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Eat Your Way To A Healthy Heart with Cardiologist Dr. Baxter Montgomery - E24
31 Plays5 months ago
Are you struggling with deteriorating heart health? Or are you interested in learning about how to prevent heart disease? Then maybe you should look at following a whole foods and plant-based diet. This episode explores the power of a plant-based diet in revitalizing heart health, as we explore how nutritional changes can significantly reduce dependency on medications and lead to significant health improvements. You'll learn all about food processing, practices like time-restricted eating and how your diet goes hand-in-hand with other, often small, lifestyle improvements.
Dr. Baxter Montgomery is a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist revolutionizing heart health with his integrative approach that meshes traditional medicine with modern nutritional strategies. As a prominent advocate of plant-based nutrition, Dr. Montgomery’s holistic approach focuses on uniting physical, mental, and spiritual well-being. By reducing medication dependency and improving patient outcomes with targeted detox programs, infusion therapies, and exercise regimens, Dr. Montgomery continues to set the high standards in contemporary cardiovascular care.
“I saw results that far exceeded what I saw in the allopathic world. And that really caught my attention.” - Dr. Baxter Montgomery
In this episode you will learn:
- The importance of strength and exercise for elderly patients, with practical examples of how simple exercises can improve well-being.
- An inspirational patient success story, demonstrating the transformative power of detox programs, infusion therapies, and exercise.
- Dr. Montgomery’s approach to progressing patients from illness to wellness and eventually to optimal health, emphasizing the role of nutrition and exercise.
- Essential tips for improving sleep hygiene, from consistent bedtimes to advanced methods like infrared saunas and neurofeedback.
- The significance of social connections and community engagement for overall health, including practical ways to foster these connections.
- Dr. Montgomery's food classification system, focusing on plant-based nutrition and the effects of different levels of food processing.
Resources
- Connect with Dr. Montgomery on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/montgomeryheartandwellness
- Find out all about Dr. Montgomery’s practice and services offered: https://montgomeryheart.com/
- Buy Dr. Montgomery’s book, ‘The Food Prescription for Better Health’: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0072JC0GY
- Shop all the products Dr. Ghannoum mentions in the episode: https://alively.com/products/baxter-montgomery
This podcast was produced by the team at Zapods Podcast Agency:
Find the products, practices, and routines discussed on the Alively website:
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Transcript
Using Nutrition to Treat Heart Failure
00:00:00
Speaker
If I'm treating someone with heart failure, I may not always follow that standard regimen. So for example, if it requires medication A, B, C, and D for the treatment of heart failure, if I put them on a nutritional regimen and that condition starts to improve, I would then start to wean medication A, B, C, and D.
Introduction to Dr. Montgomery's Holistic Approach
00:00:23
Speaker
This is the Home of Health SPAN Podcast, where we profile health and wellness role models, sharing their stories and the tools, practices, and routines they use to live a lively life.
00:00:37
Speaker
Dr. Montgomery, it is so great to have you with us today on the Home of Health Spam Podcast. How are you doing? I'm doing well. Thank you very much. For those who are not watching and who are listening, you can see that ah Dr. Montgomery is an actual practicing doctor. He was just coming straight from a procedure. So he yeah he walks the talk and and lives the life.
00:00:59
Speaker
On that front, I know you're a cardiologist, but you think about health beyond just the heart, right? Like it's this whole body health and your practice really
Transition from Traditional to Holistic Cardiology
00:01:11
Speaker
addresses that. Can you say a little bit about what you do in your approach?
00:01:14
Speaker
Sure, you know, you're right. um My background is in cardiology. In fact, you know, my training covers a spectrum and and individuals who don't know about training and specialists and subspecialty have to train in sort of a core field and then work their way up. my My background is in internal medicine.
00:01:33
Speaker
yeah I did biochemistry and undergrad internal medicine training, and then cardiology, and then I sub-specialized in an area known as cardiac electrophysiology. So if if you're anybody sub-specialized, I was, I should say am. However, I made a conscious decision to maintain all aspects of my medical training to apply to patients and and i did it with a certain level of intention.
00:02:02
Speaker
And looking back, I thought that was a ah very wise decision on my part because the more I started treating patients in the real world, the one thing I learned and in training, you don't have a longitudinal perspective on a given patient. You go from one rotation to the other, et cetera.
