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Chapter 3
399 Plays7 months ago
Crimes And MisDAVEmeanours! Dave looks for loopholes in the new program but Dr. Val shuts him down. Then they travel through the Endocrine system where Dave learns all about fats!
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Transcript
Dave's Weight Loss Journey
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey gang, Dave here again. In this episode, the new changes are starting to take effect and by golly, Duck might be on to something here. I've lost some weight and I'm feeling great. Rest assured, I'm already trying to figure out ways to push back against the new regime. Old habits die hard, but with no success, Dr. Val's tough.
00:00:21
Speaker
Instead, I'll learn even more about how blood and food and fat work together in the body, and unless you already know all this stuff, then you will too. It's chapter 3 of Dr. Val Saves Dave.
00:00:37
Speaker
Hey everybody, have you heard the news? Dave's turning 50 and he's got the blues. He's out of shape and this is true. He needs help, he has no clue. He grabs his phone and she can't quit. Dr. Val will do her trick. She'll be tough, there's no free pass. Come on Dave, get off your ass. Dr. Val, can you save Dave? He's quite alive.
00:01:05
Speaker
He'll behave. Oh, do you think he will cave? Listen, it's his back in school. It's his funny buddy's Dr. Val's rules. It's his funny buddy's Dr. Val's rules.
Mental Shifts and Weight Loss
00:01:22
Speaker
And now I panic. Because now I know we're recording. The countdown, the whole thing. Good morning, Doctor. Good morning. How are you? Doctor, how am I? I'm great. Awesome. How's that for a shift from last week? Have you just run out of tears or did you actually get the shift? It's a good question. I may have just become sad of being sad.
00:01:49
Speaker
now, like feeling bad is your baseline. This is it. It's hard to describe where I'm at right now, but we'll try to because this is a podcast. Yes, because no one can see you. That's right. So first things first, the big news. I am now I have lost another four pounds, so I am down eight pounds in two weeks. Granted, that's mostly tears for sure from all the meals I haven't eaten.
00:02:14
Speaker
Right? To all the meals I ate before. I know. I know all the cheeseburgers and whatnot. So I don't know if the weight loss is due to low alcohol, the complete change in diet. I assume it's all of the above because I haven't really started exercising at all yet because I've still been in recovery mode. Yeah.
00:02:35
Speaker
So it has been purely diet. So let the record show for those listening.
Dietary Habits and Guidance
00:02:40
Speaker
I have lost eight pounds in two weeks with zero exercise whatsoever. And no calorie counting. No calorie counting at all. I have no idea. I've done no counting. No protein counting, no carb counting, no calorie counting. Tracking macros. The only thing I keep an eye on is time because I'm trying to eat every three-ish hours and having protein with every snack.
00:03:04
Speaker
She's nodding. I'm getting stickers in my book, guys. Four gold stars. Oh my gosh. Look at this. What a hot race I am. Hot mess, hot race. I don't know what I'm saying. This is what's happening. My thoughts come too fast now because I have all this new energy in my body. That's awesome. And just in case, there are people out there.
00:03:27
Speaker
who are just tuning in, who maybe haven't caught our first episode. They didn't know what was going on with your health beforehand or how you were feeling beforehand. Do you want to give them just a recap? Oh, yes. You should absolutely go back and listen. Episode one. Come back and pick it up right here.
Health Revelations and Liver Cleanse
00:03:47
Speaker
There's the recap. Okay. Yeah. The short version is I was not doing good adulting.
00:03:54
Speaker
And so we did all kinds of blood work, 13 vials of blood work to find out all the things that were wrong with me. And while I didn't currently have disease, I was looking over the fence at disease and my name was on the guest list. And Dr. Val here, our hero, has started off with a liver cleanse program. My gallbladder, which if you don't know is a little volcano guy that pumps bile into your small intestine. How am I doing? Good, good.
00:04:24
Speaker
That's right. You're the fifth gold star. That's the one I'm looking for. So I can't believe I remembered any of this either. I'll be honest. I'm impressed. It's the lack of cheeseburger floating through your blood that's causing that. Is that right? So I'm going to crush crossword puzzles this week. You will. You'll win at wordle. Awesome. So I, uh, yeah, so my gallbladder, my little volcano wasn't acting quite right, but it was okay. My liver was tired.
00:04:54
Speaker
Which is fair, again, 25 years of comedy. I think in the beginning I was saying 20, 22, I did the math. It's 24 really, but I was a college golfer for the three years previous to that. So let's not act like that was the pinnacle of health. But here's what's interesting. And here's where I'd like to jump off. Cause this is one of the things I'd like to
Eating Habits and Strategies
00:05:16
Speaker
talk about for people like me or like me two episodes ago, because I was so changed.
00:05:24
Speaker
But I realized when you grow up, your parents feed you. You're subjected to mostly what your parents feed you. For some people, that's good news because your parents provided a healthy diet. For other people, that's bad news because your parents gave you garbage, because they eat garbage, et cetera. Then I went to university on a golf scholarship where there was a meal program. So I ate in the cafeteria. I ate fast food joints.
00:05:56
Speaker
So real bad, real bad eating. Big biscuits and gravy for breakfast. It's sausage gravy, you know, just...
00:06:09
Speaker
know how you start your day like that. You got hash browns and an English muffin and just a mountainous sausage gravy with some eggs. And I was doing sports on this. So terrible. Taco Bell or Shoney's at night or Hardee's or Chinese food, whatever version of grease I could get. There weren't a lot of vegetables back then either. Then I began
00:06:33
Speaker
And really, and you know what I didn't realize? So you go from your parents' video to the college program allegedly looking after you.
00:06:41
Speaker
And then I went into the world where I'm still shocked to discover nobody checks in on you. Nobody looks after you. And so I've never really known what to eat. I've lived my life based on snippets. I overhear, talking to somebody on a plane, hearing somebody's doing keto, somebody's doing this, et cetera. But having you, having Dr. Val in the last couple of weeks, I've suddenly known what to do, or at least the decisions have been made for me because my body
00:07:11
Speaker
your rules. Yes, I love this game. You're starting to win.
