three quarters. She's like, I'm 103 months. And she was like, you know, didn't have kids and lived with her niece and nephew, who loved her and took care of her. And she was still working. She was still working, making all this stuff. Her weddings, all the little tablecloths and doilies and embroidery stuff. I don't know how to do that. But she was making all this stuff, and she was so bright and still was walking around every day and taking her walks and hanging out with everybody and her friends. And it was really amazing to see this culture where, you know, people were not ostracized or excluded, but, you know, they were included in life.

And it doesn't sound like they're hustling for something. They're working hard to maintain their life, like their home, their farm, their land, whatever they have, maybe their small business, but they're not hustling for something greater. Is that right?

Yeah. No.

Why? Why can you live long and still hustle? Hustle or just want more? Want to build something greater in your life?

You can. I think. I think it's really about, you know, what happens on the inside. Because, you know, one of the biggest things that regulates your epigenome is your mind. So your biggest pharmacy in your body is between your ears. It's the most powerful pharmacy in the world, and you can activate it for good or bad. So when we are having thoughts that are, you know, stressful thoughts, when we're in toxic relationships, when we're worried or anxious, when we aren't in harmony with ourselves. It activates all these really nasty pathways that drive inflammation and harm your mitochondria. I mean, your microbiome is listening in on your thoughts. It's eavesdropping. So those bugs don't like it when you are not happy.

Really?

Yeah.

What is the process of that? From an idea, a thought into the mitochondria. How does that transfer into a healthy information, into a physical manifestation versus unhealthy information, data and thought into physical unhealthy.

So what's the biochemistry of it? Well, for example, if you're stressed, you're producing cortisol and adrenaline and all these other hormones and proteins that then will trigger a whole cascade of downstream effects that activate transcription factors that. Transcription factors that turn on genes that cause inflammation and all these other problems. So you're basically creating inflammatory thoughts or creating inflammation in your body, literally. Isn't that crazy? And you have receptors on your like, immune cells, for example, for neurotransmitters. So if you're stressed, your immune system is eavesdropping on your thoughts.

Wow.

That's why if you're stressed, you are more likely to have an infection or get sick or have other bad health consequences.

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Our body, why from an evolutionary point.

Of view, why do you think that is? Isn't that crazy?

It's a crazy.

You think something. It's not actually. It's in your mind, right? Where it's like. And then it transfers into your body.

Well, I think, I think, I don't know, Louis, but I think we have a built in stress response system which we need it like if we're getting chased by a saber tooth tiger. Well, we need to get on the move and we need to jack up our cortisol and pump our blood sugar up and get our blood pressure up and our heart rate up and flood our body with glucose and you know, just all this stuff that needs to survive. Yeah, it's like you know the story. Like how someone, you know, sees their kid under a car and can lift up a car. Like why can that happen? Right. Because we have the system built in to deal with acute stress. That's a good thing. The problem is we have a society and a life that drives chronic, unmitigated, unrelenting stress. So unless you are very clear about how to discharge that stress because you can't avoid it. But how do you discharge, how do you not react? And how do you have a different perception of relationship to what's happening to you? It's all about perception. Right? So I always Say stress is the perception of a real or imagined threat to your body. So it could be a real threat to your body, like a tiger chasing you, or it could be an imagined threat to your ego. Like you think your wife's cheating on you, but she's not and you get the same physiology. Or you can have the same input. Let's say you're James Bond and I put a gun to your head versus Woody Allen. It'll be a very different set of responses. Right? Same input, very different response. So that's the beauty of our minds, is we have the power over our thoughts. You remember Viktor Frankl who wrote Man's Search for Meaning? He said, between stimulus and response, there's a pause. And in that pause lies a choice. And in that choice lies our freedom. For those of you who don't know about Viktor Frankl, he was in Auschwitz and he was a psychiatrist in Auschwitz. And he chose not to let even the most horrific thing that's almost ever happened to human beings affect his own well being and happiness in your life. Yeah, that just blows my mind. Right. So when you think, oh, my life, this and that, we always have a choice, you know, and whether you have stuff or don't have stuff, it's all about our perceptions. So mindset and your thoughts are a key part of longevity and health. And having meaning and purpose, that was the other thing. In these cultures, they had so much meaning and purpose. Like Carmine had such purpose. He had to go and take care of his sheep and he had to feed his family and he wanted to support the other members of the community by giving them food and he fed his animals the extra. And so he had a meaningful life. And he also had a very active mind, was reading books and learning all the time. So that extends your life up to seven years.

