Groundbreaking Science Between Your Mind & Gut Health w/ Dr. Amy Shah

THIS is a REVOLUTIONARY conversation about the INTERSECTION of YOUR BRAIN, GUT microbiome and FOOD! This podcast with Dr. Amy Shah is going to BLOW you away with her CUTTING-EDGE insights about YOUR HEALTH and the connection between your GUT BIOME and YOUR MIND. DR. SHAH has written two books and is beyond qualified as a double board-certified doctor and nutritional expert show has studied at Cornell, Harvard, AND Columbia University. In a fast-moving hour, DR. SHAH unlocks more mysteries about gut health, your immune system, the brain-gut-bacteria connection, and several other critical things you should know to help you feel and live better, including…💪🏽 Fermented food and the link to bacterial DOPAMINE💪🏽 How FOOD CRAVINGS are linked to our memories💪🏽 Six SUPERFOODS you should eat every day💪🏽 How processed foods affect your MOOD💪🏽 Why you need to eat MORE PROTEIN for peak health💪🏽 The right way and wrong way to fast, and the link to CIRCADIAN RHYTHMS💪🏽 Food and female HORMONE health💪🏽 What are PREBIOTICS and PSYCHOBIOTICS, and how they interact with your body💪🏽 The science behind FECAL TRANSPLANTS💪🏽 The link between gut health and EXERCISE💪🏽 Things you can do to SLEEP BETTER and should you take CBD or melatonin supplements to help you sleep better💪🏽 The truth about how much WATER and COFFEE you should drinkDr. Shah does an incredible job of SETTING THE TABLE with a commonsense approach to FOOD and GUT HEALTH. That's why you’re going to EAT UP THIS EPISODE if you’re looking for ways to live a more HEALTHY, HAPPY, and LONGER LIFE. Make sure you have a notepad open you're going to want to apply these STRATEGIES in your life TODAY so you can be HEALTHIER & HAPPIER tomorrow! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

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• 1:02Speaker 01

  Visible puts unlimited 5G data and hotspot in the palm of your hand. Powered by Verizon's 5G network. With no contract holding you back. And for a limited time, you can get Visible for just $19 a month for 12 months when you use promo code SAVE6. All the features of big wireless service for half the cost. Tap the banner to switch today. Terms apply. Standard rate applies at month 13. See visible.com for plan features and network management details.

• 1:35Speaker 02

  This is the Ed Mileage Show.

• 1:40Ed Mylett?

  Welcome back, everybody. You know, it's not easy to get on the show two times. Usually, most are one and done.

• 1:47Dr. Amy Shah?

  I'm so honored.

• 1:50Ed Mylett?

  And the reason I'm having you back was, I was just telling you off air that, you know, the first episode we did just, like, virally went crazy. And I think it's one because of your brilliance and just the way you deliver very complicated information in a very easy-to-understand fashion. That is, that's how you know you're a smart person, when you don't have to try to sound smart all the time like I do. But the other reason is the topic. And so much of our audience is into this topic. And so let me introduce you so that everybody properly knows who you are. If you didn't hear her last time. Uh, I don't know Harvard trained Cornell trained. I don't know what else you want to know Columbia. She's got a little bit of an educational background. And her, she's an expert in a lot of different things. But we're really going to talk about today is hunger. Your gut, your microbiome, how all of that stuff's connected.

• 2:35Ed Mylett?

  So you can live better, healthier, with more energy, with better sleep. And there's some really cool stuff we're going to cover today with back for the second time. Dr. Amy Shah, welcome back.

• 2:48Dr. Amy Shah?

  So honored to be here. I mean, your show is just the pinnacle of, you know, mindset and motivation. So, so honored.

• 2:56Ed Mylett?

  Well, you helped me with my mindset and I am motivated when you're here. So the name of her new book is I'm So F-ing Hungry, which is like the coolest title in the world. Why we crave what we crave and what to do about it. And this is right up my alley. Cause there's different times, man. I go through these crazy cravings for food and I've always wondered why. Let's set some parameters first, like basic stuff. When you say microbiome and I say gut, are we saying the same thing?

• 3:23Dr. Amy Shah?

  Well, the gut includes our own cells and bacteria, but also viruses, fungus, parasites. I mean, they're all in there. So the microbiome is like a more global term. We can't really think about just our cells. Our cells are just very microscopic compared to, you know, there's 10 times more genes in the gut from the bacteria than our own cells.

• 3:47Ed Mylett?

  The last time you were here, um, really enlightened me and a lot of my audience about, um, really the, the gut being like the second brain and the connection between the gut and emotions, brain function, brain fog, et cetera. Let's just start right there because there's so much we're going to cover this hour. But I wish it was six hours, but like there is, why is the gut called the second brain?

• 4:14Dr. Amy Shah?

  When we are embryos, they're connected.

• 4:18Dr. Amy Shah?

  And then they separate. Okay, but then we stay connected through the vagus nerve, through the nervous system. So we're, our brain and gut are connected. And we really think of them as separate things. Like, we think about gut as like, oh, your stomach hurts or you're bloated. But I'm telling you that if you're happy or sad or motivated or hungry right now, it's coming from your gut, actually.

• 4:44Ed Mylett?

  Hmm. They're connected when we're in the embryo.

• 4:47Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 4:48Ed Mylett?

  Why has it taken so long for medical science even to broach the topic, then?

• 4:52Dr. Amy Shah?

  It was, I mean, we thought these gut bacteria were just annoying, or, you know, we wanted to kill them, as you know, antibiotics. The whole culture that we live in is germaphobe. We hate bacteria. But it was in the turn of the century in London, when everybody started to move into the city, start to get richer, quote unquote, you know, live in large apartments, eat at restaurants, out of the farms, where they started to see the problems, the problems in the immune system. And then they're like, wait, why are these problems happening? Why? Because your gut needs to see bacteria. Otherwise, it's sterile. And when it becomes sterile, all these problems start. So when we wonder why we're so depressed, and depression's going up by 35%,

• 5:36Dr. Amy Shah?

  we wonder why we're so hungry, we're getting obese, more obese. And then we wonder why inflammatory diseases, like heart disease, cancer, diabetes, you know, all of these, they're all linked to this. We're missing that big picture when we're talking about it. We can't just treat the heart, can't just treat the brain.

• 5:52Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, that's why when you called and said, hey, can we do this again? I'm like, yep, let's do it again, right away. So we're gonna go all over the place, because in like the sequence of stuff, because you've already brought things up I was gonna ask about. So let's just start with, we need bacteria. Reading that you're like, hey, these antibacterial gels, we're pouring all over ourselves now, all of a sudden, because of the pandemic and all these other things. Be really careful. And then the other thing, even for me, every time I get sick, I'm like, doc, can I get an antibiotic over here? So just address those two things to start out, for everybody's knowledge.

• 6:22Dr. Amy Shah?

  Okay, things like mouthwash, antibacterial mouthwash raises your blood pressure. Okay, because we have these bacteria in our mouth. That are like nitrates, they relax the blood vessels. And if we kill them, we automatically get higher blood pressure. Heart disease comes from that, right? That's the number one reason for heart disease. Then we have bacteria in our gut that gets killed every time you take an antibiotic. And actually, we're really good at killing all the bugs, but it's really hard to grow them back. And it can be from generation to generation, you can lose bacteria. So we have 40% less bacteria than our forefathers.

• 7:02Ed Mylett?

  Really?

• 7:03Dr. Amy Shah?

  And so we're damaging not only our own gut by doing this, but we're damaging the guts of our children, our grandchildren, our great grandchildren. I mean, this is a big problem, I'm telling you. So I tell people, it's like, I say big because it's brain, immune system, gut. We're missing that big picture. If we started to address these things, I mean, you talk about mindset all the time. Our brain is so powerful, our gut is so powerful. If we use these things, we could actually solve some of these problems.

• 7:33Ed Mylett?

  So you brought me a bunch of goodies today.

• 7:35Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 7:36Ed Mylett?

  And a lot of it's like fermented foods, right? And you're telling me before we started, you know, I think most of my audience knows what dopamine is, but we all want more of it, right? And you're like, hey, there's a little bit of connection here to your gut and these foods, particularly fermented foods.

• 7:48Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 7:49Ed Mylett?