00:07:23
Speaker
But so my point is not only am I suddenly eating with purpose for the first time, but also the mental relief of not wondering what I'm going to eat every day when I get up, the mental freedom of, Oh no, I know what I'm going to do. The decisions are made has been really valuable. I'm suddenly able to focus on other things. Cause I'm not, when I'm out in the world, I'm not in a river of temptation everywhere. I turn, you know, I drive by a restaurant. I go, no, I'm not eating there.
00:07:51
Speaker
I see a big blinking sign and instead of getting what we used to call the Big Mac saliva. Oh, yeah. Where you just see the sign, you go, oh, I could do a Big Mac. Yeah, I haven't personally, but I've had patients who have. In fact, yeah. It's a very particular salivary amylase release.
00:08:13
Speaker
that has you like putting your hands on the glass of the window and licking the window just because you want to just get to the cheeseburger. No, it's something about the Big Mac sauce specifically. There's something about it. It releases, if you know what I'm talking about, then you know you just
00:08:28
Speaker
Oh, I could do a Big Mac or something. It's different than the French fry cravings, et cetera. Oh, they're
The Food Industry's Deceptions
00:08:34
Speaker
starting to put stuff in there to addict you. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I've been addicted throughout, but I have broken the addiction clearly because I feel good and I no longer have the cravings. I no longer have the withdrawal. Yeah. And so I have a bunch of energy and now I'm in, now I'm into the program. Now I'm excited about it. The hardest part right now is not grieving for all the time I lost.
00:09:00
Speaker
New tears, new reason to cry. Okay, good. If I could go back 20 years and start eating this way, my goodness. Could you imagine if you were eating this way while you were in college playing sports, you would have dominated. I would have been unbearable. Probably doing underwear modeling or something like that. Probably. Calvin Klein would have been calling you up. Oh, yeah. Because back then I exercised.
00:09:25
Speaker
He would have been ripped. Yeah. Well, this is the thing. Back then, I didn't have any body fat anyways, because I could eat whatever I wanted, and I burned through it. I was so active. I mean, on the golf course, you would drink five liters of water and never go to the bathroom, because you're sweating so much up there. It's hot, hot down south.
00:09:41
Speaker
Anyway, all of which to say I'm in, I'm excited, I want more, let's talk more. So I have some, first let's finish up on food because food is one part of health. It's a huge part. Yes. And we're going to be taking a little bit of a deeper look as well when we hit the next stage of testing. And we're going to start to look at how your body actually, how your immune system reacts to those different foods.
00:10:08
Speaker
And we're gonna start to get a sense of that as well. Okay, so interesting. So here we go. I'm on the program, but I'm on a high right now. I'm feeling good, so it's easy right now, right? Because I'm getting the endorphins, I'm getting the dopamine from good decisions. Now, I've got a stretch coming up where I'm gonna, you know, I've been at home for a little bit, so I can have routines, patterns, control myself.
00:10:35
Speaker
to control what's going on. Yeah. And you can always plan for the fact that when you are traveling, when you're going to other people's houses, when you have a life, you're not going to be able to control everything or pretty much anything. So you're going to get into that situation where you're going to have to have some good strategies. Great point. So someone invites me over for dinner. I'm not coming with a Tupperware in my own food.
00:11:03
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. So what if someone invites you out to a restaurant? Let's say it's a friend's birthday and you want to go. You can't lock yourself in a little bubble and the point of eating healthy, eating clean, um, moving you back towards health. Cause right now we're doing an eating paradigm. I don't want to say diet because that has negative connotations. So we'll call it an eating paradigm.
00:11:25
Speaker
that's designed to get you healthy. And so this is all about healing. So once the healing occurs, we shift things up, that's fine. But right now, it's really critical to stay on track as much as possible.
Reversing Diabetes and Calorie Myths
00:11:41
Speaker
So I don't believe in willpower at all. What I believe in is good strategies, good structure, and being prepared. Being prepared that you're gonna run out of food, that you're not gonna be able to get what you need.
00:11:56
Speaker
That's too bad. Will Power is a great guy. You should get to know him a few times. And Willy's a young man. I'm sure. I don't believe in him. I've never seen him. He's like stuffle up on you. Well, we'll test your theories as we go. Because I am going to be in situations where I am unable to prepare.
00:12:17
Speaker
So what I want to ask, go ahead. So here's the structure and strategy. So right now, one of the big things that we have been talking about is one, don't starve yourself to eat every three hours and eat something with protein.
00:12:32
Speaker
So let's kind of break that down. So can we tell the story about when you were on the plane? We did tell the story of when I was home. Oh, that's right. That was last episode. Right. So with respect to, you know, eating when you're on the plane, you want to make sure that you're prepared going in. And if you can't, you want to do the best that you can. So eating every three hours is going to stabilize your blood sugar levels. If your blood sugar levels are stable, you're not hungry.
00:13:01
Speaker
So you have more ability to think clearly and control what you grab and do the best that you can in any situation. And in any situation, I know we've said, hey, there are certain types of proteins like red meats right now we've pulled you off of. They can be hard on the kidneys.
Health Metrics and Goals
00:13:18
Speaker
They can be a little bit more challenging on the digestive system. And if you're not getting good organic meats, that's an issue in terms of how it affects your hormones and
00:13:29
Speaker
how it affects potential cancer rates. So we pulled that out temporarily, but wherever you are really important, but if there's meat, go for it. If there's protein, go for it. You do the best, you make the best choice that you can, protein and your vegetables. And so that way you're filling up on fiber, you're filling up on protein and you're going to make the better choices because what happens with all human beings when they go too long without food,
00:13:55
Speaker
Your blood sugar levels drop. The brain doesn't think properly. And when that happens, you're going to go for the Twinkie, ho ho, cheesies, chips, crackers, bread, anything that turns into sugar, candy, whatever it is, chocolate, whatever your little craving monster makes you want to eat. You're going for the comfort food because that's what human beings do physiologically. That's not a lack of willpower.
