Health won’t happen on its own. We must choose it deliberately. In this session of the Conscious Forum, we take a deep dive into what is required to become a healthy person.
Video Transcript:
Dr. A: Hello, everybody, this is Dr. Andersen, and this is the Conscious Forum. We do this usually on the first Tuesday of the month, but this week, this month, we’re doing it on the second because I was just coming back from actually filming a health documentary in Spain, which was a lot of fun and I really learned a lot about, you know, Spain’s a pretty cool place and they live a long time. In fact, Spain is probably very shortly going to become one of the blue zones, the area in Spain called Galicia. So, lots of insights there. It kind of led me to want to do this talk: What is Required to Become a Healthy Person? I think we all ask that question – you know, over 90% of us have some form of metabolic derangement. Very few of us are optimally healthy. This is about consciousness, but it’s also about understanding how your mind helps control your body, and together they basically create optimal health and wellbeing.
So with that, we’re going to talk today a little bit about what is required to become a healthy person. As you can see, I put down a fellow human. You know, we’re all – whether I teach this from an ivy tower, I’ve written several books on health and wellbeing, write stuff on consciousness, I’m a human just like you are, and we all have to deal with life, and life does get in the way. It’s intrinsically unstable, and as a result, sometimes we kind of run on automatic pilot. So, we’re going to talk about this in detail. So, the first thing I want to talk about is the modern world is designed to keep us unconscious.
Health begins with awareness, not luck. You know, this isn’t just another talk about habits. It’s about identity. Our world is designed to keep us unhealthy by default. We’re here to reclaim choice and design health consciously. So, this is really important for us. So, with that, let’s talk about – let me move to the next slide – so the current health crisis is really dramatic. You know, we don’t drift into health. We have to design it, and I’ve been talking about the creative process now for over 20 years. And the creative process is that we actually have to decide what health looks like and then work to create it because it’s not going to happen by itself, because basically, chronic disease is the norm because our environment is rigged for unconscious living. And so if we don’t actually become aware, which is so important, and get out of autopilot into conscious living– so we have to literally start noticing our patterns, our environments, and our unconscious habits.
Health won’t happen. We must choose it deliberately. And that is so important for everybody listening or viewing today. Because without that, nothing changes, and you’ll stay in the recurrent patterns, because the world is designed to put you on autopilot. It doesn’t want you thinking. Your ego doesn’t want you thinking. Your ego wants to do the job for you, keep you in the routine that’s easy for you, keep you in the comfort zone. And everywhere around you, every food company, every energy-saving device company, every news station is doing things that actually put you at higher risk for disease. So without that, we basically, without awareness, we’re not going to move. We’re not going to change. So, I like to think about it as the 5-second pause. You know, you need to ask yourself when I do something, when I sit down to eat, when I decide to sit on the sofa versus go up the stairs, use the remote rather than go switch on the TV, is this moving me towards or away from health? So, ask yourself those questions because awareness is the first step. If not, you will stay on autopilot. It’s kind of like when we drive our car. You know, when you first learn how to drive your car, you had to learn where the turn signals are and where the rain–where to put the windshield wipers on, and you had to learn about the brake and the accelerator, and turning, and all the other stuff that was involved in driving a car. And now, pretty much when you drive a car, you’re usually on your phone, hopefully hands-free, and you’re talking away. And next thing you know, you’re at your garage. Oh, I have to open my garage. I’m home. And that’s kind of how we are in everything in our lives.
We get into a pattern, basically those repetitive patterns. They’re influenced by our surroundings. They’re influenced by all the different parts of our environment. They’re influenced by the people we hang out with. They’re influenced by the architecture inside our kitchen. They’re influenced by how many labor-saver devices, and all these things are mostly, if you bought them from someone else, designed to make life easier. And honestly, when it comes to our health, we don’t want life easier. We want it to be more enjoyable. We want to be more aware and more conscious. So basically, awareness is the first step. And if we think about it, basically, our daily choices are so critical. You know, external pressure starts change. So you know whether you’re– you know, you get a lab result that says you’re pre-diabetic or you look at a picture and it shows you in your bathing suit, you say, “God, that can’t be me.” Or any of these things can happen. And that mode– or doctor says, “You are pre-diabetic and you’re going to get diabetes and have to be on medicines.” All those things start from external pressure, but they’re not sustainable.
Intrinsic motivation comes from purpose and identity. So you have to ask the question, who benefits most when you’re healthy? And obviously, the first thing is you. You benefit the most, and you need to be the chief architect of your own health because, without that, all the other things around you will keep you from being healthy. The second thing is relationships. Our relationships are so important, and when we’re healthy, we’re more vibrant. We want to do more things. We get out more, more active socially. And those things were really apparent when I was in Spain. I mean, just basically, they believe very much in living life. They actually say we work to live, not live to work. And that’s kind– we got that backwards here in the country. So who benefits? You. The people around you that you care about, and our whole society collectively. If our health care challenges go down, if our health care costs go down, the country benefits, and we thrive more. So basically, becoming the healthy person, you know what happens here? Well, it’s a strong sense of identity which consistently outweighs your willpower. Once you become a healthy person, you don’t have to try. You actually become that person, and you do things because it supports what’s more important to you. And that is so critical for us.
So if we think about that, basically, healthy choices become the default when you change who you are. You raise your standards by 1% a week. So, how do we become a healthy person? How do we change our identity? We do that by increasing our standards. And we do it in small increments. We shift from I’m trying to, to someone who values and protects my health. Show how identity alignment removes decision fatigue. When you have to keep deciding everything because you haven’t chosen to be a healthy person, everything becomes hard. You see something at a restaurant, you want it and you know it’s not healthy, and then you have to force yourself not to do it. So you’re using willpower. No. When you become a healthy person, then you don’t do these things because you don’t want to do them anymore. It’s really important.
