 Welcome to the Dr. Gundry podcast. We got a really special one today for you. I'm going to be speaking with Dave and Jan Hales. So since 2017 they've chronicled their plant paradox journey on their YouTube channel AZ Life Cooking. So their journey hasn't always been a smooth one but Dave and Jan are going to show how you can easily adapt your habits for a healthier and tastier lifestyle. So on today's show we're going to talk about their journey, share some tips about how to stick with the plant paradox diet and discuss how you can get started on your own plant paradox journey today. So Dave and Jan so happy to have you here. And we're so excited to be here. Yes. We're thrilled. Alright so we were talking off-camera. Now you're from Arizona now but originally from Utah. Utah kind of south of South Lake. North of South Lake. How the heck did you end up in Arizona? Well about six years ago I think. I've had Crohn's disease for about 20 years. Yeah about 20 years. Diagnosed for 20 years. I think I've had it longer than that. And I struggled a lot. Like I would end up in the hospital six, seven times a year for pain meds for that. And I happened to be reading a study. You're probably more familiar with this than me but there's a big group of nurses that that some research university follows. The results said something like 65% of people who lived in a climate similar to California or Arizona where there's not a lot of weather change. They were 65% less likely to get Crohn's disease and then people who had Crohn's disease and then moved to that sort of climate about the same number of people saw an improvement in their health. And I'm like what do you think about warm sunny weather? And she's like let's go check it out and be moved. And it started us on that journey of healing and that and it has made a difference. I mean it did what it did. Well what they didn't realize in that study and in subsequent studies is what changed was that you actually got more sunlight. And your vitamin D level went up and you know I write constantly about the importance of vitamin D in actually improving the wall of your gut health. You were just listening to that on your new book. Yes, we love it. In fact just saw a young lady yesterday from the LA area 15 years old with she's lost 60 pounds in the last two years after developing a Crohn's-like illness. And one of the first things we found on her blood test was that her vitamin D level was 27 nanograms per milliliter. And I like as you know people to have it around 100. And we found through the years that one of the things that unites all sufferers of GI issues is usually a low vitamin D level. And vitamin D does two things and excuse me from taking over here for a second. But vitamin D number one we know part of the problem with with all of these autoimmune diseases is that there's a type of white blood cell called a T cell. And the T cell normally listens to vitamin D and vitamin D says hey relax calm down you don't have to get so crazy everything's not your enemy and chill out. In people with autoimmune diseases the T cell doesn't listen to vitamin D properly. So we basically have to use a vitamin D sledgehammer and go hey pay attention. And one of the things that's you know fascinating to watch is that as we get people's vitamin D level up their immune system quiets down. Number two we all have lots and lots and lots of stem cells in the lining of our gut. But some of the new research says that those stem cells which would normally help repave our gut just sit there and twiddle their thumbs without being stimulated by vitamin D to grow and divide. So once again I think one of the real keys that you know I've discovered through 20 years of this now is the role vitamin D has. And so you moving from you know a half the year it's kind of cloudy down to pure sunshine you invariably got your vitamin D higher. So yeah so good for you. So you should have moved to California. So how do you know and let me go back for one other you probably had Crohn's long before you were diagnosed with it. What was going on in your life did you I mean would you just thought you had funny bowels. I had graduated college gotten in my first real job small company growing and I just thought it was all stress related because I was under a lot of stress at the time and new family new kids young kids I should say. And so I just thought it was all related to stress. I'm like I'm just overly overly stressed and stress of course flares those inflammatory conditions up. So and with working such long hours Dave's diet of course consisted of fast food. I was candy lots of candy. I was at home prepping meals so he didn't need a lot of processed food such for dinner. But for breakfast it was always cold cereal sugary sugary cold cereal. And lunch was usually on the run. Yeah I mean just fast food. I mean lunch and dinner fast food usually yeah because I was working you know 60 70 hours a week and then just a lot of stress you know. So it took about 2 years you know initially they were even when I first got diagnosed with Crohn's disease I would go into the hospital if I was having pain I'm like I have Crohn's disease and they'd say you have a what they never heard of it. Really that was 20 years ago and I even had some doctors go well let me go look that up because that sounds familiar but I haven't yeah and it's amazing now I can talk to almost any person on the street and say I have Crohn's disease like