Everything You Know About Gut Health Is Wrong

Okay, so welcome. We're just gonna kind of free flow a little conversation here today, not really super planned, just, you know, at this point after working with hundreds of hundreds of entrepreneurs and helping them fix their chronic gut issues and stress issues or whatever it might be, we've— and I've learned a lot through that journey. So we're just gonna, you know, try to give as much value as possible and kind of show try to show our perspective. And for you guys that doesn't know who this is, this is Anton. This is my right-hand man and business partner as well. And we actually got in contact, contact at first, Anton, because of some issues that you had, right?

Yeah, mainly I had a bunch of skin issues like psoriasis, acne all over my body, herpes, like every skin issue under the sun, fungal, like you name it, I've probably had it. So that's why I initially got into health myself. I was very interested in the whole holistic space because also going to all of the different practitioners, traditional healthcare, and nobody was really able to, to help me with the skin issues that I was struggling with. And nowadays I'm completely free from all of those issues, which is amazing, right? But that's initially when I started talking to Lucas because he also had Sort of the view on health that I was aligned with as well, and therefore we started working together. And today we're here.

Yeah.

So that's how I got into health and the whole holistic thing. But I think also what you don't speak enough about on the internet is like your own journey and how you got into all of this, and how you learned everything around health, and how you're able to help people with their gut and with their skin and stress and all of those areas.

Yeah. No, it's it's it's good. It's Most likely something I'm not speaking enough about, but I mean, I can just run the story a bit quickly, actually, for all of you guys that don't know, right? So, it all started with me working a corporate job, right? I worked at one of the biggest banks here in Sweden, and at the same time, I was trying to start my business as well, right? So, a lot of stress, which I didn't really think about. You know, you still have that ambitious kind of driven entrepreneurial mindset of just like push, push, push.

Yeah.

Work harder, work even more. And it's the initial mindset, but then a few probably years and trial and error later, you understand that it's not really about the one, the person that works the hardest, it's about leverage actually. And that ties into the whole philosophy around health now, Yeah. which is something we do and something we're gonna uncover here as well. But I was just putting in all the work, I was doing everything, and on top of this, Also had an initial goal of becoming a bodybuilder, right? So I was training a lot and eating, you know, as close to a perfect diet as these roided-up fitness influencers and bodybuilders would have preached. But something wasn't clicking, you know. High stress, I was still pushing through, but, you know, libido was nowhere to be seen. And I've said this multiple times, you know, but as a guy in your early 20s, having low libido, you know, shouldn't really be the case.

That's a big red flag, to be honest.

Yeah, that's a big red flag. And I was getting bloating and in, like, I couldn't digest food properly as well. And as a result, my physique looked very soft. Sure, I'd built some muscle, right? Of course.

Yeah.

It wasn't like I had done all the work for nothing. But based on the effort that I was putting in, I thought to myself that, you know, there's something here that doesn't make sense. I should get more out of what I'm actually doing, but I didn't. And it— but I just continued to push. I had to push harder, even more. And thinking to myself, like, I just have to grind even harder, train even harder, diet even harder, which, if we— with the knowledge I have right now, you know, that's more stress and even more stress on an already absolutely fried system.

Yeah.

And it went to the point where I completely just hit the wall there. One day when I had my classic yogurt bowl, Anton, you know this story, I just got the most insane stomach pain that I have ever experienced. In my life, and I literally thought I was gonna die. I had to stop. This was midday. I worked. I had to go home and like lay in my bed, like squeezed up with a with a pillow, like like this. You know? I don't know what you say. This position, right?

Yeah, fosterställning.

Yeah, fosterställning we say in Swedish. But yeah, and and that that whole day I had that pain. I couldn't do nothing. I was cold sweating at the same time as well. And my first rational thought here was, maybe I've gotten lactose intolerant one day to another. Classic, lactose intolerance. Yeah, correct. So obviously I started to look into that and started to went and see, have I got lactose intolerant one day to another? Started to see, but no, you're not lactose intolerant. And maybe there's some gut issues under here. And went and tried to figure out what this was because I also A/B tested this, you know. I tried to eat it again, got the same response. So there was something there that was clicking, or that wasn't clicking, right?

What do you mean? So you ate the same meal, but you didn't get the same response?

No, but because of the fact that this had never happened to me before, I was like, this has to be a coincidence, right?

Yeah.

That was when I got the confirmation that this isn't lactose intolerance. But then it happened again, and I was like, okay, this is not a coincidence. And then I started to try to dig deeper, because if this is not lactose intolerance, then what is this?

Yeah.

Now I have the knowledge and the understanding, and understand that if we look at dairy, which is something that we do this with a lot of clients when they come in, right? We try to cut out dairy as one of the first things because it's very heavy on your digestive system.

Yeah, it's not about the dairy itself, but it's very hard to like process, you know, for a flawed system. Correct.

And if your gut is not in the correct gear and it's like the health of your gut is not where it needs to be, I like to think of this as a battery, right? If we have an old phone, the battery health is Very limited.

Yeah.

You know?

Yeah.

It's not as good. You can't do as much before the battery runs out.

Yep.

This is exactly how your gut works as well, because you— and digesting food drains this battery. This is how we can, how we can use it. Using the apps drains the battery. If we have a very big app that requires a lot of power from our compu— from our phone or computer, it's gonna drain the battery very fast.

Yeah.

But it might be a very good app. You know, it can also be a bad app, right? But the good app in this situation is how we can think about dairy. We're eating this and it requires a lot of the battery to be able to process it, right? And for a battery that has not so good battery health, that might not be the smartest decision to do. So this was what I had to uncover, that my situation was my gut is completely downregulated. And when you try to fix that at first and you go from it to a GI and/or gut doctor or whatever, it's always like, oh, look at some bacterial overgrowth, or you have SIBO, SIFO, maybe you have this one bacteria that is— that there's an overgrowth of, right? No one ever looks at your lifestyle, at your stress, and that's when everything started to just like— I started to question everything because I was like, why are these people just looking at one thing?

Yeah.

You know, they're not even looking at what I'm eating.

No, yeah, it's always like that.

Is it dairy intolerance? Or maybe you shouldn't eat dairy.

Like, that's about how common it is.

complex they make it, right? And then there's always like, oh, this— it's overgrowth of this bacteria, then take this pill.

