0 (1s):
Coming up on the Get Lean Eat Clean Podcast a common question is, well, is red meat bad for you? And what, what would you say to a client that said that would ask you that question?
1 (15s):
So the first thing I say, when we start talking about food, especially if it's someone who I think is really indoctrinated into that idea is that you're not going to like what I have to tell you, because it's alarming and, and scary to hear from a doctor that, Hey, what you've been told for the last 30, 40 years are just, is just wrong, but that's the truth.
0 (42s):
Hello? And welcome to the Get Lean Eat Clean podcast. I'm Brian Gryn. And I'm here to give you actionable tips to get your body back to what it, once was five, 10, even 15 years ago, each week. I'll give you the in-depth interview for the health expert from around the world to come through the fluff and get you to long-term sustainable results. This week I interviewed Dr. Gary Shlifer. He is a board certified in internal medicine physicians, specializing in preventative care nutrition and anti aging medicine. We discussed many topics around our healthcare system, disease prevention and how to live optimally through a Sapian lifestyle. We also touched on five Pillars of being a Happy Human.
0 (1m 22s):
We talked about Red Meat Cholesterol also got into Is morning Ritual and much, much more. So I know you'll enjoy this episode. I did enjoy and thanks so much for listening. Alright. Welcome to the Get Lean Eat Clean podcast I'm Brian Gryn. And my guests today is Dr. Gary Shlifer and he is a board certified internal medicine physician, specializing in preventative care and nutrition metabolism, and anti-aging medicine. He is also the founder of evolve health care, which is in LA and they do a bunch of stuff, but a multi-specialty integrative medicine clinic. And I'm going to talk about more of what they do. They also help co-found sapiens, which is an organization focused on promoting health education, advancing health information technology.
0 (2m 10s):
So a welcome on the show. Thank you so much for having me Brian. Yeah, I appreciate it. And got a bunch of talk about today, but before we get into that, why don't you maybe just give us some background of your journey into health and helping others?
1 (2m 28s):
Yeah, I mean, I'm so I was trained as a internal medicine physician. I went to medical school kind of eyes wide open, ready to be a doctor, little did I know that they were going to train me to, to basically only treat disease and, and not, not prevent disease and not maintain health, kind of, as I went through my training, I really developed a passion for end of life care, which might sound odd for some of your listening, but for me focusing all of my energy on just treating disease, never made any sense.
1 (3m 10s):
And end of life care is a place where I actually was able to help people in a meaningful way and, and really, and really effect people in their family in a positive way over the last about four or five years, working with Brian Sanders of food wise and my CEPI and team we've developed, you know, a program that I'm really proud of. And it is focused on lifestyle medicine. It's focused on teaching people how to Eat at its heart, teaching people how to eat, but it's really teaching people how to live in a modern world and live a healthy lifestyle and not, you know, be dependent on pharmaceuticals, be dependent on treating their disease, but rather preventing it.
1 (3m 56s):
And I think that's best done through lifestyle medicine. You mentioned the word integrative medicine, which is another way of thinking about what I do in the sense that I've not shunned my training. I, I believe, you know, a lot of the tools I've learned are very powerful and certainly there's a role for pharmaceuticals, but, you know, the integration is really my ancestral approach to health combined with the Western medicine Strategies that I was trained to use. So that's kind of where I'm at now. And, and we're working really hard. My clinic, I have a clinic in Los Angeles called the vault health healthcare, and that's a full medical practice where we, as you mentioned, do a lot of different things, but, but I definitely practice integrative medicine, their, and, and, and heal people.
1 (4m 44s):
And I'm very proud of that. And yeah, and that's kind of, you know, my, my two main projects, the CEPI and, and evolve, and I do a couple other things on the side, China trying to help people, but, but that's really where my practice has evolved into.
0 (5m 1s):
Yeah. I mean, you talk about the future of health care and like a clinic like yourselves, like evolve really. I, I would hope would you see these more popping up here and there, hopefully more in Chicago. I know in LA, do you see that being the future of medicine?
1 (5m 21s):
I hope so. You know, I think the challenges are huge for a doctor to gain a foothold and have a private practice and really drive their own kind of practice. I think I'm lucky in that I have a huge support system. My mom is a doctor. My parents really pushed me to leave the sort of, for lack of a better word corporate world. But I, I definitely worked for a hospital organization for the first few years after residency. And, and I was definitely trained to be an employee. No one ever showed me how to run a business, bill insurance, any of the subtle, intricate things that you'd need to understand to successfully run a practice.
1 (6m 3s):
So I've sorta had to teach myself. And again, I credit my parents for pushing me and guiding me through that process, but also, you know, the CEPI and a team by giving me a, a, a unique platform to sort of teach people it's helped me expand my practice. So to answer your question, I don't know, I don't know that there is a lot of clinics doing what I'm doing. I know there's a lot of maybe like naturopathic physicians. There's, there's older folks that have gone through regular Western medicine and, and moved into what we call functional medicine, which is a pretty popular kind of Avenue for Western medicine doctors to take once they realize that there's more to it than just pharmaceuticals.
1 (6m 43s):
But I don't know, you know, you, you see companies like forward and next health who are kind of biohackers, or they have fancy equipment and they try to make everything a little more digital and a little more streamlined. But I don't really know that, that there is a big movement to, to really manage patients in a non disease oriented model. Right. Like, I don't know that that's true. I still think that that lives in these communities, like, you know, your listener's, our listeners' on safety and podcast and peak Human, but, you know, I know here's what, I definitely know that there is an appetite for it.
1 (7m 25s):
Also, no pun intended. There's, there's, there's people out there that are, that are seeing through, you know, they go to their doctor every year, get told to you to a low fat diet. They don't do well. They go back. They're like, Oh, you're not listening to me. Here's the drugs to eat a low fat diet, eat a balanced diet. And, and I think eventually people figure it out and they're like, Hmm, there's more to it than that. And whether they go and find a naturopathic physician or functional medicine physician, or someone like myself, who's sort of gone on their own to find a way to help people it's out there. I don't know if it's gaining PA I don't know that there's like a ton of money in it either. Right. And, and if you take the kind of functional medicine route, most of those doctors are, are asking a lot of money, right?
