Jay’s Must-Listens: 5 Nutrition Experts on the Foods to Eat (and Avoid) to Improve Digestion and Stop Bloating (Ft. Dr. Casey Means & The Glucose Goddess)

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How many times have you promised yourself that this is the year you're going to change to a healthy diet?

Maybe it's been your New Year's resolution.

Maybe it's been a goal before the summer.

Whatever it is, I want this year to be the year that you finally achieve it.

Do you feel like you try and eat healthy, but you're constantly tired by 3 p.m.?

Or maybe you're trying to cut out junk food, but you're finding it really difficult.

Or maybe you're someone who wakes up in the morning and always feels bloated.

You even took it a step further and had the labs done that were fine, but you knew something was off.

Or maybe you're one of those people who's thinking, Jay, I need to get a gut test.

I need to know what's going on because I'm not feeling great.

If any of those are true for you, this episode is for you.

The number one health and wellness podcast.

Jay Shetty.

Jay Shetty.

The one, the only Jay Shetty.

So why did we put this episode together?

I know that the amount of information out there on how to be healthy and what you should eat or not is so overwhelming.

There are so many podcasts.

There are so many articles.

There is so much advice, even short 30-second TikToks telling you what's perfect for for you what i wanted to do was help you understand how there is no one size fits all i wanted you to hear from the best experts we've had on the show so that we can simplify and clarify some of these things that feel really complicated so much of what we eat is marketed as healthy but it's often working against us today's guests break down how to read your body's signals, improve your diet with protein and vegetables, and choose supplements that actually support your goals.

Whether you're trying to feel better daily or prevent chronic disease down the line, these insights will help you make smarter and most importantly, sustainable nutrition decisions.

I can't wait for you to hear it.

One of the biggest things that I've learned about health is that the more proactive you are, the more prepared you are.

I'm sure you felt it before.

You feel healthy, you feel good, you get a test done, and then you're wondering, how did I not know that?

How did I not feel that?

How did I not see that?

Now, some people are scared of getting tests done, scared of getting their lab results.

But here's the reality.

It's much scarier being surprised or shocked by something in the future than it is to be aware right now and start making changes.

This clip is from Dr.

Casey Means, who talks about how we can be proactive and how we shouldn't wait for illness to start caring.

I hope this inspires you to get more data, to get more tests done, so that you can be proactive in your health journey.

Remember, you're the only person who has to live in your body, with your body, and whatever you're going to go through.

Let's not set ourselves up for failure.

Let's be prepared for a long, healthy life.

I wanted to talk to you about this because a lot of people have said this to me.

I just invested in a company called Function Health.

I don't know if you've come across them.

I love them.

Oh, great.

I'm an investor.

Oh, Oh perfect.

We're both investors.

So I just invested in a company called function health.

I've known Dr.

Mark Hyman for a few years,

met the wonderful team, and I was very passionate about how they were allowing people to do, I believe, 200 biomarkers at $500 a year, which to me felt like a great investment.

I think one of the things I want to help people with is what do you do with those 200 biomarkers results, the blood test, the biosensors.

Like, I think a lot of people, again, look at that list and you're like, well, where do I go from here?

Like, where do I start?

What do I do?

What does HDL mean?

What does, you know, homo IR mean?

What does, you know, uric acid, like, what is all of this stuff?

It's so out of our vocabulary.

And like you said, 99% of doctors in the book, you talk about this, 99% of doctors don't understand it or will say, don't worry about it.

That's, that's what I've been told as well, many times before I was able to start getting tested by my holistic doctors.

doctors, all I was hearing is don't worry about it.

Don't stress about it.

It's not a big deal.

You're young.

You're healthy.

And I'm like, I know I'm young and healthy, but I want to stay young and healthy.

And I believe that requires a bit more effort than me saying I'm young and healthy.

It doesn't matter.

And I've learned about early stages for me of LDL, of

my predisposition to diabetes because of my heritage.

And, you know, there's so many things that I'm so happy I know about today, which has reduced my intake of certain things that I love or I enjoy or I've been addicted to for years,

whatever it may be.

So, how do people make sense of what to do with those 200 biomarkers?

The first thing I want to say is that the system, again,

benefits off you thinking it's really complicated.

It is not that complicated.

Everything I learned about how to interpret lab testing, I learned after medical school.

I learned it doing my own research.

And I think that

every American adult is totally capable of understanding their basic biomarkers.

And in fact, we must.

And so what I would say is start simple and start free.

Every year, if you go to the doctor, they're going to order a very basic set of tests that usually involves a cholesterol panel and a fasting glucose test.

They're going to take your blood sugar, your blood pressure as well.

So a lot of people might be asking, how do I figure out if I have good energy or bad energy?

And it's very simple.

You start with five essentially free biomarkers, fasting glucose, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, waist circumference, and blood pressure.

They generally come standard on a physical.

And if you have a fasting glucose less than 100 milligrams per deciliter, an HDL cholesterol above 40 for men or 50 for women, triglycerides less than 150 milligrams per deciliter, a blood pressure less than 130 over 85,

and a waist circumference less than 35 for women or 40 for men, and you're not not on medication,

you,

by our standard criteria, fit the category of essentially having good energy.

That is essentially saying you are metabolically healthy.

Shockingly, people who meet all five of those criteria not on medication currently comprise less than 6.8% of American adults.

93.2% of American adults, based on the most recent research, have at least one of those metabolic biomarkers off or not in the optimal range.

So that's just step one is just know where you stand.

And you can literally like log into your electronic health record right now and get a, get a tape measure for your waist and figure out those things.

And I think a simple way, just I'll just simply say kind of what those tests mean.

So Fasting glucose, like I mentioned, if that's rising in the blood, it's a symbol that deep inside your cells, the mitochondria are overwhelmed.

The mitochondria are overwhelmed from all the lifestyle things we talked about that are under our control.

And they are saying we cannot process any more of this into energy.

Therefore, we are blocking it from coming into the cell.

Therefore, it rises in the bloodstream.

That's why fasting glucose matters.

It is a sign that deep inside the belly of your cell, the cell is overwhelmed and is blocking the entry.

So it's rising in the blood.

Triglycerides are totally related to that because when that glucose is high and has nowhere to go and isn't being converted in that miraculous cosmic process to human energy, it converts to fat so it can be stored because the body does not want the blood sugar to be super high.

High blood sugar is a problem in lots of ways.

It sticks to things and causes dysfunction, it causes inflammation.

So the body converts it to fat and stores it in within cells or in fat cells.

So that's what triglyceride means.

Triglycerides is basically saying there is, again, damage within the cell.

The cell is overburdened and we are becoming metabolically dysfunctional.

So we have to print fat to take care of this excess that we can't process.

HDL

is a helpful part of the cholesterol family, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol.

It's a type of cholesterol lipoprotein, so a molecule that floats around in the blood that actually takes cholesterol from the arteries back to the liver to be processed and excreted.

So it's a way of taking cholesterol from where it could be causing problems in the blood vessels and putting it back to the liver.

And unfortunately, when the liver becomes dysfunctional because of the way we're living today and becomes filled with fat, do the other, do the, do what I just spoke about with triglycerides, this process of creating the right amount of HDL gets dysfunctional and we start to see HDL decline and that's a problem.

So HDL is quote unquote good cholesterol and when it's low, that's basically means that we can't pull the damaging cholesterol from the blood vessels back to the liver.

So simply put, that's like, that's a lot of what you need to know about metabolic biomarkers.

There are so, so, so many more.

