The following is an operation podcast production. However, my buddy, Dr. Wilbur Sowitz, who I love, and I hope after listening to him last week, you love and you follow and you've bought both books because I just think those are like, these are, for those of us trying to heal our relationship with food, having a deeper understanding of our microbiome is like, if you're there, I get it. I get it.
When I was first on my journey, I'd be like, just help me not try to kill myself with food. I don't care about my microbiome. And as the years went on and I started to treat myself with some dignity, I started to care about things like that. And I don't care yet.
Just bookmark this. Maybe this isn't your podcast, but also maybe this can be an inspiration of more reasons to start to eat in a way that's aligned with your values. I don't know. I'm just trying new things for us all, but lots and lots of beautiful feedback about last week's podcast 101, got health 101.
We're going into 201. Have you started to drink water before you drink your coffee? I tell you, Dr. Wilbur Sowitz, Dr.
B, you can really get a girl to change your behavior, at least over here. Always drinking water before my coffee, always thinking how many colors and how many vegetables I'm having in every single moment. I love a good game. I feel like he helps me with those sorts of things today.
On the podcast, we're talking more about this kind of stuff. We're going to talk about artificial sweeteners, which if you know me, you know, it's like one of the only things I ever want to talk about because I think they're the devil's greatest coup and get a little personal because Dr. Wilbur B and I are buddies. And I also want to say he's literally one of the kindest people I've ever met in my life.
He's taught me a lot about my gut, but he's also taught me a lot about kindness and true altruism, my definition of true altruism is giving without the need to receive this guy. That's what he's about. Anyway, so there's a little heartfelt stuff in our episode of what you're craving today. Sometimes it's about what you're craving.
Sometimes it's about why you're craving. This is a good why you're craving episode. And the thing I really love about Dr. B is that he makes it pretty simple and he's really like a harm reductionist at heart.
Something is always better than nothing. I love that. I've read books before about making myself healthier, that I've read two pages and I'm like, I just can't do this. I'm sorry.
I'm just going to go eat some Doritos now. God, I wish that story was true. Anyway, so we have part two of Will Belsa Witz today, who I love, who's just one of the greatest gastroenterologist around and is known for his two amazing books, Fiber Fuel Old and the Fiber Fuel Cookbook, which just came out two weeks ago. By the way, I also hit number two on the New York Times bestseller list.
Dr. B is obsessed with your poo. And so I just think it's so wonderful that it was number two on the bestseller list. You know what I mean?
Anyway, I know, stop talking Molly, but I just have to tell you one more thing, which is today's June 1st. Happy June, time flies when you're having fun and time flies when you're getting old. I'm getting old. I'm not saying you're getting old.
Just like all of a sudden it's June. I never know how that happens. And mark your calendar for the Sunday because we're doing this amazing workshop and there's still, like there's still time to sign up. You know what I mean?
You could sign up Sunday morning for all I care. But it's about like really getting skillful around learning how to trust yourself. So many people in my community, like I just can't trust myself. I just can't trust myself.
That's unacceptable. I'm sorry. I can't validate that. It's just unacceptable.
We need to get skillful. We need to get practice. We need to learn forgiveness. And that's what we're doing at this amazing online retreat full day.
You'll get the replay. You can sign up this minute on mollycarmel.com. It's going to be amazing. It's from nine to five Eastern times Sunday, June 5th.
And then if you can't get enough of me, I mean, I have enough of me, but maybe you don't. And I love you for that. Then following Monday, June 13th, we're doing coaching with Molly. Be there.
Be swear. Can't wait to see you. It's an amazing thing. It's just a big group of people asking questions, bonding, getting healthy, finding solution.
Count me in. And then every Tuesday morning, we have our intense Aussie class, eight AM Easterns, yonder time. That's my favorite part of the day. It's amazing.
And it's like, pay what you can. And if you're really looking into breaking up a sugar, we have this amazing online course. Everything found at mollycarmel.com. Okay.
The girl knows how to talk, right? Your girl Molly knows how to talk. I was on a doctor B and I were doing a Facebook live together and Instagram live together. Obviously, I'm a sensitive soul.
This one woman keeps on writing. The girl won't stop talking. Let him talk. I mean, it was like, I had to go to therapy about that particular comment.
I'm a sensitive character. I'm a sensitive character. Anyway, I love you. Listen to this.
This one 201 is really good. 101 was great. 201 is even better. The cliffhanger is over.
It's over. The cliff is here. I hope you enjoyed this beautiful episode of Doctor Will Be. Before we get too deep into the solution, as much as I love a solution, I want to talk about the problem a little bit.
Because I want to talk about the behaviors that people partake in that wreck the microbiome. One of the things I really want to talk about with you is artificial sweetener because I actually think it's like the devil's greatest coup. I think it has people believing everything's free and everything's okay. I want to know if that's true.
But I want to ask a specific question about it. But my understanding is that some of the ways that we behave with food take that rainforest and bring the plows into it and really wreck it. Maybe even unknowingly. I'm certain, binge eating your brains out as I did for many years, did a number on my microbiome.
