How to REVERSE Aging With What You Eat Daily

Dr. Michael Greger reveals that the number one cause of death in America isn't cancer or heart disease alone, it's our diet, which kills more people than cigarette smoking every year. His grandmother was given a medical death sentence at 65, confined to a wheelchair with end stage heart disease, yet she lived another 31 years to age 96 simply by changing what she ate. This personal transformation inspired him to abandon traditional medicine's drug and surgery approach and dedicate his life to uncovering how food can prevent, arrest, and even reverse our leading killers. You'll walk away understanding that only 25% of your lifespan is determined by genetics, the rest is in your control through lifestyle choices you can start making today. Dr. Grerger’s books:How Not to DieThe How Not to Die CookbookHow Not to DietHow to Survive a PandemicThe How Not to Diet CookbookHow Not to AgeThe How Not to Age CookbookLower LDL Cholesterol Naturally with FoodIn this episode you will:Discover why the American diet is deadlier than cigarette smoking and how simple food swaps can add 14 years to your lifeLearn the five core foods that Blue Zone populations credit for living to 100 with vitality and how to incorporate them into every mealUnderstand why eating breakfast and skipping dinner is more powerful for longevity than the reverse, based on your circadian biologyMaster the potassium salt switch that clinical trials show can reduce your risk of premature death by 40% with zero downsideBreak free from the confusion about supplements and processed foods by learning why whole plant foods contain thousands of compounds science hasn't even discovered yetFor more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1856For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Dr. Jessica Knurick – greatness.lnk.to/1845SCDr. William Li – greatness.lnk.to/1410SCGlucose Goddess – greatness.lnk.to/1575SC Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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

• 0:03Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Dr. Michael Greger in the house.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  Ah, so glad to be here.

• 0:11Lewis Howes?

  Welcome.

• 0:12Speaker 01

  This is exciting.

• 0:14Lewis Howes?

  This is exciting. You've been, your research has been really out there in the mainstream a lot lately. A lot of documentaries, your books have been blowing up. And the most recent one, How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier As You Get Older. I'm really fascinated by it because most people don't think they can actually get and improve their health the older they get. They just feel like they have to deal with chronic pain, illness, disease. They have to take medications to just maintain a level of ease. So is it actually possible to stop aging or even reverse aging with foods as we get older?

• 0:56Speaker 01

  Dying appears to be the most critical element. And that's really what the book is about, this kind of good news, that we have tremendous power over our health destiny and longevity. The vast majority of prewarranted death and disability is preventable with a healthy enough diet and lifestyle.

• 1:11Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:12Speaker 01

  Only about 25%, based on studies of identical twins, only about 25% of the difference in lifespan between people is due to genetics.

• 1:21Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:21Speaker 01

  So for what we can do over the majority of which we have some control, we can look to, for example, you know, these blue zones, these areas around the world with exceptional longevity, kind of look at the Venn diagram and what they're all doing. According to the Global Burden of Disease Study, the largest systemic analysis of risk factors in history, the number one cause of death in these United States is the American diet.

• 1:43Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:44Speaker 01

  Bumping tobacco smoking to number two cigarettes. Now only kill about a half million Americans every year worse. Our diet kills many more.

• 1:53Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 1:54Speaker 01

  So, but that's good news because that means we have the power. Right? It's never too late to start eating healthier, to stop smoking, to start moving. So I mean, it's really a positive message that I was excited to learn when I finished the book.

• 2:10Lewis Howes?

  So when we change our lifestyle, when we change our eating habits and our nutritional habits, we can actually reverse our aging or age better is what I'm hearing you say?

• 2:19Speaker 01

  We can age slower, age slower.

• 2:22Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  And because aging is a significant risk factor for most of our leading killers. You know, so my first book in the series, How Not to Die, was, you know, first half of the book is just 15 chapters, each of the 15 leading cause of death, talking about the role diet may play in preventing, arresting, reversing each of our top 15 killers. Say, wait a second. I mean, if, I mean, death is from disease, why isn't How Not to Die, kind of all the longevity book anybody needs? But it's because aging is a risk factor for multiple different diseases. So for example, if all cancer were cured tomorrow, it would only add about three years to the average lifespan. So wait a second, why is that? It's like our second leading killer. It's because if you don't die of one age-related disease, you'll just die of another one.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  So the only reason you didn't die of a heart attack, ah, because you died of cancer the month before, but you were gonna die anyway from something else. So by slowing down the aging process, then we can reduce the risk of many different diseases at the same time. The stroke and the dementia, cancer, heart disease, which rise exponentially with age.

• 3:24Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 3:24Speaker 01

  So something like, you know, having a high cholesterol can increase your odds of having a heart attack, our number one killer of men and women, by as much as 20-fold. But an 80-year-old has 500 times the risk of having a heart attack compared to a 20-year-old. So age, but I mean, of course, the reason we focus on things like cholesterol is because it's a modifiable risk factor. But what if the rate of aging were modifiable too? And so that's what I really like covering in the book.

• 3:51Lewis Howes?

  So what would the five main keys be to aging better?

• 3:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so. Diet, number one. And so if you look at these blue zones, they all center their diets around whole plant foods. So they're minimizing the intake of meat, dairy, sugar, eggs, junk, maximizing the intake of fruits, vegetables, legumes, beans, split peas, chickpeas, lentils, nuts and seeds, herbs and spices, basically real food that grows out of the ground. These are really our healthiest choices. That would be number one.

• 4:24Lewis Howes?

  Number one, diet.

• 4:25Speaker 01

  So number one diet. So that accounts alone for about half the difference in lifespan between blue zones and the rest of the world.

• 4:33Lewis Howes?

  What is the, what is the average blue zone age at death versus the average, you know, age of death of non-blue zones?

• 4:41Speaker 01

  Right. It's about 12 to 14 years.

• 4:43Lewis Howes?

  12, 14 years difference?

• 4:45Speaker 01

  Difference. So women 14, men 12 years longer, and so have up to 10 times the rate of so-called centenarians, those that get triple digits, live to be 100 or older. And it's not just about, you know, adding years to your life, but life to your years. These people are active. So they're at 100 and they're enjoying their lives, they're participating in life. And so what's the point of living longer if you can't do it, you know, with vibrancy, with vitality, right? And so in this country, I mean, even our lifespan is going down. So actually, the peak of life expectancy, 2014, the United States, started going down every year since, even before COVID shaved a few years off our lifespan.

• 5:26Lewis Howes?

  Now, there's certain pockets that are, blue zone pockets.

• 5:29Speaker 01

  Right. But in general, and it's because primarily the obesity epidemic.

• 5:33Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  So we are raising the first generation of Americans set to live shorter average lives than their parents, right? And this was before COVID. It continues to drop down. We are 39th in life expectancy around the world. So like Slovenians live longer than Americans. So we've got a lot of work to do, but the good news is, again, we have power over how we live.

• 5:58Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  And what we eat.

• 6:00Lewis Howes?

  So diet would be the main thing. What would be the second or third thing, would you think?

• 6:03Speaker 01

  Okay. And so then, smoking cessation, critically important.

• 6:07Lewis Howes?

  Now, so what else? Smoking versus vaping?

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Ah, well, the concern, the primary concern about vaping is the nicotine addiction will lead people to smoke. And so it's safer than smoking, but because people who vape tend to smoke, that unfortunately, you know, these kids getting addicted to nicotine can face a lifetime of cigarette addiction and then dramatically cut their life short from something like lung cancer.

• 6:35Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so smoking.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  So, so, yeah, so it's really remarkably, you know, 80% of the way there is the simple, basic, common sense lifestyle behaviors. I know it's a big book and I go into all the details. Don't want people to get kind of lost in this, you know, or intimidated. It's really the basics. So, you know, a decade of life is possible just through not smoking, not being obese, exercising, even like 20 minutes a day, five servings of fruits and vegetables, really basic stuff. Now, you want to go beyond that? You want to tweak those 20%? Ah, I've got, you know, hundreds of cool things you can do in the book, but let's not lose sight of the real core tenants.

• 7:18Speaker 01

  So you can imagine some smoker who's like, oh, look at this fancy supplement I'm gonna take. I'm like, no, no, no. Let's back up.

• 7:25Lewis Howes?

  It's not gonna minimize the smoking.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Right, right. So, so, I mean, that's, that's important to emphasize. In fact, the conclusion of the book, I'm like, all right, let's step back, let's, let's put this all in context again. It's really the core tasting, basing tenants. Um, and then, yeah, there's all sorts of cool new science out there that you can tweak around the edges, but I don't want people to get lost, really.

• 7:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay. Um, and what about fasting? Cause you mentioned fasting briefly, and I know you have a section in the book about intermittent fasting and fasting, but also I think there was a quote in your book that's, you know, fasting can have benefits, but if you fast too long, you die.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Right. It is the ultimate in unsustainable diet.

• 8:06Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  Meaning guaranteed to kill you if you do it long enough. Like what, how, you can't say that about any diet, right? Um, but so there's all sorts of interesting intermittent fasting regimen. So, one thing that fasting does is to boost something called autophagy, which is kind of this house cleaning process within the cells.

• 8:24Lewis Howes?

  Killing the zombie cells, right?

• 8:25Speaker 01

  Oh, that's a separate, that's a whole separate thing, but, um, this is more inside the cell, the accumulation of debris that contributes to the aging process, and we can boost autophagy with.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Exercise or with fasting, we can fast or go fast. Unfortunately, it doesn't really ramp until 36 to 48 hours of fasting, which really is too long to go unsupervised. Normally, your kidneys dive into something called sodium conservation mode, such that people can fast literally for months on water only. But if that response breaks down, then you can suffer a serious electrolyte abnormality, which only manifest with vague symptoms like dizziness or fatigue that could go unnoticed until it's too late.

• 9:15Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 9:15Speaker 01

  So that's why one really should only fast. If you're fasting over a day, it really should be done under medical supervision. They can do urine tests, they can do blood tests, just to make sure everything's going to plan. Otherwise, you can run into really serious stress.

• 9:28Lewis Howes?

  Do you feel like doing a 24-hour fast is okay for people to do on their own?

• 9:33Speaker 01

  So although we're not going to get that boost in autophagy in that short of a time, and you often hear like even a few hours, like time-restricted feeding, you know, decreasing the feeding window daily. We can improve autophagy. That's in rodents. Unfortunately, rodents have this really high metabolisms, such that they can lose massive amounts of their body weight, little than a day or two, and a few days, it can be fatal. But unfortunately, that doesn't translate into humans.

• 9:58Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 9:59Speaker 01

  We really only get this boosting in autophagy. Really, yeah, two days. And then we're concerned about that being done outside of kind of medical supervision.

• 10:08Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Is there benefit to doing the intermittent fasting?

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Okay, so but there is some, certainly, there's so many different types. And talking about the pros and cons of each. So there's alternate day fasting and 5-2 fasting, 25-5 fasting.

• 10:19Lewis Howes?

  Mimic fasting, yeah, yeah.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Right, all that, there are all sorts of it. And there's pros and cons of each. I think the best, kind of the bottom line, the best evidence is around early time-restricted feeding, meaning...

