Health & Fitness Redefined

Unlocking the Secret Power of Gut Health: Impact on Overall Well-being

December 18, 2023 Anthony Amen Season 3 Episode 69
Unlocking the Secret Power of Gut Health: Impact on Overall Well-being
Health & Fitness Redefined
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Health & Fitness Redefined
Unlocking the Secret Power of Gut Health: Impact on Overall Well-being
Dec 18, 2023 Season 3 Episode 69
Anthony Amen

Ready to unlock the secret to better overall health and fitness? This episode promises to do just that, revealing the incredible power of our gut health. We've got a special guest on board, Josh, who’s a specialist in gut health and has had miraculous experiences with his clients. One of his most awe-inspiring cases is of Lynn, a 59-year-old woman who shattered world records in powerlifting, thanks to her gut-health-focused nutrition and fitness efforts. Join us as we explore how our gut health is intricately linked to various health conditions and how we can harness its potential.

Ever thought about the immense role that gut bacteria play in our health? Prepare to be amazed as we discuss the surprising fact that gut bacteria outnumber our own cells by 10 to 1. We also talk about the harmful effects of inflammatory foods like gluten, which can lead to leaky gut syndrome, and how stress impacts our gut health. We share practical tips on mindful eating and the use of digestive enzymes for improved digestion. This is your chance to gain valuable insights into how your gut health shapes your physical and mental well-being.

Lastly, we question some common beliefs about diet and additives. We debunk the myth that high cholesterol necessarily leads to high dietary cholesterol and caution against the dangers of trans and saturated fats. We explore the worrying correlation between artificial sweeteners and diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and Alzheimer's. Want to make smarter food choices for a healthier lifestyle? Stay tuned as we discuss the importance of returning to a more natural and healthier way of eating.

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Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Ready to unlock the secret to better overall health and fitness? This episode promises to do just that, revealing the incredible power of our gut health. We've got a special guest on board, Josh, who’s a specialist in gut health and has had miraculous experiences with his clients. One of his most awe-inspiring cases is of Lynn, a 59-year-old woman who shattered world records in powerlifting, thanks to her gut-health-focused nutrition and fitness efforts. Join us as we explore how our gut health is intricately linked to various health conditions and how we can harness its potential.

Ever thought about the immense role that gut bacteria play in our health? Prepare to be amazed as we discuss the surprising fact that gut bacteria outnumber our own cells by 10 to 1. We also talk about the harmful effects of inflammatory foods like gluten, which can lead to leaky gut syndrome, and how stress impacts our gut health. We share practical tips on mindful eating and the use of digestive enzymes for improved digestion. This is your chance to gain valuable insights into how your gut health shapes your physical and mental well-being.

Lastly, we question some common beliefs about diet and additives. We debunk the myth that high cholesterol necessarily leads to high dietary cholesterol and caution against the dangers of trans and saturated fats. We explore the worrying correlation between artificial sweeteners and diseases like diabetes, heart disease, and Alzheimer's. Want to make smarter food choices for a healthier lifestyle? Stay tuned as we discuss the importance of returning to a more natural and healthier way of eating.

F2 Consulting
Discover a healthier, wealthier you with F2 Consulting.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Support the Show.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to Health with Fitness Redefined. I'm your host, anthony Amen. Join me today as we take a bath in the pool of Health with Fitness, where we go to an overcome adversity to pick it back for its fiction and see Health with Fitness in a whole new light. I'm sure you guys this is the last topic you're thinking about this time of the year. All you are thinking about is getting that Christmas shopping done, because Christmas is right around the corner out of this world. So you're like I don't care what I'm eating, I'm putting it in my body and I'll deal with it later. But let us let you know, as things we've talked about time and time and time again, god Health is one of the most important things to think about. Yes, how your body digest things and how it gets processed is super, super, super important, and more and more research has showed that. God Health is actually more directly relinked to weight loss than pretty much everything else. So, without further ado, let's welcome to the show, josh. Josh, it's an absolute pleasure to have you today.

Speaker 2:

Anthony, it's a pleasure to be here, man, Thank you so much for bringing me in.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people see God Health and they're like I can't listen to that. But those that have made it this far and are actually listening to this episode will know that I love God Health, the process of writing a little book. We've done with that by the end of next year and it's one of the 10 topics I picked, because digestive health is everything.

Speaker 2:

And that's an understatement man Digestive health. I even argue that our own gut bacteria are more important than our DNA, and I can back that up, and so when you say it's important, I mean it is everything.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean one of. I gotta say people are getting more interested in it because one of our top five most downloaded episodes was what we did on microbes. So just people are starting to get in the field. But I just had a simple question what made you start getting into learning about God Health in the first?

Speaker 2:

place. Well, it's interesting. It was actually a bit of a we'll say a happy accident. So I used to be a paramedic. That was my first career and I moved across the country from Newfoundland all the way over here to Alberta, and my initial intent was just to get another job as a paramedic that just paid more money and didn't work out. It was really difficult to change my licenses and so I ended up picking up a job as a personal trainer. I've been in the industry for a few years anyways, and so when I started I got very, very lucky.