  When it comes to, isn't this cool, everybody? Already getting all this stuff this early in the interview? So tell us about that.

• 7:54Dr. Amy Shah?

  Dopamine, for those who don't know, is your motivation hormone. That's the one you want to do that thing, get to the top of the ladder, to get better at your workout, to be a better father, you know, friend. That is the neurochemical that is created in your brain. But what people didn't realize until recently is that that neurochemical is made by the gut, by the gut bacteria and the gut bacteria and the gut cells ourselves. Actually, 50% of the dopamine actually comes from our gut.

• 8:27Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 8:29Dr. Amy Shah?

  And the dopamine that the bacteria make is much stronger than our own dopamine. It's, it can be a hundred times more potent than our own dopamine. So it's giving you a hundred times more of that motivational chemical that we are trying to get from everywhere. You know, we are, we are dopamine fiends. That's our cravings hormone. This whole book is about how to control our cravings. That's dopamine.

• 8:54Ed Mylett?

  Dopamine is a craving.

• 8:55Dr. Amy Shah?

  It's cravings.

• 8:56Ed Mylett?

  So, so stay on this though. So the why fermented food? What is that doing in our gut to unleash?

• 9:04Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 9:04Ed Mylett?

  Or is it, there's not a direct correlation or there is?

• 9:06Dr. Amy Shah?

  Okay. So fermented, or some people call it probiotic. That's probably the better term because some fermented doesn't have probiotics. So.

• 9:14Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 9:14Dr. Amy Shah?

  Food that has live bacteria in it, fermented foods, they have bacteria that go to your colon and join the other bacteria there. Right? We now know that more diverse, the more little friends you have in there, the better your brain function, the better your outcome in life, the happier you are. And so those bacteria together, they make dopamine.

• 9:40Ed Mylett?

  It's crazy to me.

• 9:41Dr. Amy Shah?

  Isn't that crazy?

• 9:42Ed Mylett?

  What's the, and so also like.

• 9:44Dr. Amy Shah?

  Why do people not know? I mean, it's like, it's like mind blowing, this information.

• 9:48Ed Mylett?

  It is mind blowing and it's like, um, I don't know why. Like I, it's taken so long. Thank God for you and a few other people. Seriously.

• 9:55Dr. Amy Shah?

  I know, seriously.

• 9:56Ed Mylett?

  Like I got permission this morning from you that I should be drinking more champagne. What's your deal with that?

• 10:01Dr. Amy Shah?

  A little, a little bit.

• 10:02Ed Mylett?

  No, I want to drink a lot more.

• 10:03Dr. Amy Shah?

  The problem, the problem with alcohol is that obviously it's a toxin. So fermented foods can be really, really helpful, but not when it's mixed with a, with a known toxin to your brain.

• 10:15Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 10:15Dr. Amy Shah?

  So the benefits that you're going to get from your bacteria are going to be negated by the toxin effects. So now we know, you know, no amount of alcohol is actually good for your brain.

• 10:24Ed Mylett?

  So what was the champagne you're giving me? It's in some chocolate or something.

• 10:27Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah. It's a, it's a non-alcoholic.

• 10:29Ed Mylett?

  Non-alcoholic crap.

• 10:31Dr. Amy Shah?

  You'll have to take a sip of champagne on the side.

• 10:34Ed Mylett?

  Let me say something about the book first. What I like about the book is there's like five steps. So it's easy to read. It's a very complicated subject. And then again, that is, that just goes to your brilliance of how you handle these topics with simplicity that are very complicated. But let's go to kind of the root of the book, number one. By the way, everybody is hungry right now. Right? And I wake up, I'm curious too. I'll ask you this secondly. I wake up with hungers at different times. And so let's start out in general, why are we so hungry? And then number two, is there a rhythm to hunger? And I know you talk about circadian rhythm in the book with bacteria. Just tie all that together for us.

• 11:14Dr. Amy Shah?

  Sure. So hunger and cravings are two different things. First of all, it's actually different parts of our brain and our body. You could be hungry or you could be craving something. So sometimes you're full, right? You've, you've eaten a full meal.

• 11:29Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, put a plate of spaghetti in front of me. I've ate the whole film meal, but I still got cravings.

• 11:33Dr. Amy Shah?

  Exactly. You'll get in your car, you'll drive across town. Cravings are so strong that you will take action, much more so than hunger, right? Hunger, you could bypass that. You could sit in here and be like, meh. I could bypass that. But cravings, it will get you up off your chair. It will get you to take action, move and get that thing. Why do you think that cravings is the same mechanism for food cravings is the alcohol, the gambling, the porn, the, the craving pathway is the strongest pathway that we have to motivate behavior. So it can be good.

• 12:10Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 12:11Dr. Amy Shah?

  Right? You can be motivated to do, go to the gym every day, do your work, read books. Or it can be bad. You can crave bad things or you can crave good things. And what I basically talk about in the book is we should know how to control our own cravings because it's possible. You can have the best of intentions. Everybody woke up on January 1st and they had a whole list of things, right? But now. Half, you know, not even a third way through the year. What happened? It's that cravings pathway.

• 12:41Ed Mylett?

  Interesting. What is the craving then? So you're exactly right. By the way, brilliant. I never thought about the difference between hunger and cravings. The truth is, I'm not hungry because I eat a lot. I have cravings though.

• 12:51Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 12:52Ed Mylett?

  And so what's causing the craving? And what can I do to alleviate or reduce it?

• 12:57Dr. Amy Shah?

  Well, exactly what I was thinking to myself when I was reading this. When I was reading the research, I thought, wow, if we all knew more about cravings, then we would be such a happier, more motivated, stronger, fitter group of people. So basically how cravings work is that when you were a kid, you went to a baseball game with your dad or a family member. I'm just guessing because that's what I did. And you had, you know, French fries, you had a Coke, you had maybe a Kit Kat. You know, who knows? A lot, ice cream cone. And it became a memory, a neural pathway.

• 13:35Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 13:35Dr. Amy Shah?

  So now, when you go to a game or do anything happy.

• 13:39Ed Mylett?

  To trigger.

• 13:40Dr. Amy Shah?

  You remember that, right? Your body wants to remember that. And then somebody asked me, why would our bodies want to remember to eat junk food? Like, that makes no sense evolutionarily, but it does. Because if we were a thousand years ago, if you were walking around the forest and all of a sudden you saw this amazing fruit tree. It was full of juicy, sweet fruit. You would stop in your tracks. You would eat the fruit. You would gather it up. You'd take it back to your family or tribe, whatever. And your brain would form a pathway.

• 14:11Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 14:12Dr. Amy Shah?

  So that next time, you know where to go. It's a very strong motivator. Even in times of famine and strife, you will remember where that tree was and go and get that fruit.

• 14:25Ed Mylett?

  Really good.

• 14:25Dr. Amy Shah?

  And the problem with dopamine, you know how you know it's a dopamine trigger? It's pleasure mixed with pain. So quickly after you eat that cookie, you almost feel discomfort.

• 14:39Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 14:40Dr. Amy Shah?

  Right? You feel like, oh, my God, am I going to get it again? How am I, did I eat too much? Like, I want more, but I shouldn't. You know, that whole discomfort? That's your neurological way to make sure that you do it again. It's kind of like that discomfort making you go back for more, just to stop the discomfort.

• 15:00Ed Mylett?

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• 17:04Ed Mylett?

  Hmm. So is this a matter then of um increasing the right bacterias in our gut? So that that mine's usually sugar.

• 17:14Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 17:14Ed Mylett?

  Mine is sugar and ironically lately, maybe you could explain this to me. Maybe other people can relate to this. Sometimes it's at a particular time, like when I wake up in the middle of the night. Is that something going on in my bacteria? I'm like, I would like a bite of like chocolate right now, which I don't necessarily have at like eight thirty in the morning.

• 17:30Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah. So that so there's a few things at play.

• 17:33Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 17:34Dr. Amy Shah?

  The nighttime one can be a blood sugar drop.

• 17:36Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 17:37Dr. Amy Shah?

  So when you have a blood sugar drop in the middle of the night, and that can be because you ate a very sweet or high carbohydrate meal. And then when it's dropping, that's when you're wanting the food again.

• 17:47Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 17:47Dr. Amy Shah?

