And then I I got a call from my mom just sobbing on the phone and she said I've been diagnosed with cancer again.

What can I tell you with Steve Jobs?

What I believe cancer as much or more than any condition is?

We just covered a lawsuit on Ozympic in that they knew that it could cause potential more, more blindness as a side effect and there's someone that's suing them because they said.

And he said, I just felt at that moment that God, God told me I would be healed.

And so he went and followed a diet that was very biblical in nature.

It went back in his cancer.

I would have them do something called FMT.

It stands for fecal matter transplant.

That's where you take someone else's.

You take someone else's.

Poop, poop.

Yep, Yep.

Bruce LON.

All right, ladies and gentlemen, today's guest is an author, a doctor, someone that is really tapped into functional medicine.

We're going to have a amazing conversation.

He just appeared on some of your other favorite podcast, and some of those got a little little little sensor, little suppressed on the algorithm.

So we see if we could maneuver around this conversation carefully.

And if we don't, then the Patreon community will get the exclusive version as they always do.

Without any further ado, Josh Axe, thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me.

It's an it's an honor to be here.

I'm pumped to be talking to you.

New book out the Biblio.

We need a diet.

That's right.

We you know, let's eat a diet based on the Bible.

OK.

OK.

So before we get into a diet based on the Bible, for folks who don't know, how did you come to doing that sort of work that you're doing with regards to nutrition, with regards to functional medicine, that sort of stuff?

Yeah, for me it it all started when I was in 8th grade.

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and it was really a surprising thing because my mom looked very fit.

She was a swim instructor, a gym teacher, and we lived in the sort of conventional model at that time.

Like, we didn't know anything.

And like a lot of families, we knew nothing about nutrition, nothing about natural health.

And so she went through and she had a mastectomy and went through many rounds of chemotherapy.

I still remember this day, how sick she got her losing her hair and I remember being in the parking lot in Columbus, OH at their at the the hospital there and her throwing up in a bucket, just incredibly sick.

And I remember I, I later on that day, I went back to my when we were back in my house in Ohio, I got down to my hands and knees.

I just pray to God.

I said, God help heal my mom.

And and then I started thinking things like just praying all that like God, there's got to be a better way.

And that really something just sparked in me after how sick my mom got.

And then my mom was diagnosed as being cancer free.

But the crazy part was after she went through all the chemo treatment, she seemed like she was worse than ever.

I mean, my mom used to be very energetic, very full of life.

And afterwards she got diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, hypothyroidism, autoimmune disease.

She got put on antidepressant medications and anti anxiety drugs and she was just sick and tired all the time.

I mean, I, that's a, a very distinct memories of her growing up and that went on for years.

And then I started learning about health and nutrition.

So I started, you know, doing protein powder and started.

As a as a kid in high school, you were in high school at this point.

Or yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, so like when I was a freshman in high school, I didn't know anything about health except for I knew soda was bad and so I stopped drinking soda in high school and.

That's like that's like step one, right?

Yeah.

I mean, I think I think most folks are like soda bad.

Like that's baseline of like health and fitness.

And so this is in high school and going into college and starting to get.

This was high school, went into college started doing pre Med or you know taking biochem all those classes and decided I want to be a doctor and then eventually was about to graduate.

I was in chiropractor school working on my doctor of natural medicine and nutrition as well.

And then I, I got a call from my mom just sobbing on the phone and she said I've been diagnosed with cancer again.

I've been diagnosed with lung cancer.

And she said, what do I do?

And I flew home.

I was in Florida at the time.

We first thing we did is we got down on her hands and knees and prayed together along with my dad.

And we both felt really led to take care of her all naturally.

And, and we talked to her oncologist and they were recommending we do surgery and radiation right away, but we decided we were going to, we were going to take a natural path.

And so she started juicing vegetables every single day.

We started doing a lot of wild caught salmon, a lot of herbs and mushrooms, high doses of turmeric, vitamin D, those sort of things.

And we followed a really specific program.

And the other thing I'll say is, I mean, it was very the, the, the Bible was a really big inspiration.

And of course, our faith was such a big part of her healing.

We had so many people laying hands on her and praying for her.

She had about 20 Bible verses that she just would recite every single day, morning, noon and night.

And and so we followed this program four months later, went back into the CT scan, got a call from the oncologist and they said they were shocked, but the tumors had shrunk in half.

They said come back again in nine months.

Went back nine months later, complete remission.

And it's been almost 20 years since it's been 19 years.

And now my mom is in her 70s, in the best shape of her life.

She water skis still she can, you know, she ran A5 KA few years ago, got second in her age group and so doing incredibly well.

So that's really what got me into natural medicine is seeing my mom deal with all the health problems that she had.

You know, what's crazy is my mom will actually tell you today she's glad she had cancer because it brought her closer to my dad.

She learned so much.

Like now my mom teaches other breast cancer and other cancer survivors how to make superfood smoothies, how to, you know, how to eat healthy.

And so, you know, God is really sort of, you know, used it for for good.

That's incredible.

So first time she your your middle school?

High school, Yeah.

She goes the chemo and that whole path, right?

Which, which really, I mean, the the brutal part about chemo is that it is trying to wipe everything out.

And that's why people have such brutal side effects.

Well, it's also why most people that die of cancer die of secondary cancer, because you're not only damaging just that one area, those cancer cells, you're not damaging every cell, every mitochondria in your entire body, increasing your, your, your risk of like metastasis or, or it going to a more important organ.

Yeah.

And so the second time around, same type of cancer, breast cancer.

No, it was that lung.

It was lung cancer the second time around.

Sorry, I missed that part.

And then you guys go the metro path and tumor shrink in half and then completely cancer free within nine months and hasn't had cancer since.

That's right.

That's crazy.

I mean, OK, so, so the skeptic would would say, well, was it as possible as a misdiagnosis or something like that?

Well, I mean they, they were very specific.

The tumors on your PET scan, it's a type of CT scan are it's 2.4cm and now it's down to 1.2 and now it's and now they're gone.

So I mean that would be pretty hard or rare to have it that centimeter, the second shrunk and then that that would be highly unlikely.

And there wasn't one.

There were, there were, there were two, there were multiple.

So it's.

Yeah.

So I think I think I've heard of I've heard a couple things and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

So I've heard one when folks get these diagnosis with cancer that often times going towards a more of a plant based diet is, can be helpful because the protein helps stuff grow, muscle grow and plants don't.

And so it's like when someone's gets a diagnosis that it's, it's, it's really good to go direction of something plant based so that you can help the tissues not grow and, and get become, you know, more out of control.

Yeah, in order to be healthy, you need to have two things going on in Chinese.

Medicine describes this pretty well as well.

They call it yin and Yang.

We would call it catabolic and anabolic.

Catabolic is there's a process called autophagy in the body and this is where your body is getting rid of something.

Cancer cells, another group of cells are called senescent cells.

These are cells that basically leak inflammatory proteins causing disease and inflammation our body and actually age us more quickly.

Vegetables, you know, certain types of fruit and, and plants generally are more catabolic and they're less anabolic.

So they're going to help clean up and help you detoxify in a much stronger way.

Typically meat is more anabolic.

Now listen, you really want both because you do want to be to a degree anabolic because that's going to create muscle mass and that's so important for longevity.

So you want to be doing both.

But you are right that when you have cancer, you want to turn on more of that catabolic process, be a fasting, A toffegy vegetables, certain herbals are going to help do that and, and typically do lower protein intake if you are going to do protein.

And this is what my mom did.

We did, we did a sort of a mixed I, I, I sort, I put together a program for her that was inspired by several things.

One is called Gershon therapy.

It's very heavy into vegetable juicing.

And then we looked at some sort of ancient Asian medicine.

And then we also looked at the Bible and Gershon.

What they did is they would have you do juice, vegetables and liver.

So liver in terms of meat is the most cleansing and the most nutrient dense.

So the Liver King was on to something.

Well, here's the thing.

You know what?

Yeah, there's.

Yeah.

So First off, the way that he did it and promoted it was in such a different way than all of history in terms of the way it's been done as medicine.

I mean, I'm not to say that he's wrong.

I mean, I do.

Liver is liver is the most nutrient dense food on the planet.

It's more nutrients than dense than kale or broccoli or salmon.

I mean, it's so powerful.

It's got 10 times more vitamin B12 or B vitamins than almost any other food.

So, so, so it is great for almost everything.

But generally speaking, there's an ancient principle and it's called like heals.

Like if you want to heal an organ, eat that organ or a food that looks like that organ.

So you, you know, I mean, God makes some of this stuff pretty obvious, like walnuts look like a hemisphere of the brain.

In fact, it's, I mean, think about how specific it is.

You have a left side and a right side of a walnut within a, you know, a ball essentially like the brain and it's loaded with vitamin E, omega-3 fatty acids, incredible for incredible for the brain.

A coconut looks like a head full of medium chain fatty acids, which are which are great for ketones and.

I mean, they, they call it like brain food, right?

Like ruts and and coconut, Yeah.

And then you got carrots.

It looks like you got tomatoes.

It has four chambers.

The heart has four chambers.

Has lycopene helps heal the heart?

Ovaries look like olives.

Olives are great for hormonal health.

Interesting.

So figs like testes, in fact, that was consumed in Roman culture for fertility.

So all that being said, I think God makes some of this stuff pretty obvious.

But liver in particular is so important for detoxification.

And when you have cancer, there tends to be two issues going on.

There's weakened immunity and weak detoxification pathways or they're overwhelmed.

So you really want to enhance detoxification and immunity.

And so This is why consuming liver is so powerful.

There's another glandular people also take sometimes called thymus gland and that's part of cancer protocol.

But but anyways, going back to this, my mom consumed almost all vegetables, fruit, and then did some liver and salmon.

Those were the two sources of protein she had.

But you're totally right.

You don't want to overdo those anabolic if you're with that specific condition.

Yeah, totally.

And it and it seems like the flip side to this though, is I remember hearing Steve Jobs story and then he did, he went this whole homeopathic path and his whole thing.

And then by the time he was like, OK, I think he I think he came around and finally was willing to try chemo, but it was too late at that point.

What what can I tell you with Steve Jobs?

What what I I believe cancer as much or more than any condition is spiritual.

OK.

And I think that what to give you an example of this in, in a different example, then I'll bring it back here.

