The Cancer Survivor’s Guide To Nutrition & Healing

Introduction to the summit and Chris's background 0:00

This is doctor talks. Real talk from real doctors. Only issues that matter to you most. All right. Welcome back. The Plant Based Cancer Solutions Summit. Glad you with us. And today we have an exciting guest. Give us a lot of, insight. And we really hope for you to hear this and know about him. Let me tell you a little about Chris. Chris work is a actually a long term cancer survivor. Lots of experience in this field for like years was like, you know, like 20 years ago or something where he had his problem.

He. Well, so he's been a cancer survivor, a patient advocate, a bestselling author. He was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer at age 26 years old. And after the surgery, Chris made a decision to go against the doctor's advice and not do the chemotherapy and choose to use nutritional excellence and natural therapies instead. And it worked. Six years after his diagnosis, in 2010, he began sharing his story of faith and courage, determination and his message of hope that chronic disease like cancer can be prevented and reversed with a radical transformation of diet and lifestyle.

And that's what it takes. It takes a radical change in your attitude that makes your ability to make a radical change in that know everything you're doing. And the last decade, Chris has become one of the best known cancer survivors on the planet because he reaches millions of people each year as a blogger, podcaster, speaker, and global health coach through books he's written through social media and his website. Chris Beats cancer.com chrisbeatcancer.com. So he's the author of three books. One is the national bestseller Crispy Cancer A Comprehensive Plan for Healing Naturally published in 2018.

And his second book book Beat Cancer Daily 365 Days of Inspiration, encouragement, Action to Survive and Thrive was published in 2020, and then he has a third book in 2021 called Beat Cancer Kitchen. Deliciously Simple plant based anti-cancer recipes, which is always good and fun to have that third cookbook type thing, you know. All right, so let's get started with Chris Chris. Thanks again for joining me. Appreciate your time and your contribution to this summit. Well, happy to be on it. I, I'm a big fan of yours, Doctor Furman, as you know.

And, it feels weird to be interviewed by you because I have interviewed you before, and I have people, like, I probably have more questions for you than you have for me, you know? But, anyway, yeah, but I have plenty of time for people getting information from me, so it's good to, like, have other people show. Wow, there's so much other, you know, contributors to where we've where we've come to today, you know, so it's like like, so glad you're here and contributing. Thank you. So so you know, maybe maybe people don't know you and or maybe they've known of you.

But just summarize your story, how you got into this and how that led you to really like developing a career in in studying and applying the, you know, what you've learned for yourself, you know? Yeah. Well, as you said, I was diagnosed at 26 and that was December 2003,

Diagnosis and early cancer experience 3:01

just a few days before Christmas, with stage three colon cancer. And that was preceded by a better part of the year having strange abdominal pain, you know, that I got ribs and maybe an ulcer and was treated for an ulcer, but it turns out it was not an ulcer. And, had a colonoscopy and they found it a golf ball sized tumor. Biopsied it. And, you know, a day or two later, call me and said, it's confirmed colon cancer. And, you know, I think it's important to point out that colon cancer is one of the fastest growing cancers, especially in young adults.

And I don't mean that the cancer grows fast inside your body. I mean, it's one of the, most prevalent, most common cancers that is being diagnosed in young adults. And, there are a number of different speculations for that. One is our you know, our diet has really gotten to be so heavily processed and full of GMOs and with the highest levels of pesticides and insecticides and fungicides than ever before. And, and so, you know, it's it's a myriad of factors, but generally speaking, colon cancer is a dietary driven disease.

And, there are, you know, there are many parts in the world that have extremely low rates of colon cancer. And I talk about this in my first book. But, yeah, there are parts of Africa, sub-Saharan Africa that have 50 times lower the rate of colon cancer than the US. I mean, 50 times lower. It's it's incredible. And, you know, these people have been studied and they do not have any kind of genetic advantage. You know, what they researchers have come to the conclusion that their, remarkably low rate of colon cancer is due to their diet.