  And the bacteria, exactly what you said, changing your gut bacteria so that it helps you with your motivation, raises your baseline levels of dopamine. So you're not just fiending for um quick dopamine. And then, you know, using your mindset, okay, learning that, hey, if I learned this pathway when I was a kid, maybe I relearned this and maybe, you know, exercise gives me a dopamine burst. Um, you know, when I go for a sunny walk or jog, that gives me a dopamine burst. Maybe adding up these little things that actually give me the dopamine burst instead of having the dopamine explosion that you get from processed food or from, you know, gambling, video games, social media, all of that.

• 18:27Ed Mylett?

  What are the I'm going everywhere, but there's like, I want stuff for me.

• 18:31Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 18:31Ed Mylett?

  So everybody in my audience gets a little benefit of this today. You said there are soup, there are six superfoods.

• 18:39Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 18:40Ed Mylett?

  That you recommend.

• 18:40Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yes.

• 18:41Ed Mylett?

  Why do you recommend them and what are they?

• 18:43Dr. Amy Shah?

  Okay, I recommend those foods every day because you like you, you're like, okay, I got it. You told I want to change my gut. I want to change my immune system, my brain, the big picture. I want to change it. So tell me what to do. The biggest mover is food, right? Food changes your mood.

• 19:01Ed Mylett?

  Okay, can I say something about that? I'll just add, I read something in your book that shocked me. You're like, we're actually not eating enough in many cases.

• 19:08Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 19:08Ed Mylett?

  And we're starving the right bacterias in our body. So that's pretty good news for everybody. It may not be that you're eating too much. It may be that you're eating the wrong stuff. I just want to interject that because I that's just went, whoa, we're not eating enough? That's crazy to me, but it's enough of this probably is what you mean.

• 19:23Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah, because if you think about it, it's very difficult to say to someone, just don't eat processed foods.

• 19:29Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, right.

• 19:29Dr. Amy Shah?

  You know, or you're done. It's much easier to crowd out that stuff by eating the right foods for your gut.

• 19:38Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 19:39Dr. Amy Shah?

  So your gut bacteria do not like ultra-processed foods. And I'll define what an ultra-processed food is, okay? An ultra-processed food is a food with ingredients that you could never recreate in a kitchen. Not in your kitchen, not in anyone's kitchen. Meaning there are non-culinary ingredients in that food. So, easy example, Doritos, Oreos. You, no matter what ingredients you had in your pantry, you could never recreate that. I mean, there is no list of ingredients that could recreate. So that's your definition. Ultra-processed foods are terrible. They are gut bacteria killers. We now know that the people that eat the highest amount of ultra-processed foods have the lowest mood.

• 20:24Ed Mylett?

  And some of them are trying to be healthy, but no offense, but they're trying to eat like a lot of protein bars or things like that, right? But actually, technically, these foods are designed not to satiate you, actually make you hungrier in some cases.

• 20:34Dr. Amy Shah?

  They make you hungry and they kill the bacteria that were gonna make you feel full. Bacteria actually make these peptides that make you feel full. And so if you're killing the bacteria, you're gonna be hungrier, you're gonna have more cravings, your dopamine level's gonna go low. So they did the, um, they did this study where they wanted to see what it did to the mental health. And it was 80% more mental health days. So, depression, anxiety, with the highest amount of ultra-processed food.

• 21:03Ed Mylett?

  Okay, what are these six we need to eat then so that we, that we have bliss instead of anxiety?

• 21:08Dr. Amy Shah?

  So some of these are gonna sound very foreign, but stay with me, okay?

• 21:12Ed Mylett?

  I'm going nowhere. You got me right here.

• 21:13Dr. Amy Shah?

  In the, in the book, you can basically look at the list. Because there's a food, there's a food group called glucosinolates. Glucosinolates sound like, what the hell are you saying? But it's a group of foods like broccoli, kale, cauliflower, bok choy are all in this group. And they have this special food for the gut, okay?

• 21:33Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 21:33Dr. Amy Shah?

  So you wanna do that. Number two, you wanna have fiber.

• 21:36Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 21:37Dr. Amy Shah?

  Fiber from plants especially. Because ultra-processed food, one of the things they do is they take out all the fiber from the food. So you wanna have fiber. Number three, you wanna have dopamine-supporting foods. And we can go into what dopamine-supporting foods are.

• 21:51Ed Mylett?

  Give us a couple.

• 21:52Dr. Amy Shah?

  Eggs, yogurt, nuts, cherries, bananas.

• 21:58Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 21:58Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 21:59Ed Mylett?

  Eggs are dopamine supporting foods?

• 22:00Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah, they have amino acid called tyrosine. Tyrosine gets converted to dopamine.

• 22:05Ed Mylett?

  I love it because I pound eggs, so that's great.

• 22:08Dr. Amy Shah?

  So what you can do is, what I do is, you have to have a dopamine-rich breakfast to kind of, dopamine is very similar to adrenaline, so it gives you that energy boost. It gives you that motivation, that drive. That's dopamine supporting foods in the morning is best. So if you had like, you know, I've got you some probiotic cottage cheese.

• 22:25Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 22:25Dr. Amy Shah?

  You've put some nuts and berries on there. You have your eggs, you are set.

• 22:29Ed Mylett?

  I'm on it, okay, I'm gonna do it, okay.

• 22:31Dr. Amy Shah?

  Omega three rich foods. We know about omega threes for their brain health, but they're really great for your gut health. Amino acid-rich foods, which, you know, high protein foods. We know, protein is one of the things that is very controversial, but we know for our gut health, for our brain health, for our muscle health, we need protein.

• 22:54Ed Mylett?

  Okay, you know, more and more on the show, food and nutrition experts, you at the top of that list, are recommending protein, it seems to me. Like, more and more, the group that doesn't recommend protein is a very small group of people now. They're becoming more and more isolated, it seems, in nutrition world. I don't mean to defend anybody, nor am I a doctor. I'm just saying, anecdotally, on my show, almost Max Lugavere, yourself, Dr. David Sinclair, you know, whether they're anti-aging or health experts, pretty much across the board, they're like, protein's really important.

• 23:28Dr. Amy Shah?

  Especially if you work out a lot and you're getting older, which is like, you know, for me, I was abysmal at eating protein because I grew up vegetarian, I didn't lift weights a lot, and as you get older, it really takes a toll because you lose your muscle mass, you have more hunger and cravings, your hormones are tanking. So you really need to do that higher level as you get older and do weight training with it so that you're using it up and you're not.

• 23:54Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 23:55Dr. Amy Shah?

  And the last, the sixth one, is polyphenols. So polyphenols are the brightly colored berries and the vegetables. Phenols are like antioxidants for your body. So it's like anti-aging in a food form.

• 24:07Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 24:08Dr. Amy Shah?

  So you want to be having those. So it sounds really complicated, but if you had that breakfast that I was telling you about, you pretty much covered all of them.

• 24:15Ed Mylett?

  So I had some yogurt with some berries in it. That's a good breakfast, or at least to some extent?

• 24:18Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah, yogurt with berries and nuts, seeds, and then you have a high protein lunch. You have a salad, maybe, or soup. You're set.

• 24:26Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. What's interesting for everybody listening to this, that's why I just love you and your work so much. I've always eaten for like fitness.

• 24:33Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, build muscle, reduce fat. I never thought about eating for emotion, um, energy, warding off anxiety, worry and depression, because I never understood the connection between these two places. And now I'm finding, especially as I get older, like, yeah, I really do want to be fit and strong and all that. But I also feel there's such a connection to my energy level and my emotional health and my desire to go to the gym. My desire to do that extra meeting, the power of one more

• 25:01Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 25:01Ed Mylett?

  that I talk about is really connected to this. Let's stay on, um, rhythms. So I fly a lot. So I'm real familiar with circadian rhythms, right? And the lack of being on, having, feeling like I'm on jet lag.

• 25:13Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 25:13Ed Mylett?

  You actually use that term in the book, that some people almost permanently live feeling like jet lag.

• 25:17Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 25:18Ed Mylett?

  So you talk about that the gut bacteria has a circadian rhythm to it, I think.

• 25:21Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah, they do.

• 25:22Ed Mylett?

  Which blew my mind.

• 25:23Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 25:24Ed Mylett?

  And that, um, that the connection between that circadian rhythm, that there might be a circadian rhythm fasting that you recommend, or something along those lines?

