Freedom is here, and, you know, I have the blog, talk radio show we do every Friday, and so usually I'm doing the interviewing. But today I was interviewed by Chantel Ray. I'm really proud of it. And I think we did a pretty good show. And I hope that you listen to that.
Hey, guys, welcome to this week's episode, and I could not be more thrilled to have our next guests on the podcast, he's often called the Colombo of Hell because he seeks clues to his patient's underlying health problems, trying to get down to the root cause. And he is a nutritional therapist and founder of the Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Certification Course. And he's also the creator of Trust for Health Success Program. Welcome. Davis.
He thinks the. I'm really happy to be here. I hope we can do some good.
All right. Well, Reed, let's start by talking about your own wellness journey, yourself personally, and how did it lead you to functional health and nutrition?
Yeah, thanks so much, I mean, right now, I'm an older guy, you know, and I've been very, very hard on my body, so I'm very interested in maintaining my youth and vigor and not getting old any faster than I have to, you know, and have a family history. I've had some some of my relatives lived a long time and some died pretty young, you know, so you get to play your cards right or, you know, you won't manifest what you're looking for. And again, I just want to be healthy, happy, functioning at a very high level in time. A real ripe old guy, you know. Now, what brought me to the journey, I was actually 20 years ago, I was in the environmental law field, so I studied the environment and I was saving the birds and bees and planet and hair and trees and again, all plant everything. And so I turn my attention to what's it doing to people, including me? What's the environment doing to people, including me. So I started working at this clinic and I took a course in nutrition. And the doctors there at the clinic let me work on their patients in between my classes. And I fell in love with the clinical side. I mean, I thought at the time I was going to be this huge corporate wellness guy and, you know, stick with the environmental save the planet thing. And I just fell in love with working one on one with people. And I did that for the next ten years. And I found out that nutrition alone was totally inadequate. You can eat the best foods there are and still be sick. And so I want to know everything else that was involved in making a person healthy. And so I studied laboratory work, physiology, anatomy, biochemistry, all that stuff that most people don't have time or the inclination for. But that is very, very important. And I still study the state's genetics and how those affect our health. Many ways to get to the chase. I guess I developed a system of investigation. They do compared me to some of the best detectives because that's my mentality. Find out what's really wrong, what's who's the real culprit, if you will. And it's not just the environment, but it is you know, there's a way to find out what's really wrong. It's so you're not just treating your symptoms. The other thing, of course, is, well, how do you fix it? And that's where that dress for health success system comes in. That's what I discovered over the years. You need to follow to be healthy, to be that healthy, happy person, not just symptom free, but actually have a lot of abundance and a really good immune system, really clear thinking and actually be happy, which were designed perfectly for if the design is functioning the way it's supposed to, which is that people come to us. So that's kind of the background.
So can you explain to the listeners what is dress and what does the acronym stand for and how does it play into just overall health?
Oh, sure. So, you know, they talk a lot today about teens and it's all your genes and that's going to dictate how healthy you are and it's your genes are important. There are a small bit of the information your body uses to stay or get healthy if you want to reverse disease. It's not so much about your genes. It's about how you live. And so over the years, what I noticed is my clients got better. They all improved, may affect their chances of improving were really, really good. If they would follow five simple ideas, the D in its DRDO, in a sense for diet. Of course, diet affects every cell, tissue, organ and system. Antibiotics rest, which is like getting a good night's sleep and your hormones balance out and processing all your thoughts and feelings and things like that and also detoxifying your body. So if you eat right, diet, sleep right, rest is exercise. And everyone knows that today here I am sitting down. But, you know, sitting is the new smoking. It's like almost a disease waiting to happen at all. You just sit or else you have to move your body. So do a diet exercise. Now, the two S's are stress reduction and supplements. And I don't have my own line of supplements. I'm not selling anything. I'm not in the supplement business, but I know a lot about them and they are very important. And so a stress reduction may affect that might be the biggest area that we can help a person, because so many of the stressors are hidden Chantel food sensitivities and bacteria and fungus and some viruses and molds and yeast and all kinds of things are hidden and they're hidden in our environment to they're hidden in your clothes and your furniture and your draperies and your personal care products in your household cleaning products. And so diet is critical. Rest, exercise, stress reduction is huge and expensive because there's so much of it. And then supplements will kick in. At that point. It may affect. I'll make one little comment here, that part of my nutrition training early on. We saw or tried to solve a lot of problems with just supplements, and again, it didn't work. I just had way too many people saying, oh, I felt a little better on them. Or some people said, I don't really feel much different. Other people said they felt worse. So it really is you have to take a very individualized approach. And that's why the lab work, it's more the investigation came in. And then how do you fix it all at one time? How do you have an effect on every cell, tissue, organ and system on the entire organism? Well, you use dressed in it that results at least gives people a really good chance to return their health over and living a long time healthy, happy and healthy. Don't I look happy and healthy?
