How To Become More Attractive By Reducing Inflammation with Dr. Will Cole

Are you ready to heal your body, boost your mental well-being, and enhance your natural attractiveness? This episode, featuring Dr. Will Cole, delves into the world of functional medicine to address inflammation in the body. Discover the power of self-love as the foundation for lasting change, and explore expert strategies on how to remove inflammation from your body.

Learn about:
Functional medicine: Understand how this approach targets the root causes of inflammation.
The mind-body connection: How inflammation impacts your mood and how mental health solutions can aid your healing.
Be an attractive person: See how reducing inflammation naturally enhances inner and outer radiance.
Taking actionable steps: Practical tips you can implement today to start feeling and looking your best.
If you're seeking a holistic path to vibrant health, this video is for you.

Today's Guest: Dr. Will Cole
Dr. Will Cole, leading functional-medicine expert, consults people around the world via webcam at www.drwillcole.com and locally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

He specializes in clinically investigating underlying factors of chronic disease and customizing health programs for thyroid issues, autoimmune conditions, hormonal dysfunctions, digestive disorders, and brain problems. Dr. Cole was named one of the top fifty functional-medicine and integrative doctors in the nation and is a health expert for mindbodygreen and goop.

Dr. Cole is the author of the book, The Inflammation Spectrum in which he explores how inflammation exists on a spectrum within the body, the various systems it can affect, and how you can discover your individual food triggers to overcome chronic inflammation. He is also the author of Ketotarian in which he melds the powerful benefits of a ketogenic diet with a plant-based one.   

Website: www.drwillcole.com
Podcast: The GoopFellas
Book: The Inflammation Spectrum

Your Host: Kimberly Beam Holmes, Expert in Self-Improvement and Relationships

Kimberly Beam Holmes has applied her master's degree in psychology for over ten years, acting as the CEO of Marriage Helper & CEO and Creator of PIES University, being a wife and mother herself, and researching how attraction affects relationships. Her videos, podcasts, and following reach over 200,000 people a month who are making changes and becoming the best they can be.

Website: www.kimberlybeamholmes.com

Thanks for listening!

Connect on Instagram: @kimberlybeamholmes

Be sure to SUBSCRIBE to the podcast and leave a review!

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Visit www.itstartswithattraction.com to check it out!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

You can't heal a body that you hate. Those are strong words from the interview Kimberly has today with Dr Will Cole. My name is Jason, I'm the producer of the podcast and this is actually the second ever episode of it. Starts With Attraction from all the way back in 2020. Turns out, there were some good things to come out of that year.

Speaker 1: 0:44

After all, dr Will Cole is the leading functional medicine expert and consults people around the world and locally in Pittsburgh, pennsylvania. He specializes in clinically investigating underlying factors of chronic disease and customizing health programs for thyroid issues, autoimmune conditions, hormonal dysfunctions, digestive disorders and brain problems. He was named one of the top 50 functional medicine and integrative doctors in the nation and is a health expert for mind, body and goup. He is also the author of the book the Inflammation Spectrum, where he explores how inflammation exists on a spectrum within the body, the various systems it can affect and how you can discover your individual food triggers to overcome chronic inflammation. Today's podcast is specifically going to be covering the physical portion of the Paws of Attraction. Let's dive into today's episode.

Speaker 2: 1:31

So I'm here today with Dr Will Cole, who does such amazing work. He has an amazing website. He's written two great books on topics that we will dive into during this podcast, but I am so excited to talk to him because it's so clear that his work comes from the love that he has for his clients, from working with them, from really getting into what's going on in their lives, and that's where his books have come from, that's where everything has come from. So, dr Cole, thank you so much for joining us today.

Speaker 3: 2:05

Oh, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk with you today.

Speaker 2: 2:09

Oh goodness, I have so many questions. The harder part is narrowing them down. The first one I want to ask you just to start things with, because a lot of our audience, you're going to be a new person to them. So what is it that you do most of the time on your day-to-day basis, and how did you get into this line of work?