You know, when I first got into practice, I would take care of patients and I would notice that, you know, we would put them on a very specific diet for let's say inflammatory bowel disease.

And when we got them off gluten and casein and some of those basic foods and got them on a real healing food, lots of soups, things like that, their IBD would go away.

But on occasion they might have flare ups.

They ate a pizza, way too much ice cream, that sort of thing.

They'd have a flare up and then I would have people come in that were still eating perfect and they would have a flare up.

And what would flare them up was stress at work.

I'm going through a divert divorce.

I'm worried about my kids the exact same or just as bad or worse type of flare up.

So there is a really deep, a mental and emotional and spiritual component to our, to our health.

In fact, I think it's more important than nutrition.

I think nutrition's the second most important.

But I think the reason why someone like Steve Jobs likely got cancer wasn't due to his diet.

I think it was due to maybe his relationship with his family, his kids, mental health issues, you know, so, so I actually think for maybe it was because he didn't do it in time.

But I, but I think for most people, when they have cancer, they don't look at dealing with childhood trauma.

They're not working on building, growing in virtue and, and sort of this, you know, praying for healing.

And now some are, but there's a lot that aren't doing.

I mean, I would even say Christians, there are so many people today.

I, I really believe that childhood trauma, we have these memories that we're stuck with that sort of replant our head.

And sometimes we're not even fully conscious of them or why we, you know, Paul says.

Like, I do what I don't want to do.

Yep, Yep.

We're on 7, yeah.

Yeah.

And so I think it's, there's, there's an element of that that's happening to people.

And even in some Christians, we'll kind of get in this toxic positivity thing where it's like, why just, you know, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, totally Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.

But let's go dig up that thing that's happened.

Let's then bring it to Jesus and let's actually deal with it the right way so you can fully be, be, be healed in that way.

So I, I was just bringing that up to say I, I think.

That's fair.

So, so with regards to Steve Jobs, like, because I think the tough part about what you're describing as there is a degree of clearly there's correlation and, and some would argue causation between nutrition and, and, and eliminating cancer cells, right?

To, to whatever degree they're at, that is.

But there's also that with chemo and, and the, the traditional modern medicine techniques, right?

So at at one point at at at what point do you go, Hey, you might want to go try chemo as well.

Yeah, if it's not working, OK, like I'll give you another example like my mom, if we if we would have been at that four month mark, we did the PET scan and witnessing results, We we we we might have done that.

Yeah, yeah, you know, I'll give you another example too.

So Jordan Rubin, who I, who I co-authored the book with, he, he was diagnosed with cancer, testicular cancer.

And the doctor walked in the room and they said, Jordan, this is so interesting.

He said, I know who you are and I know you might fight me on this.

But he said, if you don't do my recommendation of chemotherapy, you will be dead in three months.

And then after some discussion and Jordan continued listening, they left the room.

Jordan was with his wife Nikki, got on his hands and knees and quoted Job.

And he said naked, I entered this world naked.

I'll leave the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

And he said, I just felt at that moment that the God God told me I would be healed.

And so he went and followed a diet that was very biblical in nature, but also very, you know, had a very specific cancer protocol and did it for 40 days.

Went back in his cancer was he was, he was, he was healed.

He was completely healed of cancer.

So this happened about 14 years ago in that way.

And so I, you know, I, but I bring that up to say Jordan had a friend of his who's a Doctor Who said, Jordan, listen, if in this amount of time you don't, I really like, you know, will you do it?

And Jordan said, yeah, I'm open to it.

Then you know, so, so I do think there's a.

Yeah, there's a balance to it, right?

Because I think the tough part, many of us, especially those of us with trauma in our childhood, we deal with all or nothing thinking, right, which is all nothing thinking is connected to cognitive distortion and unresolved trauma.

Yeah.

So you know, I'm going to go over plant based and only do the nutritional thing and the doctor's like dude.

Take.

The chemo, dude, you know, and then it's like, oh, I'm just going to do the chemo and, and, and it doesn't matter how I eat.

But it sounds like you have a more balanced and nuanced approach to this.

What I was Here's my General Medical philosophy if you're sick.

Let's use diabetes as an example here.

Type 2 diabetes or depression could fall into this realm.

If you're sick, the first thing you should do is pray for healing.

Amen.

And I mean, I love James, you know, have the elders lay their hands on you, pray for healing and note your head with oil.

You would be made well.

So.

So I think that's the first thing.

And then along with that, like God calls us in Romans, you know, 12-1, like we're temples of the Holy Spirit.

Let's do everything we can now to start to like First Corinthians 1031.

Eat, drink, whatever you do.

Yeah, let's do it.

All the glory of God.

So let's eat a diet high in protein, high in fiber, eliminate the processed carbs.

Let's do supplements, chromium picolinate, berberine.

Let's start adding about a teaspoon of cinnamon to to two of your meals a day.

Let's start moving, even if it's just walking now, ideally weight training a couple days, but let's move.

So let's do that first.

You know, I found 99% of cases people will reverse their type 2 diabetes.

Oh absolutely.

And so and but the same is true for almost every condition.

Like I've helped so many women reverse PCOS or infertility or men with low testosterone following that approach.

Now, do I think there's a 1% at a time where somebody maybe they need to be on metformin for a very short period of time or maybe they need to be on a synthetic testosterone drug?

So, so there are absolutely times and places for that, but I honestly think it is so, so rare that if people do these lifestyle approaches, in almost every case, they're, they're, they're healed.

Yeah, I, I, I'm with you.

I think the tough part for me as of late is that I've done the thing where I've gotten shredded before, right?

And I've done it through Paleo, which thing is great.

Last time around IA good friend of mine took me through his protocol, which was more of a keto paleo in one very low carb, leanest I've ever been.

In the process, though, I also lost a lot of muscle.

And then the transition back after a 90 day cut to start strength training has was really difficult.

Like I was so depleted and so tired, right?

And so I think the tough part for me is that now I'm in a space where I am just meticulously logging everything I eat through weighing everything at home and through when I'm out and about.

I have a prompt in my ChatGPT that says, Hey, I'm on a cut.

I need you to round up when I take a picture and I describe what I'm eating for you.

And that that keeps me accountable.

So just the, the, the, the, the, the micro habit of just tracking my food has slowly caused the scale to go down.

It wasn't as drastic when I went from, you know, two O 5 to 170 in 90 days, but two O 5 to 190 in a couple months while traveling.

And then also not super restrictive what I eat, meaning if I want my kids and I want to have some pizza, I'm going to have some pizza.

If I want to have some ice cream, I'm going to have some ice cream.

I just balance it out with, you know, like I was traveling, I was in Nashville, I was trying to connect when I was in Nashville, I was traveling and I had to, you know, pizza late at night, you know, 3 thousand 3200 calories a day.

My maintenance calories is 2200 calories.

When I come back, I go 1700.

You know, I'm I'm slightly dipping.

And so I think that the tough part for me is again, that the, the all or nothing approach, I think to your point, most people probably need to move more, need to remove the processed foods, increase the Whole Foods and and just be more intentional in terms of like, hey, man, like processed foods are they're way more calorically dense.

So there's way more calories on that pizza than there is on that chicken breast.

There's way more calories on that on those carne asada fries, which we have in California.

We love out here.

Or how about Starbucks Frappuccino?

Or Starbucks Frappuccino, right?

There's so many more cottage, but like making the tweaks to say I'm going to go for more Whole Foods and I'm going to not drink my calories, right.

So like I'm drinking up your Bay Stevia based drink.

Like I don't drink any sugar, right, which which was you just like avoiding drinking sugar was massive.

That way when I'm going to have a dessert, I know I'm having a dessert.

This ice cream is a dessert.

This pizza is a treat like so I think that's the part that that that it seems like when we get into functional medicine and I'm not talking about you, but sometimes is we get really into like the minutiae and the supplementation and all this sort of stuff.

One, on a macro level, the even processed foods, like the issue to me with processed foods is they make me crave more processed foods.

100 percent, 100% a pizza, a slice of pizza or two once a week I don't think is gonna kill anybody.

But a slice of pizza or two for someone like me that has fat Boy tendencies, I'm going to go.

They call it the you know what is the the the effort zone where you fall off your plan.

Yeah, he's going out.

The hell with it.

I'm just going to have.

Binge and eat.

And so it's like that.

I think that's the, to me, the issue with processed foods is they're so tasty.

Yeah.

And and there's like you got your proteins and your carbs and your proteins jam packed and it's so good that you just go screw it.

Oh yeah, I'm falling off the wagon.

Well, there's a few things that happen physiologically.

One thing is, is those foods are tend to be dopamine triggers.

And so what's happening is you're going to flood of hormones when you're eating it.

So I mean, they're, they're truly addictive.

I mean there there are some studies showing how just addictive sugar is as an example.

Yeah, yeah, that was the first thing I kicked.

Yeah, I got, I got off the, the, the drinking the sugar 'cause I used to drink the Yerba Montes with the cane sugar and I was like, oh, cane sugar is better for you, 'cause it's like, man, it was terrible for me 'cause I I just kept and then I would want other treats.

So I stopped the sugar, I upped the chicken, I upped the salmon, I up the vegetables, I up the fruit, blackberries, you know, sweet potatoes and, and those things have been really helpful for me.

And I'm still like, I can go scorched earth when I need to go scorched.

And my scorched earth, I mean like sweet potatoes, fruit, chicken breast, salmon, little bit of steak, that's it.

That's all I'm eating.

Maybe broccoli, right?

Like, but like really scorched earth.

The tough part is that I kind of want to enjoy some of the stuff I'm eating.

Of course, you know, what do you, what do you make of that?

Well, you know, I got quite a few thoughts.

One is I, you know, I, I, I think that, you know, if you watch the series the chosen, this is an example of this.

You know, you see what they're eating.

It's like figs and nuts and you know, they're, they're, they're just eating real.

They're eating food just, you know, fresh, fresh food.

So today it's a little bit more of a challenge that we have.

We, we are such a fast-paced society.

There's so many processed foods around.

They're so easy to get so fast.

So, so I think that's a challenge.

I, you know, I, I, I think that that most people are, are, are best off not doing the fad diets, not trying to lose it very quickly.

I think, I think slow, methodical lifestyle based is the best way.

