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Before we started the podcast, Dr. Cabral, you had mentioned how there's kind of dogma in our space where people kind of get stuck communicating a particular way or particular method and it prevents them from kind of seeing the whole picture. What did you mean by that? So one of the reasons why I think a lot of people are attracted to your show and congratulations. I didn't get to say that on your success. I mean, it's been absolutely amazing to watch the three of you and no four of you really continue to grow as when I was there a couple of years back now. And it's because people are looking for the real truth. They kind of, everyone's, all the information in the world is available to everyone 24 hours a day online. So if you tell someone that this is the only way it is, they're gonna find ways and times when that's not actually appropriate. For example, one of the biggest ones is 16-8 fasting. So 16-8 fasting can be absolutely phenomenal in terms of body transformation overall health, but it can also be completely detrimental for certain groups of people. And so when you discount that and you say 16-8 for everyone, in my opinion, you're kind of losing credibility because there's certain instances and it's not just like one off, one out of a hundred. It's more like 25, 30 out of a hundred. Yeah, you know, you're reminding me of a message I got a while ago in DM where this was during the whole keto craze that happened, I don't know, three or four years ago. Like everybody was talking about keto, how it's super great. And I got this message from this lady who's literally the message was something along the lines of I've been doing keto now for four months. I feel, I still have keto flu. So she labeled it keto flu. So I have really low energy. I don't feel good. My digestion isn't very good. I'm constipated. How long until I start to feel good? This was four months into keto. Do you run into, do people come to you like this where they come to you and say, hey, I've been doing this thing for a while. You know, why isn't it working? Is this something you encounter? Yeah, I always say that we're usually and unfortunately the last stop on the train. So people have already tried keto and they've tried low carb one meal a day. They've tried literally everything and they're like, all right, I'll go figure out now what it is. And the reason why I say that is because there's no guessing. So what we do is we'll take anyone. It could be a, we work with elite CrossFit athletes. We work with, you know, professional athletes, celebrities, but we work with just regular everyday people that are saying, I'm frustrated. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. I want to figure this out. So what we do is we run at home labs and all of these labs are CLIA certified labs. You know, they're FDA certified labs. We look at your hormone levels. We look at your thyroid. We look at all the different omega-3s, you name it. And we could just tell you, you're on the right track in these areas and you're off track here. So this woman who was fatigued and tired after being on keto for 12 weeks, 16 weeks, whatever it was, it's not abnormal for us to hear that. And that's because women are disproportionately more affected by keto than men. And the older you are, the more disproportionately affected you are. So meaning if you have a 20 year old health coach and we were all 20 year old health coaches, right? Like I was a personal trainer through college in my early 20s and you can get away with almost anything. And also your blood markers and everything also look fantastic. But what happens is you're not dealing with carrying on life in your body. So when you are, when you're responsible for that, you put your body in that type of a hermetic stressor, that type of stressor, you're gonna start to see thyroid levels go down. You're gonna start to see estrogen dominance, cortisol levels potentially rise in the short term. And what does that do? Well, it leads to then a slower and lower metabolic rate, which some people are very proud of. They're like, oh, I only need to eat 1500 calories a day now. And I'm just saying like, that's not a good thing. You want to be able to eat as many calories as you can. Cause that means that furnace is always running. So it's situations like that that I think are really harming this industry. And I love this industry health and fitness. So it's just, it's just too bad that I see a lot of that out there. Yeah, two things I want to come on on. Number one, you mentioned when you were 20, how the hell old are you now? Cause you look way younger than we do. And I think we're in the same age group. So you- You and Doug are drinking the same juice. Yeah, what the hell's going on here? Are you a vampire? So answer that question first. I'm not a vampire. That's one, I'm 43. Oh, you're older than I am. What the hell's going on here? I got to do something about this. The second question I have is when people come, so you must be getting this kind of self selection bias then where people, like you said, they've gone through the traditional means, they've gone, they've tried everything, they finally come to you. Does this mean that they are more willing to do what you tell them to do because they're at the fight, they're at like, I don't care, just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Yeah, that's a big part of it. And again, it's great to work with clients like that because they're so frustrated. I mean, that's the thing is like, let's say you have tried what you say is everything you've seen, every practitioner, you probably spent 10,000 or more dollars and all these different things, you just want an answer. So the thing is, and I know we talked about this most likely when I was on the show a couple of years ago, but I empathize with them because I was there. I mean, I was sick for 10 years from 17 to 27 years old and I tried what I thought was everything. And then I found practitioners who knew about functional medicine lab testing, who knew about macro, not just macros for your calories, but your mineral levels and electrolytes and mitochondrial health and your HPA axis. And once I learned about that, I mean, this is why the industry is so amazing. You could have on an expert a week for the next 15 years and you're still not gonna learn at all. And that's the thing is like, this is such an expansive industry which is why we do have to keep our minds open always to new research. But at the same time, and I always say this, it's kind of like we already know what the research is gonna pan out unless it's something radically new. You know that there's catabolic people and anabolic people. I mean, you work with hard gainers and you work with people that it's difficult for them to lose weight. And those two types of people will need a different workout program and a different diet plan because they're gonna react differently within their body. And the more you fast them, well, the more detrimental it is to them and the more weight they lose where if you fast someone who's naturally anabolic and has larger calves and larger ankles and they look at a carbohydrate put on weight, it's just a different individual. Once you start to learn that, not everything has to be black and white. There can be a lot of area for gray and a lot of bio-individuality. Very well said. Okay, so I wanted to talk generally about gut health but more specifically about SIBO. SIBO being a small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Now I wanted to talk to you about this because I'm very interested in gut health. I've had issues myself with gut health and over the last 15 years, the research has just illuminated so much. I mean, SIBO wasn't even a word I think 15 years ago. I remember when I would say leaky gut syndrome and doctors would laugh me out of the room and now of course they talk about, intestinal hyper-primary ability. That's the medical term now for leaky gut syndrome which is something that I talked about 15 years ago. So let's talk generally this first start with gut health. What does bad gut health affect in the body? What are the effects of having gut health that isn't so great? So we didn't go over any questions ahead of time but you really kind of teed this one up meaning that gut health is the epicenter of 90 plus percent, at least 80 plus percent of all health conditions anyone could suffer from. And the reason is that you're breaking down. So we always talk about you are what you eat and then people are now learning it's more you are what you absorb. And you have about 26 feet of digestive tract. So if you wanna think about the digestive tract it starts with your mouth. It's about 16 inches or so down to your stomach, 12 to 16 inches depending on your height. You've got your stomach, then it moves into your small intestine, your duodenum, which is the first part of the small intestine