Using Nutrition and Functional Medicine To Enhance Energy and Mood | Podcast #302
It’s summertime! Summer is the hottest of the four seasons. With the summer heat, this affects our body, activities and our energy level. For today’s podcast, Dr. J and Evan Brand share tips on how we keep our energy up and running. More of the information below. 
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
1:02 Electrolytes
07:05 Staying Hydrated
15:47 Adrenal Fatigue or Dysfunction
21:44 Cortisols
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey guys, it’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani here. I hope everyone’s having a fabulous day. I’m here with Evan brand, we’re going to be chatting about ways to enhance your energy. In the summertime when the heat is here, certain things have to be done to really keep your energy up. And we’ll kind of start out here with electrolytes first before we do, Evan, how are we doing today, man?
Evan Brand: I’m doing really well, actually just got done. I would show you the color. But now it’s just clear. But right before this was water, this was electrolytes. And I’ve been doing that every single morning. And my oldest daughter now she begged me every morning Daddy, Daddy, I want electrolytes. Okay, and she loves it. I put a little beet powder in there for her too. And she sucks it down. If you want her to drink an entire mason jar of water. How do you get her to do it? You put electrolytes in it. It’s amazing.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s awesome. Is this week with any stevia at all to give it a little more flavor now?
Evan Brand: Yeah, yeah, there is stevia in there.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, that’s good. Yeah, cuz electrolytes by themselves, especially with high amounts of potassium. Pretty, pretty raw.
Evan Brand: Yeah, these are good ones. These Good, these are my brand that we that we make. So they’re good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s good. Yeah, how I start my day every day I go downstairs and I have a nice big mason jar, probably maybe 12 or 16 ounce size mason jar, I fill it up and I use the Redmond Real Salt minerals just kind of coat the bottom and I just do two full swigs of it kind of get 25 or 30 ounces down to start the day. I also when I when I finished my shower, I also do a cold shower and I kind of drink as much as I can out of the overhead shower when it’s cold at the end. So I try to get about 30 or 40 ounces with extra electrolytes to start my day that’s important. Especially in the summer, people are starting their day with a coffee or some kind of a natural diuretic. If you don’t really hydrate intentionally in the morning, you’re going to deplete your minerals. And especially when it’s hot and you’re sweating, you’re going to lose more minerals on top of that, so it’s very important in the summer, especially when you’re engaging in a diuretic like a coffee or tea. You really have to start your day intentionally with at least 30 ounces of water, clean filtered water ideally reverse osmosis process And you really got to intentionally add some additional electrolytes back there to make sure you kind of prime yourself to start the day.
Evan Brand: Yeah. And people are like, okay, that’s such low hanging fruit. It is. But it’s something that 99.9% of people don’t do and it has a massive impact on your energy levels. I will tell you, if I skip a couple of days, and I’m not doing electrolytes, my energy will tank and I will tire more easily. So if I’m outside, cutting up a tree, or, you know, I was cutting down some honeysuckle and getting that crap cleaned up. If I don’t have electrolytes in my system, I tire out more easily. So would you say that this is just due to minerals that are fueling Krebs cycle or what do you think’s happening? When you’re noticing fatigue and someone who’s dehydrated or depleted of minerals?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, a couple things right? So our cell membranes work through the sodium potassium pump, right? sodium and potassium out, right? What is it I think it’s two sodium at three sodium into potassium out right? This is the sodium potassium pump. This is how our cells work. So If we aren’t getting enough sodium and potassium, our cell membranes are not going to work correctly. Also our nervous system and how nerves work think of electrolytes as the liquid wiring that helps our nerves conduct in our body, right? We know something called hyponatremia happens many times a year around marathon time when people over hydrate, they actually dilute their electrolytes and they can create a heart attack, the heart just stops, they go into cardiac arrest. Why? Because we need adequate levels of electrolytes for our nervous system and for muscles to work, right? You see this at a subclinical level with cramping? Okay, you can see this at a more acute level with a cardiac arrest due to hyponatremia. So we know electrolytes play a really important role for our muscles for our heart, but we know the adrenals play a big role too. So when someone has adrenal dysfunction, right or the slaying is adrenal fatigue, I like dysfunction better because it’s more descriptive because some people can have this functioning adrenal cortisol is high or low or just somewhere in between but imbalanced. So adrenal fatigue just kind of portrays one side of the adrenal, you know, the adrenal being low, but we know it can it can dysfunction, a lot of different ways that your adrenals play a major role in you holding on to your electrolytes. People think, well, I’m getting enough electrolytes, but they’re not counting in the fact that they have adrenal dysfunction, which makes it harder to hold on to your minerals, because you make things called aldosterone, which are mineral corticoids that help you hold on to your minerals. And the weaker your adrenals are, you may be picking up your minerals at a higher levels that way you got to you got to go over the top. So I start my day with really good fluids, really good minerals. I like Redmond Real Salt. You could probably do Celtic or Himalayan as well. And my wife kind of brought it to my attention last week. She’s like, I’m really chronically thirsty. And then we kind of looked at her routine and she started her day with two cups of coffee with no water. I’m like, that’s what it is. She had a little bit of mastitis last week, you know from You know, breastfeeding and I think a lot of the mastitis happened to just not having a fluid in her lymph. Now, we treated the mastitis with ginger and po group and then infrared light that works phenomenal knocked it out and 24 to 48 hours, no issues. But we looked at what was the root cause, right? We felt like the root cause was just not getting enough hydration to start the day and starting the day with the diuretic that depleted her.
Evan Brand: Yeah, my wife had that wants to when, when my little girl summer was little she had it and we ended up doing I think it was a dehydration issue too, because she was doing coffee in the morning, but we ended up doing like a topical coconut oil lavender essential oil mix, and just rubbing, rubbing, rubbing towards the nipple and then boom. It worked. It was miserable. I mean, it was like the flu. I mean, she got hit like a train. I mean, she was sweating. She had a fever. I mean, it was like whoa, what is wrong with you? And then as soon as that cleared up, all her symptoms went away. It’s kind of crazy.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, a couple easy, natural thing that’s been around for a long time is Poker poker works phenomenal. It really helps with the limp and just kind of takes all that coagulation of all those cells kind of stuck together and it kind of loosens it all up. And you can do ginger as well. Ginger is great as well, those are phenomenal. And then if you have access to red light, red light slash infrared light, it’s even better because that just kind of just calms down the inflammation. And then it really helps just kind of dissolve any clots or agglutination that’s happening in there. So I like it. But the last thing you want to do is get your wife on antibiotics that can be passed down to the baby. So there’s a lot of natural solutions out there so we can we can easily just kind of book in this part of the podcast for a separate video on mastitis poke rose how to be a phenomenal thing as well. And gingers going to be a phenomenal thing as well. And then if we kind of go back to the root cause of our episode here is getting me electrolytes and the hydration to start the day is so important because when you don’t have enough fluids to start the day, you’re more prone to inflammatory issues like this. Now this is, you know, mastitis in the breast tissue but you could just have it Extra inflammation anywhere in your body due to not having enough good fluids and good minerals for sure.
Evan Brand: Yeah. So if you’re like, well, I’m a 50 year old woman I breastfed 30 years ago, okay, this still could apply to you because we’ve seen women with various types of edema, where if you kind of grab your ankle and push your thumb in and you’ll see that pit in the, in the front of your shin there that could be related to some type of a lymphatic issue as well. So yeah, hydration is definitely key. And I mean, here’s the deal. I try really, really hard to to stay hydrated and I still probably don’t do a good job. I’ve got the clearly filtered that I keep on my desk just in case I run out and that we’ve already got a glass to pour but man makes you wonder how our ancestors had such you know, I don’t know, we don’t know. But how were they hydrated all the time. I guess they would just stop at a river and drink straight out of the creek and they were probably they were probably not as stressed as we are. So maybe they weren’t depleting as much minerals from the adrenal perspective. Or the the food may have had more nutrition in it? Of course it did and maybe more moisture in it too. I don’t know it just it makes you wonder like we’re our ancestors sitting around drinking mason jars all day. No. How did they stay so hydrated?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I mean, they had access to wells and rivers and there wasn’t the pesticide runoff for all the chemicals. I mean, you wouldn’t touch that today. But you know, also, for our ancestors got a parasitic infection and had severe diarrhea. I mean, it could have easily died, right, we still know amoebic dysentery is like the third, the top five causes of death in third world countries. So we know parasites are kind of a big deal across the world when there’s when there’s not clean filtered water or access to antibiotics if needed. I mean, a lot of these cultures are smarter, they have kind of their own herbal medicines like like we’ve formulated for our patients to help these things, but some people don’t have access to that. So for sure, so the water the hydration components really good and we want to keep it clean. My natural kind of electrolytes support which people don’t Want to start them that you can do celery juice, celery juice is excellent. It’s a lot of really good minerals in there and it has a lot of potassium. So you can get about 20 to 25% of your potassium in one day in certain celery plus, that slows a whole bunch of other many minerals, sodium and chloride. Other things besides just the potassium, but potassium is huge. and celebrate just primes a lot of these minerals that are needed for digestion, right, a lot of the minerals that are needed for hydrochloric acid. So I love celery juice, if you want to start your day with, you know, a couple glasses of water and some good minerals and then throw in some celery juice later, then that really Prime’s up your potassium because the two biggest minerals people are missing on the electrolyte side is going to be potassium and magnesium. sodium and chloride. Don’t get me wrong, people aren’t getting good forms of it, but it’s in a lot of processed food. So people still get a lot of access to it even if they’re eating a standard American diet. Now, I’d argue it’s not the best form, right? We want one that’s full spectrum like when you do like a Redmond Real Salt or high quality seesaw, you’re getting 60 or 70 different trace minerals along with that sodium and chloride. So you’re not just getting one thing, two things, you’re getting a combination of different things, which I think is important. And then we can always add in the magnesium and potassium because those are just hard to get in FDA I think, or CDC, one of the two says that 50% of the population is deficient in magnesium. And I would say about the same is deficient in potassium, if you have any kind of heart issue or arrhythmia stuff, or is anything on the cardiovascular side don’t look any further than magnesium and potassium. They really move the needle a ton. Go ahead.
