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Roots to Health with Dr. Craig Keever
Welcome to Roots to Health—where we dig deep into the foundation of lifelong wellness! Hosted by Dr. Craig Keever, Northwest Arkansas’ first and only plant-based pediatrician, this podcast unearths the power of nutrition, lifestyle, and holistic health to help kids, families, and adults thrive.
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Dr. Keever breaks down the science of nutrition and disease prevention in a way that’s simple, practical, and life-changing. From raising healthy kids to optimizing adult wellness, each episode delivers key insights that challenge conventional wisdom and empower you to take control of your health.
Whether he’s debunking nutrition myths, explaining how food shapes long-term well-being, or sharing actionable tips for disease prevention, Roots to Health is your go-to guide for vibrant living—one bite, one step, and one conversation at a time.
Get ready to rethink everything you thought you knew about health—and discover just how powerful roots can be!
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Roots to Health with Dr. Craig Keever
Lifestyle Medicine's Six Pillars of Health- Episode 8
Take a journey beyond the dinner plate as we explore the comprehensive framework that creates true health and vitality. While nutrition forms the foundation of wellness, it's just one of six essential pillars that work together to create optimal physical and mental wellbeing.
Drawing from personal experience and evidence-based research, we dive into the exercise pillar, sharing how starting with just 5,000 daily steps can snowball into a transformative fitness routine. You'll discover why resistance training isn't just for bodybuilders—it's a longevity powerhouse that increases bone density and combats age-related muscle loss in as little as 20-30 minutes daily. Whether you're currently sedentary or already active, learn how to create sustainable momentum without overexertion or injury.
Sleep emerges as another critical component, with practical strategies for improving both quantity and quality. We discuss the disruptive effects of blue light on melatonin production and simple sleep hygiene practices that signal your body it's time to rest. The conversation extends to stress management techniques, from meditation to creative pursuits, acknowledging that discipline in these practices creates freedom rather than restriction.
Our exploration of avoiding toxic substances tackles not just the obvious culprits like tobacco and alcohol, but also considers how processed foods introduce similar harms to our systems. Finally, we examine how supportive relationships and community connections complete the wellness picture, emphasizing the importance of boundaries with relationships that drain rather than nourish.
Whether you're just beginning your health journey or looking to strengthen specific pillars, this episode provides actionable strategies for creating systems that support rather than restrain you. Subscribe now to continue learning how to build these pillars into your daily life for lasting health transformation.
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The information provided in this video is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have seen or heard in this video. Dr. Craig Keever is a licensed pediatrician, but the content shared here is general in nature and may not be applicable to your individual health needs.
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Hello, I'm back again with my lovely wife. Hello, my lovely wife, amy, and personal vegan chef, and we are here for our next episode of Roots to Health. Take this episode to kind of dive a little bit into the remaining pillars of lifestyle medicine, because they really do all kind of fit together and you remove one of them and make some of the others, if not all of them, more difficult. You know, and we've hit the nutritional pillar. I'll just, as a brief summary, to remind people, the six main pillars of lifestyle medicine are nutrition, and that's the one we've spent the vast majority of our time on, because I think that's honestly the one that most Americans struggle the greatest.
Speaker 2:Well, and, like I've always said, it's hard to get to that. Except for avoid toxic substances, it's hard to get to the other ones if your nutrition is not letting you rest Exactly.
Speaker 1:And so the remaining five pillars of health are movement or exercise, sleep, stress management, avoidance of toxic substances and relationships, and so we may or may not get to all five of those today. The first one that I really wanted to address was regarding the exercise, and you know, I've always, in my mind, pictured myself as moderately athletic, you know, but as a result, in large part, of the standard American diet and, let's face it, my own, probably laziness, lack of Well and busyness.
Speaker 2:It happens, Well and busyness yeah, like people get caught up with just surviving, sometimes in the day-to-day.
Speaker 1:And being a physician tends to lend itself to being on a very tight schedule often. But yeah, in spite of viewing myself as relatively athletic, I got to 300 pounds and became quite sedentary and then it kind of snowballed on itself, because when you don't feel good, you don't want to be active, right. And so I remember, you know, on my own, actually, even before lifestyle medicine stuff, I did kind of try to pay attention and I had a couple of different routes around my neighborhood that I like to walk and so I was trying to do that, but I didn't have any specific goals in mind that were kind of evidence based.
Speaker 2:It goes back to that whole measuring thing.
Speaker 1:If you're not measuring on a day-to-day basis you lose track of it Exactly, and so I would go on spurts where I would do pretty good with my activity level, and then I would, for whatever reason whether I blamed it on the weather or or yeah, it doesn't feel good after you have a cheeseburger Exactly. So, so, yeah, and so when I finally really have gotten into my groove related to exercise, it's just been since, actually, I worked with Dr Cynthia Morgan. That's what made me giggle.
Speaker 2:I'm just picturing Dr Morgan Little. Dr Morgan Boy, she holds your feet to the fire.
Speaker 1:Yes, she does.
Speaker 2:And we love that.
Speaker 1:Yes, so yeah. Little Dr Morgan boy, she holds your feet to the fire. Yes, she does, and we love that. Yes, so yeah. And when I got in to see her finally a couple of years ago, I recognized just how sedentary I actually was, you know, and when you look at the evidence-based research on activity in the human body, it really kind of a minimum standard. Now don't get scared of that, because not everybody can meet this minimum standard right away. Depends on where you're coming from, the nature of your health.
