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Pushing The Limits

"Pushing the Limits" - hosted by ex-professional ultra endurance athlete, author, genetics practitioner and longevity expert, Lisa Tamati, is all about human optimization, longevity, high performance and being the very best that you can be. Lisa Interviews world leading doctors, scientists, elite athletes, coaches at the cutting edge of the longevity, anti-aging and performance world. www.lisatamati.com
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Now displaying: January, 2020
Jan 31, 2020
World-leading Brain Injury Physician Dr. Kabran Chapek, author of the new book "Concussion Rescue" shares his insights, experience and comprehensive guide to reclaiming your brain function after a brain injury.
 
But this is also an episode on brain health in general and everyone alive on this planet needs to think about the future of their brain health, from traumatic brain injury to Alzheimer's to dementia, you will have the privilege of learning from on the best physicians out there.
 
Dr. Chapek has been a staff physician at Amen Clinics since 2013. As a graduate of Bastyr University in the Seattle area, he is an expert in the use of functional and integrative treatments and collaborates extensively with many of the Amen Clinics physicians. He has a special interest in the assessment and treatment of Alzheimer's and dementia, traumatic brain injuries, PTSD, and anxiety disorders. Dr. Chapek is the founding president of the Psychiatric Association of Naturopathic Physicians, an affiliate group of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians.
You can find Dr. Chapeks book "Concussion Rescue" on amazon 
https://www.amazon.com/Concussion-Rescue-Comprehensive-Program-Traumatic/dp/0806540230
 
You can do the brain health assessment at www.brainhealthassessment.com 
and follow Dr Kabran Chapek on  instagram at @drkabran_chapek
You can reach out to Dr Amen at  www.amenclinics.com 
 
 
We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:
 
 
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For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com 
 
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Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.
 
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For Lisa's free weekly Podcast "Pushing the Limits" subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app or visit the website 
 
 
Transcript of the Podcast: 
 
Speaker 1: (00:00)
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

Speaker 2: (00:12)
[Inaudible]

Speaker 3: (00:13)
If your brain is not functioning at its best then checkout what the team at vielight.com do now being like producers, photo biomodulation devices, your brain function, the pain's largely on the health of the energy sources of the brain cells. In other words, the mitochondria and research has shown that stimulating your brain with near infrared light revitalizes mitochondria. And I use these devices daily for both my own optimal brain function and also for other age-related decline issues and also for my mom's brain rehabilitation after her aneurism and stroke. So check out what the team do at vielight.com. That's V I E L I G H T . Com and use the code TAMATI at checkout to get 10% of any of their devices.

Speaker 2: (01:05)
[Inaudible]

Speaker 3: (01:05)
Oh my gosh, you guys are in for the biggest, most amazing interview ever. I have Dr. Kabran Chapek to guest in a moment now. He is a staff physician at the amen clinics in America, in Seattle. And this interview is about his book, a concussion rescue, which just came out in January. Absolutely fascinating man with amazing information. If you have any problem with your brain, if you've ever had a traumatic brain injury, a concussion, if any one of your loved ones have, if you're worried about dementia, if you're worried about Alzheimer's or the future of your brain health and who shouldn't be, everybody should be interested in that. Then you must, must listen to this amazing interview. I got so much out of this and it ratified a lot of the things that I'd been doing with my mum and her journey and gave me some new ideas too. So really excited for this interview. I hope you enjoy it now over to dr Chapek.

Speaker 3: (02:09)
Well, hello everyone. Lisa Tamati here at pushing the limits. It's fantastic to have you all, Back again, I really appreciate your loyalty. And this week I have a very special guest all the way from Seattle and America adopted Cameron chopping up the chocolate. Welcome to the show. It's an honor to be here with you. Lisa. It's fantastic. When one of the one of your assistants reached out to me to see if you had come on my show. And so I was just so excited when I read the outline of your new book concussion rescue, which we're going to dive into today because it was like, Oh, finally, finally someone's put this together, put this all together in a book that the light person can understand. So dr Chapek, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and where you and this amazing new book concussion risks.

Speaker 4: (03:02)
Okay, so I'm a naturopathic physician and which if, if your listeners are not sure what that is, it's looking at treating the whole person, looking at treating the cause versus symptoms. It's, that's the philosophy of naturopathic medicine and the training. In some ways it's similar, some ways different do conventional MDs are medical doctors where we have the basic sciences, but then we have the ologies oncology, gastroenterology, nutrition, exercise, all of that. So that's kind of my background in training. I work at amen clinics, which is based on dr Hayman's work. And he's a psychiatrist. Been doing this for 30 years and 30 years ago he said, instead of just talking to people, I need to look at their brains. This is what, who they are. And so he started imaging people's brains with the type of scan called SPECT, S, P, E, C, T, single photon emission computed tomography.

Speaker 4: (03:58)
It's kind of like a CT scan, but it's looking at functional aspects. So how is the brain working? And so we have this huge database of scans, 150,000 scans. When patients come in, we can compare their scans to the database, we can do research. And so part of our evaluation is looking at the brain versus just talking. And I love doing labs. I love doing a really comprehensive workup and then individualizing people's treatment plans. That's what gets me excited every day coming to work. And I work in Seattle, as you mentioned live here with my wife and three kids. And I love running and being outdoors and, and and then doing this work. And I, and I wrote the book concussion rescue because Lisa, there's a silent epidemic. And you know, I say that because there are 3 million people, at least in the U S would go to the ER every single year who have had a brain injury concussion, which is a form of mild traumatic brain injury. And they, there's not a lot of solutions and options for them. And so in, in my 12 years working in mental health, I'd say that brain injury is a major cause of mental illness. Yeah, no one's talking about it. It's minimized. And this sort of, we think that there's nothing you can do.

Speaker 3: (05:29)
Absolutely. So Assad an epidemic. So what I find interesting is that if you talk to a lot of people, and you asked me now, have you had a brain injury? They come, you know I get to talk to a lot of people because of my background with the story with mum. And a lot of people will go, no, no, no, I haven't, I haven't had a brain injury. And then you go, are you sure you haven't hit a brain? Most of us have had something along the way and it could be a long back, even in their childhood when we, you know, got knocked out on the jungle gyms or we, you know, took the hits he had in some, some way shape or form and most people have had some sort of brain injury that has left a lasting effect and people aren't aware of the solid generalists.

Speaker 4: (06:16)
No, it's, it's a myth that you know, you have to lose consciousness to have had a brain injury or that you have to have gone to the ER to have a brain injury or because I had my helmet on, I couldn't have had a brain injury. Helmet just protects the skull, you know even whiplash not hitting your head can cause a brain injury. And so a brain injury or concussion is defined as like a, a hit to the head or an acceleration. Deceleration meaning like a really fast jolt to the head, like with flash is enough to shake the brain inside the skull and cause injury. If you have any change in mental status, like feeling seen stars, that's enough to damage the brain. The brain is soft like butter and the skull is hard, like a rock with many bony ridges and it's easy for the brain to be damaged because of that.

Speaker 4: (07:17)
It's like we're not designed to hit our heads at all. Yeah, we do. And it's cumulative. So we try and ask people who come to the clinics at least 10 times, like you said, it's perfect. It's like, are you sure you ever fallen out of a tree? You ever dove into a shallow pool? ahm Have you ever had a car accident? Have ever played context sports? You had a patient, we can call him Jeremy who when he was 21, he came to see me and he had been suicidally depressed since he was 14. Wow. And he was a scrawny kid. He was a jazz drummer. Really neat kid. But he was smoking pot every day too. Feel better. He had a girlfriend who was very, very poor relationships. She was mean to him. He needed to and the relationship just couldn't do it, didn't feel strong.

Speaker 4: (08:08)
And when he came to see us, we scanned his brain and it was clear he had had an injury. Yeah. On his history, his intake, there was no evidence of brain injury. He had never said that he had had a brain injury. And so I asked him, have you ever fallen out of a tree? Have you ever dove into a shallow pool, fallen off a horse, off a bike? No, no, no. I said, have you ever play contact sports? And his mother who was with him said, Oh yeah, you did start playing football when you were age 13 ish. And he was matched against the coach's son who is six feet tall. And he was like this funny little kid. He just kept getting hit really hard and had headaches. And he and that's when his depression and suicidal started. He was also diagnosed with add and he had tried every class of medication and tried to all kinds of therapy, hypnosis, EMDR, CBT, all these really great therapies and been referred by a great therapist that I knew And so when we put them on a program to heal his brain after a couple of months, his symptoms of depression lifted.

Speaker 3: (09:17)
Yup.

Speaker 4: (09:18)
And two, two years later, now fast forward, he's, this spring he's going to be graduating from the Berkeley school of music for jazz, drumming, stop smoking pot. So he's doing it. So some people have concussions and brain injuries. It's clear they're not healing. Then there's people who have some other issue in the, if you think back it may be actually due to a brain injury you didn't realize.

