BIOptimizers - Awesome Health Podcast

Do you feel unfulfilled but don't know how to pivot and find your calling? Our guest for today was in your shoes complete with golden handcuffs, and he has wise words to help you pivot and change wherever you are in life. Adam Markel is an expert at personal and professional reinvention and transformation. He's also the best-selling author of Pivot, and is the perfect example of someone who walks his talk. On today's episode, Adam tells us about his previous life as a lawyer who built a massively successful business and then pivoted to become the CEO of one of the most successful personal development companies in the world. Later he again pivoted to run his own organization helping people make their own conscious pivots, which is what he does presently. He goes into detail about what it was like to make those pivots, what resilience means to him, and the power of our daily rituals. Hear from Adam on those topics and more on this edition of Awesome Health. In this episode of Awesome Health, you'll also hear: What does success without fulfillment feel like? How rituals create the quality of our lives, and how to shift those if needed. Why do we need to build temporary bridges in order to pivot? Can you focus on more than one thing at once? How to reframe anything into a gift. And much more! More About Awesome Health with Adam Markel We start off with his back story: careers are very different now versus a few decades ago. Hardly anyone gets a job with a company and spends their entire career with that same company, people reinvent and transform themselves over the course of their lifetime. And Adam is no different. I was curious to know how he got into transformation as a profession, and that is where we start our conversation. In short, Adam says the back story is pain. That pain for him was waking up in the morning and feeling dread. He would have no desire to get out of bed, he was a little emotionally and physically exhausted but more than that he had no enthusiasm for the work he was doing. He was successful by the conventional definition of success: he had plenty of money, he had a business of his own that included two law offices in two states and he was married to his college sweetheart and they have four healthy kids. Yet he woke up every day feeling something was off, something wasn't right. There were signs along the way, but it was a gradual process. Inside he felt like a failure, despite the outward appearance of success. He describes failure as being successful without the feeling of fulfillment. A Midlife Calling, Not a Midlife Crisis This feeling continued until he ended up in the hospital. He and his wife were headed to his son's baseball game one Saturday afternoon. Suddenly he pulled off to the side of the road because he was sweating profusely, his heart was racing and he couldn't catch his breath. The next thing he knew he was on a gurney in the emergency room waiting for a doctor; Adam truly thought he wasn't going to see his kids again. He was so angry at himself for letting this happen, his inner critic was berating him for getting into this position. When the doctor walked in he told them straightaway Adam wasn't having a heart attack, he had an anxiety attack. The most important part of that conversation though was the doctor telling Adam he might not be so lucky next time; the doctor told Adam needed to figure out what was going on and fix it. A few hours later Adam left the hospital, thanking God he had been given a second chance and a reprieve. So how did he make the transition? Often we create our own "golden handcuffs" and build a career path, and a way of living that seems too hard to steer away from but Adam made a conscious pivot after his medical scare. He felt the hold of the golden handcuffs, and looked at making changes. He made a way to be at home and/or closer to home more often. But six months later on a cold and rainy night, he got home at night dripping wet and realized he missed the kids going to bed again. He'd missed another chance to read his kids a bedtime story, and he could see it written on his wife's face. He walked straight up to her and said "If I keep doing what I am doing you are going to be a widow." That realization hit home in a big way. His wife didn't remind him of all the golden handcuffs, she smiled and said "We will figure it out." For the next 2.5 years that is what they did; they created a Plan B. Instead of having a midlife crisis, he and his wife were able to plan for a midlife calling. Rituals Determine The Quality of Our Lives I asked him to go into more detail on those 2.5 years, and specifically asked him to tell us about his rituals and how those determine the quality of life. Up until that point he had created rituals that had helped him build the life he had, but now it was time to change those rituals to support a new life. Too often this is a point people miss: how difficult it is to let go of those old rituals and replace them with

In a world of instant gratification how can you create more discipline for yourself and why should you bother? Kris Gethin is someone who is reaping the rewards of sacrifice and here's to answer both of those questions for you. Kris is the CEO of Kaged Muscle suppplements, a best-selling author of several books including Bollywood by Design and The Transformer. He's also the host of The Knowledge and Mileage podcast, and is world renowned as a physical trainer and transformational specialist. On today's Awesome Health show, we talk about his work with Bollywood stars, how he got into bodybuilding in the first place and how he transitioned into triathlon Iron Man competitions now. We wrap up with how and why to practice being comfortable with uncomfortable, and how doing so will have you reaping the rewards of your sacrifice. In this episode of Awesome Health, you'll also hear: Why did he stop competing? What is knowledge without mileage? Why does he work with people in 8 or 12 week windows only? The 3 factors to look for when choosing a fitness coach. How does he change his clients' nutrition to adjust for the body's inflammatory responses? And much more! More About Awesome Health with Kris Gethin To begin our chat on Awesome Health today I asked Kris Gethin about the trajectory of his journey: where did he get started and how did his own physical transformation lead to his global success? He found the only things he could retain were studying health and fitness and actually implementing what he was studying. He hated school and had always been rather introverted so he liked to be on his farm outside on his motorbike. For over a decade he raced motocross nearly every weekend, but it wasn't until his early 20s that his injuries started to keep him in hospital more than on the race track. He started seeing specialists like chiropractors, osteopaths, massage therapists. When he went to physiotherapy and started doing resistance training much of his pain went away, especially in his curved spine. He liked how he felt; he was more focused, his depression was lifting and he had more energy. It had such an impact on him that he switched from engineering at college to international health and sports therapies. He learned everything related to health from personal training to coaching to aromatherapy oils, and he loved it. Three years later he was certified and he knew it was his ticket out of mid-Wales. He left to work on cruise liners as a personal trainer and massage therapy, that job took him to Australia where he had his own gym. He also began writing and taking photographs, and then submitting his work to magazines so he could reach more people. Next he took the big risk of selling his gym and moving to the US, Venice California specifically. He hoped he would be able to get a job so he started personal training in Gold's Gym while also getting his content out to the world. Within six months he had a contract to write and photograph, that led to him creating his own magazine which helped him get noticed by Ryan DeLuca, the founder of Bodybuild.com. Ryan moved Kris to Boise, Idaho to