• 10:32Speaker 01

  Collapsing one's feeding, daily feeding window to at least 12 hours or less, but critically important, that window was early rather than late. So if anything, we're skipping supper, not breakfast. And in fact, we're trying to cram as many calories earlier in the day as possible. The exact same food eaten in the morning is less fattening than the exact same food, same number of calories eaten in the evening. Come on. Causes less of a blood sugar spike, causes less triglyceride. If you're gonna eat junk, right? If you're gonna eat a donut or something, do it in the morning. Actually, your body, because of our circadian rhythms, is better able to handle it. Ideally, we should not be eating when it's dark, should not be eating after 7:00 PM. Our bodies just has these exaggerated responses to it. Or in very least, we should be eating really healthy food.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  And so really, so ideally breakfast or lunch would be the biggest meal of the day and may actually help explain the longevity of the final remaining blue zone today. There's only one left. We think of these blue zones. Right, these six or seven zones, right? Right, but these are historic blue zones. Now they're eating KFC like anybody else. Right. But there's one left. And it's the red, white, and blue zone. It's the only one. It's Loma Linda, California. Really, an hour away. A seven-day Adventist. And one of the things that may be attributing to their longevity, in fact, they're the longest formerly studied population, longest living in history, living longer than the Okinawan Japanese, even during the 50s when they were at the peak. The Sardinians, all of them.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  They beat them all and they're the only ones continuing to go. And, and one of the things it may be doing is because they tend to eat lunches, their biggest meal of the day. So they don't have a big dinner? So they don't have a big dinner. Or they skip dinner all entirely. I mean, they have lots of other things going for them. Maybe they have, maybe here and there, but not. Right, so their body is, they consider their body a temple, it's kind of a biblical teaching. And so they really, so they have low smoking rates, they exercise, have, tend to have plant-based diets. So they're, they're, they're doing a lot of things right. Community, all the things, yeah. But that may actually be one of the factors, even though it's never been kind of put to the test in an interventional trial. Based on the studies, they're not eating.

• 12:41Lewis Howes?

  Eating a lot of dinners is what I'm hearing.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  They're eating either light dinners or they're not eating dinner at all.

• 12:47Lewis Howes?

  They're kind of. Or they're doing it before seven.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Before four, before four, before four, yeah.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  What would be the optimal time to stop eating every single day?

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Well, so before seven, we want to get before seven. And so that's, I mean, the, that intermittent fasting literature around time restricted feeding was so confusing because some studies show is actually bad for you, caused metabolic issues. Others found it had these remarkable benefits and it's all in the timing of the window. The ones that were late restricting, skipping breakfast and not eating till late, then they had actually problems associated. And you know, it's in that higher cholesterol at the end of few weeks.

• 13:26Lewis Howes?

  Because if you're skipping breakfast and you're, say, you're eating at one or two o'clock. But then you're like, you're hungry and so you're eating more later in the evening.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  That's exactly.

• 13:35Lewis Howes?

  Nine, 10 o'clock, maybe.

• 13:36Speaker 01

  Opposite that we want to be doing.

• 13:38Lewis Howes?

  But you're still getting that maybe 16 hour window of not eating.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:42Lewis Howes?

  But you're saying that the time you eat is more important than how much time you don't eat.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  There's benefits to both.

• 13:48Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  So you can, so just by time restricted feeding, even, so even if you do it kind of in the middle, there's benefits from not time restricting, but there's additional benefits switching to.

• 14:00Lewis Howes?

  Skipping dinner.

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And that was actually the, the US military did these experiments. The army did the, were the first experiments where they actually took people and gave people 2,000 calorie meals, a single 2,000 calorie meal, the exact same meal, either as breakfast and fasting the rest of the day or as supper. And they found these remarkable differences, the exact same food, exact same calories, different amount of body fat, different amount of metabolic implications of just that single twig. It's because of chronobiology, the remarkable impact that our circadian rhythms have on our biology. We typically only think of our circadian rhythms when we're jet lagged. Like, that's the only time we're even thinking about, you know, our bodies. But that's just kind of a symptom of this really deep underlying.

• 14:43Speaker 01

  Most of our biological processes, our biochemistry, our enzymes actually go on this, on this, on this clock. And so it really matters. And there's this really. Devastating literature about pesticide suicides. In India, that's a common way for people to commit suicide. But it matters whether they survive, whether they do it in the morning or in the evening because their body is better able to handle it in the morning. Better able to detoxify. Because of our circadian rhythms, you're much more likely to survive a poisoning attempt.

• 15:18Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 15:19Speaker 01

  And this is just how powerful, it just suggests the power of our circadian rhythms. Really fascinating. I dived deep in that in my How Not to Diet book where I was talking about weight loss. And that entire field, fascinating, never learned about it in medical school.

• 15:32Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Now, for those that don't know, what is the circadian rhythm? And what do we need to know about it to optimize our life?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, so our circadian rhythm is the kind of daily rhythm, almost 24-hour rhythm. So even if you're put in a bunker with constant lighting, your body will still, you'll have this cycle as if you were, even though you have no cues from the outside, you have no watch, you have no idea what time it is, you'll start getting sleepy at kind of the same time you normally get sleepy. You wake up about the same time you normally sleep. But in that kind of environment, you can do these laboratory experiments on people where it's like, okay, what if we put you on a 27-hour cycle? So we put the lights on, right? But then we just stretch it a little bit and it totally messes people up.

• 16:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 16:21Speaker 01

  It really undercuts our biology. We were so meant, because then all of a sudden it's chopping it through. And so it was these kind of experiments that really showed the power. And so what we see is we see these shift workers.

• 16:33Lewis Howes?

  We're working late nights.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  Right, so, well, if you're only working late nights, that's a problem in and of itself. But it's the people that are shifting. So they're doing the late nights, so like, you know, people in postgraduate medical engineering, like these residents, who they'll do nights in the hospital and then they'll do a day. And that is really difficult.

• 16:53Lewis Howes?

  Like a double shift.

• 16:54Speaker 01

  Double shift. So there could be many reasons why people that do that kind of work live significantly shortened lives.

• 17:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  I mean, who is forced into those kind of jobs? What kind of, you know, healthcare do they have?

• 17:07Lewis Howes?

  Stress, other things.

• 17:08Speaker 01

  So many other things that can go into that. But they really do think that that disruption of circadian rhythm has a serious implications.

• 17:18Lewis Howes?

  If you could design the perfect day and the perfect amount of Protein calories consumption, sleep,

• 17:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:27Lewis Howes?

  intermittent fasting window, etc. For someone like me, I'm 230 pounds.

• 17:35Lewis Howes?

  I'm 40 years old.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Uh huh, uh huh.

• 17:37Lewis Howes?

  I was a former athlete. I train really hard. You know, I'm at the gym lifting

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Great.

• 17:42Lewis Howes?

  four or five days a week.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 17:43Lewis Howes?

  I'm doing cardio, I'm doing some running, I'm walking a lot. But I also have a busy lifestyle. I travel sometimes. What would be the optimal, if I could, for me to live longer, still be athletic, strong and healthy, and feel great?

• 18:01Speaker 01

  You know, so that was, you know, I talked about this How Not to Die book, the first half of the book, but I didn't want it to just kind of be a reference book. I wanted this to be a practical, day-to-day kind of grocery store kind of guide to make these kind of practical decisions. And that's what became the second half of the book, which centers my recommendations around a daily dozen checklist of all that kind of healthiest of healthy foods and habits and encourage people to fit into their daily routine. So it's available on a free app, all my work is free, at Dr. Gregor's Daily Dozen, iPhone, Android. And it's just basically, you know, these are kind of to inspire people to include, so, you know,

• 18:38Lewis Howes?

  12 things that we should be doing.

• 18:39Speaker 01

  12 things, so, you know, 90 minutes of of moderate intensity exercise or 45 minutes of vigorous exercise every single day. Um, you know, how much, you know, how much to drink. So I want people to eat dark green leafy vegetables every day, the healthiest kind of vegetables. I want people to eat berries every day, the healthiest kinds of fruits, a tablespoon of ground flaxseed, a quarter teaspoon of turmeric, kind of on down the list. Um, again, just to kind of inspire people to kind of think, um, and then kind of track their progress, kind of make a game out of it. Um, and look, on the road, I'm not even hitting, you know, I'm lucky if I hit half. But, I mean, it's again, kind of an aspirational kind of, if you really did have control over your environment,

• 19:15Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 19:16Speaker 01

  this is really the kind of things we want to include in one's daily routine.

• 19:20Lewis Howes?

  So what would be the, the top five foods that you should eat every day to age longer?

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. In terms of anti-aging foods, this Global Burden of Disease Study, which I mentioned before, again, the largest systemic analysis funded by the Bill Lundy Gates Foundation, found that The food associated with the largest expected life expectancy gains are legumes. These beans, split peas, chickpeas, lentils. In fact, one thing we can do is boost your intake of beans, or lentil soup, or hummus. And we think it's because they're the most concentrated sources of prebiotics. The resistant starch and dietary fiber that feeds the good bacteria in our gut. And that has implications, decreasing inflammation, improving our immunity, improving muscle strength,

• 20:09Speaker 01

  muscle quality, muscle mass, in frail individuals, be all but just by changing our microbiome. In fact, you can do these so-called fecal transplant studies where you can- You take a sick, a healthy poop in front of a sick person, it's crazy, right? And you can actually change their biology to make- That's crazy. It's absolutely crazy, but that's how we can prove cause and effect. Because like, well, yeah, you feed someone a healthy diet, how do we know their gut bugs had anything to do with it? Ah, well, we can, we can control for that, and you can do it, you know, and so they, right. So you can make, you know, you know, mice more fit, less fit by giving them, you know- Healthy poop. Healthy poop from a, from a exercising mouse, or you know, from a marathon mouse, or a mighty mouse versus the, you know, frail mouse. So you can actually change, they're eating the same, they're doing the exact same,

• 20:54Speaker 01

  but they just have a different stool composition. And how do you get those good gut bugs? You feed them the right food, and that's the prebiotics. What are good gut bacteria eat? A lot of people are thinking probiotics, they're thinking the actual bacteria themselves, the acidophilus, the bifidobacteria. Those are the good gut bugs, but if you just take those pills, the reason you don't have those good gut bugs in the first place is because you're not feeding them very well. So you can take, you can try to populate your gut with as many good bugs as you want, they're gonna die off if you continue to starve them, continue to starve your microbial self. Whereas if you just ate the right foods, the good gut bugs are fiber feeders.

• 21:37Speaker 01

  If you eat the right foods, then your good bugs will be fruitful and multiply all on their own, and, you know, do all the work- For you and that work is creating these so called postbiotics, which are their byproducts of microbial metabolism of these good foods like butyrate and essay. They could absorb through the colon wall into our bloodstream, circulate through our bodies, even cross the blood brain barrier, have effects on our mental health. Wow. Of our immunity, so dramatically decrease inflammation. You can prevent asthma attacks just by feeding people some beans. I mean, it's absolutely remarkable. So legumes have prebiotics. They have the prebiotic. So that's why we think the food, in fact, legumes are the, the primary protein source of every

• 22:21Speaker 01

  single blue zone ever documented, right? That's where they get most of their protein from some sort of legume, whether it's, you know, brown peas or something, or, or, or black beans in Costa Rica, or soy foods in Okinawa, or, but it was always centered around not just plant based in general, but a plant based source of protein, legumes. So beans, and so we should be thinking like bean burrito chili, like, how can I fit beans in my daily diet? And that's part of the daily does is like, I have any beans today, like, can I put beans on my salad or throw some beans on this pasta dish? Or it's like, simply get a can of, you know, unsalted, no salt added beans, you know, open in two seconds. You always keep a can of beans in the fridge. You can just throw a spoonful on to anything, basically. Um, I, yeah.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  In fact, I even, someone had a talk was like, I just take white beans mashed into my oatmeal. I'm like, never heard of that. But he's like, can't even taste it. I'm like, okay, yeah, great. I mean, look, you know, and what's nice about a healthy breakfast is that regardless of what you do the rest of the day, you know, God knows what kind of, you know, what bowl of candy is on your coworker's desk, or what donut shop you're walking by, or God knows what stress is gonna, you know, take you down the wrong path. At least you have a good foundation. Interesting. Food in you, you know, if you're in your good, but so anyway, so that's number one on the list. Legumes. Okay, now, um, so these are, they, they identified the top five foods that associate with the longest lifespan. Now, legumes rule the roost on a per serving basis, but actually on an ounce per ounce

• 23:48Speaker 01

  basis, nuts are associated with the longest lifespan compared to any other type of food out there. What are the three best nuts? There's really only one. There's really only one that pulls ahead. That's walnuts.