where most of the digestion takes place, moves through about 20 feet of small intestine and then about five to six feet of large intestine and then out of your body. Now that's meant to be the outside of your body, believe it or not. So it's in the inside, but it's meant to be the outside. So think of a giant tube that stops just for a moment inside of a pocket, which is your stomach to break things down for 30 minutes to three, four hours. And then it allows the partially broken down food to move into the small intestine and then kind of be removed as waste in a large intestine. Well, what happens is there's four ways that we can talk about that people get digestive issues, but eventually it leads to inflammation in the gut and increased permeability, which is the leaky gut. So, and it's funny because that was a big part of my health issues a million years ago when I was sick and it never got better. I didn't get better no matter how many adrenal-based issues I tried, how many adrenal-based protocols I tried to get well until I fixed my gut. So, because when you have intestinal permeability, your body always allows out your vitamins, your minerals, your amino acids, and all the good stuff that's supposed to come out that your body can then use. But what happens is when it's hyperpermeable, and I know you've talked about this in the show, it allows all sorts of things to come out, bacteria, lipopolysaccharides, undigested proteins, and then it sets off the immune system. So the immune system, we just think of it as inflammation, but the immune system is not messing up with all of these autoimmune issues. It actually is seeing protein move around in your bloodstream or end up in a tissue and it's looking to clear it from your body. So intestinal permeability is the greatest single health issue that really our country is facing. And the reason is antibiotics, alcohol, birth control, heavy metals, tap water with chlorine in it, artificial sweeteners, so it's pervasive and that allows for this intestinal permeability. And what are some of the symptoms of having bad gut health? I've heard people say my skin, my energy, of course, constipation, diarrhea, heartburn, that kind of stuff, energy. I've heard people say libido, almost like everything. I mean, is this craziness or can all those things plus more be affected by your gut health? Yeah, and you're right on all of them. And the reason why it is. So I'll get to that in just one second. So in the long term, you get all of your lows, low energy, low mood, brain fog or low cognitive ability, low libido, all the lows, low metabolism. And the reason is that it's chronic. So it's chronic stress in the body. So and the reason we can say yes in the short term and eventually long term as well, you've got skin rashes, you've got headaches, you've got allergies, you've got asthma, you've got low mood, you have autoimmune, bloating, gas, distention, et cetera. So how can it lead to all of those things? Well, you have to understand is that 90%, again, like they will put that in air quotes, they say all disease is basically 90% inflammation. And they are correct because inflammation then just sets off your genetics. So I am genetically predisposed to rheumatoid arthritis, to type two diabetes, to Addison's disease, to fibromyalgia, to insomnia, to all these things that I had before. Now I no longer have them. How can that be? Well, they worked on the root causes that led to the inflammation that then led to the dis-ease in my body. So it really comes to inflammation, but inflammation is not a root cause. If you figure out why you have the inflammation, well, then you can get rid of the dis-ease, as we say in the body. Now, when you have gut issues or poor gut health, can they show up in ways that don't involve digestion? In other words, I've heard people say, yeah, I know I have all these issues, but my digestion's fine. I don't have constipation, bloating, diarrhea, or heartburn. So it can't be my bad gut health. Yeah, and that's a great one. It has to do with fermenting. So think of it this way. The gas and the bloating is really a fermentation issue. And you can have intestinal permeability without the overgrowth. Now it's not as common that you don't have any digestive distress. And what happens is then you have more of what's called an IgG sensitivity. That means, for example, the number one IgG food sensitivity is cow's milk. So it's predominantly casein, because casein is 80% of the protein in milk protein, and whey being the last 20%. So typically if someone is taking away protein isolate, while it's been so processed that it's much more broken down, it's not typically going to cause the same gastric distress, but a casein protein, they might have serious bloating and gas, et cetera. Anyway, it comes down to different reactions within the body. So when IgA or IgE would be more of an immediate response to the body, you might get hives, you might get brain fog, you might get skin itchiness, et cetera. You're not gonna get the bloating right away. You're gonna have the reaction from the actual protein, but an IgG reaction in the body, which is just an immunoglobulin, so it's a different type of white blood cell, those react 24 to 72 hours later. So let's just say we're recording this on a Tuesday. I would ask you, do you know what you ate Saturday at lunch, Sunday at dinner? And on a normal Sunday, you might be like, I have no idea what I ate, but you're actually reacting that many days later, and it doesn't have anything to do with the gastric distress. It has to do with actually the protein being looked at as a foreign molecule inside of the body. Wow. How do you communicate to a client that may actually have an issue with like a health food, for example, avocado sends their autoimmune issue off? How do you communicate to them that it's possible that it could be these foods that we air quote call healthy? Like how do you say that to a client? Yeah, that's a great question, because a lot of people will come in and like I'll let them know eggs, because eggs is what I've seen and I've run tens of thousands of these IgG food sensitivity tests. And again, there's back and forth on online data saying, oh, well, we don't think it's reliable because it has to do with a lot of the foods that you eat. Well, listen, you test all of the foods. We test 200 foods, all that people eat and they're healthy foods and people are reacting to the ones that their body is the most sensitive to as an actual reaction. And from like the third most sensitive is actually egg whites. It's not yolks, but it's the whites. The whites have twice as many antigens or proteins that the egg yolk has. Now, same amount of macro grams of protein, different amount of actual antigens in the white, because if you think about it, the white is actually becoming the flesh itself. So what we do is we say, we start out with a foundational nutrition plan. So if you're not going to do a food sensitivity test, we say we understand these are the ones that are typically the most sensitive. We're just gonna remove them for six weeks and then we're gonna reintroduce them one at a time and we're gonna look for that reaction over a period of about 48 hours to maybe 72 hours. So that's what we do, but the truth is that we do a lot of at-home lab testing anywhere in the world. So we prefer to just let the data speak and then there, it doesn't have to be any like best diet or any kind of back and forth. We just let their data speak. Well, how do you explain though that it's from this healthy food? I would get that from a client, right? That would say, Adam, I don't get it. This is considered healthy. How could that be causing an issue in me? Why is that? Yeah, and that's where it comes back to bio-individuality, you know? So everyone has one random, typically food sensitivity. So for a good example, when I first got into learning about functional medicine, I mean, I went two years from 17 years old to 19 years old to about two dozen specialists around Boston, Massachusetts. I mean, these are brilliant MDs. But the problem was that this was really outside of their scope. I mean, they're looking at my blood work. They're probing my body. They're testing it for all different things there. And they're like, oh, we have no idea. So they either told me it was all in my head or they said, listen, there's something wrong, but we just don't know what. We can't find it out. You might get worse and then we'll know what to do then. I'm like, okay, doesn't seem like a very good plan. So then just by chance, I mean, this is in the what the mid-late 90s, I find out about alternative practitioners, alternative health. And so I run these labs and I find out I'm sensitive to almonds and I'm sensitive to chicken. These are random ones. You don't see those come up on a lot of food sensitivity. Well, I had tons of intestinal permeability and I was eating chicken because I was trying to basically