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- [00:00]
Dr. Mark Hyman
Coming up on this episode of the Dr. Hyman Show. It's such an essential part of longevity and of health in general and just of enjoying life. It's not about doing it now for some result later. It makes you feel better now.
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Podcast Host/Announcer
Before.
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Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
The holidays are supposed to be joyful, but for many of us, they're stressful.
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Dr. Mark Hyman
Between travel, family, busy schedules and late.
- [00:20]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Nights, our bodies burn through magnesium fast. Magnesium is responsible for over 600 processes in the body, including sleep, muscle relaxation, mood and stress response. Most of us are deficient without even knowing it. That's why I take Magnesium Breakthrough from Bioptimizers. It has all seven essential forms of magnesium in one capsule so your body can actually absorb and use it. This holiday season, give your body what it needs to feel calm and sleep better. Visit bioptimizers.com hyman and use code HYMAN to save 15%.
- [00:47]
Dr. Mark Hyman
Before we jump into today's episode, I.
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Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Want to share a few ways you can go deeper on your health journey.
- [00:51]
Dr. Mark Hyman
While I wish I could work with.
- [00:53]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Everyone one on one, there just isn't enough time in the day. So I built several tools to help you take control of your health. If you're looking for guidance, education and community, check out my private membership the Hymenhive for live Q&As, exclusive content and direct connection. For real time, lab testing and personalized insights into your biology, visit Function Health. You can also Explore my curated doctor trusted supplements and health products@doctor hyman.com and if you prefer to listen without any breaks, don't forget you can enjoy every episode of this podcast ad free with Hyman plus. Just open Apple Podcasts and tap Try free to start your seven day free trial.
- [01:27]
Dr. Mark Hyman
I do this personally regularly. I do it at least two or three times a year, four times a year to really reset my system, to kind of get my body back on track. To get rid of all the bad stuff, put in all the good stuff. I want to walk you through how to do this. I'm going to teach you how to hit the reset button, reboot your system and to optimize your biology to help your gut, help your detox system, help your immune system, help reset your nervous system. And it's powerful. So if you want to really see how your body can feel and get rid of what we call FLC syndrome, I would do this. Most people are like the frog that's in cold water where you turn the heat up slowly and it starts to boil to death. We just kind of get used to it and think it's normal. These symptoms are not normal. So one of the principles, one of the foundational killers of the 10 digs program. And what, what, what, what can you do now? Basically anybody can do this. People go, I remember I want to do this with a junior high school once. And the teachers are like, well I, we might have to get permission from the parents to see if it's safe. You know, maybe they don't want the children doing this. I'm like, what is it safe to eat? Fruits and vegetables and nuts and seeds and protein and cut out sugar and starch and processed food. I mean, they should get a note that it's permission to eat the junk food that they have in school. The opposite. So anyway, yes, very safe. Anybody can do this. And some people, by the way, you know, need more certain things or other things. But, but basically this is a very universal approach to resetting your system. So what is the first principle? The first pillar is eat real food, real whole food. Understand? Food is medicine. It's not just energy or calories. It's truly medicine. It's information, it's instructions, it's code that literally programs your biology with every bite. It regulates your gene expression, your hormones, your brain chemistry, your immune system, your microbiome. Pretty much everything is controlled by food. And if you're eating the wrong food, you're sending all the wrong messages. Eat the right food, you're turning on the right messages. So there's a 10 day detox. You're basically taking out the bad stuff and putting in the good stuff. You're taking all the foods that cause inflammation, that are toxic to your system, that are inflammatory, that mess with your gut, and you're putting in foods that actually help reset your system. And it's pretty much a very simple approach. It's lots of veggies, so mostly veggies. Lots of good fats, lots of fiber, lots of good clean protein. And what does that look like? It's tons of non starchy veggies like broccoli.
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Any kind of veggie you think of.
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That'S not basically a potato. Sometimes sweet potatoes are okay for people. Avocados, good shots, avocados, olive oil, nuts and seeds, lots of good protein. Grass fed, organic regenerative meats, fish, chicken. Sometimes, you know, for vegetarians we can, our vegans we can use plant based proteins like tempeh or non GMO or organic soy tofu. Those are the most dense sources of protein. But you do need protein as you detoxify. So for the 10 days you're going to be getting rid of all the other junk, right? Processed food, other carbs, sugar, dairy, coffee, gluten, alcohol, pretty much actually all grains and beans. And the reason we get rid of gains and beans and all that is a lot of people have issues, a lot of people have issues with their gut, A lot of people have issues with inflammation, A lot of people have issues with gluten. A lot of people have issues with insulin resistance and prediabetes and obesity. And they can be problematic for these people. So basically get off all the bad stuff now. It's not calorie counting. You can eat as much as you want. Not like crazy how much macronutrients and percent of this and percent of that. No, it's just pick the right foods and we focus on what to eat. You don't have to focus on how much to eat, right. So when you look at your plan, it should basically look like this. Three quarters of it should be non starchy veggies. And I use often we'll put two or three veggies in my dinner. I'll make mushrooms, I'll have a, you know, broccoli, I'll make some, maybe a salad. So I'll have lots of veggies and, and I'll have a portion of protein that's essentially the size of my palm. Four to six ounces, usually 30 to 40 grams of protein. That's a good amount of protein, but you don't need that much if you're having animal protein. It should be very generally raised, should be pasture raised, chicken, wild caught fish. Should be low mercury, obviously all that. And we'll put all the shownuts, lots of good fats with dinner like avocados, nuts and seeds, olive oil in your veggies. You can even use for example ghee, which is a kind of a butter but it actually has the inflammatory proteins remove casein and whey. So basically has just the fat. It's called clarified butter. Very common. You can get my book tending detox diet. You can get the 10 day detox diet cookbook, whatever you want. We'll put all the show notes and links together. The second pillar, aside from what you eat, the food is really important. And by the you need protein in the morning. You need to make sure you get rid of sugar starch in the morning. Super important. People start their diet their day with carbs, which is the worst thing you can do. Sugar, sweetened coffees, teas, cereals, muffins, bagels, breads. D second pillar are your daily habits. Essentially mom's a pattern of eating and living. They put your body back in rhythm. It helps you reset your nervous system. And there's two really important habits as part of the tendency task. One is when you eat and also when you sleep. So let's talk about when you eat. Now when you eat might be as important as what you eat. So many of us don't eat in the right pattern. We tend to, you know, eat all day long, we tend to snack, we tend to eat before bed, we snack late at night.
