How to Lose Weight: Andres Ayesta

Opening on Sustainable Weight Loss 0:00

The biggest issues that I've seen with a lot of these weight loss methods, which again, yes, we need to tackle the obesity problem that we're having here, but the problem with it is, is that we're not addressing the root cause of what caused the problem in the first place. Which one? It's the conversation happening between the six inches in your head, which is like in your mind, right? Fixing your relationship with food. You know, if that doesn't change, nothing changes. My aunt had a weight loss surgery done years ago, and she never worked on this part of it.

And this is why she still struggles with it, right? Because you still have that mindset of the person that was like overweight. And I think it's the same thing with a lot of these weight loss drugs. So people become, you know, dependent on them. Because guess what? When you stop it, first of all, you lost a bunch of muscle mass. So now the calorie that was allowing you to sustain yourself at a weight that was adequate is no longer the same because now your body requires less calories. So there's a metabolic adaptation to it.

And second, well, your hunger is going to come back. So good luck trying to maintain a lower calorie state whenever you're not on it. So what happens? You go back to the medication. And that's a big issue that I typically tend to see when it comes on to that. This is Doctor Talks, real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. Welcome to Vitality Made Simple. This is the podcast that equips you to feel better, look better, and to enjoy better relationships. Oh boy, you're in for a treat today.

I've got a seasoned nutrition expert who is a thought leader in the whole world of sustainable health. And so, you know, you all know how I feel about that sustainable health. It's no good if we know what to do, but don't know how to do it. Welcome, Andres Ayesta. Thank you so much, Debbie, for having me. It is a pleasure for me to be here today. Well, it is a pleasure to have you here. You all are going to agree with me. Andres is one of the most interesting guests that I've ever had. He is highly, highly motivated.

He wants to have people experience transformative health because he's had a tough life in a way.

Andres Ayesta's Venezuela Story 2:12

I mean, he's an immigrant. from Venezuela, came here first as an exchange student, came back to go to college. Andres, tell us about your experience moving from Venezuela to the United States. Yeah, so I was born in 1988. And for many of you guys that don't know where Venezuela is, let's first talk about this so people know where it's like kind of located in the map in case you don't know. Although it's kind of like made some headlines lately, but it's at the very top of South America. beautiful country i miss it dearly it's one of like you know those things that it's not like i came here because i wanted to it's honestly because i was kind of forced out of it like you know politically it was just a country that just went to crap for lack of a better term And around 2007, well, it was a very common thing for, I went to a Catholic school and it was a very common thing back then for if your parents had the means or were able to afford it, they could send you as an exchange student to US or other countries that were English speaking to learn the language, you know, live a different culture and just experience that.

we have in high school there we only have five years instead of six so essentially we came here to do our sixth year or essentially our last year of high school so that's what i did and i came to indiana out of all places not by choice i was just placed there i wanted to go to new england i wanted to go to any of those like you know states and like the the northeast side of the United States and then Ohio was the cutoff. And I went and they kind of put me on in Indiana out of all places. So I went to high school there in the middle of a small town called Portland.

It was probably five stoplights big. I went to high school in the middle of the cornfields. I was probably the only Latino there. Probably there was like three others among me. So I was just literally thrown I can Talk about like living in the middle of like, you know America, right? Like I was in the middle of the Midwest and it was a great experience to be honest But that's kind of what brought me here initially wasn't really that was forced out of it as well or anything like that It was just simply because of the fact that I wanted to come in here and live the culture experience it and I did which was great and Now I went back, I had a girlfriend at the time, American, blue eyes, like, you know, the whole thing.

And I decided that we actually retain a long distance relationship. I started college back home. And that's, we will talk a lot, a little bit about, because this is a transition period of my life when I decided to go to nutrition school. But that was not really what I wanted to. I wanted to be a doctor. and eventually applied for scholarships. I was able to got placed in a school in Indiana again. And that's where I got my undergraduate degree. But that's sort of like the back story of how I came about to be in the U.S.

and I have been here ever since. So I have been living in the United States literally since 2009. So it's been almost 16 years, which is crazy to think about because it's almost half my life. So that's the short of it. Well, I can't imagine, Andre, you know, leaving your family, leaving your homeland. I know there's been a lot of political unrest in Venezuela. And so your parents were very selfless in making that possible for you. Yeah. Yeah. They sacrifice a lot. And yeah, I came, like you said, I came here by myself and When you leave a country as an immigrant, especially when you're leaving on your own terms and on your own, I came here with two suitcases.

I came here to start my life in school. I didn't know really what I was going to do or maybe I was going to go back after school was over, but I had no plan, no idea. All I knew is that I was just going to finish my undergraduate degree here. And yeah, and my parents supported me through all that process, but I left everything there. My mom was there, my dad was there, my brother was there, my friends. Eventually, because of all the things that happened, a lot of most of my family ended up either coming here or migrating to all the different kinds of parts of the world.

Luckily, now my mom lives here and my brother also in Las Vegas and I live in Tampa, Florida. My dad is still there. We're trying to get him to come here. But yeah, it's been, it's sad. And at the same time, it's exciting mostly because we were able to get my family here. But at the same time, it's sad because man if you if anybody would get the chance to experience Venice and all of it has to offer wow it's it's honestly unique i've had the chance to bring a couple of when i was dating a couple girls that are back in college and not at the same time but i had a girlfriend at a time when i was in high school and she came to visit and she was just like wowed by like the beauty there And then second one later on in college.

And yeah, and they were like, if there's a place in the country in the world that it's being so incredible and amazing and it's people, it's definitely Venezuela. So yeah, it's definitely sad, but at the same time, and I haven't been back in like 10 years. Well, I feel, you know, a piece in my heart from Venezuela. One of my favorite patients was Carlos. Carlos may be listening right now. And he actually had a similar story to you, Andres, except he's 20 years older. And one of the most interesting stories that Carla's told me about Venezuela is just how wonderfully things grow there.

And his grandmother lived to be 102 years old in strong, vibrant health. And she, she died, died at 102 and had two bad days. So Carlos and I used to talk about, you know, just all the different things, all the different health practices she had. She was so active and she was always having her family around her and cooking for people. And, and that was so much a part of her health sustainability to have that long lifespan and a health span that pretty much matched it. You know, two bad days. Who wouldn't want that?

Yeah. Well, my grandma lived to 97 and she unfortunately passed two weeks ago, but it was long and happy life.

Health Foundations and the Core Five 9:00

And I think I always say that, you know, she was the grandma that at 80 years old was like driving around, drinking whiskey, enjoying life, dancing around, singing. So that's one of the things that makes us so unique in terms of our culture and who we are. So yeah, I think that tracks what you just shared with me. I think the dancing is such a big part of it. Andres, I've been on, you know, quite a few medical, medical mission trips to South America and The fun in the evening was that we would get out and dance.