Speaker 3: (09:40)
Yeah, it is. You know I just had a question that popped up in my head when you're telling that story is even things like having low blood pressure or adrenal fatigue, you know, where you stand up too quickly and you in the, you get stars in your eyes for a few seconds or you know, is, is even vet doing any damage to our heads, to our brains.

Speaker 4: (10:04)
It can do a little bit. You mean like that, that low blood pressure thing? Cause you can,

Speaker 3: (10:08)
No, you've seen it where you have a bit of a dream of a taste. It doesn't come up when you stand up. Yeah. Sorry.

Speaker 4: (10:17)
Z that transient decrease in blood flow to the brain can be damaging. I mean you'll even pass out eventually we'll do because it's so, it's such a shock to the brain. But it's transient. So hopefully, you know, you put your head down, you S you get blood flow again, it's short enough that it's not going to do anything permanent. But repeat low blood pressure is a problem. You know, the brain needs blood flow.

Speaker 3: (10:47)
Well, I'm asking selfishly. Yeah, yeah. Very low blood pressure and have that problem. Often when I stand up, especially in the evenings and we have been a bit stressed out and tired, I noticed that I get up and I'm like, well you know, I wondered if that, you know, that temporary lack of blood flow could be damaging as well.

Speaker 4: (11:09)
Yeah. I don't think it's good, but I don't think it's causing permanent damage. As long as you address it, put your head down, sit down, relax, lay down.

Speaker 3: (11:18)
Yeah. Now dr Kabran, I wanted to actually dive into the book a little bit and actually couple of the things now with the modernist is nine. My story with my mum. Well hopefully they do. Most of them would know and I've got a book coming out too. Next months are a meatless, you know, what's really exciting when I looked through your book, a lot of the things that you've written in this book I've done to my beloved and being in New Zealand and I didn't have access to things like spics games in, in, in a lot of the fancy stuff. But I'd do what I could. One of the biggest pieces of the puzzle for me was hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And I've had a couple of experts on the show, Dr. Scott Cher was one of those on hyperbaric and how powerful this can be for people with brain injuries. So let's start with hyperbaric. What is,

Speaker 4: (12:20)
If I had one magic bullet, I can only do one thing to heal someone's brain. It would be hyperbaric. Okay,

Speaker 3: (12:26)
Wow. Yup. Totally agree. Yeah.

Speaker 4: (12:30)
It's a, and your listeners probably know, but it's hyperbaric oxygen is a chamber well under pressure and it pushes oxygen to the deeper structures that haven't been able to heal. And just like a diver has the bins, they go up too fast. They go in this chamber at higher pressures. This is low pressure, low pressure over time. So like 40 hours, 80 hours, 120 hours. And I actually was able to participate in a quick study a pilot study with Zachary light stead and he's, he was a high school athlete who had second impact syndrome. So he was put in, was about 14 or so. He was playing football. Got hit, went out, went back in and said, I'm fine. Coach put me back in, got hit again. Massive brain bleed afterwards in a coma for months, unable to walk and talk. And he had to relearn that. And so his parents were huge advocates of that. And that's why we have the Zachary lifestyle law or some version of it in every state in the U S where if someone, if an athlete is suspected of having a concussion, they have to be taken out and assessed by a medical professional before they can be put back in. Again, not every state has a seat belt law yet, surprisingly.

Speaker 4: (13:48)
So I was able to do a high prepare costs and study with this motivated kid who is recovered a lot but not fully. And we did 40 sessions of hyperbaric before and after. And of course, it's not a 180 degree with just that, but it improved his, you could see improvements in blood flow in his frontal lobe and it's parietal lobe, even five years after this massive, massive

Speaker 3: (14:13)
Wow, that's important 0.5 years after because a lot of people ask me, well, do I have to have had it in the past few months? And then I say, no, no. Who know, you can, it came to even

Speaker 4: (14:24)
Not too late. And there's another evidence of that. We did a study with 30 retired NFL football players. So now fast forward, these guys are in their fifties and sixties, and it's been like 10 20 years since they played football, but terrible looking brains. I mean, really severe damage. And they're starting to have depression. They're starting to have memory problems. They're headed towards dementia. And what we did for them was we gave them supplements, we gave them a healthier diet treated HYP treated sleep apnea if needed. And then hyperbaric oxygen for some of them as well. And after six months we were able to rescan their brains, significant improvement. Their quality of life was better, less depression, less anxiety, less depression or less anger. That's anger and better processing speed. So it's not, it's not too late.

Speaker 3: (15:20)
Awesome. This is really exciting. I've got a brother who was a professional rugby player and he had a number of brain injuries and I've been trying to get him in the hyperbaric cause I have a chamber podcast because he wants me to know, you know what, what really frustrates me is this is a very simple, so you know, there, there, there's a, the medical grade hyperbaric facilities, which you have a lot of in America and then there are mild hyperbaric chamber and you know, and you feel that it's very hard to get access to the medical grade ones. We hit them in Oakland ring, cross street hospital, but they won't, they do not believe they are off benefit for brain injury, which is just absolute training. Same here.

Speaker 3: (16:14)
So studies. And there was one clinic here in the South on end of New Zealand, adopted Tim UA, who has had a a proper chamber, you know, a medical brake chamber and he's just shut his doors after 15 years because he's sick of all of the regulations and the problems associated with secondhand. And this is the most powerful. Like if I had not had this from mom, I do not think I would have got him back 250 sessions with him and I ended up opening a mild hyperbaric clinic here. So you get to, you know, get local people access to it. And I'm a really big advocate for it. I've, I've since sold the clinic, but it's now available for other people. It's awesome, but it's not, it's using mod hyperbaric. So which, which are Brian and Brie, you know, at 1.5 atmospheres is, is, you know according to Dr. Hart who you probably know sees his ideal, obviously for, for other injuries, a little bit high pressure would be, would be better. But it's so, it's so important to share this message that this is a very powerful X is to it. Then you're like, when you're meeting up just the brain injury. Is it that his brother?

Speaker 4: (17:39)
No, no, it's especially for strokes. I'm so glad you did that and I'm kind of curious when she noticed, started noticing improvement along that 250 sessions, if it was early and it continued to prove or later on

Speaker 3: (17:52)
We had the first 33 sessions at a commercial dive company. Con allowed me to use the facility. Also I had to sign legal waivers and so on. I, I as soon as I got around to the hospital that day, I got her out of the hospital and she was like, you know, 24, seven key issue was completely bombed. Fill down to the factory, put her on a forklift in the middle of the spectrum and stuff or in the chamber. Much thought I was nuts. Right? There's nobody you can with walls. We did three treatments at that place. And in the month following the, the chamber thing got taken off overseas at a contract and I lost the access to it. And so for a month I had no chamber while I was ordering one from the S from China. And in that month is where I saw a huge gains, is her body caught up and she said yes, you started to have more speech wanting to move her and trying to communicate. And it wasn't like up and up and walking or, or anything like that. But she was starting to have a little bit of intention to what she wanted and was trying to communicate and so on. Let's see that this awesome. And then she came back. They, I had more to work with other things and unfortunately I didn't have a spec scans. I wish, I wish I could have Headspace scans all the way through this too to prove, you know, this was what, what was happening. Yeah, so

Speaker 4: (19:39)
The hyperbarics, you know, mostly we have the same problem in the U S as far as access. So there are a lot of clinics with the mild hyperbaric and I think it works great and I recommend people we can, they can rent chambers for a couple of months and try and get in those 40 to 80 hours in the chamber. And I see it work all the time. I, I would, I tend to layer it in as kind of a clinical Pearl is like if you have the finances and resources and it have access to it, there's no reason not to do it anywhere along the process. But because it is time intensive and costly at least make sure you have the other elements in first. Nutrition, supplements, physical alignment, sleep, start to rehabilitate with brain exercises and, and add in hyperbaric if there's any plateauing along the way. And maybe after a couple of months after starting that nutrients. That's what I reckon.

Speaker 3: (20:38)
Yeah. Let's go into this, the methodology here a little bit and dig deeper into we don't always do my research. I tried to get her on, you know, the good fats, MCT oil on special oils, that sort of thing. At the beginning, she could have the eight, 10, she couldn't sugar. So most of her nutrition was green smoothies, whatever I could get down here. And so your nutrition wise, what are some of the supplements that we can, because whatever you do before you go into hyperbaric will be intensified. Run it like of you know, things like vitamin C infusions or anything like that. Is that a good, is that a, for example, a good thing to be doing? And you know,

Speaker 4: (21:29)
Prior to hyperbaric and MCT, prior to hyperbaric and essentially a ketogenic diet with hyperbaric is I think enhances the whole a, they're synergistic. They both have antioxidant and antiinflammatory effects and they both increase healing of the mitochondria turning on genes. So the whole reason I think that ketogenic diet is worth looking at, it's not right for everyone and you just want to check with your doctor before starting it. But it's, it's not just for weight loss. It's kind of a fad right now. And us, is it in New Zealand across the world? Pretty much. And it's a, it's a low fat or it's a low carbohydrate diet, less than 30 grams of carbs a day, which isn't much until that forces the body to burn fats for fuel. Your brain is very hungry using 20 to 30% of calories in your diet, which is like a quarter of your plate.