• 24:03Speaker 01

  Now see normally, when I say like, you know, eat, you know, cruciferous vegetables or something, they're like, which one's best? I'm like, whichever one you'll eat. You like broccoli, eat broccoli. You like bok choy, eat bok. Like, you know, look, whichever one you'll get into your face. That's it. But with nuts, it really does. Walnuts really do pull ahead. And that's because they have more omega-3s than other nuts. They have more antioxidants than other nuts. And they're the only nuts shown to acutely improve artery function within a matter of hours. And so, and in fact, within the Pretty Med study, which is this large randomized controlled trial over years of thousands of individuals, although mixed nuts certainly did lower cardiovascular disease rates, it was the walnuts that appeared to be

• 24:48Speaker 01

  the most critical part. And we do want to get unsalted nuts. I know that's not as delicious. Unsalted, why unsalted? In terms of dietary risk factor for death, excess sodium intake is the word. So I've been talking about the all this. Salt is so good. It's so good on something. I know. Look, so in terms of things we're missing out on, right? It's the legumes, but in terms of stuff we're getting too much of. Salt. Yeah, there's lots of horrible things in our diet. There's sugar, there's trans fat, there's saturated. Okay. But sodium, salt intake is the number one dietary risk factor for death on planet. Or is the single worst thing about humanity's diet. But there's good news. What about like? There's good news. Himalayan salt or something? Because they're different. They're all salt to the same, huh? I know. Yeah, it's, but this is pink. This is from the Himalayas. This is rainbow color.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  This has got a few minerals in it or something. No, no, no, no. No, it's all bad. Oh, no. But a little bit, can you have a little bit? Well, so we want to stick under 1,500 mg a day. That's the American Heart Association recommendation. And to do that, and most of it, and people are like, I don't add a lot of salt. Most of our sodium intake comes from processed foods. 70% of sodium intake is not the salt we add in the kitchen or the dining room. It's in these processed foods. These, you know, anything in a box, in a package, in anything, they add salt because it's a flavor enhancer. Right? In fact, that's why they add it to a lot of beans. It's not a preservative. It's in a can. It's sterile. It's because they want to make things taste good. It's the cheap way to make things, you know, so you can't just eat one.

• 26:14Speaker 01

  But the problem is, is that sodium increases risk not just of high blood pressure, but so many different leading killers like kidney disease and eyesight are kind of on down the list. Okay, but, so, there's two ways we can go. So there's lots of salt-free seasonings out there, and you know, and I encourage people to explore all sorts of new, you know, and, you know, people often, you know, there's all sorts of spices that they haven't even heard of, like saffron, and, I mean, there's also, so explore the whole world out there and find some delicious taste. And then, the easy fix is switching to the salt substitute potassium salt. Instead of sodium salt, sodium chloride, switch to potassium salt, it's potassium chloride. It's just a natural mineral mined out of the ground, just like the sodium chloride

• 26:58Speaker 01

  is. And, there are interventional studies. I talk about one in the book where they took these five kitchens at a veteran retirement home, and randomized their kitchens into either continuing to salt with regular salt in the kitchen, or switching to a 50/50 blend of regular salt and potassium, so regular sodium chloride and potassium chloride. And, there was a tremendous 40% drop in cardiovascular disease death rates within a matter of years in the reduced sodium group. Forty, in fact, their life expectancy at age 70, in the, between the two groups, was 14 years. Come on! Meaning, that just by switching to half potassium salt, for which you wouldn't even

• 27:41Speaker 01

  be able to taste the difference, they effectively made themselves 10 years younger when it came to the risk of premature death. So, something that, so, there's no downside. There's no, okay. So, now, if you go with, I'm encouraging people to actually try to switch to full potassium salt, rather than the one in the 50/50 blend, but then you do actually taste the difference. There's this bitterness to potassium salt that you don't get otherwise. It's more apparent in some foods than others. Some foods you really can't taste the difference. But any amount that we can cut down. And the only other caveat is you need to have kidneys good enough to get rid of the excess potassium.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  And so if you have kidney disease, or if you have diabetes, just because diabetes is such an increased risk of kidney disease, it's so damaging to the kidneys, even if you don't know you have kidney disease, if you have diabetes, you should first get your kidneys tested before switching to potassium salt. And you know, if you're over 70, our kidney function does tend to decline over time. So even if, as far as you know, your kidneys are fine, if you're over 70, I would go, it's super simple test, you can just, simple blood test, get your kidney function tested, and just make sure your kidneys can handle the extra potassium. But then, if you give them the all clear, your kidneys are good, then you can get all the saltiness you want. You could add

• 29:03Speaker 01

  extra, right? You can make your popcorn as crazy, right? Cheers to your eyes, Salty, and with no harm.

• 29:12Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  No harm. So that's one of the, really, one of the simplest tweaks in the book. And it's like the leading cause of dietary risk factor for death, like the worst thing we could possibly eat, and there's a simple fix to it. Like, I'm too bad there wasn't like a potassium donut or something. We just switch over and totally fine. But that was one of the rare things that's like, super easy to do.

• 29:31Lewis Howes?

  So explain that one more time. So if we have more potassium salt first, then we can have salt?

• 29:37Speaker 01

  No, we're going, so we're swapping out. So instead of shaking on sodium chloride, we're shaking on potassium chloride. There's a bunch of different brands.

• 29:45Lewis Howes?

  And you can have as much as you want.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  And you can have as much, as long as your kidneys are okay. Right, you can have as much as you want. And so you can go any grocery store, in the salt aisle, there's all these salt substitutes, and it says potassium chloride. And there's some 50/50 blends, if you want to start there and move, it's certainly better than adding pure sodium salt.

• 30:03Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. I'm gonna try that. I'm gonna try that. And the studies show.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  Oh, right. And not just, it's associated with, but these interventional trials, these randomized controlled trials, blinded, they don't know who's in which group until they break the code at the end, and they say, oh my God, significantly less death and disability in the group, just cutting down on the sodium.

• 30:22Lewis Howes?

  Eating the same things, eating the same.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Eating the exact same things with one single tweak, just switching over what kind of salt they're using. Amazing!

• 30:30Lewis Howes?

  That's incredible.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Now, why haven't we heard about this? Like, why isn't this on, like, blaring? Because no one makes any money on it. It's like dirt cheap, right? I mean, it's, I think it's cheap. I think it's more expensive than regular salt, but like,

• 30:40Lewis Howes?

  Right, right. It's like five bucks a serving, yeah, yeah.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  So, but, I mean, there's just, no one's making money. I mean, there's just not a lot of money made because it's just like a simple, like, you know, you probably dig it up your own somehow. Um, and so, there's just no, no, yeah, there's just not a lot of profit to be made. Um, and so, unfortunately, we don't hear a lot about it.

• 30:58Lewis Howes?

  That is fascinating. Okay, so I've heard about legumes, number one.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:02Lewis Howes?

  Nuts, specifically walnuts,

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Walnuts.

• 31:05Lewis Howes?

  Bean, number two.

• 31:06Speaker 01

  Palm full a day is my recommendation, just one ounce.

• 31:08Lewis Howes?

  What if you want to have more?

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, well, look, you can have more. I just, but,

• 31:11Lewis Howes?

  They're calorie dense, too.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  But they, they, the longevity benefits plateau out at one. So you don't get more additional benefit, um, and they're kind of pricey, and they're calorie-ded. Right, they're calorie-ded. So if you're really active, it's not going to matter.

• 31:23Lewis Howes?

  So 10 to 15 a day, maybe.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  So, so, so it's 10 halves.

• 31:27Lewis Howes?

  10 halves.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  10 halves comes out to be 30 grams or one ounce.

• 31:30Lewis Howes?

  Okay, gotcha.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  So that's, that's, but, I mean, look, you're not counting.

• 31:33Lewis Howes?

  Just grab a handful.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Grab a handful, and, and, um, and every day. Um, uh, or, or at least three times a week. I mean, um,

• 31:41Lewis Howes?

  The benefits are that great?

• 31:43Speaker 01

  Are that great. And that's, and that's, that's, uh, in the Adventist cohort, the Lomond Adventist cohort, they think it accounts for two years of extra lifespan.

• 31:51Lewis Howes?

  Come on.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  It is one of the only foods, there's only two foods that have ever been associated with increase in literally years, plural, a single food, and nuts is one of them.

• 32:01Lewis Howes?

  How do they measure this, that know that, like, nuts and beans are going to make you live longer?

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Okay, so what you do is you take hundreds of thousands of people, you follow them, follow them, their diseases and their diets over time. So you keep doing these dietary surveys, exactly what are you eating? You know, you do these random call you up, okay, what did you eat over the last 24 hours? Go through, sometimes you make them take pictures, whatever.

• 32:22Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  And so you follow that, and then, you follow exactly, you know their doctors, and so you know, what have they been diagnosed as, what are they dying of? You know, what do their autopsies show? And so you can follow them over time. That's what's called observational research or epidemiological research. Now, you cannot prove cause and effect. With that kind of research.

• 32:40Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Because there's confounding factors. Maybe the people who are eating nuts are health nuts. And maybe, you know,

• 32:46Lewis Howes?

  They're working out all day.

• 32:46Speaker 01

  Nut eaters are working out more. Maybe they have other, eating other healthy stuff. Maybe instead of, instead, what's the other thing you're eating instead of nuts? Maybe you're snacking on some really, it's potato chips, right? Right? And so maybe it's the benefit, it's not so much the nuts, but you're not eating potato chips, right? So there's all these confounding factors. Now, there are statistical methods that you can use to try to control for that. So you're basically comparing nut eaters who aren't smoking and exercise, blah, blah, blah, to nut eaters that, the non-nut eaters that also don't smoke, don't it? And so there, and that's why you need this big number.

• 33:19Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 33:20Speaker 01

  And so like the NIH ARP study, the largest study in history, we're talking over a half million people. And so with that, that much data, you can crunch the numbers and really kind of tease out, wait a second. With all these other factors controlled for, the people who are eating this many nuts are living this much longer. That's pretty crazy. And then you can turn to the most powerful evidence we have, which are interventional trials, where you randomize people to two groups, and you give them a smoothie, one with nuts and one flavored with nuts, but no actual nuts in it. So you make people, you know, walnut flavored smoothie versus an actual one of smoothie. And neither the researcher nor the experimental subjects actually knows which is which. And you test it beforehand, so you really can't tell, right?

• 34:04Speaker 01

  And so then, and then you can measure acute reactions. You can measure their artery function, literally within hours of consumption, crazy. And you can see what's happening in their cholesterol, what's happening. And so then you can, so these are kind of, these are called surrogate endpoints. So what we'd like to know is let's randomize people to these smoothies for 10 years and see who actually dies and who doesn't it.

• 34:23Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  Okay, you can see how logistically that's difficult to do. But what we can do is we know that, you know, the amount of cholesterol in our blood, it's a really good indicator, a risk factor for, you know, heart disease. And so anything that lowers cholesterol, ah, okay. So we have the observational evidence showing decreased risk of heart disease among nut eaters. And then we have this short-term data showing, look, it improves artery function, decreases cholesterol. No wonder we're seeing these endpoints in the, so you put all the evidence together, you're like, wow, nuts really appear to be healthy foods, right? That's how you do this kind of research, so fascinating.

