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- [00:02]
A
Get ready to take a flamethrower to the official narrative and learn what the elites don't want you to know. You're listening to the Tom Woods Show.
- [00:19]
B
Hey everybody, Tom woods here, episode 2762 of the Tom Woods Show. Hal Cranmer is with us today. Now, Hal's been on before when we talked about COVID because Hal, tell the folks what exactly it is you do for a living. You run several facilities out in Arizona.
- [00:34]
C
Yeah, I run three assisted living homes. I did run five when we last talked. I sold two because I've got grandkids now and want to spend more time with them. But I have three residential care homes. A lot of people call them group homes, up to 10 residents each. And I've been running these homes for about 10 years all through Covid. So I got give you a unique perspective for that wonderful time.
- [00:58]
B
So the last time you were here, we talked about your perspective on Covid because of course we know that assisted living facilities, you know, weren't always being run in the best possible way during that time. And you very much bucked the trend. And it was very interesting to talk to you back then. But now we have another interesting topic to cover. And this came up because over on so Called X, I posted something you should follow me at Thomas E. Woods. Follow me over there. I posted something about my concern. Not that I'm having any symptoms or anything, but you know, I mean, the old man's 53 and I want to think about my health before I have to. I don't have any apparent problems with my brain, but so now's the time to, you know, do preventive things. So I was describing to my followers there what my regimen was and the various things I was doing. Just from a brain power standpoint, I wasn't talking about the time I spend in the gym and stuff like that. And I want to know are the things that I'm doing, is there any scientific basis for thinking that they might have the effect of holding off something like Alzheimer's? Well, I got hundreds of responses. I got hundreds of responses. One of them was yours that you wrote to me in a, in a long direct message and it had to do with what you've been seeing in the homes that you run. Now, neither one of us is a professional, you know, like we're not scientists, we haven't written peer reviewed articles, but we have a pair of eyes and a pair of ears, you know, and we, you know, with if something happens that, you know, the establishment told us we shouldn't expect to happen. I sit up and take notice, you know, I mean, I. I'm not a medical doctor, but I can read a chart, you know, so during COVID I had plenty to say. I can read a chart. This ain't working. Any idiot can see that by looking at the chart, you know, and no one was ever able to refute me on that. Just look at the chart. So, likewise, you have experience like you. You have seen people come in who want your services and who are in advanced stages of. Of, let's say, old age, and some of the sad consequences of old age. And this could be dementia. It could be Alzheimer's, and you have Parkinson's. Parkinson's, yeah. And you have been trying something a little bit different from what everybody else tries. So I'm not exactly sure where to start. Maybe you know where we should start.
- [03:24]
C
Okay. When I started these assisted living homes, I didn't know where to start. I bought some preexisting homes, and that was in 2016, so 10 years ago about. And when I got into this, I did it as a real estate investment. I'd been flipping houses and had some duplexes, triplexes that I was writing out to college kids in Minnesota. And they. Another investor told me, hey, you should check out assisted living because your tenants won't kick in the door when they're mad at their girlfriend or have cake parties in your places. And so I was like, that sounds pretty good because I've had to deal with that and lots of marijuana smell and stuff like that. So I got into it as a real estate investment. My kids wanted to go to Arizona State, so we moved the family down, bought some assisted living homes, kind of jumped right in. And at first, I was just trying to learn the business. I didn't know. I was never in a healthcare background. I was an air force and airline pilot. I was in manufacturing, and I knew how to do cpr. That was about it. So I was just trying to learn how to run the business. My caregivers were very much into how to save me money so they'd buy cheap food, you know, look, that was on sale so we could keep the budget low. And I just was really grossed out by how care. My caregivers are wonderful. I'm not trying to get on them, but just the system. The care home's main objective, it seemed like to get people into care homes was to get a perfect survey. The department of health comes in once a year unannounced, and you spend five hours with them going over all your books and medications and procedures and everything like that. And if you get no write ups from them, you must have a fantastic house and everyone's going to come. And I thought, man, if I have to put my mom in one of these, I don't really care if all the paperwork's signed exactly right. I care if you. This caregiver at three in the morning is talking nicely to my mom while she's cleaning her rear end because she's incontinent and, you know, isn't yelling at her or something. Right. And there's no way to do a government survey to check for that. So I started thinking, well, what can I do to help people in assisted living get what they really want, which is I want my mom or dad taken care of as best as possible, maybe some improvement in their health, but have the best quality of life for the time they have left. And our idea of health was they go see a doctor, they get a prescription, we give them a prescription and that was it. Okay. Otherwise it was ice cream, candy, whatever, pizzas, just cokes, just to make whatever they want to make them feel good. Well, yeah, it might make them feel good in the moment, but the reason they're in my assisted living home is because they eat a lot of that stuff prior to coming to my assisted living home. So I had one guy come in and I get this a lot. People move in and they're like, I don't want to be here, I want to live at home, I want to die in my home, you know, that kind of thing. So one guy came in and said, you know, I really want to go home. And I said, well, how badly like do you want to go home? And he said, I'll do anything. And I said, well, if I work with you and we get you healthy enough, would you be willing to work? And then we get you sent home. And I didn't know what I was going to do, but I just thought, let's try something. So he said, absolutely, whatever you need. His cognition was pretty good, he was in a wheelchair, he had a bunch of like cardiovascular problems, things like that.