transform my body since I can transform the outside. I wanted to do more natural bodybuilding and I was very sensitive on those. And I actually felt an immediate difference when I did eliminate them. So it really comes back to bio-individuality and if there's not intestinal permeability, it might be one they're sensitive to. However, we found that about 16 weeks by eliminating most foods and then a slow reintroduction, most people can overcome most food sensitivities except for cow's milk dairy. Wow, interesting. Now speaking specifically to like bacterial overgrowth, like first of all, how do you even identify that? That may be an issue for you. And then also like what's the steps to sort of address it and then is it possible to keep it from happening? So there's four main things that can go wrong with the gut but the nice thing is there's only four. So when we look at that, we kind of reassure clients, listen, we don't know exactly what's wrong with you yet. However, when you look at most issues like high cholesterol or autoimmune issues like Hashimoto's, rheumatoid arthritis, or MS or lupus or whatever it might be, there's typically never more than like 10 to 12 factors. So as a integrative health practitioner, your job is to play process of elimination, not to guess ahead of time. In an ideal world, again, I know everyone can't lab test but if you can't and you go to a practitioner and they've done this for a long time, they're gonna be able to see patterns. And the four main issues with the gut that you have to look for is H. pylori. So helicobacter pylori, which is typically a bacterial infection in the stomach, that about one out of four people have. And this is a huge issue because you're now not absorbing a lot of calcium, magnesium, zinc, B12, and you're not breaking down your protein. So if someone's like, oh, I'm gonna go on a higher protein diet, if you're in a higher protein diet and you have H. pylori and you don't have enough stomach acid, it's a disaster. I mean, it really is because that protein is gonna putrify, it's gonna cause all sorts of other issues. So H. pylori is a big one and then when we move just further downstream, we're looking at parasites. So parasites, again, if you look at world's population, it's about one in three people. But when you look at that, it's more towards South America and other places as well. However, in the United States, it's still about one in five. And that's because you can pick it up at a salad bar for unwashed produce. You can pick it up in undercooked fish, sushi, very, very easy. I mean, like parasites and salmon. I mean, I'm an advocate of wild salmon, but there's a ton of parasites. So I stopped eating sushi and I love sushi, but I stopped eating raw sushi a little while ago because it's so many times. You guys just got me into it, thanks a lot guys. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm talking full long rope worms like that I work with clients on. And so I said, okay, you know, this is a small price to pay to not have a rope worm. So then downstream from there, you have candida overgrowth, which is a yeast overgrowth, naturally turned yeast. And then you have SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. And the interesting thing about SIBO is it's typically your own bacteria that should be there, but overgrown. And the reason it's overgrown is upstream. You were on antacids. So again, we know from the medical literature that nobody should be on Prilosec or an antacid for more than two weeks. The companies state that. However, if your MD tells you to come off your antacid after two weeks, your heartburn's still there. So they're kind of in a catch 22. What are they supposed to do? Because they don't know how to look for that underlying root cause. And again, like medical doctors are brilliant. Many of my colleagues are medical doctors. I'm not putting them down. It's just everybody should have a natural health practitioner and a medical doctor. Like there's a time and place for both or everybody should have both. So the SIBO that we see is one of the most pervasive. It is a lot of times just from naturally occurring bacteria and it's from low peristaltic movement. It is from being on antacids or stomach blockers or it's from being on birth control or antibiotics. And it can even just be one course of antibiotics caused it. So you mentioned, I remember exactly the terminologies but essentially low motility could cause it. In other words, things are not moving through quick enough and that allows the bacteria to build back up. Is that what that means? Yeah, and that's perfect because the only time we see people relapse, I mean, of course, if you go back to antibiotics or you go back to a lot of these things that caused it in the first place, you can definitely relapse. But the only people we see back on a healthy protocol and a healthy living plan, you don't need to be perfect. I mean, literally, I tell people, stay on your plan nine out of 10 meals, you're gonna be fine. Once you get to your goals, nine out of 10 meals, one or two flexi meals a week, not an issue for most people. And you can do whatever you want really for those meals. But the only time we see people relapse is in higher levels of stress where there's an ileocecal valve issue and low bowel motility. So what that means is that, and I wish I had my mannequin, my little model hair with me, but at the end where you're small intestine, your ileum moves into your cecum, which is the first part of your large intestine. There's a little flap and it's supposed to be a one-way street. But under stress that ileocecal valve, the valve can stay open. And what happens is the colon bacteria that should never be in your small intestine because it comes after your small intestine can actually start to backfill the small intestine. So people give themselves SIBO all the time from higher levels of stress and again, low bowel motility, which means some people hold their stress in like their traps and their neck and they get all tense or they get a headache. Some people hold it in their gut and when they hold it in their gut, that means there's intersecession, which is like this slinky movement of your intestines to move all of the fecal matter downstream. And that doesn't happen. So again, it leads to constipation or it leads to partial bowel movements and that can actually allow SIBO to build up as well. Now, do you see common themes with like specific autoimmune issues? Like say for example, psoriasis or endometriosis, like when you see it, are there common things that you know to go after or look at or is it, there's such a wide individual variance that it's a crapshoot? Well, again, it's usually goes back to and I like the pun there as well. So 10 to 12 maximum that you're looking at like I said for a thyroid. So for thyroid, what are we really looking at? Okay, certainly it could be intestinal permeability. It could be what's called molecular mimicry. So proteins are seeping through. This protein like gluten or casein looks similar to this particular molecule. That molecule may or may not be attaching itself to the thyroid. The immune system goes after it. That's only one particular instance. It could be a lack of selenium, could be a lack of zinc, could be a lack of B6, could be a lack of iodine to actually make thyroid molecule. It could be higher levels of cortisol and norepinephrine which begin to on purpose block T4 from converting to T3 in the liver or actually making it unusable reverse T3. So like thyroid is always fixable. I mean, I know that people will say that it's not but it really is. Like there's always an underlying reason. Now, if we're talking about psoriasis though in every case that I've ever seen and a very similar in alopecia which is not totally dissimilar. We're looking at two different autoimmune processes. It's gut and stress. And you can't just work in one. So stress can trigger psoriasis. However, typically there's one more factor which is gut based issues. And what I've seen is SIBO with all of them have to do with intestinal permeability because you're actually allowing the bacteria or the proteins to go through and then they're trying to push themselves through the skin. Like something's moving through the skin or parasites. And parasites has been a big one too for psoriasis or adult acne. Oh, that's crazy. Okay, so back to SIBO. I'm old enough to remember when you had, if you had gut issues and you went to your doctor and they figured you don't have a major disease or a virus, they would say irritable bowel syndrome which is basically, we don't know what the hell's wrong with you but your bowels are inflamed and you have lots of issues. I've read that a majority of IBS situations are the result of SIBO. And now they're saying SIBO probably accounts for, last time I read was like 70 or 80%. Is that true? 100% and that's because IBS isn't a disease. I mean, that's the wildest