So, let’s basically talk about the core Habits of Health. Now, I rearranged these. Normally, they’re done with the Macro Habits, but I want to put them in the categories so you can see which ones have to do with here, which ones have to do with your body, which have to do with your surroundings, and which have to do with your actual spirit. So, Healthy Body, how we move, what we eat, hydration, sleep, those are all critical, and we know how to do those. You know, I’ve spent many years with the Habits of Health teaching how to do that. Healthy Mind, resilience and stress management. Learning to Stop. Challenge. Choose. Learning to build psychological flexibility is so, so important. Healthy Surroundings, our underlying surroundings determine our behavior. We want to make it easier to do things that are healthy, and we want to make it harder to do things that aren’t healthy.
So the bottom line is you buy your willpower at the grocery store, right? If you don’t bring home stuff that’s not healthy, you’re not going to go out at night when you have an itch for something or like just an urge to eat some particular kind of food, because you’re not going to drive 10 miles to the grocery store at night. So, it’s important to modify our surroundings. And then our spirit, you know, basically having purpose, gratitude, and connection is so critical for us to have a healthy state of mind.
So with that, the invitation is, since health isn’t a destination, it’s actually your identity. Choose one small area to upgrade this week. If you choose one thing to do that you know is healthy and choose not to do one thing you do that isn’t healthy, that’s a double win. That’s like a 14-year point change in a game when the football team’s ready to score and they throw an interception, the guy runs it back for a touchdown. Those are basically small wins by your new story, and it’s really critical. The other part is reclaiming your authorship. You’re not a character in the story. Your thoughts are not you. Your feelings are not you. They are byproducts of your ego. You are actually the entity that is here, conscious. And who are you beyond your performances? You know, whether you’re doing well in school or in your job. That is not who you are. You are who you are. And you decide that by being fully aware in the moment. So we want to write a new story. This is not about adding more to your plate. It’s about taking back the pen and writing a different story. One where you become the healthiest version of yourself. It’s so critical.
[00:9:59] So basically, as I kind of close up this part of the forum and we open it up for questions, when you know who you truly are, no one can tell you who you’re supposed to be. Think about that. That’s so critical. We’re always being told, “Oh, you’re an unhealthy person or you’re this or you’re that.” You’re none of those things. Your identity can be whatever you want it to be. You need to make the decision and a series of small choices that make a difference. So, this is my invitation for you. Start observing your patterns. You know, a great way to do it, most of us don’t do this, but is to journal. Journaling is so good. I have a journal right here that I took to my– I take when I go overseas, that I write notes in. I got it in Venice. It’s a picture of the the famous bridge in Venice and you know I write things in this basically that are so important for me being able to reflect on and so I can use those and look back at them, just like, by the way, when you write books and I’ve written several books, as you know my newest one, My Prescription for Life, is just getting ready to be released. It’ll be on Amazon later on in the month, and it’s going to be available for everybody, and I’m going to go in next month to the studio and do a recording of it. But when I read–when I write the books and then as I go back to them, I was just reviewing something in the very first edition of the Habits of Health on metabolic health, seeing what I had written then and how I’ve changed my understanding.
You learn so much. So, it’s really important to write down what you’re doing during the day and then look and see, and you can actually, you know, a fun thing to do is write down what you ate today. Write down how much you moved today, or whether you sat on the couch, how much TV, how much time were you on your computer, and you can write those things down. And a cool thing you can do is you can take a regular pencil and then a red, and then a green one, and put next to it just a little star or something. Put in red the things that took you away from your health and or put in green the things that took you toward your health or put a like a just a dash in a regular pencil if it didn’t have any change one way or the other and then you can kind of look and then you can go through that and see over time, do you actually have more green than red? And if that’s true then you are changing your standards. Every week, you’re changing things and getting closer. So it starts with awakening that awareness and then creating a life that’s aligned with your true identity. And all of us have the opportunity, and I’m going to end with this next slide.
Your true identity is to become a healthy person. To be as healthy as you can with what you’ve got, and it’s a matter of three things. Changing how we perceive things so that we frame everything in a positive light. Two, basically, our choices, our decisions. Start making decisions that lead us towards health. And then the third is our behavior. Start doing things that lead us toward health. So basically that’s it! Hopefully that made a difference and got you thinking about it. And so now Rachel, let’s open it up for questions.
Rachel: All right. First up, we have John. John, can you come off mute? There you are.
Dr. A: Hey, John, you’re muted. Can’t hear you.
John: There we go. How’s that?
Dr. A: Good.
John: It wouldn’t turn off. I apologize.
Dr. A: That’s all right.
John: So, we’re talking a lot about metabolic dysfunction. And as we dive into the explanation of what metabolic dysfunction is, it tends to get a little wordy. Do you have a simple way to explain metabolic dysfunction without…
Dr. A: Sure do! I sure do.
Josh: Let’s do it.
Dr. A: You want it?
John: Yeah.
Dr. A: Okay. So, basically, think of your body as being an orchestra with a conductor. And there are three basic aspects of that conduction. There’s physiologic, there’s emotional, and there’s cognitive. And creating coherence in those three areas creates metabolic harmony or synchronization. Just like, you know, when you have an orchestra and you can tell if one instrument’s off in there, and man, it just doesn’t work. Well, metabolic dysfunction, basically– first of all, metabolism is simply us taking external energy from in our environment, putting it into our body, and it goes through the different phases down– first of all, you digest and you absorb, it’s broken down, and then the end point of metabolic health is these small little organelles, they’re called because they’re small and they’re inside all our cells called mitochondria. Mitochondria are like the powerhouse. They’re like the engine in your car. When you have that tuned and it’s running well, you don’t have any coughing. It isn’t, you know, sputtering. It’s not missing a beat. It sounds, it purs. That’s metabolic harmony. That’s metabolic synchronization. That’s basically when everything’s working like it’s supposed to. Okay.
