“After Stress Ripped My Immune System to Shreds, I Cured Myself” | Robert Zembroski on Health Theory

look there's crisis care there's drugs there's lotions potions there's bionics and robotics phenomenal thank God we have all that stuff but the reality is that doesn't restore health to anyone so if people worry themselves sick could they not change the way their brains create vibration in the body to create ultimate health or at least start the healing process absolutely so when you see people overcome these major health challenges what's the first thing you see them do change your mindset eating food is the biggest variable in our lives the biggest so why not eat the best why not eat nutrients instead of calories and you watcher by rebuilding transform according to medicine some exercise physiology journal they're saying that those that ride in a car greater than 10 hours a week increased death by cardiovascular disease 48% thanks for tuning in to this episode of health theory sponsored by our friends at butcher box they've got an awesome offer for you guys in the description below so be sure to check that out everybody welcome to hell theory today's guest is dr. Robertson broski he's an author physician functional medicine practitioner and cancer survivor he has quite literally written a book on how to rebuild yourself from even the most terrifyingly poor state of health and that is the thing dr. Z that I find the most interesting about your story is having gone through it and I think anybody else having been diagnosed with cancer like you were the temptation is to give up or the temptation is to think that the best you can ever hope for is to maybe get back to zero or some semblance of who you used to be but you've gone way beyond where you started walk us through that like one just what exactly happened that landed you with the cancer diagnosis and then how did you come out the other side better so years ago I mean my world imploded you know I had an avalanche of stress a relationship fell apart is pretty caustic I had somebody personally I had my front desk person stealing from me the feds got involved there was drugs involved all of that and it was literally all at once my typical Oh as I grew up I always held things in so I didn't express myself so it was always this gut-wrenching stress that I don't know why I just didn't go to somebody to get help it was just like I'll figure it out maybe it was the guy thing I'll figure it out I'll figure it out and I didn't right and so just like a lot of people do when they they go through major stressors they self-medicate I couldn't sleep I had diarrhea hours my stomach was upset I mean I was I was literally out of my mind with stress so I medicated myself with a booze to put myself to sleep I was eating crappy food I was always on the run and that didn't work and so I'm from shock exactly and so the smoke cleared the relationship and the house is back to normal the the the person who was who was stealing the the law took care of that and so my wife seemed to come back in order but about 18 months maybe two years later I started to lose weight I didn't feel good my energy just tanked and I knew something was wrong but I just kept chalking it up to maybe it's adrenal fatigue maybe there was something there I just burned myself out with and one morning I woke up and my left pupil was the size of a golf ball and I said now I'm dying I need to like jump into this so I had blood work done and believe it or not nothing in the blood work really showed anything and so I went to a friend because I started to get pounding headaches when I bent over and he says just come in the office like take a shot a picture of your chest chest x-ray and so we took a shot and he leaves the room and he says let me let me just I'm gonna redo that and I know this radiologist good friend he never does that so now my you know hair in the back of my neck is standing up I'm like oh so he comes back in and he puts the film up because we got a 5 inch tumor in your chest whoa so the reality became you know as I think back about it people jump into the fear-based thing immediately it wasn't fear for me Tom it was anger anger over what anger because I was a major contributor a player in the development disease and as I say many diseases are self-inflicted which they really are yes there's genetic components when we get all that but the majority of the time it's what we do and don't do it ourselves whether it's ignorance or just innocence if you will like things happen so I didn't take care of myself stress as we know stress is a major play and all that just ripped to shreds my immune system and it just so happened lymphoma is an immune dysfunction there's no vitamin that's gonna help me get through it now so what do I have to do so I I do what everybody else did I I dove into crisis care so I had seven months of chemo I'd four weeks of radiation and then to boot at the end of it all I said to my medical team I said now what do we do with this why don't we just cut it out of my chest just saw me open they said well we don't do that for that type of disease or tumor behind the sternum mediastinal tumor and I said well I'm gonna die either way why don't we just do it so the surgeon met with me seven days later and he opened me up and that was it and it's fine because when I woke up you know I when I woke up from the surgery and I'm looking at the pain killers dangling and a bloody tubes out of my stomach and chest the first thing I thought about my the first thing I thought about when going through all this says I need to rebuild myself all right so I want to get to the mindset because this is really interesting okay so you do the traditional crisis care you get you convince them to remove the tumor which is actually sort of the first really fascinating part of your story so the doctors don't want to do it you're trained so you've been to medical school so was that what gave you the courage like it's pretty hard to look at doctor in the face and say you think it's dangerous or a waste of time and yet I would like you to do it anyway what gave you the courage to do that is it your personality type do you think about mindset like yes was that one mindset that what they were offering in my mind and my education in my research wasn't going to work it was more of let's do something that's not done before right so as I encourage people like I did for myself you need to be