An Insightful Journey into the World of Functional Medicine

Garth Podcast With Adrain Accay Full

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

The podcast episode featuring Dr. Adrian Accay, hosted by the Lifestyle Dentist, explores the transformative journey into functional medicine. Dr. Accay shares his experiences transitioning from a successful pharmacist to a functional medicine expert after facing health challenges. The discussion dives deep into understanding health optimization, genetic predispositions, and dietary impacts, emphasizing the importance of functional medicine in achieving holistic wellness. With engaging and practical insights, this episode inspires listeners to reconsider their approaches to health and well-being.

Highlights

Dr. Adrian Accay shares his journey from pharmacist to functional medicine expert. 🌟
The podcast emphasizes the importance of holistic health and personalized treatment. 🏥
Listeners learn about the impact of diet, lifestyle, and testing on health. 🍏
Functional medicine provides insights into individual health optimization. 🤓
Inspiring approaches to health through genetic understanding and lifestyle adjustments are shared. 🚀

Key Takeaways

Functional medicine focuses on the root cause of health issues and promotes holistic wellness. 🌿
Dr. Adrian Accay transitioned from pharmacy to functional medicine after personal health challenges. 👨‍⚕️
Understanding your body's unique needs through tests can optimize health. 🧬
Incorporating lifestyle changes like balanced diets and regular testing improves longevity. 🥗
Paying attention to mental, physical, and spiritual health is crucial for overall well-being. 🧘‍♂️

Overview

In this captivating podcast episode, host Lifestyle Dentist chats with Dr. Adrian Accay about his inspiring journey from pharmacist to functional medicine expert. Driven by personal health challenges, Dr. Accay ventured into understanding health from a holistic perspective. His transition highlights the significance of identifying root causes rather than just treating symptoms.

Dr. Accay and the host delve into the intricate world of health optimization, discussing how genetic predispositions, dietary choices, and regular monitoring can lead to improved well-being. The conversation is peppered with engaging stories and practical advice, making the complex topic accessible and inspiring to listeners who are eager to enhance their health.

Through insightful discussions, listeners are encouraged to explore the benefits of functional medicine, an approach that emphasizes mental, physical, and spiritual health harmony. Dr. Accay stresses the importance of understanding one’s unique health blueprint and integrating simple lifestyle adjustments to promote longevity and vitality.

Chapters

00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Background In the introduction and background chapter, the podcast host warmly welcomes the audience, particularly lifestyle dentists, to an exciting episode featuring Dr. Adrian Akay. Dr. Akay is spotlighted as a well-rounded individual with a background as a pharmacist, successful businessman, and expert in functional medicine. The chapter highlights his successful transition from his pharmacy business, which he exited profitably, to focusing on functional medicine.
01:00 - 02:40: Personal Health Crisis and Functional Medicine In this chapter, the discussion focuses on personal health crises and the role of functional medicine in addressing them. The narrative includes a story about Adrian's dedication to creating a successful business by fully committing to his goals. Adrian and the narrator have both experienced significant business exits leading to a reevaluation of their life goals and the transition into new life phases. The narrator contemplates adopting a 'lifestyle dentist' approach, which combines professional and personal aspirations to achieve a balanced lifestyle.
02:40 - 05:00: Functional Medicine and Lifestyle Changes This chapter dives into the journey and passion for functional medicine, highlighting an individual's deep interest and engagement with health and functional medicine since 2020. The conversation reflects on personal achievements, shared journeys, and the realization of a lifelong ambition in understanding and practicing functional medicine. It underscores the dedication and ongoing learning process in the field of health.
05:00 - 06:40: Root Causes and Functional Medicine Protocols In this chapter, the author shares a personal anecdote about becoming seriously ill and initially being thought to have an autoimmune disorder. The situation escalates when the doctors suggest it might be cancer, leading to a profound moment of self-reflection and a wake-up call on life's uncertainties. The narrative touches on themes of personal growth and the dedication to learning, as the individual recalls their academic achievements and the desire to contribute positively to society.
06:40 - 07:50: Diet and Nutrition Insights The chapter begins with the speaker describing their early career, starting their own pharmacy business at a young age and growing it into a successful enterprise with multiple locations. Their target market was a niche group, and their business was linked to 340B, a reference to a federal program in the United States that enables hospitals and other healthcare providers to access medications at reduced prices.
07:50 - 09:40: Fasting and Wellness Practices The chapter titled 'Fasting and Wellness Practices' begins with an exploration of how the speaker initially considered taking numerous medications for health issues. This contemplation led to a deeper investigation into functional medicine, sparking an interest in understanding the root causes of health problems. The speaker contrasts functional medicine with conventional Western medicine, highlighting its focus on solving underlying issues rather than just addressing symptoms. This new understanding set the speaker on a journey to wellness through alternative practices like fasting and other holistic health strategies.

Garth Podcast With Adrain Accay Full Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 Hey there, lifestyle dentists. Super pumped for today's podcast episode. It is going to be amazing. Good friend of mine, an amazing all around guy, Dr. Adrian Akay. He is a pharmacist, very successful businessman and functional medicine expert. Had an exit with his pharmacy business, did very well there and transitioned into functional medicine and as usual, the
00:30 - 01:00 killer that he is has just created an amazing business there and has gone all in. And I've ever since I've known Adrian, you've always been that way. You don't do things halfway. Like it's all in or nothing. And we kind of went on a similar journey where we both had exits, so to speak with our businesses and kind of looking at what's the next chapter of our lives. And I was looking at doing lifestyle dentist and enjoy this different phase of life and how you can kind of have it all with your business and your lifestyle.
01:00 - 01:30 And you were really diving deep into functional medicine and health. And so it's been fun watching our journeys together and just watching what you've accomplished, brother. Yeah, I appreciate that Garth. I mean, I'm so happy to be here. And you know, it's funny because health has always been my passion and functional medicine was actually really what I've always wanted to do. Just didn't understand what that really meant. You know, and kind of going back a little bit, you know, I don't know if I ever told you this, but back in like 2020,
01:30 - 02:00 I got really, really sick. And they initially thought it was some type of autoimmune. And then they hit me with the C word and they said, you know, you potentially could have cancer. You know, when they tell you something like that, it wakes you up and you really don't understand like what you're supposed to be doing. And you know, guys like us, you know, we always did good in school, then we get undergrad and we knock it out the park. And then you go to grad school and then you're, you know, your whole life is dedicated to learning and wanting to kind of give back.