The key modulator in our body that regulates all energy is insulin. Insulin is produced in our pancreas. It’s basically made in the beta cells, and when we eat something, it’s broken down and goes into the blood. As our blood sugar goes up, our insulin level goes up in order to help facilitate. Every cell in your body has insulin, has insulin receptors, and insulin’s designed to grow. So three things create dysfunction from the very beginning. I’m kind of just outlining the whole thing in very simple terms, hopefully, it makes sense so far. Right?
John: Right.
Dr. A: Okay. All right. So, basically, when you eat the meal, you know, there are three macronutrients. Basically, there’s protein, there’s fat, and then there’s carbohydrate. Part of carbohydrate is obviously sugar. There’s actually a fourth: alcohol, but it doesn’t have any nutritive value, but it does actually have energy in it, right? So, it’s around seven calories, right? So, basically, when you have those nutrients, they go in, the body utilizes them, it goes into the cell. It’s like there’s a gatekeeper, and the insulin opens it up so the glucose can go into the cell and work perfectly. When you start having dysfunction, the very first sign of dysfunction is kind of like high blood pressure. You don’t know about it. You really don’t know about it. What you may sense is a feeling of fatigue, malaise. You just aren’t feeling, you know, those days when you just don’t have that kick in your step. Right?
John: Right.
Dr. A: And what we’re finding now is, what’s happening is you’re starting to get insulin resistance. Insulin resistance means that the cells are not functioning– the insulin is not functioning and opening up the gates to those cells, and so your body is making more insulin. So if we look at somebody that may have no other symptoms yet, and if we look at–we don’t measure this. We measure glucose. We measure your blood sugar, your fasting blood sugar. That’s really pretty far down the road. When you basically have elevated blood sugar, that may have been five, ten years where your insulin levels have been going up trying to help keep up, so it could get your blood sugar into, the glucose, into the cells. So you already have metabolic dysfunction, and we sense it, that the mitochondria are not functioning as well, and it’s requiring more, and they’re kind of starting to sputter a little bit. Right?
Once your blood sugar starts going up, now you’re really getting into it, and then it leads to–there’s a thing called metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is actually–we started studying this, you know, like 50 years ago. It used to be called syndrome X. Metabolic syndrome means that you– there are five things that they look at, that show that you’re metabolically not healthy. And by the way, just to make it, we can’t study in real life your mitochondria. We can’t look and see them sputtering. We can do that in the lab, but we can’t do that– it’s hard, very hard to do. But we know some of the things that go along with metabolic dysfunction, which is metabolic syndrome. There are things as simple as your waist circumference. That’s because you’re when your waist circumference goes up, and it’s over 35 as a female or 40 as a male, you’re starting to get visceral adiposity. That’s visceral fat. That’s unhealthy fat that creates inflammation and creates all the secondary things that go on.
Second is your basically your blood sugar starts going up. Your fasting blood sugar is going up. Third, your triglycerides are going up. Fourth, your blood pressure is going up. And then fifth, your HDLs are going down, which is the good cholesterol that helps move it away. So any one of those five things that happen by themselves is that you’re building metabolic dysfunction. When you have three of them or more, you now have metabolic syndrome, which means you have pretty significant disease already occurring. So that’s that’s kind of how we quantitate it. And here’s the thing: metabolic dysfunction is the harbinger. It’s kind of like the soil that grows all the major diseases. So everything from diabetes to cardiovascular disease, to Alzheimer’s to other cognitive declines, to cancers, all those things are directly related to metabolic dysfunction that started years before, including, by the way, fatty liver and PCOS that women get, right? Where they become infertile. All those things are a result of that.
[00:19:58] So in the continuum, metabolic health means very clearly that we are humming along. We have basically great coherence between our physiology and our emotions. Oh, because here’s the other thing, the things that I spend time on the Habits of Health all either create improving metabolic health or worsening metabolic health. So everything from the– and the three things that raise your insulin. First, number one, is insulin raises insulin. So if your insulin level goes up and it goes up as a result of eating the unhealthy, processed food, ultraprocessed diet, we eat, right? That’s the main reason, eating too much sugar and salty stuff that is not healthy for you.
Second is inflammation, which is when your gut is not healthy because you’re eating all these improper foods, and you start to get leaky gut. And then what happens is some of the bacteria that are supposed to stay inside your gut actually leak into your bloodstream, causing inflammation. And the third is why I do this forum, and that is your stress level. As your stress level goes up, basically your insulin load goes up, and the other part of that is your sleep. When you don’t sleep well, your cortisol level goes up and you’re you’re basically more likely to be unhealthy. So, does that help?
John: Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you for chiming in. I appreciate it.
Dr. A: Yeah. You’re welcome. Cool. Awesome. Okay. Who’s next, Rach?
Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Alison. Hey, Alison.
Dr.A: Hey, Alison. I think you’re still muted there. Yep. There you go.
Alison: Hi, Dr. A!
Dr. A: Great to see you.
Alison: So, we talked last March, and I shared with you how I felt stuck. I was starting, stopping, starting, stopping. You gave me some things to talk with my therapist about, and that helped massively. I just have to show you the change in me since then [Alison shows a photo].
