The Secrets to Healthy Aging | Shawn Stevenson

[00:00:07] Jay, how healthy is Shawn Stevenson? That guy's like the healthiest guy I've ever met. I know he's so buff every time I look at his Instagram story. He has so much energy and then he's in the gym almost every day

[00:00:20] I don't think I can do it. I can't believe the story. He just told us he was like So so and this is for everybody He was diagnosed with this degenerative spine disease when he was 22

[00:00:29] He was I don't know 100 pounds overweight something like that. They told him it was incurable He got depressed when he heard that and we talked in this podcast we're talking all about the placebo effect the no-cebo effect I Couldn't believe what he was saying the statistics about

[00:00:45] Placebos. I didn't really know that I mean I knew roughly but I didn't know to the extent He was just describing to us He does the model health podcast so I highly encourage people to listen to his podcast

[00:00:54] But he also wrote a book called eat smarter when I first went he had just written the book sleep smarter But this is my favorite. It's the eat smarter family cookbook these recipes are Delicious he talks about the science. He talks about the cultural aspects

[00:01:11] Look if you get nothing from this podcast at all try the supreme salmon burgers get the eat smarter family cookbook but Sean's got great stories and he the goal was he's trying to help me Figure out I mean I was convincing myself that I was an old man

[00:01:26] And he kind of set me straight on a bunch of things and well you'll hear here's Sean Stevenson This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host this is the James Alters your show

[00:01:52] Sean like you've been you look you were last on the podcast in 2017 we also went to we went to watch Dave Chappelle and Radio City Music Hall together. That was great That was a lot of fun iconic moment. Yeah, Chris Rock performed our Cineo Hall performed that night

[00:02:09] It was great the guy who does the roast wasn't he there too? Oh, yeah Jeff Ross and And then one other guy forget who it was I Forget but it was such a great show and you know we haven't even like really kept in touch that much

[00:02:24] I then got so into it. I went on to do stand-up comedy and I bought part of a comedy club for a while And now only in the past few years I stopped doing it like but I was like doing it six nights a week

[00:02:37] Six that's the thing about you. You will do it when you do it. Yeah, you're gonna do it That's crazy amazing. Wow, holy moly and here's where I need help now and then this is why I was thinking of you and

[00:02:50] It was so great too that you've written this cookbook eat smarter by the way the the breakfast sandwich there's the supreme salmon burgers the There's a couple of chicken dishes. These are so good these dishes like I know it's all about health

[00:03:04] But it's important to taste good too or else I'll just stop it and these dishes are incredible But we'll we'll get into that but here's here's why I was thinking about you and here's where food is needed like

[00:03:15] So I'm 55 right now and I'm feeling it like I'm losing Memory I'm losing my ability to think fast and I'll describe how I know this I'm able to actually measure it in this weird way that my listeners probably are aware of what I'm talking about

[00:03:32] But I'll explain to you and my stamina has gone down and again. I've been able to actually measure this so After a 25 year break, I've decided to return to my youthful love of competitive tournament chess so 25 years ago. I was a

[00:03:54] good high-ranking chess master in the US and When I started playing again after a 25 year break and this was just like a year or so ago I immediately fell and I know I fell because my memory is having a hard time

[00:04:09] my ability to calculate fast is having a hard time and I run out of steam by the end of a day on a tournament and that's made a Basically what's a one standard deviation difference?

[00:04:21] Maybe a little bit more in my ability meaning people who I used to be even with I'll now lose two out of three times and And it's really painful. I'm writing a book about the process

[00:04:33] I've talked to neuroscientists and sports psychologists and on and I'm of course, I'm being like coached and in chess by very strong players and But something's wrong that has nothing to do with my ability

[00:04:46] It's all these health related and age related things like the brain changes the body changes I'm just I never thought I was old, but I see now. I'm different than when I was 25 years old I just I just saw yesterday a man performing He's 70 on stage

[00:05:05] This vitality his ability to pull for fourth ideas his ability to Have kind of the ability to pivot and to change and adjust things on the fly was remarkable and I'm just like that is the potential for all of us and

[00:05:24] Many people and I just even yesterday same thing a little bit earlier Somebody was telling them telling me about these senior moments that they were experiencing They're like in the 30s and they're just like, you know, man, I just a walk into a room

[00:05:36] I can't remember why I came in here. It doesn't matter what age we're at We can all experience these moments But there are some consistencies that we see in the data and anecdotal stuff like I just mentioned seeing that guy on stage yesterday

[00:05:47] That are really pointed to there are very specific Ingredients to having a high level of cognitive function as we get older All right, so that decline doesn't have to be as sharp or in some instances

[00:06:04] Be there at all literally, you know, I just had a conversation with one of my friends at Harvard Dr. William Lee were you just name-dropping there? Did you just did you just Harvard drop? I mean, you know, I Know these are my guys, you know Harvard

[00:06:19] Okay, but because again, it's the cognitive thing like they're smart guys, you know But he was sharing with me how you know really looking at human DNA

[00:06:29] We've got so many innovations that have been able to you know, like looking at our telomeres, which is one of our biome essentially a biomarker of aging or how well we age has to do with our telomeres and how they get shortened as time goes on

[00:06:43] It's basically like lighting a fuse and eventually, you know You get to the dynamite and it blows up, you know, like that's the end of that cells potential And he was sharing with me that looking at the data our metabolic health Once we reached the age of 30

[00:06:58] Really doesn't go down if we're living in the quote natural life, you know looking at hunter-gatherers Really doesn't even go down very much until you reach about 70 or 80 All right, so we see this phenomenon in our culture where it's just like onset of of of weight gain

[00:07:18] onset of You know quote metabolism slowing down But according to the data and really studying human genes and DNA We're not supposed to have that much degradation between that and and again you see certain people

[00:07:32] They are fitting into that box where they still have a high level performance high level metabolic health, you know for me, I'm in my mid 40s, but It's crazy But for me is just normal what I'm able to do

[00:07:44] You know I'm out here pushing the sled a few hundred pounds down my coldest sack Yeah, but you're like, you know in perfect shape you eat you just wrote a cookbook for eating healthy So you're you should be that's why I'm coming to you

[00:07:58] You're you're the standard, but and I come from a condition at 20 I was diagnosed with an advanced aging disease in my spine, you know My physician told me I had the spine of an 80 year old man. All right, so when I'm saying what I'm doing now

[00:08:13] Box jumping 50 plus inches, you know running running a sub 11 hundred meters sprint These things were not only I'm not supposed to be doing that wasn't supposed to be possible for me Because I was told you're not gonna be able to walk normally again

[00:08:29] You're not you're gonna be on medication for the rest of your life to manage this pain You're just gonna have a high level of dysfunction So I was 20. I was a very old man inside of a young man's

[00:08:40] Outer not even my outer exterior by the way, I look pretty old externally as well, but this is what's possible What did you do when you heard that news? Oh? Man, I went into a spiral of depression

[00:08:52] You know getting a diagnosis. I just went in because I was having like a nuisance of a pain like my leg was Just didn't seem like my leg was loosening up and that's sciatic Nerve pain, but I didn't know it at the time

[00:09:04] So I thought there was something wrong with my leg And he had me get an MRI of my spine after doing a couple of tests

[00:09:09] And I'm just like why are you guys looking at my back my leg hurts because I was so disconnected from how this thing works And he put the MRI out for me to see I had two

[00:09:18] Severely degenerated disc my L4 L5 s1. They looked black and supposed to be able to see light Basically shining through those discs they were black and they were both Herniated and so that was causing the pain and so not only do I

[00:09:33] Get this you know he puts it up for me to see but he also tells me because I asked him okay So what do we do to fix this right? He tells me the diet, you know the diagnosis

[00:09:42] Did generative discs disc disease and you have these two herniated disc? That's what the problem is I'm like, okay, so how do we fix it? Let's go and he's like he literally like did his hands like this like pumping the air like

[00:09:52] Slow down son and these are these were is it is exact words when he looked at me. He said This is unfortunately something that's incurable and I'm sorry son, but this is something you're gonna have to learn to manage and we're gonna help you we're gonna get you

[00:10:08] You know some medication We got potentially get you a back brace We can look at you for surgery in a couple of years But I'm sorry son This is you know, this is incurable and he said that incurable were a couple of times and

[00:10:22] For whatever reason at that time still my brain. I'm a very analog and analytical thinker And so I asked him okay this okay, does this have anything to do with what I'm eating maybe like exercise whatever I didn't really have any grounds to ask him those questions

[00:10:35] But that's when he like kind of got a little bit frustrated with me looked at me like I was from another planet Like this has nothing to do with what you're eating those words exact words

[00:10:43] This is something that just happens and I'm sorry that it happened to you son But again, we're going to help you to manage this and so he just totally gave up on you instantly Yeah, yeah, and also

[00:10:56] I'm a research scientist. I've been in this field for 21 years now But that is abandoning basic laws of physics, you know, like there's we live in a universe of causality Maybe it's different in another, you know pocket dimension or something where causality doesn't exist

