Join the discussion below
Kashif Khan is the Chief Executive Officer and Founder of The DNA Company, where personalized medicine is being pioneered through unique insights into the human genome. With the largest study of its kind globally, The DNA Company has developed a functional approach to genomic interpretation overlaying environment, nutrition, and lifestyle... Read More
Beverly Yates, ND is a licensed Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine, who used her background in MIT Electrical Engineering and work as a Systems Engineer to create the Yates Protocol, an effective program for people who have diabetes to live the life they love. Dr. Yates is on a mission to... Read More
- CGMs are a game-changer for providing real-time insights to Biohack Your DNA and your metabolism
- CGMs show the epigenetic impact of how your DNA is affected by lifestyle and environment
- How to use CGMs to inspire positive actions and habit shifts
- How to use CGMs to avoid feeling overwhelmed, frozen or stuck while Biohacking Your DNA
Related Topics
Actionable Data, Argument And Blood Sugar, Baby Steps, BioHacking, Blood Sugar, Blood Sugar Roller Coaster, Continuous Glucose Monitor Cgm, Continuous Glucose Monitors, Cortisol, Dna, Epigenetics, Exercise, Fight Or Flight Response, Genomic Responses, Glucose Levels, Glucose Spikes, Glycemic Response, Habit Changes, Insulin Injection, Insulin Response, Lifestyle Changes, Meal Timing, Metabolic Health, Metabolic Inflexibility, Modern Technology, Nutrition, Overexercising, Perfectionism, Prediabetes, Preventive Health, Real-time Data, Secret Decoder Ring, Sleep, Stress, Type 1 Diabetes, Type 2 Diabetes, WellnessKashif Khan
So today we’re talking to Dr. Yates. And we’re gonna talk about something that I’m actually particularly curious about that I have not yet used, admittedly. I’ve been very excited by the progression of something that’s been highly clinical in nature to all of a sudden becoming almost recreational in nature. Like it’s something that you can just, as a consumer use, but the information you can derive out of it can truly change health if you’re looking at things from a preventative lens. So first of all, Dr. Yates, thanks for joining us.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Sure, I’m happy to be here. Thank you for this invitation. I appreciate it.
Kashif Khan
Cool. So what I was talking about was continuous glucose monitoring. We know that you’ve done a lot of work around type two diabetes and helping people either manage or reverse, those that believe they can, first of all. And a lot of that now involves modern technology, which was difficult. You know I remember growing up, my father was diabetic. And I remember the insulin injection that used to go into his belly every day, you know? And I remember him tracking glucose levels by driving to the local drugstore and using whatever equipment they had. I don’t even remember what it used to look like.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Okay.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, and now we’re at a place where you can literally have a patch on your arm with real time data after every meal, after every workout, if you didn’t sleep properly driving outcomes.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
That’s right.
Kashif Khan
And that’s so cool. So the work you’ve been doing, has it been more around diabetics themselves or is it around wellness in general or a little bit of both? What have you been up to?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah, it’s a mix, it’s been both. It’s been people who have diabetes, type two diabetes. Prediabetes, for people who really are trying to get out of trouble zone. Type one diabetes, right?
Kashif Khan
Okay.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
And now it’s shifting towards people who are more on the metabolic side, or people who care about fitness, and people who are really preventive. They’re trying to either optimize their current level of health, or they’ve watched their family’s health become a complete train wreck. And they’re trying to change that conversation that goes on with their blood sugar, their glycemic response, to get it to a healthier place and keep it there. And to get their own, I could call it secret decoder ring.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Their own personal secret decoder ring to know what’s really sensitive for them. Is it stress, is it nutrition, is it exercise, meal timing? You know, is it sleep or some combination of those things?
Kashif Khan
All these factors can drive, I mean, really what you’re tracking is glucose, right? It’s a continuous glucose monitor.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Absolutely.
Kashif Khan
So you’re saying sleep, stress, all the, it’s not just about food or insulin.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
No, it’s not. It’s more nuanced than that, right? The stereotype, I think, the people have in their minds around diabetes specifically might be that everything is all about nutrition, and or exercise.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
And yes, those are important, but there’s at least three more things to consider. The time of what they’re eating, their timing of meals, right?
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Their exercise levels, yeah, sure. Stress levels, sleep, those all have quite an impact. Nutrition is gonna be the bull side of the target. And so for people who are more fitness oriented or more on the metabolic side of this who don’t have a diagnosis, let’s say, of any kind of diabetes. They can get incredible insights actionable for their personal health and positive behavioral change, if they have a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor, because it’s giving them real time information via the sensor and the app, as to what’s going on. Like, let’s say somebody gets in an argument and they see that their blood sugar rises. They might find that a 10 to 20 minute walk, something really simple will bring that blood sugar beautifully down, back to a healthy, normal blood sugar level range. I mean, it doesn’t have to be some sort of huge effort to do it. In fact, some people will find out they’re over exercising,
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Which is shocking for some people, right? They might be pounding themselves into the sand for no real reason, and they’re not more fit. And they might be causing their own blood sugar problems. It’s just so fascinating. So being able to use the CGM to guide you with data, along with behavioral change, habits, you can really get this stuff dialed in. And so then if you’re talking about DNA and genomic responses, and epigenetics, wow. Now you can really, with confidence, know what makes sense for you as a person to do, even if your family history is not favorable around certain chronic illnesses.
Kashif Khan
So I want to ask you about a couple of those things. Yeah, because you’re getting my head spinning now. Why would an argument drive the glucose level when you haven’t consumed anything?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Interesting, right? So anytime the body gets activated into fight or flight, when we get that threat response going in our bodies, our neurotransmitters, a release of the hormone, cortisol, all of those things are happening. So cortisol is released, adrenaline is released, neuro-adrenaline is released and your body is convinced that you’re in a fight or flight mode, right?