00:02:19
Speaker
Once you have your practice and when I left training, I opened my private practice. I never worked for anyone. I started seeing patients you know month after month, year after year. so You get that longitudinal perspective. so Long story short, I started finding myself having to apply all aspects of medicine to treat the whole patient as opposed to treating the electrical part of the heart or just treating the heart.
00:02:44
Speaker
That makes so much sense. and And you've been doing it for quite a while now. um And it's there's two different approaches. right There's the sick care, once once people have problems and then how you're addressing it. And then there's the health care of saying, hey, before you start having problems, let's let's get you in a good place. As I understand, your practice can and does work on both sides of that equation.
00:03:09
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly right. So weve we started off in the sick care approach. Allopathic medicine is a chronic electrophysiologists. I took call at most rooms at several hospitals in the Houston area. I was seeing patients who were coming in with heart attacks and decompensated heart failure. And so we were, you know, in focusing on the dire straits of people who were acutely ill. Even at that time, I always had the desire to do something in wellness. And and um once I say maybe within about
00:03:43
Speaker
Fifteen years into my practice, close to two decades, I learned about nutrition. We started
Allopathic vs. Holistic Medicine: The Role of Nutrition
00:03:49
Speaker
applying plant-based nutrition in my particular situation. Prior to myself, I did like a juice feast detox, et cetera, and I saw felt how amazing it was. I realized how amazing I felt on that.
00:04:03
Speaker
And thats yeah this is interesting, and so I started applying it to patients. When I started applying to some of my sicker patients, you know I was really amazed at the results that I found. Now, my practice, I'm in private practice for 27 years.
00:04:20
Speaker
I work here in the shadows of the Texas Medical Center. In fact, I have privilege at one of the hospitals there. It's the world-largest medical center. We have all the technology known to man in virtually every illness, whether cardiac or neurological, etc. So I was in a situation where I had the best that allopathic medicine some medicine to offer.
00:04:42
Speaker
and Then when I saw a patient who was very ill who had access to all those therapies and those resources, when I started applying simple things like aggressive nutritional detox and the like, I saw results that far exceeded what I saw in an allopathic role. That really caught my attention. so Allopathic is a word that you said a few times. For our listeners, can you just define what that is?
00:05:06
Speaker
So typically we apply them and when I use it, I'll say what I mean when I use it because it's really the treatment of acute illness and we use pharmaceutical agents that are prescribed medications most of the time, medical therapists, traditional surgeries. So really it's the standard of care.
00:05:28
Speaker
that's dictated by the medical institution. So for example, as a cardiologist, and I'm seeing some of the congestive heart failure, the allopathic approach would have a standard set of guidelines based on a set criteria, sets sort so ah set of studies. So they'll say, okay, ah this diagnosis require the use of these
Plant-Based Diets for Health Improvement
00:05:51
Speaker
medications. Now they'll always mention, your okay, diet and lifestyle,
00:05:54
Speaker
but that's sort of, you know, and in a very superficial manner. But the focus is on the medications, the procedures and the surgeries that are accepted by the standard institution that govern, say, cardiology, which is American Heart Association, of American College of Cardiology, or Heart Rhythm Society. And other subspecialties have their similar bodies that dictate, say, a standard of care, that they are followed based on a certain disease set.
00:06:23
Speaker
But outside of that, if I'm treating someone with heart failure, I have a different approach and I may not always follow that standard regimen. So for example, if it requires medication A, B, C, and D for the treatment of heart failure, if I put them on a nutritional regimen and that condition starts to improve, I would then start to wean medication A, B, C, and D. And so that's the difference there.
00:06:50
Speaker
I mean, this is something it's unfortunate more people don't do. like Realizing there is a level of toxicity, I imagine, to any kind of chemical that you're putting in your body that's going to build over time. So, address the issue, get use medicine where it's needed, but also reduce the need for the medicine by fueling your body with the right nutrients in the right way.
00:07:11
Speaker
And so you talked about plant-based and how you saw personally um some of the effects when when you tried it before you were putting patients on, doing the juicing. Is that something that it's a kind of a point in time intervention that you say, hey, for this period of time, eat this way? Or is that a lifestyle change? And this is what a a day's worth of nutrition should look like.
00:07:36
Speaker
Yeah, so it varies. Our approach is used plant-based indefinitely. However, we will manipulate the diet. So for example, ah if someone's a critically ill heart failure patient, they come in at volume overloaded and we're having to give them intravenous diuretics.
00:07:52
Speaker
I'll put them on cold-pressed juices for a period of one to two, maybe four weeks. Now, why would I do that? And the juices are both mixture of veggies and fruit, not just all people think juice, they think it's this fruit juice, they think pasteurized fruit juice in the supermarket.