oh yeah my sister has that or oh yeah I mean it's amazing how many more gastrointestinal issues I've met in the 20 years since I know I've had one. Well that brings up a very good point you know when I when I was in medical school back in the dark ages we we did know about Crohn's disease and all sort of clitis and actually as a surgeon I operated on a number of people with Crohn's disease and all sort of clitis taking out pieces of their intestines and telling them that you'll be back right because I'm gonna take out more of your intestines or you're gonna develop this is pretty gross but you're gonna develop fistulas coming out of your skin and it's devastating and we just go yeah this is what's happening to you and you know get over it and we really didn't have much of my surgeon told me so but I think you bring up a very important point these were rare a while back and now you know every other commercial on TV we see for medications and you know and I think certainly the evidence is that our autoimmune diseases have just you know gone through the roof in the last 50 years last 20 years and you're obviously one anybody in the family have anything like this looking back autoimmune diseases yeah my mom has multiple sclerosis my brother has multiple sclerosis another brother has rheumatoid arthritis and who what else interestingly enough Jen has rheumatoid arthritis or had until the plant bear adults game changer you made my life seriously I can't thank you enough you don't know how hard it was yeah before I did this diet yeah it was bad for her it was really hard and to be 44 years old and have feel like I was an 85 year old and not a good 85 year old cuz we're gonna be healthy 85 and bike riding and all that right right my my kids to make a trip to the store my kids would have to drive me they'd have to hold on to me so I could even walk I couldn't even go get the mail out of the mailbox that's how and before prior to this I was biking 25 miles a day I was always very very active and then it hit and my life just it was very depressing to go from being so active and and everything just to laying on the couch or a lot of times I would just lay in the pool in a float just to give my body a rest from the pain and so thank you I I think that you don't realize how many people you've helped you really need to realize that what a difference what a change you're making well thank you and that's why I do this and you know that's why I still see patients every day even on the weekends I know but it's because of this and it's because of you know people writing and saying change changed my life how many times were you told that there was nothing wrong with you this was all in your head constantly and and I would just I started to question myself and say am I going crazy do am I am I imagining the pain and you know have I become you know a hypochondriac when there's nothing wrong I'm just trying to get attention and I would go over that and over that in my mind and that just contributed to the depression because I'm like why do I feel like this no one can see it but I feel horrible and she had a doctor say once well you are getting older I mean you're 44 you shouldn't be feeling like this right I or you're going through the change yeah yeah or of course you're tired you got kids yeah sure that number of times to sure no absolutely that was such a common thing and I think for women you know if you've had that said to you it's so depressing and and I wasn't ready to settle I have grand kids that I want to hang out with I have grandkids that I want to play with they're not born yet they're coming so once they get here I want to be active with them I want to be out playing I don't want to be on the sidelines thinking oh I remember when I used to be able to run and play I want to be actively doing that so I decided and really it was through Dave's support I'm not taking this as an answer we are doing something else we are going to keep searching and finding that and really it was awesome to have Dave's support to not let me settle for that lifestyle and continue to just lay on the couch and be miserable so so you're miserable he's miserable what tell me what happened next my sister actually probably I remember when your book first came out seems like it was run April 2017 literally two years ago and I think May of 2017 my sister sent me your book she just ordered it and said hey I've been reading this book now she doesn't suffer from any problems she just wanted to lose a little weight but she's like I've been reading it and they keep talking about all immune diseases and I think you should read it I had it for about six weeks and when you're chronically ill people are always trying to sell you on something and I've tried other diets I tried eating healthy I tried eating super clean I always lost weight felt better but my Crohn's never approved so my here's another diet and then this was at same time she was two years ago at 44 two years ago she was miserable and finally one day I'm looking at her on the couch you know she's her life has just gone to a standstill and the book is sitting in front of me I'm like you know I'm gonna pick that book up and read it so I heard flipping through it and immediately I found some of the stories with patience with rheumatoid arthritis where it had cleared up and I'm like Jan you've got to read this book and so we come to California a couple times a month sometimes at least