And I'm sure that a lot of South Americans are still laughing over these Oakies, Oklahomans that were trying to do this in Tulsa or whatever. But it was just so much fun, just so joyful and so rich in relationship. And I think that's really the key. And in researching you, I think you're very rich in relationship. One of the things you do for your clients is you help them find sustainability and you help de-stress the area of health. And I want you to tell our listeners about that because I think being healthy has just gotten too stressful and that's undoing the benefits for a lot of people.

Yeah, 100%. And because it's so overwhelming. It's so many things I always say to people that there is not a lack of information in our current society. Back then there was like it's or access to information and now information is so readily accessible. But we don't know what to do with all of it. It's I always explain that it's like trying to put pieces of a puzzle. You don't really know how to put together. You collect them on social media. You'd listen to a podcast. You listen to you see a YouTube video.

You watch news. And then there's so much contradictory or contradicting information that we don't know exactly how to piece it together. So what ends up happening is we have much more anxiety about what to do rather than the things that are just potentially originally kind of cause the anxiety around some of the different things. And I feel that a lot of times that creates more harm than good. So for me, I try to simplify things for people. I try to create foundational. I always explain to most people that you got to learn how to walk before you can run.

And I feel many strategies for health improvement and trying to improve your nutrition and your fitness. most of the strategies are just either advanced or certain things that, you know, people have no business doing before they start to really develop a strong foundation. And I think in my own experience, not only academically, but at the same time living and struggling with things in my own life, I realized that health is such a multi factorial process on how we can really optimize this as best as we can.

It's not just what we eat. It's how we think. It's our mindset. It's how we live our lives. It's our habits. It's, you know, the way that we manage our relationships, like you said, our community, our how we move our bodies. So for me, I started to adopt more of a holistic approach to health and really trying to connect all these different areas so that we can just live like I you like to use the word optimize, which is to just live better. But it all starts with the basic stuff. It all starts with foundational things that we need to learn and that everybody should be doing before they start to really try to get more advanced and doing more things that right now it's what, you know, it's what sounds sexy and what people will see it as like maybe I should do this diet or I should do this thing or I need to try this.

There's nothing wrong with that. But I think a lot of the times people are missing what matters the most, which is, again, establishing a really strong health foundation so that other things can fall into place, if that makes sense. It does. So, Andres, say a 50-year-old person comes to you who's been reasonably healthy, doesn't have any major illnesses. The people I see, a lot of times they've really been diagnosed with something. But say somebody just comes to you and says, Andres, I know you are a nutrition expert.

I know you are a strength and Training expert. I want to be healthier. I don't want to be sick. I take, you know, a blood pressure medicine. You know, I'm just theoretically saying somebody who is the average person who's been living the average life. Where would you tell them to start? Yeah, that's such a great question. So the first thing I would like for people to do, let's just kind of take, you know, her as an example. We're just going to call her Maggie. I don't know why I'm thinking Maggie.

I'm thinking actually my male client, Mike, and his wife's name is Maggie. And Mike is essentially that as simplification. He's 50 years old, struggle with like, you know, a lot of fat diets in the past, but averagely healthy, 20 pounds overweight, nothing crazy. Taking one or two medications, just nothing major. So you're explaining and describing that exact person. So I'm going to tell you exactly what I told him or her and the first time we actually met, which was, you know, we got to take a look at, we got to like, you know, reflect the light towards you first.

We got to start to develop awareness around what's going on. I think the biggest mistake many people have is like, they don't really have the awareness to understand exactly what is it that they're doing that potentially is not serving them well. So I like to do what I like to call an audit process. We got to audit your life and every single sense of the word, because if we don't really take a look and create awareness, it's really difficult to predict and create change. So this is one of my mentors once told me this, which is awareness precedes change.

If you don't know if what you're eating is correct or if you're eating is adequate. Well, first you got to start to look into see, OK, what is it that you're eating? So most people jump on diets without really realizing what they were doing in the first place that was right or wrong. So that's one thing that I always begin with is establishing a foundation by simply creating awareness really what is going on right now. So you just simply have that in front of you. I like to use a lot of analogies with my clients and I usually use this one.

Which is if I like to use a financial analogy, which is if you had to create a budget, let's say to buy, to make a big purchase or simply because you're trying to get out of debt or whatever it is that you're really trying to do, you create a plan, right? but you will never know where you're at if you don't ever take a look at your bank account or looking to see where your finances are at. So you have to really look at what your nutrition looks like, what your habits look like so that you can start to create a plan moving forward.

So that's the first step. In fact, in our programs is essentially like what I get my clients to do. We call that a reset process, which is we start to audit where you're at and we start to kind of hit the reset button and everything you think you know. Because I think that's one of the parts of it that a lot of times is difficult when you have so much bias coming in from things you've done that you think it worked, but things that you believe in that you feel like it's superior to anything else or like just specific belief systems that you have around certain things.

And when my clients, I just simply ask them to be open-minded and say, let's hit the reset button. like if you think bread is bad let's just kind of think like for a second that it's not whether maybe it's something that fits or doesn't fit you okay that's gonna be something that we'll discuss but let's just start to really think that way so that's honestly the first step but we take And immediately we start to work on what we call like the lowest hanging fruit, which is what do we need to start to fix initially?

And for most of my clients, I have this, I call it, I call this a core five framework, which are five things that I feel everybody, regardless of the age, this person who is 50, they need to do in order for them to be able to live a lengthy and healthy lifestyle. And it's not complicated. And Debbie, when I tell you what these five things are, you're gonna be like, oh yeah, but I kind of knew that. Everybody knows these five things, but I like to put them into a framework because I feel it will help them to simply simplify this process, okay?

You ready for them? Okay, the first one is get enough protein. This is gonna be more nutrition-specific. Most of these are nutrition-specific recommendations. Protein is one of those nutrients that regardless of the diet, it always remains the most important one, right? Whether you're low carb, high carb, vegan, whatever, protein is important. And getting enough is so key to sustaining not only your hunger and satiety, but also maintaining muscle mass, which is another big important piece. The second thing is get enough water.

Most people don't drink enough water and they don't stay adequately hydrated. Right. And then we have to just simply prioritize that. I'm not talking about hydrogen water or like Kagan. I mean, I'm talking just simply first get enough water. Okay. Before you start to get a little bit too complicated and what kind of water you need to be getting. The third thing is get enough fiber. We need to get fiber through fruits, vegetables, like, you know, certain things like that. Not only fiber is helping you maintain a level of like health and then that's going to be very individual to the person.

So people need less and people need more. Some people are, can't really tolerate that. But in general, it's prioritizing getting micronutrients in and we usually get those fibers from fruits, vegetables and things like that. Number four is getting enough food. Here's a problem I'm seeing nowadays with many people. We live in such a busy society that sometimes we forget to eat and then we binge later on, which means we are like prioritizing kids and busyness and work. And like before we know it, we have barely had two things to eat because we're not prioritizing fueling our body.

