How Food Can Fix Your Mood With Heather Lounsbury

If we want to repair our broken health care system and move culture towards true, long-term sustainable wellness, then medicine must embrace a a new approach to healing. An approach that's so new, it's old. Less reductive, more holistic. Less diagnose & prescribe and more all-encompassing, functional and preventive. Let’s kick start that conversation. This week's guest is nutritionist, acupuncturist, herbalist, Reiki Master and expert Chinese Medicine practitioner Heather Lounsbury, author of Fix Your Mood with Food*. Although she gave up meat nearly 30 years ago for ethical reasons, Heather was a junk food vegetarian with zero interest health until hers hit the skids. Moody and constantly fatigued, she began experimenting with nutrition and was astonished to discover the extent to which she could modulate her physical and emotional vitality relative to the types of foods she would eat. This realization lead Heather to pursue graduate degrees in nutrition and Chinese medicine. Today Heather is a well respected clinical practitioner with over a decade of experience treating patients with a wide variety of mental, emotional and physical issues. Her basic message? Live natural. Live well. Food has a far greater impact than we recognize on not only our physical health but on our mental and emotional health as well. Not only can proper diet (amplified by additional holistic healing measures) alleviate stress and elevate your mood naturally, it can prevent and often reverse a wide variety of chronic infirmities, including heart disease, elevated cholesterol, digestive issues, diabetes (diabesity!) and more. Over the course of our conversation we discuss: How pain and digestive disorders can be holistically managed and alleviated; How holistic healing practices can be used to treat mental health & addiction issues; The importance of progress over perfection; The role and function of certain herbs on physiological functions; Primer and origin of food allergies; Thoughts on GMO’s, Omega- 3 EFA's & Supplementation; and Addressing the social barriers that impede healthy eating. Lots of good stuff to chew on this week. I hope you enjoy the conversation. Peace + Plants, Rich Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 0:44Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  You know, we've all done it. We're human. We're going to make mistakes a million times a day. And, you know, whatever it is that you consider a bad habit or a bad way to respond to things, like, you know, it's all right. It's a learning process.

• 1:18Rich Roll?

  That was Heather Lounsbury, and this is episode 125 of the Rich Roll Podcast.

• 1:34Rich Roll?

  The Rich Roll Podcast. Hey, everybody. I'm Rich Roll, ultra-endurance athlete, bestselling author, wellness evangelist, lifestyle entrepreneur, husband, and father of four. Welcome to my show, where each week I sit down with the best and the brightest, the most forward-thinking, paradigm-busting minds in health, wellness, fitness, sports, nutrition, the arts, and entrepreneurship, to help you discover, uncover, unlock, and unleash your best, most authentic self. Thank you for listening to the show. Thanks for subscribing to the show on iTunes. Thank you for spreading the word on all your various social media networks. Thank you for subscribing to my newsletter.

• 2:16Rich Roll?

  Thank you for clicking through the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases.

• 2:27Rich Roll?

  All right, so I want to open this week's podcast with a quote. It's a quote by the inventor, Thomas Edison, and it goes like this. "The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest her or his patients in the care of the human frame, in a proper diet, and in the cause and prevention of the disease." That's right, Mr. Edison, you prophetic inventor genius guy, you. Indeed, the future really needs to move, and I'm seeing that it increasingly is moving towards this holistic approach to healing. Medicine that is functional, medicine that is all encompassing, that is less reductive,

• 3:10Rich Roll?

  less diagnose and prescribe, and more preventive. And I really think that as we enter into 2015, it's time that we all start thinking about how our personal approach to our own healing and health in general can be less reactive, less reductive, less diagnose-prescribe, less pharmaceutical-based, and instead, more forward-thinking, more holistic, more functional, more preventive. So, I thought it would be cool and fun to kickstart that conversation with today's guest, Heather Lounsbury. She's cool, and she is my first diet and nutrition-oriented guest of 2015. So who is she?

• 3:53Rich Roll?

  Well, Heather is an expert and someone with higher degrees in Chinese medicine. She is a plant-based nutritionist, she's an acupuncturist, an herbalist, a Reiki master, and she's the author of a recently published book called Fix Your Mood with Food. And she deals with digestive disorders, pain management, mental health, addiction issues, and we have a really cool, really comprehensive conversation that touches on all of Heather's aforementioned specialties, as well as things like the priority of progress over perfection, and the role and function of certain herbs on physiological functions, which is really cool and fascinating. We talk about food allergies, we talk about GMOs, omega-3s, supplementation, social barriers

• 4:38Rich Roll?

  to healthy eating, acupuncture and its relationship to addiction, and also Ayurvedic medicine. Basically, tons of good stuff. So let's go talk to her.

• 4:54Rich Roll?

  I'm really intrigued by everything you do. I love your message. And what's so interesting about your work and your advocacy is that it's diversified. Like, you're doing lots of different things. You're an expert in Chinese medicine, you're a nutritionist, you're an acupuncturist. All of these things, of course, orbit around, you know, this idea of wellness. But the intersection of those makes you powerful.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 5:21Rich Roll?

  You can serve your patients, your clients, in many different ways.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And that's one of the reasons I chose this form of medicine, is I feel like I can help more people this way by getting to the root cause of their issues and not just putting a Band-Aid. And there's so much, when it comes to Chinese medicine, there's so many options on how to treat people, since it's over 5,000 years old.

• 5:43Rich Roll?

  Right. And I want to get into what Chinese medicine is, exactly, because I think there's such a mystique surrounding it. But one of the things that I always talk about and say is that wellness, true wellness, you know, isn't just what's on your plate. It encompasses everything. It's a mind-body-spirit equation. It's trying to balance all of these things and have them all work harmoniously. And if you're just focused on nutrition without looking at the other aspects of what it means to be mentally well, physically well, then you're really only addressing one aspect of that equation.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I do get comments, especially from vegans who are a whole-food, plant-based, like, "Oh, well, I eat the right foods. Everything is just automatically going to fall into place." And I really wish it was that easy. But the world we live in today, the amount of pressure we're under, the amount of toxins we're exposed to, the amount we have to work, all those things, food unfortunately isn't always enough.

• 6:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, if you're super stressed out at your job, and you have some depression, and you're not exercising, you can eat salad all day as long as you want, but how healthy are you really?

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 6:58Rich Roll?

  Right? So this is great. So explain to me, exactly, like, how would you define Chinese medicine? What is it exactly? Like, it just, you know, it conjures up images of, you know, guys with Fu Manchu's and brewing herbs in some basement somewhere.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Well, that does happen.

• 7:16Rich Roll?

  I know, it is part of it. That idea exists for a reason.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Yes. Well, the medicine, as I said before, is over 5,000 years old. And it incorporates so many aspects of health. Acupuncture is a big part of it. Herbs are a big part of it, but also your spiritual growth is part of it. Like, all the acupuncture points have a spiritual name to them. Because originally, you know, 5,000 years ago, men in caves were the ones that kind of figured out the map to all of this. So they were on this spiritual path on how to remove suffering from the world and in our own personal lives. So it's got a very deep part of it, but you can also go to an acupuncturist who only treats pain

• 8:01Speaker 01

  and pops a few needles in, takes them out a half an hour later, and that can be effective as well. But I personally like to do it from more of an emotional, spiritual aspect. And the herbs, yes, you can cook herbs in a basement and they're really stinky.

• 8:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  But you can do them. I do everything in powdered form, so they still don't taste so great, but you just mix them in with a little bit of warm water and chug it down. And Chinese medicine basically can treat anything you can think of. So whether it's headaches, allergies, blood pressure issues, cancer, Alzheimer's, and stress, PMS, and anything in between, it can help with.

• 8:43Rich Roll?

  So it's really this intersection of acupuncture, which is kind of its own thing. It's a subset of Chinese medicine, right?

• 8:50Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:50Rich Roll?

  And then being an herbalist.

• 8:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:53Rich Roll?

  That's the other aspect of it. And then, so is there another kind of prong there?

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Well, there's so many. Because the medicine's so old, there's some Tai Chi is a big part of it. And Qigong is a big part of it. For your listeners who don't know what that is, that's a form of sort of physical exercise. It has a spiritual component to it, similar to Tai Chi, but it's also energy work. Guaxa, which is...

• 9:20Rich Roll?

  Never heard of that.

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Guaxa.

• 9:23Rich Roll?

  That sounds like some kind of Hungarian gula.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  traditionally you would use a deer antler and I don't I use a porcelain spoon of course to rub certain points to either release pain or emotional issues because each point has an emotional release to it and cupping a lot of people have heard of cupping now because celebs have been shown with cupping bruises and it doesn't hurt at all and that can be done for treating pain releasing fevers and also releasing repressed emotions.

• 9:57Rich Roll?

  So how did how did these guys 5,000 years ago figure out these these points on the body that could be you know sort of activated to alleviate you know pain symptoms or help balance out your your you know biology like how did this all come about I mean it's fascinating because it's so mysterious like you you put a pin in your you know under your skin in one place and you know I don't know your shoulder and then suddenly your Achilles heel feels better like it just seems it seems like bonkers right how did they how did they how did they even begin to figure this stuff out?

• 10:33Speaker 01

  Well, the the main theory is that it was divinely inspired as I said before it was it was kind of the norm for people to meditate in caves for decades and so that's one theory that it's divinely inspired like they just were given this information

• 10:51Rich Roll?

  from the It was transmuted from the galaxy, right? From the higher power.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Yes, and also a lot of the points are set up based on the stars so you could use astronomy to correlate the different points.

• 11:05Rich Roll?

  Oh, that's amazing.

• 11:06Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:07Rich Roll?

  How did that work?

• 11:08Speaker 01

  I honestly I don't have an answer because it was I wasn't I mean I think I might have been around during that time but

• 11:14Rich Roll?

  In your past life?

• 11:16Speaker 01

  In a past life, yes.

• 11:17Rich Roll?

  Well, I would imagine you probably were.

• 11:18Speaker 01

  Yes, I know I was definitely a doctor of Chinese medicine in past life, so.

• 11:22Rich Roll?

  That's a fact.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  That that is 100% fact.

• 11:27Rich Roll?

  So we're gonna verge into conspiracy theories about how actually the human population began with some kind of alien invasion. Because this is such advanced technology, how could they figure this out with the stars?

• 11:42Speaker 01

  Well, it's pretty, yes, it could be aliens gave us the information for sure. One of the things that I find so amazing is they did know before we even know what nerves were, what certain points did, because sometimes there is a direct correlation. I'd like to point out, and it's also in my book, on each side of the spine, there's points for specific organs and specific emotions, and we now know exactly where that point is, the nerve comes out of the spine to go into the liver, the lungs, the kidneys, the spleen, and there's no way they could have known that

• 12:16Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 12:17Speaker 01

  thousands of years ago. So there's no, there's no real, solid, concrete answer, because back then, everything was passed down orally, there was no written text, and the first text was about 2,500 years ago, so we don't have any kind of

• 12:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's amazing that they were able to figure, I mean, they must have just been sticking pins in people like crazy.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  What does this do?

• 12:41Rich Roll?

  I know. I mean, it makes sense when you say, oh yeah, if you're hitting this nerve that's coming right off the spine, and we know, you know, we know that that leads to, you know, this organ, or what have you, that, that obviously makes more sense. But what is it about, what is it about sticking the needle in and sort of poking this nerve that has the desired impact? Like, how does that work?

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Well, we know now with studies that have been done using MRIs in certain points, that there's a point on the foot by the big toe that helps with vision, and when you needle that point, it shows up in MRIs, the part of the brain lights up that's in control of our eyes. So why that happens, we still don't have an answer.

• 13:25Rich Roll?

  So even like the best scientists don't know?

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Don't know yet. Well, there's so many studies being done in China that hasn't been translated yet, so... They might have more answers than we have, but as you mentioned, the shoulder, there's a point on the calf that helps shoulder pain. Why? We still don't have an answer to it, but I've done it on hundreds of people and everyone feels a difference.

• 13:48Rich Roll?

  Right. And it's this idea of what's the, what is the term, like meridians or something like that?

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 13:53Rich Roll?

  Like, yeah, so explain that.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  Well, there's 12 main channels with our, our body's energy flows throughout the body. And it's called Qi. Many of your listeners have probably have heard that term. And Qi is our body's energy and it flows in specific patterns. And also goes into each of the organs to energize them and help them do whatever their purpose is. So each point is on a meridian. Well, most of them, because you can do points that are off meridians and that's, we'll try to get into that. But say the point most people know is the point, it's sort of the fatty part of your hand by the thumb. And people are like, oh, I heard that helps with pain. And yes, that, that does help with pain, but also helps with stress, also helps with constipation.

• 14:41Speaker 01

  And what it does is moves the Qi that's stuck at that point. And spreads out and goes through each of the channels to get things moving again.

• 14:50Rich Roll?

  Interesting. Yeah. Qi being energy, but you know, the Qi doesn't show up on the MRI, right? This is a, this is sort of a theoretical concept that is proven out just through practicing and sort of evaluating the results.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Well, there are tests being done now that shows there are specific patterns to our body's energy flows. And they haven't called it Qi, but we are, we are making improvements on proving it. Cause that's, that's definitely something that with Chinese medicine, oh, there's no proof that it works. But obviously I've seen it in my own clinic day after day, but there's lots of studies out there that prove. That it does work, but I feel like it wouldn't have stuck around for this long if it wasn't helping people.

• 15:29Rich Roll?

  Right, it's definitely stood the test of time.

• 15:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:32Rich Roll?

  So, the concept essentially is that your body has, you have these systems of qi and there's blockages. And the idea behind optimal health is to make sure that all the qi is flowing properly and is in balance with all of the meridians, right? Is that accurate?

• 15:50Speaker 01

  Yes, you actually said it perfectly. You said it better than I could.

• 15:54Rich Roll?

  So, but everybody's walking around, nobody's in perfect balance, right? Everybody's got blockages or there's an imbalance of this system versus that system.

• 16:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, even newborns, because I have, my youngest patient was six days old. And the mother brought her child in because it was having a lot of digestive issues. So even, you know, as soon as you come out of the womb, you can have imbalances because things you're going to have genetically passed on to you and any stressors the mother was going through during the pregnancy and also depending on what food she was eating, what toxins she was exposed to. So even fresh out of the, fresh out of the womb, there's going to be some imbalances. But we can, through our lifestyle changes, through diet, exercise, and whatever kind of form of meditation or de-stressing that you do, acupuncture can all get things realigned.

• 16:44Rich Roll?

