This week on "Pushing the Limits" Lisa interviews the CEO of DONOTAGE an inspiring longevity focused company that has a community of over 100,000 people all not wanting to age before they have to. 

What you learn in this episode

• What is the difference between biological age and calendar age and how can we test for this?

• What are the most common practices you see the public doing that accelerates ageing?

• How do sirtuins play a role in longevity?

• What are some of the best longevity and anti-aging compounds we have access to.

• What's happening at the cutting edge of longevity research

Personalised Health Optimisation Consulting with Lisa Tamati

Lisa offers solution focused coaching sessions to help you find the right answers to your challenges.

Topics Lisa can help with: 

Lisa is a Genetics Practitioner, Health Optimisation Coach, High Performance and Mindset Coach.

She is a qualified Ph360 Epigenetics coach and a clinician with The DNA Company and has done years of research into brain rehabilitation, neurodegenerative diseases and biohacking.

She has extensive knowledge on such therapies as hyperbaric oxygen,  intravenous vitamin C, sports performance, functional genomics, Thyroid, Hormones, Cancer and much more. She can assist with all functional medicine testing.

Testing Options

• Comprehensive Thyroid testing

• DUTCH Hormone testing

• Adrenal Testing

• Organic Acid Testing

• Microbiome Testing

• Cell Blueprint Testing

• Epigenetics Testing

• DNA testing

• Basic Blood Test analysis

• Heavy Metals 

• Nutristat

• Omega 3 to 6 status

and more 

Lisa and her functional medicine colleagues in the practice can help you navigate the confusing world of health and medicine .

She can also advise on the latest research and where to get help if mainstream medicine hasn't got the answers you are searching for whatever the  challenge you are facing from cancer to gut issues, from depression and anxiety, weight loss issues, from head injuries to burn out to hormone optimisation to the latest in longevity science. Book your consultation with Lisa 

Join our Patron program and support the show

Pushing the Limits' has been free to air for over 8 years. Providing leading edge information to anyone who needs it. But we need help on our mission. 

Please join our patron community and get exclusive member benefits (more to roll out later this year) and support this educational platform for the price of a coffee or two

You can join by going to  Lisa's Patron Community

Or if you just want to support Lisa with a "coffee" go to 

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/LisaT to donate $3

Lisa’s Anti-Aging and Longevity Supplements 

Lisa has spent years curating a very specialized range of exclusive longevity, health optimizing supplements from leading scientists, researchers and companies all around the world. 

This is an unprecedented collection. The stuff Lisa wanted for her family but couldn't get in NZ that’s what it’s in her range. Lisa is constantly researching and interviewing the top scientists and researchers in the world to get you the best cutting edge supplements to optimize your life.

Subscribe to our popular Youtube channel 

with over 600 videos, millions of views, a number of full length documentaries, and much more. You don't want to miss out on all the great content on our Lisa's youtube channel.

Youtube

Order Lisa's Books

Lisa has published 5 books: Running Hot, Running to Extremes, Relentless, What your oncologist isn't telling you and her latest "Thriving on the Edge" 

Check them all out at 

https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books

Perfect Amino Supplement by Dr David Minkoff

Introducing PerfectAmino

• PerfectAmino is an amino acid supplement that is 99% utilized by the body to make protein.

• PerfectAmino is 3-6x the protein of other sources with almost no calories.

• 100% vegan and non-GMO.

• The coated PerfectAmino tablets are a slightly different shape and have a natural, non-GMO, certified organic vegan coating on them so they will glide down your throat easily.

• Fully absorbed within 20-30 minutes!

• No other form of protein comes close to PerfectAminos

Listen to the episode with Dr Minkoff here: 

Use code "tamati" at checkout to get a 10% discount on any of their devices.

Red Light Therapy:

Lisa is a huge fan of Red Light Therapy and runs a Hyperbaric and Red Light Therapy clinic. If you are wanting to get the best products try

Flexbeam: A wearable Red Light Device

https://recharge.health/product/flexbeam-aff/?ref=A9svb6YLz79r38

Or Try Vielights’ advanced Photobiomodulation Devices

Vielight brain photobiomodulation devices combine electrical engineering and neuroscience.

To find out more about photobiomodulation, current studies underway and already completed and for the devices mentioned in this video go to

www.vielight.com and use code “tamati” to get 10% off

Enjoyed This Podcast?

If you did, subscribe and share it with your friends!

If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review and share this with your family and friends.

Have any questions? You can contact my team through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.

 To pushing the limits,

Lisa and team

Dr Jones is a Naturopathic Doctor and hormone specialist from Portland.  She has completed a two-year residency in advanced women's health, gynaecology and hormones, and has also completed her Masters of Public Health at the Grand Canyon University.  Dr Jones has been the medical director of two large integrative medical clinics in Portland and is was the medical director of Precision Analytical, a laboratory that offers the DUTCH Profile for over a decade and is now the head of Medical Education for Rupa Health. She writes for multiple health websites and is featured in a range of health podcasts.

Our hormones - we love them, need them but sometimes they can wreak havoc with us. Keeping our hormones balanced presents problems for both men and women and to various degrees depending on our time of life. In this very nuanced and deep conversation with a world leading expert on hormonal health we learn how our hormones affect all our systems from our brain health to bone health to our cardiovascular system to our Hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenal axis to our fat stores, digestive health and thyroid function.

Get your hormones right and you get life back. For those struggling with everything from: 

• Estrogen dominance
• Estrogen toxicity
• Low or high testosterones
• PCOS
• Fibroids
• Endometriosis
• The aftermath of hysterectomies
• Menopausal symptoms
• Difficult menstrual cycles 

All will benefit from this discussion:

Hormones have the power to make us feel great, enable us to reproduce, can empower us to feel strong, bold, assertive or weak, teary and depressed, cause us to gain weight and so much more so understanding the basics about hormones can really help you stay optimised.

In this episode we discuss:

• The DUTCH (Dried Urine Test of Complete Hormones)
• Evaluating hormone metabolites
• Estrogen clearance and the different pathways it can take through the body
• Understanding and favorably augmenting testosterone metabolism (men and women)
• Thyroid and it's connection to hormones
• Identifying and treating hormonal imbalance root causes
• The difference between DHEA-S and DHEA. 

If you are struggling with your hormonal health or are interested in having a DUTCH test done to see where you hormones are at, where your cortisol is at and some of your organic acids (showing nutrient status) then reach out to Lisa at support@lisatamati.com - Lisa can help you get back on track with your hormones. Don't suffer in silence.

About Dr Carrie Jones

Dr Carrie Jones is a Naturopathic Physician who is board certified in Naturopathic Endocrinology (FABNE) with a Master's in Public Health (MPH) having over 17 years in the field of functional and integrative medicine. As former Adjunct Faculty for the National University of Natural Medicine (NUNM), I have taught courses in both Gynecology and Advanced Endocrinology. She was the Medical Director for two large integrative clinics in Portland, Oregon and the Medical Director for Precision Analytical Inc, creators of the DUTCH Test for almost 10 years. A Clinical Expert for the Lifestyle Matrix Resource Center (LMRC) serving the SOS Stress Recovery Program. Currently, she is the Head of Medical Education at Rupa Health.

She is also a functional medicine health and hormone doctor who believes in the importance of both men and women understanding their body in a simplified manner so they can feel more empowered to take control of their health especially when they are told everything is "normal" but they don't feel "normal."

Follow Dr Jones on her website

http://www.drcarriejones.com/

On instagram: @dr.carriejones 

Personalised Health Optimisation Consulting with Lisa Tamati

Lisa offers solution focused coaching sessions to help you find the right answers to your challenges.

Topics Lisa can help with: 

Lisa is a Genetics Practitioner, Health Optimisation Coach, High Performance and Mindset Coach.

She is a qualified Ph360 Epigenetics coach and a clinician with The DNA Company and has done years of research into brain rehabilitation, neurodegenerative diseases and biohacking.

She has extensive knowledge on such therapies as hyperbaric oxygen,  intravenous vitamin C, sports performance, functional genomics, Thyroid, Hormones, Cancer and much more. She can assist with all functional medicine testing.

Testing Options

• Comprehensive Thyroid testing

• DUTCH Hormone testing

• Adrenal Testing

• Organic Acid Testing

• Microbiome Testing

• Cell Blueprint Testing

• Epigenetics Testing

• DNA testing

• Basic Blood Test analysis

• Heavy Metals 

• Nutristat

• Omega 3 to 6 status

and more 

Lisa and her functional medicine colleagues in the practice can help you navigate the confusing world of health and medicine .

She can also advise on the latest research and where to get help if mainstream medicine hasn't got the answers you are searching for whatever the  challenge you are facing from cancer to gut issues, from depression and anxiety, weight loss issues, from head injuries to burn out to hormone optimisation to the latest in longevity science. Book your consultation with Lisa 

Join our Patron program and support the show

Pushing the Limits' has been free to air for over 8 years. Providing leading edge information to anyone who needs it. But we need help on our mission. 

Please join our patron community and get exclusive member benefits (more to roll out later this year) and support this educational platform for the price of a coffee or two

You can join by going to  Lisa's Patron Community

Or if you just want to support Lisa with a "coffee" go to 

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/LisaT to donate $3

Lisa’s Anti-Aging and Longevity Supplements 

Lisa has spent years curating a very specialized range of exclusive longevity, health optimizing supplements from leading scientists, researchers and companies all around the world. 

This is an unprecedented collection. The stuff Lisa wanted for her family but couldn't get in NZ that’s what it’s in her range. Lisa is constantly researching and interviewing the top scientists and researchers in the world to get you the best cutting edge supplements to optimize your life.

Subscribe to our popular Youtube channel 

with over 600 videos, millions of views, a number of full length documentaries, and much more. You don't want to miss out on all the great content on our Lisa's youtube channel.

Youtube

Order Lisa's Books

Lisa has published 5 books: Running Hot, Running to Extremes, Relentless, What your oncologist isn't telling you and her latest "Thriving on the Edge" 

Check them all out at 

https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books

Perfect Amino Supplement by Dr David Minkoff

Introducing PerfectAmino

• PerfectAmino is an amino acid supplement that is 99% utilized by the body to make protein.

• PerfectAmino is 3-6x the protein of other sources with almost no calories.

• 100% vegan and non-GMO.

• The coated PerfectAmino tablets are a slightly different shape and have a natural, non-GMO, certified organic vegan coating on them so they will glide down your throat easily.

• Fully absorbed within 20-30 minutes!

• No other form of protein comes close to PerfectAminos

Listen to the episode with Dr Minkoff here: 

Use code "tamati" at checkout to get a 10% discount on any of their devices.

Red Light Therapy:

Lisa is a huge fan of Red Light Therapy and runs a Hyperbaric and Red Light Therapy clinic. If you are wanting to get the best products try

Flexbeam: A wearable Red Light Device

https://recharge.health/product/flexbeam-aff/?ref=A9svb6YLz79r38

Or Try Vielights’ advanced Photobiomodulation Devices

Vielight brain photobiomodulation devices combine electrical engineering and neuroscience.

To find out more about photobiomodulation, current studies underway and already completed and for the devices mentioned in this video go to

www.vielight.com and use code “tamati” to get 10% off

Enjoyed This Podcast?

If you did, subscribe and share it with your friends!

If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review and share this with your family and friends.

Have any questions? You can contact my team through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.

 To pushing the limits,

Lisa and team

Hormones, microbiome, thyroid, dealing with the traditional medical world, optimising nutrition and your exercise regimes. These are just some of the topics in this weeks amazing episode with Jess Wilson.

Been wondering about the keto diet? Wanting to know what exogenous ketones are, what the different types are? Looking to improve your athletic performance, lose weight, optimise your brain function or even support recovery from brain injuries and many other health issues, if you answered yes to any of these then this is the podcast for you.

The human brain has various states which alter our mood, cognitive function, and even physical health. Being in the right state at the right time may dramatically bolster our bodies against diseases such as Alzheimer's and neurodegeneration or optimise our brain functioning. Photobiomodulation (PBM) is a field of study dealing with light and its physical effects or interactions with the body. Vielight's products, which utilise PBM technology, may help address neurodegeneration and a variety of other health concerns.

In this episode, Peter Adams, Vice President of Business Development at Vielight, talks about the science and mechanisms of action behind photobiomodulation’s health benefits. He also discusses Vielight’s products and their therapeutic effects in fighting off neurodegeneration.

If you want to learn about photobiomodulation’s positive health effects, this episode is for you!

Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:

1. Understand the benefits of photobiomodulation on brain injuries and other health concerns.
2. Learn PBM’s mechanisms of action and the science behind how it works.
3. Discover Vielight’s PBM products.

Episode Highlights

[03:08] What Is Photobiomodulation?

• Photobiomodulation or PBM utilises the way light physically affects the human body instead of light's effects on our cognitive and mental faculties.
• Light wavelengths of 600 to 1100 nanometers (nm) have therapeutic purposes.
• Blue or ultraviolet light is an excellent disinfectant but can't penetrate deeply due to its shorter wavelength. 
• At the red end of the colour spectrum, infrared light may overheat heat or burn cells.
• There's a sweet spot near the red end that has a nice combination of penetration but without the negative cellular effect.

[05:21] How Light Gets into the Body

• One way to get light into the body is intranasally. There's a profusion of blood cells very close to the surface in the sinuses, so it's a good place to penetrate the blood.
• Dr Lew Lim, founder and CEO of Vielight, discovered the non-invasive intranasal method. 
• Another path is transcranial using diodes.
• Vielight’s goal has always been to develop and design low-power rechargeable devices that are easy and safe to use at home.
• Vielight did a study with the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), proving that the whole brain is affected by light diodes.

[10:21] Neuro Alpha and Neuro Gamma

• Vielight’s product, Neuro Alpha, pulses at 10 Hz, helping the brain resonate in the alpha wave band.
• Neuro Gamma, pulsing at 40 Hz, was designed mainly to address the reduction in beta-amyloid plaques, which may be associated with Alzheimer's disease. 
• The effect of the two products has yet to be rigorously scientifically quantified, but users have reported significant benefits.
• Many sports professionals and psychological trainers use Vielight's products to prepare for a match or game.
• After Peter was in an accident, Neuro Alpha calmed him down while he had a concussion. He used the Neuro Gamma to help alleviate brain fog while at work.

[13:32] Healing Mechanisms of PBM

• There is an increase in glutamate after a traumatic brain injury, which leads to neurons constantly firing and dying, so glutamate level needs to be controlled post-concussion.
• Vielight recently completed a study on forty retired athletes with repetitive head injuries at the University of Utah. Pre- and post-fMRIs showed increased blood flow in the brain.
• One of the key mechanisms of PBM delivered intranasally is a change in the viscosity, which increases microcirculation. PBM also increases nitric oxide and leads to a reduced oxygen species effect. 
• PBM increases adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels — a good indicator of immune function. The Cytochrome c oxidase leads to increased oxygen at the ATP synthase, which increases ATP production.

[35:30] 633 Red, 655 Prime, 810 Infrared and Neuro Pro

• Vielight's 633 red uses a light-emitting diode (LED), while 655 Prime is a red laser diode with more power and penetration. Both products bioinfuse the blood.
• 810 Infrared is near the infrared band, and its diode produces a red glow. Near-infrared diodes can go into the deep brain. 
• Neuro Pro uses six diodes and an intranasal. Users control each diode with an app, where they can change the power, pulse frequency, and phase. The device can go from 0 Hz up to 10 kilohertz. 
• Vielight’s products can help address neurodegeneration, which can come from repeated brain injuries usually experienced by athletes.

[35:30] X-Plus and Neuro

• Vielight's X-plus has an intranasal and applicator. Users can use it with Neuro devices to reach the back of the head or other body parts. 
• Recently Vielight completed a clinical trial with COVID-positive patients, wherein X-Plus was used to stimulate the immune system of the thymus. 
• X-Plus can also be used to repair wounds from injuries in the bones and muscles.
• Vielight’s Neuro uses four diodes, covering the default mode network of the brain. 

7 Powerful Quotes

“One of the key mechanisms of photobiomodulation, especially directly into the blood through the nose, is a change in the viscosity, increasing the microcirculation, and also an increase in nitric oxide, which is another great healer as well. And, of course, then there's the reduced oxygen species effect, so inflammation gets affected too. So there's a whole bunch of effects that seem to be happening in parallel.”

“I think there's hope for Alzheimer's. I just saw another study with autism come out of Italy using neuro as well, which looks really promising.”

“I always caution people to think that photobiomodulation is the answer to Alzheimer's. I think even if you look at, for example, antipsychotic drugs, anticonvulsant drugs, all of them, you're not gonna say that one is going to fix everything, and the chances of one fixing anything is less than 30%. [It's] the hit rate.”

“It's my belief that underlying conditions that cause plaque in the brain could come from a myriad of sources, and I think it depends on your own individual profile, or physiological profile and chemical pathogenic profile.”

“I think a lot of us have now over-excited brains from brain injuries, from toxins in the environment, from the wrong foods and inflammation, and all of the things that sort of happen. Trying to come down and get it in the right zone at the right time is definitely very, very important.”

“...The gamma brainwave state of sleep, when you enter that state, that's the key detox part of the brain at night. And so, there is definitely something there to be sought, I think. If you can do it in meditation during the daytime, I think that's even better.”

“There's always another quest to research, and it's really patient-reported outcomes that give us great spirit.”

About Peter

Peter Adams is the Vice President of Business Development at Vielight. He has worked in executive, consulting and management positions internationally and in Canada, in large corporations and startups, including Fortune 500 companies. His current focus is on early-market development for Vielight Inc.

Learn more about Vielight’s products on their website. 

Get to know Peter’s professional experience on Apollo.

Personalised Health Optimisation Consulting with Lisa Tamati

Lisa offers solution focused coaching sessions to help you find the right answers to your challenges.

Topics Lisa can help with: 

Lisa is a Genetics Practitioner, Health Optimisation Coach, High Performance and Mindset Coach.

She is a qualified Ph360 Epigenetics coach and a clinician with The DNA Company and has done years of research into brain rehabilitation, neurodegenerative diseases and biohacking.

She has extensive knowledge on such therapies as hyperbaric oxygen,  intravenous vitamin C, sports performance, functional genomics, Thyroid, Hormones, Cancer and much more. She can assist with all functional medicine testing.

Testing Options

• Comprehensive Thyroid testing

• DUTCH Hormone testing

• Adrenal Testing

• Organic Acid Testing

• Microbiome Testing

• Cell Blueprint Testing

• Epigenetics Testing

• DNA testing

• Basic Blood Test analysis

• Heavy Metals 

• Nutristat

• Omega 3 to 6 status

and more 

Lisa and her functional medicine colleagues in the practice can help you navigate the confusing world of health and medicine .

She can also advise on the latest research and where to get help if mainstream medicine hasn't got the answers you are searching for whatever the  challenge you are facing from cancer to gut issues, from depression and anxiety, weight loss issues, from head injuries to burn out to hormone optimisation to the latest in longevity science. Book your consultation with Lisa 

Join our Patron program and support the show

Pushing the Limits' has been free to air for over 8 years. Providing leading edge information to anyone who needs it. But we need help on our mission. 

Please join our patron community and get exclusive member benefits (more to roll out later this year) and support this educational platform for the price of a coffee or two

You can join by going to  Lisa's Patron Community

Or if you just want to support Lisa with a "coffee" go to 

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/LisaT to donate $3

Lisa’s Anti-Aging and Longevity Supplements 

Lisa has spent years curating a very specialized range of exclusive longevity, health optimizing supplements from leading scientists, researchers and companies all around the world. 

This is an unprecedented collection. The stuff Lisa wanted for her family but couldn't get in NZ that’s what it’s in her range. Lisa is constantly researching and interviewing the top scientists and researchers in the world to get you the best cutting edge supplements to optimize your life.

Subscribe to our popular Youtube channel 

with over 600 videos, millions of views, a number of full length documentaries, and much more. You don't want to miss out on all the great content on our Lisa's youtube channel.

Youtube

Order Lisa's Books

Lisa has published 5 books: Running Hot, Running to Extremes, Relentless, What your oncologist isn't telling you and her latest "Thriving on the Edge" 

Check them all out at 

https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books

Perfect Amino Supplement by Dr David Minkoff

Introducing PerfectAmino

• PerfectAmino is an amino acid supplement that is 99% utilized by the body to make protein.

• PerfectAmino is 3-6x the protein of other sources with almost no calories.

• 100% vegan and non-GMO.

• The coated PerfectAmino tablets are a slightly different shape and have a natural, non-GMO, certified organic vegan coating on them so they will glide down your throat easily.

• Fully absorbed within 20-30 minutes!

• No other form of protein comes close to PerfectAminos
  
  
  

Listen to the episode with Dr Minkoff here: 

Use code "tamati" at checkout to get a 10% discount on any of their devices.

Red Light Therapy:

Lisa is a huge fan of Red Light Therapy and runs a Hyperbaric and Red Light Therapy clinic. If you are wanting to get the best products try

Flexbeam: A wearable Red Light Device

https://recharge.health/product/flexbeam-aff/?ref=A9svb6YLz79r38

Or Try Vielights’ advanced Photobiomodulation Devices

Vielight brain photobiomodulation devices combine electrical engineering and neuroscience.

To find out more about photobiomodulation, current studies underway and already completed and for the devices mentioned in this video go to

www.vielight.com and use code “tamati” to get 10% off

Enjoyed This Podcast?

If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends!

Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can learn about the benefits of photobiomodulation (PBM). 

Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.

To pushing the limits,

Lisa

Are you thinking of diving into the crypto space and investing in bitcoin? If so, you’re not alone. 

In this episode, Rob Wolff discusses the mentality and strategies that you need when investing in bitcoin. It’s important to understand exactly what you’re getting into before taking the plunge, so he shares what bitcoin is and why it’s worth investing in. From understanding the technology behind it to assessing risk, volatility and making profits, we’ve got you covered.

If you’re new to investing in bitcoin or curious about the crypto space but don’t know where to start, then this episode is for you!

Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

1. Understand what bitcoin is and why you should invest in it.
2. Learn the mentality and strategies that you need when investing in crypto. 
3. Find out the benefits, risks, and regulations surrounding crypto investing.

Resources

• Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron! 
• Dollar Cost Averaging Bitcoin
• Connect with Rob: Website | Youtube | Twitter

Episode Highlights

[03:12] Rob’s Background

• After high school, Rob became a combat medic in the military.
• He went into home health management and then medical device sales at a company called KCI after he was discharged from the military.
• Eventually, he started an online education platform for nurses and got into real estate.
• His first exposure to crypto was in 2012, and he used dollar-cost averaging.

[09:53] Getting Into Bitcoin and the Crypto Space

• You can’t build wealth if you quit after making just a little money.
• Inflation plays a large role in pushing people to consider alternative income streams such as bitcoin.
• It’s difficult to make more bitcoin because its value lies in its scarcity or finiteness.
• Bitcoin is a decentralized technology.

[22:51] Investing in Uncertain Times

• We’re in for some bearish days and should expect that the traditional stock market will see a decline.
• Rob predicts that because of fear, people will hold onto their cash and enter into what they consider risky assets.
• Bitcoin may be volatile right now, but it will stabilize as time goes on.
• Make sure you’re making the right decision for you and your family.

[22:51] Investment Mentality and Strategy

• Everybody has the mentality to invest, but not everyone has the stomach for it.
• The most stable asset and most volatile market is bitcoin Ethereum.
• Do research on the projects and companies you’re interested in, determine whether you really want to invest in them, and only invest what you can afford to lose.
• Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

[41:34] Volatility and Risk

• Bitcoin is currently in price discovery mode.
• Looking at the risk factor of the volatility, the time horizon can be different.
• Volatility depends on the asset that you’re investing in, so volatility is fine as long as you can stick out the time horizon.

[44:20] Crypto Regulations

• Triage on cryptos will be needed to come up with regulations.
• With stablecoins, if they’re pegged to the dollar, determine the assets that they’re pegged to and perform audits, however many months it takes.
• Bitcoin that you lend out to institutional investors will be collateralized.

[53:48] Adoption Curve

• There’s already too much money in the crypto space and it’s going to keep growing.
• Bitcoin creates jobs for miners and people doing construction.
• Bitcoin is now a base layer protocol where you can build on second layer solutions and make transactions built on the safest, computerized network in the world.

[1:07:39] CBDC vs. Crypto

• If you have a centralized ledger, banks will have control over your account.
• Crypto isn’t for illicit transactions because every transaction is made on an open ledger.
• CBDCs are not truly decentralized crypto.

7 Powerful Quotes

‘The value of Bitcoin lies in its scarcity.’

‘The reality is, is that I believe we're in for some pretty bearish days. And I believe that the traditional stock market on Wall Street, we're going to see a pretty big decline with the S&P 500 and NASDAQ as it goes down.’

‘In the short term right here, it's extremely important to make sure that you're making the right decision for you and your family.’

‘Everybody has the mentality to invest. But the question is, do you have the stomach?’

‘The basics are just like getting any investment: you take a look at the project or the company itself, and just go and just do as much research as you possibly can and go, do I want to invest into this, and I'm going to invest only what I can afford to lose.’

‘If you take a look at at the risk factor of the of the volatility, there is, again, the time horizon that you look at could be a lot different.’

‘People always complain about, oh, blockchain and crypto it's for illicit activities and things like that and drug smugglers. No, it's not. Because every transaction you do is on an open ledger.’

About Rob

Rob Wolff is the host of Digital Asset News and the creator of DAN Teaches Crypto, a free crypto education platform for all levels of digital asset knowledge. With his incredible wealth of knowledge in crypto, he helps people understand cryptocurrency and digital asset news.

As a business owner and investor, Rob firmly believes the crypto space will change the world in dramatic ways. Learn more about his work on his website and YouTube channel. You can also connect with him on Twitter.

Personalised Health Optimisation Consulting with Lisa Tamati

Lisa offers solution focused coaching sessions to help you find the right answers to your challenges.

Topics Lisa can help with: 

Lisa is a Genetics Practitioner, Health Optimisation Coach, High Performance and Mindset Coach.

She is a qualified Ph360 Epigenetics coach and a clinician with The DNA Company and has done years of research into brain rehabilitation, neurodegenerative diseases and biohacking.