thing about conventional medicine. Is they get to come up with any term that they want and label a disease and it means absolutely nothing. Okay, so I go in and like, oh, doctor, my stomach really is killing me a couple of hours after a meal. I feel bloated. It feels like the food's not moving through. I'm like, oh, you have IBS. And the patient leaves, they're so relieved because they have a diagnosis of IBS. They go home, they look it up on Google and it says irritable bowel syndrome. And they're like, did I just spend a half hour at my doctor for him to tell me my bowels are irritable? Of course they're irritable, right? So it's like, how did that help anybody? It doesn't. So you say, okay, well, why are the bowels irritable? And it's those four main reasons. It's age pylori, parasites. Typically not parasites for IBS. I just want to put that out there that leads to other issues, inflammatory issues, autoimmune issues, et cetera, can definitely lead to lose stool, that's for sure. But it's typically Candida overgrowth and SIBO. They usually go hand in hand. We see very few people with only Candida or only SIBO. It's about 80% have both, but the nice thing is you fix both at the same exact time. You don't do one thing for yeast overgrowth and one thing for SIBO. Interesting. Okay, so you mentioned also earlier artificial sweeteners and it affecting gut health. Now I've heard and read that it doesn't have an effect. Personally, artificial sweeteners bother my gut. I stay away from them because they tend to bother my gut. I've also read studies that show that, oh, it affects the bacteria in the gut. And then other ones that say, oh, it's not that big of an effect. What's your take on it? What's your take on artificial sweeteners and gut health? Well, so there's all different types of artificial sweeteners now. And it depends if we classify sugar alcohols as an artificial sweetener, which I would, I wouldn't consider sugar alcohols as natural. And we don't use sugar alcohols in our plans. That doesn't mean you can't once you're well, you could choose to if it works fine for you. You can make a really good case for using xylitol in toothpaste or a mouthwash or something like that since it has been proven really effective against, naturally to fight against cavities instead of using fluoride. But, so sugar alcohols, if you already have SIBO and or yeast overgrowth, they're fermentable. So, you know, we look at a certain class of foods, the FODMAPs, the fructo, oligo, di, mono, and polysaccharides, and they fall in that category. It ends in all. If it ends in all, it's going to be basically acting like a fermentable sugar. So that can exacerbate yeast and SIBO. There's no doubt about it. But when we're looking at the clinical studies of which ones affect the gut health the most, it's sucralose. So it's Splenda. And again, back in the day, 20 years ago, we would recommend Splenda as personal trainers because it's like, okay, zero calories. It makes things sweet. It's this brand new thing. Science made it. We're all excited. But again, we're in our early 20s and we haven't lived enough life yet. And again, we're just going by whatever the media tells us. And sucralose is basically sugar, right? It's sucrose. The difference is they exchange one molecule for chlorine. And we know chlorine actually kills bacteria in the gut. Okay, so eating a lot of sucralose could cause bacterial, I guess, dysbiosis? Dysbiosis, which means basically imbalanced gut bacteria. That's correct. Now you mentioned earlier, antibiotics and heavy metals and then also alcohol as being big contributors. Could you go further into why alcohol is something to be concerned with? Yeah, so two things there. One, antibiotic is the worst. And the reason why it's the worst is that it's not preferential for what it kills. So it goes in usually using a broad spectrum antibiotic like azithromycin or amoxicillin. And one of the reasons why I got so sick we later realized is from my age 14 years old to 17 years old, I was on three years of antibiotics and I took over 3,000 capsules of amoxicillin before the age of 17, which is pretty insane. But a dermatologist believed that, hey, if we give you antibiotics, which is true, it'll probably get rid of your acne if it's bacterial-based and it did, it worked. But it also destroyed my entire immune system in the process by taking two amoxicillin a day for three years, plus all the ones I took during childhood. I mean, literally I grew up with azithromycin Z-packs in my closet that my pediatrician would give my mother because it was four kids under the age of five in my house. And then we would just take them for the common cold. So that led to science infections, all sorts of issues, but it wipes out your good bacteria as well in your gut. Now, when it's doing that, it doesn't affect yeast because you're not taking an antifungal, you're taking an antibiotic, antibacterial. So then you start to get candida overgrowth. I had such massive candida overgrowth that it grew into my stomach and up my esophagus. So when they did a GI, when they did a scope on me, they could actually see yeast overgrowth, candida overgrowth in my esophagus, which is absurd. But that's what happens when you take antibiotics over and over. So that's why antibiotics should only be used in life-saving conditions. And by the way, I just want to state, like I believe in conventional medicine, I believe in life-saving medicine, I'm very happy that we have it. And it should be used in acute-based instances to save your life. That's a great time to use antibiotics. And then in terms of alcohol, alcohol, well, one, it's fermentable. So it's going to exacerbate yeast or and or bacterial overgrowth in the gut and can lead to intestinal permeability and inflammation. So it inflames your gut as well. Interesting. So you're talking about antibiotics, but isn't the cure for SIBO, aside from probably some lifestyle changes, isn't the cure antibiotics? Don't they give you antibiotics in order to solve it? So conventional medicine never provides a cure. And I know that that's going to seem inflammatory, but they don't. Okay. There's never a very few instances. Is there a cure unless it's an acute life-saving, like you have an accident, you have a heart attack, you have a stroke, you have pneumonia, then they're providing the cure. But for all chronic-based health conditions, there is no cure. They mask the symptoms. So you're taking a specific antibiotic. There are a couple of different names for them. I don't want people to run out and ask their doctor for them, but they could look them up for sure. And they work. Here's the thing though, they typically relapse three months later to four months later. So then they go on it again and again, unless they did a protocol which helped to rebuild the gut, so which would still be natural health-based. So we always give people the option. You can take an antibiotic if you choose to with your MD, but we still have to rebuild your gut. And we have to take an antifungal, or we can do it the natural way. And it's not like we don't use antibacterials, antimicrobials, we do. We use certain herbs, but we're using biofilm disruptors. There's a whole protocol to use. We called our CBO protocol. And it's three steps. You break down the biofilm, which allows you to then actually access the parasites, yeast and bacteria. And again, all of this you can look up. And then we repopulate. We don't repopulate with good probiotics in the beginning. We actually do it towards the end because there's already overgrowth. So you don't need to add more when there's already overgrowth. And so that's how we do it. So people are welcome to take the antibiotic, but they still should be taking an antifungal. And if they want to do a conventional medicine base, then at least ask for diflucan, or what's the other one? Nice statin, which is not a statin. It's an antifungal. And then at least you're doing both. And then you still have to heal and seal the gut, which is typically using wheat collars, healthy gut support, but it's essentially endocidal declucosamine. It's aloe. It is glutamine and zinc, which have all been proven to help really seal up that gut wall. Wow, okay, so this is interesting. All right, so you're on antibiotics for the SIBO, but you got to go on antifungals also to prevent that from, are there natural antifungals that someone could also take besides the prescription ones? 100%. So one thing that I've done with my podcast and with our company Equal Life is we open source everything. We give all the information away. So you can literally source whatever you'd like from any company, but we tell you the exact steps to do and exactly what to take. So ours is a 12-week protocol that use biofilm disruptors. So these are basically proteases that help break down biofilm that grow over as a protective mechanism. Because we have to understand bacteria and parasites and yeast are