• 25:33Dr. Amy Shah?

  I think most people are doing fasting wrong. I'll just say it.

• 25:35Ed Mylett?

  Let's do this. Okay, I want to hear this.

• 25:37Dr. Amy Shah?

  Because they're doing fasting for, like you said, fitness, um, maybe they heard, um, the word autophagy, whatever.

• 25:44Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 25:45Dr. Amy Shah?

  But the problem is they're not understanding that circadian rhythms run our body. So when you wake up in the morning, you see sunlight, you move, you're supposed to eat.

• 25:58Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 26:00Dr. Amy Shah?

  Ideally, for circadian rhythm, for your digestion, for the best mood boost for all of it. Now, we have studies.

• 26:05Ed Mylett?

  This is gonna get good. Okay, good.

• 26:07Dr. Amy Shah?

  Now, we have studies backing it up that breakfast is actually a very healthy meal. It can be delayed breakfast. Most of us are, you know, many of us delay our breakfast a little bit, but you can still eat it. So what people are doing wrong is that they're fasting all day. You know, they're pushing it all day, maybe three, four, maybe they're not even eating until dinner, right? And then they're eating late into the night, and most of that stuff after dinner is not good stuff.

• 26:33Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 26:34Dr. Amy Shah?

  Right? It's processed, it's sugary. And then you basically are keeping your gut bacteria up, you're keeping your digestion up, instead of being in the restorative repair phase. So imagine if someone woke you up in the middle of the night and made you do work, and you would be exhausted in the morning.

• 26:54Ed Mylett?

  I've wondered about this, right here. I've wondered about this very thing, that eating later in the day when you've held off, that now your body's working to digest while you're supposed to be resting. I've wondered this exact thing.

• 27:04Dr. Amy Shah?

  And you go straight to bed, right?

• 27:06Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 27:06Dr. Amy Shah?

  And then you wonder why you have digestive issues, why, you know, your weight's not going down, why you're not feeling, why you feel groggy, and you're aging. I mean, all of us want that growth hormone burst, you know? That happens one hour after you go to bed. And in the ideal situation, if you've been sleeping, you get that big growth hormone burst, you should be in kind of a fasting state at that point. Shouldn't just be digesting an hour ago, you know?

• 27:33Ed Mylett?

  How far back then? Four hours? Five hours?

• 27:36Dr. Amy Shah?

  Two to three hours before bed.

• 27:37Ed Mylett?

  Two to three hours?

• 27:37Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 27:38Ed Mylett?

  So if you stopped eating at 6:00 PM and you went to bed at 9:30, you're cool?

• 27:41Dr. Amy Shah?

  You're perfect. And then maybe you get up and you do a workout or get a sun before you have your first meal? You're set. That's circadian fasting.

• 27:51Ed Mylett?

  Okay. My female listeners, I had different people on, and I've always asked, because I'm a man, I often ask about like, okay, testosterone levels, hormone levels related to food. And I had Dr. Lane Norton on recently, and I had asked him, hey, how do you feel about exogenous testosterone? And a lot of my female listeners, which is more of my audience than men ironically, said, hey, would you please ask somebody about female hormone health on the show? And I'm like, yeah, I should be doing that, shouldn't I, since I have a daughter and a wife?

• 28:19Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 28:19Ed Mylett?

  Lots of female friends.

• 28:20Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 28:21Ed Mylett?

  So is there anything food-wise?

• 28:22Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 28:23Ed Mylett?

  Particularly if it relates to a woman that's different than a man or just in general that you say, here's something you should be doing to optimize your hormone levels.

• 28:30Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah. I love talking about hormones because that was my journey. I felt like my hormones were imbalanced. I kept thinking like, how am I going to balance my hormones? But what I didn't realize is that this is all about gut health again.

• 28:43Ed Mylett?

  Okay, here we go.

• 28:44Dr. Amy Shah?

  Okay. If you transplant gut bacteria from a male to a female, the female will have testosterone levels similar to the male. Without ever doing any testes transplant or changing their,

• 28:58Ed Mylett?

  Hormone replacement therapy.

• 28:59Dr. Amy Shah?

  Nothing. So it is coming from the gut. You know, the gut bacteria can make hormones, can help you balance. So there's very good evidence that it, you know, when you have too high estrogen, it kind of stops it. When you have too little, it kind of pumps it out. It is your best way to keep your hormone levels stable as you get older. Poor gut health is one of the biggest reasons that women feel like their hormones are imbalanced. They're, you know, maybe their cycles are off, their PMS is exaggerated. I actually talk about, women should all know what their cycle is. So in today's world, we, in 2023, it's no secret that a woman has a 20 day, eight day cycle.

• 29:43Dr. Amy Shah?

  It's still considered like, oh, don't talk about your period or like, you know, it's like you have a daughter, you have a wife, you have female friends. So I encourage women to start to learn their cycle, start to learn like, hey, there's a follicular phase for the first 14 days, then there's a luteal phase. And at the end of the luteal phase, that PMS, it's called the late luteal phase.

• 30:06Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 30:07Dr. Amy Shah?

  You need to switch up how you, how you do things. Late luteal phase, your hormones have dropped. It's like, like a free for, free for all, you know, like a free fall that the hormones just go away.

• 30:19Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 30:20Dr. Amy Shah?

  Well, I'm telling you this so you can help your, your, you know, friends or colleagues, the people, the women in your, in your life and the women listening and watching this.

• 30:29Ed Mylett?

  So when you're in that phase, switch it up.

• 30:31Dr. Amy Shah?

  Switch it up. So you're going to want to be less, do less stressful activities. So if you like HIIT training, just lay off, you know, whatever that mean, what it is for you. So if you're doing it. Three to five times a week, stay on the three or even two, you know?

• 30:48Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 30:49Dr. Amy Shah?

  Start to do more yoga, restorative. Don't do the long fast.

• 30:52Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 30:53Dr. Amy Shah?

  Don't do the things that are going to stress you out. Don't, even though you feel like eating a lot of sugary foods to get that mood boost.

• 31:03Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 31:03Dr. Amy Shah?

  That's actually not the best time because your insulin sensitivity is also like down in the dumps.

• 31:08Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 31:08Dr. Amy Shah?

  So eating things like sweet potato, complex carbs, you know, things that are going to give you that feeling of carbohydrates, but they're not going to spike your blood sugar. Just don't keep eating the highly processed sugary foods because it's going to exacerbate the problem.

• 31:23Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 31:23Dr. Amy Shah?

  And you're going to get such an insulin spike that you're going to regret it after because people will say, oh, I gained like 10 pounds during my PMS phases because when they feel down, they're trying to replace their serotonin and dopamine with food. And then you end up really regretting it later. So try to do things that are longer lasting, like fats are really good, like avocado mixed with some complex carbs, eating a, you know, a burrito with beans and rice and avocado. That's a great way to kind of give that comfort food feeling without getting your blood sugar all out of whack.

• 32:04Ed Mylett?

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• 32:48Ed Mylett?

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• 33:32Ed Mylett?

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• 34:05Ed Mylett?

  Okay, thank you so much for that. I want to ask you, in general, just maybe think, think about my life. So when we were joking there, I was thinking about the people in my life that I talk to most regularly. And I'm like, as it relates to gut health, and I'm talking about the type of gut health that's obvious to you. Like, I know I have gut health issues based on anecdotal stuff you've told me about my emotion level, my energy level. But I don't feel like I have gut health issues, if that makes sense. In my gut, I don't have a lot of discomfort or those things. But in my own life, anecdotally, it does seem to me, I'm sure there's been no study on this, and it's probably inaccurate, but in general, I would say my female friends mention

• 34:46Ed Mylett?

  discomfort in their gut more regularly than the men in my life. Has there been any studies about that? And is that just that women are more in touch with their bodies than men? Or men think it's okay to be bloated and whatever? You know, or is there actually some evidence that says potentially with women because of their cycle? I don't know what the reason might be, that they might have more gut health issues?

• 35:08Dr. Amy Shah?

  Women have more cravings. Women have more IBS, Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Women have met, women visit the doctor, both because of convention, meaning like it's more... You know, men tend to not visit their doctor even when they have problems. But women have more of these issues and we're hormonal, gut health, cravings. Like when we looked at the cravings research, first of all, there's not that much research on women in general. But when you look at the cravings research, it's markedly different how much cravings really dictate a woman's life versus a man. It's like double.