She has extensive knowledge on such therapies as hyperbaric oxygen,  intravenous vitamin C, sports performance, functional genomics, Thyroid, Hormones, Cancer and much more. She can assist with all functional medicine testing.

Testing Options

• Comprehensive Thyroid testing

• DUTCH Hormone testing

• Adrenal Testing

• Organic Acid Testing

• Microbiome Testing

• Cell Blueprint Testing

• Epigenetics Testing

• DNA testing

• Basic Blood Test analysis

• Heavy Metals 

• Nutristat

• Omega 3 to 6 status

and more 

Lisa and her functional medicine colleagues in the practice can help you navigate the confusing world of health and medicine .

She can also advise on the latest research and where to get help if mainstream medicine hasn't got the answers you are searching for whatever the  challenge you are facing from cancer to gut issues, from depression and anxiety, weight loss issues, from head injuries to burn out to hormone optimisation to the latest in longevity science. Book your consultation with Lisa 

Join our Patron program and support the show

Pushing the Limits' has been free to air for over 8 years. Providing leading edge information to anyone who needs it. But we need help on our mission. 

Please join our patron community and get exclusive member benefits (more to roll out later this year) and support this educational platform for the price of a coffee or two

You can join by going to  Lisa's Patron Community

Or if you just want to support Lisa with a "coffee" go to 

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/LisaT to donate $3

Lisa’s Anti-Aging and Longevity Supplements 

Lisa has spent years curating a very specialized range of exclusive longevity, health optimizing supplements from leading scientists, researchers and companies all around the world. 

This is an unprecedented collection. The stuff Lisa wanted for her family but couldn't get in NZ that’s what it’s in her range. Lisa is constantly researching and interviewing the top scientists and researchers in the world to get you the best cutting edge supplements to optimize your life.

Subscribe to our popular Youtube channel 

with over 600 videos, millions of views, a number of full length documentaries, and much more. You don't want to miss out on all the great content on our Lisa's youtube channel.

Youtube

Order Lisa's Books

Lisa has published 5 books: Running Hot, Running to Extremes, Relentless, What your oncologist isn't telling you and her latest "Thriving on the Edge" 

Check them all out at 

https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books

Perfect Amino Supplement by Dr David Minkoff

Introducing PerfectAmino

• PerfectAmino is an amino acid supplement that is 99% utilized by the body to make protein.

• PerfectAmino is 3-6x the protein of other sources with almost no calories.

• 100% vegan and non-GMO.

• The coated PerfectAmino tablets are a slightly different shape and have a natural, non-GMO, certified organic vegan coating on them so they will glide down your throat easily.

• Fully absorbed within 20-30 minutes!

• No other form of protein comes close to PerfectAminos
  
  
  

Listen to the episode with Dr Minkoff here: 

Use code "tamati" at checkout to get a 10% discount on any of their devices.

Red Light Therapy:

Lisa is a huge fan of Red Light Therapy and runs a Hyperbaric and Red Light Therapy clinic. If you are wanting to get the best products try

Flexbeam: A wearable Red Light Device

https://recharge.health/product/flexbeam-aff/?ref=A9svb6YLz79r38

Or Try Vielights’ advanced Photobiomodulation Devices

Vielight brain photobiomodulation devices combine electrical engineering and neuroscience.

To find out more about photobiomodulation, current studies underway and already completed and for the devices mentioned in this video go to

www.vielight.com and use code “tamati” to get 10% off

Enjoyed This Podcast?

If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends!

Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can learn about all things crypto. 

Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.

To pushing the limits,

Lisa

In this episode, Alan Cash talks about oxaloacetate and the beginning of his journey in developing it as a nutritional supplement. He shares the ongoing research on oxaloacetate's benefits, especially for patients suffering from brain damage. He also dives into oxaloacetate's ability to increase muscle use before fatigue and reduce anxiety and depression levels in women experiencing PMS.

If you want to learn more about oxaloacetate's many benefits and applications, then this episode is for you!

Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:

1. Learn what oxaloacetate is and how it can help slow the biological effects of ageing.
2. Discover the numerous potential health benefits of oxaloacetate.
3. Get to know Alan’s journey in developing and manufacturing oxaloacetate as a nutritional supplement.

Episode Highlights

[09:36] How Alan Found Out About Oxaloacetate

Alan got sick and needed to undergo brain surgery. He found out that his pain and illness were related to ageing.

As Alan researched more about ageing, he discovered calorie restriction, wherein organisms tend to live longer when they eat less.

Increasing the ratio of Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (NAD) to NADH helps fight off ageing.

Alan started looking into biomechanical pathways and found that oxaloacetate that can change the ratio of NAD from NADH to 900% in just two minutes. He started testing oxaloacetate using worms and realised that the activated pathway was the same as calorie restriction.

[21:53] What is Oxaloacetate?

Oxaloacetate is a naturally occurring molecule in our bodies during metabolism. It exists in every cell of the body and, therefore, is non-toxic.

Oxaloacetate is considered a hot molecule right now, given how it can help moderate metabolism on a cell-by-cell basis. Increasing oxaloacetate affects metabolism, which is vital to some people.

[25:38] Patenting Oxaloacetate 

Tohoku University in Sendai, Japan, conducted research in the 1960s which found how oxaloacetate reduced fasting glucose levels in type one and type two diabetics. 

At first, Alan ran into the problem of being unable to get a patent for oxaloacetate, a naturally occurring compound in the human body. He persevered and eventually was able to own patent rights based on how oxaloacetate can maintain its stable form of enol-oxaloacetate. 

After rigorous testing, their products now have a shelf life of two to three years or more.

[31:00] Oxaloacetate and the Warburg Effect

Oxaloacetate is a potential drug for brain cancer such as glioblastoma. It also has the potential to reverse the Warburg effect, in which fermented glucose turns into lactate that a tumour feeds off.

Giving Oxaloacetate to cancer cells changes the cancer metabolism cell by cell. There’s a specific dosage where cancer cells stop reproducing.

[38:03] Oxaloacetate and Glutamate

Glutamate is a compound that fires off the neutrons in the brain. Excessive glutamate excites the neurons until they die, a process known as excitotoxicity. Many studies describe how we may reduce the risk of excitotoxicity. 

Alan is looking into cognition through clinical trials with Alzheimer’s disease patients. The study showed how oxaloacetate reduced glutamate levels. In the same clinical trial, they also found how oxaloacetate increased the amount of glucose the brain can take in.

The brain can take in more glucose due to the signalling protein PGC-1 Alpha enabling the production of more mitochondria.

[38:03] Oxaloacetate Can Improve Muscle Use

Oxaloacetate also improves muscle use by 10% more before it goes into fatigue. 10% is a significant improvement for both top-end athletes and daily living.

Alan has done a clinical trial that showed a 25% to 30% drop in fatigue levels within six weeks, even for people with chronic fatigue syndrome or ME/CFS for up to 30 years. NF-κB turns on genes that release a cytokine storm, which at high levels can lead to chronic inflammation seen in arthritis or long COVID patients.

Animal models show that oxaloacetate led to a reduction of NF-κB’s translocation to the nucleus by 70%, which turns off the cytokine storm. 

People experiencing chronic fatigue can benefit from oxaloacetate’s mechanism of producing new mitochondria. 

[51:34] Increase Focus and Attention Using Oxaloacetate

In animal models, oxaloacetate turns on the mechanism to increase the number of neurons in the brain and increase the length of the axons, the little tendrils that connect neurons.

Alan did a critical trial on the effect of oxaloacetate on premenstrual syndrome (PMS), wherein he found a 50% drop in anxiety, depression and suicide ideation.

Drugs have an immediate pharmacological effect. Another is the genomic effect with a cumulative property that takes about a month or more to see.

Even after getting better from your illnesses, keep the ball rolling and don’t stop intaking your medicine and supplements.

7 Powerful Quotes

‘We could see when we gave the oxaloacetate to them if they live longer, or if they didn't, so we could eliminate what were the critical genes. And, we were able to follow along with a pathway, and it turned out to be the exact same pathway as calorie restriction, which is really exciting.’

‘First of all, is oxaloacetate toxic? Well, it turns out it's a human molecule. It's in metabolism. It's in practically every cell of your body.’

‘Experiment and see what works and understanding some of these mechanisms is really important because then we can actually start to connect the dots of cells.’

‘The reality is most people are not going to have the perfect diet, not going to be in a perfect environment, can't maybe even afford to have great food, or organic food, or all of these things that restrict us from having the ideal.’

‘None of us are going to know what's around the corner for us but, if we can be in that preventative space and be understanding this more and more, then that is to me the most fascinating conversation we can have.’

‘What happens then is that they stop all their protocol, and the thing that they were doing and, “Now I'm fixed. I don't need it anymore.” And I'm like, “Hang on a minute, you don't drop the ball now. You're already underway. You got to stay underway. You got to keep it going.”’

‘You want that cumulative, and those epigenetic changes, and those long term changes.’

Resources

• Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron! 
• Oxaloacetate supplementation increases lifespan in Caenorhabditis elegans through an AMPK/FOXO-dependent pathway.
• Studies on Anti-diabetic Effect of Sodium Oxalcacetate
• Get benaGene Capsules containing oxaloacetate 
• Get TMG (Trimethylglycine) as the ultimate anti-aging combination with NMN 
• PerfectAmino Tablets by Bodyhealth
• Keto-Pro’s D-BHB Exogenous Ketones - Chocolate Flavour
• Keto-Pro’s Keto Bar - Chocolate Almond Brownie
• Colloidal Health’s Colloidal Silver
• Black Cumin Seed Oil
• Connect with Alan Cash: LinkedIn

About Alan

Alan Cash is a physicist, biologist and geologist. He's also a professional entrepreneur and the CEO and Founder of Terra Biological LLC and MetVital, Inc. 

Alan is also the clinical trials supervisor and medical researcher. He’s currently pursuing the advancement and development of nutritional supplements containing oxaloacetate, which is known as a caloric-restriction mimetic compound. His research has brought profound breakthroughs addressing cognitive decline and anti-aging.

If you want to reach out, you may connect with Alan via LinkedIn.

Personalised Health Optimisation Consulting with Lisa Tamati

Lisa offers solution focused coaching sessions to help you find the right answers to your challenges.

Topics Lisa can help with: 

Lisa is a Genetics Practitioner, Health Optimisation Coach, High Performance and Mindset Coach.

She is a qualified Ph360 Epigenetics coach and a clinician with The DNA Company and has done years of research into brain rehabilitation, neurodegenerative diseases and biohacking.

She has extensive knowledge on such therapies as hyperbaric oxygen,  intravenous vitamin C, sports performance, functional genomics, Thyroid, Hormones, Cancer and much more. She can assist with all functional medicine testing.

Testing Options

• Comprehensive Thyroid testing

• DUTCH Hormone testing

• Adrenal Testing

• Organic Acid Testing

• Microbiome Testing

• Cell Blueprint Testing

• Epigenetics Testing

• DNA testing

• Basic Blood Test analysis

• Heavy Metals 

• Nutristat

• Omega 3 to 6 status

and more 

Lisa and her functional medicine colleagues in the practice can help you navigate the confusing world of health and medicine .

She can also advise on the latest research and where to get help if mainstream medicine hasn't got the answers you are searching for whatever the  challenge you are facing from cancer to gut issues, from depression and anxiety, weight loss issues, from head injuries to burn out to hormone optimisation to the latest in longevity science. Book your consultation with Lisa 

Join our Patron program and support the show

Pushing the Limits' has been free to air for over 8 years. Providing leading edge information to anyone who needs it. But we need help on our mission. 

Please join our patron community and get exclusive member benefits (more to roll out later this year) and support this educational platform for the price of a coffee or two

You can join by going to  Lisa's Patron Community

Or if you just want to support Lisa with a "coffee" go to 

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/LisaT to donate $3

Lisa’s Anti-Aging and Longevity Supplements 

Lisa has spent years curating a very specialized range of exclusive longevity, health optimizing supplements from leading scientists, researchers and companies all around the world. 

This is an unprecedented collection. The stuff Lisa wanted for her family but couldn't get in NZ that’s what it’s in her range. Lisa is constantly researching and interviewing the top scientists and researchers in the world to get you the best cutting edge supplements to optimize your life.

Subscribe to our popular Youtube channel 

with over 600 videos, millions of views, a number of full length documentaries, and much more. You don't want to miss out on all the great content on our Lisa's youtube channel.

Youtube

Order Lisa's Books

Lisa has published 5 books: Running Hot, Running to Extremes, Relentless, What your oncologist isn't telling you and her latest "Thriving on the Edge" 

Check them all out at 

https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books

Perfect Amino Supplement by Dr David Minkoff

Introducing PerfectAmino

• PerfectAmino is an amino acid supplement that is 99% utilized by the body to make protein.

• PerfectAmino is 3-6x the protein of other sources with almost no calories.

• 100% vegan and non-GMO.

• The coated PerfectAmino tablets are a slightly different shape and have a natural, non-GMO, certified organic vegan coating on them so they will glide down your throat easily.

• Fully absorbed within 20-30 minutes!

• No other form of protein comes close to PerfectAminos
  
  
  

Listen to the episode with Dr Minkoff here: 

Use code "tamati" at checkout to get a 10% discount on any of their devices.

Red Light Therapy:

Lisa is a huge fan of Red Light Therapy and runs a Hyperbaric and Red Light Therapy clinic. If you are wanting to get the best products try

Flexbeam: A wearable Red Light Device

https://recharge.health/product/flexbeam-aff/?ref=A9svb6YLz79r38

Or Try Vielights’ advanced Photobiomodulation Devices

Vielight brain photobiomodulation devices combine electrical engineering and neuroscience.

To find out more about photobiomodulation, current studies underway and already completed and for the devices mentioned in this video go to

www.vielight.com and use code “tamati” to get 10% off

Enjoyed This Podcast?

If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends!

Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can know how to optimise sleep. 

Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.

To pushing the limits,

Lisa

We are regularly exposed to toxic heavy metals, from uranium used in war weapons to lead in our food, burning coal and even vaccines. Exposure to these toxins leads to a lot of fatal diseases, such as cancer. How does our detox system flush them out, and what is the role of amino acids in it?

Dr David Minkoff joins us in this episode to explain how heavy metals harm us and how to detoxify our bodies. He also talks about the role heavy metals play in the formation of cancer, the importance of amino acids in our body and why not all proteins are created equal.

If you want to know more about the science behind heavy metal detoxing amino acids and protein, then this episode is for you. 

Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up

For our epigenetics health program all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://wellness.lisatamati.com/epigenetics.

Consult with Me

If you would like to work with me one to one on anything from your mindset, to head injuries,  to biohacking your health, to optimal performance or executive coaching, please book a consultation here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/consultations

Order My Books

My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within 3 years. Get your copy here: http://relentlessbook.lisatamati.com/

My Jewellery Collection

For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection ‘Fierce’, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.

Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

1. You will learn about heavy metal detoxing and safe ways to do it.
2. Discover how environmental influences and toxins lead to cancer.
3. Learn more about the impacts of being deficient in amino acids in protein.

Resources

• Visit LifeWorks Wellness Center to learn more about natural medicine.
• Metal-Free from BodyHealth
• If you live in Australia, get BodyHealth products such as PerfectAmino, Body Detox Oral Spray, Full Spectrum Digestive Support and more from Stoneagehealth. Email lisa@lisatamati.com for products if you live outside Australia.
• The Search for the Perfect Protein by Dr David Minkoff

Episode Highlights

[06:28] How Dr Minkoff's Story Started

• Dr Minkoff did triathlons and was interested in performance and health. 
• His wife, a nurse, investigated the mercury in the amalgam fillings in her teeth. 
• Mercury is volatile and is liquid at room temperature. It is very toxic and can make you sick when aerosolised.
• Dr Minkoff's wife went to a dentist to get her fillings removed. The mercury aerosolised, and she began showing symptoms of mercury toxicity.
• His neighbour practised natural dentistry and referred him to a doctor in Seattle. After undergoing the advised detoxification protocols, his wife got better.

[17:32] How Can We Get Ourselves Detoxified?

• The body keeps an electrical balance.
• If you want to detoxify, the mineral balance in your body has to be good.
• The body will hold on to toxic metals and will not detoxify well if there is magnesium, zinc and selenium depletion.
• The amino acid levels in your blood should also be good because all detox systems are based on amino acids.
• If the liver is not healthy, a chelator or binder might move the heavy metal to another critical organ, such as the brain.

[22:14] What Are Safe Ways to Get Detoxified?

• Chlorella is a good chelator. It helps bind the mercury in food and has nutritional contents such as chlorophyll. 
• Activated charcoal is a binder you can use as a substitute for chlorella.

[24:53] How Does Heavy Metal Exposure Lead to Cancer?

• A healthy cell makes energy by taking oxygen and food into the mitochondria. It extracts energy from food and produces energy molecules (ATP) for the survival of the cell.
• When drugs, chemicals or infections get into the mitochondria, it cannot use oxygen to make energy.
• When a cell makes energy anaerobically, it generates only minimal amounts of ATP. In this case, the cell will either die or transform. 
• Growth factor genes are turned on to get a lot of sugar into the cell and make lots of ATP. 
• Anti-cancer strategies are working on blocking transport or utilisation of sugar in the cell.

[33:01] What Can We Do to Prevent Cancer?

• Cells turn cancerous due to heavy metal and toxin exposure, as well as poor food practices.
• Consuming ‘clean’ or organic food is essential.
• Vitamin D is the best anti-cancer drug.
• Sunlight hitting the body will activate vitamin D.
• Glyphosate, a herbicide, blocks the process of conversion needed to activate vitamin D.

[38:20] What’s Vitamin D Got to Do with Cancer?

• Vitamin D functions for immunity. It is more of a hormone than a vitamin.
• High levels of vitamin D lowers the risk of multiple sclerosis, cancer, osteoporosis and hypertension.
• Vitamin D is not the be-all and end-all of cancer prevention. Low levels of selenium, vitamin A, zinc and amino acid can also cause cancer.
• When you get enough nutrition, you have more resilience against toxic factors.

[41:11] What Is the Importance of Amino Acids in Protein?

• Our bodies are made up of macronutrients: carbohydrates, fats and proteins. 
• Amino acids are the basic unit of proteins, and they are made up of nitrogen.
• There are 22 amino acids in the body, eight of which are essential. It means the body cannot produce them, so you need to obtain them from your diet.
• Almost everybody has low levels of amino acids. A lack of amino acids will result in a lack of protein.
• Specific body processes cannot work if there is an amino acid deficiency. Listen to the full episode to learn how it affects body repair, weight loss, immunity and athletic performance!

[1:05:11] Why Are Acid Blockers Harmful?

• Pepsin is an enzyme in the stomach that initiates protein digestion. The stomach needs to be very acidic to activate pepsin.
• If a drug blocks stomach acid production, the pepsin won’t be activated.
• You won't get the benefit from the proteins you are eating and absorb key minerals if you can’t digest protein.
• Stomach acid also kills the bacteria in the food we eat, especially raw food.
• If bacteria in food doesn't get killed in the stomach, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth can occur.
• Listen to the full episode for more information on how you can improve your health amid the heavy metals in our environment!

7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode

‘The search for the perfect protein was really my search for what is the perfect thing that works better than meat and fish and eggs by a factor of at least three to six times that you could take as a supplement’.

‘Medicine is not the answer. Lifestyle’s the answer. That's nutrition, and it's what you said. It's sleep, and it's relationships, and it's good nutrition, and it's organic food, and it's sunshine, and it's finding what makes you happy and the purpose. Without those things, you drugs aren't going to fix you’.

‘I think we do need appropriate supplementation, good organic food and good exercise. Good sleep patterns — all those basic things that we often also neglect to have a healthy human’.

‘You've got a bleeding ulcer? Okay, take the acid blocker. Your stomach heals. But then figure out what happened — was it an infection — or what was wrong and get off of it because long-term, it's bad for you’.

‘The more we buy the things that aren't good for us, the more we support the industries that are doing things that aren't good for us’.

‘You're going to pay. You're just choosing to pay later and down the track with worse consequences, or you're paying to be preventative. You're paying for good health’.

‘You have to be able to orient your life toward nutrition and supplementation and detoxification and healthy living’.

About Dr Minkoff

In 1995, Dr David Minkoff’s wife became ill. Not accepting her physicians’ ‘We really can’t help her except for symptomatic medication’ conclusion, Dr Minkoff and his wife went on a search to find the actual underlying cause of her condition. This led him out of his emergency medicine practice and into complementary and alternative medicine to find the answers. 

In the process, he gained expertise in fields like anti-aging medicine, integrative cancer care, Lyme disease treatment, hormone replacement therapy, functional medicine, energy medicine, homeopathy and optimum nutrition.

The answers he found were soon in demand when others learned of his wife’s return to good health. In response to this, he and his wife, Sue Minkoff, RN, established LifeWorks Wellness Center in 1997. 

It quickly became one of the largest comprehensive complementary and alternative medicine clinics in the US. The demand for the products and protocols he discovered became a catalyst for founding BodyHealth.com, a nutrition company that manufactures and distributes these cutting-edge solutions.

Dr Minkoff is a doctor of complementary and alternative medicine, a board-certified pediatrician and an Infectious Disease fellow. He also is an avid athlete himself and has completed 43 Ironman Triathlons. Dr Minkoff has helped many pro athletes improve their performance. He tries to set an example for others so that they can enjoy a life free of pain and full of energy.

If you want to learn more about Dr Minkoff and his work on proteins, you may visit his website. 

Enjoyed This Podcast?

If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends!

Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can include more amino acids in protein in their diet.

Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.

To pushing the limits,

Lisa

Full Transcript

Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com.

Lisa Timati: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Pushing the Limits. This week I have a fabulous interview. Gosh, it was great. It was a long one. And it's a really, really good one, with Dr David Minkoff, who is just an absolute legend. He is the author of the book The Search for the Perfect Protein. And this is all about amino acids, how your body utilises proteins, why you're probably protein deficient, all the diseases and ailments that it can help with and getting the right combination and explains just stuff that would absolutely blow your mind. It's an amazing book that's really changed the way I look at amino acids for sure and integrating them in my life.

Now, Dr Minkoff is also the founder of the LifeWorks Wellness Centre. He has a huge practice in Florida, in the USA, with over 50 staff, and he does complementary and alternative medicine. And he's an expert who has worked with many of the world's top athletes. He is himself a finisher of 43 Ironmans, including eight Hawaiian Ironmans. He is, I think, 70 years old or— and he’s still doing Ironmans. He's got another one coming up in a couple of weeks. So just an incredible man, both from an athletic point of view and from a medical point of view and is an author and speaker on these really important topics. 

In the show we get into heavy metal detoxing, we get into the science behind dealing with cancer, we look at amino acids, we look at toxic environment and we look at the state of our medical world, all of these issues we get into with this really in-depth conversation. So, I hope you do enjoy it.

Before we head over to Dr Minkoff, just want to remind you, please give us a rating and review on the show, if you haven't already. And make sure you subscribe. You can always reach out to me at lisa@lisatimati.com, if you've got any questions that come up from these episodes, or you want some advice on a certain topic around what we've been discussing, then please reach out to us. And give us a feedback on the podcast as well.

And if you enjoy the content, please share it with your friends and family. It's only through networks and people—ground level movements are people sharing good information—that we can get this sort of stuff out into the world, this great information that we'd love to share. 

Finally, I just want to let you know I'm taking on a small number of clients on one-on-one at the moment with consulting around health with that right mindset, if you've got a health journey that you're on, if you're struggling, if you need help navigating your health, then please reach out to me. I have a huge knowledge base and a huge network of people that I can see you to.

If you're needing help, and you can't work out, if you've got a medical problem where you can't work it out in the normal system and you don't know where to turn to please knock on our door, we might be able to help you. Obviously got a huge background in brain injuries, but also in biohacking in general and health optimisation as well as the whole mindset piece of the puzzle which I love sharing and teaching as well. 

So, I work with only a very few people at a time because I like to be able to invest time with people and my brain gets occupied with just a few cases, because I tend to go off and if I don't know something, I will go and find it. So, I don't profess to know everything in the world, but I usually know someone who does. So, if you want to work with me, then please reach out. 

And the last thing also we are holding every week a webinar either it's on epigenetics one week in on it and the second week it will be on our running programs and how to increase your running speed, how to improve your performance, how to do all that without avoiding injuries and burnout. So, if you want to join us for our webinars for the epigenetics webinar, go to epigenetics.lisatimati.com. That's epigenetics.lisatamati.com and register there for the free webinar. It'll be on a Tuesday in New Zealand time 12:30 and the alternate weeks we're doing it at the same time Tuesday 12:30 New Zealand time for our running masterclass, how to run faster, longer be stronger without burnout and injuries. 

So, without further ado, over to the show with Dr David Minkoff.

Lisa: Welcome to the show everybody. I am super excited. I'm jumping out of my skin. I've got Dr David Minkoff, who is one of my role models and heroes, and I'm finally got him on my show. And I'm very, very excited to have you, Dr David. 

You're sitting in Florida, and you are an Ironman athlete. Let's start there for starters. You've done 43 Ironmans and you're about to do your 44th. And you've actually been to New Zealand, we just discussed your time in New Zealand and it rained a lot, unfortunately.

Dr David Minkoff: The cold was worse than the rain. 

Lisa: The cold. Yes. Lake Taupo, for example, can be very, very cold, the water’s just absolutely freezing. But yes. 

So, Dr Dr Minkoff, you have an amazing reputation and you’ve recently written a book called The Search for the Perfect Protein, that for me was an absolute game changer and a real eye opener. And something—as an athlete, I think, unfortunately, I've sort of finished my competitive career now. But if I'd known that information 20 years ago, oh my gosh, what could I've done? Sort of information. So, I'm really, really keen to share a little bit about the book and your background. 

But let's start firstly with your story, your life story. You were an emergency physician. Can you pick up the story there and just tell us how you got into what you're actually doing now?

Dr David: Yes, so I didn't really—I was doing triathlons and I was interested in performance and health. But it was sort of a crude viewpoint. My wife's a nurse, and she was always investigating things. And one of the things that she investigated was that she had a lot of mercury amalgam fillings in her teeth. And she learned that the mercury is volatile. Mercury at room temperature is a liquid. Like no other metal is a liquid at room temperature. Like lava, you got to heat it up to a couple thousand degrees, but mercury boils at only 110 degrees Fahrenheit. So hot cup of coffee or soup would be like 140, 150, 160. And it's an amalgam. 

