Doctors Won’t Tell You THIS About Poop – Longevity Dietitian Exposes the Truth | Ella Davar | Ep. 43

Introduction to Ella DeVar and the podcast 0:00

Healthspan approach still emphasizes that the only thing that we have proven so far is that diet, nutrition, exercise and sleep, that's what's going to give you results. There's nothing that has more conflicting information on the nutrition. Meet Ella Debar. an internationally acclaimed longevity dietician, TEDx speaker, and founder of the revolutionary Gut Brain Method. Featured in Forbes, People, in Women's Health Magazine, Ella helps busy professionals optimize their wellness through cutting-edge nutrition science.

Get ready for an enlightening conversation about health, longevity, & living your best life. when it comes to nutrition it's probably one of the most important components that feeds to everything else we live in a very toxic world we can't remove all the toxins so we have to learn how to live around it there is still a question in the air that why do we do what we when we know what so the lifestyle changes are very hard this is one the reasons why many doctors don't want to be talking about nutrition I'm going to get into a topic that a lot of people might not want to talk about.

I want talk to about poop. What is your poop supposed to look like? It's supposed feel natural. And if you don't have your bowel movement once a day before or after breakfast, that means something's off. Is there anything that you say it's at the top of the list that should eat? There's five foods that I believe absolutely everyone should be able to incorporate into their daily intake to take advantage of. Let's go. Number one. Welcome to another episode of a healthy point of view podcast. I'm your host Sam Tahata.

And as you guys know, we bring experts from all around the world to talk about health, beauty, wellness, all of the great stuff. So we have good health span and longevity. Today, We have a special guest. This guest here is going to touch up on a whole different topic that we really haven't gone this deep into. She is a longevity dietitian and also a gut health nutritionists, we're gonna get into some real details of what is going to make us live longer and a healthier life. We have Ella DeVar here today.

Hi Sam, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to get in to this conversation. Because you know we talk about all kinds of stuff like hormone optimization, sexual health, mental health.

Ellau2019s personal health journey on Wall Street 2:25

All of these different topics. But when it comes to nutrition, it's probably one of the most important components that feeds to everything else. Fundamental. So I wanna start off talking about you and talking what made you so passionate to actually become a longevity dietitian. I do have a story. I want to hear it. Well, before I became a food expert and nutrition professional, I was a young woman working on Wall Street, confused on what it is that I should be eating to feel and look my best. Yeah, and I would just work long hours and spend all my money running from one expert to another.

Then I was like, maybe it's the holistic, it is the alternative treatments that I need. I tried acupuncture, I did it all. There was a dietitian that changed my life by changing my relationship with food. She ran a food sensitivity and intolerance blood test for me. That was decade ago, around 12 years ago. What kind of test was that? It was blood tests for food sensitivities and tolerances. Right, I'm familiar with that. That's what happened to me a decade ago. And now, fast forward, I am the dietitian that changes people's life by changing their relationship with food.

That is how much she impacted my life. Because I suddenly started to look at food not as my enemy. This thing makes me bloated. this thing make me fat. I shouldn't be eating this. It is too many calories. Instead I started looking at it as medicine. what it is that I should be focusing on to make me feel my best. And so, yes, at first, the first three weeks, it was the elimination diet. It was a little bit restrictive, right? She gave me this diet and she's like, try it for three week, see how you feel.

I kept it the rest of my life. She made you eliminate, certainly. Yes, I still remember there was list with the big no and there's a whole list of different foods. There was gluten, dairy, alcohol, and yeast. So when you eliminated those out of out, of your diet Did you reintroduce them later? I did and I figured out how to do it the right way right whether take enzymes with certain foods that I couldn't eat or Choose better quality of it, but it's also required a lot of education I remembered the moment when she told me like I can't have gluten in there I was like, what am I supposed to be eating for breakfast?

She literally said cornflakes and I was like, what, how is this supposed to be healthy? But then I started actually learning about food. I learned what quinoa was, I learn what buckwheat was and other alternatives of different foods. And it's amazing like how many different health benefits every single one has. One of the things you just said earlier, you said food is medicine and that always Brings to mind Hippocrates. Yeah Hippocrates. Yes, we're one of great guys, right? Bring him up during my lecture.

That's one other things that he would say Exactly, that's right. I was sad around 2,000 years ago right you guys yes, and to this day when you mentioned like the longevity of approach or health span approach still emphasizes that the only thing that we have proven so far is that diet, nutrition, exercise, and sleep, that's what's going to give you results, right? But most people completely override it. And what what is funnier is there's nothing that has more conflicting information on than nutrition.

Most of the experts that you ask, most of doctors that asked, they all disagree on what is the best diet for humans. And that's something that we see a lot of, even with the food pyramid that the government gives us of what we should eat, which I think it's been upside down for a long time, right? They need to turn it over. And I think there's gonna be a big shift now with some of the things that are happening politically So going back to your story. Okay, so you you started seeing this Registered dietitian right a nutritionist that started putting you through this process You did the food sensitivity test you saw all of these things and lit up like a Christmas tree You got to remove this you got remove that And now you as a person, first you have to make the commitment and look at it and say, you know what, I'm going to do this.

