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Hello and welcome back to Laughing Through the Pain Navigating Wellness. I'm Richard L Blake, We've got Andrew E Sam, my co-host, here, and we've got Dorian Soans with us today. He has a master's in personalized nutrition and is a nutritional therapist, and he was my therapist my nutritional therapist for a long time, and hence I wanted to get him on. So welcome, Dorian.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for having both of you. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1:It's great Thank you, andy, how are you doing?
Speaker 3:I'm pretty good. Thanks, mate. Yeah, I got a writing commission this week. If it still counts as a commission if you don't get paid, is that still?
Speaker 1:a commission, I don't know, is it like, is that charity work then? No, it's just that.
Speaker 3:I'd like a writing credit and a couple of actors. So yeah, that was a good news story.
Speaker 1:Good news story. Excellent Congratulations Pro bono. Otherwise I've let Pro bono. Thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exact Pro bono, that's it, that's the one, and I'm actually a bit nervous about this episode because I smashed a Dolanese pizza over the weekend.
Speaker 1:And Dorian's here to punish you. No, yeah, it is a very broad one, for I definitely don't Well, listen.
Speaker 2:I just went on my son's rugby tour and there was no good nutritional options, so we're probably not in too dissimilar of a vote on that one.
Speaker 1:Okay, and really sure, yeah, I mean, yeah, post rugby, hot dogs, clubs or penguins and orange washes, that's still.
Speaker 2:That's basically the only option. So it was an option. It was like a 48-hour fast. Or do I just have bacon sandwiches and sausage rolls and stuff like that?
Speaker 1:That is one of the worst things about America is you can't get good sausage rolls, but thankfully we have a good friend out here who makes exceptional ones, so we survive. That is it. There we go. Anyway, enough about sausage rolls. So, dorian, tell us why we should not eat the sausage rolls. That's a good place to start.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know that you shouldn't eat sausage rolls, I mean, I think that oh good, Correct answer.
Speaker 2:I think that, like, I think actually one of the problems in the wellness space currently is basically people have gone way too over the top when it comes to restriction, Right, and obviously there are better practices when they're diet with diets that we can do, there are better choices that we can make with our diet. But that doesn't necessarily have to be that you go full bore on restriction all the time and actually I'll be honest, but what I see in my practice at the moment I see more problems with people who've gone too far on restriction one way or the other and have actually caused themselves extra problems, Right. So, like, I mean the human gut if you look at how the human gut works, it's actually designed to be really flexible, Right, we're to a certain extent, we can put almost anything in that and get nutrients out of it. And if you have a sealed gut lining right, you have, you know, a healthy gut microbiome.
Speaker 2:Your gut function like, I think gut function is something that hasn't got enough attention when compared to, say, the microbiome in recent years. If your gut function, which kind of basically make gut function is summer-cassid bile secretion, pancreatic enzyme secretion, heristalsis of your gut, right, If that's all working properly and you don't have leaky gut within reason, you can eat almost anything, and it shouldn't necessarily be a problem Right Now, obviously, if all you're eating is dominoes, pizzas, right All sausage rolls Hypothetically yeah, all sausage rolls right, there are certain issues with that.
Speaker 2:So you're not really going to regulate your metabolism, your appetite, very well, you're going to be tempted to over-consume. You're going to get insulin resistance if you over-consume. You're probably going to run into problems with nutrients down the line because those foods are devoid of essential nutrients. You're low in amino acids right. It's high in fat, high in carbohydrates. But apart from that, should you completely cut out sausage rolls? It depends, it's probably the best answer.
Speaker 1:Okay, good to know, andy, you want to say something?
Speaker 3:No, I was just going to say what are the kind of pitfalls that most people are falling into? Then I mean, take the average office worker in London again hypothetically. What are the kind of common mistakes that people can easily correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. I mean, I think that the most common mistake there's a big difference, probably from the general population and your average office worker and my clients, right, so I would say probably the average office worker is probably eating quite a low nutrient diet. You know, the average thing is sort of a bowl of oats in the morning or something, and then a sandwich for lunch and then you're only proper meals, really, in the evening. It tends to be very low in protein, right? Low protein diets is something I've almost never met anyone that's on a sufficient protein diet Like. That's. Usually the first thing that I will get people to do is to track their protein and see where they are.
Speaker 2:Protein isn't just about like bodybuilding, which a lot of people think it is, or building muscle, although that is extremely important to maintain lean tissue. Protein is made of amino acids, right, and amino acids. You have the 21 amino acids, nine of which are essential. Essential means you can't make them in your body, right, you have to consume them, and there are some that are conditionally essential. So like, for example, glycine is conditionally essential. It means it's you can make it in your body, but you're probably better off eating some of it as well.
Speaker 2:But essential amino acids, like they, have a host of functions. So methionine and cysteine, these are essential amino acids that you'd find in protein foods. They're part of your detoxification system, right? You actually do something called methylation, which is a biochemical process involved in detoxification but also DNA renewal. You use amino acids. So actually a detox diet.
Speaker 2:There is no such thing as a detox diet, but you could argue that a detox diet is actually a high protein diet. You could argue Elgluamine rebuilds and repairs your gut lining, right, that's an amino acid. Lucine and isoleucine essential amino acids involved in muscle building and building lean tissue, which, again, is not just about how you look or body building. It's also about metabolic health and also your immune health. Your muscle has a lot to do with immune health as well. So I would say low protein is a big one, right? And then probably after that, most people probably eat slightly too many process foods which are like sausage rolls, right, which are and don't know those pizza which are devoid of nutrients, and that's how we kind of come full circle to this point in the conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I saw there was a frightening new study that showed like there's a billion people who are now obese in the world. It's the first time we've ever had a billion obese people and they're actually classifying it not as obesity but as nutritional deficiency, because you would think these people are have got plenty of nutrients in their body, but because of the foods they're eating these ultra process foods that is actually leading to malnutrition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and there's like that's one thing is like nutrients will help you regulate your appetite, right? Your body has these. Your body has signals that tell you what certain foods you're eating will stimulate your appetite. Will stimulate, will, sorry, suppress your appetite. So, ghrelin I actually did my dissertation in ghrelin. Funnily enough, ghrelin is your major appetite hormone, right? The higher your ghrelin is, the hungrier you are, and if you're eating nutritionally devoid foods, your body's hungry for nutrients, which actually increases, means your appetite keeps going until you get those nutrients, and if the food is poor in nutrients, you're going to eat more. There's actually something called the protein leverage hypothesis, which is basically describes this exact process, but specific to protein that all mammals will consume a certain amount of food until they hit their protein targets. Right, and I actually think there's more evidence coming out now that it's not just protein, it's about other nutrients as well.
Speaker 3:So how do we? The obvious question for that after that, dorian, is how do we work out how much protein we are supposed to have as individuals, growing one for all different heights, weights, et cetera?