02:00 - 02:30 And when that happened, you know, I actually started my own pharmacy business at a young age. So, you know, I worked my way up, I was clinical pharmacist, stepped into the business world. And then I built a really nice business there with multiple locations. And we were very catered to a niche group of people. It was a 340B and which was amazing. And what happens is when I received that kind of unofficial diagnosis and they put you through this kind of gamut of trying to figure out what's going on, a lot of things go through your mind. And the one
02:30 - 03:00 thing that did step into my, you know, kind of force, what I was looking at was I'm going to be all meds. I got to take a ton of meds. And you start reading and you're like, okay, what is going on here? And that kind of is what sparked the whole idea of functional medicine. And you start reading about this and it's an incredible world. And you know, very different from like conventional Western medicine where, you know, root cause, it's very root cause based. And that being said, that's kind of what led me down this rabbit hole and
03:00 - 03:30 then going back to school for functional medicine. And when I stepped away from my business, I thought, hey, I'm never going to do medicine again. You know, like, I'm just going to focus on real estate. That's going to be my thing, you know? You know, you join a group like GoBundance, which is very real estate focused. And but I'll tell you, when you're really passionate about health and that's exactly what you, it's almost like your why, right? It became like everywhere I would go, nobody would ask me about real estate. They're
03:30 - 04:00 just asking about health. Like, oh, well, what are you doing here? And what are you doing here? Well, you've always, at least since I've known you, you've lived it. It's interesting. I didn't know about that with your diagnosis because that is definitely a big part of that journey. But ever since I've known you, I mean, you've been fit. You're a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt, which is just a lethal train killer. Pack. I mean, you've just always been fit and healthy. But yeah, that's interesting that I didn't know about the diagnosis. And I'm sure that was a
04:00 - 04:30 scare, especially being so young and healthy. Yeah, it was very scary. And, you know, it put a lot of things in perspective. It's like, hey, I've been working my whole life and building my whole life. And I had these two young kids and I start making videos of myself. To show my kids who I am, because if I'm not around, I want them to know who dad is. And it really kind of put things in perspective in the sense of what's the most important thing. And you realize that the most important thing is your health. Right. It doesn't matter what you have. It's your health. And that's what kind of pushed me to step
04:30 - 05:00 away from the day to day operations in my business in Philadelphia. And I actually relocated to Florida. Right. Sunshine, beautiful weather. You know, one of the things I hated in Philly was the weather. It's so cold. And I'm the type of person I get. Those winter blues. Right. So and when I went down this rabbit hole functional medicine, I started understanding why I had the symptoms I had and was I living optimally? And yes, physically, I was super fit. You know, like you said, black belt jiu jitsu, I was training, I did Muay Thai, did all the
05:00 - 05:30 combat stuff and then, you know, as well as lifting and, you know, low body fat. But that's not just that's not health. You know, that's a part of health. Right. And there's there's, you know, root cause like what's really happening inside of your body. And then also there's the spiritual side. There's the mental side. There's so many different parts of health that kind of come together and you tackle one. But you can't leave the other stuff on the back burner because it'll catch up. And especially guys like us, you know, whether you're a dentist or a physician or any type of high performer, because let's be
05:30 - 06:00 honest, you know, whether you're in anything in dentistry, medicine, those are high performers. You know, there's a lot of intellect and mental and you're working hard and you're nonstop and you're really you don't realize it, but you're putting a lot of your health kind of on the side there. And for some people, it catches up with them at a certain point. Some people younger than others. And so it caught up to me around the age of 38. And I had to really kind of reposition myself. And then once I understood what it was all about,
06:00 - 06:30 easy, knock it out the park. You know, that's awesome. That is awesome. Yeah. And similar with my journey, because I felt like it's pretty healthy and worked out. I'd Brazilian Jiu Jitsu doing other things and was in the military and just that was kind of part of the BT every day. You know, you kind of stayed fit and tried to continue that on. But I noticed just feeling more sluggish, not the same energy and worked with a couple of different functional
06:30 - 07:00 medicine practitioners. One initially, another one that we both know. And it was amazing to see with real data to get your blood work done. And not just like the basic people think, oh, yeah, I do my blood work every year, every year with my physician. And those basic blood tests are a whole lot. And even though they're looking at what's normal versus what's optimal. You know, and like, for example, testosterone, if your testosterone is above
07:00 - 07:30 250, they consider that normal. Well, that's not optimal. I mean, back in whatever fifties and sixties, it was like guys were like over thousand, you know, that was normal. And so it's amazing when you can get things optimal versus what the Western lifestyle normal is, how things can improve and things that I didn't know. I mean, I had two parasites in my gut that was affecting me, that inflammation in my gut and other things that when I was able to get that all dialed in and eliminated, I had a
07:30 - 08:00 carotid scan. This was something that blew me away. I had a carotid scan and I'd done it when I was 39 nine years before I did the second one and I gave me the score of a 37 year old for my cardiovascular carotid scan. And so I was pleased with that. I was like, OK, two years younger than where I was. And after doing the whole functional medicine protocol for the six months, my score went down to a 16 out of a 16 year old. I mean, like, it's insanity. Incredible. You know, and it's like a real biomarker
08:00 - 08:30 that that shows it worked, you know, whether you believe it or not, it's like, hey, you can't you can't argue with the data, you know, and it's an independent lab. It's not like it was done by the practitioner that was treating me. It was an independent lab. So so, yeah, there's definitely something to that and finding root causes to problems. Well, so so it's funny. So I want to touch on what you just said is so funny that you said the parasite. Right. I went through a parasite cleanse. And not only did I do it, my son and I, we both had
08:30 - 09:00 food poisoning in Spain a few years back and ever since then, you know, he's always kind of complained a little bit from his gut and and I was like, you know, I'm putting him through a parasite cleanse. And three weeks into it, he's like, dad, you got to see the toilet. He had worms. And I was like, oh, my God. And it really helped him kind of after that. There are a lot of issues because you develop a lot of food sensitivities and other things that you don't understand. And sometimes that's all it is, is just parasites, right, which wreak havoc in your body. And
09:00 - 09:30 then you also touched on something really important. You talked about conventional medicine blood labs, which are really there to diagnose for sick care, right, but they're not optimized. And so that's where it really big difference comes in is you could do blood labs and you don't need them from your doctor. Like, yes, you could get them from a physician, but you can also order labs yourself. You can see a functional medicine practitioner to help you get them. And they look at different things. They look at your optimal ranges, right. So like a
09:30 - 10:00 perfect example is blood glucose, right? Your blood sugar. You know, I think typical range is, you know, 70 to 100 and then over 100. It's like, OK, your blood sugar is a little high. But functional medicine range is really between 70 to 85. So if you're like 90, your body's kind of telling you something. So you got to start picking up on those cues. And you picked and you mentioned testosterone. You're absolutely right. You know, like if I'll tell you a funny story. When I was 30 years old, my testosterone prior to me
10:00 - 10:30 being 30, my doctor refused to allow me to test for it. Oh, insurance company won't cover for it, right. I'm sure a lot of people have heard this before. So I never got a testosterone score before the age of 30. When I was 30, I finally did it and it scored 550. Now, I didn't know a lot about that. I thought, OK, that's normal. That must just be where my baseline is. So from 30 until about 39, I was always within that range, you know, 5 535 575. And it would just stay in that ballpark.