1 (8m 11s):
Like each visit is very expensive and that, that really limits the access. So how to evolve. I've taken the approach where I take health insurance, and I haven't been taken HMO that I work with, that I got a good contract with. And for now, at least I, I try to create access to me and my team in as many avenues as I can. And, and it's not about making money. It's about having a sustainable business, right? Like I have to make some money, but it's about, it's about building a community. And, and again, like at evolve with the Sapian thing, it's all starting to really turn in to that. And, you know, we have something called the Sapian tribe, which kind of opens up the door to people from around the world to talk to us in our health coaches.
1 (8m 56s):
So, you know, just doing what I can to create access to someone who understands what we're talking about, which is, you know, Lifestyle medicine,
0 (9m 4s):
Right? Like preventative care. And you're seeing this on a daily basis. What, what would you say? I like the biggest, the biggest things that help impact people's lives. Obviously you talk about, you know, Eating right. And working out things like that, but what, what's the most common issues you come across and then how what's a good way of preventing that.
1 (9m 26s):
Yeah. So when I talk about being a happy, healthy human, and I talk about this with any patient that's willing to listen and, and some people don't want to hear it. Right. Some people show up and they're like, give me my Cholesterol drug. I'm worried about my LDL. And I'm like, okay, fine. But whatever you want, you know, cause I try to meet people where they're at, but I, I have like my five Pillars of being a happy, healthy person and that's food movement, stress management, sun exposure, and Sleep. And I would say that those five things are where most people are missing the Mark. A lot of folks, you know, we have a lot of education about exercise.
1 (10m 8s):
So a lot of people have that movement piece worked out nowadays is a little more difficult with the gym's closed in all. But, but still, I think people understand that, but, but certainly there is not a focus on, there's definitely not a focus on stress management. Strategies, it's not something I, you know, w we talk, w we, we often say on these podcasts that, Oh, you know, a doctor gets about four hours of nutrition education while we get zero hours on stress management education. Right. Like, that's not a thing, right. We don't talk about mindfulness anywhere. And I think that's very important, a sleep hygiene and sleep Strategies and supplementation and different things you can do for Sleep huge, huge, huge, you know, point that I talk about.
1 (10m 54s):
Like, we can talk about it today, but it's just so important, you know? And then people are shocked and surprised when they see sun on their, and I'm like, well, don't be surprised. You're a solar powered creature you're supposed to be outside. You're supposed to be making natural vitamin D I believe vitamin D is, is, is one of these sort of, it's an obvious one and yet, so contentious, you know, it's, it's, it's a pro hormone that changes your whole physiology. And, and it never used to be an issue because humans would be outside regularly working, whatever, doing everything not anymore. And it's been a long time. And, and so, you know, I, that's where, you know, supplementation is really important.
1 (11m 36s):
And I think I came out a training thinking, Oh, the supplements, you know, you're making expensive urine, just like everyone else. You know, th these common consent misconceptions about nutrition and supplementation on Lifestyle and, you know, vitamin D is one of those that I, I, I really promote to supplementation of vitamin D. It's hard to get people in the sun. So, so that's something really important, but then obviously the heart of it is, is the food. It's the food. And, and many people come to my clinic are reach out to us and they feel like they have to figure it out. Whether they've just jumped on the carnivore sort of movement, whether they're trying Quito and it works for them, it works for some people. It really does. Doesn't it work for everyone or their, you know, they've been doing paleo and paleo is a great strategy that really incorporates a lot of good ideas.
1 (12m 24s):
I don't really think most people have a grasp on the whole nutrition sort of scope of it and with CEPI. And what we try to do is teach people how to fish and by understanding why something like keto does work and doesn't work, why something like paleo makes sense. And, you know, our program overlaps with many of these concepts, but I think we have a unique approach in that we integrate all of these different sort of nutritional approaches so that you can find the one that works for you and you don't have to be in a camp. I'm a carnivore, or I'm keto. You don't need to do all that. Sometimes a carnivore, sometimes your pescatarian.
1 (13m 4s):
And sometimes you just want to have some vegetables, but when you do, you want to eat those thoughtfully and understand what you're putting in your body and, and how those, you know, vegetables or animal products were procured and prepared. So, so that's kinda, my thing is really want to like, get people to understand the nuts and bolts of it and challenge them to expect more from themselves. You know, you can't mindlessly go through the store and grab whatever it looks good. You're susceptible to the bullshit advertising and, and manipulation that these companies are, are definitely participating in. So, you know, in order to do that, you've got to learn it's it's, you got to be motivated.
1 (13m 45s):
There's a million ways to do that. These podcasts is how I learned so much of what I, you know, promote, but there's books, you know, we have a program, other people have programs, you know, there's just, there's different ways to do this. And it's, it's just a very small community, you know, compare us to the plant-based community. And there's just not many of us, so, right.
0 (14m 8s):
You know, for sure. And you know, for me, I got into like, Intermittent Fasting and there is a community that's been growing, but you know, there's no, no, no one makes money when you fast. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So yeah, a lot of times the I'm assuming the trainings that you got for being just a general practitioner was backed by a lot of deep pockets, pharmaceutical companies and things like that. Would you think that like, changing how doctors are being trained is the first step
1 (14m 40s):
That's the dream step? So like, if, if it could be the first step and I had the platform and, and there were, the ears were open. Yeah. I mean, I that's, that's the step that will ultimately affect the most people. So I think that, and I love the, just that question. Cause I think in a way that's where Sapian, that's our, you know, our mission is to educate the educators. And I think if we can do that, if we can create a, a platform that really makes sense intellectually to those people. And it makes sense in, in an education way and in the sense that, okay, if, if your, if your carnivores and I love carnivores, but if you're just promoting carnivore, it's a very narrow focus.
1 (15m 26s):
And I don't think a major institution is ever going to just like jump on it and start promoting carnival. Right. But if carnivores packaged within a framework where you're like, Hey, what does the ultimate elimination diet? We all understand that an elimination diet is probably an essential tool to help people cause cause food allergies and, and just, you know, toxins and our food system are, are a big deal. Right? I think that when you package carnivores and that way you could bring that to doctors and, and doctors in training. I have some colleagues that I'm very close with at university of New Mexico. And for the last year we've been working to try to figure out how to incorporate the safety and diet and lifestyle program into their, at least the residents education.