Speaker 4: (22:27)
Think about it, 2% of your body weight brain using 20 to 30% of calories in your diet, so hungry, but yet when there's injury or there's some neurological problem, typically there's a metabolic deficit. The brain is not able to use as much fuel. As mitochondria are damaged, the brain is damaged and so the ketone bodies which are produced from Makita, genic diet don't take as many steps to get into the brain to be used as fuel. Whereas some of the times the glucose transporters are damaged. I can dementia and brain injury. There's a lot of correlates between the two. There's difficulty in utilizing and accessing glucose for this hungry Oregon. You know, right after brain injury, there's this metabolic deficit, this drop in glucose metabolism after about 10 to 30 minutes, which continues to stay low for weeks. And so this hungry organ, nowK doesn't have enough glucose. That's part of the problem. It's

Speaker 3: (23:24)
The bites, the whole problem. I mean that is part of what causes to meet. Sure. Isn't it? When you if we don't have into like insulin resistance cause you know, by bad diet for many years leading to or contributing to Alzheimer's and dementia did this as a, as a similar effect happening with a brain. But that a bit quicker. Yeah, exactly. So we can get the glucose in. So it's really, really crucial. If you are not on a keto diet and you just add an exogenous ketones, is that enough? Is that going to benefit?

Speaker 4: (24:04)
That's a great question. I think it's worth trying. The research doesn't, it's unclear in my mind because they've tried giving. So there's a study because they had patients in comas and they gave them, because they know about this metabolic deficit they gave them IVA glucose thinking, Oh, let's just give them glucose. And what happened was it suppressed their little bit of ketone production. They had like 16% ketones, which were fueling the brain a little bit. And that totally squashed that. And so a little bit, so it's not the answer we need to shift towards burning fats for fuel, burning ketones for fuel. So adding exogenous ketones, there's various studies where they've I think added lactate and different sort of fuel sources and so far haven't been that successful. I think was probably the best. I mean, if I had a brain injury myself for my loved ones, my family members, I'm giving them exhaustion, ketones right away, you know, keto OOS or some sort of product. And, and just in the hopes that they're getting some more fuel for their brain with all of the nutrients that they should be receiving. But it's, if you're on a ketogenic diet, MCTs and anxieties, ketones absolutely enhance the process. If you're eating a crap diet, lots of sugar processed foods, I don't think it's going to help much

Speaker 3: (25:33)
Standard hospital fear and you know, things like that. We hit those door and I'm like, you know, I didn't find that out unfortunately during the initial, but what I did do is at least I brought in my own smoothies and made my own options while she was awesome. They allowed you to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Well I didn't always ask permission. Don't you have to do the H DHA and you know, and official oils and things like that. I'm awesome as well. And I I wish I'd known more earlier. Some of these things, you know, I did later on as I, as I, as I got more and more research. But I think so if you can't get the patient to, to do a ketogenic diet at least try with the exhausted, those would be the minimum.

Speaker 4: (26:27)
Right. And do a lower carb diet. No sugar, just, you know, it can be in a stepwise process. First cut out all extra sugar, no cookies, cakes, candy, sweets, especially right after an injury or at any point. Then second step would be protein at each meal, meat, eggs, grass fed, beef, chicken, whatever. Then adding more vegetables and then more healthy fats, avocados, coconut oil. And so even doing that, like is there studies showing that if someone, excuse me, these are actually animals who are on a high sugar diet compared to those who are on a normal rat chow diet and then given a brain injury, those on a high sugar diet, those rats had a lot more concussive symptoms and took longer to recover.

Speaker 3: (27:16)
And this is, I think, you know, I'm translating a little bit into dementia and Alzheimer's. So a huge epidemic. And the thing that we can see this coming 10 years down the track, you know, this is also a very important point for, and you know, I have the broken brain series by dr Hyman and a lot of the experts in that area the mature in Alzheimer's is known as the top three diabetes in understanding the influence of sugar and insulin resistance and not giving enough glucose as we mentioned before. It's something that people can do to protect the brain health. Now, you know, years out from actually developing the disease, which is really, you know, late in the pace people especially, you know, trying to keep your brain function going. If you're noticing memory changes and this sort of thing, at least cut the sugar out. Even a tie we can obviously it didn't so much, you know, and this is the insidious problem and, and a lot of with them, older people know they've eaten meat and three veggies and the white breathe in the ligament. It's not sugar. You know,

Speaker 4: (28:39)
I had a patient who I think she was about 75 when she came in. Her son brought her in and she had moved to the area from I think Indiana or Chicago, somewhere in the Midwest. And she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and was prescribed Aricept medications or get your things in order and see you later. I was kind of, it, it's very sad that current approach to dementia and understanding me, the doctors may not have a lot of options that they've got their meds, but we do have more options actually. And so she came in, we assessed her. Yep. You've got mild cognitive impairment, may be early stages of Alzheimer's. She was living in a retirement home and just near a little downtown. Couldn't remember how to get down a few blocks to the downtown to do her shopping. And she had to draw maps and she couldn't remember her list even if she was just like three things, had to write lists and cause I have a lot of difficulties. So when she came in, we put her on this program, great programs, supplements, nutrition, exercise and let's see back in a month. So Oh and cut out your sugar because she, she wasn't overweight, so she thought, ah, I'm, I can, I deserve to have my retirement home, my treats. You know, she had a frappuccino at breakfast. She's having ice cream and cookies because it's free. It's just like at the retirement home.

Speaker 3: (30:08)
Oh yes.

Speaker 4: (30:09)
Serve ice cream. I said, you got to cut off the shirt. Just cut out the sugar. Let's do that first. Try and eat more protein and less carbs, which is like you mentioned, take the bun off the burger just even if it's not like the best quality meat, just that's fine. Just cut out the carbs first. And so she came back a month later and she was now able to, even just a month, she's able to find her way downtown. Wow. And she could remember that at least three things on her list. She couldn't remember everything, but three things she could remember. And I said, I'm patting myself on the back. Oh my God, you, you did everything. My pro, my protocol is like perfect. And she's like, I didn't take any of the supplements that you recommended. Oh boy. And I didn't do the exercise. But I did cut out the sugar.

Speaker 3: (31:01)
It just cut it just in one in one month you saw a change. Did she subsequently do the wrist?

Speaker 4: (31:10)
So then she was willing to do more and so each thing she added, like we added curcumin, we added a brain supplement. It had Gingko and Huperzine each thing she added, she got a little bit more improvement over the subsequent months. And that's what I found folks, you know, they may be a little mistrustful and so they want to try just one thing at a time. And luckily that was the thing that was really slowing her progress down.

Speaker 3: (31:36)
Oh man. It's so exciting. You know, like to see, you know, and you get people that have been on drugs and they've tried things and they have just, and these are not dangerous things to come out sugar and take a few supplements. You know, like we're not asking these mob America, but the side effect is better health overall and that is always going to benefit your brain anytime that you are. You mentioned Kirkman, which is your tumeric, which is another thing that I still hadn't come on and I'm on. What are some of the other sub supplements that could, is there a list of supplements that you give at as a standard or do you tailor them to each particular patient? Who, one, that's everyone's tailored, but there are some that I keep coming back to because they will compose. So the app, you know, I listens to them eat them now.

Speaker 4: (32:32)
Yes. Well NAC is probably available. There is a supplement. Inositol cystine. Yup. Precursor to glutathione, anti-inflammatory and just a little piece of information too. They did this double blind placebo controlled trial in 2013 where they had active service members who had a concussion like in the field. So they had an IED blast or something and then were carried or taken to the medic and they gave them NAC. Was this a double blind trial? So NAC or placebo and they were given a lot of it. And I'll tell you the dose in a second, after a week, 86% of them imp like recovered from their and concussive symptoms, whereas 42% recovered, you weren't given any. Wow. And so they were given four grams immediately days one through four. And they were given two grams twice a day. And there's five through seven. They were given 1.5 grams twice a day. So that's like an acute protocol. But NAC is important even after the fact, because many of, even though the research is mostly on acute brain injury, we know the mechanisms, many of them are exactly the same and chronic brain injury and concussion and so they apply. So NAC applies. Curcumin definitely.

Speaker 3: (33:59)
C is inositol a sustain for anybody who doesn't know what that means? Okay. And Q command, which is your, in your tumeric, what sorts of vitamins for that one?

