We’re Not Sick. We’re Being Sold | David Etheridge

A high calcium score, a stack of prescriptions, and the nagging sense that “healthy eating” wasn’t working—David Etheridge’s story captures what millions feel but rarely decode. When he shifted from chasing calories to controlling insulin, everything changed: he moved from a 12:12 rhythm to a 16:8 fasting window, led meals with protein and natural fats, saved carbs for later on the plate, and watched both cravings and brain fog fade. The scale moved, but the labs told the real story—A1C from 5.8 to 5.1, triglycerides from 285 to 72, and a dramatically improved lipid ratio.

We dig into why this works. Intermittent fasting gives insulin time to fall, reigniting fat mobilization and cellular repair. Sequential eating blunts glucose spikes and steadies appetite. And building plates around eggs, meat, dairy, and vegetables respects how satiety actually functions. Along the way we confront the legacy of “low fat” guidance that pushed sugar and seed oils into everyday foods, trained us to graze, and stretched ingredient lists while shrinking satiety. David argues for flipping the pyramid: prioritize protein and real fats, add non-starchy vegetables for fiber and micronutrients, treat sugar as an occasional indulgence, and skip the ultra-processed traps.

This isn’t anti-medicine; it’s pro-data. With medical oversight, David watched his markers improve and discussed next steps with a supportive clinician focused on outcomes, not dogma. Even with a high coronary calcium score, the goal becomes halting progression by lowering inflammation and improving insulin sensitivity. We also touch on how AI can translate cryptic test reports into plain English so patients ask better questions and make calmer choices. If you’ve tried to white-knuckle your way through snack culture, this conversation offers a clear, humane alternative: fewer eating windows, protein-first plates, simpler ingredients, and measurable wins. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review to help more people find the path back to metabolic health.

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Transcript

Welcome And Thesis Of The Book

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Go. Hey David, I'm so uh so excited today. Welcome to the program. Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. We're gonna talk about your great book, We're not sick, we're being sold. How the industry hijacked our plates, rewrote nutrition, and made us sicker in the name of health. That's a mouthful, but it's very important. And it could it could save our lives. So uh before we dive into that, that maybe maybe give us a little background. Tell tell us a little bit about your your journey, how you came to be interested in this fascinating area.

Guest’s Weight Journey And Meds

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Okay. Well, um, first off, I'm not a doctor, a scientist, or anything like that. Um, I am just a regular guy who has struggled with weight issues for pretty much my entire adult life. And uh I've done the yo-yo thing where I would get pretty heavy. I would then I managed to lose 80 pounds back in the day when Atkins was popular, and and then uh I had a friend of mine and that was actually in the healthcare field tell me that I wouldn't listen to anybody that told you you could eat bacon and not eat fruit. So I started eating healthy again and I gained all the weight back. And I don't know, a few years later I got tired of that situation, and so I started getting rid of the carbs, started going to the gym and uh started losing a little weight, wasn't coming off quite as fast this time, and um I went to my doctor and they had already put me on. Let's see, I was on a pill for high blood pressure, actually, three, a pill for a statin, and uh even had one for my I called my happy pill. So, and I said, Well, can you give me something to suppress my appetite? It's not that I eat bad stuff, but my friends tell me I have a portion control problem, and so maybe if I had something that would get my mind off food, I'd quit eating so much and I could lose weight faster. And she kind of just looked at me and said, Well, we don't manage weight here. She goes, You're gonna have to go to a weight loss clinic or a nutritionist, and I'm like, But wait, you're giving me pills to manage all this stuff that my being fat is creating, but you don't have a pill to help keep me from being fat fat. And this was way before GLP, so that you know things have changed, I suppose. But she just kind of looked at me and she wrote me a subscription to for fentermine for 90 days and said, Okay, well, this is all I can do, and you can only have it for 90 days. I'm not sure what the reason is, but and I don't know. Um, you know, that was another time when I did lose about another 80 pounds over that period of time, and then COVID happened. Now we can't go to the gym, we're stuck at home, put all the weight back on, and um I um I think I think that's because I just really never knew why. Why does it work when you quit eating carbs? So um that's kind of the history of my weight loss up until about April 15th of 2024. That's sort of my story. Um, just dealing with it, being confused, not understanding why I'm taking these pills, and I keep getting sicker and I never really get thin again.