• 34:57Lewis Howes?

  This is fascinating.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, good stuff, good stuff.

• 34:58Lewis Howes?

  Okay, we're still on the five things to eat every day. Legumes, nuts, no salt.

• 35:03Speaker 01

  No salt.

• 35:04Lewis Howes?

  No salt.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Unsalted, right.

• 35:05Lewis Howes?

  Unsalted.

• 35:06Speaker 01

  Or we are, we're keeping our salt intake as low as possible. Under fifteen hundred milligrams. That's not no salt, but.

• 35:12Lewis Howes?

  Right, very minimal.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  It's really, and mostly it's about, if you just avoid processed foods, you're gonna go a lot of the way there.

• 35:16Lewis Howes?

  Way less salt, yeah.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  So eating fresh foods, yeah.

• 35:18Lewis Howes?

  Number four and five, what would those be?

• 35:21Speaker 01

  And so then, it's eating more whole grains. So you're having oatmeal for breakfast, right, instead of bacon and eggs.

• 35:27Lewis Howes?

  What about the whole, uh, you know, grain brain theory and then like how grains are bad for your brain?

• 35:32Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 35:33Lewis Howes?

  You know, what, what type of grains affect the brain in a healthy way versus a, uh, a bad way?

• 35:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, the kernel of truth was kind of a little of a pun for, for whole grains is refined grains. Refined grains are terrible for us. So when you take something like whole wheat and you strip away all the fiber, um, and you're left with, uh, you know, uh, with white flour. You do the same with brown rice to white rice, or you kind of strip out the nutrition. Um, and you're left with basically kind of sheer carbohydrates. So you can take something like a sugar beet where most beet, most sugar comes from these days, actually not from cane. You basically take all the nutrition away, you're left with table sugar, right? Um, so it's almost like pure calories. And look, you only have.

• 36:13Lewis Howes?

  No value.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Two thousand calories in the calorie bank every day. You cannot be wasting your calories on these empty calorie foods. Um, and so, so, and where is, and most grain consumption in the country is sadly these refined grains. So going after grains, it makes total sense because that's what people are reading. But unfortunately, kind of whole grains got caught in the kind of friendly fire.

• 36:34Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Right?

• 36:35Lewis Howes?

  Um. So what are the grains we should be eating?

• 36:37Speaker 01

  So, so, yeah, whole grains, ideally whole intact grains. So like oat groats or steel cut oats, the more closely to how they kind of grew out of the ground, the better. Or, you know, uh, whole grain rye, whole, you know, um, um, uh, you know, so you, we want whole as the first word in any kind of grain.

• 36:57Lewis Howes?

  Steel cut oats or whole oats.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  Fantastic, or even oat groats, which are what steel cut oats are before they. Yeah, oat groats is before you cut it, an oat groat cut two or three times turns into steel cut oats. That's a, but that's the original and that, and if you haven't tried it, they are delicious.

• 37:12Lewis Howes?

  Oat groats?

• 37:13Speaker 01

  Oat groats, you buy, that's what, oh my God. Someone, yeah, someone turned me on to oat groats and I was like, I'm never going back.

• 37:18Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 37:19Speaker 01

  They're so good, and they're, they're so much more healthy and they're, they're, they're, I can't, I can't go back to mushy oats. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

• 37:25Lewis Howes?

  Oak, do you, do you cook them?

• 37:27Speaker 01

  You, so you cook them now. They take a long time to cook unless you have a pressure cooker. So if you have one of these like electric pressure cookers out of the market now, then it's super quick. 20 minutes, you press a button, they're done and you can make a whole batch.

• 37:39Lewis Howes?

  But it's like oatmeal, it's like a...

• 37:40Speaker 01

  So it's like, it's like, but it's chewy or you're hard, you're more delicious. And no matter how well you chew, what the reason that's so much better for you is because these bits of, go, you know, don't get absorbed in our small intestine, end up in our large intestine and act as this prebiotic bounty for our good gut bugs. But the more you refine it, the more you process it, the more that gets absorbed high up in the small intestine. You're basically leaving your colon bugs to starve down there. And that's why the more whole, the better. That's where the dietary fiber is. That's where the resistant starch is. That's where we can feed our good gut bugs and they feed us right back. Wow.

• 38:21Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so that's number four. What would be the fifth thing?

• 38:24Speaker 01

  Okay, the fifth thing are foods that want people to reduce. They want people to reduce meat and soda as the two most important things to cut down in one's diet. But interestingly, the top four were actually things people aren't getting enough of, right?

• 38:37Lewis Howes?

  If you add those things.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Right, and so, and so it's possible that really the benefits of a plant-based diet is less about what you're cutting out and more about just including the healthiest of healthy foods out there, right?

• 38:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I like that philosophy for people because if you can include these things in your, your system and your daily routine, you're going to be less hungry for the other sugary processed things.

• 39:01Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 39:02Lewis Howes?

  And so maybe you have a little bit of it every now and then, but it's not 80, 90% of your diet.

• 39:07Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's about, it's, that's the kind of behind the daily dozen thing. It's like, but if you actually check off all those boxes, you are kind of naturally crowding out these less healthy options. And it turns out over 50% of calories in the United States come from ultra-processed junk. Most of the food we eat is just junk. And so, right, we're just kind of crowded, saving for the special occasion, right? Doesn't matter what we eat on our holidays, birthdays, special occasions, but on a day-to-day basis, we really should try to eat healthy. And that is, you know, centering our diets around these natural foods from fields, not factories, these kind of unprocessed foods.

• 39:46Lewis Howes?

  Now, I'm curious because...

• 39:49Lewis Howes?

  We have about 50 50 men and women that watch and listen, right?

• 39:53Speaker 01

  Amazing.

• 39:54Lewis Howes?

  But I'm curious about what if you could specifically create a super supplement or a stack of supplements every single day for men that they took first thing in the morning? Maybe three to five key ingredients. Whether it was in a powder or liquid form, what would be those things to have men be optimized, healthier, stronger, more vibrant men? What would those ingredients be?

• 40:20Speaker 01

  They'd be foods. They wouldn't be supplements. They wouldn't put it in a pill. Now, look, you want to take some berries, freeze dry them and make them into a powder? Fine. Right? If you want to call that a supplement by just eating a spoonful of freeze dried strawberry powder? Fine. Do whatever you want. It really comes down to food. We can't, we are just don't know enough about biology of the human organism to be able to tease out what it is about these thousands of different food components that we can extract it out and make money in a pill. Now, if people don't, that doesn't keep people from trying. I tell you, right? That's how you make money. Unfortunately, the system is set up with these kind of wrong incentives, right? The worst thing to sell is produce, right? It goes bad.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  So, the most profitable foods are unfortunately the least healthy foods, right? I mean, what you want is a snack cake that sits on the shelf for a few weeks. That's how you make money. I mean, the produce rots on the shelf. It's like the worst.

• 41:13Lewis Howes?

  It's good for a week, yeah.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  It's a loss leader for these, it gets people into the store so they'll buy the really, the stuff that actually makes profit. If you want to make money, you sell brown sugar water in a bottle. It's like pure profit. It's all money. So, it's not like the head of these soda companies is sitting around thinking, how can I contribute to the childhood obesity epidemic?

• 41:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  They're just like, how do I maximize profit for my shareholders in the next quarter?

• 41:38Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  And anyone who doesn't think that way gets a conscience, they'll be booted out the next day and replaced by somebody who will, right? I mean, and it's not, there's not some diabolical thing. It's literally just that's, that's how the system works, right? And so, like even a Sweet potato growers not gonna put an ad on TV for sweet potatoes because they're not branded. Like you'll just buy their competitor's sweet potato. Like the system is not set up. You're never gonna see an ad for sweet potatoes on the Super Bowl because there's just not enough money to be made.

• 42:10Lewis Howes?

  Well, pistachios has done a good job.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  And avocado, wasn't there an avocado one too?

• 42:14Lewis Howes?

  Was there? Yeah, but pistachio nuts have like blown up. They've branded pistachio nuts somehow, right? They're everywhere.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Look, I'm all in favor. I'm, I want big broccoli to swoop in and start putting up billboards everywhere.

• 42:27Lewis Howes?

  Exactly, right?

• 42:27Speaker 01

  Right. If only they had the money, right?

• 42:30Lewis Howes?

  But you've mentioned, you mentioned prebiotics being like a key thing.

• 42:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:34Lewis Howes?

  For, for everyone, I guess. So what would be, you know, if you were to create, like if someone was gonna get three to five supplements, let's say, or the nutrients that they wanna have, whether it's through foods, or maybe they didn't have access to those foods, but they could get these prebiotics. What would these ingredients be for men to optimize their hormones, their muscle growth, their stamina, all these different things?

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so why not? Look, if it's the prebiotics that are good for you, why not take prebiotic pills? Why not just take a prebiotic powder, right? Problem is, is that, you know, we talk about dietary fiber, but actually that term dietary fiber is literally covers thousands of different compounds, right? And so there's actually thousands of different dietary fibers and they each feed the growth of different probiotic, good bugs in our gut. And so it's actually this diversity of, of all these kinda, this indigestible plant carbohydrates. That's what dietary fiber is. Indigestible by our small intestine, makes it down to our large intestine. So we cannot be replicated. And so things, so there's been experiments using something like psyllium, which is a very common, common fiber supplement. It can help with, like, laxation, help with like.

• 43:41Lewis Howes?

  Releasing the stool.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Regularity, right? But does not have all these side benefits. Because it's not actually digestible, fermentable by a good gut bugs. It just kind of goes through us. And so we have yet to capture the complexity of the natural food matrix in actual kind of

• 44:02Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  pill form.

• 44:03Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  As much as people have tried. And so, yeah, anytime some, you know, new study comes out saying berries are great for you, and it's probably these anthocyanin pigments, the bright colorful pigments in berries, then instantly supplement manufacturers like boom, there's like anthocyanin supplements at every dose possible.

• 44:21Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 44:21Speaker 01

  Of course, and but when you actually.

• 44:23Lewis Howes?

  But the food form of these nutrients is the best form to get them.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  And there've actually been studies that have actually put things head to head. So it's like, oh, I bet tomatoes are good because lycopene, that red pigment that, you know, that's why, you know, people, men who eat more tomato products have lower rates of prostate cancer. It's probably the lycopene. But when you actually give people lycopene supplements, it doesn't work.

• 44:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  And so it's like, okay, well, there's thousands of other things in tomatoes. Let's try something else, right? But it doesn't stop people from making lycopene supplements.

• 44:52Lewis Howes?

  It's kind of all the ingredients combined in the tomato or the apple or whatever that that gives you the the full compounds that helps your body digest everything.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  It's a symphony. And in fact, there's actually synergy. So when you take, there's a famous study that was done on pomegranate and you can fractionate out the pomegranate into, you know, different, based on kind of different compound weights. And when, so when you give, you kind of drip one component of pomegranates on cancer cells growing, human cancer cells growing in a petri dish, you know, it drops your growth like 20% and you do another combat, but then you add together and you have, and one plus one is greater than two in that they they somehow work together and they should have greater drop than all the individual components. So really the whole, I mean, I would like, if there was a supplement, if there was a pill, if there, and there certainly are supplements out there that help people getting in with sunshine and take vitamin D and alcoholics, having and pregnant women have

• 45:44Speaker 01

  certain, I mean, there's absolutely needs for supplements, right? But there's, in terms of longevity, in terms of like, I went through, and I went into this book thinking I would be recommending some of these supplements that have, you know, made a lot of news, just because, you know, I'd heard such positive things about them. But when you look in the literature, and I would love to, because it's like, that's such a great hook, like take this one supplement and it's got to do X. I would love to be able to say that. But they fell one by one, boom, boom, boom. But what I did find is that these just random foods, I had never heard about like cardamom or you know strawberries in one example, or mushrooms have these things that I

• 46:26Speaker 01

  and it's just like normal natural foods had these extraordinary effects. It's kind of not as sexy, you can't just like take it a little bit. But on one hand, look, it's delicious, like you're good. I mean, it's not as convenient, right? Right, but again, it really comes down to the food and it's just not a lot of money to be made and it's just, and so we just don't hear about these studies because there's just no corporate budget driving this promotion. Yeah.