Dr. A: Wow. Awesome.
Alison: And so I’m headed back in the right direction again.
Dr. A: I can tell by your smile.
Alison: It’s crazy, like the mental capacity for everything, just how it affects all areas of life. And I feel I’ve never gotten to a healthy BMI in my adult life. I got close about six years ago with Optavia, and I let the voices– I think it was a combination of two things. First, there were a lot of voices that I feel like had never seen healthy on me, and so they were very well-meaning, telling me, giving me, all kinds of advice that was not in alignment with my goals and getting to a healthy BMI, being healthy, like you’ve been talking about. So that was part of it. I think the other part of it, if I’m going to be honest, was my unbelief that I could actually get there. I now believe that I am fully capable of getting there with the program, with the tools that you have given us. It’s going to happen.
But there is this underlying concern for the voices that have already started coming up. I like what I see in the mirror now. Honestly, I’ve liked it. I’ve learned to love that back from when I was at my highest. I had accepted that piece, and so I’m happy with that piece. I’m a little nervous as I get lower and lower and closer and closer. I’m not going to be used to what healthy looks like on me either. And I just, I don’t want to stop. I want to, like you were talking about, get to that point where I’ve got as little visceral fat as possible and I can be as healthy as possible for myself and my family.
Dr. A: Yeah, I love that. I really love that. So, who are you?
Alison: I think maybe I need to spend some time there.
Dr. A: Yeah, because, okay, so what you have to do is do a plus and minus column.
Alison: Okay.
Dr. A: Because you’re still in a bit of an oscillating structure. Okay, you want to be in a creative structure, and that’s what this talk was today. So, you’re a great example. Thank you for sharing. First of all, let’s go back for a moment. I’m just curious, what were the main things we talked about last year that helped you work with your therapist? What would you say to those? So, let’s start there so we can build on that.
Alison: Just really getting deep into my “why” and what’s important to me and building on small habits. And so really, like one of the things was starting with five-minute walks, and that’s grown to the point where now, almost two hours, and that’s my safe space. That’s my time with God. That’s my mental– I go for walks now not for physical health, but the mental, emotional piece. So, really giving myself that time and space.
Dr. A: Okay. So, okay. Let’s just take that one. Let’s start right there. So you know, do you journal by the way? I used to, but I haven’t been lately. Oh, hello! Okay, let’s start. You can’t–remember this, health, being healthy is a lifetime commitment.
Alison: Yeah.
Dr. A: It’s not a thing you do for a while. It’s not a thing– and what you’re doing again, a little bit, is you’re looking and saying, “Wow, look how much better I look.” Right? So, you’re looking at getting rid of something you don’t want. I don’t want you thinking that way anymore. I want you, what are you creating in your life? Problem-solving does not create anything. It just gets rid of something that’s wrong. And then when you get close– that’s why you’re starting to get worried again. You’re getting worried because you know I’m not used to this. I like it. But it never lasts. So your belief isn’t complete. If your belief is complete, you wouldn’t be having this discussion. So first of all, stop fooling yourself. Okay.
Alison: Thank you.
Dr. A: That’s the first thing. Second thing is, focus on what you are creating. Okay? You’re a beautiful woman. You want to be at a healthy BMI. You want to be fit. So let’s just take something like– we would need to look at, what am I doing in small incremental steps and what do I need to continue to adjust? Okay. So getting out and just walking five minutes is a good start. It got you out. I mean, I can tell you this morning I got up. I’ve got really busy– I have this to do. I have to get ready for Sunday. I have to make these lectures. I got all these things. But what I did is I took some fat-free or sugar-free yogurt. took a nice cup of coffee, put a little creatine in it because there are things I do now. I didn’t used to do those. And I went and sat outside. I happen to live on the ocean and it’s the ocean’s pretty rough today. And I sat there for 15 minutes doing exactly what you’re talking about the time this for our spiritual growth, right? And I really looked at that and and in that, you know, I said to myself, you know what? What a beautiful place we live in, right? That appreciative gratitude those things are so important.
Be grateful for who you are. Be grateful for the things you’ve done. And now, as I move forward, you want to look at the practicality, right? We start with microHabits, and then you build them and now you’re saying you’re spending two hours a day walking. Well here’s the thing, is that actually the best use of your time? Now part of, the spiritual part I love, two hours is a lot of time. Could I use that time and now diversify my Habits of Healthy Motion? Add weight resistance training, add some HIIT, right? Some highintensity interval training. Can I do– and maybe you’ve already done these things, but my point is how do I now as I move forward add and remember you are evolving and as you evolve, you have to continue to do things you didn’t do before, right? You don’t start swimming across the Golden Gate– the San Francisco harbor. you get in the kiddie pool and learn how to deal with water as a kid, right?
Where you are now is you’re now incrementally improving and refining the things you do. You know, I started when I wrote My Prescription for Life, which is just getting released. I wore a glucometer for a year, a continuous glucose monitor, and everything—I had never done that before, and I knew, I wrote in 2008, in the first Habits of Health, I wrote about glycemic index and gave you great guidelines, but I hadn’t actually done it specifically, each thing I ate. I started doing that. My waist circumference is basically two inches. It’s the same as I was in high school now. I never reached that before because I continue to learn and grow and do more things that help more decisions. The little baby steps that together add up. So, you should do a full review now of everything you do. You know, if we went back to the slide I showed you on the Habits of Health, the stuff on your physical body, okay, what can I do to now improve my physical, my Habits of Healthy Motion? Should I add getting on a Peloton or getting, you know, whatever? It doesn’t matter. Going to the gym, going bike riding, it doesn’t matter what. Swimming, getting in the pool, whatever works for you. And make sure it works in your schedule because it’s now who you’re becoming. And so, it’s something you’re going to be doing for the rest of your life, not just for a short period of time.