You do. You just make me smile looking at you.
And I think another thing that is really important to talk about is what kind of supplements? Because, you know, a lot of these places are talking about that they are Whole Foods supplements, but they're using synthetic ingredients instead of using Whole Foods. And so, like, I'm so passionate about supplements, I know some people are like, you know, on one end of another. I'm a huge supplement fan and I'm just I feel like they make you feel so much better. But the main thing is what kind of supplement are you using and is it truly organic? Is it truly wholefood or is this just synthetic? Because for me, if I take a synthetic supplement, I am going to feel worse, that's for sure.
Well, it's a really, really good question and it's a broad topic, you know, I guess we want to start with why do we need to supplement? And the truth is, food just doesn't have enough nutrition and it's not nutrient dense enough. There isn't enough vitamins and minerals and phytonutrient and essential fatty acids and all these things, the antioxidants. So there's the idea from food that you could get protein, you can get plenty of protein, which has your amino acids, you can get fat the sense of fast and you can get some carbohydrates. The sugars and things like that are important. But that's the macronutrients that carbohydrate and protein, the micronutrients, again, the bottom is minerals and so on. Those are harder to get because the soils just don't have all of the nutrition that it used to have. Like my grandfather grew food, both my grandfathers up in Canada. We ate that food. We think we were pretty well nourished, but know today the soils are depleted so the plants just can't get enough nutrition. Even organic food doesn't have enough nutrition in it. We eat it because it's free from pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, rodenticides and all the other things. So it doesn't have a spray on it. That's a good thing. That's why we eat organic, but it doesn't have that much extra nutrition. And so you want to supplement the word supplement, supplement or substitute for what's missing in food. And then there's other categories and supplements so we can supplement or substitute for what's missing in food, get your micronutrients. And they're really important. Every once you take antioxidants, everyone should take some some minerals and some vitamins and things like that. But the other thing, you know, you can take supplements to stimulate your immune system, you know, so there's stimulation of certain clance organs like you can stimulate your digestion, make it work better, break down food a little bit better. So we substitute for what's missing in food. We stimulate the immune system. If you're getting on an airplane, you probably should take some immune support so you don't catch something while you're flying. I mean, it's totally fine to boost up your immune system, take some zinc and take some echinacea or whatever it is. It seems to work best for you. And so the other thing is really to self treat. You can take supplements instead of taking drugs. Now, this gets a little bit trickier. But, you know, drugs are all toxic, poisonous chemicals. The body doesn't really know how to process most of them. Fact they can. There's a lot of side effects and contraindications and risks and warnings that come along with drugs. Well, supplements are natural, so they're safer. And you can up with some of the same things, I think, with good knowledge and reduce your drug drug load, you know, if you want to. So you can substitute, you can stimulate, you can support and you can self treat. So support would be like support your adrenal glands. If you're under a lot of stress, why not support your hormones, all your hormone systems, things like that. So there's maybe the forces to substitute stimulate support and. We said stimulate the armed forces, so it's some supplements are really good if you're using the right ones. You mentioned quality quality foods too, and your whole food is the way to go if they're derived. Let's take vitamin C, for instance. Vitamin C just isolated like ascorbic acid will do one of three things, make you feel better, do nothing or make you feel worse. So two or three things aren't positive. You know, so much but vitamin C in nature. So it's got all the codes were called cofactors. That's you go got closer to that if you can get it. So pay more for a high quality. You don't buy cheap stuff because it's not really going to help you very much.
