From Toxic Diet Culture to Food Peace, with Dr. Will Cole

There's going to be some foods that raise inflammation, that hurt your digestion, that contributes to chronic health problems, and it's okay to have an honest, frank conversation about these things. And it's not restrictive or diet culture to say, this food doesn't love me back. And I love feeling great more than I thought that I wanted something that doesn't love me back. And that's different for everybody.

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Welcome to this episode of the Feel Freaking amazing podcast. I'm Dr. Wendy Trubo. Ed Levitin can't be here today, so I'm soloing. Our guest is Dr. Will Cole. He's the New York Times bestselling author of Intuitive Fasting Ketoterian, the Inflammation Spectrum and the brand new book Gut Feelings Healing the shame Fueled Relationship between what you eat and how you feel. He's a leading functional medicine expert dealing with thyroid issues, autoimmune conditions, hormonal imbalances, digestive disorders, brain problems, and more. Will, welcome to the show. I'm so psyched to be interviewing today. I know Ed's really bummed he couldn't be here.

I know. I'll try not to take it personally he's not here, but I'm glad you're here.

Not personal, double booked with patients. And we try never to cancel them. So here we are.

Yeah, I'm the same way with patients.

They come first patients, patients take over everything. So you call the gut the second brain. I know that's what it's called in literature, but I really feel like it's the first brain and we just think of this as the first brain, but the gut really runs the show. So where does it, where does someone start? Obviously read the book, but where, where do they start to go to get on track?

The book is meant to guide people through that because it's less overwhelming than people think. I mean, to start moving in the right direction now, healing is non linear. These are not quick fix issues. When you're dealing with complex issues, the patient base that I see, the people that have autoimmune problems, people that have hormone problems or detoxification, impairments, there are bigger things to unpack. But at Least if someone's saying, okay, I don't know where to start, I am overwhelmed, actually. The body's amazingly resilient and you can start seeing changes pretty significantly pretty early on when you start cleaning up your life. And by that I mean eat foods. And in alignment with things that love you back, eat foods that love you back. And so if you haven't started looking at foods, I would start there. And I have a big conversation in the book between this food confusion within the wellness community and conversations online and this toxic tribalism that I think happens between toxic diet culture and what I would say is equally toxic anti diet culture, where this. They're both just saying these broad, sweeping, overgeneralized statements instead of looking at nuance and context and bio individuality. And as someone that looks at labs all day long and sees there's a science and art to wellness, if I hung my hat on one way for everybody, I'd be proven wrong all day long.

I think the only thing that I would say is there is a theme that could run through food, meaning try to have it look like what it started as in life, don't eat lots of sugar or food that's been highly processed and minimize your alcohol. I would go to the mat on that one. I would fall on my sword on that sort of broad generalization. But then when you drill into, yeah, not every human needs to be vegan and not every human needs to eat red meat. Right. There's a lot of variation in that. And not everyone needs to avoid gluten or dairy.

Absolutely. No, I know. And I could think of somebody that a dairy works great for. Somebody for someone that doesn't. Someone gluten work tray for somebody. Someone that doesn't. Legumes, nightshades, nuts and seeds, eggs, high carb, low carb, high fat, low fat. There's a lot of bio individuality between all of that because it's not just about what they're going through at this point in their life, but it's what's their preference? Because. And that's sort of the feeling stuff. If someone has stress and obsession and shame and like it's like this arduous restrictive thing, their inner resistance towards that food or that meal or whatever wellness practice. You're talking about an exercise, a supplement, whatever, a protocol, stress and anxiety around that thing is going to produce a completely different outcome, even if that thing is in theory irrelevant for them on paper. So it's, it's that head in the heart space. And that's why a lot of what I'm talking about, gut feelings is not just about what you're feeding your body, but what are you feeding your head and your heart. Like what is the, your relationship with food, what's your relationship with your body, what's your relationship with life itself? Because that stuff really, to use a small example, I see people that, you know, they will go on vacation and they can get away, quote unquote, they won't have the digestive problems, they won't have the flare ups, they won't have the bloating or the fatigue from the foods that they could never get away with at home. And food quality is part of that conversation if they're going to Europe or something like that. But I knew the stress, the head and heart space in which you eat the meal influence what is the outcome of it. So I don't know if that answered your question question but I, I do agree with you. Like there's some low hanging fruits that really don't work for most people and it's going to be refined carbohydrates, added sugar and, and that's varying degrees. Like some people have higher carb sweet spots than others. Industrial seed oils, I don't think over consumption of them is healthy for people. I think in small amounts they can work for some people. But it's really things like canola oil, vegetable oil, soybean oil and it's really the ratios of these polyunsaturated fatty acids is the Omegas 3, 6 and 9 that the modern westerner over consumes. Omega sixes and nines and not enough long chain omega threes. And conventional dairy I don't think works most well for most people. But there are better versions of dairy like a grass fed, organic, cultured, all of that stuff, right?