[00:29:57] That’s the problem with dieting. That’s the problem with any of these problem-solving ways. You will get to the point where just like, you know, I made an analogy in one of my recent talks. It’s like going to the casino, right? You may have some small wins, but you’re going to lose. The person that’s going to win is the casino. The casino, those casinos in Vegas are huge monoliths. I mean, they’re luxurious beyond—they’re crazy how luxurious they are. They’re extreme. That’s because you’re going to lose when you go to the casino. If you focus on losing weight alone by dropping your calories, you are going to lose long term unless you’re approaching it from creating health. That’s the whole shift towards metabolic health. We want to help people start improving their body’s ability to put itself back in balance. So, you should do a review. You should sit down this weekend when you have some time. I know you’re a busy mom, but basically take all key six MacroHabits.
Alison: Okay.
Dr. A: All six of them. And the one you really want to focus on—does your dog have a collar on? What’s he got? What’s he got going on? [Alison’s dog comes into view onscreen with a cone collar on].
Alison: I was trimming his hair and I cut his neck.
Dr. A: Oh, okay. Well, that’s something you want to work on. Like maybe take him to the dog trimmer.
Alison: Yeah, I mean that’ll be cheaper than the vet bill!
Dr. A: Than the vet bill, yeah [Alison and Dr. A are laughing]. So, anyway, but here’s my point—and see how you feel right now when you’re laughing?
Alison: Yeah.
Dr. A: Okay. You can do that in all the key areas. You can laugh about, “You know what? I’m now creating health in my Habits of Healthy Emotion,” and go through the book. Go through the LifeBook. Go through and say, “Okay. Which of those do I need to add?” And maybe compress rather than spending two hours out walking and talking to God, you can do that in in the cliff notes with God, and love it, and I’m making fun of it, but have that spiritual—that’s an important part of everything. That’s part a big part of our “Why.” But beyond that, let’s add the other two or three things that can help improve your physical heath. As you increase your muscle, you increase your ability to absorb glucose. It’s like a big sponge and it also absorbs your insulin. So in the times when you do get stressed, because life does get in the way. You’re not trying to be pollyanna and say that life is perfect. You’re basically learning that when something in life happens that isn’t perfect, I now have the physiologic or psychological flexibility to make it like water on a duck’s back. I deal with it, address it, and then I move on with my day. It doesn’t raise my insulin, so that by later in the afternoon, because I’m so stressed out, I’m looking to eat a hot fudge Sunday.
Alison: Right.
Dr. A: Every one of these things you have control over and you’re there. And part of journaling, you need to start journaling. And I think the idea, you know, I talked about earlier, write down make–there’s charts. You can go to habitsofhealth.com and get charts that measure your six MacroHabits and where you are in them from 1 to 10, and start doing that. Take a journal each day, take the categories and say, “Okay, I did these three things that helped with my Habits of Health and I did these two things that were habits of non-health because I was sedentary.” Right? Start doing that. And then what’s going to happen is you’re building your aramentarium. You’re building this protective bubble around you. So that the influences that used to take you down and sabotage you no longer have that effect on you. Cool?
Alison: Yes. Thank you.
Dr. A: Right. Come back on in a couple months and let me know. And by and by the way, each time you start to have that little self-doubt creep in, look at where you’re going. Look at your recent gains, the things you’ve done that have actually helped you. And basically don’t give any energy. You know, there’s an old Indian adage about we all have two wolves, right? One of them is one of them basically is loving, takes care of the family, does everything and the other one is mean and nasty. Which one are you? The one you feed.
Alison: Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you.
Dr. A: Okay, Rach. Who else we got?
Rachel: All right. Next up, we have Mary. There you are, Mary.
Dr. A: Hey, Mary. I can’t hear you. You’re muted.
Mary: Sorry, I hit the wrong button and your face disappeared.
Dr. A: I hear you now fine. Don’t worry. Don’t be sorry.
Mary: Okay. So, I wrote up my question and I don’t know where it went so I’ll just rephrase it. It’s nice to chat with you, of course. My question is, I’m in a nursing facility and I will put it bluntly, I don’t see a lot of Habits of Health going on beyond the fact that they give the patients their medications and they provide activities that are not really the MacroHabit of Healthy Movement. And I just wondered if you had any thoughts on what I can do if not while I’m in here, because I’m confined to the bed, if not while I’m here, because I do suggest things and they’re poo-pooed. And so what could I do after I go home? Which I assume will be after I have surgery on my broken leg in about, I’m hoping for about 6 months. I have lost 182 and I have 70 to go. But I feel for these people who don’t have that hope of going home and it actually breaks my heart. And when I read the book, the LifeBook and the Habits of Health, I see all these things that they could be doing. And I had the idea of starting a kindness project, but anyway, that’s what I wanted to hear from you.
Dr. A: Yeah. Well, you know, I’m going to show you something. I’m going to show you something because you are asking the million-dollar question, and I asked the same question to the food industry, to the energy saving device industry, to the news agencies, to just about everything out there in our country, unfortunately it is obesogenic. It’s not helping us. And certainly the difference, you know, being in a facility like you’re in, is focused around, it’s tooled for disease management. It’s not tooled for health. So I know it’s frustrating. I think for you, the best thing you can do is get yourself, get that thing fixed, and get out and start moving as much as you can. I’m going to show you a cute little video that I did when I was in Spain. I went to a community center where there were people that were in their 80’s, 90’s, and basically hundreds. And I want to show, I’ll show you, just to give you hope that you can do these things and when you get out obviously, but by the way, what can you do? Whatever you can do consistently, right? Do something, you know, again going back to the microHabits. Do something that you can do every day, right?