00:14:21
Speaker
Again, snuffle up, I guess. It's not lack of willpower. That's human physiology. That's what humans do when they're starving. The brain goes, give me fuel, and you respond. I need it. So, okay, but this isn't 1982. I don't get a Twinkie or a ho-ho.
00:14:46
Speaker
Well, those things last forever. There are people, I bet, in their bunker. I take your point, don't you? But you're right. I might get that bird. Now, I haven't had so much as a French fry. I keep using that as the barometer because I haven't. Not wanting people around me have had fries. So when I say I'm going in a situation where I might not be prepared, let's just
00:15:11
Speaker
I am, they pick me up, they take me around. I'm not in charge of my schedule. Maybe to your birthday point, maybe I end up in a restaurant that absolutely doesn't have something. I'm sure we'll work with it. What I want to know really is crimes versus misdemeanors. That's what I want to know is what are going to be my big cardinal sins? What's the big thing? Given that let's say, okay, here's a meal where I have to stray or here's a day where I'm going to
00:15:39
Speaker
I'm, as I said, I'm on a high right now. Let's assume I get to a low. There's a flight that's delayed and I'm on the tarmac for three hours and they don't bring the cart out. They don't serve anything. Right. So now I'm six hours without eating. Now we're up in the sky. You can't eat it. Let's say that now we land. I'm making poor decisions.
00:15:57
Speaker
I need something. Here's a fast food place or here's a convenience store. What sort of, what would be like the worst things I could do versus the, you know, how can I step out of bounds without really doing damage? Sure. So the first thing that I would suggest is even before you leave for the plane or let's say you're going, you're, if you're at home and you're going to go to a restaurant with friends or go over to someone's house for dinner.
00:16:21
Speaker
eat protein before you leave. So when you get there, you're not hungry. You're not starving. It's always a good rule when you go to a party. Don't show up hungry. That's just good manners. That's just exactly. So you're going out for dinner. You're going to a restaurant. If they bring bread to the table and you're hungry, you're going to eat it. But if you've eaten something with protein and you're feeling fairly full, you can say it's easy to say no and then make the choices on the on the list of the menu that are going to support your health. Now, plain food, OK, as we know,
00:16:51
Speaker
not always a lot of options. So the best thing to do is to pack things that you can actually carry on the plane that are protein sources. So sometimes you have to do this little scavenger hunt through the airport to find good protein sources. But the better thing is we have you on a medical food powder. I don't want to say which one it is,
00:17:13
Speaker
Um, that is until it fails, right? That's right. And actually even then, because what will happen is it's my favorite and then I won't be able to find it because everybody's buying it. And then what happens to me, right? It's too, it's too selfish. That's exactly it. So what you can do is
00:17:41
Speaker
you know, take protein powder or a medical food powder and carry it on with you. Yeah. Yeah. This is still best case scenario stuff. Okay. Now they made me check my bag. Now there's no room. I can't do it. I'm talking about behind enemy lines. My kit bag didn't make it. I'm going to have to break the rules. Yeah. Let's talk about what, what hurts the most. What does the most, for example, a sandwich, if I eat the bread, is that worse than eating French fries?
00:18:09
Speaker
You know, where do you rank bread versus fried food? Well, I would rank chicken. Is that the worst? I would say you
Diet, Exercise, and Fat Reduction
00:18:16
Speaker
want to go for protein. Sure. Whatever possible. So protein good, carbohydrate, that's like a bread, pasta, cracker, cereal, french fry, potato, bad. So what about protein wrapped in carbs, like a fried chicken? Well, what you can do is you can get the fried chicken and peel off the exactly and don't eat it. Eat the chicken. Yeah, right.
00:18:38
Speaker
could also go back and learn piano. So yes, in theory, you could peel off the the chicken. Okay, what about gummy bears? For example, let's say there's a person beside me with a lovely bag of gummy worms, gummy bears. Of course, it's gonna
00:19:00
Speaker
be filled with sugar. So, no. I'm asking how many... It's bad. What damage is made of? I'm saying this is a scenario where I'm going to eat bad. I'm asking. I'm in a green room. They've got M&Ms, gummy worms, fried chicken, and french fries. Rank this worse to worse.
00:19:18
Speaker
Well, I would say there's that wonderful saying that there is no junk food. There's food and there's junk. So you don't eat junk. Right. So gummy bears do not exist in nature. There's nothing natural about a gummy bear. It's not that they were like, you know, running around the little gummy forest.
00:19:36
Speaker
captured the gummy bears. It didn't happen like that. So they're not real. So M&M's not real. Okay. Potato chips. Potato chips, not ideal. But if you've got the fried chicken there, pull off the skin and you have, yes. But the better, the best option is going to be getting the protein. So you always want to go for the protein. Okay. But a potato chip would be a better snack than the gummy worms and the gummy bears. Obviously, because a potato was once real, I'm following the system here.
00:20:04
Speaker
If you're looking at what's going to happen versus, so now you're taking that you, you're taking the fried chicken out of the room. Yes. Yeah. So there's just potato chips. Still hungry. Okay. Yeah.
00:20:17
Speaker
Can you not ask for more fried chicken? I don't know. In it, again, this is a quick change in this. This is the Kobayashi Maru, okay? This is if you know your Star Trek. This is an unwinnable, you can't keep changing my tests on you. The carbs are gonna just spike and crash your sugar levels. You're gonna feel awful. So what happens if I eat two potato chips? Am I doing much damage or that's nothing?
00:20:40
Speaker
OK, you can never eat two potato chips. But let's see. Remember, there was that there was that chip company out there that had that. Exactly. They're right. You're biologically hardwired not to. Here's why. Fat, salt and sugar are the magic addiction formulation. They're also the magic weight gain formulation.