So, what they do is they take liquid mercury, and they add to a zinc, silver, copper. And so, it's—the things aren't really amalgamated together. They're separate things that bond. So, if you add heat, Mercury can aerosolise if it's hot, and it will come off. And there are lots of studies in, they put fillings in sheep, and just with their chewing, the mercury gets volatile and it gets in the air and they swallow it, they breathe it. And then they sacrifice them three months later, and they find the Mercury's in their kidneys, it’s in their brain, and it's all over the place. 

And Mercury is very toxic. You took one amalgam filling, so, it's about a half a gram of mercury. And you put it in a 10-acre lake, like you grounded up real fine so that you dissolved it in a 10-acre lake. And the natural resources guy came, the Fish and Wildlife Association came to test the levels of mercury in the water. They would put a fish advisory on it, like you can't eat the fish in that lake, the Mercury concentration’s too high because it would be toxic to humans. 

Lisa: And that's one filling. 

Dr David: So, one filling in 10 acres. 

Lisa: It’s equivalent to one filling. 

Dr David: Now the square meters of a body is maybe one square meter, it's not very—one and a half. It isn't very much. So, you get these things coming off constantly. And the more you have, the more load you will get, and they can make you sick. 

So, she decided that she wanted to get them out. And this was back in the middle 90s, and the dentist that she went to wasn't really proficient in doing this. And he said, ‘Sure, I'll take him out’, and he takes a high-speed drill, and he drills him out and he aerosolises it all over the place with no protection for her. And it went all over the place. 

Now, subsequent to that, she'd started to feel bad. She got problems with her thyroid and problems with her liver and the doctors who saw her thought that she was at some kind of an autoimmune condition. But they didn't associate it with mercury. I didn't either. And they just thought, they didn't know what to do with her. She's a nurse. She's smart. She's a triathlete as well. And then eventually, it got to the point where one day she woke up and she had trouble lifting her arm, and her glute muscle was weak. And it looked like she had some neurological involvement. One of the doctors thought, ‘Well, maybe this is a mess’. And we didn't know what to do.

She's a nurse and she has a home healthcare nursing business. And next door, a guy moved in. And the marquee said, ‘Natural Dentistry’. And one day when I was going to pick her up from work, he was walking out of his office to his car, and I stopped him and I introduced myself. And I asked him, ‘What is natural dentistry’? And he said, ‘Well, we're dentists that believe that the mouth is actually part of the body’. It's not a separate thing. And that you shouldn't do things in the mouth that you wouldn't do any place else. He says, ‘For example, you'd never use mercury in a wound yet’, or for a while there used to have this stuff called mercurial, which was mercury liquid, but they found that the mercury—if you were putting it on a wound, it's a good disinfectant but it also will get you mercury toxic. They used to put thimerosal, which is ethyl mercury in your contact lens solutions. 

Lisa: Oh, my God!

Dr David: But they took it out because they found that you could put this stuff in your eyes, and you could get toxic from the mercury that's in the solution. So, he said, ‘We wouldn't do that’. And then he told me about some other things, and I said, ‘Well listen to this story’. So, I tell him her story. And he says, ‘Oh, she's mercury toxic’? 

Lisa: Oh, well...

Dr David: And he said, ‘There’s no one in this town that's going to help you because nobody knows about this, or they're just not aware of it. But there's a doctor in Seattle, and he trains doctors in diagnosing and treating this with a natural kind of approach’. 

So, I flew to Seattle, I spent some time with him, I learned his methodology. And I came back and tested her and she indeed was mercury toxic. And I did the protocols that he taught me, and she got better. 

Lisa: Wow. 

Dr David: Over four or five months, she got better and her symptoms went away. She was fine. 

Lisa: No MS, no all the other things started to disappear when she started to—So what are the some of the... 

Dr David: Wait Let me just look. Let me just take it one more step. 

So, then we had friends that were sort of watching this whole thing happen. And they said, ‘You know, I've got migraine headaches, and I've got rheumatoid arthritis, and I've got all cervical, I've got that. Will you help me’?

The emergency room work is shift work. So, it's a seven in the morning till seven at night or seven at night to seven in the morning, three days a week, maybe four. And I had some time and she had an extra office in her nursing business. And so, I said, ‘I'll be there Thursday afternoon, why don't you come in? I've got a success of one. I'm not sure I know what I'm doing. This will be—we'll just play, we'll just see what happens’.

Anyway, it started to work. And pretty soon it was I was being inundated when we renovated a space next to her office, 3000 square feet and we set up shop as a natural medicine clinic and I got out of the emergency room. And we got to be very busy with all these kinds of things. 

Lisa: Wow. 

Dr David: Oh, that was 1997. And here, 20 years later, now we have a huge clinic, lots of bright, 50 staff and people come from all over the world for—most of its chronic medical problems. They have cancer or Lyme disease or chronic fatigue or MS or Parkinson's or—they've been around the block. Many doctors, no solutions. So that's mostly what we do now.  Occasionally, I saw a couple professional football players today but mostly it's... 

Lisa: It's very sick people. So, I just wish you went down the road from where I live and I can come and get the help that... Because your approach—I mean, I've listened to everything that you've got out there and your approach just resonates completely with me. You've gone into the function where natural medicines and you're dealing with people with chronic diseases. 

So, just following on now from the mercury story and how you helped your wife and then onwards. Heavy metals are a big problem in our world, aren't they? How do we get exposure? Okay, amalgams obviously in fillings, but I don't think people understand that there's mercury, cadmium, arsenic, thallium—goodness knows what else. There's lots of things that we can be... 

Dr David: Lead, aluminum. 

Lisa: Lead, aluminum, yes. We're being exposed to toxins and heavy metals, 24/7, and now horrible environment that we're creating for ourselves and our modern world. And our bodies just weren't made for this. were they? 

Dr David: That’s right. That's right. I mean, you look at Fukushima, the amount of—I mean uranium is a heavy metal to heavy, it's one of the heaviest metals. So, you got scads of this released into the ocean and into the air, it flows around. When the Iraq War was going on, they used uranium depleted warheads because they were making tanks that regular warheads wouldn't penetrate. 

But if you put a depleted uranium warhead on that missile, when that thing hit the tank, the temperatures were so hot that it would penetrate the tank. And so there was— I don't know how many, thousands and thousands of pounds of these things were scattered all over Iraq through two wars, which released a lot of uranium and a fair number of—I know, at least American soldiers started getting heavy metal toxicity and when they were tested, they had high levels of uranium in their body. 

So, it is all over and we have sort of dumped this onto the planet, leaded gasoline on the planet for 50 or 60 years saturated the countryside. So, vegetables grown have high lead levels, and it's in the ocean. So, most fish have lots of mercury. And we—our bodies are exposed to it. And we absorb it, we breathe it, cold burning produces a lot of mercury, unless it's filtered right. Some vaccines still have mercury. 

Lisa: Do they still have mercury in them? In the time when they’re sold? 

Dr David: Yes! So... 

Lisa: Yes. And we're giving this to our children and we’re wondering why the heck they've got autism and ADHD and cancers and things that can be a knock on. It's very hard to correlate this but I heard in one of your talks, you were talking, I think, back when you're a young doctor, there was like 1 in 250,000 kids had autism or some great number. And now it was like 1 in 40 or something ridiculous. 

We're doing something massively wrong in our environment. And we seem to just bumble along as if everything's fine. And yet, we've got all these chronic diseases that are knock offs, or knock-ons from all of these things and the toxicity that we're involved with. 

So how can we—if we're looking at the heavy metal situation, if we don't have access to you, because we don't live in America, and we can't come to Florida, which is a real shame. How do we get ourselves detoxified from some of these heavy metals? Or how can we test for it? 

Dr David: So I think, to detox someone from heavy metals, it's really important that you make sure that they're in a position where they can be detoxified. So, the body tries to keep electrical balance, you have to have as many negatives as you have positives. 

Many people are mineral depleted, they don't have enough magnesium, or zinc, or selenium. Okay? And so those are all positively charged metals, like its mercury and lead. And if you get someone who's depleted in these things, and then you try to detoxify them, some of the things that are holding on, that the body's holding on to, will be the bad heavy metals, if it doesn't have the good minerals in those places. And so, the body doesn't detoxify very well when you try to pull it off when it's mineral depleted. So, you have to make sure that they're mineral good. You have to make sure that their gut is good, they're not full of parasites, and mercury, and yeast, and bad digestion. And because then they have a hard time. 

They have to make sure that their amino acid levels in their blood are okay because if they're not okay, all the detox systems are based on amino acids. And so, if you don't have that sort of ready and waiting, you can get into trouble. You can try to move a metal, which the body is stuck somewhere that it feels is relatively safe. It's in the fat somewhere. It's at the periphery of an organ, and it isn't really causing toxicity. 

But then if you give a binder, like a chelator, when these things bind heavy metals, and you pull it off of there. And it gets to the person's liver and the livers already overloaded with the plastics and the Tylenol and the rest of the stuff they’re taking... 

Lisa: Yes, the crap we’re taking. 

Dr David: It won't move it out. And it will circulate around and it can end up someplace worse. 

Lisa: Like your brain or your heart.

Dr David: Like I had a patient here not too long ago, she went to a doctor. He did a test on heavy metals for her, she was indeed very high in lead. But he didn't understand that you have to set them up—their hormones, their gut, their nutrients have to be sufficient so that you can detoxify them, and she wasn't set up. And so he put her in an IV room and he gave her an IV medicine, which will bind lead. And she ended up pretty much—I don't know if you have that expression in New Zealand — she's a bag lady. Like she wears earphones, she listened to religious music, she carried two paper bags around, and she was really like, totally out of it. 

And she had been one of the most successful realtors in the area. And she turned into someone that couldn't even really take care of herself, talks to herself, and she was—her brain, the lead in her bones got transferred to her brain. 

Lisa: Oh my gosh. 

Dr David: And it took us a couple years to get her to the point where we could get the lead out of her brain and that she could actually wake up and get normal. But it was a medical error at the original time. 

Lisa: And this is very, a dangerous—like because it would be EDTA IV, wouldn't it?

Dr David: Right. Right. 

Lisa: Because I've got a case. So, my mum who had an aneurysm four years ago, and I've rehabilitated her back from massive brain injury to being now completely normal. And I've written a book on it, called Relentless, which I'll send you a copy of. And one of the things that I identified was mercury poisoning. And I've been too scared, though, to go and get EDTA chelation in her case because she's a 79-year-old with fatty liver disease, kidney. 

So, for someone like, who doesn't have a doctor who is a real expert in the area, to do something like this, I can sit her body up the best I can with the right vitamins and the right minerals, and selenium and zinc and things and vitamin Ds and all of those things that are have here on. Is there any—and vitamin C is a big player. 

Is there anything that I can give her without—obviously, you don't want to do something like that and cause a really, a big detox reaction. And with someone who's fragile should say, is there a safe way of doing it? 

Dr David: An easy thing, chlorella is a pretty good chelator.

Lisa: Oh, brilliant. I had her on that. 

Dr David: Chlorella. So, you could add like, three, four capsules of chlorella with each meal. 

Lisa: Wow. Okay. 

Dr David: It will help find the mercury that's in the food. And it's not really absorbed. And the chlorophyll in there is good for her and you can just start to tease it out with that 

Lisa: Very smart.

Dr David: There is a product called Metal-Free—I have a nutrition company—that we make, it's called Metal-Free. It's very safe, it's natural. It's a spray. So, you can start with a little bit, and in someone like her, start with just one spray underneath her tongue once a day. Do it for a week or 10 days, she's doing okay, she’s not getting sick with it, she's tolerating it. Okay, you could go to two sprays. And you could just tease it up, where it's done slowly, over six to 12 months. You can use that with the chlorella. You can get her to get the heavy metal start coming out. And that's very workable, and a lot of people do that.

Lisa: What about activated charcoal? Is it another good chelator? Or is it... 

Dr David: Charcoal? It would be a substitute for chlorella. It's a binder. 

Lisa: It’s one or the other.

Dr David: Yes, I think the chlorella is better because there is some nutritional content. Charcoal just binds sort of randomly everything. Whereas with chlorella...

Lisa: Yes, you can get mineral deficiencies too if you have too much of, say activated charcoal, couldn't you? 

Dr David: Right. 

Lisa: Yes. Okay, that's a really good sort of framework. And I'll link to Dr Minkoff’s website, everyone, so it's bodyhealth.com. And I'll put that in the show notes in the links to those particular products, because I think, you know, there'll be good, safe ways for people who don't have access to a doctor that can do it really safely to start to detoxify themselves. 

So, I wanted to move now a little bit. So that's some heavy metal and we touched on it pretty briefly, but it's a major, major problem in—when we're looking at lots of other diseases, the heavy metal can have a massive impact can’t it? So things like MS or Parkinson's or cancers. I heard in one of your interviews saying, on Ben Greenfield's podcasts, many of the cancer patients that you see or most of them have a heavy metal problem, and there's probably a correlation there. 

Is it, if we move the discussion towards cancer, would that be one of the first places that you would look for a cancer patient?

Dr David: What happens with cancer and this, this has been known since the 1920s and 30s— a German doctor named Otto Warburg was looking at the biochemistry of what makes a cancer cell different than a healthy cell, or what causes a cancer cell to transform—I mean, a healthy cell to transform into a cancer cell. 

And what he discovered is that a healthy cell makes energy by taking the oxygen that you breathe, which eventually gets to the cell and the food that you eat. And those two things go into the little factory in the cell called the mitochondria. And the cell is able to extract the energy from the food and make ATP, which is the energy product particle. And then the cell can live, it can do its job, it can get in nutrients, it can get rid of toxins, it can make proteins, depending on what its job is. 

Because the impact of toxins and infections are around us all the time, and now they're at levels that are unheard of. And I think 80 something thousand chemicals in the environment, which have never been tested for safety, and heavy metals, and many people are on many different kinds of medications, which are just different kinds of toxins, really. I mean, an emergency someone might need a medicine, but there’s a long-term solution to a health problem, it's really  not the best way to go.

Lisa: Absolutely. 

Dr David: And so there are lot of environmental influences, which can—when those drugs or chemicals or infections get into the mitochondria in the cell, lock that mitochondria from being able to use oxygen and food to make energy. And that cell then, when it can't make ATP in enough quantity because when you use oxygen, it can make 38 of these energy particles, each go around. It can also make energy not using oxygen. So that's called anaerobic metabolism,

Lisa: It’s the fermentation, yes.

Dr David: No oxygen. It’s fermentation. You only make two ATPs. It can't live on two ATPs. So, it's got to change it either is going to die or it's going to change. And then if it changes... 

Lisa: Does it turn on the oncogenes?

Dr David: It turns, yes, and I don't even really think they're oncogenes. These are normal genes that in a foetus make one cell into a 100 trillion in a full adult. They’re your growth factor genes. They're blood vessel factor genes. And they turn on in an adult person, they're supposed to be on, but they get turned on because this cell now needs lots, and it's the preferred fuel for that cell ends up being sugar. And so, it needs to get a lot of sugar because if it can only make two ATPs on every go around, it's got to be able to get way more sugar in that cell in order to get enough ATP so that it can live. And that's what cancer is.

Lisa: And this is why people with cancer then have these cravings for sugar. And lose a lot of weight very quickly because they're not able to produce and they’re extremely fatigued. 

Dr David: Well, they have a very high need for sugar, they have a very high need for sugar. And one of the strategies—the anti-cancer strategies—is to not give them any sugar. Because our own cells could use fat, they can use proteins, but cancer cells prefer sugar. 

So, there's a standard medical test done for cancer patients, which is to give them—it’s what is called a PET scan. And the PET scan is sugar IV. Sugar has a radioactive label on it and you can see where does the sugar go. And if let's say a woman's got a breast cancer, the normal cells are eating one unit of sugar and the breast cancer cells are using 25 units of sugar. So, the PET scan shows a 25 where the lump is and it shows a one in the arm, in the brain, and the other breast, or in the kidney, where there's no cancer, because this thing is so rapidly using the sugar that it sucks it up. Well, sometimes that's five times, sometimes it's 10 times, sometimes it's 20 times. The more aggressive the cancer, the higher the metabolism, and the higher the reading on the PET scan. So that tells you what the cancers do and what it's eating. 

And then anti-cancer strategies have to be to figure out, can we block that guy from getting sugar or utilising sugar because otherwise it's going to use it and it's going to replicate it, it's going to make more of itself. And then you really you... 

Lisa: And I've just done a series actually on in vitamin C, with a number of researchers and scientists, doctors, around intravenous vitamin C. Because I recently had a case with my father who unfortunately passed away in July, with sepsis and I was battling to get intravenous vitamin C for him in the ICU, and I was unable to, they wouldn't let me. Unfortunately. I did win in the end, but by then the sepsis was multiple organ failure and too little too late.

And so, I'm on a bit of a crusade now to get that changed and in support the doctors and scientists that are screaming from the rooftops that we should be using vitamin C, not only for sepsis, but also for things like COVID, there's lots of studies going on, in cancer. 

And one of the researchers that I had on last two weeks ago, Professor Margreet Vissers, she has done a lot of study around cancer, vitamin C. And getting the vitamin C—the molecule of vitamin C is very similar to glucose, so the cancer cells can take it up and thinking it's glucose. And if we can get the levels—I think the levels were from memory 350 to 400 micromolar—it can get in there and it can actually kill the cancer cell. Don't quote me on those numbers, people, but listen to the episodes. But it can also stop the tumour growth, the health sector from being switched on that turns that gene off so that the tumour can’t develop its own blood supply. So, I know that that's a really, really powerful intervention for cancers. It's not the obviously the only one. 

Keto diet is another, as we mentioned, starving the cancer cells off from the glucose and having that in combination with things like vitamin C. What else is—so that cancers are tuning on these cancer genes, if you like, or these cells are turning cancerous, probably because of our environment, probably because of heavy metals, toxins, bad foods, our food practices, all of these things are making kids a little sort of skyrocket, what can we do to prevent ourselves? I mean, vitamin C is obviously one that I'm big on as a prevention. What else can we do? We can do the heavy metal detoxing in a controlled manner as we spoke about. What else can we do for cancer prevention? Because I'm always about the prevention side.

Dr David: Okay. So, I mean, clean food, organic, super important. The actual best anti-cancer drug is vitamin D. 

Lisa: Vitamin D? 

Dr David: Yes, there are lots of studies that show that people who have a blood level of vitamin D, between 70 and 90, have half the rates of cancer that people have low vitamin D level, there's no known drug, or medical intervention, or anything known that is that effective. 

So, if someone's listening to this, and you don't know what your blood level of vitamin D is, you should go to your doctor or your laboratory and you should get a blood level vitamin D. The levels in America run 30 to 100 is considered normal. In the studies that have been done, if the level is between 70 and 90, in America, for the average person, that means that they're going to be taking about 10,000 units a day of vitamin D3

Lisa: Wow, that's a lot. That's high. Okay, there's no toxicity with that sort of a level of vitamin D? 

Dr David: Well, you have to measure it. I mean, at that level, that's the average person that I see. If I put them on 5000, they're running in the 40s. If I put them out on ten thousand, they're running in the, I want them 70 to 90-ish. If they're 65, I'll leave them alone. If they're 95, it's fine. 

It's very interesting, because the way you're supposed to get vitamin D isn’t to take it with a capsule, you’re supposed to get it from sunlight. And sunlight hitting the body will convert the molecule into vitamin D and that's how we're supposed to get it. Unfortunately, now, and I think the reason is glyphosate on the planet? 

So I'm in Florida, there's 300 days a year of sunshine, we're in a subtropical climate. So, the sun is high enough for most of the year, where the sun should be effective at converting our bodies to make vitamin D. I have tested vitamin D levels, and every patient I have seen for the last 20 years, except for one person, and she was using a tanning bed every day, except for one person, everyone else had a sub therapeutic level of vitamin D. And we’re in Florida, and there's sunshine. Now some people wear sunscreen and then the vitamin D doesn't get converted. But a lot of people don't wear sunscreen and the vitamin D does convert. 

Now my own example. So, I am about 12 hours a week outside in the sun unprotected. I swim in an outdoor pool at noon. I ride my bike a lot. I'm outside. And I run a lot, usually without a shirt if it's warm and shorts, so I'm exposed. My vitamin D level unsupplemented is 34.

Lisa: Wow, that's shocking.

Dr David: I have to take 12,500 units every day to keep my level—last time I did it, it was 84. Now this is my theory on this: is this herbicide glyphosate roundup... 

Lisa: Hmm, horrible. 

Dr David: ...is so prevalent around the world. Something like three quarters of the rain samples will show glyphosate. I have measured thousands of patients for urine levels of glyphosate. I've never tested anyone who is negative for glyphosate. 

Lisa: Gosh. That’s shocking. 

Dr David: Like never. It’s in our food, it's in our water. We're getting it. And one of the side effects of glyphosate is it blocks the conversion of the sun's ability to produce active vitamin D. And I think that's at least one of the factors that's causing this problem because there's an epidemic of low vitamin D.

Lisa: And vitamin D is so important for your immune system, for your bone health, for hormones, for so many—I think there's no 700 processes in the body or something that it's responsible for. And here's me like I take 5000 IU a day and I'm thinking, I'm really good. And I study functional genomics, when I've discovered that in my genes, for example, because I'm of Maori descent, so native descent, my father was Maori, I have a slightly darker skin tone. I need more vitamin C because my transporters don't do their job very well and I don't get a lot of receptors. So I've been aware of this problem, and I'm taking 5000, bump up. I haven't actually gone and got it tested, I'm probably still deficient, given... And that's someone who's already on vitamin D. So that's a bit of an eye opener. And so how does—what is the mechanism? Why is cancer vitamin D, why is vitamin D so important for cancer?

Dr David: You said, it’s immune function, it's more of a hormone than it is vitamin. It's lots of different things that are really important. And they just noticed this association of cancer incidence versus vitamin D and the people at high levels, they had much less MS and less cancer, and less osteoporosis and less hypertension. So it's really important, it's a single nutrient. Now, there's lots of things that if you're if your selenium level’s low, if your vitamin A level’s low, I mean, these are all things, zinc level’s low, these are all things that are super important. You have low amino acid levels, it’s important in cancer. So it isn't a one-thing thing. But these are things that are measurable. 

Like a vitamin D blood test is maybe 25 bucks, it's not expensive. I mean, these are things that regular doctors can order. And, of course, guys who were doing functional medicine or functional nutrition, they can order it. And so—and everyone, we see—I order panels of all this stuff, because you find it virtually everybody isn't getting enough nutrition from the diet that they eat to keep them healthy and well nourished. And they're in a toxic environment where you need more of this stuff, not less. And then if you can normalise these things, then the person is going to have more resilience to this huge toxic factor that we're all living in.

Lisa: Yes, this horrible suit that we're stuck in.

So I wanted to transition now over into your book, The Search for the Perfect Protein because I think this is a good segway coming. Because I didn't understand like, as an athlete, I used to always, and I've done 70,000 kilometres in my lifetime. I've run pretty much every desert there is on the planet, I've done horrific things to my body. And I will always be taking branched-chain amino acids and they certainly helped my performance. 

But I'm now starting to understand after reading your book, that they aren't the whole picture. And they are only three of the essential amino acids. And I've got PerfectAmino coming, hopefully today to my house, and I'm super excited because I know I'm protein deficient. I feel that I'm constantly anaemic even I have a good diet and I do everything right. And I know a lot of the athletes and a lot of the woman especially that I work with have are fighting these sorts of battles as well. 

Can you tell us what is an amino acid? Why is this absolutely crucial knowledge that people have and why they need to go and buy your book for starters? But what we need to understand about amino acids story?

Dr David: Okay. So if you look at nutrients, there's three things that are called macronutrients, the big ones, okay. There's carbohydrates, and fats, and proteins. Now, all of them are made out of three things, carbon and hydrogen and oxygen. Amino acid, amino in Greek means nitrogen. So amino acids make up protein. So proteins have nitrogen, but carbohydrates and fats don't have nitrogen. Okay? 

Now, an amino acid if you think of it, if we use an analogy, like language. So in the English language, there's 26 letters. And you could arrange those letters in different sequences and different lengths to make words. And so, in English language, I don't know, there's 350 or 400,000 words, okay. Some of them are very short, like one letter, like ‘I’ or ‘A’, one letter, some of them are really long. 

In amino acid chemistry, the alphabet is these things called amino acids. There's 22 of them, roughly. And so they are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, plus, they have nitrogen, so they're called amino acids. And if you put them in different lengths and sequences, you get proteins. By definition a protein has to have 30 or more amino acids in a chain. There is a hormone in the body, which is just one amino acid, tyrosine. And if you put iodine on there, you get thyroid hormone. So thyroid hormone is made out of amino acid.

Lisa: Wow, tyrosine and iodine.

Dr David: With three to four iodines attached and that’s thyroid 

Lisa: Okay, T3, T4. Okay. 

Dr David: T3, T4, okay. Glutathione is a well-known antioxidant detoxifier, has three amino acids. So, the body puts those three in the right order, and it makes glutathione. 

Lisa: Wow. Super interesting. 

Dr David: It gets more complex. Insulin has—I think, I forgot—89 amino acids. And growth hormone has—I don't know—something hundred, hundred and 20 amino acids. So, the sequence of the 22 amino acids has to be just right or it doesn't make the same thing. Every insulin has the same sequence. The skeletal muscle is made up of two proteins. One's called actin, and one's called myosin. Actin has 5600 amino acids per one actin fibre. 

Lisa: Wow. 

Dr David: So if your body wants to make muscle fibre, you work out, you tear it. 

Lisa: That’s a lot of protein. 

Dr David: It takes 8600 of these amino acids to make one fibre. 

Lisa: Wow. In the right combination?

Dr David:  In the right combination. So most of us—so I got injured. I was training for Ironman, and I injured my hamstring. And at the time, I was a vegetarian. Now vegetarians are on low protein diets by definition. They're not eating meat, fish and eggs, that's where the major proteins are that we take in. And beans don't cut it. So, I didn't know this. I'm just a doctor. And I'm a young triathlete. But I think I'm doing the right thing.