Speaker 4: (34:11)
I would do about a thousand milligrams a day of a high quality one. And it needs to be, you can use that acutely. And also chronically, it helps to open up aquaporins. So these are water channels in the brain and you can do decrease swelling, which is especially important acutely for brain injury. Like there's this pastor who was in a car accident. I always remember. And two weeks later he thought he was fine. We went to the ER, checked out, you're fine, no brain bleed. Good. Then he went home. He was, seemed to be okay, but two weeks later he couldn't write a sermon. And I think what happened is the swelling was very gradual and slow. Not enough to be life threatening, but eventually it pushed on some of the brain regions that temporal lobes, frontal lobes, and he started having cognitive problems. So it can be this delayed.

Speaker 3: (35:04)
It's a light smoke, which is logical. When you cut yourself, you don't see the swelling straight away, you see it as it goes into the healing process.

Speaker 4: (35:14)
Exactly. Vitamin vitamin D is important. So as a fat soluble vitamin, almost more like a hormone, it turns on many different genes and helps modulate inflammation in the brain. Vitamin C I used 5,000. I use vitamin D. Vitamin C is as a buffered antioxidant water-soluble, the brain actually does well with more vitamin C, even though it's just a simple thing, everyone knows about it. It really does help decrease inflammation, that oxidative stress in the brain thousand milligrams at least a day. And they get three fatty acids. And I like using ones that are higher, a little higher EPA to DHA, which most are EPA for inflammation D to help rebuild the neuron and the cell membrane. And we try to use three grams a day of EPA DHA total. And that's what we use in that football player studying MCT oil of course you mentioned and other things,

Speaker 3: (36:27)
Especially oil, it's, it's important that you look for a very good quality one. W what do you type on the opposite side of problem, you know, with, with the some of the lower price fish oils [inaudible] a lot of oxidation going on. That is a problem.

Speaker 4: (36:45)
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And quality is really key, especially for fish oil, like vitamin D, vitamin a, some of these nutrients, there's only a few manufacturers. Like in the, in the U S there's only three places that actually make vitamin E and every other supplement company just packages it up and charges different amounts. Vitamin E and they get three is not like that. It's really individualized per company and you need to check quality and there can be heavy metals in the fish. It can be oxidized like you said, if it's not processed properly. So that's when I wouldn't go for the cheap stuff.

Speaker 3: (37:23)
Okay. Very, very, very good. I'm talking on healing middle toxicity. Sorry, going a little bit off of track and we'll come back. I've done here tissue mineral analysis with mum. She's got like a moot Cori. What would be your humane mandation for getting rid of, you know, chelating these high pinning middles out of, out, out of your body. Is there anything new we want to supplement level for that type of thing?

Speaker 4: (37:55)
Well, yes. So one I'll just, there's a lot there. First making sure your organs of elimination are working, you know, which are organs of elimination are sweating. So the skin breathing out, toxins pooping out toxins. Having good bowel movements and not being constipated, and then urinating them out, st hydrated and peeing them out. So once all of those are open, then you can start sort of facilitating removal of metals or all toxins. And the fact that she has mercury, she probably has other things too. So solvents, mold should be always assessed for. And so I do love saunas and sweating because dr Jenny is from Canada did a really interesting study where he looked at, so what is Sana do? Like, what is it actually eliminating? And they measured in the sweat of people doing sauna. It eliminates mold metals and just chemicals, solvents.

Speaker 4: (39:00)
So it does all three. Wow. So that's why I love Sana because it's gonna remove all of them. And it's also been shown study out of Finland. If you're doing sauna more frequently, lower chances of dementia, in fact, that was it 2000 Finnish men or 20,000? There was a lot of them in any case. And after they followed them over many years and they found that the more saunas that they did, like five to seven days a week, they had 30% less risk of Alzheimer's versus those that just did it one day a week. So it's multiple reasons to do saunas and sweating and actually in the same study through exercise, sweat, also cleansing and detoxifying. So the fact that you're a runner and running all that gets you have been is cleansing.

Speaker 3: (39:49)
Yeah. As you know, is a, is a, is a huge piece of this puzzle for brain injury. As well as the most detoxifying and, and I totally eh, and someone who's sweeped every single day pretty much of their life. And I, I even even compete just to my, my siblings I can see lots of things happening in the body, so that isn't happening in mind yet. And I believe a lot of it is the, the daily sweeping, the daily mudflow, the oxygenation of the tissues. Hugely important for and also for, you know, cognitive stuff as well. Like mum, I have her doing at least two hours of aerobic activity. Very low level. We're talking on a stationary bicycle and morphing. That's all she can manage. Obviously it's CBAs but you know, two hours a day and awesome. Yeah. You know, sometimes she doesn't want to crack the whip differently. The drug Sajan that oxygen, that movement then is very, very, very important. I believe in airing her, her brain

Speaker 4: (41:10)
exercise is so important. Increasing blood flow, it increases especially intense aerobic exercise increases BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor, which is like miracle growth for the neurons and the more intense the more you produce. And there's supplements that increase BDNF a little bit, medications a little bit, but exercise trumps them all

Speaker 3: (41:33)
Does. Yep.

Speaker 4: (41:34)
Absolutely. Much more. What about new for fact or is it also influenced by nerve growth factor? Yeah. Yes. Also same influenced by exercise interval training will increase nerve growth factor. And like you said, increasing blood flow in general is, is needed and this is a real big exercise versus anaerobic or strength training. And then, you know, just going to say about this cleansing or effective exercise and endurance athlete, like you probably does sweat, you know, for 45 minutes or so, but folks like your average person like myself, I may go for it. 15 minute run, I'm not going to sweat as much as I would in a sauna. So just keep that in mind. So people listening just cause you're doing a little bit of sweating, it's probably not enough. If you really have a problem with toxicity, you'd want to actually do some sauna and sweat for really good sweat for 20 to 40 minutes several times a week.

Speaker 3: (42:39)
Yeah. And that's something, a problem I have with mum. Like I couldn't put her in a sauna. I don't know why, but she has temperature regulation problems that are brain steam, hypothalamus, brainstem bleed damaged thermostat. Yeah. Well she seems to have no tolerance to heat. She's good as soon as the hate. Like we're in the middle of summer here and it's a struggle that your cognitive abilities do decline and she over hates. Is there anything you can do for them?

Speaker 4: (43:16)
I'm not sure. How does she do with cold?

Speaker 3: (43:19)
She's much better with cold cuts, very well with cold. But Hey, you know, like her ability to walk inside of this is, is impaired.

Speaker 4: (43:31)
Yeah. I would say may just may not be able to do this sweating. But it's interesting that she does well with cold and maybe even pushing that further and considering cold therapy

Speaker 3: (43:42)
you cry, cry. Yup. You know, ice man training love that is really interesting. So, and I think these extremes and change is, is a key factor here too. It's, yeah. And, and because if you think about it, we, we came from, you know, an F caveman days. We were exposed to the elements. We were exposed to coal, we weren't comfortable all day in a company. And I think having exposure to what was natural is often a benefit and being convenient. Stress, yup.

Speaker 4: (44:23)
Helps us to be, become more resilient and stronger. I totally couldn't agree more. Exercise cold and hot. I'm challenging the brain brain training. You know, all of these are really important.

Speaker 3: (44:37)
Absolutely. So, going back to the supplement regime, is there anything that we, because we sort of waned on agent, was there anything else that you'd say, Hey, you've got a brain injury.

Speaker 4: (44:51)
So alpha GPC really important for acetylcholine. And after stroke 1200 milligrams got to do that. So I don't know if she's taking off of GPC, but that's worth a try.

Speaker 3: (45:04)
Heavier on acetylcholine is that different? Alpha GPC phosphatidylcholine. Now as Seadrill calling,

Speaker 4: (45:13)
I see the coin. So the casino coin is that actual neurotransmitter that you're trying to make. So I see the little carnitine.

Speaker 3: (45:21)
Yes, I have in the past header on there. Is it good?

Speaker 4: (45:25)
Yeah, that is also good. Helps the mitochondria. Yeah. Alpha GPC will help you her make more acetylcholine and also help the neuron. Phosphatidyl searing is another really good one for memory. There's not as much research on that for brain injury, but I, I still think it's really helpful for memory and cognition because 10% of your brain is made out of this fossa title steering. It's in the cell membranes and

Speaker 3: (45:57)
Okay.