Speaker 2:Yeah, great question Great question, I mean. So the answer is you want about one gram per pound of body weight, right? You probably don't know what that looks like, me just saying that, right? This is why literally the first thing I do with clients is we track and you actually learn what that looks like. And most people are actually eating below the RDA, which is not what you need to be healthy. It's actually like what you need to avoid disease, but just roughly speaking, like having protein with every meal about the size of your hand. So three times a day, that much the size of your hand, and you're going to. You'll be there. That's absolutely fine.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for the English listeners it's about two grams of protein per kilo of body weight. So if you're 80 kilos, like me, you want at least 160 grams of protein. And obesity is an interesting one. It's a controversial topic.
Speaker 1:Chris Williamson talks a lot about this and he talks about the toxic compassion of obesity and how people are prioritizing short term, looking good, saying to someone oh no, you're not obese, don't worry, you look great. There's no, there's no issues with being obese Despite the fact that they're going to die. Younger, they're more likely to have cardiovascular issues, type two diabetes, certain cancers, digestive problems, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, mental health issues, metabolic syndrome, reproductive problems and increased risk of stroke. So that's all the listed side effects of obesity. But yeah, we are all too afraid. Well, not all of us are too afraid. I don't think I am. Maybe I would be if I saw someone in person. But yeah, I think we need to reframe this whole body positivity point and be like no, actually it's kind of to say to someone you need to lose weight or you're going to die sooner.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's a great point and a lot of. I mean, when I have clients who struggle with weight, you know they'll say I'm fat and I think you know you have fat. I think you can reframe this in that you have fat. Right that you're not fat. That's not your identity. You might have fat, that doesn't mean you are, and if you reframe it like that, it can be a better way to look at it. I mean, obviously I completely agree that there's a whole myriad of health issues that come with obesity, but a kind of way of saying is reframing the conversation rather than just lying effectively, which is saying you know there's nothing wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yes, and we were. Yeah, we're talking about obesity. And then also I wanted to take it back to you said something quite interesting there, saying you can't detox. What did you mean by that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, good question.
Speaker 2:Yeah, detox. So detoxification, right. Like you in the wellness space, I'm sure both of you certainly you, richard have probably seen lots of stuff about detox, detox diets, detox supplements. So detoxification is a real process that goes on your body, right, it's, it's, it happens in your liver. There are two phases of detoxification phase one and phase two. They're controlled by genetics within your liver. So the first phase is mostly controlled by something called CYP 450. And what the job of both phases is? To turn the thing you want to get out of your body into a water soluble product so it can come out in your we or your stool, right? So the first phase is quite interesting because it's controlled, like I said, this gene called CYP 450, which makes enzymes out of things like B vitamins or amino acids that we just discussed, so that you can get stuff through that first gate, so you can get start to get rid of it. And coffee and caffeine only needs to go through that first gate, right? So caffeine doesn't need to go through both gates to become water soluble. So it's really interesting because there's only one gate.
Speaker 2:You can look at this massive genetic diversity on how fast people get rid of caffeine, right On one end of the scale, you've got people who can clear caffeine in two hours. Right On the complete opposite end of the scale, there are people who clear caffeine in 36 hours, right, so if you're one of the two, and everything in between. So if you're one of the two hour people, right, you can probably have a coffee after dinner and go to sleep and you're fine, right. If you're one of the 36 hour people, you have a coffee in the morning and you're still jittery in the evening and you can't get to sleep and this is where, often till the next night. So I always find that one super interesting because it kind of it's. It's a really good illustration and, like, most people have some experience of that and they know where they probably are on that spectrum depending on how they do with with caffeine.
Speaker 2:Phase two detoxification is a little more complicated. It involves more enzymes and processes methylation, which we touched on earlier, richard, which is biochemical process. That's part of phase two. So these are really nutrient hungry processes. Okay, and detoxification isn't just about taking on toxins in your environment, like metals or pollutants or whatever it is. It's also, and stuff you eat, like caffeine or alcohol, it's also about your own hormones right. You balance your hormones through how well you detoxify hormone. So something that I that's really common is in female clients is estrogen dominance and estrogen dominance, which is basically your primary female sex hormones. Many women have the same hormones, but in different proportions. Primary female sex hormones are progesterone and estrogen, and when they're in balance, there's no problem. When we have an issue, it's where estrogen is higher than progesterone, and that is a detoxification issue. You're not clearing estrogen fast enough. So does this all make sense? Before I carry on, Andy, I'm following yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm following, you're following.
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, please please advise, I'm following, okay, so that will make sense, so so.
Speaker 2:So yeah, estrogen dominance is primarily a detoxification issue, and detoxification issues are created by the. So I've laid out this process right, which is a very nutrient hungry process. So detoxification is basically controlled by two things actually, your genetics. One I just mentioned, cyp450, the MTHFR, which controls your methylation in the second part of your detoxification is another genetic snip. It's controlled by your genetics, can't do anything about that. And then, secondly, it's controlled by the availability of the availability of nutrients that you have to your liver, right? So detoxification basically becomes a gut function problem. It's the better. Well, diet, primarily, are you eating the nutrients? And then, secondly, gut function are you extracting the nutrients? Right? So diet and gut function problem.
Speaker 3:Does that make sense? It does. My only question would be again, it's kind of comes back to the knowing yourself, knowing your body, yeah, and how easy is it to get this kind of information in terms of what's going on inside you? Because it seems like that variance is quite critical to what you put in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just it all sounds really complicated and it probably sounds like it's really hard to manage your body or micromanage your body, but it's not right. All of this stuff and you can do that, what you can do, all those processes that I just said on a very, very diet, you probably know people on all dietary patterns that are thriving, eating lots of different ways. Okay, so for most part, if things are going well in your body, you don't have to think about this too hard. Right, it's all automatic. I look at this from a point of view of when people come to me, one of these systems is broken. Right, there's a positive feedback loop going on. That needs to be like everything in your body is about home, asasus, which means if something's high, you lower it, if something's low, you raise it. Right, when people come to me, these systems are not working the way they should and we have to work how we're going to break that positive feedback loop to fix it right.
Speaker 2:But for someone like you, andy I'm assuming you're primarily healthy this isn't something you need to think too too deeply about and just like just to put in perspective, like I was someone who at some point had to be extremely rigorous and strict with maybe my diet and stuff. I did for my health, because my own health was in a terrible position and I'm not now. Like I said, I just was on a rugby tour with my nine year old son and I basically ate like crap for two days solid and it didn't affect me that badly. And now I'm back on Monday and I feel absolutely fine and I'm getting all of my life right. So these aren't things that you need to. For most people, if as long as you're covering the basics right, then you're probably not going to get a problem. It's only really when these systems break down you need to dig in and really start to think about how we can solve those mechanisms.