So I get injured, and I can't figure out how I can get it healed. I injected it and massaged it and chiropractored it  and I did heat treatments and I did everything. Wouldn't get better. And I had a friend who had an amino acid mixture. And he said, ‘Try these’, he was in Europe and he got these things. And he said, ‘Try these’. And I tried those for six weeks, and my hamstring healed, they actually healed. I could do go to a track, do hardcore miles, no pain. And about three months later, I went to Canada and I did Ironman Canada, and I had my best time ever. And I thought, ‘Holy smokes, this stuff is really, something's happening in my body, that's good’. 

I noticed a couple other things to my maximum heart rate went up by 12 points. I could hit 176 on a real hot day going up a real steep hill on a bike. And I could hit 176 and it went to one 184. So I got a change, I got a physiologic change and improvement. So, I started playing with these amino acids. And I started measuring levels of amino acids in the clinic of patients that I was seeing. And what I found is that almost everybody had low levels of amino acids than what they should. Especially these things called essential amino acids.

Now, eight of the amino acids are called essential because the body can't make them, you got to get them in the food that you eat or in the supplementation. From those eight, you can make the other 14. So, if you don't get the eight, you don't make proteins because all the proteins have the essential amino acids. And if you're low in one or two or three, you're not going to make the protein 

Lisa: The whole thing doesn’t work.  

Dr David: It doesn't work. And the proteins turn over, they're always being rebuilt remodelled, because through our life there’s stressors. All the enzymes in the body that make energy and detoxified are proteins, they're made out of amino acids. And so, if the body isn't getting enough, there are 50,000 proteins in the body that need to be made all the time. And if you don't have enough coming in, the body is going to say, ‘I'm going to fix this tendon, but I'm going to let the immune system sag’, or ‘I'm going to fix this, whatever, and I'm going to I'm going to let the bones go because bones are made out of collagen, which is a protein, and I'm going to repair something else’. 

And so, the gut lining is supposed to get a new layer every three or four days. But if there's a shortage, it might be, ‘Let's put that off’. So, it's every six or seven days, or eight or nine days, or a person gets a—they get an overuse injury. And then it's weeks before it heals instead of, ‘Why isn't it healed in a couple of days, it should be able to heal up’. So, it's because there's a deficiency of amino acids. And so all these patients had deficiencies of amino acids. 

And so, we put together this formula called ‘PerfectAmino’, it's eight essential amino acids. And it's in a very specific blend. 

Lisa: And that’s key. 

Dr David: So that when you take the amino acids, your body utilises it 99%, utilises it to make body protein. So, there are thousands of athletes, or post-op patients, or pregnant or nursing patients, where you give them these supplemental amino acids and the body just starts to work better, it heals better, it performs better, immunity is better, osteoporosis gets better. And you can make a huge difference. 

So, the search for the perfect protein was really my search for what is the perfect thing that works better than meat and fish and eggs by a factor of at least three to six times that you could take as a supplement. Nobody wants to eat pills as their meal. So, you eat good food, and you eat animal proteins. And if you're a vegetarian, you don't want to eat animal proteins, then you need to take more essential amino acids, more PerfectAmino, because the amount of amino of essential amino acids in vegetable foods is low. And they just aren't good enough to really keep somebody nourished. 

I have tested thousands of vegans and vegetarians on their amino acid levels. They look terrible. A lot of these people are tired. They don't feel well, but they feel like the healthy thing to do is don't eat meat. Fine, I have no argument with that. But then you gotta make sure that you're getting the stuff you need so your body doesn't suffer. And PerfectAmino is vegan, it's kosher. So, like anybody with a list of, ‘It's got to fit these things’, they can take it because it's a safe, clean product. 

Lisa: And the amazing thing that I didn't understand was that when we’re looking at foods and saying, ‘Well, we'll get our protein from our food’, say, a whey protein drink or a piece of steak or a fish. You see, in your talks, I heard—whey protein you’re actually only using around 16%, as actual protein gets integrated into the body and the rest gets used and tuned into either carbohydrates. And actually, if you're trying to keep your weight down or anything like that, I’ve got lots of friends who are trying to do low carb diets, and then you taking a steak, and not realising that part of that steak will turn into carbohydrates. 

So, a steak was I think 33%, and fish was around the same and in eggs were quite high with a 48%, and breastmilk was the best at 49% that actually gets utilised. Yes, utilised in the body as a protein. And I was like, ‘Wow, so half of what I'm eating is not actually being used in the right way’. And when I looked at spirulina, because I'm very big on spirulina, and I've been, ‘Oh, it's got almost 64% protein’, and then realising that actually, you're only using a tiny portion of it. Not to say that spirulina is bad because there's lots of great reasons to take spirulina, but protein source, it’s not the optimum. 

And then the other interesting thing that I found is—just hopping back to my mum story, she's got fatty liver disease and some kidney issues. So, I've got her on a very low protein diet. And I've been concerned about what her ability to recover and do all the things that her body needs some protein when I've got her on a low, mostly vegetarian diet. 

Now I'm excited to get the PerfectAmino because I had to have a low protein diet with her because she can't process nitrogen. Nitrogen, for listeners, is the protein, it takes the nitrogen off and then it has to be processed in the liver and to urea and then excreted in the kidneys. Now if you've got liver or kidney problems, you can't get the urea out of the system. And of course, that leads to problems where you've got too much nitrogen, which is a toxin, and you can get gout and so on and worse things. 

So, this is a really good thing for people who have kidney disease, for people who are on dialysis, for people who have fatty liver disease or alcoholic liver or anything where it's impaired these detox processes and you can’t take your proteins, this is a way to get those proteins without the nitrogen problem.

Dr David: Exactly, exactly. And then so you can meet their protein needs with virtually no calories because this stuff has practically no calories. 10 grams is only four calories. 

So, if you're a dieter or, you know, if you're—let's say, we're going to go super lean, we're going to do low calorie, and still a chicken breast is going to be 250, 300 calories, or beef steak. Whereas you can get more protein and 10 tablets of PerfectAmino or two scoops, it comes as a powder too. And it's only four calories. 

And so, you can meet your protein needs, but you don't deplete yourself, and you don't get the calories. So, for dieting, it's good for your mum. It's perfect because see, immune wise, these immune proteins are made out of proteins. And if you're depleted, it may mean lack of immunity and a lot of these people that have chronic illness with kidneys or livers, they're susceptible to infection. And when you put them on low protein diets, their gut, they get a leaky gut, and they leak bacteria and they get infections. And then they have low immune proteins in their blood and they can get really sick, they can get sepsis, they can really get sick, they can get skin breakdown. So, mouth ulcers, lots of stuff. 

So, this is something that can be used by, virtually all sick people are amino acid deficient. I mean, 100%, I don't care what's, whether you've got cancer or Parkinson's or chronic fatigue, you have low amino acids. If you're an athlete, you most likely have low amino acids and your performance will increase. We've had lots of super high elite level athletes that are taking this thing now. And I just tell people, if you're an athlete and you're trying to get performance, the guys that are beating you on PerfectAmino.

Lisa: And you've had this case in the Tour de France. So I heard that story with the guys that were on the PerfectAmino we're not breaking down like the guys because after 21 days of an extreme amount of exercise, you're smashing the crap out of your body. And at the end, they were turning out to be stronger than they had gone into the competition with these aminos, and I'm like, ‘Ah, damn, why didn't I have that during my competitive career’? It was good to have branched-chain, but it wasn't really the best option out there. 

Dr David: Well, see, with branched-chains, of the eight essential amino acids, three of them are called branched-chain. So that's just their structure. But if you take branch-chains—see, every protein in the body has all eight essential amino acids. So, if you're trying to build or expand your protein, or recover your protein, if you're taking the three, you're not getting all eight, and it won't work. So branched-chain amino acids act like a carbohydrate, you might as well eat a banana.

Lisa: Oh, wow.

Dr David: Now what I've been finding, so I'm doing an Ironman in two weeks, and I have this company called BodyHealth, so we make an electrolyte. So, it's a mixture of sodium, it's got high potassium, it's got zinc, and magnesium and trace minerals, and we put two grams per serving of PerfectAmino in there. 

So, I'm putting my 22-ounce water bottles, when I go out and bike, 22 ounces of water, I put two scoops in the electrolytes, that's four grams of amino acids. And I put a scoop of the regular PerfectAmino, which is another five grams. And I'm drinking a bottle every hour or two, depending on the heat. 

And I tell you that it's a performance increaser recovery. And then, it keeps your mind clear because having these amino acids trickle in, just gives your body a message that there's plenty available, you can work it hard, you don't have—there's no deficiency. And I find it just really makes a huge difference to use doses that are higher than what we used to recommend, but it actually works better. 

Lisa: So, because someone like me, who's done like 25 years of extreme endurance sports, and really smashed my body, damaged my kidneys, constant problems with anaemia, and now I have really a problem with my exercise tolerance has gone down massively, in the last four years, I've had lots of stress as well, with sick parents and so on. 

But is there a way back? Is there a way to build that resilience that I used to have through—like, I have a very good diet, I have very good supplementation or constantly learning but doing well on all those points, and yet the exercise tolerance is still very low at the moment. 

So, where I used to be go out and be able to run 200 kilometres, now a 5k run is quite a mission. Is there a way back for me, do you think? I should book an appointment with you, but just look from an athlete's point of view, will this help with exercise tolerance, as well as the recovery?

Dr David: See your mitochondria are not, they’re not producing? Every disease condition too—it's a power failure.

Lisa: Yes, someone pulled the plug. 

Dr David: The bulbs are, you got a 10-watt bulb in a room that needs a 100-watt bulb. And as long as there's daylight coming in from the outside, and you could read, you could see with a 10-watt bulb, but when it gets dark, you can't read, you can't see. And these mitochondria, they’re not making ATP. 

And so while they used to be able to crank out ATP, I don't think it's at this point that their structure is so damaged, that they can't be recovered. I think they need some help, like some diagnostic help, like what are the actual issues? What are the mineral imbalances? What are the hormones doing? What shape is your gut in? Do you have parasites? Are there heavy metals? What are your amino acid levels? Like you have to do sort of a like where is the problem coming from? What is the weak link that's causing this mitochondria to not be able to produce energy? 

And so, we do a thing where we actually do a test of mitochondrial function, we measure the VO2 max and we measure what their actual metabolism is, and you can say, ‘Wow, this guy can't do it’. You take someone with chronic fatigue and their anaerobic threshold. So that's where they can no longer have enough oxygen coming in to keep up with what It's needed and they start producing lactic acid. Their anaerobic threshold consists of sitting up in bed, they just hit their anaerobic threshold. Like they can't walk to the bathroom because it's too much. 

And then you take somebody like yourself, you could run 200 kilometres. And you never were at anaerobic threshold, and you were moving pretty darn fast, with tremendous amount of energy being produced. And I don't think the machine is broken, I just think the machine has been stressed and it needs a rebuild process. And that you could do it, and some of its amino acids, and some of its hormonal, and some of its, there's a lot of tricks now to be able to, like, ‘How can we get this thing moving so that we can get the performance back up’? And then when the performance goes back up, it’s like, ‘Here, I’m back’. 

Lisa: It’s like, ‘Oh my God’. Yes. And then, I've been working on my own issues while I'm learning all these other things and rehabilitating my mum, and I've learned a lot, and I'm certainly a lot better. But there's a couple of pieces of the puzzle missing. So that's why I'm super excited about the PerfectAmino part of the story. And I'll report back to you on how they had to fix me because I'm damn sure that there's a protein deficiency going on. If I look at my whole entire history, there's always been a problem. 

And getting off my case now, but just looking at the whole gut health situation, this is where it was really an eye opener for me too. You see that the gut lining is only one self-second, it replaces itself every three, four, five days. But some people it's taking up to 10 days. And this leads to leaky gas with a zonulin and the tight junctions are getting too loose and leading protein and in bacteria and things through into the bloodstream, which is causing systemic inflammation and problems everywhere. And it becomes a bit of a catch 22 isn't it? When you don't have enough amino acids, you can't make new gut cells. But then if you don't have a good gut, then you can’t absorb the protein, and it sort of becomes a vicious cycle. So this is a way to break that cycle. And... 

Dr David: I mean, these things, we've measured this, you take a dose of 10 grams of amino acids and you start measuring blood levels amino acids in 23 minutes, this stuff’s in your bloodstream, almost irregardless of what your gut health is like. Like it gets in, it gets through. 

Lisa: Even with the gap absorption issues and working with a patient with celiac, for example, at the moment, whose got a lot of gut issues and so even for someone like that...

Dr David: You may have to start them easy, work them up.

Lisa: Yes, we're going to go to 30 grams a day straight off.

Dr David: Don’t go 30 grams straight off. But you can get them—but it starts the repair process. And then they can, nobody's healthy without a good gut. And hardly anybody's got a good gut. So it's always a critical piece of the puzzle to get people where they're not bloated and they don't have heartburn and they don't have constipation, they don't have diarrhea, and they wake up in the morning and they've got a flat belly that feels good. And you got to get that person there with things that you're familiar with, with probiotics and digestive enzymes and PerfectAmino, and these things. And in most people, you can heal up. 

Lisa: You can fix it. The digestive enzyme piece of the puzzle. Is there any danger with digestive enzymes? I heard your story about Kelley William Donalds, the enzyme? 

Dr David: Yes, those are over the top strong. 

Lisa: So, digestive enzymes. Do you have a digestive enzyme product in your line?

Dr David: Yes, yes, we call it Full Spectrum Digest. And it's, it's a really good product. It's like a digestive enzymes or some hydrochloric acid in it. The tolerance level on it is almost everybody can take it without a problem. The ones I was experimenting with, they're really strong.

Lisa: Right and that was for cancer prevention. Yes. And looking, which was interesting research, actually. But so okay. So you're looking at those two sides of the puzzle. And people as they get older, we produce this stomach acid. And then there are billions of people on 59:50 bloemen acid blockers. And that's a real problem that's causing all these gut issues and then it becomes the next pill to fix, the next thing. So polypharmacy sort of situations that people get into. 

So this is a way out now taking acid blockers, why are they bad? Or well, bad, long term?

Dr David: Well, the enzyme in the stomach, it starts protein digestion, requires an acid to be active. So it's called pepsin. And if the pH of the stomach, so pH is a measure of acidity, one is the most acid, 14 is the least acid. So 14 is alkaline, 7 is water in the middle. So, in order for the pepsin in the stomach to activate, it requires a pH in the stomach of one to two. So that's very acid. 

Pepsin is the beginning process of breaking down the proteins that you eat. So you eat a chicken breast. So the actin fibres in that chicken muscle have 5600 amino acids in a chain. Now, your intestine will not accept that, it's too big. It will only accept it if it's chopped into little teeny individual amino acids. So if you don't break actin fibre down into 5600 individual amino acids, your body can't utilise that protein, it can't get it in. 

So if you give someone a drug, which doesn't allow them to produce stomach acid—no, so now the level of acid in the stomach is seven, it's water. The pepsin doesn't get activated. The first step in protein digestion doesn't occur. And so you don't get the benefit of the proteins that you're eating. The other side of it is in order to absorb minerals, magnesium, zinc, selenium, you need an acid stomach. And if you don't have an acid stomach, you don't get absorption and key minerals. So we find 80% of the patients that we test, they have magnesium deficiency, many of potassium on a cellular level deficiency and zinc deficiency, and selenium. So, these are key things. 

The other problem when you block stomach acid, the food that we eat is not sterile. Nobody boils their food until it's sterile before they eat it. We eat raw food or fruits, we eat raw vegetables, there's bacteria in there, there’re parasites in there. And you eat that stuff. And if the mechanism of the body to protect itself from bacteria in food is that there's acid in the stomach, and it kills bacteria. If you don't have acid in your stomach, you eat that broccoli raw, or the tomato. Or you went to a restaurant you had a salad but right before they chopped up the lettuce, they had a raw piece of fish on the thing that they were slicing up and he didn't really wipe off the cutting board very well. And then he puts his lettuce on there, he’s chopping it up. And so, there's some parasites in that lettuce, there's some amoebas, or something in there, and you eat that. And it doesn't get killed in your stomach, which is supposed to happen and it gets in your small intestine. There's a worldwide epidemic now, what's called SIBO, it's all intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Well, where those bacteria come from? They came from your food. Why did they get through? Because you have no stomach acid. 

Lisa: Oh my gosh. So it becomes a vicious cycle. 

Dr David: Dogs can eat anything because they have humongous levels of stomach acid. And so, they could go and eat out of puddles and eat all this stuff because they have a protection.

Lisa: So by blocking it, we’re actually causing way more—and that the good and the reflex, a reflex is actually not enough essence, not too much isn't it? So, and as we get older, we produce this betaine or HCl betaine. So, we need to be looking at our levels of stomach acids and enzymes. So pancreatic enzymes are lipases and proteases as well, all of the things that break down. 

And so having a supplementation of good enzymes, and a good combination, in combination with the PerfectAmino, I think is a really a golden sort of—and then add on a few... And people might say, ‘Well, isn't there just a whole lot of supplementation? And can I just, you know, eat my normal food like we did back in the day’? And the answer is, I don't think we can because the world isn't a complete mess and we are not living as we did 200 years ago and how our ancestors had good food and no glyphosate and they had good organic meats and they didn't have this toxic influx of exhaust fumes and paint fumes and furniture, off gassing, and all of these things that are adding to the load that the modern day human has to deal with. 

And so therefore, I think we do need appropriate supplementation, good organic food, and good exercise, good sleep patterns, good—all those basic things that we often also neglect to have a healthy human. And this is why we've got massive chronic disease now that we shouldn't be having. And the wonders of modern medicine so that they can keep us alive with great surgeries and great—but on what status so many people are in a hell of a hell of a mess. 

And they just get one pill after another. When you go to the doctor often and this is not everybody, thank goodness there’s some amazing functional doctors out there, like yourself. But often you go and you get stomach acid because you've got Gerd or you get a blood pressure medication or just one pharmacy thing after the other. And this whole model seems to be skew with, doesn't it?

Dr David: Yes, it's totally skewed. 

Lisa: It’s totally out of balance. Yes. Skewed is a good word.

Dr David: You know, sometimes in emergencies, they can save somebody's life. But in a long-term solution, it's not workable. And so, American healthcare is the most expensive in the world. And yet we're 29th in the world in overall health. Medicine is not the answer, lifestyle is the answer. 

And so, if that's nutrition, and it's what you said. It's sleep, and it's relationships, and it's good nutrition, and it's organic food, and it's sunshine, and it's finding what makes you happy, and the purpose. And without those things, you drugs aren't going to fix you. They're never the right answer to it. 

Like I said, in an emergency, it might be needed. You've got a bleeding ulcer, okay, take the acid blocker until your stomach heals. But then figure out what happened, what is an infection or what was wrong? And get off of it because it's long term, it's bad for you. These drugs are associated with gastric cancer because they're bad for you. And they shouldn't be used that way.

Lisa: And across the board, aren’t they? Just like everything, like antidepressants to our vaccinations to—these are all things that yes they may have some good things, but they're just given out like lollies, it would say, and the damage that we're doing is huge in its societal perspective, we really got some major problems. I mean, look at the whole contraceptive and I might go into that, but the damage that has been done to our whole fertility and woman's health and in so on, all of these areas.

And so, in our little way, I hope that this conversation, these open conversations and the sharing, what I love about my podcast is that I get to meet amazing people doing incredible work and just help you get that message just a little bit further, for a little bit more people. And it is basically one by one by one we’ll slowly be able to change. 

And if we vote—I heard you say in one of your talks was that we vote with it with our dollar—if we start demanding food that’s not packaged in plastics all the time, if we start buying more organic, and start avoiding the things that are bad for our planet, and voting with our dollar then we're going to contribute to the solution because everything is dollar driven, unfortunately. It's a reality of our world. So, we need to actually change, each one of us add to that conversation.

Dr David:  Yes, I mean, the reason why companies sell Doritos is because people buy Doritos. And they will keep making Doritos because you can’t eat just one

Lisa: It tastes so good. Oh hell no. 

Dr David:  It’s engineered that way. But if you eat something else and the world turns that way. That's—Amazon bought Whole Foods because it's good business.

Lisa: Great. That's good thing 

Dr David: The entrepreneur’s looking for what is going to drive the business. And that's not a bad thing. It's a good thing. It's just that, like you said, each of us have a choice with what we buy, and it's a vote. And the more we buy the things that aren't good for us, the more we support the industries that are doing things that aren't good for us. If all of us decided, ‘We're not going to eat any foods from now on that has glyphosate on it’. And then the farmer brings it and says, ‘There's no glyphosate in here’. ‘Okay, I'll buy it’. ‘There's glyphosate in it? I'm not buying it’. If we got 10 million or 20 million or 50 million or a billion people to say, ‘We're fed up with this, we're not even glyphosate’. You know what? They wouldn't make glyphosate anymore. 

So we got what we deserve because that's what we did. And we got blindsided. And I think we got bought, and the guys that run everything control media and 70% of the media is pharmaceutical, big agriculture. So, if you watch a lot of TV, you're going to get brainwashed, and you're going to buy what they tell you. So, I mean, you got to start getting your information from different places. Like from you. And if they listen to you, and turn off the TV set, and then do what you say, and we get more and more and more and more people doing this, we can change the world in some ways.

Lisa: A move up by the people.

Dr David: You can’t blame them. 

Lisa: Yes. I mean, this is exactly what I'm wanting to make a documentary around the vitamin C story. And it's going to be very hard to get funding for such a thing, because the media companies are also, it's so one-sided, shall we say? And this is a problem. We're not getting the right—we're not getting unbiased information out there. I mean, in New Zealand, they advertise direct to our consumers drugs. 

Dr David: Well, here, too. The US, too. 

Lisa: I mean, I just don't understand it. We don't let them put smoke cigarette advertising on television, but we let them put pharmaceutical advertising and ask your doctor for this. And it's like, ‘Really’?

Dr David: Yes. Yes. And they control Google, they control everything. So that if you're looking for things, you're going to find what they want you to see. In the United States now, the Justice Department and the US government is going after Google for controlling media of what they want people to see. And they won't let people see...

Lisa: Are they doing this? 

Dr David: It’s fantastic. Now I don't know—I hope they can get it but it's really true. They have amazing health censorship. 

Lisa:  Oh, yes, Google is censoring.

Dr David: And so, it's moving. Just hopefully, we can get this thing moving fast enough before we extinct our species.

Lisa: Because we are, I mean, fertility rates are dropping, everything is heading downwards if we don't start to make a difference.

And just to sum up, because I know I've taken up far more of your time than I should have. But you see that a beautiful summary in your book, there is no such thing as a free lunch. For those people who say, ‘Well, I don't want to pay for tasting and supplements and good food’, you're going to pay in another way. You're going to pay, you're just choosing to pay later and down the track with worse consequences. Or you're paying to be preventative, you're paying for good health. And those are the two choices. We're making a choice. And inaction is one choice. It is a choice.

Dr David: Right. And no one bats an eye paying five bucks for Starbucks. Okay? Maybe one every day. Okay, so that's 150 bucks in a month of Starbucks coffee. Or you could buy a big canister of amino acids for that. And you could make your coffee at home for two cents a cup. And you'd be the same. 

So you're right, they’re choosing and if what you choose is not pro-survival in the long run, then you're going to end up in the medical system. And the medical system is very dangerous. The third leading cause of death in the United States, I don't know how it is New Zealand, is doctor-caused illness, death. Whether it's surgeries or procedures, or drug reactions, it is a real big deal. 

And if you don't want to end up as one of their statistic casualties, then you have to be able to orient your life toward nutrition, and supplementation, and detoxification, and healthy living, then you don't have to mess with them. Otherwise, you're going to end up in because you're going to get high blood pressure, or diabetes, or osteoporosis, or arthritis, or one of these things, and then you're going to go to them, you're going to get a drug. And then that drugs going to cause a problem, and then you're going to get another drug, and then that causes a problem. And then pretty soon, you're one of their guys. And if people had to actually pay for their medical care, none of this would happen. 

When government starts paying for medical care, and the governments are run by the big lobbyists, and then you get free this and that, now you're really, like you said, there's no free lunch, you're going to pay. You just think it's free but actually, it's not.

Lisa: Yes. And I mean, I've just been through two huge journeys in my family with my mum, as I said earlier, with four and a half years of rehabilitation and fighting the system. And now with my father and the things that I experienced fear, not being able to get him vitamin C, when he was dying of sepsis, and he was dying. And I was told that he was, and I was still not allowed to give it to them. And I had to fight legal battles, ethics committees, I had doctors and friends on the outside that I'm connected to pushing for me, given me all the evidence to present and I am the second person in history of New Zealand able to get vitamin C in the ICU setting. But it was too late for my dad. 

And this is the sort of thing we're up against. So, I want people to understand that when they get stuck into that hospital system, there are limitations as to what you're allowed to do. You don't have the jurisdiction over your own body anymore. And I wish it hadn't got to that point with my dear father. And it's something that I'm going to have to work through over the next few years, and his legacy will be that I will get those change some way, come hell or high water. It's my ultra-marathon now, is to change that one thing. And there's lots of other things I'd like to change but if I can get that through that message, then I'm contributing to that story. 

Look, Dr Minkoff, you've been just so wonderful today. Thank you so much for the generosity of your time, we've done a very long session. I would love to have another team with you. Honestly, I wish you lived in New Zealand. Thank you for the work and the dedication. I know that you could be just sunning yourself in Florida, and retiring, and enjoying, doing Ironmans all around the world but you're still passionate about this work. And I love learning from masters like yourself. So, thank you very much for your service. It's really a pleasure

Dr David: My pleasure. Enjoyed it. I'm sure you can pull this off. I would hate to go up against you if I was Medical Board, you can do this thing. You just have to keep hammering on them because they don't know what they're talking about and they're stuck in a stupid idea. And it can be changed and your contribution is enormous and thanks for what you do.

Lisa: Thank you so much, doctor. 

That's it this week for Pushing the Limits. Be sure to rate, review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional

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Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

1. Learn about the power of mindset when facing difficult situations. 
2. How do ultramarathons build your resilience and mental strength? 
3. Discover how compounding experiences can uncover your true potential. 