Evan Brand: Yeah, Carolyn Dean. She’s a medical doctor. He’s written extensively about a fib and other heart issues, and it’s all about minerals and repeating minerals and talking about the soil being depleted. I mean, so minerals in the heart go hand in hand, which is why we talked about when electrolytes are low, you’re going to have issues with energy. So the reason that this kind of spurred today’s conversation was I had a woman over the We can email in and say, Hey, I’m wanting to get in my garden and be active and be outside, but I’m just I’m too exhausted. And she was sleeping fine and diets dialed in and all that. But what are the other missing pieces and it could be something as simple as electrolytes. Now, obviously, when it comes into fatigue and chronic fatigue, we talk about all the different branches of that all the time. But we’re talking today about some of the more action steps you can do regarding low hanging fruit, like the electrolytes, but then let’s go into some of the herbs because there’s a lot of things I do in the summer differently. That kind of keep me going, specifically rhodiola is something I bring out more in the summertime because I’m a lot more active in the summer. I’m riding my bike, at least a few miles a day, and I’ve got this little kid carrier so I strapped my daughter onto the back of the bike and I’m pulling her in this carrier and that thing’s heavy. So it requires a lot more work. And so I’ll usually do somewhere to two to 500 milligrams of rhodiola and I can tell you 100% of my I guess you would just call it my peak output. Imagine if I’m like a electric motor, my peak output of wattage coming out of my legs is much higher on I’m on rhodiola, as opposed to when I’m not.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: On this makes sense too, because we, we always talk about the root cause, right? Like, of course, there could be a root cause of just like one, you’re doing too much of a diuretic, and you’re not getting enough of those nutrients and minerals, those micronutrients in the morning, right? That’s always possible, and that’s the low hanging fruit. The second thing is just your need and demand for it’s much higher, right? So you could be having high levels of cortisol or chronic stress, which is going to cause you to dump more potassium, you can go pull open and guidance, physiology. And you can go to the endocrine portion of that or the kidney section of that book, where it talks about cortisol actually increases potassium dumping. Now, this is important. So you may be going on chronometer, right, Justin health.com slash crono meter and because I tell my patients to go there and run their minerals throughout the day, like you can put your breakfast your lunch and your dinner meal in there. And that calorie calculator will look at micronutrients, which is great. And it will obviously look at the macros most look at the macros, this looks at the micro. So it’ll look at your B vitamins and your magnesium and your potassium. And you want about 45 to 4700 milligrams of potassium a day. And then maybe about a gram or so of the magnesium per day. And again, it depends because certain magnesium is like a mallet or a glycinate. They absorb better than like a citrate or an oxide. So it just depends on what kind of magnesium but maybe about 1000 or so total a day, right, everything all factored in. Some people need a little bit more because they’re dumping these things out. Now, you’ll dump potassium out when there’s cortisone stress issues, you’ll dump a lot of magnesium when you’re consuming lots of carbohydrate and alcohol and you’ll dump a lot of B1, especially when you’re doing a lot of alcohol. It’s why a lot of friends people that are Irish descent, there’s a lot of b1 deficiency because there’s a large percent of alcoholics so B1s really important. And B1 can create hard issues to write berry berries. Which is a deficiency for B1, which is B1 is timing right? Find means B one, B two is riboflavin B three is niacin. And berry berry is Swahili it means I can’t, I can’t because the heart can’t pump I can’t, I can’t. So b one’s really important. So what alcohol and sugar and carbohydrate, you’re going to drive B one deficiency. With a lot of that too. You can also drive magnesium deficiency, and that can affect your nerves and your heart and your mood. Magnesium is a natural sedative so it helps you relax. And then of course, our potassium, potassium can help with the heart as well. It’s going to help with blood pressure, it’s going to help with mood. Anytime you affect your cell membranes fluidity and how your cell membrane works, right? that’s going to affect so many different issues, so many different issues. And it’s like, we need to have healthy cells to work for our bodies to be healthy in the first step for healthy cells outside of good hydration and not putting a whole bunch of toxic soup. There is going to be sodium and potassium.
Evan Brand: Yep. So I think a good test, like if you’re somebody who’s getting into this adrenal testing could be valuable. So we do both. We do saliva, we do some urine. I’ve done some blood just to see. But I just wanted to confirm everything that you and I’ve learned, which is kind of that blood testing for cortisol is typically useless. But I wanted to compare and contrast and so I’ve done some blood testing for adrenals. And it was pretty much useless overall. And reason why you and I’ve talked about this before, but unless you have a very big problem, blood doesn’t really change much. It’s not functional. It’s more of like disease state or not disease state, whereas the urine and the saliva we’re running are a lot more functional. So you mentioned this adrenal fatigue or adrenal dysfunction. You know, we’ve seen people who are exhausted, but their adrenal cortisol is showing sky high and vice versa. We’ve seen people who they say they quote feel fine and their adrenal cortisol is flat. So rather than, you know, I’m not going to mention tired people who want to go play in the garden, I’m not going to say go take a bunch of licorice for example, right out of the gate without testing, we’d push you more towards the minerals and all that because if cortisol is already so high, you don’t know that it’s so high, you go on licorice, which is kind of like, I use the analogy like plugging up the iPhone to one of those little portable battery banks. You’re kind of extending the half life of that cortisol. You don’t want to do that if it’s too high.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, that’s a great analogy. I love that one. That’s good. I’m going to add that to my to my Compendium or my my Rolodex of analogies Dr. J’s Rolodex of analogies. I love it. That’s great.
Evan Brand: Yeah cuz that’s you know, cuz cuz part of me wants to go well, let’s talk about this herb, let’s talk about that or but but I kind of have to hold back of doing too many that are going to modulate cortisol in that way because I do find that it’s concerning how many people just go buy something off the shelf or online, because it’s an adrenal booster and they think I’m tired. It’s got to be adrenals and then they’re going to go pop licorice and a bunch of different stimulating genes. And all that, and then they feel more anxious or they feel worse and they don’t know why. So I guess I would encourage people get the testing done first so you know where you’re at, you could still do the electrolytes bump up, magnesium, potassium, everything that we’re talking about behind the scenes, but that might not get you out of an adrenal situation that’s dumping those minerals in the first place. So yes, more minerals, do the chronometer all that but you got to work backwards to Why are you dumping so many minerals in the first place? And another answer for that question is mold. I was up when I first got exposed to mold. I was peeing like three, four or five times a night and obviously I’m too young to have prostate issues. So it wasn’t my prostate. And as soon as I started going higher dose with the binders. I started sleeping through the night and I was not peeing as often through the night and that’s because okra toxin damages and affects the kidneys. And one of the ways of excretion of the mycotoxins is through the kidneys and through the stool, so I was definitely pooping more and definitely paying more which is good. My body should do that. But man, you talk about parched I mean, was like a camel in the desert. I mean, I could not get enough water. It was ridiculous.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. And you had to know if it’s a prostate issue or not, because usually prostate the swollen pneus of it’s going to prevent good flow. So you’re constantly going into the bathroom because you never get a complete evacuation, right? So you’re always trying to finish off that first piece. So with your situation, you probably had a lot of flow and a lot of stream and a lot of, you know, volume, but it’s just you were dumped. You were just chronically dumping out that toxin via your kidneys.
Evan Brand: Yeah, and I’m much better now. Like I said, I’m not up in the middle of the night anymore. So that’s something else to consider. If you’re listening to this and you’re up in the middle of the night. Let’s say you do start out with the coffee, but then you’re doing electrolytes through the day, but you’re up three, four or five times a night peeing. You know, you’re dumping minerals there too. So you kind of have to address that and figure out what’s going on.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I also find just the adrenal dysfunction alone can can cause that because when you have a lot of adrenal and aldosterone issues, aldosterone helps you hold on to your minerals and without it, you’re going to dump it so you’ll just pee a lot more in general with adrenal issue so yeah, it’s possible there could be a mold thing. It’s also called possible, the more than likely thing is just adrenal issues in general, just from stress and food and whatever else. So that’s why you have to see someone that can evaluate it. Because Could it be a mold issue? Sure. Could it be just an adrenal issue from poor food and gut stress and just, you know, poor diet and lifestyle? Sure. So we have to really evaluate both of those. Now, I want to go back to one thing you mentioned, I think this is really important to dive into. So blood testing for adrenals. So Evan highlighted this a little bit already. So blood testing is very helpful on the adrenal side to look at pathological level. So if we look at like an am cortisol serum, if we see it very high, that could tell us there could be some definite adrenal excitability. Now high levels of cortisol is Cushing’s right we remember that because Kush, we think push right Cushing’s we’re pushing cortisol really high Cushing, we’re pushing cortisol really high. So if we see high levels of cortisol on a blood test, it’s you know, we’re in the top 20 25% we’re thinking okay, there could be a problem with that, right? Why don’t I like that because People by nature don’t like getting pricked with needles. Okay, so some people just go into the doctor’s office, they could get a lot of cortisone adrenaline going in their body because of that needle prick. And then that’s going to cause a false high reading. So I don’t like it because you can get a lot of false high readings. Number two is, I do a lot of the Dutch test. And I liked the Dutch testing, because I can look at cortisol serum total via the urine. Now I like it for two reasons. One, it’s not a big stressful thing to collect that right, it’s not a needle prick. So you’re not creating a lot of stress during the extraction process. Number two, we can collect that total cortisol throughout the whole day. So we’re not just looking at cortisol as a snapshot in time, we can collect the cortisol throughout the whole day, which gives us a better window of your overall cortisol output for 20 hours. So if we see higher levels of cortisol over 24 hours, we know that this probably isn’t a blip thing. This is probably a more stronger pattern of adrenal dysfunction when we see that and that test can also separate the free cortisol out which is What Evan highlighted earlier, that’s the more bioavailable cortisol. So think of free cortisol, two to 5% of cortisol free, this is the cortisol that’s not bound to a protein. Think of that as if you’re a woman and you have your purse, right? And you have a key in your hand and you’re putting that key in the lock, right? The key in your hand, that’s the free cortisol, right? It can work, it can go into the lock, think of the other 20 keys in your purse, or your back pocket if you’re a guy, right? I remember like back in school, there were these janitors that walk around with these key chains were just like huge, right, like massive t chains. So imagine the key in the hands, the free cortisol, the key in the back pocket or the purse. It’s the total cortisol or the serum based cortisol meaning you have it you’re carrying it around, but you can’t quite use it to open the doors. That make sense.
Evan Brand: Yes, it does.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay, so that’s another Rolodex analogy on the cortisol side. So we can swap one today, right? We can swap one. So in general, cortisol can be an issue and we have to know the right way to test it. So blood testing really good on the pathological side. If you I have a lot of people that just come in with these data already. And if I see someone in the top 25%, I’m like, ooh, could be a problem, right? Or someone in the bottom 25%, that could be a problem, we’ll still do further testing. But you know, there’s a lot of data that comes in. So we have to know how to interpret it either way. So cortisol, we know about it, high or low, could be could easily affect the adrenals. High levels of cortisol, you can still dump minerals, right? Because you’re buffering it for the stress, low cortisol, you may not have enough aldosterone function, because the same area of the adrenals, right? The the the cortex of the adrenals, right? That is the same area Well, dosterone is made. Right? It’s right there. So if you have weaker cortisol area, there could be weaker aldosterone. So it’s good to know that on the testing.
Evan Brand: Yeah. And there’s a lot of people that poopoo this now and they say, oh, Adrenal Fatigue is fake. Adrenal Fatigue is a myth. That kind of thing. We’re not saying we’re not we don’t even use fatigue anymore.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Right makes sense, because the functions are better terminology.