Start off slow, just moving your limbs, you know, being able to get out of bed and be weight dependant, as long as your balance is good. You do start very slow. Don’t try to overdo it and just incrementally get just a little bit better every day. That’s that will make all the difference. So, I’m going to show you something cute just to give in inspire you. Okay, here we go. Can you see those people?
Mary: Yes.
Dr. A: They’re all in their 80’s, 90’s. Some of them are in their hundreds and they’re out there in a little community center and they’re doing the Macarena. She’s taking them through the motions. Like just simple things like that. Keeping their flexibility, moving themselves, sitting in the chair because many of them, like yourself right now, can’t can’t do that. So, what you have in here, help yourself get healthy. You know, obviously if you need surgery, modern medicine has things we do that can help like surgery. Get that repaired and then as soon as it, you know, your doctors say it’s okay, then get out and start moving as much as you can, and start slow because your balance won’t be good. You’ve been in bed for a while, so you’re, you know, when you’re at bed rest, you get kind of light headed when you get up suddenly. So, just work, but don’t let the frustrations of what you’re seeing in there. We’ll get that changed over time. That’s why we do this. That’s what this Conscious Forum is about.
Mary: That’s what I wanted to hear.
Dr. A: Okay?
Mary: Yeah.
Dr. A: And good luck.
Mary: Thank you. Thank you so much.
Dr. A: See you, bye. Okay, Rachel, do we have anybody else?
Rachel: All right. Yep. Next we have T.J. Hi, T.J.
T.J.: Good morning.
Dr. A: Morning.
T.J.: So I just absolutely love getting into the Habits of Health and LifeBook. In fact, they are threadbare now almost. I love that we’re moving deeper into metabolic health, which I feel like that is everything that you have taught us through the years, and over the last 10 years. Like I said, I have just just eaten it up. There’s one thing that stands out to me, and I’d love to have you talk a little bit more about it. Somewhere in there, you talk about within 3 months, our cells rejuvenate, and within 3 years, it’s as if we haven’t done the damage. And I will say over 10 years, I no longer live with obesity. I no longer live with Hashimoto’s. I no longer live with rheumatoid arthritis. And that, it’s so powerful what can happen when we change our identity and become this person. And I’m so thankful. But I’d love to have you talk just a little bit more about about the way ourselves regenerate.
Dr. A: Sure. Yeah. So, so first of all, you know, one of the things we’re learning more, and you’re right, when I wrote the Habits of Health, the first version in 2008, I talked about the key role of insulin. I talked about metabolic health. I talked about lowering our insulin level, what insulin resistance was. So, we’re just learning more. And what’s nice is now we’re able to make the claims that we actually specifically can help with that, you know, by reducing, targeting visceral fat and protecting lean mass, and by protecting muscle. I mean, those are all great things, but it’s all part of a continuum, right? In the continuum, if the three main reasons insulin goes up is what we eat, insulin begets insulin, basically inflammation and then stress, then those are the things that I’ve been addressing since 2008 and continue to address as we learn more and more.
That’s why we created–every one of these things, your body will put itself back in a functional state once you’ve got your mitochondria, really, as great powerpoints, creating pure energy, right? They’re creating pure energy that’s used. It’s very– our body has this, not just this inherent capacity to heal itself, but it’s got this intrinsic balance. And so when the nutrients are right, we’re moving, I mean, just like our, when you sleep better, right? You have less stress. The serotonin levels replenish, you have less, you’re able to handle because life is intrinsically unstable. We’re going to go through struggles in life. It’s when we then become the victim and we fully give in and give the power to the process that we start losing our way because then we have no control over it and we feel like we’re in victimhood. That’s the key part.
Like you saw just a little bit ago, Alison was talking about dramatic changes, right? And she knows inside of her that she can do what she needs to, but the voices are still there. Those voices need to basically come out, be released, and no longer be of significance. So, it’s—and I think you’re going to love My Prescription for Life. Because it literally is all about metabolic health and I you know, I started writing that a year and a half ago. And it really, really is the next stage in what we’re doing basically as a mission and that’s helping more and more people, like I love your smile. I can just see you you are in love with becoming a healthy person and the contrast if you could—you know, this is another thing we always tell people, take a picture when you start on our program so you can see what you look like before and show other people how you’ve transformed, but just as much of that, if you had taken a journal when you were at your worst, right? Had all that inflammatory stuff going on, autoimmune stuff, and you looked at how you felt, you quantitated that in a day, and did a synopsis, and then look at this vibrant smile on your face.
Today you are categorically, now you’ve become a healthy person. Before you were relying and and there’s a place for medicine if we get hit by a car or have an infection, but there’s very little place in chronic disease. It just simply keeps us alive, not in a healthy state. And I’m all about health span not lifespan. We want to compress those two. So you live up to that last moment in a healthy state, fully vibrant, enjoying life. And that’s the best gift you can give yourself, your family, your community, our society, and the world. And becoming an advocate of that is so very important for us. So yeah, our cells basically replenish themselves. And what happens is, over time, as we get older, if we haven’t replenished them properly, they reproduce at the same level and the DNA, the telomeres, which are the ends. They’re kind of like, if you think about it, they’re like the little anklets that are on the end of your tennis shoes or your your running shoes, you know, they have the little plastic thing that you can put through the hole and then, you know, as they get older, that frays, right? And then you can’t, you have to put a little spit on it to get it through the hole.