Speaker 2:

My career had some cool foundations. Woman named Lynn came to see me. 57 years old, she was on 17 pills and insulin for breakfast, nine pills and insulin for dinner time. She had high blood pressure, slept with a CPAP machine, she was on the disability list at work, like you name it, and she had all these things going on and we started working together, got into the basics of nutrition and fitness and all the things by age 59. I entered her into her first powerlifting competition in the raw powerlifting division and she broke a world record. And she kept breaking world records until age 59 or 61 or 62, rather from 59 onward, and so it was really amazing to see the healing powers of the body and what it was actually capable of, and so it just really drove me to look a bit deeper and I started working with people dealing with skin issues or asthma, anxiety, depression, insomnia, all kinds of stuff, and every single time we'd work on their basics and fundamentals of nutrition.

Speaker 2:

One of the things that was improving was their gut, as well as these other conditions. I thought, well, there's got to be a connection here. Turns out that's been long established, for 30 years. I thought I discovered this. You know, I'm in my early 20s and I was like, well, I'm breaking medicine. That's not what it was. But I ended up going back to school, became a nutritionist, and the further I dove into gut health, the more severe cases came to see me. At first it was just IBS and then eventually turned into inflammatory bowel disease, which is Crohn's and Colitis, and that's where I specialize now is those dealing with some of the worst gut disease on earth, and so I really have seen the full spectrum.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's definitely a shitty situation.

Speaker 2:

No, pun intended hey.

Speaker 1:

You know the first thing that crossed my mind, which just blows my mind people complain about going to the gym, like where I am in New York. It's like, oh, it's too cold. This guy's in Calgary. And the first thing I'm thinking about is this poor woman. Lynn is showing up at 435 o'clock in the morning. It's negative 35 degrees outside and she's still hitting the gym like excuses. Living south of New York is just out, man.

Speaker 2:

That's it. It was amazing. So I mean, it did come to a point where you know we were working out after work for the first couple of years and I worked with her for five, six years and you know she was after work for what? Quite a while. And then her work schedule changed. She started getting it two o'clock or three o'clock or one o'clock and there was just nothing in the world she'd rather do.

Speaker 2:

It's like once she saw what her body was capable of. When she saw she was able to 57 years old, five feet tall, 160 pounds, pulling 315 off the floor, like it's just you don't see that very often and it's amazing. When she saw how capable she was, she got addicted and I think that's just really a tell for human beings. So many of us underestimate our potential and our health potential, not only in the fitness personal training space, but just how much our gut health holds us back from everything. Your joints, your activity, your energy levels, focus, memory, concentration, motivation, weight gain, weight loss it all comes back to the gut. It's a major player and if we can address that, every aspect of our lives get better.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and my own. It's just gonna get mad at me, but it's okay. So you think back to what I harp on time and time and time again. It's the first place I go with gut health and that's sleep quality, and I go, I think, stop talking about sleep. It's like no, you don't understand. Sleep is super important, and then we can relate this to gut health. It's your sleep quality, depending on how healthy you're gut it. So I know you have things to add to that, so I'm going to let you talk about it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, I tell people it's all about cumulative stressors, right? The more accumulation we have of stress, of anxiety, of stress, chemicals and hormones, the worse your gut's going to get. Your body basically operates in two main states. It's either in rest digest, or it's in fight or flight. It can't do both adequately, it has to be one or the other to again a degree of severity. And so if we come in, we're not sleeping. Well, we'll guess what's elevated all your cortisol, all your stress hormones, all your adrenal function and activity, which puts you in this fight, flight state. Therefore, you are not rest digest, which means you're not producing stomach acid. Number one leading cause for acid reflux is low stomach acid. You're not going to be producing digestive enzymes, you're not breaking down and absorbing. Therefore you're not getting nutrients in. And now you're throwing off everything because you quite literally are what you digest, break down and absorb. And if you're not sleeping, you're not digesting, you're not breaking down and you're not absorbing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I can add to that where it's. What time of night are you eating to let your body digest? What are you like? Is your body fighting? For example? Here's a great example I'm severely lactose intolerant and once in a while I just smell pizza and it's like I had this fight in my head. Is it worth it? Is it worth it? And then, once in a while, I keep it, because we're all human, so I'll have a nice slice of pizza and then that night, horrible sleep. I'm asleep, I wake up and I'm like I get bags on my eyes and she's like I was like. This was last night, which is right, it's a great example, but I did this. Incredible bags for my body. It's been the entire night fighting to break down that cheese that it just didn't want in my body in the first place.

Speaker 1:

And I just feel a little lethargic the next day. It's like all that just from that simple choice of should I have that slice of pizza or not?

Speaker 2:

It's amazing. You know I often run into the same thing because I've got Candida. Right now I'm trying to get out came from a huge boat of stressors and all kinds of stuff and so I've got this Candida, which is effectively a fungus, and I'm not a carb starches, any of that stuff. Now is that my in-laws. Couple of weeks back I didn't even think about it, they were just, you know, they had soup and they, you know, had some fresh French bread she had just made. I was like, oh, thanks so much, marina, glad you made this bread. And I grabbed a piece and it got halfway through and I'm like this is full of gluten and starch. My Candida is going to hate it.