Evan Brand: Because that kind of insinuates that the adrenals are tired. And that’s not true. It’s really more of a brain issue that’s kind of down regulating this process. It’s kind of like, you’ve been running from a bear for so long, and you’re starting to eat away all your muscle tissue. Because cortisol is catabolic, it’s breaking down the gut barrier, which is why we see so many gut issues and like CrossFit athletes and stuff like that. It’s breaking the body down. So eventually, the brain has to come in and say, hey, we’ve really got to kind of down regulate this guy system. He’s really been running from the bear. She’s really been running from the bear for so long. So to those people like, mad at us right now, Adrenal Fatigue is a myth. Oh, my God, how dare you guys, you’re charlatans or whatever? People say, No, it’s not fatigue, it’s dysfunction. And you have to support the brain. And you got to support the gut. I mean, the whole system, rarely do we come in. And this is just a, quote, adrenal protocol. It’s going to be a whole program designed to fix the issues that are stressing the whole system in the first place.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, so I always tell people when you’re working with the practitioner, Right, you always want to talk about certain things are going to be used as a palliative way to kind of get you feeling better, and to jumpstart physiological and biochemical pathways, and other things are going to be root cause and a lot of times they work together, right? So if I work in support your mineral levels, right supplementally if I work on supporting your adrenals while we get your sleep better, while we change your food while we look at infections, while we help with digestion, and good diet and lifestyle strategies, that’s what promotes the healing overall. It’s kind of like if you if you go and you have to jumpstart your car, right? Well, why the heck are you jumpstart in the car? Well, because I didn’t turn the light on in the car, right? Well, okay, so the root cause is we’re going to make sure that lights turned on moving forward. But if we always leave the light on, then you jumpstarting the car’s a palliative issue, right? It’s not a root cause issue. So we’re always doing palliative things in together with root cause things. We always combine the two because a lot of times, that’s what pulls people out of it faster. If you just focus on it. Cost stuff, it takes a lot longer to feel better. And people need to feel better fast to be compliant and get paid. Yes.
Evan Brand: Yeah. I mean, and that’s something that you learn clinically. So when you have people that just write blog articles or do podcasts, but they’re not working clinically, they don’t understand that so they’ll come in and, and I’m not calling anybody specifically out, but just this idea I’ve seen on the internet where or people say, Oh, you know, this whole, it’s a myth. You know, just take adrenal support, you should need it data. Well, here’s the deal. Like if someone has gut infections, and they’re exhausted, and they have poor digestion, and they have no minerals and they can’t sleep. If we give someone calming an adaptogen adrenal support in the evening and maybe some stimulating stuff in the morning based on their, their adrenal profile, if they start feeling better, they’re going to be more motivated to cook because we’ve got to get these people cooking real food. So the adrenal support could be used to help them to stop going to the drive thru because they’re too tired to cook a meal for themselves. Now they have enough fuel in the tank, they can come home they can cook. Now they’re going to feel better because we’re getting More nutrient dense foods, they’re going to have more minerals so they may sleep better, they’re cramping or pain issues may get better. So you kind of have to give people some good functional medicine crutches sometime and there’s no issue with that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hundred percent. So the minerals are really important kind of getting back to our our clickbait thread of the day, enhancing energy for the summer. Why is it so important for the summer because with higher temperatures, you’re more likely to sweat and get and lose a lot of these minerals. So now if you’re stressed and you have adrenal issues and you’re drinking coffee to start the day, and you’re not adequately hydrating, you’re not getting minerals, and now the heat and the hot of the summer can really compound more of these issues. So you may notice more exhaustion, more fatigue, more heart palpitations or attack cardia or blood pressure issues either low or high. You may have all these different mood or energy issues, and that’s going to be exacerbated by the summer heat because the more you sweat, the more electrolytes you use. So just be very mindful of that. Starting the summer out is really make sure you start the day you get good electrolytes if you go outside, you know bring a nice bottle of extra electrolytes in there whether you put a trace minerals in there from Redmond Real Salt or you get a good Pellegrino or a good sparkling mineral water that has things in it, you know, make sure you’re on top of that. And then if you’re doing a lot of physical work, you can even come back in with a good post workout shake with some coconut water or something that has, you know, a little bit of extra glucose and potassium could be wonderful. And don’t forget about our favorite potassium source, which is going to be avocados, I mean, they got twice the amount of bananas. So people think well, you know, everyone thinks in general, Hey, what’s up but high potassium food, the first thing they jump to is bananas. Potassium is twice the amount in avocados which is great. That’s a good fat too.
Evan Brand: Give you a good reason gives you some good cassava chips and some nice guacamole with some lime or lemon juice squeezed in there we go.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, mango. It’s a great way to do it. Anything else you want to talk about in regards to the heat I would say people that are more photo phobic or sun sensitive could have adrenal issues too. So good adaptogen formula is always going to be our favorite, you know, additional B five and there may be some additional tyrosine and some our favorite adaptogens are going to be asked Wakanda and rhodiola ginseng and Aluthro and and maybe holy basil. And again if you have a lot of high cortisol issues you got to be very careful on doing too much of the stimulators too much of the Ginseng’s and things maybe too much you may have to focus more on Holy Faisal and and magnesium and ashwagandha to kind of really modulate the High Courts or maybe even phosphorylated, serine and Gabba. Those are all things we’re going to be more careful to use when cortisol is higher for sure.
Evan Brand: Yeah, omegas are key too. So I noticed that I don’t get as tan and if I’m not taking enough or eating enough fish or taking enough omegas I noticed that I burned more easily. So omega is are pretty helpful in that aspect. And then always looking for a deeper cause to because with good weather people are hopefully outside more and unless you’re in like New Mexico where our friend JW lives where he says he hasn’t seen a tick in 25 years, which is ridiculous. A lot of places have ticks and if you’re getting tick bites, you know even The CDC who underestimates the numbers they estimate 300,000 new cases of Lyme, per year in Lyme and co infections like bartonella, or babesia can cause a lot of issues with temperature regulation problems. So if you’re somebody who you can’t handle the heat, but your friend next to you feels fine, but you’re burning up and you feel like you’re gonna die or pass out in the heat. You know, it could be minerals could be low hanging fruit, but we’re always looking deeper because for me, before I started treating myself for babesia, I had extreme temperature regulation issues, I would just be chilled to the bone in the winter, and I could not tolerate the heat in the summer, once I addressed the babesia. And I’ve had so many tick bites over the years, probably 2025 tick bites over my lifetime, even probably more as a kid I lost count, but, you know, I’ve been exposed to all these pathogens, unfortunately. But my temperature regulation system works a lot better now. So I would just encourage people that if you feel like the odd man or the odd woman out everybody’s fine when it’s 85, but you’re dying, you know, address the low hanging fruit that we discussed, but you know, feel free to reach out To a practitioner like Dr. J or myself and we would love to help you and make you resilient because it sucks if you’re trapped inside in the air conditioning because you can’t handle the heat that’s not a way to live in the summer. I like air conditioning, but I don’t want to have to use it if I want to be out in the sun I want to be out in the sun having fun. So if you need help, please book a call with Justin at JustinHealth.com, and if you want to reach out to me my website, EvanBrand.com. We work with people around the world, we send lab test to your door, you send them back to the lab, we do a follow up call to discuss the results we make your protocol to feel amazing. So that’s what we do.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100% really appreciate it. Again, if you guys are enjoying this content, share it with friends or family most important thing is you take one or two things to apply out of this content and make yourself healthier, the healthier you are the better boss or employee or employer or mom or dad You can be to your community and to your family. And that really kind of spreads the wealth right across the board right? healthier people make better decisions, better decisions help the world so I think we’re on the right track there. If you guys enjoy the content, give us a thumbs up. Give us a share. Put your comments down below, let us know your experience with electrolytes and adrenal dysfunction and things that you’ve done that have helped. I really appreciate it. And Evan, fabulous podcast, man, really appreciate the content and the great back and forth, man.
Evan Brand: Yeah, oh, last thing, we could do a whole nother hour on it. But blood sugar. Make sure you address blood sugar. I tell you, I don’t feel as good. I get weak. I get woozy if I’m having a blood sugar crisis. So I’m not saying you got to prick your finger every two to three hours. But I’m saying you got to make sure you’re getting adequate fat, adequate protein. And especially if you’re moving more, you’re going to be kind of burning through those reserves. So you’re not sitting there reading a book, like you’re in the winter, you’re out you’re moving. So you may need to increase calories, increase fat, increase protein, if your blood sugar’s crashing, you’re going to feel weak, you’re going to feel depleted, you’re not going to feel good.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: If you’re having a lot of chronic electrolyte issue, there’s probably some adrenal issues as well. So it’s good to have breakfast in the morning. Don’t do an intermittent fast if you’re having a lot of chronic electrolyte issues. Once you’re more stable and you’re feeling better in that department feel free and go do that. But until then, really make sure you’re having a good breakfast in the morning and even myself, right? I’m doing coffee, I’m doing 2025 grams of collagen protein, I’m doing some butter fat in there I’m doing I’ll do a glass of celery juice in a minute. So I’m still getting, you know, kind of a more of a liquid breakfast because I just like a liquid breakfast in the morning. I like feeling lighter. But then I’ll also make sure I get the extra potassium and good fats and proteins through a good through my coffee, so I won’t just do coffee by itself. I’ll combine it and again, if you’re caffeine sensitive, feel free and use a decaf or a decaf tea. And you can do the same kind of a model with that as well.
Evan Brand: Yep Awesome. Awesome. Well once again, the links JustinHealth.com you need to reach out EvanBrand.com, we’re very grateful for the opportunity to help you guys so take good care and we’ll be in touch.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Excellent. Take care. Bye.
Evan Brand: Bye now.
References:
https://justinhealth.com/water-pitcher
Audio Podcast:
Top 3 Ketosis Tips for Success – Dr. David Jockers | Podcast #240
Ketosis is a normal metabolic process that provides several health benefits. It’s a popular weight loss strategy wherein your body converts fat into compounds known as ketones and begins using them as its main source of energy. Ketogenic diets may even have benefits against diabetes, cancer, epilepsy and Alzheimer’s disease.
Read and listen through this podcast as Dr. J and his special guest, Dr. David Jockers discuss the Top 3 Ketosis Tips for Success.
Dr. David Jockers
In this episode, we cover:
00:43 Ketogenic Diet, Intermittent Fasting
01:10 Importance of Hydration
09:08 Stress Control and Good Sleep
13:54 Keto Adaptations
28:34 Meal Time Strategies
Dr. David Jockers: Hey always great to be on Dr. J, I love listening to you and Evan. Big fan of the show, so always great when I get to be on. And I love our conversation. So thanks a lot.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah well thanks for being here, Doc I really appreciate it. So let’s dive in to it, you’ve been utilizing ketogenic diet, intermittent fasting, these tips these techniques to help improve insulin sensitivity, to help with cellular turnover and healthy aging. So what’s the number one thing right now that you find that patients have a barrier with it, when you make this tweak or you make this adjustment, they get to their next level of health utilizing a ketogenic diet?