I'm sure my year is a diet coke, did a number on it. It sounds like a lot of the behaviors that I partake in for the first 30 years of my life did a number on it. I want people to understand not just how to solve it, but maybe what they're doing right now. I think you and I are both something that's better than nothing people.
I know we're really similar. I mean, from my own experience, when I give up sugar and flour, it was like holy wow. When I gave up sugar and flour, I took on a lot of the traits of someone who has a healthy microbiome eventually. I don't think in the first years, I mean, this is 15 years in now.
And it's like it's been a series of surrenders and a series of getting healthier. I didn't do it all at once. I'm not made that way. And I had a lot of things I had to give up along the way.
I think it's, well, I would love for listeners to understand, hey, how do we wreck it? What are the main offenders of wrecking it? Which is in the way that like, okay, well, maybe if I quit artificial sweeteners, that'll be my first step of self love to get me and my microbiome, like back in cahoots. I think it's really, I personally want to know it.
I also have a question from someone on my production team that I have to ask, but we'll get to that in a minute. But I really don't hear about this. Yeah. So I think it's important to understand that each one of us has a personal story.
And unfortunately, our healthcare system is not designed to acknowledge and embrace that individual experience, but that experience, that journey that brought you to, you know, perhaps you're in the office with me or with you, Molly, that person that's there in front of us has an entire background that leads them up to where they are. And if the more that we understand about that background and that personal journey, the better we understand the best path forward from that place in order to heal. And so I think that there's value to kind of sitting down and actually, by the way, I think, you know, this Molly, but your listeners probably do not. I have an online course that I run and it's a seven week course and each week has a theme.
And the week that we're in right now, because we started in January, the week that we are in right now is about people actually doing this exercise that you and I are talking about, which is understanding your own personal journey to inform your future. I love a good inventory. Don't you? I love a good, I have people do a look at their diet and I mean, I do, I ask people to take a look and, you know, like, as a therapist, it's not actually my motives.
I think if we can't see the repetition of behaviors, what are we, how are you to fix it? Yeah. So, you know, when it comes to these things, there's, you and I could literally do an entire podcast to just answer this one question. So I'm going to go a little bit rapid fire.
If that's okay. I love rapid fire. You know, I used to be, but now people are describing me as a Southern or Southern or Southern. Well, they call it the stupes in the south, you know, just have some tea, talk it out.
I love it. I love both. You know, I really can go both ways. There you go.
So all food that goes in your mouth ultimately comes in the contact with your gut microbiome. It is a solid tube. So those dietary choices, which are on average about three pounds per person per day, which means that if I'm keeping the numbers nice and round so that's simple, that's about a thousand pounds of food per year during your lifetime. If you live the average life expectancy, that's about eight thousand.
People are eating three pounds of food a day. About that. You think so? Not more.
In some cases, I'm sure some people are more. I'm sure some people are less. But if you were to kind of take the average. That's really relieving to me.
I would have thought it was much more than that. I'm sure. Yeah. But if you think about that, that's a pound of every meal, you know, assuming you're having three meals.
And so if you think about that, that 80,000 pounds of food, which is coming into direct contact with your gut microbiome, that is going to be the number one thing that is going to shape your gut microbiome. And we know from studies that in less than 24 hours after a meal, you are already changing your gut microbiome, literally less than 24 hours. There are changes occurring as a result of what you just ate. Wow.
That I want to make sure I like just say this and I'm 43. So I'm not as bright as you. But I always people are always like, well, how do I love myself? How do I love it?
And I'm always like, self-love is an action. And like the thought that's coming to me is like, oh my goodness, like choosing what you eat imperfectly, whatever we'll talk about, do what you can do later. I'm sure. It's like, wow, it's such an act of self-love what you put into your mouth if it matters in a 24 hour.
If your relationship with your microbiome is that succinct in 24 hours, it really matters. There was this point where I was like, oh, oh, watch out. This is interesting that you say that, Molly, because this 24 hour thing that we're talking about comes from a study that was published in 2014. And for the people who are listening at home, you can Google this right now.
It's not hard to find. Just look for David, type in David, D-A-V-I-D, nature, 2014. All right. So the lead author's name is Lauren Savid.
He's from Duke. And basically, he's the one that showed us in 24 hours, you can change your gut microbiome. And when I read this paper, it actually changed my perspective on nutrition for me. I mean, it's working over here.
And it's better for worse, right? In a positive way and in a negative way. Well, for me, it was empowerment. It was empowerment.
I mean, it can change your gut in a positive way moving towards health, but it can also change your gut in a negative way in a 24 hour period. Yes. That is completely true. So you can sabotage your health by destroying your gut with your dietary choices, or you can make choices that will enrich the health of your gut microbiome.
And if we had to drill into the top six things that you can do that really are gut destroying behaviors, what would you call them? All right. So there's no more or less than six. That's just an idea.
Well, and there's not really a rigid voice, but let's go through a couple. Because these are, these are things that many people are going to not be surprised by. That's okay. But saturated fat.