• 35:49Ed Mylett?

  That's interesting.

• 35:50Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 35:51Ed Mylett?

  See, I gotta tell you, I was talking to a good friend this morning about our wives and their health. And we were both pointing out to one another that our wives, and I think this is just, again, these are overgeneralizations, right? But that women typically put everybody else first and themselves last.

• 36:07Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 36:08Ed Mylett?

  And so they ignore these issues in their body. They've got to take care of their spouse, or their boyfriend, or their parents, or their children, or their grandchildren, or whatever it is. And they just sort of push away the discomfort or the, I think oftentimes, like, I'll get around to it, but I've got to care for everybody else. And that's why when I bring somebody like you on the show, I hope all the ladies listening to this really take note of it, that you've got to sometimes put yourself in the mix.

• 36:31Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 36:32Ed Mylett?

  And the men listening to this, if you have a woman in your life, ask her how she's feeling. And if she's got some of the symptoms of these things with energy, or anxiety, or depression, or lack of dopamine, or bloating, or just discomfort, like whatever these things are, take care of your lady. You know, make sure she's taking care of herself. And so I'm just really glad that I asked you that because I wondered, and it turns out it's true, let's fix some of it for everybody. What is a pre-probiotic?

• 36:56Dr. Amy Shah?

  Uh huh. So probiotics is what, we talked about fermented food, probiotic food, food that has bacteria in it. That's probiotic.

• 37:05Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 37:06Dr. Amy Shah?

  So we now know that eating as much, if you can get four servings of probiotics a day, that actually puts you in a category of the healthiest gut bacteria. It actually can happen for you.

• 37:19Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 37:20Dr. Amy Shah?

  All of us, you know, anyone who's watching today, they can start to eat four to six servings of probiotic foods, which is, you know, the fermented cottage cheese, the yogurt, the kimchi, the, you can have apple cider vinegar.

• 37:32Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 37:33Dr. Amy Shah?

  So there's a lot of things you can do. Prebiotics, so P R E, prebiotics. They're the food for your gut bacteria. So you and I have different gut bacteria, but we can be equally healthy if we're eating prebiotics. So prebiotics are the fibers in foods, the polyphenols in foods.

• 37:53Ed Mylett?

  What about psyllium husk?

• 37:54Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah, that's a great fiber. So remember about the six foods I was telling you? Psyllium husk checks your fiber off for the day.

• 38:00Ed Mylett?

  Why does fiber make me feel, I feel like I get a triple whammy good with fiber?

• 38:04Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 38:05Ed Mylett?

  One, stuff starts, gets moving better.

• 38:06Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 38:07Ed Mylett?

  Right? Two, I know the diff, but also I feel fuller.

• 38:09Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 38:10Ed Mylett?

  Is that, is there any evidence about that?

• 38:12Dr. Amy Shah?

  Psyllium husk actually expands in your gut.

• 38:14Ed Mylett?

  There you go.

• 38:15Dr. Amy Shah?

  So we have stretch receptors, and when our stretch receptors get activated, leptin, our hormone that makes us feel full, gets sent to the brain. So you're like, oh, I feel fuller. That's why soup and salads and vegetables just are so good for our appetite control because of these stretch receptors. It's a neurological system. So when you stretch it, it sends signals and it creates hormones that actually help you stay fuller.

• 38:40Ed Mylett?

  Fascinating to me. Is this good guys or what? Like legit? See, you're hearing stuff here you don't hear every day. What, if you're going, I got issues with this. What type, what doctors do know about this? Or is this stuff like, we gotta get, I'm effing hungry, we gotta read the book, we gotta take the steps in it. But like, I don't even know who you would call. I mean, is it, I guess, who do you talk to about it?

• 39:03Dr. Amy Shah?

  So I'll tell you the truth. The problem is, is this is a huge opportunity for any company, any entrepreneur, right?

• 39:09Ed Mylett?

  Sure is. We said this last time, you're right.

• 39:12Dr. Amy Shah?

  And anyone who wants to kind of get into this field, they can, right? But there's no gold standard, there's no test, no pill, nothing right now that you can take. Wouldn't it be awesome to take a lactobacillus cocktail of all these things that are going to boost our dopamine levels? Right now, there is a company that sells the stool pills of athletes.

• 39:40Ed Mylett?

  No kidding.

• 39:41Dr. Amy Shah?

  So you can get the fecal transplant that you always wanted from your favorite athlete? Because you know, athletes will do anything to get an edge, right? What if someone told you, hey, you can eat like an athlete, you can start to think like an athlete? You might start to have better hormone levels like that athlete?

• 40:00Ed Mylett?

  Wait a minute, are you serious? The last time you were here, you educated me and the world about fecal transplants. And I thought, well, that's like one in a bazillion, there's no way like. That's last ditch, emergency effort, I've exhausted all options. But you're saying there's sort of a mini one. Or you're being serious right now?

• 40:21Dr. Amy Shah?

  I'm serious.

• 40:21Ed Mylett?

  Okay, first, this for definition purposes, a fecal transplant is what? You covered it on the last show, but let's just do 30 seconds on that. And you're saying more and more that you could actually get a pill? That you're getting LeBron James.

• 40:32Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 40:32Ed Mylett?

  Bacteria in your body.

• 40:33Dr. Amy Shah?

  Because in LeBron James stool is, is 30 to 50% is bacteria in his stool. So the best way for you to transplant his gut into your gut would be to swallow that stool? Or to have it placed in your gut somehow?

• 40:49Ed Mylett?

  Like before you put it in a pill.

• 40:51Dr. Amy Shah?

  So fecal transplant is not, currently not allowed by the FDA, right? Because they said it's really life-saving for some people who, you know, just they're, they have this Clostridium difficile, it's a very, very toxic bacteria. So they need a transplant from a healthy donor. So basically what they do is they take stool from a healthy donor. Could be your family member because it's like a blood product you can, you know, you really can pass anything through it. And they take it and they mix it up and then they put it back into you like with the colon, like if you've ever gotten a colonoscopy, they basically put it back into your gut. And it basically seeds your whole colon and now you have a whole new gut bacteria.

• 41:35Ed Mylett?

  Whoa. Well, what that does for me is, I know that's new, but it tells me is like this part of medicine or science or nutrition is starting to finally progress.

• 41:44Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 41:44Ed Mylett?

  That's what's exciting for me.

• 41:45Dr. Amy Shah?

  And the, the company that's doing this, I mean, it's genius, right? You take really great athletes, optimal hormone levels, great dopamine levels, you know, very, very fit, and you, you take their stool and then you clean, you know, you make sure there's no diseases in there or whatever. And then you put it in a pill and, you know, would you take it?

• 42:05Ed Mylett?

  I don't know. Yeah, I think I would, to be honest with you. I wouldn't, if it was in a pill, not the other way said. But the, all you guys out there and ladies that are getting really fit, hey, maybe there's gonna be another way to monetize your fitness at some point.

• 42:15Dr. Amy Shah?

  There you go.

• 42:16Ed Mylett?

  You're pooping in cups left and right and selling it.

• 42:18Dr. Amy Shah?

  Well, let me tell you this, though. If you wanna do it the old fashioned way, remember that thing is like you're the sum of the three people you spend the most time with?

• 42:27Ed Mylett?

  It's actually true.

• 42:28Dr. Amy Shah?

  It's true.

• 42:28Ed Mylett?

  It's, so you're saying you'd be the sum of the three peoples whose gut bacteria that you put into your body?

• 42:34Dr. Amy Shah?

  Start, start sharing their food. Start doing more hand-to-hand contact, you know what I mean? I'm serious.

• 42:40Ed Mylett?

  I know you are.

• 42:41Dr. Amy Shah?

  Like, that's why maternal, that's why moms and babies, when they breastfeed, that skin bacteria goes into the child, they, it seeds their gut. When they come through the vaginal canal, it seeds their gut. They have found that people that have C-section deliveries, they can tell 30 years later, 40 years later, because there's a difference in their gut bacteria.

• 43:05Ed Mylett?

  It's incredible to me. And the last time you were here, in case someone didn't hear, she did talk often about sharing food with your children.

• 43:11Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 43:11Ed Mylett?