Resources

• Check out Geoffrey Woo’s podcast at H.V.M.N. Podcast, Apple Podcasts, and at Youtube.
• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor
• The Oxygen Advantage: Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques to Help You Become Healthier, Slimmer, Faster, and Fitter by Patrick McKeown
• Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall
• The Oxygen Revolution: Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy: The New Treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury, Stroke, Autism and More by Paul G. Harch M.D.
• The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science by Norman Doidge
• Concussion Rescue: A Comprehensive Program to Heal Traumatic Brain Injury by Kabran Chapek
• Register at Broken Brain to keep updated with Dr Mark Hyman’s documentary series!

Episode Highlights

[07:45] Lisa’s Journey Into Ultramarathon Races

• Lisa has been doing ultramarathon racing for over 25 years.
• Her ultramarathon races have been mostly located at deserts.
• While she was not born with the genetic ability, Lisa owes these achievements to her strong mindset. 

[09:49] How Lisa Faced Challenges

• Lisa used to be on track to become a national gymnast. 
• Going through puberty changed her body and made her unfit for gymnastics. This led to her poor body image, self-loathing, and low self-esteem. 
• In her early 20s, Lisa felt that she was never going to be good enough. This culminated when she crossed the Libyan Desert. 
• Find out more about Lisa’s harrowing experience, both physically and emotionally, at the Libyan Desert in the full episode!

[15:57] Surviving The Libyan Desert And The Aftermath

• In addition to the difficult and illegal crossing, Lisa also broke up with her then-boyfriend. 
• Surviving the Libyan Desert meant focusing on just one step after another. 
• The whole experience made Lisa physically and emotionally wrecked for two years. 

[23:58] Lisa’s First Encounter With Ultramarathon Races

• One day, Lisa saw a Moroccan race that only required 240 kilometres, 9 litres of water a day, with support from doctors, journalists, and helicopters. 
• These paled in comparison to the Libyan Desert crossing, where Lisa’s team had to travel 250 kilometres with 2 litres of water a day and 35-kilogram backpacks.
• This comparison led Lisa to join the ultramarathon and she loved the experience. 
• She notes that the community in ultramarathons was so uplifting that she kept signing up for more.

[25:34] Developing Emotional And Cognitive Resilience

• Pushing your body’s limits with ultramarathons can build your resilience. 
• Failure is a part of pushing to the limits and you have to get over that.
• Resilience is not taught enough in our society. 

[28:15] Building Resilience

• We don’t have the benefit of hindsight when we’re experiencing highs and lows, but trust in the process. 
• Lisa talks about losing her son and how painful experiences can have moments of joy too. 
• Listen to the full episode to hear how Lisa turned heartbreaking and difficult experiences into sources of strength and courage. 

[38:27] Society’s Disconnect With Nature

• People tend to live vicariously through others and not go through experiences themselves. 
• We have become disconnected from nature that affects our health and well being.
• We cannot depend on anyone to save us. We have to make things happen ourselves.

[43:44] Compounding Experiences 

• Create momentum with small successes.
• When you hit roadblocks and failures, deal with them as they happen. 
• Know that there is no limitation on what you can do. 
• There is a misconception that running is bad for the joints.
• You have to train for a marathon by building up strength and endurance.

[52:53] Mindset During Difficult Times

• Lisa talks about how she used to have a prideful mindset of needing to prove that she can do something.
•  Nowadays, her experiences with charity races developed a gratitude mindset. 
• Lisa also thinks about how she would do anything for her loved ones.
• For more details on how a New Zealand race and her mother taught her how to break down a situation step by step, check out the full episode! 

[1:00:51] Value Of Learning From Experiences

• It's hard to convey experience and until you've lived through it.
• When Lisa’s mother had an aneurysm, Lisa went above and beyond to help her. 
• Tune in to the episode for Lisa’s extensive research into hyperbaric oxygen therapy, functional neurology, and the ketogenic diet to save her mother! 

 [1:16:27] Improving The Standard Of Care

• We can change the standard of care and improve the current medical system.
• With the current age of technology, information and research are more widely available. 
• Take ownership of your health and do the research. 
• No matter the age, people need to have goals and be challenged. 
• We have to respect and care for our elders better for they have helped shape us to become who we are today. 

7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode

“And so no matter what you're going through in life, try to think of it as well, this is going to be a part of something that I'm meant to be learning and I can turn this around.”/

“When I decided I want something, I just do it until I get good at it, even if I'm hopeless at it at the start.”

“None of us have to be limited anymore. Certainly not this day and age by one profession.”

“It's all a matter of the motivation. It's how bad do you want this thing.”

(My mother) “poured my focus back into the here and the now, instead of projecting into the future, which was overwhelming and terrifying. And that's how we broke it down step by step.”

“If I hadn't had the belief that the human body and mind are capable of far more than what the average person thinks it is, then I would have listened to the naysayers and I would have given up.”

“We've got to do better. And we've got to respect our elders. They're the ones who made us who we are.”

About Geoffrey Woo

Geoffrey Woo is the Co-founder and Executive Chair of Health Via Modern Nutrition, or H.V.M.N. With the core mission of redefining human performance and longevity, the company offers quality nootropics to the market. The company is guided by rigorous research and development based on science, coupled with label transparency and evidence grading. 

Geoffrey is also the host of the H.V.M.N. Podcast, where he regularly interviews experts on health, nutrition, biohacking, and entrepreneurship. With over 100 episodes, you are sure to learn about optimizing your health! Tune in to the podcast! 

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To pushing the limits,

Lisa

Full Transcript

Intro: Welcome to Pushing The Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by lisatamati.com.

Lisa Tamati: Well, hi everyone and welcome back to Pushing The Limits this week.

Now today I have something a little bit different than my usual format. I've actually used a interview that I did on the H.V.M.N. podcast with the amazing Geoffrey Wu. He has an incredible podcast and company that I'd love you to check out as well. I'll put all the links in the show notes. And he did this interview with me and I told my story and a little bit of my background. And particularly we went into the story behind the Libyan desert, which was an illegal crossing that I did across the Libyan desert, a long, long time ago, beginning of my career. And I thought it would be quite interesting to share this little backstory with you. And also, you know, we go into a deep discussion around high performance and being the best that you can be.

So I hope you enjoy this interview. something a little bit different than having my usual guests which will be back to next week. I do have coming up in the next few weeks, some fantastic guests. I have James Nestor who is the author of Breath, which is an incredible book, all about the art of breathing. And you would be amazed at the science behind optimizing your health and everything with breathing.

And then I also have Patrick McKeown who is also the author of The Oxygen Advantage, again, all about nasal breathing [0:01:43]and the particular breathing techniques and just absolutely incredible. Both New York Times bestselling books, top authors, top experts in this field. So, I hope you make sure you tune into that.

Also coming up on the show in the next few weeks. I have Dr. Brian Walsh, who is one of my teachers and incredible, incredible — a super brain of a man — who's going to be talking to us about detoxing. So those are a few episodes coming up in the next few weeks. So make sure you do stay tuned.

Now before I go over to the interview, I just want to remind you, now Christmas is coming up. If you haven't got your Christmas presents, check out my jewellery collection online, it's called The Fears Collection and it's all about inspiring and motivating people with while you're wearing some blink, while you’re wearing something that's pretty cool. So sports jewellery, it's hardwearing, it's the sort of things you can dress down or dress up with. And I hope you enjoy that collection. You can find it in my shop on lisatamati.com.

Also, on that note with Christmas coming up, got to remind you to go and grab one of my books, either Running Hot, which was my first book, Running To Extremes, which was my second. Both of those chronicling all my adventures around the world. And my third book, which has just come out this year, Relentless, telling the story of bringing my mum back after her massive aneurysm and all the brain damage that she had and being told that there was no way forward. It's an empowering, inspiring story — a love story. And it's a story that is really — a book that it's actually, I'm getting feedback all the time from people telling me how much it's changed their lives, their approach to taking ownership over their own health and not just leaving it up to everyone else. So, I hope you enjoy it.

Now head over to the show in just a moment. But if you could also do a rating and review for the podcasts I really, really appreciate that. And I say it every week. But I do really appreciate getting any reviews. And if you've got any questions, please reach out to us. You can reach me on lisa@lisatamati.com. We're also taking on a few clients at the moment on a one-on-one which we don't usually do just because of the sheer volume of work that we have. But I am taking on a very few people. If you've got to have health journey that you want help with, you want someone to help navigate some tricky waters that you're going through, or challenge, or if you're setting yourself up for a mess of big sporting challenge, obviously, mindset or anything like that, then please reach out to me. I do enjoy working one on one with just a handful of people at a time because it does take a lot of resources. So, if you're interested in that reach out to me at lisa@lisatamati.com.

And now over to the show with the interview with Geoffrey Wu.

Announcer: Coming up in this episode

Lisa: Our little boy Joseph suddenly came early and he only survived for two hours and he died. And this was like heartbreaking. Our last chance basically, to hold your baby and to watch him struggle and die and that was like the worst thing I've ever been through.

And even in this horrifying situation, if you like, there were moments of joy, moments of blessings and the blessings that our little boy brought to us. It took me a few weeks. when I now think on my little boy, I think, what he left behind, like the changes he created in me, the changes he created in my husband, our surrogate parents — were extremely close now —  to our surrogate parent family, to their children. My husband is a firefighter, and he's now become an officer, which he wouldn't do before. Because he was like, “Ah, I'm too shy, and too, whatever.” And now he's like, “No, my little boy didn't get to live, I'm [0:05:48]going to live full bore, I’ve suffered.” So little Joseph bought blessings in a way that we couldn't see at the time. And I don't wish that on anyone. And I certainly don't want to go through that again. But it could either break you or you can try to find something in there that has meaning for you, and a reason for you.

And so, no matter what you're going through in life, try to think of it as “Well, this is going to be a part of something that I'm meant to be learning and I can turn this around.” And that's I think your job when you're on this earth is to try and have these lessons and become stronger and better and not let it break you.

Announcer: Welcome to the H.V.M.N podcast, what we do with our bodies today becomes the foundation of who we are tomorrow. This is Health Via Modern Nutrition.

Geoffrey Wu: Hey, everyone, welcome to this week's episode of the H.V.M.N. podcast. And this is going to be an especially fun one because my guest today is Lisa Tamati. I had a wonderful conversation on her podcast. So, for today, we're going to flip the script, flip the table and have Lisa share her experience.

In a lot of my conversations over the last few years now, when you really talk to World Class specialists in one specific domain, they oftentimes touch and become generalist experts across a multitude of domains. I think that's just the world that we live in. To be really, truly world class. One can't just be in that one specific tunnel. One really gets the best practice from a number of domains. I think Lisa really encapsulates that for me. So Lisa, great to have on the H.V.M.N. podcast.

Lisa: I’m so stoked to be here. Geoffrey, it was wonderful to have you on my show. And yeah, now the flip-the-script is going to be exciting. I can't wait to do a deep dive.

Geoffrey: Yeah. One area that you have a tremendous amount of experience and I have a little bit of a taste of is ultramarathons, long distance running. I think that seems to be your initial entry point into high performance, human physiology. Love to hear your background story of how you got into it, competing Badwater, some of the most prestigious well-known ultramarathon races. What was your journey into this specific field?

Lisa: Yeah, thanks, Geoff. So I've been doing ultramarathons now for over 25 years, and I've had, in that time, the chance to sort of run and compete and train over 70,000 Ks in that time. So that’s three times around the equator, if you add it all up.

I've done mostly desert so I've done a couple of thousand kilometres in the Sahara Desert from the Moroccan Sahara, a couple of times to the Tunisian, Arabian Desert, the Libyan desert, Niger, Jordan, also the Gobi desert in China, Death Valley in the USA, a couple of times, in different parts of the outback of Australia, which is closer to home. And I've also at one stage ran right through New Zealand, doing 52 marathons in 42 days, raising money for charity. So that was another a really amazing mission.

But the funny thing about my story is that I'm a so what from average, as far as talent goes. I don't have any special genetic abilities. No Dean Karnazes or David Goggins, or anything like that, as far as ability and speed go. But what I did have was really, really super strong mindset. And when I decide I want something, I just do it until I get good at it, even if I'm hopeless at it at the start. And certainly, I was asthmatic as a child, so I was in and out of hospital, I had a very poor lung capacity. Very poor v02 max. So I wasn't really made or built for this type of thing, but I never let that stop me doing anything, really.

Geoffrey: Yeah, so what kicked it off? When I talked to a lot of folks that end up being, just long careers in endurance sport, oftentimes, it's realizing that in middle school that they were really get the 5k compared to the other middle schoolers?

Did you have a story like that where you ended up running and you realize, “Hey, I'm pretty good at this. Everyone else is tired, I'm pretty good.”

Lisa: That was absolutely bloody, hopeless setup. To be honest, Geoff. What happened is I was really into sport, I was a gymnast as a kid. I was good at gymnastics. And so, I did that from the ages of 5 up to about 15. And I was on sort of track to be a national sort of gymnast.

But then when I went through puberty, I grew up too tall, and I grew up very muscular and athletically built. And I just didn't have it. Once I went through puberty, I knew I just wasn't going to make it.

And so that was a real blow to me because that was all I'd done. And I've grown up in a family, where the expectations were really, really high. And I was expected to represent my country and I was expected to be the best at everything that I did. I had amazingly loving, amazing mum and dad, but my dad was also very hard on us. And that, I think having that early childhood — being pushed into that really strict discipline that gymnastics requires, was, in some ways, a really good learning curve and other ways it was quite damaging.

So as a young woman — so from 13 to 15, before I started, stopped, gymnastic — I really struggled with my body image. And I was the heaviest, biggest girl in the group, if you like and, and was always constantly ridiculed for that. And so they that started a path of self-loathing, and very low self-esteem.

And when I failed at gymnastics, I thought, “Well, that said, I'm never going to represent New Zealand.” But I sort of had that dream in back of my mind the whole time. And then in my early 20s, I met an Austrian guy who was cycling through our country here and had an accident on our mountain, got hit by an avalanche. And my mum, being the sort of mum she was, she always picking up strays and bringing them home and looking after them, as mums do. And she bought this young gentleman home, and we fell in love and doing lots of adventure stuff around the world. So we cycled around 25 different countries, climb mountains, quiet, did all that sort of adventurous stuff. And that sort of opened my eyes to the world of travel because I've never been outside my country prior to that — into the world of adventure and to what I was capable of. But it was also at the same time, a very abusive relationship. And once again, I was never good enough. I was never what I was supposed to be. It was it could never live up to the expectations. I wasn't fast enough, strong enough, good enough. I was accused of having bad genes.

And this sort of culminated. I did a crossing of the Libyan desert, an expedition with a partner and two other guys, this was a really extreme illegal crossing of the Libyan desert. And we only had like two litres of water a day because that's all we could carry on our backs with this distance of 250 kilometres that we had planned. And no one had been through — no Europeans have been through this part of the desert at this stage. There were no maps. We managed to get some pilot maps of US military don't ask how. And we started off on this crossing and two litres of water a day, and 40 plus degree temperatures with 35 kilo backpacks. It was a recipe for extremely on the limits.

Geoffrey: That’s a serious rock. Yeah, that’s a serious rock. Wow.

Lisa: Yeah, especially when I was like 58, 59 kilos at the time. So, it was more than like, now, nearly two thirds of my body weight. And this ended up being not only physically really demanding, but the boyfriend ended up leaving me in the middle of the desert on day four.

Yeah. So that you can imagine you have your relationship breakups. We've all been there and done that, but to do that in the middle of the Libyan desert, in the middle of this crossing. And the reason was, we were all suffering and very irritable, as you can imagine, when you can't, you got no water. And so, timbers were short, and he wanted to move faster. And we were doing a book on the expedition. So, photographing it, and he was a perfectionist, and wanted to set up all these photos and wanted me to help.

And the leader of the expedition said, “Look, we got to keep moving. So, you can take your pictures, but you got to keep up with us.” And so he wanted me to help with that. And I physically was just unable to run around, do anything extra other than put one foot in front of the other. And so that went down like a ton of bricks. And after a couple of days of frosty temperatures in between us, he said, “That's it, I'm leaving, I'm heading off over the sand dunes. And you can stay with the other two guys.” And that's it, the relationship’s over.

So that was a real deep turning point. And it sounds quite funny now, but it wasn't at the time, I can assure you, and we're in desperate straits by this time. The dehydration is so, so bad. I don't know where the heat is going to survive, whether we're going to survive, what's going to happen. And in that moment, I really learned I had to compartmentalize things in my brain. So I had to be able to function despite the emotional turmoil that I was going through. And that was a really good lesson to learn so that you can actually still function and do what you have to do to survive to get out and not fall to pieces. And of course, I owed it to the other two guys, too, who are like, “Oh, my God, we've got a hysterical woman here. Now, what do we do now?”

Geoffrey: This story deserves more attention. I mean, just from the emotional capacity, obviously, a breakup with a long-term partners of emotion is a massive emotional turmoil. And then it sounds like there was questions of even surviving. So-

Lisa: Yes, there was.

Geoffrey: – at the time, did you think that everyone could have died? How serious? I mean, it sounds like it was pretty serious. But did you have regrets or thoughts racing through your mind? Were you like, “Hey, like, why did I do this? Am I going to die in the desert? I'm stupid.” Can you walk us through that kind of a thought process there?

Lisa: The thirst was just unbelievable, like the suffering that goes on when you don't have enough water is really, really horrific. So your mouth swells, your lung, your tongue swells, you just got no saliva, so you can’t eat, obviously. And we were covering around 45 kilometres a day, or we were trying to so that we would have enough to get out. So we had a schedule that we had to keep. And we were trying to avoid going in the very hot hours of the day, but there was often no shade, so you just like sort of put your backpack up and try and hide under it.

So it was extreme, as far as would we survive, and it was a military bad area as well. So leaving the Oasis was really dangerous and getting out from outside the military camp and then disappearing into the desert without being followed. And by the same token getting back. And so you had all that sort of stuff going on as well. If you've been caught in this area, you would have been in deep, deep trouble, shall we say?

So, there was there was all sort of elements to it. And then, when the partner left, I had to just stop thinking about whether he would survive or not. I knew that he was extremely strong and strongly fed, but all it takes is one twisted ankle. And you're gone, there was no there's no one to come and rescue you. There's no one to help. There was no outside help at all. And there was no water on route. So there wasn't much chance of survival of anything went wrong. Now as with the other two guys, and the leader of the expedition was a survival expert from Yugoslavia and he was amazing. All I had to do was really follow him and do what he said. And that's what we did.

On day five. I had real we had a sand storm hit and just as the evening broke, and it came in so suddenly. Because I was doing most of my drinking the water in the night-time and because that's when your cells could take it up. If you if you drank during the day, it would just evaporate out of your body really quickly. So, we were trying to drink the bulk of our supply for the day in the evening. And I'd also been squirreling away part of that two litres a day. So I was actually only getting a litre and a half and because I was so scared of running out so that I had more left in the backpack than I was meant to have and on this particular night, the same storm came in, and I didn't get to drink my water because it we just got an hour sleeping bags and just hunkered down and we basically got buried by the same storm. You couldn't do anything for the next five or six hours while this pass through.

And then at about three in the morning, we got up again and we got going really quickly and I only had a small drink and then I got underway. And finally, by now I was not really feeling the thirst anymore and was walking in the early hours of this morning and I just kept passing out and my body was starting to shut down. But Elvis was on such a mission to get to the certain point that we he'd see on the map. So, then he would know where we were exactly and that we would survive that he was just on a mission, he wouldn't stop to let me get water out of the backpack. And they keep pulling me back on my feet. I'd go along for another 20 minutes, and then I pass out again, they’d put me back up again, I'd walk along again, the pass out again. This happened like five or six times, until we got to this place where we could see this — it’s called the barbecue depression.

So you were up on this table top, landscape, and then you're looking down. And so, then he knew where we were. And by now I was hallucinating. So, the, the rocks were becoming monsters. And I didn't even know to ask for a break. If that makes sense. All I was doing was functioning by putting one foot in front of the other, and I couldn't think straight, my vision was closing in, hallucinations, and so on.

Geoffrey: What kept you going? I mean, it sounds like — was it just reptilian survival instinct, just one foot after another? Was there something higher? Or like, “I'm not going to die today?” Where were you in this state? It just sounds like you are so —

Lisa: So close

Geoffrey: — baseline functioning, right? It was just like you're essentially just baseline survival function at this point?

Lisa: Yeah, at this point, there was no higher thinking at all. There was just, I'd been doing this for days, just following the footsteps of the guy in front of me. And that was what I was mesmerised on, this little white flicker of his shoes in front of my eyes. And that's all I focused on doing because just could not think any higher thoughts. When you run out of glucose and when you run out of water, your brain function is it's like being completely out of it.

So I was just doing everything I could just to stay upright and keep moving forward and not thinking and not being intelligent. You're unable in this case to make clear decisions or anything like that or to say, “Look, hey, I need to stop and get some water guys.” And you're on the sort of mission, and you're just going, and it's just pure survival that keeps you putting one foot in front of the other. And then once we got to this place, he helped me down these cliffs and we got to the bottom and he said, “Right, I want you to get out your water and you're going to drink and we're going to sit here for the extra hours. And you're going to slowly drink your whole day supply because your body's starting to shut down. And he said to me, “Look, he'd been in the desert a lot.” He said “I've known of people who have died in the desert with 20 litres of water and next to them because they've been squirreling it away for so long.” He said it's better in your tummy than in the backpack. In other words, I hadn't been having enough just to keep surviving and you can actually die next to a whole big ton of water because you're squirreling it away for too long. And then your body shuts down, and then you're gone, can’t go too far.

So the upshot of this adventure was anyway, we did get out, we did survive, obviously. I had some major kidney damage and health problems after this. The boyfriend also got out and there was a lot of undoing of misty relationship stuff, as you can imagine, in the aftermath. But that was a time in my life where I went and never again, when I let myself be controlled by anybody else. Never again, am I not controlling my own destiny.

And it took me two years to do anything again because my body was just wrecked and emotionally, I was wrecked. But then one day I was reading this magazine. And it was about the Marathon des Sables, which is a very famous ultramarathon in Morocco. And I was reading the statistics and comparing it to what I've been through the Libyan desert. So we've done 250 Ks, we'd had 35 kilo backpacks, two litres of water a day, right? And Marathon des Sables is touted as, that time, as the toughest race on Earth — 240 kilometres, 9 litres of water a day, doctors, journalists, airplanes, helicopters support—

Geoffrey: You’re like, “This sounds easy. This sounds like a luxury clamp glamping.”

Lisa: [laughs] Luxury cruise.

Geoffrey: Yeah.

Lisa: Yeah. So, you had to carry everything in your back, as far as the food goes, but that was like, between 9 and 12 kilos. And I thought, “Hang on a minute. I reckon I could do this.” And so, I hadn't even run a marathon but I signed up for this 240 k event. And that was the first time I'd done something on my own. As girl on her own now, it was really important to me to prove to myself that I wasn't useless.

And I went and I did this race, and I just absolutely loved it. I did really, really well. I didn't win anything but I was in the top 10 woman and I just had an absolute ball. I was surrounded by people who were positive and encouraging and empowering, and there was 700 people in this race and the whole camp moves every day. It was like a huge military operation. It was just mind blowing.

And then after that experience, I started to get my self-confidence back that had been on the ground for the last two years. And I became addicted to that experience if you like because I was like, “Ugh. Give me more of this, this is awesome.” And I was good at something for change. I was told I was doing really well, and the other people were so uplifting, that then I became like addicted to ultramarathon. So, then I just signed up for every race I could possibly find, interested in one after the other, and sort of worked it out as I went. And so long story short, that's how I got into ultramarathon running.

Geoffrey: Now I understand why he put mindset as first year as well, the ultramarathon. I mean, it sounds like almost from your perspective, your mindset and that emotional and cognitive resilience to go through when you were 13 and 15. As an adolescent, athlete towards some of these survival trips. Would you say that's accurate? You almost see yourself like a mental ninja or a mental resilience expert ahead of being an endurance athlete at this point?

Lisa: Yes. Yeah, definitely. Certainly, it's become that over the even the last 20 years, especially. Whereas like I've said, I never hadn't had a lot of talent. But I realized I had I did have really good mental strength when it came to certain areas, especially in sport, I had a mindset that I could just go and I would go to the point of killing myself, nearly, which also became a problem on occasion, because you just wouldn't pull out when you should pull out. And now I'm a lot wiser and don't advise people to do that. And now we coached, you know, hundreds of athletes around the world, and we try to get them to pull out way before that point.

You know what the greatest benefit of doing all these ultramarathons and pushing your body to the limits like this is that it teaches you mental toughness, it teaches you resilience, it teaches you that failure is a part of the game as well. That if we only go through life being scared of failure, we're never going to take risks, we're never going to push the envelope, we're never going to find out what we truly capable of. And if there's one thing I've learned through this whole journey, it's that failure is a part of pushing to the limits. When you're going to that sort of level, even in business or in whatever it is in life, you are going to have failures and that is part of it. And you have to get over that and you have to learn resilience.

And I think resilience is a word that is totally underutilized in our society. And something we should be teaching all our kids about the resilience to be able to get up when you're knocked down. The resilience to be able to believe that you can still achieve them when things are stacked against you or when people are telling you no and it's impossible. That’s the thing that has helped me most, running from A to B and some artificial human made race, if you like, or climbing a mountain or doing any of these things, it's a conduit to learning who the hell you are.

Geoffrey: Yeah, it's an artificial construct. It's like a game to actually bring out that resilience at that person, that character, that integrity. This is something I've been thinking a lot about, I'm glad you're bringing this up. For the specific resilience, where do you think that resilience came from? Do you believe — I mean, this might be like a nature versus nurture question — do you think that there's some sort of genetic disposition that predisposes certain people towards having this kind of emotional and cognitive resilience? But also part of that is that sounds like through your childhood, through your environment, through your upbringing, you had pretty early, shall I say, traumatic or formational experiences as you're competing that probably gave you some sort of either a trauma that you healed really well from, or gave you a lot of experience that people never actually face with like a happy normal childhood or whatever you want to call it. Do you think those were powerful formational experiences that led you down that path?

How do you think about it, when you coaching clients coaching different folks? Obviously, you realize that some people just seem tougher than others, right? Like you hear like, yeah, I think your story is reminds me a lot of David Goggins’s story who was a former Navy SEAL, ultra-endurance athlete, had a lot of trauma through his childhood. How do you synthesize your personal experience as well as the experiences that you've called and pulled through your coaching and your journeys around the world?