And then nighttime rolls around and this is when your body starts to go whoa we have not eaten anything today this is where i'm going to ring every alarm bell in the body to make sure that you do now this is a time that you're tired you're exhausted cognitively you're not thinking and making the best decisions so what did you do you go to the fridge and you start to go for not the lean meats or the vegetables. No, you're gonna go for the ice cream. You're gonna go in the pantry. You're gonna hit the cookies and the sweets and that kind of stuff because that is something that makes you feel good.

It has an effect in your brain, like a dopamine effect in the brain. And that's obviously what we do. So this is why I tell my clients we want to avoid skipping meals. And the reason for this is because of the fact that you're going to pay for that later. The last one is getting enough movement. People don't move enough. I'm not talking about a very sophisticated training program. We can talk about like some important things around that, but in general, we just need to move more. We need to get out there and play.

We need to get out there and walk. And I have a two-year-old and like every opportunity I get, I take it just to play with him and dance with him and do things like that because I know movement is so important and we don't get enough of it. These are five silly things, but most people are not doing this consistently. And they're starting to worry too much about whether they should be eating, you know, organic or non-organic. Should I be eating like, you know, should I be drinking this type of water or this type of water?

And that stuff is we gotta, we gotta focus on the majors before we try to master the minors so that these are the things that really truly matter. You're so right, Andres. I think people look for this magic pill, you know, from the the Amazon rainforest and they think they can take a magic pill and, you know, not eat protein, not drink water, not move, you know, just, can I buy my way into it? And you can't buy your way into it. I mean, those things that are, you know, esoteric are not even going to work if you don't have enough fiber and your gut's not healthy and, you know, you're not absorbing anything.

It's so true. Tell our listeners from your education and experience how much like how much protein you recommend, what kind of water ratios, you know, kind of go through this for five, please. So I try to kind of like it depends on like, you know, the level of like somebody's knowledge when it comes on to that. So let's first talk about protein at a first stage, like rather than giving people numbers, I just simply ask them to list out what protein sources are for them to understand whether they know what they are.

not all proteins are created equal. There's high biological value proteins, which we're going to call them like the ones that are high quality. And then we have like low biological value proteins, which are low quality. I don't like to use the word high and low quality because low quality doesn't necessarily make them bad. It just, they don't necessarily, they don't have all the essential amino acids, just for people to understand that proteins are made up of amino acids. Amino acids are like little chains or the little links of a chain that make up what it's called a protein.

There's nine of those amino acids that are essential, which means your body cannot produce them and we have to get them through our diet. A high quality protein, such as things that come from animals, meats, byproducts of animals like eggs and things like that, yogurt, those are going to be high quality proteins because they contain in one serving all nine essential amino acids. Low quality proteins typically are going to be plant based. It doesn't make them bad. It just simply means that some of these lower quality proteins or their like low biological value, they don't have all of those nine essential amino acids in one serving or sometimes you and sometimes you have to combine different sources to be able to get all the requirements that you have on a daily basis.

So at a first stage or first phase in terms of prioritizing protein, it's ensuring that every one of the meals you're consuming has a source of it. So when you sit down to eat breakfast, you ask yourself, okay, is there a source of protein in here? Yes, okay, what is it? Is it eggs? Is it Greek yogurt? Is it like lentils? Is it quinoa? Whatever it is that you're consuming, okay, we check that box. Same thing with lunch, same thing with dinner. Now once you're really good at doing that, now we can start to focus on the numbers.

How much protein does somebody need? The RDAs, which is like the standard recommendations in the United States, call for 0.8 grams per kilogram of protein, which I think it's extremely low. Per kilogram, right. 0.8 grams of, say that again? 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram. kilogram, which is like less than point three or point four grams per pound. It's very, very little for 150 pound person. That's going to be closer to maybe 50 grams of protein on a daily basis. And I, and research continues to show that our requirements are much higher, particularly as we age that 50 year old person has a higher protein requirements

Protein, Water, and Fiber Basics 24:30

as somebody like my age who I'm 36. Why? Because protein synthesis, the amount, the ability of your body to be able to produce protein start to diminish with age. So we have to have higher levels. For anybody that is, I mean, I consume about one, like 0.8 to one gram per pound is a simple way to determine that. So if you're a 150 pound person, that means anywhere between 130 to 150 grams of protein. Now granted, this is for somebody that is healthy. does not have any type of kidney problems or issues, which is the only condition in which like protein may need to be restricted.

And then usually that's a good place for most people to start point eight grams to about one gram per pound. I think it's a good place for most people to be. Now, if you're a person who is very overweight or obese and you have, let's say 20 to 50 plus pounds extra on your body, likely that number is not ideal because it's going to be way too high. So I like to recommend people to use either the amount of lean mass. If you have a body fat percentage, you can determine that or just simply use based on your goal weight.

so let's say that you're 230 pounds and ideally you would love to be let's say you're a male and you would love to be 170 that's a good easy way to determine that okay we just need to be we just need to aim for 160 170 grams of protein and that's the way that i typically determine that that's for protein Another rule of thumb I recommend my clients to really think about is I call it turning on the switch. Think about muscle having an on and off switch that gets activated after a certain threshold of protein you consume.

This number for women is typically anywhere between 20 to 25 grams. For men, it can be 25 to 30 grams. So that means for every single one of those meals you're consuming, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, You need to aim to have closer to 20 to 30, probably I'm closer to 40 grams of protein in one of those meals. And what does that look like? I can give you a couple of examples. Let's say that you have one egg has seven grams of protein. Having three eggs, it's going to probably hit in the lower end of the spectrum and hitting around 20 grams of protein.

You add a little bit of Greek yogurt with that. Perhaps you're throwing in some meat into that. You can throw in some cottage cheese into those eggs, which actually make it super tasty. That's a good way to actually boost the amount of protein in a meal. One ounce of a meat contains seven ounces of protein. It's actually equivalent. So one egg, one ounce of meat. Usually all these things have about seven grams of protein or a ballpark of that. So then you can determine easily how many ounces of meat you would need to have to hit at least 20 grams of protein for most people with at least three ounces.

So these are simple things that you can start to remember. But then again, when I start throwing numbers at people, they get, you know, a little bit lost. So this is why I like to start on just check the box on a protein source in one of your main meals. And once you're really good at that, okay, let's make sure we start to get enough of it on a daily basis to be able to support that. So don't want to like talk too much, but that's what I would probably say recommendations as far as protein goes.

That's fantastic, Andres. That's absolutely sustainable. I'm 66 and I noticed that it's really protein that satisfies me now. I mean, my body is craving it. I messed up yesterday. I was out, you know, doing things and ate a big breakfast of fermented homemade, fermented yogurt or walnuts. You know, probably got my protein. I'm trying to, you know, think that probably was all there. But then I wasn't hungry. it, driving past natural grocers, thanks, thank goodness it was natural grocers and not McDonald's.