  And how that's like, you shouldn't do it. And she's saying, oh, no, absolutely, you should do it because you're sharing that bacteria. So what is a psychobiotic?

• 43:18Dr. Amy Shah?

  Okay. This is probably the billion, maybe like, you know, the diet industry's what, $4 billion? This is probably gonna be double that, okay? Psychobiotics is the next phase of mental health. So remember in the beginning, we were talking about how bacteria can make dopamine and it's much more potent.

• 43:35Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, it's great.

• 43:36Dr. Amy Shah?

  It can also make serotonin. It can make GABA. It can make adrenaline. It has the power to change your brain. You can transplant the gut, that bacteria, from one human to another and change their entire mental state.

• 43:53Ed Mylett?

  Amazing.

• 43:54Dr. Amy Shah?

  Schizophrenia can be cured in that sense. Depression, autism, you take, you name it. So now we're doing abysmally bad in mental health, right? We are going skyrocketing up. What if we started to think about it in a different way?

• 44:11Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 44:12Dr. Amy Shah?

  Maybe we not, don't just think about it as like a deficiency in a chemical, right? Maybe we start to think about it as a whole body disease. Like, like I said, the big picture, the brain, immune system and gut. And we start from inside out rather than just, you know, giving them a pill.

• 44:29Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. You know, Amy, intuitively, this just makes sense to me.

• 44:34Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 44:35Ed Mylett?

  Like it's the frontier of health now. So, but I want to go back for a minute. If you have somebody in your life right now, I just want to give you my layman's translation. You or anybody that you know that is struggling with gut health, or they don't even know they're struggling with gut health, but they've got, you know, emotional discomfort in their life, energy, drive, ambition issues, and you've tried a lot of other things. Why not start to eat these six superfoods? Why not induce, introduce more fiber? Why not go the prebiotic route, the probiotic route? Why not begin to do this and give it some time and see if you can really change the gut-brain relationship? Because I gotta tell you, like for me, I'm thinking of so many people in my life that have really tried almost everything.

• 45:19Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 45:19Ed Mylett?

  And, and also maybe eating wrong too with the way they fast. That's a big one for me.

• 45:23Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 45:24Ed Mylett?

  Cause it's, it's, it's connected. How does when you work out?

• 45:29Dr. Amy Shah?

  Hmm.

• 45:30Ed Mylett?

  Stay, you know, I read this stuff.

• 45:31Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 45:32Ed Mylett?

  I can tell, right?

• 45:32Dr. Amy Shah?

  I love it.

• 45:33Ed Mylett?

  How does when we work out or how we work out affect our gut rhythm or gut health?

• 45:40Dr. Amy Shah?

  The best probiotic you can take is exercise. It is better than, and you could spend a hundred and fifty dollars a month and your exercise for 20 minutes, especially if it's outdoors, is going to do a better job because our gut bacteria love exercise. They produce this like happy chemical called butyrate. It's, it's a type of short chain fatty acid that goes. All over the body, including the brain, to calm down inflammation. Inflammation in your brain is what makes you tired, what makes you unhappy. Have you ever noticed when you exercise, you feel happier, you feel more motivated, but it has this anti-inflammatory effect on your body that is more than just the calories burned?

• 46:22Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 46:22Dr. Amy Shah?

  So that is the effect of short-chain fatty acids. Short-chain fatty acids is like an anti-inflammatory drug that you could never bottle up, but it happens when you exercise the gut bacteria make it.

• 46:35Ed Mylett?

  Really? I gotta tell you, I do feel better when I work out, and I feel a level better when I work out outside.

• 46:41Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 46:42Ed Mylett?

  Why?

• 46:42Dr. Amy Shah?

  I was gonna say, when you were saying the change your food, I said, I would say, if you were gonna do one food thing, one non-food thing, okay? The non-food thing I would do is start to incorporate a sunny walk into your day. One sunny walk into your day every day and see what kind of magic it does for your brain, for your immune system, for your gut. My mom just today said, you know, I've been getting sick a lot lately. I don't know, these viruses around, I don't know what's going on. So I asked her, you know, about the diet. You know what? She hadn't exercised in the last month when this all started. And I said, it's the exercise, it's not getting enough nature, it's not getting enough movement.

• 47:27Dr. Amy Shah?

  You're really shortchanging your immune system.

• 47:30Ed Mylett?

  My goodness. My mom has those issues. Mom, start to walk around that park more often. She's doing it a few days a week.

• 47:38Dr. Amy Shah?

  It sounds so silly, right? Like, you feel like there should be like, there should be a million-dollar medication or savior. I always tell people that there is no one coming to save you. No one's coming on a white horse and they're not, they're not gonna have a cocktail of pills and drinks for you, they're not gonna pick you up. You have to pick yourself up. You gotta do the work. You have to move your body, you have to eat the right foods, you have to save yourself.

• 48:08Speaker 04

  This episode is brought to you by Organe. Organe creatine monohydrate helps improve muscle size, strength and power when combined with a regular exercise and weight training routine. It supports brain health and it's certified with informed choice so you can compete with confidence. Studies show that creatine may support brain health in the vegetarians and aging individuals. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.

• 48:38Ed Mylett?

  I don't think you're crazy at all. I'm driving here today. One of my best friends called me. We're both saying to one another, just in a malaise lately.

• 48:47Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 48:47Ed Mylett?

  And both of us acknowledge that recently, even when we wake up, like, there's been mornings recently, more for him than me, but for both of us, where he's like, there's this dread about the day. And for some reason, we both reached the conclusion, we need to work out and take more walks.

• 49:03Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 49:04Ed Mylett?

  And I said to him, a very well-known businessman that I know, one of the richest men in the world, now he does an extreme thing. He walks like four or five hours a day.

• 49:12Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 49:12Ed Mylett?

  And I'm like, that might be extreme, but I said, there's been something to his mental health, his creativity, he's in his 80s too, his longevity, to being outdoors walking.

• 49:21Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yes.

• 49:22Ed Mylett?

  On a very regular basis. And it's just something that actually, when I do it and I put my phone down, I feel great. And I think you're a million percent, I don't think, I know you're a million percent right. You obviously don't need me to validate your research and your work, but anecdotally, it's exactly right for me.

• 49:40Dr. Amy Shah?

  I mean, and the reason why people don't say this, I think, part of the industry that we, the world we live in, this capitalistic world, they don't want you to just get better by walking around in the sun, right?

• 49:54Ed Mylett?

  Well, then you won't buy their stuff.

• 49:55Dr. Amy Shah?

  Right.

• 49:56Ed Mylett?

  So, speaking of that, you're reading my mind. What if I'm on medication? I'm listening to this, and maybe it's not you, it's your mom, or your kids, or something, but I'm on a statin, I'm on some medication for some ailment I've got. I gotta figure, if champagne, if alcohol's messing my gut up.

• 50:13Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 50:14Ed Mylett?

  Somehow, medication of any type is jacking with my gut somehow. Is it?

• 50:20Dr. Amy Shah?

  Well, let's put it this way. We now know that there are many medications that inhibit the, you know, bacterial growth. We know, obviously, antibiotics is one of them. But now we know that acid-reducing medications, they also harm the gut bacteria. Now, I wouldn't, but the problem with a lot of people is like, they wanna just get off their meds, right? You can't just get off your meds.

• 50:45Ed Mylett?

  Dangerous.

• 50:46Dr. Amy Shah?

  It's really dangerous. And sometimes you need those medications to get you through. You need to work with your doctor and you need to say, hey, doc, I want to start to reduce my medications. I'm gonna change my, I'm gonna read this book, I'm gonna change my diet, I'm gonna start doing the exercise. Can we do this together? And then start to do it. Because some people, I mean, you need an SSRIs, those are the type of medications for depression or anxiety. You need that as a bridge. Maybe you're starting to do all that, but you need some time.

• 51:17Ed Mylett?

  You yank off right away, you're in the danger zone.

• 51:19Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah. Gut bacteria starts to change in three days.

• 51:24Ed Mylett?

  No kidding, that quickly?

• 51:25Dr. Amy Shah?

  They, a landmark study in Nature, which is like the biggest, it's like the Harvard of research journals, reported a study where they rapidly changed the diet of people. And they just wanted to see, like, how long does it take to start to see a big change in their microbiome? Three days.

• 51:46Ed Mylett?