And, and you know, even for you like like keto, I recommend keto if somebody has brain cancer, epilepsy, sometimes Ms.

But outside of that, I don't really recommend keto because I think that it's actually hard on your mitochondria.

You're like, like, it's, it's, it's too depleting.

It's, it's too depleting to do, to do very long.

And, and so, so that's my problem there.

But I think generally if people, as I wrote about, like eat a diet based on the Bible and also learn about what's best for you.

Like when I work with people, I have a online virtual practice now.

And when I work with people, I customize it specifically for them based on their needs.

And here's the other thing I try and do, I try and find swaps for people.

So it's like, OK, I, you know, if somebody likes coffee and they're adding a bunch of, or let's say somebody's got a sweet tooth, let me figure out all the ways we can satisfy your sweet tooth without getting sugar or added sugar.

And, and you know, like I still eat chicken Parmesan.

I still eat chocolate chip cookies, I still eat brownies.

But like when I make chocolate chip cookies now, now listen, they don't taste quite as good, but I'm using like Hugh Kitchen dark chocolate chips and almond flour, oat flour, pastured eggs.

And then I do a mixture of honey and vanilla protein powder and they taste pretty terrific, so and they're high fiber, high protein.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

That's that's really good.

I think, I think the the swaps is really good and and, and I've done some of that.

Here's here's I'm going to push back a little bit.

The nuts for me all bad, all that because because they're so calorically dense that like, I love walnuts, but I'm not going to eat 100 calories of walnuts.

I'm going, I'm going to eat 700 calories of walnuts.

You know what I mean?

And so I think that's the tough part with the nuts for me.

Yeah, I, I think, I think and listen, this is this is so hard.

I mean, we are we are wired in a certain way to want more than is good for us.

Yeah, Yeah, with almost everything.

And so, you know, I mean, a good serving of that is a dessert is probably 5 walnuts and 1/4 cup of dark chocolate.

Like that's actually a dessert that your body can.

Have you ever seen, you know, Brian Regan, you ever see he's a comedian and he talks about if you ever read on the packages of some things like ice cream, a serving size, it's like so small versus what you likely eat.

And he's like, you know, it's 2 spoonfuls, you know, so so.

So let me tell you something funny.

So you shop at Whole Foods sometimes.

OK, so Whole Foods, they have their butter chocolate chip cookie and then they have a version of it with walnuts.

And I was shopping and I looked at the version of it, walnuts, the chocolate chip walnut cookie.

I'm a crackhead.

Like it's not.

We have one at Lazy Acres here.

It is so, so delicious.

I grabbed 1 and then I grabbed the regular cookie and the walnut version, same cookie they just added walnut was like 650 calories versus like 350 calories.

I'm, I'm approximating, right?

And I was like just knowing that, just knowing that like there's nothing wrong with walnuts.

It's just that they're just, it's almost double the calories.

I'm being approximate.

I don't know if it's exactly, but it's almost double the calories.

And so I put it back.

I put the walnut cookie back and I grab the regular chocolate chip cookie.

Well, you know, I mean, I mean calorically, yeah.

You know fat is 9 calories and carbs and protein are 4?

A lot of people don't know that.

That's why cheese isn't always helpful.

If you're in a cut, having cheese on a burger, having cheese on a thing or, or I went to I love, we love Shake Shack as a family.

I looked up their macros on their burgers and I'm like, bro, this, this is not a lean Patty.

It's so good because it's it has more fat.

Yeah, well, here.

Here's one thing that a lot of people don't know.

If you want to stay lean and fit and healthy, do not eat protein and you do not eat fat and carbs together, do higher carb and hype.

You want to do high protein every meal, 30 to 40 grams on average for most people.

You show high protein every meal.

In the morning when cortisol is high and your digestive system stomach stronger, do higher carb.

Get around lunch, you could choose maybe you're doing some carbs there in moderate fat, but neither of them are very high.

And then dinner you want to do high fat, low carb.

Interesting.

I mean, I mean, this is going back to ancient forms of medicine like Chinese medicine and Ayurveda.

But but I've also tested this myself, worked with patients.

There are other diets that have shown this, that our bodies like our liver is stronger and processing stronger more at night in your stomach, in, in pancreas, more in the morning.

And so even your the activity of your organs when they're prepared to digest certain nutrients, it it's different, different parts of the day.

Interesting.

So what I've been doing lately is I, I've done that before.

I've done like, hey, I'm going to save we'll go low carb at night, but I, I actually have inverted it lately and I've been doing high protein in the morning, protein shake, blackberries, right, 42 grams of protein I got I get those you've seen them before the protein shakes with the 42g on them.

So I have that and then I have a light carb lunch and what it does is it keeps me more clear in the head.

I don't feel that slump well, especially.

If you're working, you're going to be more sharp.

Yeah.

And then in the evening is where I have some flexibility with my carbs.

I'm trying to consume under 200 carbs a day right now, 150 to 200 to feel better, but I could save my carbs a night.

I kind of eat a little more flexible.

And then what that does is I'm, I'm using those carbs for a more focused workout in the morning.

You, you, you.

You can do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that works too.

Yeah, but, but, but I've done the yeah, because, because it's just like I'm kind of revving up for my day and then I'm like, I can like enjoy, you know, but tell me, go back to that point, unpack the, the breakdown between the amount of calories in fat, the amount of calories in carbs and the amount of calories in protein and, and why you shouldn't mix fats and proteins in a meal because I think that's super essential.

Sure.

Well, that's what your body's using as fuel.

I mean, protein is primarily for building, you know, and but carbage can be used as full fuel and fat can be used as fuel more readily.

And so it's sort of like when you are getting two sources of fuel and your body doesn't need, yeah, it's had enough what it's going to take the rest and typically store it.

So.

So again, protein is for building.

Those other two are definitely used more for fuel.

Now, it's not to say that fatty acids or fats are not used for building as well.

They're critical for hormone production, cell membrane of every cell in your body.

But carbs aren't used for any of that.

I mean, carbs are just burned as fuel and that's the only thing.

So again, just think about it like this again, it's just those two things are both fuel and if you have too much of either that it's going to be stored as fat.

Yeah, that's good.

And what I noticed is that the typical body building macro nutrients, which maybe you can unpack what that is for some people, right, tend to be, hey, high protein, high carb.

Low fat.

Low fat, under 50 grams of fat, which is very hard for me to do for the record, like that is I'm at like 75 grams of fats when I'm really tracking.

That is so hard.

Fat is flavor.

So, so, so the reality is, I mean, the best things have a lot of a lot of fat, a lot of salt in them.

And that's just Yeah.

But but but but but is that why for the bodybuilder type workouts, that is why those macros are recommended.

It's usually like 200, two, 100 grams of protein, you know, 200 grams of carbs, 50 grams of of of fats.

Well, actually they're getting a lot of calories, bodybuilders.

It's just fat slows digestion more than anything.

And So what happens is you can eat again in about 2 1/2 hours, get another meal.

So most of these bodies, they want to get about 5 to 6 meals a day.

And also it allows you to consume more protein, which will allow more muscle building because your body can only absorb again, depends on the person, their body size, all kinds of things.

But maybe 30 grams of protein at once, OK, it's hard to do more of that.

But if you can spread out 30g / 5 meals, well, now you're going to have greater absorption of that and greater, greater from muscle building and metabolism.

So, so that's why they do that.

But yeah, fat really kind of slows down, you know, and it, it makes you not as hungry as well.

I mean, fiber and protein do that to a degree as well, but that's that's part of the reason.

So what?

So what is your eating protocol Look like you, you seem like a pretty healthy guy.

You got, you got your, your, your guns.

You almost got them W buff arms, W huff arms.

And so, yeah, what what is your like current eating protocol?

What is your strength protocol?

What is your walking protocol like?

Tell me about that.

Yeah.

So I one again, I'm I'm very lifestyle driven.

I like things that taste good, but I try and be very strategic about let me see this as well.

Like I am very focused on eating for what my body does well with.

I, I, I focus like if somebody wanted to know what I do, it's, it's, I'd call it personalized cellular nutrition, also with a biblical emphasis in terms of the other those forms of healing.

But I, I wake up in the morning most mornings and I do a smoothie or I do oatmeal or I do cream of rice, cream of brown rice.

So I tend to do more carbs.

So it's a lot of those sort of things in berries.

So like for for breakfast before I came here, I did when I was in Nashville, I did a, again, some of these might sound strange.

A 30 can of pumpkin, I did 20 grams of a bone broth protein.

I did almost 30 grams of a plant based protein.

I did one teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice and I did just a little bit of mixture of water and a little bit of coconut milk.

So the fat was still fairly low.

This is breakfast.

This was breakfast.

Interesting.

OK.

Yeah, a lot of times.

So most people today have colder body constitutions.

This happens with a lot of my patients with hypothyroidism.

They think, oh, I need to eat a lot of salads and cold smoothies.

It's terrible for them.

Most people, we need to increase the thermogenesis in their body and we need to warm it up more, especially women.

And so in that smoothie, it's not cold, it's room temperature.

It'd almost be considered a soup in a way.

And, and sometimes I'll do blueberries at room temperature.

I do a lot of beetroot juice powder, that sort of thing for nitric oxide support.

I do creatine in there, typically anywhere from 1g to 5g daily.

And then I'll do my supplements.

I do a lot of herbals like turmeric.

I do some methylated vitamins, a number of things.

So I I'll do that.

And then for lunch, I'll typically do something like a sweet potato, maybe grass fed beef, some mushrooms, vegetables.

I love hummus, so I might do hummus as a dip and then for dinner, I mean, all kinds of things.

Maybe it's a homemade chicken Parmesan we did in olive oil or coconut oil.

And then I tend to do double vegetables.

Maybe those are baked with coconut oil in the oven, or maybe I do tahini or hummus again.

Again, those are things I tend to like.

I mean, I do a lot of meat, vegetables and hummus.

Does the parmesan have pasta in it?

If we do pasta maybe once a week, OK, what we tend to do, we kind of rotate.

We have a cassava pasta we like.

We've got a sprouted brown rice pasta we like.

So.

So I will.

We do have pasta sometimes, it's just those healthy swaps you're.

Doing that, that's right.

OK, Yeah.

No, that that sounds good.

I mean Athlean X Jeff Cavalier pumpkin is in his daily diet as well.