[00:11:12] But here there's cause and effect things don't just happen Like to say that is negligent in and of itself So but I could see though being a patient and believing this like he said it was degenerative so maybe it was like always happening to you and

[00:11:26] Since birth and now you I just reached this tipping point though where the discs were were essentially shattered from the disease So you felt it right and that's that's what it would look like because also when you get this diagnosis for any of us

[00:11:38] We tend to see the the end result of the thing that condition was Years if not over a decade in the making because I was 20 when I got the diagnosis And so that that was happening for years and years and years in advance

[00:11:52] But here's where everything changed and by the way one of the most important parts of this tale is The impact of the placebo and the nocebo effect Right in the power of our minds

[00:12:04] and this also is tying into where we're at with you and some of the things I've already seen that have been triggered and We know in science today. It's very very well understood

[00:12:14] We don't know how it works completely but the placebo effect is one of the most remarkable things in peer-reviewed data We have to account for the placebo. We have randomized Placebo controlled trials right we have to

[00:12:29] Account the placebo is going to get results in some people on average across the board and all Peer-reviewed studies the placebo just the belief that a drug is going to create some therapeutic effect It's a sham surgery fake surgeries the list goes on and on that

[00:12:47] This is going to create a therapeutic effect is 33% effective on average somebody believing that they're getting the medication that's going to normalize their blood pressure normalize their blood sugar Attack and degrade and destroy cancer cells

[00:13:02] Healed their ACL the list goes on and on we've got data on all this stuff now It's about 33% effective on average. That's amazing. So better than doing this podcast

[00:13:13] I should have just asked you for a pill and you would have said you could have said take this pill It's gonna work and I would have believed you and you could have just given me like a sugar pill

[00:13:23] And that would have at least had a 33% chance of improving my life The key here's the key though is how much you believe it and you can placebo yourself And I'm gonna I'll share a study with you to affirm this

[00:13:36] So one researcher this was at Stanford alia crumb and her team They did this really interesting experiment where they basically did a skin prick test where they create like an an allergic reaction

[00:13:48] Where the skin would develop a rash and then they had they split the test subjects up and they gave one group In inert cream a completely inert cream It had no therapeutic effect, but they told them that this is going to make your rash Get worse

[00:14:06] All right, then they gave another group the same inert cream and told told them that this is going to make your rash better All right, same cream no therapeutic effect in the cream whatsoever, but within 10 minutes Both groups rash got worse or got better

[00:14:25] Depending on the input that they were giving but here's the key The magnitude of how much the rash went away or the rash got worse was dependent on How they thought about or perceived the person who told them that authority figure and

[00:14:43] This was the key word in the study. How competent they thought they were Determined how much their rash changed? All right So it's a trust in that authority figure and that's what happened with me

[00:14:56] But it's the reverse is called a no-see-will effect or I got a negative injunction that this bad thing is going to happen There's nothing you can do about it and this happens to people all the day every day

[00:15:07] You have three months to live. You're never gonna walk again You know, whatever the case might you're gonna be on medication for the rest of your life You're gonna be in pain forever that's called a no-see-will effect and it is just as powerful and

[00:15:19] If you don't understand like this is one of the most important parts That is being explored in medicine today, thankfully, but it is not a common practice where our Practitioners are being taught the power of their words

[00:15:34] How powerful their words are when when discussing treatment with their patients? Because again just the belief they can give them a Sham pill fake pill for their blood pressure and about 33% of people are gonna have a normalization of their blood pressure

[00:15:49] At least temporarily by the way, we're not talking about curing or treat Some instances it can be a more permanent and last piece here. This goes into the cognitive piece some categories of medication are even more applicable or influenced by the placebo effect in particular

[00:16:08] Things that have to do with the brain and mental health. All right, so on average we see about a an 80% effectiveness in placebo's For reducing symptoms of things like depression. All right What what if I know it's a placebo like how do I convince myself that?

[00:16:29] I see something that's a placebo You said that even if I know it there's potential, right? This is where the magic or the complication happens because placebo in yourself is is pretty tricky and There's a great book out there. It's called you are the placebo

[00:16:50] Dr. Joe dispens and he's talking about some of this neurochemistry and the power of our beliefs But here's the thing. This is where it's applicable for all of us where we don't need a big buy-in is just understanding this one important takeaway from today, which is all

[00:17:05] Of your thoughts create correlating chemistry in your body instantaneously your thoughts Create chemistry in your body instantaneously And so whether this is an affirmative thought, you know something positive you have a good thought it's something You know that makes you happy or makes you feel gratitude

[00:17:22] Or you have an angry thought like we feel that chemistry change or an in anxious thought We feel that burning in our chest. You know, we feel that agitation There's a change downstream with all of our neurotransmitters and hormones

[00:17:34] And when I say that that means every cell in your body is getting affected There isn't a cell that's like often your pinky toes like I'm not listening to everybody else like all of your cells are in deep Communication, that's what hormones and neurotransmitters are are basically cell-to-cell

[00:17:52] transmission and so If we understand that one big takeaway today that our thoughts create correlating chemistry in our bodies Now we can start to choose the thoughts that we want to think but that's where again

[00:18:06] It's a practice thing. This is not easy and here last piece of this is a Powerful or empowering affirmative thought Can actually be several times stronger than habitual negative thought like my friend Daniel Amen

[00:18:21] Dr. Daniel Amen double board certified psychiatrist's largest database of spec imaging scans looking at the brain itself He calls him ants are automatic negative thoughts and a lot of us

[00:18:32] We're just replaying these things on automatic and so we can kind of get in there and scratch up the record a little bit But even more so and here's the key. This is the last piece when we're changing our chemistry and

[00:18:45] not doing this from external means right which will get drugs and All kinds of other treatments have their place absolutely But when you're creating that chemistry, you're making changes in what's happening with your norbeniferin or your cortisol Or your thyroid hormone based on your thoughts

[00:19:01] Those chemicals are made internally for you for your receptor sites. So this isn't bio identical treatment This is literally made in you for you for your receptor sites And so the most powerful pharmacy in the universe for you is in your body already

[00:19:19] But it all starts from your thoughts and if your thoughts are that that are in conflict that are you know Regardless of what we're what we're taking as far as food

[00:19:30] Our food is going to impact us differently based on our perception and we know this the data has a firmness And I could share I'm not going to share it now

[00:19:37] But if you want to I could share even a milkshake study that was done by alia krumb and her team Seeing how our thoughts impact how food affects our bodies

[00:19:48] Well, so so let me understand this a little further and I might be interested in that milkshake study since I used to like milkshakes Now I don't have to drink them at all, but um

[00:19:58] So yeah, I I could see like for instance in competitive situations. It's very easy to slip into Negative thoughts and and also just about aging I never thought of myself that I was getting older and then suddenly confronted with my own data on what was happening to me

[00:20:13] My conclusion was oh my gosh. I'm getting older Like these are the effects of age like I saw how I was playing and And even during a game or any kind of competitive situation. It's very easy to slip into negative thoughts like oh I'm a loser. I

[00:20:28] I did this this I knew not to do that But I still did it and blah blah blah and it reminds me of that Bible passage. I think it's in Joe perhaps where they say, you know, take your thoughts into captivity like you have to really constantly

[00:20:43] Be on top of what you're thinking with is very hard. I mean it's kind of a meditation that you have to be On top of it, but realistically it's very difficult Yeah, I mean we're not really taught this stuff. That's the thing. We're kind of thrust into

[00:20:56] Our environment. We're thrust into this world and all of its complexity Especially the last couple of decades. There's so much to distract us from that internal work You know, there was a time even you and I when we were kids like we had time to be bored

[00:21:11] Like yeah being bored is on the endangered species list straight up You know just having just time to just like Being an elevator or you know standing line somewhere Everybody is on their phone. We're constantly externally focused

[00:21:27] And we're not taking time to process data to think about our thinking So much of our thinking isn't even our thinking. It's just regurgitation Of the stuff that we're taking in from all these different um, you know effective Devices, you know, whether it's television programming

[00:21:46] Or whether it's, you know social media and all those different inputs We're not really getting time to think about our thinking and how we are perceiving the world how we're perceiving ourselves And to say oh, you know what I don't want to think that way

[00:22:01] I don't want to think that way about myself I want to think like this. I want to be like this You know, so that's one of the big things today It's like another huge curve ball and we're living at a time of great paradox

[00:22:14] Where we have all of this apparent innovation And technology advances on the surface and yet According to the data we are the most chronically diseased and sick Society in the history of humanity the cdc's numbers from last year

[00:22:31] They just published a new report stating that 60 percent of american adults have at least one chronic disease now at least one Could it be because we're living longer though? And that oftentimes I remember that that was my thing You know about 10 years ago

[00:22:45] Until I came upon the actual data, which is that was a true trend in recent decades like You know, uh our life expectancy kept rising until until Somewhere in the in the 90s That trend has now reversed but the rest of society has not got the memo yet

[00:23:04] Our most recent generation is the first generation that's not going to outlive our predecessors Their predecessors that trend of our life expanding has now reversed which again, it's a paradox that should not happen All that we know