Speaker 3: 2:27

Yeah, so definitely, my day job is as a functional medicine practitioner, running a virtual functional medicine practice. So we've been doing the telehealth, telemedicine space for a long time for over a decade now. So now it's definitely more than it was a decade ago. But when I first got into functional medicine, I graduated from Southern California University of Health Sciences in Los Angeles basically an integrative medicine school and my post-doctorate education and training is functional medicine and clinical nutrition. So I knew I wanted to do this, obviously professionally, but I would be writing about it and speaking about it online and so people in different states and countries would hear about okay, he's talking about autoimmunity or fatigue issues or hormonal problems or digestive problems or anxiety and depression, and then they would see themselves in things that I'd be writing about or speaking about. So they wanted someone to give them a functional medicine perspective on their case. So that's kind of where I didn't think it like, I didn't plan it as some sort of this. I didn't think telehealth or telemedicine would be the thing that it is today. I guess is what I'm trying to say. So it just was a natural outflow and a manifestation of my passion of this space. And, yeah, I've been doing the same thing for over a decade, and everything that I do like you mentioned the books, or I post a podcast called Goop, fellows with Goop all of that is just a ripple effect of my passion with my patients and clinically investigating their case. And we she said that and I appreciate you noticing that. I've never heard somebody else say that about me. That's cool, because that is true, and so my day job, like from 8am to 6pm through the week, it's consulting patients online.

Speaker 3: 4:25

So what functional medicine is for people that don't know? It's evidence based alternative medicine, in short, but in like long form, like a deeper dive into it, we do a few things differently. We are looking at labs using a thinner reference range. So anybody that's listening right now will know hey, when I get my labs whatever lab that is, blood lab though their numbers are being compared to this reference range is X to Y interval of numbers. We get that reference range largely from a statistical bell curve average of people who go to labs.

Speaker 3: 4:58

People that go to labs, sadly, are not the healthiest bunch of people, so that a lot of people that go to their doctors, hey, I don't feel right, I have tired, or I can't lose weight or I have these digestive problems or I have these inflammatory problems or have these autoimmune type symptoms, and the doctor runs the labs and then the labs largely come back quote unquote normal and even know that person knows this is not normal. What they're being told is that there is and they're saying, hey, you're just getting older, you're just depressed, you're an antidepressant or you just need to lose weight, even though the person maybe is having difficulty losing weight. So all these well intentioned reasons as to why somebody could be having symptoms despite normal, quote unquote labs, but what they're? You're being compared to people with health problems, basically. So I want to look beyond that and I want to look at the optimal ranges. This is not just my opinion on this is the Institute for functional medicine, ifm, that's just trained all the functional medicine doctors at the Cleveland Clinic functional medicine center. That's trained myself and my team. So we're looking at optimal, vibrant wellness, which is typically a tighter range within that larger reference range. So we're looking at optimal health to give people answers as to the pieces to their puzzle, why they are feeling the way that they do. And then we are running more comprehensive labs as well. So we're looking at things like microbiome, underlying gut problems or hormonal imbalances or toxicity issues or chronic infections or nutrient deficiencies or so many. There's a plethora of different issues to look at based off of that person's case. Not everybody needs all those labs, but that's where a good, comprehensive, thorough, thoughtful, intuitive health history comes into place to really hear this person and hold space for them and dig deep, do some like real investigation for them and not just writing them off and saying, oh, this is what it is and not really hearing them. So I think all of this is predicated upon a good, thoughtful health history that we hold online and then from there we determine what labs are appropriate for them and then from there it's the kind of.

Speaker 3: 6:57

The third aspect of functional medicine is bio individuality. We're all different and you could have 100 patients with the same diagnosis code, let's say, 100 patients with fatigue and what's driving one person's fatigue? Is it necessarily driving the next person's fatigue? So my job is to say, okay, what's? Is it a hormonal imbalance or microbiome issues? Whatever that is like? What's the root cause of why you're going through what you're going through? And we tailor healthcare to the individual. So we use food as medicine, we use herbal, botanical, like natural medicine protocols, more advanced functional medicine protocols, lifestyle changes and medications, when needed, to really be tailored to the individual. So that that's what I do. Yeah, that's my long-winded dissertation on on what I do for the day.

Speaker 2: 7:42

It's amazing, and the fact that you're in that telehealth space and that you can just reach so many people across the world in that opens up the the doors for the people who need it. Because so and I'm sure you hear this all the time, because I hear it and I'm not I'm not a doctor, but people are saying, well, my, my doctor just kind of wrote me off or they told me, you know that I'm fine because of the blood work, like you were saying, and you know. And so they kind of feel like either maybe they're crazy or maybe they don't feel the things they feel, and it's not until they have someone.

Speaker 2: 8:17

and just the fact that you take the time to do that comprehensive background that takes more than 10 minutes, right, and that's what so often the normal doctor visit is just doesn't get down to it.