So you made that commitment, and you started eliminating some of these things out of your nutritional plan, then what? And then what, I suddenly felt like a brand new version of myself. What did you feel? I felt less bloated, had more clarity, less brain fog, more energy, my skin cleared up, got rid of nasal congestion, chronic nasal congestions. I had two surgeries on snoring, like my tonsils were removed, and my nose was restructured, the deviated septum, in reality it was the mucus build up. And you were still snorting.

Food sensitivities, elimination diets, and dairy 7:48

To um dairy and now I try to avoid conventional dairy And every time I do like I realize how it makes me feel you said conventional. Dairy So for the listeners, what's the opposite of conventional? Okay, so before I completely eliminate dairy from my client's intake I always go step by step because so many there's so Many health benefits to dairy like probiotics healthy fats proteins So number one is remove conventional dairy and substitute it for A2 types of protein milk dairy. And then if you can't tolerate cows, dairy, proteins whatsoever, then we stay with, we choose goats and ships milk products.

Okay, now I see a lot of these biohackers where they go to actual farms and they get like, cow, what is it? Non-pasteurized milk, I forget. Unpasterized, yeah. Raw milk. What's your opinion on that? Well, there's some concerns like, for example, pregnant women and people with immune deficiencies should not be having unpasteurized milk because there is a lot more naturally occurring bacteria there. But in truth, reality, the way that nature created it, it's so much better for us. For most of us, people who take care of ourselves and very healthy, with strong immune system.

Yes, we would be benefiting more, but only those and that's another thing with enzymes and proteins and lactose proteins for the sugars and protein of milk. Some people are not able to tolerate it. with all due respect. I'm one of them. Like I love deer.I love talking about dairy. i love Talking about its benefits, but it doesn't love me back. As I say, you know, I Love milk proteins, milk products, But it Doesn't Love me Back. So I am better off without it. I think the statistics are 75% of people worldwide, as they age, lose their enzymatic sufficiency to be able to break down the cow's milk dairy proteins.

Only 25% are lucky enough to digest that. Very interesting. Is that 75%, that you're referring to, would that be considered lactose intolerance? So there's different types. So like I said, milk is a complete food, right? It's got sugar, protein and fats. And so lactose is just sugars, and then there is proteins, casein and whey. When we measure food sensitivity and tolerance, the specific antibodies that we measured, IgG and IgA, those are specific to proteins molecules, okay? So you might be able to tolerate lactase, But it's the proteins that are creating problems for you that a triggering your immune system.

Wow, there's such a science to it. So obviously you have a tremendous amount of knowledge and you're spitting the knowledge right now. But I'm going to take a step back, right? Because we didn't finish about you. Yeah. so all of a sudden you started feeling a heck of lot better going through this process. Yes. What triggered you to say, all right, I feel fantastic. I've been able to cure myself. I want to do what this lady did with me with the rest of the people. Such a great question. You're a greater interviewer.

So yeah, I kept that diet for years and I remember I would travel to Las Vegas and Saint Tropez and i would have zero alcohol, zero yeast. and just eat clean because I was so motivated. So suddenly for the first time that I following a diet that was created for me, I wasn't following somebody else's generic protocols. Oh, i just don't eat all meat. I avoid all of the carbs, right? It was just specific things that i was excluding and focusing on the abundance of vegetables and fresh proteins and produce that could be and should be eating.

And over the years, so I worked on Wall Street. Over the year, I started this connection with the food and my energy intake. It really started to affect this lifestyle that I was living. And I remember when I work on wall street, my boss would be like, Ella is in charge of ordering lunch for the whole team. Because I'm the only one who's health conscious and walk into my 7am meetings with a green shake in my hands. Eventually I became a yoga instructor. Yoga saved my life because I was leading a very stressful lifestyle.

And then I decided to make a career out of it. I became a health coach and just like found this passion like I never loved being on Wall Street. She works that she doesn't see her children and I was like, I don't want to be hurt I want figure out a different way So I left Wall Street and then I started working as a health coach at Mount Sinai on the research project at the hospital On a research Project that I work on aimed at preventing heart disease in low-income communities. So was educating children in their parents and on healthy habits and then eventually I got into a medical school and got my medical clinical degree in nutrition and did a whole another year of medical residency in hospitals.

Nice. So let me we're talking about the hospitals I have something has been bothering me for a long time about hospitals right. You get a patient that goes into the cath lab and gets all these stents done, and all of a sudden, they're in the recovery bed for the next, let's say 12 hours, And they bring them food. And you look at what they are serving these patients. They're serving them the exact food of why they were in there getting these stencils. So you previously have worked in a hospital with a nutritional background.

What's going on in our hospital system? Hospital is a big money making system. And so that's why I actually dropped out of my master's program for clinical nutrition, because as soon as I received my license, I was like, i'm out here. I don't need a master degree in this because the master only gets you through the hospital. System like to get a higher rank position. That's like I will be self employed anyway. So and the school that I went to NYU, one of the most prestigious schools in New York, they train you to be part of hospitals.

You don't get a say, you don' get to be creative, You just have to follow the protocols. You become kind of like a puppet. The protocols are set in such a way that they all have these huge contracts with these food companies. And very often what we were trained to do, because I worked with cancer patients, with people who like people, who get in the hospitals, they just want to feel better. Not many of them. And they are very, often it's urgent care, right? It's when something really bad happens.