10:30 - 11:00 When I started going down the functional medicine, healing a lot of the inner issues that I had and rebalancing my body, my testosterone jumped at 40 to 650 at 41 to 750. And I haven't been below 750 to 800 for I'll be 43 this year for the last two years. So I sit there and I think like, holy shit, had I done this back when I was 30, I'd be at a thousand. You know, I was leaving
11:00 - 11:30 so much on the table just because I didn't understand what was really going on. So it's really important that you do kind of talk to a functional medicine guy and understand some of the root cause stuffs and run through those modalities. Because when you do those tests and again, functional medicine test isn't just blood labs. You have saliva labs, you have hair labs, you have urine labs. Like they look at everything as a collective whole and they put that puzzle together and they can give you a story about what's going on. We should dive into that because I know that's
11:30 - 12:00 a big issue on a lot of dentists. I mean, a lot of people in the group are in their their 40s, 50s. And yeah, things they may still be healthy, but they're not working as well as they could. And how would you I mean, first, and I agree 100 percent getting it tested. What were some things that you did that that helped increase the scores? Yeah, so that's a great, great question. Right. So once you understand how testosterone is formed in the body, right, the the hypothalamus, pituitary, adrenal gland, like how those
12:00 - 12:30 affect, you know, luteinizing hormone from the pituitary gland kind of releases and tells the testes, hey, produce testosterone, right, through late excels. And so it's very important once you understand kind of how the sequence goes, you can start to realize that sometimes it's something as simple as your body under stress. And so when we use the word stress, it's kind of it's it's sometimes interpreted as mental stress. But there are so many different kinds of stress,
12:30 - 13:00 physical stress, right? There are guys who work out all the time, you know, maybe marathon runners or over push their body. What you're doing is you're putting too much pressure on your adrenal glands. Your body shuts down. Your body shuts down on reproduction. Because if you think about it, your body, when it produces testosterone, it's optimizing you for reproduction. When it feels that your body's under stress, it says, hey, hold on a second. You're not in the right environment for reproduction right now. Well, you are. We have to get you out of
13:00 - 13:30 this stress. So it shuts down the testosterone. Sometimes it's not physical stress. Sometimes it's mental stress or sometimes it's oxidative stress. And this is where it's a big one because people don't realize what that is. Oxidative stress is the stress that's happening internally. So when we talked about parasites, we talked about, you know, there could be gut issues, there could be liver toxicity. And, you know, you start to see these things in other in other labs. So like you see your glucose levels going up, you see your cholesterol levels going up. A lot of
13:30 - 14:00 people say, oh, it's genetic. My parents had or whatever. I guarantee you, it's a liver issue because where does the cholesterol get filtered out in your liver glucose, your liver? Right. So a lot of these things end up showing up. Your your liver's backed up and you might need a liver detox and you might clear things out so that your body works optimally. So you decrease the oxidative stress. And now all of a sudden you feel a lot better. You're like, oh, and your testosterone starts to ramp up. I guarantee there's people on
14:00 - 14:30 this call. They think back to a time when they were on vacation and they go on vacation and they're like, man, I feel so much better and they feel more aroused. They feel like they want to be with their significant other more. Well, there's a reason for that because their their body was under a significant amount of stress. Adrenal glands were pumping out cortisol, you know, glucocorticoids and all this. And what ends up happening now is they're not producing testosterone and they go on vacation and they feel better. And now their body ramps up
14:30 - 15:00 again. They're like, oh, man, I feel great. I feel like I was in my 20s again. And then they come back to work and they're like, oh, I'm down. All of that plays a role. So once they start understanding that you start creating the modalities in your life so that you support the actual production of testosterone, proper diet, proper sleep, proper supplementation for things that are missing, you know, all the things that can actually help you kind of get to that next level. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, no, that's and there's so
15:00 - 15:30 many different avenues on that. You're right. Just knowing first what where you're at and then how can you optimize it? And that is interesting with the liver. I did not know on that. Can you dive into on that a little bit more, like just how your liver affects a lot of different things, including hormones? You know, that's the issue with that. Absolutely. So I mean, here, you know, let's look at this, right? What is the liver is job in the body? It's a filtration of the body, right? It's your first pass effect, whether you're taking medication or anything alcohol
15:30 - 16:00 things. So think of the liver as like a strainer. OK, and it has holes in it and it filters out all the junk. Now, over time, whether you're eating a lot of processed foods, plastics, alcohol, all these things start to clog up this strainer. And what ends up happening is as things start to filter through, for instance, cholesterol, they don't all get out. And what they do is they start accumulating. So think about that strainer and your clogging holes.
16:00 - 16:30 And now you pour water in there. Well, it's not going to filter out as efficiently and it's going to start building up. Well, that's exactly what's happening in your body. So taking care of your liver. This is why this whole thing, you know, aside from like alcohol being, you know, inflammatory. But think about drink alcohol, take a liver enzyme test. Your liver enzymes are going to be elevated. Right. Your body, your liver is overworking. It's working much harder. So it's very important to really understand what is the function of the liver and how do I keep it clean and
16:30 - 17:00 optimized so that it can clear out everything that it needs to clear out in the body. And so that's really the main function of the liver. And we're lucky enough that the liver regenerates itself. So all you have to do is provide it with what it needs and it does the rest. No, that is interesting. Because, yeah, I know with with the program I did, I did some sort of a liver cleanse. I can't remember what all was in it, but it was it was like a gut slash liver.
17:00 - 17:30 But what would if somebody want to clean cleanse their liver? What are some different modalities? Well, there's different ones, right? So you have to really talk to a functional medicine practitioner to kind of see because there's an Ayurvedic cleanse, right? Which uses more like herbs. And then there's like milk thistle, like functional medicine, dandelion root and different things that you can do. And you could do it with a fast, right? So you get the autophagy, you clear out the liver. I like to add a binder to that so that you're binding to the things that are
17:30 - 18:00 coming out and you're going to start to see it. Some people have heavy metal toxicity, right? If you have a heavy metal toxicity, then you need a heavy metal detox and then you use a binder for that. Some people could be other things like it could be mold. It could be other things that could be binding to the liver. So I think starting with a basic functional medicine detox and you could find different ones. The one I use is actually from Equal Life. They're great. I know the owner. I know the COO. I know a lot of the team. So I know and I've gone through it and I've gone through other ones.