GLP-1s, Phentermine, And Root Causes

Turning Point And Mediterranean Start

SPEAKER_01 3:46

So yeah, I mean that's that's such a familiar, familiar story. Uh, you know, I mean, let's face it, most adults in America are overweight or obese. And and and um, you know, the and a large number of children are too, adolescents are, and the the fact the fact that you're you know, you're not a medical professional, you're not a nutrition scientist, that's okay. You know, there there's a lot, but in my experience, I find that you know the the regular people out there, the citizen scientists, if you will, can bring a lot to this space just by their kind of clean perspective. You're not biased by stuff you've been taught over years, that some of which may be incorrect, like it was in my case. You know, so uh being a citizen scientist is nothing, nothing to be ashamed of. And it it I think it plays a really, really important role in rounding out a picture uh uh of this whole thing. Yeah. So yeah, so that one medicine you were on, um uh it's sort of a it's it's a weight loss drug and it's related to um sort of it, it's related to amphetamines or speed kind of that can, you know, and that's why they limit the dose that you can't take it indefinitely and and all. So and yeah, and and GLP ones are great, but um, you know, lifestyle GLP ones are sort of a path to lifestyle and they help people change their lifestyle. And ideally, even people who get on GLP ones will change their lifestyle and then get off the GLP ones. So it's kind of like the root, there are things really at the root cause below all those drugs, at least in my opinion, that uh that that did that. Well, um what so you know, your people are often afraid to challenge conventional wisdom. What gave you the courage to say what you did in this book? And how did you handle the pushback from people that you're getting, if if any?