  Three days? Was that good news, everybody? Because a lot of stuff in life takes, you know, forever. I mean, I'm sure it's not fixed in three days, but it's making progress in three days.

• 51:54Dr. Amy Shah?

  Right, that's when it starts to, you start to feel, oh, you know, my cravings are a little different.

• 51:58Ed Mylett?

  And you know what, everyone, you listen to my show every week. Like, can I just say something to you as someone who loves you and I do the show for you? Do some of this stuff now. Take something we've covered today and implement it. Take at least one of these things. Go get I'm So Effing Hungry, read it. There's stuff in there that I've changed since the last time Amy was here. And it's, you know what? I, I think you sometimes have changes and you don't realize, like, I have a lot of energy.

• 52:25Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 52:25Ed Mylett?

  You know, I'm working harder right now at 51 years old than I have ever worked in my life. And I worked really hard when I was young to go from broke to not broke anymore. And the truth is, I can honestly say this. I don't feel like it. I feel really good.

• 52:44Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 52:44Ed Mylett?

  Really good. For a dude my age, as hard as I work and travel, I attribute a lot of this stuff to many of the things you've taught me. Like one, this thing for me, like, it was just really simple, because I'm a simple person. I'm like, I'm taking a probiotic going forward, and I'm starting to eat way more fiber.

• 53:01Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 53:02Ed Mylett?

  Those two things, just for me alone, are like, this is a huge difference for me. It's just fiber alone. Like, it seems really simple, but it's been a major game changer for me. So, thank you.

• 53:12Dr. Amy Shah?

  Just one, one, you know, you talk about one more.

• 53:16Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 53:16Dr. Amy Shah?

  The power of one more. I mean, that, the thing that I think is so great for people when they hear that, when they read the book, is that you can do one more. You know, like, so, like you said, you can have one thing that has fiber in the day.

• 53:31Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 53:32Dr. Amy Shah?

  That's, you can take one walk.

• 53:34Ed Mylett?

  Right. And the way, the reason I like doing one or two, is then if things haven't changed, I know that wasn't the issue. It's the next thing, right? And so, I'll go to the next thing. What's chrono nutrition?

• 53:44Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah. Chrono nutrition is this time-restricted eating, in the literature it's called, but we call it circadian fasting.

• 53:51Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 53:51Dr. Amy Shah?

  That's, chrono nutrition is, you are supposed to be eating at certain times of the day. Medications actually work better when taken at certain times of the day. There's a whole...

• 54:02Ed Mylett?

  Great point.

• 54:03Dr. Amy Shah?

  I mean, we never even talk about, you know, when to eat. We always talk about what to eat, right? So, there's a whole, there's a clock in every single one of ourselves, and if we're not following that clock, you will feel exhausted. You will feel hungry. You will feel the cravings. Have you ever not gotten a good night's of sleep?

• 54:23Ed Mylett?

  Are you reading my dead-end mind right now? Because it's about sleep, was my next question. Please go.

• 54:28Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 54:28Ed Mylett?

  Because you talk about this a lot in the book.

• 54:29Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 54:30Ed Mylett?

  Is sleep and things we can do to sleep better. So, yeah, like, the number one reason I wanted you back here for me to answer your question, so that you can give the brilliance now, is if there is an element to my wellness game that there's still a big hole in, it is sleep. And I think for a lot of people... That they don't sleep well. They don't sleep deeply. They don't get into the right brainwave states early enough in sleep or long enough. They're not really resting when they sleep. So heck yeah, I know what it's like not to sleep well. So please fix this for all of us.

• 55:04Dr. Amy Shah?

  Well, I have a question for you if you want to share.

• 55:06Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 55:07Dr. Amy Shah?

  What is your sleep like? What's the issue that you usually have?

• 55:12Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 55:13Dr. Amy Shah?

  And then I can, we can use you as an example.

• 55:15Ed Mylett?

  Okay. Well, in my case, my heart rate's too high when I sleep. I don't like my resting heart rate. I've been working on that. I would say it's staying asleep. So I don't have that hard of a time anymore. I used to have a hard time falling asleep. My mind was racing. I've done things with making the room cooler.

• 55:32Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yes.

• 55:33Ed Mylett?

  Making it very dark in the room.

• 55:34Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yes.

• 55:35Ed Mylett?

  Trying not to eat for a while before. But for me, it's staying asleep. I wake up a lot in the middle of the night.

• 55:42Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 55:43Ed Mylett?

  And then when I wake up, getting back into any type of deep sleep, I find, you know, once I'm up, it feels like very surface sleep to me.

• 55:53Dr. Amy Shah?

  What are the hours that you wake up usually?

• 55:55Ed Mylett?

  A lot. So I would say, I'm also a 50 year old man. So every once in a while, we have to get up and pee in the middle of the night. But I would say that I probably get up. It's monitored. I have one of those Oura rings. So it tells me. I'd say I'm up every 90 minutes or so, maybe every two hours, best case scenario.

• 56:11Dr. Amy Shah?

  So I'm glad you did the sleep hygiene thing because, and that's what you were saying, the blackout curtains, you keep the room cold, you start to not eat. But the other thing about it, and you didn't mention this part.

• 56:24Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 56:25Dr. Amy Shah?

  Is the blue light. Are you getting a lot of blue light or looking at your phone, looking at your computer, activating? So when you have an activating, charged conversation, email, phone call, right before bed, what you're telling your brain is that there's a threat. You know, there's a lion outside. Your brain's not going to let you sleep. Your brain's going to keep you on light mode, keep you alert so that the littlest sound will wake you up.

• 56:54Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I'm blue light till I go to sleep. I'm on my phone until I go to sleep. I'm on my phone in the bed.

• 56:59Dr. Amy Shah?

  And then what about in the morning?

• 57:01Ed Mylett?

  Morning, I'm a little better. I'm a little better when I wake up. I've got that 30 minute rule where I don't touch my phone most days for the first 30 minutes, but I have to be completely honest with you. That blue light's in my grill till my eyes close.

• 57:11Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 57:12Ed Mylett?

  I'm in my bed, I'm, heck, it's when I'm reading, it's when I'm doing emails, it's when I'm buying on Amazon what I want or think about. So, yeah, I'm on that phone, and I am on that phone all the time as well.

• 57:24Dr. Amy Shah?

  What about when you wake up in the middle of the night?

• 57:27Ed Mylett?

  I do check it.

• 57:28Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 57:28Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. Because you know what? Because I have this goofy rule where I, it's not goofy, it's good. I don't check it once I wake up in the morning. Before I get up at 2 a.m. do I check my phone? Absolutely, yes.

• 57:37Dr. Amy Shah?

  So, one bout of blue light delays your melatonin by 90 minutes.

• 57:44Dr. Amy Shah?

  So, when have you ever noticed that I've, so what you want to do when you wake up in the middle of the night is not look at your phone. Maybe you get a clock if you need to look at the time, a analog, a different, you know, way to check the time if you're just curious. Don't turn on the lights. Do kind of the squint and, you know, walk to the bathroom, dark, dark, dark. Keep your thoughts really clear, not, you know, not, you're not going into your to-do list at 2 a.m. Don't start to rehearse like, oh, I got this big guest tomorrow, I gotta, you know.

• 58:18Ed Mylett?

  That's what I do.

• 58:19Dr. Amy Shah?

  You don't want to be in your forebrain, right? Because that's going to keep you up. So, keeping it dark, keeping it kind of, you know, very, very dim, and your thoughts very, very calm, and then get back into bed, and then see what happens. Because when you look at your phone, you activate those frontal centers, those, those are, that's what's keeping you up. So, when you talk about, when people take THC, marijuana, cannabis, all, all of these aspects, what's happening is it turns off the forebrain.

• 58:52Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 58:52Dr. Amy Shah?

  And so, they're able to relax.

• 58:54Ed Mylett?

  What do you think about doing that? Taking some little gummy before you go to sleep?

• 58:58Dr. Amy Shah?

  My, my problem with that is that what do you do when you don't have the gummy? How do you, it's like... I'm fine with taking melatonin, taking, you know, oils, taking, you know, whatever you need as a, you know, stopgap method. But what are you gonna do for the rest of your life? You can't, you have to learn how to turn that forebrain off, right? Like, you have to learn to get out of, if you don't train yourself to do that, then you're always gonna have that crutch. That's my only issue with all of this stuff, right? If you can't socialize without your alcohol, are you really, are you really social? No, right?