A two, A two, A two, A two.

Yeah. So it's looking at those, those if you want to start there, decrease those.

Yeah, you talk about food piece. Can you tell the listeners what that is and also how to achieve it?

Yeah, so it's, it's a big topic and something that I really wanted to have a nuanced conversation between toxic diet culture and I would say toxic anti diet culture. And what I mean by that is one side is you know, eat less, workout more restriction. It's about thinness and vanity and it's sort of what a lot of us grew up with. Right. As far as like dieting and it's that stuff. And then I would say this newer phenomenon in our culture today is anti diet culture that is very can Be very malignant in many ways. And the equal opposite of toxic diet culture which says they'll say there's no such thing as a bad food and eat whatever you want. And any food intervention, any food changes, meaning if a food doesn't love you back, calling that food out and saying it doesn't love me back is automatically labeled as toxic diet culture. And I think it's lacking nuance and context when you're dealing with digestive problems and autoimmune problems. It's confusing a lot of people because certainly, as I say in gut feelings, eat whatever you want. But use meals as a medicine and a meditation. That should be the ultimate rule. And if a food does not love you back, avoiding that food isn't restrictive, it's self respect and continuing to eat foods that don't love you back and wondering why you still don't feel good and you feel miserable. It's like staying in a toxic relationship and wondering why you're still miserable. You it's about healthy boundaries with food. So this third way of what I talk about in the book is food piece where it's not about it's like ending the food wars, ending this toxic tribalism between like high carb versus low carb, vegan versus carnivore, paleo, whatever, doesn't matter. Like be your own N of one experiment. Let's like remove labels and say yes, there are some foods that are going to impact your blood sugar negatively. There's going to be some foods that raise inflammation, that hurt your digestion, that contributes to chronic health problems. And it's okay to have an honest, frank decision, a conversation about these things. And it's not restrictive for diet culture to say this food doesn't love me back. And I love feeling great more than I thought that I wanted something that doesn't love me back. And that's different for everybody. So it's okay to have a bio individual conversation about that and realize we're all on our own journey. So that's what food piece is about. It's really a functional medicine conversation about what's going on in social media when it comes to these food conversations.

The ultimate rejection of self Gaslighting basically. Right. Like my favorite. I can't remember how many kids you have. I have four kids.

I have two kids.

You have two. Okay, so I, we have a very busy house and, and there are times when my husband or children might come up with what I would consider to be an absolutely insane cockamamie idea. And my go to response over the last 20 plus years, at first, you know, you justify or you say no. And what I've really gotten to will, that I'll offer the listeners because it's so powerful, because nobody can argue with it, is really sweetly smiling and saying, that doesn't work for me.

I love that.

Who's going to argue? Yes, it works for you, right? So when they come up with these wacko ideas, you know, to, you know, dig up the entire front yard and put the chicken coop there, I'm like, that doesn't work for me. So I'll offer it to listeners because, you know, if you know me, you know, I don't eat gluten, I don't eat a lot of cow's dairy, and I work really hard not to eat sugar because it doesn't work for me. I don't feel good when I eat. I mean, I have celiac, so that really doesn't work for me. So I'll offer that to people is, is really trusting. Like, if it doesn't work for you, don't do it. That's like standing under a waterfall and wondering why you're wet.

Yeah, exactly. And look, when, when you're, when you're dealing with a culture that we have the most chronic disease, the shortest lifespan of all industrialized nations, and yet we can't have an honest conversation that some foods don't love us back. These are largely driven by lifestyle factors. And to ignore the food component is, is literally killing people. It's decreasing the quality of life. But I don't feel it doesn't make you a bad person. I think that's the difference. And that's where toxic diet culture is disordered because it doesn't make you a bad person for eating a food that doesn't love you back. But you have to, if you care about somebody, you want to share with them. The fact that that food may not love you back right now and eating it is contributing to how you feel. And I want you to feel good. I want you to feel, be the best version of yourself. And sometimes you have to be honest and, and not placate people with virtue signaling.

I mean, the other part of it that you're talking about is, is even recognizing the expectation that you should feel good when you eat. I'm not a huge fan of the word should, but when you eat, it would be expected that you feel good. And if you don't feel good, that's a good indicator that something is a possibility. But the other thing is, this isn't a moral Conversation. It's not about morality. This isn't about penance. This is really about what works in your body, what makes you feel good, what brings you the best vitality and energy. And again, it's not. You're not a bad. You know, people sit down in my chairs and they're like, I cheated. I'm like, there's no cheating in my world. You either ate something that didn't work for you or you ate something that worked for you. That's it. There's not a moral conversation. You don't have to, like, there's no Hail Marys and penance and, like, no kneeling. None of that.