Well, let's talk about V12 for just a second, because I know that, you know, people with certain medical conditions, such as celiac disease or Crohn's disease, they might not be able to absorb adequate V12 from their food. And now a lot of people are going, I know me and my husband just watched this movie called Oh Gosh, what was it called? It was all about is a vegan movie, but it was talking about why you should go vegan. But vegan is a big thing right now, and they are strict vegetarians who are not eating meat, fish, egg or dairy products. And they can develop V12 vitamin deficiencies because of the lack of vitamin B 12 in their diet. So talk a little bit about B 12. And even in the movie that we watched, it talked about how even the meat that even if you are eating meat, that the B 12 levels that used to be in our meat are not as much as they need to be. Can you talk about that for a minute?
It's a lot to talk about and I don't really focus on individual vitamins, you know, vitamin B 12 is Kobol and it's well-established, as you know, playing an essential role in red blood cell formation, for instance. So that's what carries your oxygen around your body. That's a pretty important thing. Cell metabolism itself. So what's going on inside a cell depends on some of these vitamins, like B 12. Can people consider it to be kind of an energy shock so you can go get shots of V12 and you feel a little bit more energetic? Well, maybe it's because your red blood cells are not functioning, but cell metabolism itself is function. But it also helps your nervous system. And so I have a little issue with taking this for that, though, you know, it's too simplistic of an approach and it's a good way for people to see a lot of vitamins because you can pose or possibly did it with any supplement list, the benefits of it. People will all see what I need, that I need V12 12. I need if I need any, you know, so there's all these B vitamins we generally just used to call them 20 years ago, the stress vitamins, because they're so good for helping your body function. Your body can take B5, for instance, and with cholesterol makes Sterrett hormones out of it. So hormones depend on some of the items. So hormones are very important in stress. So you can kind of go down all of these paths. But I don't want people saying, oh, I'm going to go get some B 12 because in my red blood cell formation will be better and I'll carry more oxygen. I don't believe in the take that approach, but V12 generally you can get it from your poultry and your meats and things if it's high quality meat. Again, same thing with vegetables. You want to use organic beef in cows and pigs or whatever chicken you're eating. They all have be including dairy products, by the way, which are harder to digest. But they they work for some people and they have have these some of these vitamins in them. But, you know, you want organic because you don't want extra hormones in the meat. You want them to be grass fed.
If they're cows, you know, pigs don't eat grass, but they can be fed more natural vegetable matter and other things, you know, whatever. Sloup three could be better. And so you but you wanted them to be without antibiotics also. So try to make sure your meats are antibiotic free and hormone free.
All right, so in my newest edition of my book, Waste Away, I talk about how people don't need to deprive themselves when it comes to food, but everyone needs to decide for themselves, what are there red light, yellow light and green light foods? Meaning like when I eat this for me personally, this is a red light food. I just don't touch this or yellow light food. I don't feel great, so I don't have a lot of it. Do you have any foods for you that you say, personally, I kind of stay away from this or I limit this, or is everything on limits for you?
Well, no, I there's a lot of foods that I avoid, but I've also run the testing that can help you determine your food avoidances. So that's where I hang out. You know, it's in the laboratory world of testing. So you have two basic types of avoidances. One is you have a hard time adjusting it so the food itself isn't bad, but your body has a hard time breaking it down and absorbing it properly. The other is that you can actually have an immune system response like your body looks at it as an enemy. It treats it like in the same way it would treat, you know, bacteria or fungus or something.
It doesn't like it. So you're going to get a reaction. And so you've got those that are hard to digest. Like certain people have a hard time with bread, you know, the grains and things like that. The most common would be wheat and corn and soy. Other people, it's eggs and dairy. So those five things, along with soy, corn, eggs and dairy, are very, very common. People have a hard time adjusting and breaking them down. And so therefore they would keep gassier belote or know if the immune system is also kicking in. And you're having that in addition to some inability to properly break it down. Now, you're really talking about skin problems that your eyes might water up, you might get Sneezy, you might get the hives on your skin. Those would be obvious. And you'd learn very quickly to avoid those foods. Like every time any tomatoes, my red turns blotchy. OK, pretty soon you don't eat tomatoes anymore. That's called an allergy. And doctors know how to test for allergies and they do all the time. So but there are much more subtle ways that the immune system can respond. And sometimes it's a very delayed reaction. Very it can be two or three or four days or maybe it take an accumulation of that negative food to create a symptom. So you could be just tired, fatigue, irritable.