But, and then waist circumference, that one's kind of interesting because

it's really a proxy metric waist circumference for how much fat is around your internal organs.

This is a type of fat that we're hearing about more and more called visceral fat.

There's three types of fat.

Subcutaneous fat, which is the fat you can see.

It's the fat that, you know, we kind of try to get rid of because we don't look as good in a bathing suit.

It's actually not the fat that's going to kill us.

You know, this fat, it's not going to kill us.

Then there's visceral fat, which is the fat that is around our organs that makes the organs dysfunctional.

And then there's intracellular fat, which is literally fat that's built up inside the cell that causes massive dysfunction.

Visceral fat and intracellular fat are the two types of fat that are going to shorten your lives, your life.

And those are both driven by insulin resistance, that process that we talked about that is fundamentally rooted in mitochondrial dysfunction.

So the waist circumference is just a way of of basically telling you how much fat is around my organs and therefore how insulin resistant might I be.

And then the last one is the fifth one that I spoke about, which is blood pressure.

And blood pressure, again, it roots right back to glucose and insulin and metabolism.

As our insulin levels in the body rise and they rise, again, just let's make it really simple.

The cell, the mitochondria is broken.

It's not working properly.

It can't process the glucose.

It creates insulin resistant because insulin resistance, because insulin is the hormone that's secreted to help glucose get into the cell.

But if there's an insulin block, essentially the insulin can't do that job and glucose rises in the blood.

But the body's like, oh no, the glucose is rising.

We need to actually secrete more insulin to drive glucose into the cell,

which of course adds more burden to the mitochondria.

So insulin levels rise.

Well, when insulin levels rise as a compensatory mechanism for this mitochondrial dysfunction and the rising glucose levels.

Another impact it has is to block nitric oxide production.

And nitric oxide is the chemical in the blood that dilates our blood vessels and keeps our blood pressure under control.

So, hopefully, it's a little complex, but those five things all link back to the exact same thing, which is mitochondrial dysfunction, which is caused by the lifestyle pillars we talked about.

So,

just to summarize, those five simple simple tests that usually come on every annual physical are the best place to start.

Understand

where you stand on those compared to the ranges I mentioned, and that will give you a sense of where you are.

And then

it's really implementing the basic dietary and lifestyle strategies to give your body what it needs so we can free up the strain on the mitochondria and bring those things down.

They will all start coming back in a normal range as you free up the mitochondria to do better work, which we do through our daily choices.

Just quickly speaking to function health, that is like the next level.

And that is,

if it's something that's accessible to you, I recommend every single person in the world do this if they can, because it's over 100 biomarkers, like you said, for less than $500,

less than the copay that you would pay at the doctor's office for like 10 labs.

And what that will do is actually give you a hyper granular picture of what's going on inside your body and your metabolism.

And I mentioned that there are three hallmarks of bad energy.

There's chronic inflammation, there's oxidative stress, and there's mitochondrial dysfunction.

And the beauty of the function health tests is that they actually have tests that will tell you about each of those.

So you can really know what's going on and beautiful functional medicine interpretations that actually help you understand

what they mean.

But I think something that's, again, hopefully empowering and not too scary is that at the best hospitals and medical schools in America, like Stanford, Stanford, where I went to medical school, doctors are not learning how to interpret lab tests in a way that will help you be empowered to live a healthier life.

We are only learning a very algorithmic way of looking at lab markers in isolation in order to prescribe medications.

If LDL is high, prescribe a statin.

If glucose is high, prescribe metformin,

and so on and so forth.

And what's really interesting is that for the biomarkers that we do not have a good drug for, we ignore them, like triglycerides.

You rarely hear about triglycerides, even though they are more associated with heart disease than LDL.

We only hear about LDL because we have a medication for it.

If uric acid is high, here's allopurinol.

So we focus on the biomarkers that have a drug for them.

And what they don't learn is how to look at the labs in concert with each other to read the tea leaves of what the labs are saying together to tell you about your core physiology.

So what I just shared with you about fasting, glucose, triglycerides, HDL, blood pressure and waist circumference is frankly more than what we even learn in medical school of how they all relate back to metabolic dysfunction.

And so I think it's just really important for everyone to find the resources like the book that explains it in clear detail.

And you can sit down with the book and your lab tests and understand for yourself where you stand.

Absolutely.

And trust me, it's like for anyone who's listening and feeling like it's challenging, I've been learning all about this myself for the past couple of years.

And while I could never explain it as well as Casey does or even begin to try and understand it as deeply as you do, I've noticed how some of these very simple lifestyle changes have shown me big changes in how I feel.

And I wanted to focus on some of those with you that you break down.

One of the big ones that I've struggled with for a very long time, because I remember feeling like I had to do this quick and fast forever.

You talk about eating slowly, which I think sounds like the easiest, simplest, but underestimated habit.

So could you walk us through that?

It's incredible.

This is also my biggest challenge as well.

It's so hard.

Especially as a surgeon, like I just would wolf food down.

And research strongly shows that the people who eat the slowest have a four times less likelihood of developing metabolic syndrome than people who eat the fastest.

So literally, this has nothing to do with what you're eating.

It's how you're eating.

So this should be very empowering for people because it's like, even if you don't want to change the actual food, change the speed at which you're eating.

And that does change everything.

The average American family is eating

fewer than three meals per week at a table with the family.

Like this is, this has become so normal now that we don't eat with other people.

We eat in our cars.

We eat while we're walking.

We eat on the go.

And I think just the key message here is that the more you can invest in sitting down at a table and eating slowly and mindfully, it's literally going to have a profound impact on your core metabolic health.

If you're like me, I spent a long part of my life addicted to sugar.

I wanted a sugary breakfast.

I wanted to have a dessert every day.

I was addicted to sugar for a long, long time.

And even today, it's a craving that I really, really have to work on.

And by the way, I'm not alone.

We've been programmed this way.

All of our healthy breakfast foods are packed with hidden sugar.

Everything today has so much sugar in it.

And people will even convince you that sugar is fine.

It's not that bad.

But the truth is, spikes in our glucose, our over intake of processed foods, which are packed with those hidden sugars are what's causing our crushes and later down the line illnesses and diseases that we don't want to have to go through my next guest is one of my favorites of all time jesse in chope also known as the glucose goddess gives the most practical simple daily habit changes You don't need to buy anything.

You don't need to learn a new skill.

You can start applying these insights right now and it will change your life i've been following these words as closely as possible and i felt the benefits and i can't wait for you to feel it as well if you feel like you're struggling with your sugar intake your cravings your crashes this clip is for you what are some of the hidden places glucose is that we may not see or may not understand that we can't figure out on a day-to-day basis because i feel like when i went to that test of the no no-sugar cereal, in my head, that didn't have glucose, only for me to understand it was the rice that it was made from that was having that impact on me.

So, where is are there any others that you know that are hidden?

Actually, breakfast food is usually a top offender, right?

So, orange juice, fruit smoothies, breakfast cereal, even if they say no sugar or low in sugar, that doesn't mean they don't contain glucose.

It just means they don't contain any table sugar, but they could also contain sugar from fruit, which is quote-unquote natural.

So, it doesn't have to be claimed as an added sugar in a package, package, right?

Breakfast foods, huge, huge, huge offenders.

And then kind of like funny things that you wouldn't expect, like eating a lot of grapes.

If you eat 50 grapes, that's actually a lot of sugar because the fruit that we eat today has been bred to be extremely high in sugar and concentrated in sugar.