One thing people don't realize about pumpkin is I I use it a lot for people with inflammatory bowel disease.

It is it is very high in fiber, but it's a type of fiber that is incredibly easy to digest.

So it's almost like a natural, like you could really almost use it instead of, instead of psyllium husk like fiber.

So people have Constipation or are, are having bowel movements.

Well, this is more common in, in the older generation, but they will do psyllium husk to help them with bowel movements and sometimes give it to dogs, like our dogs will give them pumpkin instead.

And it's, it's again, it's just, it's great for, for, for a healthy gut.

Are you just having it straight out of a can?

Yeah, I do like 1/3 of a Yeah, like 1/3.

I've never tried.

I've always thought about it.

You're the second person that that I'm like, man, you know, this person's on the health stuff really deep.

So Jeff Cavalier from Athenix, you you guys are talking about pumpkin.

So that's interesting.

So I got to try.

That and the other alternatives to that, and they're not as good as pumpkin, but they're still good.

You could also try some butternut squash or sweet potato.

Those are also.

I love sweet potato also good options.

So that's my my scorched earth is like chicken breast, sweet potatoes all the time.

I can eat that indefinitely.

And, and a way to kind of level those up that I do is I do like a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice and it even adds A sweetness to it.

It's great for blood sugar.

So that's a.

OK, I want to talk about the hang up that supplements can be sometimes for people, but before we get in there carnivore, that's a massive craze right now.

Right now.

I I think that like you need some healthy, clean carbs in you, you need some fruit, you need some blackberries, you need some sweet potatoes, you need some, you need you.

You know, you need that.

Even bananas, bananas are often demonized in the health space, which is ridiculous to me, right?

But I've been on Tammy Peterson's podcast.

She's been on my podcast.

She's a good friend.

Jordan Peterson.

Doctor Peterson.

It's their daughter, Michaela.

Michaela with the I think she calls it the Lion.

The lion That, that, that that is.

It's a version that's all red meat, yeah.

It seems like folks who have autoimmune issues like they do tend to thrive on these carnivore diets.

And would you say from your perspective you're getting personalized diet, personalized nutrition, Would you say that there is some validity to autoimmune carnivore?

Those seem to work well.

Together, and here's why so when somebody has autoimmune disease, oftentimes that the biggest issues are taking place in the gut microbiome.

And so when somebody does any form of carbohydrate, what it will do is it's, it's, it's, you have microbes and if you have a very unhealthy gut microbiome, let's say there's parasites or mycotoxins or mold or yeast or H pylori, there's all kinds of, they will feed off of that and they will grow and that will cause an inflammatory reaction.

And so it's, and it's a condition that maybe most, a lot of people have heard of called leaky gut syndrome.

And really leaky gut is what's causing autoimmune disease.

And so, and so when you go carnivore and you only are eating protein in animal fats, well, they have nothing to feed off of.

Now there is an issue though.

There's a a there's somebody I have on my podcast.

He's a PhD, his name is Doctor James Denicolantonio and he's talked about papers and research on how carnivore it it's too acidic.

Now listen, typically your acidity and alkalinity are not as important as like certain people have clown.

I don't know, you know, there's been like a big alkaline diet 20-30 years ago.

Exactly.

And but fruits and vegetables make you alkaline and meat is more acidic.

So, so there's a belief that it may decrease bone density and your body might have to start pulling minerals out of your bones and doing things to keep it alkaline because you are so, so acidic.

And so listen, the carnivore diet is not the healthiest diet.

Like we're not meant to be be be carnivores and just eat meat.

But there are certain conditions like mold toxicity, you know, like like serves, which is what Doctor Peterson and Michaela were dealing with from an inflammatory standpoint, autoimmune disease, where for a period of time it it, it is maybe the best diet for them to be on short term and long term.

You really don't want someone to stay on it.

But sometimes, but, but you really have to reintroduce these foods very slowly and wisely and focus on healing the gut microbiome.

Like I, I've talked to Michaela quite a bit.

They've such an amazing family.

I mean, I'll say, I mean, Jordan Peterson has been to me, one of my biggest mentors from afar, learning so much from him.

So I'm a, I'm a huge fan of, of, of his work and, and everything their family is doing.

But I don't think it's the thing that they wanted.

I don't, they don't want to be on it long term either.

But but you got to make a transition and there are certain, there are certain therapies that I think would be very helpful for that.

Like I would have somebody do an IV stem cells.

I would have them do something called FMT.

It stands for fecal matter transplant.

That's where you take someone else's, you take someone else's poop, poop and you either do it as a Suppository or you take capsules that are time released that open up when they get to your large intestine and try in in because, because here's what's happened when people have taken antibiotic drugs and all the antibiotics today, there are studies that show if you take an antibiotic drug, your microbiome is never the same.

I mean, there are some that you got from your mom when you were born that that if you completely kill, you're not getting back.

And so if you do that, you can actually take someone else's microbiome, those those microorganisms and some of them will take residence in your gut, helping redistribute some really crucial bacteria like Bifidobacterium.

And some of some of them like that that you get early on.

But I think that's really part of the root of it is I think that.

One, there are immune, there are organ systems that are just too weak.

Typically stress is the biggest cause, overthinking, obsessive, and there's all kinds of things there.

And then the microbiome is just so out of whack and out of balance.

And that's the way I go approaching those types of things.

If someone's on carnivore and has autoimmune disease to start to get them to the point where they can actually eat food again.

Well, consuming somebody else's feces sounds crazy.

Well, you know what's interesting?

Ancient cultures have done this at certain points if somebody was very, very sick.

Really.

Yeah, yeah, there is, there is a yeah, yeah.

It's been documented.

People can go and read it and read up on it.

There there's and and, and the best gastro, the best gastroenterologist in the world, some of the best that are progressive.

This is what they do.

Like in fact, there's a condition called C diff, C diff, a cell.

It's a, it's a if people have an overgrowth of this because inflammatory bowel disease can kill them.

I mean, it's really a major infection that happens in the intestines.

And the number one therapy for curing it completely is FMT.

That's man that that is a by the.

Way.

I don't talk about this at all, but you brought what I would.

Do a very selfish conversation with you right now.

Hopefully other people enjoy it because I'm just I'm just so intrigued by this stuff now.

It sounds like me me and you would would definitely agree on like this as a prescription carnivore as a prescription for all people.

No way, no way.

Let me say something else.

We were exposed to historically a lot more microbes than we are today.

I mean, our gut microbiomes are so minuscule in terms of the diversity.

I mean, think about this, up until 100 years ago, the majority of jobs were agriculturally related, like over 50%.

That's.

Crazy.

And so I think about this and if if you've like I own a farm, like I own 5000 acres of organic land with Jordan and we own in Missouri and Tennessee.

And like, if you're out there, people are walking barefoot over cow patties, you're swimming in lakes that are that have microbes, you've got cows and dogs and like, yeah, we are exposed to so many microbes.

So and garden gardening has been shown to be one of the greatest things you can ever do to expand your microbial diversity.

And, and having more microbes, types of good bacteria allows you to deal with different viruses better.

It allows you to better absorb nutrients, bacteria, and you're going to actually create nutrients.

So, so it's really, really crucially important.

People have said 70% of your immune system, scientists have said is located in your gut because of the gut microbiome.

So it's a big deal.

But we have such a small exposure.

And what happens if you're exposed?

Over time, your body builds out more and more and more and will start to adopt into the family of your microbiome more and more types of bacteria.

And there are studies on people that are Amish.

Here's a here's a simple.

Well, First off, they have very robust and healthy guts.

But even having a pet at home, people have been shown to have stronger immune systems because your dogs outside rolling in the grass doing things, and then you're adopting some of their microbiome into your microbiome.

So my point with the FMT is that's a very much more direct way as somebody is incredibly sick.

But for the general population of people that really want to build a really strong and powerful immune system, get outside way more, have a garden, have a dog, You know that it's.

It's a touch touch grass.

Touch grass like, like eating raw local honey.

The reason why it's good for allergies is if you take it once when you have allergies, it doesn't really fix your allergies.

The benefit is doing it year round.

Yeah, the honey on average has 200 different types of pollen.

So you're getting a micro dose.

It's natural immunization.

You're getting a micro dose of pollen.

That way when there's a flood of pollen later on, you build up the antibodies to be able to deal with it.

Interesting.

OK, now let's go to the opposite extreme right before we get into supplementation and kind of some of my concerns there.

The other extreme is the plant based.

Everything is plant, it's good for the environment and you even have a whole.

It's not good for the environment.

Yeah, you, you even have a whole movement now where like, no, you don't understand.

Jesus was really a vegan.

He didn't really go fishing.

That was relish that was was made.

You haven't heard about this whole thing?

Well no, I have OK, but but but but I but this was years ago.

I heard this.

I haven't heard as much.

Recently, yeah, it's back.

He was a part of this Nazarene group and these Nazarenes were just because he's from Nazareth and these folks were, were vegan.

And look, some of the Patristic church, church, you know, Apostolic fathers, they were vegetarian.

So therefore, you know, man, you got to go vegan.

You got to go vegan or vegetarian.

It's.

Crazy untrue.

OK, tell me, tell me why based on like the the the book of the Bibliodiah, how, why do we know?

How do we know that Jesus and the disciples and the folks in Scripture consume me?

Well, one, and, and by the way, one of the things I've loved about your show and I've watched you for quite a few years now is I think you've, you've got to, I like the way you approach the Bible.

You do it from a narrative understanding and not just, you know, from a systematic theological standpoint.

So I, I, I like the way you look at things And, and I think one of the things we see in the Bible is a natural progression.

There's a progression happening.

So let me walk everybody through the progression.

We started off in the garden with all perennial plants.

OK, So there was probably no corn, no wheat, none of that stuff.

There was fruit trees because you don't have to replant it every year.

Fruit trees, Berry bushes, walnut trees, those sort of things.

So so we know the Garden of Eden was perennial, which means they just naturally grow themselves because it says Adam was tending to.

And so that was the original diet in the garden of.

Eden so.

So they were vegan in the Garden of Eden is what you're implying here.

I definitely believe so, yeah.

And then when they're cast out, they have to start working the land.

So they're probably are planting, you know, grains and, and, and some of those things that they're harvesting.