You could also have some of the other symptoms, but you can't attach it to what you just eat that day or that morning because, again, they take a long time. And so you just left wondering, well, that's why the laboratory work is so handy. We run a test. It's called the Mediator Release Test. And my favorite testing, there's all kinds of ways to test for food sensitivities. So we have a general screening that we use. And it helps when you eliminate those foods, if they're contributing to the chaos in your body, is producing some symptoms, eliminating them can be miraculous. I've had people with migraine headaches and blotchy the hives, blotchy skin and serious like pain in the neck kind of symptoms. Symptomatology might just completely go away. I've also had kids with asthma symptoms and ADHD and ADHD all of a sudden be like a new kid one time really early on. It's just very encouraging. Twenty years ago I did first test on a child whose mom was a client of mine, said her kid had been getting kicked out of school. Now, as soon as he's 16, is he smoking and drinking? No, he's not. I said, well, how can a nine year old be bad? You know, like nine year olds aren't bad kids. They don't get kicked out of school. He was just really not paying attention. He was fidgety.
He was poking around with the other kids and stuff because he's probably bored to tears. But all we did is run a test, get him off certain foods and additives because you can test for those, too. And the principal of the school called me two weeks later, said, what did you put little Billy on like? As if I had too much given him acid. And we just we just got him straight for food, which was your question. So certainly there are certain very common foods that are hard to date. Yes, people have bad reactions to him. When the immune system kicks in, that's when it gets tricky. And you probably want to run a test.
Now, do you have a certain brand of the food intolerance test that you recommend versus another one?
Yeah, the issue, though, is that you have to be a physician or hooked up with a physician to run them. It's hard for people to run on themselves. And also, if you go direct, it's kind of really expensive. I can do some of these tests for almost half price, but I do use, for the record, the Oxford Biomedical mediated release test. And they do have a program and people can go there and get that test and they'll help you out. They're great people and I've been using that test for 20 years. It just kind of favorite.
And that's your favorite one.
It's a go to screening. So there's there's other ways of testing that if I have a complex case that's been going on for a while and I want to look a little deeper, well, then I might run a different test. There's IG testing and you can get combined antibody tests combining ANTM. These are different ways of looking at how the immune systems are reacting. There are complementary pathways when you get into molt and some of these other problems people have where where these toxins you just circulating and circulating, circulating and the immune system's upset and you get co infections, it gets a little hard to straighten out. But so far as my first go to screening for a person, I don't know very well that a new client, you know, I would say, yeah, let's screen with this each of these foods. And so we refine the to the diet with the foods test getting off certain things. And and also you hydrate very well and then you do the rest in the exercise and the stress reduction. Food can be a stressor and can parasites, bacteria, funguses, mold. So there's lots of ways to straighten that out. Again, I mentioned the household products and the personal care products and even your new furniture could be outgassing fire retardants and formaldehyde or something that just really drives some people wacky if they're overly sensitive to it. And that's when the supplements you can find to them in and get people straight. No, it's a path, you know. Yes, we're all on this journey road walking up the steps to where we're trying to get to the top, where we're really healthy and happy. And first of all, I don't know. I've been doing this 20 years. I don't know anyone at the top. We're all just kind of up the stairs. Some people have a lot more steps to go, though, you know, so we're helping them up while we're also reaching up for ourselves, trying to walk the talk. Right. I mean, I know you do your diet and rest and exercise and everything Chantel.
Yes. Well, now the question that I ask all my guests take me through a normal day in the life of read. Like, what did you eat yesterday? When did you eat and talk to us about that?