Wow. Having meaning and purpose. Because you hear the story sometimes of like, you know, someone in their older years, their husband or their wife dies and then within six months or a year later, they, they die.

Or a week later. Yeah, a week later.

Right.

You hear that story often, all the time.

And is that because their meaning has lost or just more they have a broken heart and they don't know how to both.

I mean, I mean, there actually is a phenomena of, of a broken heart. I had a patient with this once who had this incredible wife. They were deeply love. They were married for decades and decades. She got breast cancer and died. And he was relatively healthy and all of a sudden he went into heart failure.

Come on like, boom.

And it's in the medical literature, it's literally broken heart, and it causes actual clinical heart failure, where your heart muscle can't pump the blood around.

Now, that's from. What is that from? Is that from thinking and then feeling the heart? You know, the pain in your heart?

Yeah, it's the physiological phenomena that happen when you have a stress response, the flood of all these stress molecules in your body that damages the heart. And we were able to get him better, but it was through energy healing, which sounds kind of wacky and weird, but it was really through his own getting back in his body, being touched, being held, being energetically reset, he was able to reverse the heart failure. It wasn't by taking some fancy drug or getting a heart transplant.

So he didn't. He didn't pass away from that?

No, he didn't.

But some people do.

We fixed it. Yeah, but some people do.

They might isolate themselves even more, and then their body just starts to shut down.

Loneliness is the biggest killer, really. Loneliness seems to be a bigger risk factor than smoking or bad food or almost anything else.

What happens when we're lonely again?

It's a stress. Like, we're social creatures, Louis. We all are meant to belong. We have a longing to belong. And if you look at, from an evolutionary point of view, you stick a human out in the desert or a forest by himself, they're not going to last long. Forget it. And so this is not true just of humans, but it's all of creation. And E.O. wilson, who was a Harvard professor, wrote many, many books. He just died, but he was a very, very thoughtful guy. And he wrote a book called the Social Conquest of the Earth. And it's about how, from ants to humans, we all work together like ant colonies, right? They're all working together. And so we have to work together to survive. And that's why altruism is actually a medicine. Altruism and serving and helping others actually activates healing mechanisms in our body. It activates dopamine in the same way that cocaine or heroin does.

For people that don't have that type of discipline, how can they be consistent on the nutritional intake over a lifetime and make it their lifestyle and not just a diet?

Yeah, I mean, it's such a basic good question that people always want to bring it back to, like tracking and things like that. I think that doesn't. That works. Tracking works. But you're talking about it at a deeper level.

Right?

Because I experience the same thing. I can have the most steadfast meditator monk that I'm talking to. And they will still battle with this. Right?

Really.

And it's something to the point where we have so much things, so many things that. That are just available at our fingertips that are just temptations not in alignment with how we've continued to evolve as technology and food production and the food industry is growing at an exponentially faster rate than how we are changing. So we have these things that are available that just simply shouldn't. And outside of putting yourself in a locker and away from these foods, total echo chamber. You are fighting temptation all the time. And we have to recognize that there's only so much power in your prefrontal cortex.

There's only so much willpower.

Like, it's a finite resource. So with that, you have to kind of change your way of thinking. And the way that, like, this occurred to me, like, three years ago or so, when I had. I had a really, really bad, like, sinus infection. And I've always had kind of recurring sinus infections ever since I was little, but I had one that was really bad, and I couldn't taste or smell for, like, two months, right? And that was something where I realized, like, why am I still craving these certain foods? I can't even taste them, right?

And.