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It's kind of bad.
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So basically when you eat is very important. Research shows that doing that can really be bad for your health if you eat at night.
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So the first is make sure you.
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Give yourself at least 12 to 14 hours between dinner and breakfast. So dinner at 6, breakfast at 8, that's a 14 hour fast. Okay. If you eat at 6 and then you keep snacking all night, that doesn't count. Right. And it's the most simple form of what we call time restricted eating. And it's basically giving our body a rest and getting the body to reset. And I wrote a lot about this in my book the Healing Forever. But, but basically there's a whole process at night that happens called autophagy and clean up and repair. You want to give your body the ability to do that. The next is food. Now you can do a breakfast if you're eating, you know, for example dinner at 6 and breakfast at 8 or so. That's a 14 hour fast. Really important to have protein in the morning, not carbs and sugar. Also not eating three hours before bed is really important. So most people eat and snack after dinner. Don't do that. Have at least three hours time. You eat and you go to sleep. That way you will lose weight. Your body can repair and heal. Instead of trying to digest and store the food, here is a full food list. You can, we're going to have it.
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Podcast Host/Announcer
In the show notes.
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Dr. Mark Hyman
You can take it with you to store. It's in the book the ten day Detox. It's in the ten Day Detox Cookbook. But essentially here's what you should eat and what you should actually get rid of. What you should eat is protein. You need right, Protein, right? So grass fed or Reginald raised meats is great. You have pasture raised lamb, beef, bison, venison, al grass fed beef, pastries, chicken, turkey, duck, all that's fine. What you should avoid is conventionally raised chicken and poultry and eggs and so forth. And by the way, you can also have eggs if they're pasture is Eggs, meat, get rid of all processed meats, deli meats, all conventionally raised feedlot meats. Get rid of all that stuff. But about fish and seafood, lots of small fish are good, big fish are bad. Right? Big fish like swordfish, tuna, sea bass, halibut, most farm based fish are pretty bad for you. What you should be consuming are things like the. I call this mash fish, a small wild salmon, sardines, anchovies, herring, mackerel. You can have black cod, shrimp, scallop, trout, all those are fine. Eggs, as I said, pastries, eggs are fine. Non organic, regular eggs are not fine. What about nuts and seeds?
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Podcast Host/Announcer
Very important.
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Dr. Mark Hyman
Almonds, Brazil nuts, cashew nuts, ha nuts, macadamia, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios, walnuts, all that's great. You're going to be cacao nibs, chocolate. Not actually chocolate, but it's where chocolate comes from. Seeds are great. Chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp seeds, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, all great. Nut butter is also great. So unsweetened nut butter. So almond, cashew, pecan, macadamia, I love macadamia, walnut, all that's great. You can also eat beans if they're. If you're a vegan and you want to do this, you can use GMO free or non GMO tofu or tempeh as your protein. What you should avoid are nuts there with sugar. They're cooked in oils that are with basic candied stuff. A lot of nut butters have sugar, hydrogenous fats, peanut butter, peanuts can be okay, but I wouldn't say mostly avoid peanuts because they have aflatoxin in them. They often are rancid and so you want to be careful with that. What about oils and fats? Well, the ones you want to use are organic avocado oil. You can use organic coconut oil for cooking corn, grass fed ghee. If you want to use tallow, lard, duck fat, chicken fat, that's okay as long as they're. They're past purees or regenerative, raised for salads. And you can use different kinds of oils like almond oil, flax oil, hemp oil, macadamia oil, extra virgin olive oil. And you can cook with olive oil, but only like tomato sauces and things like that. Things that are not high heat. Sesame oil tahini is great as well. Great fat, sesame seed kind of paste. Walnut oils are flavorful oils, they're not main oils. But you want to avoid the traditional oils. All the seed oils like canola oil, partially hydrogenated oils, Margarine, peanut oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, trans fats, vegetable oil, vegetable shortening, all that stuff. Bad.
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What about veggies?