[00:23:17] But that's that's leading to again with that paradox. There's a disconnect We have all this apparent innovation and data But we are lost as far as understanding what's happening in our own bodies In our own minds

[00:23:46] Before we get to the cookbook and the food aspect of this just from what you've said like about the placebo effect and the in the brain being kind of uh almost like the chemist on this chemistry set inside of us in terms of our

[00:23:59] neurons and hormones and so on What can I do just with that information? Awesome. All right. And by the way matter of fact, you want to do the milkshake study really quickly first Yeah, okay. Yeah vanilla milkshakes

[00:24:12] So alia crumb and her team blended up a big batch of milkshakes And this was at Yale. All right And all the milkshakes were equal in their calorie content. All right, so they're the same size same amount And they were all essentially 380 calories

[00:24:30] But what they did was they placed different labels On the milkshakes some of the labels said 140 calorie quote sensible shake While others are labeled with 620 calorie quote indulgent shakes All right, again, they're all 380 calories But they put different labels on them

[00:24:51] So people came by you know different participants They enjoyed milkshakes and they actually tracked their biometrics after consuming the milkshakes and looked at did their belief about what they were consuming Affect how their body processed what they consumed And here's what was crazy

[00:25:08] The people that consumed what they believed to be a 620 calorie quote indulgent milkshake Their levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin that drives us to eat more dropped Three times lower than what would have happened Had they actually consumed Uh, uh the 620 calorie milkshake. All right, so

[00:25:34] Their ghrelin levels dropped three times lower Okay So they were told they were taking the 620 but they were taking a 380 Right. Okay. So let me clarify this. So their ghrelin levels had dropped As if they had consumed three times more calories than they actually had

[00:25:52] So this is going off of the 380 calories So it dropped three times lower than those calories that they actually had Yeah, okay Now the people who consumed what they believed to be a 140 calorie quote sensible shake Their ghrelin levels didn't budge at all. They didn't drop it all

[00:26:13] All right, so what that means is they're going to be hungry again shortly thereafter Because they felt like as far as the hormones are these are two glorified hunger hormones leptin Is the satiety hormone and ghrelin is kind of the captain of the team of hunger hormones

[00:26:27] But there's many more the brain is telling itself that they've hardly consumed anything. This was like nothing It was like just a piece of candy exactly exactly and also if they consumed You know this 300 calorie milkshake, but they believe they consumed something that was more dense in calories

[00:26:43] Their body adjusted accordingly based on their beliefs as if they had something that was very indulgent Which helped to quench their appetite substantially So this is really looking at far-reaching aspects of the placebo effect, right? It's not just amazing a drug treatment

[00:27:00] This is also about how our metabolism is working and how our bodies interact with foods and this is just one example of many So yeah, so so how can I make use of this though like because I can't I can't hypnotize myself into thinking You know

[00:27:18] I don't know I'd have to you have to be really disciplined on your thinking somehow And here's the key. This is the key to all of this is We still are in the driver's seat and so it's subtle things that we can do in this context

[00:27:31] Because for example like this whole thing of being sensible versus indulgent We can perceive our food differently if we're eating something that we think is Exceedingly healthy and we don't like eating healthy or haven't been eating healthy But we believe that it's healthy

[00:27:46] We're going to tell ourselves that this is restrictive That this is sensible And our bodies are going to approach that food accordingly versus if we're telling ourselves

[00:27:58] And we don't have to lie to ourselves. This is where I come in with the east marder family cookbook as well to make it more congruent, but like oh my god this Food that sidebar is healthy is so indulgent. This is so delicious

[00:28:12] You know, I'm loving this experience. You're telling yourself you're feeding yourself Creating this feedback to where like I this is amazing. I can't believe I get to have this So there's this whole and I'm not a big fan of this sentiment of faking it till you make it

[00:28:26] I believe that if it's congruent Is going to be more effective, but some people do use that they do use the whole thing of like fake it till you make it Be it to you see it But in how they're talking to themselves

[00:28:37] But what if we can couple that together with something that does truly have that flavor experience? For example of being something that's indulgent Right, but at the same time we're also giving ourselves that positive affirmative

[00:28:52] Information or language along with it now. We've got a recipe that can really be effective yeah, so so Basically It's funny because you I see how now how you're structuring this cookbook

[00:29:05] You give all these cultural and societal reasons like you know eat with your family turn off the phones This is the benefits of cooking your own meals as opposed to ordering out so you give like

[00:29:15] all these stories and examples and the and the research of kind of the The healthy aspects of the environment you set up for yourself to eat And then you give all these healthy recipes and they because they both work hand in hand

[00:29:28] Exactly exactly. So it's that it's layered, you know, we've got the kind of education empowering but also And you know this people learn differently, you know different people learn different ways And so speaking to people at different different levels like we have an emoji culture for example

[00:29:45] You know and like a chain of emojis can it communicate a lot for certain people And so even if you don't want to learn the science I'm providing. Okay. Here are the studies affirming how for example dark cherries have these anthocyanins

[00:30:00] That have been found to potentially target fat cells in in humans and shrink fat cells They also are one of the most dense naturally Occurring sources of melatonin. All right, so now we've got okay some metabolic benefit We've got a sleep related benefit

[00:30:17] So you'll see a sleep emoji when I talk about this food and you'll see a little Uh muscle emoji denoting that this is good for your metabolic health, right? And so you could just see those things and be like, oh, it's good for this and good for this

[00:30:29] For people that I don't want to dig too deep into the weeds on the science And now I can look at the associated recipe like for example one of them is these cherry frozen yogurt pops that kids absolutely love This again, it's a family geared cookbook

[00:30:42] It's not just for us as adults to have this deliciousness but also for kids But now it's a huge upgrade because it's one of my favorite things growing up was like when the ice cream man

[00:30:52] I don't know if James you know about the ice cream man. Oh, yeah, sure Yeah, with the music Yes, the music would run you'd have to like get find your mom Get money and run as fast as you can to catch the ice cream truck Bop-up man's coming

[00:31:07] You know, yes, we're all flipping out, you know running after this guy, but it's like it's like the pied piper All right. He's just so crazy but you know tuning into those things those cultural loves that we have and not villainizing them, but let's let's upgrade these things

[00:31:23] Let's have these flavor experiences these cultural experiences but not hurt ourselves in the process, right and You know just to even transition now to the cognitive piece And you know, I mentioned this a little bit earlier

[00:31:37] And this is going to shift over to like what are the some of the practical things to do to really optimize or improve your cognitive function first pieces again, we could throw all the

[00:31:49] Nutrients necessary all the you know, whatever exercise what it's not going to matter if the language is such that Oh man I'm falling off here big time You know, there's people out here kicking my ass because i'm old and i'm not saying that you said that

[00:32:04] But we've got to stand. No, I said it We've got to stand guard to the door of our mind and those ideas. Go ahead. Here's the funny thing too like so um, so I live in georgia right now and

[00:32:16] I'm the georgia senior chess champion meaning for anybody over age 50. I'm the champion but So like it's like I have no problems when i'm playing someone my age I'm still playing better than ever

[00:32:28] But it's it's somehow I talk myself into it. I even get nervous when i'm playing someone younger like a kid Oh, okay, so this is good stuff My youngest son we were just talking before we got started. He plays a au basketball here

[00:32:42] And in los angeles and it's like a big deal here. It's very intensive You know parents are very invested in this stuff And this past practice This was the first time that his coach had him Who's with the kids who were 11 and 12 years old?

[00:32:58] Now he had my son come over and play with the people who are 14 And 15 All right, and he's the only young kid that they he had come over and play with these older kids and my son

[00:33:10] Right on the surface, but now he's playing at a different level. There's a different speed And so i'm seeing my son. I know my son very well in his personality. He wants to be good Immediately if he's not good at something immediately he gets Uh deflated pretty quickly

[00:33:27] And so because he has a tendency to be good at stuff But also we've had to cultivate more of that like stick to it attitude, right? And so he came out a couple of things are going well. I got a couple of rebounds He stole the ball

[00:33:41] He had a good look at the basket good shot But also these kids were scoring on him, which is he's not really used to Spin moves and the ball's moving really quickly and they're getting up and down the court. There's like a different speed

[00:33:53] And for me from the outside and the other dads are there watching too and there's like, oh man, braden's really like He's he's contributing, right? And we're all impressed with this but afterwards braden didn't want to talk to me until like Before bed, which I know his personality

[00:34:07] So I we didn't talk about it and they came over to me. It's like dad. I'm sorry. I didn't talk to you I just felt like, you know, I didn't really do very well. I'm like, bro You just came over and played with these older kids

[00:34:18] It's a different speed But your coach is doing this on purpose because he knows that that's going to elevate your game Right, you getting could it hurt his confidence so that he starts that negative self talk

[00:34:30] That's where coaching that's where support comes in at because this can be a mine field walking around in your own mind And so it's through being able to reframe it properly