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
So if you’re in an argument, if it’s really intense and you find that your heart’s pounding, maybe you’re starting to sweat and you feel really involved. One of the problems with that is simply the fact you’re not working off those chemicals. Those chemicals are meant for you to work off, either because you’re fighting or you’re fleeing. And so if you’re arguing with somebody, most of us aren’t also fighting or fleeing. We’re not using those big muscles. Therefore we’re not making use of the release of blood sugar glucose, that happens. When you have that fight or flight response, cortisol goes up. In response to cortisol, the body gets that signal says, oh, we’re being stressed, we have to release what? Blood sugar. We need instantaneous energy to respond to the threat. When you’re arguing somebody, you don’t have the physical component that lets you burn off that glucose. That’s why going for a walk, something simple, can bring that blood sugar back down to healthy range. That’s why it’s spiked up to begin with, it was responding to the threat.
Kashif Khan
It’s it’s so simple, but it’s something that none of us think about, which is, your body responds to what you’re asking for, right? And if you’re demanding the ability to fight or flight, both require energy, your body’s gonna say, here it is, we’ll burn some fat and give you some glucose whatever it may be.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
However it’s gonna do it.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, and then it just the insulin response, and then everything goes haywire, and then there’s a cycle you end up in. So I guess, is that the same picture we’re painting when it comes to over exercising? That you’re putting yourself in just maybe a little bit too much stress? Is that why you would say there’s a response there?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah, there’s a response there for a number of reasons. One working muscles need to be fed and glucose would be their preferred food, right? And so you’re either gonna get it from the bloodstream. You’ll get it from storage forms in the liver, glucagon. There’s other ways that the body will figure out how to get the energy to feed those working muscles. And this is how some of us become, frankly, metabolically inflexible. There’s a lot of people who work really hard, they exercise a lot, and they can’t lose a pound. In fact, sometimes their weight goes up. It’s really unfortunate.
So, when you look at how all of these things are interwoven together, a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor can really help give you some powerful insights on what are the most sensitive lifestyle aspects that you actually have control over or some hope of control over. And you can make your changes. And I would caution people, data is great and actionable data is even better. Don’t be too obsessive. Don’t beat yourself up and then just decide that you’re a loser that you somehow have failed because you don’t have perfectly even blood sugar, 24/7. No one does.
Kashif Khan
Right
Beverly Yates, N.D.
And in that realm, I’ve seen people use this as yet another way to feel bad about themselves. And I don’t want that. So I wanna be really clear. It can give you insights, you’re looking for trends. You wanna know every time you eat that pasta, did you get on the blood sugar roller coaster or were you pretty steady? Were you okay with pasta, for instance?
Kashif Khan
I think it’s challenging for people to, the outcome most people seek is perfection.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Which is impossible.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, it impossible. It’s like, I want to turn the switch off. That’s that’s the belief. And that’s not the way the body works.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
No.
Kashif Khan
I mean, even getting there, you shouldn’t even do it that quick. It should be incremental in terms of your habit changes. They’re not gonna stick otherwise, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
That’s exactly right. All the research and our live personal experience, right? As people we know it needs to be the baby steps, babies don’t just get up and walk at three months.
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
They fall, they roll over. They do all sorts of things before they actually get up and walk.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, no kidding. So you used this term a couple times and people need to better understand this. You talk about metabolic health, right? And the difference between people believe, well now there’s, there’s better knowledge than there ever has been, but still too many people believe that diabetes is a thing that they might get.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Right.
Kashif Khan
It’s in my family, it’s yeah, it’s in my gene. My grandma had it, grandpa had it, everybody had it, right? But what you’re talking about is diabetes is an outcome of poor metabolic health. But that is something that we can all-
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Type two diabetes to specific.
Kashif Khan
Type two.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Type one is autoimmune onset. I wanna make sure we’re clear here. Yes, type two diabetes.
Kashif Khan
So, but I think most people don’t understand where the metabolic health starts and how much that’s actually in their control. So can you speak a little bit about what that means? What does metabolic health mean, what are we measuring, what is a red flag, how do we know-
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Sure.
Kashif Khan
We’re in bad shape?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah, so metabolic health is one of those things that I think creeps away from us gradually over time. It doesn’t usually sprint or run out of our lives, right?
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
So often if we’re relatively healthy as children and in our teen years, we probably enjoyed some level of metabolic health. And by that, I mean, you probably weren’t counting calories. You probably weren’t on any kind of a diet that completely excluded certain food groups and made them a villain, right?
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
You probably weren’t doing any of that. You probably ate your food. You probably ran around with your friends. You may have exercised maybe at school, or through a sports activity, or just living your life. If you’re lived on a farm, you were definitely gonna be working. ‘Cause that’s the nature of being on a farm. If you’re in a city, maybe walking around, going from streets and transportation, there’s all these opportunities for movement. And then for a lot of us, as we get older and into our adult lives, particularly if we have jobs that are relatively sedentary, we’re sitting on our butts all day. This is where the problem creeps in. That normal activity tends to drop. You know, if you think about it, right? There’s playgrounds for kids.