00:20:58
Speaker
And if you start looking, start reading ingredients. I'm going to say this to our listeners. You go look at labels and read the ingredients. You're going to see fat, salt and sugar in almost everything. Even health food companies put a lot of these stuff, this stuff. It's true. And here's the story we didn't tell when I was in Whitehorse and I tried to buy some healthy snacks for the room and I bought a salad. I can share this picture online. So I bought salad, chicken strips, hummus and veggie tray. Home run, right? I'm crushing
00:21:28
Speaker
this what a good boy way to go i text uh doc hey look what i did because i want my gold stickers and instead i get back a death skull and a puke if you can believe it as if i've commissioned
00:21:45
Speaker
If there was in the bag of salad and some of the toppings were all the fat, salt, and sugar criminals hiding, just a swarm of villainy hidden in the salad bag. Luckily, it was in the toppings, so I didn't have to put the toppings on, but you're right. Everywhere you look, here I was again thinking, wow, what a good job I've done. No, fail. Yeah.
00:22:08
Speaker
Yeah. So companies do that all the time. It's called marketing. It's not called lying. It's called marketing. Where it says organic. Oh yeah. And it looks like it's completely healthy. And so we're going to share this online, but again, it looked like it was very healthy. And if you didn't have that other lens, you wouldn't know. But my clue when you sent it was, it said crispy.
00:22:33
Speaker
vegetables, wasn't it? It was crispy carrots and crispy beets. As soon as I heard crispy, I'm like, oh, what did you do to it? And sure enough. Yeah, it was covered in- Wheat and sugar and yeah, all sorts of gross stuff. Yeah. So again, there you go. Here I am thinking I'm doing something good. And what I thought would have been a misdemeanor turned out to be a crime, right? So what's happened in that case? Okay. So let's talk salad dressings. And I'm going to put another case example on you. And you can't change the rules.
00:23:06
Speaker
Did you just tell me I can't do something? Yes. Let's see what happens. I'm going to do something whether you want me to or not.
00:23:18
Speaker
So now I want to know my score is out of 10 based on my decision. So here's the scenario. There's a salad. Okay. I'm ordering a salad. I'm getting the, I'm adding the chicken. It's a green salad, but these, I say, do you have any olive oil? They say, no, we don't. They say, you know, so they have lemons. No, we don't. Now I know from my teachings here, I would normally get olive oil and lemon. That would be my dressing, but in this case I can't. And because this is some terrible restaurant,
00:23:46
Speaker
where they won't feed you unless you do things their way. They're insisting I get a salad dressing. Absolutely insisting. So let me hear my choice. Ranch, French, balsamic vinaigrette. Okay. Now explain to me why those three and you can go on at length. Explain to me why certain salad dressings would be worse than other salad dressings because I have ordered them thinking I'm ordering a healthy one. Yeah. And I've been wronged.
00:24:12
Speaker
The balsamic vinegar is a big one because it sounds really healthy and it's tasty. Well, it's tasty because it's filled with sugar. It's a reduction. And so what I learned from this wonderful holistic chef that I work with all the time. Meant to go on ice cream, right? Yes, it is. I think we touched on this on Ep 1.
00:24:32
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So if you haven't listened to episode one, here's your chance to go back and learn this again. Exactly. When you, when I didn't cut you off. Not a problem. So it's full of sugar. So then you get the oil in there. So now you've got fat and sugar together. Guess what's going to happen. And you're going to have salt in there. So it's fat, salt and sugar. Yeah. My salad is yummy.
00:24:51
Speaker
all of a sudden you get the dopamine going in the brain, you get the addiction factors, you're going to want to eat more. That salad is just not going to cut it for you and it's going to spike your blood sugar levels. Now I'm going to want some bread to mop up. Exactly. So if you can't get olive oil and lemon when you're at a restaurant, just say, okay, what kind of oil do you have?
00:25:14
Speaker
and then get whatever oil that is because it's still better it's in your control and then get ask them if they have some type of white vinegar or red vinegar and if they have a white wine vinegar or red wine vinegar that's going to be the better choice than a balsamic vinegar okay and then ranch how is that a natural color i don't know you tell me like the into a ranch
00:25:39
Speaker
Like you have those, or those, like those types of dressings that are like orange. I'm like, what is that? French? French? Is that what that one is? And then, oh yeah, ranch is the one that's just dairy. Yeah, it's white, but it's all of the garbage that they put in it. Again, fat, salt, and sugar. What about Caesar salad dressing? Caesar salad's not a bad choice. Isn't it just egg and lemon and garlic? And anchovy paste. So it's, again, it's a lot of
00:26:04
Speaker
a lot of fat, a lot of oils. And then if you have a Caesar salad, it's going to come with bacon bits and it's going to come with some croutons and then cheese.
00:26:17
Speaker
I still want two stickers. So Caesar might not be the best. Olive oil or some type of oil and just a regular vinegar or lemon juice is going to be the cleanest way to go. Now I've been off pork, I've been off bacon, which is really cut into my morning breakfast options when I'm out and about in the world because no sausage, no
00:26:52
Speaker
chicken breast. Pork is a really fatty meat for the most part. I'm a really fatty guy. So a lot of some pork products like bacon, most of the bacons out there are going to have nitrites on them. If you're doing like a ham that's from a deli meat, a lot of those have nitrites as well. And nitrites are carcinogenic as well, just with the fatty component of, of
00:27:19
Speaker
pork. And then again, it's a red meat, right? So we're pulling you off the red meats for the moment just to take some of that stress off of your kidneys, stress off of the digestive system. So what about a turkey sausage? Then where does that rank in this system?
00:27:31
Speaker
If you can get a turkey sausage that is gluten-free and that doesn't have any sugar added to it, great. But most of the sausages, when a lot of companies make those sausages, they'll put a lot of extra sugar in there. They'll put gluten in there. They'll use a lot of different types of fillers in there. So it's finding a really pure source.
00:27:53
Speaker
I wonder how many people have eaten food they don't want just to avoid the social awkwardness of going. Do you know if that turkey sausage is gluten free or where it was sourced or where it was farmed? See, you know, here's my thing, you know, my body, my rules. And I always tell my students when I, when I was teaching nutrition at the naturopathic college and the Canadian school of natural nutrition, when I got them for the first time, I'd always say, don't trust anybody.