Yeah.

You know, to kill it out. But for me, how can it make sense when your gut and your microbiome, it's made up of trillions of bacteria, right?

Yep.

You can't micromanage like that. You can't micromanage trillions of bacteria. Like, you hear it when you say it like that, it's impossible.

Yeah.

So why or how have I gotten into an environment and condition where my gut is not What do you think is leading up to that though?

Because like, I think a lot of people have the question, um, about like why people are having gut issues in the first place. In the first place, yeah. And I guess my take on it is that like everything nowadays is just like so fundamentally flawed, right? In terms of everyone's diets is super processed, everyone is super stressed, stressed, which is also heavily interconnected with stomach acid and gut and digestion. And this just stacks like on top of each other year in, year out, and people are just doing the wrong input, and eventually the system just shuts down, right?

Yeah.

But I'd love to hear like your perspective on like why, why are people having issues with this in the first place, you know, with their gut?

And I think there's, there's a couple main pillars that is the fundamental reason for this. Number one, and arguably the most powerful one, with the most amount of impact, is obviously stress. And if I look at my own situation, obviously it was that. It was working a full-time job and trying to start my business at the same time, and working out 6 to 7 days out of the week, and doing cardio, and eating nothing. You know, that's— it's too much for your system. But then I also think it's a combination of toxins overload, right? Through small little things, whether that be, you know, drinking out of a plastic bowl for 20 years, and like slowly, slowly, slowly, that's kind of built up.

Yeah.

And I don't want to fearmonger microplastics, that's not what I'm trying to say here, Anton, but like all those small little details across the board, microplastics, heavy metals, and other toxins.

Environmental toxins.

Yeah, correct. And accumulated over too long without having a— which also ties back to the stress— a system that can't clear them out properly. Because at the end of the day, we're always going to get exposed to toxins, you know, we're breathing the air. There's microplastics and heavy metals flowing around in the air, so we're never gonna get away from it. But that also ties back to not having a good enough environment for your body to be able to clear it out and process it.

Yeah.

So it's like a filter in your car, you know, you can change it out and you can like change out your whole systems, but we need to know how to do that and we have to give the right environment and conditions to do that. So I think it's that, and then it's probably a bit of wrong food as well, and wrong structure from a food perspective, of course. And then, you know, we can spin this further— too little sleep, which then affects your energy, and also stress, and also hormones and everything.

Yeah.

Everything. The one thing here we have to understand is that everything is interconnected, right?

But it sounds like what you're saying is that like everything kind of ties together. Down to stress at the end of the day.

It does.

Because now it sounds like you're primarily talking about stress even more than the diet perspective, like that, that's been bringing the issues with people's gut and burnout and brain fog and all of that.

100%. And that's what we see all the time. We see the entrepreneurs coming in that has this grind mindset, that has, you know, high stress from their business and from their work and from all these things. Yeah, that is the common That's a thing that we see all the time, you know. It's a business owner that has been just running on stress hormones for as long as he even, you know, remembers.

Yeah, and he's probably unaware of it as well. But I guess, how big of a part do you think the diet plays into like these issues coming up in the first place? It's like with you, and for example, like all of a sudden I'll be able to eat Greek yogurt, you know.

Yeah, it plays a lot, or plays in a lot, because we have to understand that there's different processes, and, and this is as This is where everything gets very nuanced as well because we can think about sauerkraut. This is a good example. You know, sauerkraut is something that generally speaking is very good for you, something that we want to recommend, good bacteria, fermented, whatever, right? But if you have a system that is not able to produce or handle as much histamine because you can't produce as much DAO enzymes in your gut needed to actually handle it, well, then it becomes a net negative. Then this becomes problematic for you.

Yeah.

So we can't look at, and this is where we disagree also with a lot of the big names in the space that just preaches like one diet and this and that, eat animal-based and eat fruit. And then we have all these other factors that plays into it. Seasonal eating is also one thing. At this time, when I was doing everything right, I was listening to the names of Paul Saladino and all these big guys also. Yeah, same here. And living in a Nordic climate with winter and trying to eat fruit juice and, you know, that's also—

Sugar diet.

Sugar diet. That's also something that is going to completely mess up my metabolism, you know, because our mitochondria are affected. So there's so many variables that plays into it and it's about—

Yeah.

You don't want to be—

But it's like a compounding effect.

It's a compounding effect of everything. And the problem that a lot of people do as well when they try to solve this is that they just focus on the puzzle pieces by themselves, right? instead of focusing on the whole puzzle. And that's like the core fundamental principle of what we do with our clients. It's looking at everything as an ecosystem rather than isolated pieces. And that's the statement that I always say, you know, you don't have 30 separate problems, you have one overloaded system.

Yeah.

And then the root cause can be the same for you and me, but the symptoms that we're experiencing is completely different. And this is where, in my opinion, genetics and things like this plays in, you know. But we have the same first domino, but you might get skin issues, I get bloated, but it might be the same thing that triggers it in the first place.

100% agree. And also, you— we touched on something very interesting before, right, which is like detoxing and detox pathways and stuff. And from my understanding, it's, it's very, very hard to, to detox like heavy metals, microplastics, and essentially every toxin that you get into your body when The fundamental system is flawed, like when your gut is flawed, for example. Because if you have a leaky gut, instead of passing it through, it's gonna go out into the bloodstream and like just bring on multiple, multiple issues. But I guess if you can give the viewer like a bit of some action steps on how can you actually like optimize for opening your detox pathways so that you know that whatever bullshit comes in, you're at least able to detox the majority of it, or— Allow your body to be able to do so?

It's a very good question. First of all, it's gonna be to de-stress, because no, no other process in our body will work if we're stuck in a fight-or-flight state or a sympathetic nervous system state. That's the first thing we have to understand. So no other process will be online if we're not chill, you know? Yeah, you're not gonna be able to detox when you're fucking running on stress hormones through the roof.

Yeah.