They they do they eat a diet. I love the quote from the study, which is that their diet is absent in, cancer promoting foods. Essentially, I'm summarizing, which is meat and dairy, and you eat pretty conventionally right till the age of 26 when you think, oh yes, yes, yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah, I, I grew up on fast food, processed food and junk food. I was a born in 77, you know, child of the 80s, 90s and yeah, yeah, I just ate the standard American diet. And so, yeah, you know, it's I think we just we've never been told that the rates of cancer, it's like a light bulb.

We've never been told that there are there are parts of the world that have much lower rates of cancer. You know, like most people don't walk around thinking about that and thinking, well, what are we doing differently here than other countries and how are we eating? But anyway, so the countries with much lower rates of cancer and regions, they typically eat a lot more whole plant food. I mean, it's just a very simple thing, you know, and their exposure to, to environmental pollutants is much lower than ours.

So they have and typically get more sunlight, more movement, more exercise. These are very simple things. Right? So anyway, I mean, this is a rabbit trail. I didn't know any of that when I was diagnosed. But of course I've learned a lot since. But I was told you got stage three colon cancer. I was told by my doctor, we've got to get you into surgery right away and get this thing out of you before it spreads and kills you. And and so, like a typical cancer patient, I was like, just said, okay, you know, your your cancer patients are often rushed into treatment.

Sometimes that treatment is necessary because it is an urgent situation. But in many cases the lump or the bumper, the tumor is not life threatening. And they do have some time, more time than they realize to read and research and get second and third opinions and really understand their disease and investigate different treatment options. And, and so, I had surgery about ten days after my diagnosis. And when I woke up, they said, it's worse than we thought. Your stage three I was when I was diagnosed, they thought it was probably stage two.

And from there, I was told I would need 9 to 12 months of chemotherapy. And so, in the hospital, the two, the two parts of my story, of my hospital experience that I always tell is that the first meal that I was served after they took out a third of my large intestine was a sloppy Joe. Wow. Yeah. I mean, it's just like, really like, this is the worst cafeteria food I can think of, right? I wouldn't want a sloppy Joe on a good day. Right? And not and definitely not as my first meal after, you know, having a third of my guts cut out.

So that was a that was a surprise. Yeah. That was eye opening. And and then a few days later, you know, I was told, okay, you can go home today. We're releasing you and my surgeon came by to check on me one last time while I was in the hospital. He's making his rounds, and and I just happened to say, you know, in our conversation. Hey, you know, is there any food I need to avoid? Because I don't know anything. But I did know that they just took out a third of my large intestine. And so, you know, it's a tube, right?

Your large intestine, the tube,

Choosing nutrition over chemotherapy 8:12

they cut out a section and so did back together. And so I didn't want to eat the wrong thing, you know, and like, screw up the surgery somehow with hot sauce or whatever, you know. So, his response was, no, just don't lift anything heavier than a beer. I was it, you know, no nutritional advice. And frankly, in making that joke, he gave me permission to drink. Right? Alcohol. Not a problem. Well, we know alcohol is a leading cause of cancer. It's a leading cause of cancer. It's a Group one carcinogen.

Alcohol creates, there's a there's a cancer causing byproduct of alcohol. It is produced in your body called acetaldehyde. It causes cancer. And so it's it's it's just wild that the medical industry a is feeding hospital patients whatever. Like the cheapest cafeteria food they can, scrounge up sloppy joes and, and, you know, meatloaf and stuff like that and be doctors are telling their patients, oh, yeah, it's, you know, drink doesn't matter. You can drink if you want to. Alcohol. It's just do your point, right?

I mean, doctors aren't even telling patients to stop smoking. That's how bad medicine has got. They. They're not even telling patients. And I'm not trying to say no doctor ever. But, you know, many doctors. Yeah. They just don't even they don't even bother. I think they just think, oh, they're not going to quit anyway. What's the point. Right. So you don't tell people they need to lose weight. They just they they don't do anything. They just give drugs and surgery. We know. Yeah we know. Yeah. And so but you know, I didn't I didn't understand that I had more of a rosy, colored view of medicine at that time.