start as the editor in chief. How to Take Risks and Sacrifice for Success I wanted to know how he's been able to make such radical changes in pursuit of his career and what has he he learned along the way? He says oddly enough he doesn't see anything he has done as being radical or too much of a risk. His thought process is to ask himself: Well if nothing comes out of it what will I lose? And the answer was always he would just go back to the life he had prior, and that was okay too. But he knew if he didn't take the risk and if he didn't go for it he would never know. And as he took those leaps and risks, he learned a lot along the way. Today he says the world of Instagram and instant gratification of wanting results now, people aren't always willing to make the same sacrifices as they once were. If you put out a course that says people can get in shape in 4 weeks or 12 weeks, people will take the 4 weeks course. But if it doesn't work they'll shrug their shoulders and move on. But in the past people would to sacrifice before success, but now people want to bypass the sacrifice and have the success. Our world now is more convenient and comforting so people fall into this rut more easily, and they expect that in all walks of life. He sees it in business, in physical fitness, etc. He doesn't want any part of that so he educates people so they can discipline themselves. Another byproduct of people wanting success without sacrifice is people in the fitness world appearing as experts because they have millions of followers. He says not everyone has to be certified to be an expert, but just because someone has a great physique and a million followers doesn't necessarily mean that person knows what they are doing. How to Find a Trustworthy Coach Which led me to ask him what does qualify someone in the fitness world as an expert? How can

Our guest for episode 21 is virtually a super hero she is doing so much, and she's doing it all the healthy way. Tasya Teles is a finance expert, restauranteur, actress, podcaster and health enthusiast. Somehow she manages to stay fit, healthy and beautiful while juggling such a busy, full life. On this edition of Awesome Health, Tasya tells us about her journey into the world of health and well-being after a serious bout with meningitis. She also tells us why we still need play in our lives as adults, how staying flexible while exploring different diets and exercise regimens has been imperative for her well-being and which devices, products and technologies have had the most impact on her health. Join us for that and much more on today's Awesome Health show! In this episode of Awesome Health, you'll also hear: What are the two components of being healthy? What role does curiosity play in maintaining our health? How can you stay flexible while exploring different diets? What three types of exercise is she focused on and why? Why are play and imagination so important for our health? And much more! More About Awesome Health with Tasya Teles Tasya Teles originally went into finance as a career, despite knowing she was an artist and creative at heart. To hear how her many talents, skills and passions have evolved into her present day life we go back to her collegiate days. She chose finance because she wanted to ensure that she had an understanding of money and how to manage her finances. So she moved to Montreal to get her finance degree, and along the way she got meningitis. She wasn't able to walk for three months! She remembers vividly the first day she managed to step outside and how brightly the sun was shining on the sidewalk, and just how good it felt to be upright again. She had such a deep appreciation because, although she knew meningitis was serious, she didn't realize it was going to leave her with subsequent health issues. And those issues took her on yet another journey into health, healing and well-being. Ultimately she did get her degree. When she graduated the stock market soon crashed! So Tasya decided to move to Vancouver and become an actress. She worked hard, and studied extensively which ultimately led to her success today. Along the way she met her now business partners and they opened a restaurant. They are opening their second in Toronto shortly. How Meningitis Changed Her Health Awareness I wanted to talk more about her experience with meningitis: what led into it, what was her recovery like and what led her out of it. She recalls there was a lot of stress in her life at the time, she was away from home for the first time and she wasn't used to living in such a cold climate. She also didn't take care of her health with nutritious foods; she was a typical college student eating typical college student food like mac-n-cheese! It was the perfect storm that resulted in her illness. She had taken her health for granted up until that point. She was a soccer player growing up and thought she knew what it meant to eat healthy and be healthy. Her family had raised her on a vegan diet and taught her about healthy eating, but there was an overlooked aspect she now realizes. As we all know there is a nutritional component to being healthy, but there is also an emotional aspect to our well-being. Most of us don't do a lot to support the emotional side, and we aren't taught to pay attention to it despite having daily stresses. If we don't let go of those stresses they will accumulate in our bodies. She learned that the hard way and she now takes steps to address that aspect of her health now. She also learned how much better her body felt when she didn't consume gluten and dairy. Tasya experimented with other diets like sugar-free, raw, etc. She played with different approaches to see what would be most effective for her. But the greatest lesson she took from meningitis was feeling good is continual, you have to be curious and try different things and develop a sensitivity to your system so you know what is effective and what is not. Be Flexible and Experiment to Find Your Optimal Health After her bout with meningitis, one of the health issues she experienced was pain in her body. She went to numerous doctors, but no one could agree on what was happening nor why. It became a quest to regain her energy, alleviate the pain, and detoxify her system. That was 10 years ago, and she has since found a balance although she's still playing around with her diet because her life circumstances have changed. She lives in a different city, the water quality is different, the weather is different, the demands and stress in her life are also different. All of which has been part of her story around food; she still experiments with food and what time she eats, and observing how new approaches make her feel. Plus her career demands change, sometimes her call time is 4am! So it requires a lot of attention on her part

What is your philosophy of health? Cory Holly has built his life based on his philosophy of health, including the Cory Holly Institute. Today CHI is in 30 countries and has educated 8,000 students. On today's Awesome Health, Cory and I talk about how his personal philosophy and unwavering commitment to health have helped make CHI what it is today. Since his teenage years Cory has been committed to his own health and the well-being of others, and you'll hear how it all began. We dig deep into his own story and the lessons he has learned throughout his life. This is one episode you'll want to listen to again and again because there's so much knowledge packed into it! Get ready to learn from the master himself, Cory Holly, on today's Awesome Health podcast. More About Awesome Health with Cory Holly Cory has a bio about a mile long so rather than list all of his accomplishments and awards, I asked him to tell us who he is and in response he shared a story. Recently he took a trip with his son, Michael, and they visited Vegas for a night before renting a car and driving to the Grand Canyon Monument Valley and Zion Canyon. Along the way Michael asked Cory who are you and what makes you tick? What are you all about? Cory asked his son to answer those questions and Michael said he thinks