Speaker 2:

And for four days I was stupid. I mean like my brain wasn't functioning, I couldn't recall information, I couldn't process things properly, I was a little irritable, couldn't focus at work. And that's what happens, because your gut, when it has imbalances, if you're bloated, if you have any kind of issue, if there's constipation, diarrhea, acid reflux, even if you have asymptomatic gut issues I mean you don't know you have gut issues or irregular bowel movements. Eating gluten is bad for everyone. First of all, unquestionably, the science is clear. No one should eat gluten ever. Second to that, your bacteria. When there's imbalances produced, these will call endotoxins, and there's toxin, toxic byproduct made by bacteria that get into your bloodstream, they get into your brain, they get all around the body. People who have arthritis could be coming from your gut. Asthma could be coming from your gut, probably as skin issues. Look at the gut and so it's all connected to everything and what we eat has a direct relationship to that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I definitely believe in what we eat has a direct relation to who we are, how we feel, on all of the above. So let's kind of people say, all right, I get it. Gut health, gut health, whatever. So what is step one in order to kind of figure out what you should be eating?

Speaker 2:

Number one I think the most important thing we can do is understand. You know, and I know we say gut health, gut health, like I think people need to understand. We can say gut health is important. But my thing is, why is it important? And once we have the education of my experience as an educator excuse me, as a lecturer when we have the understanding of why it is so important, we have a bloody reverence for our guts, only then can we really take the steps. So if I could, anthony, I want to back this up a little bit and throw you some statistics about the gut and why it's so important, and we'll talk about what we can do for our guts.

Speaker 2:

Number one I often say our gut bacteria are more important than our very own DNA, which is a bold, bloody statement. But look at this you have. On average, the average person has about 100 trillion different bacteria in their gut and makes up three to five pounds of just bacteria in your gut, which means the average person's body weight. Two to 3% of it is just bacteria, which is massive. They outnumber our body's own cells by 10 percent to one. Inside those bacteria we have viruses that will number them 35 to one. Then there's fungi, yeast and all kinds of stuff that live inside of our bodies, and so, even if we look at the human genome right your genes you have 23,000 different genes that are part of making you, you. Your gut bacteria have 3 million different genes, and they interact with every aspect of our body. So when I say, like what we eat in our gut is important, I mean they're literally more abundant, 10 times more abundant than your own body cells. They are everything, in everywhere. You have bacteria on your skin, in your eyes we had them directly. You have them all over your eyebrows. Orally, in the nose, women will have their own microbiome vaginally. Even a baby being born has its own microbiome in the placenta. So it is everywhere, and so that's number one. We have to understand that it's not just, oh, gut health is important. It is a literally more important and more abundant than your own DNA, and so people have compared models and said, well, if you took an entire human being and took all the bacteria and all the DNA and compressed it, the DNA would fit in your big toe. The rest of your body is bacteria, and so it's everything, and so we need to do more.

Speaker 2:

Talking about taking care of it is number one. Inflammation is the worst. Your gut bacteria love a nice, steady environment, but bad bacteria, the unhealthy stuff that produces toxins that circulate around your body. Right, you're small intestine. It's only one cell between that and your bloodstream. Your large intestines only two, and so everything that comes in your gut, it's literally one cell thick before it gets into the super highway of your lymphatic and your bloodstream and circulates around the body. And so what we eat, what we break down, digest and absorb, is everything. So if we're eating aspartame, if we're eating sugars, we're eating fried foods, these things that are inflammatory do inflame the body.

Speaker 2:

People go well, no, gluten doesn't bother me, it does unquestionably. You may not have symptoms right away, but it affects everyone every single time. The science is very clear and the reason that happens between the stomach and the small intestine we have a little something called T L R, for receptors is your toll like receptor number four, and what they do is they stand guard. And if you consume gluten, your body actually identifies gluten like the microscopic level of it looks like a pathogenic bacteria, and so it opens the floodgates and creates leaks in the gut. Now leaky guts are defense mechanism. It says, yeah, flush water in to flush this thing out, right, it's like hosing down a driveway.

Speaker 2:

Everyone who eats gluten will get leaky gut. Now, if you develop gut symptoms, that's one thing. Other people might develop irritability, or me cognition issues, or I get acne or something happens. But everybody gets leaky gut because these gluten are toxic and people want to defend them. Well, gluten's also addictive. There's something in them called gluteal morphins, which sit in the morphine receptors of your body, is literally addictive and sits in the same place as morphine and it's really hard for us to let go. And in the inflammatory bowel disease space, I hear people all the time oh, gluten's fine with me, I eat gluten. My doctor says I don't have gluten issues. I'm telling you you do. It does not matter what you think, what your doctor says. You do have a gluten issue and that's a hard one to swallow.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's definitely. It's definitely different. I'm not totally versed in gluten and breakdown and everything like that, so I'm just going to hold my opinion to myself but no, please.

Speaker 2:

I mean, this is an educational podcast, and so that's about it.