Speaker 2:Like the elephant, one bite at a time.
Speaker 1:Right, right, but the minimum standard that's considered something that's enough to really make a difference in your health is about a half an hour of any kind of activity that will elevate your heart rate every day, five days a week. So doesn't he doesn't even have to be all seven days a week If you've sedentary. In fact, what happened then with Dr Morgan is that we kind of she she was as we went through OK, how much do you exercise? Well, it's this much. And her final take on it was OK, we're going to give you she, she made us, I'm guessing she does with all her patients. We signed a contract, essentially, you know, and she says how much activity can you guarantee you will make? 100% of the time? And we finally came up with 5,000 steps a day, five days a week.
Speaker 2:And didn't she start out where you said I think I could probably do. She goes no, no, no. I want 100%, 100% that you will commit to that.
Speaker 1:She did, she did it was great. It was great. It was great and really I think in 5,000 steps can be achieved in about a half an hour. It's roughly a two mile trek and you know, not everybody can make can make that but and I wasn't giving myself necessarily a time limit because I used the handy step app on the on the health aspect, yeah yeah, and so by the time I got done with work, I often had at least three or four thousand steps in a day.
Speaker 2:But don't you think that promise to yourself really was what helped snowball it?
Speaker 1:Very much so.
Speaker 2:Because you're like I did it, I accomplished it.
Speaker 1:Very much so and so, and I think that's the whole point of this, look at um, a guy that was in the condition that I was in um in terms of weighing nearly 300 pounds and really not getting out and doing much, um, just starting the process and she would have been fine, depending you know on where I was coming from. She would have been fine, I think, to start with 2 000 steps a day. She met me where I was at and that's the big issue in making these changes. And we've talked some about the changes in eating habits and how to go about making those, because the eating habits, as we've talked about, it's a major mind switch.
Speaker 2:It's much more mindset than it is anything to do with you will love the food. If you find the right information, you will love it yeah. It's all about mindset.
Speaker 1:So, and in the same way, increasing activity level is very much, especially at first, a mind switch, just to get in the habit. And so what that did for me when I signed that contract with her and said, okay, I'm going to get a minimum of 5,000 steps a day, five days a week, okay, and I just made that happen. And then what began to happen was I started to it's just kind of the nature of who I am I started to push myself a little bit. Okay, 5,000 steps a day, hmm.
Speaker 2:I can do better, surely You're competitive 6,000. And then it became maybe six days a week. This is why I have a motor on my bike and you don't, because I got to keep up with that engine. That could kind of thing.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, and I got to the point where I just started increasing those parameters and in recognizing how important motion is for the human body and and what it does for everything um, you know, it helps us, uh, create the hormones and and flushes things out, and um, allows us to breathe in more oxygen and get the flow going. So everything just moves better.
Speaker 2:Is it Clint Pattison that was the one that talked about rheumatoid arthritis. Yes, he says even if your knee hurts, do something to move that knee, because it can do so much for your healings.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've been very blessed in terms of those kinds of disabilities. I don't have any kind of arthritis, you know. I haven't had any major injuries to limbs or joints, and so I was very blessed in that and I was able to. My only issue was just carrying too much weight and being exhausted from that all the time, you know. And so as my journey went on, I kept being able. You know, I kept losing weight until I've reached this plateau that I'm on right now. I've been here for a couple of years but and able to continue increasing the things that I was doing, slowly but surely and within a very, I would say, kind of a calculated plan, you know, because physical training is not something that, as I've had a history of doing as a younger man, trying to push myself beyond what I can reasonably expect of a body in this kind of shape- Kind of like when we're 20 and we're like I'm going to lose seven pounds in seven days, right, so it's probably good.
Speaker 1:It probably could at that point. But traditionally I would push myself to the point of, oh, now I'm really sore, and I stayed that way for several days, whether it was a real injury or not. You know, when you're that sore, you don't want to exercise, right? So I just have gradually ramped this up and I recognized how to not do it to the point of making myself really sore. So I could, so I actually could do all that I was trying to do.
Speaker 1:So what's my regimen now? It's vastly different than it was. What was that about three years ago? Yeah, you're a beast. So, yeah, my regimen now is I spend well, one of the things I've learned in my research about physical activity, because this just started for me, like I said, about three years ago, and the first thing I did was just walk. Ok, and that actually really improves everything. Ok. But you reach a point of of diminishing returns. In other words, you should keep doing it, because if you stop doing it then you're going to start backsliding. But you reach a point where you kind of plateau and it just keeps you at a certain level if you don't continue to push.
Speaker 2:That's not to say that people have to feel like you've got to go in the gym for three hours eventually.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no. It becomes a one-two. Find a good balance, yeah.
Speaker 2:But you don't have to keep upping that time necessarily.
Speaker 1:You know, it depends on what your goals are. And again, this is all about goals.
Speaker 2:We are trying to be Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Speaker 1:I am not trying to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, but what I have found in the research is that, in terms of increasing our longevity and increasing our health, there are two main aspects to physical training that are highly important, and the first is cardio, and that was the easiest for me to start with, because, at first, walking 5,000 steps was cardio.