because we're a big Disneyland fans and so on our drive down to California it's about five and a half hours she started reading the book and I would share with Dave oh listen to this honey listen to this and we finished it on the way home and started the diet the next day and we've never looked back mm-hmm as simple as that on the way on the way down I was so impressed and the stories of patients that you've worked with just made such an impact on both of us that we were like we're doing this even as we were in California that weekend we tried to just kind of remember the things that we were supposed to eat but yeah we we just started right away we're like we're doing this pain went away almost immediately I mean it was staggering I'm like why isn't our doctors telling us this stuff exactly so well you know that is it's clearly part of the problem number one it's it's almost too good to be true that it could be that simple that's exactly what we thought you know come on I love the the story of the young girl like the college student from Wisconsin in the in the plant paradox who has Crohn's or had great and you know cared for by the head of the Mayo Clinic GI department who felt that you know Crohn's is a genetic problem and that's all it is and clearly there's a you know there is a genetic component to this I'll be the first to say that but it's a very tiny portion of this problem and so she she for folks who haven't read the book shame on you definitely the one of her mentors she was actually funded sent to college by a woman who wanted who had Crohn's disease and who wanted kids to go into careers in immunology so she actually she and her husband paid two scholarships for kids who said they wanted to be doctors and so she was one of these and this particular woman got cured of Crohn's disease in her 70s and had it all her life and so she sent basically the plant paradox list you know they ask foods and now foods to this young lady and she said would you mind you know Skyping with her on the phone this was around Christmas time I said no it'd be fine so we get on Skype and a beautiful young lady 20 years old and she said you know and when my sponsor sent me this list you know she said I rolled my eyes because you know I've been on every diet for Crohn's and you know my doctor at Mayo Clinic says the diet has nothing to do with it it's genetic and you know you're wasting your time but this lady's paying my tuition so she said you know okay I'm gonna do it and she said you know within five days I had the first normal bowel movement of my life crazy and she said you know it all went away so I she said last week I called my doctor at Mayo Clinic to tell him my Crohn's is gone and he said you know that's ridiculous you know this is a placebo effect you can do you know he's a snake oil I've never met the woman he says this is genetic it's all in your mind and she said I was so upset you know that I've been fooled normal bowel movement I'm obviously fooling myself that I went in and my mother was baking Christmas cookies and I I had two Christmas cookies and she said within you know a few minutes it felt like a bomb went off in my stomach and then she had you know diarrhea a few hours later and cramps in the pain yeah and she said wait a minute you know this is not a placebo effect this is so she said I went right back on the you know the program and I'm you know I'm fine and but she's looking at me in the in the camera and she says why doesn't my doctor know about this right and I always say you know you can't see unless your eyes are open and you know I was lucky enough 20 years ago to see that big Ed had cleaned out his coronary arteries with food and some supplements and I'm going you know I could have said placebo or you know that's just dumb luck right right but you know and she was able to you know see that there was something there and and sometimes you know doctors just don't see there was a Facebook post posting yesterday on my wife's feed about a person who's been on the plant paradox was on three medications for cholesterol for high blood pressure oh and also for atrial fibrillation you know an abnormal rhythm of the heart and the doc has been prescribing these meds and so I guess after about six months of being on the plant paradox they stopped all the meds and didn't tell the doctor and they had just gone to the doctor's office and the doctors said now aren't you glad that I got you on these meds because you know you're staying out of atrial fibrillation you have no high blood pressure and you know this is going to be something that you're going to do the rest of your life and you know here's your refills for next year and they posted you know on Facebook well now I've got two years of prescriptions that I will never fill and I don't even bother discussing this from my doctor anymore because he'll say that's impossible and even though you know he'll say oh you're actually taking them or something like that right you know I've I mean I've been off my medication for a year and I hated being on it because you look at the list of side effects I had reactions to them I feel the side I hated being on suppressants and but they had the conversation you're either on the immunopressants or you're on the operating table one or the other you pick well and I've been off him for a year now and I feel better than ever and fortunately my GI has been supportive in that hey if it's working keep doing it good