Lisa: Yeah, that's a really good question in and yes, like David's stories are incredible and his childhood — terrible, obviously. And it's what who made him who he is, a lot of it.

I actually think there's a combination of nature and nurture. So I'm right into epi genetics and we use a system called Ph360, which is looking at different types of people and different health types. And I am what they call a crusader, which is someone who's always going to be dopamine driven and on a mission, tendency towards addictive behaviour, whether that's running stupid distances or eating too much chocolate. Same sort of thing. And so this, I think — and my brothers often say to me, “Why are you always on a mission? Why are you trying to conquer the world all the time in everything that you do? Why can't you just sit back and relax and have a day at the beach like we do?” And I say, “It's like asking a table not to be flat, this is who I am, this is my makeup, this is the way I made, and I can't do anything much about that.”

So I do think that a big part of the drive and the determination is genetically predisposition. Like mum said, even as a three-year-old, I would be off, diving into the pool when I couldn't swim, or I just had no fear, I would be doing stupid stuff. As a kid without any sort of idea of what the heck I'm doing. And that is always been characteristic of my nature to just jump into things and work it out on the way.

So I think there is a big portion of genetics. And by the same token, I think the combination of that with some very harsh experiences. And these are experiences, too like, don't get me wrong, the self-esteem, the lack of confidence in after that relationship, there were massive depression, suicide attempts. There’s a lot of staff that are not going into the details have to come out the other end, if you know what I mean.

So it wasn't like you're just like, wow, the super resilient person who just gets back up again. It certainly wasn't in that young years, when I didn't have the toolkit, either to be able to cope with the emotions that I'm feeling. And when you're younger, you've got a whole lot of hormones and stuff going around, and very dramatic, as you know, with all teenagers are all dramatic. I was probably super dramatic.

So, there was a lot of stuff and this is a process. And I'm old now, it's very easy for me now look back at the journey. I'm 51 going on 18, I still think I’m a teenager. Looking back over that time and going, actually, I can see the progression, I can see how I developed I can see the highs and the lows, and it all makes sort of a sense now, if you like. And we don't always have that benefit of hindsight when you're in the middle of it, all you know is that you're depressed and you don't want to be here anymore.

But if you can actually look at things from a longer term perspective and go, “This might be a part of making me who I am.” And now every situation that I get into that really blows me to pieces or is really hard or tragic, and I've been through quite a lot in my life, I now look at it and the first thing I try to think is where is the learning here? Where is the silver lining? What is it that I'm meant to be learning from this experience? And how can I turn this into a positive?

And it doesn't always come to me quickly. I mean, last year, we had a situation with my husband and I've been trying to have a baby for four years. We've lost one when I was 46 in a miscarriage. And then I had a surrogate mum, and we were over the moon, we thought we were finally going to have a baby. And six months into it. Our little boy, Joseph, suddenly came early, and he only survived for two hours and he died. And this was like, heartbreaking. Our last chance, basically, to hold your baby and to watch him struggle and die. And it was it was it was like the worst thing I've ever been through.

And even in this horrifying situation, if you like there were there were moments of joy, moments of blessings and the blessings that a little boy brought to us. It took me a few weeks. But when I when I now think on my little boy, I think what he left behind, like the changes he created in me, the changes he created in my husband, our surrogate parents — we’re extremely close now to our surrogate parent family, to their children. My husband is a firefighter and he's now become an officer which he wouldn't do before because he was like “Ah too shy and too whatever.” And now he's like, “No, my little boy didn't get to live, I'm [0:35:06] going to live full bore, I’ve suffered.

So little Joseph bought blessings in a way that we couldn't see at the time. And I don't wish that on anyone. And I certainly don't want to go through that again. But it could either break you or you can try to find something in there that has meaning for you and a reason for you. And so no matter what you're going through in life, try to think of it as “Well, this is going to be a part of something that I'm meant to be learning and I can turn this around.” And that's I think your job, when you're on this earth is to try and have these lessons and become stronger and better and not let it break you.

Geoffrey: Yeah, well, I think that's an incredible framework that you've really, I think, internalized and really test it to the limits, right? How do you turn every single injection, eruption, happenstance that occurs in one's life? And how do you take the positive from that, and it sounds like you've been able to really internalize it so well, that you're really testing the bounds of, of human experience there.

Lisa: I think, and also, I mean, we've gone pretty deep, and it's pretty emotional in this topic. To lighten things up a little bit. I mean, I've had the most crazy adventures and most fun, running things like Death Valley in the US, which is a really well known race that you probably know about. And our friend, David Goggins has done Dean Karnazes and in doing those events, where it's just been absolute highlights of my life to have those achievements.

So by the same token that you have these horrible things such happened to you, and you have to get through them, then you have these amazing experiences that were obviously challenging and hard and the discipline and all that sort of stuff that you learn along the way. But these are also life changing moments where you've achieved something, like Death Valley was a dream for 15 years of mine before I actually got there and got a slot in that race and had enough money to go.

And the boyfriend that left me in the Libyan desert, he'd cycled through Death Valley in the middle of summer. And so, he was always like, “A year, I cycled through Death Valley.” And so in the back of my mind, I was like, “One day, I'm going to run through these valleys” like —

Geoffrey: I’m going to show him

Lisa: — later [laughs] I’m going to show him, and I did. I did. I ran through it twice, I've done it twice and it was a crazy — that was another life changing event for me because it opened up the world I ended up doing a lot of documentaries after that books and so on.

So, there's been some amazing things, and this is the beauty of life. We don't have to be stuck in a box. We have the ability to reinvent ourselves. I mean, you Geoffrey are a prime example of somebody — Stanford University, computer scientists, now you're just creating a new you in a new world and a new direction that actually is what you want to do now. And none of us have to be limited anymore and I certainly not this day and age by one profession. Like, I write what I do, it's everything from podcasting, to filmmaking, to book writing, to coaching, to mental toughness courses to everything. And none of that is a contradiction.

Geoffrey: Yeah. I want to step back and just maybe turn us into more of a culture commentary because I feel like a lot of modern society and culture is, at least I sense, there's a lot of its form of anaesthesia, just numbing, kind of an existential angst of why, what is one's purpose? And then I think there's also a big stream of living vicariously through others, right? People aren't doing the Death Valley run themselves, they're watching you, Lisa, doing that Death Valley run — are watching and living through other people.

Lisa: And that is a hallmark of our time, really. With all the movies and social media. It's very easy just to sit on the couch and think, “Wow, I've just been to all over the place.”

Geoffrey: Right, and I think it's a little bit of both because I think a lot of people have this, they live vicariously through others, which gives us that excitement, but it's also the anaesthesia for the day to day, boredom or anx of not being satisfied with what they're doing. I mean, do you sense that with the broader cultural context of our times?

Lisa: I think there's a real massive disconnect nowadays from the way human beings used to be — so out in nature all day, digging the fields, hunting deer, building their houses, doing whatever, pushing the limits exploring. We don't have to do any of that anymore because we live in a world where it's all that's all done for us. And yet we live in the stressful times of computers and technology and crazy jobs and a lot of confinement. And we're going from one box of in their house to another box in the car to another box at work, in an office. And all of us as disconnected us from our true roots in our ancestral way of being and this is at odds with our DNA, I think, and the way our bodies are meant to function.

And so I think this is causing a disconnect, especially with young people who don't know that they have to get outside and get in the sunshine and get their vitamin D on their skin and get away from those damn computers and video games and all that sort of stuff. And so, when that happens, we have all sorts of problems come up, hormone dysregulation, circadian rhythms are stuffed up, woman with their cycles are stuffed up. We disconnected from nature. And I think the more that we can get outside, get back to some very basics that the human body needs.

So I run my businesses, I'm 24/7 sort of thing around, going for it all the time, but I make sure every day I get time to train in nature push my body out in the physically outdoors, and connect with the see the forest, the mountains, wherever I can. And even if I've only got 10 minutes to sit in the city park, I know that it's important for my soul to be able to connect with nature. And that's important on a hormone level, it's important on a personality level, and all of these areas that are just being neglected now.

And we can sit at home and be entertained 24/7 on our devices. And this is a huge danger, I think for the human race because we shouldn't be living in the matrix. We need to be out there actually experiencing it ourselves, getting in the water, going for runs, walking in the park, whatever it is, and interacting with other human beings on a eye-to-eye level. I mean, we luckily have this technology, and I can connect with you, which I never would have been able to do in the past.

But by the same token, it's important that I go today, and I see my family and I look them in the eye and I have that social interaction with them. And all of these things are missing from many people's lives. So there's the element of loneliness, there's the element of all these dysregulation that's going on in our bodies and our circadian rhythms, and hormones, and so on.

This all leads down a track of very often depression, being dissatisfied in life. And then maybe you're in a job that you feel trapped in or you don't have a job. You don't know what you want to be. We have to create our own framework and our own destiny, and we have the power. We live in a time where we can actually — through this amazing technology — access so many things that we never could have before. There is no reason for any single person to not be doing something on a mission, creating their own business, doing something on the side to get them out of the job that they don't like, whatever.

But it's up to you and your mindset to understand, there is no white knight in shining armour coming to save you. You have to make things happen. And you just do that, obviously. You just decided I'm into the keto and the intermittent fasting, right, and I don't know the whole story, obviously, I'm going to go and make this happen. Then you start a new business and you started the business and sold it at 23, you know, like I didn't know which way was up at 23. To be honest.

Geoffrey: I think if you look at just how every single story, every single interesting, whether it's historical figure, everyone started from somewhere and someone decided to do something, and it compounded and grew and you learn over time, right? And I think one interesting, maybe first step, to inspire people to build that mental toughness, at least for my experience was doing some of these longer runs.

I remember the first time some of my colleagues at H.V.M.N. who are marathoners and triathletes, they kind of just challenged me casually do a half marathon. And never was a good endurance runner and the notion of running for an hour was just seemed like very intimidating. And I imagine for most people that are casual athletes, casual folks that go the gym, running a mile on a treadmill is like a pretty solid day, warm up or pretty solid effort. But I think what I took out of that experience and having done a couple ultramarathons was that going back to your point, I think is more interesting for me as a mental challenge than a aerobic bout. It just being in your own head for a couple hours for three hours, four hours, five hours, not listening to music. That's almost a forced meditation, in some perspective.

Lisa: It is. It is.

Geoffrey: And I think, especially in our day and age, you never are really alone without your devices for a 2, 3,4 or five hours. I think that's an interesting little small entry point into tapping into that notion of resilience and self-actualization.

So, I'm curious to get your thoughts on that route, but also just going back to the notion of creating one's own destiny. And I think just from a historical perspective, you look at all the great historical figures — from a Steve Jobs to Genghis Khan — everyone was some child with some interesting upbringing and they figured out some things went well, they made some mistakes. But I think the thing is, I did they didn't really stop right, I think your story is definitely a story of not stopping.

Lisa: Yeah, congratulations for stepping up to those challenges and doing those runs. Because the thing is, when it's the same as when, like, someone might look at you and go, “Wow, what a brain and he's super intelligent, and I could never do that.” And I bet you just when I'm just going to take this one step at a time, or start my degree or do this paper or do in suddenly you will start to expand, doesn't it? And you're capable, and then you find out, “Holy heck, pretty amazing what I've achieved.”

And it's the same thing with running, you start off and we coach 700 athletes now, and I've coached thousands over the years. And I've taken people from running from one lamppost up to running hundred miles. So, I know that process. And you start with people, you don't talk to them like “One day, you're going to run 100 milers”, you start with them like, “We just got to get to that lamppost down there and I'm going to teach you the way to run and the way to breathe.” And a lot of people don't even know how to breathe, and then they suddenly realize, “Oh, heck, I actually can run for half an hour, I thought that would be impossible.” And once you have those initial successes, you get the breathing correctly, you get and taking smaller steps, for starters, you teach them a few technique things, and then they get that there's that those first initial wins. And that's where you start. And then within weeks, you can have them running the first 5K, often. If they're healthy, normal people, they just don't know how to run. And all of a sudden, now the horizon is lifted to that level. And then you repeat that process up to 10 Ks up to 20KS and then they run into a brick wall, and they don't know how to get from a half marathon to a marathon. And then you show them the way through that and they may have a couple of failures on the way where they run out of glycogen. And you deal with these things as they happen.

And then all of a sudden, they're signing up for the first ultra, and then the world's open to them, then they understand that this is just one foot in front of the other, having a good coach, having good structure, not burning yourself out, doing things in the right order, getting your recovery, doing all of that sort of good stuff. And then all of a sudden, the horizons are lifted. And this is a beautiful thing when you cross the finish line or something like Death Valley, it is a moment that is a combination of in that case, 15 years’ worth of work to get there. And you've stood on the shoulders of all your teammates, you've learned so much about who you are along the way. It's not just about that journey, and then you're capable in your life, there is nothing that is going to hold you back. There is no limitations into what you can do.

But you also have to realize you have to be willing to pay the price for all of those things. You have to be willing to go to the [0:48:44]anx degree, you have to be willing when you did those runs, I bet there was times where you're in a lot of pain and your suffering and your body's screaming at you why, Geoff, just sit down? Why are you doing this? Who are you trying to impress here?

Geoffrey: Yeah, I remember that. One of the first half marathons is like it was on the team lunch, I think on a Wednesday and then, my former colleague Brianna, who wrote for Great Britain and converted to doing Iron Mans was like, “Hey, you should do a half marathon this week.” And I'm like — just like running around the Embarcadero in San Francisco — I'm like, it's like mile like seven and like, “Why am I doing this? Like my feet start hurting?” It's just like by herself, everyone, all the tourists are just like confused like, why this person's like running like these back and forth along the Embarcadero. Maybe I don't want to be overly conceited but I feel like at a certain point, like humans were just designed to be able to run 5, 10 miles. And I feel like in a more healthful society should be almost table stakes to be able to just blast out 10 miles on a dime, right? Like, I think I would love to live in a society where that just tables where you would expect people to be able to walk across the street? Any healthy person should be able to run a few miles.

Lisa: Yeah, I mean, obviously you've got disabilities or whatever, it's different. But if you're just a normal, healthy human being, then yes. There’s a book go by my friend, Chris McDougall, Born to Run. And that's all about the fact that humans are born to run and we had a TV series along this line that we tried to get off the ground, we got the pilots down, and we looked at, in historal stories of long distance running in different cultures all around the world, from the mountain [50:37] to monks to the Kalahari Bushmen to the Navajo Indians to the Maori in New Zealand, all of these ancestral people covered huge distances on foot. Whether that was running walking, but they were moving pedestrian, that's fit what we are. We’re made, were born for the stuff. We're probably not born to do 100 miles, [0:50:57]veins, to be honest, like I think we do those things because we want to find out where the limits are, but we all made to be doing 10 to 20Ks a day. I truly believe that that's what our bodies.

I often get asked, “What are you be wearing at your joints?” My joints are fine, and I've run 70,000 Ks, and I don't have knee troubles, and where the problems come is when you don't do your strength training, when you don't do your mobility work. So, in the past that would have been working in the garden and stretching and lifting and all of those things that we often just run and then we come sit at a computer. And that's a bit of a dangerous combination.

Geoffrey: Yeah, I think the argument that running is bad for your joints is definitely a misconception, right? Like, when you actually have looked at studies, that's basically an untrained person going from zero to 10 miles, and it's like, yeah, you don't expect someone that's untrained to be able to become like a computer programmer without – some probably some ego damage, not necessary physical damage, or you go from not being able to bench press 200 pounds is expecting someone to just lift a lot of heavy weights.

Lisa: Yeah. And that is actually a bit of a danger. Like I see people going on — I'm an ambassador for a race next month, my husband's running it as well. It's an 80 K, and I'm watching some of the people who have signed up in in the Stryver[52:19]  accounts and then not training and I'm like, “Oh, shoot, we're going to have carnage.” Because you need to prepare your body. Like going out and running a half marathon because you're a fit young man, and you do other stuff, you can get away with it. But that's not what like if you were to extrapolate that and go “Well, next week, I'm going to run a marathon”, well, then we'll start running into trouble because you do need a structure and build up and periodization and all those other good things, too. Because your ligament, like your cardiovascular system will do it — no worries, your ligaments and your tendons will not.

Geoffrey: Like it's not used to the pounding.

One thing that I wanted to ask about, it’s actually, I'm curious in terms of talking to folks who have done incredible endurance feats is the mindset during the bout, and I think you reflected upon it just a little bit earlier, where in the moment, there's oftentimes we're in pain, you want to stop, you want to quit. I remember a conversation with Pete Jacobs, who was an Ironman World champ, talking about trying to harken back to a notion of gratitude of love and trying to pull up that emotion as he's trying to finish some of these longer races. I'm interested in some of your mental tricks as you're doing Badwater your, your hundred miles in, it's really hot.

Lisa: You're sick and dying [laughs]

Geoffrey: I mean, autopilot survival mode. Yeah. Are you trying to recall a happy moments? Or are you more of like a David Goggins, where you trying to recall like painful hate hateful moments? Are you a Zen monk? What are your tricks?

Lisa: I've got a few tricks, definitely, and it's a bit of all of the above. The gratitude one, he's a bit of man, I find it quite hard, and at one I'm definitely a bit more David Goggins style. [laughs].

As far as, especially in my early days when I was trying to prove something and wanting to be loved and accepted basically and being okay. And so a lot of the motivation here was to prove that I could and that I was strong and that I was not useless. And that's a really — I don't care even if it's a negative motivating factor, if you like it some negative rather than the gratitude one — but it's a powerful one because you will pull out all the stops. You can hear that person's voice in your head going “You're useless.” And you're like, might be breaking down and you might be in hell pain you're going you but I cannot let that I cannot let them win, I cannot give up. And that can be a powerful force.

Now later on in my career, it became more things like doing things for a charity and especially during things for a particular person who had a disability or something, that would get me going. Because I'd be like, “Well hang on”, I've run for kids with cancer and things like that. Then you start to pull on other things, like, “I'm so grateful, I don't have cancer and get over yourself, because these kids are dying of cancer and going through chemo and all of this, and they're putting a brave face on. Get your shit together”, basically. And so you put things into perspective.

One of the couple of the other tricks I use is, if I was really in a desperate situation in a race, I'd say to myself, things like, “Okay, you've just crashed in a plane in the middle of the jungle, or the desert, or wherever you are. And you've got to run 200Ks to save your mother because she needs help. And she's stuck in that plane. Now, you're exhausted, and are you going to quit? When your mother's life depends on it? Or are you going to find the power to run another step?” And the answer was always, “I would not give up I would fight, I would find another way to take another step.” And therefore, you can do it. It's all a matter of the motivation. It's all a matter of how bad do you want this thing. And if somebody, one of your loved ones life depended on it, you can bet your bottom dollar that you would run that 200 K or that hundred mile or whatever it is, you wouldn't give up. You’d die trying, wouldn’t you?

And that when you can pull those resources out of yourself and fight through, there’s this constant battle. So when I'm running along, I'm often got this battle, what I call them, the lion and the snake and you've got the lion who's going “Come on, you can do it, you're so strong, and you're amazing, and you've got this.” And all the positive people that have been in your life represent that line, and then you've got the snake on the other side going “You’re useless, you’re never going to make this. What are you thinking? You couldn't do this, sit down, no one's going to care.” All of this sort of baggage things going on in your mind. And as the day wears on, and the nights or the days wear on, this battle gets bigger and louder and stronger. And this snake tends to get more and more control and you're just hanging on for dear life trying to not let that snake bite you.

Like when I ran through New Zealand and I had 2250 Ks ahead of me. And I've been busy, so busy with the logistics of it, I hadn't actually thought about running what it takes to run 500 Ks a week. And I got to the start line, and then all of a sudden it's set on me like an elephant and I had a panic attack. And my mum was — and this is like five minutes before I meant to start I've got all the media, I've got the crews, I've got everything right, been planning this for four months, raising money for charities, etc. And I just had a meltdown, I went over to my mum, and I'm bawling and I can't breathe and I'm having a panic attack and I go, “Mum, I can't. I can't. 2200, I can't do it and cry my eyes out.” And she like, mum’s puts them in a bear hug and she says, “Stop, stop, stop stop. I want you to think about getting to that power pole up there. That's all you have to do right now. You don't have to run 2250 Ks, you have to run to that power pole. And then we're going to get through the first half an hour. And then we're going to get to lunchtime, and then we'll see.” And by doing that she pull my focus back into the here and the now instead of projecting into the future, which was overwhelming and terrifying. And that's how we broke it down step-by-step. And there were many times along that journey with a pain was just so intense, and my body was breaking down, and I just could hardly even got to a point at one stage where I couldn't even walk without sticks. And I had to let alone run.

I managed to just keep moving forward. And all of a sudden, after two weeks, my body hit the absolute rock bottom and then it started to actually improve again, it was like — and I've heard other ultramarathoners like Charlie Engle and Raisa have crossed the Sahara. Say, it gets worse, worse, worse, worse, worse. And then you hit the rock bottom and it's almost like your body goes “Well, she hasn't quit. So we better get our shit together. We better get organized here because she's keeping going anyway, we're throwing everything at her and she's still going.” And then I actually got better and better as the whole time went on and got stronger. And by the end of that race, well that run was actually stronger than when had been in the first two weeks, which was really bizarre to understand.

Yes, these are these are some of the tricks like you know, association and disassociation, like taking yourself off to your happy place. I often go swimming with whales in my head, someplace, it's completely away from what I'm dreaming. And then if I have a crew which is some races you do, they’d be telling these stories and trying to keep my mind occupied so that I just keep out of my own body. And then other times I'll be in my body and checking in with it and saying, am I drinking enough? Have I had my electrolytes? Have I had my whatever — enough food? So, you're doing all that checklist stuff going through your head.

So, it's a combination of all these things to keep fighting through the hard moments, don't for a minute believe that you get to the Zen state of flow, and you stay there, and that's it. And you're just amazing. There are people that do. And like the guys that run the self-transcendence race, 3100 miles from New York City. That's what they're aiming for this zen state of transcending their body, I've never got there. I tried and I would have, are there moments of it, or even a couple of hours of it, we know completely in this flow state where I can even feel my body, it's like a camera, like, my eyes are like a camera, and I'm just floating through the air. But those times the short loads done fortunately for me because I haven't cracked the code. I haven't probably meditated enough to get there. But it is probably there and it's probably doable.

Geoffrey: Definitely an interesting spiritual, I think, concept I think I've tapped into very rarely as well, or just everything just feels easy. And it's like, wow, I could just do this forever. And if you can hold that, that seems like it would be a magical if you want to get tapped into that consistently.

One of the things I thought was interesting was this notion of just breaking down decomposing a large problem to smaller and smaller bits. And I think this is an adage, or a maxim that I think everyone has heard about, through teachers or stories. I think one thing that I've found through people that really live well-live lives is that you have such visceral experience, pain, scar tissue that anchors that adage to a real experience. And I think that when I step back and think about all the different — whether that's Zen Cohen, or these books with all these best practices and best tips — they're very curt, nice little encapsulated sentences, but they're really almost raisins, or all the juice behind those simple statements of “Hey, break down the marathon into just running to the next lamppost.” But someone who's never done that is like, “Oh, of course, that makes sense. I get it.” But they actually don't get it. And it sounds like you've collected so many of these adages with just truly a broad spectrum of life experiences both very, very positive, and some that are quite sad and quite unfortunate.

A kind of opening up, I mean, are there other kind of interesting adages that you just feel like you have real a depth of understanding, because you've just lived through it?

Lisa: Yeah, and you’re so right. I mean, sometimes it's a good Instagram posts that you see with little quotes, and I've used them too, and you don't actually — it's hard to convey the actual experience. And until you've actually lived through it — and these things have a real value, like breaking things down into minor chunks and keeping your focus close to you and so on. But it is hard for someone who hasn't experienced that to actually know what the hell you're talking about until you're faced with a situation. But the more you learn about the stuff, then when you are doing your next marathon ultramarathon, Geoff, you will have more of these tools already in your head and you say “Oh, Lisa said, have a go at trying this.” And then you try it out in your own body and you realize, “Hmm. This is working, I'm going to work more on this aspect of this tool.” And you do get better at things once you've actually had the experience yourself.

I did want to share one really life-changing event with your audience if I may, Geoff, just go into the story of with my mum.

Geoffrey: Please.

Lisa: Yeah, so throughout the interview, I've mentioned my mum a couple of times as being this amazing, wonderful woman and she's always supported me and all my crazy endeavours and so on, and never ever limited me in my belief of what I can do or was just an amazing woman. And she four years ago had a aneurysm which is a bleed in the brain and was rushed to hospital. We got that horrible phone call rushed up there, mum's collapsed. The ambulance driver said to the doctor, I think she's having a stroke. The doctor decided to ignore that and said “Ah, she's just having a migraine”, which was an absolute disastrous misdiagnosis, if you like. |We spent six hours in the [1:04:22] ED there, not knowing I got caught out. I didn't know what to ask for. I didn't know what was happening to her I knew she was in deep trouble in the doctor was just ignoring us. Painkillers weren't working. She was in extreme pain.

And I had a paramedic friend who crew for me on many of my races and I rang her and said, “Please can you get up here? I don't know what I don't know what to ask for. But there's something major wrong with mum.” So she came out and took one look at her and since she's having a neurological event of some sort, went and got the doctor and shook him out of his stupidity. And to get her a CT scan right now. She's having a stroke or something like that.

They took her through after six hours and had a CT scan and it came back blood right throughout the brain, aneurysm. And they didn't expect that she was going to live, it was horrific state of affairs by this time. And that experience was for me, like my mum's life's hanging in the balance. And I've been caught short not knowing what to ask for what to do and being too damn polite to push the doctors for more and it could cost of my mother her life. We had a we had another 12 hours wait for the air ambulance to come because they had to transfer her to another hospital because we live in a small town. And we didn't have the things, took 18 hours to get her into there. And in that time, and I just like, if I get a second chance to help my mum bring her back then I'll do everything in my power to to make this right.

And she had a operation, and she was in and out. She had two operations in the next couple of days. And she was in and out of a coma fighting for a life, in a critical condition, they didn't think she was going to make it. And in this time, I started to study everything about brains and aneurysms, and brain rehabilitation and everything I can possibly find on their wonderful world of the internet, Dr. Google. And I started like, I'm not going to be caught short again. And upshot of it was after three weeks, she stabilized and she was taken out of the ICU and she'd survived. But she had basically no higher function juice, she had a couple of words, but no real speech, she had no memory of who she was, what she was, or that I was her daughter, or anything like that. She had no ability to control any of your bodily functions, like massive mess of brain damage.