So just that alone and being aware of that is probably gonna, you know, help refire that engine for a lot of people. Because most people, when they wake up, they're already stressed from the second they wake up, you know, because they got so shit sleep, because their recovery is so trash, and because they're not able to enter into deep restorative sleep. And then they need caffeine to mask the energy deficiencies. So then it's just stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, right? So as long as you— or just coming out of that will do more for you than anything else. But then it's about to give your your body the building blocks that it needs from a nutrient perspective as well, right? So things that will heal the gut lining such as, you know, collagen-rich food and bone broth and things like this. But once again, this has to be nuanced because that's high histamine as well. So if you have a body that can't process histamine, well, then it's not gonna work. Then you have to take another action steps in the beginning. And this is where— I more so want you guys listening to this get into the philosophy of There is not a— someone trying to sell you a, this supplement will heal all your problems, is absolutely lying to you because it's not that easy. And it's, you know, a shit ton more— not even complex, but there's— it requires more nuance because there's so many variables that plays in. And just a supplement will not solve anything if you're stuck in a sympathetic nervous system state, you know.

Yeah, but it's mainly marketing, right?

It's mainly marketing. So everyone— it's the same thing with binders, you know. I could be sitting here and saying that binders will help you clear up toxins in your stomach, which it absolutely can, right?

Yeah.

But everything requires context, and it— do you want to rely on external things for your system to be functioning?

I think both of us can agree that it's mainly marketing, right? But first of all, like, stress less, right? And something we do implement with all the clients to get some action steps when it comes to stressing less is first of all eat, you know, like eat in the mornings, don't fast. And also throughout the workday, it can be very important to take these breaks, right?

100%.

Which you always like propose every client that even if you just have a couple minutes between meetings, like go out and just breathe and reset. Just doing these resets throughout the day will bring a lot for you in terms of stress management.

And it requires no time because if you think about a broader spectrum of things, maybe it's a 5-minute investment.

Yeah.

But then what comes as a byproduct of that? Well, it's better energy, it's better hormones, it's better recovery, it's better sleep in the night, it's better overall stress management, which also leads and turns in or dominoes to even better hormones and better recovery and all these things. So, like, it's a never-ending spiral both in a positive and a negative direction. And that's what everyone needs to, in my opinion, understand and get into their head that— because as an entrepreneur, it's very easy to just like, oh, this is like, it's gonna be a time commitment to do all these things and therefore whatever, I'm not gonna do it. That's not how you're operating in business, you know. If you do an action step, you're looking at the return that you're getting from that. You're not looking at the work, you know. And this is how we have to treat health as well. It comes back to what we said in the beginning, treating health as a, you know, as a game of leverage. And your most leveraged things—

There's a lot of leverage in taking that 5 minutes and resetting. Yeah, yeah.

But also from a broader perspective, the most leverage you will ever find when it comes to your health is dialing in your gut. health and being on top of your stress management so that your nervous system is optimized, right?

Yeah.

That's the most leveraged thing. And if you do that correctly, you will need less workouts to get better results. You will need to be less dialed with your diet and get better results because you can actually digest and absorb the food and the nutrients that you're eating, right? Like, yeah, so that's the foundation to everything, you know.

But again, you— because we were speaking about the detox pathways, right? So the first thing you can actually do is Stress less, you know, and that's just a very simple action step that you can try and first of all de-stress yourself at least to some extent. But I guess second of all, in order to optimize the system for being able to detox heavy metals, toxins, and things that you encounter, like what would you say on top of stress that you need to do?

Plasma, which is salt water, one of the most powerful implementations you can do. Just drink a bunch of salt water in the morning, it will help cleanse the system. Now I'm gonna say a but again, but if you have a very slow motility, it can backfire.

Yeah, there's also nuances. If your system is okay, like, you can drink a lot of plasma. I've been doing it myself for a lot of months, right? Because the fun thing about plasma and hydration is that it's essentially— you're basically drinking the plasma content that you have in your blood, so you can fuel your blood and through your blood easier be able to detox everything that's inside of it.

And that will heal the gut lining, which also will lead to not be able— or you not leaking stuff into your bloodstream. So yeah, that is a very good one. Obviously sweating is important. That's the warmest part.

Sauna, lymphatic bath.

Lymphatic drainage correctly as well. And just keeping your body moving, that's obviously super, super important. But it's also being out in nature, which is very important because we have to understand that if we're able to lower the internal inflammation the lymph system work better as well.

Yeah.

So if we're never touching grass and never— we're always inside and we're never going out, then we're gonna have a harder time because first of all, we're gonna accumulate more stress. But also, generally speaking, you're gonna have an elevated level of inflammation in your body, which will also then affect other processes. And of course, the lymphatic and the kind of detox pathways.

That kind of comes back to stress less, right?

Stress less. Stress less and recover more, you know.

Yeah. Yeah, but also, like, it's also hard in terms of the implementations because, like, if you're really, really struggling with your gut, then it's also hard to just implement certain things in terms of your diet because in 99 cases, 99% of cases, it backfires, right?

Yeah.

With the plasma, with healing your gut lining, because it's histamine heavy and that causes problems. Like, all the things that we're speaking about that you can implement is usually for someone that's kind of all right, you know, in terms of their system, not the person who's gone too far in terms of the consequences of not having your system in tune.

No, and like the further you've went, obviously the more dialed of an approach you're actually gonna need, right?

Yeah, because that's also the problem that I see with a lot of people. Like when they've let it come to the extent where they're on a daily basis having issues with like bloating and digestion, all these symptoms are appearing, they're still like trying to look for that one next thing. Like in terms of information, oh, if I just implement this thing or try that, then I will fix my problem. And they just prompt Claude all day and like end up in that loop, right? But what a lot of people get wrong is that they don't need more information, right? That's the last thing that they need. What they need is someone actually overviewing everything in order to help with the implementation and speak about the symptoms and giving you clarity, a second pair of eyes and clarity on why you're having symptoms in the first place. Because Like, it's, it's difficult to, to split certain things when you don't have a full understanding of what's going on, you know.

Correct. And it's also a strategic process, as with, you know, if you, if you're gonna do this thing in your business or, or whatever, um, yeah, like you're gonna launch this one thing, you're not going from— like, you have a whole process in place before you like press the, press the go button, if you know what I mean. And that's how you have to view your health as well, like Most likely when you do all the clients that we work with, it's, uh, some of the things we do is things that they've heard before, but they just haven't like done it properly. And if you skip the right phases and the right steps, then it's not gonna work.