Speaker 4: (45:58)
Counter as a supplement. It's very, I'd give it to kids. I mean it's so safe this stuff, but it really is helpful. Alpha GPC potentially. So Gingko 120 milligrams to 240 of Gingko biloba extract. Really good for blood flow. Who present a Chinese club. Moss is a natural acetylcholine esterase inhibitor, so it's sort of increases your body's own CDOT. Coleen I wouldn't give that for acute brain injury, but chronic brain injury, dementia, any other,

Speaker 3: (46:32)
How do you spell that one? Lou Lou cuisine

Speaker 4: (46:35)
Prison. H. U. P. E. R. Z. I. N. E. a. It's M Chinese club Moss. It's from Chinese club Moss. And it's, it's a [inaudible]

Speaker 3: (46:47)
But you have to go out and actually buy concussion rescued because this is all that's sort of level of information in one single seating sitting is, is there's a lot, I mean I spent months and months researching to come up with the bits and pieces that I came up with. And you've written a book that actually gives people a first aid kit for Brian and a protocol to follow and in this is just so exciting. You know I'd love to, if you were down the road, I'd love to go on a speaking tour with you and give like that Rachel side of it and then the side of it, wouldn't it be just

Speaker 4: (47:31)
Let's do it. I'll come down to New Zealand. I've been wanting to need an excuse so,

Speaker 3: (47:36)
Well I use that word a lot. They're all come to America and because, because we, we talking millions of people being affected by brain injury every year in, in most people are not given anything except you know, the, well not even the diet recommendations like it's, it's frustrating said and there are just so many people suffering in silence and, and it's an insidious thing because with Brian injuries as with dementia, you don't see on the outside the stuff going on. So a lot of the people that come through our hyperbaric clinic would be so in tears that people don't, when I understood the pain that I was going through because people could not see an injury, that's a young man and he looks healthy and he can't stay in the light and he can't stand the noise. And he counts, he's fatigued all the time and people are just thinking, you're being a woman, you're not.

Speaker 4: (48:40)
And he starts to wonder, what's wrong with me? Maybe I am a wimp. Maybe I'm, I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 3: (48:47)
It's more sad. And then things like depression and personality changes where we think someone's just become a horrible person. Dealing with really cognitive problems. So having an, having understanding for people who have Dimitrio who have personality changes, we have like going on that it may be not be fault, you know?

Speaker 4: (49:15)
Yeah. I have to say that's one benefit of having the ability to do imaging or at least some kind of cognitive tool or test. The imaging is just so powerful because when you show someone their brain and it showed their family members their brain, that's when the tears come because it's like, Oh my God, it's not only diagnostic, but it's therapeutic. They understand. It's just, it is, there is, there is a, there's an injury,

Speaker 3: (49:41)
Yes. And injury and I can see it and I feel, Oh my gosh, it's not all my fault and I'm not being a neurotic or, or you know, being old. There's nothing wrong with you. You know, I'm with them and they know that there's something wrong but nobody's believing them. And that is very, very painful. And I wish we hit spec scans. He, we don't have access to them. And I wish that had been through the journey to be able to

Speaker 4: (50:12)
I'm just thinking what else is available? You know, there's cognitive testing that can be done just to document difficulty in memory and focus and things.

Speaker 3: (50:22)
Can you just ask a, you know, a clinician or do you,

Speaker 4: (50:25)
Yeah. You can do on our website, brain health assessment.com. I can't remember if there's a fee or it's not, it doesn't cost very much to do. And you can measure where you're at as far as, you know, focus memory in different aspects. In the clinic we use something called web neuro and that's a web-based cognitive tests that people do is computerize and manage the tension memory. Also emotion. And this brain health assessment is the exact same test. So it's, it's, it's high quality. And there's pencil, paper tests and there's also labs that can be done to measure if there's damage to the pituitary gland. It's a whole other issue cause 25 to 50% of people with a history of brain injury have damage to the pituitary glands, your master hormone gland. Oh, and maybe a little more accessible.

Speaker 3: (51:19)
Let's dive into this. So hormone just came from. So all of the labs that you could do this with, you have, and how do you doctor into doing them?

Speaker 4: (51:30)
That's half the battle, isn't it? I would, I would just say, you know, bring in the research, there's plenty of studies showing that, you know this is very, some studies say 25, some say 50%, some say even more. If there's, you know, I've had a brain injury, this is what happens. And you can document that by measuring pituitary function and you know, it's, you can actually measure in a bloodwork pituitary hormones like for testosterone, the precursor or the stimulus is LH. And FSH. This is on the book too. It's in all the labs and stuff. For thyroid instead of having what normally is a high TSH and a low T three T four is actually low TSH and low T three T four, which means that the pituitary is not sending the signal to the thyroid gland.

Speaker 3: (52:23)
Oh wow. Is that, so is that causing the in the like more reverse T three and I'm not talking on the receptor or is it, Oh, you're very sophisticated knowledge. That's great. I'm impressed. I'm work out forward because this is part of month's problem and reverse T three. Yes. I've, I've been arguing with a doctor and, and again, I want a full panel and I cannot get a full panel three free T for me that's too bad. Do antibodies and TSH and T four and that's all I can get out of the law at the moment. So,

Speaker 4: (53:01)
Right. So if, if you do, if you just do a TSH, which is the standard for screening, that's not going to tell us really what's going on because you know, if it's low TSH they may say, Oh, you're fine. It's not too, you know, it's the kind of kiss is reverse where if it's low, you're hyperthyroid. If it's high, you're hyperthyroid typically. But if you're low plus your T three and T four low, it's pituitary issue actually. So that's important to know. Any case looking at act H and cortisol is for adrenal. And then of course testosterone for men, estrogen, pedestrian for women and LH, FSH. Those would probably be the main ones. And just say, Hey doctor, please, please test these labs. You may have to cut a pocket or whatever. I don't know if you have labs where you can just,

Speaker 3: (53:56)
We, yeah, we do have bicycle labs, but if you want anything, you know, it's things like cortisol I do regularly and that you have to pay for. So someone like, like mom was obviously got adrenal issues. So like things like estrogen, LH, GC, if it, if it's age in an older female, that would be, it's going to be high. You know, it's, it's different than, than I would I read. That's a very deep clinical question.

Speaker 4: (54:29)
I guess if it's low, then, then there's pituitary issues. It should be high in menopause after you're going to have high altitude. What happens is the S that the ovaries stop producing estrogen, but the brain thinks it's still, they still should be. So the brain sends a lot of LH and FSH down to the ovaries. And so it, that's how you know you're in menopause if you have high LH and FSH. So then if you measured those after menopause and it's really low, that would be very unusual. It would be, Oh, the pituitary is not working.

Speaker 3: (55:07)
And, and if it's the pituitary, it's not working. Is there anything you can do about that?

Speaker 4: (55:13)
Oh, great question. All of these things should help peel the pituitary. I'm actually balancing the hormones. So adding an estrogen, progesterone, testosterone looking at growth hormone. That's the other one I forgot to mention. If growth hormone is low, that's very common in pituitary damage. And can really, if you can increase growth hormone that helps with healing of the whole brain in the body. Best done through exercise again. And so, and then taking the supplements, putting the brain in a healing environment will help the pituitary to also heal. So that's the supplements diet, exercise, hyperbaric. So the hyperbaric is very helpful for pituitary damage as well.

Speaker 3: (56:01)
It's really good growth hormone. I'm actually taking a supplement. Is it, is there any danger with that in regards to cancer?

Speaker 4: (56:09)
I always talk with people about that. Like if you had a tumor and you have lots of growth hormone, you might potentially growth of the tumor. So that's like balancing the two. It's like, do we want lots of growth factors or do we want to keep, like there's this whole thing about low calorie diet and low IGF one, which is a marker for growth hormone. There's this field or you know, so it's really a balance of the two. It's not one or the other. I don't actually recommend people do growth hormone because you can become dependent on it and it's expensive. It's like over a thousand dollars a month, something like that. But you can again, exercise, there's supplements or nothing are Janine this product called tri amino. There's various companies that make it and there's three amino acids that are helpful in making growth hormone, taking it bedtime.

Speaker 3: (57:04)
Yup. [inaudible] Voicing that type of thing or,

Speaker 4: (57:07)
Yeah. I think it's arginine ornithine and there's one other, but it's three amino acids in particular without other amino acids. You just want those three and on an empty stomach. And if you're really going for it and talk about this in the book, but prior to exercise or empty stomach at night, cause you grow, produce most of your growth hormone at night when you're in deep sleep. That's why deep sleep is so, it's one of the reasons why it's so important.

Speaker 3: (57:35)
Wow. This is how people are listening. So I've just done a couple of podcasts, episodes on sleep and the importance of sleep and when you won't have enough sleep and growth hormone is one of those things. And your hormone regulation in general. I was going to go, Oh, sleep apnea. You mentioned the briefly or sleep disruption. Sleep apnea wasn't one of the big key mumps I worked at when I was in hospital when she, she's still in hospital. She'd been on oxygen Wellington and when they transplant her to new Plymouth, she was taking off the supplemental oxygen and I noticed a decline in who w what was already terrible but was even worse. And I tried to get him to put this up and legal bank box option back on and they wouldn't. And Avi headed with altitudes ricing and altitude.