your own advocate and sometimes you need to become your own expert with whatever the the situation may be and people are forced to become their own experts while major cancer hospitals and disease hospitals are really pros at repeating or repairing a bullet wound and taking an arrow out of your shoulder sometimes you have to think outside of the box and it's those moments where you go if I go through if I listen to what you're saying there's a chance I die so why don't we something we haven't done before and if I die on the table at least it was a cool cause and you have film and video and whatever and so yes I think it's part of my personality cuz I just don't give up and if there's a way it's like water finds its way like I'm water I gotta find the way and so it was it really was just a mindset how do you talk to people that you work with now about becoming their own advocate like how I'll use my own words how adversarial are you like when so my wife has gone through a tremendous amount of issues with her microbiome and there were definitely times where I felt like I had to be adversarial to push the issue and I thought whoa if I hadn't trained for 15 years as an entrepreneur learning to overcome obstacles learning how to persuade learning how to push learning how to walk that line between winning them over and letting them know like I'm not gonna back down which I'll say is slightly different than not giving up like how did you think about that many professionals practitioners whatever the name of the the the degree or profession is people come with the specific set of lenses they come with a specific set of lenses that they're trained to follow so if you go outside of that training then it becomes quote-unquote maybe adversarial rather than you saying look there's got to be a different way there's got to be something else that it can be had looked at resolved most treatment for chronic health issues and disease it's wash rinse repeat you know it's a wash rinse repeat for cancer and heart disease and autoimmune things it's basically the same thing and for me looking at that I just said it's just it won't work and again it was it was my drive it was my personality but I think it was also my want to see what would be different okay so now this notion of I'm gonna rebuild pops into your head were you thinking I can actually make myself even better than I was before or does that notion come later well maybe it came a little later but for me it was like I need to rebuild myself why did this happen and what can I do about it to then reset the internal terrain the mechanisms the networks in my body so I don't get sick again so walk me through that process one thing that I think it's really interesting is your mom died of ALS and I don't know how knowledgeable you were about cancer when you walked into it but how do you begin a process learning about cancer learning about ALS how do you become knowledgeable enough to start this rebuilding to change the internal terrain to even take ownership of all this requires a certain level of understanding what's going on how do you approach something that big and unknown so there it is difficult because a lot of people don't have the information that we have I mean in a clinical setting all day and so my brain is already geared towards find mechanism you know I'm addicted to learning mechanisms and so for me it was it became a process process of saying there's always a root reason why and if you ask the question why seven times typically you'll kind of get to the to the answer can you give us walk us through like the the whys on that because I've heard this in in business we use that all the time the layers of why but if somebody's never heard that process before what does it look like so let's say you're dealing with an end-stage pathology you receive a diagnosis of something okay the end stage pathology is the absolute end stage until your brain picks up a signal something is damaged so even if we rewind the movie right the end stage pathology had to be created by systems pathways mechanisms and if you rewind it and drill it back then we start to understand okay what are some of the players is an inflammatory response was there an infection where's there a nutrient deficiency or food toxicity where's there something that damaged the genome your genes to set the stage perhaps for something so it really becomes an understanding of if these are the end-stage things how far do we go back and ask the question why to create the evolution of the process so it's always rewinding the movie to say is there a starting point we'll just take me for an example how does a B lymphocyte develop and mature and how do what is its functions and all of a sudden it puts you into these different mechanisms into these different stages of the puzzle piece and then you can really again rewind the movie and drill it down to say wow so cortisol for me could have suppressed natural killer cells genes can get damaged because of inflammation and nutrient deficiency which is probably all happening during that period of time would then set the stage for a disease and so whatever the health issue is people have to focus on not the end stage diagnosis not the end stage pathology but why it happens which really brings up the reason or or the the mindset of functional medicine right where functional medicine really is asking the question why right why does this disease occur know just how to treat it but why is it actually happening exactly look there's crisis care there's drugs there's lotions potions there's bionics and robotics phenomenal thank God we have all that stuff but the reality is that doesn't restore health to anyone we can if we have a greater understanding of why it happens then we can actually go in and reverse work with the the initial mechanisms that created this cardiovascular disease is an inflammatory condition yeah you can stuff a stent in a quarry artery and take a statin to reduce inflammation which is really the power of statins and cholesterol-lowering drugs it's an it's an anti-inflammatory but what damage the artery ask the questions why it's in the history it's in the lifestyle it's in your personality it's in your cultural behaviors it's all there it's all there that's super [ __ ] interesting all right so let's drill into that everyone's different totally get it I'm gonna caveat the [ __ ] out of this but I really want to give people something super