- [07:05]
B
So now wait a minute until this gentleman. Had the thought occurred to you before that as the owner of these homes that you would be doing something other than simply caring for the people? Had it occurred to you that part of what you might aspire to do is make them well enough that they could actually return home? Had that ever been part of the model originally?
- [07:25]
C
Well, I was just trying to figure out what can I do to help these people have a better quality of life. I can't change their prescriptions. Those are totally run by doctors. Right. There's not a whole lot of regulation kind of stuff I can change because they're going to tell me, you have to do it this way. But when it came to diet, the department of health wanted to know if I had a menu posted on the wall for the next week, I could put whatever I want on that menu. You know, they wanted you to roughly follow the food pyramid, the old food pyramid, not the RFK food pyramid. And they were happy, you know, so if I gave them pizza and sodas and cakes for dessert every time, they didn't care. So I thought, okay, I have some control over that. I can change that kind of thing, right? So I thought, let me look into that. So I just started Googling. I did my own research and bought some books from doctors and sort of Internet forums, things like that. What is. What are making people better? What are people going. Having testimonials about and everything like that. But it was a slow process. It was just sort of in the back of my mind because the first couple of years I was just trying to learn the business, you know, I was making sure we were all compliant. I was meeting with lots of hospital administrators to go, hey, you got someone who needs assisted living? I got a place down the street, that kind of thing, you know, marketing, trying to just make the business work. Well, this was just sort of a side project. On the weekends, I'd look into it until this guy showed up. And that's where I took it from there. So I still didn't have a whole lot of background in it. So I just basically said, okay. I know my mom says, sugar's bad. Eat your vegetables. Don't eat tons of processed food. So I told my caregivers, let's give them salads and let's give them lean meats, and let's try to just keep him away from the sugar. And then I hired a trainer and I said he worked out with him about three or four days a week. And the guy worked really hard when the gut trainer wasn't there, like he just exercised by himself. And our bet was if you can walk out of our house, there's about a 50 foot sidewalk to get to the street, or not maybe that far, but 40ft and you can walk down that and you can get in your wife's car or you can go home. Called his wife, said, are you okay with this? She said, yeah, I'd love it. If he could do that. So in about seven months he actually did that. And he walked out of our house, walked down the sidewalk, got in his wife's car. They went home. I went over to their house, took a video. He had been out walking the dog when I came over and I was like, well, if this guy likes that, there's probably other people who like it too. And so I just, I kept the trainer and said, I want you exercising everyone. At first I tried to charge for that. And everyone's like, well, if you're going to charge me extra for the trainer, I don't want them for my mom or dad. I'm like, okay, then here's your new price for assisted living and the trainer's free.
- [10:30]
B
So, okay.
- [10:32]
C
I was like, you got to have a trainer, right? Or you got to exercise. It's very easy. And a lot of assisted living homes are extremely worried about people falling. So they put them in a chair all day, right? A recliner or couch, or they leave them laying in bed all day. They're not going to fall, that's true, but they're going to have all kinds of other problems because they're just sedentary all the time. And I've even heard people say being sedentary is a chronic disease now, so.