And so it was kind of shocking to me. I'm like, really? This is a this is, you know, they're not give me any health advice at all. I need some help. So I get home, you know, I'm recovering from surgery. And, as I sobered up and started to wean myself off the pain medication and really started to think about my life and my future, and, you know, the idea of chemotherapy, of poisoning my way back to health didn't make sense to me. And I really had resistance to it. And, and, and so my wife and I prayed about it and I just said, God, if there's another way besides chemotherapy, please show me, you know, I just just just a sincere prayer of faith and and surrender.

And, a couple days later, I got a book in the mail about healing with raw food, the raw food diet. And, that was a book by George Malkmus, God's Way to Ultimate Health. And George was a colon cancer survivor, and he had healed it without surgery, just had a radical diet change, raw food, and juicing. And I was so inspired by his story, I knew it was an answer to prayer. I just there's no doubt in my mind, like, okay, I prayed, this showed up, and this is definitely a different path. Yeah. I'd just like to add here is that had you undergoing chemotherapy?

I'm not really bashing chemo right now, but I'm just saying that had you undergone that, that could have put you at risk for secondary cancers and, and damage, living with the toxicity of chemotherapy that, that reoccurs itself with some further or secondary different cancer down the road caused by chemotherapy. So personally, the fact that you made this recovery and did not have the chemo makes me feel so good about your future health and your ability to live a long life now because you don't have the original cancer and you're not going to have a secondary cancer that occurs, you know, ten years later caused by the chemo, either, you know, so it's really I'm really happy for you, you know, thank you.

And, you know, I didn't I didn't even know that about chemotherapy. I didn't all I knew was, man, it makes people look like they are dying, right? I had seen chemo patients in the world and and how destructive it was. And so I had, you know, I think like most patients, it's just a natural resistance to like, man, that stuff is really toxic. That, that just that looks like hell going through that. And so I, you know, I didn't want to do it just for that. Those simple reasons, not knowing that. Yes, it's true it that chemotherapy can cause secondary cancers and that many cancer patients who go through chemo, get a short term benefit of some tumor shrinkage.

But then the, the cancer that is not killed by the chemo, like the stem cells become more aggressive and that chemotherapy wipes out their immune system. So now when when they're done with their chemo treatments, they have more aggressive cancer. Still lingering in the body and no immune system to fight it off. And that's that's the paradox of chemo, right? As many of these drugs, they work in the short term, but in the long term they cause a lot of harm and cause cancer to become more aggressive.

And your immune system's wiped out. So you've lost your army, right? And so, again, didn't know any of that when I was making this decision. But I've researched a lot and learned a lot. But so I go, you know, I start I immediately started on this raw food inducing path because I was excited about it. I mean, to me, it was like, wow, I've never heard this before. This is fascinating. What, what? I wonder what will happen if I just overdose on nutrition, if I flood my body with good things from the earth, fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, herbs and spices.

Right? Whole grains. Like what would happen if I. If I did that? It's got something good's got to happen, right. That was my, you know, nonscientific, non-medical, opinion. Right. I just believed that healing was possible. And this is a big thing, right? You know, I believed healing was possible, and I was willing to take massive action to transform my life. And it started with the food. And then and then I started changing other things. I realized, oh, there's a lot of other things I need to work on.

My attitude, my faith, my relationship with other people. But anyway, I can get into that. But just starting with the food conversation. Yeah, I just wanted to overdose on nutrition. And then I learned, as I started reading more and more, that while there are all these documented anti-cancer compounds in fruits and vegetables that nature is full of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals, and special nutrients that help your body survive and thrive through cancer and prevent cancer, heal cancer. And so that got me even more excited about what I was doing.