Dr. David Jockers: Now I would say the number one thing is hydration. You see, in our brain our, our hypothalamus, our hunger center and our thirst center are right next to each other. And whenever we eat, we stimulate dopamine. It helps us feel good. And I think that’s a great adaptation, because you know it’s like, it’s great to feel good when we eat and it helps drive us to eat to consume food. But what happens is because food so prevalent in our society today, whereas as our ancestors didn’t have access to, you know we didn’t have pantries and refrigerators and things like that in years past. So food is prevalent. We could literally be eating all day long and we’re constantly stimulating that dopamine. And so for many people have become addicted to it, and our hunger and our thirst center are right next to each other in that area of the brain. And so for many people they’ve had these neuroplastic changes where the hunger center has now moved into the thirst center. So they’re really thirsty but they experience it as hunger. So they’re like I need something, I need a dopamine hit. There’s something that I’m missing and there’s food, I’m going to go for the food, and really most people are chronically dehydrated meaning more fluid. We need more water. And so I find that drinking more water, hydrating your body really well especially when you first wake up in the morning, so critical, so critical, for intermittent fasting, so critical for fat burning, for cleansing the body, for energy production, for good mental clarity, and for Keto adaptation. And so getting some good water, I recommend drinking you know, if you’re not used to it start with just eight ounces, OK. But ideally, trying to get 16 to up to 32 ounces of water within the first hour of waking up. So really hydrating your body well because when you’re sleeping overnight you’re breathing out water vapor. So you’re actually losing water throughout the night. So when you wake up in the morning really hydrating well, not only will replace that water, but on top of that it’s also going to help stimulate energy production, you’re going to notice that your energy goes up, the better you’re hydrated, more energy production your body’s going to have, you’re also going to poop better, right. We want to get poop out, want to have good bowel movements early in the morning, you’re at your large intestine is most active. So my goal is always to have two really good solid bowel movements within the first hour of waking, and it’s like my energy is just amazing, my mental clarity- I’m so productive when I’m able to do that. So hydration is number one tip.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think that’s amazing. I’ve been following that for years. When I first discovered the book, your body’s many cries for water by Dr. Batten and Gila. She talked about that. I’ll add some extra like Redman’s real salt or I’ll use a trace minerals support I’ll add to it. Today, I had a little bit of alcohol last night so I before I went to bed I have a drink, I typically drink mineral water in between each alcoholic beverage to get the extra minerals back in and then I did a lot of glutathione before bed and a lot of vitamin C and extra electrolytes to start my day, and those stretch receptors in your tummy when water comes in, it hits those stretch receptors and allows you to feel more satiated and then naturally have an appetite that’s more calibrated with what their nutritional needs actually are. So that’s a great tip.
Dr. David Jockers: Yes so important, I mean we have that ghrelin hormone. And so when we’re when our stomach is empty, ghrelin going to come out and tell us we’re hungry. So yes the eating a big breakfast in the morning, it’s normal for you to want to eat a big breakfast because you conditioned this response that ghrelin pop out. What if you just start by hydrating your body you’re gonna notice you’re gonna be more satiated. This is a great way to get started with intermittent fasting- you just hydrate your body really well in the morning, and then wait for natural hunger to come after that, to start with the hydration, now allow the natural hunger to come, you know, as it comes naturally after that. Yeah definitely getting the electrolytes and to adding some —
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes it’s very important. And as insulin levels drop too we tend to pee, pee more because insulin tends to pull sodium. Sodium tends to pull water. So that’s why you know someone does a ketogenic diet and drops their carbs really low they’ll lose three or four pounds the first day it’s not going to be fat it’s going to be water. So yeah I mean that’s that’s a really salient point because we are going to be losing a lot of that water so we have to make sure we get it back. And I would even say the key electrolyte to on keto that I find is really low is potassium. So really upping the potassium and or just really focusing on lots of green vegetables and avocados is another awesome tip for sure.
Dr. David Jockers: Yeah. That is important and sodium too actually. When you lose a lot of sodium, so getting a lot of those salts are really the cool thing is in nature you get potassium, and a lot, you get potassium and sodium and good ratios right. So avocados actually have sodium, celery potassium and sodium, C vegetable. Right. So all these natural foods [inaudible], these broccoli cauliflower got potassium and sodium. So if you’re consuming a lot of those things and then salting your food up to your desired case. I don’t think you need to go beyond that. Not like I’m shoveling salt in your mouth. They just flush you out right. Probably just move your bowels, could you loose stools but instead just salting up to your taste. And even if you’ve been told to be on a low salt diet, it’s kind of like what you were saying there, Dr. J you know, basically once you, once your insulin goes down, you turn a lower carb diet or if you are doing some fasting, your insulin is going to drop down and when you when you drop insulin, you start to excrete sodium. With that sodium comes the water so you need to replace that. So adding in these good trace mineral rich foods, even grass fed meets you’re very rich and in minerals, a lot of good salts and they’re really really good stuff. Dark green leafy sea vegetable, a lot of things we we just talked about, fermented foods, olives, pickles, sauerkraut, all really really good stuff when it comes to trace minerals. So getting those in your diet and then just salting up your desired taste, really good. And then I mean it’s really as simple as this when it when we’re talking about taking Redmond’s real salt or Himalayan salt. Yes a little pinch on your on your finger and put it on your tongue. Specially noticing that you’re just feeling a little bit dizzy or especially a lot of people when they start intermittent fasting or if they start going in a low carb diet, they feel a little bit dizzy, a little bit spacey and oftentimes that’s an electrolyte issue. So just taking a pinch of salt putting it on your tongue, drinking you know, two to four ounces of water and shrinking a little water after that can knock that out right away. I’ve also seen people with allergy symptoms, certain having like a runny nose and coughing things like that, taking a little bit of salt and water actually acts as a natural antihistamine. Dissolution, yeah because histamine actually, one of its jobs in Doctor, Doctor Batman is who I helped in that book he talks about it talks about histamine helps triaged water so we become dehydrated. We triaged water into organ systems that are most vital, like the brain, heart rate. And so therefore the mucous membranes get less of it. So we’re more likely to have allergic type responses right and plus we have elevated histamine in our system. So when we hydrate the body, get the electrolytes in, naturally reduces that histamine response and we get more balanced, more balanced histamine response, therefore, less of the congestion right runny nose things like that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, totally makes sense. Love it, love it. and then what’s your favorite brand for a good mineral salt? Redmond’s Real Salt?
Dr. David Jockers: Redmond’s Salt is great. Absolutely. That’s what I think. I think it’s a little bit lower costs than Himalayan, Himalayan sea salt a great one, Celtic is a good one. So any of those are great.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And then just people listening. It’s not just sodium chloride, your typical table salt would be sodium chloride. It’ll be bleached as well. So we’re talking about salt that have you know 60 70 different micro minerals as well as just sodium chloride. So you’re getting a lot more in there. I think that’s phenomenal. What’s number two. Dr. Jockers?
Dr. David Jockers: Yes. So we talked about the water in the electrolytes obviously we’ve got to start with that. Number two is really controlling your stress and focusing on good sleep. So most people understand this but you know we’re under stress, we’re gonna be elevating our blood sugars, so higher amounts of stress hormone are telling our body we’re in a place of fight or flight and when we’re in place or fight or flight we think we might need to sprint at any moment with survival. Right so our bodies naturally can elevate our blood sugar, and when we do that, then you know if we’re not running, so we’re just stressed out like we’re sitting in traffic, whatever it is, your spouse says something, and we’re stressed out about it ,we’re elevating our blood sugar but we’re not giving the response the body needs which would be to run or lift something, I had to climb a tree so therefore we just end up with this elevated blood sugars in the body towns out some insulin to help lower that blood sugar, high blood sugar can be toxic, can actually cause damage to the nerve system, cause advanced location and products, all kinds of all kinds of oxidative stress, so the body gets insulin up to take the sugar out of the bloodstream and of course, when insulin is up, that’s going to inhibit the production of ketone to burn fat. So insulin being elevated because of the stress response is going to cause you to not be able to burn fat, not get into ketosis, and therefore it’s also going to cause kind of this spiral where you’re going to end up with hypoglycemia, because oftentimes you’ll drop that blood sugar too low. Yeah. And another stress response and this is a vicious cycle, you’ve got to really keep your stress under control. Why I never tell anybody to start intermittent fasting or start a ketogenic diet. If you’re already overwhelmed by stress, like if you would describe your life you’d say, I’m just overwhelmed by stress. Not a good time for you know a ketogenic diet or fast. That’s more for somebody that’s got stress under control. Now these are hacks that are going to really take really improve your body’s ability to be more resilient to stress, to improve your fat burning, improve your brain, down regulate inflammation really powerfully. But first you have to get your stress under control and you’ve got to get your sleep under control because if you don’t sleep well, then you’re you’re naturally going to be under a higher amount of stress. If you get if you’re getting consistent poor nights of sleep, even if you don’t feel stressed out during the day you’re going to have higher stress hormones which is again going to cause that cascade of high blood sugar and high insulin.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally makes sense, and I see an email in my inbox that you sent me a couple of days ago for your newsletter and you talked about some of your favorite adaptogens. Yes. Again this is kind of what you probably plug in on the supplements that outside of diet and lifestyle modifications. I imagine you’re probably using some adaptogens to help modulate this stress response. Is that true?
Dr. David Jockers: Oh absolutely. I love [inaudible]. A great one. Magnolia fish [inaudible] reishi mushroom. Yeah. Lemon bomb right. Very good relaxing herbs. If you want more energy, something like Rhodiola. Really good siberian ginseng. Another great one for energy. Right. The great thing about adaptogens is they’re going to help balance you. So if you feel anxious, all right, and jittery, they’re going to help bring you down, if you feel fatigued and lethargic, they’re going to help bring you up. and that’s the great thing about them. They just kind of modulate and help balance you out. Also a huge fan of magnesium too. Know I find that most people are deficient in magnesium some magnesium can be really really powerful for helping modulate the stress response, modulation means balancing. Right. That’s what we want. You know we don’t necessarily want to increase or decrease. We want what the body needs at the moment. Right. We want to help balance it out, so we were able to adapt to the environment adapt to the stressors we’re under and be able to perform at our highest level. So those are those herbs and Magnesium here are key.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That makes sense because people I think forget like, they’re so focused on their diet. Hey I’m trying to keep these carbohydrates down because these eventually will break down into glucose or fructose in my body and have potentially a negative effect at burning fats or cause insulin resistance. People forget that their cortisol levels can create surges of glucose through either protein in their body or just releasing glycogen that’s already in their muscles and that can be the equivalent of having an extra carbohydrate that you wouldn’t want to eat but eat you’re not even eating it, it’s being released internally from these different stores and you can still have deleterious effects, so the adaptogens like you mentioned I think are great, just getting those glute four receptors upregulated on the muscle, these are little fingers that help pull glucose into the muscle and you can do that by movement, by taking a walk after after an hour, or doing some bands or some resistance training to help soak up a lot of that glucose, that’s really good points.