But I think breakfast foods are one of the biggest ones.

Oh, also dried fruit.

People don't realize that it's not because something comes from fruit that it's good for you.

Dried fruit or fruit smoothie or fruit juice can contain, you know, tens and tens of grams of sugar, even though it originally came from a fruit.

But your body doesn't care whether sugar came from an orange juice and is now in an orange juice, or whether sugar came from a beetroot and is now in a can of Coca-Cola, right?

Those sugar molecules will both lead to a glucose spike.

Yeah, and it's interesting because I think the way we've been trained to have a sweet breakfast, I've switched to savory breakfast last year, and that's something you are a big, big, big hack of mine.

Yeah, talk to us about that switch.

Well, listen, the glucose spike that we experience after breakfast is going to control the rest of our day.

So if you eat in the morning something that is pure glucose, like most of us do, right?

I grew up on orange juice and Nutella crepes, so I know.

Sounds amazing.

It was amazing.

But then at 10.30, I was exhausted because I was crashing.

My glucose levels were crashing.

And I was super, super hungry.

Because after a big spike, you experience a big crash.

And that crash activates the craving center in your brain and literally tells you, Jay, go find some chocolate.

You know, and you cannot resist.

And you can't resist that urge.

So your breakfast, if you're having a big glucose spike at breakfast, you're setting yourself up for a day of cravings, fatigue, inflammation, and you're going to feel quite awful.

An important switch to make is to switch from a sweet breakfast to a savory breakfast built around protein, right?

Whatever kind of protein you like, maybe it's dairy, maybe it's tofu, maybe it's protein powder, maybe it's leftover fish from last night, maybe it's eggs, whatever kind of protein you want, that's going to keep your glucose levels nice and steady.

Add some healthy fats in there, and you can have some starch like a slice of bread for taste, but importantly, a savory breakfast contains nothing sweet, except if you want some for taste, some whole fruit, right?

And you know, all those sweet breakfast foods that you love, you don't have to say goodbye to them completely.

The best time to have them is for dessert, after lunch or after dinner.

Because if you eat something that contains a lot of glucose, something starchy or sweet, after a meal, the glucose molecules are not going to arrive as quickly into your bloodstream because there's already going to be food in your stomach.

The worst time to eat starches and sugars is breakfast because your body is super empty.

So anything you eat goes to your bloodstream in a second, right?

But it's actually the meal of the day where most of us eat just starches and sugars.

Yeah.

Think about the typical breakfast: orange juice, oats with honey on them, breakfast cereal, you know, fruit smoothies.

Oatmeal with raisin.

Exactly.

And then you wonder why most of us feel so terrible throughout the day.

Why it's 4 p.m.

and we're exhausted and we need coffee or Red Bull.

We have cravings all throughout the day and even at night.

Your breakfast controls how you feel for the whole day.

And I think switching from a sweet breakfast to a savory breakfast is almost like, you know, in the movies when they go through the mirror, it's a parallel universe.

Yeah.

And you really feel so different.

Absolutely.

So, so, so different.

All of a sudden you have steady energy.

Your brain is clear.

You feel good.

You feel like yourself.

You're not controlled.

You're not a victim to these cravings anymore.

Yeah.

I found, though, that as someone who has had cravings for a long time or lived in that sweet cycle, there's been a lot of withdrawal symptoms.

I think when people stop eating sugar, I've definitely experienced headaches.

I think some people experience very low energy.

Someone was telling me earlier today that they feel nauseous or sick.

Like there's a lot of different things that come with it.

Talk to us about why.

it's so addictive yeah obviously beyond the fact that we love the taste of it why is it so addictive and how does it cause those symptoms yeah i think what you're talking about is if somebody goes cold turkey and just completely cuts things out and that's not actually something that i recommend i think that again like i don't have that kind of willpower and I want to help people improve their health without having to give up the sugar.

So even if you delay the sugar from breakfast to after lunch as dessert, you're not going to get all those withdrawal symptoms.

You're still going to be able to enjoy it and get the dopamine, but with less impact on your glucose levels.

And listen, sugar is addictive, right?

And that dopamine

is very, very, very, very addictive.

And as human beings, eating something sweet is a very easy way to get a hit.

Now, what you're talking about can also be due to if somebody completely cuts out carbs, so starches and sugars, completely.

Let's say from today to tomorrow, you cut out all carbs, that can cause issues because if you've been eating carbs your whole life, your body expects these carbs every two to three to four hours.

And your body's actually just burning glucose for energy.

So all of a sudden, you cut off its supply of glucose.

and it becomes a little bit stressed out, especially if your body's not used to also burning fat for fuel.

In a healthy body, you can switch from burning glucose for energy to burning fat for energy easily.

So either you eat glucose and your body gets energy that way, or you're not eating and your body's burning fat.

In most of us, we're eating every two to three or four hours some carbs.

And so our body doesn't know how to burn fat for fuel anymore.

It doesn't have that muscle.

So the idea is to train it slowly to be able to do that, not to just cut out completely the glucose, you know, cut the grass from under the foot too quickly.

That's going to be difficult.

Yeah, and I think that's one of the biggest challenges, right?

Because when it comes to New Year's resolutions or when it comes to changing habits, we often think we have to go in or out.

I hate that.

And diets, you know, they don't work.

They're super stressful.

They're actually a pretty strong way to control women.

Like I have been from the moment I was a teenager, the magazines are telling you, lose five pounds in a day, you know, lose your belly before summer.

You're bombarded by these messages that make you feel inadequate if you're not on a diet.

I mean, it's pretty messed up.

The amount amount of fat on your body or how much you weigh is not a good representation of the internal health of your body, right?

And if you're just focusing on, I want to lose weight, I want to lose weight, there are very unhealthy ways to do that that might actually make your health way worse.

What I like to teach people is these simple hacks.

So savory breakfast is a very important one.

Eating sugar as dessert instead of on an empty stomach is another key one.

And these hacks are going to help your body on the long term and create better health from within.

And you you might lose weight.

For example, in my experiment, about half the people lost some fat on their body without trying to, without counting calories, without cutting out foods, just because naturally that's where their body wanted to be and it readjusted, right?

But the objective is not weight loss.

The objective is being craving free and not feeling victim to finding sugar three times a day or not victim to the pot of ice cream at the back of your freezer after dinner.

good energy so you can actually live the life you want to live and go after your dreams.

You know, that's the point.

And play with your kids and have time for yourself.

And then improving any medical condition you might have from mental health to infertility to diabetes.

Weight loss, consequence.

But it's not the whole point.

It's not a diet, you know?

Yeah.

And it's a different shift in mindset, really, because you're saying that a lot of us are addicted to weight loss, weight gain or something like that.

And you're actually saying, well, let's make it about energy.

Let's make it about focus.

Let's make it about.

Let's make it about health.

Health, yeah.

Yeah, which is, which is, which we just haven't been trained to think that way.

You know, we we haven't.

Even I grew up always feeling like, oh, if I didn't put on weight, then I must be healthy.

And that's such a,

I mean, it's such a rudimentary belief around what health and well-being is.

Absolutely.

And it's shifting.

You know, we're now understanding that's not the way to go.

We need to focus on health, not body size.

Absolutely.

Body weights.

Absolutely.

What should someone eat at 3 p.m.

when they're tired?

Because everyone has that post-lunch, you know, slump.

They do.

They do, but it actually can go away.

If you study your glucose levels, and if you no longer have these spikes, you don't have to feel that post-meal slump anymore.