So our job at a hospital was just to make people as I try to describe it, like, people are at the negative state, you get them to zero, to you comfort them into what's called just like No symptoms, right? No one was interested in getting people into a positive state. That's by hacking and longevity That what you do now exactly. Yes, that's why I left the hospital settings. But um, I had hospitals were terrible like I finished my dietetic residency in 2019 that was before the pandemic and when pandemic started I was like it

Hospital nutrition and the limits of conventional care 15:00

was bad before yeah, yeah. I mean that really has to change I meant here at Broward General Hospital one of the biggest teaching hospitals It's the trauma level one trauma center here in Brad County Right. Right down in the lobby, you know what they have? Some McDonald's at the hospital. You're lucky if you'll get orange juice and white bread. Exactly. And the thing is, people are just taking the McDonalds and taking it to the patients that are sick up there. Now Ella, speaking about the hospitals and the foods, I remember being in the hospital and I got one of those small little boxes of cereal, the Fruit Loops, right?

And on that Fruit Loop box it said approved by the American Heart Association. I don't know. I think something's not right about that. What's your input about the money making system? You know, the society has been long enough living in the most comfortable mindset of feeling like somebody has somebody else has thought about this. Right. But the big industries are just making money off of it. They know if they put that label, they help hell over. Don't make more sales. That's why that label is on it.

And the American Heart Association is, they're so behind on their science. Like I literally, that's the reason why I left my school. It's one of the most prestigious schools in New York. I went to the dean. What are you teaching me here? You're teaching me basics here that this program's developed, I don't know, 40 years ago. What if I want to help people that have advanced issues? Where do I go to learn this? And he's like, well, guess not here. That's why I left, because I was like you're teach me the most generic information.

You are so behind with the research. So someone like us, we're the younger generation, You know, the people that are in those leadership roles, when we first started learning and studying and getting involved in this industry. A lot of them are retiring, and once they retire, a lot them die off. So it really comes down to us to lead the way. You know, you told us your story. You told about exactly everything that happened when you were on Wall Street and the high stress and you having to eat healthy, working with a nutritionist, your dietitian.

And you mentioned something about how yoga saved your life. Yeah. Now I'm kind of putting two and two together, right? The gut the nutrition is to help you and then you get the brain Yeah, so so that leads us to the whole gut brain method that you've developed. Yes So how do all of those come together? And tell me some of the stuff that your seeing with some your clients or I don't know if you call a patient Great question Sam. Oh my god. Yeah I mean, we live in a world that it's a very toxic world, right?

We can't remove all the toxins. So we have to learn how to live around it. And what's happening is disease is at its ultimate high, Gut issues, everything from inflammatory disease, autoimmune issues. IBS, right? All of this stuff is just happening. People are not absorbing the nutrients they're supposed to from the foods. The foods don't have the nutrition that they are supposed because it's growing in borderline cement versus actual real soil. So, I know for a fact because obviously I'm in this space as well too.

You're seeing some crazy stuff. And this is not, you're getting these projects, right, these clients that are coming to the table. This is a not an easy fix, this a marathon, not a sprint. So I wanna hear about some of the stuff you do. Wow, where do I begin? So let me start with the gut brain connection and the reason why I incorporated mindfulness into nutrition and longevity lifestyle science. So, I have a lot of questions coming to my office asking me very specific questions. How do I lose weight?

How to I get rid of autoimmunity? how do i get of my symptoms? And most of them are very smart because they're just like me. If they are coming someone like that means we have something in common that they see me as someone who can solve their problem. And because their very educated, they receive a lots of information online. They try to figure out themselves. they tried everything. They come to me because they still feel like they're spinning their wheels exactly how I felt many years ago, right?

There's something is missing. They're very frustrated. Yes. And very often what I started working and giving people information on what it is that they should be doing and how they shouldn't be. There was still a question in the air that I couldn't figure out how to answer. Why do we do what we when we know what? We know. So the lifestyle changes are very hard. This is one of the reasons why many doctors don't want to be talking about nutrition. They'd rather be giving you a quick fix pill for you to just get rid of symptoms and tell everyone how great the doctor is.

Right. But because the life style changes and it requires habit habits changes. And that takes time. that takes effort. And most people don't do it. They think it's something like it is not important. You know, who cares if I didn't eat more vegetables today? Who cares? If I ate another cheat meal today, I'll figure it out. I will do better tomorrow. So I started practicing mindfulness, so I become certified in every mindfulness practice and I start practicing it with my clients. Yes. to answer those questions like why are these behaviors what's stopping you from becoming the best version of yourself and when i lead my clients into these meditations they all start crying and there's all these issues come up with self-betrayal self lack of self-compassion, lack self kindness, and all of these emotions from what I've seen in my practice, if we were to remove some of this heavy emotions, they create so many more opportunities for improvement.

Absolutely. And not just with their health, just overall life, right? What would you say is that first step for someone to break those habits, those negative, bad habits that are holding them back? Well, it really depends on the case, but I would say like, I mean, the first would have to start with nutrition science, right? To clean up their diet, for them to figure out what the foods that they should be eating. And after that, if someone's struggling with embracing some of these habits, like I have see them, how do they treat themselves?

How do the talk to themselves throughout the day? And some the habits that the learned when they were younger. Very often, let me give you an example instead of talking in theory. Like I've had these clients that talk, I'm sorry, shit about themselves. And when they sit in my office and they talk how bad they are, you can't talk about my clients like this.