[00:44:49] Same thing happens with our telomeres. They start shortening and unraveling and then they don’t reproduce as well. If you put yourself in perfect metabolic health, you do the things that are necessary, your sleep–the six MacroHabits. I mean, it covers everything. If you’re doing those six things and you’re working on, just like we were talking with Alison, getting better and more diverse, you will maximize your—genetics basically are like a little imprint in there that duplicates. And even if you have bad genetics, if you make good choices, 70% of our health is determined by our choices, our lifestyle—not by our genetics. 30% is your genetics. So you can’t pick your parents, but you certainly can pick your choices. And if you pick your choices, you can overcome the discrepancy between what your genetic, it’s not, you’re not destined. And we’re learning more and more about epigenetics. We can turn off the bad genes. We can actually turn them off by the Habits of Health, by My Prescription for Life and by the things that we’re learning together and collectively reaching out and helping others is a big part of that because we’re in the service of someone else. The joy that brings, I mean, I’ve been doing this for a quarter of a century now and bottom line is, do I look like I’m getting bored with it? No.
T.J.: Not at all.
Dr. A: Okay. So, was that helpful?
T.J.: A tiny question, kind of on the same lane. So, one of the things that I’m talking about when I’m talking about metabolic health is like there’s corrosion that happens. For me, that’s a picture that works really well. There’s corrosion when we’re living in the Habits of Disease. And corrosion, when you think about it, it can actually be cleaned off pretty good. And there might be a little bit of pitting in the metal, but you can clean it off and so those cells are replenishing. But if we wait too long, that corrosion goes in and creates a place where that opening and closing of that insulin flap will never happen. Does that kind of…
Dr. A: Yeah, let me give you a couple real life examples of exactly what happens. Okay. So, one of the things that happens within visceral fat is we get fatty liver infiltration. And before years and years and years ago, the only way you really got fatty liver and got cirrhosis was from alcohol or drugs or from infection, from viral infections. But over the last 40, 50 years, with the onslaught of processed food, we’re getting more and more fatty liver infiltration. In the beginning it’s very reversible. You know you’re basically, as soon as you get insulin low, your body will—through lipolysis—the liver will start cleaning itself, and go through a regeneration where it’s getting healthier and healthier and healthier. If you wait too long and you get cirrhosis, there’s actually scarring of the liver. Now a little bit of cirrhosis you can manage, if you get yourself metabolically healthy. If you have terminal cirrhosis and it gets really bad, it gets to the point where you actually need a liver transplant, which they’re not very available.
They’re very expensive and you end up having to be on all kinds of drugs for the rest of your life. So that’s not the end. And we call it MASH now. It’s actually metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis. So that appeals to everything. Same thing with your—we have in our vessels. We have a thing called a glycocalyx which is basically a lining a film in all our blood vessels and around all our cells. And when our insulin level is low and our glucose level is under control, we have a very healthy glycocalyx and it’s kind of like teflon. It lets everything go smooth. When blood sugar gets raised and we get glycated, the hemoglobin, that’s why we measure hemoglobin A1CA is that then what happens is the glycolation occurs and that glycocalyx starts to degradate and over time we get disease.
So all the major diseases I talked about earlier, basically caused from progressive insulin resistance in the metabolic dysfunction, and then metabolic syndrome, and then leading to these terminal disease state which is significant cardiovascular disease, you know, very significant hepatitis, infiltrated liver, which becomes serotic, cognitive decline in our brain, all those things are related, and by addressing this you’ve added several years to your—as long as you don’t get hit by a car, right? Well, that’s the thing. Nine out of 10 deaths are related to metabolic dysfunction. Okay. The 10th one is an accident.
T.J.: Yeah.
Dr. A: So, look both ways while you’re getting healthy.
T.J.: I appreciate you so much. I just love learning from you. Thank you.
Dr. A: Your welcome. Awesome. Okay, we have 10 minutes left. Rachel, are there any more?
Rachel: Yes, we have one more question from Paula.
Dr. A: Hi Paula.
Paula: Hi. So, I just wanted to say, so about a year and a half ago I was living in a nursing home, and was in a wheelchair, and I was able to walk again, and got out, and living in my own apartment again. But my main struggle is that I’ve lived with mental health issues and struggles for a long time, since I was 20 years old, and I’m in my 50s. And I just started my journey. I’m in my third week now, and my question is, how can I change my mindset to just really remain positive and keep going, like to keep on my journey? Because I have, like quite a ways to go to, like lose my weight, and get healthy, and everything, because I have a lot of illnesses and stuff that I really need to take care of. Sleep apnea, rheumatoid arthritis, a lot of inflammation, a lot of chronic pain issues and stuff that are really affecting me right now.
Dr. A: Okay. So, two things. First thing, what do you love doing? What’s one of your favorite things, if, in your day you could do this? Give me one example of something you really love.
Paula: I have a lot of creative hobbies that I like doing. Diamond art, cross stitch, coloring, drawing.
Dr. A: All right.
Paula: Stuff like that.
Dr. A: Okay. So, all those are creations, right? You’re creating things. One of the key things, and by the way, you know, I’m not a psychotherapist. I don’t give mental therapy, cognitive therapy.
Paula: No, I understand.
Dr. A: I’m just saying this so that I’m going to tell you some things. Obviously, the first thing is if you can work with a therapist.
Paula: I do.
Dr. A: Okay. Great. Great. That’s really key because they can help you, you know, if there’s any chemical imbalances, any of those other things. But here’s what I found. The more you focus on what you want, right, which you’ve mentioned a bunch of things you want. You want to reach a healthy weight. You want to be more active. You’re already out of—you’re not in a nursing facility, so clearly you’re getting better. So that’s good. The more you focus on the things you want and the less you focus on the things—it’s kind of like what I was talking about earlier to Alison about the wolves, right? The two wolves. The more you focus and substitute. So, three things you can do. The easiest one is substitute, when you’re having a negative thought, substitute something positive.