Speaker 1:I can do that now without much effort, you know, but that wasn't the case at first, you know. So, as I've increased that, what I've found, then, the second aspect that really is much more of a game changer than I ever gave it credit for is resistance training. Okay, and so what I used to think of that, looking like as being in the gym multiple hours a day trying to put muscles on muscles right, I never wanted to be that. I never, and I still don't want to be jacked like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, but that's not the point of resistance training, and resistance training can be done even without any weights. You know your own body, your own body, isometrics, push-ups, sit-ups, there's a whole list of things Bands, burpees, all kinds of things, burpees, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, there's all kinds of things that will fit into that category that, if you don't have any equipment or don't want to do that, but still are interested in the benefits of resistance training, then you don't need it. It can be free.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean to that point. I mean to have to go to the gym, to have to make that commitment of getting to the gym. Some people, that's their accountability. For us, it was like I'll never forget we were going to go at Planet Fit, is it like 530 in the morning it was freezing. We were like I hate this, you know. So it's like I think it was probably more me than you.
Speaker 1:I was no fan.
Speaker 2:You know, and it's like, and we're fighting for weights and we're fighting for a machine that's free because everybody's going in. So that's another thing to make you kind of help. The process is do whatever you can do to make that happen. We built onto our house, not saying that everybody can do that, but we took a static space, built a gym area. Not everybody has to do it that way.
Speaker 1:Make it to where you can actually accomplish that, yeah, and again, I mean, you know, I think, a couple of things, a couple of factors that really have been instrumental for me in this process, as I mentioned, working with Dr Morgan, working with somebody that will keep me accountable, all right, and help me to set that was huge.
Speaker 1:That was huge. And help me to set appropriate goals, because you know, like I said, I can very easily get. Maybe not so much now, but certainly a couple of years ago could try to set my goals so high that I hurt myself well, and that Sunday thing is a dangerous thing.
Speaker 2:Like, well, sunday, I'm going to do that Sunday and then, like we said last week, like our health just takes over and or lack of, and you know, sunday never comes yeah, and so why is resistance training such a big deal?
Speaker 1:Well, you know, when we get older I'll speak to it from the older age aspect first as we get older, there is a condition known as sarcopenia and it's really just a natural quote, unquote natural part of the aging process that we just tend to lose muscle mass.
Speaker 2:All right, and the problem Sounds so serious when you say sarcopenia.
Speaker 1:Sarcopenia, yes, and so the reason that's such a big deal is really what the research is showing in terms of longevity in our lifespan is one of the factors that makes a big difference in our longevity is our muscle mass. So if we don't do something to maintain or even potentially increase our muscle mass as we get older, it's going to shorten our lifespan. I mean, that's just a given, and so, even so, there and there's multiple ways to accomplish the resistance training.
Speaker 2:And I would love for you to speak about bone density and how. I did not know this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely the the, the resistance training doesn't only affect the muscle fibers. You know, all of our muscles are attached by tendons to our bones. You know, all of our muscles are attached by tendons to our bones and the process of resistance training, which strains those muscles against the bones and pulls on all those attachment places, actually increases bone density.
Speaker 2:It's amazing to me.
Speaker 1:I never knew that Bones are not a static organ, although they're full of calcium and there are parts of them that are relatively static.
Speaker 2:There are little cells throughout bones, osteoblasts and osteoclasts that are involved in the constant remodeling of that calcium structure, which is what I wish people understood that when you're nutritionally feeding the body, all parts of your body benefit. Like Dr Ornish saying, this is not just for heart disease or Alzheimer's, or it's the diet that helps everyone. You bet Our way of life.
Speaker 1:And so what I've come to now for my regimen on a personal basis and I'm not recommending this necessarily for anybody, because really everybody's got to find their own niche and their own pattern that works well for them. But what I'm finding for me is Monday, wednesday and Friday I do several upper body strength training, so I do biceps, triceps, shoulders, chest and back, so five different exercises, and then pretty much every day I work on my core a little bit. So I'm I'm doing three sets of 25 sit-ups, um, pretty much every day, six or seven days a week, um and then um. So Monday, wednesday and Friday I do that, and then Tuesday, thursday and Saturday I'll do my lower body leg day.
Speaker 1:The dreaded leg day, the dreaded leg day, and so I only have three workouts for legs, because there's basically three major muscle groups in your legs you got your quadriceps, you got your hamstrings and you got your calves, and so that workout takes me roughly 20 minutes. My upper body generally takes me roughly 30 minutes, and so I don't spend a whole ton of time on weight training. You know, 30 minutes a day, three days a week, and then 20 minutes a day the other three days a week and then one day a week I take off of all my weight training and that has worked very, very well. I've definitely been seeing good results from that. And then in terms of cardio, that's for me a little bit of a work in progress, because there is some research to suggest the possibility of doing both cardio and strength training back to back actually somewhat negates the positive effects of both.
Speaker 2:Now that doesn't mean If you can do both at the same time and that works for you, then yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that doesn't mean that you'll get no benefit from them. But if you did one separate from the other, that you'll get no benefit from them. But if you did one separate from the other you will get better benefit. And by separate from, we're talking about, you know, probably four to six hours in separation time. So what I've come to do is on my leg days. I'm not real worried about any kind of bulking or anything is on my leg days. I'm not real worried about any kind of bulking or anything Not that I'm worried about bulking on my upper body either, but I worry less about the cardio.
Speaker 1:When I do my legs it's a shorter workout, it's in some ways a little less intense, in some ways more intense, but I usually do my cardio right after my leg day. So I just get all that done and the leg day takes me, with my cardio and my weights, probably about 45 minutes, give or take, maybe a little more, but for at least two of my days on the upper body I won't do any cardio all day. And then in order to get a minimum of four days a week in cardio, which I think that's kind of an industry standard, so to speak. You really deserve.