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What should you eat? Well, you want to stick with lots of non starchy veggies or orange chokes. Organic if you can. I use the Dirty Dozen guide from the Environmental Working Group EWG.org tell you which are the clean 15, meaning you can eat them when they're not organic, or the Dirty Dozen, which you definitely not eat if they're not organic. But I love asparagus, artichokes, avocado, bean sprouts, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, celery, cucumber, eggplant, garlic, ginger, hearts of palm, kohlrabi, leafy greens, mushrooms of all kinds, onions, peppers, radicchio, radish, rutabagas, all that kind of stuff. Seaweed is great, lots of minerals, shallots, summer squash, tomatoes, turnips, zucchini. List goes on. We have all in there. You can have some things like sweet potatoes. I like the Japanese purple sweet potatoes, winter squash, carrots, pumpkin, all that's fine. I mean carrots are fine because unless you're doing carrot juice or that's a problem. But basically try to limit to like one serving which like half a cup a day we should be avoiding is corn and white potatoes mostly. A little, you know, some of the little dingling potatoes or the Peruvian potatoes. Purple potatoes is fine. What about dairy? You can eat pasture raised butter or ghee, but I encourage you to get them all dairy, including sheep and goat, which are mostly fine for people. But I encourage people to get all other dairy. And if you're having, he encourages you to have, make sure it's grass, grass fed or originally raised. And what about beans? Well, you can have green beans, you can have green peas, you can have a non GMO or organic soy such as tofu or tempeh, you can have snap beans, you can have snow peas, but otherwise definitely no. No beans. What about grains? No grains at all. So even healthy grains, quinoa, buckwheat, things like that, I really get off off all of that. Why? Because it just shuts down. The insulin response, helps you lose weight, reduce inflammation. Not that these are necessarily all bad, but eventually you add them back. But basically get rid of all, all the other all grains, wheat, barley, rye, rice, emerant, militep. Oh, it's everything. Get rid of it. Fruit, Fruit can be okay, but small amounts of non high glycemic fruits so Organic blackberries, blueberries, cranberries, kiwi, lemons, limes, raspberries, all that's fine, not too much, right? You know what I mean? Like you know, two pounds of blueberries, but you can have a cup, half a cup of dip. You want to get rid of all the other fruit, all the high glycemic fruit like bananas, pineapple, melons, cherries, grapes is the worst. Even foods that, foods that you think you know may be good for you are actually good for you, right? Whether it's, you know, peaches, pears, nectarines, cherries, for example, but you don't want to eat them while you're on the 10 day detox. You just want to really shut down the blood sugar insulin response. What about sugar sweeteners? Sorry, you can sometimes have a little monk fruit or stevia you have in the shake we have, but generally tend to avoid all that stuff. Also just get rid of all the other artificial sweeteners, all the sugar, all that stuff. If you have to ask, the answer is no. Basically then what should you be drinking? Well, lots of water, herbal tea, green tea, all this caffeine, that's okay, little green tea is fine. Helping get off. Coffee, sparkling water, mineral water, all this, what you should avoid. Alcohol, coffee, bottled water, plastic, soda, obviously sugary beverages. Basically that's the program. So if you eat that way for 10 days, if you use those simple habits, your body's going to totally transform and you're going to see just how food is impacting your health, which is something most people don't have a clue about. And that's why I love this so much. Now after the program, it's really important you do it for 10 days and we're 21 days or 10 weeks or 10 months. You have to be smart about getting off it or you can get into big trouble. Because when you go off of foods that are inflammatory, foods you're allergic to and you reintroduce them, you can get a lot worse symptoms. Let's say you had migraines before and they're gone. Wow, you're going to get a doozy of a migraine. Or let's say you had gut issues before, you have a real problem. Or let's say had sinus congestion from eating dairy and then you eat it again, you might get a sinus infection. So you really have to be smart.
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So if you're feeling great, you want.
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To continue and you, let's say you have a lot of weight to lose. Let's say you have an autoimmune disease. Let's say you just want, you're feeling great, you want to continue, no problem. You continue it, continue to do it. You can do it for another 10 days, you can do it for another 10 months.
- [16:17]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
It's fine.
- [16:18]
Dr. Mark Hyman
It's totally safe to eat. It is pretty much how I eat most of the time with occasion grains and beans. Also prioritize sleep and obviously your fasting window, not eating before bed. And then eventually people can transition slowly to the Pegan diet, which incorporates a lot of the principles in the 10 day detox diet, but gets you more flexibility in your diet. You could add some gluten free grains, you can have some grass fed dairy or sheep or goat. Maybe you want to do it most of the time, but try to, you know, occasionally have a glass of wine or dessert occasionally. All that's fine. Remember when you're adding things back, you want to do it smartly. And in the 1080 talks book we'll put in the show notes. You want to have to add one.
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Thing at a time.
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So if you're adding back gluten, just do that for three days. Don't have a pizza which has gluten and dairy, right? You don't know is affecting. If you feel bad, you want to know. So give yourself three days and then pick the next food. So start with gluten, then dairy, then grains, other grains, whatever. You'll see. Slowly add foods back and you'll see how you feel. And that's your best barometer. Smartest doctor in the room is your own body, and that's what you want to focus on.
- [17:24]
This time of year can be packed.
- [17:25]
Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
With connection and joy, but it can.
- [17:26]
Dr. Mark Hyman
Also be hard on our health.