for him or her yeah and Dave actually with his Crohn's disease has had it so severe that he actually had a preferative bowel at one time he went in in pain they checked him and they said you need to be on the operating table he had drove himself to the hospital which is not okay and called me at work and said hey I'm gonna be having surgery and come on down I know come over and pick me up at this time I'm gonna be on the operating table what so yeah so I'm glad to be off the meds and feeling awesome and I mean it's a miracle it really is we stick to the diet and sometimes we cheat I mean we're human beings you know sometimes what happens when you cheat immediately you feel it like I can feel it it's weird I feel it in my skin I get rashes my gut blows up I get in pain my bowel movements you know we're I feel it in my joints yeah my joints will start to get sore and just achy again and so quick very quick go yeah it's funny I take care of a lot of kids with with Crohn's and actually with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and kids are the you know the toughest probably because of peer pressure but these kids actually echo exactly what you say they they will cheat but what happens to them when they cheat is enough to you know just pull them right back yeah cheese you know yeah you know eating that pizza Tommy's house wasn't worth it and yeah so the kids are the toughest in a way but they're they're the smartest in a way because they can't rationalize you know well you know my joints swelled up yeah and that's no good yeah we need to figure out how to get our kids even though their adults eating better because even though we do it and they see the result they still struggle I mean they don't they don't follow the diet or they don't even really eat that healthy so well yeah and you know it's sometimes it's really hard to get you know your own kids to follow what they see is happening to you right and they go I'm young I'm immune that's it I'm young I'm bulletproof nothing's gonna happen to me but they have to realize that you know there is a genetic component to this and they almost certainly react to lectins they may not feel it yet but it's it's coming down the road yeah oh it's coming yeah you know I've talked about I have we have two daughters one who's kind of been on the program almost for the last 15 years and is is a real evangelist about the program on the other hand my our oldest daughter was the antithesis of that and would not do it would not listen despite the fact that she was significantly overweight horrible headaches a lot of depression and she has two kids and a year and a half ago I handed her the plant paradox for Christmas I said look don't don't do this for me don't do it for yourself do it for my grandkids okay and I something snapped and well she and her husband lost 50 pounds well and they that the kids that's all they they've only eaten this now really for their whole lives they love their chocolate chip cookies but the amazing thing is and I you know I love my daughters dearly equally but my daughter who wasn't a very happy person now she calls me up saying dad you know this is now a 40-year-old woman hey dad you know man you should you know what a great day at work you know and I got this great recipe I made I want to share it with you and I'm going who is this really and yeah and so and you know I write about this in the plant paradox and in the longevity paradox that these bugs in us are actually in control of almost everything about our mood about depression and it's amazing how you can you know change all this stuff that you know you thought was just something in your head well it was something in your head but it was coming from your bugs yeah and after experiencing that I can say for sure that is so true all right so we get this question all the time and you're the perfect people to answer this question how do you get your partner significant other to join you in this journey when one of you wants to and the other is not so sure well I'll tell you my story and 10 may have a different one but I say some when people ask me that sometimes when I respond on the thing I'm like even if you just your spouse isn't going to do it with you even if you'll just go to them say hey I'm gonna do this a diet hold me accountable because I do that with my kids I'm like hey I you guys I've been off the diet if you see me eating something come to me and they will even though they don't follow the diet they will be dad well is that plant paradox can play it so and that's so helpful and another thing is I feel like everyone as a person goes through waves of high motivation to low motivation and you know a lot of times our waves will kind of vary and so maybe you at a point where I'm feeling like oh I just don't want to do the preparation Dave will be like okay let's go let's plan this out what are we gonna do and so he kind of pushes me a little bit and at his load of low motivation points I push him yeah and so it's just a beautiful partnership that that we have and I had to learn how to cook and I enjoy it now because I think that helps too so you both need to become kind of chefs in the kitchen because I think it's a lot to ask one person to you know let's have a lot of time but no or you know I'm usually the cook but my wife is the sous chef and chops yeah exactly exactly clean up yeah exactly yeah we have deals like that yeah we we definitely do that one of us kind