I don't think I would have stopped, but still I was desperate. I mean, I was desperate. So I go in and get a, you know, a go bar and, you know, just crammed it down because I let myself get to that point you described so perfectly. So I think it's important, you know, to, to maybe add, keep a protein source with you, keep some nuts, keep some beef, some jerky of some type or you know, some protein source handy so that when you get busy and forget to eat, you know, who, who knew we would forget to eat, but we do, um, you have something to grab.

So, so continue down your core five. This is so great. So how much water do you recommend for your clients? Water. So it's, it's determined, it's, it's very dependent on different factors because for example, right now I live in Florida and it's the middle of summer. I mean, obviously it's summer in there in Oklahoma too. So we sweat more. So our sweat rate increases. So we need a little bit more water. Now a rule of thumb that I like to establish for most people, if you're normal in weight, which means that you're within like 20 pounds of your ideal weight or where you'd like to be, usually you like to aim at at least half of your body weight in ounces.

That's a simple rule. So if I currently weigh 175 pounds, so for me, I need to be consuming closer to at least 80 to 90 ounces of water. Okay. It doesn't necessarily mean that less is it's bad, but I try to aim for at least half of my body weight in water on a daily basis. Now, if I have a very high, like a very tough workout, I sweated a lot. Like he was like, maybe I spent a day working stuff in my house or whatever is the case. I need to up that now. There's a simple, simple, easy way to determine whether you're properly hydrated or not.

And this is the stuff that I taught kids when I was working with youth athletes, which is just looking at the color of your urine. It's so easy to look at. Now, that color varies depending on what you eat and whether you're taking a multivitamin and things. For the most part, it's a simple way to be able to determine that. and this is how I tell people like you know this is because if you wake up in the morning you spend probably like you know when you know we're sleeping eight hours at least hopefully in the next the your first pee in the morning is usually going to be darker it's going to be more yellow and it's obviously a reason for it because you lost water when you were sleeping you we lose water when we're breathing So that's an opportunity for you to say like, I need to drink water.

So for me, I have developed a habit to drink about 24 ounces of water first thing in the morning. So as soon as I wake up, I go to the kitchen and I pour myself 24 ounces of water. And I'm a big chugger, like whether this is a good habit or not for people, I'm not huge into sipping water. Like I forget about it. I'm not great with it. So for me, I try to drink water in like big, big chunks. So 24 ounces of water down the hatch it goes. And I think that's a good way for me to be able to determine that.

Now I start, I constantly monitor my urine color throughout the day because I know that if it's like various getting the, I was like, I used to tell kids light like lemonade, not dark like apple juice. We don't want it to be way too clear because that means that we may be over hydrating. That's not, it's, there's, it can be like nothing in extremes right but then we don't want it to be like darker yellow and obviously we don't want it to be the apple juice because you probably need to go to the hospital if it gets to that point but it's a good really reminder because we're in the bathroom all the time so we determine those things you know as far as that So, yes, half of your body is water, that's obviously an idea, but then we can probably aim for just simply looking at your urine color, and that's a really good way to determine whether we're properly adequately hydrated on a daily basis.

That's great. And I tell my patients to do the skin fold test to kind of squeeze the skin, you know, on top of their hand and see if it springs back fast. So, okay. So move on to fiber, Andres. Okay. Now this is a bit of, it depends a lot on the person. Now for most people, We because there's a lot of talks about, you know, low fiber diets, carnivore and different things like that. And we can definitely get into that. But for the most part, most people should be consuming about 14 grams of fiber for every thousand calories that they consume.

So for a 2000 calorie average diet, that means you probably need to be consuming at least 28 to 30 grams of fiber on a daily basis. I think for most women, you should be aiming anywhere between at least 20 to 25. And for men, anywhere between 30 to 35 grams of fiber. Why is fiber important? Well, fiber is also not all created equal. They're soluble and insoluble fiber. And then fiber, it's a type of carbohydrate that your body does not digest, but it's so key for a couple of reasons. One, it delays gastric emptying, which means it slows down your digestive track.

So your food kind of gets slowed down a little bit. That helps with blood sugar management, which means like your blood sugar doesn't spike up as much. And that's one important part of it. The second thing, it feeds your gut bacteria. And I know you're a gut health expert. So obviously you have probably talked ad nauseam about this stuff in the past, but it feeds your gut bacteria. You're talking about fermented products and different things like that. It helps really feed that city. I always like to tell people like your gut is kind of like a city.

that so many people live in there and we want to make sure that we're feeding the right ones and we're getting rid of the bad ones. So we're feeding that microbiome, that gut bacteria to really kind of support many things that those bacteria actually do in our body. So that's another piece of it. And then all of this also together when it comes down to weight management, it helps you stay full. When you're full and when you have enough, you know, food in the system and you feel more satisfied, you eat less.

The unfortunate reality is like we live in a world that there's a lot of hyper palatable foods, meaning like there's foods that are designed for us to eat tons of it. So unless you are whole foods, the only whole foods diet, then you have zero things that are processed. And for a lot of people, sometimes that's impossible or like difficult. I support that, but sometimes it's difficult. Sometimes you have to fight some hunger mechanisms through those means because of the fact that you may just be hungrier a lot more often.

So that's a good way to do it. So that's what I would say I would recommend for fiber. Yeah. It's just so logical. You do such a beautiful job of making it sustainable. Thank you so much for that. Untangling a lot. Okay. So we've got fiber and then eating enough food. You sort of covered that. Well, but let's talk about it for a second because I think there's a lot of people that are like now in the world of like fasting and fasting methods and stuff like that. So when I talk about like no skipping meals and different things like that, Many, many will ask me, well, what about, what do you think about fasting?

I think fasting has a place. I think fasting can be used as an advanced strategy for a few different reasons. I'll give you the background on how I know about fasting. I started studying fasting as part of my thesis for my master's degree in sports nutrition. And I started studying not because it was a trendy thing is because I was working with athletes at a time and I had a question that I brought up to my one of my professors and I was I was asking him what happens with people who are forced to fast for religious purposes.

specifically athletes. What happens when that's the thing? And I was really curious about what happens when they go to the Olympics and what happens if they're in a stage in which this happens. Muslims around the world, which is a massive number of people in the world that follow that religion, they have to fast from dawn to dusk through one period throughout their year, which is called Ramadan. And I started studying fasting methods in this specific population so I could understand it better. And what we realized is that fasting, there's nothing inherently special about it for the way that most people do it, which is they just fast from like, you know, night until one o'clock.