00:28:19
Speaker
We're all going to die. Those are the two things that you're going to learn. Again, two things that you need to know, listeners. Number one, don't trust anybody. Number two, we're all going to die. We're being poisoned. And I take offense to that. The sugar that is in foods, so toxic for us. And so we have a lot of people with health conditions out there that they didn't need to have. Type 2 diabetes. If you have type 2 diabetes, you didn't have to have it.
00:28:47
Speaker
Is it your fault? Probably not because of the way that the food industry is stacking the deck against you. And the weight loss industry, all of the nutrition information that's out there, 90% of it is dead wrong.
00:29:01
Speaker
So you're being stacked, like the deck is being stacked against you really is what we can say. Can someone with type 2 diabetes healthy eat their way out of type 2 diabetes? Yes, they can. Yeah. Okay. And so the... Because this is our insulin regulation. It is. This is our insulin level. So in theory, they could
00:29:23
Speaker
Type one, you're born with, no, you can eat, right? You're not born with it. It's an autoimmune condition. Okay. And so you usually develop it early on, but not always. Some people develop it a little bit later, but again, it's an autoimmune condition, so it gets triggered, and then the pancreas, just because of the autoimmune condition, it starts producing in sight. Type two, as my comedian friend once said, is the do-it-yourself, the DIY of the diabetes. Yes, it is. Yeah. Yeah. So in theory, you could undo. Of course.
00:29:52
Speaker
It's not even theory. That's just reality. Right. If you change everything, how long would it take? A year or two years? Oh, it doesn't have to. It depends on the individual and it depends on how long they've had it. And it depends on how fast they're able to make changes. And it depends on if they're getting the right advice. Most people aren't. That's the problem. All right.
00:30:16
Speaker
Yeah, we'll be right back. Mind blown. Yeah, this would be a good spot to cut to an ad if we had one.
00:30:29
Speaker
Welcome to Dr. Val Saves Dave, where a naturopathic doctor and a comedian team up together to tickle your funny bone and maybe even teach you a thing or two about health. But hey, before you go down the rabbit hole of kale smoothies and laughter yoga, a quick reminder, we're not your doctor. We might have the prescription for a good joke, but when it comes to your health, consult the pros. So laugh and learn, but keep that stethoscope handy, just in case.
00:30:59
Speaker
Okay so I think for food now again this journey is about how to be in great shape when I'm 50 right this is the thing so as much as we're rescuing me now or we've changed the diet I feel we've we've at least slowed the boat you know on that but this is just one metric of health so we want to also start looking at other
00:31:23
Speaker
stats and charts that we could break down to figure out where my health is at and new ways we could improve it. Assuming I'm going to continue to eat like an absolute angel or a teacher's pet here, then it's okay. What's next in the journey? Well, I love data. I love metrics, which you found out very early on in getting to
00:31:51
Speaker
And so one of the things that we've been measuring not is not just weight, but body mass index, we've been measuring body fat BMI to the layperson. Exactly. Exactly. We've been measuring your body fat percentage.
00:32:06
Speaker
We've been measuring things like your body water, your bone mass. We've been measuring your protein rate, your metabolic age, your visceral fat, your subcutaneous fat, your total fat mass, your total muscle mass, and total protein mass. We've been monitoring all of that. And that's like a sticker for the maturity I showed not commenting on bone mass. Thank you. So I've heard myself inside. Perfect. Well done, David. Don't play this around young children.
00:32:36
Speaker
What was that? I mean, from the fried chicken that I had the food off of. That's right. There you go. Moving on. So one of the things that we are looking at is what's called your metabolic age. And so we've got metrics from the very first time that you were. Now, this made me laugh. The metabolic age. I don't want to do the reveal, but if I remember correctly, you said it was 52.
00:33:00
Speaker
Your metabolic age was 52. Yeah. So I'm 49 and, uh, you know, just past six months, as we know. Uh, so I was upset that it was 52. Whereas doc earlier, I was like, that's a miracle. How are you still 52 given how you've lived? So yeah, you don't think 60, 70 drinks a week should add up to 52. Huh?
00:33:28
Speaker
I'm impressed. Yeah. There was some golfing. There was some good times. You know, it was a good time. I'd say the lack of stress was why. I think so. When George Burns. Yes, we were enjoying our life. Burgess Meredith from Grumpy Road Med. I eat a bacon sandwich. I drink my dinner.
00:33:47
Speaker
That's the secret. Anyhow, I think the only reason I stayed so young was because I was happy and enjoying life. You could argue otherwise. So my current age metric, metabolic age, is that what you called it? Metabolic age. Is 52. What do you think we can get that down to by July? Well, I'm hoping we can get that down to 45. Well, at least my actual age would be good, right?
00:34:19
Speaker
Well, that would be great, but younger would be better. Sure. Absolutely. Because what we want to do is really build up that good muscle mass so that as you head into, um, further and further decades, you don't lose muscle mass. So once we start getting into our eighties or nineties, you know, and we're kind of concerned about our mortality,
00:34:41
Speaker
Then what happens is we know, okay, muscle mass that you're having in your 80s and 90s, and over 100, obviously, the muscle mass is directly correlated to how long you're going to live. The more muscle mass you have, the longer you get to live. So we want to keep that up. That seems like a simple recipe.
00:35:00
Speaker
It sounds fantastic. Would my current diet, if I just did what I was doing, would that lower my metabolic age then? Or do I have to start incorporating some muscle building and exercising as well? Well, I think you need a little bit of both.
00:35:14
Speaker
So we don't want to say that, you know, foods are going to be the only thing. There's no one thing. Everything, you know, makes a difference. So when I have a lot of my patients asking me about health and they're like, okay, what's the one thing that I need to do to, you know, live to a hundred and still be, you know, windsurfing or, you know, rock climbing or doing whatever I want at that age and like really mentally sharp, physically active. Okay.