of cooks the other one cleans up okay and I do love your idea it's amazing how many families tell me that their kids are the enforcers yeah it's really interesting they go I can't believe I told my kids so when you started all this did you really think you were gonna do a YouTube channel the story behind the YouTube channel is I have a background in filmmaking and I mean that's I went to school for that I've kind of worked on and off in television and movies throughout my life and so I'm I kind of have a you know the notion to record things because you just never know all the time so I thought you know what we're starting this new diet we're gonna do it together I initially thought by us by Hannah telling Jan to use her phone and me to use my phone it sort of gave us a like like a babysitter like well we have to record the day to talk about what we did almost making a journal and I thought you know what I'm gonna throw it on YouTube mostly for family and friends and then who knows maybe somebody who's doing this diet will find our videos and a lot more people found it and then we thought yeah for sure the review video we did on there just is about to 300,000 views and that was never part of the plan and then we found it that community you know and the support and all the testimonials that people were sharing with us that just motivated us to keep doing it now very inspiring so now yeah we do we try to do at least one video a week so good for you yeah and so so what was what was the easiest part of doing all this if you could choose one thing I feel like the easiest part well just the encouragement especially for myself because so quickly all of the pain and suffering I had been going through it was working doing the diet and so that was the greatest reward I mean that was that made it giving up the sugar and I love sugar that was the hardest part that was the hardest part and it was nice that we chronic you know that we had the video proof of that so people can look and say well it wasn't just all roses and sunshine it was hard it was hard changing our style of eating but we did it and I think the easiest part for me that I tell people was becoming a food snob because I had eaten so much crap food and not and not realize all these healthy foods how much better they taste I became a food snob I'm like I'm not eating that it is it grass-fed is it where's that cheese from if it's not Italian I'm not eating it because it's like it was so easy to become a food snob because not only is it healthy for you but the food just tastes so much better amazing it's incredible how often we will invite people over for dinner and cook a recipe and this is amazing this is so good yeah it's really fun yeah now never forget the first time we we took lemon cod liver oil and mixed it in with our olive oil and a salad dressing when we had guests over and they're raving about the salad you know what you know what's your secret I said cobbler Roy all right so so you guys I always say have lots of followers and so are there give me three tips for somebody who's thinking about doing this or just diving in I go ahead try one yeah be prepared be prepared be prepared we found that if we can sit down together on you know Friday Saturday and say this is our meal plan for the week okay do we have all of our snacks what shopping do we need to do let's get a list and have it all I will you know hard-boiled eggs I will you know set up little nut packs so that I can just as I'm heading out for work for the day I can grab each of my snacks I'll pre-feat freeze meals I have all that because we would find that if we hadn't prepared and we were tired we were hungry well let's just have something that's gonna make us feel terrible just once just once we can do this so the more prepared you are the more geared you are for that for the week the smoother it's going to be yeah and then for me I think the tip that I always tell people that we're gonna try this diet and this was straight out of your book and I remember I think you said in your book you say give me two weeks yeah I tell people take it to three and do it 100% and I mean do not cheat because I'm tired of people saying I tried diet A, B or C and then you talk to them and you're like you didn't really do it this is you got cheated like a marriage if you're cheating it's not gonna work you know it's so give it three weeks and do it a hundred percent because then I figure they'll probably at least make it two weeks that's true yeah so yeah you got you gotta you gotta go all in you know I've got I've got posters of Yoda and Yoda dolls in my exam room and everybody looks Yoda in my exam room what's Yoda doing in there and it's like the Yoda says do or do not right there is no try yeah yeah and I get you know so many patients that come in and say you know I this diet doesn't work or this program doesn't work and I'm looking at their and you just point to Yoda yeah and and we'll do so I'll say well you know what did you have for you know breakfast yesterday you know a bagel and I go huh well that was special because you know I was out that day and that was all there was or you know and it just goes on and I used to have people do two-week food diaries and smart and it was got to be too comical right because you know well that that day that doesn't count right and you know then you'd see you know birthday cake well it was it was an office party and I didn't want to be yeah no you know you