Kashif Khan
Yep.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
And we need something similar with adult sized equipment because we lose a lot of the range of motion. Most of us just go from seated, to standing, to seated, to standing, we lie flat, and that’s pretty much it. We move in two dimensions. I have this conversation with my chiropractic friend all the time. You know, if you’re a bicyclist, right? You’re going like this all the time, but you’re not using your whole range of motion. And this is one of the ways in which our metabolism starts to slowly, unfortunately re-regulate and start to decrease. In other words, we’re not burning our calories as efficient because we don’t put the same demands on our body.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, that’s interesting you say that ’cause when I go to the gym, the people that look the healthiest to me. I don’t mean that they’re the biggest or the strongest. They typically do have strength. They typically do have definition. They’re not the people that, and I’m guilty of this myself. You go in the gym with your bro workout, which is push pull legs, right? And you do little bit of cardio sprinkled in there. They’re doing more complex or like CrossFit style stuff where their body is actively engaged in doing things functionally in the way it was supposed to move. And they have zero belly, you can see every fiber, muscle, they look healthy on their face, they have more energy, and they’re not there to build a muscle. They’re there to build their body.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Right, you wanna build all of the movement or the kinetic chains, right? And so in that, that means making sure you preserve your balance. I personally think that’s one of the reasons why when people hit their 50s, 60s, or 70s, particularly 60s, 70s, older, they are so much more vulnerable to falls. And falls when they happen, can be so severe and often life changing, and sadly life ending. Because they haven’t preserved this capacity through their 20S, 30s, 40s, 50s. And as we get more information now, as we continue to better understand what really does the genome tell us, and these lifestyle things, and our habits. Hopefully we will be able to turn around that trend so that people don’t fall apart as they age. That we could come to expect to live long and live well. That’s one of my taglines, living long, but living crappily, feeling horrible.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Who wants that, right?
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
And having a shortened life who wants that?
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
But I personally want, and I hope everybody listening wants to live long and live well. That’s why we’re here.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, your last part of your life shouldn’t be a punishment for everything you did wrong, right? It should be a celebration of what you did right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
That’s a great point that you make, you know? Can we dig in a little bit on that? I’ve heard this saying or expression, I’ll bet you have too. How many people have you run into in your life who’ve said things like, “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I would’ve taken better care of myself”?
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
And they deeply regret what they didn’t do based on what they knew at that time. And now my gosh, we’ve got so much more info, but that info is useless unless you take action. You gotta do stuff about it.
Kashif Khan
Yep, exactly. You mentioned genetics in there. You sprinkled it in there a couple times. And I know a lot of the work you do uniquely is around epigenetic expression and actually using CGM to understand what’s going on in the body. So talk to us a little bit about that.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Sure, thank you so much for the opener to that, I think rich and developing conversation. You know, something you mentioned at the beginning, which is that a lot of people have this saying or this expression, that’s a diabetes, type two diabetes, prediabetes, things like that. Alzheimer’s disease, asthma, whatever it is, runs in my family. Fill in the blank, runs in my family, right? Osteoporosis, any of those chronic illnesses. And with that in mind, people sometimes feel doomed. Their mental state, their mindset is such that no matter what I do, I will be targeted. This is going to happen to me.
Kashif Khan
Yep.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
And instead I would invite anyone who’s watching this to consider, if you know something runs in your family, you’ve got a head start, a huge head start.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
A gift for your own personal health. ‘Cause now you know you need to focus. Instead of it being a broad painting, you can focus with specific activity.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, that’s incredible. ‘Cause that’s where I think one of the challenges there is that when people believe, and this is not everybody, but for the most part that it runs in my family.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
That it’s coming.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Right.
Kashif Khan
They don’t feel the empowerment that it’s early warning sign. It’s more just like, it’s a sentence, like it’s prescribed, it’s gonna happen.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
And that’s not at all true. So if you know young, then there’s no reason it should happen.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Absolutely, I’ll tell you, as I got reconnected to my father’s side of my family in my adult years, one of the gifts in that, aside from obviously the additional loving people in my life, was the reality that I needed to pay attention to all things related to blood sugar, glycemic response, insulin assistance, et cetera. Because they all seemed to have in my father and all of his siblings, he was one of 13. They all had some kind of diabetes. I would never have guessed I was at risk for that. My mother’s side of my family, the issues have been heart disease and cancer. So with the three of them together in my personal genetic mix, I know I have to pay attention to lifestyle. I’m not getting a pass there.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Thankfully I was already in the process of becoming a naturopathic physician. And that was a huge gift because it underscored that transition from electrical engineering to naturopathic physician, right? Like I am all about that lifestyle thing because I know that you can influence it and make these changes. And for family members who’ve made that choice who are in my tier, my age tier, my cousins tier, so to speak.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
You can see this playing out. You can absolutely see this playing out.
Kashif Khan
So hold on one second. You went from electrical engineering to naturopathy. What triggered it all? What happened?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Well, I was working in Silicon valley and my fiance and I moved from Silicon valley to the Silicon forest in the Pacific Northwest. And then I found out because of the nature of the environment of Silicon Northwest, I’m actually quite sensitive to mold. And I went and got allergy shots for like a year for mold. And I just grew increasingly uncomfortable with that approach because first off, when I would ever see the doctor or the nurse, I would ask what’s in these injections and nobody wanted to tell me. I’m like, “Look, I come from science world, science doesn’t scare me, chemicals don’t scare me. What are you all shooting me up with?” And they just would not have a forthcoming disclosure. They wouldn’t even give me the piece of paper that comes with this stuff.
It’s like, “You guys.” You know, I was like, “This is not right.” So anyway, long story short, my husband worked with a guy who had seen a naturopathic physician there in Oregon, and who’d gotten dramatically better, who had very similar symptoms to mine. So I went to meet with this man. We had a number of consultations, really a handful. It was three visits that made a huge difference in my health. My energy came back, my zest for life. I was in my early twenties at that time. I mean, you should be feeling amazing in your early twenties. I used to be so fatigued, sneezing all the time, all these classic mold symptoms. It turns out the house so that we were renting head mold and voila, I’m a very much a result oriented person. So I changed from electrical engineering over the course of several years. I had started working with a wildcrafter learning about herbal medicine. This is while still working as an electrical engineer.