And I'm just thankful that you know that the Lord opened up that door for me. I mean, I asked for help, and I got it, and and I was, you know, sometimes people say, oh, that was so brave of you or so courageous. And the funny thing is, it's like it didn't feel brave or courageous at all. I was it fear was the feeling, right? I was, I was afraid, I was afraid to do chemotherapy because of, you know, what it could do to me. And I was afraid not to do it because of the looming threat of cancer. So at no point did I feel brave.

But I. I listened to my instincts and my intuition and trusted that that that was a path that God had given me, a choice he'd given me. And and so I decided to take it and, and, and I found support. This is a really big thing because the first oncologist I met with told me I was insane if I didn't do chemotherapy. And was. Yeah, incredibly condescending, used fear to manipulate me and, and my wife and, and essentially talked me into chemo. But I still had 3 or 4 weeks until I would get a port put in because I was recovering from surgery.

And in that 3 or 4 week time, I was juicing and eating the giant salads and reading and learning and praying and, you know, like and so I'm just so thankful that I had that buffer of time so that when the day came to go get the port, I just woke up that morning, I was like, you know what? I'm not doing it like I am not doing it. I'm not saying I'm never doing it, but right now I want to build my body up. This is what I want to do. I don't want to tear it down any more. I want to build it up. I want to go down this path and, and first and, and so I, so I just, you know, I said no to it, but then I found a support system.

I found a nature path. And who connected me with the medical doctor who was, integrative and supported my decision, and that's huge. I mean, you really need a medical team that supports you, that's willing to work with you on your terms and not not be in a relationship with a doctor that's,

Building a healing diet and lifestyle 16:50

you know, sort of like a bully, you know, that's like my way or the highway. And if you don't do what I'm telling you to do, you know, they're going to tell you you're insane. And funny thing is, the oncologist that I now see now just for periodic follow up and all that, he told me, he said, you know what he said, you made the right decision. And I was like, really? And he's like, yeah, we know now that for the type of cancer you had, which is Lynch driven colon cancer, he said chemo wouldn't have worked.

You know, I was like, wow. To hear him say that, I mean, this was many years later, right? Know he said that to me and and I was like, it's almost like you made the right. You made the right choice of so lucky. You know, I think that's the theme of this why I'm running this summit. Let me just reinstate that one more time because I can't state it enough. Is that the unrecognized power of nutritional elements and dietary excellence to prevent and even reverse cancer enhanced survival is not alternative medicine.

This is evidence based science with more proven benefits than conventional therapies like chemotherapy. More proven benefits. So we have thousands of studies, thousands to document the beneficial effects of mushrooms and flaxseeds and beets and green vegetables, thousands of studies. And they produced remarkable benefits. And that's really why I'm doing it. So in any case, it's not like back then when you did that, it was like nobody knew about this stuff. You know, you just but now we have incredible amounts of evidence and the efficacy of this approach.

That's that's so, so great. And, you know, you're right because in the early 2000s, I was I read a bunch of books, you know, from book to book, but they were not heavily science based books and they didn't have a bunch of research citations. And, you know, they were mostly, you know, anecdotal, right? Either doctors or survivors sharing their story and sharing what they did to heal. And what I saw were these were these common threads. Yeah, I saw the common threads were lots of raw vegetables. Right.

Juicing was a very common thread, you know, exercise, detoxification, fresh air and sunshine, forgiveness, major common thread, you know, and so it's stress reduction and in general. But but specifically for giving people who've hurt you, you know, and, getting right with God. And so, like, as I saw these common threads, again, not scientifically proven yet. But but enough to convince me or at least reassure me that I was on the right path. And, and so I just proceeded, I just created a daily routine for myself and just started taking care of myself, in ways that I never had before.

And I made my health a priority and started systematically just improving my life, you know, every aspect of my life that I saw room for improvement. I would sort of tackle. And the diet was like the it was like the gateway drug to radical life change. Right? Because if you can get a person to change their diet, I know, you know this Doctor Furman, if you can get a person to change their diet in a big way, it it unlocks this potential in them and they realize, oh, well, wow, I can do this. What else can I do?