[00:52:30] Like for instance, you know, I use the example because we all end up doing it, you know, when you’re driving and sometimes you’re kind of in a hurry. You’re in a 35 mph zone and the person in front of you is going 27, and you’re getting frustrated, right? Well, that serves no one. And you can’t pass them because it’s a double line. So, change it to something positive like, I’ll say something like, “Hey, you know what? I’m going to take five more minutes.” Now, if I, and I’ve learned, I’m much better than I used to be, I always kind of leave earlier just to build more wiggle room because I know that when I’m late, that’s doesn’t represent me well. And if that’s happening, then I’m more stressed.
So, I always try to eliminate that, right? So, first of all, I would start earlier. But the point is, I would then say, “Okay, well, it’s going to take you another 10 minutes to get there. Let me focus on…” if I’m doing a presentation, “let me rehearse it. Let me listen to a song that brings me energy.” I’ll do something positive. I’ll throw something positive in there. So, you replace the negative with a positive. I’m not talking about pollyanna, like if you’re having pain, “Oh, I have no pain.” Focus on something that takes the pain away, right? Something of joy. Maybe do, you know, like you said, cross stitch or something that makes you feel better. And the more you do that throughout the day and substitute that, your body, your chemistry will change because when you’re doing something you enjoy, something we value, literally our brain chemistry changes and that will help you.
Second thing is, as you work on your health, most of the things that you have that are chronic, well we can’t make claims of that, but basically, we know if we metabolically become healthier then those things have less of an effect on our body, right? So you have lots of good motivation to do more things that help you and not focus on—see, we have a tendency to label and let’s actually, let’s end, because we only have five minutes, but let’s end with what this whole talk was about, your identity of being an unhealthy person versus being a healthy person. Right? You have the choice to be as optimally healthy as you can with what you have in your health, in your life.
We know now more and more, the more we reverse our metabolic health, the more that insulin and inflammation and all these things that create pain and all those things, those things don’t have a stronger effect. So if you do these things in general, we can’t make claims on it, but I can tell you that you everything in your life will get better, and you’ve already made a great stride. I mean, if you look at our earlier speaker, she just broke her leg. So she’s incapacitated in a place where people are basically left and forgot, right? They’re left and forgotten, and they need to be fully in the community and joy. So I would pick—the other thing that would be good for you, if you can, is either online, like in communities like this, find some social things you can do with others, right? Because when we can communicate and have relationships and talk to other people you—obviously I don’t know how much you can get out or how much you can’t, but the more you can do things where you relate with other people, that’s a really important thing too. Because now you’re on a journey. You’re able to do things that you like, and the more, always substitute because your mind is the master controller. Your consciousness is the master controller of where your health’s going to go now. And you’ve made a decision to not let the label of the identity of being unhealthy keep you stuck. Just like Alison, right? She was stuck. And now she’s getting healthier in all aspects because she’s now dedicated to focus on what she wants to bring into her life, not what’s wrong with her life.
Paula: Thank you.
Dr. A: Welcome. Good luck to you. Come on in a couple months and let me know. Okay?
Paula: Okay. Thanks.
Dr. A: You’re welcome. Okay. So, we’re right—we don’t have any others, do we, Rach?
Rachel: No, we don’t.
Dr. A: Good. Yeah. Well, we’re right almost at the hour. So, hopefully this was helpful. We all have the ability to become a healthy person. And that’ll be different for each and every one of us. But knowing that today you can make the decision that, you know what? I am going to modify my identity. I’m going to work on my standards. I’m going to start each week adding new standards of how I’m going to basically make choices. Remember we have three things. The first is our perception or how we frame things. I always frame things in a direction of the creative process of what I want. Second is make the decisions that support that. So figure out what you want and then have that inform you every day of the choices. Remember to start asking the question, is what I’m doing adding to my health and taking me more to becoming a healthy person or is it making me unhealthy? And start being aware.
It starts with awareness. Take five minutes in the beginning. Things as simple, you know, I had a real, because in critical care and all the training I did, you know, we didn’t have much of a chance to eat at all because we’d be in the ICU and you couldn’t have food. So, we’d run down to the cafeteria knowing that our beeper would probably go off and so I learned to eat like a Labrador Retriever. And I mean really fast. And it’s taken me years to break that. But now just when I put something, I use the fork going into my mouth as a cue. The cue is, okay, chew 20 times. Really savor this and then enjoy the food. So you slow down. Give the opportunity for your food to now signal back that you’re full. Something as simple as that took me years and years to do, because we have strong habits and we have habits that are made when we’re young or things that happen to us and they kind of give us an identity and your ego wants to keep you in that identity, doesn’t want you to get out of your comfort zone and yet it’s that autopilot that we’re being prayed on more and more with AI, with the food industry, with highly addictive food, with sedentary lifestyle, with all kinds of energetic saving device, with the stress that comes from the world. Being on our TV and every news station pointing at each other like you’re at fault.
All that stuff is negative on our health. We need to be able to become aware and when something’s starting to affect us, choose something different. So, going back to I created this 20 years ago, stop when you’re feeling that icky sauce. Challenge why you’re feeling that way, and choose an outcome that supports your health and doesn’t degradate your health.
So, great. Thank you everybody that contributed today. They were great questions and hopefully we’ve all learned a little more about how we can become a healthy person. See you guys. Bye.