1 (16m 11s):
And it's challenging because you know, there's evidence that goes both ways. And as it is there a, you know, the, the, the Western medicine education system is very anchored to these old ideas of the balanced diet, the dash diet, the Mediterranean diet, all these old ideas driven by, you know, epidemiological evidence, which isn't great evidence and what we're promoting is anchored in our research, but also in some common sense, understanding of our ancestry and our history as human beings. And, and that's a tough pill to swallow for a education institutions. Because everything that I was taught is less than a a hundred years old and is like driven by this evidence-based medicine model.
1 (17m 0s):
And again, not, not here to poopoo evidence-based medicine, but to say that it is one tool of teaching people, it is a great tool. It's really good to judge whether or not one drug or one treatment protocol is better than another. It can do that, but, but to justify Intermittent Fasting, for example, it's going to be very challenging to do that, even though it obviously works, it's obviously safe and it's obviously consistent with our physiology, but how do you prove that? Well, doing feeding studies is a very, very, very challenging. We know that that being said in the last few years, there's been some really great stuff come out specifically.
1 (17m 43s):
I was re refer to the Virta health studies on type two diabetes and using a low carb, a whole foods based diet with Intermittent Fasting to really reverse metabolic disease essentially. But again, that, that kinda stuff is ignored. And, and when you go to an organization like the one I'm talking about it, you really have to convince them what I'm doing on my end is using, using that, that, that protocol and having awesome results. Now, again, other people have done it, they've done it with even more people that I'm doing it with a lot. It gets ignored. It it's hard to convince, but I think that, you know, it only takes one meaningful, a moment where you can really show that it's effective and it only takes one good article, maybe one good doctor that gets on TV one day, you know, and you know, I'm ready to go like that.
1 (18m 40s):
That's what I'm here for is, you know, I'm, I try to like really think about using words and using communication. That's not so divisive, right? I'm not sitting here. Poo-pooing any particular strategy, but we have to put it all together in order to help people. And I think that that's what we're trying to do. At least that's, that's what we believe were doing. And I know there's a lot of doctors that support us again, my friends are that work. They're really pushing to get us involved. And yeah, I mean, I think one day it will happen. I don't know if that's this year or five years from now, or 10 years from now, who knows, but we're going to keep trying.
0 (19m 22s):
Yeah, well, you know, more clinics like yourself that pop up, I think, and just people vote with their dollars. You know, they, they, if they really want to be preventative and get ahead of the issue, instead of waiting until something happens. And then, you know, then if there were a lie in Western medicine more, cause like you said, there's a time in place for it, but you know, you want to be proactive. And I think, you know, the more podcasts that are out there and things, and it's just the way it becomes more mainstream, you know,
1 (19m 52s):
It's coming. I mean, it's coming in and we're gonna, we're trying to lead the fight. And I, and it is a fight because everything I say every time I don't even have the much of a following yet, but every time I say something, it gets challenged and attacked. And my approach is a way I'm not gonna fight back. I'm going to be thoughtful and share my ideas. But in the end of the day, we're fighting, we're fighting with a huge, huge misunderstanding of what human nutrition should look like. And, and it takes all of us. It takes you, it takes me, it takes all of our colleagues out there. And I know we're all having each other on each other's podcasts. And yeah, that's what we have to do. We have to do that because you know, there's a lot of money in grains.
1 (20m 37s):
There's a lot of money in seed oils. There's a lot of money and shitty food products that are really a, you know, market it as a health products, they're marketed as real human food and it's not. And, and, and that's a tough for people to hear.
0 (20m 54s):
Okay. So I know you mentioned the five pillars of a hat. Was that five Pillars of a Happy Human Happy Healthy Human yeah. I wanted to come back to this because he said it fast. And I just wanted you to say it one more time with Sleep stress, sun food
1 (21m 12s):
And the movement. Well, nutrition and movement. I say movement because I say movement because exercise can be scary to people. And again, I'm not here to scare people off. I think you can go out and take a brisk 30 minute walk where you get a sweat, you get some sun exposure and you've knocked out two of the pillars for the day. And so it's very, very simple to do these five things. Brian came up with the term. It's like ancestral hacking, something like that. But the idea is we're trying to replicate the experience of our Hunter gatherer ancestors.
1 (21m 55s):
And if we evolved over millions of years to succeed in a one kind of environment, and now we're in a very short period of time, we've created this sort of abnormal environment. That's making us unhealthy. Then we can, we can reframe our personal perception. And instead of trying to Dr disease out with drugs and surgery, like the allopathic model, we can find our homeostasis and find our body's natural ability to heal itself and find balance by hacking those Lifestyle components that we've essentially forgotten about.
1 (22m 37s):
And that's what those five things are.
0 (22m 39s):
And it's interesting. I had to take a little pause cause of my dogs, but if you think of dogs and how they can sort of address three of these things right off the bat, because stress for sure, you know, sun, right, getting out in, and then moving, you know, walking, I always talk about getting up and going for a walk after you eat, or when you get up first thing in the morning and it's like, you know, it just hit me. I'm like, well, a dog can really address three of the five.
1 (23m 5s):
That's why there's there's research that shows that people with dogs are happier. They live longer and they have less chronic disease. Now is that going to be related to the love and interpersonal con interpersonal interspecies relationship that you have? And that's certainly a factor, but I think it's what you're saying. I think it exposes you to more normal life, right? Where also in this like hyper clean sort of like PR guarding ourselves from all pathogens, right. The mentality. And that's not, that's not the way we evolved. We are evolved in conjunction with the dirt in our backyards because we've used to live in that backyard.
1 (23m 51s):
Now we live on the cement block and we don't want to let our feet touch the dirt cause it's gross. It's not right. So I think the dirt, the Dog really does so many things to reconnect us with our Hunter gatherer origins and so powerful. I personally, I got a dog. I wanted a dog. My whole life got a dog this last year during this whole pandemic. And he he's, he's a blessing. I mean, he, he reminds us what, what makes us happy to get us outside when we're not feeling so good? And he makes us smile. He makes us running around and play. And you know, I come home from a tough day dealing with really frustrated patients.