living things, just like we're living on this planet. We protect ourselves from nature, right? We've got houses overhead, roofs overhead. They do the same exact thing. And a lot of those are made from heavy metals and they're made from fibrin. And so what you can do is you can take all natural enzymes that help to break down the biofilm. Now you can actually access, and that's what was one of the big breakthroughs that we were doing a bunch of years ago and I learned it from other mentors as well. And we just put it together into a protocol after a decade of essentially, I wouldn't say trial and error, it worked, but it can work better. And that's what we've done and really settled on that. And then you're using antimicrobials. So we know that oregano, olive leaf, caprylic acid, cloves, there's so many of them. What we do is we rotate them because I realized again through conventional medicine, so my job is an integrative health practitioner. I'm a doctor of naturopathy by schooling, but I'm an integrative health practitioner because I believe in everything, there's a time in place. So I said, oh, in conventional medicine, antibiotics stop working until you switch to a different type of antibiotic. So that was kind of a breakthrough in thinking for me and the research. So I actually went from using certain herbs in month one to different herbs in month two and then different in month three. And then we make sure we get everything because now there's actually stool tests that show you what your body reacts the best to in terms of killing it, but not everybody's gonna run a $500 stool test. So now we just say, okay, we've got you covered, we're gonna do that across all three months. And then this is one of the keys. So again, I'll give all the information away because we've got eight billion people on the planet, we can get more of this information out there. And you don't use probiotics month one. We use Saccharomyces boulardi. Saccharomyces boulardi is a non-pathogenic yeast. And what it does is because your intestines can't be sterile. So you need a placeholder as you're killing all these things off. So we put in Saccharomyces boulardi for the first three months. It's a transient non-pathogenic yeast. Again, all these are clinically studied. We put all the research on the website and it populates the gut, but then it leaves after two weeks. It doesn't hang around. And then that month two, we're adding only a non-dairy lactobacillus acidophilus. And here's the reason we do that. The majority of the population of bacterial overgrowth and yeast overgrowth is in the small intestine. And the main reason for that is the actual pH of the intestines have changed. So if you acidify the small intestine to a normal pH of around seven, which is slightly acid, it actually doesn't allow for overgrowth and it helps a bowel motility. And then on month three, then we add in a much larger amount of probiotics, more additional strains that are low histamine and no dairy. That's exactly what we do. You talked about biofilm a couple of times. So I wanna get into that a little bit more because I learned about that about a year ago and I found that fascinating. So I would love for you to help me here, but in my understanding, essentially biofilm is when bacteria create a barrier between themselves and what's on the outside. So let's say you're taking an antibiotic, it can't touch the bacteria because the bacteria has created this biofilm to protect itself from that. So it's essentially hiding behind this biofilm. And if you don't kill or destroy, I should say the biofilm, then you can take all the antibiotics you want, but it's not gonna do anything. Is that accurate? It is, the antibiotics will still work with what they're able to access, but they will not be able to kill what's underneath that biofilm. And that biofilm, so if you've really built up a lot of biofilm, you can actually see it come out in your bio movements as almost like a gel-like substance. And you might be looking at that, like, what is that? And that's the actual biofilm. Some of it is just mucus that comes along with it, but that is a fiber-based structure. And again, a lot of heavy metals are used in that. Metals are just a great structure for that biofilm as well. Molds can be part of that. So yeast fungus mold are all part of the same family. So when people are like, oh, I mold-based issues, you're very well made, but you better work on the gut first, which then helps rebalance the immune system. And then you can work on the mold, because the mold's more pervasive around the whole body, where yeast is typically centered in same placebo inside of the intestines. So yeah, your job is to remove that. And that's why also, let's say someone runs a bacteria and parasites stool test, which is a great one to run if you have any digestive issues or autoimmune issues or skin issues or migraines or headaches or allergies. So let's say that you run that lab, but you have all the symptoms of high parasites. But that stool test shows that you don't have parasites. It's still not a bad idea to run a parasite protocol. There's so little downside. Again, you're using proven antimicrobials like Artemisia, wormwood, a sweet wormwood, you're using clothes, you're using biofilm disruptors. So, and then you can move on to this, like a CBO protocol after that. So that's definitely what I recommend. Again, if you're in your 30s and you took antibiotics as a child, it's not uncommon to have all of this built up inside of you. I read that the active ingredient in Pepto-Bismol was Bismuth, and I don't remember the other side of that word there, but it's the active ingredient in Pepto is actually a mild biofilm disruptor and potential antibiotic, or it could kill the bacteria that causes CBO. Is that true? Two degree. Bismuth is actually a very powerful product. Now, the problem with Pepto-Bismol is that it has all sorts of dyes in it. I mean, that is like really toxic. It's pink, exactly. That color pink does not exist in nature. So you know that that's not healthy for you. However, knowing that it works, again, everything we do, that's why a lot of times conventional medicine, when they want to try to put down natural health, they're like, oh, well, there's no science behind it. Well, there's science behind everything that we're doing. And we actually use Bismuth in our healthy belly, and it's actually potentially being outlawed by the FDA because it was first used in products like Pepto-Bismol. But we use that not necessarily to kill a lot of bacteria, but it's great at soothing the stomach mucosa, intestinal mucosa, and may help with bacteria like H. pylori. Oh, wow. Now, what is the spectrum look like for something like CBO? Is there, would you say there's a large percentage of people that actually have it going on and have no idea whatsoever? And are there people that don't see a lot of symptoms, but maybe things like their metabolism is slower because of it? Like, what's that spectrum look like? Well, I would say with all health issues and the majority are yeast and CBO, they really go hand in hand, that if you are not well, if there's a health-based issue, or you have difficulty losing weight, I would always lean towards that first. Now, it doesn't mean it's that, but you do have to rule it out first. So that's always my go-to. And then another giveaway is like, let's say you believe you're disease-free, there's no issues, great. One thing you really have to look at is, can you eat carbohydrates? Because a lot of people like, no, I'm going on carnivore because now my joint pain went away, my autoimmune issues went away. Listen, that's the worst reason to go on carnivore, I mean, or keto. Again, like you could do it for a certain period of time, but really what you did was a conventional medicine-based approach to diet. You said, oh, well, these foods, healthy or not, are causing me joint pain and we'll blame it on the lectins, we'll blame it on the phytic acid, we'll blame it on their nightshades, but the truth is this, you're eating those foods, they're fermenting inside of your gut, they're causing inflammation, it's exacerbating your intestinal permeability and it's leading to inflammation which then affects your weak genetic point, which might be rheumatoid arthritis or joint pain or it might be migraines or it might be skin issues or psoriasis, whatever it might be. So, that's why when I hear people say, oh, I did this and it helped me get so much better, I said, listen, you're on the right path, you just didn't work on the true underlined root cause, you just stopped feeding the things that are causing more inflammation. I just read that there was a, I think there was like a SIBO convention, I don't remember why I read this, but there was an article and they were highlighting some of the latest research and what you said about carbohydrates, I've known that, like carb intolerances tend to mean that you have some