Because generally, that slump comes from your glucose having spiked and now dropping.

Because after every spike, there's a drop.

And this drop can make you feel really, really, really tired.

So, if you feel those symptoms of the post-meal crash, the best thing to do is to start with your breakfast.

So, have a savory breakfast.

Then, the second thing I would recommend is

at lunchtime, make sure that you start your meals with a specific type of ingredient that is going to help balance your glucose levels.

And before I tell you what that is, I want to tell you about this amazing research study, Jay.

So researchers looked at a meal and they found that if participants ate the elements of that meal in a specific order,

they could reduce the glucose spike of the meal by up to 75%.

Huge.

That's huge.

Without changing how much they're eating, without changing what they're eating overall, just by changing the order.

And when I was in school, I remember biology teachers telling us, oh, when you eat, it all becomes a big soup in your stomach.

And so I thought, how is this possible?

How can the order in which you eat the elements of meal have an impact?

So the research is fantastic.

It turns out that when you start your meals with vegetables,

the fiber in the veggies, when you eat it first, has time to coat your upper intestine and create a sort of protective mesh, okay, like a shield on the walls of your intestine.

And that shield then slows down how quickly the rest of the meal is going to access your bloodstream how quickly the molecules from the rest of the meal are going to make their way into your bloodstream.

And so veggies first is this very important hack.

Now, the scientists...

I'm going to eat my veggies last.

Really?

Because you hate it there.

Because you're right.

You eat all their carbs first.

You're like, oh, yeah.

And you know, actually, so when you go to restaurants, they often give you bread at the beginning of the meal.

And actually, it's pretty smart.

So I think there's a whole conspiracy here.

Because if you give people some bread at the beginning of your meal, So you're super hungry, you eat the bread.

Bread is starch, it turns to glucose.

So very quickly, you experience this glucose spike.

And about 90 minutes later, you're crashing.

And that's when the waiter comes over and and is like, hi, anybody would like some dessert?

And at that point, you're feeling this intense craving for sugar because of that glucose drop.

So you're going to order dessert.

Wow.

That makes sense to me.

I love bread at the start.

Yeah, the end.

But the best thing to do, actually, is to delay that bread and first have your veggies and then have your main dish and have the bread, you know, during the main dish or after the main dish.

And that way, you can still enjoy the bread, but the glucose molecules are going to be protected by that fiber mesh and not going to create that big of a spike.

So you won't feel those cravings 90 minutes later.

You won't feel the energy crash.

So that's another super important hack.

And if you do nothing else, just at your next meal, eat what you would normally eat.

Just add a plate of vegetables to the beginning of your meal.

And it can be three baby carrots.

It can be some beautiful roasted cauliflower with tahini or whatever.

It can be some salad.

It can be any sort of veggies you have in your fridge and tomatoes count as well.

And you'll see how different you feel after the meal.

No crash, no cravings.

And you know you're also helping your body become healthier from within.

And interestingly, Jay, this hack actually has a lot of parallels in cultural habits.

So, you know, I'm French and in France, we have this tradition of crudité at the beginning of a meal, which is raw veggies.

In Italy, they have antipasti, which is generally vegetables at the beginning of the meal.

In the Middle East, you usually start your meals with herbs eaten by the bunch.

So none of the stuff stuff I'm talking about is that revolutionary.

It's kind of common sense, but we've lost touch with these traditions and now we understand the science behind them.

So I want us to bring them back.

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So I already said that we have too much information on health and nutrition, or there's lots out there.

And a big part of that is we have a lot of information about vitamins and supplements.

And there are so many on the market.

It's hard to know what we actually need, what's right for us.

And if you're someone who's trying to figure out how you can boost your energy, boost your immune system and stay healthy, and want to know which vitamins and supplements you should be on, this clip is for you.

This next clip is from cleanse expert and holistic nutritionist Alyssa Goodman.

It's going to help you figure out which vitamins you should be taking, which supplements you should avoid and what you should look out for on the packaging and the key nutrients we all need to live healthy, energy-filled lives.

If you're trying to figure this part of your health out, listen to this now.

Walk us through, in a practical sense, how does someone make a choice?

What do they need to read on the back of a box or a bottle with vitamins and supplements?

Like what should they be looking for and what should they be looking at to make sense of it from a technical standpoint, not just the intuition standpoint?

Yeah, that's a great question.

Because you want to have as least fillers and additives in that supplement as possible.

And what's a filler in a filler is like something that just fills up the supplement.

You know, it's like a, you know, crystalline cellulose

is a filler.

Not all the supplement is going to be the B complex, but they need other things, you know, to bind the Bs, you know, for you to be able to digest them.

So a lot of times, you know, or like it's expensive to have the supplement be all, you know, liposomal C or B or whatever, or vitamin D.

So a lot of times they add the additives so that it isn't as costly.

So it really is a struggle because a lot of people don't do well with these additives and they don't know that.

So microcrystalline cellulose is one that's in a lot of supplements and it gives you digestive issues if you're taking too many.

So you could see a lot of people's supplements and they could all have microcrystalline cellulose.

I mean, it's wild.

So it, or soy lecithin, you know, or just these additives, just like in foods, you know, it kind of maintains the shelf life of the supplement as well.

So it's hard to find supplements without that because they're costly and a lot of people can't afford that.

Right.

So that's why, you know, I try to go more like with the food and that, you know, lead with the food.

And then supplements come second.

Right.

But there are some supplements out there that we absolutely do need.

You know, vitamin D is one of them.

I mean, since COVID, the studies that have been done on vitamin D, and especially liposomal D, because liposomal is a phospholipid outside of a, you know, supplement and basically is better to absorb, easier to absorb, like liposomal C and liposomal glutathia and all those things.

And so, basically,

D, when you raise your D levels, you can lower your cholesterol.

Actually, you raise your D levels, it's better for your immune system, it's better for cognitive function.

People don't realize that there's a vitamin D cell receptor in every cell in your body.

So, you know, there's that, it's omega-3s, it's, you know, it's magnesium.

Like, there's certain things out there, B, B complex for stress.

Yeah, I don't, one thing I definitely didn't realize until I really got on a good regime of supplements and vitamins was just how much harder I was working to feel good.

Right.

Like it was, I just thought it was a mental battle.

And so I was fighting the mental battle every day of meditation and mindfulness and everything else.

And then I realized I was like, actually, I would have been a much better meditator if I just took supplements and vitamins early on because then your body's actually helping you with that focus and with the physical activity or movement and exercise, right?

Whether it's hiking or sport or whatever it may be.

And it's so funny now that you're naming all these things.

I'm like, I've seen all these things on the backs and never known what that means.

And it's so easy to just feel so uneducated.

And I've definitely felt that way in this space.

You know, without having good people around you, it's so hard to really know whether what you're doing is good for you or not.

Walk us through, like, if we took a random stack of snacks right now, and I don't want to pick on any brands or anything like that in any way, but if you were to teach someone how to read the back of a snack pack, what should they be looking out for?

Because this is something that I believe has changed the way I snack.

And I generally, I'd say my diet is

like maybe, I don't know, at this point, like 5%.

processed or packaged foods in any if if that probably when I'm traveling I'll have like a protein bar that I travel with or something like that.

But generally, it's not.

I'm on the whole foods diet and everything else.

But it wasn't that way before.

I used to think that if I ate healthy snacks, then that was okay.

So I would eat packaged goods and then 50% of my diet was packaged goods or maybe 30%.

Walk us through what we should be looking out for because I think so much is hidden on these.