Speaker 1:

I mean, just feel like to be frank, like I don't know if I believe it, but yet again, I don't know the science enough to back it up. I can speak more in lactose environment because I'm being myself very severely bad. I can tell you that only 4% of people actually don't have a lactose intolerance issue and that stems from a lot of issues. If you're DNA, or if you talked about like effective DNA and gut micro, you'll produce lactase only. If you're, I believe it's like Northern European ancestors. So you're talking, ireland, scotland, like those areas where they've had cows for thousands of years have a different gut micro than those that were from everywhere else. Like I'm mostly Sicilian. So there was no cows. There was no cows. It just didn't exist, right, we were never exposed to it and never was able to build that up in our systems.

Speaker 1:

That's why I like she's like really bothers me and it plays more than just when I try to explain this to people. It's not. Oh, I just have a bathroom bath. It's literally like what you're saying. It causes brain fog for me and like fucks up my sleep. It really gets involved in day to day activities where it takes time to get over and I used to like really eat a lot of it when I was younger because I didn't care, and then, as I started cutting it out of my life, my tolerance for like drops. So now even trace amounts like really get me and just all over again. Just back to all these issues. Just stinks, because Jesus is so good, and you would think that like Italians, who are all lactose intolerant, by the way say why do they put freaking milk in everything? It makes no sense.

Speaker 2:

Well, it's interesting because that's a great example. I'm glad you brought that up because you know lactose bothers you because it immediately causes inflammation and you immediately get bloated or get loose stool or something will happen and you go oh yeah, that's really messed me up. So we can define it because we can feel it. But it's a spectrum. Think of it like a glass of water, right? Someone who's got a lot of inflammation using a lot of toxins in their home, who's high stress, who eats pretty medium to poor diet and then they eat gluten, that's a contributor.

Speaker 2:

But if somebody's got an empty glass where they're extraordinarily healthy no autoimmune issues, no health issues, no digestive issues, no cognitive issues, like they are just born from horse stock will never get sick eating gluten. They have a tolerance for it, but that's all it is. It's a spectrum of tolerance. So some people it fills, the cup overflows. We have symptoms. Other people they can tolerate it on an ongoing basis, but a lot of people can't or they don't recognize that it's a problem for them, but for everyone it does cause a problem, doesn't throw everyone off a cliff, but every single time it does contribute to that glass overflowing, if that makes more sense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean it does, and I really think everything's heavily linked back to where you're from or where's your intensity from, and that's it just plays a role with how we look as humans, how we function, how we tolerate vitamin D absorption is dependent on where we're from. Ancestry wise, like there's so many things that we can just look back and be like, hey, my ancestors, thousands is to go ahead. Access to this, meaning this stuff doesn't bother me. Meanwhile, all these foods I would get from a grocery store like we've never had. So that really like screws me up, put that inside of my body, kind of deal I do need to hop into just real quick, guys.

Speaker 1:

If you haven't heard already, keith and I are starting a brand new company called F squared consulting. It is fitness and financial freedom. This company is a brainchild of ours because I looked into it and we had a whole episode about last week where it was hey, fitness and finances go hand in hand and as an entrepreneur, the last thing you're thinking about is your own personal health and your own personal finances, because you are obsessing over your business time and time again. So we come in and we say, hey, look, listen, you need to put these things in order to reduce your stress, which is going to help with your gut microbe issues and also just help you not have to worry about so you can spend more time focusing on your business. We're going to teach you everything we know. We're going to meet with you every single week. It is all done virtually and it is something that I really truly believe everyone needs and their lives. There is absolutely no commitments, anything we do, and we're offering all podcasts listeners 10% off going forward. So please go check us out, guys.

Speaker 1:

Fit bodies, that walletscom. That is fit bodies, that walletscom. It is F square consulting. Thank you, guys Appreciate it. So I just want to have kind of use that as transition for us. Talk about the effect of stress on our gut. So I think that's everyone knows that, especially because we're in that holiday season right now. So what can you do? Are there any actionable steps we can take to help our gut microbe directly related to stress?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, stress is really interesting because, like I said, it wreaks havoc. It activates stress hormones which cause inflammation, which can wear down the gut lining, leading to inflammation and leaky gut, inhibits digestive processes, stomach acid, digestive enzymes, that even basis of peristalsis which is just moving food through the system. So all these things become inhibited under stress. The best thing I can recommend is just to focus on food when it's time to eat. So many of us eat on the go. We do what's called dashboard dining. We're just eating in the car on the run. We're chewing, we're like swallowing, like pelicans, like one gulp and we're not really chewing our food. And that process of just taking a minute, take five breaths, just nice and slow in and out right before you start eating, can really just turn the clock back on the nervous system and get you to relax a little bit and it won't completely negate all the stressors you have. But learning to sit and eat when it's time to eat, focus on the food, not what you're doing. So many of us, food is either a nothing but enjoyment or be nothing but a necessity. But for very few of us to. We look at food as an opportunity to nourish ourselves and we can truly do that, everything else gets better. Much like sleep. Right, everything else can improve if we just focus on sleep. Well, if we just focus on food. When it's time to focus on food, if you know, we can sit and have conversations and be social. That's actually been shown to improve digestibility. But when we're eating on the go, you're shuttling five kids into the van to go to soccer practice. Like, just wait till you get there, sit in the chair, take five breaths on the bleachers and then start eating. And that is a much better Opportunity for you and lots of people who still have issues. They still find themselves stressed out.