00:08:09
Speaker
It's nothing like that. yeah In fact, we had super foods to him, super greens, algaes and grasses. But long story short is someone that acute, the ill will benefit from a cold plus juice feast because a person heart failure, they have a swelling and a demon, not only in the extremities, which most people are aware of, but also in the GI tract. Also, many people who are acutely ill may have damaged microvilli.
00:08:35
Speaker
and and and abnormal microbiome of inadequate enzymes in the gastrointestinal tract. So the absorption of nutrients may be impaired. And so oftentimes you pre-digest these nutrients in either a smoothie form or juice form. It allows a natural absorption of these nutrients, which you get accurate protein and other micronutrients and phytonutrients and enzymes through these juices and allow of them to be nourished and more importantly, hydrated.
Benefits of a Plant-Based Lifestyle
00:09:04
Speaker
ah very early on. So it allows the body to heal in a more rapid manner. So then I get that, whether it's two or three or four weeks on the juice front and then ongoing. Yeah. Raw plant foods, salads, the gourmet raw things, I mean, with the beet burgers and various other things. So over time, as a system recovers, we can advance the diet to to other nutrients like that.
00:09:31
Speaker
And so what would a ah day's worth of nutrition look like? Is it all, hey, here here are the plants, breakfast, lunch, dinner. Here's like typical snacks. You go to these k nuts, anything like that. Do you provide sample?
00:09:48
Speaker
We have a food classification system that we use. And the way the classification system works, it's a zero to 10 scale. And we stay within zero to six, which is in the plant kingdom. So the lower the number, the less amount of heat of processing. The exception is level zero, where you may juice or smoothie it. So that's processed to a certain extent. But as I alluded to earlier, that's for the sake of people who are very sick.
00:10:17
Speaker
Right. But if you don't level zero, you do cold-pressed juice of smoothies. One through three are raw, solid foods. So, you know, one is low glycemic index, raw, solid foods. Three is high glycemic index. And two is in the middle. Four is when you start to have transition. So we do some of the gourmet things. We do dehydrated things. So that may be wraps.
00:10:38
Speaker
or seed breads, seed-dunt-based burgers and things that are dehydrated. You may have blanched foods at level C, so 4A may be high-fat raw foods like avocado seeds, 4B is dehydrated, 4C you start to add heat, and then you fully cook at five and six boiled in steam at at longer periods of time than like. We recommend against ah microwaving ah and heavy grilling with oil.
00:11:07
Speaker
And is that because that takes out the nutrients, the the nutritional content or what's the? So there's not a lot of data on microwave cooking. The limited data I've seen show that to not be very good. A number of my colleagues who do you know promote plant based eating, ah they don't have a problem with it. But I think the less you're processing the food, the better steaming and boiling. I mean, granted, some of the nutrients do come out there, but it's It's not as aggressive and if your veggies are still crunchy when you steam them, you maintain some of it. Once you get the heavy grilling, you have oils, you have rancid fats, you have the development of acrylamide on carbohydrates. We start to have browning and trying of the carbohydrates. So there are certain levels of nutritional detriment to the foods that you want to avoid as much as possible.
00:12:02
Speaker
So for you, what does a day look like? I mean, is it all just plants mostly raw that you would consume? Personally, yes. I mean, I have bean soups. i may have If I cook a rice, it will be like a black rice or wild rice, ah something with the husk on it. It's not going to be like a processed white rice. I may get something organically grown in some area where you know the soil is rich. yeah um So a typical breakfast, my my approach is to go hydration first. so
00:12:36
Speaker
Early in the morning, I'll do a number of cold-pressed juices. If I consume something solid, it's going to be it might be a cucumber or ah mango or some melon if it's a melon season. so Things that are hydrating. so The morning part is hydrating, you want to do your shower. so Then midday may be a salad or a wrap or or something like that. So more solid things, bean soups later today. And very suddenly was mushrooms or, you know, we make our restaurant, we'll make tacos and mushrooms and wraps or things like that.
00:13:10
Speaker
Yeah. And then do you try to eat dinner before a certain time, like certain amount of time before bed? Yeah, I do a time restricted eating. Most of the time it's before six. Sometimes if I'm doing a c cleanse, I'll try to do 11 to four for an extended period of time. And then I'll expand it to six, maybe six thirty. It's the latest I'll eat. And that's what we recommend for patient on patient. We're doing cleanses. We may do ah a level of four protocol for a certain period of time.