Well, it's the same thing as the supplements.

You know, there's a laundry list of things on the back of the snack, you know, box or bag or whatever that you don't even recognize, right?

Like, it's just, I mean, they're like, you know, certain dyes that are bad for us.

And like going back to the soy lecithin, like soy lecithin is really bad for us.

I see that everywhere.

It's so funny.

I've pronounced that wrong for them my whole life.

Now that you've told me.

I mean, I love soy, whole soy products, but you know, when it's processed down to that, it's bad.

It's like the bad seed oils, that's omega-6s and nines, and like really causing inflammation.

So, again, if it's a laundry list of things that you don't recognize, like that kind of is a no-go.

I mean, you know, let's talk about some of the things we know, like plant milks.

You know, they've been huge for years, right?

Now, there's, thank God, there's better, healthier plant milks out there.

They're just almonds and sea salt and water.

Like, those are the things to look for.

Something that's just simple.

Even the cheeses, you know, I do love some of the plant-based foods and cheeses and some of the fake meats, but again, they could have a lot of bad stuff in them.

So it's like, you know, I sometimes, you just got to go for the less is more, even the protein bars too.

You know, every so often it's not bad to have some of these things that do have these, you know, all these things in them because you're not going to be perfect.

But I would say 75% of the time, 80% of the time to try to look for, you know, those things on the back and just try to do things with less additives because your system doesn't know how to process it, doesn't know how to digest it.

And the more you add these additives into your body, I think more toxic you become.

And also the digestive system, like the digestive issues are crazy out of control.

Like I created a digestive cleanse because it's been like everybody has digestive issues.

Everybody calls me like my diet.

Every time I eat, I get bloated.

I, you know, I can't eat anything now, or I can't go to the bathroom, like the constipation for days on end.

Like, it's really crazy.

Or the other side of it where they're going to the bathroom too much.

That's an epidemic, like the hydration.

Yeah.

So you're saying when you're looking, if you're outside, you're looking for snacks and products, it's like less ingredients,

simple ingredients and real ingredients, basically.

Things that you actually know what they are.

If you don't know what they are, that's probably a sign that.

And the problem is it doesn't taste as good though.

No, it doesn't.

Sometimes.

I had a protein bar the other day because I was at Expo and I had a protein bar and I was like, oh, great.

Like this literally had three ingredients on it.

I was so excited to eat it.

And I tried it and it was so bad compared to the one that I've been programmed to love,

which has all the other 30 things that you'd say I shouldn't eat and are not good for me.

And it's so frustrating because I'm like, I wish I was trained to believe that.

whole natural foods were tasty and healthy.

Whereas because I've been so spoiled by my taste buds, I've been ruined by all of this other stuff that now feels captivating and exciting and tasty.

Yeah.

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Avocado, dream of better.

Most of America has, you know, right?

I mean, the sugar in these things, like, you know, there's a lot of sugar in these bars and in these milks and cheeses or whatever it is because things don't taste so great when they are on that simple side.

You know, there's a lot of salt, there's a lot of sodium.

So to make them taste better.

Walk us through.

So walk us through the core needs that people come to you with.

So that you said they do it.

There's a gut cleanse.

Walk us through the different cleanses that people need in their life.

So the regular cleanse is really, i'll tell you a little bit about what's on it um there's a detox tonic on it with coconut kefir which is a probiotic drink i love coconut i am

a big fan of probiotics and i love coconut kefirs coco yo and there's a lot of great products out there on the market then it has chlorophyll apple cider vinegar lemon ginger in there and then there's my homemade super seed bar um then you basically get a bone broth or vegan broth um our bone broth is really gelatinous and so there's a lot of collagen, which I love.

And then we get, you get different salads for the week, different salad dressings, fermented vegetables.

You get different soups for the nighttime, and then you get lattes for the evening.

Then you also get digestive enzymes and you get magnesium.

So to make sure that everything's working properly, because people going from an animal protein diet into a plant-based legumes and beans can disrupt their stomach, and also a lot of vegetables can as well.

So there's that one.

There's a three-day pressure.

walk us through.

So are you encouraging people to not have dinners in that?

Is that the soup is dinner?

Yes, right.

Or they could have soup for lunch and do the salad for dinner.

So it's not super strict.

A lot of people who exercise a ton will add a little bit of animal protein, you know, to the meal potentially, and it doesn't take you away from the cleanse.

So again, you're just getting tons of vegetables, you're getting anti-inflammatory, you know, nourishing, nurturing foods.

So

that, you know, that one is like my regular one that has been going on for nine years.

Sometimes it blows my mind because the tonic's been on there for nine years.

The bar's been on there.

Like it's crazy that things are still popular.

People buy the tonics and the bars separately.

And then the gut cleanse has activated charcoal on there.

So

what activated charcoal?

So I love activated charcoal because it lowers bacterial loads in your gut.

Wait, how do you eat activated charcoal?

You take a pill.

Right.

You can put it in a drink and, you know, you could put it in the detoxonic or in water or whatever, but you take, it's a pill.

It's a very strong pill.

And I have found when I had insulin-resistant clients who couldn't lose weight, weight-resistant clients, their insulin was high, their gut bacteria was too high.

So I would put them on five days of activated charcoal and lower their insulin levels, which was like fantastic.

So that's how the gut cleanse came about.

So they get activated charcoal, they still get the enzymes, they get the magnesium, but they get chia pudding, they get sauerkraut, they still get the detox tonic, they don't get the bar because a little too much sugar.

I don't want sugar for them because of the bacteria, and then they get everything else that's pretty similar.

And the nighttime is a Tulsi tea.

You know that.

Holy basil is one of my favorites.

It's anti-inflammatory and great for the gut, great for sleep.

So that's my, that's the other cleanse that I love.

And so what I'm trying to do for people is really clean them out.

My, those clients are the ones that have a little bit of constipation issues, like aren't going to the bathroom regularly.

Um, and they're by the end of the week, they're going two and three times a day.

Wow, like it, that's another crazy thing because people go

once a day.

They that's considered constipated these days.

It's crazy.

So, walk us through that because that's always like an uncomfortable topic for people.

It's something that people don't talk about.

But I mean,

I don't think we've even we're getting to the point of of understanding how important that the digestive system is.

Yeah.

And how often should be people going to the restroom?

What should be the healthy way of

going about that area of their life?

Well, you know, once a day is good.

Twice is great.

Three is perfect.

So we really, because we don't get enough fiber, because we don't get enough hydration, because we're stressed, because when we're stressed, our digestive system completely shuts down.

we are not being able to digest our food so also and also we're eating a lot of animal protein so it takes you know 14 hours to get through the small intestine cow and and animal protein and 90 minutes for plant-based food which is crazy so we're

so for plant-based food it takes 90 minutes to get through the small intestine for cow and animal protein it takes 14 hours So we're, you know, we're eating eggs for breakfast and chicken for lunch and salmon for dinner.

Like, so we're just like, not that it's bad for you, but we're just not getting hydration, we're not getting fiber.

You know, we're stressed.

We're not doing all the other things.

We're not doing the other things.

We're not sleeping.

Sleeping is very detoxifying and helping us with our digestive system.

So, um, yeah, so we're supposed to be kind of like an animal and going after every meal.

And people are a little bit like, oh, please don't tell me that.

Yeah, wow.

I know.

This next clip is from Dave Asprey, the founder of Bulletproof Coffee, also known as the father of biohacking.