Okay. All right. So saturated fat, which you will find predominantly in animal products, but you will also find in coconut, coconut oil, coconut milk. Be careful with that.
Sugar. Sugar is very inflammatory. Swoon, swoon. Yeah.
Totally inflammatory. What else? So let's see what else salt is, salt is definitely not healthy for the gut microbiome. Really?
Yeah. Okay. Processed foods. You know, there are, there are 10,000 chemicals, 10,000 in our food supply.
Most of which did not exist 100 years ago. Yeah. And very, very few of them have had any human study. And that makes up actually the majority of calories for most Americans.
Most Americans are eating 60 to 70% of their calories from processed foods. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, and there's individual stories of individual chemicals that we've identified as being potentially very harmful.
And yet actually they're still in the food supply. They're not taking out the food supply. So that's, you know, we have a problem in our country where things get approved very easily and then they can't be walked back. Yeah.
Absolutely. So alcohol, alcohol, alcohol, it's, you know, people will argue, well, isn't a little bit of alcohol good for you. And there is some evidence with red wine that a minor amount of red wine because it contains resveratrol. But the problem is that alcohol is by definition, it's a carcinogen.
So it predisposes to cancer and that resveratrol that you are drinking the red wine because you want to get resveratrol. Well, you don't have to compromise. You can get resveratrol from red grapes. But don't you love how America runs with that study and just is like drinking it by the bottle?
That's what, I mean, I lost my rights to alcohol, but that's how I would take that study. I'd be like, this is amazing. Yeah. Well, people want validation for their bad habits.
I mean, it's the bottom line. And let me be fully transparent. I enjoy a glass of wine here and there, but I think it's important for people to understand that if you have an unhealthy gut and you have a routine of consuming alcohol several times per week, I would strongly encourage you to cut that. Yeah.
So white flour. White flour is basically sugar. I mean, I really miss. You had me at that one.
I'm swooning over you. Yes. So we're talking about flowers, sugar, flour, white flour, sugar. And what about artificial sweetener?
Yeah. So our official sweeteners, I think the debate is not our artificial sweeteners good for us. I think what the debate is, how bad and are they actually worse than sugar? What do you think?
So, well, people who consume artificial sweeteners routinely are more prone to developing type two diabetes and insulin resistance than people who consume sugar. I would choose sugar like me, gone to my head, sugar over artificial sweetener, any, oh, sorry, over fake sugar, any single day of the week. Yeah. Can I ask you what you think about like, Truvia?
What about these trivia is like the new, like the natural kinds? Yeah. There's a lot that we don't know. What we do know is that again, anything that you put into your mouth is going to come into contact with your gut microbiome.
So it is highly likely that there is an effect of some variety with, you know, with Stevia, with monk fruit. Yeah. So yes, we just don't know, but they're not, they're also not classic artificial sweeteners that are basically derived in a lab. Right.
So, you know, from my perspective, let me just say first of all, number one, like I converted to when I saw some of these studies on our artificial sweeteners, I used to be a big splendid guy. Me too. Like two in a yogurt, like three in a coffee. Oh, definitely three in a coffee in multiple coffees a day.
I stopped drinking so much coffee when I gave up artificial sweetener. I was like, what was the difference variance? That's so gangster. I still have a lot of it.
I love it. I love it. I love the flavor profile of coffee. And I think about like the complexities and the notes and stuff.
Oh, that's so beautifully snobby. I aspire one day to drink my coffee black. It is not today. It is the small amount of dairy that I do put in a scream and it's just the love of my life.
We can get. And if we want sweeteners, you know, let me put this out there. If we want sweeteners, when you can use dates, that is the perfect sweetener because you are not giving up the fiber and the date has a nice sweetness to it, but it still is actually healthy for you. Right.
And so let me toss it a little quick little recipe to your listeners and this is sweet. I'm only if you want it. Well, I have to tell you as a sugar addict, I can't do dates. Yeah.
Do you buy that? Yeah. I would want to put like as many, I would want to do like a chipmunk with dates in my mouth. Oh, really?
Yeah. I think the dried fruits when the fruit gets dried like that, it just for me. I mean, listen, smoking if you got them, but yeah, for me, like, I'm, but I'm like a, you know, as it goes, I'm like of 12 out of 12, most in most things. And so there were some people like what they haven't burned out their sugar problem.
Like I have, it's probably going to be a delicious recipe that I'm going to, you know, hope and dream about. But tell us about it, of course. Well, and I think at the end of the day, you know, when it comes to sugar, there is no health advantage to these sweeteners, like for any of them, right? So nutrition is about substitutions.
There are ways to level up nutrition and make it look better. Yeah. So I feel nutrition is so about, and I want to make sure we get to this like, it's so about harm reduction, right? Like in the beginning of when you're trying to make a great change in your life, it's just about what can you do?
And then in my experience, and the experience of the thousands of people I've treated, it's like, that's what gets you moving closer. Like I can promise you something. If I hadn't just given up sugar and sugar and flour and then given up artificial sweeteners after that, and then, and then that was the first moment. And this is like three years then, that I kind of sort of loved myself enough where I thought, huh, this organic thing might make some sense for me.
