Paul reversed severe ulcerative colitis by switching to raw fruits and vegetables after his doctor recommended removing his colon. He credits overeating and undersleeping as the main disease drivers, and has stayed healthy for 20 years on a minimalist diet of single foods like oranges and salads.
Hi, so today I'm here with Paul who was giving a lecture at Hippocrates Health Institute today and I was really inspired by his talk and everything he talked about. So I decided to interview him. He actually cured himself from colitis and I'd like to know more about your story, how you did it, how you ate. So tell us.
Sure. Well, I grew up eating the standard American diet which is like hot dogs and pizza and hamburgers and things like this. And when I was 19 years old, I started to develop really bad stomach problems, and I got diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease, which is also known as ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease. It's inflammation of the colon. And the doctors gave me a whole bunch of drugs to get better, and I took those drugs, and at first it worked, but I started feeling sicker and sicker in other parts of my body, and I found out they were from the side effects of the drugs. So I call them direct effects, not side effects.
Exactly.
They directly affected me. So I asked my doctor what else I can do, and she said, well, you're at a high risk for colon cancer. I was at 19 years old, and she said, but if we cut out your colon, you can't get colon cancer, and you won't have any issues with your colon if we cut it out. And I thought she was joking at first, but she wasn't. She never told me there was any connection between my diet and my health. So I didn't know who to listen to, and then I came down here to Florida from New York City, and I found this place called the Hippocrates Health Institute, and I found out about the raw food diet and just eating uncooked fruits and vegetables. And against my doctor's advice, I started eating this way, and that's been over 20 years ago, and I've never had a health problem again.
Wow. So what are the foods that you were eating? You mentioned actually, but what are the foods that you transitioned to? After you heard about this lifestyle? Yeah.
So I ate a lot of fruits and vegetables in recipes. So I would make a raw food pizza or a raw food even guacamole. But now I don't do the recipes as much. Now I eat like more of a mono diet. I eat more simple. So if I'm hungry, I'll eat an orange. And if I'm still hungry, I'll add another orange or something or a salad.
So straight from nature?
The closest to nature, the better. I love coconuts. I live in a tropical environment here. Coconuts are great. And so when I first started, I was just eating a lot more food, and now I'm just eating less. And that's what happens over time after your body cleans out.
Because you start realizing that we don't actually need so much food, that this whole conditioning that we need breakfast, lunch, dinner is actually not true at all. We don't need to consume so much from Mother Nature. We can actually thrive on very little.
Exactly. I found out the 2 major causes of disease Uh, from a physical standpoint, are overeating and undersleeping.
Uh-huh.
More people get sick from eating too much than eating too little.
Uh-huh.
Uh, when you're eating unhealthy food, uh, your cells are never satisfied, so you're always craving more food and you're never giving your body what it needs. But when we eat high-quality food with the nutrients in them, we don't need much at all, much less than most people would ever imagine. And now I'm at a place where I eat very little. And a good friend of mine who's almost 90 years old, who's been eating this way for a long time—
Oh, wow!
Once said something to me, Dr. Fred Visci, that I'll never forget. He said, when you can enjoy not eating as much as you enjoy eating, you've come to a certain place. And now I'm in that situation. And so when I look at food, I look at it like, what food is going to give my body the most by using the least amount of energy to get it? And when you think about that, it's raw, ripe, fresh fruits and vegetables.
I keep contemplating on the fact that what we're learning here at Hippocrates and what we're— the way we're eating is actually not a new science or a fad. It's something that people used to live by thousands of years ago. It's funny that we have to build classrooms and then educate people to eat and live this way. And you had a book which talked about how this is all coming from our scriptures. So can you tell us a little more on that?
Absolutely, because some people say that vegetarianism and veganism is a new thing that's out now, but the oldest and the most original diet in the world was found in the Garden of Eden in Genesis 1:29, where it says man should eat fruits and vegetables, and they did. And it wasn't only until the fall of man through their sin that God allowed man to consume animals. And when he did that, it wasn't a blessing, it was more of a curse because they got kicked out of— so let's say the Garden of Eden is the world's most amazing health food store. It has the best fruits and vegetables on the trees and everywhere. And then because you're not following the rules of the store, you got kicked out of the store. So now you got to eat all the stuff that's not in the store and all these other things.
Right.
But this diet has been around the longest and All throughout the scriptures, there are many examples of people that lived way beyond our imagination could even think about.
So thank you so much, Paul. It was a pleasure meeting you. And if you want to know more about Paul's journey and if you want to dwell deep into the books he's written, you can do so at his website, which is healthwatchman.com. So thank you so much.
Thank you very much, and thank you out there.