Yeah, but the nuanced thing about it, even if you do it correctly, like if your body has come to the extent where it really can't tolerate things, it doesn't matter, you know.

Yeah.

Like, if you would try to implement the collagen, implement the plasma, implement that, like, it won't work. And you won't understand why it's not working either, because it's just come to that extent where it's very hard to split test yourself. Yeah. And you start to connect the wrong patterns because you're alone on the path and you don't understand what's going on. And yeah, like, in those cases, it's kind of hard to do it by yourself, you know?

Correct. And that's why we spoke about this earlier, Anton, but at this point, you know, we have— there's not a single client that has— that we're working with right now and that has gone through and that hasn't implemented everything that we say, that hasn't got results. Oh, there's one, but the situation here is lack of implementation, right? So there's only one this year that has not seen, which is absolutely crazy when you think about it. But that's because we've been seeing so many different patterns and situations.

Yeah.

And made kind of like, if we see someone that comes in that has this problem, then we already have a process in place based on previous cases that we know, like, okay, perfect, we're gonna try to do this.

Yeah.

It's never gonna be a guarantee that this will work, but what we always do, like, we always split test it. So, like, okay, this is our— it's a scientific experiment on everyone. We have a hypothesis, and then we have somewhat of a predicted hit rate of what's the expected outcome here, and then we put it to practice, we try, and then we get the data back, and By doing this and repeating this process, we're at a point right now where we can, you know, comfortably say that we've seen almost all patterns there is, and there's not a single one except one, which is lack of implementation, right? That's not fixed, or at least is on like 80% there.

Yeah, it's pretty crazy, to be honest. But also, typically, the people who do come to us, like, they're struggling with energy level, sleep, mental clarity, libido, abdominal pains, bloating, can't go to restaurants. Like, it's all of these certain issues. But I think it would also be very valuable for people to understand, like, even if they're not working with you, like, what process do you actually take these people through? Like, what do we actually do in order to help them? Like, typically, I like to call it a 3-step process, right?

Yeah.

But I think it would be super cool for the viewers, if you could explain like what we do and how we do it and like why are we able to help so many people with, with these persistent and chronic issues?

Yeah, so it's, it's, uh, we call, we call the process that we've developed, uh, neurodigestive recalibration. That's what we call it, right? And this is a 3-step process, as Anton said, and it starts with doing what we call a current situation audit. And this is something that we do with all clients that come in, and we just take a look at Exactly what they're doing right now and connect all the patterns. So we understand what are the inputs that this guy is doing on a daily basis and what are the symptoms that's coming out as a byproduct, you know, whether that be I'm eating meal and every single time I'm getting bloated. But then there's maybe that one day where you ate and the bloating wasn't as much. And then we just to have a try to have as much of a data of what's happening in your, in your life as possible. So When the clients come in, they just have to inform us. There's no sort of like massive implementation at first. It's just understand where you're going wrong. Because if you start to implement a bunch of things in the beginning, then we're never going to understand what your actual root problem was, right?

Yeah.

So, it's very important that we, like, when someone comes in, we don't do a lot of different changes. We just overview current situation, audit, get an understanding of where everything is going wrong right now.

Yeah.

And after that—

But also, also to like clearly, clearly map out symptoms and actually give people clarity on why are these symptoms here in the first place.

Correct. Because a lot of people feel like they have— I'm getting bloated after eating and whatever, but they've never really— maybe some have, but some have— you haven't even really mapped out your own problems. It's just like—

But let's say someone wants to self-diagnose, they want to go through this process by themselves, let's say, right? So like, in order to do a current situation audit, like, how would you map things out on yourself as an example?

This is where a second pair of eyes comes in, right? Because it's very hard to— I like to— I like the analogy of trying to read the label from inside a bottle, you know? Yeah, you're very emotionally attached to what's happening, and you're like, you just see your limited view. Yeah, and you can't read— once again, you can't read the label from inside the bottle. You have to be outside to read the label. That's how I like to see it. But of course, you can start mapping things out yourself. You can try to understand and see patterns that—

Because I think everyone is already doing that, right?

Correct. Most likely you're like, you've already figured out that this works or that this doesn't. Yeah, but you haven't really digged any deeper, and I guess that's where the magic most likely comes in. But then it's like, it's as we say, like, this is a— you can probably— someone can probably figure all these things out themselves. It's not like we're some, you know, aliens from another planet with some information that no one else has.

Yeah.

That's not the case. But it's speed and time as well, because if you try to sit and figure this out yourself, and then, you know, most people have most likely already tried a bunch of things, right?

Yeah.

And then what else is there to try? You know, you might be able to figure out, but what's gonna be the cost from a time perspective and also from like a hormonal, energy, whatever perspective? Because also universe works in a very specific way. If we're not moving towards better, we're moving away from it. Nothing's never neutral. So every single day you're not improving, you're regressing.

Yeah, I guess based on like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of application calls, Um, I think most people kind of humble themselves that because like everyone is trying to put like the puzzle pieces together, right? But in like, I think both you and Megha say like 80 to 90% of cases, they're also like connecting the pattern very wrong.

Yeah.

That, oh, this is like my issue, or I don't tolerate this, or I can't do this and that's causing this, which, yeah, again, like in 90% of cases is is not right, it's not correct, you know.

Yeah.

Um, so, so I don't think like— it's not the fact that people can't self-diagnose, it's just like so hard to do it without like experience. Even if you're like reading all the books and studies and mapping everything out in an AI, you know, like it's still very, very difficult to, to connect that pattern. Yeah.

And a lot of people— that's, that's actually a common thing that everyone says when they come as well, Anton. It's like, oh, but I've already tried these things and I've already Like, you know, they don't really believe that it's actually gonna work, and then they get possibly surprised by like, oh shit, like I'd missed this or I'd missed that.

Yeah.

And I weren't even aware of that. I thought that I had specific food intolerances, you know. I thought that just kind of as I thought in the beginning, I just got lactose intolerant one day to another, and maybe that's, you know, I get joint pains from eating rice or whatever it might be, or this and that. But then when you actually start to overview it, you see that, well, this is this is not the bottleneck, and therefore there's a completely different solution pattern that needs to be taken based on what's the actual problem.