- [11:01]
B
Oh, and not to mention, it's encouraging the kind of frail body that when inevitably they have to walk around a little, they will be all the more prone to a fall because something will go wrong and it'll make them fall, you know, and this. It's counterproductive. Hey, gang. It's just not true that the only way to grow your money for retirement is to risk it buying and selling stocks. You can reach your financial goals and dreams without taking any unnecessary risks. Bank on yourself is the proven retirement plan alternative that lets you bypass Wall street, beat the banks at their own game, and and take control of your financial future. We're talking guaranteed predictable growth and retirement income with no luck, skill or guesswork required. Your plan doesn't go backward when the markets tumble. Both your principal and growth are locked in. You're in control. You get access to your money for emergencies and opportunities with no questions asked. There are no government penalties or restrictions on how much or when you can take it. And when you use your money, it keeps growing like you never touched it. Try doing that with a 401k or IRA, not to mention built in inflation protection. Your money is guaranteed to grow by a larger dollar amount every year in both good times and bad. You can get A free report with all the details on how the bank on yourself strategy adds guarantees, predictability and control to your financial plan. Just go to bankonyourself.com woods that's bankonyourself.com
- [12:25]
C
woods as you age, your bones get weaker and weaker. There's a lot of people who break their hip before they fall, right?
- [12:33]
B
That's what I was trying to get at.
- [12:35]
C
Their hips crack and then they fall, then they fall. Then they, oh, they broke their hip in the fall. Well, actually they broke the hip before they fall in a couple cases. So my philosophy was, well, let's strengthen them enough that they don't fall. Like you and me can walk around all day. We, why can't they? If we work at it hard enough, right. There is a condition called sarcopenia, which is Basically after your 30s or so, your muscles are going to start declining. I mean, you can look at Arnold now and he's not what he was when he was 25. By any means. You know, you have to keep working at the muscles. You still have to eat a lot of protein, things like that, to just try to keep them maintained, let alone grow them really big. So I tell people, you got to work as you get older, you got to actually work out harder. You have to work when you're younger. All those reasons we wanted the trainer in there. And plus, you know, the first trainer I hired was an extremely good looking guy and all the ladies loved him. So, you know, they were like, oh, we'll exercise with him, no problem at all. So we did that. And he, he was a vegan, like a vegetarian. So he's like, oh, well, you know, you want to get your guys healthier, we need to make everyone vegetarian. I'm like, oh, I guess we got to make everyone vegetarian. So I actually hired some vegetarian nutritionists and I found it very hard to implement the recipes called for all these weird herbs and spices and things that I had to run over town to find specialty shops that had them. And I was like, I don't have time for this. I got to fill the homes, keep them full, you know, all this kind of stuff. And I wasn't seeing people getting better much. So in fact, I had a couple people who said, if I have to eat another salad for breakfast, I'm moving out of here. And I was like, okay, well, this isn't working real.
- [14:22]
B
Yeah.
- [14:23]
C
So I ended up firing those nutritionists. Just went back to, well, let's eat good food. That's veggies, lean meats, what the food Pyramid told us. But I was in the background. I was reading and listening to podcasts and all this kind of stuff, trying to find out, and there really wasn't anything about elderly people. There's a ton of stuff about, you know, you're young and fit and you got to cross train and all that kind of stuff, but no one really talked about elderly people, but I thought it can apply. So I actually came across a guy named Dr. Dale Bredesen, and he is a neurologist. He used to run the UCLA center on Aging. And he's basically devoted 30 years of his life to trying to figure out Alzheimer's. And he's actually reversed Alzheimer's in a lot of people or his protocol that he came up with. And what attracted me to him was that he didn't say, you need to take these drugs. He was like, the way to fix Alzheimer's is a functional medicine approach, a lifestyle change much more than it is drugs. Now he's all about supplements and things like that. But. But he likened Alzheimer's to a leaky roof. Okay? So if you have a roof that has lots of holes in it, if you patch at one hole and the rain comes, you still got a leaky roof. Okay? So what he's saying is if you do a drug trial with a drug and you specified one particular insult to the body that that drug's going to fix, well, it may fix that problem, but it's not going to fix the other problems that are contributing to your Alzheimer's. So he's identified, like 36 different factors that go into someone getting Alzheimer's or other various forms of dementia. So what you have to do is optimize those 36 factors to bring someone back. Okay. Or to avoid it. All right? Because you could have 18 of those factors, or you could have 26 of them or four of them, and you could still have Alzheimer's or dementia. So the trick is to do a bunch of labs to see what's going on and then to do various supplementation, lifestyle changes, things like that, to improve all your different markers. And then your body first heals, and then over time, your brain heals. It used to be thought that your brain, once it's gone, it's. It's. It's never coming back. But they've discovered that there is what they call neuroplasticity, where your brain can regenerate new nerves and things like that. It can regrow. The big Alzheimer's problem is a little thing in your brain called the hippocampus it looks like a little seahorse in the middle of your brain, and that shrinks with age. And if it shrinks too much, a lot of Alzheimer's people have a very shrunken hippocampus. And he's actually seen it grow back with these protocols. Now, I need to say, because the Bredesen folks contacted me, that I don't do the Bredesen protocol. I'm not signed up with them. We tried to do it with one person, and it was just logistically very challenging. But I take a lot of stuff from Dale Bredesen. I think he's a brilliant man. I think he deserves the Nobel Prize. And he just came out with some published studies where he. In his cohort of people that were in his study, 84% of them saw improvement in memory by going on his protocol.