  Interesting. So when a patient comes into your clinic, you know, generally they're going to tell you what's off or wrong or what they want addressed. But let's say they didn't and they just laid down and you had to evaluate the body. Could you ascertain where those imbalances are or are you relying on them to?

• 17:01Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't rely on them at all, actually.

• 17:03Rich Roll?

  So how, yeah, right, the unreliable narrator, as you would say in screenwriting.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  Yes, so there's several ways. Just watching a person walk, I can sense if there's any imbalances or any pain. Their face, because you can read a lot on the face on what's going on with someone with their organs. And I take the pulse. And in Chinese medicine, there's nine pulses on each wrist. So

• 17:29Rich Roll?

  Nine pulses.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Yes, it's very, very different. I can spend up to five minutes feeling a person's pulses. And each, each organ has its own separate pulse. And then there's different depths and qualities and strengths. And I mean, I could spend your whole podcast explaining it because it's taken me, I've been licensed now for 13 years. And I've been seeing patients for 15. Like I still am learning because it's such an exact science to it. But I can tell if someone has digestive issues, if they're about to get sick, if they have problems with their prostate, if they're anemic. And with pregnancy, this is a fun one. I can usually tell what's the sex of the baby is in the first trimester.

• 18:11Rich Roll?

  No way.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:11Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 18:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:12Rich Roll?

  Do you keep track of that?

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 18:14Rich Roll?

  So what's your, what's your record?

• 18:16Speaker 01

  I'm 85% I think accurate, which isn't bad.

• 18:20Rich Roll?

  So what is that? So how do you determine that? Like, what is the signal?

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Well, there's one pulse that represents the kidneys and the uterus on women. And depending on if the left side is stronger or the right side is stronger, then that tells me if it's a boy or a girl.

• 18:37Rich Roll?

  Because?

• 18:39Speaker 01

  It's just, there's yin on the left side and yang on the right side. So if it's-

• 18:44Rich Roll?

  It's not yang, it's yang.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Yang, it's young.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  So left side would be female, right side would be male, if that one's stronger. And it's interesting, one time I had a patient come to me and I said, oh, you're definitely having a girl. Two weeks later, she came back and she goes, do you still think I'm having a girl? She had had an ultrasound. I said, no, it actually feels like a boy now. She goes, I'm having a boy.

• 19:08Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 19:08Speaker 01

  So.

• 19:09Rich Roll?

  That's amazing.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:11Rich Roll?

  That's, that's incredible. All right. So I'm going to make you read my pulse when we're done here. But just looking at my face, what's, what's wrong?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Well, take off your glasses. Can you do that for me?

• 19:23Rich Roll?

  This is a good podcast.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Yes. I would say some adrenal fatigue.

• 19:27Rich Roll?

  That's definitely true.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  And maybe some issues with either anxiety or sleep.

• 19:33Rich Roll?

  Uh, yes.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Okay, those are the two that really stand out for me.

• 19:36Rich Roll?

  I've had a stressful couple of weeks.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:38Rich Roll?

  I'm a little overextended.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:40Rich Roll?

  So, good diagnosis.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  Thank you. And I also look at the tongue. You can see what each organ is doing from the tongue. So that's a great way to diagnose. Depending, we're supposed to have a nice pink tongue with a thin white coat, no cracks, no jagged edges, no spots. And I've only seen, I think, out of the probably 4,000 tongues I've seen, I've maybe seen two that were perfect looking. So, I don't know what that says about the state of things.

• 20:08Rich Roll?

  They're just better people, I guess, right?

• 20:12Rich Roll?

  So, when someone comes into your clinic, I mean, what is the typical issue? Like, what comes up? You know, what do you see that people are suffering from?

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Well, I'm seeing, everyone is stressed out, which is very sad. I've, it's so rare that someone comes in, "Oh yeah, everything's easy. My job's great. My personal life's great. All these things are just working together." So much, everyone is really stressed out. So, stress is a big one that I work on. A lot of people are having digestive issues. Part of that is food allergies. Part of it is eating dairy. And part of that is the overexposure to antibiotics and genetically modified foods. So, it's become, and just in the 15 years I've been seeing patients, more and more people are coming in with digestive complaints.

• 21:02Rich Roll?

  Interesting. Yeah, you know, when I was younger, I don't remember anybody talking about things like ulcerative, ulcerative, ulcerative?

• 21:11Speaker 01

  ulcerative colitis.

• 21:12Rich Roll?

  Colitis and, you know, issues like this. And it seems like there's a lot of people that are suffering from this. I think, you know, from what I understand, a lot of people, this is a result of taking antibiotics throughout their life, and their gut is just shot.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:28Rich Roll?

  The microbiome in their gut is just upside down, and it's...

• 21:33Rich Roll?

  Difficult for it, once it passes a certain point of no return.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, pretty much.

• 21:37Rich Roll?

  You can take as many probiotics as you want, but it becomes a very difficult chronic condition.

• 21:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I've definitely, I've cured people, I hate to say that word, but I've cured people with ulcerative colitis through herbs, acupuncture, and dietary changes. So it can be done. And it's not just taking antibiotics, it's antibiotics in animal foods, because 80% of antibiotic use in the US is animal agriculture.

• 22:03Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  So anytime someone eats, has a glass of milk, or has a burger that's not organic, they're ingesting antibiotics. So anyone who isn't eating plant-based is obviously getting exposed at least once a day, if not several times a day, to antibiotics. So that's a big part of the problem.

• 22:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's amazing. And that kind of brings up the other aspect of what you do, which is being a nutritionist.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:26Rich Roll?

  Right, a plant-based nutritionist.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 22:28Rich Roll?

  So where did you, I mean, where did all this begin for you?

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Well, it's kind of a fun story. When I was in ninth grade, I decided to give up meat. And I even asked my mom's permission. I was such a good little kid. I said, Mom, can I, can I try being vegetarian for the summer? And she goes, well, as long as you cook your food, sure. And I totally did it wrong. This was also in the 80s, so there was not as much support as we have today, and there was no internet. So I basically just cut out meat, but I was still having Doritos, I was still having Lucky Charms for breakfast, and just a horrible, horrible diet. And that made me anemic. And we got the diagnosis that I was anemic from my doctor, and he said, well, just start eating meat again.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  And I knew that was never going to be an option for me, so I started studying nutrition.

• 23:18Rich Roll?

  The reason was just compassion for the animal?

• 23:21Speaker 01

  It was purely ethical, yes, at the time. I just started doing, excuse me, more research on it and found out the environmental impact, the health impact, and, you know, workers and how they're treated, and factory farms. So it just wasn't an option for me. So anyway, I started studying nutrition for my own health. I loved it so much that I started studying herbs. I got books on what supplements did what, and I worked at a food co-op throughout college.

• 23:50Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  And also worked at a vegetarian restaurant as a chef in Germany. For a while and loved it so much. I'm like, I should be doing this for a living. So, and eventually it took me quite a while to give up dairy, but finally did.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  And my leather shoes.

• 24:08Rich Roll?

  That's the tough one. Getting, I mean, for, I mean, my personal experience was when I stopped eating meat, it wasn't that rough of a transition, but, but kicking the dairy was a lot more difficult.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Yes, it's so highly addictive. And you, you know, we have the association to eating certain meals and like, you know, I want my ice cream as a treat and mom used to make this for me or whatever it is. So there's also the emotional component, but.

• 24:33Rich Roll?

  It's associated with love and comfort.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:36Rich Roll?

  And it's also in everything, you know? It's amazing.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 24:41Rich Roll?

  I went to, I have some like dental problems that I'm sorting out right now. And I have like root degeneration, like I have a lot of exposed roots on my teeth.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  Ow.

• 24:53Rich Roll?

  And they're very sensitive to cold and things like that. So the dentist gave me this stuff to put on like, oh, this will desensitize. You know, you rub this stuff in, it fills the pores and it will help you. And it's like all made out of milk casein.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 25:08Rich Roll?

  The whole thing. I was like, I can't use it. Like there's milk in this like dental treatment, you know, like it's in, and it just made me realize like, you know, really you have to be vigilant when you start cutting dairy out. You realize so many of the foods you're eating, you don't even know.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's hidden. Cause I remember when I first gave up meat and I was definitely curious about veganism. Cause I, I joined PETA, cause PETA is from Maryland and that's where I'm from. And.

• 25:34Rich Roll?

  Where in Maryland?

• 25:34Speaker 01

  I'm from College Park.

• 25:35Rich Roll?

  Ah, I'm from Bethesda.

• 25:37Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 25:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  Oh, we might have crossed paths at some point.

• 25:40Rich Roll?

  Well, my, my time in College Park was spent in bars and getting pulled over for DUIs.

• 25:46Rich Roll?

  I was not at the, working at the co-op in, in, in College Park when I was in high school.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Oh, well, people were drinking at the co-op too, believe me. Um, and where was I going with this?

• 25:57Rich Roll?

  Uh, I don't know, dairy?

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Oh, dairy. Yeah. So I started, I was curious about switching to 100% plant-based. So I looked into the cheeses that were available and there was, I think, only one cheese at the time that was non-dairy, but it still had casein in it. So like, what's, what's the point? If you're trying to not eat dairy, but it still has casein in it. So it took, I don't remember when the first, the actual vegan cheese came out, but it didn't exist that I could find back then.

• 26:26Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, it was Slim Pickens.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 26:28Rich Roll?

  You know, I remember my mom would take me to the natural market in Bethesda and it was just like a, it was terrible. You know, it was just like big vats filled with like, you know, terrible tasting granola. And, you know, it was everything that you would imagine the stereotype to be, but that was, you know, 1982 or something like that. To imagine, you know, what's available now at Whole Foods. It's, you know, it's kind of extraordinary.

• 26:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I, I tell people now that are younger or just new to eating plant-based, like there was one soy milk, one brand of soy milk, one flavor of soy milk, and that was it. There was no almond milk. There was no hemp milk. There was no rice milk. There was, there was it. And it used to just come in a powder in a can that you had mixed with water and it was awful.

• 27:11Rich Roll?

  I'm sure it tasted terrible. I know. Well, the flip side of that though, is that it's never been easier to be a junk food vegan. And I think there's a, there's a psychological thing that takes place where, oh, you know, I'm not eating meat anymore. So automatically I'm healthy, but you know, you can just be pigging out on all of these sort of, you know, meat and dairy free alternatives and convince yourself, you know, it's probably, some of them are healthier than others, but really it's easy to trick yourself into thinking you're, you're eating a better diet when in truth, you know, you very well may not be.

• 27:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely, and eating things as close to the ground as possible is my motto. And obviously, I'm not 100% perfect with that all the time. I definitely have my junk occasionally, but as close to the ground as possible is how you want to eat your food.

• 27:59Rich Roll?

  Right, so you studied Chinese medicine, but then you also separately-

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Studied nutrition?

• 28:05Rich Roll?

  Studied nutrition.

• 28:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I took some nutrition courses as part of my master's degree in Chinese medicine, so that's where I got the Chinese- because I also do Chinese nutrition, which hopefully we can talk about a little bit today. And then I did, I think probably over 3,000 hours of continuing education in nutrition. I haven't actually gotten an official license for it, but I've just had that be my continuing education over the last 15 years, so that's where it all comes from.

• 28:30Rich Roll?

  Interesting. Yeah, I find that with the exception of, you know, a certain select few nutritionists, people like Andy Baladi or Juliana Hever-

• 28:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:42Rich Roll?

  -most of the nutritionists that I come across are very resistant to a plant-based diet. And I've- my theory is that it's a result of whatever curriculum they learned in their, you know, when they were schooled in this.

• 28:58Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, it's just like medical doctors. They think medicine and surgery are it, the only answer, and sometimes that is the case, of course, but they- that's all they know. So it makes sense.

• 29:11Rich Roll?

  Right, and then, you know, I've started to like kind of pull the covers and learn more about how the whole world of, you know, professional nutrition works. And I love following people like Andy online and people like Michelle Simon because they're constantly shining a light on the extent to which big food companies are integrated into nutrition education. You know, I think even yesterday, I retweeted something that Andy had tweeted about, it was a picture of some nutrition conference and Coca-Cola had a huge stand, you know, "We're here to educate you and look at all our amazing options," and, you know, how these-

• 29:53Rich Roll?

  These professional organizations are actually funded by companies like McDonald's.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:58Rich Roll?

  It's incredible.

• 30:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, no wonder the misinformation's out there. And I can tell you, I have some patients who are on play for the Dodgers and the Lakers and so forth. And what they're given to eat, and these men are worth millions upon millions of dollars. And you'd think that they would want to feed their machine the best way possible. But they're given basically meat, white rice, and some overcooked vegetable, if they're lucky, and Gatorade and soda and water. And that's it. And that's usually their options if they're going to eat whatever's given to them when they're training.

• 30:32Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Yeah, I mean, I talked about that on the podcast with Brendan Brazier, because he's worked with a bunch of professional sports organizations kind of coming in and looking at what the athletes are doing and how it can be improved. And, you know, in some cases, they're very open to it. You know, they understand, especially athletes that are kind of in the twilight of their career, who are looking to extend their professional, you know, career a few years longer, they're open to it. But there's a lot of resistance, too, because it's like, what? You're telling me to do something different than everyone else is telling me? And how powerful the marketing messages are from the Gatorades of the world, saying, this is what you need to do to refuel or what have you. And to say, no, that's actually junk, is flying in the face of, you know,

• 31:16Rich Roll?

  every billboard, every commercial, every sort of, you know, message that you see throughout your day multiple times. That's just playing on your subconscious constantly since you were a young child.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, they've done such an amazing job. I joke that Mad Men, the men of Mad Men, would be so proud of what we have made of marketing today.

• 31:35Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 31:35Speaker 01

  It's everywhere. You know, high schools are getting, you know, they're getting all these messages about what to eat, too. And, you know, and elementary schools even. And it's horrible. They're starting these consumers off, so they'll be addicted for life.

• 31:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, of course, and I've said this before on the podcast, but you know, you go into high schools and you see Got Milk posters hanging on the walls of the gym and you're like, what? Like this, this, you know, why is, why is this, you know, organization allowed to advertise in a public school?

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:07Rich Roll?

  And you realize like, oh, they're just getting to kids very early. And it's that intersection of government and giant commerce where, you know, it goes to, it goes, it goes all the way to the top to the K Street lobbyists and what's going on in the legislation on Capitol Hill that allows these things to, you know, happen and including the food pyramid or the, the food plate.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:29Rich Roll?

  Called all of these things.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  And I remember when I was in high school, I would get teased because I would have to bring my own food. And one teacher came over to me, I think he was Seventh Day Adventist. He goes, you're vegetarian, aren't you?