That's really a good question. I get up every morning and I did a little meditation, I'd be thankful and prayerful and I hydrate my body, so I try to drink at least a glass of water. Sometimes I'll do a green juice, like a smoothie type of a thing. And then it depends on my workload and things like that. But it's usually very early this morning I started I got the first time at three thirty dehydrated and went back to bed and I got up at five, three a.m. and I'm typically again hydrating. I do my meditation before I get out of bed. I can, you know, I'm with someone and we meditate together and fool around sometimes and stuff like that, you know, like it, you know. So then I start off prayerful and thankful and happy and look outside. And, you know, I live in a very beautiful spot in Southern California. I'm right on a lake with mountains. And, you know, I've designed my life to be this very, very hard to try to walk that talk of peace, tranquility and having the time getting up and things like that. And, you know, then I'm like everyone else. I hit the email and see what's going on. I look at my schedule. I usually start my appointments, which are often back to back for three or four or five hours, five days a week. I work hard and this morning I did two postgrad interviews, for instance, and then my my better half brought me some food, typically for breakfast. That could be if we feel like cooking, it could be some, you know, meat and eggs. I do really well on a lot of protein with some fat. You know, I'm a protein type guy. I'm not a vegan, I'm not even anywhere near vegetarian. I eat things that in the past my ancient ancestors would have cut and killed and cooked, you know, so I eat paleo or ancestral type died, but a lot of mornings, too. I just do a shake, you know, they're just really handy. We buy only the very best proven ingredients. My mate, as I say, is really good at reading labels and figuring things out and trying to keep me from eating crap. Just just joking around here, you know, but but yeah. No washdown supplements with that. I'll do my things. I take a multivitamin, I take a multi mineral. Usually that's at night and antioxidants and things, maybe some extra fish oil or something like that. I do vitamin D, even though I live in Southern California, we all seem to be a bit deficient in that according to the research. And then I take things just because I'm an older guy and, you know, so I try to keep it simple if and again, if I'm going on an airplane, which I travel a lot, I'm taking my home in support with me, at least some zinc and things that are going to boost you up a little bit. And then I'll find a break. I have one I have one more meeting after this, and then I'm going to take a nice break. I'm going to go outside and do some exercise in my yard. I have some acreage and right now I'm clearing the spring brush is still over, you know, and I live in a very high, you know, California. I live in a high fire up in the hills. And so fires are come through every couple of years and wipe out a lot of people. So I keep my brush. That's really hard. Physical labor. I also have a casita with the gym in it and I'll have my personal trainer come over. She comes over every week. We work out really hard in between.
I'll do a little bit of attuning. Also have a swimming pool. I like to swim.
More in the summer than winter, but even my Jacuzzi, it's it's big and deep, and I do I do some exercises in there as well. So I'm trying to walk the talk on.
Yeah, that's kind of look, one hundred and six do I look amazing? All right, let me go ahead.
I'm going to say I'm 66 years old, I feel like I did when I was 40. I just feel it wasn't for wasn't for a few injuries from sports and motorcycle wrestling. I wrestled until I was sixty three years old, like, you know, like every week, like heart a couple of times a week, wrestling these young bucks that that wanted to take on the old man, you know, and.
To learn a few lessons here and there.
All right, well, let's jump right into the listener questions. This first one is from Katie in Chicago. Hey there. Love your podcast. And I like how you cover such a range of topics, especially related to thyroid. I've been diagnosed with Hypo and Hashimoto's. However, my levels are normal now and feel great overall, especially when I eat 80 percent clean and 20 percent what I want. My question is, if my levels are fine, can I still donate blood or are people with autoimmune not supposed to sending God's love? Thank you, Katie in Chicago.
Yes, so you can donate blood if you're healthy. They'll screen you and they screen blood before they give it to anyone anyway. So you don't have an infectious disease.
I think you're OK to donate blood. That's a nice thing to do. I don't do it very often, but I've done it. So you want to be checked, make sure you don't have hepatitis or something like that and there's worse stuff. But yeah, you can. What was the other question in there, though?
She did. That was all she said. She said, if my levels are fine, can I still donate blood or are people with auto immune not supposed to?
We said Hashimoto's you know, you that's.