1 (24m 35s):
And I've got the smiling little guy that's ready to go outside and go for a little run. And it's like, I don't even have to try. And my Pillars are knocked off, you know? And I use a Sapian diet. I make sure I Sleep. And the rest of it just happens because I I'm living a life that's that's, that's like full, you know, and it's not just sitting and staring at some news feed telling me all the scary stuff that's going on in the world. That's not healthy. Right?
0 (25m 5s):
No, I, I agree. I have one and I just got a second. So I've, we've got, it's not even, it's a pretty still in the morning here and I've gone on two walks. So it's, it's it's I know with the pandemic, a lot dogs have been going, which is a lot of dogs are being adopted that need homes. And you know, that's a whole nother topic, but that's been, that's been sort of a, a positive from all of this is, is these dogs are being adopted, but let's touch on the two other Pillars since we already figured out, Hey, get a dog, you'll get three out of the five done. Why don't we hit a little bit on food? And you know, a common question is, well, is, you know, red meat bad for you. And what would you say to a client that said, that would ask you that question?
1 (25m 51s):
So the first thing I say, when we start talking about food, especially if it's someone who I think is really indoctrinated into that idea is that you're not going to like what I have to tell you, because it's alarming and, and scary to hear from a doctor that, Hey, what you've been told for the last 30, 40 years are just, is just wrong, but that's the truth. I, and I started off like that because you, you have to accept and embrace that, or at least open your mind to the possibility that the nutrition recommendations as they stand are wrong.
1 (26m 31s):
I, I then gauge based on the person so we can take the evidence-based route and start talking about the epidemiological research that was done on, on Meat in general, and, and read Meat specifically and dispel the, the efficacy of that research. And, and then you have to have someone who is willing to think about it, epidemiological study, versus like an observational study or randomized control study, right? That's not always the best route. Then we can talk about saturated, fat and cholesterol and the diet, heart hypothesis, and the history of how that came to be and dispel that myth, which was, you know, which is basically a history lesson.
1 (27m 15s):
And I don't know if, when you want to get into all of that, but basically, you know, there was a battle of wits to, you know, and, and there was a sum that argued that cholesterol and fat caused heart disease. Cause heart disease was this big trigger in the fifties and sixties. And, and we can talk about how over the last decade, more and more research is showing that there is no association with any kind of disease process when it comes to eating red meat. And then talk about all this new and very exciting research, talking about the benefits and essential, the essential minus of a Cholesterol in saturated fat in your diet to be healthy.
1 (28m 0s):
Then we can talk about physiology in the fact that your brain has made of cholesterol and saturated fat and your skin and that every hormone and your body is built around a Cholesterol backbone and that to vilify Cholesterol. And to presume that Eating, Cholesterol drives Cholesterol into your arteries. And plaques is just a simple thinking that has not been justified by research. And then you can take that ancestral argument and say that, well, you cannot survive on plant food alone. And if you look at someone in the Bush, in the jungle, someone in a survival situation, what are, what, what are the components of life that it comes down to
2 (28m 41s):
Water, some salt
1 (28m 44s):
And which can be a plant source and then Meat,
2 (28m 46s):
But specifically fat, right? So you can't survive.
1 (28m 50s):
Okay. And just pure protein, you need fat. So when you look at survivalists and people that are like really living off the land, it's fat, that is like the number one cherished commodity.
2 (29m 4s):
So, so there's all of these.
1 (29m 6s):
He is different angles and it just depends on the person and why it's such a nuanced conversation. And I Def, I generally don't go down the, you know, well, Meat, Meat was vilified by the seventh Adventist church. And that was very much involved in our, you know, the development of our food recommendations. And that really, this is a religious argument that is anchored in all sorts of craziness. And by the way, none of this is a conspiracy. Cause you can go on Wikipedia and look up the seventh day Adventist church and how they were involved in driving red meat out of our diet. It's so many layers, right? So I think the first step for anyone listening is to accept that it, the recommendations are bad and that, that myth, the red meat myth is just that the fiber myth is just a myth.
1 (29m 59s):
Eating all this fiber is not good for anyone that a plant-based diet or plants, fruits and vegetables are still Healthy for you. That's a myth guys like I'm sorry, and that's a tougher one for people to swallow. People still struggle with even people in our space struggle with that. I know people that recommend eating red meat and then still talk about eating the rainbow. And I'm like, so you have a rainbow when you're a Hunter gatherer, you just had a rainbow fruits and vegetables in your backyard. You had a back yard, like, what are you talking about? This is all driven by modern agricultural practices. So, you know, I think the fun part for me is to try and get someone's brain, get their perspective to that moment where we discovered Agriculture we started using Agriculture and Dr their brain too.
1 (30m 44s):
The fact that we subsisted and exists and thrive in and dominated the planet for such a long time without Agriculture. And what did that look like? And then that's a fun place I think, to start, because I don't think you can, you can ignore that. It's, it's pretty, it's just, it's common knowledge. I mean, again, if you don't believe in evolution, I suppose then that's a whole different conversation, but I've never faced that issue. So that's kind of the different angles I take. Does that answer?
0 (31m 17s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah. I, you know, I was in the boat for a while where I was, I was never like a vegetarian, but very heavy with the veggies every day I would have like this big salad and I'd have to put a piece of protein on it. I was, I got away from Meat for a while. Anyways, actually since the pandemic started, I don't know why that sort of triggered me to get into, I guess I was listening to more and more Podcast, you know, Paul sail, do you know guys like this and started reading up on it, realizing that, you know, I'm an active guy, but I feel like I'm missing a, missing a lot of things with, you know, red Meat and you know, I'm, I'm an animal guy too. So I, you know, I got away from it partly because of, you know, well, is it humane?