Like in the beginning, it was like, I just didn't like myself enough to care about things like that. You know, it was really a function of how I thought about myself. And then I was like, oh, then I like really kind of got into like sitting down and thinking my food. And then I met you and now I'm like, Oh my gosh, look at all the color.
I just, I think it really, I think self love, we get self love, we get self love, health, we get self, it's like anywhere you can start is going to be a beautiful movement towards a full expression of health and certainly with your gut. Well, that. Don't you agree? Yeah.
Well, I think, you know, one of my big things is that first of all perfection does not exist. Absolutely. And to strive towards perfection is kind of silly because again, like it doesn't exist. Well, it's also like literally buying into diet culture, which is killing us.
Well, and what you do is when you strive towards something that's completely unattainable, then you set expectations that you can't reach. And when you fail to reach those expectations, you then are disappointed and that causes stress and anxiety and we already talked about how stress and anxiety actually can cause harm to your gut. So I think I'm sort of chatting with my guy, you know, I had this therapist once, as she looks at me and she says, well, I don't know how to live a miserable life. I was like, I guess it wasn't, she wasn't really asking me.
She was like, be a perfectionist. But it's so true, right? And I actually think one of the main problems that people have in their relationship with food is that they don't know how to make mistakes. Like we know how to make well, we're in healthy relationships.
We know how to make mistakes and make a mistake. We go make a reparation, try not to look at what happened, try not to do it again. EI, EI, with food, it's like, well, he said sugar wasn't good for me and I had Coca-Cola. So let's go out big tonight.
And I think that's just one of the main problems in all of it. It's like that Voltaire, right? Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good. Exactly.
I'm a big believer in progress over perfection. And so just set expectations that are actually attainable and know that you are good enough and you are well enough because you have the intention and sometimes it's one step forward, two steps back, but then you take three steps forward. Well, that makes my heart grow. That's so beautiful.
But I think that's like, because sometimes I think, you know, I always bring my sickest self with me to everything I do. And I think certainly when I'm having a podcast with like such intelligent people, the little like 325 pounder in me is like, oh, come on, this is impossible. This is no way, no way. And I think it's so important to say to somebody who's sitting here being like, are you guys joking?
It's like, we're not, but we totally understand if you can just take like one morsel out of this and move with it. Right? Like, that's what I always think. Like, there's one thing you can do.
One thing, these two things. And I love what you're saying. It's like, I was like, I'm like, I'm not going to step back. And then sometimes like six, who knows?
Who knows? Who knows? The World Star Oyster. Right.
And we're not, gosh, we're going so many directions. I can talk to you all day. I think this leads into one of my most favorite points, which I think is a function of being a doctor, trying to help people, being a therapist, trying to help people. But this idea of self determination, like being the key, like that's what the data that I, you know, you have like six, this is why I love us.
You have like 600 references in your book. My book's like 200 reference. I was like, like half of what we did was just get the data, get the data, get the data. And I think it really is important because to me, the reason I had so much data in my book was because I just feel like I owe it to people because there's so much misinformation out there by people who maybe shouldn't be giving it.
And I know this is something you feel really strongly about because every time you write about it on the screen, I write like 15,000 hearts and like, Hey, I'm OG's and prayer, I love an emoji. But it's really hard with all the conflicting diet culture stuff to figure out what's what. What do you think about that? I think that we, first of all, it is hard.
And I will readily acknowledge that. And I think that we need to have our antenna up for identifying who's actually like giving us legit advice because they want to see us better. And who has some sort of secondary agenda that they're not disclosing to you, but that they're actually trying to fulfill. And so let me give you an example.
A book comes out that encourages you to eat a specific diet. And they really say like there's this part of your food that is destroying your health. And the only way to be well is to eat this hyper rigorous diet, but for 50, 95, you can buy my supplement. And that happens.
And all the time, and people somehow like we need to see through that. We also kind of sad about that. Is that I'm so interested to hear anything about this is that people will say to me like, well, what supplements should I take? And I'm like, not a nutritionist, but I don't think necessarily any, right?
I mean, it's a doctor's deal, but I think this is more about diet culture and like this magic pill. What do you say to people or like, should I take a fiber pill? Should I take a dish? Should I take that?
What do you say about that? Well, I think that there are on an individual basis, there are supplements that may have value to individual people. I mean, there really isn't any such thing as a perfect diet that doesn't have flaws. So no matter what diet you eat, there's going to be potential where I could say, well, this supplement may be useful, but it doesn't need to start or it should not start with supplements.
It should start with our food. It should start with our lifestyle. Right. And so don't like somehow believe that the supplement is going to fix your problems because it's not, you can't take a C-Mongus-God and turn it into an A-plus by taking a supplement.
You can take a C-Mongus-God and turn it into an A-borderline A-plus with your diet and your lifestyle. And then the supplement may boost you from that borderline A-plus and just get you over the mind to the A-plus. Yeah. Let's talk about food and emotions.