Kashif Khan
This is amazing.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
And I felt that my heart, my soul was better fed in doing the work of naturopathic medicine. And so I went to school and got my degree in naturopathic medicine, sat for my board exams, became board certified and all of that good stuff. In fact, I even founded and led in here in California, the first ever fully accredited integrative and naturopathic medicine residency program. So, sometimes life calls you in a different direction. I still love science, I’m a big fan of science and data and facts. I don’t struggle with them. I simply bring them now to this lifestyle piece for chronic illness, because I know these are things we can affect, and help people live a much better quality of life and quantity of life. And in some cases, maybe we can even put this thing in the rear view mirror, depending on what we’re talking about. And just put it behind people with no magical thinking. So if we’re talking about type two diabetes, prediabetes, if you get outta blood sugar trouble and you get back to healthy, you need to continue to do the things that preserve that. You cannot go back to any old habits and expect you will magically now suddenly not have it come back, right? Like that’s just real people get sometimes a little silly here about how they think of things.
Kashif Khan
It’s incredible, ’cause your work, you went from what you were doing and now all of a sudden people maybe don’t know yet, but they’ll know soon that literally there’s tens of thousands of people that you’re affecting this year through the advocacy you’re doing and the online summit. And you’re driving traffic towards understanding this. And if you didn’t exist, there’s literally 50,000 people out there this year alone that would’ve not been helped or benefited from your knowledge. So it’s amazing the work you’ve done.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Thank you.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, I notice you’re also, is that the oura ring on your finger?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
And do you incorporate that with the CGM? Is it a patch that you use or what do you use?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah, so CGM, I’m not wearing one right now. I was gonna grab one from the closet here.
Kashif Khan
Okay.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
So either that or this or sometimes both. Yes I do incorporate them. I have fun with data, I like information.
Kashif Khan
Okay.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
It gives me a sense of how things are going and I look to see, does it match how I’m feeling, right? So for instance, right now I’m finding that the oura ring for me is providing a closer match to how well I slept than the information I’m getting from the Fitbit. That’s how this is working for me. I absolutely compare these gizmos.
Kashif Khan
So how does somebody like the layman who just grabbed their oura ring, they’re relying on the data that’s on the platform. They don’t even know how to dive deeper beyond that. How do they take CGM and oura and start to sync up and geek out on it?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah, so how you start is here, you look at, and just experience both look and sense. How are you feeling? Get that dialed in. Right before I hopped on this call, I just finished a call with a wonderful client of mine who is a type one diabetic. This woman is just so amazing. I have so much respect for her. She has figured out a lot of things about her health. And one of the most important was to manage her own expectations around what did the gizmos mean and not feel overwhelmed. So if you’re brand new to all of this, I say, pick one. Whether it’s a continuous glucose monitor or an oura ring, look at the information it’s giving you, take a deep breath and then say, how am I feeling?
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
What preceded it? What came after it? Like for instance, I love basketball. In particular, I’m watching right now, the NBA, Western conference finals and my home team’s doing great. But sometimes these games run long and I know how excited I get as a fan, right? So I’m just saying, having been a former athlete. I know how my body works. I’m I’m just dialed in around that. So I make sure after the game ends, I have a solid half hour before I actually put my head on my pillow, to calm down, so I can go to sleep, right?
Kashif Khan
Yeah, no kidding.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
You know, so you have to know who you are. If you’re someone who has a slow start in the morning, you might consider, maybe you need to give yourself more time to get up and be ready for your day. Rather than push yourself through what I call the heart attack, squeeze sequence, where you try to pop up and pretend you’re a perky person in the morning, and be ready to do your day in 20 minutes when that’s not you. Maybe you need an hour and 20 minutes, you gotta build that into your schedule, right? That’s part of self care.
Kashif Khan
Right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
So your ring will let you know around if you are ready for your day or not. What’s going on with some of your other trends? So just look at the information, friends, keep checking in. How do you feel, how you feel is telling you a lot.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, and I think it goes back to one of the things we touched on earlier of slowly adopting habits, as opposed to trying to be perfect on day one, right? So if you take the CGM, it’s very different metrics than the oura ring. You’re looking at-
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yes.
Kashif Khan
Literally your continuous instantaneous response to everything, like you said, it’s not just food, it’s also emotion, it’s also environment, sleep, everything. And then the oura is more giving you a report on how you did, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
More call it a midterm, it’s not instantaneous, but it’s, and the data is presented in a very different way, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yes it is.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, online you’re literally tracking glucose. And you’re just trying to then understand what did I just do? What did I just do? What did I just do? Because you don’t remember what you did is the thing that caused it.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Right.
Kashif Khan
Where the oura ring is putting it into a platform where it’s already interpreted for you, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yes.
Kashif Khan
So I guess that the easy answer is just one thing at a time baby steps, like you said, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
One thing at a time and pick one. So I would encourage people to do one of these things at a time and not all of them at the same time. Be kind to yourself, it’s too stressful to try to merge all of this and then figure out what’s going on, untangle, right?
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
So if you wanna start with any of the gizmos, if you start with an oura ring or a Fitbit, see how that’s working for you, does it correlate to how you’re actually feeling and how you live your life? And then you can add in a continuous glucose monitor. So if you don’t have diabetes, then this is another way to get insights for your metabolism or perhaps a developing problem with say insulin resistance, Right?