• 46:50Lewis Howes?

  This is fascinating, man. This is powerful stuff. I've recently heard more about glucose. This is becoming, you know, more popularized online or at least talked about in the media more as kind of like the more your glucose spikes throughout the day, the faster you age as well. I don't know if you've seen anything in the studies around that.

• 47:08Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 47:09Lewis Howes?

  And I'm also heard from some experts that either having a little bit of vinegar in the morning or before a meal helps decrease the spike in glucose. Is that an accurate finding that you've seen too?

• 47:21Speaker 01

  I've got a whole chapter on glycation, one of the aging pathways, and recommend two teaspoons of vinegar with every meal. That's one of the, absolutely. And one of the reasons is because it, what does this, amp something called AMPK, because the vinegar is acetic acid in water by definition. And by metabolizing the acetic acid requires energy and the energy drain actually bumps up AMPK, which is boosted by exercise, boosted by calorie restriction, is one of the kind of anti-aging pathways. And we can get that boost by just simple vinegar. And it decreases our blood sugars, decreases body fat. You can randomize people to get vinegar, to get, they did vinegar drinks, sound kind

• 48:02Speaker 01

  of gross, but they used acetic acid versus another kind of acid, tasted exactly the same, but it wasn't acetic acid and saw significant difference in visceral body fat, which is the most dangerous body fat, coiled around our internal organs, infiltrating our organs. And they did CT scans. It was, I mean, the conscious people randomized the different kinds of, different kinds of, well, one vinegar or placebo vinegar, and they did this and saw significant loss, pounds of body fat, different, same amount of calories, same amount of calories.

• 48:34Lewis Howes?

  Just by having vinegar?

• 48:35Speaker 01

  Vinegar. Vinegar. Now, the problem with, the problem with the vinegar strategy is that it gets cleared from our system within 46 hours. That's why you really gotta do it at every meal if you want to get that constant boosting effect. I know. Okay, so how do you do it?

• 48:47Lewis Howes?

  Tell me.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  So, you can like-

• 48:49Lewis Howes?

  You put it in a tall glass of water, you pour a little bit, yeah.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  So, put in some tea, put in some water. You've got, in fact, it can be dangerous taking it straight. You can burn your esophagus. So, very important, do not drink vinegar straight.

• 49:01Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  Sprinkle it on a salad, sprinkle it on, there's all these flavored balsamics out there. So, with savory, sweet, there's like dark chocolate balsamic, there's, you know, the Italian seasoning balsamic. So, you can get either curry, there's ginger, there's, um, and so-

• 49:15Lewis Howes?

  Or you could just do apple cider vinegar.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  Totally, apple cider, straight.

• 49:18Lewis Howes?

  Put it in water, drink it.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  In fact, you can get the benefits from white distilled vinegar that they use for cleaning the bathroom floor. I mean, so because it's the acetic acid, but just in terms of making things flavorful, making things fun, um, there's ways to add it to your meals that, I mean, it sounds kinda gross to begin with, but you just kinda get, you just find creative ways to include vinegar and it has significant effects on long-term blood sugar control.

• 49:39Lewis Howes?

  And on fat loss, too.

• 49:40Speaker 01

  And on fat loss. And then, not just any kind of fat loss, visceral fat loss. I mean, people hate that jiggly superficial fat, but that actually has very little metabolic implications. You can do massive liposuctions on people, get rid of that, get literally over a dozen pounds of that superficial fat, no effect on metabolism, no effect on insulin resistance, no effect on triglycerides, no effect. If you lost that many pounds of fat, period, like if you were doing exercises, you're doing a better diet, you would get tons of benefits. But that superficial fat that we hate seeing in the mirror, that's not what we should worry about.

• 50:13Lewis Howes?

  The internal fat.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Right. Look, if you want it for cosmetic purposes, whatever, but it's that internal visceral fat coiled around our organs, under the abdominal musculature, that, that's kinda bulging out the belly, that's the serious stuff. The good news is your body's smart enough to know that's the most dangerous fat. And when you lose weight, that's the first fat to go. Um, so with preference, that's why people lose fat. They're like, why is my arm still jiggly? I've been losing all this weight. It's because your body's smart enough to know, look, we'll get there. Let's, let's do the important stuff first.

• 50:42Lewis Howes?

  Wow. What, so what would you say are the, the, the main keys of losing fat? Visceral fat and kinda the external fat?

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Well, the single intervention that created the greatest loss of body fat, that didn't restrict calories. Obviously, you can lock someone in a closet. Right, right. You can lose... Starve someone, yeah. Right. Or you can change someone to a treadmill. Right, okay. But that no exercise component and no calorie restriction, no portion restriction, eat as much as you want. The most effective body fat at six months and 12 months was this whole food plant-based diet, was centering your diet around. And it's really kind of a calorie density factor. I mean, these are healthy foods. So it's not a restriction? It's not a restriction. Eat as much as you want. Right, but there's so few calories per pound, per mouthful, per plate in these foods.

• 51:35Speaker 01

  Because it's like you can eat a wheelbarrow of leafy greens. There's, you couldn't even maintain your weight. I mean, you literally could not fit enough in your stomach. You only have, you can only fit about a quart of food in your stomach at a time. And so, like, you know, that's, you know, you can get 2,000 calories, you ate, you know, two pints of strawberry ice cream. That would fill up your stomach, you'd be full, and you'd get over 2,000 calories, all the calories you need for the day. To do that same thing with strawberries, 44 cups. 44 cups of strawberries to get 2,000 calories. Like, you couldn't even fit, that's like filling your stomach to bursting 11 times a day. You couldn't even do it physically, right? And that's this concept of calorie density. And so that's why, you know, something like oil, you know, people drizzle oil on something. A lot of calories. That is the single most calorie-dense food on the planet. Even butter has a little water in it, so it doesn't have that much calories.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  One tablespoon, 120 calories. 120, so you drizzle it on, you wouldn't even taste it. I mean, you'd see it'll be a little glistening or something. You just add 120 calories. What, are you crazy? For that same 100 calories, you could add like, you know, two cups of blackberries or something. That would actually fill you up a little bit, right? And think all the nutrition you'd get with that, right? Instead, I mean, oil may have some fat, some vitamins, a little vitamin E or something. But, I mean, the nutrition's really been stripped away, right? Wow. And so, and so, so the caloric density. So by staying away from junk food, which is designed to have maximum calories per bite, you know, can find the fat and the sugar to just absolutely like, you have teeny little, you know, you get 100 calories, just a teeny little bit. You have these massive platefuls of food, eat all you want,

• 53:04Speaker 01

  and not have to worry about it. And that's really, and then you're just getting mountains of nutrition for actually very few calories. And so even for weight loss, in a healthy way. I mean, you know, the goal of weight loss is not to fit into a skinnier casket. Right? Not to make it lighter for your pallbearers. Like we want, we want healthy. How about we lose weight in a way that doesn't worry your health, you know? Wow.

• 53:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and when you get these calorie dense foods with all the nutritional value, it sounds like there's so much healing properties within these foods that allow your system to self-regulate, your, your skin to recover, your gut to recover, your brain to start functioning better. Isn't that right?

• 53:46Speaker 01

  And calorie dilute foods, not calorie dense foods. That calorie dense foods are the, is the junk food, right?

• 53:52Lewis Howes?

  So not calorie dense, but calorie.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  We want nutrient dense.

• 53:56Lewis Howes?

  Nutrient dense.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Nutrient dense, lots of nutrition per calorie. And so what has more nutrition per calorie than anything on planet earth? These dark green leafy vegetables, right? Massive amounts of nutrition, actually for very little, has those nitrates. Those athletic performance enhancing ergogenic nitrates actually helps slow our metabolic rate. And the candle that burns half is bright, burns twice as long. That's the other food associated with literally living years longer dark green leafy vegetables. Nuts, dark green leafy vegetables. And we think it's because the nitrates. Normally you only get that kind of metabolic slowing with our resting metabolic rate with severe caloric restriction. But instead of walking around starving all the time, you can just eat a big salad.

• 54:37Lewis Howes?

  This is exciting. This is exciting.

• 54:43Lewis Howes?

  So we mentioned intermittent fasting, you know? Eat in the morning. Don't skip breakfast if you're gonna do that.

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Most important meal of the day.

• 54:51Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Most important meal of the day.

• 54:53Lewis Howes?

  This is what doctors were saying for many years.

• 54:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:55Lewis Howes?

  Don't skip breakfast. But then in the last seven years, everyone's saying doctors were wrong.

• 55:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 55:01Lewis Howes?

  Skip breakfast. Allow the body to have autophagy, allow the cells to.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  I know.

• 55:07Lewis Howes?

  You know, extend the window where you're not eating as long as you can.

• 55:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 55:11Lewis Howes?

  And that's been the new science or the new studies that have been out where, you know, skipping breakfast is actually better for you because it's boosting testosterone. It's doing all these other things. So.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  I talk about that back lesson, that back and forth. So I actually have videos about it. It's so funny because you start out the video and be like, yeah, breakfast. And they're like, oh, okay, breakfast now. Oh, and then we're back to the beginning. It's so funny. And so many things in the book like that, like wheat germ or something. It's like, didn't that go away in like the seventies, right? Like the health issue. And then it's like, oh, then we, then there's this thing called spermidine. It's most concerning in wheat germ out of all things. All of a sudden wheat germ is like back on the menu. But it's just so funny. There's like this, we had some kind of ancient wisdom, even before we knew why that did actually support these foods. So yeah, no, it turns out. Now, it's true about that feeding window. We do want to try to squeeze it. But critically important is when we're putting that window. Early time restricted feeding.

• 56:04Lewis Howes?

  Because of circadian rhythm.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  That's it. You got it.

• 56:07Lewis Howes?

  So what is the difference between, I guess, bad cells and zombie cells?

• 56:11Speaker 01

  Oh, this is cellular senescence. So this is one of the aging pathways. So I cover 11 aging pathways, kind of our 11 best opportunities for slowing the sands of time. Ending each with kind of impractical takeaways. It does, this is the part one of the book. It is the kind of the nerdy section. It goes really deep into kind of the interesting biology mechanisms. But, you know, really do kind of like, okay, but here's the bottom line. You can skip all this. You know, this is the foods to eat. This is the activity to do, blah, blah, blah. So yeah, in the cellular senescence chapter, very fascinating. So our cells in our body only divide about 100 times before they stall out. This is the so-called Hayflick limit. We used to think cells just kind of, you know, divided forever, but they only divide 50 times.

• 56:56Speaker 01

  And this is good because that's a protection against cancer. We want cells to naturally kind of put themselves out to pasture, being replaced by new cells from the stem cells.

• 57:05Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  And, you know, the cells can become damaged along the way. Okay. So the only, and so at the end of those about 50 doublings, what the cells do is they release these inflammatory mediators, which signals the immune system to come and kill them, basically come and wipe them out. This is basically their kind of little suicide wave. Be like, okay, so they release these inflammatory compounds, signal the immune system, and it comes and clears out these, these so-called zombie cells that are no longer participating in the body, actively spewing this, what's called senescence-associated saspr. But okay, the problem is, this works great when we're young.