Speaker 3: 8:30

No, you're absolutely right, it takes a long time I mean, it depends on the case for an hour, hour and a half, easy on digging deep, yeah yeah. So that's not the way the system set up right now. I mean it's a conventional system set up to diagnose a disease and match it with a medication and that's through this medicinal matching game that's going on. That serves some people and there's some people that are hurt by that system. There's some people that are alive because of that system and there's certainly a place for that. There's a time and place for that.

Speaker 3: 8:58

But there's a lot of people that they're falling through the cracks of that system. They don't fit all the mold, they don't fit all the boxes and they're doing everything their doctor's telling them to do. And that's the very important facet of what I do. Most of my patients have exhausted everything the conventional medicine has for them. They've been good patients, they've been compliant, they have done everything they were told to do, but they are still struggling. That's an important part, because it's not like these people are just coming to me first Normally they aren't Nine times out of 10, they've exhausted tons of conventional options and even alternative options many times and then they're looking at what's going on here. So we're used to these difficult cases in the sense of it's beyond the basics. They know not to eat junk food. They eat better than Americans. They're taking care of themselves, they're doing what their doctor's telling them to do, but yet they are still struggling. So that's the typical caliber of people that I have.

Speaker 2: 9:56

So what are the biggest? I'm going to say what are the biggest issues, but what are the things that people come to you with that you end up finding? These are the sources of what's going on. I mean, you wrote a book all about inflammation, the inflammation spectrum. Is that the biggest thing that you end up seeing with your clients, or is there a group of things that you see?

Speaker 3: 10:20

The inflammation spectrum my second book is really both of my books were, but this one specifically is definitely an outward expression in book form of what I see, because it is this larger inflammation spectrum. So in the book when I drew the I didn't draw it. I told the artist. I said this is what I want to look. I can't draw, I am not an artist, but this is what it looks like from a clinical standpoint. Make it look pretty.

Speaker 3: 10:47

But way that I envision the inflammation spectrum for the book is these seven sort of spokes, if you will, of a wheel, these sort of outer ripple effects of this inflammation spectrum. So we look at the gut, the brain, the hormonal system, the blood sugar regulatory system, detoxification system, musculoskeletal system. Autoimmunity is a separate entity. And then eighth is what I call in the book polyinflammation. This interconnectedness of inflammation in one area can beget a ripple effect of inflammation in the other area, which is a lot of my patients. So it's those seven things, or the eighth being polyinflammation is really what I see and it's somewhere someone on this autoimmune inflammation spectrum or someone on this inflammation spectrum. They don't necessarily have to have an autoimmune component, but a lot of them do, but it's some sort of inflammatory problem impacting hormones or the brain or digestion or so on and so forth. So really what the people that I see are in that book?

Speaker 2: 11:56

So that eighth point that you mentioned I think is so key because there's a ton of books out there that just focus on these things, kind of in their own silos. But I even I've heard you say, or I read it in an article where you were quoted, where you said that you can tell from someone's lab work if they are having, like a problem in their marriage or if they're having stress at work, from just looking at these things, and that's not something that you would fix in a normal doctor's visit. You know what I mean. So that part of it, can you explain more of how you noticed that was so important to mention and to tell people about?

Speaker 3: 12:36

Certainly. Yeah, I mean that's the bi-directional relationship between thoughts and emotions and your physiology. Right, it's like In the West we like to separate mental health from physical health, but the reality is mental health is physical health. Our brain is part of our body. When you look at things like anxiety and depression and fatigue and brain fog and even just fear and dread and these things, they have physiological components.

Speaker 3: 13:01

So there's a whole field of research in the scientific literature that's looking at this over the years. Not all of it's just new studies. Some of it is new studies but over the past decade, 15 years we've been looking at in the scientific community, looking at the way that inflammation impacts how the brain works. That's what this cytokine model cytokines are pro-inflammatory cells, cytokine model of cognitive function. How is inflammation impacting mental health?

Speaker 3: 13:28

So it's thought your physiology, like underlying gut problems for example, can drive inflammation levels up and impact someone's brain and that's through the gut brain access.

Speaker 3: 13:40

Your gut and brain are from the same fetal tissue and it's very well documented in the research that these gut problems or even hormonal imbalances, things that are tangibly measured on labs can drive inflammation levels up, impacting your neurochemistry, impacting somebody's stress levels in that way. But then the other side of that coin happens as well, this bi-directional relationship between thoughts and emotions and physiology, thoughts and emotions. So if somebody has a stressful job, if somebody is in a toxic relationship, those things, those circumstantial, external things will impact physiology too. And that's very well documented also in the research, that people that have gone through things like trauma or people that have stressful life events are more prone they have higher inflammation levels, they have compromised immune systems, they're more prone to being triggered with autoimmune problems. So the body keeps the score in that way and there's a book after that as well looking at this connection between trauma and stress and the impact that has on the body.