[00:34:40] Right and so and this is with the key and this is where I found that sticky point for him because I saw this Being able to observe I was like

[00:34:48] And so he did that so when you're elevated playing at this higher level at this higher speed with these guys now When you play kids your age It's going to seem like

[00:34:57] You are completely at a different level than them and he said he and he said these exact words He said that's exactly what happened because at the end of practice he went and scrimmage

[00:35:05] With his age group again. He was just and he's like I felt like they were like Little kids Right, that's that's that's the language he lit he used And for me it's almost like the reverse because

[00:35:17] The younger kids now are like the old for me are like the older kids for him Exactly exactly. So that's what we gotta play Now that we've been playing like, you know, the whole universe of people including these

[00:35:30] Really fast moving like younger kids when I go back to the older My age I went those tournaments. No problem We're not no problem, but you know, I win them and but I

[00:35:44] So upset when I I lose to these younger players now the players when I like when I was young That's still keeping you better than the people in your age group. That's the thing to focus on

[00:35:55] You know and also of course is as you do it, you know What said is that you know neurons that fire together wire together You know as you do the process, you know, you said even just it's been pretty recent that you've gotten back into doing this

[00:36:07] You haven't even hit your cool Stride yet. You haven't even locked in at the level that you're going to be at And so but well, I don't know because lately I've been thinking it's almost a race against time like the older

[00:36:16] I get the faster I start to that's exactly oblivion. We've got to absolutely Crush that belief that belief needs to be deleted Put into the trash and then wipe from your computer completely It is not serving you whatsoever and it's not even based on

[00:36:35] Reality it's not really based on the facts Let me give you another little insight that that 70 year old guy that I saw performing yesterday, you know doing this grand talk and You know his ability to

[00:36:47] Um, you know think on his feet, you know different stuff was going on But I'll tell you what If of everybody that he's texting I'm probably the person he's texting the most and staying in touch with me

[00:37:00] We hang out quite a bit. He's a he's around somebody with a younger energy I don't think he's doing it consciously But he's around that vibration. He really loves being around my family and I you know

[00:37:15] His his significant other like in in him they hang out with us quite a bit He's got these other inputs He's got an you know an elderly kind of like community as well But he spends a lot of time with people who are very youthful

[00:37:28] You know and he sees himself in us. He plays You know, he has this very childlike approach to things And it's conditions, right? We've got to put ourselves in these different environments that here's a here's a key It can often feel uncomfortable as well you know, but

[00:37:46] For us especially as we get older and this is the point i'm trying to get to It really really does operate it on a use it or lose it basis straight up Yeah, our brains are already about efficiency and they're not fully really quote fully developed

[00:38:03] Until our mid 20s and then we believe then we start this what we believe to be process of degradation But even when we're younger, you know a lot of stuff if it's your brain is always looking to optimize and to

[00:38:18] Kind of you know put on automatic certain processes And so it's going to clip away things that are unnecessary You know those those neurons that firing the synapse synaptic clefts and the axon terminals and all that magic that's happened to create these laying down myelin

[00:38:35] All of that stuff is just going to degrade if you're not using it because your brain is all about efficiency And so when we're younger because there's so many inputs and it's so much is trying to grow so quickly It can seem like you can do more stuff

[00:38:49] Right, but same thing holds true for kids and we're seeing this early and earlier by the way This mental this cognitive degradation If kids are not able to You know be in certain conditions to explore to play play is one of the things that

[00:39:04] Is of everything we've seen in clinical research Play dramatically improves, you know reading ability math skills all this stuff is correlated with movement Right and so here's here's the the the pin, you know kind of cherry on top of this is With this user to lose a thing

[00:39:23] It deeply holds true for the brain But if you want to look at the brain as a muscle but also our other muscles as well One of the hottest things in science right now is looking at the muscle connection to longevity

[00:39:36] All right, and a friend of mine just had a book new york times bestseller just last week all about muscle And it's connection to our immune function our cognitive function and and

[00:39:46] True healthy aging like longevity. There are people who are in their 80s and 90s who are doing Over a hundred squats a day because there's their chairs on the floor All right

[00:40:00] If we're not doing that capacity, do you know how many people how how much a small percentage of people in the united states That can actually sit down on the floor at age 70 And get up off the ground let alone hundreds of times a day

[00:40:14] They do it in those other cultures because they have to and then you see a documentary on these blue zones and these places Where they have all these long-lived people who can do all this stuff. It's because they do the stuff They never stop doing the stuff

[00:40:30] it's so interesting you say this so a friend of mine Said something similar he pointed out to me So i'm gonna i'm gonna shout out to todd bryant who um, it's a chess master works at chess.com uh

[00:40:45] He pointed out to me the winners of this year's various national senior championships There's like two or three different tournaments He showed me photos and they all as he put it they all showed significant

[00:40:57] Musculature like you could tell they work out like they lift weights and you could tell for for each winner of these tournaments He said they're all lifting weights you could see it and so he suggested to me You got to start lifting weights

[00:41:09] All right, so we're getting into it. This is the this is the transition i'm making into the practical So i'm laying the groundwork To tie in pieces like this and yes when we contract our muscles

[00:41:21] We release a variety of hormones and some of the most identified as far as cognitive function They're called myokines. So they're these different um compounds that go directly to the brain And these kind of listed a variety of different effects. So they also have an impact of of

[00:41:39] uh supporting our immune system as well But one of the most notable things is keeping our brain young essentially, you know, but also, you know improving our cognitive function

[00:41:48] and reaction time and all these different things that we lose because even our reaction time and our ability to move Is a function of our brain And all of it's not like some that's part of the problem with modern science is that we compartmentalize everything

[00:42:03] Right, we've got this part of the brain does this this part this muscle does that And we forget that it's all connected That's the problem. You know, the hippocampus is largely Identified as the quote memory center of the brain, but memory doesn't just exist in the hippocampus

[00:42:20] There are other your cells even you know downstream not in your brain Have in the what is effectively their own memory, you know, we hear this term like quote muscle memory But we're finding now we've got some data

[00:42:33] You know if you look at dr. Caroline leaf and her research that our mind Isn't just located in our brain as well You know, and so it's like this conversation we tend to like Look at the human body and brain like gears and levers, right?

[00:42:50] So the carts, you know, like the cart and like looking at this Mechanistic view of the human body and brain. We're so much more complex than that And so that is step number one and just the fact that your friend just mentioned this to you recently as well

[00:43:06] This is an affirmative piece here Once you start strength training on a regular basis You're gonna be a problem for these younger people. You're gonna be a problem for them And so I've never lifted weights at all in my life. So

[00:43:22] All right, never really I've done I've lifted weights, but I've never had a regular practice that let's say lasted more than a few weeks And so what I've done after after Todd said that to me

[00:43:32] I got a bunch of barbells and I know myself i'm not going to go to the gym So I got a bunch of barbells and they're just sitting right here in my office And occasionally I'll pick them up And and do something

[00:43:43] You know, I look at some youtube videos of what exercises work, but i'm probably not doing it enough. I don't know When you said that you haven't done this like this hasn't been a part of your kind of you know lifestyle

[00:43:53] For me, I got excited because you have so much upside That people don't have that that are doing it consistently even though there's a huge advantage there, of course But for people that are new Because your your your genes have been screaming at you

[00:44:09] For years to just be like you don't think they gave up on me The blueprints are still there. They're still there, but these epigenetic inputs basically Can alter the way that your That your proteins like you know one of my

[00:44:24] Another one of my mentors dr. Bruce Lipton cell biologist and somebody really He really popularized the term epigenetics Um the science of it getting people interested in it. He's been doing this for decades

[00:44:37] And he shared with me that you know when I was in my university biology class, you know, we're taught DNA to RNA to protein, right? We see the outpicturing the protein copies that are getting printed

[00:44:49] Right. So what you're seeing when you see me james and when I see you are your proteins predominantly Of course, we're seeing some minerals in the mix and that kind of stuff But it's the proteins that are getting printed based on the blueprint

[00:44:59] Right, but he shared with me that The epigenome epigenetics so inputs from your environment. There's nutrigenetics Neutrogenomics where how our food will change how our genes are getting expressed He shared with me that One gene Can have 3000 different potential proteins that get printed out based on the inputs

[00:45:22] All right, some of those proteins are going to code for things or express for things that you want Some of them are going to be expressing expressing things that you might not want Right, but we label them as diseases And these are S these are simply adaptations

[00:45:37] For the most part most of us arrive here in life With pretty good genes, you know Less than a half of a percent of human beings have true genetic defects that they're born with A lot of times something happens

[00:45:52] Certain exposures, you know, we have this whole category of carcinogens. For example, you know, the whho Has this whole list one of them is just riddled in our food supply right now glyphosate The whho classified it as a group 2a carcinogen, which means that it's probably

[00:46:09] Causing cancer in humans and the the environmental working group did a recent analysis of grain products on us store shelves And they found that 80 to 90 percent Of conditional grain products are contaminated with glyphosate that probably causes cancer in humans What do you think's gonna happen?