And then we read in Genesis 93 where and then we read in Genesis 93 where God tells no and his sons, Now you can eat the things that creep and crawl on the ground.

Now you can eat meat.

OK.

And then we start to see.

Why do you why do you think that was all the sudden introduced later?

Listen, there are so many different theories by some amazing theologians on this.

I believe likely the environment change.

This is also the same time that we see people living less.

I believe that before there was there was no rain.

I believe that there was possibly some sort of canopy, almost like a tropical rainforest on steroids to where we were getting so much more oxygen and and that the environment was such that we could live 8 to 10 times longer.

So, so that interesting, OK, my belief there.

And and then we start to see, you know, that sort of drop down.

But, but I believe at that point when that changed, we needed meat in order to be healthy.

And then we even see, you know, Abraham, for instance, when the 2 angels and Angel of the Lord visit him, you know what they feed?

I mean, they feed him lamb, beef.

I'm sorry, they get they, they feed him.

I believe it's lamb or beef.

And then cheese curds and bread is, is what are fed to them.

So now I don't know if they ate it, but they might have, you know.

And so we see that and then we see Solomon, who is the wisest man outside of Jesus to ever live.

And there's something in the Bible everyone should look this up, called Solomon's provisions.

What did the wisest man to ever eat?

Live, eat, live, live, eat very high meat.

It goes through like beef and elk and lamb and all the things he ate very high meat said he ate bread.

The bread in the Bible is so much different than today.

Grain, ancient, ancient grain, sprouted grain, you're absorbing it all very different.

And so we see that and then we see the 10 commandments well before that, then the 10 commandments, right?

Don't eat pork, don't eat shellfish.

So eat meat, but don't eat this type of meat.

And, and this is controversial within the Christian community, but I believe that pork and shellfish, it's not a sin to eat them.

We're based on, you know, New Testament Jesus coming.

But I don't believe they're healthy.

I think they store toxins.

In fact, the number one source of parasite where people get parasites is pork.

So, so there's that.

And then we get the New Testament and then we read verses like 10 Corinthians, First Corinthians 10/31, which is eat, drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

So I think there's more of a even a greater level of, and this is throughout the whole New Testament.

Don't just follow the law, do it from the heart.

That's good.

And but we see this progression throughout, throughout the Bible.

And but then we also see Paul, who you know, and you can speak on this better than I could, but I do know that when we're talking about in the book of Acts, the one of the things they agreed to, even the Christians was, well, you don't have to follow all, you don't have to get circumcised, follow all these laws anymore, but don't eat the blood of animals, right?

So there are certain things there so.

Yeah, so unpack that for me.

The blood of animals, because meat sacrifice to animals, that was like a big dispute amongst some of the Jewish Christians with the Greek and the, you know, Gentile Christians and they're going back and forth and food sacrifice to idols and all this sort of stuff.

But the blood to animals you're referencing, I want to say it's Acts 15, right?

That's when they have that first counsel.

That's right.

And that that is those are the instructions sent to the gentile Christians.

It's like, hey, you don't got to get circumcised.

Just like stay away from sexual immorality.

Don't eat blood sacrifice to animals.

So what?

What was that about?

Well, I think it was more the usage than the actual blood itself.

OK, yeah, I, I mean, I, I, I think that they were probably doing rituals during that day where they were actually drinking blood.

And but I could have my medium rare steak though.

Yeah, and that's fine.

That that that's that.

That's totally fine.

So.

So again, we we see Solomon eating meat, we see Jesus eating meat, we see the apostles eating meat.

I mean, it's yeah, I think it's pretty.

Clear.

Yeah, I mean, OK, so you said shellfish.

Now forgive me, are we talking like lobster and shrimp too?

Yeah, See, I I love shrimp because it's a low calorie, high protein.

It the, the, the, the macro nutrients line up better than pork, but they're bottom feeders.

And here here's the thing.

I don't think God said, Listen, I'm just going to randomly pick pork shellfish, OK, let's not do those.

You know, he says eat, eat the seafood with, with, with fins and scales, right.

So like that, that's what he categorizes is what we should eat.

But but like there, there's, there's scientific literature both on pork and then also separately on shrimp, for instance, it's it's known as the dirtiest food in the sea, very high in a type of chemical compound called dioxins.

And so and people could look this up for themselves too, like dirtiest animal in the sea or dioxin levels and shrimp and it's very, very high.

So you know, so so again, I don't believe that Christians are under the law.

And I think Paul even says, listen, if you're at someone's home at certain point, maybe eat even something that's not ideal, right?

You know, as to win them of the gospel.

So there are things more important sometimes than eating a perfect diet, right.

So so I that that's the sort of frame that I would I would put.

It in, yeah.

I mean, I think the shrimp is I've always seen it as like something you probably shouldn't eat every day, Like you probably shouldn't eat seafood every day.

But man, like the those those macros slap on the?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They're good.

I mean, what's the best, you know, I mean, one of the most healing foods of all time is, is salmon.

I mean, I mean fatty fish right now.

I mean, if somebody were to that, that's one of my desert island foods.

It's like if I'm on a desert island, only had one thing, salmon might be my #1.

Food.

OK, wow.

OK, so let's talk about this idea of like supplementation.

Now this is this is from my vantage point right now, I take protein.

I've been on creatine on and off.

I take a multivitamin.

Right.

But I think sometimes what happens in these conversations is people are looking for some sort of secret.

Like it's like this like nutritional Gnosticism where they're like, man, we got to get to the secret.

Yeah, Doctor Josh, like tell us the secret of the.

It's the turmeric.

It's the this is to that.

And like the vast majority of people haven't done the fundamentals, like they haven't shown up, they haven't eaten in a caloric deficit, they haven't eaten Whole Foods, they haven't moved enough.

And so it's like they're, they're, they have analysis of paralysis with all these micronutrients and all this stuff that like there's a chasm of a difference between like where they're at now and if like creatine is going to give them extra brain power or like turmeric is going to move the needle.

And so I think sometimes, like the seeking out of the secret knowledge can get in the way of the bare bones.

Like dude, like just like cut out the processed foods, increase the foods and vegetables, increase the healthy protein and like get your butt to the gym or move around.

You're 100% right.

And I could throw biohacking in that category.

I mean, there, there, there.

There's a lot of things there.

So, so yeah.

And even the word supplement tells you what it's for.

It's for supplementing a diet where maybe there's a few holes in it, you know?

And so that's, that's kind of the idea.

So, you know, I, I wrote this little e-book once quite a few years ago and it was called King David's Medicine Cabinet.

And I started off in the first paragraph saying if you would have walked into King David's house, Solomon Ester, and open their medicine cabinet, what would have been in there?

And when you look at sort of Middle Eastern history and literature, if you would have gone into an ancient pharmacy, you would have found herbs, spices, mushrooms, glandulars, like these are the sort of things you would have found there.

And so I do think that when we're talking about supplements, that they are powerful forms of medicine.

I think they should be primary medicine and conventional medicine should be alternative.

Interesting.

Is, is the way that that it should be because and by the way, 1/3 of medications today approximately those compounds are modeled after compounds in plants like metformin's from lilacs, aspirins, aspirins from Birch, you know, Birch trees.

So, so, so I do think that herbs and spices, in fact, the supplements I take 80 plus percent of them are just food.

Like I do a protein powder that's just bone broth.

It's dehydrated, it's just a food.

I do turmeric, that's a food.

I do a lot of mushrooms.

Those are food.

So, so for the most part, 1 of my entire craft really tried to push people to take supplements that are food that are just very, very nutrient foods.

I take a glandular supplement with a lot of organ meats.

And so, so that's what I tend to push people towards in most cases.

But but I, I listen, I, I think you're absolutely right that a lot of times people, they just want a pill, whether it's a natural one or synthetic one.

They, they just want a pill.

They want to take the easy route, but nothing in life does that ever work out to your best interest with if that is the primary thing you're doing.

So yes, supplements are for, you know, looking at somebody's diet or, you know, in today's modern world, I mean, I do a lot of blood work and I do some really cool blood work.

We have a new test, it's organ age.

And so we actually go and look at the age of everyone's different organs.

So there's all these tests to do that.

I do a lot of micronutrients, so I look at their vitamin and mineral deficiencies, their amino acid deficiencies, fatty acid profiles.

And so that's pretty cool.

And then that allows me to know, hey, this is a supplement you don't need or this is the one you need because there's a lot of people buying supplements because they watched TikTok or Instagram video and think, to your point, creatine or, you know, colostrum or whatever.

And it's really not the right thing for them.

So like, even when it comes to supplements, I'm kind of like nuts and bolts.

Like the biggest thing most people are deficient in is probably probiotics, as I mentioned earlier, because we're just not outside enough.

And the second thing is also because we're not outside enough, it's vitamin D 94% of people are low in vitamin D.

Yeah, I mean, we saw, we saw that during the lockdowns, like how many people were were were down bad, either not getting enough sunlight or there's some sort of deficiency and they got they they got they got to figure that out.

Yeah, that's interesting.

OK, so it sounds like you would you would agree that hey man, like get the bare bones, like eat more fruits and veggies, get the protein and then meat.

Fruits and vegetables, that's.

It and then, and then if we go through and you still feel like crap, like, and then if you've done this for a couple months and you still don't feel good, then let's go deeper and figure out the blood work.

Let's go deeper and figure this stuff out.

Is is that fair?

It's fair.

But the the other thing I would couple with it that we talked about earlier was you have to address stress.

Yeah, that's good.

That's good.

Because again, I think it's 50% of the equation or it's the other half the nutrition, like they're the pair.

And it's like like there's a have you heard of German new medicine?

I haven't OK.

So, so this is, this was a German physician.

Now this goes way back.

I mean, the Bible has touches on some ideas on this.

I I'm trying to remember the Psalms where it says basically, gosh, I'm going to totally mess this up.

You know, a joyful heart is good for the bones, but basically a sort of a depressive spirit you know, you know, makes you, it makes you sick.

Yeah, yeah, hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a dream fulfilled is joy to the Spirit that's in Proverbs.

Yeah, yeah.

And so, but, but, but there are other by that Bible verse, other Bible verses that sort of allude to our emotional state, our mentality impacts our physical health.

And, and so and then and then ancient forms of medicine.

Look at that too.

So for instance, it's known in Chinese medicine that if you like, most people think, oh, the reason I got breast cancer on is due to my genetics.