• 57:45Speaker 01

  Unfortunately, our immune system starts to decline with age. And so what happens is our immune system's ability to clear out these cells declines such that our body's tissues get littered with these senescent cells spewing out inflammation. And one of the reasons why levels of inflammation climb with age, so you can do these kind of blood tests of systemic inflammation like C-reactive protein and, you know, tumor necrosis factor, IL-6, etc. And they all go up. And so there's this term "inflammaging." And a big part of this is these cells, which our body should get rid of, but unfortunately, our ability to do that declines with age. And so, two-pronged approach.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  First, we prevent cells from going prematurely senescent. So they should make it to 50, but if they suffer damage to their DNA from free radicals, from oxidative damage to their DNA as a protective mechanism because it could cause mutations or something, they kind of go out to pasture early. And so we can decrease oxidative stress by flooding our body with antioxidant-rich foods like the berries and greens and really healthy foods. Okay. So, one, so we prevent the premature senescence. That's the first thing. And the second is we look for senolytic compounds, ways to clear these zombie cells from our bodies. There's been a number of drugs that have been put to the test. Unfortunately, these drugs have kind of some severe side effects.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  And so there are certain medical conditions in which senescent cells play a key role, in which case the benefit-risk analysis might actually support uses of some of these toxic drugs. But for kind of the general public, we're really left with senolytic compounds in natural foods. There are three of them that have been shown to clear senescent cells in the body. One is vasatin, which has really only found one place in concentrated form, and that's the strawberries. So that's why I end up in the book, in that chapter, recommending fresh, frozen, or freeze-dried strawberries into your daily diet. Now, normally, I would have put, like, if you've been putting some on your oatmeal or something, I would have put like blackberries. Blackberries have five times the antioxidants of strawberries. So, look, if you like them both, you know, why not? But...

• 59:57Speaker 01

  But I didn't know about fesatin, which is really only found in strawberries. So if you're not eating strawberries, you're really not getting into your, into your daily diet. And so I've been eating a lot more strawberries.

• 1:00:05Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Okay, the second, something called corsetin. Corsetin is found in onions, kale, tea, and capers. Um, and may actually play a role in Mediterranean, um, diet help. Um, and so, and, and that helps explain these these remarkable studies where they give people onions and see remarkable benefits. Literally within hours, they, you know, you can randomize people done, eating onions. In fact, you can randomize people to eat high corsetin onions versus bread to be low corsetin onions and show that it does appear to be this one compound. Um, and so of course, there's corsetin supplements everywhere. Um, it's not clear, we don't know.

• 1:00:42Lewis Howes?

  What's the best onion?

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  Um, well, it's, uh, the, so it's actually lowest in the, um, in the sweet onions. So like the, of course, like the tastiest onions is low amount.

• 1:00:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  So like the, okay, but so yellow onions have more, red onions have the most.

• 1:00:57Lewis Howes?

  So red onions are better than white?

• 1:00:58Speaker 01

  So red onions really are the best. So look, and look, you can basically, anything you can do with a red onion, a white onion, you can do with red onion. So it's like, this is no excuse. Same thing with cabbage. If you're making something with cabbage, don't go for green cabbage, go for red or purple cabbage. Has these anthocyanin and berry pigments. Um, one of the cheapest sources of these berry pigments is in red purple cabbage, right? Super cheap and you get those benefits for brain function, eyesight, artery function, inflammation, blood sugar, cholesterol, you get those berry benefits in this kind of savory form.

• 1:01:29Lewis Howes?

  Is, is, is raw or cooked red onions better?

• 1:01:32Speaker 01

  Either way, either way, either way, it's a heat stable. Uh, well, you, your breath, your, your, your partner may. In fact, you need to find, I mean, your entire, your sweat can start, I mean, you could really, you could really start as well, like I didn't.

• 1:01:45Lewis Howes?

  But has there become like too much, like, you know, if you have a half an onion, you put it in some?

• 1:01:49Speaker 01

  There's only, there's only a concern in, in supplement form. So the supplement manufacturers that come out where it's like, you could not eat this many onions and then we, then we're playing with fire. But yeah, there's never been any, in fact, some of these benefits, um, some of these remarkable clinical benefits were seen after eating like one to one years a day. I don't know how one does that without, I mean, that's, that's, that, that's a lot. But you can get benefit even from. Literally a teaspoon of chopped onion. You can get, you can get.

• 1:02:13Lewis Howes?

  Put it on your food and just eat it.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Sprinkle it on you, right, right. So, and so, and this is all the allium family of vegetables. So it could be like green onions or, you know, so like scallions or onions, garlic. It's all in this kind of same family and they have these, these, this beneficial compound. The third compound, it's a tough one to get. It's called pepper longumine, only found really in one place, which is something called papally or long pepper. It's in the black pepper family. You can get it in Middle Eastern spice stores. And it's basically kind of tastes like black pepper with a little kind of Szechuan heat to it. And, but it's a singularly the compound you really can't find anywhere else. So I encourage people to put some of that in their pepper grinder to add that to their daily diet.

• 1:02:53Lewis Howes?

  That's amazing. Now, you went to medical school, right?

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:59Lewis Howes?

  In medical school, they don't teach you this stuff.

• 1:03:00Speaker 01

  They don't, they don't even teach you the basics.

• 1:03:03Lewis Howes?

  Right, they don't teach you about nutrition. They don't teach you about foods, none of that, right? Maybe there's like one hour class on this stuff I hear from other doctors, right? So how did you get into this world of nutritional science as well? When most people today look at doctors skeptically when they're speaking about this because they think, oh, they're not a nutritionist, they're not a scientist around foods. So how did you get into this world?

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Absolutely. In fact, having an M D. after your name is basically advertising the world that you know nothing about nutrition, that you are completely ignorant about the entire field of nutrition. So the average doctor these days gets four hours of nutrition training out of thousands of hours of pre-clinical instruction. I actually chose the medical school with the largest nutrition training in the country. They actually have a nutrition school at Tufts, 19 hours. But that's the most out of thousands of hours.

• 1:03:56Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  And most of it is basic biochemistry of vitamins and like scurvy, pellagrit, stuff we don't even see anymore. And it's like Krebs cycle. So it's not actually clinical nutrition using nutrition diet to actually prevent a risk of reverse disease. That's missing in even those few hours that people get. Okay. And so then doctors graduate with this, without this powerful tool in their medical toolbox.

• 1:04:19Lewis Howes?

  To actually heal.

• 1:04:20Speaker 01

  To actually help people. Instead, you know, for about 80% that walks into the primary care doctor's office are these chronic diseases, lifestyle diseases like the high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, and the obesity and the heart disease. And yes, we have drugs that can slow down the rate at which our diabetes go blind. And lose their kidney function and lose their lower limbs.

• 1:04:40Lewis Howes?

  But not reversing it.

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  But not actually make our patients better. That's why we went to medical school. Right? We want to actually heal people, but instead, I mean, it's just, it's just so frustrating because unless you treat the cause, the underlying cause, you're not actually going to reverse the disease.

• 1:04:57Lewis Howes?

  The root.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  Right, the root cause. But that's the exciting thing about lifestyle medicine. Okay, so how did I get into this whole lifestyle medicine thing? Proud to be a founder of the American College, a co-founder of American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Now the fastest growing medical specialty in the country. Very excited. Okay. It all started with my grandmother. I was just a kid when my grandma was sent home in a wheelchair, basically to die with end-stage heart disease. She already had so many bypass surgeries, she basically kind of run out of plumbing at some point. So confined to a wheelchair, crushing chest pain. Her life was over at age 65.

• 1:05:35Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  And then she heard about this guy Nathan Pritikin, one of our early lifestyle medicine pioneers. And what happened next is actually detailed in Pritikin's biography. He talks about Frances Gregor, my grandmother. They wheeled her in and she walked out, though she was given her medical death sentence at age 65. Thanks to a healthy diet, she was able to enjoy another 31 years on this planet. Till age 96 to continue to enjoy her six grandkids, including me. That's why I went into medicine. That's why I practiced lifestyle medicine. Why I started the, you know, website nutritionfacts.org, why I wrote the book How Not to Die. Why all the proceeds from all my books are donated directly to charity.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  I just want to do for everyone's family what Pritikin did for my family.

• 1:06:22Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Now, did you think about that, going into medical school?

• 1:06:25Speaker 01

  Absolutely. That was a...

• 1:06:26Lewis Howes?

  So you knew going to medical school, they're not teaching me the things I still need to know.

• 1:06:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:31Lewis Howes?

  So when did you learn all this stuff about lifestyle, nutrition, diet, foods?

• 1:06:38Lewis Howes?

  Was it all after medical school?

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  No, the big pivot was in 1990, before medical school even started. And that was the publication of The Lifestyle Heart Trial from Dean Ornish and colleagues. So what Pritikin was doing, he was reversing heart disease by the thousands. But back then, we did not have the technology to actually look inside people's arteries. So it was a clinical diagnosis. You have chest pain when you walk upstairs, you got heart disease. Okay, and so we put you on drugs and we cut your chest open, we do bypass, we stents, whatever. Okay, then Pritan would take these people and then put them on his diet and lifestyle program and all of a sudden, chest pain goes away. And so he reversed heart disease. Now, the medical profession was like, "No, no, no. Heart disease gets worse, worse, worse till you die." That's what they were thinking at the time. And so, if your patient is fine, he never had heart disease in the first place, right?

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Something else. Right, must have been something else. And so that was, so he was kind of remained on the fringe until Dr. Dean Ornish came along. He used something called quantitative angiography, where you actually, you inject a radiopig dye into the arteries. You can see, yeah, yeah. Right, you do these x-rays, you can actually see the inside of the arteries. And so for the first time, was able to prove the reversal of heart disease, opening up arteries without drugs, without surgery, just a healthy plant-based diet and exercise. And so, that was really, and it was published in the most prestigious medical journal in the world. So it was like unassailable science, randomized controlled trials. Of course, the people in the control group, who were told to continue to eat whatever their doctors told them to

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  eat, continued to get worse. That's what happens normally. Whereas, you've got this reversal, on average, in those, and so it's the only diet ever been proven to reverse the progression of heart disease in the majority of patients. Wow. So it's like, look, if that's all a plant-based diet could do, reversed the number one killer of men and women, like, shouldn't that be kind of the default diet until proven otherwise? And the fact that can also be so effective, preventing, arresting, reversing other leading killers like high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes, which really make the case for, you know, plant-based eating, really kind of unassailable at this point. And so, but then, here I am. So now, I had already know about this from my grandma, right? But here it was in black and white, published in, you know, the most prestigious

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  medical journals. So, and so, you know, you just imagine all of medicine changing. Here we are, decades later. That was 1990s. Here we are, over three decades later, hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to die from heart disease. Ugh. A preventable, arrestable, sometimes even reversible condition, which we've known about for decades.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  Just because this has yet to really penetrate into the medical field. And that's because of the incentives are wrong. Actually, you know, hospitals make money.

• 1:09:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  Cutting people open and these, these are the, the golden goof for Big Pharma. Lifestyle drugs where instead of 10 days on an antibiotic to save your life. It's take a drug every single day for the rest of your life. That's how you make money, right? But the only drug you need that for is these lifestyle diseases. Where have you continued to treat yourself like this? Well, of course you need something. And look, if you refuse to improve your life, then these drugs can be life saving. I mean, so, but even better. Why not try to reverse the, the disease by treating the underlying cause in the first place?

• 1:09:56Lewis Howes?