Speaker 3: (58:35)
And I'd been in a hot code hypoxic tent at night with the oxygen. And I had like giving myself a hypoxic brain concussion a few years ago. Growing up too high too fast because I was impatient. I slept in a half thousand meters every night, all night, knocked off. A lot of brain cells have hypoxic rag pressure. And during that time when I did this, I had a whole lot of infections because the bacteria in the body oxygen deficit. And so I was recognizing some of these when she was in the hospital, still my brain went tick, tick, tick apnea, sleep apnea. Cause she was sleeping of course, 20, 21 hours a day. And the doc said, no, she don't, you don't need the sleep apnea test. And I went and got an outside consultant for him and I got in big trouble. I didn't really care resolving. He'd done a taste and it came, make some via sleep apnea. And, and from my research and the thesis there are a lot of people who are suffering from sleep apnea who are not aware that are suffering sleep apnea. Do you think this is a massive contributor to brain injury?

Speaker 4: (59:49)
Oh, absolutely. Brain problems in general. I think luckily people are recognizing it more and screening more and needs to be done. If your sleep, if you're sleeping a lot like your mom was, or not feeling rested or waking up at night a lot. In fact, my father who has had chronic sleep problems, I've tried to give him every supplement under the sun, can't seem to get his sleep under control. He just did a sleep study. It turns out he has mild sleep apnea and that was causing him to wake up frequently throughout the night.

Speaker 3: (01:00:20)
Wow, that's interesting, isn't it? And things like even like adrenal exhaustion, you know, your cortisol levels going up in the middle of the night, like that type of thing. I mean we w I'm very much into, you know, breathing exercises and front of the peat, the parasympathetic nervous system, blue blocking at night or what are those things that contribute to good health? And very important again, a tangent. We in our company we do epigenetic testing. And this looks like a genetics and how they're experiencing lightened. Well and one of the key things there is to understand what time of the day [inaudible] biology is very very important. So if your hormones are icing between five and six in the morning and you're getting up at 5:00 AM to do a CrossFit workout, that can be very detrimental to your health and smell. Look, dr [inaudible], I know that you've got to go shortly. I just want to wait. Can people reach out to you and I definitely want to talk to you further because this is isolating conversation. I think I've ever head in so exciting. I can't wait for the book to arrive in the post. We can people reach you. We can they get the book. And what are the next steps for people who are suffering from brain injury?

Speaker 4: (01:01:53)
Well, great. I've really enjoyed talking with you too. I can feel your passion and excitement to help others and that's where my heart's about to because your brain is like, that's everything. It's who we are. It's our personality. That's why I do this work is to help people recover and optimize their brain function. Because I want you to be able to share your gifts with the world and just be yourself and it's never too late like end with that. It's never too late to at least try and help heal your brain for brain injury. You and your mother are proof of that. I'm so excited to read your book as it comes out next month. Congratulations. You can find my book concussion rescue. It's out. Just released a January 28th on Amazon. There's an audible version for people and a listen to it. We recorded a a video series. It's available beginning of February on the book at Ayman university. It's available there. And I'm at amen clinics Northwest and Seattle. You can just Google that. Amen. Clinics, Northwest and Seattle location. There's clinics all around the country and

Speaker 3: (01:03:00)
Well I personally as well with people who have my own website. Yeah, I don't, I tried to and I'm not that tech savvy, so. Okay. You must, you must get you your age. I'm on Instagram and Facebook too. Excellent. So people can reach you. Doctor, dr Kabran Chapek, Chapek sorry. Concussion rescue. I will put, I'll get all those links from you, Dr. Cameron 16 with the audience. If I can help with any way, shape or form with getting this book out there. We've got to make this a best seller right around the world because this is, this is absolute crucial work that you're doing and I'm really, really, really sorry that I paid you all this. Thank you so much for your time today, dr Kevin. My pleasure. Great to be with you.

Speaker 3: (01:03:55)
You really enjoyed that interview with dr Chapek, make sure you go and get their book concussion rescue a must read for anyone with a brain really. And I also wanted to remind you my book relentless is coming out on the 11th of March and is available now for preorder. If you want to grab it, you're also going to get at the moment for the next couple of weeks excess to my mental toughness and mindset Academy if you buy the book and the next couple of weeks. So that's a value of $275 that course. So please go and check that out at least at lisatamati.com and hit on the shop button if you want to help with your health. With epigenetics, we have an eerie genetics testing program, which I mentioned briefly in the show. If you want to find out what that is all about, please head over to our programs page. We've got three flagship programs, we've got the mindset, you've got the epigenetics, and we've got the run training Academy, so please chicken all that out, head over to Lisatamati.com And don't forget to give them a show, a rating and review and share it with your friends. Thanks guys.

Speaker 1: (01:05:01)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.
Jan 23, 2020
In this episode, Lisa discusses how the cards are stacked against us in our modern society when it comes to making healthy decisions. She talks about the disconnect between our prefrontal cortex and higher executive functions and the amygdala and why inflammation in the body can lower our ability to make logical good decisions. How sugar affects both our body, the inflammation process and how it shuts down or lessens the ability of our higher executive function.
 
She talks about the effects of exercise and the effects of modern technology on our brain. Knowledge is power when we understand some of the processes hijacking our ability to make good decisions we can take steps to correct those and create an upward leading spiral that goes to more good decisions being made on a regular basis so you can reach your long term health and fitness and weight loss goals and wellbeing goals not to mention your productivity goals.
 
She also talks about the importance of sleep and what a lack thereof will do your brain.
 
Lisa also references the work of Dr's David and Austin Perlmutter and their new book "Brainwash" https://www.drperlmutter.com/brain-wash/ and the work of Dr. Bruce Lipton and his book "The Biology Of Belief" https://www.drperlmutter.com/brain-wash/
 
 
We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:
 
 
Makers of Photobiomodulation devices that stimulate the brains mitocondria, the power houses of your brains energy, through infrared light to optimise your brain function.  To get 10% off your order use the code: TAMATI at www.vielight.com
 
 
For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com 
 
For Lisa's online run training coaching go to
Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.
 
Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program
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Which foods should you eat, and which ones should you avoid?
When, and how often should you be eating?
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These are just some of the questions you'll uncover the answers to in the Lisa Tamati Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others.
There's a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the "future of personalized health", as it unlocks the user manual you'll wish you'd been born with!  No more guesswork.
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The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyze body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home
 
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For Lisa's free weekly Podcast "Pushing the Limits" subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app or visit the website 
 
 
Transcript of the Podcast: 
 
Speaker 1: (00:00)
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

Speaker 2: (00:13)
If your brain is not functioning at its best. Then check out the team at www.vielight.com do. Now being like producers, photo biomodulation devices, your brain function depends largely on the health of the energy sources of the brain cells. In other words, the mitochondria and research has shown that stimulating your brain with near infrared light, revitalizes mitochondria. I use these devices daily for both my own optimal brain function and also for other age related decline issues and also for my mom's brain rehabilitation after her aneurysm and stroke. So check out what the team do www.vielight.com that's V I E L I G H T .com and use the code T A M A T I and checkout to get 10% of any of their devices. Well hi everybody. Lisa Tamati here at pushing the limits today. I have a solo cast, so no guests, but I wanted to do a short sort of episode around decision making processes and why sometimes we don't make the decisions that we want to make and why we're not always in control of the things that we want to do.

Speaker 2: (01:24)
So this time of the year, a lot of us have been sitting new year's goals and resolutions and we often find ourselves failing when it comes to actually doing those goals and doing what we sit out to do. And we come across some stumbling block blocks. And I've talked on previous podcasts about the work of Dr. Bruce Lipton and the biology of belief has Bach about the subconscious and how that can sometimes sabotage us in our ability to follow through with decisions that we make. But I wanted to go on a bit of a different tangent today and look at the work of Dr. David and Dr. Austin pill mortar who've just bought out a book called brainwash, which is also really worth a read. And these are, you know, when you start to, you know, I've been studying a lot obviously in the last four years about brain rehabilitation, controlling the brain and understanding the brain.

Speaker 2: (02:20)
And you get snippets of information from all of these great sources and starting to connect the dots with a lot of things. So why is it that we can, you know, set out to do things and then we don't do them. We set out to go to the gym, we sit out to get fit, we set out to lose weight and eat more healthily. And, and then on the first time that chocolate bar appears where we're gone and we're back to doing things we don't want to do. And this is a problem of, of, of the human condition I think. But if we understand that we stand to look into the decision making process and how we're those decisions, we can actually see how the cards are stacked against us in their modern society. Especially we'll start with, for example, our food supply.

Speaker 2: (03:11)
So our food supply is not what our grandparents had. It is full of processed foods. It is full of sugar apparently over about, and this isn't America or a statistic out of America that 68% of the foods and the supermarket, this is millions of products have added sugar. So even when we decide we're not going to have sugar, it's very, very hard to avoid some of the hidden sugars that are in things like you know, tomato sauces and things where you wouldn't actually expect to find sugar. And these are all forms of sugar. It's not just when you read sugar on the label, these are your corn syrups, these are your, you know, coconut sugars. This could be part of sugar. This is what you might consider even healthy options, but they are sugar, even fruit, dos and fruit. And so what does sugar do in the brain?