• 59:38Ed Mylett?

  You're really right, Amy. That's my deal. It's the blue light, for me.

• 59:43Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 59:44Ed Mylett?

  For some people, it's the room's not dark enough, or cold enough, or whatever.

• 59:46Dr. Amy Shah?

  It's the cortisol, you know, also, I don't know about you, but I have a high-stress life. You go to bed stressed, you wake up in the middle of the night, because you have a little bump of your cortisol in the middle of the night. And for some of us, high-strung people, that bump is enough to kinda wake you, I sometimes wake up and like, you know, especially when I have a lot going on. That's how I know.

• 1:00:07Ed Mylett?

  Me too.

• 1:00:08Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:09Ed Mylett?

  I love your work. Okay, two more questions.

• 1:00:11Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:12Ed Mylett?

  I wanna go, I wanna go four hours, but we can't. So, water, hydration, as it relates to gut health and wellness, and like, there's this thing, drink a gallon of water a day.

• 1:00:21Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:22Ed Mylett?

  Does that, does your, how big you are, calibrating that? Like, I don't know, you probably weigh 105 pounds, or something like that. I weigh 210 pounds. Are we supposed to drink the same amount of water? Or is there some ratio there that matters?

• 1:00:34Dr. Amy Shah?

  It's ridiculous, right? This whole, it's, it's what we call bro-science, you know? Eat, eat, drink eight glasses of water a day. There is no study. I, I was even surprised, because I thought, how could there be no study saying that you should be eating, drinking eight glasses of water? No study. This is just, I don't even know how it came about. Basically, if you talk to any kidney specialist, or blood specialist...

• 1:01:01Dr. Amy Shah?

  We are trying to prevent dehydration. So you just tell people, drink before you get thirsty. Because if you're getting thirsty, it's already a sign that you're starting to get dehydrated.

• 1:01:10Ed Mylett?

  Right?

• 1:01:12Dr. Amy Shah?

  So you want to drink enough for your body that when you go to the bathroom, it's light yellow.

• 1:01:17Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:01:17Dr. Amy Shah?

  It's not dark yellow, it's not orange, you know, it is.

• 1:01:21Ed Mylett?

  It shouldn't be an odor from it, am I right about that?

• 1:01:23Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah, there, I mean, sometimes certain foods like asparagus.

• 1:01:26Ed Mylett?

  Sure, asparagus, right.

• 1:01:27Dr. Amy Shah?

  Odor makes that odor, but really, when you're drinking water, even a little bit of dehydration can make you hungry, can make you crave, can make you tired. So you really want to stay on top of that hydration. So for you, it may be a gallon, but for me, that might be a half a gallon.

• 1:01:45Ed Mylett?

  Okay, so you're one of the fittest people that's ever been on my show. And you're telling me you don't drink a gallon of water a day? Because of your body size, you don't drink that much?

• 1:01:51Dr. Amy Shah?

  I, I drink to thirst, like, I, I mean, I drink before I get thirsty. If I'm thirsty, that's a sign that I gotta drink a lot of water.

• 1:01:59Ed Mylett?

  Okay. And also, I would imagine when you're eating a lot of vegetables and things like that, there's actually water in some of the food you're ingesting too, right? Probably not a lot, but there's some water in that food as well.

• 1:02:11Dr. Amy Shah?

  And, you know, but, but you have to remember that a lot of us are drinking a ton of coffee, which is a diuretic.

• 1:02:16Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:16Dr. Amy Shah?

  So you gotta counteract the coffee that you're drinking. Coffee, by the way, is great for your dopamine. Because it actually increases the dopamine receptors in your brain. So it's good for motivation, but then it dehydrates.

• 1:02:31Ed Mylett?

  And a lot of people drink it to go to the bathroom.

• 1:02:33Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:33Ed Mylett?

  For me, in real. I have to tell you something, and then one last question. As I started to eat more the way your book recommends, this is a really weird thing. I crave and dislike coffee more. I don't know what it is, but like, I can't even drink a full cup of coffee anymore. Whereas I'm like a coffee addict now. I don't know what it is. I think it's because all my stuff, my pipes are working really good without it.

• 1:02:52Dr. Amy Shah?

  Right.

• 1:02:53Ed Mylett?

  That I don't really drink that much coffee. And I don't, I don't, I didn't, my, no one's ever told me it's bad to drink coffee. But like, I just frankly crave less of it. And when I made my coffee, I wanted like lots of Splenda or sugar or something in it. And again, I think my gut health has improved to the point where I don't have the craving for sugar so early in my day. And that distinction you made between craving and health is huge. You wanted to say something, I could tell.

• 1:03:18Dr. Amy Shah?

  I was going to say that, I'm sure you say this. Motivation follows action, right? For gut health, that's true because you start to make the changes and then those bacteria start to motivate you.

• 1:03:33Ed Mylett?

  I don't know what it is with you and I today, but like you're, you're right where I'm going. Like, thank you. So my last question is, you say this in the book, that the way you think, so can affect your gut health. So there's, your gut health can affect the way you think, but also the way you think can affect your gut health. That part, you're pushing my ability to understand. So finish with that. How, cause I'm, I'm a think, I'm a mindset guy, as you said, to some extent. How does how we think impact our gut health and what should we be thinking to impact it the right way?

• 1:04:06Dr. Amy Shah?

  That's why I said that we're missing the big picture because that brain has so much power to create change in your body. We know our brain has the power to heal us, to make us happy, to make us a better people, right? They have seen studies already, human studies, where you take someone who's generally a happy-go-lucky well be, like they rated their well-being as high. They have different gut bacteria.

• 1:04:38Ed Mylett?

  Crazy, it's crazy.

• 1:04:39Dr. Amy Shah?

  Than people who generally rate themselves as kind of more negative people, right? So what you think

• 1:04:51Dr. Amy Shah?

  can change your gut bacteria?

• 1:04:53Ed Mylett?

  That blows my mind. By the way, I should have great gut bacteria then.

• 1:04:57Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:58Ed Mylett?

  Cause I think the right stuff most of the time. I'd like to think that I do.

• 1:05:01Dr. Amy Shah?

  That should be more motivation to, you know, hang out with the right people, think the right things, look at the right social media sites. Because your brain has so much power.

• 1:05:11Ed Mylett?

  I'm so glad you just said that. And I'm really glad you came back on the show. I think you're one of the most interesting people and this is one of the most interesting topics. And I told you, I was really glad the last time you were on, that everybody seemed to agree.

• 1:05:22Dr. Amy Shah?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:23Ed Mylett?

  Cause I do think it's so important and there's a part of me that thought, oh, okay, we're gonna talk about stomach and gut and no. Everyone was like, oh my gosh, this is incredible. And I think today was even better.

• 1:05:33Dr. Amy Shah?

  I hope so.

• 1:05:33Ed Mylett?

  So I think you're remarkable. And thank you for all my gifts today, by the way, too.

• 1:05:37Dr. Amy Shah?

  I'm, I'm so, I'm so honored to be on your show because I'm such a huge fan of your work.

• 1:05:42Ed Mylett?

  Thank you.

• 1:05:42Dr. Amy Shah?

  And you.

• 1:05:43Ed Mylett?

  Thank you. Well, you know that that's extremely mutual. And you're gonna come on again. It's gonna happen again. Everybody, by the way, just first off, very clearly, I want to express to you my gratitude and thank you. Thank you. And thank you for your work and keep doing it because it's changing and saving lives. It just really is. Guys, this is why I do the show. Right here, it's Daylight Today. Like, I know we did really good stuff for all of you today. And the reason certainly isn't me. It's Dr. Shaw. So, please go get her book. I'm So F-ing Hungry. Depending on when you hear this, it might be on preorder, it might be already out, doesn't matter. Go to Amazon, grab a copy, or get one in advance. And let's make this thing a bestseller because the more people that know this stuff, the more people are gonna live happier, longer, more fulfilling lives.

• 1:06:29Ed Mylett?

  Thank you, everybody. And hey, while you're grabbing her book, go grab The Power of One More if you haven't yet. Do it together. Number one nonfiction book on the planet until this one comes out. So, thank you, everybody. God bless you. Share today's show. Max out your life. This is The Ed Mylett Show.