Speaker 1:How would someone know that they've got a system that's breaking down or has broken?
Speaker 2:Well, you're going to have symptoms, right. So if you've got symptoms, any symptoms for tea, and there's only so many symptoms, you can have right. But fatigue, pain, these are some of the main ones, right? Skin issues, gut issues, that's anything that's inhibiting your life Then there's something there that probably needs addressing right, and they can vary in severity. Obviously, from you know, this is something you can't ignore to. Maybe it's on or off, but all of these are check engine lights, essentially.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I think the reason I asked that is I think a lot of people just sort of deal with these things and they think they're normal, like for me. I had loose stool for about two years before. I was like this probably isn't normal, I should see a specialist. But yeah, so your protocol. I really liked your protocol. You now have developed quite like a protocol you send everyone through. Includes like fasting and meat based diet. Tell us some more about your protocol.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, again, I would say it's, I do. I have a 12 week program, right, but I will say I mean I'm training functional medicine, so which is meant to be personalized. So I do try to. I mean it is is it is meant to be personalized, and every individual that comes to me, I look and see what they need the most and we'll deal with that. But I do find that I end up like covering the same bases. So I would say the major basis that I'm covering with almost everyone is the stuff we just discussed and like we might deal with that first, and then minerals.
Speaker 2:Minerals is a huge one, like electrolytes and mineral in a minerals when you're stressed. So your electrolytes are sodium, potassium, magnesium, chloride and calcium. They are essential for nervous function, right, there's like magnesium and calcium gates on your nerves. Use them for all the tons of different sodium and potassium as well, tons of different things, right, and when you're stressed, you deplete electrolytes much faster. And, by the way, when I use the term stress, I might not be using it in the way that most people think about it, right, most people think of stress as anxiety. Right, that is definitely stress, right, psychological stress is definitely stress, but so is an accident. An accident is stress. A car accident, a surgery, is stress. A nutrient deficiency or insufficiency is stress. These are all pressures that your body has to work around to keep you going, to keep the lights on right. Lack of sleep is stress, which is kind of obvious. Over-exercises stress all those things are stress. So when the body is dealing with stress and, by the way, if you have symptoms, your body is trying to adjust to a stress that's struggling to adapt to, right, whatever those symptoms might be, you deplete electrolytes faster, right, and your body will jump through. When you go to A and E or the ER, if you're in America, one of the first things they will check if you've been in a severe accident is you'll check two things your blood electrolytes and then you're the pH of your blood, because if either of those things goes off, you're in big trouble, right. So if you can, pretty much, if the lights are on and you can walk around, your body is turning and you're under stress. Your body is turning all kinds of tricks to keep those blood electrolytes balanced. So we can.
Speaker 2:You know I look at minerals a lot. Balancing those minerals, those are probably the first things I would do with most people. And then I also I use training like strength training primarily as part of my. I mean, you know this, richard, when we work together, like there is and we can definitely get into this if you want to there is this relationship between your metabolic rates, how many calories you burn, and your immune system. Right, it's quite an interesting relationship and mechanism that most people don't consider and, to cut a long story short, is if the the fast your metabolic rate, or as your metabolic rate goes up, your immune activation goes down. So when you have an immune like immune stimulated clients, like histamine clients I deal with a lot or autoimmune clients increasing that metabolic rate is going to be like the core of their protocol. But getting stronger is probably is one of the most powerful ways that you can increase your metabolic rate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that was one of the best things I learned from working with you. So I did this sort of reverse diet that Dorian put me on because I've done years of sort of calorie restriction in it. From fitness modeling and trying to be in cover model ready shape, I really messed up my metabolism and Dorian basically had me increase my calories by 100 calories per week up until I got to about 4,000 calories and I didn't really put on any weight even though I was eating 4,000 calories. And then when I went to, I did put on a little bit of weight. You know my. I probably went from like 7% body fat to 11% body fat and then when I wanted to diet back down to to get my abs, I was dieting down on like 3,000 calories. So I was losing weight on such a big amount, which has made dieting so easy. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's mad, isn't it Sorry, Just to be clear, that's because you were strength training in such a Well it was a combination of the strength training, but it was the fact that I was like increasing my basal metabolic rate. I was increasing the, the, the furnace Is that how you would describe it, dorian?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's three ways you can increase your metabolic rate, okay, and we've discussed all of them already, right, alright, so here's what it's prone to, right, optimal protein. So I think in your case, richard, for example, we optimize that, right, you can increase your calories, which is what Richard's talking about the reverse diet and you can increase your strength. Okay, it's impossible, if you can lift I'm just going to make up numbers right, if you can lift a hundred for Five and then you can lift two hundred for five, it is impossible to get to that without significantly increasing your, your, your metabolism, right, there's a lot of ways you get stronger. One of the ways is you actually increase your mitochondrial density. Right, there's the month mitochondria, the power houses of your cells. So you can have a muscle cell that's weak with not very much mitochondria. You can have a muscle cell is much stronger with many mitochondria and that has so many side benefits because they're the, like I said, they in energy houses for yourselves. They also reduce, react oxidative stress, right, so oxidative stress is reduced with a mitochondrial density. So there's like loads of side benefits to doing this. But like I've, I've, I've found just through my clinical experience, but also like this is not.
Speaker 2:I'm not reinventing the wheel, this is quite a well-established mechanism. The human body responds to stress in two ways. Right, it tries to adapt you to famine and it tries to adapt you to infectious disease, because those are the two things that killed the most of our ancestors. Right. So your body fit see stress, right, it might be an, it might be a surgery, but your body thinking famine, infectious disease Right. So as it deals with a stress load, cortisol, your stress hormone, goes up to help you deal with that. Immune activation goes up and your metabolic rate goes down. Right, to make you more efficient so that you can survive an infectious disease event or a famine event. Right. And If you can reverse out of that, like the opposite happens, right. And there's certain things like.
Speaker 2:I find this process is really really easy in men. So Richard's a great example. It's much easier men than compared to women. It's not impossible in women. You still get great results doing this with women, but that's through testosterone, basically because men make testosterone easier. So we start doing that with Richard, right, and he's just. His major sex hormone is testosterone. He responds super well. He's got banging up to 4,000 calories. It's a slower process With with women. It's a more difficult process, but again, we're still looking for it to make amygdans. We're still looking to make testosterone in women, testosterone which also, by the way, puts the brakes on your immune system.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, for you know my experience of when I was coaching people on on nutrition, especially with women, they'd reduce their calories so much and then they couldn't lose any weight. You know, I had a client who was on like 1100 calories and yet was, you know, her diet had a fat loss, had plateaued, and it was just like you know, she was in a car in the stuck in the mud just spinning her wheels and I was like no, you need to reverse out, reverse diet out, get your basal metabolic rate up to you know, 2000, 2500, 3000, and then start again with the fat loss.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, absolutely. We am, I, to take it the width who kind of fixated on calories then? Is that, is that the problem? Because I suppose I'm thinking in terms of I don't know, there was a diet a while ago, the 5-2 diet. I don't know if that still exists, but that was very, very centered on Phi. I don't know what it was, I never did it, but like it seems like the basis of most diets. People tend to go on and literally just calorie base.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're right and people what that? Obviously, calories are Relevant, right, energy is relevant and we can't escape. We can't escape, you know, energy balance. But Calories in is just one part of the equation, right, that doesn't. That doesn't tell you anything about what you're expending. And and Richard made a great point, because that that is the tip that's a typical avatar.