- [17:46]
B
So, Hal, let me jump in and ask you this. It seems to me that if I went to YouTube right now and started fishing around to find out about what people say about Alzheimer's or the sorts of things that older folks tend to get, I'm sure I could find a whole lot of people who make a whole lot of claims. And as a layman, I wouldn't know how to evaluate any of those claims. I suppose one way I could evaluate them is on the basis of results. If somebody's getting results, even if I don't understand what the mechanism is, results trump everything. So how did you decide this Bredesen fellow really should be listened to?
- [18:22]
C
Well, I saw YouTube videos of people who formerly had Alzheimer's who no longer have Alzheimer's, and they all credited Dale Bredesen for doing that. And I also, to some extent, thought, you know, we joke around about neurologists. We call it diagnosing audios. Like they tell you, hey, you got Alzheimer's. Get your affairs in order. Good luck. Bye. Nothing we can do. And I thought, you know, that's just awful. Even if I have Alzheimer's, I want to go down swinging. I want to do the best. You know, I want to fight as hard as I can to have the best life I can for the long. As long as I can. Even if I lose this fight, I'd hate to know. Because Alzheimer's as a disease starts in your 30s and 40s, okay? The symptoms manifest in your 60s, 70s, 80s, whenever. But what you do in your younger life greatly influences what happens to you later in life. So it made sense to me that if I lead a very healthy life early on, that I'm going to minimize the damage later on, why not think the same thing of, if I get my body in the best shape possible, I'm going to be able to fight these chronic diseases and. And have the best chance of winning. But seeing his survivors get on YouTube and say, yeah, my husband had Alzheimer's. Look at him now. Bob, you remember what you did yesterday? Oh, yeah. We drove down to the grocery store, we bought this, this, and this. I'm like, okay, I'm sold.
- [19:55]
B
I'm like, all right, so is it a matter of the symptoms are profoundly mitigated or the condition is altogether absent or what?
- [20:04]
C
Yeah. So first let me say you gotta catch it early. Okay. And that's a really hard thing for my assisted living home, because people, by
- [20:13]
B
the time they get to you. Right, they've already.
- [20:15]
C
Right. They've had it for 15 years, and not a lot I can do there. So, yes, if you catch it early, you can mitigate the symptoms. I have people who came to my home and definitely had dementia, and they are living on their own now. But I've sent 10 people home over 10 years. So it's not like I'm just cranking this out left and right. Like I said, people come when they've had this for a long time, and then they're like, okay, can you cure this? I'm like, no. You know, come to me when you're diagnosed. But the neurologists don't really help you, and the drugs really don't. The drugs are. They advertise that they can slow down Alzheimer's. But, you know, as some families tell me, if my dad's just gonna not remember and die from this, I don't know if I want to slow it down. You know, why does he need to suffer longer with it? You know, we want to turn it around. But I. I've seen three people personally that I've helped, and I saw a bunch of people, Dale Bredesen, completely turn it around to the point where, like, one of them's living on her own in an apartment in Seattle. She's been up there a couple years now, doing fine. We text each other all the time. One is living in West Virginia. His wife sends me pictures of him installing a new ceiling fan on their porch or operating a bobcat to clear snow out of their driveway. And then the third one is a lady that actually wasn't in my home, but said they listened to my podcast and followed what I was saying. And she was diagnosed with early Alzheimer's at age 58. And I went out to Tennessee and met Them she's been doing it for about three years, and I spent five hours with her, and I could not tell that she had ever had Alzheimer's. So it can be done. And it's an insanely beautiful thing when you see it happen.
- [22:13]
B
Now you say that we need to catch it early, but then I sit here wondering, how do I do that without being hypochondriac? Because maybe at age 55, I don't, you know, or 60, I don't remember things as well as I used to. And. And the doctor will say, well, that's because when you're 55 or 60, you don't remember things as well as you used to. You know, like, not. So do I have to worry that every little tick in my intellectual life is now potentially Alzheimer's because I have to catch it earlier, otherwise I don't have any. You know, I'm afraid I would be neurotic about it.