Speaker 1:Your body deserves to get some type of exercise to elevate your heart rate. One of the common phrases that's used now in the physical training industry is zone two training, and that refers to your heart rate, and everybody's zone is a little different depending on how fit you are. But zone two training can be easily achieved by getting your heart rate elevated, but to a point where you can still have a conversation while you're exercising, whether it's a bike ride or a walk or a run or whatever, if you can. You know it'll be noticeable in your breathing.
Speaker 2:And some people that may be at the walk. That causes that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, it just depends on where you're starting. But yeah, it will change, but you will notice it in your breathing. You'll be kind of once in a while needing to, you know, take a breath, but you can have a full conversation and if you don't have all the fancy ways to actually measure your heart rate and figure out what you do, well, it's like you, but figure out the measuring that's right if you can't figure out exactly where your zone two training is, um, and and then the heart training zones are basically geared up into five different zones, with zone one being completely at rest.
Speaker 1:Zone two is this area where you can still converse, but you're breathing just a little bit. Zones zones three, four and five. You really can't.
Speaker 2:Conversations out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you really can't talk, so yeah, so that's kind of where I'm at with that.
Speaker 1:And the other thing I would mention in that for me at this point so I do my zone two training probably three or four days a week and once a week I do what's referred training, probably three or four days a week and once a week I do what's referred to as HIIT training, which is high intensity interval training and basically all that means for me.
Speaker 1:There's multiple ways to do this and you can do it with weights or stations or all isometrics or any way you can think of. But what works best for me at this point is I just get on the elliptical and I'll have my resting pace, which for me right now is about 120 strides per minute, and then that's my low intensity rest period and then I'll take it up to about 150 steps per minute at a higher resistance, and each of these intervals so a rest period and a high intensity period is considered an interval, and for me right now my intervals are each three minutes long. So three minutes rest, three minutes high intensity, three minutes rest and I'll do a series of five of those, so it lasts about 30 minutes by my last one. I'm not quite able to keep my pace up to 150.
Speaker 2:So that kind of helps you elevate without a lot of time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and I've really noticed a difference in what that's doing for me, physically to do at least one HIIT training a week. So that's kind of where I'm at with that, and I'm saying all that just to say really, I'm not saying, oh, you must try this pathway, but there's a number of aspects to physical training that are, I think, really key to helping us achieve our longevity, which, you know, at the end of the day, lifestyle medicine is really about Quality life Quality of life and making things better, and how do we improve our health.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Is it Derek at SimNet Nutrition.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:So I don't know if he talks about workouts so much, but he's a great channel if you're looking for like meals, if you're really into cardio and you're into maybe weightlifting and things, he's a good one.
Speaker 1:I haven't watched any of his exercise videos, if he has any. He's definitely focused a lot on nutrition, which is great, yeah, but I'll have to search his YouTube site to see if he's got any on specific exercise routines.
Speaker 2:I think this is kind of personal and you do kind of find your own. Very personal Good to know these guidelines. But you do kind of like I use the reformer, which is the Pilates machine, and so that helps me stretch out. I'm hypermobile and so I'm having to strengthen things before I can stretch them no-transcript continues when you're at rest. You know, and your body craves exercise. Oh my gosh, it does so much better.
Speaker 1:I mean it does. I mean I've had days where you know, I checked my blood pressure before I get on my elliptical and it's, like you know, 160 over 90 and I'll go do a half an hour of zone two training, which is like taking a brisk walk or anything afterwards and I don't feel drained but I'll sit down and a half an hour after I'm done working out my blood pressure is like 125 over 79.
Speaker 2:And then you continue to do well that day. Yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 1:So it does make a big difference and you know I've noticed as I've been, you know, increasing in my strength training and being more disciplined and consistent with my exercise, my blood sugars are coming under better control. I mean, I had the lowest blood sugar I've had in a while Now, granted, I'm off medicine, but my blood sugar was 129 this morning.
Speaker 2:And you know, even when yours has been great you tend to run a little bit high. So that very morning tend to run a great one yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean so, yeah, I'm getting, I'm. I'm still treating my conditions. You know I've got still a ways to go, but I'm treating them without medication. I'm treating them with exercise and nutrition, and so I have goals still that I'm trying to achieve and I'm still trying to tweak my nutrition and I'm still trying to tweak my exercise. And my difficulties with my numbers are at a point where my doctor's comfortable saying, okay, we really don't need medicines, but I'm still not at the point where, like, I'd like my blood pressure to be 120 over 80 or below. Okay, I'm still not quite there. And there's, you know a few things. I'd like to lose another 20, 25 pounds. You know to be my my quote, unquote. You know a few things. I'd like to lose another 20, 25 pounds. You know to be my my quote, unquote ideal body weight is about um 180 and I'm still right over 200. So you know, there's some room to go. My, my waist size should be 35 and it's 37.
Speaker 2:And with that thought, it kind of is your thought that if you get to that BMI that you'd like, it kind of helps you metabolically where things aren't necessarily, as you know, having to be as strict as what you've done.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, you can kind of play a little bit I think one of the big things that still being a little bit overweight like this is doing is that that means to me that I've still got an amount of visceral fat. So there's two areas of fat that we have, and subcutaneous is the most obvious, but the visceral fat is inside our abdomen and-.