And that actually flies completely in the face of all our modern day research and all of ancient medicine on both sides.

So, so in Chinese medicine, it's believed that like different emotions make different organs sick, worry and, and most people are going to know this thing about this.

If you worry a lot, it upsets your stomach like it causes an issue issue issue with your digestive system.

If somebody has a lot of grief from that something has happened in the past like shame and guilt are still living with today, that harms their immune system.

If somebody has a lot of resentment and anger that's harmful in the liver, gallbladder, lymphatics, somebody has a lot of anxiousness, blood pressure goes up that affects the heart and cardiovascular system.

Somebody has a lot of fear.

This is so obvious, but cortisol's released that really impacts your adrenal glands and to an extent because cortisol then goes up your reproductive hormones like estrogen, progesterone and testosterone.

And then the last one is, if you have hold on, which one am I forgetting here?

No, Yeah.

So, so, so, so I so I think that's all.

But my point there is, is that different emotions impact different organ systems.

And that's the reason why, like, here's another one, breast cancer.

Why did somebody get breast cancer on their left side and not their right side or the right side, not their left side?

Wouldn't it, if it's genetics for breast cancer, get them both the same time growing the same amount.

There's something else impacting that.

And in Chinese medicine and German new medicine and a lot of ancient forms of medicine, they believe the breasts are seen as two things, nurturing for a newborn and sexually arousing for, you know, a husband.

Men, men.

So, so those two things.

And so in Chinese medicine, if you are over, you're giving yourself and giving yourself and giving yourself and you're never having your cup full.

That causes breast cancer on one side of the body.

Interesting.

If you are not in touch with your feminine side, you don't feel pursued love you had a really harmful relationship with somebody that's masculine could be maybe you're abused by your father or your husband is very verbally abusive that causes breast cancer on the other side.

So, so so there are some really.

Interesting explanations for like, why do people get sick in certain areas?

And so This is why bring up this point like when I work with patients today, like I put together very extensive protocols of not just the diet supplementation, but also really encouraging them.

Hey, let's go back and let's deal with childhood trauma.

Let's do everything we can to start, you know, doing a gratitude practice and doing more time and praise and worship and, and have people pray for you, you know, build that sort of community.

Because I, I, I, I do think that even Christians today, the first thing we want to do is sort of run and even take a pill because it's so inundated in modern society today.

Versus again, as James talks about and many times in the Bible, like, you know, have people lay hands on you and pray, pray for healing and and bring these things to Jesus.

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

I like how you go to the, to the, to the root of the issues and not just the fruit of the issues.

You're talking about dealing with the, with the heart of it, getting aligned with God's way and God's will, digging up whatever potential sins or patterns of sins or people that have sinned against you.

That's I think that I think that's beautiful.

And yeah, I mean, like I, I, I got the aura ring.

Not sure how you feel about it, but I will say, yeah, you got one too.

OK.

I love that.

It tells me when I'm stressed myself find certain stupid triggers that will stress me.

It's like social media and I'm like, let me delete this stupid app.

Like why am I?

My cortisol levels are going on because of something somewhere else that I have no control over.

And I'm sitting here stressing about it.

So like it's been helpful for me to even see my own stress levels and then mitigate those and eliminate certain things that aren't aren't fruitful and aren't helpful to me.

So.

So when I you know, I did a continuous glucose monitor and.

Then that too, yeah.

And I also looked at my HRV score and the stress scores on on the OR ring.

And two of the things that just blew me away that caused me to spike.

One was driving, especially in traffic, like I like that caused mine to spike.

And then the other worst thing is, I mean, scrolling on Instagram, I mean, it is it, it is so radically bad for us to just sit there and scroll.

I mean, it's one thing to watch a YouTube video educationally and learn.

That can be great.

That can be good for you.

Yeah.

Doom.

Scrolling ain't it.

But doom scrolling, I mean, there's a there's a psychologist and professor I really like Jonathan Hand.

He's written several books and he really gets into this.

I mean it, it is so much worse for people than we realize in terms of our mental health, our physical health.

What, just doom scrolling?

Does yeah, that's good.

You know, I did the glucose monitor actually have an extra one I've kind of cycled on and off of a couple times.

And I remember we, I was in a very, we, we lost a family member close to us and I was at the hospital and I remember something crazy happened.

1 my blood sugar spiked like crazy, like I was like 120 or something and I hadn't eaten, you know, and I remember watching like, oh dude, like stress spikes the blood sugar.

What?

Happens is cortisol is your master hormone.

When that goes up, insulin goes right up along with it.

Yeah, and then and then I remember blood sugar spiking and then in the middle of the grief and no appetite for days.

It was the IT was the weirdest thing.

And I was like, wow, that is so in just how my own body worked in in the middle of like high stress trauma situation was crazy for me.

So let's let's talk about like got to get right with Jesus, got to get the foundations right.

Got to, got to, got to get to the root of those stressors, got to get to the root of like, are you just in a tough season right now?

Is it, is it hard financially?

After that, what where is the on ramp for Someone Like You?

When we're talking about the VIS, where do you start with people?

After we deal with the court, the spiritual, the deeper issue, what is give me a couple of things you point them to 1st.

Diet is 1st and if we're starting with diet, let's change breakfast.

OK.

Think about that.

Even if somebody just changed breakfast, that's a third of their diet.

I mean, that's a really big step in the right direction.

Here's the other thing I found.

I've had so many people work.

So the way that I used to do this with patients is they would come in for their first visit.

I'd have them fill out a diet diary, all the things.

But maybe we do blood work, maybe we wouldn't, but I would.

I would get a basis line for where they are, but I didn't have a plan ready yet because it was their first visit.

But I would tell them, listen, here's what I want you to do.

Just change breakfast.

Let's do this smoothie or this, you know, healthy meal.

Here's three options.

Go and do this.

And you know what?

I have people come back and say a lot of times I felt like I was doing so good after breakfast.

I wanted to do a good lunch and then I wanted to eat better at dinner.

So there's something about starting off breakfast with a really healthy meal that is sort of inspiring and motivating people to continue forward.

So again, I I really focus on diet first.

Breakfast is the primary there, and meat, fruit and vegetables.

Let's do this breakfast for doing meat, fruit and vegetables.

Yeah.

And and when I say meat, I guess eggs, I would have them do a protein source.

So it's either eggs, Turkey sausage or protein powder.

That's like typically I have them do both the collagen sort of based protein along with a plant or an animal based protein collagen OK in there as well.

So it's something like that most cases for breakfast and then maybe it's sweet potato hash or it's berries or an apple or cream of rice or oatmeal or something like that.

You're.

Making me hungry right now.

Yeah.

So that's so so so I focus on diet and then after that a lot of times it's exercise.

What are?

10,000 steps.

12,000 steps.

What are you?

What are you recommending in that regard?

The most recent study that came out says that 7000 is really the tipping point, probably the most important number to at least get that amount of day.

But but I the best time to walk is in the morning, but it's really around your meals.

It's incredibly good for digestion.

So somebody would walk 20 minutes at breakfast, 20 minutes around lunch and 20 minutes around dinner.

That's sort of the ideal.

But if not, hey, just walk when you can.

Let's get outside more.

Let's walk more.

I mean, I I'm a big fan of weight training.

I think weight training is so bad.

I mean, people used to be doing harder things.

Again, work on a farm.

You're lifting heavy things regularly.

Like we're so deficient in that today.

So walking step one, There is a great longevity study that shows the best activities for longevity.

And you know what?

Number one is racquet sports like tennis and pickleball.

Interesting.

Yeah, and the reason is, is they said it's a community driven activity, like you're building relationships, having fun.

It's a good time.

Hand eye coordination is important as we age.

And then and then you're working your legs, you're getting low, you're hitting.

So, so that was #1 I want to say after that they had like swimming and soccer and cycling.

We're all really up there.

And then you had like weight training and, and, and jogging those sort of things after that.

So, So what I encourage people with this, hey, what are you going to keep doing?

What are you going to keep following through with in terms of exercise?

I'd like you to do at least two days of weight training a week.

But then after that, let's play pickleball, get on a spin bike, Peloton, whatever you like to do.

Let's try and add those those things in that you'll stick with.

OK, so that's good.

So breakfast high protein, breakfast high fruit, clean food for breakfast.

By clean I mean non processed.

Foods and then I'll really look at their history or their blood work or I do something called tongue diagnosis in Chinese medicine and can kind of read what's going on in terms of their system there.

And then I'll maybe recommend some herbs and supplements based on what they have going on.

And then from there, it just really depends on the person.

I mean, if somebody has, let's say I have a patient come in with Ms.

or cancer, like I, I'll have them do hyperbaric oxygen therapy with, with those people.

That's, that's a great treatment.

Or if somebody has mold or some sort of Co infection like Lyme, I might have them do ozone.

So, so I do get more into the kind of deeper functional medicine stuff recommendations for, for certain conditions, but but that's not the baseline for most people.

For most people, it's let's have a great spiritual growth practice.

Let's deal with that stuff.

Let's eat better, let's move a little bit more, and let's try and fill in the gaps with some supplements.

I love it.

I love it.

That's that's fantastic.

OK, so now get a little dicey.

How do you feel about Ozempic?

I'm not a fan at all of Ozempic Now some people now are starting to do what we call micro dosing.

I would call it normal dosing.

The problem is the dose now is so grossly high and in in let me there is a study that came out there's there's there's multiple on this one said people when they are if you do just a general diet, not even exercise, but you're just generally dieting and you lose weight, 25% of the mass you lose is muscle, 75% fat.

If you take Ozempic 40%.

One study shows upwards of 50% is muscle is muscle.

I mean.

That's one of the side effects, they say.

That's pretty obvious the.

The amount that ages you.

Yeah.

I don't have to tell you putting on muscle is hard.

Keeping muscle is hard.

Like my my grandmother just passed away this last week.

She was, she 9097 years old, though, Christian, beautiful life.

So it's in that way, it's a celebration.

But she fell and broke her hip because she was just so frail, you know, at that point.

And when you age, muscle mass really, really matters.

And the one study came out, I, I should say one of the from a PHD1 of the commentary on the study was people that are on Ozempic, their normal sort of weight loss that they're having if 20 lbs, they're aging themselves 20 years because if you think about.