- [22:45]
C
No, no, not. I hadn't thought of it that way. No. I mean, like, you get diagnosed like you're forgetting stuff on a regular basis. Your spouse notices about you. You go get tested for it. You know, even then you're all right. I'm talking like when you don't remember your. Who your spouse is or who your kids are, things like that. That's. I have seen a little improvement at that stage, but it's not like you're going to be back to normal ever again. But if you get where you're at the point where your doctor's saying you have Alzheimer's, that's still potentially. I mean, that. That lady in Tennessee, for instance, she couldn't fold a towel to save her life. She couldn't read. She'd pour bleach into the dry. Into the washing machine, just like the whole jug kind of thing. She'd burn stuff in the oven like she just had. No. Wasn't able to function, and she still came back. What I recommend is all the stuff Dr. Bredesen recommends. All the stuff I've seen that works is living a very healthy lifestyle. Okay? Not to get neurotic, but just keep yourself in the best shape. Don't over consume alcohol. Don't eat a dessert after every meal. Sugar is a huge contributor. There are people call Alzheimer's type 3 diabetes, because if you have diabetes, your chances of getting Alzheimer's are like 60% higher. So that tells me I need to cut out the sugar, right? If I'm worried about getting Alzheimer's, I need to back away from the desserts. Okay, You Know once if you do have it, yeah, we can get really hardcore about it, go to like zero carb foods, have fasting, exercise real hard and stuff. But all that stuff is stuff you really should be doing in your life anyway. I mean, I look at RFK Jr. As an inspiration. He's 72 and he does 20 pull ups in the national airport. Right. That guy's never going to get Alzheimer's. Right? He eats well, he exercises a lot. It's not like you have to go, I'm just doing this to avoid Alzheimer's. I'm just going to try to be healthy. I mean, you know, everyone's worried my mom has Alzheimer's, I'm going to get it right or my dad had it, I'm genetically disposed to get it. That's not true at all. My grandmother died of Alzheimer's and my mom is 86 and sharp as attack. I just talked to her today on the phone and she, you know, we're talking about finances and I've got an aunt that needs some help, stuff like that. And she's totally fine. So, you know, in some small cases, I'm not going to say it never happens, but genetics are not destiny. In this disease there's also a certain gene that they call the Alzheimer's gene or it's an allele on a gene to be technically right. But if you get one of these, I think it's like you have a 30 or 40%, like one parent donated to you, you have like a 30 or 40% chance of getting it if both parents donated it. Supposedly you have like an 80% chance, but they've done studies where they tested that genetic for that gene in a large nursing home. And maybe 20% of the people who had Alzheimer's had that gene. And I known people who had that gene who never got Alzheimer's, who had two copies of that gene and never got it. So yeah, it might be a higher risk, but if you live a pretty healthy lifestyle, you can avoid Alzheimer's. I'm thoroughly convinced everyone practically or a huge percent of the population could prevent Alzheimer's.
- [26:26]
B
Look, our side may be on the defensive, but we have lots of smart people and if we put our heads together, we can go places. For example, you should all know my friend Matthew Sersley. Specifically, if you're a business owner or you're a high W2 earner paying at least 40k a year in taxes, you need to get to know this brilliant tax attorney who loathes the IRS as much as you do and of course you want to work with someone who shares your values, because that means he has a philosophical commitment to keeping as much money in your hands as possible. And trust me, I know Matthew well. He's been on my cruise. He's been at my murder mystery parties. He's in my elite mastermind, for heaven's sake. And he's been listening to the Tom woods show from the very beginning. You won't have to explain yourself to Matthew. And he's a tax attorney, not a cpa, which means your conversations with him are protected by attorney client privilege. So whether you're running a business, doing a side hustle flipping real estate, or you're just sick of handing over half your paycheck to evil sociopaths, Mr. Sersley helps you stay smart, compliant, and legally minimize what you pay the IRS. So your next step is go to www.agoristaxadvice.com woods. That's a G O R I S T tax advice.com woods and grab your free Agorist tax toolkit. It's full of powerful tools and templates you can use to get your business in order, track your expenses, and reduce how much the IRS takes from you. Without crossing any lines, every dollar you keep away from the regime is a moral victory. So head to www.agoristtaxadvice.com woods. Right now, I think I heard you say in an interview with somebody else, something about other facilities, facilities other than your own that are trying to attract residents. And the way they attract them is to, you know, have the grounds be as physically attractive and luxurious as possible. But then things that don't jump out at a prospect are kind of put on the back burner. Like food, for example. You were saying that everything else is a business. It's a matter of want to get as many people in as we possibly can, and then we want to maximize profits. And part of the way you maximize profits is minimizing costs. And one big cost is food. So we'll just have, you know, average to below average food. So we'll just think of that. Food is an afterthought. You know, the. The beautiful fountain we have in the parking lot. Now that's a big deal. But food is an afterthought. And for you, food became front and center.