actionable let's talk lifestyle at a general level right now the people watching this many many many of them are in a state of ill health whether they realize it or not most of them have brought that on themselves how can people go through the process of changing our lifestyle so that they're least likely to get we'll call the major killers so I think to answer your question the first point and I think it's important is people have to have a vision for what they want one you have to have a vision for what you want maybe you want to get low fat and lean you want to get ripped maybe you want to reverse a disease Prabhas process maybe you want to resolve a gut microbiome you have to have in your mind what you want to have happen that sets the stage as far as the mental capabilities to really start to reverse things and then as as Jack Canfield says you have to just act you have to dive in and act and so I encourage people to act and again when we talk about lifestyle stuff I don't like the word lifestyle I don't like the word prevention because it's just there's like prevention no because it's lackluster yes we want to prevent issues but even if we talk about health as an abstract concept health is abstract until you lose it yeah yeah and so I think if people focus on like the main things that create good health for us it puts them in the control seat it puts them in a path of understanding what's wrong with themselves and repairing themselves diet exercise the mindset does your personality Drive your success of course it does so if people worry themselves sick could they not change the way their brains create vibration in the body to create ultimate health or at least start the healing process absolutely so when you see people overcome these major health challenges what's the first thing you see them do change your mindset that's really interesting so let's pretend for a second this is I love the you bring this in I just got my cancer diagnosis you're my first call what the [ __ ] do I do so one we get all the data we got all the information so if it was like a real-life situation a real thing it's like let's go through the data what is it what we can we do you really have two choices you go through conventional or you don't and I'm not gonna ever tell anybody don't go through do not receive conventional because it saves lives so I'm gonna go conventional yeah my mind sets a mess I'm not taking action and I need now my plan and I'm definitely looking for something prototypical and I'm well aware that there is no one-size-fits-all but I also think that there is sort of a median of if you do this it will help the most number of people first you have to see the finish line and once you're comfortable knowing that you will come out strong with this and be a victor rather than ever believe it that's what you mean by you have to have a mindset right if you say Beetlejuice three times he shows up so what makes you think that you can change the way the body starts to heal as soon as you change your mindset one we have to encourage people to change their mindset not worried just this is a battle that you'll go through but millions of people come out victorious so one it's mindset am i visualizing absolutely visualizing and what do I visualize a tumor shrinking me running a marathon absolutely all above you visualize like I did these natural killer cells these white blood cells natural aggressive white blood cells that go in and their sole job is to get rid of cells infected by viruses and cancer cells that's what they do so for me the first thing was I'm gonna come through this I'm gonna rebuild I'm gonna become victorious the second thing was I'm gonna start visualizing which I did I'm gonna visualize my body destroying things like nobody's business like little mini Hulk's going in there and just destroying things and then that's when I recreate the protocol that's when we say what are the biggest influences of all physiology food and exercise really and so we help people and I encourage people to get rid of foods known to create health issues gluten unrefined you know white flours and sugars unfermented soy spur haps gluten white sugar dairy products and so we we take the offensive things away so the body can start to do what it needs to do and the other thing is like if we're just talking about a cancer diagnosis if people choose to go through the conventional route in chemo which is really toxic and sometimes can be nasty what you do and the actions you take and prevent the toxicity from from overwhelming people what's the number one reason why people stop Cancer Care toxicity and so certain foods that you eat make the chemo more effective certain foods you eat make medications and statins more effective so in absolute abundance of plant paid-for plant-based foods for micronutrients phytochemicals different things to regulate gene function reduce inflammation we also need our macronutrients our protein carbs and fat for a slew of different reasons so people that go through chemotherapy actually they will develop a lot of people develop sark sarcopenia like when I went through it people like hey Z what happened your ass is gone what happened your but it's missing I'm like what and so the body actually will start to devour itself for fuel sarcopenia ism muscle consumption yes muscle loss yes yes muscle loss and so protein fat carbs include fat with your meals include three or four protein sources through the day and plant-based foods every time you eat so you really just want to ensure you that you're getting all the different micronutrients macronutrients at different plant-based compounds that could really start setting the stage for healing and they are some of those companies I heard you talk a lot about like vitamins and micronutrients and stuff I know you've talked about mushrooms you you have a list of like superfoods like what are some of those things that I need to be in taking and why so let's go with the mushroom thing medicinal mushrooms white white button mushrooms maitake Ganoderma all those the data really shows that the compounds there's a sugar in these mushrooms that activate the natural killer cells we mentioned that make them kind of more aggressive and do a better job and so if we want to have the immune system turn on to destroy disease mushrooms are a staple mushroom extracts the beta glucans the carbohydrate the sugar from them are a staple and driving the immune