  So when you finished medical school, did you start going right into this nutritional side of learning as well?

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  Well, so I, yeah, so I started out in clinical practice, like, but then I realized, like, even though, you know, I don't know how, how many people you could pack into a day, you know? How many people am I reaching, right? So people were dying everywhere. And so then I, so I started, you know, giving lectures and going around to medical schools and trying to train the kind of next generation of doctors. But even then, like, how many people can you reach? You know, you reach hundreds, right? So then I started, this is actually so long ago, it was like a VHS series. I started making, well, why don't I tape these lectures, right? And then send out these VHS tapes. We started in DVDs until finally was able to put it online.

• 1:10:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:10:39Speaker 01

  Um, and then can reach millions with that same kind of message. So now I'm so, had to give up the clinical practice. So I feel like I'm still practicing medicine, but just on the kind of broader scale. Writing, research, speaking, all that, just getting this information out there. It's like, in a certain sense, we really don't need any more research. Like, we have enough to like save so many lives. And there's always unanswered questions. I love the research, but we, we have enough now to really reverse the course of the way our country is headed.

• 1:11:07Lewis Howes?

  So was a lot of your learning then based on just studying research papers and clinical trials and?

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  It's all that.

• 1:11:14Lewis Howes?

  And then kind of assimilating the research and saying, hey, this is the findings. Why don't we start trying these things with patients and see the results?

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's all really, the gold standard of what we know in medicine comes from the so-called peer reviewed medical literature, right? So these are the studies in these peer reviewed medical journals where at least this is kind of bar to entry. Like on the internet, you can say anything, right? Earth is flat, whatever, right? And look, you can say there's crazy things published in the peer reviewed literature as well. But at least there's kind of a barred entry where fellow scientists actually look at your work with kind of a skeptical eye and make sure you're just like not totally making stuff out of whole cloth, right? And so that's where we look to. And so there's been decades, decades of this, this mountain of research building up. But it just hadn't, hasn't kind of gotten over to the general public. Again, just because there's not money to be made, right? So new blockbuster drug, oh my God, there is a press release.

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  There is ads on TV. Everybody knows about the new drug, which could have even a fraction of the benefit as the... And so I feel like we're in a very similar situation to kind of smoking in the 50s. In the 50s, we had already literally...

• 1:12:21Lewis Howes?

  Doctor recommended cigarettes.

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  Decades of research, starting in the 30s, linking lung cancer and smoking. And so yet, the average per capita cigarette consumption in 1950s, 4,000 cigarettes a year. Meaning the average person walking around smoked half a pack a day. Average person. The most doctors smoked. The media was telling people to smoke. The American Medical Association said, "Smoking in moderation." That was fine, right? And so by the time 1964, when the first Surgeon General's report came out. And smoking rates went up, up, up till 1964. Then, in one of the most remarkable public health victories of all time, basically, smoking rates have come down every year since and down this tumbling lung cancer rates.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  It's just the most beautiful graphs in all of public health. And what happened in 1964, the first Surgeon General's report? Just this acknowledgement by the powers that be that, okay, yeah, smoking isn't good for you. And they cited 7,000 studies, right? So you'd think maybe after the first 6,000 studies could give people a little heads up or something, right? So, but up until, so I feel like we're in the same situation today where there's this absolute amount of evidence. It just has yet to kind of make it into the public consciousness, make it kind of bypass these barriers into. And so that was really like, that's my role is I'm gonna take, right? It's not, it's not me saying this, right? It's just like, this is what the established science is already there, but there's just kind of no sexy money to be made.

• 1:13:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  And it doesn't make those headlines. No one wants to see broccoli on the cover of a book.

• 1:13:55Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  Right, it's just like, it's like, has everything working against it, except who profits? The people, I mean, the people profit. Your family profits.

• 1:14:04Lewis Howes?

  Longevity profits, yeah.

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  So that, and so, and so that, it's just crossing that gap, getting that information out to the public.

• 1:14:10Lewis Howes?

  I mean, you mentioned that 1964 was when, you know, they came out and said smoking is essentially bad for you.

• 1:14:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:14:18Lewis Howes?

  60 years ago, is that right, 60 years ago? We, it seems to me like 80% of Americans know that sugar and processed foods are not healthy for you. It seems to me by now, there's enough information out there that people at least have that awareness. But they stopped, they haven't stopped the consumption or the behavior. What do you think it's gonna take for people to change the behavior and the habits to consume healthier foods? So they can actually live longer as opposed to suck to the addiction of feeling and tasting good.

• 1:14:55Speaker 01

  Right, right. Well, you know, towards the end there with the smoking, in the smoking crisis, most smokers had an inkling. That smoking is not good for you. But what the industry's tact was, was just to muddy the waters. They knew they were gonna lose in the end, they're gonna confuse you, right? And so, in fact, there's this famous memo, which was uncovered in the tobacco trials. This internal memo called Doubt Is Our Product. So this is a PR company that worked with Fillmore's to, "We don't have to convince people smoking is good for you." We lost that. Okay. All we have to do is introduce that. "Yeah, maybe it causes lung cancer. Maybe it doesn't." Right? And that's all you need for someone who's addicted to smoking. To be like, "Well, look, they say it's okay." Right?

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  And so now, the same thing. Right? It's like, we are bombarded by ads for fast food, for junk food, for candy, for soda. Right? At the same time, the science is so clear, but we're getting these mixed messages. And you know, when you're... Everybody wants to hear good news about their bad habits. Right? And so when there's like, "Well, this person says alcohol's good for you." I mean, right? And so even if all these people are... And so that's all you need. Is that... And then you just kind of continue down your path. Right? And so that's what the 1964 did. Was just like, okay. There's scientific consensus now. Anyone who's telling you that smoking is not bad for you is a paid shill of the industry. And it's like, this is the established science.

• 1:16:24Speaker 01

  Although, you know, it's hard to imagine that even happening these days. What if the CDC, the government came out and said, "You know, yeah, it turns out that processed meat, bacon, and hot dogs and lunch meat, we determined that they increase the risk of colorectal cancer. In fact, it's a known human carcinogen. It's true, group one carcinogen. Meaning we're as sure that processed meat causes colorectal cancer as we are that plutonium causes cancer, and tobacco causes cancer, asbestos causes cancer. We are sure it causes cancer." Yet, you know, we're sending kids to school with a bologna sandwich or something. Right? We wouldn't maybe smoke around our kids now, but we're sending... And colorectal cancer is the single deadliest cancer among non-smokers.

• 1:17:04Lewis Howes?

  Ugh.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  That's our number one cancer. If you don't smoke, you're number one cancer nemesis in terms of dying, colorectal cancer. And, right? And we... Okay. So, so the science has been established. It has not yet. But what if the CDC, the government finally came out, put it on their website, "Okay, yeah, processed meat, we probably shouldn't be feeding this to people." In today's media world, you know, back then, like, we liked, I mean, certainly me, I like to think of the internet as this, like, democratizing force, like, you know, we all this idealistic view of like, now like, the truth is gonna float to the surface, right? If everybody, the free marketplace of ideas, right? And so, you know, back in the 1950s, tobacco could absolutely control the message. They can pay off the doctors.

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  In fact, the American Medical Association, even after 1964, even after the Surgeon General Report came out, they refused to endorse it, and it turns out later, they got a $10 million check for the tobacco industry, which they didn't disclose. Anyway, okay, so look, you could pay off the doctors, you could control the message, you control the media, right? Now, which is in part good, there's no longer that kind of monopolistic control of the message, right?

• 1:18:14Lewis Howes?

  But there's confusion.

• 1:18:14Speaker 01

  But what is replaced with confusion. So even if these days, we had the quote-unquote "authorities," the experts that came out and said XYZ, a lot of people wouldn't believe them. Now, for good, for good reason in many cases, because there's been so many, you know, terrible, you know, crises with drugs that were promoted and then turned out to be terrible and pulled from the market, and look, all the authorities were telling people to use these drugs. Anyway, so, so it's hard to imagine a similar kind of aha moment with diet, that we saw with this kind of clear Surgeon General thing. And so, there's always gonna be the sugar pushers, and there's always gonna be these people that are muddying the

• 1:18:58Speaker 01

  waters, just enough to introduce enough doubt that people will kind of throw up their hands and eat whatever crap's put in front of them, which is how the industry makes money.

• 1:19:08Lewis Howes?

  I've got a few questions for you left, but I'm excited for people to check out your book, How Not to Age: The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older. And I think a lot of people think about, you know, how do we... How do I make my biological age, right?

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:25Lewis Howes?

  Reverse, essentially. You can't reverse chronological age.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:19:29Lewis Howes?

  But how do we make our cells younger?

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:33Lewis Howes?

  Right? How do we make our body, our cells, younger? Is that the difference between chronological and biological age?

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  Exactly, right. There's the calendar age, it just keeps going forward until we get a DeLorean or something. But then there's the, right, but just because we happen to have this many birthdays, doesn't necessarily mean our body is functioning as if. It could be worse. We could have accelerated aging. And that we really should have the heart and the kidneys and the liver of a 50-year-old, but they're actually functioning like a 60-year-old.

• 1:19:59Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  Right? We actually have the muscle mass of a 60-year-old. We actually have the, or, alternatively, we take care of ourselves and we have tremendous power of this leeway. Or, yeah, I've had 50 birthdays, but, you know, I have the aerobic capacity of a 40-year-old. Or are they, I mean, all these benefits. And so that's this difference. And so there's lots of different ways to measure biological aging. And so just a fascinating field of science. But, but, but the bottom line is that we really have tremendous control over that leeway.

• 1:20:29Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  And literally just, and, and it's never too late. I mean, so there's, the first studies that came out, it's like, okay, well, if you start at age 20 and you do the X, Y, and Z, by age 50, you'll have all these benefits. And it's like, yeah, that's great, but you should have told me that 30 years ago.

• 1:20:45Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 1:20:46Speaker 01

  But then they found, wait a second, even in the 80s, this is the latest that's been done, but even in people's 80s, there's still literally years left on the table. Healthy years left on the table, just by simple, basic lifestyle changes. And so those, those, those few things I mentioned before, not being obese, not smoking, regular aerobic exercise, and more fruits and vegetables, can, over the, over the subsequent four years, if you're between the ages of 45 and 64, decrease your risk of all-cause mortality by 40%.

• 1:21:16Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  Meaning your risk of dying by anything over the next four years. By 2028, you want to reduce your risk by 40%, just do those four things. I mean, that's, that's, I mean, so that's like, we have tremendous power over, you know, look, you still get by a bus. I mean, there's lots of things.

• 1:21:31Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure, sure.

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  Wear a seatbelt, smoke alarms, all that, right? But, in terms of what's the most common cause of death, actually, we have so much control. And unfortunately, we just don't hear that message.

• 1:21:43Lewis Howes?

  What are the four main things?

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Okay, so, not smoking, not being obese.

• 1:21:49Speaker 01

  Regular exercise, which really comes out to like 22 minutes a day, which was what the cutoff point was. And five daily servings of fruits and vegetables minimum, right? And that's not, so that's not a lot. And we're not talking about cutting out meat. We're not talking about like any of these like dramatic changes, not all or nothing. Like, just like these really core kind of, yeah, we heard about five. But it's like, wow. I mean, that, that makes this massive amount of difference. Now, you want to go beyond that? And like, you know, tweak even further? Yeah, we got also, there's certain fruits and vegetables that are even better than other fruits. But let's not get lost in the weeds here. Let's do the simple things. That's, that, that'll get us most of the way there.

• 1:22:27Lewis Howes?

  Wow, this is fascinating, Michael. I'm so grateful for your, your excitement and passion around this and your wisdom and knowledge.