• 32:41Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 32:42Speaker 01

  And I wasn't bringing, I did discover hummus, I think in my junior year, and I've been hooked on it ever since.

• 32:48Rich Roll?

  When you were in high school?

• 32:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:50Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it must've been really radical to be eating that way, you know, at that time.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And even just, you know, the suburbs of Washington DC would think that it would have been a little more mainstream because there's so much political activism there. But I think I was one of a couple vegetarians in my whole high school and there was 2,000 of us or something.

• 33:10Rich Roll?

  I had one friend growing up, Eric Melanie, and he was vegetarian. And I just remember just thinking like, wow, he's so extreme. And like, you know, he was the only kid that anybody knew, but he was like very firm in his conviction and felt very strongly about it. And his family supported him. And they had all kinds of animals at their house and rabbits and stuff like that.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 33:32Rich Roll?

  And, but I just remember thinking like, how odd, you know, instead of like, you know, look around today and it really has changed a lot, you know, for the better. The openness of people to, you know, sort of consider this way of eating has never been more mainstream. So that's exciting.

• 33:48Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. That's really exciting.

• 33:49Rich Roll?

  It's gotta be fun for you to see all of this, you know, you've been doing this for so long to now kind of have the world, you know, embracing it in a new and different way.

• 33:58Speaker 01

  It's definitely, well, it's great because people are more open to it with the patients that I treat. Family members are more open and just to see, you know, the fact that there, Whole Foods does even exist now. And of course, they have plenty of foods that aren't that great for you at Whole Foods, but the fact that it exists and they're humongous and they're always busy. I've never been into Whole Foods that wasn't packed full of people. And I was, you know, it's fine that I went through that period of being the weirdo, but it's definitely nice and refreshing to be like, oh, Heather knew what she was talking about.

• 34:32Rich Roll?

  Right. So, so back to how you kind of treat your patients, you have the acupuncture aspect of it. Let's talk about the herbs a little bit, because this is where it gets mysterious, even more mysterious than sticking needles in your body.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Well, Chinese herbs, I of course only use plants to treat my patients, but there are a few animal products. Most of them are illegal that are part of the Chinese pharmacy. So if you go to an acupuncturist who wants to give you herbs, they can't give you bear bile or strange things like that. But there is the

• 35:04Rich Roll?

  Bear bile?

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:05Rich Roll?

  There's some really weird ones, aren't there?

• 35:08Speaker 01

  Yes, deer antler is a, is another one. Cicada shells.

• 35:12Rich Roll?

  Elk antler velvet. I think it's, I think it's shown to boost testosterone, right?

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, it gets the, the

• 35:19Rich Roll?

  Exactly. Yeah, that's a popular one.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  It's very popular, unfortunately, but you can do plant-based herbs that help just as much. There's an herb called horny goat weed is the direct translation. And for

• 35:31Rich Roll?

  Is it appropriately named?

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Yes, it is.

• 35:33Rich Roll?

  All right. This is a Viagra alternative?

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Yes, it's a Viagra alternative. And how I learned about it in school was, most of my teachers were Chinese. And my teacher at the time, she goes, sheep eat it and get very busy, was her, was her way of describing it. So the same happens for humans. And that works on women, too. So if you have a low libido, it can help women, too.

• 35:57Rich Roll?

  All right. So that's one. What are some of the other common herbs that you work with?

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Well, I use rhubarb roots on a lot of my patients and that's a mini detoxifier and also helps With the constipation, so that's a big one. And I use Astragalus root. I'm trying to think of ones that people would actually know. And that helps the immune system. And it also has a special effect where it helps all the herbs that are in a formula go to each of the organs. So it sends this message to them to not just go to one place, to actually feed the whole body.

• 36:33Rich Roll?

  Like an adaptogen.

• 36:34Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly. So those are just a few off the top of my head. Ginger, ginger is great for immune system. It helps with upset stomachs. It helps with parasites. So that's a good one. Turmeric, I use in formulas a lot for people who have some kind of muscle or joint pain because it's great for inflammation.

• 36:55Rich Roll?

  It's a, yeah, it's a very powerful antioxidant, anti-inflammatory.

• 36:58Speaker 01

  It does, yeah, turmeric does a lot of things, but traditionally in China, they used it for, actually, shoulder pain was its main focus. And then, so cook with turmeric if you're having any shoulder issues, people listening. But it's meant mainly in the Chinese pharmacy for treating pain.

• 37:15Rich Roll?

  Right. I mean, I use turmeric a lot. Like, it's great for recovering from training. It's amazing. It's very, very powerful. And I just saw an article, I think it was published in N B C I. It was a study that said turmeric was more effective at treating depression than Prozac.

• 37:32Speaker 01

  Oh, I love that.

• 37:34Rich Roll?

  I know. So I don't know who did the study or anything like that.

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Okay, I'm gonna have to look into that.

• 37:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I'll send you the link to that.

• 37:39Speaker 01

  Okay, thank you.

• 37:40Rich Roll?

  But it goes to your point, really, which is, I mean, essentially, what's behind everything that you do is this idea of self-regulation, right? Of achieving health, a balanced wellness, not through pharmaceuticals, but through a holistic approach.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, and getting to the root cause and not just fixing the symptoms. Because if you just deal with the symptoms, the issue will come back, or it will come back in other ways. So it's really important to get to why you're having the problems that you are, and then it won't come back.

• 38:12Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  And then just maintaining health after that. Because I always recommend patients coming to me every month or so, just to maintain health, so they don't get sick again.

• 38:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, we don't talk enough about the fact that, you know, I don't know what the percentage is, but it's gotta be extremely high of the medications most commonly prescribed to people for whatever is ailing them, really don't do anything about getting at, addressing the cause of what's going on. They're just alleviating symptoms.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  So you're basically told you have to be on this the rest of your life?

• 38:42Rich Roll?

  And it just perpetuates the problem. And it sort of takes even talking about the problem off the table to, you know, completely.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:49Rich Roll?

  So, you know, the easiest, most illustrative example is Viagra, right? Like, if you're having difficulty getting an erection, that's because you have some, you probably have an arterial blockage, or it's an early indicator. It's like a canary in the coal mine for heart disease. So if you just take Viagra and think that you've dealt with the problem, problem solved, you're not looking at what could be a much bigger problem down the line. It's like nature's way of telling you, like, hey, wake up, there's something going on here.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Something very wrong.

• 39:19Rich Roll?

  You can't keep living the way that you're living, this is gonna get worse. You take Viagra and then you don't think about it anymore. And then you get sicker.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Then you get sicker. And also, when you have issues with plaque buildup, you're high risk for a heart attack. When taking Viagra is the last thing you would want to do, as if you're high risk for heart disease or have heart disease. And I've definitely seen several male patients over the years that were prescribed Viagra with no thought in mind as to the consequences of taking it. And there's also can be an emotional-

• 39:50Rich Roll?

  It increases your blood pressure.

• 39:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, uh-huh, and your heart rate, obviously. And also, there can be an emotional component to impotence. So if you're not dealing with whatever that is, that can haunt you in other ways as well, like lead to more depression, insomnia, and even more intense illnesses. Like, there's, in Chinese medicine, it's believed if you-

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Suppress your frustration and anger, to a certain point, you can develop Alzheimer's.

• 40:20Rich Roll?

  Interesting.

• 40:22Speaker 01

  So, take care of the problem.

• 40:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's, I mean, we could sit here and list out, here are all the herbs, and this is what they do, but I think it takes someone with, you know, your level of experience to really know, because it's not, it's not just one thing. You have to address everything at once and find a way to make sure that everything is in balance. Like, it's that, it's sort of like what T. Colin Campbell was talking about in his book, Whole, like, this very, what's the term that I'm looking for? When you just identify one aspect of what's wrong with you and treat that in isolation.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:00Rich Roll?

  Without really looking at the implications, you know, on everything else.

• 41:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, you definitely need to treat the whole body, and that's, with herbal formulas, I put anywhere from 10 to 20 herbs in a formula, so I'm not just treating the one main issue that my patient is concerned with. I can treat several things at once. So, say, someone comes in to me with chronic headaches, and they also have issues with digestion and fatigue, and maybe a history of panic attacks. I can address all of those in one formula.

• 41:33Rich Roll?

  Interesting. What would you do for someone suffering from migraines? That's my, my wife has had for, you know, for a long time, like, has tried so many different things.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  Well, talking about herbs that she, because it's not herbs that you would just be able to just buy over the, over the counter. So, there's herbs, there's one called Chuanxang, that's really great for migraines. I use that in all my formulas with people with migraines. And then, depending on when they come, how often they come, where, the quality of the pain, there's so much to headaches and migraines, so it's not just, okay, I have migraines, I'm gonna give everyone the exact same thing. So, I can't, sorry.

• 42:18Rich Roll?

  No, it's all right. I'll have to send her your way. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's a good answer, right? Because you can't, you can't know. Like, it's not like, oh, take this and problem solved. I mean, we're in this culture where, you know, we want to just biohack. Like, oh, here's the miracle thing you've never heard of that's going to solve that problem. And you don't have to think about it anymore. And, you know, nature doesn't work that way.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  No, not at all. And I can say, like, the common colds, I get a lot of people saying, what should I take for a cold? Like, well, there's like over 100 versions of a cold. How it started, how long you've had it, what your symptoms are now, the progression of symptoms. So there's, there's so much more to it. And obviously, you could go to Whole Foods and say, what, what herbs, what supplement should I take for a cold? And it might work for you, but it might, and it might not, but it might not be the best and ideal formula for you.

• 43:08Rich Roll?

  Right. What about food allergies? What kind of food allergies do you see people coming in with? And how do you determine what they're allergic to?

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Well.

• 43:17Rich Roll?

  Or even that that exists?

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Yes. Well, pretty much everyone's allergic to dairy and just doesn't want to look at it.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  And it's amazing how many patients have come to me with these symptoms and have gone to every specialist for whatever it's manifest, however it's manifesting. So it doesn't have to come up as digestive. You can have skin issues, you can have depression from food allergies. I have one patient, she's featured in my book, who had panic attacks directly connected to her food allergies. But usually I'll say, especially if it's someone new to what I do and new to me, I'll say, you know what? Just for a week, don't eat gluten or dairy and see what happens. Because so many people are allergic to gluten now. If you're not allergic to it, I'm okay with people having some, some wheat.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  And just see, and most of the time they come back to me, their next treatment say, I'm feeling better. But you can have a lot more allergies than that. So there are great blood tests to see specifically what you're allergic to. And there's ones that focus more on vegetarian foods. So you're not, you know, spending, you still, they'll still test for, for animal products. But they'll, they'll also do things like chickpeas and flax seeds and stuff like that, that are regular. Blood test won't do.

• 44:36Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. So what are, like, if somebody's listening to this and they're eating dairy, or maybe they're resistant to the idea of giving up dairy, what are some of the symptoms that, that manifest with somebody who is having an allergy to dairy?

• 44:50Speaker 01

  Headaches, mostly on the forehead, but it can be an overall headache, but food allergies usually manifest on the forehead if you're gonna get headaches from them. Any digestive issues, so it could be going to the bathroom too much, or not enough, gas and bloating, fatigue after meals, acne is another big one, but also eczema and psoriasis are all...

• 45:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I've heard tons of people say they gave up dairy and suddenly this lifelong problem that they had with whatever kind of rash they get on their skin, or acne, or whatever just goes away.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  And if you have chronic congestion from hay fever, that can go away because dairy promotes mucus. And, what else am I thinking? And just a low immune system, so if you are prone to catching colds, and dairy might be a big part of it, but, and dairy also causes inflammation, so if you have joint pain, it might be from dairy.

• 45:48Rich Roll?

  Interesting. And then with gluten, I mean gluten's, you know, sort of, I guess, not really, but semi-controversial. It seems like the pendulum swings, is swinging, you know, all over the place these days, like, oh, you know, gluten is the worst thing ever, and then, oh, it's a bunch of nonsense, all this gluten thing is overblown, you know, how do you find sense in all of this?

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Well, I think a big part of it is wheat is so genetically modified at this point that we're not, it's not really digestible, it's not meant for human consumption, so that's a huge part of why people are having such a strong response to gluten, but it's also, we're exposed to it in everything. It's kinda like dairy's in everything, gluten is in everything, and if you, even if something's really good for you, if you eat it every single day, and sometimes several times a day, you can get sick from it. So even kale, kale's not something that might upset some people on here, but even...

• 46:44Rich Roll?

  You should eat things in season. I mean, we weren't like, you know, if you wanna be like, quote-unquote, paleo about it, like, how did our ancestors eat?

• 46:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:55Rich Roll?

  They didn't, you know, they weren't like eating a certain kind of produce 365 days out of the year.

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 47:01Rich Roll?

  They were eating when it was in season. It gives the body like some seasonal, you know, ability to adapt and eat different things.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's very important to eat seasonally as much as possible. I know people who live in colder climates, it's not as easy. But I always say, if you can't get fresh produce, if you're in a colder climate, then frozen's the next best option. Obviously, fresh is always the best. And, but yeah, we're in Southern California, we're really spoiled. We can get food.

• 47:33Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 47:34Speaker 01

  The only thing I eat that's not local on a regular basis is bananas. That's the one thing that you can't really find locally grown bananas.

• 47:42Rich Roll?

  Right, right. Well, the idea of frozen fruit is interesting. I mean, do you know Jeff Novick?

• 47:47Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, so Jeff's big on frozen fruit and even frozen vegetables. Because this idea is that, that it's frozen right after it's picked, so it retains its freshness.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:59Rich Roll?

  So if you go to the farmer's market, or you buy your produce at Whole Foods or whatever, it's still been, you know, how many days has it been sitting around since it was picked?

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 48:08Rich Roll?

  And actually, it seems like crazy, like, oh, frozen, I'm not gonna eat frozen vegetables, I'm gonna get fresh. But actually, maybe it's fresher.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:17Rich Roll?

  It seems weird, like, I still struggle with that. Like, I would much rather eat it, you know, from the farmer's market.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, again, we're lucky here, we can do that. When I've traveled, like, I was in New York recently, and I was talking about eating locally grown food, like, well, in December, there's not really many options. Like, maybe some apples and some squash, but that's it. So, the next best option. I wouldn't rely on it all the time necessarily, but it's definitely better than getting something flown from across the world, because it's lost almost all its nutrient value by then.

• 48:50Rich Roll?

  Frozen, organic, though.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  Organic, always organic.