And after three months in the hospital, they said, “Look, she's never going to do anything again. Make her as comfortable as possible. She's 74, the brain damage is so extensive. We have to put her into a hospital level care age facility. And yeah, that’s it.” And as you might tell them quite a stubborn person, I was like, “No way am I leaving my mum in a place like that and I'm taking their home. And they said, “Look, you're not going to cope, she's 24/7, round the clock here.”

So I had a hell of a battle on my hands to get her home. And this time, I'm studying everything around, supplements for brain injury, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, sleep apnoea, all of these things that could be affecting her. And I worked out that she likely had sleep apnoea, and she was sleeping 20 hours a day anyway. The doctors ignored me again, I got an outside consultant who came in to sleep apnoea test, and it came back severe sleep apnoea. And she was knocking off her brain cells. And so we're not when we got that onto her and the CPAP machine, she started to have a little tiny bit more function. And I was like, right, what else can oxygen do?

Now I've done a lot of races or three races, sorry, at altitude in the Himalayas. And I know what it is to have oxygen deficit. And I had a situation where I'd been in one of these altitude training teams for a number of weeks, sleeping at night, and I'd been up too high at six and a half thousand meters. And I'd knocked off a lot of my brain cells and ended up with a hypoxic brain concussion myself, and ended up with infections going crazy because when your body doesn't have enough oxygen, it produces a lot a lot more bacteria and infections run wild and I was seeing this in my mum. And I'm thinking she's not getting enough oxygen despite the sleep apnoea machine and everything, what else can I do to get more oxygen? They wouldn't let me put supplemental oxygen on here. They said she didn't need it. And so I was at odds with the doctors from the get go. They were feeding her absolute crap.

Geoffrey: So I'm like, that’s basically corn syrup or something. I mean, if you look at the bags of the hospital, it's a bit of food. It's literally like corn syrup is one of the main ingredients. Kind of shocking, actually.

Lisa: It’s shopping for brain injury, actually,. [1:09:05] do you find that? No, because when you put glucose into a person who has a brain injury, it suppresses their own ketone production. And the ketones are the only things — when you have a brain injury you have a metabolic dysregulation where you can't use glucose. So, by giving someone glucose you're actually suppressing the little amount of ketones that they do have and that was all of their brain was running on and now they're giving a glucose right and Ensure and all this crappy stuff.

I didn't know that at that time. But this is why research is important. I now know that. I did start to put her on fish oils and a keto diet as soon as I couldn't get her out of hospital — high fats, good MCT oils and ketones, exogenous ketones, etc. Long story short, we were finally got her home, after a massive fight at the hospital to get her home. I had to get my brother who looks a bit like Dwayne Johnson to help me convince doctors to give us the resources we wanted which is just a caretaker in the morning and someone in the evening so to help with their personal cares and we got her home.

Then I've been studying hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And now this is a super powerful. People, go and research with hyperbaric is amazing for brain injury, also for gangrene and burns, diabetic wounds. They use this as a totally underutilized therapy. And I found out that this could help brain injury, I studied the work of Dr. Hatch in America, who has written The Oxygen Revolution, which is a book on hyperbaric. And I thought this is mum's chance, if I can get her a hyperbaric access to a hyperbaric chamber, I could maybe save her.

And of course, we didn't have one in our hometown or so I thought. And then I found a dive company that had one because they use these for dive accidents when divers get the beans and we have a port in a commercial dry facility. And so I approached these guys, and I said, “Can I use your facility? This is my situation.” They said, “Yep, sign a legal waiver. We know the power of hyperbaric and we know it's powerful. We'll give you access to it.” These are kind amazing people gave me access to this chamber.

So as soon as I got her out of the hospital, I took her down to this factory, strap her on a forklift and put her into this big hyperbaric chamber. Everyone thought I was completely nuts — excuse me — as you can imagine, this fragile delicate lady could hardly even sit. Stuck her in this chamber, we had two to three sessions over the next few weeks. After 33 treatments, she started to come back live, all I can say is that she started to wake up, she started to have words, she started to remember who I was, she started to move her arms. And she wasn't getting up and walking, but she was doing things. I could see a flicker of life in her eyes again. And I'm like, “Oh, my God, this is working.” And then they had to take the chamber off on a contract and I lost access to it.

So then I mortgaged the house and I bought a hyperbaric chamber, but I bought a mild one, Geoff. That only goes to 1.5 atmospheres, that was all I could get access to. But this is perfect for brain injury, actually. It’s almost as good, I'd say it's about 90% as good as what the big ones are for brain injury because you don't need the really low dips. For brain injury, you only need 1.5.

So anyway, I put it through another 250 sessions over the next couple of years and I still continue to put her through. As she started to come back, I had more to work with. So then, I studied Functional Neurology. I studied everything to get her balance and spatial awareness back. I studied nootropics, which you know a lot about. I studied the keto diet and keto and did physio with her.

So, I developed a protocol and a program basically an ADR program every day that I started to put it through as she started to come back. And I've tried to stay one step ahead of her therapy. Now I'm no doctor, but like you, Geoff, I just go hard out into the research and do deep dives and find the answer. When I don't have an answer, I go and I find somebody who knows the answer. And one of the selfish reasons I started my podcast was so that I can have amazing people like you and doctors and scientists on there so that I could get access to the best minds in the world for this thought.

Geoffrey: Don't give away our secret, right? Don't give away secrets. That's honestly one of the best perks of having a podcast it's you get the great meet great people. It's true.

Lisa: It is. It's the greatest reason to do a podcast. And so I would get these experts in different fields and I would learn from them and a lot of people helped me with different aspects that they were specialists in. And together we've created a miracle. My mum — now four years on — my mum is completely normal. She is reading, writing, walking, she walks a couple of kilometres a day. She goes to the gym six days a week. She has a full driver's license back, she's regained her peripheral vision even, all her reaction tests are back to pre-aneurysm levels. And this is 78 years old, Geoff. Like she's this, neuroplasticity in someone of this age is pretty unheard of.

I had one example of this and Dr. Norman Doidge’s book, the brain The Brain that Heals Itself, of Dr. Becky Rita, who was a scientist whose father had a brain injury, a massive stroke, and he had brought him back and he was in his early 60s and he had taught him. So I knew that somebody in the world had done what I needed to do, but they were like 14 years younger. So I had nobody really who could pave the way for me, but I had at least that sort of information.

And so now mum is a full driver's license, full power of attorney back over her life, full independence. We still work every single day. Unless I'm traveling for work, I'm working with her, pretty much five to six hours a day now. And we still have to keep the pedal to the metal, there’s a few things like her foot drags, and so on, on the right side, and she has a few issues. But I've got my mum back for crying out loud.

It's an amazing, miraculous story. And I was so amazed at this whole journey that I ended up writing a book and it’s called Relentless, it tells the story of bringing my mum back and the lessons that I took from the running. So there's a lot of the running stories in there. But it takes some of those lessons and how I applied it in this real-world situation. Because if I hadn't had that bit resilience, if I hadn't had the belief that the human body and mind are capable of far more than what the average person thinks it is, then I would have listened to the naysayers and I would have given up. But because I've seen crazy things like blind people running across the stairs [1:15:55], someone on crutches doing the marathon the sob lays that with multiple sclerosis, I've seen a dude run across the valley with one leg. I've seen people with hip replacements, people with broken back. And I know the power of the human spirit if they don't give into the naysayers.

And that's why I was so passionate to give back getting this book out because I wanted to share those mental insights plus all the protocols that I used for them, and, and give other people hope, who are going through whatever the difficult time is that they're going through whatever crisis.

Geoffrey: Yeah, it's an incredible turnaround and an incredible end result here. I mean, my understanding of the prognosis is that if you kind of miss diagnose an aneurysm for that length of time, it's, I mean, either deadly, or I think what it sounded like from your conversation with the doctors, they essentially were saying, “Hey, we're kind of giving up, she's going to be a kind of a vegetable, like, kind of a expectation – 

Lisa: That’s exactly the words they use.

Geoffrey: And then to turn around and see that now, what, 78 she's a fully —

Lisa: Fully normal

Geoffrey:  She's back. Have you gone back to the doctor? Have you tried to get like a —

Lisa: Get them to try it [laughs]

Geoffrey: have you turned this into a case study? Yeah, I think it just like — this is not even a buy in or show that, “Hey, you're wrong.” This is more of a, “Hey, this is something that a lot of people could potentially learn about to adjust a standard of care and to help improve the medical system. Right?” It's just like, what you have here is a very interesting “n equals one.”

I think the critics would say, well, it's not randomized. There's not controlled, fair enough. Fair enough. I think that's like valid critique, it's fair critique. But there's clearly some signal here. Right? There's definitely something that was anomalous in terms of the turnaround, can we actually take lessons and take protocols, and potentially get them through more of a randomized control trial to see if this replicates and across a broader population. But at least there's some signal and hope for any open minded scientist that's trying to say, “Hey, like, let's improve the current standard care.” I'm curious in terms of as you've been sharing, and working their publishing process, have you come back to the traditional standard of care practitioners, clinicians, and help them adjust potentially their standard of care?

Lisa: I've desperately tried to do that. And one of the reasons, the main reason for this book is to try to get a movement around this because everybody who's going through any sort of brain injuries is facing the same problems, whether it been on a lesser scale or like this.

And what I found is there are so many amazing doctors in the USA and unfortunately, they're in the USA. People like Dr. Hatch, I had a Doctor Kabran Chapek on my podcast two weeks ago, who I highly recommend for your show, actually, and he has written a book called Concussion Rescue. And I was reading just the chapter titles as I first got this and going, “Holy shit. This is exactly the protocol I've used.” And it's been put into a book by a doctor, thank god! And I was absolutely ecstatic to have him on the show. And he ratified all the things that I had been through, and he is desperately trying to get this information out there because this is relevant for people with dementia and Alzheimer's, just as much as it has relevance for stroke in aneurysm victims and concussion victims.

This is right across the board information for brain health. And so I have failed in the local doctor level. But I'm starting to be asked to speak at medical conferences. I've just been invited to speak at the world [1:19:39] outside mother and dementia conference. And I'm hoping that that will actually happen because I'm desperate for the doctors to understand the limitations in our system. And a lot of it is a lack of resources and it's also sort of institutionalized ways of thinking and the siloed ways of thinking.

And now there's some major Doctors like Dr. Chapek, but also like Dr. Mark Hyman, David Perlmutter — Dr. Perlmutter, and Dr. Austin Perlmutter, and they're putting these protocols together now, and they're putting them in the mainstream. I don't know if you've heard of the Broken Brain series by Dr. Mark Hyman, and Dhru Purohit, from Broken Brain, the podcast, and the work that they're doing, that type of information is starting to now permeate through. But it's so slow, as you know, even in this day and age with social media and the power or all this. I am one voice, I am one story. And the doctors who generally go “There's not it's not relevant, there's no clinical studies.” We didn't have spec scans. We weren't because we didn't have access to any of that to categorize, to see this process. So I don't have any proof except the videos that I took, my little amateur iPhone videos that I took all the way through this process. And I'll send you a little, just a two-minute clip, Geoff that you might want to put in the notes. And you'll see mum going from not being able to sit properly to mum being able to do a little 50 metre run and they can see for themselves that that transformation. And it's unfortunately very amateurish, and very, iPhone family videos. And that's all I've got is proof, the rest is just my anecdotal stories.

But I'm hoping that I can add my voice to the movement, I can add my voice to those of like Dr. Hyman and co, who are changing this world, and even what you're doing in the nootropics space. This isn't just about brain injury, but optimal brain performance in the keto space. That information is you combine a keto diet with hyperbaric and nootropics, and you got a combination for a great healing potential with brains?

Geoffrey: Yeah, I think that's what's exciting. There's clearly much more to be understood and much more science to be done. And I think this is how, if you get a look at the history of science, who knows if the Newton's story of an apple falling on his head, made him think about gravity, but it's just these observations, these interesting signals that guide us towards testing and understanding and making good hypotheses and testing them. And I think that, especially in this faceting and turnaround story, it's clearly signal here. And it's clearly, it sounds like it's being replicated across other folks who have been going through similar protocols.

And it's okay, hopefully, we can have this body of evidence that build momentum to hopefully change standard of care. And I think that's like a hold. I think, ultimately, what we all want to hear, it's not like, I don't think you have like a dogmatic reason to make something up. But just like, “Okay, this really helped my mum, other people should know about it.”And yes, if people want more evidence, and let's run the studies, people want to try something because they're desperate, here's a potential option. I think that's ultimately what I believe it's like, the world's going to bend towards truth. And if we can accelerate us, like the humanity as a whole, to get to truth faster, because it will help more people. I'm all about that.

Lisa: Exactly. And this is what the power of the day and age that we're living with these podcasts and in all the research that is now becoming available, we're starting to see the power of  just people movement — this is a movement of the people to start to change the systems. And this is not to, we had a discussion on our show about some failings in the system, and we're not pointing the finger at any one particular person here.

But what I want people to take away from the story is take ownership of your own health. Research. Even if you're not science nerds, like Geoff, and I, go and find the research, do your due diligence. People spend more time buying a car and researching the car than they will for their own health. And for me, that's ridiculous. You know, instead of just taking somebody's word for it, your local doctor’s word for it, that this particular drug is going to fix all your woes, how about just looking a little bit deeper and finding out your own research and taking ownership of your own health and then implementing some good basic healthy structures to your diet, your nutrition, your exercise regimes, the things that we know work for a start.

And then we can't wait. I could not wait with mum’s situation for the clinical trials to come through. I had to weigh the risks. And I did play doctor and a lot of cases, I had to weigh the risks and make educated decisions. And a lot of it was like, “Well, what's the alternative? The alternative is she's going to die very soon.” So it was that much of a desperate situation that I was willing to take some risks to get some something back.

And I've been criticized immensely for a lot of stuff that I did and for pushing my mum so hard and putting her through a torturous regime of training. But I believe it no matter how old you are – whether your 5 or your 105 – people need challenge. They need goals, they need things to be working towards. When we make older people are treasured valued older citizens who should be treasured in our society and who often aren't, when we make them feel like your past your useful day and you're no longer useful. And we just want to make you comfortable because that's what we do as humans, but we're not going to actually treat you like as a person with a history and a story and wisdom to share. And it’s terribly patronizing and horrific.

And I come from the Maori culture in New Zealand, where our elders are very respected and loved and revered for their wisdom. And unfortunately, that's not the general society that I live in. It's within my culture, but not within the wider New Zealand culture and I believe in other places as well. We have this attitude, “Well, you use your past, you're used by dates.”And certainly when it comes to resources and medical funding, I had to fight like crazy for the resources because she was an older adult. And for me, that's we've got to do better. We've got to do better. And we've got to respect our elders. They're the ones who made us who we are and we we’re all heading there, we're all getting older. Do you want to be treated like that? Ask yourself, is that what you want for yourself? For your loved ones? Then, we've got to do better and our standard of care, I think for older people. And that's a completely different topic. I could rant on about, too.

Geoffrey: Absolutely. I think the title of the book, Relentless, very apt title. Not just in terms of the relentlessness in terms of taking care of your mum, but also just your life story, just not stopping, being relentless. And it sounds like you have a number of projects going on all the time.

So what's in store for you in 2020? For the folks follow what you're up to? Where do what are some of the upcoming projects they're really excited about in 2020 and onwards?

Lisa: Yeah, look, I’m really excited from a business perspective. So, we're doing deep dives and we teach already epigenetic testing and do that with our clients. And now we have an online run training program. So we're expanding that and growing our business, from that point of view. We're looking at a couple of Venture Capital Partners and going into the pro aging space and looking into developing programs around piecing together some of the pieces of the puzzle we already have in place with our epigenetics and DNA testing and supplements, and so on.

So we're not quite sure where these negotiations and things are going to take us. But it's really exciting times for us as a company, and we're starting to expand and grow quite fast in and it's bringing its challenges with it as well, as you would well know. And it's exciting times for me on that front. So I'm not doing any long distance running myself personally anymore because I have to look after my mum seven days a week and run these other companies. So that combination is enough for me to cope with at the moment.

And that's okay, we all have times in life where sometimes I catch myself going oh, I’m a has-been, I can't do it anymore. And then I’m like, “Pull yourself together, you've got a mission now. You're on another mission and that requires sacrifice and that sacrifices I can't go off and expeditions at the moment and do more crazy stuff.” But that's okay, I've done enough. And my body certainly said to me a few times I've had enough. So yeah, really excited for the time of the day and age that we're living in, in getting to network with people like you is just gold. It really is. I really love this sort of stuff, just it inspires me to keep going.

Geoffrey: A hundred percent. Well, I can't think of a better note to end on. So Lisa, really, again, I had a lot of fun on your podcast and equally as if not more fun, actually just listen to your story, reinvigorated, re inspired, of what we're doing what you're doing.

So thank you for taking the time. We have to get in touch in person and maybe do a little bit of a light ultramarathon together.

Lisa: Absolutely. I would love to train you out for one. Anytime you need some help and structure and coaching, reach out to us. And  I hope now that we will stay connected Geoff because I really admire the work you do on this podcast. I love listening to all your interviews, it's some gold and here. And I just love being around, inspiring and inspirational people who are out there empowering other people and doing what they love.

So I think we'll stay connected for sure and I'd love to invite you to New Zealand at some stage when you want a holiday, so let me know.

Geoffrey: Alright. I'll hold you to that. All right, thank you so much.

Lisa: Thanks!

Outro H.V.M.N: Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of the H.V.M.N podcast. If you're interested to learn more about H.V.M.N and our offerings, visit hvmn.com/pod. Please remember to subscribe. And if you're watching this on YouTube, please give this video a like and remember to hit that bell to get notified whenever we post. We also have a dedicated Discord server which you can join by first taking a short survey and then I'll personally send you an invite to join the community. The link to that survey will be in the description along with any other relevant links, and we'll see you all next week.

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The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

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My latest book, Relentless, chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum, Isobel, with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again. Still, I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless.

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Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of ageing, and is designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility.

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• Cellular Health
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• Bone Density
• Skin Elasticity
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• Cardiovascular Health
• Brain Health 
• Metabolic Health

Episode Highlights

[02:32] Why Athletic Performance Drops as We Age

• The main cause of athletic performance decline is mitochondrial decline. Mitochondrial decline is linked to senescence cells. 
• Senescence cells stop dividing and do nothing. As we age, we may have 5-20% senescence cells in different tissues. 
• This causes inflammation and causes the mitochondria to function improperly, thus increasing reactive oxygen species within cells. 
• Nuclear DNA is usually packed in histones, which preserve genetic material. However, mitochondrial DNAs lack histones, making it prone to oxidative stress and mutations.   
• As we age, our epigenetic processes become less efficient; it becomes a vicious cycle with more reactive oxygen species and less capacity to deal with them. 

[08:23] How Else Do Our Bodies Respond to Ageing

• Ageing declines autophagy, which recycles cellular organelles. 
• When there’s nothing to clean up dysfunctional mitochondria, problems with energy generation arise.
• Athletes who have exercised intensely their whole life will have worn-off tissues and lactic acid buildup. 
• Remember, exercise is good, since we want some level of oxidative stress; however, we don’t want more oxidative stress than what our body can cope with. 
• Lisa shares how running ultramarathons accelerated her ageing process, wear and tear, and inflammation. 

[12:29] How to Support Autophagy and Athletic Performance? 

• Intermittent fasting is when people have a certain feeding window a day. After eating, mTOR switches off and AMPK is activated which allows for autophagy.  
• If you want to build muscle, Dr. Elena recommends eating after exercising so you can activate mTOR which helps with muscle growth.   
• You need to create a cycle going of mTOR and AMPK since autophagy recycles cells back into amino acids, which can help cells build new proteins. 
• Don’t create a feeding window that’s too narrow; you need to have enough fuel for your body. Eat chicken, meat, and foods rich in amino acids. 
• Make sure you're sleeping properly, as this can affect your muscle growth. 

[18:30] Supplements to Support Autophagy and Longevity

• You can also support autophagy through supplements like berberine. 
• Dr. Elena recommends adding supplements to specifically target senescence cells. Senolytics help kill senescence cells while senomorphics modify the senescence cells. 
• Quercetin added with Vitamin C can help kill senescence cells. By itself, quercetin can produce toxic metabolites, so it needs Vitamin C to serve as an antioxidant. 
• She also recommends taking their quercetin product with NAC and acetylcysteine to boost glutathione, a potent antioxidant. 
• Quercetin has many benefits including anti-inflammatory properties, and can be used to combat cardiovascular disease, fight seasonal allergies, and can fight cancer.    

[26:51] How to Take Quercetin

• Quercetin can be found naturally in fruits and vegetables like strawberries and onions. 
• If you’ve never taken compounds for their senescent action before, start by taking quercetin at 500 mg every day. After a month of taking it, check in on how you feel. 
• You can also implement detox protocols with a higher dosage of quercetin(around 2 - 2 ½ grams). If you want to implement this protocol, start with 5 days first. 
• Quercetin can be combined with 500mg of chlorella to boost the detoxifying reaction.
• People with kidney diseases should consult with a doctor before taking quercetin.  

[32:43] How NMN Can Help Athletes 

• In addition to mitochondrial decline, athletes can experience loss of endurance and muscle loss as they age. 
• Dr. Elena recommends increasing your fasting window depending on your goals. 
• You want more oxygenation in your tissues to preserve endurance and muscle. 
• Dr. Elena offers an NMN product that can increase both endurance and prevent age-related muscle loss.   
• This can help increase insulin sensitivity, activating longevity genes and DNA repair. 

[36:37] How to Optimise NMN 

• NMN functions optimally when it’s attached to a methyl group. Unfortunately, our body’s methylation process also declines with age. 
• NMN should be paired with TMG, as it is a rich methyl donor. 
• When you combine NMN, TMG, and quercetin, you’ll optimise your performance and endurance.

[39:11] Longevity is Your Biological Age, Not Your Chronological Age

• Many people over 40 are insulin resistant. Insulin resistance is a gateway to biological decline. 
• You can check your insulin resistance by checking your waist to hip ratio. 
• After the age of 40, it’s much easier to experience hormonal dysfunction. 
• We need to make a conscious effort to improve our health. Ageing can cause issues to spiral if left uncontrolled.  

[42:50] Be Careful With Your Food

• 80% of adults in the west are insulin resistant. 
• The food industry worsens the condition by offering so many processed carbohydrates. 
• Many people have false ideas about what a healthy diet is. You can’t have too many carbohydrates and sugar, even if they’re coming from fruits. 
• Cut down on carbohydrates, avoid processed foods, and take good oils. 

[45:21] Start with the Basics

• Start with the basics. You don’t need to add supplements immediately. 
• Just eat clean and good food. There’s no such thing as a universal diet. 
• Taking cold showers in the morning can improve hormonal balance. You can start with just 10 seconds of cold exposure. 
• Manage your stress levels and make sure you move regularly. 
• You don’t need to be perfect. 

[50:47] How Some People Live to 100 

• There were two hypotheses surrounding centenarians: good habits and the absence of high-risk genes. However, some centenarians were found to have bad habits and mutations for Alzheimer’s disease. 
• Centenarians have genes that mitigate risks from bad mutations. They also have low IGF 1 levels. 
• When people are young, IGF 1 can improve muscle and tissue growth, but it can be harmful when people grow older.
• Centenarians’ genetic combination allowed for IGF to decrease as they grow older. Listen to the episode to learn more about how centenarians’ hormonal processes are being regulated.
• Commit to regularly regulating and balancing your hormones. This process starts with clean food, caloric restriction, and exercise.    

About Dr. Elena

Dr. Elena Seranova is a scientist, serial entrepreneur, and business mentor. She has now founded multiple innovative biotechnological businesses. She first studied at the University of Ioannina with a major in Psychology. Dr. Elena then started a private practice before developing an interest in neuroscience.

Dr. Elena continued her studies and earned her Master’s Degree in Translational Neuroscience at the University of Sheffield. She now also holds a Doctorate Degree in Stem Cell Biology and Autophagy from the University of Birmingham.

Dr. Elena’s expertise in these fields led her to co-found the biotech start-up SkyLab Bio. She has written several peer-reviewed articles on autophagy.

Her latest business is NMN Bio. Her own experiences with supplements have inspired her to expand the market to include cutting-edge anti-ageing supplements. NMN Bio reaches New Zealand, the UK, and Europe.

Dr. Elena found her passion for drug discovery and autophagy. She has endeavoured to share this with the public through her research and work as an entrepreneur. 

To learn more about Dr. Elena and her work, visit NMN Bio.

Resources

• Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron! 
• Want to learn more from Dr Dom? Check out our previous episode with her: 
• • Episode 238 - Reverse Ageing to Live Longer and Healthier with Dr. Elena Seranova
  • Episode 189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova 
  • Episode 183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova       
• Want to dive deeper into longevity and work out a protocol for yourself? Take the Foundations of Longevity and Life Extension Online Course by Dr Elena Seranova and Jesse Coomer 
• Deep Nutrition: Why Your Genes Need Traditional Food by Catherine Shanahan, M.D. 
• Centenarians, metformin, and longevity | Nir Barzilai, M.D., Episode 204 from the Peter Attia podcast 
• Flavonoid Apigenin Is an Inhibitor of the NAD+ase CD38
• Therapeutic Potential of Quercetin: New Insights and Perspectives for Human Health
• Visit NMN Bio to know more about NMN supplements!  

In this episode mental toughness coaches Lisa Tamati and Neil Wagstaff give you their best insights into how to stop fear ruling your life and how they integrate the tools and techniques into their lives.

We would like to thank our sponsors

 Running Hot - By Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff

If you want to run faster, longer and be stronger without burnout and injuries then check out and TRY our Running Club for FREE on a 7 day FREE TRIAL Complete holistic running programmes for distances from 5km to ultramarathon and for beginners to advanced runners.
 