Speaker 2: 14:50

So when you see people and you even mentioned this in your book in the inflammation spectrum, you it's more of a question. So do you typically get them to start with eliminating foods because it's something that they have more control over or at least can understand better?

Speaker 3: 15:09

Yeah, I would say so.

Speaker 3: 15:10

It typically starts with food, and I say that with some hesitation because there has to be some ethos before that understanding why they are doing. To me, I think the why somebody's doing it is just as, if not more, important than the what, because I don't want this to be just this fad diet that they're doing or this program. I really kind of hate those words because this has to be a natural ripple effect of why are they doing what they're doing? Meaning I believe that sustainable wellness is born out of self-respect and if somebody has to have enough of an impetus to say, look, I value myself enough to feed a good thing, they may not feel great. They're not going to feel great at this point. This is the beginning of their journey. They probably feel really, really lousy, so they have to have enough energy inside of them, will to move past this inside of them to start making these changes in their life. And sometimes people do fake it before they make it, meaning that they are going through the motions and they just really because they do feel so lousy. But to me, I think you have to get that off the ground. But what maintains it off the ground?

Speaker 3: 16:28

What continues to say sustainability of this, the practicality of this, the effectiveness of this, is someone really shifting their paradigm from okay, I can't have all these things. I'm doing a diet. This is so restrictive too. Well, no, I love feeling better, more than I miss those foods that made me feel really lousy, and to me, that's the paradigm shift that has to happen to make it stay off the ground. Otherwise, it'll just keep skidding off the ground and it'll be another added into your pile of things that you've tried, that have maybe worked for a time and then failed you or maybe never worked, and that's not what I do. That's not what I do. So, my, you have to change your head and your heart sometimes before you change your plate.

Speaker 2: 17:14

That's so good, because you don't want it to just become another one of those yo-yo diets, right, which would just make the cycle worse of I'm not good enough, I can't do this. I tried it. It didn't work. Clearly I can't do this, I'm not good enough, and it just keeps it going. So do you. Is that something you help people with in that first call that you have with them? Are you asking them to dig deeper into the why behind why they want to do this?

Speaker 3: 17:42

Yeah, absolutely, and that's the part of that duality of functional medicine.

Speaker 3: 17:48

There's the science of it, like the labs and giving to the root cause and measuring changes on labs and finding out what steps they should be doing, like what protocols, even relevant for them. But then the other side of that coin is the art of functional medicine. It's saying, okay, how do you meet this person where they're at? It's holding space for them. It's kind of seeing, okay, the space between their words and I'm consulting them online and you still have this sort of understanding of who they are and the time that you're with them. Because you're not with them for just 10 minutes. You're just going to get a reading of, like, what they're going through and how do you meet them where they're at, because not everybody's at the same point in their journey, not everybody receives information the same way, not everybody's ready to do everything you kind of to lean into it with them in the way that they even can. So it is definitely something that we have to artistically guide them through, based off of what we know to work.

Speaker 2: 18:46

It makes a ton of sense and you have done a great job at making it. I don't want to say easy, because it's not necessarily easy to do some of these things, but a really practical approach and something that's attainable. And you call it in your book the inflammation spectrum, the core four foods that to start with, of eliminating. So it's not everything in the world all at once and all you can now have is a piece of chicken and some broccoli.

Speaker 2: 19:15

But there's these four. So what are the four foods that you have chosen and you talk about? Because of research, because of what you've seen and because of effectiveness?

Speaker 3: 19:25

Yeah, sure, it is the four foods that are most likely to cause inflammation in most people, but the whole heart of the inflammation spectrum is bioindividuality, so not all of these four foods are going to be problems for everybody. So they're not blanket statements, they're just categories. But then we talk about the new ones in the context of the different types of these and the different ways that you can test which one works for you and which doesn't. In the book. But those are grains, and that encompasses wheat and rye and oat and barley and spelt and even the gluten free grains like rice and quinoa and corn. So that's grains.