00:13:40
Speaker
And so on. So we do time restricted eating on a regular basis. Okay. And then do you find you or your patients, you get enough nutrients and the nutritional content macros that you need in a day from that? Or do you do any supplementation? Like you mentioned nutrient rich soil that is going to feed into the soil, but we we don't always necessarily have access to the great soil That's exactly right. What I have found is that, and and and we know this based on our clinical evaluation, because we do micronutrient testing on everybody, and we have people coming in with various diets, whether it's keto or paleo or whatever.
00:14:19
Speaker
And we see a very similar nutrient deficiency across the board. And so the nutrient deficiency is, I think, independent of what you're consuming, because it's just related to the the foods and the source of the foods because so like if someone's on a paleo diet, they're consuming maybe in the center of the US, maybe they're eating grass
Exercise and Fitness Success Stories
00:14:44
Speaker
fed cows or whatever, but The cows eating grass, let's say, in Kansas or wherever it is, but that's farther from the you know post. So that grass can be iodine deficient. The cows can be iodine deficient. So the person eating cows can be iodine deficient, whatever the case may be. So you're going to have the nutrient deficiencies based on there are a lot of factors, in other words, for efficiency and demand. So what we do is, well, we say, okay, plant foods have a superior origin in terms of decreased inflammatory triggering. So that's ah an advantage to have. We recognize that the nutritional deficiencies in the plants we may consume, because it's just our environment. I mean, we're we're a long way from the Garden of Eden. And so the environment is going to be there. So we are measuring micronutrient deficiencies, and we'll do a targeted supplementation based on that individual's deficiency.
00:15:36
Speaker
Are there any that you personally take? Yeah, so personally, I take magnesium and iodine, those are efficiencies that yeah I found. and And we see a hops into people deficient in iodine and magnesium. Is there a specific brand? right people you know which What are the brands that doctors trust? And so are there any ones that you like better?
00:15:58
Speaker
For iodine, as Lugol, we have a a company that we work with to supply all of our micronutrients, most of our micronutrients. And they do in-house testing and third-party testing. They work primarily with physicians, and so we do a private labeling ah with with that company. And so what it's do we like we'll do liposomal vitamin C, which is more easily absorbable, liposomal curcumin.
00:16:24
Speaker
ah So we have lysosomal formulae, we have a lysosomal iron supplement that we use, and we have people stay away from the, even prescription or over-the-counter ions, because oftentimes they cause constipation. And of course we use intravenous infusions for people who are ah severely deficient in certain micronutrients.
00:16:43
Speaker
Yeah. And I can imagine, I mean, when somebody goes from putting foods that are inflammatory and kind of can weigh them down to moving to this, they have a ah lot more energy. What is the kind of movement protocol that you recommend or suggest they follow it as you're going through this with them? So we, it it depends on where they're starting. So we have patients who are in wheelchairs and ah some coming on stretches to a certain extent. But we have two trainers, we have ah a sports facility close to our center that we have relationships. So anyone who's in our life source program, so then part of our our integrative therapy program, ah have access to that center. So we'll make recommendations
00:17:29
Speaker
Individuals who need help will assign it to one of our fitness people, and we'll go over a regimen that we want. So basically, we emphasize simple aerobic, but we like something akin to ah interval training, high intensity interval training. So we promote um you know flexibility, strength, endurance,
00:17:52
Speaker
and But strength is a big one because oftentimes people in our population you know lack strength. And and of course, you know elderly people who are at risk for small falling, you know balance is an important component. So we have the trainers working them out. We have a ah little saying, and it's eat like a rabbit, train like an athlete. And so we work to get our patients. For example, I have one of my patients, 85 years old with She had kidney cancer, had surgery for that, and all sorts of chronic ailments. She says, have you been exercising? She says, no. I brought it and out of the exam room, and I had to do lunges in the hallway. Now, of course, one of my medical assistants and I had to sort of help her balance and what have you.
00:18:41
Speaker
but I showed her how to do lunges against the wall. and so She went home and did some lunges and things, and she said she slept better, and she started feeling better. and That's just a simple exercise that we started her on. But we've had experience with some of our elderly patient, we start to put them through more aggressive workouts with optimal nutrition, and they start to turn around in a rapid way.