'Cause they're losing so much muscle.

That's right.

Geez.

Yeah.

And it also causes gastroparesis.

That's like a that's a, that's a medical condition, that's a diagnosis.

So you're causing gastroparesis where things move through your body so slowly and that can cause microbial overgrowth, a condition called SIBO.

So it's.

Yeah.

We, we just covered a lawsuit on Ozempic in that they knew that it could 'cause potential more, more blindness as a side effect.

And there's someone that's suing them because they said, hey, you didn't put this out there.

And now they're, they're, you know.

There are no long term side effect, no long term studies that are actually great on it for us to actually know.

But micro dosing might be fine.

But here's a reality.

What is micro dosing versus?

Regular dosing it's it's it's it's a 10 it's 10% of the dose.

OK.

What, what the, the functional medicine practitioners that I've, that I've interviewed and talked to who recommend that to patients, what they'll share with me is where you're just not hungry if you take GLP one, OK, If you do do the full dose, it takes the edge off the hunger and they feel like maybe that's enough or there's benefits enough of that.

And then maybe they're doing some great lifestyle stuff.

The ones I do are where they are recommending more exercise and more dietary changes like protein and fiber to where it's they're using in that way.

Listen, I have, I don't have as much of a problem with doing it that way versus the way that people are doing it today and it's actually making them incredibly physically I'll.

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that that, that the part for me because as as you know, like health, fitness, it's it's simple, but it's not easy, right.

Like it's simple in like, you know, everything we've talked about here is relatively simple minus maybe some of the blood work and some of the more advanced stuff.

Sure that that.

But the hard part is like, man, there are so many people here that are stressed out.

They are living paycheck to paycheck.

They don't have the same, some of the same luxuries that maybe Someone Like You and I are, you know, afforded with working from home or traveling or whatever.

And so I, I, I do see that man, sometimes the juice is worth the squeeze, meaning that taking this may, if you're, if you're already 100 lbs overweight and, and, and diabetic and it, it may be, it may make sense because it's like, hey, would we rather keep you overweight and unhealthy or would we rather deal with these potential other side effects?

And you're, at least you're not overweight, but now we got to consider muscle loss and all that.

So I think it's like a, there's a Ying and a yeah, it's like gastric bypass surgery, right?

Like it's, it's the same thing.

I just saw a friend who lost 100 lbs and I'm like, you look great.

Like what you do.

And they're like, I got gastric, gastric bypass surgery.

I tried everything else and I just, whatever reason, their hunger, they're the cortisol.

I don't know what it was, but they just, they, it could not, it did not work for them, you know?

I, I think, I think those things are good in the short term, bad in the long term.

Like I know several people who have had gastric bypass, something in one individual who you'd probably know and he had it done, but he will tell you now because now he's more into fitness.

I wish I wouldn't have got it done because now I like.

Because now you got the systems and the frameworks on how to actually do it.

Yes, you know, I, I think I, I think that a lot of these drugs are keeping people from changing their lifestyle like like type 2 diabetes drugs that type 2 diabetes is in 99% of cases reversible.

And so, but when you give them the option of metformin, they, they choose to do that versus sort of having a fire lit under them.

Like, listen, no, you have to, we've got it.

We've got to change this.

I mean, for most of them, it's this easy.

Eat more protein, more fiber, walk more.

I mean that those simple things will radically change the health of almost everybody.

No, I'm with you.

I think, I think that the, the part that I run into is like, I, I do meet people that are like, I don't know if you've heard this, I'm not even this is real, but I miss, I miss several people that are like, I'm a super taster.

I can't eat vegetables because my palate just is, is hyper sensitive.

So bad food tastes really bad and good food tastes really good.

And therefore I don't eat vegetables.

And I'm like, so, so like speaking to someone like that and being like, hey, man, like, like you got it.

You got to cut out the junk.

You got to cut out the in their mind like it's, it's done.

It's it's never going to happen.

I I, I would say from a Christian perspective, it kind of reminds me it.

It makes me think God messed up.

I mean, have you ever seen that?

There's this great meme that you'll see on social media of like God, he's staring down looking at a, at a pharmacy and, and, and a doctor prescribing antibiotics and God's like, oh, I'm so sorry I messed up.

I needed you to, you know, to, to, to, to do this.

And, and now listen, I do believe there's a place for certain types of modern medicine.

Like I had a spinal infection three years ago and almost died.

I didn't walk for a whole year and and, and antibiotics helped save my life.

So, so you know, so there's a.

Lot of time anti all medicine but you I think.

I think anyone with a brain would acknowledge that.

Man.

When Big Pharma's involved, sometimes some sketchy stuff could be going on.

Yeah, I mean, the biggest loss is, I want to say the top ten ever are all against pharmaceutical companies.

It's just it's.

OK, OK.

So bit of a selfish question.

So I'm going to cut right now.

I was about 207 lbs which is really heavy for me.

I'm 5 foot 10 and I'm 5 foot 10, five foot 11.

I'm right in the middle there.

And like I did my summit super stressed.

We had a loss in the family back in December.

Did my summit in March, saw pictures.

It's always pictures to me whenever I see myself and I'm like oh bro, you look fat.

You know like this.

Let me let me let me look clean this up.

So I'm down about about 15 lbs ish and I feel good.

Still struggling to find a rhythm with the training.

I just take a couple a couple weeks off.

Went on vacation so now easing back in the training.

Generally speaking I log all my foods.

We get meal preps delivered.

But my question for you is, I travel and, and sometimes the travel is the hardest part, right?

And I'm trying to implement system, simple things like, man, you know, when I get to the hotel, I check in, I'm going to go straight to the gym, right?

So I'm not going to miss a day.

But like I'm flying in to Florida tomorrow and I, I'm going to get to the hotel like 1130.

Likely the gym is going to be closed, right?

So you travel a lot, you do speaking, you do podcasts, you, you know, you're on the move.

How do we navigate travel as busy people?

And again, this is probably going to apply to, you know, 5% of my audience.

10%, yeah.

How do, how do?

What are some tips on that?

So, so there are several things I do.

One thing I do is I pack protein with me when I go and I bring a shaker bottle.

So I have protein laid out for every day.

So every day I can do protein and and I do that.

The other thing is, is.

Just just a scoop protein and what little little bags or how do you how do you organize?

Them what I do is I put it all in one bag and then I bring a scoop with me, OK.

So this is this is really helpful because I try to do it in individual bags and it kind of becomes I'm a mess and I write down the numbers, but this is great.

Yeah, yeah.

So I, I, I bring a scooper and, and then what I do is I will, well, now I use chat GTP and I'll say, what are the top 10 in ranking order healthy restaurants within a five mile radius of this location where I'm staying.

And it'll rank it out for me and tell me exactly those places.

So I might DoorDash food or I'll look up where's the closest sprouts or whole food market or local health food store.

Again, chat GTP or even Google will tell me.

And then I will sometimes try and, you know, swing in there at some point during the trip.

And then like when I when I did hotel, by the way, I did all this for this trip here.

You know, I like when I was at I was at Daniel.

Amen.

Yeah, but but before this.

Is amazing.

He's awesome because on.

The brain is phenomenal.

So good, so, so like, but I doordashed, you know, goop kitchen.

I hadn't had them like, hey, let's try that.

All right, I'll do.

But I I I did that to his place and then ate that on the drive here.

And then when I looked up on for gym, I did a search of who has the best gyms in this price point on chat GT, but it gave me the top five in in that area for who has the best hotel gym.

OK, so so, so I like, I guess my answer is I plan like I'm very I, I I definitely plan and prepare anytime I travel.

Does your hunger get spiked when you travel?

Because I would say there's something psychologically, I don't know what it is, where like, I almost feel like I'm supposed to reward myself because I'm traveling.

Like, I don't know what that is because I'm away from my family, you know, the adrenaline dump of speaking and then having to come down like, but there's something in my psychology where I'm like, oh, I want something that I know I'm not supposed to have.

Well, I shouldn't have right now.

So, so this is more of a Chinese medicine perspective, but when you fly, you become less grounded and that's tied to your digestive system and specifically the part that the upper digestive system which feeds off carbs, so your pancreas.

So when you're traveling, often times you might crave carbohydrates more because that part of your body is deficient.

The best way to try and supplement and help that is to bring cinnamon, ginger tea or pumpkin pie spice.

But cinnamon and ginger really help take that edge off of hunger and help kind of deal with that craving.

And also just going outside and getting barefoot somewhere is also helpful grounding.

It is.

Yeah.

And so so that's good for that.

But but the other but there's also an element of, you know, love a little when, when you're traveling.

But but yeah, I, I just, I plan and prepare in those ways.

Other night I landed in DFW.

My connection flight was missed because my flight coming out of Orlando was late.

Got got a hotel right there in the airport, little bit of a walk, but it was I guess kind of within terminal still.

And I was hungry and I walked in and I got a big old thing of watermelon and I was like, man, I'm craving, I'm craving cookies in junk.

I'm going to eat this watermelon, you know, and, and, and I also, I, I tend to bring chomps beef sticks with me.

So I kind of have those on hand.

Yeah.

My, my cholesterol was a little high the last time I did my blood work.

And so the doctor's like, hey, man, you got to chill on the red meat, you know?

But I've been kind of having more and more of, of the, of the chicken.

And then I have the chomps is like a snack.

You know, I I would say if if your red meat is not too high in fat, you're probably fine with it, but it jumps is.

Kind of high.

It is.

It is higher.

Yeah, I'm familiar with their with their brand.

And the other stuff, it just doesn't taste good.

Like if you get like the Chomps chicken or the Chomps Turkey, which is lower age is not good.

But you know what's been really helpful and I'm I need to really get more on top of this is the Costco fresh editions, little packs of chicken and packs of steak.

Oh yeah, those taste delicious.

It it's all protein.

And they're lean and.

They're lean, there might be some preservatives or something else in there, some spices, but but man, those have been clutch.

I'll bring like, you know, a couple of those have like a little meal meal bag.

I'll show you my, I have like a little travel meal bag.

Put a cooler in there, grab a couple of those, pack, pack some other stuff.

And I'm I'm kind of kind of good to go.

I try to get like Instacart fruit, like blackberries.

It just goes bad so fast when I'm traveling.

That's the only downside about fruit.

Yeah, well, berries especially.