All include Run training sessions, mobility workouts daily, strength workouts specific for runners, nutrition guidance and mindset help Plus injury prevention series, foundational plans, running drill series and a huge library of videos, articles, podcasts, clean eating recipes and more.
 
www.runninghotcoaching.com/info and don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel at Lisa's Youtube channel  www.yotube.com/user/lisatamat and come visit us on our facebook group
 
www.facebook.com/groups/lisatamati

You can find all our programs, courses, live seminars and more at www.lisatamati.com 
 

We are also holding another live event on the 31st of August- 1st of September in Havelock North, New Zealand - Its a weekend running seminar 

Join us for a weekend of fun, inspiration and education around everything Running

Do you want to run with less pain and injuries, avoid burnout and over training?
Do you want to have a better running technique?
Want to improve your times?
Want to learn how to maximise your training time and train efficiently while getting optimal results?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then this weekend is for you!
Suitable for absolute beginners just starting out on their journey through to elite ultramarathon runners looking to improve their 100 mile times.

So come and meet some great like minded people and hang out with the Running Hot Coaching team and completely change the trajectory of your running career.

What's included
Saturday 31st of August (9am-4pm + Dinner)

Run video analysis and review

Drills and skills for runners

Core and strength training for runners

Flexibility and mobility for runners

Nutrition for runners

Mindset training

Dinner and tales from the trails with Lisa Tamati and Neil Wagstaff (Meal and entertainment included in the package price, drinks extra)

Sunday 1st of September (9am-12:30pm)

Putting it all together into a programme that works for you

2 hours walk/hike/run on Te Mata Peak (suitable for all abilities)

Find out more and register here: https://training.runninghotcoaching.com/how-to-revolutionise-your-running-training?fbclid=IwAR2bFPz6A26CMbzrMhqRyIcdCs9Sgb25mnYv3jTbneouxyyWtzqIx9ZZrKI

The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional
 

Ok, but what next. How do we break down huge hairy audacious goals into bite size pieces, what are SMART goals, how does our brains RAS filter work, how do we stay motivated when the going gets tough.

Neil and Lisa Co-Founders of Running Hot Coaching take you on a deep dive into the world of goal setting and just how you can make sure you nail those long held dreams without quitting along the way.

We would like to thank our sponsors

Running Hot Coaching: 

The online training platform run by Lisa Tamati and Neil Wagstaff. 

Do you have a dream to run a big race, maybe a half marathon, a marathon or even an ultramarathon?

Have you struggled to fit in the training in your busy life?

Maybe you don't know where to start or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injuries troubles?

Do you want to beat last years time or finish at the front of the pack?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then we can help you.

We promise to get you to the start line in the best shape ever! We will give you the benefit of our years of knowledge and experience in competing and training athletes, so you can avoid the mistakes, train efficiently, have fun and stay in optimal health while you are doing it.

So who are we?

Lisa Tamati is an a professional ultramarathon runner with over 25 years experiences racing the world's toughest endurance events and leading expeditions. Author of two internationally published running adventure books. She is also a mindset expert. From crossing the Libyan desert on foot to running Death Valley to running the length of NZ for charity, she has been there and done that. For more information on Lisa click here: www.lisatamati.co.nz

Neil Wagstaff is an exercise scientist, coach and ultramarathon runner with over 22 years experience in the health and fitness industry. He has trained hundreds of athletes and coaches alike to the successful completion of their goals.  For more info or to download our free run training ecourse go to www.runninghotcoaching.com/running-success

Training Tilt software - a complete toolkit for trainers, health and fitness professionals, coaches and nutritionists, combine your website, ecommerce needs, client communication and training plans into one easy to use platform. Find out more at www.lisatamati.co.nz/trainingtilt

The Path of an Athlete - Mindset academy. An in-depth online programme that teaches you how to develop mental toughness, resilience, leadership skills, a never quit mentality, mental wellbeing and the keys for success in anything you set your mind to.

Do you wish you had the mental toughness of an extreme athlete?
Do you seek the confidence to deal with any threat, to steer any situation or challenge to a positive outcome?

If so, you can now learn the secrets to mental toughness and to developing a never quit mindset from someone who has been there and done that and lived to tell the tale.

For more information go to www.lisatamati.co.nz/ecourse

The North Face -

Premier Outdoor equipment specialists who have been kitting out adventurers around the world for the past 50 years. 

Specialists in trail running gear - Check out their full range at www.thenorthface.co.nz

The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

Off the top of your head, think about the healthy foods you eat regularly. Does your diet contain seed oils and carbs? How about protein-rich and fatty food?

There are a lot of misconceptions about what foods are healthy or not. Many of these beliefs are further perpetuated by the media, big food companies and even nutrition advice from the government. For instance, did you know that “heart-healthy foods” with omega-6 are highly inflammatory and that high cholesterol levels can help in healing? The key is to find what works best for your body, but it’s not always easy with misinformation so rampant.

In this episode, Richard Smith discusses how the ketogenic diet has changed his life. Not only did it reverse his health issues significantly, but it also made him into a bodybuilding champion. He also explains how “healthy” foods are doing the exact opposite of what we’re led to believe. Whether or not you wish to start a ketogenic diet, it’s vital to go back to the basics of nutrition and learn what is harmful and helpful to your body. 

If you want to learn more about the ketogenic diet for a healthier and stronger body, then this episode is for you!

Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

1. Learn how the ketogenic diet can benefit both athletes and non-athletes. 
2. Discover how your perspective on “healthy” foods may be wrong and harmful.
3. Understand how to get back to the basics of health and nutrition.  

Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up

For our epigenetics health programme, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to https://wellness.lisatamati.com/epigenetics.

Customised Online Coaching for Runners

CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries

Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles?

Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler?

​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle? 

Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.

Health Optimisation and Life Coaching

Are you struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world? Then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you.

If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, contact us at support@lisatamati.com.

Order My Books

My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again. Still, I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless.

For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.

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Quality You Can Trust — NMN

Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of aging while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility

Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined

• Cellular Health
• Energy & Focus
• Bone Density
• Skin Elasticity
• DNA Repair
• Cardiovascular Health
• Brain Health 
• Metabolic Health

My  ‘Fierce’ Sports Jewellery Collection

For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.

Episode Highlights

[02:47] Richard’s Background

• Richard used to be clinically obese and diabetic in his 20s. He also suffered from chronic fatigue, depression, anxiety, migraines, and arthritic pains. 
• He tried many lifestyles and diets but lacked proper knowledge of nutrition and did not understand what foods are healthy. 
• Richard used to take different medications, but these increased his anxiety and headache. 
• He also tried cutting off bread from his diet. It helped him lose 28 pounds in 4 weeks. His friend then introduced him to the ketogenic diet.

[08:04] How the Ketogenic Diet Helped Richard

• Richard struggled with transitioning to the ketogenic diet. His headaches worsened, and he had an intense sugar craving. 
• He persevered, and the ketogenic diet changed his life. He lost 107 pounds in 12 months, reversed diabetes, and erased his migraines.
• People have a misconception that cholesterol is bad fuel and people can’t live without carbohydrates. 
• Yet, there are many scientific studies that state otherwise.

[13:33] How Richard Started Keto Pro

• The truth about “healthy” food is the opposite of what we are usually taught. 
• The insight was so shocking that Richard wanted to share his learnings through coaching. He quit his job and started Keto Pro. 
• Richard further developed his understanding of the ketogenic diet through research and self-experimentation.

[19:57] Different People Need Different Things 

• Genetic differences can dictate what is important. For example, Lisa shares how her Maori and Pacific Island friends are better suited for low-carb diets. 
• What works for someone else may not work for you. Be open-minded and constantly experiment to find what suits your body best.
• If you want to change your health, you need to start with the basics.

[22:23] How to Start a Ketogenic Diet

• First, cut off grains. Second, drop vegetable and seed oils.
• Grains play a role in developing autoimmune diseases. They can release lectin that makes our antibodies attack proteins in our body.
• Richard recommends removing all grains. This includes bread, pasta, rice, and cereals. Although white rice is low in lectin, it can be easy to over-consume.
• Rice is also high in carbohydrates, which can make you insulin resistant.

[25:45] Why You Should Reduce Carbohydrates

• Excess carbohydrates can create metabolic dysregulation.
• Insulin resistance happens over some time.
• Carbohydrate consumption can be different for everyone. If you’re insulin resistant, reduce your consumption.   
• Most people are taught the caloric model for healthy eating. This does not account for nuances and micronutrients. Listen to the full episode to learn more!

[29:38] How the Ketogenic Diet can Help Athletes 

• Carbohydrate-dependent athletes can find it hard to run long marathons since they need to refuel around every 20 minutes. 
• Meanwhile, fat-adapted athletes can run 100k without needing to refuel and worrying about electrolytes. 
• Lectins tend to bind to insulin receptors and take five times more storage than fat.
• Lectins can also prevent the absorption of other nutrients, which can easily lead to overeating since we need more nutrients.   
• Ketogenic diets can not only help with weight loss but can also build lean muscle. To prove this, Richard joined physique competitions despite his anxiety.

[42:04] How to Utilise Fat and Protein

• Richard shares that even with his poor genes, the ketogenic diet helped him gain the physique to become a bodybuilding champion.
• Carbohydrates do not grow muscles. Instead, it’s the co-ingestion of fat with protein.
• A good starting point is 70% fat and 25% protein to induce a ketogenic state. However, Richard recommends increasing proteins after 2–3 weeks.  
• There is still a lot of fear surrounding protein in the ketogenic community. Proteins do not pull people away from the ketogenic state. 
• Increasing your protein intake can also make the diet more sustainable.

[46:21] Should We Cycle In and Out of Ketosis? 

• Maintaining a ketogenic state helps Richard more than cycling in and out of ketosis.
• Since his body is keto-adapted, he can process a large volume of carbohydrates and maintain a ketogenic state. 
• Over time, the ketogenic diet can train your body to become metabolically flexible.

[48:56] Importance of Exogenous Ketones

• Beginners can use exogenous ketones to get into ketosis easier. This can also aid in the transition. 
• However, Richard does not recommend combining exogenous ketones with a high-carbohydrate diet. 
• Exogenous ketones can boost mental clarity and recovery during training. It can also help people who suffered from brain injuries, aneurysms, strokes, and concussions.

[55:14] Rethink Healthy Food 

• Inflammation is a sign that you’re doing something wrong.
• Your lifestyle may be the root cause of your health problems. Consider possible lifestyle changes before resorting to medication and surgery.
• Dig deeper into nutrition; the food that we think is healthy may really be
• High cholesterol levels and protein levels can help with healing and recovery. In the full episode, Richard shares how he healed from surgery 7 weeks earlier than expected.

[1:01:26] What Oils Should We Avoid?

• Sunflower, safflower, canola, and peanut oils come from seeds. The process to create them uses chemicals like hexane that can damage the body. 
• Reducing saturated fats and replacing them with seed and vegetable oils can increase your risk of death. 
• Cholesterol is essential for us to function. In fact, you can find cholesterol in every cell in your body.
• Richard consumes tallow, lard, ghee, avocado oil, coconut oil, and olive oil.
• He also recommends eating fish rather than fish oils for omega-3.

[1:05:54] Back to Basics

• Go back to the basics and cut out processed food.
• Understand how food and nutrition work.
• While restricting sugar is good, remember that all carbohydrates break down into sugar.
• Don’t underestimate the gut-brain connection. Poor gut health can easily lead to depression and anxiety.
• Age does not correlate with size. If you have a lot of visceral fat, that’s a sign of metabolic dysregulation.

[1:16:41] Introducing Keto Pro 

• Richard shares the importance of research and development, rather than marketing, for Keto Pro. 
• His products have the world’s highest purity rating at 99.9%. 
• Keto Pro also offers electrolytes mixed with molybdenum, selenium, and aster xantham.
• They use all-natural ingredients and without artificial sweeteners. 
• Richard is committed to serving the best product possible to help people. Find out more about Keto Pro’s products in the full episode.

Resources

• Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!
• Previous Pushing the Limits podcast episodes: 
• • Episode 189: Understanding Autophagy and Increasing Your Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova
  • Episode 183: Sirtuins and NAD Supplements for Longevity with Dr Elena Seranova
• Ancel Keys and the lipid hypothesis: early breakthroughs to current management of dyslipidemia (BCMJ)
• Insulin vs Glucagon: The relevance of dietary protein by Dr Benjamin Bikman
• BioDiet by David Harper and Dale Drewery
• Coingestion of protein with carbohydrate during recovery from endurance exercise stimulates skeletal muscle protein synthesis in humans (NCBI)
• Sodium and health - concordance and controversy (BMJ)
• The Undiscussed Side Effects of Birth Control Pills
• Get your premium exogenous ketones at Keto Pro. You can also access educational videos about keto here! 
• Interested in Richard’s full story and before/after pictures? Find out more here.    
• Connect with Richard: Twitter | Instagram 

7 Powerful Quotes

“I tried every sort of diet and lifestyle that you can think of and nothing seemed to work, almost to the point you had thrown in the towel and given up. But I hated the way I looked. I hated the fact I didn't have energy. It didn't sit right with me; it didn't seem normal.”

“This whole reeducation piece — this is what we're trying to teach people that these foods are causing inflammation and insulin resistance. One of the factors that many overlook is that people look at the caloric model: it's X amount of calories — calories in, calories out. “

“I don't want that food. But if I do, I'm willing to accept the consequences today because tomorrow I'm going to be backing in strict and avoiding migraines and seed oils. But ketones — as you say — a fantastic way to help induce a ketogenic state.”

“A lot of people will ask the question, ‘Well, I've had my bloods done. I'm not diabetic, therefore, I'm not insulin-resistant.’ Insulin resistance happens over a long time… But insulin rises to continue to keep us healthy and drive these nutrients into the cells. Insulin will rise over time, and it'll continue to raise until the point where it can't raise any more. “

“But for me, it comes down to the core foundation, and I think, comes back to reeducating about the effects of these carbohydrates and seed oils. I think as long as you're mindful, when you reeducate someone, you're arming them with a tool, and you're giving them the means to make that decision.”

“I've done it the right way. It's just difficult to market a product, especially. We're a small company and keep it within. The UK isn't as big as it is in the US and the rest of the world. So I think it comes down to reeducating people and explaining that there's a lot of common misconceptions about keto and the cholesterol ketoacidosis.”

“I keep going back to why I started to do what I do, and it was in order to help people.”

About Richard Smith

Richard Smith is a nutritionist and professional athlete who became a British Champion. He used to suffer from pre-diabetes, kidney stones, high blood pressure, high glucose levels, and many illnesses. He took various medications but none of them work, forcing him to take a full pack of paracetamol every single day. Eventually, he tried the ketogenic diet, and it changed his life forever.    

The ketogenic lifestyle reversed his illnesses. Seeing the benefits of the lifestyle, Richard created Keto Pro to give people access to affordable and high-quality ketogenic products. 

Learn more about the ketogenic lifestyle on Keto Pro.  You can also connect with Richard on Twitter and Instagram.     

Enjoyed This Podcast?

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Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can learn how to optimise their health.

Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.

To pushing the limits,

Lisa

Learn why failure is only a feedback loop, why the naysayers in life can be the biggest blessings you have on your road to success.

Why you should never subordinate yourself to the dreams and wishes of others and how to define your own values and hence your own dreams and goals.

Why setting "Fantasy" goals will not lead to success but to disappointment and why having a higher purpose is the ticket for getting more out of yourself.

We would like to thank our sponsors

Running Hot - By Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff

If you want to run faster, longer and be stronger without burnout and injuries then check out and TRY our Running Club for FREE on a 7 day FREE TRIAL Complete holistic running programmes for distances from 5km to ultramarathon and for beginners to advanced runners.
 
All include Run training sessions, mobility workouts daily, strength workouts specific for runners, nutrition guidance and mindset help Plus injury prevention series, foundational plans, running drill series and a huge library of videos, articles, podcasts, clean eating recipes and more.
 
www.runninghotcoaching.com/info and don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel at Lisa's Youtube channel  www.yotube.com/user/lisatamat and come visit us on our facebook group
 
www.facebook.com/groups/lisatamati

You can find all our programs, courses, live seminars and more at www.lisatamati.com 
 

We are also holding another live event on the 31st of August- 1st of September in Havelock North, New Zealand - Its a weekend running seminar 

Join us for a weekend of fun, inspiration and education around everything Running

Do you want to run with less pain and injuries, avoid burnout and over training?
Do you want to have a better running technique?
Want to improve your times?
Want to learn how to maximise your training time and train efficiently while getting optimal results?

If you answered yes to any of these questions then this weekend is for you!
Suitable for absolute beginners just starting out on their journey through to elite ultramarathon runners looking to improve their 100 mile times.

So come and meet some great like minded people and hang out with the Running Hot Coaching team and completely change the trajectory of your running career.

What's included
Saturday 31st of August (9am-4pm + Dinner)

Run video analysis and review

Drills and skills for runners

Core and strength training for runners

Flexibility and mobility for runners

Nutrition for runners

Mindset training

Dinner and tales from the trails with Lisa Tamati and Neil Wagstaff (Meal and entertainment included in the package price, drinks extra)

Sunday 1st of September (9am-12:30pm)

Putting it all together into a programme that works for you

2 hours walk/hike/run on Te Mata Peak (suitable for all abilities)

Find out more and register here: https://training.runninghotcoaching.com/how-to-revolutionise-your-running-training?fbclid=IwAR2bFPz6A26CMbzrMhqRyIcdCs9Sgb25mnYv3jTbneouxyyWtzqIx9ZZrKI

The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

Even professional athletes aren’t immune to cramping and dehydration. If you constantly suffer from these, your performance can be sorely affected. It’s understandably frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be — as long as you know your body well and how to optimise fuel and hydration to enhance your athletic performance.

In this episode, sports scientist Andy Blow discusses the proper way to fuel and hydrate your body for peak athletic performance. We disuss sweat tests and how they can help you balance your intake of fluid and electrolytes. Andy shares the importance of carb fueling, along with the benefits of intermittent fasting and the keto diet. Lastly, Andy explains what his company, Precision Fuel & Hydration, does and its commitment to helping athletes achieve peak health and performance.

If you want to learn more about proper fueling and hydration, then this episode is for you!

Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode:

1. Understand your body’s needs for peak athletic performance.
2. Learn the amount of carbs, fluid, and electrolytes your body needs.
3. Find out how to curb gut issues while hydrating.

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For our epigenetics health programme, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to https://wellness.lisatamati.com/epigenetics.

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Do you want to beat last year’s time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler?

​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle? 

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Are you struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world? Then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you.

If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, contact us at support@lisatamati.com.

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My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again. Still, I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless.

For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.

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Episode Highlights

[03:51] Andy’s Background

• Andy was a full-time athlete and studied sports science at university.
• Bringing together his degree and athletic background, he built his company, Precision Fuel & Hydration.
• Andy participated in triathlons and aimed for the 2004 Athens Olympics. His performance sweet-spot was races over an hour and less than five or six hours.

[09:11] The Story Behind Precision Fuel & Hydration

• During races, Andy performed well in cool conditions.
• He noticed that he didn’t do well in hot weather. He had a high sweat rate, which led to cramps and low sodium levels.
• After getting a sweat test, he discovered that he was losing too much salt through sweat. 
• So, he dialled up the sodium and reduced his fluid intake. The electrolyte dosage is crucial for optimum performance.
• Andy started Precision Fuel & Hydration by sweat testing people to determine how much fluid and electrolytes they need.

[18:17] Gut Issues & Electrolytes

• Gut issues can occur when there’s a mismatch between your physiology and the amount of electrolytes you’re consuming.
• Listen to your body and make sure your intake of fluid and electrolytes are right for you.

[21:23] How To Get A Sweat Test

• Precision Fuel & Hydration has sweat test centres in the UK, America, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.
• If you’re interested in getting a sweat test, you can find their locations on their website or reach out to find someone local to you.
• Their website also has a free online hydration test.
• There's no "one size fits all" approach to hydration; an individualised approach to health is needed.

[27:37] The Relationship Between Sodium & Potassium

• The relationship between the ratios of body fluid and electrolytes is essential.
• Sodium is the predominant electrolyte in your extracellular fluid, while potassium is the predominant electrolyte in your intracellular fluid.
• An imbalance between sodium and potassium can be detrimental.
• Potassium doses can be dangerous if not done properly.

[27:37] The Role of Magnesium

• You don’t lose vast amounts of magnesium when you sweat.
• However, some people find that taking magnesium supplements helps with cramps.
• The majority of cramping incidents can be solved with the right sodium supplementation, making it a game-changer in an athlete’s performance.

[37:11] Carb Fueling

• If you load up on carbs before endurance events, you can go faster for longer.
• The more carbohydrates you can oxidise, the lower the oxygen your body consumes in exercise, and the faster you can go — that’s why marathon runners consume lots of carbs.
• Maximise carbohydrate intake and absorption for endurance events.
•  For fast moving-athletes, the minimum carbohydrate recommendation is around 60  to 90 grams per hour.
• Endurance training helps the body burn fat more efficiently, but when you’re burning fat, your pace slows–which isn’t optimal for racing.

[47:54] What’s In Their Gels?

• Precision Fuel & Hydration gels are maltodextrin-based with some fructose.
• Other gels are more like syrups, which can make people sick, but Precision Fuel & Hydration gels are like jelly or jam without flavour, colour, and electrolytes.
• Its ingredients are carbs, pectin, and citric acid.
• Fat adaptation and carbs depend on your body and activity.
• While carbs might seem unfashionable with the rise of the keto diet and fat adaptation, carb intake can also help with fueling.

[57:22] Intermittent Fasting

• Andy cycles his carbohydrate intake around his activity level.
• His wife is interested in intermittent fasting from a scientifically-based perspective.
• He does not follow the same regime as his wife, but he skips breakfast and narrows his eating window depending on his activity.
• Doing intermittent fasting effectively fires up the same cellular machine.
• Don’t be rigid about fasting and eat when you need to so you won’t be deficient.

[1:07:14] Find Out How Much Carbs You Need

• Their Quick Carb Calculator shows how many carbs you need per hour.
• You can also access one-on-one video calls with their sports science team so you can get an individualised approach.

[1:09:26] Staying True To Their Mission

• Precision Fuel & Hydration began offering one-on-one video calls during the pandemic.
• They use automation to make these calls quick and simple.
• The core of their business is to be a resource for athletes — and they always keep this mission in mind as they scale.

7 Powerful Quotes

‘I thought I'd solve the problem for everyone because I was taking a high dose and I was just like high dose is the way to go. But you learn over time that actually that more individualized approach is the way to go.’

‘The thing about body fluid and electrolytes is that the absolute levels of them are important. But what's even more important is the relationship between the ratios between them.’

‘Sodium is the predominant electrolyte in your extracellular fluid. Potassium is the predominant electrolyte in your intracellular fluid. When you get those two seriously out of whack that can cause problems — no matter if you've got the right level of water.’

‘What happens with 90 odd percent of athletes that have electrolyte disturbances, it's a sodium imbalance issue because extracellular fluid is very sodium rich. It doesn't have a lot of potassium in it.’

‘At least the majority, if not a vast majority of that cramping, can be alleviated with the right sodium supplementation.’

‘If you want to go fast doing endurance events even for multiple hours, carbohydrate is your friend and you kind of need to work on ways to maximise intake and absorption.’

‘One-size-fits-all soundbite advice like, ‘With electrolytes, you need to do this. With fluid, you need to do this.’ The reality is there's a little bit more or a lot more nuance in a lot of people's heads.’

Resources

• Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!
• Precision Fuel & Hydration website
• Connect with Andy: Twitter | LinkedIn

About Andy

Andy Blow is a sports scientist and co-founder of Precision Fuel & Hydration. He earned his degree in Sports and Exercise Science from the University of Bath. His expertise is sweat, dehydration, and cramping. He was formerly the team sports adviser for the Benetton and Renault and remains the Porsche Human Performance Centre adviser.

An elite athlete in his youth, Andy finished in the top 10 of Ironman and IM 70.3 races, including winning an Xterra World title. His struggles with cramps and dehydration led to his specialisation in electrolyte replenishment and building Precision Fuel & Hydration. He’s a leading figure in sports hydration and has co-authored several studies and books. His works have been published in BMJ Journals, Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, and Journal of the Endocrine Society.

Learn more about Andy’s work on the Precision Fuel & Hydration website. You can also connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Enjoyed This Podcast?

If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends!

Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can know how to properly fuel and hydrate their bodies. 

Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts.

To pushing the limits,

Lisa

In today's episode Lisa's talks about the two minds. The conscious mid and the Subconscious mind. The subconscious mind can process 20 000 000 bits of info per second. The conscious mind can only process 40 bits of info/sec. So the subconscious mind can process 500 000 time more what the conscious mind is able to.

This information has powerful implications when it comes to getting what you want and desire in life and to changing behaviours and thought processes that are no longer serving you or that are limiting you.

Your conscious mind is your creative mind, your self, your wants, your desires. Your subconscious mind is a tape recorder. It just plays back whatever it was programmed with. 

We learn how you got your programming to begin with and why it might be direct competition to what you actually want and how that might be sabotaging your attempts to change. 

To learn more about this topic Lisa recommends you read "The Biology of Belief" by Dr Bruce Lipton and to study his works at www.brucelipton.com

We would like to thank our sponsors

Running Hot - By Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff

If you want to run faster, longer and be stronger without burnout and injuries then check out and TRY our Running Club for FREE on a 7 day FREE TRIAL Complete holistic running programmes for distances from 5km to ultramarathon and for beginners to advanced runners.
 
All include Run training sessions, mobility workouts daily, strength workouts specific for runners, nutrition guidance and mindset help Plus injury prevention series, foundational plans, running drill series and a huge library of videos, articles, podcasts, clean eating recipes and more.
 
www.runninghotcoaching.com/info and don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel at Lisa's Youtube channel  www.yotube.com/user/lisatamat and come visit us on our facebook group
 
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Epigenetics Testing Program by Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff.

Wouldn’t it be great if your body came with a user manual? Which foods should you eat, and which ones should you avoid? When, and how often should you be eating? What type of exercise does your body respond best to, and when is it best to exercise?

These are just some of the questions you’ll uncover the answers to in the Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others. There’s a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the “future of personalised health”, as it unlocks the user manual you’ll wish you’d been born with!

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Find out more about our  Epigenetics Program and how it can change your life and help you reach optimal health, happiness and potential at: https://wellness.lisatamati.com/epigenetics

You can find all our programs, courses, live seminars and more at www.lisatamati.com 

The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.