18:00 - 18:30 And this one I like the most. And so and then you can add to that, right? Like, OK, hold on. This was a basic one that I do. And let's say every quarter I do a week. Right. And then but but there are ones that you'd be like, OK, hold on a second. So I have heavy metal. So let me do a heavy metal detox. I have other issues, parasites. I need binders that go. And so once you understand. So going through a functional medicine and actually doing a test to really understand what that looks like is really important. Don't play the guest game.
18:30 - 19:00 That's what I always tell people. Don't play the guest game. Right. Because you don't know if you're doing more harm than good. That is a good point. That's a really good point. And that's probably my biggest take home with the whole functional medicine journey was know your numbers because otherwise you are. You're just guessing you have no idea what's really going on. And you can test my goals to test at least every six months and just to know where I'm at and get that scorecard. One thing you mentioned, too, was glucose levels. And that's so common
19:00 - 19:30 in the US. Diabetes, prediabetic patients when they get into their 40s and 50s. I can't remember the stat, but I think it was like over half the country they're saying now is either prediabetic or diabetic. There's so many different rabbit holes you can go when you really dive into functional medicine. And I, you know, when you consider big pharma and the Western medicine style of treating health versus Eastern and other options with a functional medicine approach.
19:30 - 20:00 And it's almost you almost get angry initially because it's like, man, it's all we've been lied to. And I know, as you do, I mean, we're both trained in Western medicine as as as doctors. And I know many personally and I know that at least the ones I know are good people, like they want to do what's right. Want to help their patients. They're not they're not like and yet they've been trained in a system that doesn't do anything really on on emphasizing health, on their gut
20:00 - 20:30 biome, on testing to see how do you optimize your life. And so it's all pushed by big pharma. And obviously there's financial reasons for that where you have a symptom. OK, here's a pill. You got another symptom. Here's another pill. And before you know it, you've got people on five, 10, 20 meds a day and their body's so out of whack, you know. Yeah. So, you know, you bring up a really good point and you said a lot there. Right. Because let's dissect a lot of that. So I think I think nowadays, you know,
20:30 - 21:00 Casey Meen came out and talked about this. And it initially started off as something simple. Right. You don't think that there was going to be a long term harm when, for instance, you know, you add a certain additive to a food. Right. Those foods, you know, they're like, OK, how do we prolong the life of this food? We're going to add this additive. But what ended up happening is when everyone started doing these things and adding additives and artificial flavors and preservatives and X, Y
21:00 - 21:30 and Z. And then plastics and, you know, oh, plastic. Oh, it's much easier to produce, like, you know, easier for us to get. And we can ship it, blah, blah, blah. Nobody was thinking, OK, long term effects. They're thinking I'm going to solve a problem. And this is the solution right now. But now that we're seeing this 20, 30 years later, we're seeing like, oh, my God, there's an accumulation factor here that's really caused like hormone disruption and other issues in the body. Now, when we talk about blood sugar, it's a mitochondria issue.
21:30 - 22:00 And so people don't realize that mitochondria really controls your metabolic health. And when we talk about metabolic diseases, obesity, diabetes, these are all cardiovascular. These are all metabolic issues. And so when you're talking about mitochondria, it is the powerhouse of the cell. And when you're young, it's working optimally, you know, you're hitting, you know, 100 percent. So you're fast metabolism. Everything's working great. But as you get older and you have all of these things that we've been added into
22:00 - 22:30 our food supply and water and, you know, products and toxins and these manmade toxins in the US are egregiously high. Well, what ends up happening, they potentially disrupt your mitochondria. And so your mitochondria is now working at 80, 70, 50, 60 percent. And you start having metabolic issues like diabetes, obesity and other things. So what you really have to go if you're going to go root cause, it's like, OK, what's affecting my mitochondria? And so you
22:30 - 23:00 take a look and I actually have a list of like what I call like, you know, kind of like your energy stealers, right? They steal your energy. And then, you know, parasites could be one of them. Toxins, plastics, phthalates, all the and I have like a list of like 30 things. And you start working on one at a time. You start kind of like I tell people, let's let's focus on this for the next month or two, maybe three months. Well, if you focus on each one for three months and you kind of start taking them out of your life, you
23:00 - 23:30 don't you realize your mitochondria will bounce back quick. And then you feel like you did 20 years ago or 15 years or 10 years ago. And so those blood sugar levels are going to start ramping down. Your A1C is going to ramp down. Now it's gotten to the point where it's so bad that they'll tell you, oh, an A1C a 5.7 is not bad. It's normal. No, it's not normal, you know, even your AST and ALT levels. I think I forget what book I was reading, but they were talking
23:30 - 24:00 about the the marker used to be, I think, sub 25 for ALT and AST liver markers. Now it's sub 40 to be considered normal. Right. Which what change did we did we evolve in a different way? You know, it's it's crazy. So it's really just once when you work with a functional medicine, you get to be like, oh, OK, here's what's affecting my energy. Here's what I can do to get it better. And here's where we're going to start. Right. And it's going to be different for each person. And it's a credible
24:00 - 24:30 journey because once you understand it, you do become kind of like an enigma and your own world and every look around like, oh, man, like, you know, I'm doing things different than everyone else. And I stand out. But once you teach that to your kids, you know, you get to affect so many people's lives. And that's a big, big deal. And that's the reason why I really dove into this, because I was doing it for so long just to help people. But I realize, you know, I always teach my kids this and I heard this from Tony Robbins. We talk about levels of leadership, level one,
24:30 - 25:00 two, three and four. And level one and two are kind of like managerial leadership styles. Right. Hey, I tell someone to do this and they do it. And then level two is I tell someone to do this and they do they level one, they do it in front of you. Level two is they still do it behind your back. But it's really like managerial level three and four is where they actually take what you teach them and they start teaching. Others. So level three would be like, hey, I'm going to I'm going to take what I know and I'm going to tell the people close to me. And then level four is like,
25:00 - 25:30 I'm going to dedicate my life to this and affect everyone. Right. Like the Gandhi's and the Martin Luther King's and the people who have really those are those level four leaders. So, you know, I try to teach people about health so that they go around and they inspire the people around them. I want to create level three and four leaders so that the rest of the world can be affected by this, because I think if we all kind of step forward into this world like now, you know, with RFK and all these people who are coming out, you know, the Hubermans and the Ateas and all these people are
25:30 - 26:00 listening now. And then restaurants are going to be like, all right, we're cutting out seed oils and we're going to cut out this and we're going to do this. And it's not going to be so absurd when you when you go into a restaurant, you say, hey, can you make this without, you know, X, Y and Z? Or can I get this instead of it's going to be like, OK, more and more and more restaurants are going to cater to that. Well, it's amazing how and I think COVID was a big part of it and not to go down that whole rabbit hole, but it definitely opened a
26:00 - 26:30 lot of people's eyes on, hey, what we're hearing may not be matching what's really going on with our with our bodies, with our health, with our health care system. And I think functional medicine really kind of exploded, like you said, with, you know, with a lot of Joe Rogan podcasts and Huberman and with RFK now, I mean, first run for president and then mentioning a lot of these things with the health and now he's in health and human services. So, so, yeah, there's there's definitely been an explosion. Well, I think just there's a
26:30 - 27:00 lot of people that are getting into their 40s, 50s and 60s, you know, the baby boomers and beyond that they have disposable income and but they want their health. You know, I mean, we both have realized that you could have all the money in the world. But if you don't have your health, it's worthless. You know, you really can't have anything better than than your health, your relationships, your spiritual and mental well-being. Because that affects everything else. I mean, the money kind of helps pay for the bills. But if you don't have your health and everything else, what's what's the point? You know, it's all meaningless.