Yeah, so basically just again mapping out symptoms, giving clarity on why they're having symptoms in the first place, and just like connecting the dots of everything that they're currently doing over a period of time to actually see based on experience what's going on. And typically the second step, right, I love the like the kitchen sink analogy that we typically use, right? That if you have a kitchen sink and the kitchen sink is filled to the brim, regardless if you're having gut issues or whatever issue you have, I think it's very, very good to go like on sort of a gut stabilization protocol.

Yeah, stabilization protocol, yeah.

Where you just give the digestion system a very big break so that the kitchen sink can slowly, slowly, slowly—

Come down so you can clean up the drainage. And then when you start to pour in liquids again, it can keep up. That's the analogy we like to give.

The purpose of that initial stabilization protocol is to give the body a rest and the digestive system a rest, right?

Correct.

But I guess when it comes to actually cleaning the drainage after this initial phase of, yeah, again stabilizing the digestive system, how do you actually clean the system from the root? What do we do in order to be able to do that, to get the system back to where it should be?

It's a lot of habit implementations, right?

Yeah.

So kind of as we said here with the detox things, with sauna, and also making sure we have low base inflammation levels. So being outside in nature and—

Stress.

De-stress, correct, and all these things. But then it's obviously targeted from a food perspective as well with, you know, introducing good bacteria again when the body can handle it, introducing collagen-rich foods, bone broth, collagen, powder sometimes, or gelatin, or whatever it might be, right?

Yeah.

But once again, very, very strategically used, and things to just repair everything from the inside, right?

Yeah.

But we have to pair that with all the other things, because I like to think of it like this: when you go from— if you've tore your ACL, you fucked up your knee, in your healing journey, are you gonna go from walking on crutches one day to sprinting the next.

Yeah.

No, you're gonna get rid of the crutches and walk very slowly for a couple days, then you're gonna walk a bit longer, then you're maybe gonna start to jog short, and then jog a bit longer, and then, and then run, and then run a bit further, and then the last step in this process is the sprinting, right? Or sprinting. So this is how we have to think about it as well.

In terms of the diet?

Yeah, in terms of the diet, because a lot of people has been A lot of people have already done elimination diets and kind of reset diets and low FODMAP or whatever it might be.

Supplement protocols.

Supplement protocols, all these things. And yeah, and it's a very common thing when people come and they think, oh, it worked in the beginning, but then everything came back, you know.

Yeah.

And that is because you didn't do the progressing curve of crutches to sprinting properly. You went to crutches sprinting because everything felt good. You, your gut started to feel a bit calm, and then you mistakenly took healing as healed. Yeah, and then you're back to square one. So that is also one of the kind of—

Like slow implementation of everything.

Slow implementation, diversification, having a broad spectrum of bacteria to upregulate your microbiome so that your gut will always have this— the engine always has to be working. Because one of the things and mistakes we see a lot of time as well is like eating too too restrictive, which is gonna downregulate your microbiome if you do that too long. Because then now your gut just has these 10 things that they process every single day, and therefore your microbiome goes, hey, exactly, we can just chill out because we know exactly what bacteria we're going to be provided with, right? So that also, that's just shooting yourself in the foot. And that's obviously, we see this time and time again also with just like having people, clients coming, I tried carnivore, it worked fantastic in the beginning, and then Then everything got messed up. And it's like, yeah, of course it worked amazing because you took away the fermentation, you took away all these things.

But everything that's heavy on the body and the digestion and everything that's like inflammatory to some extent.

Yeah, but then as a byproduct of that, long term, you start to downregulate the microbiome and all these things, and then the problems come back and most likely even worse, you know.

I like the analogy of like having the workers like in your microbiome, right?

Yeah.

So like when you're on carnivore, for example, you have a set amount of workers because like you're saying, your body gets used to digesting the same things every single day. But essentially what you're doing is you're like, if you have an army, you have foot soldiers, you have fighter jets, you have a navy, you have all of that. But let's say you're doing carnivore, right? Then you're only relying on the foot soldiers and slowly all of the other like parts of the army is dying out, right? So like if someone attacks you with a fighter jet, like what are you going to do? Because the only thing you have is foot soldiers.

And they haven't been active in 5 years.

Yeah, so they've got no training. Exactly. So like, it's like you're saying, right? That's why it's so important with diversity, because if you have diversity in the microbiome, then obviously everything that passes through, you'll be able to properly digest. The body will be able to work with it. Like you're just having more soldiers and a broader spectrum of an army in your, in your gut.

And doing that, is what's gonna gain you your life back, because that will mean that you can go out to the restaurants and eat without any issue. You can have your glass of wine with your wife on a Friday evening without any issues, and you can, you can go to the restaurant and order what the fuck you want without having to think about what's gonna cause problems to your digestion and what's gonna leave you with, with loose stool or even constipation, right?

Exactly.

So why we do all of these things in the first place is to build up the resilience and to build up a system that actually can handle everything that life throws life throws at us. Because a very common thing that we see also is people that have been too restrictive and too kind of extreme with everything, and then they eat out one time, and then it's the other extreme of the spectrum where it feels like they're hungover from eating out one time. When it's— they— it was, it was a steak and some potatoes, right? It was a good meal.

Yeah.

But they're completely fried because also their microbiome and their workers are also downregulated because they've been too clean and too extreme. So it's very, very interesting.

But I guess I think something that would be very interesting to understand, right, would you say that like, because the people we work with, like, after going through the program, like, they're able to consistently do this for the rest of their life, right? Like, it's of course like maybe you can't eat McDonald's every single day, but your results are essentially permanent, right? Like, you can tolerate everything like you used to in your life. So I guess when it comes to the longevity aspect, how would someone actually be able to like get permanent results, you know, where you can actually have a hamburger— doesn't even have to be a hamburger, a steak at a restaurant for some people, a glass of red wine— like you're just able to live your life normally?

And that's through— I would want to say that that's through the lifestyle design at the end of the day and sticking to like the consistency of the things that we implement and do, right?

Yeah. So, but I guess, not to cut you off, but I guess this is kind of the third step, right?