0 (32m 2s):
And I realized that you can get, you know, grass fed grass finished, like humanely raised regenerative farming, you know, like good sustainable practices out of, from farms that are doing it. Right. And I think that's that those, you know, those are the farmers that we knew sort of keep going, write sort of getting people to realize that, you know, there's, there's a right way to raise an animal and, and then use it as nutrition.
1 (32m 29s):
Yeah. And I, I, you know, another point I make to people and when they're, when we're having that vegetarian vegan versus sort of an animal based diet argument is if your, if your reason for being a vegan or vegetarian or plant-based is because of farming practices than being a vegan or vegetarian or plant heavy does not, you don't bypass a, a, a negative and, and harmful food system. The way you support a healthy food system is Regenerative Agriculture and that's whether that's plants or animals, you have to understand Agriculture.
1 (33m 9s):
And when you understand Regenerative Agriculture you realize that it's both it's, it's, it's not one or the other support, just buying plant products for most people. That means your buying a lot of men, Santo, corn, your buying, a lot of wheat, your eating, a lot of soybean oil, and it's really, really bad for you. And if you're just going to stick to a local organic plant products, then you're fine, but that's not the reality for most people. That's not, it's, it's, it's a bit of a fantasy. And I think that any farmer that's going to be doing farming right, is going to be raising plants and animals in a sustainable, thoughtful, and a loving way.
1 (33m 53s):
And so you don't need to be vegan or vegetarian to support animal like a tea or to, to, to support a healthy, a raising of animals and plants. And, and that's the thing is you have to understand that the corn that you're buying is just a susceptible to being like treated poorly as the cow. Like if you're a buying GMO corn, that's covered and Roundup, you're not buying anything, that's good for you or good for the planet. And so when I see someone buying a beyond burger or one of these fake meat products, that's full of seed oils, full of GMO, a plant's a full of processing and chemicals that are just a natural, like these people are missing the whole point.
1 (34m 44s):
And it's not that they're they're manipulated or, or they're not spending the time to do the research and, and understand how to do what it is that they're trying to do. And so I really try to come at those folks from a loving place, because I think our heart is in the same place. I think our goals are the same, but you know, too, to see a documentary on Netflix and then change our whole Eating strategy around it, not have any physician guidance, not understand the box products you're buying it's, it's foolish. So, so you've got to be thoughtful. You've got to understand, and you've got to challenge yourself to get educated,
0 (35m 24s):
Right. And there's so much out there, right? It's like, there's almost to the, you know, what is it too much education to some degree, right? You can, over B you could be confused. And that's why I liked sort of your simplistic route is like, you know, I have my 10 principles. I talked about like my first podcast that I did. And then you have your five for your five pillars. And when you keep it sort of simple like this, it, it, you know, it makes it attainable for individuals to a better their health. And another thing that I wanted to sort of get into a little bit was your routine and sort of your daily eating habits. I'm always curious, what's your, I'm a big Morning Ritual guy.
0 (36m 4s):
Although it's been changed a little bit of a knife to dogs, I'm just a little bit, but what's, what's your morning ritual. And, and how do you go about with your daily eating habits as well?
1 (36m 15s):
So I'm big on rituals and habits, and that's how you stick to being Healthy is doing kind of somethings over and over and over again, because that's, that's how you're going to change your body slowly it in your mind. So, okay. Let's talk about food first. So I follow a CEPI and Lifestyle so we have principals' for that too. So those five principles that we talked about, I know a lot of folks have similar to things on it because there is a world of information and evidence trying to battle to like help people and educate people. So we all have our own things. I, I, I don't really think about those five because I live a lifestyle that is consistent with those, but for food, the, this is the heart of my approach to food.
1 (36m 60s):
Intermittent Fasting is a misnomer. It is a baseline. So for me, 16, eight method, you've all heard about that. I'm sure. Listening to your podcasts based on what your telling me the 60 day method, I don't say 16, eight fasting. I call it a method because to me that is baseline. That is not, that is not a fast. That is what everyone should be doing. We should be teaching people from very young age that you don't need to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And that stuffing your face. First thing in the morning with carbs is not a good idea. Some people can do different strategies, but most people don't need to eat. So often I eat six to eight hours a day, seven days, six or seven days a week, one or two days a week, I will throw in an OMAD day.
1 (37m 45s):
I think OMAD is a great strategy to really boost your metabolism and keep you fresh. Then a couple of times a month, I'll lead all day. I'll be honest with you. I say that I don't know that I actually do it that much. I think sometimes we'll just have like a sheet of people. I, I say that, but I think a lot of the time, sorry, I'm clipping here. A lot of the time I end up eating like a really big breakfast, cause I love my big breakfast and then I don't really have a fall asleep. I don't really. Yeah, well, no, I don't really end up having that big dinner or that big lunch. I just, I ended up like feeling satisfied. And so I think Fasting however you want to call.
1 (38m 26s):
It is the heart of my diet and my day to day, and I am not beholden to food. I am able to go without food for a long period of time, without weird. I actually start thinking faster and being more sharp. Now, when you start working out a lot that, you know, you gotta be a little more thoughtful about when you eat. So I, that that's, that's a basic part of my day. I focus all of my meals on protein. Sometimes I will have a carnivore day. I'll have a carnival week where I eat very, very little plant food that is with the caveat of, I'm almost always eating a fermented vegetable or to I I'm Russian.
1 (39m 7s):
And I grew up eating for meds and vegetables. And when I figured all this stuff out and I realized how important fermented foods are, I just eat it all the time. I would say, get yourself a, buy it. No, I have a, there's like, you know, there's great. All natural sauerkraut and pickles. And I eat a ton of olives. I go to the Russian store from time to time and I'll stock up on all sorts of weird fermented things like, like watermelon, which is a fun thing that most people haven't tried to pickled Patterson's are super fun, which is this kind of a little squash, a pickled tomatoes. I forever tried those anyway.
1 (39m 47s):
It's just some fun ideas. But for the most part, it's like a lot of pickles, olives and sauerkraut, and then kimchi, when my fiance will let me have it in my fridge cause it's thinky. So, so that's really it. And if I'm not feeling well, I'll make sure to not fast. So when your, when you're feeling ill or when you'd like need a little more energy, that's not a time to fast, but that's also not a time to eat crappy carbs. So I'll, I'll have like a lot of protein and healthy fat and I'll increase my food intake when I need more juice. And then as far as like, Morning, Routine, I'm pretty busy guy, but I, I liked to spend the first half hour to hour of my day, depending on how busy I am playing with my dog and hanging out with my girl.