27:00 - 27:30 Well, think about this. Think about it. Right. Health care, health insurance. How many of us are paying a thousand fifteen hundred two thousand dollars a month for your family for health insurance? And you're not even using it. Right. It's crazy. But you could spend a fraction of that on preventative health. And you never even need to go down that rabbit hole of like, oh, I need health care now. Of course, you need conventional medicine. It's important. Acute care. Or there's things, you know, like, I mean, without it, we wouldn't
27:30 - 28:00 be where we are today. But I think that the value is in combining both. Right. It's like, hey, maybe I don't need that top tier platinum paying, you know, an egregious amount monthly. Maybe I'll drop down to like a bronze or silver and then I'll use the difference for preventative health. And so now I can live a very healthy lifestyle and I have I have my health insurance to cover anything that goes wrong. Right. And so I think that's really the mindset around it is really understanding because you're absolutely right.
28:00 - 28:30 Like, what is it? A rich man has many wishes and a sick man only has one. I lived it. I understand it. I tell people it all the time. And it's so important that you focus on your health and not just for yourself, but for your family, for the people around you. You know, like I, you know, I sent I sent the message. It was an Instagram that popped up on Raising Lions. It's a WhatsApp chat with some friends. And it said, you know, are you willing to die for your kids? And it's like everyone says they're willing to die for their kids.
28:30 - 29:00 But are you are you willing to eat healthy for your kids? Are you willing to take care of your health for your kids? Are you willing to, you know, spend time on your mental health, on your physical health? Like, what are you willing to do to be there for your kids? I remind my kids all the time. I said, listen, I don't just eat healthy for me. I eat healthy for you, for us. Right. That's my my way of giving back. I don't work out seven days a week. I work out three to four. You know, there's some hit. There's some strength. There's some jujitsu. Obviously, I teach you to do three times a week. But I
29:00 - 29:30 do it. I look at it as this is bigger than me. This is for my family. You know, I want to make sure that I'm here for you guys. My energy levels are high. I'm healthy for you. And so that's how my kids remember me. My kids remember. Dad's got a ton of energy. He's always willing to do stuff. You know, it's great. It's a great memory for your kids with the blood glucose. If and I know it's going to vary person to person and what what they're dealing with. But if you're kind of looking at the 80 20, like what are some good guidelines that anybody that's struggling with glucose, you know, either prediabetic
29:30 - 30:00 diabetic and type two diabetes, you know, obviously not not the type one, but type two that could be prevented. What are some 80 20 things that you'd recommend? Yeah, so that's a great question. Right. So obviously there's if your blood glucose levels are naturally higher than there's something underlining there. Right. And I would say that you want to really dial in and figure out what that is. But some quick remedies is like berberine, right? Berberine taking it with meals will help reduce, you know, that glucose spike. Eating high fiber meals
30:00 - 30:30 will help reduce that glucose spike, making sure that you eat, you know, your your fats and your proteins before you introduce those carbs. What kind of carbs are you eating? Are you eating complex carbs? Are you eating root vegetables and legumes, you know, and things that are actually very healthy for you? People don't. There's this whole movement right now is like, oh, let's go keto or carnivore and that's cut out carbs. And that's such a broad word because there are some really good carbs, you know, and if you're having gut dysbiosis because, hey, I get
30:30 - 31:00 bloated when I eat these lentils or I get bloated when I eat, you know, chick, there's something else there. You know, let's talk about that. Let's not avoid it. Let's talk about it. And so, you know, eating the rice, eating the the gluten free oats, the quinoa, the root vegetables, the potatoes, the yams, the sweet potatoes, the carrots, eating the the lentils, the chickpeas, these are all really good for you. So they'll help reduce that glucose spike. What else you can do is walking after meals.
31:00 - 31:30 This has been my go to. Right. I've been doing this for years. Like after you you have a meal, go for a 15 to 20 minute walk, reduces that glucose spike, right, which is going to lower your A1C levels. And so it's very important that you and it also helps with digestion and then understanding what glucose, what spikes your glucose, right? Getting even if you wear a CGM, a chronic glucose monitor for just a month and you just understand, hey, these are my high glycemic foods and it's going to be different from each person. I mean, there's also, you
31:30 - 32:00 know, there's like berries and all this. Hey, these are low glycemic. But for some people, they might spike them. So understanding what spikes your glucose and being able to kind of navigate that is extremely important. And I say, like, when you do that, you get an understanding of who you are and how your body works, because there's a lot to be said about, I don't want to use the word genetics, but like where your ancestry comes from, right? If you live in a certain area and you ate a certain diet for 10,000 years, and then you come in, you're like, okay, I'm going to eat this diet. Maybe your
32:00 - 32:30 body isn't built for that. And so understanding that and knowing how to navigate it is very, very important. So those are kind of like my quick go tos. If you're going to try to minimize that glucose spike. That is interesting. I did a glucose monitor for a month just to test myself and protein bars. I was eating protein bars like two, three a day. And those were spiking my blood glucose levels, which I wouldn't have thought because it's not sugar, but I don't know if it's just the different chemicals. Yeah. Yeah.