- [28:53]
C
I guess it did. And some of them don't think of food as an afterthought, but they think of food as part of the beautiful grounds. Right. When you go to a very fancy restaurant and they roll out that dessert tray, those desserts look Magnificent, right? They're very customized pies and cakes and things like that with the swirl of whipped cream on top. That's what they're attracting people with is, look at these gorgeous desserts. Or we're going to have happy hour and make your favorite drinks every night, all this kind of stuff. So it's not like we're just going to serve you ramen and peanut butter and jelly in this beautiful place, but it's, you know, we're going to make these gorgeous foods that you crave, you know, to. I have. And we're going to make them for you and you're going to love them. But that's the stuff that's going to exacerbate the dementia and all those chronic diseases. I mean, we have people with diabetes left and right. It's a. It's a national epidemic. And we've reversed People's diabetes type 2 all the time with our low carb ketogenic diets. You know, that's easy to do. And so it drives me nuts. Yes. I see these beautiful places. I can't afford a $10 million facility, so I just thought, I'm going to compete on. I'm going to make your parents. Well, rather than I'm going to make them love their surroundings. And I go to some of those places, like in Scottsdale, that are gorgeous. And I talked to the residents and they hate it because they're like, you know, yeah, it's beautiful, but, you know, there's no one to talk to here and they're all really busy and they just give us drugs all the time and all this kind of stuff. And I think, you know, my folks are loving it. I mean, my. I have families that their moms passed away, come back and volunteer at my homes because they just were part of the family. You know, we loved what you were doing here. So in many cases, it feels like a big corporation. And assisted living nursing homes have a terrible reputation, you know, nationwide. And so I'm trying to fix that. Low.
- [31:01]
B
Why do you think they have such a bad reputation?
- [31:03]
C
Because if it bleeds, it leads. Right? So if there's a sexual harassment problem or a, you know, neglect problem, some dementia person wanders out of a facility and heads down the street and gets hit by a car. That's wonderful news stories, Right? That's where you get ratings. But me sending Joe home with his family. Yeah, whatever. It doesn't make the big news stories like the disasters in assisted living do. And we're all on a Facebook page and we all Lament every one of those stories.
- [31:38]
B
Well, even if you aren't able to send somebody home necessarily, why is the experience in your homes better than what they would get in one of these mega homes?
- [31:49]
C
I think because they are feeling better, they have a better quality of life. So we had, we had a 98 year old guy go on a cruise for like seven or eight days with his family. We lent them a caregiver, she got a free cruise out of it and she kind of made sure he was all right during the cruise. You know, he came back and biggest smile on his face for the last six months of his life after that. And he passed away sitting in a chair one morning, but he was dancing. We have people who can go home with their families, go on vacation, they can spend the holidays with their families. They go from beds to wheelchairs and wheelchairs to walkers and walkers to walking again. I mean think of the independence it gives you when you can start walking again. We've had people who came to us four or five hundred pounds and we've helped them lose 2, 250, 250 pounds and they start walking again. Imagine being bedbound for years and suddenly you're on your own and having a great time. So to me, when I first started thinking about this and how I could make this business model work, I tell people in this industry and they're like, well if you make people better, you're not going to have any business. And I was thinking if I make people better, I'm going to have no end of business.
- [33:04]
B
Yeah.
- [33:05]
C
And it's true because I mean I have people calling me from all over the United States and some internationally of I want to bring my mom to your place, I want to bring my dad to your place. And I'm like, I'd love for you to do that. So there is a demand for what I do and a lot of other places don't, especially the big corporate ones. They have a corporate food contract with a food distributor and so they're locked in and that's what you got to serve them, is what they deliver. River right? So there it's going to take small places like mine that are going to make a difference. And eventually I had one lady call me from Utah and said she's organizing a revolt and a resisted living and said, you don't feed us what Hal's feeding his residents, we're all moving out. So I never heard the end of how that turned out, but I was really cheering her on.