I mean, apples will hold up better, those sort of fruits.

But, but, but berries, I mean, they, I mean, Chelse and I talk about this all the time.

Doesn't it drive you crazy?

It's like we'll grab berries at Whole Foods, get them home and they're already completely full of mold.

So it's yeah, it but but yeah, I, I will pack other snacks too, and fruit and a number of things.

There are two bars, that sort of thing.

I got some protein bars for this trip and stuff like that.

You know, this is a little bit off the topic we were just on, but one of the things I, I have a lot of patience to do for dessert is I will have them do chocolate protein powder with a little bit of coconut milk and it's creamy, it's nice and sweet.

So doing some protein powder for dessert, dessert if you're craving something that's that, that's a pretty good go to for people.

Yeah, we have Meal Prep Sunday, which is a local meal prep company and they do protein powder Donuts, protein powder brownies.

And that that stuff is, is like crack, 'cause I'm at this point where like I don't mind the alternatives.

They don't taste quite as good, but they're really close to my palate.

Has changed so much for the real.

Sugar.

So many people don't realize that your palate will change over time.

Yep, for sure.

Stevia, I have a lot of stevia as my sweetener.

I almost have no, no, I don't ever drink sugar, which leads me to my next question.

This whole, we'll put organic cane sugar back in the Coke and, and I'm and I'm and I see this and I go, man, if, if, if like the type of sugar used in the Coke is what's causing you to not take care of your body, you have some other issues.

The, the, the, the reality is it's 5% better.

I, I do listen, it's better, it's less toxic, it's less processed, it's non-GMO.

Here's the other big thing that I, I don't hear people talking about.

I am getting up.

So there are a number of influencers online who might be more on a different political side that are, I mean, criticizing RFK like, like so I I've been to Washington.

Some of the fat positivity people and the food neutrality people and all that.

I'm, I'm talking about even more.

There's a woman, she's a, she's a nutritionist.

I think her name is Doctor Jessica.

There's another one named Lane Lane Norman, something like that.

But, but, but they, but you know, they're, they've been very critical of food dye.

Like, so I've been going to Washington, DC and travelling.

I've travelled the country the past year of doing things like speaking about nutrition and educating people on the harmful effects of food dyes, BHT and number of chemicals in our food supply.

And so like, because of I've been able to be a part of this and RFK and Marty Makery were able to ban food dyes or at least get a lot of companies to remove them.

And I've seen these impact ADHD.

This isn't like something that I, I just saw in a study.

I've actually seen it in practice, but there's a lot of people being critical of it saying with that and the, the corn syrup to cane sugar thing that, you know, these are things that don't matter.

This is all hype or whatever one they do matter.

And corn syrup to cane sugar, that's way better.

It's going to be better for the environment.

I will tell you that.

Better for our soil, but better for all, all those things.

But are those major needle movers for the health of the country?

No, yeah, they're not.

Thank you for saying that.

I appreciate that because I think that's one of the things is like, again, people are so into the the minutiae in the details and it's like, dude, like there's way more important things that most of us need to.

Adjust it's like supplementing and not changing your diet.

It's it's it's it's it's to that effect like like the some of the biggest things they need, they need to it's all about incentives.

They need to de incentivize added sugar in processed ingredients in foods and they need to incentivize companies that are doing organic and that have better macro nutrient ratios.

I mean, the reality is the added sugar is the single biggest problem.

It's a bigger problem than the seed oils.

It's a bigger problem than anything.

So if we can start removing added sugar, that will go really far in making people healthier.

Yeah, Yeah.

That's good.

That's good.

OK.

Body positivity movement.

Give me your take.

It's trendy.

There's plus size models, people being told they're healthy and when they're when.

I think objectively speaking, it's impossible to be of a certain size and still be healthy.

Here's where I go to I, I, I go to Aristotle and even people like Thomas Aquinas and this and that.

If you're going to be virtuous, you can't just be virtuous in one thing and not another.

I mean, you really have to balance truth and love together, right?

So, so, so in that way, I think that when we think about body positivity, you're right and you're wrong.

You're right in that you're wonderfully designed.

You know, you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

I mean, there's this element of, yes, let's, let's stand in awe and wonder of that and let's be positive in that way.

But also there's this element biblically of repent, the Bible talks about gluttony.

I mean, so, so there are these other elements.

And so I listen, this is just rampant in society where people tend to get in a ditch in one way or the other.

But that toxic positivity or positive body image thing, it's half the equation leaving the other half.

So it just becomes toxic.

And so I, I, I think for most people, we always want to be balancing of like our identity in Christ.

It's like, wow, like I am an, I'm an heir with Christ, I'm redeemed.

I'm but I was also a Sinner.

There's this level of massive confidence in humility you're carrying at the same time.

So, so I think that's what's I think the problem is, it's all confidence, no humility.

I think my follow up question would be, do you think shame is a good motivator for change?

Because I will say for me, when, when, when, when I have seen photos of myself and I'm and I and I look fat when I've seen photos of myself and I don't like the way I look.

Sometimes that could be the, the the kick in the in the testicles that I need to say stop goofing around.

Your body is, is, is the temple of God and you need to cut it out.

Let's let's figure out the baby steps in the micro habits to move in the right direction.

Now other people, they need to be told they're a snowflake and one-of-a-kind and fearfully and wonderfully made.

What do you think of shame being as a because, because we, we are a shameless society now, that's right, you know, and that's right.

And it's like anything goes healthy at every size.

Whatever you feel is who you are.

So what, what do you think about that shame is?

Is it a good motivator?

Should we bring back shame?

There's there's two things that motivate people and everybody's different.

You hit on them.

It's pain and pleasure, right?

So, so, so shame is going to be on that pain perspective.

And by the way, the, the Bible is constantly talking about two motivators as well in terms of US being more deeply connected with God, fear and love.

It's like, right.

The Old Testament, even more so, is talking about fear God.

And of course, you know, different people translate that different ways based on the passage, whether that means actual fear, more reverence or more awe or whatever that is.

But overall, I, I, I think that there is an element of that in it.

Do do, do I think shame here?

Here's the thing.

Do I think shame is a good motivator?

I don't think it's the ideal motivator.

I think it's like category 2.

If it's what works, OK, but, but, but I think that all of it, and by the way, this is I'm saying this, but I don't I don't live this perfectly at all.

Like shame will motivate me, guilt will motivate me.

And I do think those are good motivators, But I also think the on wonder of God, and I just want to do this out of sheerly honoring him.

That's the greatest motivator that we should all want and strive for.

But but listen, I you know, there is a Jordan Peterson talks about this in a good marriage, like one of the things that women do to men to get them to change is shame them in a good way, you know, and and so so I.

Don't think by the way.

By the way, I I don't recommend men ever do that to women in a marriage.

Never, never, never.

No, no.

It's completely, completely backwards.

So, but, but yeah, listen, I, yeah, I, I think it's a, I don't think it's the ideal motivator, but I think it's a good secondary motivator if it's going to save your life, if it's going to help you get to, you know, a, a better place.

Yeah, I, I think, I think.

For me, it's, it's when you're when I was in a rut, it was, it was what got me off the ground, you know, and, and then it, it was the understanding of my identity in Christ right like that, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made that I am valuable, that I'm the temple of the living God, that my worth is determined by what someone will pay for it.

You know, worth is determined by someone pay for it.

Jesus lay down his life at the very least, I can act accordingly.

At the very least I can take care of my body.

At the very least, I can go to bed at a reasonable time, wake up early, honor God with my body and, and, and for me, it, it really does overflow from the gospel like it overflows from the good news of, of, of what the scripture say about me and it what the scripture say about God, because it's actually not about me, right.

Like I'm not the main character of the story.

Jesus is, but I get to participate in in in his beautiful story to redeem humanity to to a right standing through the work of the the gospel and that like the body's an overflow of that.

My body's an extension of what kind of father I'm going to be, what kind of husband I'm going to be, what kind of business leader am I going to be?

What kind of minister am I going to be?

It's all an overflow of those things.

So I'm with you.

I think I think going deeper, when people have a biblical worldview, I do think that health and fitness is something that should follow.

Yeah, you know, but by the way, the reason I'm probably more than any other questions you asked, I'm kind of having a hard, a harder time with this one is like I've got, I've got a friend I know and he almost everything he does is driven by shame.

So it's one of those things too, where I know that shame as a emotion, it tends to be tied to something's happened in the past.

There's been this trauma and you're living with it now you're using this, this shame is the thing that motivates you.

But it's an unhealthy motivator long term.

Yeah.

And so it's one of those things where you want to take that motivator and then you want to change and create a new motivator.

You know what I'm saying?

I think I think it's a similar thing when we think about religion, like if you are primarily driven by fearing God all the time, it's going to create a listen, that's not the healthiest relationship you can have with a father is being driven by fear.

Should you have a healthy fear of your dad?

I think so.

But primarily the emotions you experience is is being driven out of out of love, right.

So I mean, it's, yeah.

Yeah, that's good.

OK, final words, final thoughts.

Someone's hearing this.

Maybe, maybe this helps spark some self-awareness in them to potentially make some changes.

Maybe, maybe, maybe some degree of shame, conviction a little bit.

But now they're like, hey, you guys brought it back to Jesus in the gospel.

What?

What are some final thoughts you'd leave the folks listen to this.

Yeah, I, I would say this.

The the Bible is the greatest health book ever written.

The Bible talks about regenerative farming.

It talks about foods you should be eating.

It, it, it gets into the, the motivation behind the food.

And I think that I would encourage people to eat a diet that's based on the Bible.

Listen to the wisdom of the Bible and, and, and, and also with that, don't feel like you need to change everything overnight, but just start taking steps in the right direction and do it with that 10 First Corinthians 1031 in mind, whether you eat, drink or whatever you do to offer the glory of God.

So I would say move in that direction and focus on the majors, not the minors at first.

You can do minors later, but diet, some good movement those.

And then again, the spiritual component is so important.

Spending time in prayer, meditation, I love your prayer journal.

Doing those types of things daily is so key to our mind body connection for healing.

And so that's, I think, some of the things that I leave people with.

Amen.

And and and pick up Doctor Josh Axe's brand new book, The Biblio Diet.

Awesome stuff man.

Appreciate you so much.

Thanks for having.

Me.

We're out here guys.

Peace.

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