Gut-brain connection, mindfulness, and habit change 22:00

This is my client you're talking about. You can be so harsh on yourself. People are just very harsh in themselves, and as I like to say, You Can't Hate Yourself. They have to love themselves first. Into a version of yourself that you love. Second thing is the habitual behavior. For example, I had clients who just like, what do I eat at night? I wake up in the middle of the night, and I'm hungry. Tell me what it is that I should be eating. And I was like give him once, give them twice, And then I am like why do you think you should eat in middle the of night.

I told you many times you shouldn't be eat. This is not a call to action. He's like and then I had to lead him into this childhood trauma that he said like he'd be eating in bed is the only place that He felt safe when he was younger because he hated eating at a dinner table with his family and now he thinks he should be Eating in bad number and he like 30 years old, you know And so other emotions, for example, like how I've had a lot of high performing individuals coming to my office that are just working really hard all day.

And at the end of the day, they just have to comfort themselves because food is the only source of joy that they had today. Of course, they overeat and they overindulge they feel they deserve it. So I give them homework on sprinkling sources of joy throughout their day, scheduling joy so food is like diversifying your sources or joy. Food is not the only thing, you know. How do you sprinkle joy throughout the day? Well, we do a little homework on like figuring out what it is that makes them happy.

Sometimes I make them do like dance breaks or doing something that they really, really love, scheduling that instead of postponing that until vacation and then doing that something they love. And that's how they just change the way they look at food. That's interesting. A little dance break. I might want to start doing it. Instead of an extra coffee shot. Yeah. I've heard of people doing breath work, you know, and between the day I heard about the dancing as well, too. It's actually a form of releasing energy, You know And then the other day, I had someone on the podcast and what they do is they just scream It's like a screaming session.

And it works. I prefer singing. Yeah. But I think if I did that at the office, I'd need like one of those like soundproof booth type of thing. So, all right. These are some of the ways that... When you start looking at people in the medical field, right? That are working with patients. I always tell people, it's like, It's not just what they're doing or what you think they are doing, right? The guy who's coaching someone through weight loss, is not giving them a diet or giving a pill, you know, prescription.

There's a psychological component that you have to overcome first. Because if this person is going to do it for themselves, they aren't going do for anyone else. They're just not going dial in. You have find their why. So in New York, when I worked on a research project with low income population, I've had women who have five children and women have no children. And then I work at a longevity clinic with the high net worth people of New york who just guess what? They also had a lot of problem. What I found statistically, all of them have two issues that stops them from embodying a healthy lifestyle.

It's lack of time, and stress. You can imagine all of them are dealing with different stress, different problems, and different reasons why I don't have time. But the truth is, it always comes down to your perception of stress and your priorities. So I always try to connect with them. What is your why? And very often, like most people, especially in their 40s and 50s, they wouldn't do it for themselves. And when I connect it to their why, They will do for their children. For example, do you want to be there for your grandkids?

Yes. How do want you to there? On the wheelchair? Or you wanna be active and playing with them? Well, and then for the children, that would do. But for themself, forget it. You know, it's interesting you bring that up. I remember I had a client that came into one of our wellness centers and I knew him personally. He helped us do some marketing and whatnot. he was heavily obese and he came in, did the DEXA scan where we got the full body composition analysis and the visceral fat was, I mean it was extremely elevated.

You see it and you're like, okay, this guy probably is already dealing with diabetes, probably has a cardiovascular issue already happening. And I told him, he's like I'm fine, I am happy. That's what he said. Okay, that's fine. Those small children that you have the seven and eight year old you want to see them walk across the stage one day Yeah, that guy's eyes lit up. Yeah. This is this is because if you don't make a change Yep, you're gonna croak out before you even get to your children walk cross that stage Do you change for you?

Want them to go to the to a stepdad? Yeah and give them a hug when they cross their stage or do you wanna be there to receive that hug? I That guy ended up losing like about 60 pounds. See you connected with his why yeah, yeah So, all right, so you connect with the why we get in their minds, right? You're talking about there's a certain type of forms of meditation as well. Do you do guided meditation? Yeah, I just theta healings. I do inner child healing and we do like relaxing body scan meditation.

Those are the three that I teach that are included as part of the gut brain method. Some of them, the body skin helps my clients to change the perception of stress. And then, and then breath work. So, are you the one who's actually guiding them through the meditation? Yeah, I have it all recorded. Oh, you record. You should share that. I want to check it out. So I use Brain Tap. Dr. Patrick Porter, has the whole Brain tap, so I got the headset and everything. Okay, we get them past that, the mind part.

Now we got to start focusing on the gut. Yes. What's the next step? So the next step for me is, I mean, first of all, And all these processes, they're affecting how we feel. They're effecting your hormones, and most people don't connect it, right? Who wants to think about hormones and, I don' know, mitochondria when you're eating your cake, but your microbiome and your gut health is actually the first thing that's getting impacted. That's where it all lands. It gets broken down, digested and fermented.

The say it's your first brain, your guts. Your second brain. Yes. because of the enteric nervous system. It contains five times more neurons than your spinal cord. And that alone is, you know, that's why it gained the title of second brain. But then it's also the gut brain axis that they are connected via the vagus nerve. The vagous nerve is responsible for switching between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which is fight or flight. Exactly. Or rest and digest. So when you're stressed out, when your in a fight or flight, you are not digesting.