ultimately, outside of all the fanfare, you're just a basic gym rat and that's what you are! And his son nailed it - Cory says he is a gym rat to a tee. Add on the fact that Cory is a true hippie: make love, not war. He detests violence in any form. As Cory and Michael talked more they got onto the subject of passivity and how to deal with scenarios that you know will lead to conflict. They ventured into philosophical territory, a topic Cory loves. He believes a man has to have a philosophy and define not who he is but discover where he is. When you can come to terms with the answers to those questions you start to get in touch with what he calls reality. And as he has discovered, in order to achieve anything he has to be well. That is the overriding principle of anything and that is his destiny, his birth right and what nature has designed within me. He knows the way to fully enjoy his life and his potential is by being well and making progress in every part of life from mental to emotional and physical. That approach has served him well, at the age of 59 he has remarkable muscle mass and is incredibly fit. In fact, he is in Master's Track and Field competing in the sport of the hammer. His goal is to set a new record in his age group and that motivates him to show up and do the skills training. Health and Wellness Lessons From a Master So how has he gotten to this place? What lessons has he learned along the way that he can pass on? The biggest lesson he has learned to date is how to reject everything he was told as a kid. The conventional education system didn't prepare him for reality and didn't teach him the things he needed to know. The greatest thing lacking is when he graduated from high school he wasn't equipped with the knowledge to look after himself: he didn't know how to keep himself healthy. When you see a high school graduate you do not see health consciousness! They don't know how to eat properly, they don't know nutritional science or biochemistry or proper exercise technique and form. Without that knowledge, a person cannot be healthy today. Movement has to be incorporated into our day to day lives because it's not part of how we live. We take cars everywhere or trains or planes, we don't walk. He also had to reject the employee mindset he had been taught. He didn't see himself as the entrepreneur he truly is and he had to discover that by being greatly disappointed and betrayed by the system, and being mistreated and abused by many employers. For example, he once worked pounding rocks on a beach in Greece. In that experience he knew what he didn't want to do and he committed to finding out what it was he was designed to do. In the mean time, he would continue the rock work because he needed to eat. However, he would take with him the lifelong lesson of doing what you love in this lifetime because there is nothing after. There is nothing left after you are gone.Everything you think matters will move away out of the horizon when someone you love is sick or dying and in that moment you ultimately see what matters most. Sharing His Principles and The Basic Tenets of Health At what point did he commit to not only learning these principles but sharing them around the world? Cory tells us his father wasn't in his life when he was growing up. His surrogate father was his grandfather, and he died at 69. Later on Cory would learn why his grandfather died young: he was a smoker who was unhappily married and he was a workaholic. He never exercised and he enjoyed "hitting the bottle". But for Cory losing his only paternal influence at a young age was damaging, as it is for any young man. He was already dealing with the fact t

We all know core muscles are important, but how do we know we are using our core connections most effectively? Erica is a mom of three, a published author, a Pilates instructor, and a nutrition coach with 15+ years of experience. She's also the creator of The Core Rehab program and Knocked Up Fitness. She holds a bachelor's degree in Kinesiology and Health from Iowa State University, and is a certified personal trainer. On today's episode of Awesome Health, Erica tells us the differences and similarities between Olympic-style weightlifting, Pilates and core training. We also talk about core connections, especially for pregnant and postpartum women. But men don't shy away, there's a lot for you to learn from Erica, too! Join us and hear it all on today's Awesome Health podcast. More About Awesome Health with Erica Ziel We start with her back story. Erica says to this day her mom jokes she has no idea where Erica got the "movement bug" from because it didn't come from her mom's side of the family! As a child, Erica suffered from a lot of knee pain. It started at the age of 5 and continued til she was 21, when she finally rehabbed her body. She loved anything related to athletics, but she was always injured and in a lot of pain. By the time she was a junior in high school, she had been to many different doctors who all said it was just growing pains and she would outgrow it. Well, Erica never outgrew the pain. Finally at the Mayo Clinic they told her she needed to strengthen her knees. It sounded so simple! She wondered why no one had told her that before, but she embraced it from then on. She began strength training and the football coach at her high school helped her find proper form. Changing her form made all the difference and the exercises started to work, in more ways than one. Her knees hurt less and she was intrigued. In fact, the experience peaked her interest so much she studied Exercise Science at Iowa State. From there, she became interested in Pilates and taught mat Pilates at Iowa State. She was also studying to become a group instructor, and at one point her instructor told her she needed to make a choice. Erica would have to choose between kickboxing or mat Pilates, and she choose Pilates. It proved to be the right choice and she eventually moved to California where studied under John Gary in Long Beach. The Importance of Deep Core Muscles Now that she's built an entire business around core muscles, I asked Erica if she could explain why it's so important to have deep core muscles for pregnancy and when should we develop them. Erica says the sooner you can start the better, so if you can start before you get pregnant that would be ideal. But you can learn and benefit from these muscles at any stage. Even if you are due next week knowing and using these muscles can still help you. Implementing what you learn from just a few sessions of connecting your your breath to your core and your pelvic floor can make a big difference. She says anything a mom can do to help ease her labor and recovery can help with things like postpartum depression and anxiety. Many of her women reach out and tell her how different their postpartum recovery was after learning how to engage their deep core muscles, versus their earlier pregnancies when they didn't know how to use these muscles. Some of these women have had several babies before working with Erica and after tapping into their deep core muscles their ensuing pregnancies actually got easier - when most additional pregnancies actually get harder for the majority of women. Women's Health Issues During and After Pregnancy Which leads to my next question: what are the top health issues women come across during pregnancy and after? The women Erica speaks to all tell her their #1 issue is pelvic floor issues such as incontinence. Women have told her every time they jump rope or they sneeze or they get on a trampoline they pee a little. It's become so common people are seeing it as a normal thing. But it's not and it shouldn't be and it doesn't have to be. This doesn't just happen to women who have babies, it can happen to women who have never been pregnant. A lot of women try to avoid this happening by doing kegels, but often they do them wrong and ineffectively. Another common issue is pelvic organ prolapse. This is when the uterus or the bowels slip down below the pelvic floor. Often women find her after the fact and they've had to have a hysterectomy because they had a full pelvic organ prolapse. But if we would teach women about this we can help women prevent this from happening in the first place. After those two issues comes back pain. People will tell her they are doing all of their ab work but they are still having back pain. And it is typically because they are not connecting correctly through their core. So the fundamentals are missing and that is something she walks people through in their first week in her program. Also on today's episode we talk about w