1 (40m 33s):
And we try to like spend some time in the backyard and, you know, breathe. And first thing I do is I drink water water every day. First thing, do you add salt to the sea salt or anything? You know, I do. I do sometimes not first thing in the morning. I teach people to do that, but I I'm so liberal with my salt intake in general that I think I get plenty of salt. I'd take them. I take my supplements often in the morning. I'm big on supplementation. I take a mag complete. So it's a, it's a multiple of magnesium salts. I often will take it two times. I'll take it before bed and I'll take it in the morning. I take, I add real salt at the Redmond, real salt, or like a Himalayan sea salt into my water.
1 (41m 16s):
And that's what I cook with. I take a vitamin D D three K to Supplement five to 10,000 units, just depending on how much sun exposure I'm getting. If I spend all day on the site and I skipped that. So again, not mindlessly taking pills, but thinking about what I'm, what I actually need. If I'm not, Eating, it's a kind of a mega three fatty, a rich foods, which is rare. But you know, sometimes I'm like not having the best Meat whatever, you know, like you have different stuff. So then I'll throw in some fish oil. I have some great CBD anti-inflammatory stuff that I take. I like this is a company like pack organics makes like a green tea extract, tumeric CBD, vitamin C Supplement.
1 (42m 3s):
And I love it because it kind of gives me a lot of anti-inflammatory components. And especially when I'm working out, I really feel like it helps me heal up. And so that's my Morning.
0 (42m 14s):
Well Workout yeah. What, I'm curious. What type of workouts do you do?
1 (42m 19s):
So I try to do high intensity interval training. W what is the, this is a generic term though. People, you know, here that a lot. I do a lot of kettlebells. I used to lift a lot to be buffed, cause I really liked the aesthetic I got there. And then I was like, okay, now what, you know, I started running, I really loved running. I really loved being outside and running into the sun. I'll I'll run, you know, I don't know that I recommend running for everyone. It's pretty tough in the body, but for me, I can run three to five miles and feel awesome. And it doesn't really break me down. I used to run a longer six, seven, eight miles. And I found that I was really getting some chronic like joint stuff. And despite everything I would do I'd stretch, I did a matter, right?
1 (43m 2s):
I'm on my hips and my knees would start hurting. So I found my sweet spot, that three to four miles. And I try to do that three or four times a week. You know, I'll do yoga when I can yoga. I was doing a ton of hot yoga right before the pandemic. All of the studios are now not even like closed there. They don't exist anymore, which is a devastating. And I'm sorry, sitting in your living room and doing hot yoga is not the same. I like the comradery.
0 (43m 28s):
That was the same way I did. I was a big high yoga. Loved it. And yeah, I believe to changing. Yeah, I'll do now. I'll do it. First thing. Well, I was for awhile doing it, first thing in the morning, not hot yoga, but you know, you can sort of build your own internal heat and it's, it's definitely better than nothing, but yeah. And I missed a studio and, and doing that, just getting up and moving, especially if you're really active, I'm in, I'm a big golfer. So like hips or, you know, I've got to keep those mobile who I go ahead and we're going to say
1 (43m 60s):
I was just, the last thing I was going to say is I try to play stuff with my friends as often as I can. I am not like a great athlete, but I can get out there and shoot the ball. I could get out there and swing the racket. I'll get on my roller blades. I'll get it on my bike. I don't care. Just do stuff. I find that the more stuff you do with people the better, and I'm not one of these people that's telling people to stay home and not see their friends. I think that's a bad recommendation for the record. I don't, I Use, I was a little cautious saying that before. I'm pretty confident that the recommendations that they're giving for COVID-19 are not working. I think it's obvious. And to continue to give the same recommendations when they're not working is ridiculous.
1 (44m 43s):
It's just like the nutrition paradigm. Hey, here's a bad recommendation. Oh, it's not working well. It's your fault. Not our fault. No, it's not our fault. It's not people's fault. What's happening is there's bad recommendations and very, very myopic short-sighted stuff going on. So, you know, if you're listening to this, go out and be thoughtful to go outside and do something physical play with your dog, play some tennis, go for a jog. If you got those roller blades from the 1990s, go put them back on.
0 (45m 19s):
It's funny you say that. I thought about getting back into rollerblading. I really did. I looked into buying them. I can't believe how much like more Technology is in rollerblades. And there was like 20 years ago.
1 (45m 30s):
That's fine. I bought, I bought these off-road ones. They're like instead of four little wheels, I used to have like a aggressive wheels, like the little wheels to do tricks. I now have three giant wheels off and I can roll blade on anything and I go super fast and I just wear a helmet and it's super fun.
0 (45m 49s):
Yeah, no, I, I might have the money. Well, now the weather in Chicago is not for rollerblading, but maybe when it gets nice, I'll get back into that. Yeah. Okay. So then we've hit everything here. Pretty much stress on food movement. Sleep you know, what is, what is your thought of what it is? I would say maybe a couple of Strategies around sleep.
1 (46m 11s):
Yes. And what's funny with Sleep is most people that come to me and I bring it up and they're like, sure, let's talk about it. No, one's sleeping. Well, especially during the pandemic, it's a lot of challenging for people. And I say the word sleep hygiene, and they've never heard the term. So for people listening, it's a very commonly used term in medicine. And it's very, very simple. You can go, go with it, but it's simple things like your bedroom is for Sleep and sex. It's a fun way to think about that. If you're going in there and even people that read in bed, it can be very challenging to then shut your mind down. And Sleep now some people aren't real big readers and they lay down and they read like three pages and pass out because they're not really avid readers in the book is just calming them down and knocking them out.