kind of bacterial overgrowth or other issues in the gut, but I read that they are finding, and I don't remember if it was the hydrogen predominant bacteria or the methane one or I don't even know if I'm picking the right ones, but that a high fat, high protein diet could be exacerbating other forms of SIBO. So people go low carb thinking, oh, I've got issues, low carb's gonna help me. A lot of fat and a lot of protein, but then it makes them worse. Is this the case with some people? In the long run, it does. And with most people, so you lose carbohydrate tolerance, but also what you did was by doing a high fat, high protein diet, you're shrinking your microbiome and that's why you feel better symptomatically for autoimmune issues or bloating or inflammation. And that's because you basically took everything and you dropped it, I mean, again, this isn't clinical, but you dropped it by like 50%. Okay, so now you have 50% less bacteria or yeast that was overgrown. So maybe that took you back to baseline, but the only way you can ever maintain that is to keep going with the high fat, high protein diet. And even if you do one cheat meal, you'll probably, well, you might not actually feel terrible up to first one, because it's shrunk, but then it will start to grow. And the second one will really get you. And that's like a food sensitivity. That's what happens all the time. It basically the first one primes the immune system. And the second one is the real issue. So in the short term, again, in the short term, people can get away with anything and they oftentimes feel better. And then what happens is they start to slide back down about six months later, maybe nine months later. And they never correlate the six or nine months later with what they changed six months before, but that's the main variable because they're like, no, I felt so great. How could it be this thing? Well, what happens is your body is great at compensating in the short term and then eventually breaks down in the long term or just can't keep up. Wow, okay. And now another thing, and this was kind of a breakthrough study, I would say for the wellness space. And I don't know how old the study was. I wanna say it was maybe two or three years ago, but they compared natural antimicrobials. So these are herbs, basically things like garlic. And you actually named quite a bit of them, oregano oil and so forth. There was actually a specific product. They compared it to the antibiotics, the common, there's two common antibiotics used to treat SIBO. And they found in this study, there was a legit medical study that the herbal anti-microbials were just as effective. They were just as effective as the antibiotics to the point where if you go to a medical doctor now who's proficient in working with SIBO, at least to that extent, they'll even give you the option of taking the antibiotic or the herbal anti-microbial. Is there a preference for you? Like, do you prefer working with the herbal or with the antibiotic and why? Why do you pick one over the other? So there's a couple of deep parts to this. So one, if you're a medical doctor, you're never recommending. If you have a conventional medicine practice that takes health insurance. Now, if you're a concierge practice and you take cash, different story. But if you're a conventional medicine doctor and you take insurance, you have to prescribe the antibiotic. And that's because if anything ever happened to that patient and you prescribed herbs instead of a drug, you're liable insurance wise. So, but if you're a functional medicine doctor and you've learned this postdoctoral education because it's not taught medical school and you're not insurance based and they're coming to you for more health than they are as primary care, then you might prescribe the actual herbs. Now, I'm a doctor of natural pathways. So I just want to state that I'm not a medical doctor. I can't prescribe any pharmaceuticals, nor would I. If there was a time and place, I would actually refer someone that works with me or in our practice to their medical doctor. And there are times and places for that. There's no doubt about it. And that's again, for more acute life saving based conditions. So I mean, we work with people with cancer and all sorts of issues. So it's not like this is your everyday person but in certain instances. So, but here's, this is where it gets deeper. I would never recommend antibiotics for any type of SIBO or gut based issue. And the reason is the relapse rate is going to be so high unless you do the other natural things anyways, which is healing and sealing the gut and doing the antifungals. Now, if you're doing antifungals, natural antifungals for yeast, well, they're going to kill the bacteria because they work on both. Now in the second part though, this is what really destroyed my health and I didn't figure it out for about eight to 10 years. When people have, when people take antibiotics, whether it's from Lyme disease or gut issues or infections or sinus infections, whatever it might be, those antibiotics are broad spectrum. They kill bacteria, that's their job. They'll kill bacteria any part of your body. If you had a cut on your elbow, you put the antibiotic in your mouth. It knows to go to your elbow. It does not differentiate between your mitochondria as well. My mitochondria got wiped out. They are single cell bacteria. I work with people with Lyme all the time that still believe they have Lyme or the symptoms of Lyme, they don't. They took two months of doxycycline, a very powerful antibiotic that has also been shown to destroy your mitochondria as well. And now they're dealing with low energy, exercise intolerance, low mood, fatigue, insomnia, dysfunctional diurnal rhythm. They can't fall asleep at night. They can't wake up in the morning and that's because their mitochondria have literally been wiped out. Of course not all of them but they've been really decimated. Speaking of mitochondria, what's your take on red light therapy? Are you a fan? Do you know much about it? Yeah, I mean, I really, I don't do too much else besides hang out with my family and then read and research and work in my practice. And I love, because that's why I love all these things. So it's like, I get to do what my passion is anyways. So I review a lot of these practice, a lot of these products every Friday I do a show that's basically going through them. And I love, I mean, I love the industry. I really do. Like I've got, I've got an ordering on and an Apple watch on at the same time. I've got a leaf therapeutic space device. I've got all these things. And yes, they're on airplane mode and Bluetooth is off. People always ask. And red light therapy can be fantastic as well. So I am someone though who doesn't believe in panaceas. I like sauna. I like cold therapy for some people, not all. I like red light for almost anybody. And I like it always in conjunction with exercise, with nutrition. So I have something called a de-stress protocol. So it's like eight different parts and you don't need to be perfect at one of them. So yes, I like red light. I like most of these modalities to be honest with you. I think there's a time and place for pretty much all of them. Binaural beats, neuro feedback, bio feedback. Yeah, they're fantastic. Staying on the topic of mitochondria, I keep reading amazing studies on creatine. Creatine being a supplement. I mean, when you and I were kids working out, first came out into the market and it was only about building muscle and getting stronger. There was controversy around it. Now studies are showing it's good for your heart and your brain and it's good for mitochondrial health. And I read an even read a study that might help people with arthritis. And it's pretty, very interesting. What are your thoughts on creatine? Are there, because I predicted, I do this often on the show and I say, I believe creatine to be the next big wellness supplement. I think it's gonna move out of the fitness space and move into the wellness space because of some of its wellness applications. What are your thoughts around creatine? What are its benefits and are there benefits that you would recommend it for aside from the traditional, it makes you stronger and allows you to do a few more reps in the gym? Yeah, for sure. And I mean, it's funny, it takes me way back to my senior of high school with my little bottle of EAS going to the bathroom, doing my loading phase, popping a scoop in my mouth and swashing it down with tap water. And it worked. I mean, the first time I took creatine, I was a really thin, what, 6, 17 year old, whatever it was. And I put on 14 pounds in about 10 days. It was the most absurd thing. It was unbelievable. So I'm like, this is the greatest thing ever. I was investing in, and then of course you're gain stop after that, but it was a great 30 days. And so it's great. Yes, it's great for ATP production. But one of the reasons why that they're