A 16-hour fast is not enough to elicit all the health benefits that many people attribute to, like lipid control, like, for example, improvements in blood sugar management, longevity. All these things are seen in prolonged fasts, which are fasts that can last anywhere between 24 to 72 plus hours. Those are going to be more advanced things that I think may have a place in people's health journeys. but not to do it in a way that is either uncontrolled or not really or for somebody that's not necessarily knowing what they're doing.

So for most people, I recommend not. It's a way to manage your calories, sure, because it literally kind of shortens the window of time you're consuming food and ultimately helps you overall control calorie intake. But for the most part, a lot of times can backfire when people are not doing it adequately. This is why I suggest and recommend no skipping meals. It's easier to be able to maintain it. Your body likes routine. Your body likes to kind of, it works in a clock way. So this is why like you get hungrier sometimes at the same amount of times throughout the day.

You want certain things at specific times too. So your body works in a clock and it's a clock that is based on light and dark cycles. And when you really teach it to kind of have that synchronicity, your body works with you, not against you. This is why, for example, a lot of people in like shift workers or shift type of work or areas, they struggle with this. There's a period of time where I work a lot with nurses. I know you're a nurse, right? No, I'm a dentist. OK, got it. So at some point, I work with a lot of nurses.

And one of the things with nurses is the fact that many of them work night shifts. And their schedules are crazy because they work three days out of the week and then they're off for days. So they kind of have two separate lives. So teaching their body how to adjust that this is why sometimes they struggle a lot with weight. It's not their fault simply because of the fact that they didn't really kind of like can teach your body how to do things properly. So that's why I feel like it's important to maintain some really good rhythm in terms of like your meal schedule.

And this is why skipping meals is not ideal. That was a very long winded answer, but hopefully that made sense. Well, yeah. And I think people know how they feel. So, you know, I, I appreciate, you know, a viewpoint that's a little different than we're hearing these days. So movement, Andre's say somebody doesn't want to go to the gym. What do you recommend? So first is just moving the body. And I always say, when my clients come to me and they ask me, are you going to have me do this exercise and this thing?

It's like, nobody's going to make you do anything. I'm going to tell you what it's beneficial for you. And I want you to select and pick something that you feel like it's a good middle ground. But ultimately, I want you to start doing something that you would enjoy doing. So I always ask, what do you enjoy doing that is not sitting down or that does not require sitting down? And so people will come to me and say, well, I like to like dance. OK, well, dancing would be it. I like to go on a walk. OK, great.

I like to run. I like to do, I don't know, like, you know, sumo classes or swim or whatever is the case. Then I ask them to just do that, do the thing that they would enjoy doing, because something that is done with joy, it's something that is likely going to be something that you stick to. If somebody tells you that you need to go and go to the gym and step on a machine and do an X amount of cardio or whatever is the case, there's benefits to that, yes. But if you feel forced to do it and it's an obligation, a means to an end, the likelihood of that turning into a habit are going to be minimal to zero.

So, and this is why people struggle with this stuff, right? It's like, and this is again goes against the sustainability of it. They don't build sustainable habits because of the fact that whatever they did was not something that they actually enjoyed. And you may learn to enjoy it if you repeat it long enough. but it's not really what I tend to see most people do. I feel like a lot of times when you focus on just one thing that you enjoy doing, sometimes that feeds into other areas because maybe you feel better.

You're like, you know what? I want to challenge myself. I want to go from dancing or from walking to just doing a 5K. OK, great. Or you know what? I really feel like I want to get into the gym. I feel like I want to start to increase muscle mass. OK, then that starts to kind of become the thing. But it doesn't necessarily stop me from telling people what I think is most optimal for them, which I think is important. You say you're 66, right? So I say that first, the key to longevity and health, I do wholeheartedly believe is in having a good amount of muscle mass in your body.

It's it's been it's not just me saying it. It's been shown in multiple studies. Longevity studies, when you look at the muscle cross-sectional area, which is just a fancy word to say like the amount of muscle in a man or a woman's body. And I think there's a really interesting study that looked at this at 70. The amount of muscle, it's directly correlated to longer lives. It's crazy. so not only this it's like but it makes sense right with when you have more muscle you're able to move better you have less risk of things like osteopenia and osteoporosis which is something that happens with aging right so this is why it's so important and why i emphasize it so much that lifting weights or weight bearing exercise should be exercise that everybody should be engaging in at least once or twice a week at the bare minimum it doesn't have to be gym bro workouts that where you just go in like lift weights it can be something basic like lifting your body up and down from a chair right because it makes you functional I now think at my 36 years of age, not on how I can look my best and having a six pack and having a body.

Those things are nice. I think when I was in my twenties, I was like really more obsessive with those things. Now I'm more, I'm thinking more about my sixties, my seventies.

Meal Timing and Movement for Longevity 43:00

I want to get to that age and be able to move and go snowboarding. And I want to like play tennis with my son. And I want to play soccer and do all these different things like that. And I unfortunately have first-hand experience on what not doing that does for somebody because, and I have told him this, but my dad is 72. And my dad has never been much of an athlete or like into exercise, not at any point in his life. And it's just the reality. And he's paying for it now. He's a person who at 72 struggles with lifting my son up.

movement, you know, he does a couple things and he feels sore and, and I have told him this multiple times and he's slowly starting to get it. It's never too late. Honestly, that's the other advantage of like lifting weights and doing way better in exercise. It's never too late to start. But I think for movement, yes, do something you enjoy, but at some point you can teach yourself to also enjoy this because I always tell people like the benefits that you get from that when you start to do it and how you feel with it.

far outweigh the things that will tell you like, I don't like doing that. And I think it's something that everybody typically tend to experience when it comes on to that. So I think that is honestly one of the key things of longevity and why I prioritize it so much. I 100% agree. In fact, I think it's important for people to look ahead, like you said, no matter what age they are and think. Say for us, we have a new grandbaby and I want to be able to run and play with her and lift her up and, you know, climb trees with her and just do everything with her.

I mean, it's starting at 66. You know, I've got to stay fit. Another thing Andre says that I've always thought, I want to be able to put my 30-pound carry-on in the overhead bin, you know, to travel because I always travel, we travel very light and so it's just a carry-on generally. So I think if people can picture, what do they want to do? And that's the reason. Instead of, oh, I should do this and it's just so hard and I hate it. You know, not look at it like that, but look at it. What is this going to allow me to be able to do that maybe I, you know, the average person at 80 would not be able to do?

And another, to your point, Dale Bredesen, who wrote The Ageless Brain was on the podcast recently. And we discussed that muscle mass is so key for memory. And so that's another area that could be a motivator for people to say, I want to keep my memory. Yeah, that's actually interesting. I haven't seen like much of the data on that, but like definitely makes me curious about like the connection on that. It makes sense. It also like, you know, more muscle mass, you're more metabolically healthy. Right.