High Calcium Score Sparks Rethink

Discovering Insulin, Fasting, And Sequencing

Results: Weight, Labs, And Lifestyle

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Uh I mentioned April 15th, 2024, because my fiance, Misty, and I were coming back from Nashville. We'd just gone for a long weekend, and I was miserable the whole time. We had fun, but I was miserable, I was fat, I was feeling just tired. And we drove back and we were talking about it. And I said, you know, we really need to eat better or something. I need to start losing weight again. You know, I'm thinking third time's a charm, right? So we decided, okay, well, let's try this Mediterranean diet, it seems good. And we we started doing that, and then in and I and I was down about 20 when when I had a I suffered a health issue. I um for years I've had this little thing where if I cough too hard, I might black out. It's rare, but every once in a while. And so, but it's never happened unless I was sitting down, and it happened when I was in the kitchen and I landed flat on my head, out cold. And so Missy wanted me to go to doctors to find out if I'm dying or something, and so what's causing this? That's when I went, that's how I wound up at the cardiologist, and they did a bunch of testing. So I'm there not for anything other than something that's outside, you know, this is a completely different issue, is the reason I'm there, but she ran me through a bunch of tests, is and and I took the calcium score, and my my my score came back at 450. And I thought, that's that's really high. Why, why is it so high when I've been on a statin for 25 years? And she said, Well, you've been on a baby dose, you you need a stronger dose, and that didn't sit with me too good, and so that's when I started going, something's not right enough. And and and that's when I found your book, and I started reading your book, and and it sort of kind of closed that gap of to where I was confusion-wise, and I'm looking at the wrong thing, you know. Okay, so I had already been sort of intermittent fasting with the 1212, because I figure if I do that and I just skip breakfast, that's one less meal, right? Less calories. I didn't know why it was a good thing to do until I read your book. I didn't know why um I would why when I don't eat carbs, I lost weight. I didn't understand really the the the chemistry behind it. And when you explained that it it was insulin-based, you know, don't don't eat despite eat so you don't spike your insulin, is what kind of what I took from it. And so I said, okay, so I started, I changed up to the 16.8, I went more keto-ish in the food I was eating, and I ate sequentially, kind of like you were saying. And guess what? The weight started coming off again, and I started feeling better, and so that's really kind of when um it opened my eyes, and I thought, okay, well, this is just one guy, right? I've just read his book about it, so I read another book, you know, and and uh I read um Dr. Marcury's book, Blind Spots, and great book, yeah. And he um, you know, he he's he's he's really writing about a different angle, about you know, blind spots and some dogma and all whatnot, and which gave me that idea, but uh it was like, wait a minute, he's coming to these same conclusions that you're telling me about, and I'm like, okay, so it just snowballed from there, and you know, I have to tell you that um I am down 65 pounds, uh, but in the past, when I lost all that weight, I never really lost much of a like one pant size, maybe. My shirts would look a little big. I'm down three pant sizes now on only 65 pounds. My chest is getting smaller. My the numbers, my blood clucus numbers went my A1C went from 5.8 to 5.1. Um, my triglycerides went from 285 to 72. My the ratio went from 7.5 to 1.44. I had to put up notes here to remind myself. And and and you know, I I was just feeling better, and I'm seeing it pan out in the blood work, and I'm like, but if you tell somebody somebody somebody this, they they just don't think they they see that you've lost weight, but that it's like you it's like people have to know this stuff, you know. So I'm pushing your book just like I'm pushing mine. I mean, um, so anyway, fast forward now, I finally um I went off my meds. It was sort of due to laziness at first. Um, I have all the little pill bottles, pill pill boxes, you know, and and had run out. And a couple weeks went by. Missy had to go into the what was supposed to be a maybe a two-day surgery, and it wound up to be a week. And by the time we get back and get settled, I haven't been on my meds for like three weeks. And I was like, but you know, I feel great, I have energy, no brain fog. What is going on with all of this, you know? And it's just I'm living proof that what your book says, what I'm trying to say, that that this is this is this is real, this is the way it is, and and um, and and my book also talks about how how some of this came to be, why we do what we do, and um, and so I hope everybody will read it and and change the way they're eating. It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

And full full disclosure as as a medical professional, and you know, seriously, you what we don't recommend anyone discontinue any prescription medicines without their doctor being involved and all, but but anyway, what how did your doctors respond? What was there when they they saw your labs and everything? Yeah, yeah.

Med Changes And Doctor Dialogue

SPEAKER_00 12:17

I was a little reckless throwing that out there, so I'm glad you brought that up. It was only three weeks, right? And and I didn't, I didn't, it wasn't an intentional, I'm just gonna quit taking them. No, um, it it it just so happened that I got three weeks in when I realized, good grief, I haven't been taking my medicine. I thought, well, you know what? I got blood work coming up. Let's wait and see what the blood work says. And then I'll go back home. And when the blood work came back even better, I mean, essentially insulin resistance free, right? I mean, um which obviously I was not before. Um I had a meeting with my doctor, and I and I confessed that here's what happened. I've quit taking them, but look, look, you these results are good. I was like, now I want you to keep monitoring me, you know, and and we'll keep talking about it, but uh you can't really argue with the numbers, you know. So she's she is um cautiously optimistic and uh she is supportive. Um she um she's not uh she's not functional health or anything like she's allopathic doctor, and so but she is she's she's going with me on it for now, you know. If my numbers start going the wrong direction, I'm sure I'll hear about it.

SPEAKER_01 13:42

So well, it it's great that you, you know, what you're doing, you're influencing your doctor too, and an open, you know, uh open-minded doctor, you know, seeing patients like you reverse all these medications just with lifestyle like you've done. That's a lesson for them too. And I I I mean I've seen many doctors change the way they practice, you know, when they in the face of this. So maybe, maybe the next time she'll say, Hey, I have a patient who had the same thing as you, but he went on, he did this, this, and this, and he got off all his meds, you know. So that's a great, that's a a great, a great point. So you you got off your uh you got off your statins, right? And your blood pressure medicines, your blood pressure returned to normal.