Speaker 1:Kind of by our organs yeah, by our organs and the visceral fat is the fat in our bodies that is much more detrimental to our chronic health problems, and so my impression of that is that, as long as I continue to carry these extra 20 pounds or so and a couple extra inches on my waist, I still have room to improve. I can tell you right now that I'm very happy with my weight overall, and if my blood sugar was stone cold, normal at 100 and my blood pressure was never over 120, over 80, I would not worry about my BMI at all, you know. But the fact remains that my numbers are better, but not fully treated, but not requiring medicines, and I've got this extra that. I think if I can get rid of that in terms of still whittling away at what I'm assuming is my visceral fat, then all my metabolic numbers should continue to improve, and that's how I'm treating this, instead of with the age old Western medicine style of here's a pill for your ill.
Speaker 2:You know, and unfortunately Americans kind of, we're in this cycle of like, well, I'm busy, I'm stressed, I don't have time for that right now and really if there's ever a time you need, that is when your body's in stress, when your body's in crisis, to be able to have good nutrition, because not only with, like, your high blood pressure and things like that, but you're you know, know, it's so true that the more, the lower my inflammation is in my body, the lower my anxiety is, the lower my mind just thinks clearer and it causes more depression when you've got those foods going in that are kind of elevating the inflammation.
Speaker 1:You know I'm not going to go into any details at all, but suffice it to say that I've felt an increased amount of stress for the last several weeks, maybe months, and part of the way I'm dealing with that stress and it's really effective most of the time is continuing to be disciplined about my nutrition and exercise.
Speaker 1:All the pillars, all the pillars, yeah truly, truly, and we'll get to the rest of those, I think in fact quite soon, because, like I said, they all do kind of dovetail in. And to Amy's point earlier, you know, I think the nutrition is probably the first one most people need to dive into, because the nutritional status of most of this country is quite poor.
Speaker 2:It's just like when people tell me you've got to get rest. I'm like I know, I know, but until I knew the right nutrition, my body could not rest, it could not go to sleep.
Speaker 1:So that segues into the next pillar, very nicely sleep, and I don't. I suppose I don't have a half an hour of information to talk about sleep, although I'm sure I do want to share with this book whenever you're right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Matthew Walker, why we Sleep. I know people that are just listening aren't going to be able to see this, but we'll try to link this to his book, andrew Heberman there's an interview with him, if you can't get the book, and Rich Roll. I think it is fascinating what happens and how important sleep is. But again, if you don't have the right nutrition, I don't think you can get to the things he's talking about I couldn't until I got those.
Speaker 1:And just for those that don't know, Andrew Huberman is a YouTube.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, not Huberman. Huberman, yes.
Speaker 1:He's a YouTube, he's got a YouTube channel, as well as Rich Roll Right, and these are guys that are very involved in health and exercise and all these kind of things that are good for us. So so yeah, to to move on into the sleep category, or the sleep pillar of health. Sleep is really essential, you know, for ultimate good health. You know what our brain does at night, during sleep, is it repairs itself, you know, and most people require. Now, I think it's quite a variable thing, but your average person requires probably about seven hours of sleep a night. All right.
Speaker 2:I still think that's so much like nutrition. It's not so much what you take in, but what you actually absorb, or what you, you know and sleep's. The same way, it's the quality of that sleep as well.
Speaker 1:Very true, very true. So you do need a minimum. Yeah, there's kind of a minimum amount, but in order to achieve that and you know, I've got a few kids that have trouble sleeping, it's not a real common childhood problem, but, excuse me, it's out there enough that. You know, I talk about this sometimes in my checkups, particularly with kids that are having some difficulty, and you know, some people are just light sleepers. You know, my youngest son was a very light sleeper through probably the first 10 to 12 years of his life, you know, and he can sleep through a hurricane now. So, yeah, so, but where was I going with that?
Speaker 1:To get the right length of sleep and the right quality of sleep is important, and in order to do that, there is a term bantered around called sleep hygiene. So we've got to have the right environment to allow good sleep, and that generally means a good, quiet pattern of behavior in the evening. Some people find a warm bath very soothing, some people find, you know, listening to calm music, or and, or maybe drinking decaffeinated tea, or you know all kinds of techniques for this low lighting. I would say one thing that I'm um, uh, was interested to learn is, um, you know, melatonin is a body hormone. This is fascinating.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a body hormone, that that our brains make Um and um. I think it comes from the brain. Anyway, I have to look that up too. But, um, suffice it to say that, um, you know, we're constantly on our phones, right, or watching TV or looking at the computer. Well, the problem with that regarding sleep is all of those screens any kind of screen really emits a low level of a blue light. All right, and what's the big deal about that? Well, the receptors in our eyes that tune into the blue light go straight back into our brains to an area that actually creates our melatonin. Yeah, and those blue lights, when we're exposed to them, kind of shut down our melatonin production. Um, so, um, keeps you awake for the, yeah, for those people that are sensitive to it, and some are more sensitive than others, I truly believe. Um, but, um, if you're on your screen at you know late hours, you know, probably with, I always tell my kids to just be off your screen within about two hours before bedtime.
Speaker 1:Yeah they're unhappy about that, but the fact remains. You know, if we're tapped out of our own personal supply of melatonin, the problem is you can take some melatonin from the drugstore, but it's not quite the same.
Speaker 2:Well, my sleep doctor scared me to no end when he said I was taking more melatonin than I need and he said it lowers your threshold for seizures. And so I was like, oh OK, that scares me.