• 48:53Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which brings up, which brings up the next thing, which is GMOs, another controversial, you know, subject for a lot of people. But, you know, I think it's, it is the, it is most prominent in our wheat products.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:09Rich Roll?

  You know, that's, and I really do see, I mean, you know, nobody was talking about gluten and wheat sensitivity when we were kids. And now, you know, it really is a thing. And like, just experimenting on myself, I feel better when I don't eat. Gluten, when I don't eat wheat and like my research is done, like what else do I really need to know about this?

• 49:27Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 49:27Rich Roll?

  And this is not your grandmother's wheat.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  No.

• 49:30Rich Roll?

  You know, maybe if you can find some kind of heirloom wheat that is really pure and grown in a different way and see if that has an impact on you.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Well, there's einkorn is the traditional wheat or more traditional wheat, but that's hard to find and it's definitely not going to have the texture that we've become accustomed to, so it's an.

• 49:47Rich Roll?

  Einkorn, I've never heard of that. How do you spell that?

• 49:49Speaker 01

  E-I-N-K-O-R-N.

• 49:53Rich Roll?

  Uh, where would you find that?

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Um, you can sometimes get pastas and cereals, um, but actual einkorn that hasn't been processed at all, I haven't been able to find it, but maybe online, there's a way to get it.

• 50:04Rich Roll?

  Tastes terrible.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's not, it does not have the texture that we're used, that's the thing.

• 50:09Rich Roll?

  It's not going to taste like Wonder Bread, right?

• 50:11Speaker 01

  No.

• 50:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Um, and I actually, it's interesting, you mentioned your scene, how you felt, uh, how you feel when you've had wheat. I, when I was doing my residency, I had a patient who was French and she would go back to France several times a year and she said to me like, Heather, I don't understand when I go home, I'm having baguettes, I'm having croissants and I'm fine, but here I have one bite of bread and I'm miserable. And that sort of a light bulb went off in that moment, like wow, because they're, the quality of, of food in Europe is, is way different and way better than what we have for the most part, so.

• 50:44Rich Roll?

  So if somebody comes to you and says, you know, what's the deal with GMOs? What's the response?

• 50:50Speaker 01

  Uh, I say stay away from them as much as humanly possible. Unfortunately, it's hidden in a lot of things and they've done a very good job as of not being allowed to label foods genetically modified and hopefully that will change. Um, because there is now studies, besides the digestive issues and the food allergy issues that can come with genetically modified foods, there are studies showing that. There's cancer, increase in cancer and tumor growth when you eat genetically modified foods. So that to me-

• 51:19Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think they did these experiments with mice that were growing tumors like crazy.

• 51:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, humongous tumors. So, you know, and it's not always an option. And if you're on a budget or live in a part of the world or country that it's hard to get a lot of organic food, then just, I say, do your best. But wheat, soy and corn seem to be the most commonly genetically modified foods. So if you can at least do those, you can buy things in bulk, you can buy things online that will be cheaper than going to Whole Foods for sure.

• 51:52Rich Roll?

  That brings up soy, which is another kind of, within the sort of plant-based, you know, universe of nutritionists, I found it to be kind of divisive. There's a camp of people that say, I don't know why everyone's so worried about soy. Soy is totally fine. And another camp that's saying, yeah, you should really avoid soy. And so what I've always kind of, how I've navigated that is, I do eat soy, but I make sure it's non-GMO and preferably fermented. So like tempeh and things like that. Is that, I mean, what is your take on that?

• 52:25Speaker 01

  Well, soy, if it's not genetically modified and you're not allergic to it, is good for you. But definitely stay away from the highly processed soy products that are out there, like doing a lot of the fake meats. And as a side note, people, if it's the only way you're going to give up meat is by eating the mock meats, go for it because you will slowly transition. Because, believe me, when I first started eating plant-based, the junk that I used to consume, and that just doesn't sound good anymore. But soy is safe. Non-GMO soy is totally-

• 52:59Rich Roll?

  Non-GMO.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  Yes. Because I always use the example that Japan has the lowest breast cancer rates in the world and they eat soy sometimes every single meal.

• 53:07Rich Roll?

  But they eat natto.

• 53:09Speaker 01

  Yes, but they also have meat. I wouldn't, I'm not a-

• 53:12Rich Roll?

  Explain what natto is, natto is to people who might not know.

• 53:17Speaker 01

  Well, it's a ferment, I've actually never had it. So it's the fermented-

• 53:20Rich Roll?

  I'm afraid.

• 53:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:23Speaker 01

  I know Dr. Mercola is a big fan. He doesn't like the plant-based thing, but he likes Natto. So yes, miso soup, tempeh, some tofu would be fine. Just don't become overly dependent because again, if you eat too much of it, you can develop an allergy and soy is hidden in everything as well. But it does not cause cancer and it does not affect a boy's masculinity or future masculinity.

• 53:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's the thing, that the phytoestrogens that everyone talks about that can, you know, lead to, you know, men developing man boobs.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:57Rich Roll?

  And screwing up women's menstrual cycles and things like that. That's not true?

• 54:01Speaker 01

  No, and I always, I jokingly use this example, but there wouldn't be over a billion Chinese people if, if it at all affected your testosterone levels or your masculinity because they're eating soy every single day too in China. So, and there was the big controversy with soy that I can't remember how many years ago that's now been around, like, oh, phytoestrogens, evil, evil. But that was all funded by the dairy industry. So whenever something doesn't sound right, like soy is really bad for you, then find out who's actually behind the message.

• 54:34Rich Roll?

  Yeah, interesting. Well, that should always be the case, right?

• 54:39Rich Roll?

  And, and usually when it's a study saying stay away from a certain, you know, natural food, there's probably a big food, you know, industry lobby behind that, you know, if it doesn't make sense. Well, because of the failure of Prop 37 to pass here in California, there's no obligation for food manufacturers to label foods to indicate whether they have GMO in them or not. So if you're looking at a product, whether it's soy or otherwise, the only way to really know whether it's GMO free is whether it has the certified organic label on it.

• 55:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And hopefully they're being honest with the not using genetically modified products.

• 55:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and that's a leap of faith, too, because this whole idea of organic and that and what gets that label and what doesn't is become highly politicized.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:28Rich Roll?

  And it's become a sliding scale. It's degenerated from what it used to be, where big food companies, they know if they can put that label on their food, they're gonna, you know, have a certain perception in the marketplace or what have you.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  Or if it says "natural," I always love.

• 55:42Rich Roll?

  Well, that means nothing. Yeah, 100% "natural," you know?

• 55:44Speaker 01

  Or when Jiffy peanut butter says "no cholesterol," you're gonna like, "Yeah, well, peanuts don't have cholesterol."

• 55:50Rich Roll?

  Right, right. Well, I could say gluten-free, too. Right? It's like, it's meaningless. So, yeah, and it's disappointing because there's so much obfuscation that the average consumer is left completely bewildered and confused, which is exactly what these companies want. The more confused people are, the better, because that, I think that keeps the paralysis entrenched.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:16Rich Roll?

  And prevents people from making better choices. But the extent to which, you know, the marketing and the labels on these food products will go to convince you that something is healthy when it's not is quite extraordinary.

• 56:30Speaker 01

  It is, and I don't get any magazines or subscribe to any magazines, and if I watch TV, I Tivo, so I don't see commercials. But every once in a while, you know, I'm stuck at the nail salon, like, "Oh, my God, the ad for this food," and I laugh out loud. People, "What the hell is going on with that woman?" Because it's such a big lie.

• 56:49Rich Roll?

  It's amazing, yeah. And Jeff Novick, again, he has a great presentation where he kind of, the gist of it is, "Don't believe anything" on the front side of a food product label, only, you know, "Only read the nutrition facts panel" on the back, and he teaches people about how to really read that and understand what it's saying. And he uses this great example of Pam, you know, the cooking spray.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  The spray, yeah.

• 57:15Rich Roll?

  And I think, I'm gonna botch it, because I don't remember exactly what he said, but it's something like, it says 0%, it says 0%, fat or fat-free on the front, but it's just oil.

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:25Rich Roll?

  Like, it's 100% fat. But if you, they're allowed to say that because if you make the serving size so small that, you know, the nutrient content is below a certain threshold, you can say zero percent.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:40Rich Roll?

  So the serving size for Pam, if you look on the back of it on the Nutrition Facts panel, is like, you know, it's like a microgram, or, you know, you wouldn't, if you tapped the spray top, you know, you couldn't even tap it quick enough to get that little amount. But people are walking around going, oh, this is, there's no fat in this, fat-free, they're spraying their, you know, whatever. It's complete insanity.

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Well, it's the same thing with ingredients in pre-made and processed foods. If it's under a certain percentage, they don't even need to list the ingredient.

• 58:11Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  So that's one of the problems with getting food that's, I mean, I'm guilty of it too, but getting things that are pre-made, you really don't know what you're eating.

• 58:20Rich Roll?

  And on the flip side of that, it can contain sort of traces of certain things like calcium or what have you, just enough so that on the front, they can boast that, you know, it's good for your, whatever, it has all these minerals in it, but you look at the amount and you're like, this is negligible, this is nothing.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it wouldn't actually help you in any way. And then the consequences of whatever else is in that food, it's not worth it. Like those calcium chocolate things that are out, I've never actually had one, but family have seen, you can get chocolates that are a calcium supplement. So people think, oh, I'm getting my calcium. It's a sugar-filled, highly-processed, lots of dairy, calcium supplement.

• 59:01Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  So it's like, just eat your greens.

• 59:10Rich Roll?

  So if, when a patient comes to you and you're espousing the health benefits of eating plant-based, I would imagine the common kind of concerns that come up are, where am I going to get my protein? What about calcium, especially with women?

• 59:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 59:25Rich Roll?

  And anemia, probably, right? Are those the typical?

• 59:28Speaker 01

  Those are the big ones, and protein's always first, and I'm sure you've heard it even more than I have at this point.

• 59:34Rich Roll?

  How many hours do we have?

• 59:36Speaker 01

  But I do say, because patients are referred to me, I usually just go by referral basis now. I don't just get people finding me online anymore. They usually know that I'm plant-based, but I don't say, "I won't see you again if you don't do this." I mean, I've had probably 100 patients or more go plant-based over the years. So that, to me, is a great accomplishment. But all of my patients are eating more produce. That's one thing I can say, that they've all at least cut back on their animal product intake. So I say, "Okay, I'm going to give you these suggestions." And obviously, if you really feel like you need to add salmon to that, that's a personal choice. I'm not going to recommend it.

• 1:00:17Speaker 01

  I'm giving you plenty of ideas for getting your healthy fats and your protein without having to do salmon. But, you know, people are, you know, they're attached to food emotionally, but they are still scared, even though they know I know what I'm talking about, so.

• 1:00:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the salmon comes from this argument about omega-3s, right? You gotta get your omega-3s, you gotta get your omega-3s. And, you know, fish oil is super important, you gotta eat your salmon. So what is the response to that?

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  Well, I recommend, if you are really concerned, you can do a supplement of, there's algae sources for omega-3s, and there's also flax, borage, and primrose oil. I know there's probably some of your followers are against doing oils. But you can do hemp seeds, flax seeds on their own, kale, walnuts, seaweed. Because actually seaweed is where seafood gets its omega-3s from. It doesn't just automatically have it. And most seafood is high in cholesterol, so that's something that is ignored. Because I can't tell you how many times patients come in with a list of food suggestions from their doctor. I'm like, "Well, there's a lot of cholesterol in here, and your shrimp is..."

• 1:01:25Speaker 01

  And there's people with heart disease issues, and so, and cancer history, and diabetes. So it's like, you're recommending shrimp. To someone who should be lessening their cholesterol levels.

• 1:01:36Rich Roll?

  Right, so you're just getting your omega-3 lower on the food chain.

• 1:01:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:01:40Rich Roll?

  Right, and you're getting it without, you know, the toxins that accumulate in, you know, the fatty tissue of the salmon and all those other things. I mean, I think Dr. Michael Greger did a great video about fish oil and even, you know, fish oils that are labeled toxin-free, and they tested them and realized that actually, even though they said toxin-free, they were like rife with toxins in them. So why not get the omega-3 before it ends up in the fish and just get it directly?

• 1:02:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I remember, this was 95, when I was just starting to look into going to acupuncture school and looking at what schools were out there and everything. I had a nutritionist tell me, and I wasn't eating seafood at that point, so it wasn't an issue for me. He said, at the time, something like 60% of fish caught off the coast of California have tumors, but they just cut the tumors off and still serve it to people. So I can only imagine, almost 20 years later, those numbers have gone up because our oceans are even more toxic, and with Fukushima, the radiation levels that are in the Pacific, it's just better to stay away from it.

• 1:02:45Rich Roll?

  Better to stay away, yeah, exactly. And, I mean, maybe even that algae is, who knows? I mean, I don't know, you know, but all I know is that, you know, I make sure I put hemp seeds and flax seeds and kale and walnuts and almonds in my morning smoothie every day, and I'm...

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  You're good to go.

• 1:03:01Rich Roll?

  I think I'm okay, you know, it's like...

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Well, I can tell you...

• 1:03:04Rich Roll?

  All these things seem to be like red herrings, you know, if you just eat, you know, a couple of simple things, make a couple of simple changes to incorporate into your day, like, you don't have to worry about it.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  No, it's really easy to do, and I can tell you, I gave up seafood in 1987, and I, last year, I did a full nutrition panel to see, like, micronutrients, everything across the board, what my numbers were, and everything was fine, but my omega-3s were well within healthy range. So for anyone who's thinking there's absolutely no way to do it... That's not true. And I don't even, I don't even go crazy with making sure I'm getting omega-3s. I'm not taking a supplement. This is just like unsweetened hemp milk, kale and walnuts, and flaxseeds in my smoothies sometimes. So it's not even, because I don't actually like the taste that omega-3s get that, because that's the, sort of have that fishy taste to them.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  So I can't even do a lot of flaxseeds because it tastes too fishy to me. So, and I'm fine.

• 1:04:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're fine. You look fine.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:04:04Rich Roll?

  You look radiant.

• 1:04:05Speaker 01

  Oh, thanks.

• 1:04:06Rich Roll?

  What about anemia and iron?

• 1:04:08Speaker 01

  Well, iron is actually better to get from plant sources because it's easier to metabolize than meat. I can tell you, most of my female patients are a little bit anemic around their cycle, no matter what their eating habits are. So if it's someone that eats red meat every day, there's, there's going to be some anemia. And then if you're plant-based around your cycle, there's a tendency to be a little anemic. But yeah, again, women who come into me who have meat every meal can be anemic because their bodies just can't process it. So why not get it? Why not get it from great sources? Get it from beans? Get it from greens? You don't, you don't need to eat beef to get all the iron you need. But that, that was

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  the big thing for me when I, when I gave up meat is I just gave up meat and that was it. Still had french fries and top ramen and

• 1:04:59Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Yeah. All those things. The junk food.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  Doritos.