Yeah. And then you start to see like a snowball effect of of, you know, just positive changes in their life, you know, and they're finally willing to forgive. Right? You know, in many cases it's you're making a good point. You people. I don't think about that often. In many cases. You see the diet can make a person think more clearly and be more at peace with themselves, less aggressive, less angry, and have more less brain fog and concentrate more and beam and actually be more forgiving just from the diet change alone.

Yeah, right. Those those feel good chemicals. They get more of those in circulation. And exercise does it too, as we know. Like when people start exercising it's one of the best anti-depressants. And they just they're generally happier, you know, and more optimistic about their future in their life. Like it really is cool to see that. And so yeah, anyway, you know, jumping back, it was really, affirming to hear an oncologist say, you know, you were right. You made the right decision. And I just again, I thank God because I didn't make a smart decision.

I just prayed and got an answer and felt like, okay, I'm going to go this way. And, and it turns out, yeah, that the chemotherapy was especially, especially ineffective for cancer patients with Lynch syndrome. So, anyway, knowing that now, it's, it's good that there is progress in, in cancer treatment and there's immunotherapy drugs that are certainly, more effective and less harmful than chemotherapy drugs. So, you know, I'm optimistic that they're they're making progress through that cancer, the cancer industry as a whole is improving.

And by the way, just want to make sure everybody listening knows if you're doing chemo, it's okay. Like nutrition and exercise and forgiveness will still help you a lot. Right? Yeah. And there are some cancers where chemo is appropriate. But we'll talk about that another time. But but yeah exactly. Most but certainly it's oversold. In most cases it's given it's not even faster than even have to give them. But but yeah it's a little bit it's all great points. And you almost came to the interventions with superfoods and super nutrition instinctually and with Doctor Malcolm this is help that now that when I produce these advice and graphics in foods are just from scientific studies, you can came to the same thing instinctually with trial and error, that now we have all the science that supports those things that you did.

You know. That's right. And I didn't discover the science until, you know, six and a half years after my diagnosis, I started Chris Beat cancer.com just as a blog, because I just felt like I mean, I just had this nagging feeling that, you know, I need to share my story. There's I know there's people that I can give encouragement to and give hope to, and that. Need to know that they want to know because I wanted to know. And so that was just a part time passion that I started. I started writing articles about what I'd been through and learned and making videos and doing that stuff.

And that's when I found the science. Yeah, right. That's when I started to learn more and more and realized, wow, there's so much nutritional science on the all of these incredible anti-cancer kind of pounds like allicin in garlic and SGC in green tea and, you know, resveratrol, I mean, it's just there's there's so many. Right. Sulforaphane and, indole three carbon, all in cruciferous vegetables. I know you know all this and your audience for those too. But anyway, like, once, once I started going down that rabbit hole, it was like, it just a whole world opened up and.

And I got really excited about it. And would, you know, obviously start talking about those things and learning more about the science. And of course, a lot of that's in my first book and it was cool because, again, I had wondered in the back of my mind, was I just lucky, right? Because I'd been accused it? Well, you were just lucky your diet didn't do anything. Your diet didn't help. You were just lucky. And then when I saw the science, I was like, no, it wasn't luck, right? There was there was a there's a mechanism of action that is happening when you eat whole foods from the earth, like there's a benefit that's measurable to your body, to your cells and against cancer, you know, to prevent recurrence or to prevent a diagnosis or to help heal.

And, so, yeah, it's it's we live in such a neat time now because of all, all of the science and so many the internet and YouTube has provided all these platforms for brilliant, you know, practitioners such as yourself, Doctor Michael Greger and Doctor Barnard and on and on, who are really attuned to the science and share that with people and teach, you know, the lay person or the survivor like me, my prolific. So back then, when you didn't have the science, what do you think were the like the three biggest, meals, foods, things you did that were most important or most helpful, you know?