Now, what I love about this clip is if you're someone trying to figure out your protein intake, because there's so much information about protein out there, it really simplifies it.

If you're plant-based, he also gives some great insight on how you can still get the adequate amount of protein.

Also, if you're struggling to figure out which milk to be drinking, thinking about how it impacts your blood sugar levels, or thinking about what's good for you, this clip will make a difference.

I think the challenge is, as we know, with health and wellness, there's always a new fad, a new trend, a new kind of thing that comes up, and everyone gets behind it.

And then, afterwards, a few years later, we realize that there was more research to it.

I think one of those big areas is around, let's, there's two areas in the book that you cover really well that I want to dive into.

One is around where we get our protein.

We know protein is important.

I mean, remind us how much protein we need to get every day, like good protein.

You need between 0.8 and one gram of protein per pound of body weight so i weigh 200 pounds and i'm about seven percent body fat and that means i need about 200 grams of protein a day body fat yeah that's ridiculous yeah as a guy who is the fat computer hacker from the first jurassic park

it's totally ridiculous and in order to do that if if you're obese like i was you might say well if i weigh 300 pounds i had 100 pounds of fat you really only need 200 grams of protein you can subtract the extra fat from the number but 200 grams of protein that's a lot and protein isn't all the same and this is something that that's what yeah yeah that the big food companies are trying to tell us oh you know cricket protein or gluten is protein there's a company making keto cookies that are all protein they're just gluten and canola oil right that that is not food so A while ago, the story was, oh, all calories are the same.

So you can drink this, you know, high fructose corn syrup.

It's just calories.

As long as you keep your calories low, you can drink a Diet of Coke and a Snickers bar.

They cancel each other's out.

It doesn't work like that.

Protein's the same way.

So different proteins send different signals to the body.

And there's something called amino acid availability score.

And it turns out that animal proteins score much higher than plant-based proteins.

And I say this as a former vegan, a former raw vegan.

And you just cannot get enough protein from plants unless you're doing heavy industrial processing of the plants.

And that comes at a cost.

But even then, the highest quality plant-based protein powders don't hold a candle to dairy protein, which is vegetarian, or egg protein, which is vegetarian, or sort of the king of proteins is beef or buffalo or bison.

As a vegan, I had a problem with this because I was a vegan.

I was in Tibet at a monastery, and Tibetan monks love to argue.

They're trained since they're about eight years old, or you'll have an eight-year-old sitting on the ground surrounded by older kids standing up, all arguing at the same time, doing these like aggressive things.

And it's to teach you to be calm in the face of arguments so that you can still be at peace.

And it's beautiful to watch.

So I knew this.

And so I'm kind of teasing the head llama.

I said, well, you tell me no killing, but you have a yak skin on your prayer pole.

So I think you're a hypocrite.

And he starts laughing.

And he looks at me and goes, one death feeds everyone.

I'm like, mind blown.

Because I had been a vegan until I went to Tibet.

And I realized I cannot be a vegan in Tibet.

because there's just very little food.

And if there's, you know, some yak butter tea or there's, you know, a little bit of meat, you just eat it because there's just not enough food.

So I really thought about it.

And that led me to think about deaths per calorie.

And as a guy who's built a regenerative farm on Vancouver Island and raised all of my own animals for most of the last eight years, I will tell you that a cow will feed you for an entire year.

And if it's grass-fed and from a local farmer, no other animal died unless the cow stepped on a frog.

I mean, it is literally one death.

And if the cow was treated with respect and ethically, then you are killing fewer animals than an industrial plant protein.

Because when they do those, the tractor comes through and it chops up every creature that's there, including the bunnies and the mice and the butterflies and all the ugly ones like worms that no one likes that are important for life.

So I feel really clean about it.

But the most important thing that I can say, if you choose to eat animal protein, which I do, is that practice gratitude before you eat.

I believe because of my shamanic training, because of all the spiritual work that I do, that humans, our energetic field as a species, made a sacred agreement with the animals that we've domesticated.

And they come here to nourish us in exchange for our gratitude.

So if you are going to eat meat, you practice gratitude because that's the deal we made.

And if you disrespect the animal and you're eating industrial meat and

you're eating it with mindlessly, I don't think that's a good practice.

But I do think it's ethical to eat meat because I'm killing fewer lives when I eat beef than when I eat plant-based protein.

And since that nourishes me better, which gives me stronger energy and stronger bones, and it gives me more energy to put back into the world, including building better soil via farming of animals, I feel like it's a good deal and it's within integrity for me.

But even in some animal protein you were recommending, and we'll talk about the plant proteins as well, but some of the animal proteins you were saying are not as strong and reliable.

I believe you mentioned chicken, turkey.

I think there were a couple of others in the book that I saw.

Birds are not that

dinosaurs.

So they're less like us.

And the fat that's present in birds is similar to soybean oil.

It's a lot of omega-6 that causes inflammation.

And you would know this.

If you're in India and you're not feeling well, your grandmother's going to give you white rice and ghee, which is clarified butter.

In the U.S., you get saltines and margarine or something, and it doesn't work very well.

But the reason is that ghee, that saturated fat, is very nourishing for you and that you actually need that.

You don't get it from a chicken.

And also, one chicken to get the amount of protein, I'd eat a chicken a day.

I'm killing 365 chickens a year.

That doesn't feel very good.

In addition to that, real chickens, the kind that I grow on my farm, take nine months to mature.

And their fat is rich and yellow and full of vitamins, even though it's not the best kind of fat.

But the chickens that you're eating at the store take six weeks to get that big because they've been modified and bred to have these incredibly large breasts and they're terribly mistreated.

So unless a chicken is pasture-raised and a heritage breed, at which point it's not affordable.

They're terribly expensive to raise.

Chickens exist to make eggs.

Eggs, if you're not allergic, are really a good source of fat and protein.

And when you eat eggs, you want to cook the whites and leave the yolk runny.

And then you get the most nutrients that way.

And we talked about the plant protein from a...

ethical standpoint, but even from a nutritional standpoint.

I mean,

so me and my wife are both plant-based, but plant protein is like not a big part of our diets at all.

My wife's like not into eating any of the burgers or any of the meats.

That's probably a good point.

Because the fake meat is not good.

Yeah, it's yeah.

Explain why, because I think that's slightly the challenge for a lot of people who try and make that switch.

And I feel everyone who turns to that then goes back because it's not satisfying for you.

Are you plant-based to the exclusion of dairy?

Yes, I am.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Me and my wife are, we have been for years.

Yeah, and it's working for you.

And brother, if you're from India, you probably have the genes that are going to support that much better.

And so if you look at what your great-grandmother ate, that's going to be an indication of what you can handle.

And if you look at you, your skin is really good.

And that's unusual when most people go vegan because they eat a lot of industrial processed seed oils.

So if you're eating a diet that agrees with your body, and I totally support doing that, then what you want to do is you want to make sure that you're getting complete amino acids.

And you can do it from rice and beans, but here's the issue.

to get enough protein, it's definitely hard.

I'm fully like I'm thinking about it a lot.

It's like 300 grams of carbs to get 20 grams of protein.

It's hard.

So, then your best bet for plant-based proteins that have the highest amino acid score, it's actually hemp protein with the fat removed because hemp oil isn't particularly good for you.

So, then what you end up doing is saying, okay, I'm going to do that and I feel good.

I've also helped a lot of

vegans.

In fact, this is at David Wolf's vegan conference.

I explained the virtues of ghee, where no animals die to make ghee, and ghee helps to escort the nutrients from plants into the body so you make better use of the plants.