32:30 - 33:00 You see that that's, that's amazing. Right. So then you're like, okay, what's spiking my glucose? Do I really want to cut this out? And if I don't want to cut it out, what can I do to kind of, you know, level alpha glucose, maybe go for that walk or take a berberine. Uh, and there are some people who, who jump on metformin, you know, I'm not going to go into that too much, but I mean, like, you know, jumping on a, a berberine, there's the GLP one movement right now, which is, you know, very interesting how that works, because there's a lot to be said about how much you eat
33:00 - 33:30 because of, you know, certain receptors or hormones in your brain that tell you, Hey, I'm still hungry. Right. So you'll hear a lot of people say like, you know, after each bite, put your fork down or your spoon down, right? Chew thoroughly, uh, make the meal last. And because, you know, I don't know about you, but like in the pharmacy world, we scarf our food down, you know? And so you're in a rut. You just over consume. Your body hasn't had enough time to release the hormone letting you know that you're full. And so you
33:30 - 34:00 want to give yourself some time. So over consuming and people don't realize this is a really important one is that when you eat protein over consuming protein will actually spike your blood sugar, you know? So that's really, really important that, you know, also what else spikes your blood sugar, people don't realize is fasting and working out because when you work out fasted, your cortisol goes up. When your cortisol goes up, your body immediately releases. Like a gin glucose to bring it down.
34:00 - 34:30 Right. And so now your glucose is high. So just kind of understanding all how these things work and work together, you're going to be able to kind of help mitigate that. Again, this is once you've identified there's going to be some root causes and you try to eliminate those as well. No, that is interesting too. With the workout, do you, do you have a little snack before you work out typically or, or how do you do? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You have to eat before you work out. You know, I know there are people who have like different body styles, like they're more endomorphic and they can kind of get away
34:30 - 35:00 with that. But typically if you really want to see like, I feel like results, you need carbs, you know, you need some protein before you get into that gym. So you got to give your body fuel, you know, and then after you get out your body, if you ever test your heart rate, your heart rate is going to be elevated for at least 30 minutes after that workout. So you can't starve it. You want to give it some fuel. So give it a carb, give it an orange, give it an apple, give it a banana, give it something to feed off of. So you'll notice that if you're in strength training, your carb consumption
35:00 - 35:30 should be on the higher end, maybe 200 to 150 grams a day. Right. Versus if you're like live a sedentary lifestyle, maybe your carb consumption should be about a hundred to 150 a day. So there's a lot to be said about feeding those muscles. So say you're, you're going to be working out at 8 30 in the morning, you're dropping the kids off, and then you're going to be doing your, your strength training. Like what would be, I'm assuming maybe 30 to 30 minutes to an hour or whatever before or maybe not, I don't know. What, what would you, what would you typically have?
35:30 - 36:00 So that's a, that's a good point. 30 minutes is great if you do it. So you could do even less than that. You could do maybe 15 to 20. So for me, I'm a big, I'm a big super power food. I focus on the super foods, you know, that give me power. So I do my wild blueberries with pomegranate. I do smoothies and I put kale and I put broccoli sprout. I put turmeric in it. I put my protein shake and I take a multivitamin. I'll do an omega three and I'll throw some fats in there, maybe some
36:00 - 36:30 walnuts. And every day I might switch it up. Might be pumpkin seeds, pecans, selenium, I mean, Brazilian nuts. And then you mix it, you blend it. And now what you have is you have this super shake, right? Think about it. It's got your, your wild berries. It has your, your greens. It has your broccoli, do broccoli sprout is incredible. If you look at the studies, I've been sprouting lately. That's it. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah. I get like this, this salad sprout makes this guy broccoli sprouts in it. Yeah. It's awesome. It's incredible. And then you throw your turmeric in and he's very protein powder and
36:30 - 37:00 you throw, you know, I put some collagen in there as well and you mix it up and put your fat and you take it, dude, you're ready to go. That's like a crazy amount of energy for the gym and super food for your body. Your body's just going to feed off of that. Right. So that's kind of like my routine. And then as soon as I get back from the gym, I usually have like some type of fruit. I jump in the sauna, right? I like to have an orange because it's higher in vitamin C and you're going to, you know, that's the first thing that your body burns. So, and then I go into the sauna. I sauna for about 30 minutes, I
37:00 - 37:30 have an infrared and then from there, you know, I shower and I have like a protein shake or a protein bar or I have something to eat, you know, sometimes it's the can of sardines, you know, high in omega three is a high in protein and I start my day. That's literally my mornings every morning. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's awesome on the diet. Cause I know this is something that's I know for controversial is the right word, but you hear all both extremes, you know, either the vegan, no meat or carnivore where you're just nothing but meat or the
37:30 - 38:00 different, uh, what paleo diets and what, what do you think, and it may depend too on, on people's body types. So that's probably all the more reason to test and kind of see where you're at. But in general, what do you think is for most people is a healthy balance? Yeah. So that's a really, really good question. And it's a very loaded question. Right. Because is it red meat, no red meat, you know, man, I could go so many different directions with this. So just kind of, he's got their opinion, right? I mean, we, listen,
38:00 - 38:30 I've looked at the studies like fit and they're all into, you know, total vegan, you know, Gabe, we know is a machine and he's, he's all vegan. And then we've got guys that, that are great health and carnivore, you know, I think it's more omnivore, but a lot of protein, you know, so what's, you know, so here, here's how I look at it. Me does have like, if you look at the studies there, what is it? Five new AC it's anabolic, right? Me is anabolic. And unfortunately it doesn't just make muscles
38:30 - 39:00 grow. It could make, you know, cancers grow. It can make anything it's your, it's, you're going to make your grow. Now, if you're not at high risk or you don't have these things and your body's working optimally, then eating red meat is not really going to cause that issue. It's not going to be, you know, you don't need to live in that fear. Now, again, understanding what kind of meat is so important, right? Because you don't want things with processed soy, which are going to int, increase your kind of your estrogen levels, your phytoestrogens, which can cause other
39:00 - 39:30 issues, right? It almost defeats the purpose of eating the meat. So the grass fed, you know, where it's sourced properly. And then, you know, looking at things is also, like you said, your body type, right? Are you an APO E two, three, or four genotype? Because if you're a APO E four, then your body's going to react to saturated fats very differently than someone who's an APO E two. And an APO E two could potentially eat, you know, you've, you've heard about these guys who like smoke cigars or cigarettes and drink booze and, you
39:30 - 40:00 know, eat like shit and they lift to a hundred. Well, guess what? You got the lucky APO E two, you know, genes where you can do that, right? And, and that's like 10% of the population. And then you have on the other extreme, the APO E four, the guy who doesn't eat red meat and still has high cholesterol and all these other issues. And most of us fall somewhere in the middle in the three. And mine is, I'm an APO E three, but it's a genetic test. You could do it in a genetic test. Uh, and, and you could figure that out. And once you understand it, then you're like, okay, here's where I am.