response for health vitamin D is another big one like I I can't tell you how many people are vitamin D deficient what do you think's the perfect number I would say 80 90 to 100 nanograms per milliliter and don't let anybody tell you different if you look at a reference range like a standard lab reference range maybe thirty to a hundred that's a reference range that's not a therapeutic range and what does that have to do with Tom right do you fit in the mass population of unhealthy people a reference range and so where do you fit in that reference range the data shows therapeutically if you get your vitamin D levels up to a much higher level it will regulate inflammation it will reduce the help regulate b-cells and t-cells in the immune response vitamin D is another one do you supplement or try to get it all from Sun I do both because we can't assume that we're going to get enough activation the UV radiation to activate skin to make turn cholesterol into vitamin D so I think it's an evolved item and you can I ask you a weird question this is always like we're talking so it especially for Northern Europeans it just doesn't seem like we would ever have that much Sun like in the winter we would be covered up I'm always hesitant to supplement though I'm I really would love to be convinced otherwise but I'm always a little hesitant to supplement the vitamin D is the one supplement I take but when would Northern Europeans be in the Sun that much to drive up into the 80s well maybe unfortunately not but they can certainly all over the world that we can certainly eat fatty fish for vitamin D right we can eat certain food sources that provide us with a vitamin D the other thing and the other problem that I typically see is you may take enough or eat enough foods with vitamin D but it doesn't show up in your blood so then you have to be the detective and say why isn't it going up is it a different mechanism and the liver the kidney and so we have to investigate further but vitamin D can be had from all your fatty fish it can be certainly had from sunlight you know nothing better than sunlight but there's nothing wrong with supplement why wouldn't you supplement what does the definition of supplement mean it's an add-on you're paving you're patching the potholes in the road so nothing substitutes food can you get vitamin D from grass-fed beef there is a certain amount from from grass-fed beef there's vitamin D and eggs there's vitamin D and a lot of different things you know and again that just makes a dieting unique to people because if you and I eat the same foods we may not get the same effect will we get the vitamin D in there if we both had four ounces of grass-fed beef absolutely how your body is going to digest it absorb it assimilated turn it into vitamin D is then something different so your medicinal mushrooms the king vitamin D absolutely I'm big on cruciferous vegetables so if people are gonna do these three type of foods or take this advice cruciferous vegetables if you can break them down you to get loaded and gassy and different problems with it cruciferous are absolutely the bomb of plant-based foods broccoli cauliflower Brussels sprouts you know they have these compounds these phytochemicals and at one of them being indole-3-carbinol the data in the research is absolutely astounding and certain compounds in plant-based foods make chemo more effective and don't reduce the therapeutic affects certain compounds in plant-based foods even in vitamin D protect us from toxicities protect from these things so if you were to take three things or at least ingest things eat some mushrooms get taken foods that may be fatty fish that are high in vitamin D and certainly your cruciferous vegetables and there's nothing wrong with supplementing nothing it's really interesting I know that people when you were going through chemo they were calling you the Freak because you were getting like the strongest chemo but you were much lower in terms of negative side effects absolutely is that from the protocol that you just described totally is there you talked about intravenous vitamin C as well like I'm really interested for people that haven't seen your own transformation it's bananas seeing you like post surgery and then seeing your physique a couple years later dude it's crazy you like you don't just have a good physique for a normal person like you have a good physique for like a 25 year old who's on T you're 51 yes sir 51 post-chemo ten years cancer-free like at some point it's and this is definitely covered in your book it's not about getting back to zero it's about almost I mean now I'm using my own words but it's like becoming superhuman so what what does that protocol look like is it similar is it my mushrooms my cruciferous vegetables getting my vitamin D like how do we really now start pushing were you able to naturally elevate your testosterone levels like the amount of muscle you put on it's pretty crazy yeah and so I took my health and fitness to a new level because I wanted to I wanted to prove that that my Frankenstein ways would build what I wanted to build what can I do to my body my health what can I do to my blood work my testosterone my vitamin D what can I do to muscle physiology what can I do to a drop foot what can I do to all those things did you have roughly I did from the chemo yep oh [ __ ] so what did you do for that so that was just again I exercised I fired muscles that supported those that area I took specific nutrients as I said the medicinal mushrooms i3c the vitamin D and so the protocol that I basically used you know I would eat for protein sources four or five times a day small amounts through the day I'd eat when the Sun was out not when the moon is out I wouldn't be trying to digest all my food when I'm trying to sleep I ate tons of plant-based foods knowing that if I ate those foods I would start to introduce micronutrients and different compounds to help my body like remould into normal physiology I worked out four or five days a week 35 40 minutes at a clip I made sure that I slept seven eight hours come hell or high water I don't care what the circumstances were I would sleep and the last big thing for me was I pulled the weeds anything that it was negative around me that would cause stress gone that's interesting and you know and again how did you do that you have a practice you're going through chemo these are not stress-free things so how how did you