Biggest Blind Spot: Intermittent Fasting

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Yeah, I mean, um, with the cuff I have at home, it's normal high, and every once in a while it hits into the yellow. So we've had that discussion. She says, All right, if you lose another 20 pounds, maybe it will quit bumping into you know being on the borderline. She said, so but she goes, I want you to be open. She goes, we might have to do a medicine for a period for temporarily until you get the rest of the weight loss. She goes, so she's uh so she's she seems to be on board, and and and I and I think that's great. And and I don't want anybody to think that I'm like anti-medicine or anything because if I need it, I need it, but um um it wasn't about that, it was just that my numbers are better. Surely I should be, you know, this is working, so and you hear about it. I mean, I've heard about it, and you mentioned it in your book too that it is possible for people to reverse the some of these conditions. I can't reverse the 450 calcium score, but you know what? I can do something about my blood glucose sugar, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

So, yeah, yeah, and the and the calcium score is uh yeah, most people you don't reverse them because it's basically the calcium is an indication of old old damage. But the good news is if you're successful in doing what you're doing, and it sounds like you are, you'll stop the progression and it won't get any worse. Like usually with a calcium score, it gets worse and worse. With age, typically the calcium score goes up and up and up average. So, so a win is to stop it wherever wherever you are. That's a win to and and that. So let's see, what was another pill, the happy pill. What happened with that?

SPEAKER_00 16:11

Well, you know, I I just uh I met the my fiancee and life just got good, I guess. And uh, you know, when when I went that period of time without it, um I just felt like I'm not unhappy. Um I don't feel, you know, I so that one was sort of easy because I just didn't feel like I was there anymore where I might have needed that. I'm not I don't know how to explain it, but I don't know if it's just that everything was feeling better and the more energy and the place I was in life with uh with Misty. Um, I don't know, but but um it's it's it I I just am happy now.

Industry Influence: Sugar And Seed Oils

SPEAKER_01 17:01

So well that's great. We'll take the win, you know. Yeah, congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

That's I don't understand the chemical behind it, but it just didn't seem to be necessary.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah, I mean a lot for a lot of people they just feel better, you know, on the like you know, on the diet or when they change the way they eat, they feel better. The brain fog goes away, the energy, you know, different things. So so most people think, you know, everybody agrees lifestyle, you know, good lifestyle is important, but of course, people don't agree on what a good lifestyle is. So most people are starting to think that you know, the lifestyle now just means eat less sugar, move more. So, what what's the biggest blind spot that sort of mainstream nutrition advice still gets wrong, do you think?

Rewriting The Food Pyramid

SPEAKER_00 17:52

I I still think there's a lot of pushback on intermittent fasting. Um I um my nutritionist uh told me they didn't recommend 16.8 and they didn't, and they also told me that if you eat, you need to eat little multiple meals a day, because if your body doesn't get some food, it'll start storing food because it won't know where its next meals come from. And I'm like, I this one's the first time I've heard that, but in everything that I have researched, including your book, that's not true, and and it doesn't seem to um I I mean listen, I'm gonna tell you when you wrote about MTOR, you blew my mind. I I I never heard about that before, and it made perfect sense. And um I've sort of taken it to heart. And when I was still reading your book, and that I had just finished that chapter, I told everybody about it. Some, you know, and uh I really think that's a big deal, and people don't do that. We have food people Taco Bell is open 24-7. You know, we don't we don't need food available so so much, and uh, and we need to be able to not eat it all the time. It just yeah, that makes perfect sense.