Micronutrient Testing and Supplementation
00:19:06
Speaker
There's one patient example,
00:19:08
Speaker
who came to us on a wheelchair, bad peripheral vascular disease, I mean severe peripheral vascular disease, coronary disease, and the like. He was on a number of medications, diabetes, and insulin, and so on. He went to a detox program. We did infusion therapy with phosphatidylcholine and ozone, and infrared, silent, and external calcification.
00:19:27
Speaker
you know, he went to not being able to walk up and down the hallway in our office without getting really short of breath. And he's doing multiple reps at our facility. His wife takes him. And at first he was only able to do, he would do 25 reps on the roar and be wiped out. Now he does reps of 500.
00:19:47
Speaker
and he walk in a mile and a half and he's on just one medication weaning that. And so no more wheelchair, et cetera, et cetera. But that's our approach to go from from illness to recovery to recovery to wellness, wellness to fitness to optimal health.
00:20:02
Speaker
I think it's a really great example because you ask somebody, it's like the planting of the tree. When was the best time? Well, 20 years ago, for the second best times today. So again regardless where you are, today is the second best time. right Go ahead and and don't use that as an excuse. And again, for people who aren't maybe seeing this on video, they probably don't see how fit you are. But what is what is your own fitness regimen? Do you you mix that same kind of strength, aerobic, all in there?
00:20:29
Speaker
I do. I'll have to confess. um I'm on camera. I have to confess to you, the world, and to God that I have not been working as much as I need to. I'm working out my trainer now. So typically, I do interval training, ah weights with ah running and the like.
00:20:48
Speaker
But we've been in a process of revising our system. And so we had a major transition. So I've been spending a lot of hours with my team and grinding. And so I've been spending more time in front of the computers. I'll have to confess, I've been grinding away at my craft, but I've just gotten back on the road to work with my trainer. So ah give me a few months and I'll be back to super fit. But we were so in 2022,
00:21:18
Speaker
And if you look at our website, you'll see it would be shot a video on heart and soul of a champion And that was the athletes edition. So I invited some athletes over and one included a pro football hall of fame in dial green and some other guys as a former Olympian and And so I was out working with them and we were running heels and the heat here in Houston. And after running heels, I started challenging doing power burpees. So we would have power burpees, have two 20 pound weights. And so you do the burpees, do pull up and the arm curls. So there's some videos of us doing that. And so we were, those are kind of workouts that I like doing, but I'm not in that shape at this time, but we, I'm getting there. So either way,
00:21:59
Speaker
So when when you said that, because I was going to double click and ask, you said it's intervals mixing the running and the weight. So it'd be the same workout. And you're kind of rotating through some of the aerobic with some of the the weight side. Yes, it could be a combination of things. I've worked in a number of trains. One train would have them in the gym. He would have the maybe have the treadmill up at about I don't know,
00:22:23
Speaker
four miles an hour or something like that. And I go and run on that for 30 seconds. Then I go and do bench press and get back on another 30 seconds and do whatever pushups, something crazy like that. So that may be one type of workout. Another may be to do, you know, power burpees and then do lunges or something like that. So maybe a mixture of things that has squats, lunges and lifting the multi, multi-body movement. and And then some yeah running, spreading, mixing with that.
00:22:52
Speaker
You mentioned your patient that just starting doing some lunges, like the wall lunges teaching her and one of the almost immediate benefits was she slept better. That's fine. For your patients or people that are saying, hey, I don't want to become a patient right on the sick care, but I want to kind of the preventative side. What what does good sleep hygiene and and practices, what what does that look like?
00:23:17
Speaker
gosh Yeah, that's, you know, it's it's interesting because, you know, we talk about good sleep hygiene. Obviously, you want to, you know, the the typical things that go to bed at a decent hour, you know, 930. What I've read, you want to be asleep between that 10 and 2am out time span. So from a circadian rhythm standpoint. um So if you're close to that, that's good.
00:23:41
Speaker
ah People talk about eight hours, seven to eight hours being on deal. I'll have to admit I'm not 100% convinced on that. Most of my colleagues are dead set on it. But ah yeah again, the dr I think the jury's still out, but but certainly a good span of sleep. And you want to turn down lights. So you you know get off your cell phone, computers, those things. you know Get the blue light out of your eyes.
00:24:09
Speaker
So you want to wind down at least an hour before you want to go to bed. Now these are sort of natural things. yeah Obviously you want to have an empty stomach. Hydration, you want to stop before too long and otherwise you're going to be getting up at night using the bathroom. So these are some basic things that we we share with our patients and clients. And we try to get them the doctors as many of those things as possible. But there are other many there are many other factors. Like we talked about micronutrient deficiencies and the like.