• 1:05:04Rich Roll?

  But there is a difference in that the iron that comes from animal sources is heme.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  Yes, and then there's non-heme.

• 1:05:11Rich Roll?

  And then there's non-heme is the plant variety.

• 1:05:13Speaker 01

  Well, we, plant-based eaters tend to get plenty of vitamin C unless they're total junk food vegans. And that's key to iron absorption. So just make sure, if you're at all concerned, make sure you're getting some vitamin C. And when you're Eating or taking an iron supplement if you feel like you need to take one. And then my favorite iron supplement.

• 1:05:34Rich Roll?

  The vitamin C binds to it and it helps with absorption.

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  It helps with absorption. So if someone's at all concerned, thinking like, no, I'm, you know, I have a history of anemia. There's no way I can do this. Floravitil has a really great B complex and iron supplement. That's all plant-based and easy to absorb, doesn't cause constipation like most iron supplements do. So that's always an option. Obviously, I prefer you get it from your foods, but there are people out there, especially women, that anemia is just sort of a chronic condition for them, no matter what they're eating. So you can add a little bit of that every day.

• 1:06:07Rich Roll?

  So what is your tip, your basic perspective on supplementation?

• 1:06:12Speaker 01

  Well, unfortunately, our soils are so depleted at this point. Pretty much everyone needs to take some supplements. And if you're having any health issues, at least temporarily taking supplements. I personally do B12. Either as a B complex, or sometimes I do B12 injections and a probiotic. And then if I feel run down, I might add some vitamin C. But I'm getting, you know, my, my diet is really balanced and I'm getting a lot of what I need. But I do talk about this in the book too, where some nutrients, like in tomatoes, something like 60% less vitamin C than tomatoes had 50 years ago. So even if you're eating all the right things, you're not necessarily getting what you need. And

• 1:06:57Speaker 01

  also, stress inhibits your body's ability to absorb nutrients. Coffee is a big one that inhibits iron absorption by up to 60%.

• 1:07:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the tannins in the, in the coffee prevent iron.

• 1:07:10Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:07:11Rich Roll?

  Right, right.

• 1:07:12Speaker 01

  Look at you. And, and medication. So if, even if you haven't taken medications in 20 years, there still can be some residual issues with your digestive tract. So it's hard to absorb nutrients. So irregular eating habits affects absorption, being dehydrated, like all these things. And most of us in the culture we live in today. And again, if you're sick in any way or, or feeling run down, supplementation, at least temporarily, is key.

• 1:07:41Rich Roll?

  Until you can get your qi balanced out, right? Yeah, I mean, I think I take vitamin B12, you know, as anybody who's on a plant-based diet should.

• 1:07:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:51Rich Roll?

  And that's, that's a big argument that people raised, say, well, how can it be a healthy diet if you have to take vitamin B12 and it doesn't exist in the plant kingdom? But it's, it's what you said. I mean, the soils are depleted and a lot of the foods are not as nutrient dense as they once were.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:08Rich Roll?

  You know, as, because of the way that we raise food to eat. And most people are walking around with some sort of imbalance or deficiency in something or another.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:08:18Rich Roll?

  And there are plenty of people that eat whatever diet and they're, they're still vitamin B12 deficient. And the reason we have to take vitamin B12 is because we, we, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it exists in the, the sort of microbes in the soil.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they're gone now.

• 1:08:36Rich Roll?

  And now the soil's so depleted that it's not really there anymore.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:39Rich Roll?

  And to the extent that it is there, it gets washed off and, you know, sort of when we used to just pull the vegetables out of our nutrient-rich soil back in the, back in the day, you know, it wasn't an issue. But now it is, no matter who you are or what you're eating.

• 1:08:53Speaker 01

  Well, and that's another thing with, besides the soil depletion, we've become so obsessive compulsive about germs. So, and I get it now, our, our soils can be contaminated, so you have to scrub everything. So it used to be like you'd rinse off your carrot and just eat it. And now, like, you know, there's all these special soaps out there.

• 1:09:12Rich Roll?

  Terrible. It's terrible. This is like not a good trend.

• 1:09:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:16Rich Roll?

  You know, it's, who, uh, do you know who, uh, Robyn Chucan is?

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:09:21Rich Roll?

  She's a doctor in Washington DC. She's fabulous, really cool. And she's an expert on, on the microbiome. And her whole slogan is, uh, what is it? Like, live clean, eat dirty, or something like that. You know? She's like, but she takes it to an extreme where she's like, I don't really even take showers, you know?

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:09:44Rich Roll?

  She's a beautiful woman. She's, you know, totally put together. She's not a hippie or anything like that. But her point is that we're in this, we're in this rinse-washed sanitized society where there's pure everywhere you look and this idea is perpetuated that we need everything super clean and this is making us sick it's preventing our immune systems from adapting to these environmental whatevers that allow our body to sort of you know I don't know what's the word adapt to them or or sort of you know

• 1:10:13Speaker 01

  yeah it's building our immune system yeah we're supposed to build our immune system by being exposed to bacterias and viruses and so forth like I had a patient this morning he goes you're gonna be so mad at me I got a flu shot my my father-in-law is an MD and he just brought them over for the whole family and I felt so pressured and like we're supposed to get sick we're alive and that's part of the process so if you have a strong immune system you might get a little sick for a day or two and then you're fine like I share that I haven't I haven't missed a day of work in like 16 years now from a cold and people people look at me like there's something wrong with me but it's no I have a really great immune system

• 1:10:53Rich Roll?

  yeah I never get sick I mean at once a year I start to feel something maybe coming on yeah and then I just make sure I rest I rest a little bit more I you know I up my nutrition I take it easy on the training and it goes away right away like I just you know I we never get flu shots or we never do any of that and you know I just I think that we're really upside down on this whole thing and I think the ultimate example of that is the over prescription of antibiotics for everything and it just blasts your system it just kills everything in your gut biome you've got to like recover how do you populate your gut with all of those micro you know organisms that we need to be healthy these are our friends

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  they are our friends so have your fermented foods have your sauerkraut and kimchi and kombucha like I'm drinking and if you feel like you need an extra kick doing some probiotics there's plenty of plant sources

• 1:11:47Rich Roll?

  yeah there's this idea that it that all probiotics are like acidophilus and you should eat your Greek yogurt and all that kind of thing but but there are you know many many plant-based sources so what what kind of probiotics do you recommend

• 1:11:59Speaker 01

  well if you're doing a supplement I like yarrow and country life but in foods again kombucha you can get probiotics from sauerkraut and kimchi miso tempeh those are all really great sources and you can also make your own yogurt and kefir that's plant-based so

• 1:12:19Rich Roll?

  how do you do that

• 1:12:20Speaker 01

  I've never done it I'm too lazy

• 1:12:23Rich Roll?

  Do you make your own kombucha?

• 1:12:25Speaker 01

  I'm so lazy with that stuff. I love to cook, but like friends of mine who are Martha Stewart's in the kitchen, like I would never make my own tofu. I just, I'll make my own broth. That's like the extent of-

• 1:12:37Rich Roll?

  You're not like sprouting things in your house and things like that. We do, we have some Scobies. Julie's been, we've been making our own kombucha, which is pretty cool.

• 1:12:45Speaker 01

  Good for you. Yeah, I would love to get to that point, but I also don't know every day. My schedule is so different at this point. Eventually, maybe it'll normalize a little bit because I hate to waste food too. So like if I started the process and then, you know, oh my God, I've been away for two days. And so I just-

• 1:13:00Rich Roll?

  I get it. I get it. Listen, this is all my wife. If it was up to me, you know, like, who knows what would happen. Wouldn't be good though.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  You'd live off of smoothies?

• 1:13:09Rich Roll?

  Uh, yeah, probably. I would probably eat most of my meals out.

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:14Rich Roll?

  So when you go out, how do you, how do you, I think this is a big question with, because listen, this, the audience of this podcast is diverse. Like there's a lot of plant-based people that listen to it, but there's a lot of people that aren't. And I think a big fear that comes up is really social. Like they may be thinking, yeah, I get it. Like I'm sold on the health aspects of it, but, but getting over the kind of emotional and societal barriers is really a major block. Like how do I go to a business lunch and, and sort of navigate that and eat healthy without, without creating like a ruckus?

• 1:13:47Speaker 01

  Well, there's almost always a salad at any restaurant, at least hopefully. And if you're at all concerned, making an impression like at a business lunch, eat something before. Just always have snacks with you. That's important. So you're not hungry. And again, see if, you know, maybe even go talk to the waiter to the side. If you're worried about making some kind of stink, like is there any way I could just get some steamed vegetables or something, you know, without people hearing it, but-

• 1:14:19Speaker 01

  When I travel, there's, there's always salad. And now it's getting so popular to eat healthier and more plant-based foods. So hummus is usually an option somewhere. There's usually vegetables. You can't use the dip necessarily, but there's usually some cut-up veggies at any kind of business affair. But again, eating before you go, so you're not hungry.

• 1:14:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  And I always, yeah, I always have snacks with me. And that's one of the things when I fly, I get a little obsessive, like, what if there's a delay and I'm starving?

• 1:14:48Rich Roll?

  I know, right? You have to prepare a little bit ahead of time, for sure.

• 1:14:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. And people, there will be some backlash at the beginning. And I still, I get it less and less, but believe me, when I was younger, it was a constant, constant thing like, oh, look what Heather's having, or we can't have Heather over. Or the holidays were a huge trigger, like the first Thanksgiving that I wasn't eating turkey. Oh, man, it was almost like, I don't know, I had said that my mother's cooking was horrible just because I wasn't eating it.

• 1:15:17Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  You know, that was, it was, an offense was taken, but it had nothing to do with her talents in the kitchen at all. So you just, I don't know, being, being determined to stick with it and people will get used to it. And they'll see that you're feeling better, looking better, having more energy and get them curious. Like now my family, when I go visit, I find out that they're eating at least vegetarian meals without me even being around, which would never have happened even five years ago. So, um, yeah, spring snacks.

• 1:15:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's tricky, especially in the restaurant context and especially for men.

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:52Rich Roll?

  Because men, because, because it brings up issues of masculinity and all this other kind of stuff that, that comes into play. And it makes, you know, men feel self-conscious or what have you. So I always say, kind of similar to what you say, like, you know, go approach the waiter. You can excuse yourself from the table, go find the waiter and say, hey, man, can you just? They always want to help. It's not, it's, you, you build it up to be this big thing in your mind. And then you realize like, it's kind of a non-issue because they can basically whip up something for you pretty easily. And you don't have to make a big stink. But that is like when we kind of talk about the emotional landscape, it is kind of coming from a place of fear. Like you're afraid, you don't want people to judge you or think differently of you. And it's kind of a defensive position.

• 1:16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:36Rich Roll?

  And I have one friend who very refreshingly kind of goes in the opposite, he has the opposite tact. He just goes, "All right, here's what you're gonna do." Like he's just the waiter, you're like, you know, he's at lunch, there's a bunch of people there. He's like, "I want you to get me the biggest bowl that you have, and I want you to take every vegetable that you have and just put it in there and like, put some rice in there and just like, make it huge." You know, he's like, makes this big like theatrical production out of the whole thing. And he's like, basically what he's doing is he's like saying, "I dare you to like,

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:04Rich Roll?

  you know, come at me." Because he's owning it.

• 1:17:06Speaker 01

  That's so sweet. What a good friend.

• 1:17:07Rich Roll?

  Which is cool, you know? But I think not everyone's in that place.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  No, definitely not. And it's, it can be really hard and challenging, especially at the beginning. But if just sticking, sticking to your guns, and I have found over the years, restaurants, obviously, I'm not eating at fast food places at all, but at a regular restaurant where they actually cook the food there and chop up the vegetables there, they're more than willing to make you, even if it's grilled veggies, like there's, there's something that can be done.

• 1:17:37Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  Always. So, and a lot of times salads, they're not much of an option because of the dressings that are available. So I just say, "Can just bring me salad and I'll, and some lemon slices, and I'll just put lemon juice on it and like some pepper or something." So there's, but it's getting easier and easier. Like I, I, I remember back in the day, I would have to just always bring food everywhere I went, no matter what.

• 1:18:04Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:18:05Speaker 01

  Now it's just not, I know in LA, we're spoiled, but I've seen enough other cities and towns to know that there's almost always an option.

• 1:18:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of places where it's, it is challenging, for sure. I think airports are a great litmus test.

• 1:18:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:20Rich Roll?

  And I'm seeing, you know, like yourself, I know you've been traveling a lot, and I have been too. Even in the last year, I've seen changes in so many different airports. I mean, obviously in LA, at LAX, in the, in the American Airlines Terminal, they have Real food daily, you know, which is amazing. You can get your green juice, you know, before you get on your plane. That's a unique scenario. But in plenty of airports, I've seen, you know, carousels where they have tons of like healthy, you know, plant-based options, vegan options, like even in the takeaway, you know, the takeout, little prepackaged stuff. And I think that that's a great arbiter of what's to come.

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a really good sign because airports definitely, you know, every type of person is using an airport, right?

• 1:19:01Rich Roll?

  Right, that's right. It's the cross-section. So the book is called Fix Your Mood With Food. So I want to talk about kind of the mental aspects of being healthy. And, you know, a big part of your book is really kind of taking a look at the over-medication of everybody to treat all of these psychological disorders. I mean, what is it like 60 million Americans are suffering from some form of of mental disorder? And, you know, there's this panoply of prescribed medications that so many people are on, all the way down to young children. And you are advocating a different approach to all of this.

• 1:19:43Speaker 01

  I am. Yeah, it's scary. When I was doing the research to get a publisher, finding out that over $40 billion a year is spent in the US just on anxiety medications and treatment.

• 1:19:55Rich Roll?

  Forty billion on anxiety?

• 1:19:57Speaker 01

  Yes, just that.

• 1:19:58Rich Roll?

  Well, anxiety is caused by lifestyle choice, really.

• 1:20:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, oh, absolutely.

• 1:20:03Rich Roll?

  I mean, it's a byproduct of the way we live.