Speaker 2: (04:02)
Well, sugar, from an evolutionary point of view, our brains are wired to search out for sugar because when, when food is scarce as it was in the past and we are wanting to chase foods that are high in sugar because it gives us the energy and so on. The problem is we have so much sugar in our society and it's very addictive and they say it's as addictive as cocaine. But so one of the problems that we have when we, when we eat sugar, then a number of things are happening. We spiking our blood sugar levels and causing an insulin release and then we are liable to put on more weight as it gets stored in our fat stores. But there's a whole lot of other things going on. There's inflammation happening in the body when we take on way too much sugar and this is affecting our ability to make good decisions.

Speaker 2: (04:58)
Now, why is that? Well, in the brain we have something called the prefrontal cortex, which is where you are your executive function, your, your logical brain sets. And then we have what they call the limbic brain. And in particular, the amygdala, which is your, it's an older part of the brain and it's much more impulsive. It's the, it's the, it's like the alarm system. It's always looking for threats and it's always impetuous and it's always, it's the one that will hijack you. For example, you get angry in traffic and it's the one that has you swearing before you even know and what you're doing. It's the one that reacts faster than your prefrontal cortex. Now, when you have a lot of sugar, there is a disconnect between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic brain and the amygdala. And the amygdala comes to the fore in the prefrontal cortex.

Speaker 2: (05:50)
And its decision making and its executive function is lowered. So what does means for us is that we then become more prone to making very short term, short viewed decisions. So this becomes in a spiral. So we start to make unhealthy choices. So the more sugar we consume, the more likely we are to consume more and to do things that are not good for us. In tunes off or lowers the executive function. And that amygdala and this way sort of hijacks us from what we want to be doing with our logical brain. We've decided we don't want as much sugar, we want to have a healthy for foods, we want to be healthier. But along comes to the amygdala and it overpowers us and the inflammation that's caused by sugar will cause us to make more of those decisions. Now, there are lots of other things that are influencing our decision making ability.

Speaker 2: (06:46)
Hormones for example. An interesting fact with the contraceptive pill that woman, so many women are on been doing a lot of research into that lately too. And that can have a very big effect on your decision making ability. All our hormones were very, very, you know, chemical based beings that a lot of what we do is influenced by these sorts of things. We all know what happens when we have alcohol or turns off our, our logical thinking brain and we do dumb things. And that's another example of the amygdala being stronger in that case in taking over. And it's like having, if you like, it's like the parents being away on holiday while the kids at home running the ship. And of course the kids are going to make decisions that are bad because they're not looking at it with a longterm view or with a maturity.

Speaker 2: (07:39)
And with intelligence and longterm thinking, a child just looks at the next 30 seconds of pleasure and makes that decision. And that's what's happening in the brain. And when we have a lot of sugar in our diet, that's one of the things that's happening. So this becomes then a spiral, not only a physiological spiral are the, you know, you're raising your blood sugar levels, you are causing an insulin release, you are dropping your blood sugar levels and then next causing cravings. But also this part of the brain is being turned off as the prefrontal cortex or its function as being lowered. And so we're less likely to make more good decisions. Now, by the same token, this sort of process is going along with exercise as well. So we all know exercise is good for us. We, we all know that and we don't necessarily all do enough exercise.

Speaker 2: (08:32)
And again, this becomes a spiral. So the more exercise we do, the more connection we have with our prefrontal cortex and the more ability we have to make good decisions. Once again, once again, the parents are at home. When we're have been doing more exercise, we have an ability to control ourselves better and to make better decisions. So that's one of the thousands of it reasons why we should be exercising. When we exercise, we produce more brain derived neurotrophic factor. Another really important reason we are detoxifying as we swear to and as we pump the blood around, there's so many reasons why we should be exercising. But of course it all comes down to the fact that we don't always feel like it. And if we've been eating better than we, we're even less likely to feel like it. And that amygdala is again going to override our decision making process.

Speaker 2: (09:27)
They actually go out and do the exercise that we said we're going to do today. And then in regards to exercise, sometimes we set ourselves up for failure. We like, right, I'm going to go to the gym five days a week for the rest of the year. Or, you know, I'm going to run a marathon and I'm going to train really, really hard and I'm going to do this right. And then we sit the bar so high that if we are unable to actually attain the required training a day, say I've decided I'm going to spend an hour a day in the gym and today I've been so busy that I've only got half an hour. And so I decided not to go at all. Now as it is always better to have that incremental amount of exercise even if it's not the full amount. So even if my day is gone totally to custard and I'm really, really busy, which happens quite often in my life, a 10 minute walk in the park is better than none.

Speaker 2: (10:20)
It's better than doing no exercise. And so sometimes having a ah, it's not worth me going cause I've only got half an hour. There is actually a detrimental attitude. You know what you can get in, okay, you didn't reach what was on the list today, but you got 10 minutes out of that hour and that 10 minutes is better than nothing. Another thing that I wanted to discuss is our modern technologies and our screen time. And we all know that technology is all pervasive in our lives and it has wonderful, wonderful implications for us and empowers us and has changed the way we live our lives. But it's also very insidious in that a lot of the apps and a lot of the things that we do online are made to be addictive. And so often, you know, I find myself doing this myself, you know, I have a job to do.

Speaker 2: (11:11)
I go online to answer an email or to go to messenger and answer somebody's inquiry. And then I find myself off somewhere looking at somebody's social media feed and end up in places I don't want to. And that time has been lost and it's so easy to be distracted and just led down this path. And then that takes up time and energy from our brains. And we are also spending just so many hours in front of a computer screens, TV screens every which way. And this is causing structural changes in our brains. And of course this is very much so, you know, affecting children. And I don't really think we've even scratched the surface of what this is going to have in the long term. We really don't know, but it's going to be major, that's for sure. The changes that our children's brains going to have in comparison to how we grow up.

Speaker 2: (12:08)
So some putting some parameters around your technology use of possible, if this is an area that is becoming a problem for you, they say that over 70% of the world's population has got a smartphone now and over 6% of the entire population has an addiction to the internet in some way, shape or form. And this is a problem that's growing and you will all know, you know, Instagram, Facebook ENCO made to pull you in. They want you to spend as much time as possible on the reps. That's how they make the money. And we need to be aware of this and be very intentional with our use of it and just observe our behavior on screens and how much is it actually bringing us? Is it bringing us a knit good effect as puts it? Is it actually bringing us the desired results that we are wanting?

Speaker 2: (13:01)
Or when you say, you know, I'm going to get fitter and then you say, but I haven't got the time to train. And then you look at the screen time, if you recorded your whole day, how much of that screen time was actually work-related and actually bringing you something and how much was actually just lost in the chaos of the social media world or the YouTube or whatever. And when we start to look at the amounts of time that we are spending on those sorts of things instead of doing the other things and not prioritizing. So putting some time constraints, certainly around your children's time in front of screens, but also around yourself some time, some intentionality when it comes to what am I here to do? And staying on target and not ending up somewhere completely different, which you know, is a battle.

Speaker 2: (13:50)
I bet all with us every day when I've got a hundred windows open and I don't feel like doing the thing that I'm meant to do, I often find myself off somewhere just staring at some newsfeed or some Instagram feed or whatever. So it's being aware that this is happening to our brains and this is making us wasting a lot of our time, a lot of our energy and causing action with structural changes in the way our brains function. The last point I wanted to bring up is, is around, or the second the last actually is around a connection to nature. I think it's super important. It's a proven fact that when we're out in nature or say in the, in the forest and the Bush somewhere up on a mountain down by the sea that has a calming effect on our body and turns our parasympathetic nervous system on and slows down the response of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline.

Speaker 2: (14:49)
And so having time in nature, even if you're not doing the exercise, you're just hanging out in nature, staring at the trees, the beautiful flowers, whatever it is that you really connect to and having that time every day and having that prioritized in your schedule. You know, I started to, you know like I have a very heavy heavy workload and I feel guilty every time I go to just sit at the beach or go to go for a run in the pack because I could be doing a thousand other jobs. I could work 24, seven and the jobs would still be piling up. And I have to know that I have to prioritize and that it's okay for me to prioritize those other things because they will make me more productive in the long run. And I'll have our, we have much more used to everybody if I've had my time in nature and just being as a human being was meant to be connected to nature, outside moving in nature, exercising in nature, having some sunshine on my skin, getting my vitamin D three, all of those things are starting to become more and more scarce in our life as we are in artificial environments all day with our jobs behind screens.