40:00 - 40:30 If I eat too much red meat, yeah, it could cause elevated net. And now we go down this other rabbit hole. It's like, well, hold on. My cholesterol is high, but does that really mean anything? Because my APO B is low or my APO a or, you know, and it's not really transporting. And then, well, what about neurogenetic diseases? Right. And then, you know, we can all go into that. So here's what I say. Moderation is key, right? It's very important. And also making sure that your body is working optimally. If your liver's functioning properly,
40:30 - 41:00 if your metabolic system is working great, your mitochondria is great, your gut health is great, you know, and you're taking care of yourself and you're supplementing your deficiencies, you're probably going to be in pretty good shape. You know, now you look at a lot of the blue zones, right? And they're mostly plant-based diets. So, you know, I looked at the studies on these and they were under 20% protein in their lifestyle and their eating habits. And actually only 5% of the 20, I
41:00 - 41:30 mean, 5%, so 20% of the 20%. So 5% total was plant-based. And so plant-based could be fish, eggs, we're animal-based, I'm sorry. We're animal-based. Yes, yes, yes. So you're talking about fish, poultry, beef, believe it or not, most of the things you kind of want to stay away from, you should stay away from pork, you know, and processed meats. These are, you know, high in nitrates. You're not using the cleanest sources. There's a lot of parasites there. So, you know, making sure that you're eating
41:30 - 42:00 clean, like pasture raised, organic, chicken, fish is, you know, wild caught, beef is, you know, grass fed, knowing that they're sourced really, really well and in moderation, you know, not breakfast, lunch and dinner, you know, making sure you eat high fruits and vegetables, you know, because you need your micronutrients, you need your vitamins and your minerals. That's what's really going to keep your body working awfully. Muscle is just one component. But, you know, my vitamin C
42:00 - 42:30 levels are trash and my minerals are horrible. Well, you know, am I really working? Is my body working optimally? Now I'm going to have a mitochondrial issue. Well, and I've heard it's almost a little bit of a balance because like more protein is going to help you build more muscle, but excess protein can decrease your longevity, you know, your overall health and longevity. So yeah, it's, it's kind of that sweet spot. And do you like, say you're bulking up, do you purposely eat more protein then or, or no, like what's your thoughts on? You know, it's funny
42:30 - 43:00 because the society that we live in is very like over consumption based, right? If you go to other countries, you know, the portion sizes are less, the food is cleaner, right? Less preservatives and stuff. So do I eat more protein? I, the key, if you're bulking and you want to get big is going to be not just protein. It's going to be carbs as well, right? You need carbs, but it's very important to understand that you hear this like one gram per body weight, and it's not true. It's one gram per ideal body weight, right? So you could weigh
43:00 - 43:30 180 pounds, but your body muscle is actually 150. And so now people are like, Oh, I mean, 180 grams of protein. And that you probably have some protein spilling, you know, some waste, unless you're like an athlete, right? And you're training twice a day. Your body's probably not using it. And I guarantee you, if you go do a blood test and you look at your BUN, or you look at your creatinine clearance, it's going to be elevated and that's going to tell you something, right? And so also, you
43:30 - 44:00 know, obviously creatine is a really good one that can help, but again, not too high, like two grams a day, you know, you don't need that much cycle on and off, you know, it has, has so many other benefits and it's, it's been studied longterm. So I think protein is valuable. Also timing, protein timing, right? So portion control and timing so that your body's actually kind of hungry, kind of starving a little bit, not overfilling it. We all have this thing where I want to feel full.
44:00 - 44:30 I kind of like to stop before I feel full. No, that's a really good point. Yeah. I love that example of smoothie before your workout. Like if you're just look at, okay, a typical day of, of Adrian's diet, what would, you know, your, your snacks or meals look like in a, on a typical day when you've got time to make it optimal. Okay. So, I mean, this is every day for me, so it's not going to be that hard. So what I do is I have the, uh, the smoothie in the morning while I wake up, I do a glass of warm lemon water with sea
44:30 - 45:00 salt. Okay. And I take magnesium malate with that. So, cause, uh, you know, I have low magnesium, high functioning, fast oxidizer. I'm always going hard. So I need to make sure I take my magnesium. So I do that. Then I go for a walk, right? Well, actually I meditate first and then I go for a walk. Kind of lowers my cortisol levels. And then, you know, I do my smoothie, I go to the gym and I come back from the gym. I sauna I'll do like, you know, it's different. Sometimes the banana with peanut
45:00 - 45:30 butter, sometimes it's a, I'll do like a orange and then a can of sardines. I'll do a protein bar or protein shake. And then from that point, you know, I'm getting ready for work. I'll have my cup of coffee. I don't do any added sugar to everything in my life is just, you know, no sugar, which is it's, it's been a game changer. So, uh, black cup of coffee. I source it, make sure it's mold free toxin free. So, you know, pure, I use purity. And then my lunch is typically around noon. So I'm breaking my fast going into gym probably around seven 30, you know?
45:30 - 46:00 And so lunch is around noon. I have it with my family. Uh, we're fortunate enough to be able to homeschool. So we all have lunch together and I like to have a vegan lunch. That's my thing. So I don't, I like to have, you know, lots of fruits and vegetable. I mean, lots of veggies for lunch and vegan. So whether it's going to be lentils or chickpeas or some type of, you know, some type of vegan lunch, and then at three o'clock I have a snack. And so typically that's going to be again, sardines,
46:00 - 46:30 nuts, protein bar. For some people they might do, you know, I, I don't do well with dairy. So I, I avoid like a yogurt, but you know, I know yogurt with like nuts is great. I, I have my kids do that. And then I have dinner and dinner is always, I have an animal protein, you know, and we, my wife and I decide on what we're going to make on Sunday and I shop for the house. So typically we do two fish, two chicken and one beef. And so, and that's, that's for dinner.
46:30 - 47:00 And it could, you know, we'll have, we make sure that we always have like a carb, a protein and a, and a, and fat, healthy fat. And so that's essentially like how I live my, and then at that point, no more food. It's six o'clock now we're done eating, you know, from six until seven 30, the next day, no food. You've got a fasting window. It's just a practical fasting window, right? That, you know, you're not, uh, going all day. It's just through the night, which makes sense. I mean, cause, and that's, that's something that's, I think most people could, could do that.
47:00 - 47:30 You just stopped eating late. And I saw that too. Like I, when I was not healthiest, I was eating late eating right before bed. You know, sometimes, Oh, what it's going to help me gain muscle, but I just wasn't sleeping well when I was doing that. So yeah, you'll naturally notice your heart rates elevated when you eat late. And the reason for that is your body's actually still warm. So when your body's done digesting, it cools down, right? When it's digesting, it heats up. And so that's going to naturally increase your heart rate. When it cools down, your heart rate goes down.