It is. It's the, it's the, the long-term kind of game plan on, and obviously making that sustainable towards one's life as well with their, with regards to how their life is looking and kind of focusing on the always, as we always do, focus on the highest leverage things always. But it's, if we think about this, this crutches to sprinting analogy again, if you then stop sprinting, and you stop sprinting for years, eventually your body will not be able to handle that and it will calm down. So it's about keeping the consistency with the sprinting and doing it and showing up. And I know this, my grandfather, you know, he hasn't, hasn't ran for, uh, I don't know how long, and he can barely walk now. And, and then you have someone else that is, that is 80, 90 years old that, that has been running and, and, and, and keeping the engine going.

Yeah.

And they do it without any problem. So this is what I like to think about when we see or of how we want to do this. It's the consistency that is the last part. It's cleaning everything up, understanding the proper bottleneck if we summarize it now, and then the consistency of the most needle-moving tasks and implementations and lifestyle design parts. That is basically what the neurodigestive recalibration is.

Yeah. So basically just maintaining diversity, a broad diet, Knowing your triggers, I guess.

Managing your stress.

Yeah.

Keeping your detox pathways optimized and open.

Yeah, cool. And also, like, some common misconceptions could be cool to talk about, right? Like, when it comes to gut health in general, we touched a little bit on the carnivore side of things. I think most people got the understanding of why that is an issue. Like, some people thrive on it long term, but eventually, like, It will become an issue, right? Yeah. But also something that's very, very, very popular in this industry is supplementation protocols, right?

Yeah.

And we spoke about that a little bit before. If the stress levels and the system is out of tune, it won't work. But like, why are people so hyper obsessed with having one specific supplement regime to target this one specific bacteria that is causing all of the issues? Like, why is the whole industry pointing towards supplements?

I think, I think it's in human nature, you know, it's in our biology to want to be efficient.

Yeah, take a pill and problem is solved.

Take a pill and the problem is solved.

Traditional healthcare, right?

Yeah, so like that is the— no one wants to do the work, but this is for the average person, right? Yeah, the people that we work with are usually the ones that understand that, you know.

Yeah, they've probably tried all of that and they have the awareness that this doesn't make sense, right? But I mean, 90% of the people that's having these issues, that's what they're being told, right? So I think it's very important to touch on that.

And I, yeah, I 100%. And I think it's because the industry obviously wants to sell you something. That's the first thing. And if we think about the sort of the value equation as well, it's like, yeah, How much effort do you need to put in? If you have to— I mean, if you gave— if I gave you a pill here, Anton, and told you that you can get— lose 10 kgs and put on 10 kgs of muscle if you just take this one pill, and you'll wake up and have that tomorrow, you know?

Yeah.

You would pay a lot of money for it.

Yeah, you know, but yeah, it depends on the side effects. Yeah, of course. Yeah, if that's the only outcome, yes, I would.

And this is the concept of what everyone is trying to to solve, because that's like no effort, very high reward. And that's what you're being sold. You're being sold that a pill will solve all your issues when, you know, it's, it's capitalizing on, on emotions and human biology, I, I think. And, uh, yeah.

But why doesn't it work to just target one specific thing with a supplement?

Yeah, and this is, this is where we disagree with this, is because you're like Your body is a whole ecosystem once again. It's not like you have 30 different separate problems. You have one overloaded system. And if you try to micromanage a whole ecosystem and a whole system that is living in symbiosis with each other, like everything affects everything, it means that just addressing one little thing for one little thing will just— like the impact that that will have is close to zero.

Yeah.

Like literally close to zero, arguably even negative, you know, for most people. And because it will maybe mask another problem or something like this.

Yeah.

So that is the problem I have with that. I mean, don't get me wrong, some supplements can absolutely be beneficial and help and be of usage. But when someone is telling you that all your problems will get fixed by this crazy supplement stack—

Yeah.

We saw this video the other day, it was like, oh, here's everything I'm taking to heal my gut. You know, and the guy had his only, like, a full wardrobe of shopfront.

It was a shop. Yeah, it was a full—

Yeah, that could be— could have been a vitamin shop.

Yeah, that was crazy. Yeah, and it's like super viral too.

Super viral. How many comments? And this is what everyone wants to see. Oh, I can just buy my way through it by an easy thing. And don't get me wrong, it's not like it's hard to actually fix it.

That's the crazy part, right? The solution is simple, but at the end of the day, it's like, it's so nuanced. Like, it's so, it's so many variables playing into the equation.

Correct. And that's also why we do what we do, because our whole thing, and our whole thing with a lot of our clients that come in, is like, they don't, they don't even want to try to figure all these things out themselves. They just want to, they're, they just want to fix their shit and kind of hand off the problem to someone else. And that's exactly what we do essentially as well. It's like taking the decision fatigue off their end. Yeah, so that they can just know that, tell me what I'll do, I'll do it, you know. Yeah, and it's fixed perfect, and I'm happy, you know.

Correct.

So it's, once again, it's not like it's, it's hard and you have to do this crazy— we've had some examples of that with clients that have gone through some crazy detox protocols where they have to fucking pour coffee up their ass and things like this. And it's the same thing there. Yeah, that might have worked short-term, but every single one of them has come back And they still have their problems left, like, which is absolutely absurd, right? And went on some crazy parasite cleanse and this, so they couldn't work for 2 weeks because their, their, their system was in such a, like, a war state and they can't even focus.

That's— let's, let's touch on that because that's also such a huge thing, right? That everyone is pointing towards parasites. Oh, your problem is parasites. You have to do a parasite cleanse every day. Oh, people in this country or back in the days, they used to do parasite cleanses. Nowadays we don't do that. Like, can you give your— I think your perspective on parasites makes a lot of sense, right, in terms of like the system and all of that. But first, I guess if you can touch on like why parasites is probably not the issue, you know, to gut issues. And second of all, how does parasites actually like impact your system, right?

So parasites are actually, in my opinion, you know, it can be a good thing for our system because we live in symbiosis with parasites and bacteria, and that's the thing we have to understand. So if you, if If you have zero parasites in your body, well, that's not a good thing.

Yeah.

Because that's the same thing as with the workers. We always want to have a constant, like, good versus bad ratio, 80/20 kind of ratio of good versus bad bacteria. Because if the good bacteria doesn't have anything to fight off, then it's, you know, then you're too clean and your immune system will get downregulated as a byproduct. And like, the workers will not be active, basically, if we think about that again. But then also, you know, parasites feed on heavy metals, so they help you clean up some of the toxins as well, right? But of course there's good and bad bacteria, and here is the issue with this. You have to— like, every time you eat, you will consume some sorts of parasites. Yeah, right.