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
So many more people with the situation of the pandemic are just not as physically active as they had once been. And you could just see that people are starting to have even more in a way of metabolic struggles. So with that in mind, whether people calling it COVID weight or other things, however it’s framed, look at any of these tools and use that information to help underpin those healthy habits with those baby steps. So if you know that sleep is a problem, you work on that first, make sure you have a saying process for going to sleep as well as being kind to yourself when you awaken. Those are your bookends of your day. You know, if you’re a parent, if you have kids and I know you do, you know that I do. You know that with little ones, you have to have a routine. If you don’t have a routine, it is chaos at home. It’s not good.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, and touching on the COVID stuff, we did a lot of interesting work there when it comes to metabolic health. And we looked at the why behind a lot of these things, and I know you’ll appreciate this stuff. When it comes to insulin response, we can literally look at the genes that drive that, right? So there’s the very specific genes that drive starch metabolization. How well do you do that, converting starch into glucose? There’s some people which isn’t really medically spoken of, but that the saturated fats will actually trigger an insulin response, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
It’s depending on ethnicity, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
And you know this, but a lot of people don’t look at it, but your CGM will tell you. Then there’s insulin response, to how well, are you insulin resistance or not. Genetically, you can figure that out before having to go through the pain and struggle of learning it another way. Then there’s all, like you said, the COVID weight. Are you a binger, do you graze at the pantry? Are you that person that, for example, if you have a really good relationship with dopamine and are just constantly used to being happy and satisfied, then the COVID lockdown and anxiety of not seeing people is just much more severe for you, ’cause you’re not used to bad news, you’re not used to that crash. Where somebody who used the teetering on the edge of not feeling good, it’s just another day for them, right? So we’ve learned a lot about-
Beverly Yates, N.D.
True.
Kashif Khan
Why people had different outcomes and why there was so much of this, like you said, COVID weight type phenomenon. It wasn’t the same reason for everybody. But there are very specific, clear, genetic reasons why. But then they need the help with somebody like you to coach them through what do I do about all this stuff, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah, exactly. What, what do we do? You know, the reality is is that we really aren’t identical, even identical twins I would argue are not identical because they can have different health responses to the exact same input.
Kashif Khan
Yep, you’re exactly right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
You mentioned type one diabetes a couple times.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
And the general thinking is type two diabetes is preventable, reversible, shouldn’t ever happen if you do things right. Type one diabetes, the general narrative is very different. You have it, but I’m hoping from what I just heard you say that you have some secrets that haven’t been revealed yet, because the way you’re talking about people working with you is if you’re coaching them through their autoimmune response and helping them unwind type one diabetes. Is that right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Oh goodness, no. So don’t be clear, I’m not saying I’m curing type one. I would never say that that’s not true. I don’t know if any technology, CRISPR, whatever. I don’t know of anything yet, that could make that claim. The reason I work with people with type one diabetes is because so much of lifestyle puts them on the blood sugar rollercoaster, just like it does somebody who has prediabetes or type two diabetes, right?
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
To me, it’s the diabetes spectrum. Type one is autoimmune onset. Prediabetes, type two diabetes, definitely are induced by lifestyle, habit, nutrition and things. People just, frankly don’t know. I never blame anyone in any way, shape, or form, regardless of the issues or the diagnosis. Because I know a lot of times we are just not taught. We don’t know what’s healthy for us and what’s not healthy for us, right? So with that, the beauty about any kind of diabetes is that because they are all so lifestyle sensitive. You know someone can have a healthier life and live longer, live a better quality of life if they get their blood sugar to a healthy range, and are able to keep it there as much as possible.
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Type one diabetes will have a more challenging time of that. It’s not impossible, but they will. But they will need to continue to take insulin. I don’t have anything to offer today to someone who has type one diabetes that says you don’t need insulin, you do. I just wanna be really clear, so there’s no ambiguity here.
Kashif Khan
No, that’s very helpful. So essentially what you’re saying is that we know what it is clinically. We have to keep on the insulin, but there is a layer of functional thinking that you can apply-
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yes.
Kashif Khan
To that Delta value of the peaks and valleys can be a little lesser, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
You can give them a better outcome.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah, you can bring the Delta smaller. And while we’re talking about Deltas, shout out to people with type one, because they’re gonna particularly might be more likely to be awakened in the middle of the night, maybe multiple times with blood sugar lows. And the good news in working on these very things that we are talking about right now, is you can avoid the disruption of that. So the alarms and the sensors, the insulin pump, the Dexcom, or whatever they’re using as a CGM device for continuous glucose monitoring, because it’s essential for type ones, they can die because blood sugar can go too low. This is for real here. So with that in mind, because if you have more even blood sugar, then you don’t have the lows at night, which means you get a full seven, eight, nine hours of sleep and awake, refreshed, and restored, which is awesome for all kinds of health. So for type one diabetes, then we can help people figure out the balance for them of exercise, of the kinds of nutrition, and then whether or not they would benefit from a snack. Let’s say an hour before bedtime, one that is super blood sugar friendly.
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
So they avoid those lows. And instead aren’t ripped away from sleep with a freak out situation around, oh my God, my blood sugar is low. Or the people who are perhaps caring for them. If they’re younger, everybody gets better sleep. Like this is good for everyone, right?
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
That’s part of the work that I’m doing with people right now. It’s so exciting to have that data to prevent the problem.
Kashif Khan
And you mentioning nutrition, you’d said earlier that we aren’t told, right? It’s not really the fault of the average Americans say, because it’s not part of our education, we don’t know. But there’s a whole other layer also of, yes we aren’t taught, we don’t learn. But we also, when you go to the average grocery store, the options in front of you, that you assume somebody here, I know this might add another hour to the conversation-
Beverly Yates, N.D.
How long do we have?
Kashif Khan
Yeah, ’cause I can tell you, so I’m in Toronto, Canada, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Okay.
Kashif Khan
And for the most part, obviously the good and the bad everything’s mixed up. But I was in Austin a couple weeks ago and I went into a 7-Eleven, and I’ve been into a 7-Eleven in Canada, right? So I was just horrified. I was horrified at what I saw there that, isle after isle of just poison being sold as food, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
It was incredible. And so 100%, the education needs to be there, right? And now that we know more, it’s gonna be there. But once you have the education and you think you know, when something is labeled as a apple or whatever treat, that sounds like, how do you get people to actually understand what food is?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Oh yeah, okay. So I’m gonna try and make this simple, right? Make a soundbite friendly. Real food is food that you can easily recognize. You can spell it and you can touch it. I always teach my patients, my clients to look at labels. And not to look at labels to be a nerd or to be weird, but to look at labels from the point of view of, will I live long and well, or will this shorten my time on this earth and make it miserable? Yeah. Really clear, right?