That's why I teach breathwork for my clients and like the cheapest and the easiest most effective way to improve your digestion and therefore your nutrient absorption and your metabolic processes is to take three deep breaths before each meal. And focusing on those long exhale. So science shows like to trigger the vagus nerve, our brain needs to focus on these long exhales, which sends the signal to our brains that we're safe. If we are taking long exhales, that means we have the time and we do that.

We are able to switch into parasympathetic system to rest and digest and to prioritize enzymatic sufficiency and very often like what I see and I do the comprehensive testing people over 40 and 50 enzymatic sufficency goes down and it's not just lactose and lacto proteins that I mentioned milk proteins It's everything, pancreatic enzymes go down, constipation, those are the symptoms. So, Ella, for the listeners, when you talk about this type of breath work, guide me through it really quick. Okay, let's do it.

Take a deep inhale. And slow. Another deep. Inhale. Slow. Exhale. Slower than the one before.

Testing gut health and treating digestive issues 31:00

Last one. Deep inhale and slow exhale. As slow as possible. Now, notice that your heart rate has changed. That's your heartbeat variability. Yeah, I feel like it's, did it go slower? Yes. I just feel a sense of relaxation. Wow. and you may notice that your mouth starts to salivate. It did. You noticed that too? I thought it was like the new Invisalign thing that I got. No, it's science. I literally stopped my TED Talk to guide this breath work. Can't believe you just asked for it. And then everybody started saliving like drooling out of their mouth.

That's what gut-brain connection is. Yeah, that's and the vagus nerve. You can make it stronger, like the tone of it. And you can Make it Stronger by focusing on doing this and doing that deep exhales and focusing On slowing those exhals. Okay, wow. I love that. So with your clients going through this process, at what point are you doing like the blood tests that you did initially? And are doing any other additional tests? Yes. Yes, so there's four tests I specialize in depending on the symptoms, right?

There's an integrated symptom checklist that I go through. doing the good health evaluation call we see like what what it is that they really would benefit from because the The panel that I use is very comprehensive and it's relatively expensive. It's none of those marketed to consumers Blood test that's like very popular these days. This one is a very efficient I diagnosed people with sugar intolerance and those people have been struggling for years to lose weight or coffee or Is that like some kind of genetic test?

It is. No, it's a blood test. And we test for food proteins. Okay. That's just one. Very often people either like have some sort of understanding about it or we just focus on anti-inflammatory diet. The second most comprehensive test that I do is gut health. I test five different aspects of what makes optimal gut-health. And that is I do that when people have skin issues, because there's a lot of science behind guts like acne. Yes, that your skin is a reflection of your gut condition, like everything, eczema, rashes, acne, yeah, all of the skin.

Oh, yes. And then we also I healed myself from exima. Really? Yes. Just with nutrition? No, with the stool test. That's how I became a gut health expert around like five years ago after becoming a dietician. So what is a stool tests? What are the values that are coming out of stool testing? Biomarkers, yeah. Yeah, so we test for five different aspects. Number one is inflammation. We test antibodies to test, for the actual functioning of your organ, whether it's inflamed or not. number two is microbes.

we actually test all different bacteria to see which strategic probiotics could create difference. And then we tested for infections like yeast, fungi and parasites. And there's like pages of different parasites and very often people who listen, I don't talk about it publicly on social media because not everyone has parasites. And that's why my program is so specific that some people need enzymes. So we test for diagenesis and enzymatic sufficiency and some People need herbal treatments for parasites, and not Everyone needs everything.

So does that biomarker that you just mentioned, the one that does fungi, that includes candida as well? Yes, yes. Which that is something that a lot of people do. And it includes short chain fatty acids, metabolites that are created by our gut. So what are you doing to correct some of these issues? Because we have a lot of our listeners, our doctors in the functional medicine space. And listening to what you do with your clients, let me ask you this before we move on to the next. The clients that you see, obviously you work with people that wanna lose weight, but are dealing with sick patients with like autoimmune issues and everything else?

So that's important for the functional medicine doctors that are listening. All of these types of good health issues like constipation. That's very often associated with lack of enzymes. So there's three different layers of how I treat enzymatic insufficiency. Number one, you give enzymes, but it's not how it would want people to just use enzymes for rest of your life. Right. There's herbal tinctures, there is bitters, Swedish biters that I recommend that people drink after meals and then the breath work.

Breathwork that habit just like helping your body to prioritize and enzymatic sufficiency, right or even the release of enzymes and then Swedish bitters bitter herbs that stimulate enzymes naturally help your buddy to do its job properly and Then or enzymes. Okay, and the targeted probiotics for Microbiome and therefore parasites specific specific herbal treatments depends on what kind of parasites so So when it comes to the probiotics, what are your favorite type of probiotic to utilize? There's no such thing.

There are trillions of microorganisms that live inside of it. I know you can get probiotis from yogurt, from sauerkraut. From natural foods, yes. So that's why I don't have a favorite. Because every fermented food, whether it's plant or fruit or vegetable or dairy, it is a completely different life bacteria. Yes, they are all my favorites. Love goat's milk yogurt because I can't tolerate cows milk Goat's Milk yogurt except for a to milk. I love Bulgarian a2 milk from upstate New York that I buy and then goat milk and ship's milky yogurt as well as kombucha I make my own and Then Fermented you make your own kombuchas.