Ian is the creator and founder of Activation Products, including the world-class revolutionary Perfect Press oils. Normally we don't talk about other companies, but his oils are so revolutionary and valuable I wanted everyone to know about them and have access to them. At Awesome Health we are all about making a difference and helping everyone in the world. On today's episode of Awesome Health, Ian and I talk about his origin story, where his health was over a decade ago and why he started this particular line of oils. You'll hear what makes them unique and much more on episode 24 of Awesome Health. More About Awesome Health with Ian Clark Today Ian has exceptional health but about 14 years ago, he was given a medical prognosis of about 1,000 days left to live. He was only 46. The reason he was in that position? Simply because of the wrong actions and attitude: everyone else was responsible for his health but himself. At the end of the day, he now knows it was all down to him. The way he ate, slept, thought, spoke, reacted, behaved - all of it was his responsibility and all of it contributed to the state of his health. He had received a diagnosis of liver cancer, but that wasn't correct. What he did have was mold, fungus, heavy metals, chemicals, a lot of fat that his body wasn't processing properly plus a massive infection in his digestive system and heart disease. It was really just congestion from a sedentary lifestyle and a lack of detoxing. Once he took full responsibility for the state of his health, he knew it was time to make a change. And that's when he began to learn about oils. The Origins of Perfect Press Oils Twelve years ago when he started this journey, he saw hundreds of thousands of products online and in health food stores, but he knew nothing of oils. Until one day he ran into a guy pressing oils at a raw food market in Venice, CA. The guy was so excited that it caught his attention. And while everyone gets excited about their products, Ian was intrigued by this man's oils. He started learning about the different ways of extracting oils, including cold expeller-pressed and other types of extraction using heat. Oils are very delicate and high-end, and the ways these oils are extracted makes a significant difference. When we consume oils, what we really want is for the oil to be as close to its natural, raw state as it exists inside the seed. Heat very often damages the molecular structure of the oil, and the level of heat that inflicts damage varies by oil. The more sensitive oils need to be kept under 100 degrees Fahrenheit, these would be chia, flax and other high omega 3 oils. And while heat is an issue, an even bigger issue is the shearing and the grinding. In the cold expeller-press machines from the 1920s, only about 10 seconds of shearing and grinding occurred. However, Ian and his team found machinery and technology in Germany that was completely different. You could literally taste and smell the difference in the oils created using this German technology. This oil so different because of the speed at which the oil was taken from the seed, it took all of .1 seconds with this technology versus the 10 seconds of the old cold expeller-press machines. It was about 100x more efficient, and you could tell in the taste, smell and shelf life of the oils. He realized they had something very unique and goes on to tell us what they did next and the variables involved in ensuring their seeds are properly planted, farmed, and harvested. The Health Benefits of The Perfect Press Oils Next, Ian and I discuss the health benefits of the different Perfect Press oils. We start with the 5-seed blend. He and his team put so much thought and care into their products that even the bottle is special. It is made from miron glass, which is glass made from a special pigment. This pigment allows beneficial UV light and blocks the harmful light. This type of packaging allows some oils to not be refrigerated and it also keeps the oils fresh. As the name suggests, there are 5 different seeds in this oil. Their press allows them to combine flax, sunflower, black sesame, pumpkin, coriander in the exact proper ratio. Other presses separate these oils, but their technology allows them to put all 5 seeds in and get 1 oil out. These specific seed oils cover 15 major organ functions, which is one of the reasons they created it. As an added bonus it goes well with almost any savory food. Next we talk about Styrian Pumpkin oil. Styrian pumpkins are unique pumpkins from Austria. These pumpkins grow seeds with a shell around the seed itself, and these seeds are known for being extremely good for your health. Unlike most other pumpkin seed oils, they do not roast their seeds to get the oil. You'll recognize it when you try this oil because it has a deep floral essence, rather than the nutty taste of roasted pumpkin seed oils. This oil is very good for the reproductive system - both male and female - and also for parasitic in

The one way to be sure you nip health problems in the bud is through testing. And here to tell us exactly which five health tests we need and why is my good friend, Dr. Paul Maximus. Dr. Paul is a naturopathic physician, coach, speaker, and former natural heavyweight bodybuilding champion. With a focus on high-performance medicine, his therapeutic approach prioritizes a strong foundation of nutrition, exercise, and psychology. He runs Maximus Concierge Medicine (MxCM) in Vancouver, B.C., a house-call service that offers in-depth, extended medical consults and health coaching. Join us as he brings his bright light and wealth of information to today's Awesome Health podcast. More About Awesome Health with Dr. Paul Maximus To start the show we dig into his background. Dr. Paul went to university and didn't have a lot of tools to deal with the stress that came along with college life. He took up running as a way to cope and went all in on it. He admits to having a "black and white" type of personality which he has adjusted over the years. But back then that all or nothing mentality led him to becoming an anorexic marathon runner. Eventually, his knee and leg gave out so he couldn't run any more. He became so depressed he had to leave school. Many of his family members are medical doctors so they provided him with help, which was fantastic at the time. But he found every time he went on an anti-depressant he would feel temporarily better, but would ultimately crash down.He was so sick he couldn't function - he couldn't hold down a job or stay in school. This went on for a year, and he became sick of the cycle. To find out what was really going on he took it upon himself to dive into the literature on anti-depressants: he wanted to know what was wrong with his brain and why the medications weren't working for him. Doing so showed him it wasn't healthy to run a half-marathon every week and restrict your food intake. It also isn't healthy to avoid fats, eat high amounts of carbs and avoid protein. He also learned the facts behind pharmaceutical trails, the low efficacy rates of anti-depressants (efficacy meaning their ability to produced the desired effects and results), and the importance of sleep, omega 3s, and stress reduction. Everything changed when he found books like Dr. Allen Logan's Your Brain Diet and Wayne Dyer's Erroneous Zones. He went from a 134 pound anorexic, college dropout marathon runner to a 200-pound bodybuilder getting 90s in his Psychology classes. He was on fire and everything was different for him. He came off the anti-depressants with his doctor's approval, and he has never gone back on