Speaker 1:So I didn't realize you have to be real careful how much melatonin you do take Now personally, I will say I've never known anybody that's had a seizure from being on melatonin that Well.
Speaker 2:too much melatonin, yeah, too much melatonin. He just acts like it reduced your threshold for it, like you know.
Speaker 1:But by and large melatonin is a very safe medicine to use. I don't necessarily, even for those kids that have trouble sleeping. I don't necessarily recommend being on it daily, every day, for a long period of time. I kind of recommend it for those times when you know we're kind of struggling for you want to get to the root of.
Speaker 2:why are you not saying yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:That's one of those things that we've talked about before, about putting a picture over a hole created by termites and thinking everything's better. But anyway, can you?
Speaker 2:talk a little bit about that first. You know up until 10 o'clock in the morning how important it is for your eyes to be shot to the sun, because that somehow forget how that's explained Our body's circadian rhythms are set kind of to the sun, you know, and so to that end, in the evening it's important to kind of dim or lower the lights.
Speaker 2:That helps us. That's another one of those sleep hygiene things that helps us relax a little bit. That helps us. That's another one of those sleep hygiene things that helps us relax a little bit. Reading from a book instead of a screen and all those other things that I mentioned are good. But to your point, first thing in bright light is one of the ways to really I'm going to explain that wrong.
Speaker 1:I don't remember that one yeah. That's okay.
Speaker 2:It's something like where it where melatonin is being spent every like all throughout the day. Let's see, I have it backwards All throughout the day.
Speaker 1:You know you're kind of getting more tired, more tired, more tired, and caffeine is somehow taking that away. I'm going to explain that wrong, but anyway, shoot. Well, that's okay. We'll look that one up and talk about that one at another time. So at this point I think that's most of what I can say about sleep, unless you've got anything else. You know, it's just that it is really critical for our brain to get those deep dreams and REM sleep. You know, and you know everybody's going to have an off night now and then.
Speaker 2:Well, and Dr Morgan talks about especially with someone like you, I'm excited about getting the ring, the aura ring. But she said I know you're a measurer and so she kind of suggested you not look into that because that could almost get you in a bad habit of looking at you. Know how you slept the night before? And it almost being too regimented well too aware of it, to where it could cause kind of a disruption itself.
Speaker 1:because yeah, All depends on your personality. I'm I am kind of a measurer.
Speaker 2:I'm going to get one of those. I am too, but not to the point where.
Speaker 1:Right right, all right. So, moving on, um, the next pillar of health would be stress management, um number of ways to go about this, and this is again, uh, an incredibly personal um uh pillar of health. Um, but I certainly find, you know, that some form of meditation is a really big deal with this.
Speaker 2:And just getting still yeah, whatever that means. Get in your brain where you can just kind of, yeah, art is definitely its own meditation for me, because I can totally get into the painting, totally get into the mosaic, and I'm not thinking about, you know, this stems back to it really harkens back in my own personal life to really believing that there are, you know, three main aspects to human existence there's the physical and there's the mental and intellectual and there's the spiritual.
Speaker 1:you know, and however you want to address that spiritual component, it is one of the three things that makes us human.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that self-care. How do you, how do you love yourself and how do you give back to yourself?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and and kind of along the lines of all these, all these pillars, and how do you blend them together to be effective? You know, I have, years ago, was reading about the pope, and you know, again, not to get into a specific religion, but if you just think about this guy, this guy, the pope, the guy. He's a busy guy, OK, he is. His job he's taken on is to be kind of the spiritual leader of how many millions of people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how many millions of people in the world? Right, that's a heavy mantle to carry, and I'm given to understand that the Pope says a rosary, which is a Catholic prayer. That takes depending on which version you use. You can do a shorter version, which is about a 15 minute prayer, or you can take the whole thing and say it for about an hour. Ok, I don't know which one this pope was using, but he said this prayer every day, and this was at a time in my life when I was struggling with the idea of giving you know five to ten minutes.
Speaker 2:You don't have time for it, right?
Speaker 1:I had to get up and hit the road. That's right, right, giving five to 10 minutes to some form of spiritual conversion, or whatever you want to call it. And it finally dawned on me OK, here's this guy that's supposed to be the spiritual leader of millions of people, and yet he's got a few things to do.
Speaker 1:He's got a few things to do, he's got a staff that runs his life for him, I'm sure, and yet he takes this much time to say a prayer. I'm not that busy. You're not the Pope. I'm not the Pope. I don't have my staff telling me how I got to do this. If I can't carve out 10 minutes or whatever is appropriate in my life for this, something's wrong well, it's again.
Speaker 2:It's like it's not only a good thing to get into you know a habit, but it it serves you like you'll want to do more of it. I always say with art, like give yourself 10 minutes a sketchbook, and you're going to do more you know.
Speaker 1:And so what that then has morphed into again.
Speaker 1:For me it's just, you know, as I grow in this, I now spend probably about 20 to 30 minutes in the morning and very often we'll spend some time together in the evening along those lines.
Speaker 1:You know, saying a good morning prayer and a good night prayer is a really good habit to get into. And and having the discipline I think you know one of the things about lifestyle medicine and its principles is is a thing that most Americans don't want much to do with, and that is discipline, ok, and accountability. And accountability, I mean it does take a certain amount of discipline to eat the way we eat, to exercise the way we should exercise. That's good for our bodies. And then again, in the sleep, you know, it's really good to get to sleep at roughly the same time and get up at roughly the same time every day and not to be rigid about it, but our body craves these rhythms. All right, definitely, yeah, and so, and in the same way, with the stress management and meditation type things, it's a really good way to kind of decompress so much of that for us is like I mean, we really don't watch TV.