• 1:20:05Speaker 01

  It's well, byproduct of the way you live, but also trauma. It can be a huge trauma from when you were a child, or something that seems innocuous, that could trigger anxiety later on. So again, dealing with the problem, because when you take these medications, for the most part, it's not getting to why you're depressed, why you're anxious, why you're having road rage. And if you're not fixing that, that's still boiling up in your system and can make you sick in other ways. Like I said, it can eventually lead to Alzheimer's. And so the why I wrote the book is to dispel some diet myths, of course. And also just give people a way out. Like, I don't need to be on Prozac the rest of my life.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  And all the side effects, like eighty, over eighty percent of people taking these psychotropic medications have side effects. So that's pretty bad. I mean, you have fatigue, weight gain, low libido, skin issues. Like, it's just, the list goes on and on. So why not actually use food to help you? Like, if you have a major traumatic experience, I encourage getting some kind of other support besides what you eat. But it can definitely help. And also, a lot of times, we're depressed because we're low in nutrients. I think that I haven't done enough on this, and I don't know if there's even studies out there to prove my theory, but that it's become such an epidemic, depression, that is because,

• 1:21:34Speaker 01

  one of the reasons is because our bodies are starving. If we're eating the standard American diet, our bodies are starving. So the brain is going to start to respond to and not be able to produce neurotransmitters that we need to actually be happy and even keeled.

• 1:21:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, interesting. I mean, the food is so nutrient poor that we're actually obese and starving.

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:21:54Rich Roll?

  Or chronically starved and chronically overweight at the same time, which is just super bizarre.

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  That's so sad. Yeah, that's why people tend to overeat. If they eat processed food, it's because the brain's still like, okay, I'm waiting, where's?

• 1:22:09Rich Roll?

  Where's my nutrients?

• 1:22:10Speaker 01

  Where's my nutrient? So give me more food, please. So it's definitely a vicious cycle. So I go into the book about some nutrients. I don't go into every single one because that would take volumes on how they affect you mentally. And then also, from a Chinese nutrition standpoint that I sort of touched on before, is foods looked at energetically. So it's not what nutrients are in a food. It's if it nourishes your liver, your spleen, your lungs, your kidneys, and if it's helping with qi, yin and yang. So if it's calming, energizing, so that's, so I've combined the two, which kind of makes it unique, I think, is having both sides to it. So.

• 1:22:55Speaker 01

  Because one of the the main theories in Chinese medicine is each emotion is attached to an organ and each organ has physical manifestations when it's in balance. So, for example, if you have issues with grief, it affects the lungs, which kind of makes sense, right, because crying and the lungs. And if you don't process it, you can have skin issues, you can have issues with your immunity, asthma. I mean, that can go on and on and it's it's all in here. But and then if you don't deal with anger and resentment, it can lead to migraines, blood pressure issues, PMS, muscle tension and tightness. So each of the foods that I recommend in here, and of course, it's all plant based,

• 1:23:38Speaker 01

  it will either help with one organ or several and help with the emotions related to it.

• 1:23:43Rich Roll?

  Interesting. And have you, what has your experience been with working with your patients with this? Like, say, somebody comes in, they've they've been on Prozac or Wellbutrin or whatever it is, they've been depressed for a long time. You know, have you worked through, have you worked with people to get them off of these medications and to the other side? Like, what is that about?

• 1:24:08Speaker 01

  It happens most of the time, but I do have a percentage of patients that stay on the medications, even though they're feeling better, because either they're scared to try to live without them. Because, you know, some people have been on these medications for decades, which they're not meant to be used for anyway. They're meant to be used in emergency situations. Or their doctor or psychiatrist refuses, they're like, no, I don't care how much better you're feeling, you have to stay on these medications. So, and I get it, you know, we're sort of trained to think this, the medication is the only answer. But most people, if either come off their medications or at least reduce them. One of the examples I have in the book is a woman, Wendy, who had

• 1:24:50Speaker 01

  She was paranoid schizophrenic. She had a history of bulimia and anorexia and like lots of trauma in her life. And she was on several medications, which, you know, I respected her decision and her psychiatrist's decision because when she first got sick, she thought, she was so paranoid, she thought literally every man was going to harm her sexually. So, you know, going, she was so scared of going back to that. So, anyway, we reduced her medications and at the slightest hint that she was getting anxious, her doctor would raise everything back up again without waiting to see if things evened out. Nowhere near having a paranoid episode at all. So, but then there's people who come to me and

• 1:25:32Speaker 01

  they're on five medications and within six months, they're, they're off everything.

• 1:25:36Rich Roll?

  Wow, that's amazing.

• 1:25:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, it totally can be done. So that's psychotropic medications, but also if you're on other medications like statins or whatever is going on with you.

• 1:25:46Rich Roll?

  What about people that, I mean, I think this gets into the sort of intersection of Chinese medicine and Western medicine and how these kind of two things can coexist and work together in unison towards a, towards a common goal as opposed to being at odds with each other. So if someone comes in to you and they have, like, they're a full-blown schizophrenic, or they have, you know, extreme bipolar disorder, you know, like, really bad.

• 1:26:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:26:14Rich Roll?

  I mean, have you dealt with cases like that? I mean, how does that, how do you manage something like that?

• 1:26:18Speaker 01

  Well, with them, they usually reduce their medications. And it's always with the consent of their doctor and them talking to their medical doctor because, and that's with any medications. I always say, go to your M.D., see what they have to say, because they'll know the best way to at least wean you off of things. That's not my area of expertise in any way. And I would hate for you to start going back to the way you were feeling pre-medication. So always consult your doctor who prescribed to you. And, but no, they all at least reduce their medications, no matter how sick they are. Because there's, at least my clinical experience, and some people on here might not like this, but there's usually, there's

• 1:27:00Speaker 01

  Usually an instance or instances that's led to sort of the cracking of the soul. So I have patient Wendy in the book, I've changed some things about her, obviously for anonymity, but she was molested growing up, she, her father beat her, and then she was raped by her pastor. And that's what led to the paranoid, her being paranoid schizophrenic and her psychotic break. So it was like this buildup of things that, it's rare, at least in my clinical experience, I've never seen anyone just like, I had a great childhood and everything was perfect and no issues at all. My parents showed me all the love in the world and, you know, nothing really horrible ever happened to me. I've never seen that.

• 1:27:44Speaker 01

  So someone who is full-time psychiatrist or treating addiction, because that's another thing I work with, is addicts, they might have different experience than me, but my clinical experience, everyone has, there's some really deep rooted, ugly, quote unquote, ugly stuff that never got dealt with.

• 1:28:06Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right, right. So it's getting to the root.

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:09Rich Roll?

  Just like it's, it's, it's similar to eating lower on the food chain. You know, you gotta get to the bottom of these things, right?

• 1:28:16Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:28:17Rich Roll?

  Instead of putting Band-Aids on them.

• 1:28:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:28:20Rich Roll?

  That's fascinating. And I'm also really intrigued and interested in your perspective on addiction. You know, I'm in recovery and have been for many years, but, you know, I'm an addict. I'm a, I'm a recovering alcoholic and I always will be. And, you know, most days I don't walk around obsessing about drugs and alcohol, but, you know, I have my moments and my cravings and this is something that I live with. And I treat it through 12-step and, you know, have been able to build an entire, you know, new life as a result of being sober. But I'm interested in How you do what you do can impact sort of that addictive beast that lives within me.

• 1:29:05Speaker 01

  Well, getting to, um, yes, it's something that you always have to work on one day at a time. Right. Um, so, but I would say with any addiction acupuncture is amazing to help.

• 1:29:20Rich Roll?

  I've never done it. Now I have to do it.

• 1:29:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, now you have to do it. It's amazing for helping if you're in the process of getting sober or have been sober for years, helping just decompress, help you deal with whatever might be coming up for you through the recovery process. Because as I mentioned before, each point has a spiritual and emotional component to it. So say you, um, I know you were a drinker, right?

• 1:29:47Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. Mostly.

• 1:29:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  So someone who's drinking might have issues with resentment, anger, frustration, um, and

• 1:29:59Rich Roll?

  I don't know what that's about.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't, no idea. No clue. Let me ask, talk to your wife, right?

• 1:30:05Rich Roll?

  And hungry, angry, they call it halt.

• 1:30:08Speaker 01

  Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Yeah. So, um, dealing with those emotions through acupuncture herbs and food. Um, so your body can start to release those suppressed memories and feelings. And sometimes I've had people have huge epiphanies during or within a few days of a treatment. I've had men, grown men, break down sobbing during a treatment. I've had, recently had a patient whose father died two months ago. His dad came into the room with him and held his hand while he was going through the treatment. I mean, it's, it can be really, really powerful stuff. Um, and I did part of my residency, uh, drug rehab.

• 1:30:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, Exodus, right?

• 1:30:50Speaker 01

  Exodus, yes.

• 1:30:51Rich Roll?

  That's an intense place. Yeah, tell people what Exodus is like, because that's no joke.

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  Yes, well Exodus at the time was at Daniel Freeman Hospital and it's most known, at least in my world, Kurt Cobain stayed there right before passing. And I don't know if they were offering acupuncture at the time, but.

• 1:31:11Rich Roll?

  Had you been there?

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  Yes, if I had been there, I could have saved Nirvana.

• 1:31:17Speaker 01

  What a dream. So anyway, Exodus is where people go to get off of drugs and alcohol. And I would, I saw patients there who would drink a fifth of vodka before even leaving the house in the morning. I don't know how severe it got for you, people who were spending $5,000 a day on cocaine. You know, people who've lost their jobs, their families, just really intense. But I also worked in their psychiatric unit, which I think maybe should be like combined with each other.

• 1:31:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it should be.

• 1:31:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, and everyone that I treated who had gone through recovery before, attempted getting sober before, all said it was the easiest process for them because acupuncture helps with the cravings, it helps detoxify the body faster, and also deals with any of the emotions that are coming up. So people who are newly sober have a lot of feelings.

• 1:32:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, of course, it comes on like a tidal wave because once you remove the block, you know, the thing that's suppressing it, it becomes a big, you know, it becomes a big hot mess.

• 1:32:24Speaker 01

  Yes, a big hot mess. So, and it was interesting because, you know, I had dealt with addiction in my family and personal relationships before, but working at this rehab, I really saw like it affects everyone. It doesn't matter what walk of life, what religion you are, how much money you have, none of that, it's across the board, everyone. And I think we're raised in this culture to sort of judge addicts, just like what all the backlash with Robin Williams committing suicide, all the judgment around that. But, you know, these are sometimes housewives who were given pain medication by their doctor and just kept prescribing and prescribing.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  So, you know, a year down the road, 10 years down the road, they're taking oxycodone like it's chewing gum. So it's just, you know, it's not that you're a bad person, it's just this is how you deal with your pain.

• 1:33:19Rich Roll?

  So the acupuncture and the herbs and what you do, that, I mean, are you seeing that as like a cure? Or just another tool in the recovery?

• 1:33:31Speaker 01

  Well, I hate to say cure with addiction, because I'd hate for someone to think, "Oh, I've been going to Heather for a year. Let me have a cocktail." You know, so you really need to know for yourself. But it definitely makes the process so much easier, no matter how addicted you were to whatever your drug of choice, or even, you know, sugar. Like, sugar's so highly addicting. So getting people off of that and living with it and not going back. So I'd like to say that I could cure it, but I've never suggested anyone trying.

• 1:34:06Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Yeah, I mean, I know, well, I resist the idea of that I could be cured.

• 1:34:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:15Rich Roll?

  You know, it's more about how do I manage it? And how do I suppress it while also, you know, surrendering to it?

• 1:34:24Speaker 01

  Surrendering to it, yeah.

• 1:34:25Rich Roll?

  Accepting that this is what it is?

• 1:34:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:28Rich Roll?

  And sort of walking through it.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't think it's ever a good idea. Like, "Oh, let me just try it." It's like, you know, smokers, like, "Oh, I just thought I could have one cigarette. I was at a party." And then within a week, they're back to two packs a day. It's just, you know, why do that? But if you can make the whole situation easier and your cravings less intense, less often, you know, even, you know, I've treated people who've been sober for 30 years, and they're still like, "I still think about having a drink."

• 1:34:54Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:34:55Speaker 01

  So just easing that process.

• 1:35:04Rich Roll?

  The next thing I want to talk about, which is the spiritual, I mean, for me, recovery is a spiritual practice.

• 1:35:09Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:35:09Rich Roll?

  It's all about, you know, sort of believing in a higher power and all these things that they teach you. But...

• 1:35:18Rich Roll?

  But you know, I believe that the solution for me really is, it is spiritual. And I know that, you know, an aspect of what you do is also vested in the spiritual.

• 1:35:32Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:35:32Rich Roll?

  So what is your perspective on that? And how do you counsel your patients?

• 1:35:36Speaker 01

  Well, I don't bring it up until I gauge where they're at with their religious beliefs or non-beliefs, because I never would want to push what I'm thinking and feeling on anyone, especially not in a professional situation. But, and I've gotten over the years, a sense of like, okay, this person goes to church every Sunday, or

• 1:35:57Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:35:58Speaker 01

  this person observes Shabbat, so I have to, you know, whatever it is, like, I need to kind of work around what their beliefs are. So if it seems like I can talk to them at their level, or what their belief system is, then, then I will. And so, and if I sense that they're open, if they ask me questions, I never mention it, because I'm, I consider myself Buddhist. But I don't just like, say, "Hey, I'm Buddhist, welcome to my office." You know, I don't, I don't do that. But if patients are curious. And I also, I think I've gotten good at gauging if people are even open to talking about their mental health and their past and everything. But everyone gives me clues where they are emotionally.

• 1:36:41Speaker 01

  So even if they're not really open to talking to me about what happened to them when they were six years old, or the fighting that's going on at home with their spouse, or whatever, whatever it is, then I still get clues from what they say and also what their symptoms are. Because like, as I said before, each emotion can manifest physically. And that usually becomes really obvious to me within just 10 minutes of talking to someone.

• 1:37:06Rich Roll?

  Right, right, right. Yeah, I just read an article this morning, and it was about how this neuroscience student

• 1:37:17Rich Roll?

  Is conducting these experiments on the relationship between meditation and mindfulness and mental disorders. And essentially, the takeaway is that by practicing mindfulness, you can eradicate a lot of these mental disorders down to the biological, like cellular, level. I guess he's a, he, what is he? I wrote it down here. I think he's at UMass Medical School. And he had, how is it? What is it? I'm trying to, I'm looking at my notes here. That, that this, this practice of mindfulness and meditation can trigger mental and even

• 1:38:01Rich Roll?

  genetic alterations and molecular changes, which is pretty, I mean, if that's true, you know, I mean, it's like, I didn't read the actual study, but, but just, just positing that is, is really powerful. And I think it's, yeah, go ahead.