Yes. How do you do that? You have that's I have a starter. That's like live bacteria and you feed it black tea with sugar and How long does it take it takes? I don't know sometimes three or four days and then it ferments it it makes it does Doesn't make your like house smell interesting Wow, I might want to try that one day. Yeah, you know I Want to go back to the the topic I brought up candida because a lot of people deal with a lotta the symptoms from candita and And I do know that people that are dealing with candida can cause a whole nother set of issues, right?

For example, someone who's dealing like mercury toxicity, you know, if they have candita, it becomes very difficult for them to detox that mercury out of their body. So with Candida, I've noticed that there's a lot of different supplements that include multiple different herbs and this, that to do the candidate cleanse. What's your go to to try to a candide cleanse on a client? My go-to is low sugar diet. Candida thrives on sugar. But don't you wanna, like, candida makes you want, give you like sugar cravings?

Exactly, yeah. So the detox is essential. Yes, because once you get rid of it, you're a whole new person. Yeah, so sugar, low sugar diet, because that's the thing with sugar. The more you have it, the more. You want it the less you. Have it. Less you crave it? I've changed my clients taste buds with my program. Like I had this bank owner who just come to me like, oh, I need to have my cookies like when I go into the meetings with. My clients and everyone's just sitting there waiting for me to give ideas.

I mean, afternoon pick me up and I always have these chocolate chip cookies. Next thing I know, the same guy comes to me month later. You know what? Raspberries would do it somehow. He's like, hold me. I was like really? I thought you said you need to have that, you know? So the guy is just decided, no, he could do like on raspberries and like maybe like dark chocolate. Right. So yes, that's the thing. Like, and then suddenly you try the food that you used to love and it's cloyingly sweet. And it was, like how did I eat this?

This is not like especially milk chocolate, right? Like I haven't had milk, chocolate in a while. Then I recently bought it by mistake. So there's this little berry I want to say what's called wonder fruit maybe or something It's it's a little tiny berry that you pull off a bush I don't know if you've ever heard of it and you chew it It has a yes, it changes your taste buds and it makes everything sweet. Yeah, like you can literally our No, no sweet because you could literally take a lemon or a line And you eat it in it tastes like your eating like an orange, you know, Like it it so sweet Another thing with Candida is loading up on healthy foods.

Like fiber changes your gut microbiome. And your microbiomes is like a soil, it's a garden. It's constantly fighting for the balance between the good and the bad guys, right? And if you're feeding the guys with sugar, processed foods, low quality fats, which is all like junk food and all the, you know, Foods that's everywhere that we are all exposed to and if you instead loading up on alkaline foods Green leaf of vegetables cold for vegetables that feeds gut-friendly bacteria and that changes your entire gut microbiome makeup like I've healed so many women with skin issues and Candida issues which is changing what they eat and the removing sugar is just one thing so one of the important parts with what you're saying is Like when you look at the gut as one of like the initial positions in a assembly line, right?

Candida, leaky gut, and the importance of bowel movements 40:30

Like if you have people that don't know what they're doing in an assembling line. It doesn't matter if he have the experts at. The end of the assembly. Line. Like, if. You can't create the foundation, these guys can do any work. So with the. Gut, If you can get the Gut right. Yes. Everything else. Now everything else, when you talk about your mitochondria health and everything, it's like you're going to have oxidative stress. You're gonna have inflammation. The mitochondrial cells are gonna stop performing.

Let me give you this metaphor. People love it when I talk. If you were to imagine a human from the mouth to the anal opening, our body and the food that we put ourselves through, we are like a long doughnut. Like an inside out, like the food, it comes from the inside. It comes within us and then it come out. We are, we have an opening inside of us. And everything that gets inside us, gets absorbed into our body. Right? And it first gets affected by, with our GI, inside our G.I. its job is to deal with it and either get rid of it or absorb it right and what we put in it.

And when people start learning about it it's like wow like they just look at things differently suddenly it''s not just like oh I love this I've been eating this for a long time that's what I'm doing suddenly. It's Wow, like, how is this going to get absorbed and what it's going create? And that's why I use the gut microbiome test and stool testing to show the people how what they eat is affecting what's on inside of them. And then that where it all starts, right? Inflammation starts in our gut lining and leaky gut.

It's all impact of food. What is leeky gut? Like you got us the damage of the gut lining. So the good lining inside of us, it has this mucus layer that's protecting us from all the pathogens and all viruses and bacteria. And that 70 to 80% of immune system is originated in the guts. We're daily exposed to different things. When our immune systems is very strong, It keeps all those things dormant. It removes everything without letting us affected. But when our immune system is getting chronically exposed to different things that are triggering it, it removes the mucosaline and creating this damage in the gut and makes it what is called like the leaky, right?

So it creates opening where some of these pathogens and some the toxins can get inside our blood that is not supposed to be there. And some herbs can fix the gut lining and removing damaging what I call inflammatory food. Sugar is one of them. All the artificial ingredients, all the low quality fats and lack of fiber, All of this creates inflammation. Very interesting. So I'm gonna get into a topic that a lot of people might not want to talk about. And I think it's important for people to understand this, and I wanna pick your brain on it, is you're talking about the two openings, right?

From the mouth all the way until you have to go to the bathroom, I want to talk about poop. Yeah. Right. Poop. You should look at your poop, right? To evaluate what's happening on the inside. My clients get shocked. I was like, what do you think is in your gut? That's the only way to find out. So what are we looking at? Because there's a difference between it being, you know, looking like it's shredded, being where it is very loose and watery versus, hard. What is your poops supposed to look like?