No nearly needed cheating. That concept is antithetical to, like, a healthy relationship with food. There's no wagon to fall off of. Like, the wagon's your life. It's just like, learn. Learn about what your body's telling you Something on the back cover of the book is a mantra at the telehealth clinic here. And it's a. It summarizes a lot of what I talk about in the book and the science around it. It's, you can't heal a body you hate. You cannot shame your way into wellness. You cannot obsess your way into health. So your head and your heart set. And that in relationship with the thing, the wellness tool is really important. That's really what I want to delve into, because there's a lot of people that are interested in wellness that are, you know, health nerds as they would consider themselves that end up being in a very. They've lost their way in some ways. Like they obsess and shame. And the stress about, like, stressing about healthy foods isn't good for your health. And it's really a reckoning about, okay, how can you love your body enough to nourish it with good things and check yourself on your motivations. And you probably started out with good intentions, but sometimes people can think more is always better, and they're ended up with, like, three different foods they can eat, and they're so restricted, and they've kind of gotten to that orthorexic zone, which is not, not good from a mental health standpoint and a physical health standpoint.

Yeah. And the other thing I say to people is you can have general guidelines for. Here's what I know works for me, and I know I'm going to a wedding or a special event and you're going to eat those foods, but a lot of people use those events as a. Something to take. Take them completely off the path. And then for six months they're off the program because it's like, oh well, I screwed it up. I can't be perfect. And I used to be a surgeon. And perfection is the enemy of good. Better is the enemy of good. If you're doing a good job, should be good with that. I want to pivot to something. You have a 21 day gut feeling plan. What is, what is that designed to do for people? What would people expect to get out of that?

So it's a introduction, it's a leaning into, it's a game plan to, to experiment with that vagal nerve toning that every day. There's a gut and a feelings tool, there's a physiological and a mental, emotional, spiritual tool to serve that strengthen that weak hypo function of hypotonic action of the vagus nerve. The fact that they have, if they have poor vagal tone, how do we strengthen it? Well, on a physiological, we can talk about supporting gut health and we talk about things like the GAPS protocol in one day. We talk about the gut and psychology syndrome or gut and physiology syndrome, depending on how we're using it clinically. But it's using things like soups and stews to be nourishing to the gut, to allow the gut to. It's like a proverbial siesta for your gut so your gut can be less taxed and stressed. The vagus nerve can start being supported and on a feelings it could be a breath work for a day or the next day. I talk about the research of forest bathing of Shinrin Yoku, the research out of Japan and South Korea of using nature as a medicine and meditation to support the vagus nerve and support that neuroimmuno endocrine axis. Or another day could be, it could be breath work. I mentioned meditation, just different meditation practices in breath work. I talk about holotropic breathwork. The holotropic breath work, man, it's born out of psychedelic research of a way to tap into the same parts of the brain that the psych is that psychedelics seem to be working upon. The holotropic breath work has similar mechanisms of action as far as having these psychedelic experiences and allowing the body to clear things out and clear out these toxic thoughts, these toxic experiences that live in our body. So that's an interesting section of the book is holotropic breathwork kind of psychedelic breath, if you will. And then I talk about this. The research out of Japan of ruikatsu, which translates as tear seeking. It's a kind of cathartic crying and releasing and allowing tears in the the opiate releases that are released endogenously when you cry and allow stored stress and trauma to be leaving your body through crying. There's so many free, accessible, interesting science backed ways to support vagal nerve tone and that's what each day, each day you get to experiment with something new.

I think that's fantastic. Well, so the first comment I'll have is people should go get the book Gut Feelings Healing the shame infused relationship between what you ate and what you feel, how you feel. Is that on Amazon? Is that at Barnes and Noble? Where can people get that?

Yeah, all the, all the places. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, independent bookstores, all the places. Yeah, but the links are on@drwillcool.com too.

Perfect. That was my next question is where can people find you and how can they engage with you and participate? What's your favorite venues?

Yeah, everything's@drwillcool.com the links to the telehealth center are there. I have a podcast called the Art of Being. Well that is a new episode every week. I'd love to have you on. I can't wait for you to come on. Yeah. So and everything's, everything's there. I'm on social media. I'm on probably Instagram the most at Dr. Will Cole but Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, trying to talk out all the places.

So thank you for coming on this podcast. Like this is awesome and I know this was very valuable for people so thank you and for the listeners, thanks for being listening to another episode of the Five Journeys. Feel freakin amazing podcast live like you matter if this was valuable. Leave us a five star review, go follow Dr. Cole and we'll see you in our next episode. Inspire and empower someone else by leaving a five star review so they can.

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