Daily Regimen And Practical Tactics

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Yeah, yeah, that mess misconception so widespread. I was raised on that. My mom was a dietitian, and she her, you know, what she'd been taught, God bless her, was you know, you need to eat many small meals throughout the day. And even even my children, when they go to middle school and elementary school, they still get snacks you know, so that they don't, you know, so their stomach isn't empty and and and the the The nutrition industry to a large part still promotes that that concept, which, you know, you and I now both believe is incorrect and actually actually harmful, at least for adults. With children, you know, it it's it's difficult to say. You know, the fasting, we're when we say fasting, we're talking about adults, sort of um over 18-year-olds, because with younger kids, it's it's much more complicated. There are much other issues. But for you know, for uh us adults, this continuous eating thing, I think uh I would agree with you is really a is really a a problem. Um in your book, you talk about you know how it this all came to be. And one one topic is that's corporate interests and how they they distort basic ideas about food and disease. And how does that happen and what's the cost of public health with that?

Tech And AI For Health Literacy

Pushback, Gatekeeping, And Closing

SPEAKER_00 20:56

So, you know, when every when the mantra of losing weight was eat low-fat food, um the food industry went crazy with that. They knew that they could take the fat out of the food, but then their food tasted like not well, not very good. To compensate, they start adding in sugars and they need something for consistency to give you the mouthfeel, which is where the development of seed oils and the hydrologized oils started becoming important. And then depending on what kind of food it is, the oil can be almost liquidy or it can be hard. I mean, if you make homemade chocolate chip cookies at home, they're good for maybe a week. But the the elf's cookies can stay on your shelf for a year or more and be delicious, right? So that is seed oil. And and you know, I don't want to say that they're doing it um maliciously because I don't know that they did any health uh testing to see if their new seed oil products or all this sugar is gonna hurt anybody, but you know, they did need to make products that tasted good and that you want. And really, you could even argue that there are um they have even done studies that that follow the brain pattern and watch the dopamine and what it does when you eat sugar, and they you could argue that some of those products are engineered for you to crave them and to be addicted to them. So it doesn't help that sugar tastes good anyway. They want to make you addicted to it, and and and it just plays into if it if it if the if the claim on that box says it's low fat or no calorie, it's it is not good for you. 70% of the items in that grocery store are processed in some way, shape, or form or another, and we shouldn't be eating them. And um you really need to stick with the whole foods. I mean, you know, you look at broccoli, I have a little illustration that I love in my book that has a broccoli ingredients, broccoli, ultimate burger, and it's got like 80 ingredients in it, most of them you don't even know what they mean or how to how to pronounce them, and it's it's not good for you. So um, I hope that answers. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

I mean, if you could say you had a magic wand and you could rewrite the rules of nutrition science free from industry influence, what would the new playing field look like for you?

SPEAKER_00 23:51

Well, I would start by inverting the food pyramid, put your proteins in fats, that's what you should get most of your calories from, you know, and then and then um yeah, proteins and then vegetables because at least when you eat the vegetable, you get the fiber with it, right? Even if it has carbohydrates, you you're still getting fiber as long as you don't juice it, but uh, and then you know, dairy. Um, so I I I you know dairy's fine. Eggs, I think eggs are maybe one of the best things we can eat, at least from they're satiating, you get lots of minerals, you get the you it's it's just I they help me not snack. So you can eat an egg or two, boiled egg or two or whatever, and you're good for a day. So um, so and and just stay away from sugar. I love, I love, I love what you said and quoted you in my book. Sugar should come with a warning label, you know, it's true.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

I think I stole that from somebody else, but I don't know. I can't remember who I stole it from, but anyway, it's good. I'm glad to see it's being reused anyway. Um but yeah, so so in now in your own personal system, how how do you stay ahead of all the misinformation out there and how do you maintain your own health? So today, what's what's your daily regimen like?