and I like the notion of pulling weeds how did you tend that garden I didn't want to get ill again and I didn't want to have something influence my biology again to maybe set the stage for recurrence remission I hate those words as well but it just sets the negative mindset up for people and I'm a driver you know what my mental mindset as I said when I woke up I'm rebuilding when I got clear and the tubes are out and I'm back at the gym I'm gonna take this to a new level so it's just I wanted to push myself to a different level each phase I wanted to do something different and so as I said the stress is a big thing and there's no stress people like aren't you worried about this that and money if I'm like nope the house can burn down who cares now I really want to talk about that so is it is it you're shifting your mindset and saying I can't worry about that so I'm pulling this weed Oh what if I lose my practice nope it doesn't matter I'm pulling that weed if you lose the practice you could lose your house nope it's fine I'm pulling that weed is it something like that or how do you actually interrupt like using cognitive behavioral therapy speak how did you pattern interrupt that stresses our perception unless it's a physical thing you break your ankles sunburn you know those are physical stressors but there's two things that people need to realize and that I realize one stress is a perception the stress reaction tom is something totally different like we need to separate the two if you can change your perception of the thing that's stressing you out that's finances you get a new car we take a ride somebody hits it you're like oh my God my new car I'm like dude it's metal let's just go get it fixed you'll have a new one next week you know so it's really changing the perception of how we see things and if we can change the perception of it we reduce the stress reaction the physical part of that like right away do you meditate I do well I don't know I don't know if I call it meditation but I I I sit quietly and I tap into the universe and maybe that's what do you mean by that i download I'm downloading at the gym I'm just I'm just i connect I connect with universal laws and energy yeah so for me I just when I put my feet on the ground I thank the universe God whatever may be I thank that that energy source for me being alive I thank it for my intelligence I thank it for my want to help other people and so when I plant my feet on the ground it's the first thing that I do because it sets the stage for my mind set every day every day in the hotel room it doesn't matter every day because then it just helps me set my mind set like you want to have some way to set your mind set so you don't wake up and just go oh my god I got all these things happening and then you're out of your mind your perceptions are off you start to release stress hormones you're eating like crap you're destroying your immune system and here you go you start to brew disease so for me it's it's perception and if I can change my perception daily I time I've been through with life-threatening disease I had the Grim Reaper tapping with me with a sickle so stressors for me just become whatever like whatever what why would I freak out about something one that perhaps I can't control and if I can change my perception what if I can what if I can change the stressful situation to something positive yeah I love that okay so we're back to getting superhuman how do you how do you naturally raise your testosterone levels good Pro for one how much in fact I meant to ask you that so it sounds like you would you say that you eat a vegetable dominant diet would that be a fair way to say it or yeah I think I define myself as a variety Hren I make sure I have three for fried protein sources a day not a giant Brian asuras burger just enough three to four ounces throughout the day so I'm supplying myself with the amino acids and it's it's plant heavy in the sense that I just love vegetables I love plant-based foods and you think of raw sauteing all of them sauteed cook steamed raw in oil olive oil avocado oil I think is the bomb avocado avocado avocado oil is earned on the bomb an equal amount of omega-3s and six it's high in threes and polyunsaturated fatty acids super helpful and it's got a good smoke point so anybody that's gonna cook with it you won't really smoke it and burn it sometimes with olive oil you can and then you turn those fats rancid not that it I mean you'd have to like smoke it to death to burn it but just to be safe I just tell people go cold process go extra virgin whatever it may be so you're not you're not using a process based thing okay right so cold-pressed extra virgin oils is probably your best bet okay yep and so coming back to the plant thing I just eat tons of plants because I like them and I know when I eat something besides the 10 15 20 seconds of chewing it up when I ingest it it's gonna do wonders for me food becomes something that when you eat it if you just understood a little bit about what it did you'd have a different relationship with food rather than people developing abnormal relationships with food with dieting and fad diets and all those things develop a good relationship it gives us life we got 30 feet of tubing that food has to pass through and eating food is the biggest variable in our lives the biggest so why not eat the best why not eat nutrients instead of calories and you watch or buy rebuild and transform so to to build muscle for me to raise my testosterone levels it's all of that it's good food it's getting to bed at a decent hour and not eating carbs at night if you eat any kind of refined belly with even good carbs a night insulin levels rise growth hormone or shut off now you're not activating the systems to create testosterone so all you got to do is just eat when the Sun is out in them and not when the moon is out don't eat carbs at night and your testosterone levels rise and then when you test for them they're high in the morning which they should be right and that's when we test for them so weight training and people say oh you know what you got your body to an unrealistic level no one that's not true but I wanted to take it to a level that I wanted to just see if I can prove what I'm saying really works and the other thing was resistance training pushes testosterone aerobic training doesn't maybe there's a little bit of it does rather than raising cortisol so why not do