finding that creatine can help for so many different things is because of its ability to improve adenosine triphosphate. So if it can turn it over faster and it can improve mitochondrial, not just energy I'll put in an anaerobic environment. So let's say that you're trying to get that extra rep or whatever it might be, you're trying to last that full 30 seconds for the set, 60 seconds. They've actually shown that it improves aerobic endurance as well. They've shown that it's helped with burn victims. They've used it in hospital settings as well. So I think it's a product that has a ton of upside. It's very inexpensive. I don't know if you've looked into different forms. I've looked into different forms of creatine. The one that I keep going back to is the inexpensive one, creatine monohydrate. I think that people get great results just with that. They don't need to do a loading phase, especially if there's any GI gastrointestinal-based issues. You can mix it with your smoothie or for better absorption, take it on its own with a little sodium, with a little bit of dextrose if you want for even better absorption. The only drawback, and this is kind of a big drawback for guys I work with in their 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s that really want to do a lot of anti-aging and boost their testosterone naturally, creatine can cause hair loss. There's really good correlations with that. Is this from the increased conversion of testosterone to DHT? 100%. Okay, okay, so yeah, explain that. Sorry to interrupt. No, no, you're 100% right. So basically it can actually thin the hair follicle itself or it can cause a speedup in male pattern baldness, just androgenic-based hair loss. So it doesn't seem to affect women, but it certainly can. Women with PCOS can absolutely be affected if they take creatine because they have higher levels of testosterone typically, higher levels of insulin causing higher levels of testosterone, but of course all that can be fixed for women easily. Not as easy to fix it for men, but here's what the work around that we found. What is the product that we use? It's called Advanced Prostate Support. So I know it says for your prostate, but what works for your prostate actually works for your hair. So it has soplometto, it has stinging nettles, it has pygium, and that actually helps to block testosterone from DHT. However, if you're looking for the most muscle gain, you actually want testosterone to DHT. It actually helps boost muscle. Yeah, DHT is very androgenic, right? So it gives you that aggression, that strength in the gym. I even read a study that creatine improves sperm motility because of the ATP, which is really, really fascinating. But you're saying if you're somebody that's predisposed to hair loss, that you may notice an acceleration of that. What about for everyday average people who probably aren't predisposed? Is this something that they should be concerned with? No, and I think, let's just say you started taking creatine and in the shower in the morning or call me you're here doing your hair, you started to see more hair in your hand, then you would stop creatine and it should stop. So that's the nice thing is it shouldn't be, like once you take the creatine out, it might take a week, but it should stop after that because it's not like it's water soluble, it's not gonna stain in your body for a long period of time. And the other thing I'll say about creatine is that, because I mean, I use this a lot in my life, I've used it with a lot of clients and I can just tell you anecdotally, I'd love to know if you've seen any studies on it. I really think that you've maxed out your benefits in about eight to 10 weeks. I don't, I think that you can cycle on and off of it if you're just looking for the overall like health benefits, like take six weeks off, go back on if you want. Yeah, and there's that. And also I've noticed with clients that my vegan clients had tremendous upside from taking creatine, whereas my heavy meat eating clients would have a much smaller upside because obviously vegans aren't getting any creatine in their diet. And then I read a study that showed that vegans who take creatine get a boost in IQ. They actually get cognitive boosts from it, probably because they lack it in their diet. Am I on track with that? Well, yes. And not even because they don't get creatine as much in their diet and you're completely right on that aspect. Like if we go back and we think about like the mid-1900s bodybuilder heyday and then into like the 70s with Arnold and Franco and all those guys, we have to look at, they already knew. They didn't have all the supplements but they're eating red meat multiple times per day sometimes or they're eating very anabolic foods. And when you are on a vegan-based diet and actually I work with a ton of vegan-based bodybuilders and vegan-based athletes and we can still get you there, there's no doubt about it. However, you are on a naturally catabolic diet. Like it's just naturally more catabolic. You're eating more plant food which is not as anabolic as eating flesh food. And again, we've known this from an Ayurvedic medicine over 6,000 years ago that if you really want to put on muscle you're taking in essentially dairy and meat like these foods that are just very anabolic. And I remember back in the day when I was in my teenage years they would tell you to mix heavy cream with your shake with your protein powder. And that's because you'd get a ton of cholesterol and IGF like insulin growth factor and that would help boost muscle. And so creatine is anabolic just like branched amino acids are. So if you're giving those to someone that's vegan they're going to get better gains. Yeah, are there common things you see with people who are, I don't wanna say bodybuilders because if I say bodybuilders I think people think of like competitive bodybuilders but rather, we have a large percentage of our audience are people who like to do resistance training. They're trying to build a stronger leaner physique. When you see people like this are there common issues that you tend to run into because of that lifestyle? If they're following a vegan diet. No, forget vegan. Just like if you get somebody that's like, oh, I lift weights, I'm trying to build muscle. So they follow that lifestyle. Are there common issues that, like someone listening right now who follows that lifestyle that they should kind of watch out for? Yeah, and I'm kind of laughing because I mean I grew up a meathead until about 26, 27 years old and I loved it. And that part of me is like still there. Every day I'm only five, eight but every day I wanna get back to 200 pounds. So basically I was almost 200 pounds at five, eight and I don't have the frame to be 200 pounds. I had no business being 200 pounds but I did it through a lot of eating. I was taking in 300 grams of protein a day and I worked at a gym, so I worked out. Anyway, it depends on how long you wanna live. Like that's the thing because you can either have the most amazing body and body transformation or you can kind of live a long life. The two don't usually go together. And the reason I say that is what you need to do in order to create a big physique, we'll say big or even very lean is that you need to sway the body in one direction, pretty strong. Again, I go back to the 16, eight fasting. Again, I have some people on 16, eight. I have some people on 12, 12. It really depends on the individual. But they found that people doing a 16, eight diet, they did this study. I can always get the links if you want them. And then they did a non, people could eat whatever they wanted, okay? Anytime of the day. So they found that the restricted eating, 16, eight, from 12 to eight at night, they lost 2.4 pounds. And the other group lost 0.67, okay? Now, when they did a DEXA scan though, it revealed that they lost two pounds of muscle mass, which means they actually gained a half a pound of fat. And then they had a, the other group, which just was about the same, half a pound, so they really didn't lose or gain anything. Now, this is people though. So this is why, again, we had to look at studies and we had to look at all the science. They did almost the same exact study, but this time they did it with resistance training, three times a week, just normal bodybuilding exercises, normal circuit, bench press, leg press, et cetera. And this time, the group didn't really gain or lose too much muscle mass. This is over eight weeks. It was about 0.5 pounds, but they lost, it was like 16 X the amount when they did the intermittent fasting. So when we're looking at the whole story, we need to say, when we're saying 16, I'm only bringing this up because I know your audience does a lot of nutrition, all these different things. If you are not weight training, you probably shouldn't be skipping breakfast. And that's because the weight loss or leanness that you might be getting is probably