- [33:57]
B
That is tremendous. So how long have you been doing this?
- [34:00]
C
I've been doing the assisted living thing for about 10 years. I really started doing the ketogenic carnivore kind of stuff for probably four or five. It really. It really hit me during COVID because I was really like you, ticked off at how they were what. Everything was happening in Covid, and I just wanted to prove them all wrong.
- [34:20]
B
Well, is it? I would think at a big facility at mealtimes, everybody served exactly the same food. Now, in your case, I know there are some people, because of the severity of their condition, you are of the opinion that the more carnivore they are, the better it'll be for them. But not everybody is willing to go that full route. So are the meals customized?
- [34:41]
C
Yeah, so we kind of have a basic meal. We start sort of with the carnivore portion, and then if they don't want to be carnivore, we add some low carb vegetables. And then if they. We have people who are like, you know, just like the big facilities. Feed my mom whatever she wants, leave her alone. And then we add maybe a potato or something else to make them feel like it's normal meal. So they're sort of customized, but they're basically the same meal, and it's whatever we add. And then the ones who are like, my mom likes cakes and pies and cookies and ice cream. I'm like, fine. You bring it to her and you serve it to her in a room. So the other people aren't going, how come she gets that and I don't? You know? But I have a nutritionist on staff that's trained my cooks, and she is extremely good at making low carb, nutrient dense meals that look like regular meals. She makes a fantastic lasagna that. She uses zucchini noodles instead of pasta, and it's a whole bunch of ground beef and low carb tomato sauce. And the residents don't notice the difference. We have, like, Mexican casseroles that are fantastic, and they're like 5 grams of carbs per serving. So it's not like we're telling them, here's your can of sardines for the dinner, right? It's. Here's a nice dinner. You feel like you're having good food and you're. You're actually eating a really low carb, no sugar kind of diet that you just don't know about it. It's a. There's a wonderful lady named Maria Emmerich that makes a ton of cookbooks on how to do this low carb stuff. And she's got thousands of success stories of people who bought her cookbooks and adopted this lifestyle.
- [36:21]
B
Now, look, I'll tell you something. I hear people. Well, let me ask you before I say that, do you personally follow this kind of diet?
- [36:29]
C
Oh, yeah. Well, I'm hard. I'm a hardcore carnivore now. Yeah, I've been following it for about four years and I can't tell you how amazing I feel.
- [36:38]
B
Yeah, you know, I hear that, pal. But I've done some of this stuff before and people will tell me, oh, don't worry, you know, you'll get to a point where you won't even miss pasta. And don't get me started on the low carb pasta. It's terrible. Don't. Don't even get me started. I'd rather just have the sauce then. People say, you're not going to miss pancakes. You're not going to miss pizza, you know? No, no. Obviously I like those things way more than these people did because I miss them like crazy.
- [37:07]
C
Right?
- [37:07]
B
So I could never be fully carnivore. And I like the experience of a. I like the texture, like the feel of a sandwich. So I'm happy to say I tried keto bread the other day and I wish I hadn't known it was keto bread because usually when you have low carb, whatever, you always know. You always know it's not the real thing. But I have to say, this bread was soft. It was bread. Like, I would never have known. I wish my wife hadn't told me, you know, I wish it served me as a sandwich, you know, that I would never know. Whereas now that I know it's keto bread, I'm kind of like, you know, kind of contemplating every bite, like. But anyway, well, I mean, good for you. You practice what you preach. And I do hear this an awful lot from people.
- [37:54]
C
Let me just jump in there, too. Yeah, that's what I thought was. An assisted living setting is a really good place. I still have cravings for pizza. I was an Air Force pilot. Beer was like a staple for me. And I still see people drinking beer and go, boy, that would taste good right now. But my assisted living homes, it's kind of. I control the environment. Like, yes, you probably have cravings and cheat, but you can't just run down to the store to get it. So I thought an assisted living setting is a really good place. And truth be told, I cheat. I'm not 100%, like, all the time, but I try and do it as much as I can. And when I don't do it, I feel the difference. And so that kind of drives me to feel better. But yeah, I want to lead by example. I'm not going to make them do it without me doing it.