Dr. David Jockers: Yeah absolutely. So important. A third big thing is to you know basically, you want to gradually move into Keto adaptations. So for some individuals I say about 25% percent of the population they can start today. They might have eaten 500, 500 grams of carbs yesterday for twenty five percent of the population. They can go down to 20 carbs and actually feel great within the first week. That’s only 25 percent the population. The other 75 percent is gonna feel really crappy. Yeah. So what we want to do to be on the safe side is, gradually reduce your carbohydrate load. So if you were to take it for example, if you were to take this week or the next three days and just count out how many carbohydrates you’re consuming, right. Subtract the fiber, so your net carbs, total carbs minus fiber that you consume on a daily basis, you keep track of your your macros and you can use like chronometer or something like that. See, see where your carbohydrate load is. Let’s say you’re consuming 250 grams of total carbs, right, in a day. OK great. So for the first week, all you do is you reduce it down by 50 grams. So for the first week, you’re going down to 200 grams of net carbs. So total carbs minus fiber, you replace that with a couple grams of, well not a little bit more than a couple, but roughly about 10 grams of healthy fat. Right. So you eat a little bit, eat a few more olives, you know, a teaspoon of olive oil something along those lines, you just add that and while you take out the carbs, and then you do that each week you drop it down roughly about 50 grams each week. So if you started at 250, you know, by the time you get into the ketogenic range, it’s roughly between 20 grams to 50 grams. It’s about five or six weeks. Right. So you give your body time to start to adapt and build the metabolic machinery to be able to run on a lower carbohydrate diet and use fat for fuel. And I think that’s a big thing. A lot of people try to jump right in, they try to go cold turkey and have a bad experience when you gradually shift into it. So you’re leaning into it, shifting into it. You give your body time to build the metabolic machinery to get more familiar with that with ketones in the bloodstream. Right. So if you’re eating 250 grams of carbs a day, your body has not seen ketones. It doesn’t. It’s not familiar with how to use them for energy. You’ve got to give it some time to see that in the bloodstream then it’s going to up regulate the enzymatic systems to sort to use that for fuel. So that’s a really important strategy. Just keep dropping it down roughly 40 to 50 grams of carbohydrates, replacing that with healthy fat or in some cases, healthy protein if you’re on a very low protein diet, but replacing that until you get into that 20 to 50 gram range. And typically for somebody at sedentary. So if you’re not doing a lot of movement, you’re going to need to get your net carbs down in that 20, is certainly under 30 range and some in some cases under 20 if you’re very insulin resistant, you’re more active. You could find that you’re going to get into a state of nutritional ketosis which is zero point five million miles or higher when you’re testing your blood ketones with, you know, you probably are going to be able to handle up to 50 grams of net carbs and be in that range. And if you’re extremely active high level athlete maybe they’ll take up to 100 hundred and twenty grams in that carbs. So you got to kind of find the right zone for you. So once you get into that zone, I tell you, you know my recommendation is spend 30 days in that zone. I think 30 days in nutritional ketosis is extremely powerful for helping clean up cellular debris reset your systems. I mean ketones, epigenetic modulators. So they help to help your body to express genes are gonna have more anti aging benefits, are going to help upregulate mitochondria and support healthy mitochondria. So you spent 30 days in that and then you find a good carb cycling strategy after that. Right. For some people they like to carb cycle, you know, every other day, for some people it’s you know once every 10 days, where you have a higher carb day where basically you’re.. you’re consuming more carbohydrates roughly somewhere between 50 and maybe up to one hundred and fifty grams of of net carbs depending on you. So if you tend to be more insulin resistance, you might do less. Like for me I tend to be more insulin resistant so I.. For me it’s like a higher carb day might be 70 or 80 grams of net carbs. OK. Whereas for somebody else they may be able to tolerate a little bit more especially if they’re very very active. So you’ve got to kind of find the right zone for you and then you drop back into ketosis. OK, find again, find the right strategy. So for some people they’ll do a feast day once a week, where they’re like one day a week where you know, they’re eating 150 grams or 100 grams net carbs, so just consuming more carbs and for them that works great. Right. And then usually takes them two days or so to get back into ketosis. If you do a high carb day like that and it takes you a week to get back into ketosis, then you really shouldn’t be carb cycling once a week right then you would probably want to carb cycle like once every two weeks once every month. Something along those lines. That way you’re you’re splitting your time right. You want to spend some time where your body is utilizing glucose right for fuel and basically resetting your glycogen stores. You also want to spend time in this state of nutritional ketosis. You got to find the right carbs cycling approach, and the strategy I like to apply is more of a carb backloading strategy. Yeah I like to eat less during the day I eat less food during the day hydrate. I do a lot of hydration during the day, keeps my energy high. It allows me to perform at a higher level because stress is the antagonist to good digestion, meaning that when we’re under stress, we’re not gonna be able to produce as much stomach as–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct.
Dr. David Jockers: The bile pancreatic enzymes to digest our food well so I like to do more smoothies ,right, things that are predigested during daytime. I’ll throw avocado in my my protein shakes so I get more healthy fats. But the blender is the job of the digestion and then the evening that’s when I feast, right. That’s when I had my big meal meat, right. Vegetables. Healthy fats on there. And I find that that approach works well and especially if you’re going to add in more carbs, doing a lower carb during the day. So if you want to eat solid foods, eggs, right. Maybe like a big chicken salad with olives, and I’ll add avocado and olive oil or something like that where it’s low carb throughout the day and then when you add in the carbs, you do it more in the evening, your sweet potato, right, or your your steamed carrots, beets, if you want grains something like Quinoa or or rice or something along those lines, doing it more in the evening you’re going to notice it. That’s going to get better benefits. A lot of research on that for helping stimulate fat burning, right and supporting the sensitivity.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Some people, one of the side effects with Keto sometimes sleep can deteriorate and that could be from a hypoglycemic kind of episode before bed. So if that’s happening, maybe adding a tiny bit of carbs or even a tablespoon of coconut oil to provide some more of those ketone precursors before bed to keep that blood sugar and add an additional fuel source outside of the blood sugar in your bloodstream.
Dr. David Jockers: Yeah yeah for sure. Absolutely. And I think if you do the slow keto adaptation approach you’ll notice less of a hypoglycemia. Which will definitely help you. Your bio get better and better at using ketones. But a big thing that I do see is that people aren’t feasting. Right. So if you’re under eating for a certain portion of the day you’re eating a lower amount of calories in the evening. Definitely eat a higher amount of calories right to make up for it. And that is a mistake I see a lot of people make is they reduce the carbs but they don’t they’re not as generous with the fat. And therefore, they end up not just not consuming enough calories which can then cause the hypoglycemic type issues especially for like lean women. I see that a lot of lean women having that issue don’t have as much body fat. The body’s trying to protect the body fat tissue.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I see that all the time. You don’t get enough fat in there to replace some of the carbs that are pulled out, then you could still be in a caloric deficit and that can still create a stress response. So I think that’s really important because the whole goal is we have this kind of fuel partitioning mechanism imagine like an air traffic controller. Right. Planes come in. You point this way, you point that way, imagine an air traffic controller saying, OK go to the mitochondria get burnt up or go back into the fat cells and get burnt up get get stored. So we want to be an air traffic controller shuttling everyone to the mitochondria, to the muscle cell to get burnt and not get stored. And we have to change these cellular enzymes. We need more lipolytic, right, lipo meaning fat, lytic meaning to break down some more lipolytic hormone, sensitive light pace Growth Hormone thyroid hormone versus insulin, lin lipo eugenic hormones on the storing or formation side. So I think what you’re saying these are just basically unregulated that air traffic control, what if they get burnt up and this cellular energy can’t be snapped on and the more insulin resistant you are like you’re highlighting, this may take a few weeks maybe even a month and you’re having a tapering protocol just so it’s not so painful. So you don’t develop this Keto flu type of thing where you’re you’re tired, you’re achy. Correct?
Dr. David Jockers: Oh yeah absolutely. So the keto flu is going to be related to hypoglycemia, you know the light imbalances like we talked about and HIPAA axis dysfunction or you know we’ll be college adrenal fatigue. Right. So it’s kind of a combination of all three of those and they all work together. So you’re absolutely spot on and we want to be able to adapt and teach the body to be able to run and use fats for fuel. Right. That’s the key there. Now another caveat to it. And Justin, you probably test fasting insulin on your patients is that correct? Yes. So I test that on all my patients right fasting insulin levels, and so normally if you’re fasting for 12 to 14 hours you finished dinner let’s say 6:00 p.m. You’re doing your bloodwork at 8:00 a.m. something along those lines. Your ideal fasting insulin should be roughly somewhere around three to five right in that range. If you’re on the lower end, they’re like two three. OK, you probably need to do a little bit more carb cycling, you probably need a bump that insulin a little bit more. OK if you’re on the higher end right. There’s a lot of people out there you know they’re they’re insulin levels fasting insulin is 12 14 16. These are people that are going to do better doing fasting, right. Intermittent Fasting, longer fasting, and lower carb throughout the day to get that insulin level down. OK. So that’s another caveat getting your fasting insulin levels tested. That’s going to help you understand your carb tolerance right.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Just kind of piggyback on that, Christopher Gardner did an amazing study out of Stanford in 2007 called, The A to Z Study, and this study was interesting because he compared four different kinds of diets– he compared and Atkins style diet, and Ornish kind of you know higher carbohydrate more vegetarian diet, the Zone diet which is like a 40 30 30 and then I think a standard American diet. So there were four diets and it was interesting because the Atkins group, the lower carb group had the largest amount of success. But then there were still people that were successful in other groups and then they looked at the people and they tried to extrapolate why a lot of people in the act is that great. But why. There were some people in other groups and what they found in the higher carbohydrate groups, the people that did well were the ones that had their fasting insulin below seven. So in other words, the people that were more insulin sensitive, meaning their pancreas made the less insulin, they could tolerate the higher carbohydrates and that threshold was seven anything greater than 7 they could not tolerate the higher carb, and they only got success on the lower carb group because that helped bring their insulin back into balance. And I agree that study this seven I like two to five, I think gets a good point and I think this is really important people listen like you know we’re practitioners so, we understand that there are some people that do well not following that exactly and the question is why? We don’t want to be dogmatic and say no. Everyone has to and it’s a rule it’s tough but we have to understand why there may be some exceptions and that’s I think one of the biggest data points that we can use to say hey these are the people that are going to benefit these you may be able to break the rules a bit and then we can actually have some objective data on that.