So sometimes adding, you know, a tablespoon of ghee a day gives you like a healthier skin glow and it feels more nourishing.

And people can choose to do that or not choose to do that.

And people get mad because I tease vegans.

Dude, I was a vegan.

Like it's teasing, guys.

It's not a disrespectful thing.

In my case, it actually harmed me.

And some things like spinach, kale, even raspberries and almonds are very high in oxalic acid, which I write about in the book.

And it causes crystals to form.

70% of kidney stones are from plant-based compounds, not from eating meat and beer.

30% are from meat and beer.

And so you can overdo either direction, right?

So I want people to say, choose the right plants when you're plant-based.

And I would consider, if I was plant-based, adding hemp-based protein powder, even though it is a processed food, it's going to be a processed food that has the best amino acid score that you can get.

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What I appreciate most is how intentional the brand is, designed to support your health and the planet.

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Avocado, dream of better.

This back to school season, spend less on your kids with Amazon.

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absolutely thank you so much very useful for everyone who's listening and i wanted to dive into drinking the wrong kind of milk because i think milk's been this you know there's obviously there's been the almond milks and the oat milks and then there's been debate on either side walk us through milk because i think like that's again i'd love to hear your side of it because Again, it's one of the, I find all of this so confusing because you hear something new come out, everyone gets behind it, it works for people, maybe it doesn't work.

Stopping dairy milk from my diet helped me with my gut, but I also don't drink a lot of oat milk or almond milk.

That's not really, that's not really part of my diet.

I don't have cereal and stuff like that.

So I'm not drinking that, but then there's a lot of debate on that side of it as well.

There is a lot of debate.

Dairy milk has been a part of human food for at least 5,000 years.

And it's a convenient way to not kill an animal and to have it continuously produce fat and protein, which are the hard things for humans to get enough of because carbs are relatively abundant in nature.

So

what do you do?

Well, normally you would just drink milk, but the milk we would drink was from a breed of cows that makes A2 milk and they ate grass.

And that works well with our biology.

The kind of milk that you get now is from cows that are bred to eat grain and corn and soy.

And that milk has the wrong kind of fat and it has a kind of protein called A1 protein that's very inflammatory.

So a lot of people who can't drink milk, which which include me, because it messes up my gut royally, it just makes me

stupid.

Actually, my brain swells up from it.

I get a lot of mucus.

I used to get throat, like, I used to get more throat infections.

Me too.

It's very similar.

So, sometimes you can handle A2 milk, but raw A2 milk is how we used to drink it.

And in many states, it's still illegal.

And why the government thinks it has a right to tell you what you're allowed to eat, I don't know.

They don't have that right.

So, it doesn't matter if they make it illegal.

They didn't have the right to make it illegal.

So, therefore, it's not illegal in the world that I live in.

Then, again, if you're selling selling it, they might still try to arrest you, then you got to go to court.

But here's the deal.

Raw milk for many people is very, very healing.

And for some people, whey protein, especially if you're vegetarian but not vegan, it's a source.

Just get grass-fed whey protein because the animals are treated better and because it's a higher quality nutritional product.

But let's assume you're not going to drink cow's milk because for a lot of people, it just doesn't work, including me.

I don't touch it.

Butter and ghee usually are acceptable, especially ghee won't trigger allergies and mucus like that for almost anyone.

Well, what about the fake milks, right?

So these are all industrial products unless you make it yourself.

And what they figured out with almond milk was, oh, we can take leftover parts of almonds and, you know, the ones that are broken and unsightly, and we can use those to make milk.

And it's just a few almonds and some canola oil and some high fructose corn syrup.

some flavorings and we blend it up and we sell it for like eight dollars as a health food product it's not a health food product so almond milk is high in phytic acid that sucks minerals out of your bones.

So, you have to take more minerals.

And it's also high in oxalates, which are the things that are causing kidney stones and things that are causing gout and joint pain when you wake up.

Even if you have really bad skin and you're eating a ton of these high oxalate foods like almond milk and kale smoothies and all, this can be why because it's making tiny razor-sharp calcium oxalate crystals in your skin that are coming out.

So, I don't recommend almond milk.

Also, if you're a vegan for animals, the number of bees, about a third of all bees die pollinating almonds every year.

Like it is not a particularly clean product.

So then we say, well, oat milk.

Okay, that is the biggest scam on the planet right now.

It raises your blood sugar as much as drinking a Coke.

It is not a health food and it usually has glyphosate and it's high in phytic acid that sucks minerals out of your body.

And I know you might not like hearing this, but

do the math.

There's a tablespoon of oats blended into a bunch of water and and you spent six bucks on that?

Like, are you dumb?

Right?

It's not a good move, right?

So, what should you drink?

There's two kinds of milk that are okay.

One of them is macadamia milk, which is really expensive, and you have to make it yourself because macadamias have the right kinds of oil in them.

But the other one that's abundant and healthy is coconut milk.

So, if you're going to do it, use coconut milk.

That's the worst tasting one.

I know, right?

Yeah.

It is the worst tasting one.

Here's the problem, though.

If you say, okay, I don't like the taste of coconut milk and I'm with you on that.

So I'm going to do it.

I don't drink any milks, but yes.

Yeah, that's really the key.

You don't need to drink a plant milk.

It's a made-up product that you don't have a need for.

But if you say, I'm going to do one of these other things, you're spending a lot of money.

You're getting anti-nutrients.

You're getting mostly water.

And you're usually getting a toxic burden.

So, like, why am I doing this again?

The thing that milk has that's most important is it has protein.

And the second most important is it has good fats.

When you have a replacement milk, even coconut milk, there is no protein.

So the coconut yogurt you like, it doesn't work because it doesn't have protein.

So you have to take that and add whey protein or add scoops of maybe hemp protein if you're doing plant-based, but you've got to add a whole bunch of protein to it because Normal yogurt has that.

Most people tolerate grass-fed yogurt pretty well.

I still don't.

I can't touch cow's milk unless it's ghee for the most part, or I can do some butter.

But if I was to have, you know, two tablespoons of regular milk, it messes me up.

My gut's wrong.

It's just not right.

So that's an immune response.

So I just want to tell you, you're not getting protein in your plant milks and you're getting stuff you don't want in your plant milks.

So just don't do it.

Now, today's craze is all about protein.

But one of the things we're missing is talked about in this next clip.

We barely hear about it.

And I'm so glad that my next guest, Dr.

Darshan Shah, who happens to be my doctor too, talks about the importance, where to find it and how to get it.

He also talks to us about the key supplements that can help your diet and where it usually falls short, especially when it comes to quality sleep and focus.

Check it out.

Let's talk a bit about supplements and vitamins, because I think that there's a lot of like mixed messaging out there about what's needed, how much of it's needed.

Some people are like, well, none of it really gets absorbed and does it make a difference?

And there's always a debate about it.

How do you go about figuring out what someone needs as an individual as opposed to just taking what everyone's taking because you keep hearing about it everywhere?

Yeah, that's such a great question.

And we can't even talk about that, Jay, without talking about number four on the list, which was vegetables.

All right.

And I'll tell you why.

So the fourth thing, which is as important as protein, is getting enough vegetables in your diet on a daily basis.

So do you know how much that is by chance?

I don't.

I mean, I have a lot of vegetables.

Right.

But I have no idea.

So you're going to have to tell me.

Right.

And so not a lot of people really know, like, what's the right amount.