47:30 - 48:00 And so that's what's going to allow you to kind of sleep better at night. That makes sense. That does make sense. What is your thought on fasting overall? As far as like, do you do a quarterly fast or a day or a weekly fast or, you know, where it's, I don't know, 24, 70 hours. So dude, the thoughts on that. Fasting's incredible. It's the way your body heals. Notice the animals when they're sick, they fast, right? So I do fast. I fast when I fly. That's number one. So that's important because you want your body to kind of be, you know,
48:00 - 48:30 prepared for like any, cause you're being exposed. You know, I'll take like vitamin C and I'll fast when I, when I fly. Number two is I fast 24 hours every week. So every Monday, Sunday night I have dinner and I don't have food again until Monday night. So that's my, I skipped that, that whole day of eating and that's my 24 hour fast. So I need to, I want to get that autophagy going, right? I do my daily, you know, 12 to 13 to 14 hour window. Typically it's about, it's closer to 14 hours and that's, I would say
48:30 - 49:00 six to seven days a week, you know, on weekends, I cheat a little bit. You know, we might, we might eat a little later or I might wake up earlier. So I make sure I like go to the gym. I teach just so on Saturdays at seven. So I like to eat before I go there. And then quarterly I will do a detox and part of the detox, there's a 48 hour fast. And so I'll fast, actually it's probably a little bit more, it's more like 50 something hours, but let's just say two days. So, or it's 60 hours, but yeah, so I will fast for
49:00 - 49:30 those two days. And that's pretty much it for me when it comes to fasting, like every quarter I'll do that and then weekly. And I, I feel great, you know, like it's, I'm tracking everything. I test every three months. I'm making sure that everything is dialed in. You know, I adjust my supplement stack, you know, my omega threes. I'm testing to make sure that they're good minerals, everything you name it. I just run it. And you mentioned on minerals, the sea salt or a Himalayan salt. What was the salt that you like in the
49:30 - 50:00 morning? Yeah. See, I use Redmond sea salt. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Any other electrolyte or mineral type supplements that you like or, or just get it through your food or what you thought? Well, so I think this is, this is a big one too. This is something that people really need to understand. Number one, if you sauna, you're going to burn electrolytes, right? So you need electrolytes do not sauna, do not sauna without, do not sauna, unless you're taking in electrolytes because you're going to lose them quick. That's the first thing. Second thing that's really, really important
50:00 - 50:30 is testing what your mineral content is, for instance, elementi, right? Unflavored super high in sodium hundred, I think a thousand milligrams. Now that may be great for someone who has low sodium, who has a, on a HTML on a hair tissue, mineral analysis, their sodium levels are low. Potassium might be high. You need to kind of boost up the sodium, but what if your sodium levels are already high? What if you're stressed out and your body's holding on
50:30 - 51:00 to sodium and it's retaining it and now you're adding more to it, you know, what are you doing to yourself? So really understanding, you know, there's, there's all these different electrolyte, Ultima, and then you have elementi, there's keto, which is higher in potassium. So for me, I don't see as one being better than the other. I think it really goes back to what your mineral and electrolyte levels look like, and then you start there. So for me, sodium potassium are good. Calcium is good.
51:00 - 51:30 So I'm like, magnesium is not. So let's up the magnesium and then kind of see where they fall into my ratios. And so that's been my focus. I'm not going to go there and start adding a ton of electrolytes or minerals. That's just going to spike them all up. That's a good point. That's a good point. Get, getting back to knowing your numbers, making sure you know where your numbers are so you can, you can dial it in from there and all that makes sense. Hey, on sleep. And I know this is a whole nother could be an hour long conversation with sleep, but with the 80 20, what are your thoughts on
51:30 - 52:00 optimizing sleep and what are some, some things that people probably are doing to wreck their sleep? And I know I've been there. Well, there's a lot of things you could do to wreck your sleep, right? You could drink alcohol and eat late and drink water before bed and, you know, check, jump on your, your phone or your iPad or your computer or watch TV. And, you know, all these things can destroy your sleep workout before bed. I think if you work kind of backwards from there, right? It's like making sure you're not eating three hours before bed,
52:00 - 52:30 drinking two hours before bed, turn off all electronics, right? Don't look, don't be in that blue light, making sure that, you know, you create a really good bedtime routine and keep it consistent, right? Your bet, your optimal bedtime is, you know, between 10 to six, wake up to natural sunlight, get your cortisol curve, you know, in order. And it's super important. You want to get those eight hours of sleep. You want to make sure that your, your REM is as between 25 to 30% of your sleep. And your, your deep is about 20 to 25%.
52:30 - 53:00 And the reason for that is because your deep sleep is where your physical body kind of heals itself. And, you know, you're, you're, you're actually clearing out all of the bad cells and, you know, also your immune system is kind of optimized. And then your REM sleep, it's really important too, because that's where your mind kind of declutters and puts everything in place. And you'll notice that a lot of people wake up mid sleep. And sometimes, you know, it could be from urination. It could be from a glucose spike, could be from a cortisol spike, but it also could be from a mind, like
53:00 - 53:30 you didn't mind dump, you know, and, and especially for, for guys who have a lot on their plate, they're constantly thinking and those things kind of sit in the back of your head and you wake up in the middle of the night and you're like, Oh man, I forgot to do this. Or like, what happened? And you start going down this rabbit hole, you know, mind dumping will help with that a lot. That's a, that's a part of stress, a de-stressing. Uh, and I do so many other things for that for sleep, like meditation and grounding and breath work and, you know, breathing before you sleep and journaling and, you know, you could just keep adding, but I think, and blue
53:30 - 54:00 light, I don't expose myself to blue light. You know, I wear the dark, uh, the blue light blocking at night. Uh, and it's super important to make sure that you kind of do these things. Now there are deeper issues for sleep, right? Where people could be suffering from gut issues or, uh, or liver toxicity or other, their parasites that could be keeping people up, but understanding just the kind of the surface level. When you saw 80, 20, those are kind of your 80, 20 things. That's awesome. This has been incredible Adrian seriously. I mean, we could go on
54:00 - 54:30 for another couple hours. I want to be respectful of your time. I'd love to have you back too, by the way. This, this was awesome. As far as people that would like to get to know you better or apex functional health, where could they go to learn more about you? Yeah. So I really appreciate this time with you and you know, these thoughtful and amazing questions. You know, obviously both of us really, we love this stuff, but if someone wants to reach out and find out more, you want to do a lab test or you just want to like jump on a discovery call and kind of tell me what's going on in your life.
54:30 - 55:00 And I'd love to hear that. Uh, you can go to apex, functional health.com. And if you want to email me directly, you could email me at Adrian at apex, functional health.com. And I'm very responsive and I'd love to jump on a call and get to know, uh, each one of your viewers. Thank you so much. And we'll put that in the show notes too. Adrian, sure. Appreciate you, man. Appreciate you. Well, that's fantastic. Thank you guys. Get out there, make this is one more way to add, you know, to your life to really become a lifestyle dentist. Take care.