So the way I explain it is like when you have more muscle mass from a muscle tissue, Your body needs more blood flow irrigation to those tissues because they're metabolically active, which means your body uses them. Fat is not a metabolically active tissue. It just simply sits there. Muscle is. So you're metabolically more flexible, which means you have a higher metabolism. This is an issue that I'm seeing now with weight loss drugs and weight loss medications. which is the one thing that is hurting people so much, and this is something I'm going against it.

And again, don't get me wrong, I'm not against those things. I think some people need them in extreme cases. I think it's just being used a lot for vanity weight loss, and I think that's where a problem lies, and I'm a little against that. But yeah, but the problem with it is the fact that people are losing weight left and right. And it's not just it's not just fat. That's the unfortunate truth, because when you're consuming less than 800 calories a day, everything goes. Your body's like in the state of like, wow, like I'm barely getting anything.

So I just need to kind of chew down whatever I can get my hands on to be able to provide energy to my system. And this is where metabolically you become inflexible, which means that first you have to be dependent on a medication to be able to maintain that level of calorie intake. And I think nobody wants to do it. Now these big companies, you literally look at their stuff and they want you to be on it for the rest of your life because it's like they're treating obesity as a chronic condition. I think that's nuanced.

I think for some people it can be, but not for everyone. But the reality is I don't think most people want to be dependent on injecting something in your belly once a week for the rest of your life. But the problem that happens with these is that stopping them, you're not working on the sustainability things that we talked about. The biggest issues that I've seen with a lot of these weight loss methods Which again, yes, we need to tackle the obesity problem that we're having here. But the problem with it is, is that we're not addressing the root cause of what caused the problem in the first place.

Which one? It's the conversation happening between the six inches in your head, which is like in your mind, right? Fixing your relationship with food. You know, if that doesn't change, nothing changes. My aunt had a weight loss surgery done years ago, and she never worked on this part of it. And this is why she still struggles with it, right? Because you still have that mindset of the person that was like overweight. And I think it's the same thing with a lot of these weight loss drugs. So people become, you know, dependent on them.

Because guess what? When you stop it, first of all, you lost a bunch of muscle mass. So now the calorie that was allowing you to sustain yourself at a weight that was adequate is no longer the same because now your body requires less calories. So there's a metabolic adaptation to it. And second, well, your hunger is going to come back. So good luck trying to maintain a lower calorie state whenever you're not on it. So what happens? You go back to the medication. And that's a big issue that I typically tend to see when it comes on to that.

Thank you for addressing that. I think we're going to see a tsunami of even nutrient depletion. I'm concerned, as you mentioned, about the muscle loss, because it's really hard to recover that muscle. And then just the emotional dependence. A lot of people tend to lose the joy of eating when they don't work on their mindset. I mean, eating has become a chore for a lot of people who are on these drugs, from what I see among my patients. They had to push themselves to eat because of the fact that they're so limited or their hunger is down and they struggle with it.

I had a conversation with a client also who I told her, I think we need to titrate you down from that, not by my recommendation, which is on it. And I said, we need to titrate you down because you're not eating anything. So then your energy suffers, like, you know, eventually your weight loss stops because like, okay, how much more lower are you going to go? Eventually your body just simply adapts. Your energy lowers. You don't move as much because you don't have the energy to do it. It makes it difficult.

And she was frightened to really think about like getting that dose down because of the fact that, well, all she knows is being hungry and like overeating, but never developed a really good sustainable process to be able to hack that. hack your hunger to improve your eating habits and do the things that are going to allow you to do that. And like I said, people, it's not just what you're putting on your plate. There's so much that goes into it. And when we don't really fix the relationship that exists between the food that we put in our bodies and ourselves, we're always going to struggle with this stuff.

Because we see sugar as an enemy, but at the same time, it's our safe place. We see certain things are prohibited, but we want more of them because of the fact that they're prohibited. We want things that we can have. And like this really distorted place, which again, back to the initial point of our conversation, which was like, you know, we are still living in a world where there's too much information. When you're being told like bad, these things are bad and don't eat this and don't eat that and don't eat this all the time.

And I think, yeah, there are certain things you shouldn't be eating. But whenever you create that in your head, and these kind of moral values you assign to food, eventually you start to fear it. And to be honest, I was just telling my wife, I feel for people that have to go to a grocery store today. Because I, honestly, I get confused with some stuff. Imagine somebody that gets bombarded with like, within like five scrolls on social media with five different contradicted things. You can have this water.

No, but you can have that water. No, but it's too much. It is. We have to simplify things for people. Yeah, we have to simplify and put the joy back in to living and not put people in the circumstance where they go to a family gathering or get together and it's like, oh, I can't eat that. Oh, I can't have that. Oh, you know, everything's bad. And then you just don't get invited back, you know, pretty soon. That leads me to think about kind of an experiment you've been doing, Andres, on like whole food versus the carnivore diet.

I've had, you know, I've had an array of wonderful guests on the podcast that if put on a panel would disagree on a lot of things. But, and I think that's okay. Once again, because people have to figure out for themselves what works. So tell our listeners about your grand experiment and what you're learning. Yeah. So in the middle of it right now. I am what I, I like to use the word diet agnostic, right? So if somebody that is agnostic, somebody doesn't have like a specific views or religion, it's just like, they don't believe in anything,

Critique of Weight Loss Drugs and Surgery 53:00

right? So for me, I'm diet agnostic, which means I don't have any type of inclinations, right? I think it's, you gotta do what's worked best for you, as long as it's something that it's like supporting your health and it's something that can be sustainable long-term, unless you're doing it for a specific purpose or reason that has the proper and the right intentions. That's the way I think about any type of diet, whether it's carnivore, keto, veganism, balanced, like whatever you choose, right? So what my problem is, is when we create this kind of cult-like movements around specific dietary approaches, and it's like this way or no way.

And that's what I have been seeing with carnivore diets. At some point it was keto, but I think people got bored of keto. And then it started now saying, okay, we need something new. And so they obviously started pushing the whole entire carnivore agenda. But it's the same thing with anything. Like it's like blank diet, like, you know, vegans or like the vegan community, it's like, you know, super set on their ways. And, and it becomes like this like movements in which like, there's no way to be able to accept any type of discussion or, or, or any type of argument around this because people become, they start to develop what's called like, you know, confirmation bias.

Like they're going to find and look for information that supports their views and beliefs. But I get why this happens. Let me just put it this way. If you are a person who has an autoimmune disease or you have a gut problem and somebody told you about carnivore and you did it and It changed your life, right? You completely eradicated your symptoms and all your issues and all that kind of stuff like that. Wouldn't you want to just look at that like it was a god and a religious thing that, you know, it becomes a cult because of the fact that it completely made you, gave you relief and eliminated a lot of things?