So the podcast is called What You're Caving. So you have seen so many people. I've seen so many people. And I know in my gut that you have big long talks with people.
Right. And so what are your thoughts on what we're really doing when we're turning to sugar and unhealthy food and what? What's your real sense of it? What do you think we really need?
Yes, good question. I think that when we are, whether it is food addiction, which I think is why do we prevalent and not discussed enough? Thank you. Or alcohol addiction or anything of that variety.
I think that it's not so much a weakness of the individual. I think what it is is that the individual has something missing in their life and they're trying to fill that space with this substance, whatever, or maybe whether it be food or alcohol or drugs or whatever, maybe I think that that's sort of what drives this unhealthy relationship. And when you consume that addictive substance, again, whether it's food, alcohol or a drug, when you consume it for the most fleeting of moments, you get what you're looking for. Yeah.
And that's what brings you back time and time again. Yeah. And there's the downstream consequences that come from it. And those downstream consequences, like if it's a food addiction, can be waking and the loss of your health.
Or if it's alcohol, it can be that you get a DWI or you destroy your health, destroy your liver. Yeah. And then you can see the withdrawal symptoms. And so these downstream consequences start to show up.
But the problem is that if you haven't filled the void, which was the problem in the first place, then you continue to search for some sort of solution that can give you a temporary relief from that pain that you feel inside. Yeah. And that's the way that I interpret. No, I love that.
And I think sort of saying it with a gut, I mean, what my understanding also is there are so many emotional, you're saying there's major depression, disorder, there's IBS or anxiety, that's like our gut. Like I just, I know it personally, like even in my stomach pain, when I'm feeling anxious, you know, I'm holding on to things like it's also interconnected in that way. I think with food, like I know as a food addict as a substance addict, when we're talking about this depression, like when I gave up food and substance, I mean, when I gave up sugar flour substance, my mood lifted so significantly, I had hospitalized with migraine headaches. I'm like the poster child for this hospitalized for migraine headaches.
You know, and yes, did I do like some emotional work, absolutely to do some spiritual work without question. So, so much of it was solved when I eliminated these things that were really harming me. Like like my cravings dissipated significantly when I stopped doing the thing. It's hard to do that.
And it's interesting that you say that, Molly, because what really to me, it goes back to our prior conversation that in less than 24 hours, you can change your gut microbiome, your gut, these microbes, they don't just exist. Okay, they're not passively there along for the ride. This is literally a chemical factory. And what that means is that the food choices that you make when they come into contact with your gut microbes, the chemicals in those foods will be transformed.
And they can be transformed into something that does good for your body and is anti-inflammatory. So we talked about butyrate coming from fiber. And that's an example of that. You can release these post-biotic, that's the word that we would use for this post-biotic butyrate, which heals the body.
Wow. And it's like you can have a bunch of plants. Is that what we're saying? Just a background.
And it's going to be a bunch of plants, right? That's the way for me to have a bunch of plants. But on the flip side, what happens when you sugar? Okay.
So what was happening with your body is that you consume the sugar and that sugar actually is empowering specific families of microbes. Wow. But the families that we're talking about are the inflammatory microbes. Like the mafia.
Like the mafia was like taking over my body. And that's the issue. And this is the reason why by the way, no surprise migraine headaches connected to an unhealthy gut, right? So if you were sitting in my office, I would say, Molly, the root of this problem, I'm not saying this is the only part of the problem, but the root of this problem exists in your gut and the unhealthy connection between the sugar in your diet and these gut microbes, which is having downstream consequences throughout your entire body.
It's setting off an inflammatory cascade, which results in a change in mood, which results in migraine headaches. Yeah. And it also is controlling your cravings. And we do believe that we need more studies to prove this.
Slow it down, friend. Slow it down. It is controlling my cravings. Tell me more.
Well, and that's what I was going to say is that we do believe, even though we need more studies to prove this, we believe that these microbes have the ability to actually affect our impulses. Wow. And the reason why is because you have to understand that their life cycle is very short. Wow.
Like we go through one day and during that one day of human experience, there's a new generation of microbes every 20 minutes. So there could be literally about 75 generations of microbes that are bred in one day. Well, 75 generations of humans would take us back to the pyramids, right? And that's one day.
And that's why these microbes are evolving so quickly. And so what they're trying to do is they're trying to protect themselves. And like it or not, the bad guys, the ones that are there to create inflammation, they're trying to survive. And they have adapted ways to be able to basically hijack our impulses and make us crave those specific foods because if we don't eat those foods, they die.
Legently go away. Do we those foods? But there have been times where I've been out to dinner and not so careful. And I've had like a sauce that certainly has like a sugar, a flour, and a butter.
And I've had a lot of people who are like, I can't believe I live my entire life like this. Like, you know what I mean? I'm having this moment where it's this kind of unconscious thing that happened. I'm so conscious about it.
And I think that's like an important piece. And I mean, and then you add trauma on top of it. And like what the what? Yeah.