them. His next step into the health world was when he worked online for Dr. Jon Berardi; he coached 300 guys through the Scrawny to Brawny program. That only gave him the itch to do more: he wanted to dive into labs, blood work and to generally understand physiology in a deeper way. He considered medical school before going to naturopath school. Four years and 4700 hours of training later he came out the other side, and now runs a high performance men's medical program. He's based in Vancouver and does house calls within the area, and works with his out of area patients virtually. From there we dig into the meat of this show. Dr. Paul posted something on social media that relates to this directly, and I asked him to talk about that particular post and how it relates to the way men think about and approach their health. Dr. Paul says he was walking home one day from a client visit and he saw a $2.4 million Pagani roadster. People were crowded around it and taking photos, everyone was in awe of it! But a lot of those people around the car didn't look fit or very healthy, they revered the car as if it was far more valuable than the body they were using to experience the car. If you are born you already have something far more valuable than a $2.4 million car. You can replace parts of the car, but how are you going to replace your heart, your kidneys, your brain, your lungs, etc.? They are priceless. The average person can't and the average person doesn't bother to look under their own hood to find out what their inflammatory markers are, their body composition, their hormones, their micronutrients, etc. They don't look into the well-being of their body until something goes wrong. Dr. Paul equates that to having a Pagani roadster and not taking care of it in any way. The Five Health Tests You Need Twelve years ago when he started this journey, he saw hundreds of thousands of products online and in health food stores, but he knew nothing of oils. Until one day he ran into a guy pressing oils at a raw food market in Venice, CA. The guy was so excited that it caught his attention. And while everyone gets excited about their products, Ian was intrigued by this man's oils. So what kind of labs do you need to do for your very own Pagani (aka your body)? That's our next topic - these are the 5 tests he has all his con

Bob Wright is the best-selling author of Killing Cancer, Not People and is the founder and Director of the American Anti-Cancer Institute. The AACI is an eleven-year old organization that educates people world-wide regarding the real truth about cancer. On today's edition of Awesome Health, we did into that truth as well as what to do if you or someone you love receives a cancer diagnosis, how we can use epigenetics to help our bodies heal, and much more. More About Awesome Health with Bob Wright Bob's pursuit of healing cancer began in college. He was blessed to receive a full-ride scholarship as an athlete, and continued his athletic pursuits after receiving his degree. In his mid-30s he began running marathons, something that requires a commitment and dedication to proper nutrition and supplements. That spurred him on to discover more about the human body, the physiology piece became even more important to him. The final push was his own mother's diagnosis and subsequent death from cancer. She was diagnosed and within a week she had died. His dad died a few years later of kidney cancer, something he battled for 16 years. Seeing their care (or lack of it) was the impetus to his deep dive into this disease. He found an entirely different story then what was being told to the general public, That began his quest to "out" the cancer industry, but also giving them kudos for the good they do with good medicine when that medicine is appropriate. What to Do With a Cancer Diagnosis I asked Bob to talk about the diagnosis, as well as when people should read his book. Bob recommends reading his book now, before you or anyone you love has cancer. But if you or a loved one should face the diagnosis of cancer, try not to panic. Most people find cancer to be the most terrifying diagnosis, and they do react with fear and panic. And some of that is because we've been taught to revere our doctors, and keep them just a step below God. If your oncologist tells you that you have cancer and 90 days to live, and they can't help you, then most people accept that diagnosis. They follow their doctor's orders and go home to die. But the reality is most doctors don't have a lot of options in their toolbox for treating cancer. They have surgery, chemo, other drugs and radiation…and that's it. Because those are the only tools available to the doctor those are the only tools the doctor can and will offer to you and other patients. The doctor isn't going to tell you to get good quality turmeric and broccoli because they are far better than anything they can give you. If a doctor ever did say that they'd be fired! They are locked into a standard of care and that is all they can recommend. Alternatively, Bob suggests if you are diagnosed first don't panic. Second find out what options are really available to you - go to the far side and explore "alternative" medicine (which is really natural medicine, the real medicine of the last millennia). People have always used plants, good water and other things readily available to keep us well and heal us. What people haven't done is used drugs and other chemicals and radiation to treat diseases. Bob says we should do what we do for our children. We would turn over every rock and search to the ends of the Earth for treatments if our children were sick, so let's do the same for ourselves. Killing Cancer, Not People Next we talk about his book, Killing Cancer, Not People. What does it contain and why is it so important we all have a copy in our homes? It is an anti-cancer book, and what he would do if he were diagnosed with cancer. However, it's so straightforward that it can be applied to all chronic illnesses including Type 2 diabetes, autoimmune diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, etc. The protocols in this book can help with any of these chronic ailments because they focus on helping the body function properly and helping the body heal. It's a term he calls "walking it backwards". Walking it backwards means walking backwards from your cancer diagnosis to the reason it is there in the first place. If you ask a doctor why you have cancer they'll tell you have cells multiplying out of control, your genetics have gone haywire, etc. They'll tell you those things for a few minutes, and then say beyond that they don't know why you have cancer. But if you go to someone who knows how the body works and they know what it takes to heal the body, then they can walk you backwards from your diagnosis to the reasons you have it to how you can support your body to heal. He goes on to explain that the reason we get sick is because our bodies are acidic, and acidity promotes inflammation in the body. Inflammation brings pain, pain brings sickness and ultimately chronic illness and death. His institute understands that process and they can utilize the things necessary to take cancer in the other direction. Those things are the tenants in this book, basic tenants for health and healing either from cancer or some