And it was like this aha moment where I'm like, this is clearly a mental thing because something sweet hits your taste buds. It's not just the taste of it, it's what it's doing in the brain. So changing your relationship with food, changing your relationship with struggle has been a very big thing, right? So for me, I always had this kinesthetic awareness thing with my workouts, right? With workouts, it was like, if I inflicted pain upon myself and it was positive pain for a workout, I could flip this kinesthetic switch that was like. I called it my pain switch, and I would flip that pain switch. And, you know, as a. As an athlete, like, that's sometimes just what you do, and it happens inadvertently. Sometimes you visualize it, but visualization is huge. So for me, I'd visualize flipping the pain switch. The switch is off. I can now push it harder and push it past my normal aerobic capacity. Anaerobic, whatever. I realized, why can't I apply that same thing to nutrition without becoming robotic but becoming very, very aware of. And so I've changed my relationship with how food makes me feel, and that's taken a lot of work.

What do you say to yourself? What's the conversation, the inner dialogue, the mental strategy you use to do that.

As simple as it sounds, whenever I would eat something for about two or three months, I would simply say, food is fuel, Food is fuel. And that sounds very. Because you don't want to take the fun out of it. I still love food, right? So when you do that, but you have to train yourself to believe that. Like, okay, if I'm eating this sugar, that's okay, but remember, it's fuel and I should use it, right? Or if I'm. And that's the thing here, if I'm.

Gonna eat it, make sure I move my body. Go for a 10 minute walk, walk upstairs, move it a little bit, just get it out.

When you change the relationship with food, you're not abstaining, you're changing the reaction, right?

So like, and I should never have a bucket of ice cream and then just sit around.

It's just the thing, right?

It's like if you're going to do.

It, eat it in the morning, eat.

It for breakfast, whatever, and then go move all day.

Exactly. So that relationship, I mean, it gets much bigger than that, right? But that relationship with food is everything. And so many of us have a distorted relationship with food. And for me, being, I've been on opposite ends of sort of the spectrum, right? Like when I was younger, I was practically, you know, as a runner, I was practically eating disorder category, the other direction. Like, I have to be as light as possible. Oh, I don't want to eat that, I don't want to get fat. And then it kind of went the other way where it was almost like masochistic, where I'm just like, I don't care, I'm fat already. Let's just go all the way. Okay. Now it's kind of like finding a little bit of that middle ground. But the pendulum probably swings much more towards how I was when I was younger. Got to stay lean, got to stay this. But I also have recognized that like food, food is still reward. And we are constantly told that food shouldn't be treated as a reward. Don't reward your kids with food. I call on that. The reason is, is because food has always been a reward, Right. It's always been a reward for us.

You get the hunt and you get the food. Yeah. You go gather, you get some food. Yeah.

It's simple, right? What you have to do is you just have to once again change the relationship with the feelings attached to food. Recognize that those feelings are there, but do something with them rather than just let them be and consume you. If I am going to go and eat that ice Cream, then I'm aware of what that's doing in my body. And I'm not going to let that turn me the other direction and get depressed and go eat more. I'm going to say, you know what? This is an opportunity. An opportunity to move more. An opportunity to move tomorrow. And that's not having this transactional relationship again. Because what you don't want to do is say, I'm going to eat some pie, and now I'm going to punish myself by going on the treadmill. That's the exact wrong thing to do. Right? But you do say, okay, I'm going to eat this pie. Great. I've got full glycogen tanks. I'm going to go work out. I'm going to get the best workout of my life. Having kids has really made this apparent because kids constantly. I want a snack. I want a snack. It's like they have five stomachs. I don't understand it.

But.

And, like, how do you, like, if they're reaching for, like a Larabar or something that I would still consider healthy, but has a decent amount of sugar from dates and stuff, right? Like, they. Kids just crave these things. And how do I teach them that? You, yeah, you can eat that, but we should really get out and move, you know? And, you know, it's kind of like how I translate it to them is, hey, it's fun to feel good. It's fun to feel good, right? Like, you've got this energy from that bar. Doesn't that feel good? Like, let's. Let's get out and let's use that energy. Let's go have fun. And now it's to the point where my kids are like, can I have a Larabar? I want to go outside and play. I'm like, this is awesome. Like, without actually, like, molding them in any weird way, I've helped them light a spark to understand that when they eat this and at a young subconscious level in their brain, it's probably forming something that's beyond what we even know in research where maybe they taste something sweet and now they naturally want to move versus saying like, oh, shame, guilt. I shouldn't have eaten this. It's terrible. No, we're going to go have fun.