• 1:22:35Lewis Howes?

  A couple of fun questions. This one, this one is something I ask everyone towards the end of our conversations. It's called the three truths. So I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical scenario. You get to live as long as you want to live. You get to continue to write all the books and speak, you know, 200 times a year, like you do a lot of the times to spread this message. And you experience life the way you want to. All your dreams come true, but it's the last day for you. Far in the distance.

• 1:23:01Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:23:02Lewis Howes?

  And in this hypothetical scenario, on your last day, you have to take all of your work with you. No one has access to this book or this conversation or anything you've ever written or said, ever.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  Oh, you're killing me.

• 1:23:14Lewis Howes?

  It's gone to another place.

• 1:23:15Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:23:16Lewis Howes?

  But before you die, you get to leave three things behind. Three lessons, three truths.

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:23:24Lewis Howes?

  It could be about your work. It could be about personal life. It could be about whatever you believe that you would want to leave behind. These three lessons to the world. What would be those three truths for you?

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, certainly a truth for me. You know, it's always hard to give advice to other people, right? Obviously, but what's certainly been true for me is my.

• 1:23:49Speaker 01

  What I've dedicated my life to, well, this kind of reducing unnecessary suffering in the world. That has given me, having that, having that, that motivation, having that vision, having that base truth in my life has, like, so even if all my good works were to nothing, it would have benefited me to have woke up every day and been able to look myself in the mirror and be like, you know, there's just so many horrible things happening in the world, but like, I did my part. Like, and so that would be the message. It's like, if you can configure your life to not just do what you're

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  good at and not just to, you know, but to do, to do something meaningful for others and to kind of look outside yourself, if you can. Look, there's so many people struggling with basic, you know, I was, had this privileged ability to be able to look outside because I had my basic needs met. But so that, that would definitely be one of the truths is, is to, you know, incorporate some kind of selfless acts. Look, and that could be philanthropy, right? I mean, you could be, you know, it doesn't have to mean devoting your career to that.

• 1:24:59Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure.

• 1:25:00Speaker 01

  But, you know, like tithing, you know, even 10% to, you know, there's so much we could do with, you know, like bed nets for malaria and stuff. You can save, literally save people's lives for, you know, small amounts of money, right? If you actually save someone's life, if you went into a burning building and you pulled out some kid, that would be the biggest day of your life. Like that, you would remember that. That would be like your crowning achievement. You would never

• 1:25:23Lewis Howes?

  Your life would have been worth it.

• 1:25:24Speaker 01

  Right. You can do that with a check these days because now we have a system where we can get money anywhere in the world to places that really need it. We have preventable diseases and we have tremendous poverty that can be alleviated. And it's like, that's this amazing, we have this amazing power that we never really had in our species before to help, you know, we have this tendency, obviously, to help people around us, people who are close to us. We see something and we want to reach out to something local. I totally understand that. But, I mean, you know, poverty here is nothing like poverty some places in the world. And one dollar can go so much farther. And so that's, you know, that's another thing that I've really learned is that you can help. I mean, you can, you can be that like crazy hero that actually saves somebody's life.

• 1:26:08Lewis Howes?

  Amazing.

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  Um, regardless of what you do in your life by, you know, giving just a little bit. I mean, like, we really have tremendous control. I know we don't like to think about these horrible things, but you know how you don't think about these little horrible things? Is you actually do something about it.

• 1:26:21Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:26:21Speaker 01

  We don't want to think about it because we have this guilt, you know? And so you don't have the guilt when you feel like I am part of the solution.

• 1:26:27Lewis Howes?

  Taking action, yeah.

• 1:26:28Speaker 01

  I am taking action and I'm actually, in fact, I'm helping. And even if I could help more and I'm not helping as much as I possibly could. Look, I'm helping more than like 90% of the people.

• 1:26:38Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:26:38Speaker 01

  Like even giving 10%, how many people actually give 10% of their income, right? Particularly people who are making enough that they wouldn't really even notice the 10% in the end of the day. Yeah, and so the fact that, you know, there's this really this beautiful culture of giving in this culture. Um, in this society, I just came back from Europe. And there just really isn't this like thing of like donating to like nonprofits and there's just not that kind of like, you know, the billionaires there are just like keeping all the money themselves. Whereas, you know, billionaires here are doing these massive projects and I know we love to hate on the billionaires.

• 1:27:13Lewis Howes?

  People are still hating on them.

• 1:27:14Speaker 01

  We, I know we hate on them, but, but, I mean, they actually do some, there's some good things they could do. And we should be like applauding them when they do it and not just like, God, why did you?

• 1:27:23Lewis Howes?

  You should give more.

• 1:27:24Speaker 01

  Exactly. Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, and they should, but still, still.

• 1:27:27Lewis Howes?

  Of course. Okay. So that's your first one.

• 1:27:30Speaker 01

  Okay. So first through live to your values. Um, and, and then the second one, if you can, I, I mean, we, if we want to separate that out. Um, to actually act on those values, even if it's not in a career, you can do it with, with money, with resources. Um, another core, um, core truth.

• 1:27:48Lewis Howes?

  Third truth.

• 1:27:49Speaker 01

  Could you give me a, a, a truth that, um, I is, is, is.

• 1:27:56Speaker 01

  In all that otherworldly thinking, you need to hold a place for love, self-love, and not only self-love, but surrounding your people and having, surrounding yourself. And we're just kind of, we're these social beings. We just evolved to be, you know, to be able to have to have, and as much as like, you know, I'm just like workaholic for the whatever. I've really learned too late in life, I'm afraid.

• 1:28:25Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:28:26Speaker 01

  And that, you know, I really have to, you know, you put on your own mask before you help others. And it's not because you're selfish. It's because you can't help others if you're not taking care of yourself. And so, yeah. And so making sure, and so really cultivating love in your life.

• 1:28:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  Is something that I wish I would have emphasized earlier. And it almost, it almost seemed like selfish to me, right? It's like, what do you mean? I mean, but there's so many people out there that I could be helping, right? To like, put all my energies into like one person or into, you know, it seems almost like, well, of course, man, of course I want to help because I'm close to them. But it's like, that almost seems like, you know, unfair. But, but the wisdom I've learned later, the truth that I would pass on to my earlier self would be to really, that has to be a priority.

• 1:29:19Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  Because that's so much of.

• 1:29:22Lewis Howes?

  That is life.

• 1:29:23Speaker 01

  It's from kind of a like, a lifelong perspective. It's the feeling of the work I've done. Both kind of on a day-to-day happiness, like on a literally like, how are you feeling right now on a day-to-day? That's, it's the loving relationships in your life.

• 1:29:37Lewis Howes?

  Those are great truths. Those are beautiful. Do you have love in your life right now?

• 1:29:41Speaker 01

  I don't have enough love in my life, unfortunately.

• 1:29:45Lewis Howes?

  So what action are you going to take this year?

• 1:29:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, yeah.

• 1:29:47Lewis Howes?

  To cultivate more love?

• 1:29:49Speaker 01

  That has been. Yeah, well, I mean, that, I mean, if this is, I'm a tough person. I'm a tough person to love. Just because, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm so kind of.

• 1:29:58Lewis Howes?

  Your time, commitments to your work, yeah.

• 1:30:00Speaker 01

  I'm so neglectful of my, of my relationships with friends and family as much as I love them because there's just like, the world's on fire, that I can do something about it and like, I feel myself, and the more uniquely positioned I am to help. Like before, when I was a kid, it's like, I'm, I'm like, bulk mailing envelopes for the local homeless, whatever, right? It's like, but like, if I wasn't doing it, somebody else could do it. But the more I get like, well, if I'm not doing this.

• 1:30:26Lewis Howes?

  Specialized, yeah.

• 1:30:26Speaker 01

  Right. It's like, well, if I'm not, if this, if I don't get this done, it's not like somebody else is just gonna scoop, swoop in to do it. And so I feel this like additional burden to do it. Um, but, I'm so, but, so, speaking tour.

• 1:30:38Lewis Howes?

  This is your third tour. This is one of your most, if you go, I think of three things to do in the world.

• 1:30:42Speaker 01

  So, so that's, well, so I'm gonna meet a lot of people on this speaking tour. And, uh, hopefully I will find the love of my life on the road.

• 1:30:53Lewis Howes?

  So you're sending that intention.

• 1:30:54Speaker 01

  I'm sending that intention out into the world.

• 1:30:56Lewis Howes?

  Okay, great.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:30:57Lewis Howes?

  There you go.

• 1:30:58Speaker 01

  Ah!

• 1:30:59Lewis Howes?

  But you could also do that with friends and family.

• 1:31:00Speaker 01

  I can also.

• 1:31:01Lewis Howes?

  Be a little more intentional, right?

• 1:31:02Speaker 01

  It's true. It's true.

• 1:31:04Lewis Howes?

  When we get so obsessed into our mission.

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:07Lewis Howes?

  It's hard to remember to text or call or, you know.

• 1:31:10Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:31:10Lewis Howes?

  I understand that feeling, but.

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  I love you, mom!

• 1:31:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, that's good. That's good. Give her a call today.

• 1:31:16Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right.

• 1:31:18Lewis Howes?

  Um, I want to acknowledge you, Michael, for your commitment to your mission. Your commitment to wanting to put together great work where you're finding all the best research you can find and packaging it so we can understand it. And, uh, you know, sharing your findings so that we can hopefully live healthier, longer, better lives. So that we can enjoy the fruits of connection and love with people around us. And I want to acknowledge you for acknowledging that as well, that it's something you get to work on in your own life.

• 1:31:47Speaker 01

  That's right.

• 1:31:47Lewis Howes?

  I think, um, you know, saying that truth and, and. Owning it is a great thing to say, and so having that intention this year, I think I'm excited. Hopefully by the end of this year, you send me a photo.

• 1:31:59Speaker 01

  I'm reporting back, absolutely.

• 1:32:00Lewis Howes?

  Love in your life, whether it's a one person, or friends, or family, just more love in general.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  You get invited to the wedding.

• 1:32:07Lewis Howes?

  Let's go, let's go. People can get the book, How Not to Age, The Scientific Approach to Getting Healthier as You Get Older. Make sure you guys grab a copy. You've got a few other great books as well. Where can we follow you, support you, and learn more about your work as well?

• 1:32:23Speaker 01

  So all my work is available free at nutritionfacts.org. There's no ads, no corporate sponsorship, strictly not commercial, not selling anything. Just put up as a public service, as a labor of love, as a tribute to my grandmother.

• 1:32:35Lewis Howes?

  That's beautiful, that's so nice, man, I love it. Final question for you, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:32:41Speaker 01

  Ah, is, is living true to your values. Living true to your values, whatever those values are, you know you should do the right thing. But are you actually doing what you know? You're not like being convinced otherwise, no, no. You know what's right, and are you actually doing it in the back of your mind, right? You know you could be a little bit, a little more true to your inner self, but are you actually doing it? Are you going all in on it, right? Ah, ah, that's, that's greatness. It's like being your own superhero, basically. It's like, and no one knows what you're capable of, but you. Yeah, then, and you know, and people could be like patting you on the back, oh my God, you did awesome.

• 1:33:25Speaker 01

  But you know you could have studied a little more, you could have done this a little more. Okay, now, it's that feeling that like, no, no. I, I put in the work, and I, and I did absolute, look, I could have done better, but I don't have the capacity to do better. But I did the absolute best I could. That, and look, who, it doesn't matter what the outcome is. Did you really do what you know? It was possible. That's greatness. Yeah, Michael, thanks so much for being here.

• 1:33:52Lewis Howes?

  I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And

• 1:34:34Lewis Howes?

  now it's time to go out there and do something great.