Speaker 2:Most of my clients, by the time they start to get chronic symptoms, actually have been on and off restrictive diets for Usually calorie restrictive diets for many, many decades. Right, you're sending this famine signal, right, famine signal, famine thing? I actually I don't have a long-standing client We've got some really good results with, but not 100%, and we we've never tracked her calories. We tracked it and she was on about 1100. That that's barely enough to you know. Imagine what your body is doing. Right, it's tight rating resources. It's like, okay, luxury resources gone. Sexual function we don't need that Right. Warm hands and feet we don't need that, right, you're just tight rating resources away. So, and obviously, gut function right, don't need that. Right. In a famine, let's get rid of gut function. So now, any food you put in there, you get bloated and all sorts of stuff.
Speaker 2:So I think that Calories is obviously important, but it has to be considered within the nuance of this whole, the whole system, right? I mean absolutely, if, if you're obese and you restrict calories, you'll be on these weights, okay. But I think it's also important what, like what's the end goal there, right? I mean, if you look at the biggest loser competitors, for example there was actually a study on them, I think all of them put all the weight back on and some more, because all they did was dramatically Restrict calories and do crazy exercise regimes that weren't sustainable. So it should always be in the context of you know what's the end goal. And I like to say you chase health before you chase weight loss anyway, right, because If you're healthy, you're, you've got a healthy metabolism and you can actually lose weight on a reasonable amount of nutrients, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want to ask a question about the timing of Meals and the timing of calorie intake. Is there anything to that? I mean just taking the standard breakfast, lunch, dinner. I Imagine that's how many people get their calories. But is there any kind of things to avoid or things to be mindful of? Or should we be eating it? Yeah, regular intervals.
Speaker 2:No, I think. I think it's gonna be a really boring answer. The three meals a day paradigm is a pretty good paradigm for most people, right, some people do better on two, some people do better on four, right, but for the most part it's three meals a day as a pretty good paradigm. Andrew Huberman's done something about the ideal morning routine like it's like. I think breakfast within 90 minutes of waking is for your ideal breakfast time. A high protein breakfast within 90 minutes waking. I think that's right.
Speaker 2:And then the you do want to pay attention to when you eat late at night, because it will affect, it, will mess with your sleep, right? So if I would say two to three, ideally three hours before you go to bed, you want to be, and so you want that food digested now to your system. Digested is actually stimulating. It will keep you awake if you're digesting as you go to bed. So, but but outside that there's not much to it. Like intermittent fasting was all, has been all the rage might still be, I'm not sure, but, like you know, skipping breakfast. There's nothing magic about skipping breakfast if you lose weight from intermittent fasting because you're just dramatically reducing your calories.
Speaker 2:I see Women doing particularly badly on intermittent fasting. Right, there is this morning cortisol rise which wakes you up. It starts about four in the morning and your cortisol rises. That is what gets you up in the morning around six or seven. And If you don't eat, so insulin will blunt the cortisol response. Right, if you don't eat, that cortisol just keeps going so that you can release glycogen from your liver. That's one of the things that cortisol does to compensate for the food that you're not having. And If you're someone who's already stressed, that's probably not a great strategy. I'm not saying that's disaster for everyone. Again, if you're pretty healthy, you can be resilient to this stuff. But if you're someone who stress might be a problem, if a chronic symptoms a problem that might not be the best strategy. So, but there's no magic really to any of this and, like I said, it's boring. Answer three meals a day.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, no reassuring answer of anything.
Speaker 1:Yeah no, there was a study very recently they came out think Lane Norton was looking at it just showing they had a calorie restricted diet versus an intermittent fasting diet and they both lost the exact to say amount of weight. But People found the intermittent fasting diet easier because it just it was just simple. It's just like, okay, I don't eat until 2 pm In the afternoon. That's really simple. People prefer that to count in calories and you know, I think so many diets. It is just about creating a calorie deficit. It's just finding different tricks to do that, whether it's compressing your feeding window or removing a whole macronutrient, like the low fat diet or the low carb diet, etc. And yeah, andrew Huberman's done a morning routine. I've also done one. It's on medium. If people want to see my morning routine.
Speaker 1:It's blowing up on medium, getting loads of comments. I don't know what medium is, but mediumcom is a place where people who can't get published in proper publications publish their articles. It's like it's like Instagram for articles, okay, but it's yeah, it's good.
Speaker 2:No, what difference? What's the difference? Major differences between your, your routine.
Speaker 1:I just plagiarized here. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking what gives you the the confidence to deviate from Andrew Huberman's?
Speaker 1:I don't deviate, I just add a few extra things. I'm a bit more of a biohacking nerd than him, but yeah, I definitely agree with his like avoid caffeine two hours before After waking up. Yeah, the whole quarters, I'll spike and get morning.
Speaker 3:Why is that? Sorry, Mitch.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of people have have.
Speaker 3:I mean, I do speaking, I'm a lot of people, I think have a caffeine within two hours waking up because your denocene system doesn't wake up.
Speaker 1:For the first two hours your body is already producing cortisol, and then putting more caffeine in just creates more cortisol and then creates more stress. And then you get, you don't get, the energy boost. Basically, it's that right.
Speaker 2:Dorian, that's exactly right yeah and I think that was a really good one, by the way, that this is a real point of contention that I have with clients. It's like the coffee after breakfast as opposed to before breakfast, so that that one, that's one, that people, that's a really good like tip or hack or whatever you want to say that you can do Tomorrow and and you actually will notice a difference from that To morning energy, I will do that tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Yes, and yeah, what you do want to do in my morning routine is salt in water, and so I I think this is One thing a lot of people get confused about is salt, dorian.
Speaker 2:So tell us what people Well, where do you want me to start? I mean the salt thing, like. So I just I went on a whole tangent about minerals earlier, balancing minerals and the master electrolytes. So, like it's electrolytes remember I said stress, you deplete electrolytes. It's not really a game of how much you eat. So when I say you've got a balance electrolytes, that doesn't mean you should be Eating magnesium or calcium, although those things can be useful in the right context. It's more a game of how much you hold on to, how much electrolytes you retain. Right, and for that, the master electrolyte, if you like, is sodium, because sodium found in salt will allow you to retain more electrolytes, right.