- [17:28]
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- [18:20]
Dr. Mark Hyman
I wrote a book called the blood sugar solution 10 day detox diet, which is about sugar addiction and it takes you through in 10 days how to reset your whole nervous system. And not only you, you know, not crave sugar anymore, but you'll. Average person lost about seven or eight pounds in a week. They, at 10 days, they, they, their blood sugar dropped 10, 20 points. Their blood pressure dropped 10, 20 points. They reduced all symptoms from all diseases by about 70%. So if you have migraines, digestive issues, sleep problems, joint pain, whatever it was, everything dropped 70% by getting your system healthy. So that's important to remember. It's quick. You don't have to wait forever to see the results. So we had a woman in our, in our Cleveland Clinic program called Functioning for Life. Within three days of joining the program, this woman was on insulin for 10 years, was severely overweight. In three days she was off her insulin. By changing her diet in three months, she reversed her diabetes completely and her heart failure and everything else. Pretty impressive. Next thing you should know about sugar is there's many ways to say sugar. To quote Shakespeare, you know, a rose is but a rose by any other name. The other thing you should know is that, you know, we have many names for sugar. You know, in, I think, you know, the Inuit from, from the, the Arctic say they have 100 words for snow. And we have so many ways of saying sugar and often we miss it on the label because it's kind of hidden. So you know what food companies will do? They'll literally put four or five different kinds of sugar in some product because you're forced to list the ingredients in order of the amount on the label. So basically if they put five different kinds of sugar, they can list like a healthier ingredient first, like flour or something, and not actually put sugar as the main ingredient. So it's really, really sneaky what they do. The other thing you should be aware is there's a lot of words that you might see like agave, cane sugar, corn, anything, rice, even brown rice syrup, any kind of evaporated cane juice. What the heck's that? That's called sugar.
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Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
Even fruit.
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Dr. Mark Hyman
You might see fruit concentrate or fruit juice. I mean that's just basically sugar. Anything with oats in the end, like fructose, dextrose, maltose, treelose, sucrose, these are all sugar. Anything with malt in it, like malt syrup, flow malt, maltodextrin, also sugar, anything with ISO, like ISO, glucose, isomaltose. Basically there's a million names for sugar syrup, right? Maple Syrup, sorghum syrup, corn syrup, pancake syrup, which is usually per fructose, molasses, anything with the word sugar in it. Date sugar, coconut sugar, brown sugar, beet sugar, confection sugar. It's all sugar. So sugar, sugar, sugar. Now, is high fructose corn syrup a little worse? Yes. But in the end, it's all bad. Next thing you need to know is that artificial sweeteners are also not so great for you. So here's a classic example. What happens when you try to outsmart Mother Nature. Rather than accepting that, you know, we really shouldn't be eating a lot of sugar or we shouldn't be having a lot of artificial sweeteners, and rather than accept the fact that we just should try to eat less and, you know, not have so much sugar, we kind of want the hack, right? We want the magic loophole to avoid doing what's really good for us. We tried this with fat, right? We thought, oh, butter is bad and saturated fats bad. So let's have margarine. Margarine. I grew up on Fleischman's margarine. But it turns out that trans fats are not only not good for you, they're very bad for you. And they've killed hundreds of thousands of people, and they cause heart disease, diabetes, and they're really unsafe. And the government finally, after 50 years and a lawsuit finally caved and said, oh, gee, it's not safe anymore.
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Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
It's.
- [22:25]
Dr. Mark Hyman
They called it a grass generally recognized as safe. They removed the grass label. The problem is it's still in the marketplace because FDA is in cahoots with the food industry. And essentially they gave them a lot of loopholes and ways to kind of leave it in there. So I go to the store regularly and I kind of hunt for products now. A lot of companies have taken it out, but what they're replacing with may not be any better, right? So I think we have to be very careful. Like palm. Palm shortening, which can be from, you know, palm trees. But they're. They're often. They're often, you know, kind of harvested in ways that destroy rainforests and destroy habitats of orangutans. I mean, it's really bad. So also, there are also five things that have. Have received FDA approval that are sweeteners. Saccharine, sweet and low aself attain, which is sun it or sweet one and aspartame, NutraSweet equal and others Sucralose, which is Splenda and neotame. So these are all things you should avoid they're really bad for you and don't have them. People who, who drink diet drinks every day in a study about heart disease had a greater risk of diabetes and metabolic syndrome. They are carcinogenic. In animal studies, they destroy your gut microbiome. I mean, they're really bad for the good bugs in your gut, and they cause more glucose intolerance, diabetes. Certain compounds are excitotoxins, like damaged neurons, like the aspartame in the brain have neurologic issues. So not so good. And you go, well, what about sugar alcohols? Are those not bad because you don't absorb them? Well, sugar alcohols sound great, but they're kind of these weird, strange names. They're derived from plants, fruit and vegetables sometimes. And they're in everything. Candy to bubble gum to cough drops to chewable vitamins to smoothies to. Even health foods often have these. Now, the. They. They're kind of less sweet than traditional artificial sweeteners. They do have calories, but we don't absorb them because they're too big. So anything with the word all on it, like mannitol, maltitol, sorbitol, xylitol, erythritol, these are things you don't want to eat when you do. They tend to cause a lot of gut issues. They cause the. The bugs in your gut. They love these. They just munch them down, and they'll create bloating. I mean, I remember once when these first came out, like 25 years ago or something. This patient