Yeah, yeah. So what I decided to do it kind of, you know, and I said this earlier was I decided I'm gonna try to overdose on nutrition. And what that meant practically was like, how can I eat every vegetable every day? Right. And and when I say every right, it's like, how can I eat as many vegetables as possible? The most diverse amount that it's doubles. We found that out. So this is the variety of your food that different types of plants you eat improves health. Yeah. Thank you. Now it's not like just eating a whole bunch of one food.

It's diversity of nutrients, diversity of fiber, many different types of phytochemicals. It all work together. Right. And and I didn't again I didn't understand the scientific thing. But just instinctively I thought, you know, all these vegetables are different. I want to get them all in my body. And so I just started making giant salads like that just became the default.

Lessons learned and practical advice 26:08

The easiest thing to do instead of, you know, going through and trying this recipe with, you know, maybe one recipe has four ingredients, another one has six ingredients. I'm like, well, if I make a salad, I can put spinach, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, peppers, mushrooms, bean sprouts. I can put garlic, oregano, cayenne pepper, curry powder on it. I can use apple cider vinegar and olive oil and flax oil. I can load this thing up with all of these anti-cancer foods. And, and so once I concocted, I concocted that salad one time, and it was really good, you know, because I was like, I just put all these spices on here.

I'll just, you know, just put all this cram all this stuff on here. Oh, and also sauerkraut or kimchi. That was another that's another really delicious addition. So anyway, I loaded it up and I ate it. I was like, this is delicious. This is great. I could eat this every day. And then I thought, well, shoot, if I'm going to eat it every day, why don't I eat it for lunch and dinner every day? So I really did eat the same meal every single day for lunch and dinner every day for years. And breakfast was usually just juicing.

So I would first thing in the morning, I'd get up and make a big batch of carrot juice, and then eventually I would add like beets and a celery and more vegetables to the juice. But, big batch of juice and drink the juice throughout the day, juice in the morning, and then have a big salad for lunch and dinner. And that was just my simple, simple dietary routine. It was juice and giant salads. And then after maybe a few months in, I added fruit smoothie. So I would have a smoothie with blueberries, blackberries, raspberries and strawberries and a and a banana and splendid up and and some water.

And that would be like an, an afternoon snack. So I was getting my, my bear anti-cancer berries in my body. So that was it. Those are the three, the three major quote unquote food groups was vegetable juices, giant salad, fruit smoothie. Every day. Cool. So what have you what kind of nutritional practices have you now changed with the knowledge you've gained over the last 20 years to enhance the protective power of you diet that you kind of got instinctually? Yeah. And through Doctor Alchemist, now you've learned even more.

So what new things are now you incorporating as a result of your growing education in this field? Well, at that at that time, you know, I, I thought, well, maybe I'll just do the raw food list and just eat raw food the rest of my life now. And if I have to, I'm fine with it. But, over time, I learned. Well, you know, there's a lot of nutrition in cooked vegetables, too. Cooked vegetables are also healthy. And I also realized that based on my particular body type I have, I'm 62, I'm lean and have a very high metabolism.

I found that that cooked food would, give me more calories. So I modified a little bit from 100% raw, did that for 90 days, and then I modified working with a natural path to 80% raw and and really the only thing that changed was I was just with my giant salad. I'd have a sweet potato, right. Or I have brown rice or quinoa. Right. So I just had to sort of adding a little bit more cooked food, some starches to my, to my meal and and then just over time, just progressively, still, I still love giant salads.

I still love to juice. I still, I eat, predominantly plant based diet and, you know, I, I just enjoy it so much, and I feel good doing it. And so reading, you know, again, reading, like, reading your books, reading Doctor Gregor's books, like, I've read so many books. I mean, what's behind me is like, I've got boxes and boxes and boxes of books, you know, that I've read that, I just should cram on my bookshelf. But, but anyway, yeah, I just learned that it really is. It's not complicated. If you just focus on eating whole plant food raw and cooked right that you are, you're supplying your body with wonderful, vital nutrients that it will use.