Speaker 2:We have like YouTube videos we can watch, and that's not to say like look at us. It's just shut the noise out of the everyday. We don't realize. You know, when you start your day with news and like I can't handle it, I can't handle listening to tragedy and all those kinds of things.
Speaker 1:There's so much bad news in the world.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so then you've got commercials, it's got a cheeseburger and you know, like you. Just it's easier if you'll just shut that stuff out, not saying you have to, right, but for me I just the noise, it gets too much.
Speaker 1:Oh, very much, so I quit watching the news a very long time ago.
Speaker 2:You forget what's normal. You know we look extreme. We're really eating like people did in the 1950s you know the beef and the dairy, but dairy's not been around forever either.
Speaker 1:So that's very true. So it's kind of crazy, yeah, yeah. So. So, yeah, just finding different ways and everybody's going to have their own little tweaks to stress management. You know, like I've mentioned, you know, part of my stress management is my exercise program. Part of my stress management, actually, now it used to be my eating habits were kind of a stress-inducing thing because I was trying to figure out what am I doing wrong and how am I doing. Now it's much more. I know what works for me.
Speaker 2:And part of that was getting in those systems of like how do we do our grocery list? How do we have our pantry set up?
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:How do we travel? It's like you have to set those systems. They are so much more freeing. I wish people understood that. It's not about us feeling rigid. It is so much more freeing for me to know I can travel to a conference, bring my own food. Nobody for me to know I can travel to a conference, bring my own food, Nobody has to worry about me. I am not stressed out at all. It's much worse if I get out of that system.
Speaker 1:Very much, it's not that's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing. I think we view that as a bad thing, yeah, and it's really kind of centers for all these things around a little bit of discipline, you know, just enough discipline to get us into the right rhythm. Um, and you know, the other side of that, um, that we've, I think, referred to maybe in some podcasts is, um, uh, a grace that has to go with that. You know, um, because I don't do this perfectly. You know, I do things that I know, oh know, I shouldn't be doing, that I shouldn't eat, that I, I should be exercising today, but for whatever reason, I don't. You know, just start over the next 24 hours. There it is, you know, just recognize you can't worry about the yesterdays.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, that's exactly right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's funny for me to say, because I can worry about the yesterdays for sure no-transcript.
Speaker 1:You know, and I think in my, I mean, obviously there's many toxic substances that we can talk about, you know, but I think the two most prominent are going to be tobacco and alcohol. All right Now, I'm nobody's alcohol police, just the way. I'm nobody's food police, you know, and many. All right Now, I'm nobody's alcohol police, just the way, I'm nobody's food police, you know, and many, many people, right, many, many people can use alcohol appropriately Um a glass of wine or two, um, you know, even some of our favorite, um, uh, plant-based physicians, uh, dr Will Bolshevitz, um and um Dr and Dr Brooke Goldner, talk about having a glass of wine. Sometimes, you know, even though both of those people, particularly Dr Bolshevitz, who's really concerned about the microbiome and its effects, while alcohol in and of itself is an antiseptic, it's a cleaner, it kills bacteria. Yeah, which is Dr Clapper's point for sure Right.
Speaker 1:Having said that, you know, a little glass of wine, you know, a couple times a week, is not going to be causing major damage. So it just depends on how you use it. I don't drink any alcohol for a number of reasons. I haven't had any alcohol for a number of reasons. I haven't had any alcohol for a very long time and that works for me and I don't find I miss anything. But many people will use alcohol on a small level to, you know, as a social lubricant or, you know something to just kind of help relax, and I don't find any problem with that. You know, when you have a person that's having a problem with that, it becomes quite obvious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I, you know, I am that person that would go off and have a glass of Chardonnay I may have one tonight, I mean but I have gotten a lot more cautious about it because of the microbiome. I'm I'm like protecting that microbiome like it's baby, you know, and so so it's like that if you do all this hard work, you wouldn't want to think that it's messing up your gut. It's really not that. It's that someone has an addiction so much as it could mess up your eating habits, it could mess up your metabolism. Sure, you know, I see how that goes hand in hand.
Speaker 1:Sure, and in terms of the other one that I mentioned tobacco I'm trying to think if I've ever heard any good reason for using tobacco.
Speaker 2:No, and I can't.
Speaker 1:And vaping is now, and vaping is in that category and I probably ought to throw in an honorable mention to marijuana. You know, I think marijuana or yeah, I mean yeah, any other chemicals that we can ingest that are not good for us just to take to get stoned not really advisable. But marijuana is becoming thought of more like alcohol and the problem I have with marijuana is much the same that I have with tobacco. The things that are in it and the act of inhaling your lungs are tender, all right. When you get tar and all the kind of garbage that comes in from smoke of any kind, you know whether you've been exposed to a forest fire and the smoke that comes from all of that. That's pretty toxic to you as well, you know. So, even though many people get that high feeling from marijuana that you know in some people's minds can be a very good stress reliever. Some people use marijuana, I think, for a stress reliever.
Speaker 2:I can see that not being good, medical marijuana being a different scenario, because someone's really in a lot of pain or Exactly.