Now that's that actually is I think one of the most important conversations for people to hear, which is, and I have made this a huge part of my course because the most challenging patients that I come across in my gastroenterology practice are the people who have been the victim of trauma or abuse of some variety, whether it's physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, or a combination, those people will not heal in terms of their gut. They can do everything right. They can eat the perfect diet. They can sleep.
They can exercise. They can meditate. But if this trauma continues to exist in their subconscious, they may not even be aware that this is an ongoing issue. They may not feel like it's a problem.
Wow. But if this is an open wound, that open wound is destroying them from the inside. It is destroying their gut microbiome. And so the path to healing for those people is not through food.
I mean, food is going to matter. Don't get me wrong. Right. But the path is not so simple as eat this, not that the path is not so simple as sleep more and exercise.
The path is to get the support and the help that you need from the appropriate health professionals so that you can take on this issue. The path is healed. Yeah, the path is healed. It's so interesting.
It's such a snowflake, right? Because I mean, there's a part where I believe wholeheartedly, like it's not about the food and yet it's all about the food, right? Because sometimes it's really hard to get the clarity you need while you're doing, you know, so harmful things with food in your body. And yet sometimes, and I would say this across the board, I've had patients that I've said, we have to do the trauma work first because that's how it goes.
And it's just if you're listening and you're like, what do I do? You know, it's challenging. And I think this is the part where diet culture really harms us because there's such a stigma against, I hate this word, maybe most in the world failure. But to me, it's just trial and error, right?
Like, okay, well, that didn't work. Let me see if the trauma therapy works. Okay, that didn't work. Let me see if like, I think there has to be this like science scientific view of how you approach your health that comes with what happens in science, which is, oh, the study didn't work.
Okay. And then the first question that comes when we're talking about our bodies and our lives and our health that it's like, well, if this doesn't work, I mean, I was thinking about if you had treated me back in the day, and I just would have been full of trauma, but mostly like mistrust and I'd been like, no, no, you know, I was so hands up, willful, like, no, no, that's why my bottom had to be so ugly because I was so, you know, again, I was so scared to take another risk of having somebody help me and fail again. You know, I really, I really get that part. I think that's what a lot of people I interact with, I'm sure you interact with, I'm sure you interact with, like, are you joking?
Plants? Why do you think plants are gonna work? You know, it's like, what's the, what if it works? Well, I think it's, we're trying to rise to the tide.
Yeah. And when you rise to tide, everything floats along with it. And so we don't want to leave opportunities for substantial health improvements on the table that we could take. Yeah.
And eating more plants in variety, in abundance, without restriction, eating until you're full, like not counting calories, but just counting the number of plants and you die. I don't count calories. I don't count grams of fiber. I count how many plants are in my diet.
I love that concept. I love that idea. In the beginning, sometimes I think when you're not doing plants, it's sometimes wise to just get an eyeball on how much it is. But I think with plants, yeah, gosh, I couldn't imagine having to count that.
That hurts my heart. But I guess it happens since all the macros of all of it, which I don't know, like, is me headache. And it's unnecessary. And I think that that is, again, you're injecting stress into your food and you're creating complexity that doesn't need to exist.
And you know, the beauty of it. You're injected stress into your food is literally the best thing. I have no words. It's hard to make me speechless friend.
It's hard to make me say, you are, that's right. I think that's right. So hypervigilant about all of it, you end up injecting stress into your food, which I'm sure does a number on the hormones. Am I right?
Am I even a doctor? Yeah. Well, it's not going to do your body any good and you're not going to get the end result that you truly want. I mean, it's like you said before, you can lose the weight, but are you actually healthier in doing that?
I mean, there's many ways where we can describe how a person looks great on the outside and is falling apart on the inside. Oh, yeah. That's our origin story. You and me too, right?
Look at us now. I want to talk just a little bit about values. I believe so wholeheartedly in creating a relationship with food and in so creating a relationship with yourself. And when you're saying like, you know, you know, variety of plants and don't count, I mean, to me, that's like almost a value.
You know, like if you subscribe to that, that really is going to be able to integrate really nicely. I always think about integrity. When I think about my relationship with food and life in life, I try to live in integrity imperfectly. I think about you to me seem like a really peaceful person who has a lot of serenity.
And I am fascinated by people like you because I may seem that way, but I do a lot of work to be that way. I'm not sort of wake up that way, but I meditate and I pray and go to some spiritual. I do a lot of stuff to get sort of baseline and wake up pretty crazy. My friend told me this quote the other day that actually really reminded me of you and I wanted to tell it to you.
It's from San Guru. And he says, I have nothing to prove to anyone. And so it's easy to be generous. I can make me cry to think about, you know, you to me are one of the most authentically generous people I know.
How are you like that? Like you're just like giving. You just say yes to things. You show up and you show up for patients.
You show up for people. You show up for children. When you're doing online courses or on Instagram and it doesn't seem it just seems like who you are. How did you get like that?
That's just what I am. You're so lucky. I, you know, I think that one of the biggest things for me was growing to understand myself and getting comfortable with who that person is. And how did you do that?