Speaker 2:So If you went from a processed food diet, which most people are on, to a whole food diet, you are almost certainly too low in salt. Right? There's a really great study of meta-analysis which looks at so sodium is essential, right, it's an essential part of, of, it's an essential nutrient. You have to consume it. And there was a matter. There's a really good meta-analysis on all cause mortality. So death from any any cause cancer, stroke, heart disease and sodium intake and the bottom of the U curve. Okay, so the lowest risk of sodium is about six to eight grams of sodium. It's not going to mean anything to you, but I'll try and put this in context. If you have a Purely whole food diet with no sodium, you're probably eating about two grams of sodium Right and on that you curve the low sodium, the low sodium Axis was sharper than the higher sodium Right, because obviously then you have serious deficiencies.
Speaker 2:So it is often a case that sometimes people will go from processed food diet to a whole food diet and feel worse, and this is usually what's happening when it happens it's a sodium thing. So then, supplementing sodium salts, just drink salt, right? So three teaspoons of salt per day, that is six grams of sodium. So you can just measure out three teaspoons in the morning, you put that on your food and drink it as well, and that's fine and that will help you retain the electrolytes you eat. So you eat potassium in your food. You'll retain that from the sodium.
Speaker 2:So where people have gone wrong on salt is this salt and blood pressure, salt, like there is association with sodium and heart disease and heart attacks. It's an association, right, it is the key word. So correlation doesn't equal causation. We're talking about observational studies. Who eats the most sodium in a population, the people who eat the most processed foods, right? If you wake up in the morning and you have a bowl of corn flakes or brown flakes and then you go to work and you have a store-bought sandwich and then you come home and you have a microwave meal, that's the diet of a lot of people, right? You've just you're eating an enormous. You're eating like 15, 16 grams of sodium, right?
Speaker 2:So and even that, by the way, doesn't explain, doesn't even demonize sodium it could just be down to the fact that it's because it's correlation, not causation. It could just be down to the fact that they're eating more processed foods. So, actually, sodium doesn't have an effect on your blood pressure. It can have a transient effect in some people who are salt sensitive, but it doesn't have a chronic effect. It's actually insulin. The insulin has a relationship with our Dostrone, which is your fluid balance steroid hormone, and it's elevated insulin, chronically elevated insulin, that will elevate your blood pressure. Does that answer the sodium thing? I don't think you're asking about blood pressure so I don't know if you need to.
Speaker 3:It does, it does yeah. I think it answers why it's been kind of demonized. I suppose If someone put a lot of salt on their food, I think you'd be kind of thinking that's intrinsically just thinking that's bad, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:So is it right that too much salt is still too bad, or is it just too much salt? You're getting that salt in because you're eating people are eating ultra processed foods.
Speaker 2:So if you look at the curve on this, the metronel as I showed you, it's like I can't draw it here. But basically you could be eating. By the way, if you ate 12 grams of sodium as whole food salt, it would be really hard. You'd be drinking seawater and eating food that was unpalatable, so it would be really really hard without the processed foods. So again, the data is correlational. So I don't think we can draw a causation of actually that it's the sodium that necessarily does that. But, like I said, I mean it's really hard to get too much sodium if you're just doing it from salt, really really hard.
Speaker 2:And I would say there's a context thing to this. If you are so, if you're someone watching hey has chronic symptoms, you might need more salt than that right, Because you're depleting minerals at a faster rate. So I work with a lot of people who have post-orthostatic tachycardia. That's where you stand up and you get a really fast heart rate. Your body is basically giving you a shot of adrenaline because you're not maintaining fluid pressure. So for some of those people, like we're doing 12, 14 grams of salt a day, which is quite difficult because it helps to maintain that fluid pressure.
Speaker 1:And what's your favorite salt? Celtic salt, redmond, real salt. What should people go out and buy?
Speaker 2:I have. I just have pink Himalayan I'm not really much of. I mean, if you're talking purely about sodium, table salt right is that you get an efficient ship shop is fine. If you're just talking about sodium. If we're being really splitting hairs here, right, sea salt has microplastics in it, right? I don't think that means if you have sea salt you should really worry too much about that. But ancient sea salt like redmond real salt or pink Himalayan don't have any microplastics.
Speaker 1:I actually wanted to come onto that and plastics if you knew much about plastics because I'm getting increasingly worried about plastics in a particular, plastics from clothes and polyester, because I don't know if you've seen these studies, but they did this study where they put polyester underwear on dogs versus cotton underwear on dogs, and the dogs with the polyester underwear became infertile. And similarly they did another study showing that men who wore polyester slings over their scrotums for a 12-month period found that all participants became functionally sterile within an average of 139 days. And the mechanism of action is one polyester is too hot, so the scrotum get overheated, but then the other thing is about DNA damage and the plastics in there. So you did earlier talk about saying it's not possible to detox, so is there any way to?
Speaker 2:detox plastics. The thing that stood out to me from everything you said there was a sling for your scrotum.
Speaker 1:I'm wearing mine.
Speaker 2:Why not just pants? You have a slated script, so let me go back to what you said of it. It's not possible to detox. You might have misunderstood me there. What do you think I said? And then I'll tell you what I actually said.
Speaker 1:Andy, you're going to say something.
Speaker 3:No, I was going to say. I think ingesting plastics I just took to be a really bad thing and I guess I assume that's because you can't pass it or it's more difficult to pass.
Speaker 1:Well, I just thought you said yeah, you can't detox or you can't do detox diets like juice, can't do this, Okay, yeah yeah, so those will not help you.
Speaker 2:Detox is the truth. That's all you do detox. You can detox plastics. You can detox any, almost any. You know, toxin metals or plastics that you ingest through your environment, but obviously it's adding to the toxic load.
Speaker 2:The plastics thing is tough. I like again, I like to. I like to build rather than scare monger. I would like to build from the ground up with the things that you have control over, right? So let's say, someone is absolutely smashing. You know their diet, they're stressed, you know they're managing their stress really well, all this stuff. Then I might start to look at plastics only, because those are the big rocks you're gonna get the more results from, most results from.
Speaker 2:But but then, as an aside, there's a point of interest in this conversation. I it is something that I am actually quite worried about. Right, like it is ubiquitous in the environment. So they have found, like polar bears They've done all top seas on polar bears that they find plastics in their fat. Now, right, these polar bears haven't come into no contact with humans, but it's because it's so, it's. It's like the same reason. It's in the sea salt, it's in the fish as well, right, so you can also skate the plastics. There are some really interesting trends and and plastics, I suspect, is not the full explanation, but part of the explanation. So all menitions in women, so specifically estrogen dominance, that is a plastics thing, I think as well. Right, that's not just a gut function and detox issue. I think it's because they're getting more than a estrogen from the environment. Receipts are really bad, by the way. Don't ever touch receipts. Those are one of the worst ones. Receipts, yeah yeah, the ink on the receipt specifically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think they did. Yeah, they've done studies on, like you know, tesco's checkout workers and found really High like high imbalances of hormones, because I've touched receipts all day long, so you will actually see some. You will see now. You'll notice that you'll see some wearing like rubber gloves. We're working at Tesco's doing the checkout because of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so those are some of those are the one of the worst offenders, but like it's, it's covering your food, it's like you know it's everywhere. And then obviously there's the testosterone crisis with men, and I don't think that plastics is is maybe the main part of that right, we can talk about inactive lifestyle, obesity, all these other things, but it's certainly part of that.