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
So if you look at the labels of things and it’s full of strange chemicals.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
You can’t spell it, you can’t pronounce it. It’s got eight syllables and a hyphen in it. You probably don’t want it.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, hey, here’s the challenge is when people think, they see it in the context of food, there’s an assumption that it’s safe. But if I gave you a dropper with a label on it, that you didn’t understand, and I said, eat this, you wouldn’t need it.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
No, common sense, right? No, you wouldn’t.
Kashif Khan
You wouldn’t, so why are you doing it just because it’s in the package, it looks good?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Because it’s convenient and it’s often cheap. A lot of these industries, at least in the US, perhaps in Canada, are subsidized. So the government pays them money to do stuff. And it is not in the service of our health. Here in the US, our healthcare system is 100% oriented towards disease management and profiting off of disease. There is absolutely no incentive around people being well and healthy.
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
There just isn’t, let’s just keep this real.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
And I think that’s one of the reasons why people let’s say who don’t have any kind of diabetes are gravitating towards using things like a CGM, a continuous glucose monitor, oura rings, Fitbits, whatever the gizmos might be. Because they’re trying to decode and unlock the benefit of what is the best health for me at this stage of my life, and at this age of my life? They’re understanding that they have to take control of this. This will not come for free, so to speak. It really doesn’t, it’s unfortunate, but that’s the honest to goodness truth.
Kashif Khan
So what do you say to that person that, they get it, the cognition of what you’re saying, no problem. But then they go to whole foods and like, I can’t afford this stuff.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Right, so I say this, get dialed in on a eating plan. And if snacks make sense for you and I’m in general to be clear, not a fan of snacks, but if you need them, you need them. And there are situations where it makes sense, and eat as healthy as you can. It does not have to be super expensive.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
So for instance, if you’re someone who processes legumes in a healthy way, like lentils and chickpeas, those are inexpensive. That’s cheap.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
That’s much cheaper let’s say, than a cut of steak or organic chicken, or organic Turkey, right?
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
And have your nutrition centered on that. But also find out how you feel, is your energy even, is your mood even, do you get the hangries? Are you the kind of person where if you don’t eat, your family clears out. If you’re in a workplace, nobody wants to be around you ’cause you’re hangry, right?
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
And that’s a big clue around blood sugar response. If you’re angry, you know that your blood sugar response, your glycemic balance, your insulin resistance issues are now starting to be red flagged. You should have an even hill. And then you feel hungry without being angry. You don’t have to be hangry, and then it’s time to eat your next meal. We get clues all day long about this stuff.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, and I think to your point about just shifting what’s on your plate, people, I think they don’t realize once you start to eat high quality food, you don’t need as much, right? The reason-
Beverly Yates, N.D.
It’s more nutrient dense.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, and so the cost evens itself out. ‘Cause first of all, there’s two things. Nutrient density, 100%, you’re eating real food that if you eat the right stuff, that’s plucked outta the ground, from the right ground first of all. If you get a proper egg with a deep orange joke, it is so satiating because it is full of micronutrients, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Right.
Kashif Khan
But, the second half to that is, if you’re not eating that and you’re eating the stuff we talked about from 7-Eleven, it consistently it’s makes you so metabolically unhealthy that you need more food. You’re constantly craving more. The insulin response is driving a desire for more, and more, and more, and more.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
So this is the over when people are taught by you, here’s what your meal plan should look like. They’re thinking that in the volumes of what they used to eat.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Right.
Kashif Khan
Which is not the volume they actually need.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
That’s exactly right. They’re getting false signaling. You know, the chemicals, the strange stuff that’s on the labels, The stuff you can’t pronounce, don’t you can’t spell, you don’t know what the heck’s in there on the labels, right? A lot of that is things that stimulate your appetite and or trick your taste buds. And here’s the thing, you’re not tricking your taste buds. It turns out your taste buds and your tongue are in constant conversation, right? Your taste buds, your tongue, they do their work. And via the nerves, they go back to the brain. They tell the brain, hey, we tasted a certain kind of flavor like sweets, therefore calories are coming. That’s how the brain interprets that.
So if you are drinking or eating something that has artificial sweeteners in it, fake sugars, your brain’s getting a real signal around sweetness. You’ve done yourself no favor. So either have plain herbal tea, water, whatever, if you need variety in terms of what you’re drinking, ’cause here’s the thing, friends. When your body is taking in these fake sugars, these artificial sweeteners, whatever, your brain registers that there’s calories attached. And at some point in time, usually within an hour or two, the brain’s like, well hold on, where’s the calories? I did not get those calories. I’m gonna make you hungrier.
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Increase your appetite, decrease your ability to feel satiated or satisfied. And then you get these cravings that go on and that could just be a nasty cycle. And sometimes it gets pinned to people’s emotions. Some people eat when they’re emotional, and this can be work, real work to untangle. The good news you can untangle it. But just know we really are wired that way. There’s all kinds of interesting research. And it turns out the taste buds on the tongue turn over every 10 to 14 days. That’s why most health programs are at least 21 days because we’re trying to get you a chance to refresh quite literally, what’s going on here.
Kashif Khan
Very cool, and I admittedly I’m guilty of the same thing where I found this drink that I really liked, that was flavored with stevia. So I thought, okay, it’s harmless zero calories, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
Sparkling fruit thing that had some natural flavor in it. First of all, the natural flavor gave me a headache ’cause I don’t detoxify that well. But second, that I was drinking this in the evening with my dinner and then I felt like, I realized that I was just snacking the rest of the night because of that exact response you said. Where the empty calorie flavor shot brain is confused. It doesn’t know our ancestors didn’t have such a thing as an no calorie, you know?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
No, they did not.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, and we’ve even learned that metabolically, the genetics of it, that something sweet with no calories, no sugar will still trigger an insulin response. You know, even though there’s no glucose.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
And your CGM. I’m just saying you can look on the app and see, right? So then, when you do the genetic studies and you know this about yourself, right? You’ve already done your decoding of your genomic self.