Speaker 2:

Try digestive enzyme. Right, you can get them for pretty cheap. They're not expensive. Something very basic. You can get digestive enzymes with 40 different things in them. I recommend very basic Protease, amylase, lipase just very basic. Some might have some butane, hcl or stomach acid in there and that alone can help improve digestion for people who struggle to sit. I'm not saying it's a replacement for sitting and breathing. I'm saying do both. But even if the sitting and breathing isn't enough, just taking a digestive enzyme can really help with your absorbing, helping your energy, decreasing inflammation, helping with your skin, helping with your sleep, all those things, that's. That's probably the most basic thing we can do.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm nice and easy, especially like my vision with that, by the way, is kid screaming in the car? Yeah, because the middle of winter and you're just sitting there with Pete like fast food shoving it down. You're the road, as you have 10 shopping bags in your back.

Speaker 1:

You know you're thinking about having to get these darn kids out of the car, get the gifts inside without them seeing it and just running around the hair everywhere. But not that I know hair is really, but Just Just a vision of everyone right now going on. So, yeah, I really think it stresses super important. Definitely want to make sure you're not eating on the go. That's a huge tip because you're gonna make bad choices even on top of that. How many of us are stopping for like healthy salad and Lean meats on the go?

Speaker 2:

I mean even at that. If you stop at, like Wendy's or McDonald's, one of these places, grab a salad Heavily covered in pesticides. The dressing is full of sugar. Whatever you get, the grilled chicken or whatever on top of it, cooked in seed oils, highly inflammatory, most of the chicken soy and isolates and all kinds of junk based anyway. It's not real meat. In fact, there was even a class action lawsuit against subway for the tuna melts because the tuna melt did not contain any tuna. What's your mind? 0% tuna mind-blowing, how it's legal. And so you know. We have to be also aware of our food and take responsibility for it and understand that just because the label says you know Farm fresh, it's not farm fresh. I haven't fact-checked this one, but I heard years back when McDonald's said 100% beef. It was actually like a company they named called 100% beef. But if someone has information to check on that and let me know.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I want to know that too, because I've heard the same thing, but I haven't ever fact-checked it. So yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I wouldn't doubt it. I mean, the average McDonald's hamburger has something like a DNA from like a thousand different cows, and Even that fast food right, a lot of it. Even if you're getting quote healthy fast food, it's not, it's all trash, because they have to treat it in such a way to make it taste the same in New York or Calgary or in the UK. It has to taste the same, and so there's no way they can do that using ingredients from different locations, and so everything's Mitch, mixed and mashed and it's this hod podge full of chemicals. In fact, there was a video of a guy from the UK it was a scientist who remade the McDonald's Big Mac and use like 50-some odd chemicals. Most were highly toxic, known to cause irritation or cancer or other things that these ingredients listed. I mean, it looked like a little like breaking bad on this guy's table and he used these chemicals to remake the Big Mac, the cheese, the bun, all that stuff, and it's horrific when you see it broken down To its finer parts. It's like the idea videos.

Speaker 1:

What was the movie? Super size me.

Speaker 2:

Oh.

Speaker 1:

Burger after like 80 days and it never broke down and look the exact same. That's disgusting, like me, like you take a fresh burger right, you put it up a day it starts smell.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I can guarantee you, if your food does not break down on the shelf, it is not breaking down in your gut.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's the great, great example.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's one exception, which is like ferments, but it's fermented and once you open it it then starts to break down, right? Even? Look at like a jar of sauerkraut was in a couple of weeks you've got after it's been open. So anything exposed to open air and left to it, to its natural devices, to nature, should break down. If it does not do it, it's plastic.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk about some more like things. We talked about a lot of what things you can't have. Let's talk about things you can't have let's say like what are ways to increase your gut micro without taking Obviously like probiotics and things like that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's a lot of controversy around diet types. A lot of people will recommend will you need fiber? Because it feeds your gut bacteria. Others advocate for the carnivore, animal based diets. Personally, I tend to lean more animal based, but I don't stray away from fruits and basics, but I also eat a ton of vegetables. And it's really interesting because I think everyone's gonna be a bit different.

Speaker 2:

And this is where intuition comes in. Or testing, right, if you can get a GI map, so like a stool test, to check, you know, the DNA analysis of your gut microbes and see where they are and what balance and all that. If you can do that, you can understand. If I have a lot of overgrowth, you should be eating low fiber because that fiber, your bacteria eat them and the dominant ones eat first. If you have overgrowth, they will eat and they will produce byproducts because you eat, you poop, your bacteria eats and it poops. So what is it pooping? Good things or bad things? And if you're overgrown you're getting more bad things. So I recommend low fiber In those cases where someone has, you know, really clean microbiome. It could tolerate a lot more of it.