1 (47m 2s):
Fine. That's not what I'm talking about, but if you're a reader like I am, and you know, you're getting engaged in a stimulated, we can now replicate. We could also just use the word TV instead of the book. And you're not going to fall asleep because your brain is in this like activated entertainment mode. So I always just try to teach people that if you can, obviously everyone has different, you know, situations, but if you can make your bedroom a place where your, your, your body and your mind know that its you're going in there to sleep, then you're going to sleep better. Don't eat it in bed. Don't play games in bed. Maybe you could play in the morning. You can rustle a little bit.
1 (47m 42s):
And I know that's a fun, like Morning routine that some people do with their partners. But my point is is you shouldn't make, you know, your bedroom, a place of entertainment. It should be a place of Sleep and solitude and rest of them,
0 (47m 56s):
No cell phones in the bed. Yeah. But that's like,
1 (47m 59s):
And you know, I just, I like the idea of sleep hygiene as a concept that should be used. So right now we know people aren't sleeping. Well, people are having weird dreams. They're stuck at home. You know, their whole life has been turned upside down. I've never heard a single news article. Talk about, Hey, what can you do for us to protect yourself from COVID? Hey, well you could build your immune system by making sure your sleeping well, sleep hygiene is really simple and basic. And here's some basic concepts, never, never. And I challenge anyone listening to this to find one sleep hygiene commentary that talks about sleep boosting your immune system. This is common sense. This is a well-known. This is while research. We don't talk about it.
1 (48m 40s):
So I think that rather than having some hack like blue blockers or whatever, like trick, you don't need that. You just need a simple concept of respect your sleep. If you're a guy, a fair person who thinks that you're going to sleep when you die, you're going to die sooner and you're going to get dementia sooner. That's what the evidence is showing people that don't Sleep do badly when their older it catches up to you. So I think that just like, I want people to be thoughtful about the food they put in their body and not just jump on a paradigm or some bandwagon or some guru learn about it. Learn from your guru's learned from the organizations that are out there, promoting stuff, do the same thing with Sleep.
1 (49m 22s):
You know, don't just be a guru for meditation. Figure out what really manages your stress. Maybe meditation's not great for you. Maybe you need a different kind of meditation. I know I'm jumping around, but it's because all the concepts that we're talking about today, our big picture approach to life, and you don't need to have a, like a, you don't need to buy a product. You don't need to become a member of this Triber. That which although can be very helpful. And again, safety and Travis to support you. And, and there's many other organizations, everything we just talked about is simple free, and you just need to be convinced that it will help change your life.
1 (50m 7s):
And if you just chip away and every one of those little things, just every day, what can I tweak here? What can I tweak there to include in my life? You'll get healthier, you know? And it's for sure. There's, there's no question here. It's not, I don't need it. You know, to do a study. This is simple.
0 (50m 22s):
Yeah, no, that's great. And I'll pose this question cause that poses to a lot of the guests that I have on Is what would you say? And we've probably touched on it already, but if, if an individual middle-aged individual is looking to get their body back or even their mind back to what it once was when we were in their twenties, it's a common question. What one tip would you give them? Well,
1 (50m 49s):
Other than Eat a CEPI and died in, Lifestyle get rid of the crappy food and start eating nutrient dense, high protein, high, healthy, fat foods. Other than that, which is I think the core recommendation that we're all talking about in this space, it would be to activate your mind and the body. So going back to your morning routine, I think if I was in my middle age and I was struggling, the first thing I would do is wake up every day, drink a large cup of water, go outside for a long walk, get my son, put sunbathe and then, and maybe simultaneously listen to a very stimulating podcast. Has your, you got to use your brain and you have to learn something new to be excited for the world and to excited for each day.
1 (51m 35s):
I think if you created that kind of a morning routine, like you mentioned, where you were getting your movement, getting your son, getting your brain stimulated and activated, you would decrease your stress levels, increase your Healthy hormone, production, increase your vitamin D production, get your body moving. And you were to set yourself up for a successful day. It would be much easier to fast in the morning and get to your Intermittent Fasting window. And if you did that, it would be much easier to listen to another podcast or act on something that you learned during that walk because you would be stimulated in excited. And I think that the idea that a human being wakes up and goes to the kitchen to eat is, is, is handicapping them.
1 (52m 19s):
You wake up, open your eyes, get hydrated and go do something physical. You go do something intellectual. Okay. So say you're in your middle age and you have some serious physical limitations, fine to do something intellectual, like develop, you know, read something really powerful, watch something really powerful. If you can't read, learn something and then challenge yourself to do something new from what you just learned. Very, very simple. It's what we expect our children to do.
0 (52m 48s):
Yeah. The cue you, you lose touch into that. I actually speaking about working the brain, I actually took up piano. Yeah. And it's been great learning something as an adult is definitely a different experience than when you're a kid. Because a lot of times when you're a kid, someone just forces you to go to piano lessons and then you don't sort of see the progress, but I've been doing it now for over five years and it's cool to sort of see how you progress and just get better and better at it. And, and you just a PR I think you just appreciate it more. So like you said, learning an instrument, painting, whatever. I mean, I put a painting. Yeah. I mean 15 minutes a day, right?
0 (53m 28s):
Like it's, it's those simple little things. And they add up over time
1 (53m 32s):
Is a million reasons not to do something. The only reason you need to do something is that you want to be better than you were the day before. And so I think a lot of people, you know, I'm a musician you can see in the background there, I got a bunch of instruments and stuff. And you know, when I was young, I was always about like trying to be as good as this person or as good as that person. And now I'm just about like entertaining myself. And I find that I make more beautiful music and, and people like it more when I do play because I'm doing it for myself. So something that may be is a little bit interesting or different than what we've talked about on other podcasts is I, when I was really young and I was figuring out my path, I was always raging against the machine.
1 (54m 18s):
I was always like doing my own thing. And I, and, and it continues to this day. I'm always like finding my own path. I read Ayn Rand's books, the Fountainhead and Atlas shrugged, some of your listeners I'm sure will remember it. And a lot of his stuff,
0 (54m 33s):
Stuff has been misinterpreted as sort of like, you know, really like, like conservative or something like that.