If you're a woman or know a woman who has struggled with weight loss the answer may lie in your hormones. Karen Martel is here to talk about hormones and weight loss for women - weight loss resistance, plateaus, the dos and don'ts and common mistakes people make that actually set them up for failure. Today's show is extra important for anyone who has been struggling in this area. Join us as hormone and weight loss expert Karen Martel takes us on a deep dive into this topic on today's Awesome Health podcast. More Awesome Health With Karen Martel We start with Karen's story: today she's a bright, fit, happy mom with lots of energy and a great business. But it wasn't always that way for her. Since she was very young she struggled with her weight and with body image issues. She was severely bulimic in high school and recovered in her 20s, but continued to abuse her body in other ways until she eventually cleaned herself up entirely. She got to a healthy weight and felt good; then about a year after having her first child she started gaining weight. So she did what every other woman does - she did boot camps, she hired a personal trainer, tried different diets including raw, vegetarian, Atkins, juicing. This was all during a two-year period. Even though she got in the best shape of her life, she continued to gain weight. It was incredibly frustrating! And it took her back to her childhood and teen years of struggling with her weight. When she was 14 her mom put her on birth control and she gained 20 pounds in the next year. For the next two years she was very heavy, and suffered with depression because of the birth control. Her mom was a fitness guru who ran Nutri-System weight loss center. She told Karen to go to the gym with her and started eating less. No one thought it was the birth control pill, but when Karen stopped taking it the extra weight went away. But by that time the detriment was done. She was terrified of gaining weight and that was the impetus for her bulimic activity in high school. I asked Karen if she could talk more about the negative effects of birth control, and she described how difficult it was and why. Not many people know how awful the birth control pill is for you. Back when she took it the pill contained very high amounts of estrogen. If she didn't take the pill at the same time every day she would vomit because it would make her feel so sick. It wrecks the body's microbiome, and is something she would never put a teenage girl on. Some people can handle it better than others, but it still harms everyone no matter how your body responds to it. The entire experience set her up to have a bad relationship with her body until she figured it out after the birth of her daughter. She thought she was doing everything right at the time, but she couldn't lose weight. She began digging and researching to find out what was happening. On an intuitive level she knew something was wrong. One of the big pieces was she had to go back and heal her relationship with her body. She realized how unkind she had been to her body over the years, and she knew had to respect her body and love herself again. Having her daughter was the big push to do this because she knew her daughter would also disrespect her body and not love herself the same way Karen had. And that is something she emphasizes: sometimes we have to find leverage outside of ourselves, we have to find a reason that is bigger than us in order to reach our goals. The Link Between Hormones and Weight Loss for Women I was curious about how she made the shift and how she found out why she continued to gain weight, despite doing everything right. Karen paints us the full picture and describes the other symptoms she was experiencing at the time: even though she was sober and had stopped drinking when she was pregnant with her daughter, her health continued to get worse. She had terrible migraines, severe PMS, rashes on her body, and bloating. She talked to her naturopath and he suggested she try the ketogenic diet. This was 10 years ago when no one in Canada had heard of this diet! She went online and started researching, and started the Paleo diet A lot of her symptoms went away quickly, and she thought she had found the right diet for her. She felt better but she still couldn't lose weight. So she got her hormones checked, she couldn't imagine she had issues in that department because she was only 33. It turns out her cortisol levels were super high, her estrogen was also very high and her progesterone was also incredibly low. In short, she was stressing her body out and that was making it impossible for her to lose weight. It was a big wake up call because she was working out very hard, and it was the completely wrong thing for her! She quit working out and switched to yoga. She would never have thought she was stressed out, but seeing it on paper showed her the truth. In reality, she was just living the way everyone around her was living, without r

One area of health that isn't often talked about is optimal sexual health. Our guest expert today is changing that! Susan Bratton is here to divulge the secrets on the often-taboo subject of sex. Get ready for a fun, playful and informative talk; we cover the 16 different types of female orgasms and 14 types of male orgasms, why being more masculine or more feminine influences how we experience arousal. Susan shares on those subjects and much more on today's edition of the Awesome Health podcast. More Awesome Health With Susan Bratton Not wanting to waste a moment, we jump right into our first topic. I asked Susan to explain how we find our orgasmic pleasure and what are the differences for men and for women when it comes to sex? The first place to start is orgasmic potential. In a master class she offers she explains the 16 types of female orgasms and the 14 types of male orgasms. We talk about a few of them, starting with men: the way men think about orgasms is pleasure, arousal which climbs and climbs to a climax during which they ejaculate. After that, they are done. When they are young they can do this a few times because they have a quick refractory period. As they age, they have loss of firmness and loss of sensation because the nervous system is operating optimally. This happens for women, too. Women have exactly the same amount of genital tissue and structure - the difference is men's genitalia is external and women's is internal. She likes to say men are outies and women are innies! The interesting thing about male orgasm is that orgasm and ejaculation are two separate systems in the body. They are not the same even though they happen at the same time. One of the areas of exploration for men is male multiple orgasms. It used to be when you talked to a man about multiple orgasms he associated that with semen retention, which most men didn't want. In fact, studies have shown men have better prostate health when they ejaculate frequently. However, there are people who feel bad when they ejaculate and some who need frequent ejaculation to feel good. Most people are somewhere in the middle, 3-7x a week. And just as there are differing numbers of ejaculations per week among men, there are also different types of orgasms. A few of them are the ejaculation-climax orgasm. A second one is no ejaculation but a full body orgasm, the heart is connected to the genitals and the orgasm feels like a full explosion of love and orgasmic sensation. There's also a braingasm, which is similar except the orgasm is pulled inward and upward through the head. The great thing about all of these braingasms and heartgasms is they are a part of a man's optimal sexual health and they are a learned skill. The best way to do this is not by edging, which is what most guys want to do, but by riding the wave. Susan explains what each of these terms mean: edging is where you take yourself to the edge of the climax and you keep the stimulation level such that you prolong the climax and stretch it out like taffy. You stay in the orgasmic peak experience and make it last longer. That's a good practice, but it still results in ejaculation. Whereas riding the wave is a different type of stimulation. If you think about arousal on a scale of 1 to 10, you learn how to separate orgasm and ejaculation while learning how to manage your arousal. (This is a great practice if you feel you ejaculate too quickly. And if you want to prolong your ejaculation, you are not alone. Around 1 in 4 men report wanting to last longer). Riding the wave is how you set the groundwork for becoming a multi-orgasmic man. Starting with masturbation, you take yourself up to a level 5 and then pull back. Take yourself up to a 6 and pull back to a 5. Then up to a 7 and back to a 5, and up to an 8 and back to a 5, etc. You do this all the way up to a 10 where you can barely contain your desire to let go, but you do contain that desire because you can now down regulate your arousal. You can pull the arousal back down and into your body and spread it into your body so you feel the pleasure in your body. As you do the riding the wave technique it does a few things: it trains you to manage your arousal ladder. It also pulls the semen up and down in your prostate and allows the fluid that gathers at the bottom of the prostate gland to mix in with the new semen so that when you ejaculate you are moving the old and the new fluid out. This technique is very healthy for the prostate, it gives you stamina and it is one of the paths to multiple male orgasms. She goes on to explain the various spots and erogenous zones to explore for enhanced stimulation and pleasure in a man, before we talk about the female possibilities. The Masculine and The Feminine Experience of Sexual Arousal Susan says to fully explore a woman's optimal sexual health and sexual pleasure, it's important to talk about the masculine and the feminine. Whether we identify as male/female or we lean more towards the