of mine gave me this chocolate bar. Look, Dr. Hyman, here's a chocolate bar. And there's no sugar, and it's amazing. And it tastes good. And I'm like, great. And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna eat it. So I was tired that day, I think, and I just scarfed the whole thing down in the afternoon. I was hungry, I was seeing patients, and my stomach blew up like a balloon. Like, I literally. My gut bacteria did not like it. So I would not really consume these at all. They can cause diarrhea, bloating, gas, all kinds of digestive issues. They mess with your gut flora. So there's some that are a little bit better, like erythritol, but still, be very, very careful with these. Don't. Don't think you have a free pass. And it can ferment. It can cause all kinds of issues. So. So don't, don't, don't take it, especially if you have gut issues. Now, some natural sweeteners are a little Bit better than others. So I'm not. I mean, listen, we all like sweet stuff, but kind of my view is, if you're going to have something sweet, just have it. You have a large sort of sugary kind of coffee drink in the morning that can have more sugar than a soda, that can have eight or nine teaspoons of sugar or more in that. Now, you wouldn't put eight or nine teaspoons of sugar in your coffee. If you take a teaspoon of sugar and you put in your coffee, that's probably a lot better than trying to do all these other things and, and, and being really aware. So I would say, you know, not more than five teaspoons a day. That, but that can be even too much for, for some of us. Most adults consume 22 teaspoons a day, kids about 34 teaspoons. Artificial sweeteners, as we said, not good. Sugar, alcohols, not good. So. Dr. Hyman, like, you're killing me. What am I going to do? I. I mean, I. Well, first of all, uh, just if you stay healthy, right, if you're metabolically tuned up, right, if you're, if you are, if your metabolic engine and your muscles and your mitochondria and your weight and your, you don't have a lot of organ and belly fat and you want to have a little sugar and you exercise regularly, okay, it's not going to kill you, right? But in. If you are not metabolically tuned up, which, by the way, is 93.2% of Americans are not in good metabolic health, which is frightening to me. And how you tell is check your insulin. If your insulin is less than 5, you're probably okay. If it's less than 2, you're good. But if your insulin's high, you know, you're kind of in trouble and you're not going to have a lot of tolerance and what I call metabolic degrees of freedom, we, we get more metabolic degrees of freedom by being healthier. We have more resilience, metabolic resilience. But most of us are metabolically just a train wreck. So be careful. But let's say you want to have a little something. I mean, I'm not against having a little maple syrup, a little honey, a little, you know, actual sugar sometimes. But, but I would not, I would not use this kind of hacks like agave or corn syrup or brown rice syrup. They're just, they're just not healthy for you. And they're going to be mostly fructose and not a good thing. Date sugar can be okay, they might have antioxidants. Molasses actually has iron and things that could be okay a little bit. You can use dates just as a sweetener, little maple syrup, a little raw honey. Okay, fine. But you know, it's not the sugar that, that you add to your food that's the problem. It's the sugar that's added by corporations that's the problem. If you have one 20 ounce soda, that's 16 teaspoons of sugar, you wouldn't put that in your coffee.
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Sponsor/Advertisement Voice
All right.
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Dr. Mark Hyman
For non caloric sweeteners, stevia can be okay. But I would say the whole plant stevia, not riboside A, which is made by Cargill and Pepsi and Coca Cola. So that should tell you something about it. Also there's other kinds of sweeteners that you can use which is like monk fruit sweetener, which is I think my favorite. It's generally well tolerated. It's, it's tasty. I don't particularly like stevia because I think it causes problems. But any, any sweetener could be this brain stimulant. So be careful. Look for products with Rainforest alliance certified seal to make sure your stevia is grown in ways that are sustainable. If you want honey, you can check out the Ethical Consumer Guide. We'll provide the link in the show. Notes and sweeteners, you know, what are things we can include? Well, juice, pureed fruit juice, molasses, organic palm sugar, date sugar, coconut sugar, it's got a little lower glycemic index. Monk fruit sweetener, which is a non caloric sweetener. Organic maple syrup, honey, as I mentioned, stevia and monk fruit, I typically are the ones I would recommend, but sparingly an erythritol, some people can tolerate it but don't have that much. And what should we avoid? Well, we shouldn't be eating mounds of sugar of any kind, but artificial sweeteners like big. No, no liquid sugar calories. If you want to do one thing for your health besides the high fructose corn syrup, it's getting rid of sugary beverages. Liquid sugar calories are the worst because of how they affect your metabolism. High fructose corn syrup, don't eat that. Anything with the word syrup in the name except maple syrup. Any, any things that are all natural. You know, agave is natural. Sugar cane's natural, evaporated cane juice, natural brown rice soup is natural. That means it's good for you. So the arsenic, that's natural. Packaged foods that have added sugar, just stay away from that stuff in order to make a food taste good that's industrial food, they have to add sugar or salt or fat. And it's surprising. You know, there's more sugar in serving of prego tomato sauce than there are in two Oreo cookies, right? So salad dressings, granola, granola cereals, ketchup, soups, candy, yogurt. I mean, I was surprised. I'm Jewish and we had Passover, and I didn't even look at the label. I just bought some a jar of gefilte fish that my mother used to buy. And I'm like, this is kind of sweet. I kind of looked at the labels like it was like, full of sugar. And I'm like, why they put sugar in fish? So it's pretty much everything. And obviously, you know, refined sugars of all kinds of brown sugar, aspartame, sucralose, saccharin sulfate. Just pass on those things. And there are a lot of ways to enjoy sweetness. Also a little hack. Use a continuous glucose monitor from levels. That'll help you find out what things are affecting you and what are not. You can also eat protein and fat before you eat