some weight training as a guy right why not do some weight training and as women like restore bone health get testosterone levels up weight training and resistance training is high-intensity interval training with resistance is the magic that's where it all happens is that how you do your hit cardio you know with resistance I do it yeah interesting so you just live weights really [ __ ] fast yes fast to the point like I'm not going to certainly injure myself but you do a set 45 second break do a set add weight 45 second break do another set add weight because what are we really doing you're increasing resistance and you're not taking a huge break in between yes you need to reoxygenate and yes you need to have glycogen come out of liver and muscle stores and do their thing all that muscle hypertrophy is based on stress so you I want to have hypertrophy happen which is size and strength and then to eat during the day eat after my workout so I create protein synthesis in the muscle all the time so you're not tearing yourself down people don't eat enough then they go to the gym I'm like that yet that is the worst thing to do because then you you elicit a release of cortisol what does cortisol do shuts down testosterone production production and all of a sudden you're doing this for none so it's it's it really is it really does become I think fairly simple once people have some tools eat when the Sun is out not when the moon is out don't eat crappy carbs at night go to get seven or eight hours of sleep at night take specific nutrients to to help repair some of the broken things that may have happened along the way in your life so let's go back to knowing what to eat am i looking for colorful foods am i eating seeds nuts like what is what is sort of the breakdown to be a variety and as I caught myself and and have fun with people when they come up with names for themselves you know and and I understand why people I don't want to say create the identity or label or say I'm a vegan I'm a vegetarian I understand all the reasons for all of those things but sometimes people in my mind develop that kind of negative relationship with foods and then just eating one way well I'll say to people isn't even as I've written in rebuild like be a variety Rijn eat a whole variety of foods and just don't eat things proven to damage our bodies gluten dairy you know as we said white sugars right so that becomes eating all your rainbow colored vegetables all your protein sources from eggs to chicken to fish grass-fed organic free-range and people will say organic so it's expensive it's like maybe but are you are you worried about expense or you are you taking your food and what you buy any as an investment for me it becomes an investment so I'm investing in my health not looking at to two bucks more on a dozen eggs and so the fat is kind of the same thing I just make sure I have fat and I use salad dressings to get the fat I'm not a good fat digester based on stool testing so I'll take enzymes with certain meals certain meals that aren't super loaded with fat I don't I just let my body do its thing what kind of testing do you do that's actually really interesting I've never heard somebody say that they actually test their stool for I'm assuming you there's actual fat in your stool absolutely so what do you test what do you test your blood for when you test your stool for so if if it's just to kind of get a sense as a functional profile for people on what kind of testing what should we do what are we looking for general blood work is good as long as it's specific to the person so as part of a blood profile you're looking at hormones you're looking at inflammatory markers you're looking to see if there's any broken pieces of physiology as far as blood work I had to only check my blood for three things what three things are Jimmy wow that's a tough question yeah buddy I would definitely look at just general blood health your white blood cells your CB complete blood count your white blood cell count all they're just general major things that are happening in the system Bloods I would certainly look at inflammatory markers c-reactive protein kind I would look at interleukin 6 I'd look at tumor necrosis factor those are things that can be tested for that tell you deep-rooted inflammatory things okay and if those show up time then you better investigate why they're elevated interesting and the last thing that I would test for I just do this on everybody is thyroid values and vitamin D just because people want to have energy just because people want to make sure that their metabolic systems are doing their job and certainly vitamin D on top of the blood work which ties into the thyroid we're looking at hormones we're looking at cortisol four times in the day and we're looking at all the that the the androgens and other hormones testosterone estrogen progesterone and getting a picture of what that looks like so we have blood work we have hormone profiling and certainly stool testing so let's say somebody decides to go on a keto diet or something and they're just like it's just my gut doesn't feel right or I eat fatty foods and I my gut gets bloated I'm in the bathroom okay so let's run a stool test because maybe through stool testing as you mentioned before what if undigested fat shows up in stool which can be a problem because you're not breaking down fats and the cholesterol that make things in the body the immune response your cholesterol your hormones and let's say somebody comes in and their hormones are shot maybe because of their lifestyle and cortisol but what if they're not digesting fat well so then an absorbing fat and so we would use stool testing as another one of those functional panels blood work hormone profiling stool testing and now we're getting into the functional gene testing like genes snip testing for muscle physiology fat burning metabolism so there's a functional foundational panel that we do with people blood work stool testing hormone profiling at certain now these gene snips they're awesome they analyze the different functional genes that can be influenced by our lifestyles what we do why are there particular ones that you think people should be on the lookout for no I mean I think it's just it's it's all done at once so as a big profile it's not like we're isolating one thing and if you were anemic and your homocysteine levels were elevated and I said wow Tom you know maybe you're not