Of course you would, so I don't blame people that feel this way. Now, I created this experiment as a way to test one thing. Is it the diet? Or is it the fact that you eliminated a lot of things you shouldn't have been eating in the first place? Which means, you know, well, if you go from ultra processed foods diet, western American type of diet that most people consume now, and you're desperate, and you go and do a carnivore which eliminates 85% of every single thing that is out there and you're just only limited to eating meat and eggs and some dairy and cheese and just fats, obviously there's going to be relief in a lot of things, right?

Because the fact you're cutting out a lot of things that potentially was not making you feel any good. So I asked myself the question, wait, how do I test this? Well, what if I do a whole foods only, which I think is obviously the in that ideal world. This is the way we would leave our I tell people like in an ideal world will have a cow in our backyard. We'll have all of our crops being like, you know, we'll grow in our own food. We'll have our cows. We'll have our chickens. We have our stuff. And that's like the most sustainable, regenerative way to have a healthy living.

But we live in a nice industrial society and we have been for years. So it's impossible. So, for those of you of us that cannot have, maybe you can, or you live in Oklahoma, right? Yeah, this is our country. Yeah. So, but for me, who I live in a house in the middle of Tampa, right, we can't have that. So, but then my point of my experiment was, well, I want to see what happens if I go for 30 days on Whole Foods, and then I'm going to compare what happens when I go afterwards on a 30-day carnivore diet specifically.

So that's what I'm currently doing right now. Now, I'm not- So where are you in that 60-day timeframe? Yeah, we're in that 60-day timeframe. Now, I'm not just doing the diets, I'm testing things. So I did blood work, I did a DEXA scan, which is a body composition analysis. I did performance testing. I have been measuring things like my sleep. I got super nerd in all the data and all the numbers because I'm treating this like a scientific experiment. And I wanted to test everything before and after, and it's been really enlightening.

So I can tell you today the results so far of Whole Foods. Now, Carnivore starts next week. And it is 60 days, but there's like what we call a washout period, which is in research, a washout period is a period of time in which like you stop all the things that you were doing. You try to go back to the normal way that you were doing things before that whatever experiment you're doing so that there's no, there's no, I guess, like, you know, carry over effects from one thing to another. Right. So if I'm feeling really good on whole foods and I jump straight into carnival or like, maybe I'm not going to be able to determine whether the benefits came from carnivore alone and the fact that there was a leftover effect.

So currently I'm doing like a washout period, which is I went back to eating things that were not whole foods. I, it's not like my diet is terrible, but I do eat processed foods into a certain extent, a certain package things, but for the most part, 70% whole foods. So I did the first section. I was very compliant. Not only this, but I'm consuming the same amount of calories and protein as I'm going to be doing in, and also my, my carnivore experiments. So that's another piece in like diet research.

Would you have to control the diet in terms of calories and protein so I can determine the differences between them? So, so far after Whole Foods, keeping 2000 calories, which for me, it's a little bit lower, but then kind of closer to what my calorie requirements need to be, because I don't move as much even though I need to. I lost about eight pounds in one month, which was, I think to me, surprising. My cravings were down. I was not consuming any sugar. The only sugar I consumed was from fruit, some dates, and my only treat was 85% dark chocolate, because I wanted to keep something like that.

I'm a big chocolate. I think that, you know, yeah, it's fine. It's technically because what we're supposed to be doing, I was like doing a whole 30 and a whole 30 is a specific like, you know, like branded type of diet where like all that stuff is out. But anyways, I made my own kind of like way. The only grain I was doing was a keen one rice. But then for the most part, it was just tubers like potatoes. lean meats, vegetables, fruits. That's all I consumed for 30 days. And honestly, I did not like, I don't think there's one, I limited alcohol or sugar.

So I did this really, really well. And I felt better. I felt it energy wise. I obviously the way dropped my body, my face, people would look at me like, you know, your face looks different. So I can see obviously that there were so a lot of improvements in terms of the way I felt. I cut out sugar and then my cravings surprisingly were down. right? I was not craving as much stuff as I wanted to. And in that case, even when I was limited in my calorie intake. So my blood work surprisingly didn't really show much difference.

But when I met with my doctor, who actually went over my results, he said like one month, sometimes it's not a whole lot of time to be able to determine that. So I tend to have higher cholesterol. I think it's just family hereditary. So I think my mom has the same thing. So not a whole lot of changes in there. I'm curious to see what happens with carnivore. But for the most part, most of the experiences or like most of the benefits I experienced were just the way I felt. And I really liked that.

So honestly, I want to continue part of really what I learned from that because I realized how much we, I was doing out of convenience, but I was like picking like this little like ice cream bar, what that was like, you know, yogurt base or something instead of picking mandarin or a peach or something. And because I was forced to do it throughout this period, I was forced to pick wholesome things and it made me feel really good. So I've learned a lot from this 30 days. I was glad that I did it. Now next week, I just literally got all my meats from this company called Force of Nature.

So I got all my meat stuff so I can start a carnivore next week. And we'll see what happens. I have some predictions. I know I'm going to feel different and better in a way because I know what ketosis is. And for people that don't know what ketosis is, is when your body enters into a state of using ketones as your main source of fuel, not glucose. And this happens whenever you're pushing your body of or deprive your body of carbohydrates that it has nothing to do but to try to find an alternative fuel source.

And it does so by starting to use ketones as your main source of fuel because it's the only a substrate that your brain can actually use. Your brain cannot operate without any type of energy source and that's the only thing that your body can use. And when you have ketones flowing in your bloodstream, you tend to feel this is what people on ketone or like when they went on keto and things like that,

Whole Foods vs Carnivore Experiment 1:02:00

they have this feelings of mental clarity or like the energy was more balanced because your insulin is managed or like you don't have big spikes. So I know I'm going to feel better. Now the question is, is it going to be much more different than when I actually felt when it comes down to whole foods? And also, is it going to be different in terms of my body composition changes and my labs, and especially consuming a lot of fat? That's what we're going to find out. And I'm going to have to come in here to do a report on that.

Yeah, you got to come back. I wish I had known to send you a couple of oral microbiome, oral DNA tests, to see what your oral microbiome looked like during the whole food. Oh my God. Is it too late to do that? Because I'm actually not like... It's not too late. No, I can mail you one. I mean, I can mail you one today. And you could do, it's the first thing in the morning test before you start carnivore. It's what we would want to know. Yes, yes, because we'll start next Wednesday, so potentially we may be able to get it done.

Let's try this because, and then you could do it again after carnivore. Super interesting, you know, my area of interest is in Fusobacterium nucleotum, this commensal bacteria that just affects every part of the body and it's a bridging species for So, it'd be super interesting. I've been doing some research, actually, Andres, on what foods feed Fuso and what foods inhibit it. So, okay, I'll get that done. We'll talk. Yeah, it's interesting because I thought, I mean, I think it just started to become very costly for me because I'm like, you know, self-funding this experiment.