Speaker 2:

But then you have the argument like human beings made to be carnivores. Right the elementary canal and comparative anatomy, we look more carnivore based. Dietarily speaking, we can look at the in you what we can look at thousands and thousands of years ago. People eat more animal based and so the argument goes well, you need fiber because you can't break it down and therefore it's good for your gut because your microbes eat it. On the other hand, they say don't eat red meat because you can't break it down, so you shouldn't eat it. You can't have it both ways. So which one is it? And I've noticed in myself and my clients dealing with the gut space the more animal based we go, the better people perform, regardless of what the science and the data and the studies say. There's enough to push for both. All right. That's the problem with science is it's always ongoing and people say no, no, vegans best. I will never in my life advocate for a vegan diet for anyone ever.

Speaker 1:

I think it's one of the worst diets in the world. What that's? Unquestionably, unquestionably.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's. There's no data, unless it's cherry picked from people who say yeah, vegans, good, you got these vegan bodybuilders. Half of them are on gear anyway, and so I will say this, and this is an.

Speaker 1:

I think you 100% agree with me on this if you have to supplement, yes, you need a. Diet is not healthy.

Speaker 2:

Yes. And if you have to eat two Brazil nuts and one leaf of this and three ounces of that, how is that sustainable? Nobody in the history of ever could have eaten that way. And so to say, we have these problems. And here's my other, my other quam.

Speaker 2:

More plant-based diets are consumed amongst the affluent, financially, socially speaking, so we'll say the wealthy, you know, upper middle class. I consume more plant-based diets. On the other hand, digest diseases like Crohn's and all sort of colitis have often been called the rich white ladies disease because it's among mostly more women than men, I guess like 60-40 split, give or take, but among the higher upper middle class who consume what more? Plants? And so there's a lot of data saying it's bad and it was at the pesticides. Is it the plants themselves? Who knows?

Speaker 2:

But on the other hand, when eating an animal-based diet, those animals filter those things out. It's the most nutrient-dense, the most bioavailable. And it's interesting because conventional medicine or any conventional data will say well, your microbes need fiber. On the other hand, I stake three, four times a day and I've never been healthier. My gut's never been better, coming from a history of having gut issues. My energy, my skin, my moods, my strength. I've never been better my ADHD never been better than consuming meat in fat on an ongoing basis, with the occasional fruit or vegetable.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I'm going to go back to the point I made way earlier. What if your ancestors and your specific genes used to eat?

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's the case in point there, and everybody's ancestors ate meat, though, and that's the thing.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the men used to go hunt and yeah, think about it. There was no like food prepping, right, but food prepping was a bare minimum. It was kill an animal, bring it back and you just ate that for the meal and then the day you snacked on fruits If you had them available sure, if you had them available, it was more food than it was.

Speaker 1:

Veggies, though? Absolutely, because I've read a crazy survival book and I recommend you guys look into this. Don't quote me on the exact percentages, but the point is to show you the extreme. If you're stuck out in the wilderness, right, and there is nothing around you, 2% of animals to us are deadly Like. If we ate them, we would die Like a puffer fish. Yeah, correct, 98% are good. The exact opposite is true for plants 98% of plants are poisonous to us, 2% are good.

Speaker 1:

So if you're stuck in the middle of nowhere and you know nothing about survival and it's like, what do I eat? I'm starving You're better off eating insects and animals, because your odds are way higher of surviving than you are eating a plant. And there's a whole like breakdown of how to see if a plant's poisonous enough, and it takes I think they said it takes on average like 10 days for us to really figure out if something's safe to eat, because it's like first touch it and then give it a day, then put on your lips and give it a day, put it in your mouth and spit it out and give it a day, then in just a small, little, tiny amount, then give it a day, so like it ends up and you're starving.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 10 days is a hard fast, man. The most I've ever made is four and 100%. Even to those plants, the animals that eat them intuitively know they can or cannot eat them.

Speaker 1:

They're fine and they find us, my dog, by the way.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, dogs are different breed of stupid. I have a dash on it, I get it and it's interesting because all those toxins, the animals filter them out and then you eat the animal, unquestionably an animal-based diet. We've, since the beginning of time, before the agriculture, evolution, before farming, we always ate animals and that's how it should be.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I'm going to even just add one to it. If you're worried about things because you have, like high cholesterol in your family and stuff like that, just note high cholesterol does not increase Dietary cholesterol, does not increase your cholesterol period, but high levels of trans fat and saturated fat can. So eating leaner meats. So it needs to have more of a leaner side of it On the other hand. Turkey, Elk.

Speaker 2:

And if you've got like gut issues or liver issues because of the junk you consume before, because of an over vegetable consumption, because of fast food, fried foods, now you're not going to be able to break that stuff down Like cholesterol. Every cell in your body is made of cholesterol. Your brain is made of cholesterol. Your cells, your nerves, it's all cholesterol. And so you know to say avoid cholesterol or put someone on statins is asinine. I don't know Doctors using statins. The science just isn't there. It's one of the leading causes of Alzheimer's, next to other issues. But we look at this. It's a matter of what we break down and absorb and if you're not breaking down and utilizing cholesterol properly, that's an issue with your gut and your liver. You have to go back and fix that up because it's been destroyed by the other way. You've been eating which is low cholesterol, low fat and low everything else.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I need to get to one more point. I know I told you I have an hour, but I want you to talk about this because I think, out of everything, this is one of the most important things Sugar, alcohols, fake sugars, aspartin, whatever I keep it out of names xylitol, all those freaking fake sugars. Let's talk about that and its effect on your gut, because I can tell you, every single time I get gut inflammation or my wife gets gut inflammation, I read a label that has some kind of sugar alcohol in it. It's always the answer.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So sugar alcohol is anything that basically ending in O-L, sorbitol, xylitol, any, all right. Now those are pros and cons. I look at xylitol. It can be used as like a biofilm buster, so bacteria produce biofilms. It's one that allows them to move around and travel and breed and multiply. On the other hand, it's a protective layer and so xylitol can be used to break those down. On the other hand, the sugar alcohols are artificial. They're refined. The human body's not made to break it down.