you have like MTHFR like this big gene that the mother flipper gene right the MTHFR is a gene that if it's will just say broken or doesn't work you don't metabolize B vitamins well folate b12 maybe b6 and so the the byproduct of that like exhaust from the combustion of gasoline is homocysteine and homocysteine as an inflammatory marker which we also check for in blood would say oh you're not utilizing B vitamins well and that could be a problem for you in the future homocysteine can elevate and damage blood vessels so if people are tired and they're just not getting enough energy and we say why don't we run a gene snip and if homocysteine shows up in just general blood work then we dig deeper and that's that's when we uncover some of these gene things which is pretty fascinating very interesting all right you said that you're going to go ham again this summer you're gonna get I'm assuming yolked you're gonna lean by opposition something you talk a lot about I love that telling people to break their obsession with weight anything to think about body composition lean mass versus fat you talk about over fat in your book which I've actually never heard as a single word before but I thought that was pretty interesting walk us through body composition and then tell us very specifically like what are you gonna do to get an amazing shape that someone people are so obsessed with gravity it blows my mind right so I stepped on the scale and say oh what a gravity tell you are you obsessing about gravity or are you obsessing that weight means ugliness to someone like if you look at BMI for somebody at two foot a five foot five bodybuilder at 250 is the same BMI as a five foot five person who's obese at 250 the body composition is completely different so if we divorce ourselves from weight we've just gotten rid of a lot of emotional eating a lot of different things and problems that that we create as a society for people looking to be come healthy body composition is really I want to know the amount of lean tissue to my body fat and what can I do to tweak that on a daily basis how do I change my composition so I remain lean or build healthy lean muscle tissue and and get rid of body fat which is really ultimately what people want to do not lose weight and so the play on words is is we we want to lose fat and not weight and if you lose something what do people typically do when they lose something find it go find it and so people that are trying to lose weight and they're obsessed with gravity they'll get it back instead of focusing on say I want to make my my composition improve and so I tweaked my body composition by eating when the Sun is out no carbs at night I make sure my growth hormone is flowing through my bloodstream while I fall asleep I get seven to eight hours no white lights in the room or blue lights so I shut off and I really do shut off so you control-alt-delete while you're sleeping so you need to reboot those systems as well and then then the magic really does happen and so my routine for working out becomes all hit the gym my hit the gym my hit the gym hard is somebody's different but that's why you have to create your own plan right we can't do the same thing we can't wear the Rings wear the same ring size or wear the same shirt it doesn't work that way so we try to encourage people to create a plan unique to themselves and my personal plan becomes a little bit of cardio high intensity that interval training but more just weights why because it I feel better with it not because I'm a meathead it's just I like doing it it makes me feel good it's when I get my best downloads ah so when you say downloads is it happening automatically you feel connected to some higher power when you're lifting like so movement for me makes my brain function better okay and so have you ever been in a moment where you're either driving talking to somebody or work you're doing something and all of a sudden you're like oh my god this is what I've been wanting to say or think about yeah it's a download it's it's a okay let's call it you know a synaptic explosion in your brain perfect and so I'll get these explosions and a good sense and all of a sudden it's what when do I see the greatest time happens physical movement it's physical movement because physical movement drives posture muscles and joints which all are connected to your brain and your brain lights up and so people have to realize you have to be physically active to keep well and and live to a ripe old age with no disease yes we'll age but we want to age gracefully with no disease and then fall asleep like the woman on the Titanic right you just fall asleep and it's over I mean that'd be the ideal situation but but people have to also realize if you're physically inactive there's the danger yes you have to you have to be physically active wait trained do different things to to activate gene networks and reduce inflammation and really make these things happen in your body but what's the crime when you don't and what happens to your body or anybody else's body when they don't exercise you turn on a whole different set of genes that then start this set the stage for disease here's here's a crazy stat according to medicine some exercise physiology journal they're saying that those that ride in a car greater than ten hours a week increased death by cardiovascular disease 48% whoa yep and so if we look at think of we're not met we're hunter gatherers we're supposed to be moving and doing things and if we don't we're not meant to be on a computer and be on social media all day we're not we just do it because it's just society and culture now but the genes haven't changed evolutionary speaking our genes really haven't changed we should honor them and so the body composition is about certain times of eating when to eat what to eat what are you doing in the gym and how many people do so much cardio that they burn them so systems out can people over exercise yes a hundred percent can they damage themselves from exercise sure of course but if you create something unique to you and you see your body change your health improve then that's your plan right everybody's gonna make general recommendations like how much exercising should people do I don't know that all kinds of data and research says do 30 minutes a day maybe that's not enough for some people maybe it's too much what if you have an impairment or disability maybe you have a metabolic problem