00:24:36
Speaker
And so many individuals have micronutrient deficiencies that may impair their sleep, i
Sleep Hygiene and Advanced Relaxation Techniques
00:24:41
Speaker
.e. magnesium deficiency or zinc deficiency or whatever the case may be. And so we'll search for these types of things. We also work with a neural brain center that work with some of our patients ah who may have sleep issues and they do it based on EEG.
00:24:58
Speaker
and evaluate your brainwave function and sometimes they can do things with neurofeedback to improve your sleep. So there are a number of different approaches we may take because of many individuals based on the fact they've been on certain medications for a period of time because if you're on a beta block or certain drugs will impair your sleep. So when we're dealing with our patients, there are a lot of complexities, not only the disease state,
00:25:25
Speaker
but the the therapeutic state that's all coming in combined and so it has a big impact on all of this. So you mentioned kind of the base level and then you have all these extra wrinkles. You would also reference infrared sauna at one point. yeah I think I've seen some stuff that things like that before bed can actually help with sleep. So what what does advance, right? you So you have base level sleep, get try to get to bed on a consistent time, be asleep during these hours, avoid the light, cool temperature. what are What are some of the more advanced things people might look at? One thing I'll add to the the basic is optimal nutrition, because when people, when we put patients on a detox diet, one of the biggest reports we get that they're sleeping better.
00:26:08
Speaker
But then beyond that basic level, as I mentioned, sonotherapy, I have an infrared sauna in my master bedroom at home, and I'll use it on times when I'm not working long hours and rushing, but it does help with sleep. I also have a massage chair, which, oh my goodness, that thing can really work to help with sleep as well. So if you have those kind of devices, infrared sauna, massage chair,
00:26:37
Speaker
and Before bedtime, that can be very helpful in terms of sleep. you know Some people will play soft music. There's certain meditation apps that can be helpful. I haven't used them personally. we we have We have some that we've recommended in the past, but I hear those things are helpful as well. Obviously, having a rigorous day, you know exercise,
00:27:01
Speaker
during the day and wearing yourself out, if you will, helps out with sleep as well. So, you know, these are things that are very important.
Mental Health and Nature Connection
00:27:09
Speaker
You mentioned the the kind of meditation apps and and you haven't used those. Do you have any stress management practice or kind of mindset practice that you use or recommend to patients?
00:27:23
Speaker
Yeah, we, we recommend that people, you know, use things like, uh, spiritual connection, prayer, meditation. Those are really important, tapping into higher power. We also recommend something as simple as going for a walk outdoors. I had a patient, um, I was seeing, I think it was the last few weeks and, you know, she was very stressed out and, you know, she was, you know, but she'd just been in the house the whole time.
00:27:49
Speaker
And she was depressed, wanted to see someone, she said, well, when was the last time you went for a walk? She didn't remember when. I said, why don't you just simply get outdoors and go for a walk? Get out into nature. And there's been some data showing that I can work against stress and anxiety and depression. So brisk walk,
00:28:08
Speaker
go walk in the woods and and and and as much sun, get as much sunshine that you can get. Grounding is something that's also beneficial. So walking barefoot on the grass or the sand or something like that. The very simple things can have a major impact on your overall health and well-being.
00:28:27
Speaker
I have to imagine if the ideas get out in nature and really connect, suggesting people don't don't wear headphones. right like but you know This is a podcast. We love that you listen to podcasts. But when you're going to do this, probably the idea is fully immerse yourself in it. Is that fair to say?
00:28:43
Speaker
No, I agree. But you know even if you want to use your headphones to start with, the fact that you're out of nature is good. And then you can go to the next step where you're just out of nature, you're totally disconnected from your phones and headphones. So you can take it in increments. But just to many of us, we're designed to be out in nature. and yeah we yeah know From from you the biblical perspective, we come from dust, and we need to be connected to dust. We were planted in a garden in our original creation, and so we need to connect with the garden, the space. That's what our bodies are designed to to to be connected with. And so the more we do that, so the healthier we are
Social Connections and Health
00:29:27
Speaker
to be. So you want to connect with the
00:29:29
Speaker
environment, the plant kingdom, and you want to eat it and connect with it from the inside out. This is back to the it's not just the heart, you know, as a son of a cardiologist and a hematologist who would kind of argue on what's more important ideas. It does all intertwine. So this mindset, not only do you feel better during the day, but it helps you sleep better, which then makes you feel better during the day. And it's a virtuous cycle. ah When you start getting it right, you made a really fair point that it's If it's easier to get outside and and start moving by having your headphones, ah don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Meet people where they are because it's way more effective to do something than to say, Oh, here's the best thing. And so somebody does nothing at all because they don't want to do that. Where would you recommend people start on something like that? Is it a five minute breathing exercise? Is it take a couple of mindful breaths before you eat? Like what what is kind of the light intro way into this to get people to take this seriously?