Speaker 2:

Look at all these modern diseases. We have right, we've had more diabetes and heart disease and Alzheimer's and all kinds of things in the last 80 years since the introduction of sugar, alcohols, artificial sweeteners, fast food, fried foods, all these things into our diet since the 1950s, and that's when we see these diseases spike. You can directly correlate and say here's all these additives we had in our food and here are these diseases. Both of them climb simultaneously. It's almost a one-to-one ratio, and so we know they're bad for us. And I get arguments all the time. People say well, there's no study saying it's bad, it's just correlation. I'm like yes, absolutely. But this is where we have to look. Western medicine has trained us to be so black and white. Well, if there's no study, it's innocent until proven guilty. Did you know that there are over 5,000 new chemicals added to your food, your water, your products every single year, and they make a list called GCS, generally considered safe, which means innocent until proven guilty. Well, all these sicknesses and diseases you know, autism used to be something like one in 10,000, one in 30,000. And they're estimating, by 2030, it's going to be one in three, which is staggering, and right now it's like one in 30. And so we're seeing the decline of the human civilization and human health and human cognition.

Speaker 2:

Based on the correlation which some people think is not strong enough data for all these additives, these sugar, alcohols, these inflammatory foods, these chemicals, it's directly correlated and so to say, because we can't prove it, that's, that's nonsense and that's something I really think the Western world needs to change. This is this innocent though proving guilty when it comes to our food and our chemicals. We know, we know unquestionably our water is toxic. We know, unquestionably, our food is toxic. We know, unquestionably, our air is bloody toxic, and so everything that's being added, everything manmade, is bad for you. Most of the vegetables we eat are manmade. Most of these didn't exist. They're all GMO or modified, or they're hybrid strains of something that never existed hundreds of years ago, and so this is why, if we go back to nature, we will get better, but we're striving, we're straining, further and further away from it than ever before, and that, I believe, is what's killing people. Whether you can prove it in a double blind, randomized controlled trial or not, the correlation data is so strong it can't be ignored.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean, this is like that double edged, like you were saying. Right, You're right. Autism has, the rates are skyrocketing. It's unfathomable. It's something like works that population a lot If they are saying it's going to be one of three? What's causing it? No, I don't know. You can pinpoint one single thing. But to your point, there is something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I can. I can name a hundred things that I suspect. I mean look at digestive disease, right. Inflammatory bowel disease back in 1990, right, it was about 1.5 upwards of 3 million people worldwide who had these issues worldwide of the whole, but 6 billion at the time, okay, 1.5 to 3 million cases. Now, in 2020, it's north of 7 million. And they say, well, it's idiopathic, meaning no known cause. They say we don't know what's causing it. They say it might be just genetic, it might be environmental. Well, out of those 7 million cases, 3.5 to 4 million are in the United States alone, and the USA is less than 5% of the global population but has 50% of the bowel disease on planet Earth. And you tell me there's no known cause. We have better figure it out pretty freaking fast, you know.

Speaker 1:

I couldn't agree more. Really like it's mind boggling the amount of you look at us compared to third world countries. I'm going to use that in quotations. Like they're healthier, they are. That's more people are dying from obesity than are dying from starvation Fact.

Speaker 2:

Fact bears beats battle star Galactica.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

It's wild.

Speaker 1:

I remember back just because I saw the documentary on it. But uh, oh, my God, I'm a blank on the guy's name. A famous singer. They had a whole African concert in the 1980s.

Speaker 2:

No idea, I'm the head of the sand. I live under a rock.

Speaker 1:

It's okay. It was like a feed Africa concert. They ran and they had millions of people donating money to help give food and supplies. Think about how big that was right and people that can relate and remember that time in history. Yeah, there was a lot of money rates, because that's a huge issue. It is. That was 1980s. We're in 2023, 43 years later. Let's more people die of obesity Then are dying of starvation.

Speaker 2:

Well, we also have a criminal organization running the entire government. I mean, realistically speaking, that's a rabbit hole to get down. Another time for another type of podcast. But I mean, if you guys just want to look at the Kissinger report 1970 something Henry Kissinger came out and said that we need to control the population of Africa because America needs the resources we can control them through vaccination, through health care, through sterilization, because we want their resources. And so we look at this, like we can see there's so much working against us as humanity and that's why, yeah, I mean, africa is one of the most abundant, nutrient-rich continents on earth. It should be bloody Wakanda, but it's been absolutely just just ransacked for everything it has and the people enslaved still to this day. Looking at cobalt mines, it's hell on earth. And so you know, we have so much of the stuff still going on and we're wondering why we're all sick. I Believe it starts in the top. I believe I personally know I mean you can cut this, you don't want a conspiratorial podcast, but I absolutely believe this. Yeah, I believe it's 100% intentional.