either do this or you don't yeah particularly with autoimmune disease yeah unfortunately as you both know you you really can't cheat and pay the price yeah and I figure you know it's not asking much to say just 100% anybody can do that I mean you can't you just can decide to have to put your mind yeah I just asked people to eat like it's 9,999 years ago to coin print I like that it's you know none of this current stuff existed right none of us ate this stuff and it's amazing to think about really what we've eaten in the last 50 years yeah didn't exist absolutely yeah yeah and I you know I talked about the plant paradox there was a wonderful doctoral dissertation from Akron University and I'm sorry I don't remember her name right now but she looked at the change in consumption of kids over from 1900 to year 2000 what changed in them and it was called from farm to fat kids and that looked at everything soda sugar everything the only two things that they found was consistent causing obesity in American kids over the last hundred years was the change in pizza consumption and the change in fried chicken well yeah not surprising but yeah wow yeah I mean we forget the pizza wasn't invented until 1898 didn't exist and we forget the chicken was actually incredibly rare to eat as of food because they were too valuable as hands that laid eggs right and the only time we ever ate a chicken was one on the old hand couldn't lay anymore and she became a stewing chicken because she was so tough right and that's why an instant pot is so useful for a pastured chicken because they're pretty tough really helps yeah okay so you got any favorite plant paradox recipes I really enjoy the recipes in the book they're fabulous we feed them you know to our kids to friends that come over for dinner actually one of my favorites is by Annabelle Lee she's behind California country girl country girl yeah yes and she was on your show that's how we learned about on this podcast now you and her she's wonderful she's come on our show she's cooked with us one of my favorite things she makes is a meatless chicken nugget we fed that from kids to adults everyone has really enjoyed that and then just to give my wife some credit she took a recipe the artichoke fried artichoke recipe from the product book and said I wonder if we could take make a batter out of that same mix and use it to coat cocktail shrimp and then make shrimp tacos and so we put them in cassava flour we toyed with a little bit and made some shrimp taco recipe with just lettuce some little bit of lime and goat cheese well goat cheddar cheese and there's Mavocados and they are we serve them to people on a cassava tortilla and people think they're some of the best tacos they've ever eaten and I'm like and I don't even tell them they're healthy because then why ruin it for the cod liver oil story that's right well we have you know we have our great recipe developer Kate in the studio yes so I need to tell that our son who's the pickiest eater his favorite recipes Dr. G's chili if we made a whole batch of it and left it for him he would not complain so really good chili very good yeah so you got a lot of followers and you've helped a lot of people you got a favorite story that you've gotten back from many your followers I think it's hard to narrow down to a favorite story but I think the choose one I think the thing is is is I had a lady who was in her late 70 I think she was 78 79 and suffered from a whole list of things and had a whole list of medication she was on and she said I found about out about this sorry she said I found out about the plant paradox because she came and watched one of our recipe videos and then she saw our review and then she got your book and read it and she said six months later I'm off all of my medications at 79 years old they feel better than I have in the last I think it was 20 years and that kind of validated you know like you know like we felt like we were kind of contributing in a way you know like helping bring awareness and so that that kind of happens all the time now that's my favorite support they have there and I just it's incredible and and really it's wonderful for everyone to have the support system when you have people around you that are not eating healthy and you're like well maybe just one bite no no you know we're gonna stick to this diet we want to feel good and we have felt amazing so one of your most famous videos is the seven myths of the plant paradox yeah that's what I wanted to do for a long time because as you can probably imagine we get a lot of people commenting emailing contact us through Instagram to let us know how stupid we are because we're being duped and I'm like tell my gut even if it is or placebo I'm like I don't care what it is it's working who cares you know I mean so what are those seven myths so real go that you can't eat tomatoes that you can't eat beans that you can't eat fruit that you know and there's no no grains at all and that you what's the other one I said that all leptins are bad yeah and and then the other one that that I put out there as a myth but it's it's just to help people understand was that you absolutely have to cook pressure cook beans to remove all the leptins because I'd seen some people say well what about the people who don't have pressure cookers they live in a third world country whatever I'm like well you can still prepare them it's just that if you have a pressure cooker you