We're going to play.

But I teach them that with not just sugar. I teach them that with fats, too, because I think it's also fundamental to learn that all food is fuel. But be in touch with how it makes you feel. So how I retain that discipline, it's the Exact same way. How do I feel? What do I feel after I eat this? Did I feel crappy? Okay, well, then that's probably a pretty good articulation of what that's doing in my body. And with that, it's really turned into this intuitive eating. And that's like, I guess. I mean, it's a great segue to talk about how fasting is worked.

Right.

Because fasting has allowed me to have more flexibility with my diet in the confines of still, like, appropriate discipline, because I can flip that switch on and off a lot easier. Fasting, not fasting. Fasting, not fasting.

And you're one of the. There's a few things I want to talk about here before I get into fasting. One is the mantra. It sounds like you had the mental switch. The mantra of food is fuel. So is that something you would think about right before you were making a decision of what to eat?

No.

Something usually while eating it.

While eating it.

So it wasn't helping you make a decision of like, okay, here's a candy bar. Am I going to decide this is. Is this going to help me and fuel me a positive way or a negative?

Fuel that's too willpowery, that takes too much energy.

So you would still eat the candy bar if you needed or if you did while.

While, yes. And granted, this was happening three, three and a half years ago, so candy bars weren't really in the equation anymore.

Right.

But that being said.

Because of an apple or whatever. Yeah.

Or something like, because I would still crave fruit or whatever. But yes, exactly. It's like while I'm consuming it, it's like really trying to teach my body and understand, like, this visualization, you know, the power of visualization. Obviously, just yourself and the guests you've had on, it's like that visualization with eating something can be just as powerful.

So you would say this as you're having a bite of the apple or whatever it might be, having an internal conversation. Food is fuel. And then having a positive relationship with something that might be looked at as negative before. Is that what I'm hearing you say?

Precisely, yep.

And training your body to appreciate the food and to say, okay, I'm going to go act and move my body after I eat this, and it's going to help me. It's not going to hurt me. And I don't need to be shameful about eating this. Is that kind of the process? Because a lot of people that eat something and they feel good because it tastes good, but then they feel Shameful.

Yes.

And that doesn't help them because then they have more of that to have the good feeling and then feel shame.

Again and the cycle continues. Because what is happening here is much different than what's happening here.

Yeah.

And you know, in our world, like we get this instant gratification from food. Especially like the translation of. I see a direct correlation with my time scrolling social media and my addiction to my phone. Direct line item correlation to how, how much I crave snacking and things like that. It's the same firing, you know. Right. It's like that same dopamine itch that needs to be scratched. And just in the same way I get addicted to looking at my phone or checking my email, that usually correlates with how much my addiction to food is at that point in time. But like, you don't just say like, I am going to like resist the urge to check my email. I'm going to resist the urge to check my email. Sometimes it takes like, what is the response response? Like a lot of times, you know, you'll check your email first thing in the morning, you'll get a negative email and you, it hits you then you're like, this is how I'm starting my day. Like this is what I'm gonna do. Like screw that. And that's your catalyst. But like with food, you eat a Snickers bar and it feels so good up here.

You feel like you're doing the thing amazing.

Everything is telling you in that immediate moment that this was a good decision, Louis. Like you did the right thing.

Your belly afterwards is like, oh wow, why is it digesting weird? And now I feel like lethargic and.

Yeah, and you go out and you move and you try to do something with it and yeah, you're going to have some fuel but you're going to be like, you know what? Crazy enough that didn't feel as good as when I had that Apple and you start creating this internal checks and balances.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links and if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally as well as ad free listening. Then make sure to subscribe to our greatness+channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve of you moving forward. And I want to remind you of no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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