00:35:40
Speaker
Well, it's not one thing. It's the 10,000 little choices you make every day. So the food is absolutely critical and just foods alone and eating really clean absolutely can reverse metabolic age and help you to live longer and help you to thrive. And so we hear a lot of this all the time. You hear about Blue Zone and you hear about, you know, Mediterranean diet and all of these things to help in terms of
00:36:06
Speaker
keeping you young and keeping your brain healthy. So this study saying that, oh, if you eat a Mediterranean diet, you get less shrinking of your brain as you get into your seventies, eighties, nineties. That's great. So better memory, less risk of Alzheimer's, less risk of senile dementia. You know, if you eat a Mediterranean diet or if you eat according to the blue zone, it can increase your longevity.
00:36:29
Speaker
If you do intermittent fasting, you hear that, okay, that helps in terms of extending life expectancy, reversing the aging process. So it's really powerful. Foods are powerful, but exercise is powerful too.
00:36:43
Speaker
So it's not an either or, it's a yes and. Well, what if I just started watching Twilight or Daniel Tiger or other kids' shows? Would that not lower my metabolic? It might lower your intellectual age. No, if I just watched cartoon about Senator Morgan, wouldn't that get me feeling younger, acting younger? I'm sure it would get you feeling and acting younger. There you go. So surely that would help, no? But the mindset is a big piece. It absolutely is critical too, yeah.
00:37:09
Speaker
But no, you're saying there's data and metrics and science that you'd prefer. I do. I generally like those. So let's talk about, that's my metabolic age. We're going to track that, right? We're going to track that. And you're setting the goal of 45?
00:37:23
Speaker
Let's do it. Let's throw that number over there. So on my 50th birthday, I'm actually going to have de-aged seven years. Let's do it. From now to then, okay? Let's do it. You're the doctor. So, but let's record this in history. On this date, at this time, 45 was declared. Exactly. All right, let's talk about my fats. Awesome. So, I got a couple types now, it turns out. I used to just have fat.
00:37:48
Speaker
But now I have visceral fat. Yes. And I have subcutaneous. Subcutaneous, exactly. Cutaneous. It's cute. It's cute. Exactly. So if you had a submarine, I'd be a cute guy down there. There we go. It's the subcutefat. His name is Anius.
00:38:12
Speaker
So, Aeneas is driving my little submarine. He's cute, but I don't want him or I need some of him. Well, let's break it down. Well, let's talk about Lil Aeneas here. Well, so the first thing that we need to talk about... My Lil Aeneas. Let's talk about my Lil Aeneas. Well, I know nothing about that. How cute it is. Talk about how cute my little Aeneas is.
00:38:38
Speaker
Let's first talk about your body fat percentage. Well, that doesn't sound nearly as funny. Well, you want to know about this. Let me guess, my body fat percentage is what, 50-50?
00:38:51
Speaker
50% fat, 50% alcohol. Yeah. And some salt. Yeah, exactly. So 49, 49 with 2% of joy. So your body fat percentage, do you want to know when we first started or do we want to do today? Either way, what do we have right now? So right now you're at 25.5%. 25% body fat. Okay. When I was in college, I was in the single digits. When you started. So I have grown as a man.
00:39:19
Speaker
And when you started, you were at 25.8, which was, which was high. What am I at now? 25. Let me go back to 25.5. Okay. So I've gone down 0.3, but we didn't start day one on this test. This is true. We only added this a couple of weeks in. So anyways, currently currently you're at 25.5. So we're round down to 25%. Yeah. So when we, when we started or when we first measured you,
00:39:47
Speaker
you were in a range that was considered very high. And now you're at the high, yes, and now you're at the high end of high. So gummy bear's chips or your smarties. High end of high. Yeah. Okay. So what do you think you can get that number down to?
00:40:15
Speaker
Well, I want to get you into the normal range. So we want to get you below 22%. First of all, normal is a made up word that insecure people use to feel comfortable. Standard? We want to get you into the standard. We want to get you into a healthy range. How about that? Healthy range. So I only have to lose 3%. 22 is healthy? Less than 22 is healthy. Right. So 21 points. So if you lose 4%. And that's doable, right?
00:40:43
Speaker
Oh yeah, that's true. But could we lose, say, 10%? Could I get down to 15% body fat in six months? Is that even possible? Well, that is possible. So we can change our... But I'd have to, like, go to the sauna? No, you wouldn't. No. And you sweat every day? Just tell me what the goals are, and then I'll switch up the protocols. Our first goal was to get you healthy. The goal is to get as healthy as possible, right? Okay. So what could we do? I'm just looking for a timeline on what's realistic. Yeah, 10% body fat. Let's do it.
00:41:12
Speaker
Is that possible? Is that ridiculous? Is that extreme? No. Okay. 5% anyways, for sure. Right? Yeah. For sure. I could get down to 20. Oh, absolutely.
00:41:24
Speaker
Oh yeah. So even the losing 10% body fat for you in that period of time in five months is doable. Okay. But now, let's get back to my two types of fat. Yes. I got my little boy, Ania, is driving a submarine out there. There we go. Looking for orders here. Okay.
00:41:44
Speaker
So we looked at visceral fat. We measured visceral fat versus and subcutaneous fat, right? So explain those two. Sure. So visceral fat is the fat that is around the organs and that when you have a lot of fat around the organs, you need some because it protects them and it prevents you from getting really, really cold. So great to have, but if you have too much,
00:42:07
Speaker
it increases your risk of different types of health conditions, more so than fat stored underneath the skin, which is the subcutaneous. So the visceral fat, we see being associated with what we call cardio metabolic syndrome. You might've heard of it called Syndrome X. So it's a combination of high cholesterol, high blood pressure, weight around the midsection, and then having, of course, cardiovascular disease. So I got this guy Visceral, right? Yeah, the visceral fat. Visceral.
00:42:37
Speaker
Yes. You know, this Carol, so this Carol's in there playing the church organ. Yeah. She's my organ fat. And then I got Aeneas driving the sub. Yes. And now that's my skin fat, like under the skin fat. The subcutaneous is what's underneath the skin. So having high visceral fat or high subcutaneous fat, there's worse, worse health indicators for having high visceral fat. Gotcha. So a higher risk of death and disease.
00:43:05
Speaker
if you have high visceral fat versus high subcutaneous. Neither are good because the subcutaneous of course is going to prevent people from seeing your muscles. So if you have a whole big muscular physique, but you have a lot of subcutaneous fat, you're just not going to see it. But it's a healthier distribution from the perspective of death, mortality, disease.