body fat and some muscle. So then we typically compensate, we say, well, we're gonna add more protein in. And almost all accounts, the higher that we increase our protein, potentially the greater risk for cardiovascular, cancer, other issues, simply because it is anabolic, and it raises IGF-1. Now, only one out of two people are gonna get cancer in their lifetime. How do you know it's you or not? That's the kind of coin flip that I look at and I deal with every day. So now I just say, listen, I just wanna be lean. I wanna be 167 pounds, 165 at the lowest, and that's it. And I'm happy. I'm good enough there. Yeah, so the way that I've heard it explained is essentially that you're increasing all these growth factors, MTOR and IGF-1, and these are things that are great for building muscle. But in a pro-cancer environment, they'll actually drive the growth of cancer as well. Is that kind of an accurate way of saying? That's the best way to state it. It's that you're in an anabolic environment, which is why fasting is catabolic and it helps to alleviate all the causes of mortality to a degree. And then eventually you go too far and it actually becomes very detrimental. So it's really knowing your body type. So for me, if I really wanted to push it, I could eat a little bit more, no doubt about it, because I'm not a more of a hard gainer than someone that can gain weight easily. It's more the people that are already anabolic and then they start taking it to that next level, but you just never know who it is. You just, you don't know yet. Again, who it's going to affect, but yes. So the good news is more protein and all of these things puts you in an environment that will allow you to grow, but it also puts you in an environment that everything grows. And the last point I will say to that though is it does seem that if you exercise, not over exercise, but exercise, it also has a protective effect. And also, if you add some omega-3s and some veggies to that, it may also have a protective effect. So it's difficult to say, I can't say there's an exact answer, but eat your veggies, brightly colored, a rainbow and definitely exercise three to four days a week. Well, okay, so here's something I used to do back in the day and I felt really good doing it. So the audience is privy to the fact that most of my life tried to just build muscle. Like I was a hard gainer, I was totally obsessed with it all the time. Even today, I can definitely move in that direction. It's just my nature, I love doing it. But back in the day, I used to do this thing and I used to feel really good doing it where I would eat my typical high protein, higher calorie type diet. I tend to lean more towards fat than carbohydrates. I just feel better that way. I'm lifting weights, I'm trying to get stronger. And then every week I would do a vegan day. So Fridays, for example, I would eat low calorie, all vegetables, low protein. And I felt very good doing this. Is this because I'm kind of balancing out the anabolic that I'm doing all week long? So I'm throwing in one of those kind of catabolic, anti-inflammatory days? Is that what's happening? What was your diet like? Was it whole food or was it more green juices? Like easy to digest, what did it look like? Potato chips and candy. No, I'm just kidding. No, it was whole, it was well-cooked vegetables. It was low-calorie. I wasn't like trying, my goal wasn't to eat as many calories or many grams of protein as I was on my normal days. It was literally like salads and well-cooked broccoli and asparagus and I would have some lagoons in there, not a ton. It was just a low-calorie vegan day whole-food-based. So just one part to it is if it's lower calorie and it's easier to digest, which it typically is with more plant-based foods because meat is going to be, meat and raw vegetables are gonna be the hardest to digest, they take the longest. So they take the most energy. So if you cut down on your non-thermogenic foods, more of your anabolic foods like your meats, then you'll have more energy because about a third of our energy goes to our digestion every day, which is why when people fast, they're like, oh, I feel fantastic. But yeah, it's because you basically aren't allocating any of your precious energy towards digestion. So that's why typically I am a big, again, not everybody likes this, that's okay. I'm a big smoothie oatmeal person in the morning. They're mush foods, they're easy to digest and get a lot of nutrition. And most people don't drink anything past like six o'clock, eight o'clock at night. So if you're going until eight in the morning, 12 hours without any liquid, and the first thing they do is grab a coffee and that's not very hydrating. So that's why I lean that way and then you still have plenty of energy. You don't need to skip breakfast. You can still go, I go 14 hours. I go six at night to eight in the morning. That works well for my body. Some people need to eat a little closer to waking up for blood sugar issues. That's fine too. So but what I really recommend is every Monday, I fast 24 hours. So essentially I really, I have a blowout cheat meal, flex meal, Friday night. And like I eat my dinner, then I eat both of my daughter's dinners, whatever's left. Probably get some dessert. Just really enjoy myself because that's part of life. I don't take it to that extreme every time but I just want people to know like, listen, I act like a normal human being and I enjoy good food but I'm eating well the rest of the time. So then I just kind of recalibrate. And then Sunday night I have dinner with my family like we typically would. And then on Monday night, I have dinner again. So I'm not going to full day but I am going the entire work day every single week or at least three to three out of four Mondays a month that I'm fasting. And so it allows me to get all of those benefits of longer termitophagy because it's not really 16 hours. It's more like 18 to 23, as you start to move deeper into it but honestly it's different for every individual and a lot of it is based on glucose reserves in your body. Now I've heard Ayurvedic medicine and Chinese medicine say not to drink cold beverages. Why is that? It slows digestion. So it cools digestion. If you're trying to create heat in the stomach which would be your hydrochloric acid, your pepsin. And if you think about it, when you cook soup, if you cooked it on low heat, it would take a long time to cook and be ready. But if you cook it on high heat, it's going to be ready faster. And so basically you want high heat in your stomach. You don't want to put cold water in there which would dilute that fire. Oh, very, very interesting. Well, cool. It's always a blast talking to you, Dr. Roy. You're like a wealth of knowledge and I swear I can ask you a question and then you'll just go off and I'll just learn a bunch of new stuff. I really appreciate you coming to the podcast and I appreciate everything that you do. What's the best way to get ahold of you? Because I guarantee people are going to want to find you and get ahold of you just to hear more of your stuff. My website is stevencobral.com. You can find my podcast there, The Cabral Concepts. I booked the Rain Barrel Effect. And then if people are looking for all the protocols we use and all the labs that they can do right at home, again, it's all open source and that's at equi.life, that's equal.life. And that's basically it. And so people will be able to just, essentially what I do is I try to just create just a little bit of content each day. So it's in bites and then you can kind of absorb it and then move on to the next because even though we talked about so much today, there's like, okay, but what about this? And then when this happens and so there's always levels to it. And so we just try to peel back the onion every day on the podcast. And you still treat people, right? So if somebody wanted to hire you personally, I'm sure you're probably a premium but you still work with patients, correct? I do, but I oversee now a very large practice of certified health coaches and we train them actually through the Institute, the Institute of the Integrative Health Practitioner Institute. But so basically my best ability to serve is to oversee 1,000, 2,000, 3,000 labs a month rather than work individually with people but I still do sometimes work individually with people, yes. Very cool. All right, man. Well, thank you for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. It's my pleasure. That's great, thanks for having me. Thank you. When I got out of prison, I was like, okay, I want to get back into the business. I want to open a nightclub. I want to do this, I want to do that. And even though I'm older, I was like 24, 25 at the time when I got out, a person, a young adult that hadn't really learned yet if I'm still trying to get back into the same thing. Right. So months later, and when I did that, like it was a 10 or 12 hour interview with HB.