- [38:42]
B
Well, I'll say, when I don't go to the gym, it's not even that I necessarily feel physically bad. It's that I, in my head, I feel bad that I didn't do something that I should have done. Like today I had something come up. It was unavoidable. I had to miss it. Unavoidable. But it bothered me all day that I didn't go. It bothered me all day. So when it comes to the food, doesn't bother me as much as it should, but, but I am way more conscious. Over the past couple years, I've become way more conscious of the little carbs that are going into my body here and there that I'm thoughtlessly consuming, that are just entering my body and I'm not stopping. And it doesn't help. I have a daughter in the house who is in a culinary program and she specializes in baking and pastry.
- [39:29]
C
This is not right.
- [39:30]
B
You can't do that. And I don't want to hurt her feelings, but at the same time, you know, I gotta be careful of my lun. I have to think about my longevity here.
- [39:38]
C
Yeah, when you're young, you can get away with that. I remember when I was in the Air Force, I tout a study that showed people who were really religious about their health lived an average of six months longer than people who didn't. And I was like, there you go, why should I? You know, I can work out and exercise and I don't need to worry about what I eat now I'm like, boy, that was dumb. So, yeah, when you're younger, you can get away with it, but when you're older, I, I, I just see what happens to people when they don't pay attention to it. And it just drives me to know that I don't want to end up that way.
- [40:13]
B
Yeah. And you know, I have an absolutely top notch, outstanding personal trainer. I see on weekdays when I'm, when I'm not traveling and I, every couple of weeks or so, I, I find myself saying to him, after a particularly hard workout, I wish I'd been doing this since my 20s, you know, and hadn't started in my, you know, late 40s. I wish I'd been starting in my 20s and this would be much easier, you know, but, and, and he will hear none of this. You know that. What matters is where you are now and where you're going in the future. And we're not going to cry over spilt milk. And I get that. But for those youngsters listening now who think, well, I'm busy now and I'll get to that later, it's if you could start that habit now, both in terms of what you're eating and in terms of the physical activity, there's never going to be a time in your life when you're going to say, I sure regret that I got in good physical condition. You know you're never going to say that to yourself, right?
- [41:11]
C
Yeah. I like an expression that says, there's no food that tastes as good as good health feels. When you're feeling amazing, suddenly that candy bar or that ice cream cone doesn't look as good as it used to look.
- [41:26]
B
Yeah, I know, but now I'm thinking about candy bars and ice cream cones. Thanks a lot. All right, Hal, what's the name of your homes?
- [41:33]
C
They're called A Paradise for Parents. They're in Surprise in Goodyear, Arizona, and you can find them on a paradiseforparents. Com. I'd also like to say my nutrition and I were brainstorming. You know, it's so important to do this earlier, but when you first get diagnosed with dementia, you're not gonna go, I wanna move into assisted living right now. You're gonna think, I'm gonna fight this. I'm gonna be at home. So we've created like an online community to help people do that. And we've got people in the community who have reversed their dementia, you know, that you can bounce ideas off of. We bring people like, try to get experts in to talk about health and what you can do and things like that. And, you know, we'd love to have people never move into my nursing home. I'd love to turn my homes into Airbnbs. So. But that's not going to happen anytime soon. But in the meantime, you know, I'd love to help people online that they can stay in their home and maybe never need a nursing home.
- [42:29]
B
So is that also at the same website?
- [42:32]
C
No, it's thrive@your home.com. and you can book a call with my nutritionist and me. We'll go over a few things, and then if you want to join, great. If not, no big deal. Best of luck to you kind of thing.
- [42:45]
B
Okay. All right, well, at tomwoods.com2762, I'll have these links if you 2762 is the episode number. So that's where the tomwoods.com 2762 comes from. I'll have these links there, but it's a paradise for parents.com and thrive at your home.com exactly.
- [43:04]
C
Okay, let's do it. Let's get you right at your home. Not at my home.
- [43:08]
B
Okay. Terrific. Hal Cranmer, thanks a million. I appreciate it. It's great what you're doing and I'm really glad to hear from you again. Thanks so much.
- [43:16]
C
Great what you're doing, Tom. And thank you for having me on.
- [43:19]
B
And thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
- [43:23]
A
Make yourself and those you love less vulnerable to the regime, both mentally and physically. Get more forbidden information@tomsfreebooks.com and be sure to subscribe to the show wherever you listen. See you next time.
- [43:44]
B
Like the sound of the Tom Wood Show. My audio production is provided by Podsworth Media. Check them out@podsworth.com Enter code WOODS50 to get 50% off your first order. If your recording sounds rough, the Podsworth app can make it not only listenable, but professional. Remember, when you use code WOODS50, you get half off your first order and you'll also be supporting this show.
- [44:09]
D
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- [44:37]
C
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