00:30:28
Speaker
Obviously, breathing is good, you know, taking deep breaths in your nose, out your mouth, etc. Getting outdoors, I think is the first step if it's on your front porch. Okay, so be it. You may walk in your front yard, your backyard, up and down your driveway, etc. Sit out ah in ah in a lawn chair outdoors.
00:30:49
Speaker
lay in the grass. I mean, those are very simple first steps. Even if it's 5-10 minutes every day, just make it a routine. And then as you do it, as you get started, you'll get used to it. and You'll reach a threshold where something becomes more it becomes more desirable. You'll start to yearn to be outdoors. I haven't done my walk in a couple of days and I miss it, and so that type of thing. so you just want I think the key is just getting outdoors on a regular basis. I have to speak for myself. I mean i'll admit, there's sometimes when I'm just in a grind, running a business,
00:31:26
Speaker
I'm working long hours seeing patients and you know, I won't get out those for several days on the weekend comes. It's okay. I need to go for a walk to get out towards the center. So it's it's a process of one, the first step is realizing that you need to do it. The second step is actually doing it. So coming up with a strategy in which you say, okay, I'm going to do it at this time every day or whatever the case may be, or this many times a week. And then once you start with that strategy, that baseline, you start to go from there.
00:31:57
Speaker
And then if you had to do somebody kind of moving on from there to doing meditation, are there specific apps your practice points people to for that meditation? I don't know them offhand. my Our integrated care coordinators have a few that that they've used and and I can't speak to them offhand. I don't have a memorizer yet. We've have ah shared it with our patients and clients. Okay.
00:32:20
Speaker
And so one of the other benefits of getting outside versus just kind of being inside in your own four walls is other people are outside your house and your boat as well. And I know we've touched on before the importance of that social connection, that purpose outside of oneself.
00:32:39
Speaker
and that you could nail fitness and nutrition and have all these. But if you're feeling socially isolated, we know your risk of cardiovascular events goes up 50%. Same for early onset dementia. Can you talk about how you think about that with your practice and and go about it? yeah Social connection is very important. and yeah Oftentimes, our patients, when you talk about the dietary restrictions, as well I have a family reunion or how am I going to eat around my family or family dinners or the like. And so sometimes the things we recommend strongly ah seem to be counterintuitive for social interaction. But the biggest thing that we do to help people become more socially engaged is to help them improve their overall health.
Optimal Health as a Continuous Journey
00:33:30
Speaker
um because the biggest thing that causes social isolation, certainly in our population, the single population, is acute and chronic illness. When you think about it, someone who's ill, who's in the hospital a lot, who may be going through surgeries or the like, someone in this situation are going to be isolated around friends and family. yeah And so the first break from that social isolation is to be well. I know individuals who have bad arthritis, they're so obese, they're on scooters, they can't visit or travel.
00:34:07
Speaker
So you want to optimize your health because that allows you the freedom to move about and connect with people. So it's something I mentioned upfront because oftentimes we and overlook it, especially in a sick population, because We think of social isolation something as something that's elective, but it's not always elective. Frequently it isn't. It's brought about with chronic illness. And not only is the person who's sick associated isolated, but they may have a caretaker who has to be with them all the time. It may be a spouse, it may be a sibling or a child that has to stay with them on a regular basis. So then you become socially isolated from the population. So I want to hit home in terms of
00:34:53
Speaker
chronic illness creates lots of social isolation. Now, beyond that, then one has to just say you're well, you can move about, then you have to be conscious of what you're doing. Because sometimes, you know, someone like myself is a natural introvert. So You want to create you know activities and reasons in which you're around people. ah Call a friend over or meet with some friends. you know I have you know um ah a church group, a Sunday school group, or whatever. So create little groups where you can interact with people on a certain basis, on a regular basis, um you know whether it's a walking club or or or a bicycling group or or whomever.