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  It makes sense, because every time we feel something, whether it's positive or negative, I hate to use those terms, but that's how people relate to anger, hate, love, joy, whatever it is, we, we, we create new neurons and synapses in our brains. So it makes sense that if we're conscious of how we're thinking, we can stop that process.

• 1:38:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it all goes back to this idea that we all have so much more power and control over ourselves than, than we think we do, or that we've been led to believe.

• 1:38:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:49Rich Roll?

  Right? That if we make alterations in what we eat and, you know, how we navigate through our day to minimize anxiety and these practices like meditation and the kind of foods that we're eating and, you know, being open to things like acupuncture, that we can really address the root cause of so many of these chronic ailments that are just killing us by the millions.

• 1:39:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, absolutely. The mental, the mental aspect is a huge, and emotional aspect is a huge part of why we're sick. And we're sick as a nation.

• 1:39:21Rich Roll?

  But people don't, they don't wanna, they don't wanna change.

• 1:39:25Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:39:25Rich Roll?

  No, they're...

• 1:39:26Speaker 01

  No, it's scary to look at your junk.

• 1:39:29Speaker 01

  It's really scary.

• 1:39:31Rich Roll?

  I would imagine most people that come to see you, like, maybe they're, it depends on how much pain they're in, I suppose. When they're in a lot, people are more motivated to make changes when they're in a lot of pain.

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:39:40Rich Roll?

  But if they're not quite there yet, like, maybe they're enthusiastic for a short period of time, but, you know, they just lapse back into whatever they were doing.

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  Oh, that, that happens a lot. And I have, it's, I don't, I can't tell you the percentage, but I get a sense of people stopping, coming to see me because they're making changes and they can't be attached to their ailment or their past the way they used to be. So they stop coming in because it's, you know, it's part of our identity when we're sick.

• 1:40:10Rich Roll?

  Right. Or if they've lapsed, lapsed back into bad habits, then they're in a shame spiral and they don't want to face you.

• 1:40:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. Well, and I always say, you're laughing, but I do try to, and I hope I come across with my patients that I'm not judging them because I've, you know,

• 1:40:25Rich Roll?

  I'm sure you're not, but it's what's in their head, not your head.

• 1:40:29Speaker 01

  Well, I, you know, like I gave, it took me 20 years of being vegetarian to finally give up dairy. And it's, you know, it's a little shameful for me, but I was so hooked in and I would, I would go sometimes six months, you know, without it. And then like, oh, the pool would come back. So I get it. I've been there and other parts of my life too. But that's the most obvious one that I'm willing to share with people anyway. So it's, you know, we've all done it. We're human. We're going to make mistakes a million times a day. And, you know, whatever it is that you consider a bad habit or a bad way to respond to things, like, you know, it's all right. It's a, it's a learning process.

• 1:41:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, we're, we hold on to this, this illusion of perfection too strongly.

• 1:41:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:11Rich Roll?

  You know, nobody's perfect.

• 1:41:12Speaker 01

  Nobody.

• 1:41:13Rich Roll?

  And we don't give ourselves permission to fail.

• 1:41:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:16Rich Roll?

  It's like, it's not okay to mess up. And of course, you know, we don't want to mess up. We don't want to make mistakes. But I think we'd be better off if we could just give ourselves a little bit of a wider berth, you know, because you only move forward when you, when you give yourself permission to, to falter, you know, and that applies to everything, whether you're an athlete training for, you know, your sport or a race or an event, or you're a writer. Like, if you're a writer and you're trying to write, you gotta let yourself write bad before it's gonna be good. You know, if you think, if, if, if you're putting so much pressure on yourself that every letter you, every word you type has to be the, the ultimate word, you're never going to do anything, right? You just, you're paralyzed.

• 1:41:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I've had so many people, and you've probably gotten this too, being an author, like, "Oh, my God, I've always wanted to write a book," but, and it's definitely, it's very vulnerable, writing a book, I think, and letting it all the world to see, you know, what I'm about.

• 1:42:12Rich Roll?

  Of course. But, but there's power in the vulnerability, you know, ultimately, you know, and I've said this before, like, I, you know, I knew that my book would only work if I was willing to be vulnerable, you know? If you're not, what's the point? You know what I mean? Like, you've got to be able to be honest and authentic to who you are, and that's very frightening.

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:42:33Rich Roll?

  You know, it's very frightening, and I think that, you know, using the analogy of the book, or the metaphor of being a writer, yeah, a lot of people say, "I'd love to write a book," or, "I have an idea for a book," but then they never do anything, because it's too frightening, you know, or it just, it just seems too impossible, whereas, if you could just forget about all of that, and just, why don't you just write a sentence today, or, you know what I mean? Like, write one page a day, and then, a year from now, maybe you might have something that might resemble a book.

• 1:43:02Speaker 01

  Yep, exactly.

• 1:43:03Rich Roll?

  And take, take all of the pressure off of yourself, and just focus on the moment.

• 1:43:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, and just like eating, it's eating healthier, you know, "Today, I'm not gonna have any animal products, today I'm not gonna have any sugar."

• 1:43:15Rich Roll?

  Or just maybe this meal, or in the next hour. I know what I'm gonna be eating, you know, in a half an hour, and just, don't worry about the rest of it.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:43:23Rich Roll?

  It's the same with recovery, you know? "I'm not gonna take a drink at lunch today, hopefully not." Maybe, I haven't had lunch yet, but, right now, I'm not drinking, so that's good. Yeah, or, you know, I had this guy, Tim Van Orden, on the podcast the other week.

• 1:43:38Speaker 01

  Yes, I know Tim.

• 1:43:39Rich Roll?

  You know Tim? Yeah, he's wonderful. And he was talking about breaking habits that don't serve you, and he was using the analogy of, you know, getting, you know, trying to get out of bed to go running when it's freezing out, and he doesn't want to get out of bed, and just, you know, it just seems overwhelming, and it's just easier to stay in bed, but just, like, "Okay, I'm just gonna sit up in bed, I'm gonna do that." Breaking things down into their, you know, micro parts.

• 1:44:04Speaker 01

  That's smart.

• 1:44:05Rich Roll?

  To make them digestible.

• 1:44:06Speaker 01

  Especially living in, he's in Vermont, right?

• 1:44:07Rich Roll?

  Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think he's gonna be moving back here soon. He was out here a couple of weeks ago, and I think he's got a little California-

• 1:44:14Speaker 01

  California bug.

• 1:44:15Rich Roll?

  ... running through his blood again.

• 1:44:18Rich Roll?

  But that's applicable to everything, eating habits, recovery, creative projects.

• 1:44:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:24Rich Roll?

  And it goes back to mindfulness, right? The more mindful you can be, the more anchored in the moment you are. And then it releases that anxiety and it helps you not live in a future outcome.

• 1:44:37Speaker 01

  Or the past.

• 1:44:38Rich Roll?

  Or wallowing in some past.

• 1:44:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:39Rich Roll?

  Right?

• 1:44:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. So just letting it go.

• 1:44:44Rich Roll?

  So if somebody's listening and they don't live in California, so they can't call you up and make an appointment.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  Well, they can.

• 1:44:51Rich Roll?

  They can?

• 1:44:51Speaker 01

  Phone, I do phone calls.

• 1:44:52Rich Roll?

  Oh, you do phone stuff?

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:53Rich Roll?

  Okay, good. Well, we'll make sure we have all the information. But let's just say somebody, just to give some people some general, like, obviously, you can't diagnose. You need to sit with somebody and look them in the eyes and tell them that they have adrenal fatigue.

• 1:45:07Rich Roll?

  But what are some of the most common things that you see that maybe you could impart some wisdom to people who are listening? You know, just typical people living their lives who are maybe, you know, not getting enough rest and stressed out. Maybe don't eat as great as they should, you know, just the average person. What are some simple things that kind of across the board that anybody could benefit from?

• 1:45:30Speaker 01

  Drink more water. That's first. Every single one of my patients doesn't drink enough water when they first come see me.

• 1:45:37Rich Roll?

  How much water should we be drinking, really?

• 1:45:39Speaker 01

  Well, I'd say on average, as a general rule of thumb, half your weight in ounces. So if you weigh 140 pounds, 70 ounces of water. And that's give or take with how much you're exercising, if you're having coffee, soda, or alcohol to dehydrate you. But at least half your weight in ounces is a good, a good rule of thumb. And adding lemon or raw apple cider vinegar to your water gives an added benefit. I know there's a, you have to acquire, an acquire and a taste to the apple cider vinegar.

• 1:46:13Rich Roll?

  It's like drinking Easter eggs.

• 1:46:16Speaker 01

  But lemon, lemon makes it taste better. So if you're used to think sweetened drinks or sodas, adds some flavor, but also helps with the absorption of water. It's a mini detox fire. Lemons are calming.

• 1:46:29Rich Roll?

  It's alkalizing, alkalizing. And people always say to me, well, how could it be alkalizing? Because these are acids.

• 1:46:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's how our

• 1:46:36Rich Roll?

  I have an answer to this, but please elaborate.

• 1:46:38Speaker 01

  I was just gonna say, it doesn't matter how it tastes. It's how our body absorbs and metabolizes the food. So something as acidic as raw apple cider vinegar or lemon is actually alkaline in nature. So you want to do as many foods alkaline as possible. And you want to add to that?

• 1:46:56Rich Roll?

  No, that was just gonna, it's alkaline forming.

• 1:46:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:46:59Rich Roll?

  They are acids, but for whatever reason that I don't understand, it has an alkalizing effect

• 1:47:05Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:47:06Rich Roll?

  on your system. And I'm a firm believer in this idea of eating alkaline forming food. I mean, overall, a plant-based diet is predominantly alkaline forming. Not every plant food is alkaline forming, but on the whole, it is. And when you're eating these alkaline forming foods, that's very anti-inflammatory. And they're starting to understand that so many of these chronic illnesses are related to inflammation. The less, you know, the less inflamed we are, the more likely we are to sidestep some of these.

• 1:47:37Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:47:38Rich Roll?

  There is a kind of counterpoint out there that says, oh, that's all nonsense. All this alkaline acid stuff is not, I don't believe this, but I know that there are other people saying that. So I was interested in.

• 1:47:51Speaker 01

  Well, that's, we have to prove Americans are really sick and they're eating, if not everything acidic, pretty much everything is acidic that they're eating. There's, there's, so that's, that to me, if you don't want to believe it, if one person or one study contradicts that, it's like, look, look at how Americans are. We're all overweight, we're sick, we're miserable in many ways, we're in pain. And, you know, we're eating, for the, you know, most Americans are eating acidic foods. So that to me, I don't understand.

• 1:48:25Rich Roll?

  And, and stress contributes to

• 1:48:27Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:28Rich Roll?

  this sort of inflammation and the acidic nature of your, and it's not that you become acidic. It's, it's that Your body has to work really hard to bring that pH balance down to

• 1:48:39Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:48:40Rich Roll?

  slightly alkaline, like just shy of neutral, I guess, right?

• 1:48:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:48:44Rich Roll?

  And that takes a toll on your body. It leaches minerals out of your bones and

• 1:48:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. One of the reasons osteoporosis osteoporosis is so high in this country is because the acid-forming foods that everyone's consuming. And, you know, we're eating tons of dairy and that's just proves to me that dairy is not the best option, but

• 1:49:03Rich Roll?

  Right. Animal foods, dairy, processed foods are all very acid-forming and that ends up leaching the calcium out of your bones. So ironically, dairy consumption is actually contributing to osteoporosis,

• 1:49:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:49:15Rich Roll?

  which is the opposite of what we've been told.

• 1:49:17Speaker 01

  Yes. Indoctrinated with

• 1:49:19Rich Roll?

  And what?

• 1:49:20Speaker 01

  indoctrinated with that message.

• 1:49:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:49:24Speaker 01

  So that's one thing and I encourage people to try something new every week. Don't overwhelm yourself unless you have that personality. And I think Rich is one of those people, just going 100% all in, is saying, okay, this week I'm going to try kale for the first time and just see what I can do with it, if I like it, try different recipes. And then next week, have a smoothie every day and see how you feel and just start to incorporate healthier options. And the more you do that, the less the unhealthy foods are going to be appealing. You're going to see how much better you're feeling. And I also recommend trying to let go of something that isn't serving you, whether it's

• 1:50:06Speaker 01

  an action or a food or some lifestyle choice, a person, a relationship, every week to month and just giving that up. So whatever works best for you, do it to a point where you feel, you know, some pressure, but not overwhelmed. Because when you're overwhelmed, that's why, one of the reasons extreme diets never work, on top of most of them being really unhealthy, is because you feel overwhelmed and deprived and starving. And of course, it's not going to last.

• 1:50:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's great advice. You know, I always try to encourage people to not look at it from a deprivation point of view. As opposed to focusing on all the things that you're removing.

• 1:50:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:43Rich Roll?

  Just focus on The things that you're adding in, like you said, like the kale or the smoothie and try to get excited about these new things. Don't worry about what you're not eating. Focus on, on what you are bringing in, like the, the abundance that you're bringing in.

• 1:50:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, and it's just think how lucky we are that we can have these options. Like, oh my God, I get to go to the farmer's market and, and pick out the most beautiful, delicious, juicy pear tomorrow. You know, like that's, that's really exciting to me.

• 1:51:12Rich Roll?

  And when you say, oh, you know, when you start eating these healthy foods and you feel good, then you're not going to crave those as much. You will not crave as much those foods that are making you feel lousy. People like are like, yeah, right. But it's that was my experience.

• 1:51:27Speaker 01

  It's mine too.

• 1:51:28Rich Roll?

  Like once I started eating these foods, I, oh my God, I feel so good. Like I just want to feel good all the time. So I'm going to gravitate towards those foods that make it. That doesn't mean I don't crave, you know, these other things. Of course I do, but I feel more, I have more energy behind making a better choice because I know you, you really become innately familiar with the equation between the foods you're eating and how you feel.

• 1:51:53Speaker 01

  Well, I'm a living example too. I mean, I grew up McDonald's. I had half a pound of bacon every Sunday. I still get teased by family members for that memory. Soda, Lucky Charms for breakfast. Like I had, I had something sugary at least three times a day. Wonder Bread with bologna and peanut butter was one of my staples for lunch. And the thought of any of that is just-

• 1:52:16Rich Roll?

  Bologna and peanut butter.

• 1:52:17Speaker 01

  I know. I don't know if it's a white trash thing or what, but that was what I loved.

• 1:52:21Rich Roll?

  I had bologna and ketchup.