Possible I mean, that's basically your body attacking itself and there probably is some antibodies that you wouldn't want to pass on to anyone else just now, but if you have got it all checked up and everything's back to normal, then I don't see an issue. But thyroids, a very interesting thing. I love talking about thyroid, and it's helped a lot of people where there really was nothing wrong with your thyroid. You know, with Hashimoto's. There is you've got your body attacking itself and you're having a hard time. But once you get the immune system quieted down, you could still have, quote unquote, ordinary hypothyroidism. That's when you're brutalism slowed down a little bit. You would know it because you'd be sort of tired, fatigued, or it might not be able to lose weight very well. You'd be maybe even sad. You would have cold or even numb extremities, your arms and legs, things like that. You probably would definitely be constipated. And in some of these other symptoms like that, with sounds like thyroid and you could check a person's thyroid put and it would be low, there should be a little high, actually. Forty three measurements would be a little bit low. But there's so many other reasons why you're hypo your thyroid would be not keeping up to speed. What? It's just adaptation to stress. You know, when you have stress, your cortisol, cortisol, stress hormone, it helps you when you're under stress. Well, that suppresses the thyroid. By suppressing the messenger from the pituitary, it's called thyroid stimulating hormone that gets suppressed by cortisol. So naturally, your thyroid is not going to produce the right amount of thyroid hormone and you would have those same thyroid symptoms. And so be very careful when you hear hypothyroid, because there's I mentioned stress. That's one of eight different reasons I could tell you why you'd be hypothyroid. And there's nothing really wrong with your thyroid gland. If you ever want to talk about that, you can have me back and we'll do the third ritual.
Yes, I'd love it. All right. This next one is from Corey in Stafford. Hi there. I love the podcast and the book question, though I have adrenal fatigue and have really struggled with 16 hour fasts, even got debilitating headaches several days a week for several weeks. Then I heard from some different nutritionist that they don't recommend fasting with adrenal fatigue since it adds more stress to your body. Just wondering what your take is on it. Corey and Stafford.
Yeah, yeah, well, intermittent fasting is OK from time to time, there are certain cultures, for instance, that fast every week, no matter what, it's a strong religious conviction and it actually can have some health benefits. So you can detoxify your body and lots of good things that come from fasting. Keep your metabolism up. For one thing, your body will be trying to burn. It's going to search for calories while you're fasting and probably burn a little fat depending on what your diet is the rest of the week. So intermittent fasting is fine if you you know, adrenal fatigue, I have to say, is it's almost a misnomer. Now, the genos pretty much like the thyroid, do what they're told. And so if you have low adrenal output, that can mean a lot of things. But your cortisol typically be very low throughout the day. You know, you could also have low DHEA that this the parent of your sex hormones and your other there's there's other hormones there are producing the adrenals. So just quote unquote. Adrenal fatigue is not a term I use very much. I used to because it's a great construct and it is a constructed. So it's a way of thinking. We adrenals are tired, therefore you feel tired and you know, your energy levels and sex hormones go down like almost guaranteed loss of libido, ability to build muscle energy, things like that. So but the adrenals really are just doing what they're told. So you need to find out the stressors like what is put you under so much stress that you are kind of beating up the adrenals a little bit. So it's this is, again, the idea of being Columbo, who was a great detective. He didn't dress very well. You know, that's why I used Columbo instead of Sherlock Holmes. Plus everyone says Sherlock Holmes. So you have to just keep snooping around until you find out what the hidden stressors are. Remembering our dress program, it's the stress, stress reduction, hidden stressors. You go in that direction, then your adrenals to come back around. But as for intermittent fasting, you could still fast once a week. I wouldn't have any issue with that, even if you have, quote unquote, adrenal fatigue, because in the meantime, you're going to be really finding out what those hidden stressors are. That could be parasites, bacteria, fungus, viruses, mold in your house to the chemical and environmental stressors. It could be mental, emotional stress. If you hate your job and hate driving into it and hate driving home from it and are too tired to play with the kids, watch them with your spouse when you get home. That's stressful. So there's also pain. And that would probably be the one that I don't have a total handle on is physical pain. And it's just from injuries. Just because I've been a very well used body, everything from surfing and motorcycle riding and wrestling and just you just get dinged up. So you're walking around. You need to take really good care of the human frame. You're your musculoskeletal. And I try you know, I get massage and I do Pilates and yoga. Try to line myself up all the time. Yeah. But anyway, so you have all these stressors, the mental, emotional, the physical and then the biochemical stuff, those bugs and food sensitivities and environmental junk.