It took a long time. Yeah. I was very insecure for a very long time. I'm extremely, it didn't matter what was happening in my life.
And eventually I started to transition into this place where you have, I mean, for me, it just felt like I have the training. I have the education. I have the experience. I don't feel like there's anyone who has like, I feel like I'm in a position to help people.
So I don't need more of that. Like I don't need more of the education, the training. Let's do it. Let's go.
And um, how do you not like, I get imposter syndrome from time to time to time to thought, like what do you, it seems like that's, it's like water rapid. I don't know how that I know. How is that? I just don't have it.
Never? Well, because like, so this, this, this comes out like I, this is not intending to sound cocky or something like that. But there's a part of me who, you know, four years ago, I, you might as the gram count, when I had a thousand followers on Instagram, my wife was like, whoa, you have a thousand followers on Instagram. I was like, yeah, it's crazy.
Right. And so, but I looked at the people who were the ones that were like the public in the public guy writing the books. And I thought to myself, I'm like, hold on, why, why is this entire country taking advice from this person? Wow.
They're giving bad advice. And they're not qualified to give you that advice. Why are we, of all the people, why are we listening to this person? Yeah.
And so, and part of that for me is that it's not like intending to be snobby about it. But I come from this academic background where I was surrounded by like literally the, the top, you know, the top researchers in my field in the country. And so to then see someone who I don't really view as being qualified to talk about what I was talking about, and that's who's getting all the attention and the one who's going out the advice and people are taking it. I, I just felt like it's not, it's not right.
You know, we're on zoom. We're looking at each other and I'm tearing up when you're telling the story. Because this doesn't sound cocky to me at all. Like this actually sounds like a calling.
Like, like, and when in my experience briefly, like when you clear out all the nonsense and you can really hear the calling inside of you, it's like a Tetris board. It just clears out. It's easy. And that's what I'm hearing actually.
Yeah. I think that actually makes a lot of sense. I'm not. I never really sort of team jibbly sat there.
There was never a moment where I was like, this is my calling. I'm going to do this. Well, Instagram moments pretty close, right? When you're like, wait, these are the people that are trying to help people.
I don't like that. I was, but I wasn't necessarily sitting there and saying that four years later, I'm going to try to replace them. Well, who can tell the future, my friend? But well, I think what it was more than anything was that, you know, there definitely was a part of this that was a calling because I felt like the conversation as I was seeing it playing out in the research, like I was reading these papers and I was seeing this, the conversation on nutrition, I was like, we're missing the point.
Yeah. And this happened to me too. Like, I was like, I'm going to write this book because they're in a book out there that says the thing that I think really people need to hear. I'm with you.
For me, I wasn't, I wasn't planning to write a book at all. I never grew up thinking that I would ever be an author. It was never my dream to be an author or be in your time's bestseller. You're such a good author.
But the thing for me was that I felt compelled to share a story and that started initially on social media very humbly. You can literally go back to my old posts and see that I had like, you know, 25 people that like post. And I then transitioned into doing podcasts like we were doing right now. And then in the summer of 2018, I did a podcast with my friend Simon Hill from Plantproof and we viral and it's like literally hundreds of thousands of people listen to this podcast.
And I started getting messages from people from around the world telling me how I changed their life. Wow. And I realized that there was tremendous power in not only the message that I was trying to spread, but also I realized that there was the ability to scale it up to share with as many people as possible. And that felt important to you from a value's perspective.
And that was important to me. Well, because as a doctor for me, so yes, I'm saying like if I went into this with the intent being money, if that was the intent, I would have been a banker. No, I'm not here. No, I'm not here.
My friends who like, you know, I went to Vanderbilt for college. My friends who went into banking were making a million dollars a year in their 20s. And I was making $40,000 a year with literally a house full of debt from my medical education. Right.
So, so I took a different path and that's because the teenage boy in me wanted to try to help people. And the dream was to have a job where you can actually use your skills to try to enhance other people's lives. Right. And so that's why I chose to be a doctor.
And I thought that I would just be a doctor. And but as this started to play out, you know, I started the social media, then this podcast and we viral and I realized I needed to get this word out and that people deserved to hear this. And I felt like the ultimate form of communication that exists at the end of the day. And it will always be this way is a book.
Yeah. Because like breaking up with sugar, how much time, how many months did you spend on my book? I wrote that book in 90 days. That's incredible.
Most people are not like. I don't really know how that happened. It's a long story, but it was just like, yeah, I have to say I'm a very spiritual person. So I actually think there was a lot of help from the divine there and I have an incredible team around me, but we wrote it in 90 days.
It's not bonkers. So just to put this in perspective for everyone listening at home, let me tell you what happens with most normal human beings. I decided in August of 2018 that I wanted to write my book and I got my book deal in November of 2018 and I spent the next year and a half grinding and my book came out May of 2020. So it takes, it's a lot of effort.
But the beauty of the book is that you can take like literally a year's worth of work that I put it invested my energy, my emotion, my skills, my education. I put it all into this one place and you can read it in a weekend. Yeah, I read it unless then that you left it all in the field. I love that.