Khrystle Rea is an amazing woman who today leads a blissfully balanced life. But she has overcome more than her share of health struggles to get there. And now she's sharing what she learned with other women: as an empowerment coach and strategist she aids them in transforming their overworked lives into a blissful work-life balance by elevating their food, feelings, and fitness. On this episode of Awesome Health Podcast, we talk in greater detail about her experiences, why the best healers are often those who go through the worst crises and much more. Hear her insights and her passion about health, healing and the power of the mind and body on the 29th edition of Awesome Health Podcast. More Awesome Health With Khrystle Rea We begin with her back story: in college she experienced depression and severe anxiety including panic attacks, uncontrollable shaking, racing heart rate for no reason, etc. She also had difficulty eating and when she did it hurt her stomach. But her health issues went back even further. She also had abandonment issues from childhood and physical illnesses. She had a benign tumor on her breast at 15, she had strep throat 14 times between 2 and 4 years of age. To make matters worse, people told her she was a hypochondriac and she felt like she didn't fit in anywhere. It all came to a head in 2012 when she was a senior in college and had the worst anxiety experience; she had hit her rock bottom. Today she does what she does because reaching her rock bottom and the experiences she had along the way taught her so much, especially about food. She realized that was she ate could alter her mood and influence how she felt. Sometimes she would eat something and it would cause her heart to race for no apparent reason. She could eat something else and have stomach discomfort. It became apparent to her that she couldn't eat gluten and dairy. But doctors told her there was nothing wrong with her stomach after she had a scope, so she went back to those foods only to realize she was right: those foods were making her feel awful. It took so long for her to find answers and come to that conclusion, and she is a health coach now to help other people get answers faster than she did. She's here to help speed up people's journey to health: it doesn't have to take 10 years! Once you start feeling good it becomes addictive. Taking Responsibility For Your Own Life We have a raw and honest conversation about divorce and grief before talking about how she took responsibility for her life and her experiences trying to heal: how did she do it? Her mom knew she couldn't fully help Khrystle so Khrystle began therapy at the age of 8. And Khrystle feels she had a choice on whether or not to do her own healing work, and she chose to do it. She's also been extremely curious her entire life so she was open to exploring options and taking her own power. And from January 2018 she was seeing a few healing practitioners and felt she was healed. But she also knew she had tested positive for Mtfhr and found a functional medicine doctor who could help her. She knew exactly what she needed and wanted, and she found it. Because of all the healing work she had done she had a good idea of what worked for her body in terms of diet, exercise, lifestyle so she didn't need someone to tell her what to do in those areas. She needed someone who would work with her knowledge and help her fill in any blanks. And this doctor did just that: he filled in those blanks with supplementation. It helped her realize she could help her body in certain ways through foods and supplementations, and doing so would help her symptoms. Which was a very different experience then she had when she originally got into pole dancing competitions and weight lifting competitions. We talk about why she got interested in both arenas, plus why she became a health coach. One of our final topics is the most common issues she sees her clients dealing today. Khrystle says it is their thoughts and their beliefs about self-worth; people feel they don't deserve to feel good or feel loved. And a lot of her clients struggle with comparing themselves to others. She feels many people are listening to what is outside of them more than what is inside of them, and that is leading to issues. Many people believe their thoughts and our thoughts are not who we are, but people are allowing themselves to believe they are. We also talk about the influence of outside energies, how to stay centered and grounded so we know our feelings are own versus someone else's. You'll hear those powerful topics and more on today's Awesome Health podcast! Episode Resources Khrystle Rea's web site Khrystle Rea on Facebook A Blissfully Balanced Life podcast Khrystle Rea on Instagram Awesome Health course You Can Heal Yourself, by Louise Hay Awesome Health episode with Scott Abel Masszymes (shake10) bioptimizers.com/blissfullybalanced

Do you believe in the mind-brain connection? Research is showing us this is true, and one of the experts in the field is here to explain more, Dr. Caroline Leaf. Dr. Leaf is a communication pathologist and cognitive neuroscientist with a Masters and PhD in Communication Pathology and a BSc Logopaedics, specializing in cognitive and metacognitive neuropsychology. Dr. Leaf is also the bestselling author of Switch on Your Brain, Think, Learn, Succeed, Think and Eat Yourself Smart, and many more. All of that means she has studied the mind and the mind-brain connection, and researched the science of thoughts. She's been in this field for 25 years and today she travels the globe teaching and helping people understand how to control their thoughts, tapping into humans' innate resilience, and giving a new narrative to mental illness and mental health. More Awesome Health With Dr. Caroline Leaf Clearly there are many subjects we can talk about, the first one is what she thinks are the biggest issues we are dealing with today. Is it Alzheimer's, dementia and society's cognitive health? Dr. Leaf says it's not so much the labels of dementia and mental health, but mind management. About 60 years ago there was a complete shift in how we perceived humans. A person's story was considered important when dealing with whatever they were facing. Then things shifted and the focus became the person's symptoms (and not their stories) and their diagnoses based on the symptoms they were showing. So the physical aspect became dominant and the hunt began to find the genetic cause or neurological correlates of mental illness. Everything then shifted and centered on symptoms, diagnoses and medication to treat the diagnoses. Therapy became adjunct or even outright ignored, and medications are dominant. Dr. Leaf explains the particular class of drugs she is talking about are neurotropics and they act as analgesics (they numb the brain). They were discovered in the '50s by accident, and began being used when it was found they calmed people who were acting "crazy". That gave birth to the movement to medicate mental illness. By the mid 80s Prozac was released, and the push for medicating mental illness hasn't stopped. It's a