Dr. David Jockers: Yeah, absolutely because you do need insulin, you need insulin in particular for converting T four and T three. So you’re active thyroid hormone and if you don’t get that, know this is where we’ll see people start to for example lose hair, when they get really really fatty, they get constipated, they get really really cold, when they’re fasting, or on a ketogenic diet it’s a sign that it probably ban under consuming calories right as a whole. And possibly not carb cycling enough. Right. And that’s really big. So even on a low even on a low carb diet, if you do like a very high calorie meal once a day. OK. So where you’re doing like maybe under eating, lower amounts of calories for a period of time and then of a larger meal, your body is going to still secrete a lot of insulin like on a low carb diet. When you. Eat a lot of food your body’s excrete a lot of insulin. OK. And so you want to get at least, unless you’re like in a period where you’re just doing an extended fast for a specific reason, you want to get a really good shot of insulin at least once a day. I really once no more than twice a day in my opinion. OK. But you want it when you do get it, you want to get a good shot of it. What happens is in our society it’s like people are just continually spiking it because we’re eating all the time right. We’re eating every several hours just continually getting spikes of insulin that promotes too much inflammation right. Insulin is going to activate your inflammatory home right and amplify inflammation throughout your body. But if you strategically get it, once, maybe twice a day. Right, a really good spike of it then that’s going to get. That’s the right amount to activate thyroid hormone to enhance cellular energy production is a lot of good benefits that are going to come from that.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think that’s great. And what’s your strategy on mealtime and I know we’ve talked about this as, I think for a while you were doing kind of o mad one meal a day. How are you timing your meals and then how do you dial that in for patients exact.
Dr. David Jockers: So here’s how I do it personally now. I’m about one hundred, one hundred sixty five pounds strong, I’m an 8 percent body fat it’s mostly just muscle tissue, and the way I do it is I workout four days a week, when I workouts very intense strength training, so I’m usually working out for about 45 minutes or so strength training. Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday are typically my spring training days and what I do is on Wednesday, and on Saturday, I only do one meal one meal on those days, usually it’s lunch dates, whatever’s most convenient for me I’m usually eating lunch I find that I just do best at that time. Right so one o’clock, two o’clock, something like that having a really good really good solid lunch and then that’s it, you know just hydrating outside of that and then on the other days, I’m consuming two meals, lunch and dinner, right now typically my dinners are usually my largest meal of the day. I’m consuming a lot of a lot of food right. I mean I’ll easily consume fifteen hundred calories or so, you know a typical dinner. All right. And usually my lunch, if not, I mean I probably could even consume two thousand calories, my dinner and my lunch is usually probably somewhere around five hundred eight hundred calories, somewhere in that range. OK. And yeah that’s how I do it and I function amazing in fact my best sleep. My heart rate variability gets really high on my fasting days so when I’m, when I’m sleeping. Wednesday night and Saturday night it’s like I wake up the next day. I just feel amazing like so good. And that’s why I do it. In fact if I didn’t lose weight. When I would do one meal a day if I didn’t lose weight when I get it. So what happens is I tried that and I started losing muscle. I started losing weight and I’m already very lean as it is, very very thin. Five foot eleven hundred and sixty hundred sixty five pounds so so I feel amazing when I’m fasting but obviously I don’t want to lose weight. So. So that’s why I do the two meals five days a week. One meal two days a week seems to work amazing for me. Now when I do eat, I eat a lot of food. My wife’s always like, wow I’m fond of food. So in order to be able to digest that food effectively at its most effective level. I think a lot of digestive enzymes. OK. From time to time, if I’m under more stress, I’ll take a little bit of stomach acid support it would be THCL. Typically speaking a bunch of digestive enzymes works great for me. OK. And that works well and then I also take a supplement that has Curcumin, Turmeric, right. It’s also got a whole bunch of bitter herbs. It’s called fermented turmeric right. It’s got a bunch of different bitter herbs are really good for stimulating digestive juices production. So I think a combination of those and my digestion is great. OK. And that’s right I feel really good with it. And that’s typically my lunch most days, my lunch is liquid nutrition so usually I’m making a smoothie with Collagen protein. Yeah. Coconut milk, avocado in there. That’s usually my lunch and I might munch on like a cucumber that that I cut up and put some lemon juice on, some salt and some herbs. Right. Or maybe radishes. I’m crunching you know, chewing on some radishes. So it’s usually some sort of raw vegetable. Along with this sort of smoothie. And then for dinner it’s usually a lot of meat. So whether it’s grass fed beef, or we do like grass fed beef hotdogs and I’m familiar with those. Yeah those were great. Lots of vegetables so like steamed broccoli or cauliflower to make up mashed potatoes, and cauliflower all times calling mashed potatoes, broccoli with butter. So we do a lot of that. You know we started using this thing called [inaudible]. Now if you’re familiar with that, it’s hearts of palm, it’s pasta. It’s pasta with hearts of palm and then it’s great. My wife makes this amazing pesto right. We put pesto on that which has got olive oil and avocado and pine nuts and all kinds of stuff like that. So it’s just a scrape,we put chicken with that. So different things, different meals like that. So typically how I’m doing it.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s great. Excellent. I did something similar as well typically in my day in day out. I’m having some level of coffee in the morning with some butter at MCT and a little bit of collagen and that’s my breakfast, somewhere at three four hours later, I’ll have a nice glass of celery juice and I’m definitely drinking mineral water throughout the day ,and then my lunch is going to be a big salad typically, it’ll be about four, maybe five servings of vegetables, it’ll be a full avocado maybe six to eight ounces of chicken chicken thigh, or chicken breast with skin on and then an olive oil, olive oil apple cider kind of sea salt pepper type of salad, and then dinner will be some level of non starchy veg if maybe a little bit of starch, in there squash or sweet potatoes, and then mostly meat and vegetables, and then typically my Saturday, is my wife and I will have a date night and we’ll do like a steak restaurant and now I’ll just fast all day and I’ll just that one meal when I go out to eat. Typically that one day it’s nice. I’ll still do coffee with a little bit MCT just to kind of start my day off and get those ketones up and then I’ll just kind of ride that high all day long. And people listening if you have a lot of hormone issues or thyroid issues or blood sugar issues, you have to have some level of one metabolic stamina imbalance before you do it and to have that really good digestion like you mentioned, because now your meal is probably twice as big when you eat at nighttime and you really need the enzymes in the acids and good digestive function to be able to handle that load.
Dr. David Jockers: Yeah I mean I think that’s really really important is you know, for me for example, I don’t actually get hungry. I don’t feel hungry throughout the day. I don’t get hungry till I start eating. Once I start eating, I’m like OK my body wakes up it’s like, OK I need a lot I need food, right. And that’s actually when I get hungry. So for me it’s very liberating, fasting is so liberating because I don’t I just need to think about food, I’m not hungry I don’t have cravings my body feels great my brain feels amazing feels alive so it’s so good. But you’re right I mean fasting is a level of fitness. It’s kind of like you know if you were just if you, if you’ve never exercised and then you think OK I’m going to do a 5k and I’m going to sprint 5K obviously it’s not going to happen right. You’re going to be so sore and beat up so you’ve got to kind of lean into it right. I always said people start with twelve hours overnight–
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 12 to 12 is the easiest to start with, you know, 7 to 7 or 8 to 8.
Dr. David Jockers: Simple fast just like that, and then do the water like we talked about in beginning it. Yes. You just hydrate your body well in the morning and allow for the natural hunger to come out, for a lot of people they notice 14 hours easy. Like my kids they finished dinner with us. We’re usually done eating dinner by 6:30. My kids sleep till like 8:30 in the morning. I don’t know if, I don’t know if, if if you’re if your child is like that too.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Same way same way and it’s all nutrition based. Like my son for dinner last night I mean he had a grass fed organic hot dog, a cut of avocado. And then he’s having a hard time with green vegetables. We’re getting green beans with sea salt on an organic green drink no added sugar no fruit juice in there and that will kind of pile that throughout the day and its meal. So yeah. I see kids that wake up. It’s all a lot of it’s blood sugar and it’s not getting enough fat. If that is humanly you gotta have that.
Dr. David Jockers: Yeah. So important got to have the fat so my kids will go well we’ll finish there by 6:30. We get him in bed by 8:30. They sleep till 8:30. They wake up. They take a bath right by the time they get breakfast. It’s usually like 9:30 or so. Right there. I mean they’re getting late and they’re fast growing kids, three and a half year olds. Right. So they’re getting like a 15 hour fast right there. Yes. And that’s because we have and they’re not on a ketogenic diet. They are, they’re definitely consuming carbs. Healthy carbs but they always have the healthy fats and they’re still on a lower carbohydrate template than your typical modern Americans ,or your typical sad diet. And so because of that they have better metabolic flexibility right. They’re able to go 15 hours here without consuming food. So what I find is that for most people 14 hours as long as you hydrate well as long as you’re sleeping well. Right. Doing those things. Not an issue. Right. And then especially if you do feel like you’re overwhelmed with stress or if you tend to be like a very lean woman or a lean woman that’s doing a lot of exercise. OK then one thing we’ll try to do is something called crescendo fasting, I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that now but that’s basically where we do a 16 hour fast. Two days a week. Non consecutive days. So be like a Monday Friday. Right. So fasting is a stressor on the body just like exercise is a stressor. So exercise may you know exercise is great, but if you do exercise five days in a row. Right. It will too stressful on the body. Yeah. I don’t recommend exercising more than two days in a row. After two days. I recommend taking a rest day. Like for me I do upper body. One day and then a lower body the next day and then the next day is always on resting. OK. So unless you’re like a high level athlete I wouldn’t wreck it there’s just no reason you actually the recovery is is where you get the most benefit. Right. You need to recover. So two days in a row. Same thing with fasting especially if you’re new at it or if you’ve been under stress or if you tend to be leaner. Leaner female then not doing it more than two days in a row and ideally a better way to start would be two non consecutive days a week, Monday Friday for example. Or your, your least stressful days like just you’re doing your long fast on a Saturday. Yep. Less stress on Saturday you’re hanging out with the family. Yeah. So it’s easier for you.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Exactly. Well Dr. David this is amazing. Lots of great tips. I think people that are listening to a lot of these tips are clinical as well. So we’re in the trenches working with patients so these aren’t theoretical things you know things that actually works out you know take it to heart, try to find at least one thing in this podcast that resonates and try to apply it. I think there’s some great information and for all you out there, head over to DrJockers.com. Make sure you subscribe to his email list. Also Keto Edge Summit, we’ll put a link down below if you guys are listening, just click there. Make sure you sign up to get access to all the great speakers and great content that’s available. Dr. Jockers, anything else you’d like to leave the listeners with today?
Dr. David Jockers: Yeah, I would just I would say, you know, definitely the Keto Edge Summit is great, we talk about all these types of things how to get fat adapted more effectively, how to kind of lean into fat agitation, like I was talking about before how to navigate through you know things like the Keto flu, how to prevent getting it and you know the tremendous benefits that can come from a state of nutritional ketosis. You know I’m a huge fan of diet variation, meaning that you’re not always in ketosis. Well I mean I would say some people probably about 20 percent of the population, 20 25 percent that will do great. Being in ketosis, you’re rounds right. But then you have the other 75 to 80 percent that are not going to do good. Being in ketosis your rounds. They need to cycle in and out. Right. You know for whatever period of time works best for them. So we go through that, Keto Edge Summit, and you know it’s really the goal of personalized nutrition. You know there’s there’s no cookie cutter approach. You got a kind of find what works best for your own unique individuality.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Dr. Jockers, thank you so much for all this great information. We’ll be in touch. You take care.