Yeah, I think that. Wouldn't you agree? Most people are talking about one of the biggest causes of adrenal fatigue is caused by chronic stress and that us as Americans, we're just not ever powering down the computer. And I think just such a good analogy is like when your phone is just acting up and it's not doing well, the first thing they recommend is completely power it down and then turn it back on. And I feel like, you know, one thing me and my husband have done is like on Sundays, that's our power down day. And we are like, you know, a lot of times even Kyle, my son, gets invited to birthday parties and we finally have just made the decision like Sundays, our power down day, like we are completely off on Sundays, we go to church. And besides that, that's it. We are not going to this function and that function and that function and really powering down. What is your thoughts on that?
I'll just say amen to that, sister, because you better learn how to turn your mind off, you know, like at least through the computer, you can just sit, you know, shut your notebook down or I turn my screen off most nights and. But how do you do that with your brain? Like, even this morning I wake up and again, my my partner says I can see your brain's going, isn't it? And I go, yeah. And so we do this breathing thing and she she kind of talks me down, you know, she's just really spiritual and is able to notice and and and so she I mean, at nighttime she can knock me out, just I just do the breathing. And just so it's actually an exercise of sorts. It's an activity that you do other people, they grab, you know, liquor or drugs or something like that. You don't need that stuff. You know, if it if it helps you create I mean, once in a while recreationally. I don't care if someone. Smokes a joint or something, I don't care, but if it's this day in and day out, stress they're under and I have over three thousand students in 50 countries that have 20 people working for me. So that could affect this weekend. We have our annual conference of two hundred of my students in town. I got one hundred and fifty hotel rooms at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego that I'm responsible for all these meals. And you know what it can really get to if you don't have a practice of meditation and and gratefulness, you know, and being thankful, it just helps so much and good things happen to you. You know, when you can put your troubles aside and you open up for good things to occur. You know, I always pray, can I have this and that? Or if you have something better in mind, I'll take that to you.
Yeah. All right. Claire in Seattle, I've been feeling unusually tired lately. I've had a lot of brain fog and inflammation in my joints. So I went to my primary care physician and he ran bloodwork and he said everything came back with a normal ranges. He can't find anything wrong with me. I know I'm not crazy. Should I get a second opinion or different blood tests? Claire in Seattle.
Oh, my God. Well, I would ask the rest of the audience and you to raise your hand if you've ever heard that before, you know, like you or someone, you know, was told everything looks normal and a blood test.
Well, doctors are there to save lives and they're there to rule out something really that's going to nail, you know, put you down. So when they don't see that, they say you're fine because they're looking for the what's called subclinical levels. They'll start running the right tests for that kind of a problem. Again, you'd have to be really anemic or something or have something going on for that, for them to be able to explain that. And so they they just say, go do some diet and exercise, which everyone knows is good. Good idea, but it doesn't fix. You don't feel like exercising and you might actually have cravings when you go to eat. Right. I'm really craving this craving that is bad for you. So the the answer to that is really the ah yes. Yes, it is. To go back and check what you're eating. I would ask, you know, how often is this bothering you? Is it every day? How long has that been going on? And if it's only been a few weeks. What changed was different. Did you move did you buy a new piece of furniture that's outgassing some horrible thing or, you know, just there's something again, being a detective means looking around, snooping around. And this is why journalling is so important. People like I keep mine right on my screen. I have two screens, one I'm looking at and this one over here. And in all my appointments, I make notes that can go back and I just I keep that in my tracks. And you wouldn't have daily routines, the daily habits. You have to pick up on some of these clues a little bit better. Something changed. And so you got to go back and figure it out. And don't let them tell you since you got older, you know, because we're designed to be really vibrant pretty much until we die. You know, like you're going to you're going to die, but you should be pretty healthy and happy and active until then or or, you know, there's some work to be done. Again, you can refine the dress program. I recommend you find one of my practitioners. I've trained a lot of them. They're there to help you.
That's awesome. All right. Last question, Dean in Scottsdale. I'm a 63 year old man in pretty good health. I just had a physical and my cholesterol came back high. My doctor recommended I go on Lipitor, but I really don't want to be on medication for years. Are there any diet changes that I can make that can help me lower my cholesterol naturally? Dean in Scottsdale.