Speaker 3: 20:01

Number two would be dairy, and I have a story, I have an explanation in the book of the different types of dairy. Right, I'm not saying all dairy is the same, but let's just say conventional dairy. Third would be high omega-6 oils, like industrial seed oils, like vegetable oil, canola oil. They're higher in omega-6s, which and they're typically oxidized at room temperature, very sensitive to light and heat and they drive inflammation levels up. And then fourth would be sugar added sugar, and not just the white powdery stuff like table sugar, but it's even the healthier variations of it, or the ones that are touted to be more healthy, or the fancier sounding euphemisms for sugar, like agave nectar or evaporated cane juice, but it's still nonetheless sugar. So those are the four foods that are most likely to cause inflammation in most people.

Speaker 3: 20:56

But I want people to find out what their body loves and what their body doesn't love in the book. So the core for a plan is removing those four foods for four weeks and then we reintroduce them and test them and see how they feel. Because the gold standard still in clinical nutrition and functional medicine is a well-formulated elimination diet. But most people are doing an elimination diet not right. They're eliminating it, fine, but then you like, like you said, it's like chicken and broccoli, and then it's like, okay, the reintroduction's a mess. So they don't even know what's working for them and what's not, and it's unsustainable and they just kind of give up and they move on with their life and there's nothing gained from it. I didn't want that to happen with the book and I don't want that to happen with patients. So I teach people how to reintroduce these foods.

Speaker 2: 21:39

Do you have them take all of them away at once, or do you have them do it in phases?

Speaker 3: 21:45

So I have the initiate chapter in the book so we lean them into it. So initiate and people you know this, but people that read the book, they'll see every chapter that has the number eight at the end of it, like initiate and create and eliminate, and you'll understand why when you read the book.

Speaker 3: 22:05

So basically, the initiate chapter is leaning into it and I thought about it like we originally didn't have that chapter in the book and I thought, you know, this would be really a nice approach because I'll tell you what I don't always have patients do that. But the difference with patients is I can monitor them and be there with them and walk through it and tailor it a bit more. But in lieu of me, not I'm not there for the reader. You know I can manage it better with the patient, but I knew okay, I'm not gonna have, I'm not gonna be able to consult every person that reads the book, nor does everyone want me to. So I want the reader of the book to be able to kind of lean into it on their own. That's why I think that chapter is quite important for the reader that doesn't have a functional medicine doctor to do it a bit more sustainably and not feel so overwhelmed.

Speaker 2: 22:53

Right, which is what I see with people.

Speaker 2: 22:57

I mean even in myself, when I've done different protocols and approaches like this, but especially like even my husband. He would be the one who's like there's no way I could do all of the, even if we would just narrow it down to those four. And so, like you said, that bio individual part of it is so important too because, knowing the person, it would be so much easier for someone like my husband to say, okay, for a period of time we're just gonna take away grains and then reintroduce them, as opposed to saying like you're doing all of this at one time and that has to be such a. I mean, how do you, as a doctor, deal with the feeling of being overwhelmed from your patients of you know you because you've seen it work in the lives of other people and you're the practitioner of it. You know that there's hope and that it works for people. But when they feel like it's so insurmountable, how do you keep them focused and motivated on doing these things that you know will work for them?

Speaker 3: 24:02

Well, I think it's going back to that, why it's like remember why they're doing what they're doing. Because if they say if that's their true North, but that's like there what they want to, then they're focused and they can be kind of relentless, in a good way, on getting to that goal. And that's another part of it is having a support system. Obviously, the reader doesn't have that, but my patients do is having a team that understands them, and that's why I think we're getting a lot of people that have read the inflammation spectrum that have reached out to us. Obviously, this is what our day job is anyways, but that was what they saw Like they needed that support system and that structure and that sort of someone outside of themselves to be there with them and point them along the way and further personalize it, cause you can't get every variable in a book. You can get a lot of variables, but it's still. We can take it to the next level when we're actually seeing them as who they are, beyond the tailoring that I have in the book. But I actually encourage that in the book. So let's just take the clinic webcam practice out of the way. For now, that's just the reader.

Speaker 3: 25:07

I think it's important for people to have a support system in their own life. I think you know having even a friend that you can do it with, or having finding a support system online, maybe that have similar health issues. There's a lot of Facebook groups with people that are going through similar health issues, or it's maybe you know a spouse that does it along with you. Maybe they're not going through the same thing but that are doing it together. Or even if they're not doing it with you, maybe it's just that you can still kind of they are supportive of what you're doing. Maybe they're helping with meal prep or they are, you know, going grocery shopping with you or they're you know they are preparing dinner for you to take the load off. So the support system is really a powerful thing.