something sweet or carby. For example, if you drink a glass of wine or alcohol and empty stomach, you get a quick buzz, right? But if you. If you basically have it after a meal or in the middle of the meal, you don't get that instant buzz. Why? Because of the quick absorption. Same thing with sugar. We may not get, you know, a buzz, but our bodies don't get the buzz if we eat protein and fat before combined with diet. Exercise is really the most powerful tool for staying healthy and extending your life. My mom used to say whenever she had the urge to exercise, she would lie down till it went away, which I think she got from any young man or some comedian. But she followed that advice, unfortunately, and she didn't exercise, despite my hounding her. Of course, parents never listen to their kids. I mean, kids, whatever, something like that. Parents never listen to their kids. And she ended up being pretty frail and disabled the last decade of her life and not too functioning. So when you start thinking about how to take this approach of incorporating movement and exercise in your life, you can get really amazing benefits. I'm just going to kind of go through them because they're just so profound. It actually unlocks the body's longevity switches, the regenerative and reparative systems that are built into our biology. It activates all the longevity switches that I talk about in the book, particularly the four that have to do with nutrient Sensing pathways that are sort of meta to everything else. Insulin signaling, mtor, which is really important in terms of autophagy and cleaning up your cells. Sirtuins, which are important in DNA repair, and also ampk, which helps regulate blood sugar, insulin sensitivity, inflammation, and many other things. So it's pretty, pretty darn exciting. It also activates the body's antioxidant systems. It improves your cognitive function and your mood. It supports, I mean, they found that just walking helps prevent dementia, which is pretty cool. It supports your microbiome, it reduces inflammation. It helps you produce more mitochondria and help them work better and be more efficient and have better function. Because mitochondria is where you make energy and as you get older you lose energy. So you want to boost that. It also keeps you strong and functional. You know, I just came back from skiing out in Switzerland and I had really great time. Was privileged to be able to go there, and I was amazed. Like, I was just skiing along like I was when I was 30 or 40 and I was probably going a little too fast, but, you know, I like to do that. And, you know, I felt strong and able to do it. And it was keeping up with people half my age. So I think the body has the capacity it needs to do this. It also makes you happier and improves your mood and even improves your sex life, believe it or not. So what does the research say? And let's talk about some of the nitty gritty about how it works. If you really, you know, maybe you want to know about the science, maybe that'll motivate you. I probably doesn't motivate most people, but it kind of gets me all excited. I kind of like that I'm a little weird. But it really, the research is just, it's just unbelievable about exercise. When I started to dig into, you know, obviously you can look at exercise in anything and search on, on PubMed and learn about it, but I started to look at exercise and longevity and what it does. So we covered a little bit of this, but I want to sort of expand on it. It improves your telomeres, which are little caps at the end of your chromosomes that start to shorten as you get older and shorten your life. It actually lengthens your telomeres by exercising. It protects your telomeres, it optimizes all these longevity switches like ampk, which regulates blood sugar. People say, I'm going to take metformin for longevity. Well, exercise is way better than metformin for regulating ampk. It also activates Sirtuins, which help DNA repair, reduce inflammation, and improve your blood sugar control, which are really important. It also improves your cardiovascular and heart health. We all know it reduces the risk of heart attacks and strokes and improves your brain function and cognitive function. It also helps certain types of cancer, as I said. You know, we see the regulation of our biology through exercise, being media, through. All these mechanisms have to do with immunity and cancer prevention. So it's super great. And of course, it extends your health span and your lifespan. I remember being in Sardinia and I mentioned this guy, I think before, but his name is Pietro. He was 95 years old and he was like a shepherd. And he was just running up and down the mountains all day, five miles a day in this really rugged terrain. And he was bolt upright, you know, booming voice, clear eyes, you know, strong and, and mentally sharp. And I was like, wow, this guy's 95 years old. You know, most people 95 in America barely can kind of walk across the street or get from their bedroom to the bathroom. And here he is, you know, running up the mountain. So we have the ability to do that. And he exercised every day as a shepherd, not quote, exercise, but he just, that was his life. It also, it's incredible for diabetes, for blood sugar control. I mean, just walking after dinner is a great way to keep your blood sugar down, helps you become more insulin sensitive and, and very importantly, it helps you build muscle mass and function because as you get older, you lose muscle. It's called sarcopenia. And that leads to all these hormonal and metabolic changes that accelerate aging and lower testosterone, high, high cortisol, the stress hormone, higher blood sugar, worsening cholesterol, I mean, just lower growth hormone and increased cortisol. Like I said, it's just, it's really bad news. So building muscle is really important, and that's clearly only done by exercise. So hopefully listening all this, you realize you can't afford not to move. My basically philosophy is if you don't move, you won't literally, you'll be dead. So how can you actually incorporate more movement? What can you do without having to drag yourself to the gym? Now, I go to the gym sometimes, but I rather play. And I think there's a lot of options and you can just do simple things, like start with simple things, even five minutes a day. And if you don't have five minutes a day to do something, there's something wrong with your life. So you better look at that. So, you know, for example, I, I, I figured out I couldn't do 10 pushups when I was 50. So I, I sort of, I'm going.
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To do push ups.