Yes, sure. I mean, listen, I'm not your physician. I can't counteract it countermanding. You should always check with your doctor before you do supplements or change your diet or change your exercise routines and things like that. So it's really good. Like we just answer this question a moment ago, Doctor. It's good that you go to the doctor, rule out anything that's really, you know, if you have if you have a brain tumor, you'd want to know about that. If you got a pain in your chest and there's a big thing in there, you know, growing, you you got to get the doctors can order these CT scans and all these things requiring that I think that they do overprescribe. I think they depend on pills too much. And if pills don't work, then they like cutting parts out and stuff like that. So. With with I mean, I don't know what the numbers are, we say high cholesterol, usually they're talking about the low density lipoproteins and they like to keep those real low. I think that the numbers that they go by are a little too critical. And what's much more important is your HDL, the good cholesterol. You what you want to do is elevate that to where it's more than twenty five percent of your total cortisol. In other words, if you have a total cholesterol of two hundred and your high density or HDL or 50. That's a four to one ratio, right? You've got to be basically twenty five percent, so you want to raise up the East Coast where they're closer to half. So if you're if your cholesterol well, technically, you don't want to cholesterol three hundred. But take that B, if your ratios were one hundred and fifty, it wouldn't be so bad. So no, no, no one has an HDL of one hundred and fifty. I'm just saying, like, really vigorous exercise is one of the things you can do to raise your HDL and get those to where they're about a third or half of your total, you know, equal to a third or half of your total cholesterol. And you'll do much better that way first and do some research on that. Like what's more important, just the Fludde LDL number or is it your equal to total cholesterol ratio? And I think you'll find that that is still the total cluster ratios, much more important indicator of how healthy you are, basically, since you said you feel good and you're in shape. So, you know, and you also could watch your diet, just do some liver clench and get a good liver support product and keep your liver in good shape. Liver is what makes cholesterol for the most part, and you'll be in better shape that way.
Well, thank you so much for being on our show today. And where can listeners go to follow you and your work?
Thank you. I have a Web site, it's functional diagnostic nutrition dot com, I couldn't think of a longer name, so I called it that of functional diagnostic nutrition dot com. It's a mouthful. I know. And but it's you know, you could spell it, you could type it in and you'll find us. No, that's a Web site. It looks like it's more for professionals like health coaches and nutritionists and personal trainers and nurses. We teach a lot of them how to run lab work and use these protocols, the dress program. But anyone can take the course. There's no prerequisite. Why would I turn someone down who wants to learn so I don't turn anyone who wants to take it to work on themselves and work on their family. That alone would be worth the price of admission. And so I would recommend you go there and look into it and talk to one of my course counselors. We have.
It sat there and they're just really friendly people, they won't try to sell you anything to really try to help you.
That's awesome. Now, if they decide to take the full plan and they decide to take the whole course and they pass it, then do they become like do they become a functional doctor or what?
Do they get it? Yeah, you get two certificates. If you take my course, you'll get my certificate that you have graduated and you'll get a personal interview with me. And, you know, I am looking to deputize as many practitioners or people as possible to do this for a living. So there's still the course includes the lab work, learning everything you need to know the protocols, everything you need, and includes a business model where you can set yourself up in business as a health coach, not in my course has been accredited by the American Association of Drug Practitioners. So you become board eligible to get your holistic health practitioner certificate from the ATP, as I said, so as to search for the price of one. And I will teach you how to do this for a living. Number one thing to do is do it on yourself. But if you have a strong desire to help others and are willing to work on yourself and want to talk, then you qualified to do this work and take our course.
And how long does it take the average person to take the course from start to finish?
Well, we only take above average people, so I don't know the answer to that.
OK, how about above average people? And I'm just kidding. That's OK.
You know, it takes six months. It's a it's a good six months, you know. I mean, people have done it faster because they just have more time to go through the lessons and things. But there are a lot of practical exercises. So there's a lot of one on one coaching with my mentors, my staff, to make sure you really get it, to walk you through key studies and your own personal health. You heck, I pay for two labs. You'll run saliva and urine test on yourself and you'll do one more test. And I pay for it all. So and my mentors walk it. So you work on yourself as part of the course. Then of course you're qualified to work with others. And I teach you a business model that's very rewarding work part time. Or you could have a full blown full time practice if you want.
Awesome. Well, Reed Davis, everyone, functional diagnostic nutrition Dotcom is his website, and if you have a question that you want answered, go to questions at Chantel Ray Dot Dotcom. We'll see you next time. Bye bye.