[00:46:26] You know and again, that's just one category. We've got this new Emerging category that now we've got a pretty solid amount of science on called obesogens So these are obesity causing agents that go beyond it The this this kind of rudimentary calories in calories out

[00:46:42] metric looking at humans again as calculators and mechanistically But altering the way that your metabolism is working Leading to excessive body fat gain right and many of these compounds are in our food supply What what food has obesogens? Listen, you can be pretty much guaranteed If you're eating

[00:47:05] Pop-tarts if you're eating, you know Funyons, you know any of these ultra processed foods And let's clarify what this is because humans have been processing foods forever. All right Processing a food is not a problem when you cook a food

[00:47:19] You're processing the food taking tomato and creating pasta sauce is a process Pressing the oil out of olives is a process That's minimally process when you cook a steak or you cook a sweet potato

[00:47:33] You're processing the food. You're changing the way that those, you know, certain bonds, you know, the chemical Complexes in the food and how even the bioavailability of the nutrients a lot is changing when you cook a food Minimally process. He has been doing that for thousands of years

[00:47:50] Ultra processed foods on the other hand this new category. It's just been the last few decades That's when you have a field of wheat for example, you see that field of wheat And somehow that becomes a bowl of frosted flakes

[00:48:06] That field of wheat somehow becomes those pop tarts and shout out to jerry signfield's bit on pop tarts All right. I always think about that. I'll tell you one quick story

[00:48:16] So in 2010 for a few months I did have a trainer and and I was like three times a week But I was also addicted to egos And You're like 11 in uh in stranger things. Have you watched stranger things? Yeah, yeah, yeah, uh, yeah that 11's the um

[00:48:35] She's got like those powers. Yeah the powers. Yeah, she loves egos. Go ahead. I watched the first season But uh, he could tell by just by looking at me whether I had egos or not that morning and he was 100 correct

[00:48:47] Wow, you had you had the ego the ego effect Yeah, you know, it's almost been like exuding obesity And it's it's it's not just the fact that it's been so denatured

[00:48:59] It's all of the things that that that have to be added into that process of getting that field of wheat Into that pop tart form all of these synthetic newly invented chemicals Additives preservatives, you know many of these things again Unfortunately, they're largely unregulated because of this

[00:49:19] Grass system are generally regarded as safe where we have this loophole from decades ago That all of these compounds are able to just be put into our food supplies like oh with this We found 40 years ago. This wasn't a problem for humans in such and such amount

[00:49:34] Right. It's just like it's it's ridiculous And so, you know with that being said by the way just to put an affirmative piece on this um This study was published in the journal the american medical association in 2018 and they were looking at like what are the underlying causes

[00:49:53] Of our epidemics of chronic diseases that we're seeing today. Heart disease cancer diabetes obesity list goes on and on poor diet Was the number one cause affirmed in this huge meta analysis Of our epidemics of chronic diseases poor diet namely ultra processed foods

[00:50:29] So let me ask you when you were diagnosed with your degenerative disease when you were 22 years old Again, your first reaction was depression But then how did you get control in your mind even and then in your body of this disease?

[00:50:40] And then obviously I'm assuming the conclusion is that you defeated it because you're looking good and and healthy and It doesn't seem like you have this disease I'm not exaggerating when I say this My diet was about 90 ultra processed foods At the time living in Ferguson, Missouri

[00:50:59] surrounded by fast food Surrounded by ultra processed foods at every turn liquor stores lined with ultra processed foods. That's all that I knew I grew up eating like that and If if anybody thinks that this that i'm exaggerating listen to this this was published by the bmj

[00:51:19] British medical journal. This is like top tier peer-reviewed journal They found recently that 60 percent of the average americans diet ultra this is Ultra processed foods And i'm specifically speaking about american adults 60 percent of our diet as grown-ups is ultra processed foods in the united states

[00:51:44] But the situation is far worse for children and the east martin family cookbook is actually the first book is publishing This data this new study and i'm grateful for that But also this is like don't just hear this like this is we have to change this

[00:51:56] They looked at the consumption of ultra processed foods by u.s. Children for 20 years This was published in jama as well the journal the american medical association So in 1999 the average child in the united states diet was 61 percent ultra processed food

[00:52:10] By 2018 that number was almost 70 percent of our children's diet is fake food And with these studies when I say today these numbers there's always people There's always kids on the higher end and on the lower end

[00:52:25] There's some kids out there that even 20 ultra processed foods. I was at the other end eating 90 Ultra processed foods, you know a typical day for me would be mcdonald's breakfast You know sausage biscuit, you know with egg and cheese or hotcakes in sausage

[00:52:42] And for lunch it would be like some chicken tenders Which is a little bit of like real food in there somewhere And you know some chips or some fries or pizza And then for dinner I might have a family can of like spaghettios

[00:52:58] Or a box of belvita shells and cheese if I had a couple extra dollars or go to jack in the box get four tacos for like four dollars I'm sorry not four dollars two dollars and some change because they're two for 99 cents

[00:53:09] All right, that's how i'm eating every day every single day It was cheap it was accessible and it tasted really good And it was making my tissues out of really low quality materials That's at the core of this and why this matters is

[00:53:25] We're literally making our brain cells And every cell of our bodies out of the inputs that we give it and we're not taught this In school. I had a high level nutritional science class Biology class in a university

[00:53:39] We're not taught when we're studying the cells and looking at the mitochondria that the mitochondria is made from your menu That your nucleus of your cells are made from the nutrients you eat. We're not taught that there's a disconnect

[00:53:51] And so when I became aware of that thankfully it took two years before I did anything because I was given permission and told that I was unhelpable And I was miserable, you know, but I had some seeds planted. This is why this matters too

[00:54:06] You know, thankfully like some people saw something in me, you know, my grandmother like just It really kind of came up after a couple of years of suffering like, you know, she always thought that I was going to do well

[00:54:18] She was always checking in on me even though it was annoying but just like my life Conditions are not matching up to my blueprint of what I set out for my life to be And I've been blaming everybody else

[00:54:29] And sure enough. Yes, the environment was not conducive to my wellness at all But I've been pointing fingers like why won't this doctor help me? Why won't this person help me? Why won't these people support me? and

[00:54:42] I had to have the audacity to take responsibility and say, you know what I'm going to do whatever I can do to feel better And really that's when everything changed How did you how did you

[00:54:55] Change the habit? I mean there's not only the knowledge that you had to have but then how did you change the habit? Like this is I'm talking now back. I did a podcast with rich roll

[00:55:05] Back in 2015 and he was telling me when he made his big switch in diet He was telling me part of the problem was which made it like agony for the first couple of weeks or months or whatever Was that your

[00:55:16] Your the food you eat creates the bacteria that lives in your gut and that bacteria Has cravings it wants that food more. So if you're just eating junk food, for instance

[00:55:26] The junk food bacteria is hanging out in your gut brain and in the in the serotonin in your gut and saying give me more That junk food or triggers really real pain in the brain. Yeah, it's They're very addictive and we know this, you know based on

[00:55:42] There's certain phenomenons called post-injustive feedback of where certain flavors are attached to certain nutrients that have been manipulated by food scientists You know, there's vanishing caloric density where you know, we eat something It's very calorie dense, but then it disintegrates so quickly

[00:55:59] Like your brain is kind of tricked like that. I just really I think I just ate 100 calories or something but it doesn't seem like there's much there You know, there's there's all these different phenomenons that are created via ultra processed food

[00:56:14] And yes, it can be difficult, but here's the thing at the end of the day And you know rich experiences as well There is something remarkable about us that gets muted because we can truly like that's nothing to us

[00:56:29] Some fucking food like we can overcome that like that's no, it's it's We're so much more powerful than any of these things And i'm saying that because so many people have overcome the most trying and tragic conditions of inputs

[00:56:45] If you can there's you can name everything whatever you name whatever addiction whatever poor circumstance Somebody has risen from that stuff and they've and they've lived to tell the tale That's a good point

[00:56:57] You know, we are so much stronger and more resilient than we give ourselves credit for But we this goes back to what we started with today James, which is we are living in this In this environment today where we're constantly inundated

[00:57:11] With information there's so much to be into we're regurgitating stuff But we're not able to actually go within Into access to analyze to perspective take to question our our thinking to self-assess And as the great statement says to know thyself

[00:57:32] We have a we have a society today that is distracting us from any of that stuff So it's so easy to say this is too hard Even though it's hard It doesn't have to be worse than it is

[00:57:44] And so we throw in the towel before we even get started a lot of times I mean when you were first changing your habits like I imagine you had to see results fairly quickly to continue with it or else you would give up because you

[00:57:56] You just didn't know and this leads to the power of yes app You just mentioned something so important in this whole process, which your brain needs feedback This is the power of doing something that is actually effective

[00:58:07] All right when I first decided to feel better to get well and my goal was It started off with asking a different question There's this interesting Thing that the brain does it's called instinctive elaboration all right, and we all have

[00:58:25] A dominant question basically the human brain is always you're always asking questions a lot of times. It's unconscious That's fueling your focus All right, and you know jim quick, right?