Speaker 2:I think it's part of the testosterone crisis that we've got. So it is a big problem if you're listening to this again, like there are massive rocks that you should fix before you start to look at plastics. But like I use glass pretty much for everything storing food stuff like that, like in my home I've eliminated plastics as much as I possibly can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there are. For our listeners, the the biggest, worst offenders are things like those really thin plastic water bottles. You know, the single use ones are much firmer plastic. Like you know, a nalgene bottle is gonna leach less plastic into it. Then I really soft like a crunchy one and Heat as well. You know, if you live in a hot country and you've got a water bottle in your car and that's gonna heat it up to 40 degrees, that's gonna leach a lot of plastics. Well, yeah, polyester is the one that I'm getting. My Instagram feed is now it's just all cotton clothing because it knows I'm obsessed with polyester and, in particular, polyester. When you're again with heat, if you are sweating and you're you're working out in polyester underwear and polyester t-shirts and Sports bras and leggings, that's where the plastics can get into your system. So try and find organic cotton T-shirts and things like that, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, as, as you mentioned water, I would actually quite like to ask you, dorian, about going back to basics, as is what I like to do. Water intake, again, it's one of those things you hear a lot of buzzwords 8.7 liters, yada, yada Controvert, I would say something controversial on this, probably right, he's dead.
Speaker 2:I think Water intake is all about your minerals and electrolyte balance. That is more important. So your water intake matters less if that is balanced. Now I'm generally recommending my clients to be drink quite a lot of water because they got to get the salt and the Electrolytes in. Generally they're taking it with water so they end up re-rinking a lot.
Speaker 2:But like part of the purpose of water balance and part of hydration is that mineral balance right. And actually if you have purely filtered reversals, most is water and you and all you drink is that you will dehydrate yourself, paradoxically, because it's not sticking right, the minerals help the water stick. When they look at, like you know, modern-day hunter-gatherers of which there are less and less, but they're very interesting study because they're like a control group for humans they don't drink much at all, like that the Hudson who live in Tanzania. They don't have much access to water. They're drinking, digging sort of ground wells and getting water out of that, but the water is highly mineralized, right, and obviously in our environment probably we were drinking highly mineralized water. So I I'm not saying just Just don't drink any water, I'm absolutely not saying that, but I'm saying you know, drink water when you're thirsty and be more concerned about your minerals and and the sodium.
Speaker 3:So an obvious extension to that question, then, is Should we be filtering our water or should we be kind of welcoming the no many minerals?
Speaker 1:Can I take this one?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:I'm itching on this one because I have conversations with people about this quite a lot. Yeah, tap water is a nightmare. Please don't ever drink it. I always put up you know memes of me being sick when I see people and I also put up memes of you know people say like oh, in, in Paris or Madrid, we have the cleanest tap water in the world.
Speaker 1:Look at these studies. It's like well, those studies, those readings, are taken at the plant. What are the pipes like in your building? What are the pipes like in your city? And then you actually find photos online of what pipes look like in cities and they are absolutely Disgusting. They will make you sick. What goes through that? But also, this water is dead water. It hasn't got any minerals. It's also unstructured.
Speaker 1:So, yes, definitely a reverse osmosis or a burky water filter is a good place to start, and a reverse Osmosis system that you can remineralize, and some systems come automatically with a Remineralization system. I use the aqua. True, that is, that's an over-the-counter one. So if you live in London, it doesn't take up much space. That also remineralizes the water. But even better, what you can do is get spring water. So we're lucky. We have a company out here called alive water, where they deliver water from a spring nearby in glass bottles, and so, yeah, they're kind of in the hierarchy of water to drink local spring water that comes in glass bottles and then below that, yeah, I guess local spring water that comes in very firm plastic bottles and then below that are a reverse osmosis water that is remineralized, would you, would you take, would you agree with all that?
Speaker 2:Oh, I was 100%, I would completely agree. I have nothing to add to that, so yeah perfect answer.
Speaker 3:Absolutely undercut.
Speaker 1:Good, and yeah, my friend also, I think I actually I love the taste of sparkling water as well. So Sam Pellegrino is a really good one, topo chico and pull pull Saladino's obsessed with Gerald Steiner. I don't know why, but it's become a bit of a status symbol in the health industry which kind, which kind of sparkling bottled water Can you drink?
Speaker 2:I'm a.
Speaker 1:Sam Bella, we don't have those.
Speaker 2:But to be fair, we don't have those other ones in the UK, at least not that I've seen yeah, no no, I do yeah.
Speaker 1:Perrier's the other way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so I want to talk about meat. Where do you stand on meat and veganism, dorian?
Speaker 2:I am, so I'm very a pro meat in general as part of your diet. I think humans are omnivorous, right, I think the ultimate diet for most people includes both. But I think that if we're looking at where we get most of our nutrients, where, where should you get your optimal nutrients? From things like protein and some B vitamins, vitamin A, iron. You're gonna be getting those primarily from animal foods, right, you don't need to go to spinach for iron. You should be getting that from animal foods. You shouldn't be looking at lentils protein you get that from animal foods. And then and then and then. Plant foods are good for other things. Right, you can get vitamin C and liver, but, like, obviously, plant foods, broccoli is a much better source of vitamin C, right? You get fiber in Plant foods that you don't get in animal foods. So I think you should start looking at foods for the optimal. Where is the best place I can get each nutrient? And again, andy, this comes back to kind of what you were saying earlier. Like, you don't need to think about this too much. Just have an omnivorous diet, right? Just be an omnivorous, just be an omnivore. You don't need to be too low carb. You don't need to be too low fat. Be an omnivore and there is some nuance and tinkering that you can do in that Some people definitely do better lower carb, some people definitely do better lower fat. But you should experiment within the bounds of you being an omnivore.