should use a pressure cooker because it's so easy so easy so easy so easy so those are the myths and what people don't realize I think is they either haven't read the book or they didn't get to the phase three and they just don't understand the program they see the yes no list in phase two and think that's the program and I'm like well finish the book so yeah yeah I recently had a new patient from originally from India and it was interesting they said well everybody in India knows that when we have pulses like chickpeas or lentils you have to pressure cook them yeah and she said you know my mother taught me that my grandmother taught her and she said you know we blow up a few pressure cookers but everybody knows you got to do that I said well how did everybody know well because you know grandmother you know with us and passed it down and you know we've lost all that modern conveniences okay so you know you're you're superstars of the internet you have vibrant hells you're both gonna live to 120 yeah and good health what's next where do you where you go from here well your sounds like a book plug but in reality your longevity paradox book came out of the perfect time for us because we are deciding you know what do we do here and now we realize this is a lifelong thing our goal is to just be healthy as long as we can possible and we've decided we're gonna stay on the plant paradox lifetime and we'll probably stick with intermittent fasting yeah that time too because that has been a lot easier when I first saw you say I only eat one meal a day like that's crazy I do that all the time now it's not that hard so I think that's kind of our long-term and also we would love to get our kids yeah kids on them on the ball you get them on the program just because we have enjoyed such good health and when you have that in your life you want to share you want to share the good news and say hey do you want to feel awesome for the rest of your life do you want to be mobile and we just love sharing the message also I know you're starting to exercise yeah exercise for sure mm-hmm which has been very limited with everything that's going on so we're excited about that one I read a book a couple years ago actually before I started writing the longevity paradox the book is called I'm going to live 220 and it's basically says okay and the guy is 60 when he writes this and he says okay I have decided that I'm going to live 220 years of age what am I going to do now that I have decided that long to do that and so he you know he breaks down okay here is I'm gonna do this that's what I'm gonna do and how am I gonna get there and what am I gonna do along the way yeah and I think that's a great way to look at it rather than you know we're just rushing for for the end and you know it doesn't look very pretty how right how we you know we're not rushing to the end right yeah we're enjoying it smelling the roses along the way right okay well good so normally we have an audience question but today we have the audience here so Jan and Dave you're gonna ask me questions yeah all right and I love this question because so go ahead give me the first question so my question is because I have Crohn's disease even though I feel great I can't eat some of the like cruciferous foods I even basic iceberg lettuce if I eat too much of it I blow it up I get cramping I want to get to and I haven't even dared to eat spinach broccoli kale for the entire time I've been on the planet paradox because it affects me so badly so I want to know can I get my gut to a point to tolerate that and is there or are there supplements I can take to because I feel like I'm missing out on those nutrients so so it's interesting I just did a podcast with Ben Greenfield this week and Ben has actually had an epiphany Ben gets to have lots of epiphany and Ben says you know for years I was cramming kale smoothies down me I was eating green you know four times a day and then I can't remember if he said I'd listen to you or something but you started talking about tubers and resistant starches and of course in the longevity paradox I talked a lot about that and he says so I just made a change and now I'm eating mostly resistant starches and I'm not eating very many greens and he said what do you think about that well well hidden in the plant paradox is if you have any GI issues if you have irritable bowel if you have Crohn's if you have colitis don't come near these greens what people it's hard to get people to realize that all plants have lectins in them and they are the defense system and bitter greens are bitter because they're trying to tell you that you don't really want to eat me because I'm going to attack you and I'll tell you a personal story that I've shared before a few years ago my wife Penny bought a Nutribullet right and she said I'm gonna you know I'm gonna make you a kale smoothie pure kale smoothie now we kale do fine with it so she made a kale smoothie I drink it on the on the way to work and about you know an hour later tense cramps and then a few hours later you know I'm on the toilet and I want to eat kale all the time well what I hadn't realized was I was eating kale leaves and it was taking quite a while for my digestion to break all those down and and slowly hit those lectins what she had done inadvertently is expose every one of those lectin to an instant mom so you know so yeah so that's why you in general number one maybe can never eat those okay