It's supposed to feel natural, supposed feel like there shouldn't be any strengthening or for you to like, so no diarrhea, no constipation right in the middle. And you know, when you, you when it feels just natural that doesn't belong and you have to go to the bathroom once a day, ideally before or after breakfast. If you don't have your bowel movement once day before, after, breakfast, that means something's off. I mean, some people, you know, depends on their lifestyle, right? But at least once a day, this is the most fundamental detoxification.

Like if you're not going to the bathroom every day that means you not detoxifying it. That means your reabsorbing toxins. So just to confirm your poop is not supposed to look like the little emoji on the iPhone. That's not good if your poop looks like that, right? It should be a little bit more firm. So knowing what your poop looks kind of defines a bit of what's going on inside your gut health. Yeah, and I truly believe at least once in their lifetime people should get access to understanding what is going inside their gut.

As I mentioned earlier, most people don't think about their health, They take, you know, they eat and they somehow take it all for granted. Like somehow it figures itself out, like the enzymes, the digestion, and the microbes, I don't wanna know. Not glamorous enough for me to even get in there, right? But then hormones are like, okay, yes, my hormones out of whack. Or like my skin, all the vanity and all of the vain topics, but in reality, it's all begins in your gut. And if you were to take care of your good and to really understand what it is that your god thrives on, All of these things would fall into the right places.

So a lot of the things that you're talking about also that I think are important for us to talk about, and I don't know how much you do when you when your doing nutrition on some of this topics, but things like order, right? Like body order. Or even with like females, if their pH levels are off, they have odor in their genital areas. like how does nutrition work towards body order or you know ph levels being off like you you remember since high school oh if you eat pineapple you're gonna be smelling better down there that's no microbiome yeah it's gaining so much um attention right now with testing, which is still in their infancy, like I still don't trust it because vaginal microbiome is an extension of what's going on in your gut.

So all of the UTIs and Candida that gets there, it's all comes from your good health. Okay, yeah, the more you feed your health, better your microbiomes in the gut, everything else. Is there anything that you say it's at the top of the list that should eat? Absolutely. There's five top nutritional recommendations that I covered in my TED Talk that called the food that loves you back. Because very often, like that's what I say, for example, I love dairy, cheese, but it doesn't love me back, it makes me feel like shit.

But there's 5 foods that absolutely everyone should know about and should be able to incorporate into their daily intake to take advantage of. I want to hear it. Let's go. Number one, green leaf vegetables. They definitely love your gut. Your gut thrives on green leaves, vegetables, all types. And you mentioned the few before we began, but absolutely a bug choice, high in glutathione, which we all are trying to get more of as we age. I love arugula, scallions and I do love my spinach and kale. Number two are antioxidants rich berries.

Your mitochondria loves antioxidants and so does your gut and the deeper the color of the fruit the more antioxidant it has. Really? Like blueberries? I always teach my clients like how to recognize a high antioxidate food If it has the potential to stain your clothes, that's the one you should go for. That's true. Blueberries, pomegranates, and cherries. Those are the highest on the access. Actually, sour tart cherry is the ones that I recommend to my clients all the time. If you can get a juice of non-g, more organic and glass bottles, a sour-tart cherry, because that is what I used to prescribe to clients in hospitals for those who have gout.

Oh, yeah build up of uric acid and to offset the uic acid which we would give them like tablets of sour tart cherries Wow, okay number three Probiotics kind of mentioned them all the fermented foods fermented beets fermented cabbage fermented cucumbers pickles all of them Are naturally fermented by nature and those are all great and hugely beneficial for a gut number four omega-3 Omega 3 is okay. Omega three is remarkably beneficial because it's anti inflammatory and it is also great for brain health.

I wrote a whole presentation at NYU for Omega-3 and its scientific evidence how it helps to prevent dementia in Alzheimer's and early cognitive decline. Omega best sources of Omega 3 is trout salmon mackerel anchovies and Herring What if I don't like fish? Well, my friend You need to hang out with me and you'll fall in love with the trust.

Top five foods for longevity and Ellau2019s books 49:30

You just don' know You know, you got to figure out a way with a fork and knife, right? Yes. Yes, I mean, no, there's different flavors You can get them different flavours different spices There's um plant-based but they're not as bioavailable like avocado flax seeds hemp seeds, but there's like fish and Fish sources are much more bio-available. What do you say if someone doesn't eat fish supplement it at minimum? Yes, and those who don't like to supplement because it smells like my recommendation is to freeze the capsules and then take them out of the freezer this way they don You know open up as much and like they don't give you this burping like fishy.

Yeah And then number five is herbs and spices. You'd be surprised those who live to 100 years old in blue zones They use herbs in spices as medicine in small amounts every day. They sprinkle things like oregano thyme basil sage black pepper turmeric ginger on every meal like in Greece they sprinkle dried oregano on fresh salads like what I thought fresh salad supposed to be just wow greens but like parsley dill and cilantro cilantro is also something that I would recommend to my clients in hospitals because it has this chelating effect helps to remove heavy metals from your system.

interesting yeah last but not least is hydration and every calorie counts i try to educate my clients to focus on nutrient density instead of calorie density and hydration is essential and i i recommend choosing um matcha green tea okay hugely beneficial for heart health, preventing plague, as well as green juices, pomegranate juice as I mentioned, and sour tart cherry juice. Now, do you ever recommend putting like Celtic salt in your water? A little bit, yeah, but it's mostly for those who live like in Florida, where we sweat a lot, or those that exercise a little.