Speaker 2: 25:55

And in line with that, you know we've talked a lot about food, and that's part of what your book starts with, but you're also very vocal about how it's not just food. Food's a huge part of our health and our life, but there's other aspects that lead to us being healthy people. Like you even said at the beginning of this, mental health is physical health, and I've heard you say that many times. So what does it look like to create a healthy mental health life as well as physical health?

Speaker 3: 26:29

Yeah, and these are all those non-food and flamers in the book, because I know from seeing patients and hopefully people can realize this too that it's not just about food. So we have to deal with these non-food and flamers in the book, and there's eight of them that I talk about in the book. And then that's a bit different right, because not everybody eats food. At least they should be right, but the reality is not everybody's gonna have all eight of these non-food and flamers. So what I wanted people to do in the book, take those whatever non-food and flamers that were appropriate for them, to grab them and to use them.

Speaker 3: 27:05

And then it's almost this mindfulness practice over these four weeks or in the eliminate track, a little bit more longer track in the book have eight weeks to work on these things, cause those are not as easy to say. I'm gonna stop negative thinking overnight. It's just to grow in mindfulness and awareness and we give people mantras and positive actions to do instead of growing this too, because you could be eating really healthy, but stress and toxins and lack of sleep or social isolation or screen addiction, social media addiction also impacts inflammation levels too. So back to that bi-directional relationship. Those lifestyle things beyond food, also will impact your physiology.

Speaker 2: 27:48

So let me ask you a question about that right now. So right now, at the time of this recording, we're in the middle of this coronavirus that's happening and a lot of people are having to take that social connection digitally. So how do you balance that and do you think that it's worth the additional screen time, additional technology and all of that in their lives in order for them to be connecting socially with others, or do you think that there are other ways that we could do it without always having to be addicted to our phones? What is your take on that?

Speaker 3: 28:25

Yeah, I think right now we're living in a time where it's gonna be the best option for some people that are socially isolated. Obviously, I'm used to connecting to people online, but there is in their personal life. I feel like people need human interaction. That's not possible right now, so you have the best you can with the access you have in context with what's relevant, what's logical to do right now. So people should be connecting online because I don't want people to be Alone. They can be Quarantine to isolated, but not alone.

Speaker 3: 28:58

So, I think this is the advantages of technology. Look, the last pandemic, major one that we had, into the 1918 if during the Spanish flu pandemic, humans didn't have this. So what a blessing that we can use the benefits of technology to connect to people. Yes, technology has its downside. Yes, that's something that normally I would say checks and balances that we need to do, but it's probably gonna be a little bit more than usual right now.

Speaker 3: 29:24

But you know, even now I've been encouraging people through this time to still have checks and balances about this too. There's gonna be a time to connect with people online and get work done and maybe even entertain yourself, and there's gonna be a time to turn it off and Read a book or get out in nature, if you can, or spend time with your loved ones or do some a hobby that doesn't involve Technology that you maybe even putting off. Maybe it's moving your body and exercising in your home. So I think, yes, it's. It's important to connect people during this time online. Use the internet with its awesome it's awesome positive aspects of it, but don't let it bleed and permeate and consume your life and impact you in a negative way.

Speaker 2: 30:07

Yeah, that's so good and I know, even for me, just during this time, just going outside, even into the cul-de-sac in front of my house, and being in the sunshine, just leaving my phone inside for 30 minutes, has been game changer for the day. Yeah, dr Cole, talk a little bit about your book, keto Terri, and so we've been talking a lot about what you've wrote in the Implementation spectrum, but that's your second book, right? Yeah, so the first game from from keto Terri, and which is the. I just want to hear you talk about it more, because every time I hear people talk about the keto diet which I've never done, but every time I hear people talk about it they what they say, they do I just am like this can't be healthy.

Speaker 3: 30:57

That's dirty keto as well. I would have called it.