[00:58:37] Yeah, yeah, yeah, so my guy jim quick shared with me when I shared with him this about instinctive elaboration He was like, you know what? I had this experience with will smith and by the way, this is before This is before all the stuff. Yeah, all right

[00:58:52] But he went to on set with will smith where he was filming suicide squad And he got to ask will some questions and to see like how was he thinking? And so will's dominant question and this is what jim calls it

[00:59:06] So I mentioned that this is called instinctive elaboration, right? We're all we're always doing this And jim was like we all have a dominant question and will's dominant question was how can I make this moment magical?

[00:59:18] Because on the set they were cold. They were like up in somewhere in Canada was snowing Will was like making hot chocolate for everybody telling jokes and just had the staff and all the you know The co where everybody was feeling like such a

[00:59:30] Connection and like a magical moment And so jim was trying to tweak and find out How he can even help will to have him even more powerful Dominant question and so what they came to was how can I make this moment more magical?

[00:59:44] Right to already have the assumption that this is a magical moment and make it more magical And so my dominant question prior to making this transformation was why me? Why me? and so

[00:59:57] Internally and externally I'm going to be looking for things to affirm why my life sucks why I'm unhelpable Why I'm in so much pain why nobody will help me. I was just affirming all that stuff every day

[01:00:09] And so I made this switch cognitively, and I didn't know I didn't know any of this stuff at the time But when I decided to get well that night, you know, I was about to take my pills and try to knock me out to get some sleep

[01:00:20] Because I was in pain And I was thinking about my grandma and I was thinking about this Third doctor I'd just seen who told me that he can't help me and I was just like okay

[01:00:31] What can I do to feel better? What can I do? But I said it like this. What can I do? What can I do to feel better instead of trying to get all these people to help me to feel better? What can I do?

[01:00:42] And being a logical thinker again, it's not like again The genie pops out of a lamp or whatever shout out to will smith in the laden or whatever, but I put a plan together and I was like, okay

[01:00:55] I need to lose weight because at this point I'd gained a bunch of weight because I was so sedentary and in so much pain I was like just logically thinking what if I get some of the pressure off of my spine now that i'm so heavy

[01:01:07] And what if I just walk a little bit like do a little bit of exercise to help to lose this weight? So that was my goal My low hanging fruit being an athlete at a high level until I started having all these injuries Was

[01:01:20] Working out like I knew a thing or 20 about that And so but the whole food piece of losing weight. This is what I did first James I did slim fats All right Have a shake for breakfast one for lunch and a sensible dinner

[01:01:33] I was going off marketing because I watched so much TV. I saw it First of all, the shit was nasty Second of all, I did initially lose like two pounds like that first week, but it was miserable It was miserable. I was always hungry

[01:01:49] And it was like it was nasty like didn't it wasn't enjoyable And with an about a week later a friend of mine that had known for a couple of years She you know, usually we'd like kick it like hang out do different stuff

[01:02:02] But for whatever reason she was driving and I was just in the car with her and she went to wild oats Which has since been bought by Whole Foods It's kind of like more like a mom and pop type of Whole Foods vibe

[01:02:13] And I walk into this place. I had never I live in Ferguson, Missouri I'd never seen anything like this. There are all of this like You know organic foods and all these like styles of supplements and books and all this stuff But because my mindset was different

[01:02:31] That I'd driven past wild oats on the highway, you know Hundreds of times and didn't know that place existed But I was I was tuned into the why me my life is terrible station And so I'm just my I couldn't see it

[01:02:46] But it landed me there and I found a book there and I actually have that book over on my shelf in my library Right next door to my office where we're at right right now And I went and looked at my condition degenerative disc disease

[01:03:00] And there were these studies and again like I was in college. I was like, oh, is this What is is this is there actual references for this like this is And I go and look at these studies and and one of the studies found that

[01:03:13] When you are deficient in calcium funny enough Your body will because calcium is needed to not just for your bones. It's needed to clot your blood It's kind of important if you don't have enough calcium

[01:03:26] Your body will literally leech the calcium from your spine and from your hips In particular to help aid in other processes. Guess what else I did? I broke my hip A couple years earlier at track practice just running and it's just like does this book know me?

[01:03:43] Has it been watching me? Am I in the Truman show? That's how I felt at the time like this literally happened to me But I'm drinking milk every day The marketing says got milk strong bones

[01:03:55] My bone density was so low. It was that of somebody again who's in their elderly years But in our population of unhealthy folks 80 90 the doctor specifically said 80 year old when talking about me gosh, all right And so here's the last piece

[01:04:12] So I found out this information and the first thing that I did was okay I need these supplements right? I need this supplement another study was Omega threes and how important that was for bone density

[01:04:23] I was like I had no idea. I didn't know what first of all, I never heard of omega threes And once I start to get some of the data on this I'm like, oh, this is all about the brain

[01:04:32] But no, no, you need a mega threes for your bones as well and I was just looking at my nutritional intake and I'm like I probably don't get any like viable source of omega threes like At all like in it maybe once a year Maybe

[01:04:48] And so the first thing I did was become a natural pill popper All right, so now I'm just replacing my prescription drugs for all these supplements, which was Not doable on my college poor guy living in Ferguson, Missouri budget But also

[01:05:05] That wasn't the most bio available. Thankfully, I came across some data By the way, a lot of these studies that I'm sharing are in the eSmart or Family Cookbook And so bioavailability means can your cells actually use it? And I shared a study actually on vitamin E

[01:05:19] Coming from a synthetic version of vitamin E versus a food based version of vitamin E being twice as bioavailable and usable by the body And so what I ultimately did was this

[01:05:29] I identified these different nutrients to help to regenerate my tissues that I was not getting in my diet If you're not giving your body the raw materials to make your tissues

[01:05:38] It's going to do a patchwork job. So I started to eat all these foods that have these compounds and within six weeks This is results not typical by the way So I was close to 200 pounds, you know, I'd lost about 16 pounds in that six weeks and

[01:05:57] The pain that I've been experiencing for two years Was gone And let me share this with you James. I don't usually talk about this. I was terrified I was terrified Every step that I took every time I stood up. I was afraid that it would come back

[01:06:14] And so I had to relearn how to to be pain-free And eventually it was nine months later when I got a scan done And my two herniated disc had retracted and they were in place

[01:06:24] And now the light was shining through my discs again where there was black because of the degeneration And at 30 My spine was was younger than my chronological age That that's not supposed to be possible But this is what we're talking about with

[01:06:43] Whether it's our brain cells and our cognitive function, whether it's our physical body Not only can we slow down the degradation process, but there is some potential According to peer review data and my life experience to even reverse it

[01:06:57] So let me ask you this like you mentioned about supplements versus the bioavailability and food Like what is the like I for instance take vitamin D supplements every morning And I don't know what the measurements mean. I take like 10 000 iu versus

[01:07:13] Of vitamin d3. I don't even know what any of those letters mean or numbers But I didn't it I think it helped me through covet and I don't really get colds a lot and and so on So it seems like it works a little bit

[01:07:26] Yeah, yeah, so a lot of vitamin d3 supplements are coming from like natural sources They're coming from a lot of times people don't realize this but Sheep coming from sheep's sheep's wool

[01:07:40] All right, so it's really fast fascinating that you know, it's kind of that closer proximity to something natural There are some vegan versions of it that come from You know certain forms of you know mushrooms and things like that but

[01:07:54] We've got to keep in mind that our ancestors were eating food To be able to get these nutrients And so we want to go food first and also allow supplements to be supplemental in that because in particular during covid for example there are

[01:08:09] And i'm not exaggerating. There are dozens There's over 30 studies Including randomized placebo controlled studies looking at vitamin d dramatically reducing the incidence of severity of symptoms hospitalizations The data exists and there's a ton. I'm talking it's ridiculous how many studies

[01:08:32] And i'm not saying that because I want it to be true. It's just it did what is I I wouldn't have cared if it was any different

[01:08:37] But that's what the data says and so with that being said there are spot things for us a supplement, but let's look at What have our genes expected us to do the longest? And for many of us it's going to be

[01:08:51] Not for many of us for all of us, but we've got to adjust our conditions today But we make vitamin d through sun exposure It actually you know those rays Interact with cholesterol in our bodies and convert through a process That's remarkable your kidneys are involved

[01:09:07] Your liver is involved. There's all these processes to make natural vitamin d that is again made for your Receptor sites because it's made in you By you so you can't overdose Underdose like your body knows what to do

[01:09:24] If we're getting that sun exposure, but guess what the sun is our enemy now is well, you know The sun is trying to kill you

[01:09:31] And it's so it's so crazy like we go to these extremes and we don't question and just stop and think like wait a minute Is life on planet earth possible because of That flaming ball of Of goodness or is it just like straight up trying to murder us?