Dr. David Jockers: Alright sounds good. Thank you.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bye.
References:
Audio Podcast:
http://justinhealth.libsyn.com/top-3-ketosis-tips-for-success-dr-david-jockers-podcast-240
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https://justinhealth.com/water-pitcher
Tom Brady’s Performance Secrets | Podcast #211
Did you know that the secret to a good performance in anyone’s career does not only involve the physical well-being?
In today’s podcast, Dr. J. discusses Tom Brady’s performance secrets. Watch as he discusses the important things that Tom did to achieve his successful breakthrough in his career. Also, learn about the importance of pliability training, using electrolytes for hydration, meat diets, maximizing sleep, the importance of visualizing and all other good things. Continue for more and don’t forget to share. Sharing is caring!
Dr. Justin Marchegiani
In this episode, we cover:
01:55 Pliability
03:42 Putting Less Weight on Muscle
06:19 Hydration
07:08 Anti-inflammatory Diet
10:07 Having Enough Sleep
10:59 Visualizing
So, first off, Tom Brady… just to get a little background knowing the Patriots quarterback about 20 years in the NFL. Uhm- he- he got injured actually against Kansas City back in 2008. He tores ACL, uhm… one of the defensive ends came up and- and- kind of like did a- you know, chop block right at his knee, took out his- I think his left knees, ACL. So, out for the whole year. Up to that point, Tom is, you know, if you look at a lot of interviews, he had said that he felt like the- the worst shift out of his whole career at that point, from a injury, pain and inflammation standpoint. That was kind of a turning point, it just happens to be against the Kansas City Chiefs where Tom kind of look and re-evaluated his diet, his lifestyle, how he was training, the people that he was bringing on board in his health team to help support him. He brought on someone by the name ___ [01:50], she was like an oriental Chinese me- medical doctor. And basically, they made a couple of diet tweaks.
Number one, they did a lot of a- adjustments in Tom’s Training. So, Tom was doing a lot of conventional lifting, which is great. The- the younger you are, the more you can- you can deal with that because uhm… you know, you’re more anabolic hormonally and you have the- youth on your side. And essentially, he was looking at what’s called Pliability training for Pliability. So, you… you train for muscle building, a higher percent of your training is muscle building when you’re younger, and then a small percent is pliability when you’re younger as well. And that actually switches. So, the older you get, you… he’s training more for pliability, meaning, making his muscles softer and more supple, kind of mire like a raw ribeye steak, then like beef turkey, right? Thing of a nice flower by steak, you can move it, it’s spongy, think of beef turkey, it’s tough, right? It- it can reap really easy. So, the whole goal is you want your muscle strong, you want them functionally strong, but more importantly, you want pliability because you can have a strong muscle but think of the beef jerky analogy, it’s gonna tear very easily, A.K.A. injury. And kind of a typical sequence that happens in professional sports. I’ve had a couple of professional athlete patients- is- you start out, you’re working great, and then you get your first injury. Maybe a year and two years and three years in, and never quiets heals right. You may lose a half a step, you may lose a step. Now that tissue is inflamed, you- you’re kinda feeling it… you’re feeling inflammation, and then you’re more susceptible to your next injury a year later. And then your third injury, and then you can’t quite get a full season there without being on… the- the injury reserve list. And then you start losing two steps and then you’re out of the league. This kind of a general pattern, uhm, that we see with athlete and how they get injured.
So, number 1, what are the things that Tom did, is he shifted a lot of his trainings. So, he was doing less of the weights. Weights are still good, when you put on muscle- but there’s lot of compression, there’s a lot of inflammation that happens. So, lots of stress on the body that happens, and you’re already playing in the NFL, you’re already getting whacked anyway, so… the goal is, to provide force in a way that’s gonna cause muscle growth, muscle stimulation, muscle contractility. We want muscles to turn on and off fast. That’s the goal. The faster the muscle can turn on and off, the more it can absorb force. Think about it, if you’re turning that shock absorber in a little too late, then you’re not really able to utilize that- do that shock absorber in the- in the field of play. So, Tom’s using a lot of band movement. So, he threw a lot of rubber bands, uhm partly because bands do a couple things, if you- like- I have uh- some bands over here, I do a lot of band movements. What bands do is- they increase resistance as your muscles are at the strongest position. So, for bench press, tied a band around my back. Let me- let me get a band, one sec.
So, here’s a band right here. So, if I get this band, right, and then wrap around my back. I do bench press, which I will do this throughout the day. So, I’m right in this position here, okay? The band is actually the- the least tight right now. There’s a least force on it. I’m in my most vulnerable position. Well my- my joint angle is the most acute, the smallest, right. Imagine, you know, the angle of the joint being pulled to my forearm, my bicep, it’s the smallest, right? So- as I elongate, it actually gets more force occurs. At the end, I have the largest amount of force. So, you can see that with a push, like this. Well, you can imagine it with a military press, you can imagine it with a dead lift, going down as well. At the tallest, I’m the strongest, that’s where the force is the most. At the bottom it’s the lowest. Now, one of the reasons why that’s helpful is when the joint angle is the most acute, that’s where injury in training inflammation can occur the most. So, with the band, it’s kind of a- adaptive, in your strongest position you get the most force, and your absolute most supple position, you’ll get the least force. So, that allow you to train your muscle more for pliability and there’s less compressive force that you put your muscle into. So, what that does is it’ll- it creates less inflammation that keeps the tissue more supple, and more like that beef tenderloin kind of ribeye that’s raw versus the beef jerky. That’s important, allows the muscle be more functional and to work better over time, ‘kay?
Number 2, hydration. Half your body weight and ounces, this is a good Brady principle, uh… not to mention adding additional electrolytes to your waste. So, one of the things that we add in with patients, is we’re adding a lot of like, Redmond’s real salt, or, you know, uh- high quality Himalayan sea salt which is really- could be may even add an extra potassium and magnesium, because electrolytes are very important, so your nerves work well, right? You drink too much water and not enough electrolytes, you can get a condition called hyponatremia, where you have low electrolytes, low sodium, and that prevents your- it can stop your heart, right? You can have cardiac arrest from it. So, it’s really important, you wanna make sure we have really good contractility, we have really good cellular communication with minerals and we need good hydration to also do that. So, training, hydration.
Number 3, also anti-inflammatory diet. Now here’s the thing, it’s really interesting. If you study Tom Brady’s diet, there’s a lot of key blob there that have kind of misnomer Tom is like, a vegan. If you look at his and part of this is because one of his major chefs seem to be a vegan chef. But if you read, if you really dive in to Tom’s uh- TB12 method or you look at some of the articles, he has this vegan chef that does a lot of his recipes but he eats about 20-25% meat. Now, all organic, even has- he has red meat, grass-fed organic, right? He does lots of poultry, lots of fish, lots of chicken, lots of good high-quality protein, 20 to 25%. Tom also does some amino acid protein powder. So, he does a high-quality grass-fed whey protein as well. So, he’s doing some amino acids, he’s doing extra amino acids. I’ve seen- I’m not sure if I started on his book but I’ve seen it in his locker before. I’ve seen pictures, it seems like he does do creatine as well which is really important for the mitochondria. He does do uh- extra amino acids derived from a whey protein, he has do high quality, you know, multi-nutrients B, uh, C, you know, all of your- your culated minerals, and then in particular, 20 to 25% animal protein.
Now, one thing Tom also does is he kind is on a hybrid paleo-autoimmune diet. He avoids the night shades like crazy. These are the- these are the tomatoes, the potatoes, the eggplants and peppers. These are the TPEP for sure. Uh, why is this important? Well, uhm- night shades have a compound called alpha solanines in them. And they can be a little bit more irritating to the joints. Now, not everyone reacts this way, so you- you may or may not benefit by cutting nightshades out. In Tom’s situation, he- his joints feel better, he is less inflamed when he doesn’t have the night shades in there. So, again, if you’re an athlete, and you’re using your joints a lot, using your muscles a lot, night shades maybe a thing to cut out. Tom also has lot of nuts and seeds which are an autoimmune template typically wouldn’t be allowed and that’s why I’m calling it a hybrid. Not quite a full autoimmune template. He’s also having some butter. From what I understand, he is not doing any cow’s milk, from what I get he eats a lot of nut milks, uhm- coconut, almond milk, those type of things, lots of good healthy fats, fish oil, coconuts, lots of healthy meats. And he typically does not do a lot of fruits and carbs surprisingly. Now that may change because he talks in the book eating more seasonally, so that means he may be eating more starchy tubers in the winter time when it’s colder. And he may be eating more fruit in the spring, in the summer, when that’s more in seizing ‘cause he really talks about eating a lot of wholefoods seasonally, and adjusting his carb intake based on the seasons. So, I’ve seen a lot of data on that as well. And that’s probably being applied as well. So, I wouldn’t be surprised and like the Kansas gamers really called yesterday, I wouldn’t be surprised if this happens in sweet potatoes or some really good healthy starchy tubers, just the FYI.
So, we hit the diet component, we hit the hydration component, we hit the exercise component. Couple things Tom also does to sleep, hitting 9-10 hours of sleep per night which is really-really important. Uhm, sleep is gonna tap into your growth hormone levels. 10PM to 2AM, we’re gonna be maximizing growth hormone, super important. Uhm number 2, is we’re also going to be uhm… really getting testosterone, getting a lot of our good anabolic hormones improved as we get good night sleep. So, he used 9 to 10 hours a night. He also add- adds some infrared sleep wear which is really interesting. That’s supposedly designed to reflect a lot of this… this body energy back inside to stimulate healing. That’s another component that is happening there as well, uh on the healing side. So, he’s maximizing sleep, and he is also maximizing some of this infrared sleep wear to really help improve healing on that side of the fence.