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So I take a shower most days. So I basically would wait for the shower to heat up. Cause it was, it's. I live in a barn and it's really tall and it takes a while for the hot water to get upstairs. And I would do pushups and I went from being able not to do 10 to do almost 100 push ups without stopping. So we, we can train our bodies and it's really simple. Or maybe while your coffee's brewing, maybe do some stretching and yoga, walk or bike instead of driving. And many, many countries they do this. I, I just met this guy who was the CEO of a big company and he lived in Switzerland and he, I mean this is, he runs a six billion dollar company and he, and he rides his bike straight up the hill or the matches, say the mountain to work 2,000ft elevation every day. And he's in incredible shape. He's 53 years old and his VO2 Max, which is a measure of fitness is that of a elite athlete and someone who's like half of a, half his age. So it's very impressive. You don't have to sort of do something like that, but just parking further away in the parking lot, taking the stairs instead of the elevator, the escalator, just simple things to start moving. Also try standing desk or a stability ball. If you're, you know, at a desk, you sit on a ball. It kind of helps you move and move your body and increase your core strength. I have a friend, Mike Roizen, who was at Cleveland Clinic with me and he used to have a treadmill desk. Literally was on calls and working and working on his computer and walking all day long, which is impressive. Make your leisure time active time. So if you're watching TV or movie, uh, maybe put a stationary bike in your house. I remember I worked in Idaho as a family doc, and there was this patient that came in and she lost like a hundred pounds. I'm like, what happened to you? And she's like, well, I decided instead of sitting in front of the TV and eating all day, I would get a stationary bike and just ride the bike all day instead of eating. She did and she lost £100. So pretty impressive. Um, maybe also you can, you know, listen to podcasts and, and an audiobook or do something like that when you're, when you're exercising or taking a walk and just makes it more fun and motivating and also do it with somebody else. As my friend Rick Warren said, everybody needs a buddy. So it's important that if you maybe are having some trouble getting out there and doing stuff, find somebody else to do it with. It's much more fun for me to play tennis with somebody else or play basketball or go on a bike with somebody else and do by myself. So I try to do it with friends and it's way more fun. Maybe pickleball is the latest craze. Join a pickleball league and go outside and just do fun stuff. So these are just a few examples of how to incorporate movement and exercise in your life and simple, natural ways to do it. And it doesn't matter what you do, it just matters that you do it. So according to science, and particularly the science of longevity that I talk about in my book Young Forever, go get a copy, please. It's really amazing. I like it a lot. It's one of my favorite books I've ever written, maybe the favorite because I think I'm obviously more interested in this because I'm getting older. It's such an essential part of longevity and of health in general and just of enjoying life. It's not about doing it now for some result later. It makes you feel better now. And we really can't afford not to exercise. So start where you are. Build up slowly. Even 10 minutes a day of walking can help start strength training, weight resistance training, whatever, whatever you want. Body weights, bands. I use bands mostly because I travel with them, do more movement throughout the day, get up, walk around, do stuff. And I write a lot about what kinds of exercise, how much exercise, how to optimize it in the least amount of time. I cover all that in my book Young Forever. So I want to share a little bit about a study that kind of reflects the power of this. And it was an 80 year study called the Harvard Study of Adult Development. And it had been producing data on so many different things, on, on who lives longer, happier, healthier lives. And they wanted to understand not what makes people sick, but what makes people thrive, what makes them well. So what were the lessons from this study? Was 84 year study, right? Long study, they were tracking the same people and over generations asking thousands of questions, hundreds of measurements to find out what really makes people healthy and happy. And they were giving these people are giving regular updates on their life, their health, their income, their employment, their marital status. They filled out questionnaires and were part of interviews where they revealed their fears and their hopes, their disappointments or accomplishments or regrets, life satisfaction and lots More. And this had a really incredible impact by providing lots of data. Then researchers use this data to assess how people's lives, their experiences, their attitudes affect their well being. And one of the things that was so powerful from this study was sort of surprising. It wasn't career achievement, it wasn't exercise, it wasn't a healthy diet that determined the quality and happiness of your life. It was good relationships. Good relationships keeps us healthier and happier. That was powerful. And the study's leaders that are, I mean, obviously the people started the study are dead. The current leader of the study, Robert Waldinger from Harvard and Mark Schultz have a new book. It's called the Good Life Lessons from the World's Longest Scientific Study of Happiness. And it's a great book. I actually had Robert Waldinger on the podcast the Doctor's Pharmacy, and you can learn more about the book and things there. But what are the things that we can do? What are the lessons learned from the study about how do we improve the quality of our relationships? First, we have to look at ourselves, right?
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Who are we?
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What is our life like? What are the choices we're making? How are we not prioritizing relationships so we can get really busy? We can do all sorts of stuff that we think is helping us get ahead. We can spend too much time on social media, but we often don't really think about building and investing in the quality and the number of our relationships. And for me, I know personally that my relationships, my friendships, my community is the most important thing for me. It really is what keeps me grounded, keeps me healthy, keeps me happy and, and then more and more as I get older, I focus more on this as opposed to like when you have kids and a career and you try to just kind of get by. And it's like sometimes friends can fall by the wayside, but it's really important to find and it even can be just one or two good friends. It makes a huge difference.
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Now.