But I guess, why is the whole industry like attacking them, you know?

Same thing here. Easy. It's easy to blame. Like, it's a painted up as a villain, like, oh, I have some fucking crazy thing in my stomach.

Take this pill.

Take this pill, yeah. This is, oh, this makes sense, there's something living inside of me that— like, it's fearmongering. That's what it is, it's fearmongering. Which is just crazy because once again, every time you eat, you're probably consuming some sort of, you know, bad bacteria/parasite. And they pass through our system if we have a system that works properly because They're— you are viewed—

But now you're speaking about the bad parasites. They pass through our system, right?

Yeah, if you're not viewed as a host for them.

But is there such a thing as a bad parasite though?

Nuanced.

Yeah, you know, how come?

It depends how much toxins you have for them to feed on. You know, if you have so much toxins to feed on—

Okay, so it sounds like what you're kind of explaining is not necessarily that there are like super Parasites, but more so that it can be like an overpopulation of them.

Yeah.

Yeah, they're like taking over and that's why you're having issues.

And that's when the problem appears.

Okay.

Yeah, that's what I would say. And that stems back to your system not being—

Yeah, so the underlying root or fix to the problem is not to take like, do a parasite cleanse, right? Because like they would just come back.

They would come back.

Yeah, so—

If you're still viewed as a host by them, they will come back and they will stay.

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, to be honest.

So that is the— yeah, once again, like, you have parasites in you right now, and they're not good or bad. It's nuanced, and it, you know, they pass through you if you're like— as they should, right? As feeding a bit on the heavy metals and then passing through you as they kind of should.

Makes sense.

If your system is optimized or if it's working how it should.

Yeah, cool. I guess, is there anything that you can think of on the top of your mind that like is very common misconceptions when it comes to gut health in general? I think we've touched on some of the big ones.

Yeah, I think one of the common things that we see also, which is just important to note, is like a lot of the people that come doesn't really come because they want to get in shape, right? But the funny thing when you understand health and understand that the leverage inputs are gut health and stress management and all these things is that a lot of A lot of our clients, obviously, as you guys have probably seen, like, get absolutely ridiculous transformations as well. And this is not even from— and I've said this multiple times, like, I'm probably not the best fitness coach.

No.

There's someone that can give you a better workout plan and a better macro calculated exactly how it should be planned. But like, we're not—

That's not a bodybuilder.

No, I'm not a bodybuilder, and that's not what we're trying to do either. We're trying to fix your system so that the inputs that you do will gain more results. And it's, it's, it's the same thing there. It's like a lot of clients that come, they've been working out for so many years and doing 6 days a week and eating so good, but like it's not yield anything because their system is messed up. And when we then fix that, then they get crazy. All the inputs that they've been doing is finally starting to work for them.

Yeah.

And that's when you get crazy results from a visual perspective as well. So just a bit of a mindset shift for, for some of you listening, maybe that Shift your focus from the surface level kind of, um, variables to, to once again the more leveraged variables. You know, you're not finding the most amount of leverage when it comes to getting a good physique and good health in training and nutrition. You're finding that through optimizing gut health and stress management.

Yeah, like nutrient absorption, hormone optimization. Like, if all those things are dialed, then obviously the results in the gym will also come with it, right?

Because 2 people can do exactly the same thing and get completely different outcomes. And that's not due to genetics or some other bullshit excuse. It's through how well-functioning the system receiving it is.

Yeah, I think something very interesting that I also see a lot of people struggle with, right, is like lack of energy and especially brain fog, right? So what they typically rely on is like caffeine, a lot of willpower, and they get through the day. But typically throughout the day, there comes some sort of crash or They do less focused work. Like some of some people can even lose hours to like the amount of work and the quality of the work that they could have been doing if they had the energy. Yeah. And back in the days, they were able to do that perfectly fine. No issues whatsoever. You could push through the whole day, get all of this shit done. But when it comes to like brain fog and lack of energy, again, like where do these issues come from? Like why are people struggling with this? I think a lot of people are asking themselves that. Yeah, what's going on? Like, why all of a sudden can't I focus anymore?

That's also coming from the gut.

Am I aging, you know?

No, it's not aging. It's also coming from the gut, right? Everything ties back or goes back to your gut health because you're eating food and then instead of it being absorbed, it's leaking throughout in your bloodstream through your leaky gut, and therefore it leaves you with with fog in your head, you're not able to focus. And then also on top of that, you're not able to absorb the nutrients, which is not giving you then and supplying you actual energy to be able to focus and to be able to recover. So yeah, it all stems back to the gut.

I remember when the mitochondria information was new to me, I thought that was like so interesting, especially now that I've optimized it. I feel like how it's actually I guess, can you explain like what is the mitochondria, how does it work, and like why is that such a vital part, especially in like energy levels and mental clarity and stuff?

So that's where the energy is actually produced, on like the last pillar of like, this is where the actual work is going on. And if that's not optimized, then it also doesn't matter how well inputs you give if you can't produce ATP properly, which is the energy currency. Yeah.

And what fuels your cells, right? Like what brings the energy to the cells.

Correct. So it's the same thing there. If nutrients can't get to there, then your mitochondria will not be able to produce the ATP. Therefore, it will not be able to power up your brain. It will not be able to power up your muscles. It will not be able to power up recovery processes and like all of these things, right? So that's also a very, very important thing. And one thing on top of that as well that we always It's like the mismatch. Like, your mitochondria can get fatigued as well. And this is where seasonal eating comes in, in my opinion, also where if you do the wrong thing for the wrong season when your mitochondria is adapted for something else, that's how you fatigue it. And fatigued mitochondria is something that also will lead to problems down the line— energy problems, hormonal problems.

Yeah.

Bunch of things.

All that jazz.

Yeah.

Interesting. I guess because not everyone watching this probably has like crazily severe issues, right? But I guess like for someone like you and me who, who do have a system that like is pretty much in tune, I would like to believe about myself. Yeah. But how can you maintain that? Like what inputs should you do on a weekly basis when it comes to the dietary perspective, but also like training and habits and so on? Like how can we remain as healthy as possible and not get these issues further down the line.