where you can't do all of that so I think we just have to be aware that we have to find what works for us some people find that they lean out with a little more cardio some people lean out with weight training I don't you know it's it's unique to the person but body composition is based on what we eat when we eat it hormonal control and certainly exercising and so that composition is really important because as your body fat goes up testosterone levels drop estrogen levels rise and not that estrogen is a problem is how the body manages estrogen and then all hell breaks loose then we get inflammation and body fat which creates more inflammation it's just a nasty cycle so if you were going to because one of the things you talk about the book is assessing your health which i think is really important what should people do is there like a checklist of questions that people can ask themselves to assess where they are I think this section in in the book and rebuild was assessing your health was really setting the stage for someone's mindset and not just to set the stage but to actually have people think about what they do to themselves what they don't do right and so assessing your health through questions becomes more of where do I stand now where am i where I'm on my health journey or not what do I need to think about my future state and what do I need to think about the state that I'm in now for me that became a section or a place where people can really just be honest with themselves because people need to be honest with themselves because if you're not you're not gonna change and then you're gonna blame somebody else like me saying you didn't help me really so is it really that I didn't put a hundred percent into you or that you didn't put a hundred percent into yourself and so I think that section really does like drill it home for people that as you fill it out you're like oh well maybe I don't or maybe I'm doing these things but then changes mindset and if you can reframe your mind you can certainly rebuild your body right and so it's it's it's the mindset it's reframing which is important but that section to me is pretty impactful because we try to help people clinically like here's test you can bring to your doctor to have them do to give you information about cancer heart disease autoimmune thyroid dysfunction hormone problems because all it's all one it's all one giant system working together so the assessing your health I think is is for me just became a way to get people involved right now because if you don't see your faults you ain't gonna change sadly it's true very very is true all right where can people interact with you and your ideas so my website doctors in Brasky calm that people are interested in rebuilding themselves certainly with with the book it's on every major retailer they can get it off my website we if people do download or get the book off my website we give them a gift and the gift is a log book and so part of the things that I did and my pass through my journey was I want to say journaling but it was writing down what was changing and so I thought to myself well why don't we just give people a cool log book a journal where they can record their mental state every day their blood work when they have it every three months or whatever it may be so they can actually track and mark their personal rebuild and so that's our gift to whoever it may be they get alright if people were only gonna make one change what would be the one change they could make that would have the biggest impact on their overall health well that's a tough question so to answer that I think one I mean the biggest thing for me I think we said this the beginning was changing a mindset and you have to have a finish line already set up in your mind right so you have to reframe your mind and then rebuilding your body I don't think is a difficult thing and then a couple other things I mean I think people really need to focus on the major things like eat well and don't things that create don't don't eat things that create inflammation get some exercise even if it's just a little bit socialize with people I mean how do you feel when you're chatting with buddies or or your wife or friends or colleagues there's something about the connection as well and it's just what makes us human so there's a mindset to it there's physical steps I think people can start to take right away and again I don't think there's one thing but if I were to pick the one thing it's all mindset it's all just an attitude it is boom that is a phenomenal period to this dr. Z and he's so much there's so much I was absolutely wonderful my pleasure guys if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends the legendary take care everyone I hope you loved that episode now I want to take a quick second to share about our awesome friends at butcher box butcher box delivers 100% grass-fed and grass-finished beef free-range organic chicken and heritage breed pork straight to your door every month when it comes to cooking it is really hard to find high-quality meat that you can actually trust and with what Lisa's gone through I've realized just how important it is that the food you eat is raised and sourced properly and that's why Lisa and I are so passionate about butcher box every box comes with at least nine to 11 pounds of meat and that's enough for 24 individual size meals and the ship for free nationwide except for Alaska and Hawaii sorry guys we have an awesome offer for you right now to give butcher box a try get $20 off your order by using the link in the description below that's $20 off enjoy and be legendary thank you guys so much for watching and being a part of this community if you haven't already be sure to subscribe you're going to get weekly videos on building a growth mindset cultivating grit and unlocking your full potential

Channel: undefined

Views: 266,157

Rating: 4.8995223 out of 5

Keywords: Tom Bilyeu, Impact Theory, ImpactTheory, TomBilyeu, Inside Quest, InsideQuest, Tom Bilyou, Theory Impact, motivation, inspiration, talk show, interview, motivational speech, robert zembroski, zembroski, rebuild, cancer survivor, cancer, functional medicine, battle cancer, health theory, health, health show, stress became cancer, immune system, cure myself, cured myself, build muscle, healthy, health advice

Id: 1c4wcnEHuWQ

Length: 50min 5sec (3005 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 11 2019