[01:09:47] Yeah, like why do you think the authorities? Is it just happens to be random or why do you think the authorities basically try to say don't go outside? Don't uh, you know eat according to this food pyramid, which means eight servings of pasta a day

[01:10:00] And you know, why why do they screw us all up like that? Uh, we want to crack this open. I mean, all right. Let me let me share this. Let me start with this and You know, I'm I work to always be a person who

[01:10:19] Is thinking in terms of Being balanced in my perspective and so Whenever and this is something I would encourage other people to do but it's very hard But if you have a piece of data affirming something you believe

[01:10:34] I challenge you and I often do this I'll go and look at something that a published You know piece of data that's done well That that denies what I believe to be true by this paper over here Because this is the thing about today

[01:10:48] There is something to affirm everything right now. All right And so the truth is usually somewhere in the middle The problem is when we get to these extremes and we think that you know every this is all wrong and this is all right

[01:11:01] And so with all that being said just looking at logic here And I'm a big fan of looking at results here in the united states Just from last year We had 4.2 trillion dollars invested in healthcare 4.2 trillion dollars far more than any modern

[01:11:26] industrialized nation far more we're like in a different stratosphere and yet we have bottom tier results We have bottom of all these other modern societies We're at the bottom All right, or near near the bottom

[01:11:42] But yet we spend so much and so again, there's a paradox. There's a mismatch here. Something's not adding up And so what I what i'm pointing to this to say is that why is this like this? Well

[01:11:53] Unfortunately if you're going to bet on something something to invest in In the united states right now that's going to definitely return you money in a very volatile time Bet on sickness Bet on disease of people

[01:12:05] It is one of the most lucrative things that you can get involved in And pharmaceutical companies are just I mean they're crushing it crushing it And again, this could be from the perspective of trying to help people Right and there are many people

[01:12:23] Being in this field for 21 years and being open and actually i've been at Like when i'm talking about this stuff i've been in these different situations You know and having this outreach And conversations

[01:12:37] You know with pharmaceutical companies, you know, i'm in all these really unique places whether i'm like Doing a guest lecture at the neuroscience department at nyu or like i'm working at You know google like

[01:12:50] I've had i've been in all these different places and I could see like there's a lot of good people trying to do Good and help people We have a system That values above all Returning those profits to the shareholders shareholder value. It is a business first

[01:13:10] And why would they be in the business of people not having diseases to treat that is stupid Is plum dumb Right and not matter of fact, by the way, we don't want to just cure something We don't want to have a one-time customer. That is stupid

[01:13:25] Having repeat customers Having people on a lot of stuff this revolving door Of medication and a lot of times a lot of these apparent new innovations in in drugs And this is just how it is a lot of these things have this apparent

[01:13:40] Innovation but most of them are not better than what's already on the market. It's just a reframing of things So that they can Not go into you know where things can be put into a generic versions and lose out on money

[01:13:52] You know and so there's not a big vested interest in having a healthy population That would be at this point suicide for our economy because we have an economy right now that is dependent on illness It's like they create sickness in order for

[01:14:07] You know the economy to benefit through the Pharma they create war so we could sell tons of you know, what is it? It's like every soldier is like 17 000 a month to equip with military equipment And so somebody makes every dollar of that

[01:14:23] It's so I you know again, I'm not everybody knows. I'm not a conspiracy theorist at all but It is what it is like somebody makes money on all these things That's and whether it's intentional or not. We don't know but Like you said, there's

[01:14:36] If nobody was sick the pharma industry would go bankrupt So you got to start to wonder And you mentioned something earlier. This is ultimately related but you mentioned the dark cherries and and and what did you say?

[01:14:48] First of all, I've never heard of dark cherries. No, I've never I don't know why I've never eaten them. But what did you say they had in them? Anthocyanins is one of the compounds

[01:14:59] Yeah, and they're they've been found I shared the study in the book that they've been found to actually target fat cells And could potentially shrink fat cells And so in this book you have lots of instances like that where you're identifying these foods and

[01:15:15] What it's almost like this supplement does this but With these foods there's tons of different supplements inside each food So there's lots of different things these foods do and then you weave it together into recipes

[01:15:26] And what I like in the book too, it's not just the recipes. It's like this is why it's important To cook them with your family. This is why it's important to Socialize while you're eating, you know with your family and friends and neighbors and so on

[01:15:38] I'll tell you in I think in the past 20 years, I've upgraded my diet like I don't eat fast food at all I don't eat three meals a day. I probably eat like one and a half to two meals a day

[01:15:49] Uh, you know just I don't know why but and I but I I never cook I order out almost every night And we eat dinner as a family watching tv So that's our routine and and probably that has to change at some point

[01:16:06] Like there's all these habits that have to change and it's very difficult to do that Like I I get excited thinking about it, but then I run out of steam after a little while because You know, I I gotta start slowly with these things somehow

[01:16:20] But I love the recipes like I've tried some of these recipes in there. They taste really good Yeah, that's that's the magic too. You know, I'm a big I'm a big fan of food You know growing up in the culture that I grew up in

[01:16:33] Flavors huge, you know, it's such a huge aspect of of food and enjoyment And working as a nutritionist for so many years. I would Unfortunately, you know kind of take stuff away from people that they liked And replace it of things of less value

[01:16:48] And so quickly fortunately I learned that that wasn't the way to go about things because people want change But they don't want to change that much to get the change and so I started finding a soft place for people to land and to really work on

[01:17:02] How can we upgrade what they're doing using real food? And so like with your goal, for example with cognitive function, we do know a ton of specific nutrients I mentioned those omega-3s earlier, for example

[01:17:14] So we've got a couple of studies and some of them are in the book as well on a mega three supplementation um improving recall improving reaction time And one of the studies that I noted was actually using MRIs or fmr eyes and looking at the human brain

[01:17:31] They found that people who are consuming less than four grams of epa and dha specifically These are animal based omega-3s a day have the highest rate of brain shrinkage They're losing their gray matter. All right, and gray matter matters. Wow

[01:17:46] So I eat a lot of salmon for instance, and that's with omega filled with omega-3s, right? Right. And here's the thing though with that being said we've all had a nice grilled salmon, you know, that's nice But that might not do it for everybody to be consistent

[01:18:00] And by the way, one of the studies that I noted in the book is published in the drone neurology They found that people who eat just one seafood a meal one seafood meal per week

[01:18:07] Do in fact perform better on cognitive skills tests than people who don't eat at least one seafood meal per week So we take that delicious salmon which we in about an eight-ounce serving you can get five grams

[01:18:20] Of your omega-3s. So so let me answer this Sean. I eat salmon almost every day That's the problem. Okay. No, I mean that's not the problem Let me let me rephrase this so that exactly leads to it like, okay

[01:18:31] For somebody like yourself. I don't know if you're you're are you comfortable eating the same thing over and over again Yeah, I think you are yeah, that is your personality type like if this thing works

[01:18:41] I just keep doing it, you know, like right you were doing stand-up six nights a week Like that's right. You're different. I like doing the same thing every day You're different right where some other people they might be like, okay This grilled salmon is is a wrap

[01:18:55] Let's create this into some some interesting ways and one of my favorite recipes you mentioned in the book is The salmon burgers that that recipe is out of this world delicious And you're getting all of those nutrient inputs from that salmon and also other

[01:19:09] Complementary foods that support cognitive health as well. And so that's really the target is like, you know Let's create some diversity here. But even with that specifically with salmon. Okay What are some other food sources that we can get these omega-3s dha and epa?

[01:19:24] Also, I mean, there's a ton of other different types of fatty fish by the way You know mackerel You know sardines and stuff like that. There's so many different types from small fish to big fish

[01:19:34] But salmon has really gotten all the shine and rightfully. So here's why salmon is so remarkable Is that it has astaxanthin? Not to me even mistaken with the anthocyanins earlier But astaxanthin is this kind of like red pigment. That's how you can identify it

[01:19:49] That protects the omega-3s from degradation even when cooking That's why salmon has that little extra magic with it but egg yolks You can find a really good source of omega-3s You can find this in grass-fed beef as well

[01:20:06] You know, there's there's many other foods, but seafood really is Top tier when it comes to getting those omega-3s in Yeah, so I'm so I feel like I've got that covered

[01:20:17] The like I mean usually when I eat salmon I eat it raw because I'll have sushi or something like that So I'm not here's the other thing this this is for you. This is what I wanted to get to today as well because the omega-3s

[01:20:31] Might not be the issue, but it's also the processing and your cells being able to communicate with each other Something called signal transduction Omega-3s are critical in that because they're made into structural fats in the brain But the magic doesn't happen without Very specific minerals

[01:20:50] All right, namely electrolytes. So these are minerals that carry an electric charge The researchers at McGill University found for example That sodium functions as a quote on off switch for certain neurotransmitters in the brain that

[01:21:05] You know again for your cognitive function, but also protect your brain against neurodegenerative diseases and degradation And so if you're not getting ample and this is the here's where the

[01:21:16] The issue happens because we hear sodium like why salt like I thought we were supposed to watch your salt I'm not talking about sodium salt. That's one kind of salt by the way We call, you know table salt sodium salt, but it's it's also chloride

[01:21:33] There's a combination of sodium and chloride There's multiple forms of sodium. There's multiple forms of magnesium multiple forms of potassium all these key electrolytes calcium What I was deficient in that's the is it's not just one There are multiple forms of all of these things

[01:21:51] This is why food is so special because it has a diversity, but if i'm taking a supplement To try to get my you know fill in the blank Am I getting the right form of it that my body is screaming for to run these processes?