00:43:30
Speaker
I end up eating that whole bowl of potato chips and I chase it down with a big bowl of ice cream. And then have a beer? Sure. I have three beers because the first one was delicious and it was a hot day. So then I got to wash all the potato chip bits and ice cream. Yeah.
00:43:50
Speaker
Or does that fat decide whether it's going to be visceral or subcutaneous? Subcutaneous. That is a great question. How about that? It is a great question. It's fantastic. So first of all, fat, when we think about it, when you think of it, it's not its own organ system. Hold on to everybody a minute to think about it. Think about that. So which organ system do you think it's involved with? What, the fat? Yeah. So if you think of the liver is its own organ. The pancreas is its own organ.
00:44:19
Speaker
what most people when they think of the fat, they're like, I've never even thought of it as an organ. No, exactly. Most people haven't. And if you ask them, they'll kind of go, well, maybe the skin because it's it's like under the skin. But it's it's not it's part of the endocrine system, which is our hormones. It's controlled by hormones.
00:44:37
Speaker
So if you're under a great deal of stress, if you have a lot of cortisol, guess what's going to happen? Hang on, the endocrine system, first of all, that's an area in Star Trek, right? Yes, it is. Next generation, they went to the endocrine system? Yes, they did, yeah. Hang on, this is how I have to remember all your medical stuff, right? I have to give it a place in my head. So, so, so, so. Make it so. We're heading to the endocrine system. Make it so.
00:45:05
Speaker
the endocrine system so the endocrine system decides where my fat goes to a large extent absolutely and how does it decide so if you think of does the beer go to the same place as the ice cream do the salty potato chips go a different route are there shoots that they
00:45:22
Speaker
I'm so confused. We could go down to, we'd go down a huge rabbit hole of biochemistry, which would be so fun for me, but probably really boring for everybody else. Well, let's do something for, you know, next month. Yeah. So when you have something like ice cream or a potato chip, it's fat and sugar and salt altogether. Maybe not so much the ice cream, but definitely the ice cream is like high fat, high sugar. So you have something that's high fat, high sugar.
00:45:49
Speaker
And so the sugar, when it shows up in the bloodstream, you're going to get this spike in insulin. And the insulin is supposed to pull things into the fat cells.
00:46:00
Speaker
And so what will happen is with the fat as well, when you have high fat, if you have a lot of sugar and it's not needed for fuel, that's going to also be pulled into the fat cells for storage. Now, if you are under a lot of stress, if you have high cortisol levels, what's going to happen is your body is going to be primed for using protein as a fuel source. It's going to be breaking down muscle tissue.
00:46:22
Speaker
So you're not going to be utilizing the sugar or the fat as a fuel source. So it's going to go into weight around the midsection. It usually goes right into visceral fat when you have higher cortisol levels when you're under stress. First thing in the morning, our cortisol levels tend to be higher. If you've had a good cup of coffee, it's going to be higher. If you're under stress, it's going to be higher. If you haven't eaten in a long time, that might raise a stress response. It's going to be higher.
00:46:50
Speaker
very likely to go to visceral fat. Okay. Whereas if I'm chilling by the pool, sipping beers, not a care in the world, that's all going subcutaneous. It may. It's going to have a better outcome if your cortisol levels aren't high. Now, so let's say I go on this thing here where I'm going to lose fat because I want to get my
00:47:08
Speaker
Fat from 25 down to 15. Is there a way for me to target my subcutaneous versus my visceral? If I say I'm going to lose fat right now by doing chin ups or whatever, I'm assuming I'm going to lose my subcutaneous fat.
00:47:25
Speaker
because I'm using the muscles blah, blah, blah, but I don't know what I'm talking about. How do I decide and can I decide which, can I target my fat to lose visceral versus subcutaneous? Or is it, do they come down at the same time and go up and down at the same time? Another excellent question. Oh, I'm on fire today. Exactly. It's because I eat so good now.
00:47:47
Speaker
Exactly. So brain organs fight. So anytime you're going to look on Dr. Google, or you're going to ask, you know, the health profession in general, you know, how do I lose fat? They're going to tell you, you need to do cardio. You need to burn more calories than you're consuming. Right. Yeah. It's not true.
00:48:13
Speaker
Take the calories out of it. Or no. What do you mean it's not true at all? Because I hear that all the time. You have to burn more calories than you consume. That's like the number one rule of weight loss. Yeah. You're saying that's in no way true. I'm saying that what we've been taught is not the answer.
00:48:30
Speaker
Okay. So let's actually take a look at it. So if you take a look, we've been hearing that since the 1950s. Yeah. This is where we need like a record needle scratching across the record here. Well, actually I can prove this week. I've definitely eaten more calories than I burned because I've done nothing and I've lost weight. So I can actually get in the choir on this one. Go ahead. All right. Preach. Preach sister. Let them know.
00:48:57
Speaker
Exactly. You all know that one person who could eat and eat and eat and eat and eat and stay real thin. Yes. And we all know that other person who could smell a cup of coffee, lick a muffin and gain weight. So we've seen it in action.
00:49:20
Speaker
I wasn't going to mention anything to call anybody out. We don't need to shame anybody. I'm not shaming anybody. I'm saying hi to an ultra. Okay. There's no calorie shaming. So if we take a look at that calorie in, calorie out model, it's been being preached and taught since the 1950s. What has happened to the weight in North America? Has it gone down? No. Has it gone up? Yes. Has it gone up substantially? Absolutely.
00:49:47
Speaker
So I was looking at some stats for the United States and they were saying that 75, when I was looking at these stats, 75% of adult North Americans or Americans are overweight or obese. So it is more common now to be overweight than it is to be a healthy weight. That's a problem.