And then if you go look at a couple other things, it’s not really ___ [11:02] well. If you go look back to Tom’s, uhm days playing at University of Michigan the late 90’s, uhm… it seemed like he uhm… is about to quit football at one point and he saw sports psychologist. So, there’s some other things that’s Tom- uh Tom is doing on the mental, emotional side. I think he did a lot of visualization potentially a lot of NLP, a lot of visualation- a vi- visualization rehearsal where he puts himself in position to visualize, you know, hey, I got the ball, there’s a 2 minutes left, it’s the last try. But I think that’s really important because one of the things Tom has, you know, made himself known for is being a clutch quarterback in tight situations. And, how many times do you really have the ability to be in a tough situation where you have the ball and you’re driving down the field to make that last-minute win. Not too many times in a season, right? But if you can go in your head and visualize that success, you can do it multiple times, or at least every day, right? So, what does that mean? I think people can take the idea of visualization, and incorporate it with their health, with their life, with their work, with their family and they can visualize for 5 or 10 minutes a day, and what it is they want to be, do or have in their life and they can visualize it like it’s done. I think it’s important we- you really kind of fire off neural circuitry, and that neural circuitry is really important because the more it fires in that way to come up with those thoughts, those images in your head, uh, the more likely those circuits will fire in real life as it’s achieved. Because it’s like walking a path. The more you walk a path in the woods, the more that path is clear the next time. And it’s clear the next time, and then you can see it’s a hundred percent clear. It- it’s effortless to walk because you have all this resistance of dead brush around you and then you have this clear direct path that makes it really easy that this is the way you need to walk. And that’s how your brain works, and it’s very important. So, doing a lot of visualization techniques, I think are very important, you can do very, you know, very small reversals techniques like NLP where you really go into things and- and you almost step back like, you see your life on a screen and you’re sitting in the theatre watching yourself. So, it’s not like you’re actually in it living it, you are actually sitting back in the- in stands and you’re watching yourself on screen, that’s really important. A lot of NLP techniques that- that’ll do that where they’ll see themselves on the big screen, and they’ll also jump into it so they can see it from multiple perspectives, uh to- to really get the- those neural pathways wired for success, right? The more those pathways seem familiar, when that sympathetic nervous system, and that stress comes on, right? This is what’s important for winning is you need those pathways to feel like it’s familiar, or the sympathetic nervous system stress will activate that limbic system, that flight or fight, and it may not go your way. It’s really easy to be negative and scared in those situations for obvious reasons.
Alright, so we talked about some of the nutrient. We talked about diet, we talked about some of the training, we talked about some of the mental-cognitive things. Uhm… we talked about water hydration. Uh, we talked about sleep. Uh, what else? Anything else you guys wanna chat about on top on that? One of the component I would say is, Tom also talks a lot about uh… acid alkaline balance, or I should say ___[14:13], I’m not sure how important that is per se, my opinion, I think if you’re just eating, you know, a- a healthy serving, a palm, or fist, or full hand to get protein, and you’re eating good fats and you’re eating, you know, relatively an unlimited amount of vegetables and- and a healthy uhm- colored fruit and such, I- I think acid alkaline balance tends to be a natural uhm, byproduct, right? You tend to be more alkaline naturally, I don’t think that that show the goal, it’s probably more of a natural and byproduct of you eating these types of anti-inflammatory foods. Because the goal is, that you’re eating anti-inflammatory, right? Or keeping inflammation down through the right kinds of exercise, more pliability, less weight-based, and the older you get. Number 2, anti-inflammatory through high-quality good fats, Omega-3’s, also, I didn’t really added a paleo template/autoimmune-paleo-template that Tom’s eating. He is also going a hundred percent in gluten-free as well. That’s really important. Every now and then I’ll see him add in some grains, but he is really specific on going a hundred percent gluten-free. And then also nightshade-free as well because that really helps with the joint pain and the joint inflammation. And then we talked about the sleep, we talked about the infrared sleepwear, we talked about more of the band training, the more of the band training to help as well, uhm which is essential because that just provide- puts less compressive force and really strengthens the muscle in a more pliable type of atmosphere. Uh, hydration, electrolytes, no more than 1 to 200mg of caffeine a day, partly because of caffeine’s diuretic effects, uh, which you can lose water as well as minerals on top of it.
Right ya’ll, I’m gonna open up for some questions here. Hope you enjoyed this chat here so far. Let’s try to give you guys a lot of the- the really good information here that you can, you know, start applying in your own life and and your own health. Uhm, yeah, and I’ve been studying Tom Brady for long time so I just try to give you guys that actual simple steps. Alright. Let’s see here, I’m gonna try to grab questions pertaining to this topic here first. Uh- uh- see here, see if you guys can be on track. Yeah, so and I’ve also- couple questions here, I’ve also seen Tom does seem to take some adaptogenic herbs. Uh, I know Alex Ferreira’s does, is he had the Chinese medicine background, so I imagined he may be adjusting some of those adaptogens accordingly, according to what Tom needs, or stress, etc. Not really specific, a lot of these things are more proprietary but, and from the reading that I can estimate, there is some type of adaptogenic herb consumption. Well there’s ashwaganza- gandha, or ginseng, or Luther oil, there’s definitely something going on there as well. See here…
Alright. Any other questions guys? Let me know. If not, I’m gonna end this call here. Lot of questions coming in but I gotta keep it on topic… to this podcast. Alright, so let me just highlight a couple of other things here. Uhm… let me just see here. So we talked about the hydration, we talked about the food, we talked about the training, we talked about sleep, we talked about cutting out, you know, certain uh- foods that are gonna be the more inflammatory. We talked about the acid alkaline balance. And I think, more important than the acid alkaline balance like I mentioned, is inflammation. Inflammation will affect… alkalinity or acidity far more than just the PH of your food. We do a lot of this PH testing, like take a food in, like burn it and then look at what the PH of that ash is. And the problem is in your body, it’s not like this bomb incinerator where you just buy stuff, it goes into your stomach, there’s acids that break it down, it re-lowers the PH to everything, to about 2 before it gets released in your stomach into your small intestine, then the bicarbonate comes in that brings it back up to 7 or so. So, you can see here, there’s this kind of roller coaster effect of the PH and how it shifts in the body through our acids, through our enzymes, through bicarbonate, all these really important things. So, more importantly, the biggest thing that will affect your PH is going to be just- is the food acid or alkaline? just the fact of exercising, you will increase acidity in the body, and you will see if you test your own PH after a sprinter. Some uhm… you know, intense training, you will see more acid in your urine. And also, we have buffering system where we breathe out CO2, we create bicarbonate in our body, right? So, we have a lot of regulatory systems through urination of acid, through breathing off a CO2, the bicar- bicarbonate buffers that happen, uhm- with uhm, you know, in these buffering systems in our body. So, these are all-natural ways that we do. And remember, grains are gonna be 10 times more acidic on average than meat sour. So, many people think of meat as very-very acidic. Remember, grains are 10 times more acidic because that PH scale of 1 to 14, 7’s neutral in the middle, that’s water. That’s one a logarithmic scale, so something that’s on a 4, which may be what a grain is, compared to a meat somewhere around 5, on average. Uhm, it’s not a- it’s not a 1 to 1 ratio, that- that’s a 10 to 1. So, if you’re at a 4 and then you go to a 5, that’s logarithmic. It’s 10 times more acidic at a 4 than it is a 5. So, just hope you- that makes sense. So, when you look at this PH scales it makes more sense to everyone.
Uh, let’s see any last questions here so far. Uh… awesome. Hmm… “Did Tom go through any gut bug issues?”. I mean, here’s the deal, you’re not gonna get all the nitty-gritty, and if you noticed all the- all- more of the nitty-gritty about Tom has really come out- let’s just say in the twilight of his career, the last 2 or 3 years. Uh, and I think a lot of that is design. I think, you know, he’s kind of achieved where he’s- where he’s at, he has momentum in what he’s doing. So, I think he’s not really worried about people copying everything that he’s doing. I think a lot of it, it’s kind of intuitive to how conventional strength coaches uhm… train their players. It’s just lifting, lifting, lifting, lifting, and he’s putting a lot more focus on the pliability, and- and the functionality of his muscle and the recovery.
Uhm, let’s see here… “Cold thermal therapy”. I- I mean, I would guess, that Tom would personally be in- incorporating some of this, I can’t say for sure. Uhm, doing cold showers or doing cold thermogenesis whether it’s like uh, a liquid nitrogen type of uhm, a cold tank therapy, or doing a- I think really cold showers. I do cold showers every day, I think they’re very anti-inflammatory, there’s a lot of good data on the literature. Uh, it’s a systemic inflammation reduction capacity, so, I do like it. Uhm, one thing I noticed myself, is, I’ve done a lot more of the band workouts. And one day I can tell you, is in the moment after a really good, you know, a push, or a press, or a pull, or a squat, or bend, with really good quality bands. After I’ve done that, 10 or 11 reps, I am so fatigue. But, it’s a different level of fatigue. My heart’s going, my muscles feel fatigue, but my recovery standpoint, I don’t feel the same level of depletion or excessive soreness. So that’s- I think, partly where Tom is talking about with some of the bands, is you’re not creating as much of an inflammatory response. I think you’re still stimulating the muscles to grow and be strong. So there is this, there’s balance being immobili- okay, we want the muscles to- we wanna tell the muscles to be strong, we want the mu- the muscles to adapt and grow and contract fat and absorb force, but we don’t wanna create so much inflammation where they become tougher and thicker and lose their pliability. I think that’s some of the benefits that you get with the bands. And uhm, just be careful like, make sure you’re getting good quality bands. You don’t want cheap bands that break, ’cause you could get hurt. And you want bands in my opinion, if you’re- you know, big or- and you need more force, you need to buy high quality, more heavy-duty types of bands that are out there, who just keeps that in the back of your head. Uhm, did Tom go through any gut big issues? I kinda- I kinda answer that already, can’t say for sure, but he’s working with high quality people on the natural medicine side. So, uhm, if he did I ima- I imagine he’s had the- the support that I will be providing my patients too.
Mmmh… “How does he handle stress?”. That’s a great question. Uhm, if you go back, like I mentioned earlier, he was seeing a psychologist in college. Uhm, and more of like- and it seems to be, like, and more of an NLP type of psychologist. So, it sounds like he does a lot of visualization, and which is really important. If you just think about a lot of the self-talk that we have kind of behind our heads so to speak? Most people, would not be friends with their inner self talk. If you just kinda write down every now and then, you get negative, and just write down or just think about some of the things that you’re telling yourself, most people wouldn’t be friends with that person, in their life. So I think managing self-talk, and I think NLP can do a lot of really good things to help control that self-talk is also EFT which can be helpful, EMDR, all these things uh, that are really-really important.
Alright ya’ll, I hope that’s helpful for ‘ya. Again, this is really part that we make kind of revisit this topic if- if uhm… Brady wants a Superbowl in 2 weeks, ’cause it’s pretty saddening that to win that many victories and uhm… also, it did- to highlight the techniques on the natural medicine side, because, everyone wants to perform better with their kids, everyone wants to be injury-proof, they wanna be functional in their muscles, they wanna be able to play with their grandkids when their 70 or 80 years old just like they were on their 30’s and 40’s, right? Who doesn’t want that? So, even though this is something that a professional athlete does at the highest level… I’m just tryna like, like zoom- zoom out now, zoom out big picture, I want ya’ll to be able to take these principles so you can perform your best in your job, be injury-proof and then take it with your families and friends and just really have a- super-active energized life, and be bulletproof essentially.
Alright ya’ll, it’s Dr. J. signing out. I’m so glad we had this chat today, and I’ll be back later on this week. Thank you and make sure you subscribe, thumbs up, give me a share, maybe we’ll get this video about the Tom and he- he can give me great on and s- and see how it end. Maybe he’ll give me some things that we can add. And maybe I’ll even get him on a podcast. Who knows, that’ll be pretty awesome. Alright ya’ll, thumbs up, share, hit the bell, subscribe. Take care. Bye.
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