[01:22:04] So with that being said One of the one of the things that I might even have you supplement So I want you to target more Electrolyte rich foods for sure was generally going to be you know fruits in particular have a really great source of electrolytes

[01:22:19] But I would actually yeah, I don't have a lot of fruit. Yeah. All right All right I gotta I gotta get on that some diversity of fruits But also I would probably even jump in here and recommend an electrolyte supplement for you

[01:22:33] But one that is giving you the electrolytes and not unnecessary sugar which This is the last piece of this that I want to share It's not just about adding in the things it's about avoiding the things that create the damage, right?

[01:22:46] So here's the thing the human brain is about two percent of our body's mass But it can consume about 25 of our calories and researchers at harvard found that Your your brain will gladly Sop up 50% of the glucose from any meal that you eat

[01:23:03] It is a very glucose driven hungry organ through our evolution But we never came across a lot of sugar at one time Not very often in our society today It's every day all day But our brains have not changed. They're still going to be sucking up all that

[01:23:19] And so now we have this epidemic of what's been labeled type 3 diabetes Aka Alzheimer's disease Or we have insulin resistance taking place in the brain Yeah, I've read some stuff about that that Alzheimer's is like linked to diabetes now Yes, so avoiding obnoxious amounts of ultra processed sugar

[01:23:39] adding in key elect electrolytes And a great electrolyte supplement for you. I think would be pretty freaking potent And i'm going to send you a link for one after we wrap up. That'd be great And also, you know nutrient-dense foods that also contain naturally occurring electrolytes

[01:23:53] But we want to avoid gatorade power aid all that crap that I grew up See, that's what i've been doing. I've been buying like on the day of a tournament I'll get power aid Because I thought that will keep the electric lights going

[01:24:06] You know throughout the day like I and I but it doesn't work. I totally run out of steam In the late afternoon like I start to run. I just completely start collapse. Are you getting the are you getting the sweeten ones? It's blue

[01:24:19] I got the blue flavor. It's gotta be sweet. Yes So the sugar is going to have a counter effect Especially in your energy, you know, it's just inherent because again, you're gonna get this glucose spike

[01:24:30] Your body's your brain is gonna fast metabolize that stuff and you're gonna crash And you're gonna condition your condition your condition your brain cells too want that or to need that Until we you know kind of work out of it

[01:24:42] And so but also the dyes like where how's that blue? You know, like some of these food dyes have been Targeted peer-viewed data Creating cognitive dysfunction, you know leading to ADHD and all these different things adult ADHD has skyrocketed as one of the

[01:25:00] Main things I was seeing when I was working as a nutritionist was Uh adults coming in who've been diagnosed with adult ADHD, you know And again a lot of these things that we're doing just haphazardly trying to do the right thing are causing problems

[01:25:13] So so what are some other? electrolyte foods Yeah, like I said anything that's going to be rich in you know sodium potassium magnesium calcium so just to throw out a few of these um, I really like

[01:25:31] Mag magnesium might be the most I don't want to it's kind of like picking your favorite kid I don't want to do that But because it runs so much we've identified over 650 biochemical processes that require magnesium in order for them to to happen

[01:25:46] So that means like there's 650 things your body can't do or can't do properly Without magnesium being involved like it's crazy as a matter of fact ATP what everybody has heard at this point and even in my

[01:25:59] College classes, this is the energy currency of the body. No, no, no That's potential energy ATP has to be Binded with magnesium in order to be like active like it's really that important And for for magnesium for people just to target anything that's green

[01:26:16] Is going to be a good indicator that's going to be a nice source of magnesium not always avocado avocados a decent source of magnesium absolutely, um, you know green leafy vegetables as well but

[01:26:30] Funny enough chocolate is also a really great source of magnesium. But even when we say this I'm not talking about Three musketeers and whatever the nougat is I'm talking about like like high quality dark chocolate and or just getting like cacao nibs like the real like chocolate bean

[01:26:48] nibs and like adding that to your smoothies and stuff like that So that's just that's one Uh specific electrolyte is a couple of food sources, but you know, we could do this all day

[01:26:59] You know, we have this natural tendency like even when you go to a restaurant to like lime or lemon that kind of stuff There's electrolytes in there and they make the water more Hydrating essentially because water doesn't just it doesn't just go into ourselves when we drink it

[01:27:15] There are these protein bridges called aquaporins that really They they respond or they require like a certain structure of the water. It's kind of like, uh I think I think a helpful analogy would be like, uh When you have like that express pass for tolls

[01:27:36] You know like just being able to pass through the tolls without slowing down or like that ease of access Is help is is helpful when the water is structured and when I say structured

[01:27:48] What that means is minerals like when people talk about like alkaline water what makes what makes it alkaline It's the mineral content Of the water. There are certain minerals that are alkaline. There are certain minerals that are more acidic

[01:28:01] That's what this really boils down to so hydrating yourselves itself adding a little lemon or lime or whatever There's all these kind of fruit infusions you could do berries and but all of that stuff really helps to make the water more hydrating

[01:28:14] I did not know that that's very interesting. I always wanted to why people want lime with their water Yeah, I'm gonna have to start having that more. Yeah, and I add it in the book too There's a spa the spa water as well

[01:28:25] Because again, it's just a more hydrating form of water So so Sean I just first off. I really want to say again These recipes put first up this book is really like well done the photos of the

[01:28:37] Dishes are beautiful the the whole the quality of the paper or the quality of the book is really high All the information you put in here about the foods about the meals about the diets about Exercise about everything is just so valuable

[01:28:52] But the I'm not a natural sort of cook at all I don't cook but everything was that I've done so far has been like easy to make and really delicious like this is The only cookbook I could ever say I've really

[01:29:08] Made recipes out of so otherwise I just put in the past. I've just like thought up stuff and put stuff together, but This has been a really great experience just going through and the cookbook and and and learning from it I highly recommend it

[01:29:22] But also this discussion you really like open my eyes to a lot of things My only fear is that I'm going to say okay. I'm going to like do all of this and then Not do it Yeah, so I got to figure out how to like

[01:29:34] I don't know. I just got to figure out like what to do first I mean I've been doing these in bits and pieces and I like I said I've been trying to lift weights and But it's like sporadic. It's hard for me to get into a habit

[01:29:45] Yeah, your your superpower though is like when you get locked into something you're super human at that thing And so I think is just trying to find the leverage point with the strength training

[01:29:55] Whether that is like having a trainer that you actually like, you know, maybe they're funny or maybe they're completely You know, I don't know just a complete moron and you could like I don't know Finding somebody that is your accountability source as well might be helpful for you

[01:30:11] Because and also even maybe learning the language of strength training because it's a whole science, but we tend to see it as this like Jim bro, like whatever that type of thing But there's like a this intense beautiful science

[01:30:26] And maybe when you start to learn about like your muscle fiber types and like how this thing could do that thing And you start to like paint a picture and make it more artistic

[01:30:35] Like is just finding that psychological leverage for yourself. But yeah, you know, it really helped me actually was so my step son uh was going through some stuff and Uh, he started lifting weights every day or like four times a week something like that

[01:30:51] And not only did he get confident as he saw his body transform and it really did start to transform But just in general I just saw his mood improved His his everything improved like his life changed and now he's like now he's into it now

[01:31:05] He's an addict of weightlifting not a bad not in a bad way, but he just does it He goes to the gym and does it. Yeah, you've got morons with his friends He did first hand anecdotal data right there right there. Yeah. Yeah, it was really interesting

[01:31:18] he really he inspired me to to You know, that's what I also started looking into it more and getting the weights and so on as I saw the Transformation had on him

[01:31:27] But i'm excited to keep going with the the foods if I take tons of supplements, but i'm hearing what you're saying about supplements and It does make sense that it would be more impactful to do this the natural way and Plus I love the food so

[01:31:44] There's a lot of good things going on here And I really appreciate you you coming on the podcast. It was great to to to begin to catch up

[01:31:51] We we got a lot more catching up to do but I just want to say the title of the book again I'll do an intro also that'll say it in the beginning, but The eat smarter family cookbook by shawn

[01:32:02] Stevenson author of eat smarter which goes into a lot more of the science and stuff like that about about the food So people should get both but the eat smarter family cookbook 100 delicious recipes to transform your health fitness and connection plus the model health podcast uh

[01:32:18] combined everywhere you get podcasts I highly recommend and shawn like once again, it's so great to To talk I can't believe it's been six years because kovat interrupted us. We always used to do this in person Yeah, that's it's bananas like it's just been like a time vacuum

[01:32:34] But like you said, we got a lot of catching up to do and today was fun. So thank you so much. It's been awesome Yeah, I really appreciate it. Thank you