Speaker 2:Basically vegan diet. So in my practice I don't see vegans or vegetarians. I won't see vegans. So I that is not because I'm saying this diet doesn't work for anyone at all. I'm sure there are people out there that you can find on the interwebs that are doing absolutely well, probably better than me, you know, looking jacked and with rippling muscles, who are vegans. But like the, the sickest people I used to work in probably the largest nutritionist in in the UK called London Clinic of Nutrition so free plug for them there and I would see everyone right. And the sickest people I saw with the hardest to improve problems were were vegans and occasionally vegetarians, and a lot of these problems were neurological. A lot of them were from sort of years of nutrient, quite severe nutrient deficiencies, and the ones that would be open-minded enough or cared about would prioritize the health enough to to go over to the other side who get great results as long as it wasn't too late on all that stuff. So you know what I? What is the point of me seeing a vegan or a vegetarian? It doesn't want to eat meat and the only advice you know the thing that's going to give make the most difference for them is just to eat some meat, right? So I'm not a fan, generally speaking.
Speaker 2:Again, I'm saying there's, I think there's massive genetic diversity in the human population. I'm sure there are people out there. I think it's what. I think it's probably Men tend to do better on restrictive diets than women on a whole right, men have a lot more capacity for a lot more fasting. They can do lower better on lower carb diets the better on all kinds of extreme diets. I see men probably doing better than general, than women on vegan diets. That's where I've seen real disasters with women. You know women have to have the nutrients to be able to build a baby once a month, right? So those were probably the biggest shit shows I saw from from from veganism. So I think it's.
Speaker 2:I think I've seen people fail on all diets, but the failures on veganism have been much worse, generally speaking, for people's health, and that is why it's not necessary. It's not something I would do lightly right. There would have to be a very specific rate. I'm sure there are specific reasons. I'm sure there are people out there who who don't. So Alpha Gal, you can't eat Alpha Gal, it's a tick-borne infection. You can't eat red meat. That would be a good reason to avoid red meat, but it is not something like. I've seen people fail on keto and it's like oh, I felt really tired all the time, whereas I see people fail on veganism and it's a slightly more serious health issue.
Speaker 3:I think one of the main arguments that people would put forward for veganism and it's not one I know too much about, but it's obviously the environmental side of things so I suppose is there a kind of yeah, I mean, is there a sustainable health way, way to eat that much protein if you're eating meat?
Speaker 2:We can break this down several levels. So we can start with, like is it environmentally friendly to be sick? So that's the first. The answer is no. The healthcare industry is a significant burden to the environment. So that's the first thing.
Speaker 2:The second thing is what is so the argument of methane from cows causing climate change? I think this has been. I think this is an argument that has basically been co-opted by people who have an ethical bent towards reducing people's meat consumption, because if you understand the carbon cycle, you understand there is a difference between existing carbon in the atmosphere and digging up carbon from under the sea to release into the environment, right, like there was. So it's estimated that before the younger dryers extinction event so 12,000 years ago, that was a mass extinction event, right? And the biomass of megafauna so megafauna being things like bison, mammoths, things like that the biomass was equivalent to the population of humans today. So seven billion or eight billion humans, whatever we have today, there's quite a lot for people to imagine.
Speaker 2:Because we have this, we've only known the world post agriculture, right? And one of the reasons we went into agriculture was probably because we were so efficient at hunting that it wasn't possible to be a hunter, gatherer at some point, right, but if you've ever been to a game reserve in Africa, there's literally a herd around every single corner. That is what the whole of the earth looked like. Ruminant animals are actually part of the environment, right. They're an essential part of the environment that put nutrients back into the soil as part of the carbon cycle, and that's why ruminant animals have evolved on every continent in conjunction with the evolution of grass. So, and then also, you can look at the EPA data and I think that 9% of global emissions are agriculture, of which 4% are red meat. So I don't think or meat, not just red meat, just all meat.
Speaker 1:So I don't think that argument pops up. Is that?
Speaker 2:I mean, have I given it a good enough answer?
Speaker 3:No, perfect. Yeah Again, it's not an argument I advance, but it's an argument I hear quite a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a great book called Sacred Cow by Ron Wolf, who'll put a link to it in the show notes. But they go into a lot of these sort of false claims, like some vegans say that cattle production is up to 51% of the methane emissions, when it's only 4.9%. And there are a lot of disinformation campaigns out there from the biggest emitters of methane, which is transport and oil and gas and things like that. And yeah, one of their big sayings in Sacred Cow is it's not the cow, it's the how. And yes, in these factory farms we are producing more emissions than we should.
Speaker 1:But if we went to regenerative agriculture it will change emissions so much and not all land can be cropped. I think they say only 60% of the world's land can be farmed. So if we got rid of the cows, it's not like we could just plant crops there. Cows can go on land that we can't grow things on. And yeah, I try to buy all my dairy and meet from regenerative farms and I think that's something we can actually really do to help emissions is buy meat from regeneratively farmed areas and these places they're sequestering carbon. So there's a statistic like factory farmed beef creates like three I don't know three somethings of carbon emissions. A Beyond Meat Burger produces one point less, so it's like two carbon emissions. Regenerative agriculture creates minus one of these carbon emissions, so it is something. Eating meat from these places is something you can do for the environment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great point, and in the same way that Richard Ripps his morning routine of Andrew Huberman, I basically ripped all my statistics that I just gave then off. Sacred Cow, that is an absolutely awesome book. So.
Speaker 3:It will provide a link. I haven't read it actually, so I'll be reading it, and you can look also like the.
Speaker 2:I think the current the amount of cows in America has been falling because dairy and beef production has got more efficient and I think it's about 100 million head now, and when Westerners first counted, Europeans first counted the bison birds in America before they tried to wipe them all out right, there was about 80, 60 to 80 million bison, and that doesn't include how many elk or white tail, deer or mule deer or all the other animals that there were, other rumen and animals. They were doing all their things in the 1800s. So it's just. I think people don't. I think it's a very, it's a myth that can only really exist where people are only living, are living their urban-centric lives and don't really want to understand what the natural world is like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's again. It's an ideology, it's not based on science. A lot of these people pushing the veganism stuff and the environmental, that's their religion. They're not looking at the facts. They don't want to know the truth. They just want to believe in something and have something to fight for, and hence these statistics normally just like roll off their back. They're not going to change their mind on these things, yeah.
Speaker 2:But it's quite pervasive because that's one that people just accept now, like the man on the street if you ask them is cows for the environment, even if they're not vegan? They'll probably just go. Oh yeah, I think they probably are, but I, like me, that's what most people will probably say if you ask them on the street. So it's quite pervasive, that one, and I, you know, in England I'm sort of using Andy, there are just these. You know, I think there's corn adverts now saying better for the environment, and it really irks me because these claims are baseless. They're baseless claims and there's no one pulling them up on it. No, I totally agree. Yeah, we're doing it.
Speaker 3:I totally agree. I think if someone said that in a room full of 100 people, I don't think there'd be one person who would present the counter-argument. It just seems like it is completely pervasive, as you said. Which I suppose leads nicely into a segue. We like to sort of pick up BS of the week from a particular part of the wellness industry. What seems covered? Yeah, A lot of. Bs Is that our BS of the week.