Speaker 3: 31:01

And there's a clean way or you know a dirty way to do most ways of eating right, I mean, I think that. But keto probably is a little bit easier to do that way because it Is, by its very definition, very specific about macro nutrients or proteins, fats and carbohydrates. So it's a high fat, moderate protein, low carbohydrate diet. So it's very easy to plug in you know, tons of bacon and butter into the high fat, moderate protein, low carb diet. So, yeah, that's gonna put someone a ketosis, but is it going to be sustainable in the long term for human health? Is it gonna be sustainable long term for the person even wanting to do it long term? So to me, both for my health, physiological standpoint, long term, and both the hey, how can I do this practically long term Was why I wrote keto terri and which is a clean ketogenic diet. It's a mostly plant-based ketogenic diet, so it's vegan keto, vegetarian keto and pescatarian keto options. So it's about all whole foods, very nutrient-dense, very clean. So you're getting all the fight of nutrients and fiber and clean, nutrient dense foods from the food. But you're also being getting the benefits of tapping into ketosis, which is this fat burning state. For people that don't know that ketosis is Nutritional ketosis and all our body can, all of our bodies can, be put into this state, which is this fat burning state that humans would have been in times of ketosis for eons. So it's just allowing your body to really tap into this. Because most people are very metabolically inflexible. They don't. They're always in this sugar burning mode. Their blood sugar is up and down and all over the place and they're hangry and irritable and they're fatigued. And the ketogenic diet, when done properly, is a great way to stabilize blood sugar, keep insulin at a healthy balance level, lower inflammation and actually that concept of the inflammation spectrum I talked about first in ketotarian. So it's why. It's because beta hydroxybutyrate, the ketone that your body produces in ketosis, is a epigenetic modulator. It's a signaling molecule to lower inflammation. So it's a great natural way to lower inflammation levels in the brain and throughout the body. So people are using it for different neurological issues, to improve brain function, improve cognitive alertness, lower brain fog, increased energy levels, but also weight, muscular, skeletal pain and different inflammatory problems too. So it's really a great therapeutic, healthy, clean way of eating. So that's what ketotarian is.

Speaker 3: 33:31

Half the book is like the science of it. The Guides, the research, all that stuff, set an easy to understand terms, and then the other half is recipes and meal plans and pretty pictures and all of that stuff. So I'm really proud of that book. I'm really proud of a came came to be and it was on a crash schedule because we, I wanted to write it and People were interested in keto. So the publisher like, hey, can you get this out sooner than then later? So I, I am. All I did was write ketotarian for a while on the weekends, because that's the patients turn the week, and then on long weekends I'd I'd be writing. But I'm really proud of it absolutely so Keto.

Speaker 2: 34:14

So I've heard this and let me ask you this question that Keto's I've heard Keto's not sustainable long term. But if you do Keto this clean way that you talk about in your book, is it sustainable for years?

Speaker 3: 34:31

Yeah, I mean the way that I advocated for in the book. Absolutely so, there and In the book I advocate for people to do an eight-week ketotarian experiment or challenge right, kind of give their body the time to become fat, adapted, to get metabolically flexible and to lower inflammation, get all the benefits of keto, which is the brain boosting, fat burning, lowered inflammation, decreased cravings, all that stuff. That's going to take time, so I recommend it in the book eight weeks and then from there they can do some modifications. So I do a cyclical ketotarian approach. I'll do four, five days in ketosis and then the remaining two or three, some days, four days out of the week, I'll increase my carbohydrates.

Speaker 3: 35:16

It's not tons of carbs I'm not eating junk food but it's considered lower carb to moderate carb about 50 to 150 grams of carbohydrates a day, which you're going to probably be out of ketosis. Most people will be out of ketosis on 75 to 100-ish, depending. Some of the keto hardliners are going to be like what the heck 100 grams? Yeah, some people can still be producing ketones, around 100 grams of carbohydrates, especially because you're eating such clean forms of these that's now encompassed in fiber and it balances blood sugar and so on and so forth. I talk about it in the book, but you can increase your sweet potatoes or your fruit or even, if you want to have rice or something like that, more carbohydrates they're clean carbs and then you can go right back into ketosis the other days of the week. So that's a nice, metabolically flexible, balanced approach for many people.

Speaker 3: 36:03

Many women will do a cyclical ketotarian around their period. They'll maybe do it right after ovulation, maybe do it in the first two days of their period to get clean carbs those days, which works for many women to keep their female hormones balanced. And then some people will just do the eight weeks and then moderate their carbohydrates. Meaning they'll do the eight weeks to get metabolic flexibility and then they'll increase the carbohydrates to that 75 to 150 grams of carbohydrates as just standard for them, and then they'll go back into ketosis when they want to, so they don't always as a being ketosis.

Speaker 3: 36:36

And I talk about the different populations of people with different goals that tend to do better with different versions of these modifications. And then some people do it seasonally where, from an ancestral health perspective, there's many humans would have done for a long time During the winter months they would have been in more ketosis and then in the summer months they'd have more fresh fruits and tubers and things like that and moderate their carbohydrates. So that's the way that some people use ketotarian and then some people staying ketosis longer term. People that have weight loss resistance, people that have insulin resistance, people have neurological problems, different autoimmune problems. They're using ketosis to manage their symptoms. So they feel better when they're in ketosis and they don't feel as good when they go out of ketosis. So this goes back to that. Larger heart of functional medicine is bioindividuality. We are all using this tool in a different way based on our specific needs.