- [43:31]
When these people in the study actually were interviewed, they really, actually benefited from this interview because it helped them realize where they neglected their relationships. And then they considered sort of looking and finding, well, how can we improve that? So maybe look at your own life. What's your social life like? Who are the people in your life that you care most about, that you want to have a relationship? Think about how they support you and how often you spend time together and maybe do a little bit of effort to actually focus on what matters to you most and help you make decisions that actually can enhance the quality and number of your relationships. So maybe spend more time with people who, who make you laugh and who elevate you and less time with people who drain you and are, are, you know, energy saps. So I, I, you know, I, I think it's important to, to find friends and community members that help bring you up and not take you down. You know, sometimes you meet with people, all you want to do is complain and go on and on about everything. And I think there, you know, there are, there are other people who you, when you're around them, you laugh, you have fun, you play, and it's just, that's what you want. You know, prioritize your relationships. We schedule in exercise, we make ourselves, maybe time to make a healthy diet. We, we focus on our career and work, but we don't focus on prioritizing those relationships that matter and being, showing up and being present for us rather than zoning out on social media, you know, rather than, like, you know, doing a million things at once, focus on, on your relationships. You know, when, during COVID I, I think we all felt a little isolated. And so I reached out to about six of my close male friends and we all have known each other for 40 often plus years, maybe 35. The small, the fewest, I think was 25 years. And so we, we've known each other and we formed this group and every, every Tuesday at 6:00, we meet for an hour and a half and spend time together and share about our lives. And it's been one of the most impactful things I've done. And it's something you can do. It doesn't take any organization. You just need a zoom link or, you know, it's really pretty easy. And you can have these deep connections and relationships that, that allow you to be seen and known and can really help activate so many healing pathways in your body. Make time to talk to people, right? And it came in sometimes those small relationships that matter. But a study in the University of Kansas found that the simple act of just reaching out to somebody, a friend, for conversation once a day dramatically increases happiness and lowers their stress hormones. So hanging out with friends lowers your stress hormones pretty good. And also it's not all about you, right? So take time to ask questions, find out what's exciting for them, find out what they're struggling with, find out what makes them happy. Have them share their life with you and value their opinions. Be present, focus and don't, don't just kind of be superficial with them, but go deep. So maybe try to have One conversation a day and put that in your calendar and see what the effects will be over time. Super important. Next thing is be kind. You know, my grandmother used to ask my mother when she came home and said, I met this new friend. She says, are they kind of. And I think kindness was such an important value in my family. And how do we be kind to each other? And, you know, you know, the relationship. Happiness is determined by how you are in that relationship. And there was a research study in Michigan State that looked on data for 2,500 married couples, and they found they were, you know, how good they were in five different dimensions. Were they extroverts, Were they agreeable, Were they conscientious? Were they stable emotionally? Were they open to doing new things and experiences? And the ones who had higher levels of agreeableness and emotional stability also had higher happiness. So the more kind of kind and positive you were, the more likely you were to be happy. So people invest a lot of time in finding someone who's perfectly compatible, but that might not be the whole story. It's more about being kind to the people you care about and fostering those deep connections. Also, a friend of mine had a word that I really loved, which is called cop to itiveness, which is where you cop to it. If you screw up, if you make a mistake, you cop to it. And it's really about learning to apologize, learning to repair relationships, learning how to have nonviolent communication, and owning your stuff, like I said. Also, a great way to build relationship is to ask questions. Instead of talking about yourself, ask questions about somebody. Show that you care. Show that you're interested in what they care about or thinking about. If someone wants advice, don't just give them your opinion. Ask them questions to guide them to the right answer that they know themselves. Also, don't be shy about expressing your love. There are lots of ways to love and lots of ways to express it. Maybe it's simple things. You know, I. I had a flight that came in the other night late, and I usually take the Uber home. And my partner, she showed up unexpected and picked me up at the airport. It was like, just brought me such joy and delight. It was such a simple thing, you know, within 10, 15 minutes from the airport here. And it wasn't a big deal for her, but it made a huge difference in terms of my own happiness, and it was really powerful. So help, help your friends with a project. You know, ask them what they need to do, whether it's clean up the garage or work on A project together, you know, call an old friend. Maybe they haven't heard from you in a while. Maybe you just want to check in on them, ask them how they're doing. Maybe you want to focus on helping somebody who's trying to do something that may be difficult for them, trying to support them and give them some love. Also, when you have a partner or a close friend, do little acts of kindness. Give them a little gift. Buy them something they like. Get them something that makes them smile. Give can be super simple. You know, when, when you often don't do these acts kind of life just, it's a little bit flatter. And when you do them, it's super fun. Like, like I said, my partner picked me up at the airport. It was like, wow, you know, I got that she really cared. Also, tell people how they you feel about them. Don't wait till their eulogy to tell them all the things you like about them. Be specific. Give people feedback about what you love about them, what you like about them, what makes you happy, how you feel in their presence. Who would you be without them? You know, who would you, who would you be now that you're with them? What do they inspire you to do and, and thank them for, for what they do and how they show up for you? Don't be shy. Like I said, don't wait till someone's dead to write a eulogy about them. It's better to have eulogies when you're, when you're alive. And I, you know, I actually had a group friend group where we would get together and on people's birthdays we would basically go around and for everybody's birthday we would share a little bit about what they're like and what we like about them, what we love about them, something that inspires us about them. And it's like getting a living eulogy. It's pretty awesome. So I really, really, really invested in my own friendships and my own community. And I think it's a critical aspect of our health. And as I get older, it becomes more and more important. So make sure that you take the time to invest in good relationships, because good relationships is just important or maybe more than eating healthy and exercising and getting up sleep. When it comes to supplements, you only want the best for your body. The kind with the highest quality, cleanest.
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Dr. Mark Hyman
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