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Well, I don't I don't eat until afternoon. Um, and sometimes I'm not even really hungry when it's time for a lunch break. I drink a lot of water. Um I've never put anything in my coffee, so I I love coffee. Um, but when I eat, I always try to eat the the fats and the protein first, you know, because I know that that's not gonna spike my blood sugar. And if I'm gonna have a carb, it's gonna be after I've eaten the fats and proteins to help mitigate what they might do to my blood sugar. And and um, and really I do try to stick towards whole foods. I I I um I don't pack my lunch, but I don't have to go in the office but a couple of days a week. And so um when I eat out, I just try to make good decisions. Um and um and then I try not to eat after eight, you know, and and I cook at home a lot at night, and so every once in a while I bump up against that, but um, it's really my routine. I try to eat in the eight-hour window, I try to eat, and I'm gonna regurgitate them just like your book said eggs or fats, proteins, vegetables, and dairy. Uh, feel like I'm missing one, but um, and I try to eat like that and sequentially to to really eat so that I don't enter don't spike my blood sugar. And um that's been kind of my routine.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Well, you you do have a technical background. Well, your other book is about in the hearing aid, uh, the hearing aid industry and all. So I'm wondering what what emerging research or or technologies uh excite you the most you see coming down the road in the future. You know, we hear so much about AI and all this other stuff as far as preventing or reversing metabolic disease and helping helping along with the concepts in your book.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

You know, it's it's really interesting. Um, and and and I think people really need to start using AI in a way that they're it's not like Google, you know, prompt it, ask it questions. In fact, when I got that 450 calcium score, I went in, I put in everything that was written on that paper about my test, and I said, please explain this in layman's terms so I can understand what's going on. And and and it did, and it laid it out, and it and um and the good news is is I passed the stress test with flying colors, so while I have a 450 credit score, uh credit score, 450 calcium score, it's a life. Hopefully my credit score score, right? Right, um, you know, it's not blocking the blood flow right now, you know, but we don't want it to get worse, and and it kind of gave me some peace of mind there. And you hear other stories of of folks putting in their their health records and finding out uh things that they need to ask the doctor. It's it's really amazing. Um, so technology-wise, that's only gonna get better. Hopefully, we'll just be able to talk to it or you know, show it our piece of paper and then it won't have to type it all. I don't know. But um, so I I think it's really exciting what AI's gonna bring us. And uh I'm I I use it, I use it a good bit for trying to understand what I'm dealing with. You have to be careful, you have to prompt it right. It can make up answers, so you want to make sure you're fact-checking AI. So, but uh otherwise, I um yeah, I think I I think hopefully AI might somehow convince and explain to people that fat is not bad for you, you know, that that your dietary the dietary col things you eat that for dietary cholesterol isn't really the problem. You know, go have a test done to find out what what the particle size is, you know. Um it I think it has uh the ability to help us cut through all of the noise on social media that are telling us and pulling us all apart, you know, you it's just lots and lots of information out there, more than anybody can digest. And hopefully, and I'm sure AI is contributing to it at this point, but hopefully at some point it will be able to focus and we'll be able to use it as a reference to help us drive our own health decisions that are good for us.

SPEAKER_01 30:22

So well, I want to be respectful of your time. Maybe one last question for me as the host, what should I have asked you that I didn't, or any final point you'd like to like to leave us with before we go?

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Um, you you I have a uh one little story where um when my blood work came back and I was so excited about these numbers, I was on Reddit, and um I didn't say anything about my book, or I just said I have been doing this and looked my numbers got better, and I got banned in about 36 minutes really from that chat. Yeah, apparently there's a lot of doctors on there that provide that that are statin that write a lot of statin prescriptions and they didn't want to hear it. They said I was spreading lies and and conspiracy theories, and I didn't say anything about what that I had written anything, I was simply telling them, Look, look, because people are on there putting on their scores and lamenting what do I do or should I do this? Or I just say, Hey, I'm eating this, I'm doing this, and mine got better, and I got banned. So you wouldn't have known to ask me that though.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

That's a great that's a great story. Well, this is the pushback we're getting. Exactly, exactly. The the the battle isn't over yet. So this is David Etheridge. His book is We're Not Sick, we're being sold. How industry hijacked our plates, rewrote nutrition, and made us sicker in the name of health. And David shared with me uh earlier offline that this is his very first podcast, and I want to congratulate him. I think I think you did a great job. And thanks so much for for writing this book, and thanks for thanks for being with us today, David.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Thank you so much for having me on. I can't thank you enough. Really appreciate it. Let's keep in touch.