Kashif Khan
Right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
How powerful is that insight? Now you understand that this is really important for you. What if you’re someone who’s sensitive, like you said earlier, to saturated fats? Maybe that spikes an insulin response for you, et cetera, right? And when you have these fried foods, these hydrogenated foods, trans fats, all of those add to your oxidative burden. What have you’ve been running and preparing, let’s say for half marathon or marathon. And your idea of a treat is to head to 7-Eleven and shovel in a whole bunch of 7-Eleven food, full of hydrogenated fats, all these high oxidative, low or no nutrient density foods? You have created a metabolic nightmare now.
Kashif Khan
Right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Of course you’re not going to be well, even though you think all that running’s gonna save you, you’ve completely undone the health benefits with the nutrition. In fact, you overwhelmed yourself.
Kashif Khan
For sure, and when you talk about metabolic nightmare, just the thought sticks out to me is that what we just went through with that viral infection, wreaking havoc everywhere.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
And the comorbidities and diabetics faring so much worse than other people. So what’s going on there where poor metabolic health causes a greater susceptibility to the worst or most adverse outcome with something like a viral infection?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
You know, it’s all about inflammation, right? Over the years, my patient based and clients have come either from people who have heart disease or diabetes, and some of them have both that intersection.
Kashif Khan
Right.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
The good news is in working with them and being able to help and being that still that, an MIT scientist around what’s the most effective thing so we don’t overwhelm people? But they can actually get back to healthy and stay there, right? And so then on the news, when they started talking about cytokines, and inflammation, and interleukins, and more inflammation, and my patients, my clients are like, oh, you’ve been telling me this for years.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Now I get it. I’m like, yes, I’m looking out for you. And they’re fine, they’re doing great because we have been doing all of the right things along the way. And when something new popped up or they got a life shift, life smacked them upside the head ’cause it happens. They’ve been able to get back on track again, because we are always working on those habits and the educational piece. The idea of the Latin word of “Docere” as the roots for doctor, doctor as teacher. And naturopathic doctors in particular, focus on teaching people their own personal decoding so they can understand what is gonna be the most sensitive one or two things, usually, they really have to get dialed in and then the rest will come along, you know?
Kashif Khan
Right, so because you’ve seen so many people, we try and make it easy for everybody. Not everybody has access to a genetic test or it could be a funding issue, it could be a jurisdiction issue, whatever.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
You’ve learned so much from helping so many people. If you didn’t have access to anything about anybody, what are the sort of three things you would tell ’em you gotta start doing this tomorrow.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Oh, that’s a great question. Number one, believe it or not, top of the list for me would be sleep. You must prioritize sleep. All healing comes from sleep, your body, your gut, everything resets when you sleep. Your joints, your musculoskeletal system, your heart for sure, your brain, your mind, your soul, your spirit, everything resets when you sleep. You must sleep. You must find a way to prioritize that and improve your sleep. And if you’re struggling with sleep, get help. You know, if you have sleep apnea or some other sleep disorder, please get treatments that can be effective for you and keep working at it until it works.
If you are a person who has sleep apnea, let’s say, and are struggling with your, the apparatus, the face mask or the nose pill or whatever that attaches. They have so many varieties now compared to say, 15, 20 years ago, try out different ones. You’ll find which you can tolerate because you gotta get oxygen. Oxygen is not optional, we must breathe. This has been reinforced in so many ways, whether it’s the current viral threat, or some other viral threat. Knees on necks, whatever it might be, we must breath. Humans are obligate aerobes, we have to have oxygen. We must get that in, right? So sleeps number one, number two on my list, believe it or not, would be staying hydrated. Sometimes people get confused, think they’re hungry. And they’re actually thirsty.
Kashif Khan
Right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
So make sure you stay hydrated, and if you have a busy day the day before, the night before the evening before, set up all your water in your fridge, or on your counter.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Have the, to go containers, stainless steel or something that’s inert, preferably, just set ’em up. And that way, what you do is just grab ’em and go. Put ’em in the car the night before, whatever makes sense for you. Take away the things that will distract you. If you aren’t someone who’s naturally thirsty from staying hydrated. Cause I see people have blood pressure issues, all kinds of things that come up and they’re just not hydrated, right? That’s number two. You wanna guess what number three is?
Kashif Khan
I don’t know. Everything you’re everything you’re saying is mind blowing, so I don’t know.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Number three, believe it or not for me would be, eat the food you love as long as it loves you back.
Kashif Khan
Wow.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
In other words, eat food that you enjoy in the healthiest manner possible, right? So for me, I’m an African American. So some of our foods, because the conditions of the history of the US are such that it was the scraps and the crappiest worst quality food. Here’s the good news today. Hundreds of years later, we can enjoy some of the same base food, but done in a healthy way. So let’s say if we were making recipes with collared greens. Instead of cooking it in fat back and lard with lots of pork, et cetera. Instead, you can cook your collared greens. You can just steam ’em with water. You need to allow enough time. You can add in all your other season, you can add in your onions, and your leaks, and all the other good stuff you probably put in your collared greens, right? If you add peppers, et cetera.
If you wanna have meat in them, you could add in turkey legs, it can be organic turkey legs. We can do this in so much of a higher quality level of nutrition now. It doesn’t have to have a meat product in it. Collared greens can be so health giving. It’s a nutrient dense vegetable that’s for sure. We just don’t wanna prepare it in a way that’s unhealthy. So when I say eat the foods you love that love you back. I’m talking about whatever your cultural heritage may be. Those foods that you love, you can preserve that. And now we wanna do it in as healthy, a manner as possible.