Yeah, so it's a, it's a whole equation with a lot of different variables in it. But one of the things that we're doing right now, Anton, obviously as we're, you know, running our business and there's a lot of stress from that side of things, you know, we're— people usually get surprised, but we barely train. Yeah, because there's not a lot of leverage in there. We mostly maybe view this as a maintenance phase of just like keeping, yeah, keeping what we're having. So maybe like 1 or 2 sessions per week, and that's all it really takes for the health benefits. For the health benefits, because obviously there are some health benefits in there, of course.

Yeah.

And then it's, you know, keeping a good diet, which isn't a problem for us, but also keeping the diversification and, you know, constantly having things in rotation, different things. We have the same base of food, so maybe we have our steak and potatoes, that is a staple.

Yeah.

But then the variables around, maybe one day we do roots, another day we do some herbs, another day we do fruit on the side. Like, we always keep the variables in rotation for that, for once again, for the microbiome side of things. We always want to keep the workers busy. That's that. And then it's lifestyle habits. It's being here outside. It's being in the sun as much as we can, being in nature and taking resets throughout the day. That's probably one of the most powerful things we can do. You know, when we're sitting down and eating, we're making sure that we're actually digesting and giving our body the best ability to absorb the food through sitting down, not being in front of screens, not multitasking. Doing some slight light breathwork before. Ideally, we're eating outside in the sun. It's like, it's small things and small implementations across the board like this.

Comes again down to nervous system and stress.

Nervous system, correct.

How big of an impact it has on digestion, stomach acid, the production of all that stuff.

It's crazy. Yeah, we're usually—

Usually something very funny that you told, I think it was our client Jan, right? That I would rather see you eating McDonald's in a very, very, very calm state rather than like eating steak and potatoes, but you're like wired and stressed, or you sit in front of the computer when you eat.

Yeah, correct. I'd rather I'd rather see you eat McDonald's than steak and potatoes if you're if or I'd rather see you eat steak and I'd rather see you eat McDonald's than steak and potatoes if the McDonald's is eating calm outside in the sun.

Yeah.

Grounded compared to eating—

What's behind that?

Steak and potatoes in front of the screen, stressed out and between meetings and multitasking, right? That is because your digestion is completely shut off if we're in a stressed state.

Yeah.

Which means that the food that you're providing your body at that state will just pass through and cause permeability. It can cause leaky gut, it can cause an overgrowth of the bacteria because you're not You're not breaking the food down properly. So there's such a downside to that equation, right? But then we have the worst food, but it's eaten in a better state. Well, that's— the body will be properly able to process it and break it down. So even if it's like bad, you know, we're actually able to utilize it and squeeze out some small little nutrients from it compared to just the other— Good food that will wreck your system as a byproduct as well.

Yeah.

So it's pretty crazy when you say it like that, but that's the truth, you know.

Yeah, which is also crazy belief shift, to be honest.

Yeah, and one of the most powerful implementations, like, it's such a simple thing, but I like— if there's one thing that you listening could take away from this, it's like eating in a chill state will do more for you than anything else, right? Stress management, and that ties into stress management. Management as well. Yeah, stress management, highest leverage. But eating chill, eating outside, no screens, no nothing, yeah, that will like take your digestion to whole new levels.

Also, that's why like it comes back to the— I'm sure a lot of people know the 2 to Pasta guy, like the Italian who's eating pizza, smoking cigarettes, drinking red wine, but he's doing it in a state like of gratitude, right? In the Italian sun with people he enjoys, and therefore he lives a very long and happy life, right? Because like everything that he's doing is in a— like the frequency that he's in and the vibration that he's in is also impacting his digestion and how his body is processing the food that he's eating. And we spoke about that on the last retreat, which was a very interesting topic, how much your mindset and your belief and the state that you're in can have such a massive impact on On your health and your digestion in general, right?

100%. That guy, you know, he probably does as wrong inputs as—

Yeah, and he's probably gonna become 100 and be totally disease-free his whole life.

Yeah, most likely, you know. And that just states the point that it's stress and management of these things is far more important than, you know, the inputs if the system receiving it is not Not dialed. So I'd rather always see worse inputs but better system than worse system and better inputs. It's, you know, 100 times out of 100 that there's a clear decision there.

Yeah.

Or yeah, it's, it's crazy, but that's the good— that's the proof to it, you know.

Yeah, it's cool. It's an interesting, interesting angle that it works that way.

100%.

Cool. What do you think, it's time for a swim maybe?

Yeah, sweating.

Jump in a lake.

Sweating my—

Very hot in Europe nowadays.

I know, it is. It is. But yeah, I think this was a good little chat, Anton. Hopefully we gave you listening some good values and maybe belief shifts. That's once again, that's the most important thing. We don't really— I don't really sit and like to sit here and say that, oh, take this supplement and everything will be fixed. Like, it's more so the The kind of philosophies and understanding and connecting the patterns of why it is as it is, that is what I want you to get out of this. And when you understand that, you can execute based on that, right? So, you know, I would never sit there and say that doing this one thing and taking this one thing will fix all your issues because—

But if it would work, we would say it, right? It's not like we hold things back, but like everything that we've been saying throughout this whole chat is like Our beliefs, right? And what we've seen.

Yeah, yeah, 100%.

If it was the case, then, then I'm all for it, you know?

Yeah, if a pill solved all my issues, trust me, I would fucking—

Yeah, or one elimination diet or this or that. If that could fix all issues, then go ahead and do it. But like, everyone is an individual, everyone have different triggers, different things like going on. So it's nuanced, right?

It's nuanced. But, um, hopefully you got some, some good takeaways that you can try and test.

And, uh, cool. And if you would want to look into either speaking one-on-one with me or Lucas and potentially see, yeah, if it would be appropriate for us to help you, then there's probably a link in the description where you can look further into what we do and how we could possibly help you.

Yeah, there's a little video there explaining a bit more exactly how the neurodigestive recalibration works and how the Supremum Protocol works. So if you're interested, check that out and you'll speak with either Anton or me. So Yeah, hope you enjoyed. Good chat, good chat, good chat, Anton. Let's do it, let's jump in the lake.

Let's go to the lake. Enjoy.