Speaker 1:There may be specific reasons to use marijuana.
Speaker 2:The better of the choice.
Speaker 1:Yes, but by and large I would say that the negatives of using any kind of inhaled substance like that. You need to weigh the risks.
Speaker 2:Chewing tobacco is right there with it as far as Dr Metz. I know he was the doctor that went to Dallas, that I thought so much of before I went to Israel and you know he said if someone's a smoker, I'm not going to waste their money until I cannot put enough nutrition in your body to get what? The toxic substance you know, and I appreciate his point and he's like there's no way I can overrun that, there's no way I can put enough nutrition in someone and stop the damage that's going to go on.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's a hard thing.
Speaker 2:That's a hard thing. Which I feel like the standard diet is doing to people.
Speaker 1:There's not enough nutrition If you're still counterbalancing, it's like yeah, if you're throwing all kinds of fat and oil and salt and sugar.
Speaker 2:I almost feel like the processed foods and the oils that are going on could be, right there, considered a toxic substance. Oh totally, it's in that same.
Speaker 1:Well, and in fact, in terms of toxic substances in dairy, the casein is actually a carcinogen, right? I mean, it's there and it has the opioid type. And Dr Campbell proved that in his science. You know a very common protein or peptide that's in dairy is. You know it's full of whey and casein, and casein is a carcinogen.
Speaker 2:You know it's full of whey and casein, and casein is a carcinogen. Well, and sandwich meat has the same level of carcinogenic power. They do that as smoking.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. The last pillar before we ring off for the day is relationships and community. You know, like I said, and we've said it a couple of times today, um, all of these pillars really blend in together and you know, one of the reasons I had such difficulty when I first started this journey, uh, I mentioned in my story, uh, the podcast. The first one we did was, you know, I saw this movie, this documentary forks over knives, and I tried to do this by myself, and very limited success, you know. And it wasn't until Amy came along in my life and I now had this community, somebody that I could, you know, that had experience with this and was able to share that experience with me. And then, as we've continued and we're trying to create a bigger community of plant-based eaters and plant-based people, you know, community means an awful lot to ultimate health.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot of loneliness, not even tied to food. There's just a lot of loneliness right now where people with the phones you know we don't go together and go to a big family thing or we don't you know people don't get together. I love the potluck that Dr Morgan's doing for that reason, but beyond people that are plant-based eaters, just being able to see people and have face-to-face conversations, social media is a great thing and it's caused a lot of relationships for me to form because of that, but it's also taking people out of their you know, their dinner table and places to meet and just stay at home and stay on their phones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so, to that end, I would encourage, in terms of relationships and community, whatever stage of life you're in, you know, seek out the positives. Right, ok, and we all have those negative influences in terms of relationships in our lives.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:I would say, be diligent about which relationships are good for me and which relationships are not Absolutely, and start weeding out and putting up boundaries. I mean, that's one of the things that we've done over the last several years that's been incredibly helpful to our sense of well-being is just creating those boundaries and that's not to say to be rude about it, but if, and that's not to say be to not be supportive of people that are in a negative space.
Speaker 2:Now, there's a difference to not be supportive of people that are in a negative space. Now there's a difference. Okay, but I've always said the most loving thing you can do to a toxic person is put a boundary where they cannot hurt someone and they cannot harm you. You know, like so you, that's actually a loving thing to do, because you won't stop them. You won't stop them from doing something, that's right. Yeah, you only deplete. Deplete your energy.
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, you only deplete your energy, that's right. So, yeah, I'm just keeping in mind, in terms of the lifestyle medicine principles, you know that those relationships, in order to help us thrive and be healthy, they need to be more positive.
Speaker 2:And just taking time. You know that's what we try to do, is taking time with each other and having those just game things that someone does, whether it's through a sport or through just talking. You know, I'm not really a sports person but not really a game person either. Well, I had a friend that was like didn't you ever play games as a kid?
Speaker 1:I was like, no, I was that last kid by you know great measure, so I didn't know what to do with me. Well, I want to thank you all for tuning in. We've reached, surprisingly, the end of the hour. Can I talk about a couple books before we go?
Speaker 2:I know I won't get into all of them, but the Vegan Baby Cookbook and Guide I meant to. It's by Ashley I can't say her last name but she will try to put this in the show notes. She's got a great Instagram for moms. It's a really great book. I've brought up this one many times but I can't say enough about the Plant-Based Baby and Toddler by the Plant-Based Juniors. It really goes through all steps. You know, if you're brand new to this, it really helps moms kind of figure that out. Great beautiful book. Plant Bowered Families by Dreena Burton. That's a really good one. I've had this one for years and then I want to bring up a new one and then we'll talk about the other ones later. But Breaking Up With Dairy Chef Bay, it's Bailey Ruskus. So this is not 100% whole food plant-based as far as, like there's some, it is whole food plant-based but it's you know what I'm saying. It's like some more vegan, maybe not.
Speaker 1:you know some oils and things like that, maybe a little vegan junk food that we don't do.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's all vegan but really great book. But it's better than some of the processed cheeses that you'll buy at the store or oat cream or things. It doesn't have the fillers and the things that Dr Bolschewitz kind of backed that book. So yeah, it's got a lot of great things, so I'll bring the others back.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Well, we hope you've enjoyed this presentation and, like I said, any questions, comments, things you'd like us to eventually delve into, don't hesitate to give us a shout and we'll catch you next time. Okay, sounds good. Thank you.