Kashif Khan
That’s so cool what you’re saying, ’cause that’s the biggest challenge for people when it comes to shifting their diet is also shifting their palate.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
‘Cause you end up taking on somebody else’s recommended diet based on their palate, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Right.
Kashif Khan
And that’s hard. That’s that’s years of unwiring and rewiring people.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
People don’t do it.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, people don’t do it. It’s hard to comply. So versus here’s what I enjoy, now how do I make this healthier?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Right?
Kashif Khan
Right? And even that there’s a challenge with, okay, you’re taking away the soul food of collared greens with the meat, and the fat, and everything and then you’re steaming it. Those palate changes, and I can testify to this myself. Once you make the shift.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
It’s hard to go back.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
It is.
Kashif Khan
Right? Once you unravel whatever’s going on in your tongue where you couldn’t taste the good version, like, oh, this doesn’t taste good. But then you start to get used to it. You go back to the old stuff and you can taste the poison. You can taste.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
You know, what was slowly killing you. Whether it’s sweet, fat, whatever the thing, you know?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Right.
Kashif Khan
I experience, I can’t eat a chocolate bar anymore.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
It is disgusting to me now, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
I don’t want it.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
As a kid, I thought it was amazing now like, yuck.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, for anyone listening that’s gonna attempt this. Just appreciate that no one’s asking you to, like we said earlier, flip a switch.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Nope.
Kashif Khan
Doesn’t work that way. Especially when it comes to your tongue. And the thing is, you’ve heard it here today. It takes 14 days for your tongue to sort of reset, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yep.
Kashif Khan
It’s like a long jet leg feeling. So you gotta work on your tongue. And if you give it that time up front where you pre plan that this is gonna take me a couple weeks as opposed to, oh, I cooked this and it’s horrible.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Right.
Kashif Khan
That’s hard.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
You’re right.
Kashif Khan
But if you realize it’s a couple weeks of grind to get to a point where you’re gonna value and appreciate the new version of your meal so much that you actually won’t want to go back.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
You’ll no longer enjoy, you’ll taste every chemical, you’ll taste… When I switched from whatever milk was available to like really great high quality, pure organic milk. And even then goat milk. When I taste regular milk at somebody’s home now, I literally taste like, what did they put in here? I couldn’t taste it before.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
You can tell the difference.
Kashif Khan
You can tell the difference, right? So, that I think is wisdom that everybody should lean on because it allows you to keep doing what you enjoy, which is it’s difficult to take the pleasure away, especially from food. It’s such a great source of pleasure as it should be, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
We shouldn’t suffer, who wants to suffer?
Kashif Khan
Yeah, and you’re making it easy because no one’s telling you to stop, to change your diet. We’re just telling you to replace the ingredients and just switch it around for things that are, the way you cook it, you know? Is it in water, is it oil, is it in a microwave, or is it on the stove top?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
You know, these little nuances that as you adopt them, you’re not gonna wanna let them go either. They’re they’re too good.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Right.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
And in particular with oils, when you’re not heating them at a high heat, then now you’re not taking that risk that you’re gonna turn that oil into complete poison.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, for sure.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Instead, added it at the very last, as the food is cooling down.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
You know, use less. So, you’ll have less in a way of empty potentially calories. You can have more health benefits. And if it’s a delicate oil, like olive oil, that’s really important, right?
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
You don’t wanna cook that thing at a high heat. Certainly not for long time. It’ll burn and smoke and you know?
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
You just gotta learn how to do the timing of things often. And then it’s easier for portion control for people to struggle with overeating. There’s so many benefits.
Kashif Khan
Yeah.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
So many benefits.
Kashif Khan
So when is your cookbook coming out?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
I don’t know, it’s a good question. I’ve a few PDFs that have some recipes on them that show stepwise these differences, whether it’s preparing collared greens, lentils and dahl dishes, things like that. You know, we borrow from cuisines from around the world because everyone I feel has innate intelligence around food. We just need to make sure this modern world doesn’t interrupt with us being able to live long and live well.
Kashif Khan
Right, that’s cool. So if I’m sure people listening are excited by all of what you’re saying, just like myself. How would they, do you work directly with patients still?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
At this moment as of this recording transitioning out and probably by the time this airs, we will have exclusively group programs.
Kashif Khan
Okay.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Available with my health coaches. And I’ll certainly be active in that format to work with people in a group setting. And the reason I’m changing, going from one on one care and putting a stop to that and going to the group format, is because my experience is that people can make their changes more quickly when they realize that they aren’t the only one with the problem.
Kashif Khan
Yeah, no for sure.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Community matters.
Kashif Khan
That circle of care helps a lot, right? That accountability, resonating with other people and their stories, and learning that we’re all in the same boat fighting the same stuff.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
We are, it’s about community.
Kashif Khan
Yeah and then it becomes gamified with tracking your wearables and there’s leaderboards and who’s on top who slept the best last night, you know? That makes it all fun.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
So yeah, this was amazing. Thank you for coming on today and sharing with us because your perspective is truly unique. We’re not talking about, I have a disease, it’s more like I have a choice, right?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Often with chronic illnesses, you do have choices. And so you need to make ’em. Please do.
Kashif Khan
Thank you so much, this was amazing.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
You’re welcome. Thank you for the opportunity. And I hope that someone has been profoundly impacted and will take those actions and make their own self care number one.
Kashif Khan
For sure, oh, sorry, one last thing.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah.
Kashif Khan
Where do people find you, website?
Beverly Yates, N.D.
Yeah, they’re welcome to go to my website. It would be D R Like the deviation for doctor, and then Beverly B-E-V-E-R-L-Y-Y-A-T-E-S.com. Dr.BeverlyYates.com.
Kashif Khan
Perfect. Thanks again, this was awesome.
Beverly Yates, N.D.
All right, thank you so much. Take good care.
Downloads
Download Transcript