And, if you avoid the processed food, the fast food and the junk food and and not and restaurant food. Not that I never eat out because I do, but, if that's just a very small percentage of your diet, you are setting yourself up for health and longevity. But if the majority of your diet is processed, fast food, junk food, meat and dairy, right, and loaded with sugar, salt and, saturated fats and things, then you're setting yourself up for chronic disease like every other American. So it really is.

It's not about perfection for the average person who just wants to be healthy. Perfection isn't necessary, but it's just about prioritizing right priorities over perfection. In other words, you just say, you know what? I'm just going to make healthy eating a priority. I'm just going to raise my standards and just decide, you know, I'm better than this. I have a higher standard now, and you just put certain food groups beneath you, right? You just you just kind of decide, you know, that junk food, processed food that's beneath me, right?

That's beneath me. I'm not eating that stuff anymore. You know, it's it's interesting because, you know, the conventional person out there sees the way we eat and thinks it is being sacrificial and extreme, and they're not having fun, and we're not having fun in our lives. And what we're experiencing and what I'm exhibiting with other people showing is that people have more peace with themselves, more gratitude, more love in their lives, more confidence, more courage, less fear, more happiness. And they enjoy food just as much, and they actually are grateful for the food itself and more enjoying knowing it's good for them.

And they've also made it taste good too. And so you're not giving up. You're gaining so much. And I think you're a great representative of that. How much you've gained. And certainly you don't anybody have suffered with cancer or have problems that you've had in your life, but certainly the you give back to the world and, and also how you've, how it's really helped you have a, a good life, you know, and really you had a great attitude towards to like have like a toast with other people. So it's not we're not giving up and sacrificing.

We're gaining so much. Yeah. And you know, I think it's it's good to have what I, when I have these kind of conversations with someone, you know. Yeah. I think it's great to just encourage someone to, to take it. Why don't you just conduct a personal dietary experiment? Right. Just why don't you just try this for 30 days and see how you feel? Try eating a diet that's all. Plant based, whole food plant based for 30 days, right? And without eating processed food or fast food or junk food. Without eating meat or dairy.

See how you feel, right? Because it's hard to imagine. It's hard for people to imagine feeling better until they feel better. Right? Right. And and then it's hard to imagine. Have what more energy feels like when you're so accustomed to having low energy and you need caffeine to get through the day because your diet is not supplying you with really great energy. And so it's like you don't have to to me, it's like you don't have to to declare yourself a vegan, right? To be healthy, right? You don't have to to pledge allegiance to anything.

You don't have to take on a dietary identity. You know, I'm a vegan or vegan or vegetarian or whatever. Like just start eating differently and see how you feel, and then you'll understand, like, and don't do it for two days and then decide, oh, it just just doesn't work for me, right? You have to give yourself 30 days because it takes you the first week. It could feel worse. Yes. Yeah, I felt worse the first day. The better part of the first week. I had very low energy. I was kind of, you know, like brain fog.

And I just didn't feel great, you know, and that's very common. And but once I got over that hump, I want to say it was maybe day 4 or 5. All of a sudden I just had a surge of energy. I was like, man, I feel good. I really feel really good today. And then it just continued. And so yeah, so any anybody that's thinking about, you know, really doing a massive diet change, you know, going for a whole food plant based diet or even a raw food diet for a season, give yourself 30 days, right. Just decide I'm doing this for 30 days.

No matter what I'm going to I'm going to tough it out the first few days. And then it even helps if you want to take it to the next level to get your blood work done right, get your blood work done before you start, and then get it done in 30 days and see what's improved. And you may be very surprised to see just in 30 days how how you know your cholesterol can come down, blood pressure comes down. I know you see this all the time, doctor firm. Yeah. Well thank you, Chris. Thank you for being you.

Thank you for the support you give all of us. And thank you for being part of this summit. And we're going to move forward with the mission. And thank you for being part of the global mission to improve people's overall health. So, the heart goes out to all of you. Thank everybody for listening. And and stay tuned to the rest of the summit, too. All right. Thanks again. Bye bye everybody. Thank you for tuning in to Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health.

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