Speaker 2:

The FDA is a criminal organization that approves things that make you sick, which feeds into big pharma. Which big pharma? They have representatives that sit on every news station, every media outlet, and so we look at our food where it comes from, who approves it, who makes money when we get sick from the food that has been approved? It's just this big circle, jerk, and everyone is. We're all just at the receiving end.

Speaker 2:

Here in Canada, we're actually watching the health system decline like crazy. We are losing an entire industry of holistic health care in Canada because they've now come in and put waivers or levies and fines and fees on Natural health supplements, taking away people's ability to choose herbs and plants and remedies as medicine that we have to use. Pharmaceuticals companies now have to pay $500 well, it's coming here in the next year or two $500 per label to hold in their store per, not just per brand, per item. And so imagine a company like you go into GNC or a health food store who has 500 different products. It's pay 500 times 500 every year just to house them. And then there's import fees, then there's taxes and fees on all kinds of stuff and anybody not in compliance can be charged. With the five million dollars per Day found not in compliance, canada is running health out of the country.

Speaker 2:

You look at our health ministers. Look at Belgium and Germany and Canada and the United States. They're all obese, they're all sick, they all have mental health issues. And they're the health ministers claiming to be experts on mental health and wellness and they're the ones who are driving health out of the country. And we're all gonna be stuck taking pharmaceutical drugs as a saving grace to mask symptoms, rather than getting to the root cause. It is a shocking, shocking display of Lack of humanity, cruelty and plain fucking evil. As far as I'm concerned, it's wild to watch man. It's crazy this. We're all in trouble. We're all in deep, deep shit.

Speaker 1:

There are so many points that I had a great. This is one egg, a chat, a bend up a YouTube again. I Always, I always get to the reference back, like back in the 70s, the FDA, that sugar is completely safe and harmless, it doesn't cause obesity or diabetes, and that study was up, as everyone knows at this point, was sponsored by Coca-Cola. And then you go back to the Obama era where Michelle Obama was trying to go after the food in schools and and she really like, was trying to change nutrition for kids because without feeding the cafeteria borderline unsafe.

Speaker 1:

Oh and the pelican group which comes gives to. I think they said about like 65 percent of schools use the pelican group as food distributors sued her, went to court and they said we do give vegetables. We serve pizza and tomatoes a vegetable, which is not anymore, which is hysterical. But They've like potatoes, pizzas of vegetables and therefore we serve fruit and they love the pelican group. Wanting court and the court rule, they are serving up vegetables because tomato is in pizza, therefore pizzas a vegetable.

Speaker 1:

You want to talk about how corrupt everything is? This is go, look this up. Like I ain't making this up, this is all facts. And then what you had to do was stop going after Food and if ever remembers it was all stay active, the 60-minute active things you're pushing for Years. That was because she was no longer allowed to go after what kids were consuming and instead was blaming lack of activity, which I think both unnecessarily, obviously, but this is facts. Yeah, I'm the view of undistributed facts and that's we can totally in there in a high note. Stop stressed and my talk about my stress levels going. Thanks, josh, no, happy to help. Well, I'm gonna ask you a final two questions I ask everyone in. The first one is similar to summary step, so to one or two sentences. What would be your take home message?

Speaker 2:

Wow, okay, one or two sentences summarize the entire episode. Your health is your responsibility. Your country, your government, your food producers don't give a shit about you. You have to educate yourself. You have to understand that your gut is everything and unfortunately there's so much in our world destroying our gut. We need to take it. Take control, couldn't agree more.

Speaker 1:

That was a lot of things. It's okay, the second question how can people find you get a hold of your own one more? Yeah, my podcast, the best way to go.

Speaker 2:

That's called reversible the ultimate gut health podcast labeled the reverse able, and we meet with some of the world's most famous doctors and specialists Dr William Lee, dr Steven Gundry, mindy Pelts, lisa Bill you from impact theory all kinds of amazing guests We've had on our show and we just talk about one, how the world impacts our gut, and two, how our gut impacts our lives in our world around us and what we can do to take control of that. It's an amazing, amazing show and it's growing so rapidly and it's it will be one of the best of the best. So get in now and, you know, make sure it's number two.

Speaker 1:

Number one. Oh, we'll be number one.

Speaker 2:

Yeah well, we'll push a redefine fitness down the list and we'll take it. We'll take over. It'll be a battle, battle, battle, like. I shared this podcast, so we can get ahead.

Speaker 1:

Seriously, we'll have a Sicilian battle in New York, and just you know go old school 1920s I love it. Thank you for coming out. You charge. Thank you for coming on, guys. We'll soon in this week's episode of how fitness redefine. Don't forget, hit that subscribe button, share with a friend and join us next week. I just read I differ into this ever changing field and remember fitness is medicine until next time.

Speaker 2:

Oh you.

The Importance of Gut Health
Understanding the Importance of Gut Health
Effects of Stress on Gut Health
Diet and Additives