but number two you don't have to worry about those things well that's good I I happen to think there are some excellent components and cruciferous vegetables that you can take as a supplement and actually list them you know in the book so you're not missing out on anything now having said that don't you know beat yourself up that you know you're missing out okay okay we also had Dave Asprey on this program and Dave thinks kale is you know just lethal we should never eat kale so don't feel bad so I'll think of that okay all right no so you're not missing out on anything and yeah so and make sure you know when people are watching your YouTube they if you've got a bowel issue that's kind of the last thing I want to get in you right now okay and if you really want to get those things in you then cook them to their death before you eat them they should that helps they should be mush okay and actually try and experiment pressure cook them and see what you think okay okay and small points okay Jan your turn okay so as you know Dave and I have been on the plant paradox program for about two years at the beginning of the year we decided to introduce intermittent fasting and then about six weeks ago we decided to do kind of a keto version of the plant paradox I've noticed you know in that six week time I've lost ten pounds and about six and a half inches off my waist I want to continue to lose a little more weight before I had my health issues I was a very small I was like a size six on heavy days and I'd like to get back down to that do you think that I should continue the keto component along with plant paradox or what would your advice be with that and maintaining that size do you have to be on keto your whole life so to speak you know well interestingly enough most people who think they're on a ketogenic diet actually are never in ketosis I measure ketones in our office on blood work and one of the mistakes and I talk about this quite a bit is that people somehow think a ketogenic diet is a lot of protein and it's absolutely not yes and you'll notice chapter 10 of the plant paradox is the keto version of the plant paradox and I basically want people to eat about 80% of their calories as fat preferably olive oil avocados if you don't have the apoE4 gene and 30% of people do coconut oil is great MCT oil is probably safe for everybody so you can stay on that program really the rest of your life but I think one of the things we have to realize is that there's no evidence that our ancestors were always in ketosis and certainly looking at modern hundred hundred gatherers who still live in primitive conditions they clearly go through periods of ketosis where there wasn't any food or they're walking 20 or 30 miles to the next you know camp ground but when they hit the jackpot when it's fruit season or they find you know a hive or the animals are fat and they're all around them and you reach out and grab an animal they'll eat everything in sight and so the idea that we should always be in ketosis I think is a big mistake Dr. Joseph McCullough you know admitted that being in ketosis chronically made him worse to do Dr. McCullough's credit when he does something he dives in 100% and to find out you know what's going to happen and he's even now backed off that water fasting which a year ago he thought was the greatest thing since sliced bread and we know how bad sliced bread is so he now says you know I made a big mistake in recommending you know prolonged water fasting and I talk about that in the longevity paradox that people don't realize that we store our heavy metals in our fat cells and when we lose weight rapidly those heavy metals come out of our fat cells and our liver unfortunately has a really lousy system for detoxification of heavy metals so that this was actually proven years ago in the biosphere to experiment in Arizona right and if you don't know about it yeah so these guys lost about a third of their weight in six months and one of the the medical doctor Ray Walford from UCLA actually chronicled their heavy metals and they went sky high and they stayed high for a year before they came down to normal so you know prolonged water fasting I think prolonged rapid weight loss is not a good idea and it's okay to cycle Dr. Nicola likes you to break your ketosis once a week he does it with fruit because he's got two acres of organic fruit where he lives on his property I think it's better to break it with resistant starch like a purple sweet potato or something like that okay yeah and then get right on it yeah all right good thank you for those good questions and yeah that's a your question was spectacular because yeah you guys with GI issues just don't go there it'll be all right every healthy recipe has spinach kale if I like the staples I'm like even though I say more bitter more better in you that bitterness is saying you don't want to eat me but all about this so that's okay yeah I'll avoid you great but okay Dave and Janet it's so great to finally meet you please keep up the evangelical work you've obviously been duped and you know thanks for drinking so let's all have some Kool-Aid all right so that's it for the Dr. Gundry podcast live with YouTube so tune in next week I'm Dr. Gundry because I'm always looking out for you before you go I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes Google Play Stitcher or wherever you get your podcast because I'm Dr. Gundry and I'm always looking out for you