And really, the amount of vegetables you eat has a lot to do with the amount of fiber intake you need, which 90% of America doesn't get enough fiber, and fiber is a critical ingredient of our diet.

Secondly, that's where most of our micronutrients and phytonutrients are, is in those vegetables.

Thirdly, they just keep you full and satiated all the time as well.

Getting enough vegetables in your diet is extremely important.

The number that I've seen in a lot of fitness and nutrition gurus talk about is it's a big number.

It's like 800 grams of vegetables, which is about a quart of vegetables, right?

So once again, get your scale and measure this out and see what it is.

It's not a small amount.

It's like two full salads a day, but that's kind of what we need to work up to.

So if you're doing that, The need for supplementation is minimal to none, actually.

I'm not a big supplement pusher.

I'd much rather people get it in your diet.

The reality of the situation is, however, it's really hard to get that much protein and that much vegetable product into your diet, right?

And of course, we can't talk about vegetables without talking about making sure you're buying organic, you know, you're buying as local as possible.

And if you can't, go to ewg.org, Environmental Working Group's website.

They'll give you a list of what are the most toxic vegetables and the least toxic out there right now.

So look at that website and I'll give you the list.

So if you're not not getting enough vegetable intake into your diet, the next step is to add some supplementation to that.

The most common supplements I recommend for people are vitamin D.

We don't get enough sunlight to produce it.

We're not getting enough in our diet.

So most people do need some vitamin D.

It needs to be dialed in based on a blood test.

So you do a blood test.

I like the vitamin D level to be around 50 to 80.

And the vitamin D form that I like people to take is vitamin D3K2.

The K2 is also another vitamin added in.

It prevents overabsorption of calcium with the vitamin D and deposition of calcium in your blood vessels.

So vitamin D3K2, then fish oil supplement as well.

For the vegetarians and vegans out there, there's some great non-fish sources of fish oil as well.

So I would do that as well.

Magnesium is something that we're all very deficient in.

So I would do magnesium as well.

And then creatine, believe it or not, it's amino acid that has a lot of research behind it.

Do you do creatine?

Yes, yes.

Yeah, fantastic.

Five to eight milligrams every morning.

You just put a scoop in your coffee.

It mixes in with anything.

I think that's another really interesting, good one.

And then I kind of then, you know, kind of do it based on what I ate the day before, right?

So if I got a couple of good salads in,

fine.

I don't need to do anything else.

If I didn't, I'll take a packet of AG1, which is like a phytonutrient powder, which I really like, and or a multivitamin sometimes as well.

I'll do that too.

And then protein powders are pretty much always a staple for me as well that's the other supplement that i use you're just putting that onto other stuff yeah putting that onto other stuff putting that into a shake you know shakes are very convenient there's a really good protein powder i like called super gut it's actually a resistant starch and a protein powder and fiber all in one like bag and so super gut is a fantastic like rescue product i have like if i've been on a plane for eight hours or something you know and i just come home and just take that and i get my nutrition in and that's pretty much it you know there's other things you can do.

Like if you're having trouble sleeping, there's ashwagandha, there's glycine.

If you're having trouble with stress, ashwagandha is another good one for that.

But then I'm really selective about which ones to use.

Yeah.

Great.

Those are fantastic.

That's a really good breakdown for anyone.

I mean, I remember when I first started measuring that with Mona, it's like my vitamin D, which you would never have known if you met me or saw me, was 10.

And it was just like I was living my life.

Like I was on planes, I was giving keynotes, I was, I was healthy.

I was energetic, whatever.

And she was just like, I don't even know how you function.

I was out of 10.

It was like, it was, and I was unaware.

How old were you when you did this?

This was, oh, this was like a year and a half ago.

Oh, two years ago.

It was just interesting to me because the only thing I could feel is like I was feeling a bit of fatigue.

And that was the only thing.

And that's why I think that.

The reason why I'm raising that for my audience and community here today is don't take it for granted and don't assume that you might be like, oh, I don't need any of these vitamin supplements.

It's like, it could be the tiniest thing that you're experiencing as a symptom.

It's important to take it seriously because you don't want to be at a 10.

You bring up an extremely good point.

A couple of points I want to make here.

One is you have to become the CEO of your own health.

And what I mean by that is a CEO manages a business by looking at numbers on a daily basis, right?

Most people manage their health based on a feeling that they have, symptoms that they have.

They're not looking at numbers.

So becoming the CEO of your own health means knowing what are the key KPIs of your health.

There's only about 10 of them, skeletal muscle mass being one of them, body fat percentage being another, vitamin D level being another.

You gotta keep that dialed in, right?

Because the other point I want to make with you is that when your vitamin D level is low, like at this age, and you don't take care of it for 20 to 30 years, that's when the lack of vitamin D leads to the higher risk of Alzheimer's, leads to the higher risk of heart attack, leads to the higher risk of hormone problems.

It all started 20 to 30 years before when you barely felt it.

You see what I mean?

So looking at those numbers 20 to 30 years ahead of becoming sick is the key to becoming CEO of your own health and then making all those diseases a non-issue, making all the things that people die of a non-issue.

Fantastic.

Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more.

And I'm so glad you made that connection because I think it often, when you find it out long term, you then feels like a surprise.

Right.

But actually, it isn't if you're looking at the numbers.

And I think we just haven't been trained to look at our health in terms of numbers.

Like you'd measure your height growing up or you'd measure your weight growing up, but those are such poor indicators of health.

in and of themselves without looking at all of these other metrics that we're talking about here today, whether it's your glucose levels, whether it's your vitamin D levels, magnesium, et cetera.

You mentioned so many other vitamins and supplements.

I just don't think we're trained to know where to look and what what to look at.

And therefore, we're basing it on, I feel tired today.

I feel, and I think this is something I want to mention as well, that the mind and the body are so connected.

But I think so often our physical challenges we think are a mental challenge.

So we think we're tired because we have, we're not focused enough or we're not excited enough or we're not motivated enough.

We make the physical issue a mental issue, but it isn't.

It's purely a physical, and I know that because I feel so purposeful and love what I do and I'm so joyful about about it and I'm so excited about it.

So if my body's not working to the degree I want it to, I'm very clear that you can have all the mental stuff down, but if you're not taking care of your body, it doesn't just

you can push it a bit further, but that's not going to get you up the hills.

I really hope that this helped simplify and clarify your health journey.

See, real health starts with what you eat and how you fuel your body.

But understanding blood sugar, protein needs, supplements and vitamins puts your health back in your control.

All I want for you is to live long, healthy, happy lives.

And in order to do that, we have to take our physical health seriously.

A lot of people are talking about mental health today, but our physical and mental health are so connected.

If we learn how to eat better, we'll actually feel better mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually.

If this year you're trying to live longer, live happier, live healthier, go and check out my conversation with the world's biggest longevity doctor, Peter Attia, on how to slow down aging and why your emotional health is directly impacting your physical health.

Acknowledge that there is surprisingly little known about the relationship between nutrition and health.

And people are going to be shocked to hear that because I think most people think the exact opposite.

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I've been seeing a lot more EVs lately, parked in driveways, passing on the road, friends making the switch.

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The way forward is electric.

Learn more at electricforall.org.

Live in the Bay Area long enough and you know that this region is made up of many communities, each with its own people, stories, and local realities.

I'm Erica Cruz-Guevara, host of KQED's podcast, The Bay.

I sit down with reporters and the people who know this place best to connect the dots on why these stories matter to all of us.

Listen to The Bay, new episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, wherever you get your podcasts.

This is an iHeart podcast.