• 1:52:25Speaker 01

  So, and then the thought of any of those foods now, just, I just could never go back. And it's not just because I know they're not good for me. I just have no, absolutely no interest in them at all.

• 1:52:35Rich Roll?

  Right. So you gotta, you gotta, you know, blaze the path a little bit before you can get to that place. But, and you know, you should trust though, that it will happen. And a lot of that, I think- Also happens with the change in the microbiome.

• 1:52:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:52:48Rich Roll?

  As you start eating these healthy foods, the nature of that ecology in your gut starts to change and that impacts your cravings, believe it or not.

• 1:52:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:52:57Rich Roll?

  It really does.

• 1:52:57Speaker 01

  It has a strong impact on your, your brain chemistry. So it only makes sense that you're gonna crave different things, the happier your, your belly is.

• 1:53:06Rich Roll?

  That's right. Very good. So fix your mood with food. What else is in the book that we haven't talked about?

• 1:53:13Speaker 01

  Well, there are lots of case studies, so I hinted on that. And I give a brief description at the beginning, just a few chapters on what Chinese medicine is. I don't get into too many specifics because I don't want to overwhelm the reader with too much information that they're never gonna use later. But it's more, and you don't need to remember it to understand the rest of the book, but it's more just to make people see it's not that weird, it's not that out there, it actually makes perfect sense. And then I have a, a section, this third section is all a long list of different foods, broken up into categories like legumes, seeds, fruit, vegetables, and how they help your

• 1:53:57Speaker 01

  mood from a Chinese standpoint and how they help from a Western standpoint. And then I'll give a suggestion, not a full recipe, but a suggestion on how I like to eat these foods. And then at the very end, I give some tips on how to keep going. So once you have all this information, like, okay, now I know this and there's, I need support in some way. So, you know, finding other people to do this with is a great one. And again, you know, slowly adding new things. And at the very end, there's easy to follow charts. So now you have this, this information, like, okay, I know I'm gonna be really anxious about a job interview next week. What foods can I eat to support, support me so I'm less anxious?

• 1:54:42Speaker 01

  Not, it's not to numb you in any way, but just to support you. So when you walk in there, you're not about to pass out because you've, you're so anxious about it.

• 1:54:51Rich Roll?

  Right, it's very practical, like, sort of applications of this.

• 1:54:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, so women who are going, suffering PMS, PMS, like, okay, I know it's, and that's gonna start happening in the next few days, what foods can I eat so I'm not acting like a raving maniac?

• 1:55:05Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:55:08Rich Roll?

  Well, that's great. What is the, what is the kind of overlap or distinction between Chinese medicine and Ayurveda?

• 1:55:17Speaker 01

  Well, there's

• 1:55:18Rich Roll?

  Is it similar?

• 1:55:19Speaker 01

  Yes, because there's, well, there's five elements in Chinese medicine and Ayurveda has three, Vata, Vata and

• 1:55:27Rich Roll?

  What's the third one?

• 1:55:28Speaker 01

  I'm totally forgetting, drawing a blank.

• 1:55:29Rich Roll?

  Vata, Pitta, and, uh, no, not Dosh, Dosh is the

• 1:55:34Speaker 01

  Is the rap?

• 1:55:35Rich Roll?

  Name for the three of them.

• 1:55:36Speaker 01

  Okay. Anyway, but they, since they come from the same part of the world and it's, it's debatable on which medicine came first. And there is, I've learned a little bit about Ayurveda and there is some overlap with herbs, but I haven't, I haven't done enough. There's so much I can do just with Chinese medicine to add Ayurveda. I think it would just, my brain would explode. So, but there is some overlap, but there is the theory of balancing the elements and nourishing and detoxification and all those things are, are similar.

• 1:56:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, the idea is the same, that the body is complex and needs to be in balance in these various

• 1:56:17Speaker 01

  And look at the whole body.

• 1:56:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and look at the whole body and using, using herbs and dietary protocol and like lifestyle choices to bring that into better balance.

• 1:56:27Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I can say Ayurveda, I was, when I was in India, I was there during monsoon season. So I developed this horrible cough from being exposed to rain every day for 30 days. And I went to an Ayurvedic doctor and he, um, he said I had a fever of 103.

• 1:56:46Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:56:46Speaker 01

  I was, I was pretty sick and I was so sick, I didn't realize it. But anyway, he's like, okay, I'll give you some herbs today. Cause I explained to him, you know, what I did for a living and it was important to try to do it naturally. And he goes, if you're not, if you're not better by tomorrow, then I'm putting you on medication. And within 12 hours, I was feeling better.

• 1:57:03Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:57:04Speaker 01

  So I know Ayurveda

• 1:57:05Rich Roll?

  What did he give you?

• 1:57:05Speaker 01

  No, I was, I know I

• 1:57:07Rich Roll?

  That's the thing, like, my wife, you know, she healed herself of a thyroglossal duct cyst on her neck, um, on an Ayurvedic protocol.

• 1:57:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:57:16Rich Roll?

  But she was seeking the advice of an Ayurvedic doctor and he would give her these herbs and, and in these little baggies, you know, they weren't labeled. And I was like, what is this stuff? It smelled terrible, you know?

• 1:57:28Speaker 01

  I have no idea what I took. It's just kinda scary. But I mean, they understand vegetarian, at least. So I'm like, I'm veg. He's like, okay, so there was-

• 1:57:38Rich Roll?

  He got that part.

• 1:57:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, he got that part.

• 1:57:39Rich Roll?

  He wasn't giving you like eyeballs or something like that, right?

• 1:57:43Speaker 01

  I hope not.

• 1:57:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, it's intense. I mean, Chinese, I have some friends that are studying Chinese medicine and, you know, it's super hardcore. Like, they're studying their butts off for like years, you know? It's very, very intense.

• 1:57:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I went to school, graduate school for me was four and a half years of classes with a year and a half residency, which I was able to do while I was still taking classes at the end. About 5,000 hours of class, class time. And the license for California is as hard as taking the bar. They only pass about 55% of people who take it. So I studied full-time for four months and I had three study groups on top of that.

• 1:58:24Rich Roll?

  For the-

• 1:58:24Speaker 01

  To take the exam. So it's not, because I do get asked, less and less often now, but I do get asked if I went to school for this. Like, well, I am a physician, so I would hope, I would hope that I had to go to school for this. And it's definitely challenging. It's half Western medicine, so I know, I know how to, I can actually prescribe blood work and x-rays and I know how to read the results. I had to take tons of anatomy and physiology, chemistry, biochemistry, physiology. And then this other half is learning about the point locations, what they do, herbs, Chinese nutrition, and all the different modality. I didn't get to go into all of them, but gua sha and cuping and

• 1:59:08Speaker 01

  tui na and qigong and all those things that come along with it.

• 1:59:12Rich Roll?

  We'll have to come back and we can get into it in more detail.

• 1:59:14Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:59:15Rich Roll?

  What is the perception of, of Chinese medicine practitioners by traditional Western doctors?

• 1:59:22Speaker 01

  It's, it's improving, for sure. They're starting to see, oh, my patients are getting better. But there's still this idea that what they do, they know more than doctors of Chinese medicine. Somehow that, that MD title, and again, not all of them are like this, but that gives them somehow that they're smarter and know more than me. But it's definitely improving and I have, like, I have oncologists referring to me now, which is definitely a big deal. Well, that's been going on for a while, but- Yeah, they're seeing the results and actually some MDs are even incorporating acupuncture into their clinics.

• 2:00:03Speaker 01

  The only thing is, I can say, if you go to an MD who does acupuncture, MDs in the US don't actually have to go to acupuncture school at all. So, find out if they've even taken classes, because they won't hurt you, hopefully, but they won't give you the best possible results, because you really, like I said, almost 5,000 hours of schooling, and MDs sometimes will take a weekend course, but there's no certification for them at all.

• 2:00:31Rich Roll?

  So, if somebody is looking for a Chinese medicine practitioner like yourself, Chinese medicine doctor, or an acupuncturist in their area, is there like a website where people can find out who the legit people are?

• 2:00:46Speaker 01

  Well, there's...

• 2:00:47Rich Roll?

  For people that are listening who want to learn more and maybe seek out the counsel of someone like yourself near where they live?

• 2:00:53Speaker 01

  Well, there is a national licensing program. It's separate from California, because California is going to be the toughest way to get licensed. I don't know their exact URL, but if you just put National Acupuncture Association, it'll come up and it should have a list of all the acupuncturists that are licensed, that take, for the states that take that licensing. And then for California, you can look up everyone who's licensed in the state of California, and New York has their own licensing exam, and a few other states. And, you know, ask friends, neighbors, colleagues, if they've ever done it, who they like, and

• 2:01:36Speaker 01

  if you don't know anyone that has done it. Yelp isn't 100% guaranteed you'll get the best results, even though they have a lot of positive reviews, but that is another option. And I do say to everyone who's asked me, "Do you know someone here?" Or, "How do I get a referral?" If you're not happy with that first person you go to, try a second acupuncturist, because we're all very different and have different ways...

• 2:02:05Speaker 01

  Of looking at a patient, different ways of interacting with the patient. So if that first experience doesn't blow you away, you know, if they're, if it's so-so, give them a few times. But if you're just like, oh, no, this isn't the right person for me, or that hurt too much, go to try someone new.

• 2:02:22Rich Roll?

  Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

• 2:02:24Speaker 01

  Yes, because acupuncture does not need to hurt. Some acupuncturists can be very aggressive with how they put in needles. But my, all my patients pretty much fall asleep during a treatment. So that's how easy it is and relaxing it is. So if you get someone that's like, ah, you're screaming, and then try someone else.

• 2:02:46Rich Roll?

  Not a good idea. All right. All right, cool. Well, we got to wrap it up here.

• 2:02:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:02:51Rich Roll?

  But this was delightful.

• 2:02:52Speaker 01

  It was fun.

• 2:02:53Rich Roll?

  Thank you, Heather. It was very informative and I enjoyed it.

• 2:02:57Speaker 01

  Me too. Thanks for having me.

• 2:02:58Rich Roll?

  How do you feel?

• 2:02:59Speaker 01

  I feel great.

• 2:03:00Rich Roll?

  Feel all right? You say everything you want to say?

• 2:03:03Speaker 01

  Oh, my goodness. Well, there's always more, but no, that's enough for today.

• 2:03:07Rich Roll?

  Cool. Well, if you're digging on Heather, the first thing to do is to pick up her book called Fix Your Mood With Food, available everywhere. Use the Amazon banner ad at richroll.com, of course, which helps us out and helps Heather out and helps get the healthy message out to the world, right?

• 2:03:24Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:03:24Rich Roll?

  And if you want to connect with Heather, the best place to do that is her, her website is livenaturallivewell.com, right?

• 2:03:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:03:32Rich Roll?

  And on Twitter, you're @DocHeather, @DocHeather. Where else? You have a Facebook page?

• 2:03:37Speaker 01

  Facebook is Doc Heather and the number one. And Pinterest, I think I'm one Doc Heather. I couldn't get it in time.

• 2:03:45Rich Roll?

  Branding sorted out.

• 2:03:47Speaker 01

  I know. But it was, it was, I didn't get them in time, unfortunately. And I was thinking, okay, if I have to have the one, have it at the end, but someone had already taken it. So.

• 2:03:56Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:03:57Speaker 01

  Yes. And there's someone with, I tried to get the web address, Doc Heather. I mean, I love Liv Natural, Live Well, but A Plastic Surgeon has Doc Heather.

• 2:04:07Rich Roll?

  Really?

• 2:04:07Speaker 01

  Has their website, so.

• 2:04:09Rich Roll?

  Shameful.

• 2:04:09Speaker 01

  Yes, it's all right.

• 2:04:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah. All right. Well, you could, well, we could talk about that. All right. Well, thanks so much. It was great talking to you.

• 2:04:18Speaker 01

  Thanks for having me.

• 2:04:19Rich Roll?

  Peace. Plants.

• 2:04:23Rich Roll?

  All right, well, there you go. I mean, there's a few things to think about as you approach your next meal, as you get ready to head out on that grocery store expedition. I got a ton out of that. I hope you did, too. I'm sure lots of you out there are navigating New Year's resolutions around diet and nutrition and setting goals for yourself. And hopefully Heather filled in some of the gaps for you and inspired you to take your program to the next level. Don't forget to check out the show notes for this episode so you can continue the learning. Lots of what Heather talked about, there's hyperlinks to further information so you can

• 2:05:04Rich Roll?

  expand your educational experience that this podcast has offered you. On a similar note, I've got a few things to say on the subject of plant-based nutrition and goal-setting and goal-achieving. In fact, I've got a couple online courses on just these very subjects. The first is called The Ultimate Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition. The second is called The Art of Living with Purpose. Both of these courses are available at mindbodygreen.com. They're both multiple hours of streaming video content. They both have tons of awesome downloadable tools and they feature interactive online communities. Basically, everything that you need to dial up your dietary regimen, your nutrition, everything you need to get more plants into your active life, and everything you need

• 2:05:46Rich Roll?

  to set yourself on a new and healthier nutrition trajectory. And also, God forbid, to probe deep inside you, to learn more about what makes you tick so that you can set the right goals for yourself and then take those goals across the finish line. And ultimately, my goal for you is to simply raise the bar on your personal and athletic, but mainly your personal life experience. So if you want to find out more about those courses, just go to mindbodygreen.com, click on "Video Courses" at the top of the homepage, it's all there. For all your Plant Power provisions, go to ritual.com. We've got new t-shirts, we've got the cool tech t-shirts for running, for going to the gym, they're sweet.

• 2:06:27Rich Roll?

  We've got a new t-shirt design, it's a California license plate motif, so go there and check it out. T-shirts are in limited supply, so get them while they're hot. And don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter so you can stay clued in to what's what. And if you've been enjoying the show, hit us up with a review on iTunes and check out the iOS app to access the entire podcast catalog. What else? What else? Oh, I know. Hey, I'm enjoying doing this Q and A thing. This extra show a week's been super fun. I'm really digging it. I want to keep the momentum going. I want to keep the flow going. So please, keep sending those questions. If there's something you want me to talk about,

• 2:07:10Rich Roll?

  you want me to address, write it out and send it to me and we'll put it in the hopper. And hopefully you'll get your question answered. Thank you, Tyler Pyatt, for production, audio engineering, music and sound design on today's show. Thank you, Chris Swan, for additional production and editorial support. Thank you, Sean Patterson, for all the awesome graphic art that goes along with each episode. Thank you, guys. See you next week. Peace. Plants, plants, plants, plants. Plants, plants, plants.