00:35:35
Speaker
So, so there's a conscious level of social engagement that's important. And just like we talked about being conscious about getting outdoors, you want to be conscious about interacting with people. And so it doesn't, I mean, some of us are more natural than it i'm I'm a natural introvert. So I, I gained my energy by being alone. So I have to constantly think, okay,
00:35:58
Speaker
Outside of our work, which I enjoy interacting with my teammates here in the office, I have to constantly interact with other people. I may call friends and and come up with things that we do together and so on. You mentioned your church group and whether an introvert or extrovert, having that baked in community helps unlock a lot of that. And and I think kind of over the past 50, 60 years, we've definitely seen a decline in faith-based participation, but not just faith-based, but also civic organizations, Alliance, Aquinas, all these, there would be these baked-in groups that people would have, that they would participate in. So in a kind of today's world where that's less the default, what kind of things do you help coach your patients to find? So you say, hey, here are options, but do you help them try to understand where their interests lie? Say, hey, you know, they're they're groups that do this kind of thing, that you could go do that together.
00:36:56
Speaker
We make some of those recommendations, but part of our whole profile is um to create communities. So we have an online community now. It's not the same as being in person, but.
00:37:09
Speaker
Our online community is part of our, and we call it the optimal health journey. Now it's focused on bringing in individuals who are a like-minded to optimizing their health. And the online community, it's a it's a subscription membership, but we have people from all over the world who come on. I'll bring in an expert in health, nutrition, medicine, to talk about a certain topic. Once a month, we call that Grand Rounds. I'll do a case presentation every other month. I'm on once a month with Stump the Chomp,
00:37:39
Speaker
And so they asked me a question, but also in the context of those structured platforms is just an interaction and engagement. And people have talked about what's happening in their life and this, that, and the other. And oftentimes people then exchange numbers or emails. And then there's this offline, cause they have the community platform. They can email each other, et cetera. We've even had people visit each other. Sometimes they're in the same town and so on and so forth. So what we do in the context of our,
00:38:08
Speaker
our health environment, if you will, is we we set up avenues in which people can come together naturally. And even in our center here, um when individuals are flying in from all over the country to get some of our therapy, some people have heart failure, cancer, and arthritis are coming to our center. You know, they'll hang around center getting infusions and sauna. And what we find is that they may be hanging out in our cafe, the restaurant and talking or interacting. And I'm just hearing about this from other patients. Yes, I talked to this person right there and they were saying this, that, and the other.
00:38:43
Speaker
So there's a community that develops even here. So somebody who may be flying in, they're all alone at a hotel. They come to our facility to meet five other people and actually I know they're interacting outside the facility. It's something I think we we miss and we forget that every interaction is an opportunity for connection. And so so often we'll get on a plane and get on something and want to put our headphones in and and focus on our work and not talk to people. But we miss out on some really rich experiences.
00:39:13
Speaker
that may make us more productive, right? Because of this tight end, and not that everything's about productivity in the first place, but sure just the a more fulfilled, effective life, if you if you feel good. And it is that combination of the physical, but the mental, the the spiritual, that connection that you have with something outside of yourself.
00:39:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. I mean, we're we're meant to be connected. um You know, as the scripture says, not good for man to be alone. And we are interdependent beings. And that's just the how we're designed. Yeah.
00:39:49
Speaker
Dr. Montgomery, this this has been absolutely amazing that what you do with your practice, it's such a model that I hope and wish more and more physicians and individuals adopt and understand because you can't do any of these things. I mean, you can do them in isolation, but you're not getting the benefits and you're not truly healthy until you get all those benefits. And I think you talked through this step. It was a sick,
00:40:17
Speaker
to you had these like four steps it was yeah from illness to recovery to recovery to wellness wellness to fitness to optimal health. Yeah. And optimal health is a journey. So this is like um a curve going into an asymptotic line. it's ah It's a process of getting better the next day than the other day before. And and that's the way we should think about it. And if you're and we take it from that standpoint, it's it's it's enriching because there are new gifts each day in terms of getting better and learning new things and optimizing your health along the way.
00:40:54
Speaker
That is a beautiful way to frame it. you know Some people say, wait, it never ends. That sounds so intimidating and and terrifying. But the the opposite is, say oh, no, this is this opportunity, this gift, that you never have to be static. You always have this ability and opportunity to grow. And I just can't thank you enough for helping me and our listeners grow with everything you've shared today. church is all mine and Thank you very much for inviting me to your wonderful community.
00:41:21
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on today's episode of the Home of Health Span podcast. And remember, you can always find the products, practices, and routines mentioned by today's guests, as well as many other healthspan role models on the lively.com. Enjoy day.