Speaker 1:Going back to the health stuff, why do people mistakenly believe meat is bad for them?
Speaker 2:Why do they believe meat is bad for them? Where do you want me to start? I think the main one is the LDL, so Saturated Fat, increasing your LDL, your cholesterol, your bad cholesterol, to give you heart disease. I think there's a lot more to it than that. There is also the World Health Organization did there's this colon cancer claim with red meat where they lumped together well, actually it's not even red meat, it was processed meat.
Speaker 2:So processed meat gives you the statistic is it gives you an 18% increase in the risk of colorectal cancer. But then if you look at the study, this is that's not. That is that's not. That's relative risk, not absolute risk. If you look at absolute risk, your lifetime risk is 5% and the people who ate more processed meat it was 1% more so 6%, which is an 18% increase. So that's kind of obfuscating the data.
Speaker 2:And then you look further and you look at the studies. They used their observational studies, which is low quality. The data collected on observational studies is from surveys which are shown to not be accurate. So what can we really take from this? Is is not very much, to be honest. I think that the LDL and the colorectal cancer are the two major things that contribute to people's beliefs that it might be harmful to their health. But I don't think both of those don't hold up that well and even if the LDL thing, even if saturated fat and LDL, even if that is a concern to you, you don't need to. You can eat meat and not have high saturated fat anyway.
Speaker 3:Hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the anti-meat thing has just gotten some really good press with terrible documentaries on Netflix and thankfully a lot of people are calling that out, people like you know Lane Norton, paul Saladino, peter Atier, etc. So, yeah, I think we're going to see the pendulum swing back into the favor of meat is a part of a balanced diet and it can be good for the environment. I think I'm not sure if regenerative grown meat is available in the UK, but out here in the US every store you can find regenerative farms in the shopping aisles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think veganism is actually falling now. I think the pendulum has already swung. I think it peaked. You know the game changed. So all these documentaries are very well funded. So they're quite well made, but well made bullshit. I heard a statistic that, whenever that came out whether it was 2019 or 2018, I think it was 5% of the US identified as vegetarian and 3% as vegan, and that's now 4% and 1%. So I think that you know the failure rate. The veganism is its own worst enemy in that the failure rate is so high. The more people that try it, the more people will not do it again, basically, yeah, indeed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think what the health is the new one, the game changes.
Speaker 3:Part 2 that a lot of people have. Is that a vegan documentary or on Netflix?
Speaker 1:A lot of scientists have just been like this is you know, there's no thesis, there's no, it's not a scientific experiment, like you haven't controlled anything and it's just propaganda once you actually unpick it. Yeah, exactly so. You also utilised breath work in your studies. Tell us, sir, about how you work with breath work.
Speaker 3:I need to sneak that in.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, all my breath work I know about from this guy called Richard Blake.
Speaker 1:So I've heard he's great.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, you've done, I've done breath work with you, but you did, I'll tell you.
Speaker 2:So you know a lot more than breath work with me, so you're going to be able to add more to this conversation than I am.
Speaker 2:But I have a lot of long COVID clients right, and if you look at the data on long COVID, one of the problems with long COVID is you don't seem to be getting carrying oxygen in your blood in the same way and you're not getting oxygen into your slow-twitch muscle fibres in the same way. That's one of the issues that they found. That seems to be common across long COVID and in my group I had particularly the soma breath work that you do. You gave me a presentation and then you went through a breath work, so soma breath work session and as you're in my group, you know this well. You know I said to one of my long COVID clients to start doing that because her blood oxygen was always low and if she did that in the morning it just normalized her blood oxygen for the whole day. So I know that is my stand recommendation for people who have long COVID to start doing that soma breath work first thing in the morning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, that was a shameless plug for me.
Speaker 3:I did set Dory enough for that I was going to say. Can we just remind ourselves what soma breath work is?
Speaker 1:Yes, I was about to. So soma breath work is a type of breath work that I'm certified to teach. It involves intermittent hypoxia, so it's breathing in a rhythm, and then intermittent hypoxia just means breath holds. It's something you can find on YouTube. Actually there are plenty of soma practitioners out there who have YouTube sessions for free. They normally only last 20 minutes. Just typing soma. I've got a friend called Evolution of Dave who does a lot of good ones with some good music. So type in Evolution of Dave, soma breath work. Tell him the breath sent you. But yeah, I set Dory enough for this because one of his clients did reach out to me and she was really kind. She was like sharing her blood oxygen saturation levels on Instagram and putting it out to all her friends who were suffering with long COVID and yeah, she gave me a lot of good press. So thank you to her and to Dory for promoting the benefits of breath work for long COVID.
Speaker 2:Yeah no, it's been really interesting, that one.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 1:Anything else, Sandy, before we go on.
Speaker 3:No, I was just going to ask where we find you, dory and where can we find you?
Speaker 2:Great question so, mike, mike probably the best player to find me is on Instagram. My Instagram is summit double underscore health, right, that's my main Instagram. I'm also on Facebook. I have a group on Facebook and you can find me there, but I suggest probably follow me on Facebook. That's the best place to get me and you've got a website as well, don't you, Dory?
Speaker 1:What's that I?
Speaker 2:do it's summit, dash health dot couk.
Speaker 1:Okay, and you work individually with people and you send them on their protocol as well. Right, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2:So I work, I run a program, I practice functional medicine. The program is individualized to you and, depending on what you knew, most of my clients are histamine issues. So mass activation, histamine intolerance, long COVID stuff, pots, autoimmune lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid issues, hashimoto stuff like that. I have great disease myself. So I have a lot of great disease clients which are thyroid issue and gut issues as well.
Speaker 3:Right, great, Fantastic. It's a 12 week program.
Speaker 2:you said, Dory, that's right yes, it's a 12 week program. That's my flagship program, and then I have longer term clients as well, but everyone comes in on the 12 week program. Nice, fantastic.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 2:It's been such a pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 3:As always I've learned a lot, but I feel like I've learned especially large amount of things this week. So thank you so much.
Speaker 2:No, it's my pleasure. Thank you so much for inviting me. Thanks for thinking about me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely no. We want to spread the word of the good practitioners out there, and yeah.
Speaker 3:Andy, where can we find you, rich, if?
Speaker 1:you're behind me, you can find me at RichardLBlakecom. You can find me on Instagram at the Breath Geek, and you can find Andy on his LinkedIn, which is Andruis.
Speaker 3:I don't know if it is. It's something on there. It's an unusual surname. Just type in Esam, easy, easy.
Speaker 1:Like us, please Desperately. We need your approval. That's why we're doing this. External validation. We're very insecure and if we don't get those like numbers, we will feel sad, you don't? Want us to feel sad that's mean no reviews really help and tell your friends. Thanks very much. Alright, thanks for listening everyone and thank you, andy and Doria.
Speaker 3:Thanks guys, Thank you so much. Cheers Bye.