Speaker 2: 37:27

That's so good. Well, dr Cole, the final question is where would you recommend that people start with everything we've talked about, which some people might listen and think that's so much, but it is attainable when would you recommend they start?

Speaker 3: 37:45

Something that I start I talk about in both the books. I talk about it with all my patients, and you probably know about it too, because you've read things that I talked about is that ethos of all of this is you can't heal a body you hate. You cannot shame and stress and strive your way into wellness.

Speaker 3: 38:01

And many people think they can, but it's going to be probably short lived. And if it's not short lived and it's just a fad, it's going to be a source of dread for you and it's not going to be enjoyable. And what's the point of all of this then? So all of this has to be, in my opinion, for most cases, you have to really look at. You don't have to perfect it, but you have to really look at your head and your heart and your relationship with your food, relationship with your body, relationship with life itself, because wellness is just life itself. It's your relationship with life itself. So all of this stuff has to be predicated upon that, because I think that that is the genesis for sustainable wellness. So to me, that's the first step.

Speaker 3: 38:40

It's a little bit esoteric, it's less like X, y and Z, but to me it's the truth. It's really what you have to get at least started. You don't have to be a master at it, you don't have to have all your problems figured out, because that's the other side of the coin Get some of it right, get the Y right, generally speaking, and then progress into it with a sense of grace and lightness. But the other side of that coin is. I have a sign hanging at the front of my functional medicine clinic. It says if you're waiting for the right time, it's now. That's. The other side of the coin is don't just keep thinking well, I'm not perfect, so I'm going to procrastinate, and procrastinate, and procrastinate. There's no perfect time, there's no perfect person. So it's balance of, yes, coming into it with a good headspace, but also saying I'm going to lean into it and lean into it, and lean into it. Even if the leaning into it is incremental, at least you're leaning into it.

Speaker 2: 39:35

That is so good. I love everything that you have said. I love the approach that you take. I love just the message that you have. Even with that, you can't heal a body that you hate. It's so powerful. Thank you for everything you do, hey well my pleasure, my pleasure.

Speaker 3: 39:57

Thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 39:59

So I highly recommend that people check out your books Ketitarian, the Inflammation Spectrum. They can find out more on your website or they can get your books on Amazon. But on your website is an awesome quiz that's based around that inflammation spectrum, which I tried to do in like five minutes the other day and I was like, no, this is. You actually have to pay attention, because it gets deep into some things, which is amazing, because it talks about results, which just pairs perfectly with getting that book. But you just provide so many resources for people. Where are other places that people can follow you?

Speaker 3: 40:39

Yeah, thank you so much. Drwilcoldcom is definitely the home to a lot of stuff. They can get a lot of free content and source articles, recipes, ideas, the quiz that you mentioned. They can get the links to the Inflammation Spectrum and Ketitarian. There we offer a free webcam or phone health evaluation for people who want to see a functional medicine is right for them and get a functional medicine perspective on their case. On Instagram it's at DrWilcold, at DRWILCLE. Same thing on Facebook and on Pinterest all the places I'm most active on Instagram and Facebook.

Speaker 2: 41:16

Awesome, perfect Well, dr Cole, thank you so much. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 41:21

Here are the key takeaways from today's episode with Dr Will Cole. You can't heal a body that you hate If you're doing all of this, you know going on diets, working out whatever it may be, just to accept what you see in the mirror, and you're doing it backwards. Start this journey coming from a place of accepting and loving yourself. Second key takeaway is mental health. Is physical health? Mental health and physical health are directly tied together. Ensure that your mental health is taken care of as well, not only your physical health. Third, remember that we can affect our bodies and health in a positive way by focusing on the foods that we eat. One of the first things that you can do is go get Dr Cole's book, the inflammation spectrum, or go to his website and take his quiz, even if it's to start seeing yourself differently. Those things will be linked below in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 42:07

Now, a lot of times when we talk about physical attraction, we think of how we look, but remember it's about how we feel as well, and that's where you should start. Those are the key takeaways from this episode. If you enjoyed it, please leave a review and a rating. It's the best way to support the show. Or, if you're on YouTube, click subscribe, hit the like button and leave a comment. Until next week, stay strong.