1 (54m 41s):
It's not. So what she taught me was that it is the idea of individualism. If you do something, anything that you're meant to do that you want to do for yourself to the best of your abilities, that is how you will
0 (54m 56s):
The best serve the rest of the world,
1 (54m 60s):
The family, the people around you. I really don't like the idea that I am a doctor to, to serve my community. It's not true. I'm a doctor. Cause it makes me feel good to help people. I feel awesome when my patient comes back and they're crushing it and they're losing weight and they're getting off drugs, I'm not doing it for them. I'm doing it for me because it makes me feel good when I was in the hospital and people would come in and I would go through the hospital driven protocol of healing them. It did not feel as good. It was fine. I'm happy to like serve my role. Right? Like I had a role in the hospital and I did my thing. And sometimes it would help people.
1 (55m 40s):
And sometimes it wouldn't, but it didn't really matter. Cause I was just doing what I was trained to do. And it was fine, but I never felt that sense of like real fulfillment and purpose. Yeah. Being of service being of service does not just mean you're doing things for other people. It means you are serving people by doing the best version of yourself. And so if that means playing piano, because you connect like
0 (56m 6s):
With your a, you know, energy
1 (56m 8s):
On the artistic side of your inner child, your artistic side, your spirituality, and then you're able to go and do a podcast and be really thoughtful and tempered because you're like in a better mental space, then that's what it means. But I think that people, and, and that's why I love America. I'm a Russian immigrant. I came from a communist world. My parents never let me forget that. So, you know, I'm very, very proud of the way we operate in America. And I think that, you know, this idea that, you know, you have to do something for someone else is nonsense. That's not how the human brain is programmed your program to survive on your own and in your small group.
1 (56m 51s):
And if you can, you know, we now live in a globalized world, but if you can behave from that core space, if you can drive your day to day behaviors from like, I wanna do the best for me. I want to make me happy and make me the best. Then I do believe that people are inherently good and loving. And that that momentum will help you take care of your loved ones. Take the, the best neighbor, being nice to someone in a grocery store, right? Like if you're happy at home and you're doing the things you need to do to have a good mental space, then when you go to the grocery store and it sucks going in the grocery store right now, we have masks somewhere in scared.
1 (57m 33s):
It's not a good vibe, but I'm telling you just being calm and smiling and being courteous that people that's how you can benefit someone else. And I think that that doesn't come from being like, I have to be nice to have to be nice to have my God. I have to be nice to know it comes from like, I am happy. I am content. I am satisfied. And now I can project that energy on to everyone around me.
0 (57m 57s):
Well said, well said, there's your water. Yeah, love it. Well, wow. We've hit on pretty much everything. Sleep stress on food movement. Intermittent Fasting morning routines, daily eating habits, and even in the future of medicine. So hopefully hopefully more podcasts like this will come out and talk about how medicine should change and it'll benefit everybody in the long haul. We're where would you say the best? Because honestly, if you were in Chicago, I'd go, I'd go to your practice. I've filed. I've actually, I've gone to a few.
0 (58m 37s):
Let's just say like holistic preventive care places. Haven't quite found one that I, that I'm quite getting behind, but you know, what's the best place for people to find you. And then,
1 (58m 49s):
So I, I do telemedicine visits. It's, you know, if people really want to do a consultation with me, they can literally book from anywhere in the world. Yeah. My EHR will send a zoom link, just like the zoom link. You sent me for this and we can talk, can't do it really like for health insurance, under health insurance, because that's a state to state. I have to be like medically licensed everywhere, but I can give people advice. And a lot of what I'm doing, isn't per se medical, right? Like I can't manage your blood pressure meds from, you know, from California, but I could talk to you about this stuff. So that's, that's one way, but for sure, I'm on at Dr Gary evolve, I'm really available there. That's kind of my number one platform. And it's hard for me to jump around on different platforms and yeah, that's kind of where we're at, but also CEPI and tribe is a great way.
1 (59m 35s):
If you really want to be involved in your, not here, you can join the tribe. And we do zoom, private zoom calls with the group a few times a month. Brian's a big part of that. I'm a big part of that. We have a couple of health coaches that participate. What's a cool CEPI and.org is our website. We're working on food lies. Brian spending all of his energy on it. That, that movie's going to be amazing. I would say the CEPI and podcast is a great place, similar to your podcasts. It's about health and wellness. And you know, we have some great guests and we just launched season two. Your Brian's Podcast is a, you know, a lot of what I've learned comes from the peak Human podcast and all of the amazing scientists from all around the world and God, what he put together with our podcasts should really be the core of a curriculum for doctors.
1 (1h 0m 27s):
That's really what that should be. Yeah. And just reach out to me on Instagram. I think that's best. I'm also on Facebook now as a, as a doctor, but I'm more like just to get my name on it.
0 (1h 0m 40s):
Yeah. And I'll put all these links in the show notes so people can, can find you and reach out to you because yeah, like telemedicine, that's a good route for a lot of people and you know? Yeah.
1 (1h 0m 51s):
Yeah. It's awesome. I think right now I'm still like able to use it without any restrictions I want. I'm wondering if they re initiate, you know, there's a lot of restrictions on telemedicine before COVID COVID one of the silver linings is that it made the insurance companies have to say, Hey, we're going to pay for telemedicine. So that was great. And I was ready to launch that. I launched that immediate, like literally February know it was integrated in my, in my system. I was ready to go. I just have to click a button and pay a little extra and that's fine. But yeah, tell I've had a lot of folks could reach out to me and then some folks I it's really, right now, it's a weird time of people will travel to LA as a trip because it's a fun trip. And then they'll come in booking appointment and spend an hour with me and we'll go through a lot of this stuff.
1 (1h 1m 36s):
So I'm available. Everyone. I love to talk. I love to help people. I think everyone needs a little bit of different guidance and, and I think that's what I'm able to provide.
0 (1h 1m 47s):
Yeah. Well it's refreshing, so thank you. Yeah. Well ask them to be on the show and yeah. Thanks for listening. Thanks. Brian yup. Thanks for listening to the Get Lean Eat Clean podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there and you've chosen to listen to mind. And I appreciate that. Check out the show notes at Brian Gryn dot com for everything that was mentioned in this episode, feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member. That's looking to get their body back to what it once was. Thanks again, and have a great day.