Most people who don't lead an active lifestyle, not really, no. I recommend adding salt to their food. Okay, interesting. Awesome. I love it those five tips that that's that important so everyone listening you got to write those down Make it part of your lifestyle. So to wrap up here. You got the two books here Yes, right and you have another one that is going to be coming out. Yeah, so let's talk about these two bucks and why you wrote them So these books are really the handouts that I would give to my clients after years of working at my office in Miami.

First one was the recipe collection. It's got the food shopping list and every time my client's come to My office and I will talk about all these great things that they should be eating, including Omega 3 rich food, right? They just like don't know how to make how do it just how you said. And there's a mega three rich sandwich here that I hope you can try. So these are just my recipes, because I'm someone who makes all of my food from scratch. I love it. And I never order deliveries or takeouts.

and I've put all the recipes here together. They're all super easy to make. Because I make all my meals myself. Like if each meal would take more than 20 minutes, I would be in the kitchen all day. You know, and how do I want to do that? So that's why I call it cooking for high performers, people who want eat good food and live life to the fullest. And the second book that I wrote is about, it's a guide on how to create a diet that works for you. Instead of focusing or being frustrated with all this confusing advice out there, like everyone says I should be doing these different things, you know, this influencer, this doctor, like saying conflict thing, information.

What this guide teaches you is to step aside from all that information and start listening to your body. Do some of this testing, some the guides that I cover there to hear suddenly, hear the symptoms or get data from your own body and do what your bodies tells you to do. And what's the name of that book? It's called a uterian diet. Why did you come up with that? Yes. Well, my clients would come to me, you know, and throw their hands up in the air like I'm flexitarian, pescatarian, vegetarian. And I would always tell them, have you tried listening to your body and perhaps becoming a u-terian?

I find that super empowering. You know that it's no longer and that's what changed my life. That it was no long about who says what. It was about what I am doing and why I m doing this because I' m listening t o my body. An I don't care who's doing what It's personalized to the individual. I believe it's truly the future of wellness and nutrition and health care. It is finding what it is who works for a unique person. And that's what we call precision medicine and what I call bio individuality. Everyone's different your diet should be different.

It should specific to yourself. What you're doing is amazing This is how people are actually cracking the code biohacking their own health Coming out in fall 2025 I just finished my manuscript and it's about how to enjoy the food because I'm a foodie I literally I became a dietitian because i love to eat good food. That's why I was so fascinated with these diets. I I don't like any of these diets. They all suck. Like I'm just going to become a medical and clinical nutrition expert and I am going figure out how to play this food game on my terms.

And so I created my own diet, my diet rules. I studied hormones and optimal metabolic health and wrote this book that emphasizes all these essential things that we should be focusing on and rules on how do it and how make it happen while living your life to the fullest. Look, I travel every month. Exploring things like I can't be tied up tied down to like some restrictive plans, right? That's why my next book is about this how to enjoy food while healing yourself and stay healthy Can't wait to read that one And you know one of the things I love that that I tell people if you go back about 15 or even 20 years ago Eating healthy was not as easy as what it is today.

Yes. Now there's a lot of different available sources. Especially in the big cities, yeah. And the thing is, is like before you would have to eliminate a lotta things, now you can replace, right? There's lot a replacement things. Like instead of eating regular pasta, you got lentil pasta. Chickpea pasta right. Yeah. Instead of eatin' a regular slice of pizza, You can have almond flour crust pizza or cauliflower crust. Cauliflower. Pizza. You know, instead of regular potatoes, sweet potatoes. These are just some of the healthy choices that people can make where there are replacements out there for you to still be able to eat the foods that you love, right?

I still eat hamburgers, I eat pizza, French fries, rice, it's cauliflower rice. I'll have mashed potatoes just cauliflower mashed potatos. So it's just like it has become easier. So the excuses that people continue to just put out there, I can't do it. You just got to make the effort and you'll see that it is not as bad as what you really think it and treat it as an investment because once you feel your best and feel really, really good, you realize like you don't want to go back. And I always say like, yes, sometimes it expensive to buy all the high quality produce.

But I like to treat as investment. and to see that how you're investing into a longer term health for yourself and for your family. I love it. Ella, if people want to find you, where do they find? I'm on social media at Ella DeVar and the course that I teach, my signature program, the Gut Brain Method at gutbrainmethod.com. There's different webinars and a whole certification course for future generations of health care that, I believe, absolutely essential for them to build their practice on gut health.

Awesome. Awesome, Ella. It was a pleasure to have you on the podcast. And if you want to leave everybody with just one thing, if there's someone out there that's struggling with some of the stuff that we've talked about today, there is one that you can leave them with. What is it? Love yourself enough to get to know yourself, to treat yourself like you really, really love yourself. I can answer this question. If you were to really really loved yourself? What would you do? Today and go do that. Yeah So guys as you heard from Ella love yourself.

That's the first thing you have to do You have love your self before you take any other step. Make sure you do it Make, sure, you follow her all the links are listed down here below make sure You share like comment do all, the fun stuff and we'll see you for the next one