But I have to say there, I don't know if you see it, but these values are everywhere. I think you are so like that's on Guru Kote. I just, I think you don't have anything to prove to anyone because you have such a knowing inside of you and it just allows you to be so I think you're so generous even with your Instagram. I think you're so generous with how you give to all of us.
I mean, I'm your friend. So I like scored mother load, but I think even just as someone on your Instagram account, like go on there, like you are so generous with how you give and what you give. It's aspirational. I mean, you've improved my giving.
I look to you as a real person I want to be like in these ways, you know, because I can get real stingy sometimes. I just, you know, I think that at the end of the day for me, I just do the best that I can. It's pretty good. And what really fuels me and motivates me is that because they don't get me wrong.
I think we all have our doubts. And you have moments where you're like, is this really worth it? Like I'm working until 10 o'clock every night. Is this really worth it?
And but then you get a message from someone that told you that you reverse their psoriasis. And you know, or a person who says that you changed their life and they have a healthy relationship with their food. Yeah. And they didn't have that before.
And these moments, like, I don't know if the person who's sending me the text message realizes how much I emotionally connect with what they're sending me. Yeah. But I definitely emotionally connect with what they're sending me. And it just, it makes me so excited for that person because I know that that's a real human.
Yeah. It's not just like a text message. And it gets me so excited, but also it validates all the effort for me. It makes it all worth it.
You put in the time and then you actually get to help people. Yeah. But I think that's the point. I mean, to me, like that I don't have urges and cravings when I'm really authentically helping people.
I mean, and I'm really in the flow of life. So let's go back to gut health for a minute. We've been talking for so long. I could talk to you for years.
I mean, I've gotten to anything I want to talk about. I love podcasts like that, don't you? If you had to, if you had to give us some quick and dirty, you know, I like the perfection is the enemy of the good, right? Then you give me five, six, seven ways that I can work to improve my gut health in this minute right now, in like me, my love.
Like literally this minute right now. That's a lot of pressure. No, not this minute right now. Like in the next week, if I wanted to do one or two things to start the road to self love and start this reparation with my relationship with my gut, because I want to be happier and I want my hormones to be in line and I want to be able to poo better the whole nine, yeah, the easy poo, as you would say, you know, yeah, enjoy.
I think I think that God helps you matter to everyone. I do too. Even if you're healthy, you want to stay that way. And I've already told you that this is connected to your digestion, to your immune system hormones, your metabolism, your brain, your mood, your memory, your expression of your genetics.
And this is too important to neglect. Absolutely. And so, I think it really starts with, first of all, I want to meet people where they are. So I didn't like suddenly wake up one day and be whole food plant based.
I went through several years of changes and there was a lot of imperfection that was in there. And when you hear about the standard American diet, which is 60 or so percent processed foods and 30% animal products and 10% plants where in that 10% the number one plant is french fries. Whoa. Yeah.
So that's the standard American diet. Well, guess what? Like I was worse than that. So if that's where you are, you're not that bad.
I was worse than you. That's really my heart warm. Thank you. Well, and this is, this is like, I'm here to meet you where you are, not to give you rigid rules, but instead to point your compass in the right direction, I don't think I would hate you that much.
If I was at my stick of self in your office, I think I might warm to you. You're a special guy. And really to help people to make that progress because again, it goes back to progress over perfection and don't set a goal that's ridiculous, set a goal that is completely obtainable and you can do it. It matters to you.
I mean, that's a big one too. So what are some of the things that we could set as goals? All right. Number one.
So we've been talking, you and I have been alluding to this concept of diversity of plants throughout the entire conversation. Yeah. And here we are and we're 90 minutes in. Let me just break this down exactly how this works.
Okay. Because people, I want you guys to understand why this matters, why diversity of plants is the way to go. So our gut, our gut health is measured by diversity. Biodiversity is the measure of any ecosystem in terms of its health and then includes our own gut.
And in order to get biodiversity, diversity meaning that we want as many different species as possible. We need to feed them. And their preferred food is fiber, but not just like generic fiber, I'll just take your Metamucil and call it a day. Not like fiber one cereal that I could like hover in like a vacuum.
Each plant has its own unique types of fiber that feed specific families and microbes. These microbes are picky eaters. They have personalities. And so what we want is we want to feed all of them.
When you eat a wide variety of plants, you get a wide variety of fiber to feed a wide variety of microbes, diversity of plants translates into a healthy gut microbiome. And this is not just an idea that Dr. B came up with. I wouldn't come forward with this if it wasn't validated and it is validated.
It would be a large study to date to connect the health of our gut microbiome to our diet and lifestyle choices found that the single most powerful predictor of a healthy gut was the diversity of plants in your diet. So for the person who just wants to get the ball rolling, literally the easiest thing that you can do is go and pick out one plant that you haven't had in the last few weeks at the supermarket, bring it home and figure it out. One new plant a week. That's a great one.
Yeah. Because that's very reasonable. I started doing that. Yeah, I started doing it.