00:50:09
Speaker
So eating, there's no correlation in the amount of calories we eat versus our weight loss. That's where we're to put a button on that. We can't say there's no correlation because you know, there are people who will, who will, and what will happen is they'll go on to really low calorie diets. And then what will happen is they'll lose weight for a period of time, but then they'll gain it back. Okay. Only 5% of people who lose weight
00:50:38
Speaker
doing that calorie in, calorie out model are able to keep it off for more than five years, only 5%. There's a 95% failure rate. Now, if that was your accountant or if that was your investor, the person who's handling your investments, there's no way you'd put up with that. So why are we listening to these people?
00:50:59
Speaker
because it doesn't work. A 5% success rate is not viable. And it's not how the body works because again, fat cells aren't dependent as much on calories as they are on hormones. So if you start cutting your calories too much, what's gonna happen is you're gonna send starvation hormones throughout your body. You're signaling your body, it's starving. It's gonna hold on to weight.
00:51:24
Speaker
And you're going to shift the hormone balance. You're going to have higher cortisol levels. You're going to start breaking down muscle mass. Then your metabolic rate goes down. It's not good. Do not count calories. Don't believe in them. I saw this meme once that said calories are these tiny little fairies that go into your closet at night and sew your clothing up tighter. So it's just, I'm like, they're little mythical creatures. Like don't like throw out the calories. Stop conditioning yourself to believe that.
00:51:54
Speaker
And then we have studies as well that show, hey, if you actually look at fasting and different types of intermittent fasting, that when you have people who are losing weight on intermittent fasting, the calories that they eat in that eating window doesn't really matter. They could eat a ton of them and they'll still get the weight loss.
00:52:13
Speaker
So there's other things going on that are really more important to look at, hormone balance being absolutely critical, how your immune system is handling different foods, how your ability, your body's ability to detoxify, what your ability to digest and absorb a food is. If you're not digesting and absorbing your vitamins, minerals, and nutrients, or if you start to become nutrient deficient, guess what's going to happen? Your body's going to go into starvation mode. It's going to protect it.
00:52:41
Speaker
Okay, now you may have answered this somewhere in there. I don't know. In any way, do we link this back to subcutaneous versus visceral fat loss? Only through cortisol. Cortisol is bad if there's too much. As fat goes down, they go down together. Maybe. There's a way to target or not? There is a way to target. Okay, so how would I target my visceral fat if that's the one that's more dangerous?
00:53:07
Speaker
through the hormones, through eating and exercising to support hormone balance. Right, which happens over in the endocrine solar system. It does. So how do you eat and exercise to balance out the cortisol levels? How do you make sure that you're getting proper utilization of insulin levels, for example?
00:53:26
Speaker
So Dr. Fung talks a lot about insulin and that's, you know, he's got a great book on that and how controlling insulin levels is what is fantastic for helping in terms of disease prevention. Okay. Well, we'll figure out my insulin and visceral stuff as we go on. Shall we share the visceral fat? Sure. What was my visceral? Yeah, we got to pick goals. Yeah. So your visceral fat was at 12.
00:53:53
Speaker
which is in the high range. So we want to get it in the standard healthy range, which is going to be below nine. So we want to get you below nine. And can we do that by July? Oh, definitely. Okay. Great. All right. Any other concerns or issues that you see a jump out that we should share? Well, with the visceral fat, the concern would be, again, you're now at a higher risk for high cholesterol. You're at a higher risk for insulin resistance. You're at a higher risk. I'm going to knock my visceral fat out. You are. So I'm not working.
00:54:22
Speaker
Now your subcutaneous fat was also high. It should be, uh, well, your, it is 22.8 right now. And so to get you into what's considered a healthy range should be between seven and 15. Whoa. So I got way too much, uh, too many, too many guys in my sub. We got a, we got a surface, a sub a little bit. We got to definitely.
00:54:46
Speaker
Yep. Scuttle the ship, some of the people. Yeah. Okay. All right. So that one we ate. That seems like a big deal. So wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I'm at 25% body fat total.
00:55:00
Speaker
My subcutaneous is at 22.8. And my visceral was at 12? Not 12%, just how they rate the index. You see where I'm going. It adds up to more than the 25. Yeah, it does. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So I've got 32 like total fats. You have 22.8% subcutaneous fat on the visceral fat index. It's not a percentage. It's not telling us the percent of that, but it's saying you're at the exact
00:55:36
Speaker
healthy ranges by July. Yes. All right. Yep. All right. Anything else we need to predict on that chart? Well, your muscle mass is really good. It's at 141.5 pounds. Okay. So that's what I should really weigh. No, no, you do need some fat around. You do need some visceral fat. You do need body water. Your body water was low. So it's only at 53.9%. So we're going to worry.
00:56:04
Speaker
Well, consider what's considered healthy is at least 55, 55 to 65%. Okay. So I got a little bit of work to drink water. Um, that is something that is helpful person on the planet needs to be pretty much. And at the same time, we're also going to start implementing some strategies to help you pull water into the cells. So we're going to remineralize your body and we're going to do some good supplements to help with that. Awesome.
00:56:30
Speaker
All right, well, currently I am, I am what, 212 pounds and you just heard all my fat numbers. So I am, I am a fat 212, but I am down from the 220 that we started. So I'm as curious as, well, I guess I'm the most curious how we're going to do here. I'm just assuming anybody who's still, still listening and enjoying this journey is also curious. So stay tuned. Yeah. And if you're out there, join me.
00:56:59
Speaker
in eating these real foods and seeing what you could do, email us, send us a message, let us know your starting points, see if you can keep up with me. I mean, this literally, if I can do it, you can do it. Because for real, I have just been a very questionable adult who should not have been unsupervised. And if I could change, you could change everybody.
00:57:24
Speaker
a little treat there for my Rocky IV fans. Thanks, Doc. Good stuff. Lots to chew on and some new characters to go gather around my little gallbladder volcano. So we've got Carol playing the organ. We've got Aeneas driving the sub. And we'll meet them all in the Endocrine Galaxy next week on Dr. Val Saves Day. See you.
00:57:51
Speaker
Do you save Dave? Do you think that he'll behave? Or do you think he will cave? Listen and he's back in school It's his funny buddy's Dr. Val's rules It's his funny buddy's Dr. Val's rules