problem because we are no longer in communities, forming meaningful relationships, being allowed to feel sad or anxious or depressed, and the self-help industry telling us we need to be happy all the time. (And if you aren't happy and the things self-help teaches you don't work then you are the problem). There's been an increase in suicides, mass shootings and other terrible things in countries that have adopted this philosophy. We Can Change Our Genes and Our Brains But since the early 2000s we now understand the brain can change and our genes can change. It means we are not hard-wired robots. It means we aren't born with a bad genetic hand or a bad brain, we can change our genes and our brain. We've also come to know our minds and our brains (and the rest of our physical body) are separate: our mind works through our brains and our bodies, and our minds are how we respond to life. Our brains and our bodies will be affected by whatever signal we put it into it because our brains and our bodies and our genes are responders, our mind is the generator. In that sense, if we are experiencing trauma or abuse or are engaged in a toxic habit that we haven't controlled and we aren't dealing with "our stuff" because society has us numbing our feelings with medications, then we can cause brain damage. Our brains are actually built to process, not to be numbed. The numbing of our brains keeps us stuck and injures our brains. Dr. Leaf shared so many profound insights, and I asked her to tell us more about the separation between our brains and our minds. How has she come to that conclusion based on her background and her studies and all the work she is doing? It's an ancient concept actually. If you look at the history of medicine and the philosophies of medicine and science, and you track back a few thousand years this concept wasn't even questioned. It was understood: the brain and the mind are separate from each other. Even though they are separate from each other they are interlinked and you cannot have one without the other. There's scientific evidence to back this: a significant amount of research, including research from Nobel Prize winners, shows as we think there is a physical response inside the brain. The philosophy we discussed earlier and the one that dominates now believes that everything is based in biology: your brain fires and produces your mind as an artifact; you have no free will and are a pre-programmed robot. But that goes counter to our natural instinct, we automatically know about our uniqueness and our ability to choose. The focus on the physical that began some 60 years ago has taken away the emphasis on that ability to choose, on the story each of us has to tell and on us as individuals. Her research has b

More Awesome Health With Dr. Caroline Leaf Clearly there are many subjects we can talk about, the first one is what she thinks are the biggest issues we are dealing with today. Is it Alzheimer's, dementia and society's cognitive health? Dr. Leaf says it's not so much the labels of dementia and mental health,… The post 030: The Mind-Brain Connection with Dr. Caroline Leaf appeared first on BiOptimizers.

We start by talking about a burnout experience I had a few years ago, and how I recovered. In essence, we're talking about managing your nervous system. Doing so is one of the most important things you can do for your overall health and well-being. There are phases of this experience which Matt details on this show. The first is fight, flight or freeze. The next is impaired decision-making ability and the final phase is mental and physical burn out. Matt shares his experience with burn out and then goes on to explain his current strategy for avoiding a nervous system meltdown. To understand his strategy it's important to first understand some basics about the nervous system. Your nervous system is divided into two parts: the sympathetic (this is where the fight, flight or freeze system comes from) and the parasympathetic (this is where all the healing happens within your body). Going more in-depth, in most instances exercise puts your body into fight or flight mode. This includes things like lifting and running. The exercises that are healing for your body are tai chi and yoga, they activate your parasympathetic nervous system. When you're breathing deep and slowly that activates your parasympathetic nervous system, when your breathing is more rapid your sympathetic nervous system is engaged and you go into fight, flight or freeze mode. Personally, I've been doing breath work for 20 years including meditation. Breathing can change your brain state, belly breathing is a necessary part of this. By allowing your belly to come out with your breath your lungs will open up so you can get fuller and deeper breaths. I start every day by doing a few quick exhales and then long and slow inhales. I do the 10-10-10-10 process which is 10 seconds in, 10 seconds hold and 10 seconds exhale and then 10 seconds with no breath. This is also called box breathing and you can start with just a few seconds (like 4 or 5) and work your way up to 10. Healing The Body to Avoid Burn Out Next, we talk about brain waves and neural feedback. Neural feedback is brain measuring feedback system that feedbacks to you what is happening. It's like a GPS system that trains your brain to hit different states. These different states fall in one of 5 categories, three of which are healing and two of which are fight/flight/freeze. The healing states are alpha which is when you are relaxed but alert, then there is theta which is even slower and deeper than alpha. And the last of these three is delta - that is the state we are in when we are sleeping. On the fight, flight or freeze side, the two states are beta and gamma. Beta is when you are engaged and focused and thinking. Anxiety looks like too high levels of beta. Gamma is a very high spiritual state, it is very powerful and intense but there is a cost to it. We also discuss dopamine levels and blue light from social media and technology, before we move into how to know we are overstimulated and heading towards burn out. One of the big X factors in avoiding burn out is resilience, there is a physical component to this. Matt has worked to increase his through neural feedback and also cleaning out his limbic system. (The limbic system is one component of our nervous systems, it is responsible for our emotions). He has cleaned out his limbic system by facing and healing old emotional wounds. Take for example the person who was bitten by a dog and doesn't like them, even though it's been 40 years since they were bitten. They haven't healed that experience and their limbic system will respond to dogs as if they were about to relive that old experience of being bitten. One way to work on these old emotional wounds and put your nervous system in a more relaxed state is through EFT (the Emotional Freedom Technique), it is also known as tapping. EFT immediately starts to shift your nervous system into parasympathetic. When you tap the specific points in EFT your nervous system shifts over into a parasympathetic state. You can also do neural feedback, meditation and practicing gratitude. Pay attention to how often you laugh - if you are laughing you are probably in parasympathetic mode. Another piece of avoiding burn out is macro and micro recovery. In general, the harder you want to drive the harder you need to focus on recovery. If you want to drive your body like a race car then you need a really good pit crew and really high-quality components to put your car back together, or you will crash and burn! There are some supplements you can take to help with this. For the fight, flight or freeze, things like coffee, THC, caffeine, etc would fall under this category. But you can stack parasympathetic supplements with sympathetic supplements to counterbalance their effect. Matt talks about which he likes best and why, plus which essential oil has been shown to increase alpha brain waves. You'll also hear how we both healed ourselves with magnesium and why floating was part of that! It's all here on episode