But like, I wanted to do, honestly, like an insane amount of tests that I wanted to run. But one of them that I really wanted that I still like, I had not really kind of like settled on anything specific was actually doing looking at my microbiome to understand what this does in terms of like, you know, what populations in terms of like my gut bacteria looks like. So yes, 100% down to doing a before and after, because I think that's going to be a little bit more clear in terms of the changes that are happening after carnivore diets may not have like a reference to go off of but at least we'll know what it looks like now.

So this oral DNA will test your oral microbiome and we can you know translate that sort of to the gut because this oral bacteria moves to the gut and in the gut a lot of dysbiosis. So for clarification for me Andres, you're going to balance your protein. So on carnivore, you're going to be getting a lot more fat, but the same protein grams. That's the hard part. And that's what I was. I was just like building out my, my, my simple days. And I realized that I'm going to have to really supplement with not supplement, but I'm going to have to push in more fat.

And this is what, for example, my meat selection was like the fattiest cuts that I could find. I'm gonna have to really kind of push things like, you know, like cooking with butter and like a lot of different things like this to allow and to be able to keep my calories out of 2000 calories and not going over. I'm trying to kind of keep a buffer no more than 180 to 190 grams of protein because otherwise I could just simply going to not. I mean, it's still gonna be valuable data but I want to make sure it's as controlled as possible.

So yes, I'm definitely doing that too. So are you taking your fasting blood glucose? No, but I can you want to just like nerd out on the on what happens? We can make it go overbearing, you know? No, I love to. I did, at some point I did a ketogenic diet and I was like actually measuring my ketones and I don't have my ketometers anymore but I wanted to test, I wanted to do ketone strips so at least I know like where my body is at any kind of given stage, where it transitions. I know the first week I'm not gonna feel great.

I'm curious what happens as far as like my my bowel movements, because again, I'm eliminating all fiber, I think from anecdotal, like, you know, stuff from people, it's like, you know, you do actually have a good level of constipation in the first few days, supposedly gets regulated, some people actually get lose bowel movements. So I have no clue. We'll see what happens. But yeah, I'm interested to see blood sugar levels. And that's an easy thing, because I can just like get a blood sugar marker from like the from from a pharmacy.

and also doing ketone strips so I can determine and understand what my blood sugar or like when my body starts to transition and just having more of a state of ketosis, you know, as far as that to be able to determine that. So, yeah. Yeah, you can use the Keto Mojo, which is... Yeah, that's what I used a long time ago. I think I might still have it somewhere in there. Yeah. Oh, this will be so interesting. You know, I've seen the carnivore diet really helps with my patients that have ulcerative colitis.

So, You know, they'll, they'll have a lot of diarrhea. So then, you know, they get, well, I think this will be fascinating. I don't think there's many dieticians doing what I'm doing. So that's, that's definitely something unique and interesting for sure. It is. You can write a little white paper on it. That'll be good. Yeah. I thought about, cause I think I got so much data that I feel like I could potentially write like a case study paper or something on this that potentially I could publish. So.

No, it will be fascinating for people and it will be motivating, Andres, for people to say, you know, just do this for this period of time. You don't have to do this for the rest of your life. You don't have to say, I'm never going to have another, you know, ice cream bar. I'm going to do it just for this period and just see what happens. Yeah, I think that's that's the value of it. And also understanding the comparison between the two, which is, you know, well, maybe you don't have to go all out in the process, like, because I did actually see some, like, you know, unfavorable gut stuff happening in the whole foods process, because I was consuming so many different variety of vegetables and things that I don't usually consume that.

There were some days in which there was a lot of gas, a lot of things happening. And I would imagine that it's just there's a restructuring on what's happening in terms of my gut bacteria and all that. So yeah, I think there's benefits, there's pros and cons that I told people. And we'll see what happens as far as that whenever I go into a carnivore stage. And And I think the main thing I'm going to explain to people is like, regardless, I'm going to share like, you know, if I feel incredibly amazing, I'm going to share it.

I'm going to tell people about it, whether or not that's like, you know, scientifically supporting, or there's not really data right now to support it. Okay, but ultimately, that's really what I want to do, to be able to just kind of give people insights into this process so they know exactly and then me doing it the right way as well, you know. Right. From a point of a nutrition expert actually doing it carefully. Well, and you can keep track of your anecdotal relationships with your marriage and all, you know, with this increased gas.

Well, I can tell you, my wife was not happy. Yeah, my wife was not really very, very happy with that section of the experiment or at least like whatever that weekend, she literally told me whatever you were eating this week, please cut it out. That is so good. That is so real because, you know, it's all about relationships where we started all this. So great. Well, oh, I so respect what you're doing. And we'll include oral DNA. I've been using the oral DNA labs for 15 years. that it's a quantitative PCR test and we'll get some good data here.

Okay. I love that. You can't get your teeth cleaned. You have to, you can't get your teeth cleaned in the next step. No, it's okay. I won't do that. You know, make sure I kind of keep everything, everything kosher. You betcha. That'll be great. Well, thank you so much today for being on Vitality Made Simple. How can our listeners get information from you. I know you're on Instagram. It's got a great Instagram. Yeah, I think the best way is just kind of going on my Instagram because that's where I'm posting just more updates.

And I think I'm going to be a little bit more like present throughout the carnivore phase because I think people have been looking forward to see that part of it more so than the whole foods. Again, because it's just like the thing that is trending now. So check out my Instagram, Andres Allesta, first and last name. And then in my YouTube is where I'm putting a lot of like the long stuff. It's like where I'm walking you through my testing. all that stuff. And I also have a lot more down to earth.

It's not just the experiment, but just down to earth, like, you know, like, simplified nutrition information to be able to help and support you. And at some point, if you need help and support, then you want a coach or somebody to really walk you through this holistic approach to health and more than happy to be able to have a conversation with you. We offer free complimentary assessments and what we call a metabolic audit call. So we jump in a call with you for, you know, 30 to 45 minutes. We determine like the areas that you are maybe missing, sort of helping you identify your blind spots.

And if it makes sense for us to be able to help and support you, we can talk about what that looks like as well. And then that's something you can do directly on our website at planosnutrition.com, which is our company. So I'm going to say that from OKI, PLANOS, nutrition, P-L-A-N-O-S, nutrition. That stands for blueprints, which is a Spanish word, because my goal is to help people build their own health blueprint. And I teach them how to do that. That's wonderful. Well, you're very relational. I know your clients love you and learn from you.

And this has just been a joy today. And thank you, listeners, for joining us. We're Vitality Made Simple. So I think in about 150 countries now and maybe 6,000 cities because you're sharing and thank you for sharing this podcast. We want to enhance your health span so that you can have more vibrant, joy-filled relationships. Blessings until next time. Thank you for tuning into Dr. Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being.

For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website, www.doctortalks.com. Stay connected, stay healthy, and join us next time on Doctor Talks, real talks from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most.