Speaker 2: (16:01)
And then all night. And then we are often turning to, you know, self-medicating at night with, with things like alcohol, sugar, food and all. This is a spiral that leads us down. And so the odds can be stacked against us, but it's up to us to understand the brain and to start to use the information to give us a hand up out of the spiral downwards. And once you start taking little steps. I know, you know like I worked with a lot of clients. We were working through different health issues with our epigenetics program and often they want the big effect, they want to have it all perfect and that's really important to come back and actually just tackle one or two things at a time. It might be getting out in nature more. It might be a little less time on the screen. There might be doing those things before you even consider an exercise or a diet change and you can't do it all at once.

Speaker 2: (16:56)
You can't. It's too much. It's overwhelming. But when you start to make one or two steps that are healthier for you, that are getting you more on track, that are helping you strengthen your prefrontal cortex and your executive function and your ability to make good decisions, then it becomes easier to instigate the other changes that come after that, the food choices that are better, the exercise choices there to be there. And that leads me onto my last topic for the day. And that is the lack of sleep, a lack of sleep. We sometimes Palm off as just being, you know, one of the ills of our world and we have busy lives. Maybe you're a shift worker and your circadian rhythms are all up the watch. Now this has massive implications for our health, our brain health for S for sure. And also all of our hormone production, our circadian rhythms as beings, we have a rhythm, we have a clock.

Speaker 2: (17:52)
Every cell in their body is on a clock and we have an internal clock that has the times we meet to be asleep. The times we meant to be awake, the times we should be exercising, the times when we are most alert and understanding your chronobiology. And this is where epigenetics and the program that we do helps define for us what you, your right chronobiology is and then working out what time of the day should I be doing what and getting enough sleep is a huge priority. We need as human beings, seven to eight hours. And a lot of people say that, Oh, I get by on, I get by on five to six or four to five, which is, yeah, you'll get away with it for a little while, but I can guarantee you you're going to start losing brain cells. You're going to start your, you're increasing your risk of dementia later in life for Alzheimer's.

Speaker 2: (18:45)
You are by sleep deprivation. Anyone who's only getting four to six hours sleep a night on Everage a statistic and I can't, I can't tell you where the statistics from. So I hope I'm getting it right. But on average, a, you'll be eating more calories if you are not having enough sleep. And there's a couple of reasons for this. You're not producing enough grelin, which is sort of like your hunger that controls your hunger. So you're more likely to have those cravings. You're more likely to eat more and 350 calories a day extra onto your normal diet will mean weight gain. That's little loan from the fact that you're not getting the rest and repair and recovery that you need in order to function properly. To have the right hormones and all of these things will affect your metabolism and your, your your thyroid and all your hormone production.

Speaker 2: (19:39)
So getting enough sleep. If there was one thing that you changed in your life at the moment, if you don't want to take your food, you don't know to take your exercise regime, you don't want to do anything else getting out in nature or anything. If you prioritized and made it a priority for your whole family to get more sleep. And if you're struggling with insomnia, then go back over my old past podcast, I've had a number of podcasts on sleep and insomnia and how to work on, on those sorts of things. And I can do another one on that. But if you can get more sleep, if you can get to bed half an hour earlier, turn off the damnit flux. And this is something I struggle with too, when I'm relaxing in the evening and I want to binge watch something instead of going to bed.

Speaker 2: (20:26)
Just understanding that having an extra half hour of sleep, an extra hour of sleep will make a massive difference to your health, to your ability to function for your product. Tivity for your hormonal health, for your metabolism, for your immune system. All of these repair processes are when you're a sleeping. So if you're exercising hard and you're training for something big, but you're not getting enough sleep, then you're not going to be getting the effect that you could be getting out of that training. Same goes for if you're eating perfectly, but you're not getting enough sleep, you're not going to have the benefit of that food to its full effect. So prioritizing sleep is really, really, really crucial. Okay? Can't emphasize that enough. So we've covered off sleep, we've covered off exercise, we've covered off your executive fund, front function and your brain, your prefrontal cortex, your amygdala, how that can hijacked your, your logical thinking brain, how sugar affects us, how modern technologies affect this.

Speaker 2: (21:32)
So I hope that this has given you some insights and some things to consider as you go throughout your day. Now just pick one or two of these aspects. Go back over, listen to this again cause there's a lot that I've just covered in a very short period of time. Pick one or two that you want to work on this week. Even one, even just if it's one might be slightly more exercise, it might be, I'm trying to cut down on the sugar intake and the processed food and take, even if you haven't got the perfect diet and even if you haven't got the perfect exercise, work, edit an incremental stages, don't go for perfection. Do all that. All those perfectionists out there. Perfectionism is the enemy, a pro progress because you'll be waiting to, everything's perfect and that is never going to happen. Just make a start with some very small steps.

Speaker 2: (22:24)
I hope this information has been fantastic for you. I hope it's given you something to think about. Go and check out that book, brainwashed by Dr. David and Dr. Austin Perlmutter. And go and check out the biology of belief by Dr. Bruce Lipton. They'll give you incredibly good insights. My book of course, is coming out relentless. On the 11th of March and is available now for preorder. So if you want to hit over and grab a copy of that, I've got a real special going on at the moment to get the ball rolling to kickstart and get some momentum. I have given people access to my mindset, mental toughness Academy mindset. You for free. If you preorder the book it won't ship until the limits of March, but if you preorder it now you get a few dollars off the price, $29 instead of 35 and you get my mental toughness course, which is valued at $275.

Speaker 2: (23:19)
It's a grab that while you can just in the next couple of weeks and help me get relentless out the door and spread the word about that, which is all about my mum's journey back from massive brain injury and her brain rehabilitation. But it's also a book about mindset and overcoming obstacles and mental toughness and resilience and the, you know, elevating our potential as humans to, to adapt and perform. So if you want to check that out, head on over to Lisatamati.com At the shop button go to my book section and you can preorder that now. Thanks guys for listening again today. If you enjoy the content, please share this with a friend. It helps us get exposure and give us a rating and review on iTunes. That would be really, really appreciated and we'll see you again next week.

Speaker 1: (24:10)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team At lisatamati.com.
 
 
Jan 16, 2020

Boomer Anderson hails from the USA but has lived and worked in many countries and cities from Wall St to Singapore to Amsterdam among others.

After graduating from the University of Minnesota, Boomer pursued his first love (finance) through a successful career in investment banking in New York and Singapore. Always desiring to learn more and pursue his second love (health), Boomer left finance to found a successful clinical practice leveraging data to help entrepreneurs and executives achieve better performance through health.

He continues to pursue his joint loves of health and finance through early-stage startup investments, advisory roles, and public speaking. In his free time, Boomer enjoys experimenting with the latest in performance technologies, travel, adventure, and spending time with his girlfriend.

He had a  fast-paced career in investment banking and venture capital. Helping countries and companies raise funding. He lived life in the extreme both in the high flying career world and in his sporting endeavors, doing an extreme amount of traveling and long days and living on very little sleep thinking he was bulletproof until a serious heart condition stopped him in his tracks at age 30.
 
Since then he pivoted and in his quest to heal himself has become over the years an expert in health optimization, biohacking, data tracking in relation to health and much more. He shares his deep insights into the exciting world of the quantified self, the power of data and testing for health and the change in paradigm that is happening in the world on biotech. Boomer is also a podcaster and has a top 100 rated show many countries. His show is Decoding Superhuman and you can reach out to Boomer at www.decodingsuperhuman.com and follow him on instagram and facebook.
 
He is also partner in Dr Ted Achacoso's www.homehope.org which is a complete new system looking at the holobiont and metbolome for health optimisation.
 
 
We would like to thank our sponsors for this show:
 
 
Makers of Photobiomodulation devices that stimulate the brains mitocondria, the power houses of your brains energy, through infrared light to optimise your brain function.  To get 10% off your order use the code: TAMATI at www.vielight.com
 
 
For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com 
 
For Lisa's online run training coaching go to
Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.
 
Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program
Get The User Manual For Your Specific Genes
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?
Discover the social interactions that will energize you and uncover your natural gifts and talents.
These are just some of the questions you'll uncover the answers to in the Lisa Tamati Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others.
There's a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the "future of personalized health", as it unlocks the user manual you'll wish you'd been born with!  No more guesswork.
The program, developed by an international team of independent doctors, researchers, and technology programmers for over 15 years, uses a powerful epigenetics analysis platform informed by 100% evidenced-based medical research.
The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyze body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home
 
For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit: 
Develop mental strength, emotional resilience, leadership skills and a never quit mentality -
Helping you to reach your full potential and break free of those limiting beliefs. 
 
For Lisa's free weekly Podcast "Pushing the Limits" subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app or visit the website 
 
Transcript of the Podcast: 
 
Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa [inaudible], brought to you by Lisatamati.com

Speaker 2: (00:13)
Once again to pushing the limits before we get underway with this week's very special guests. Just like to remind you, if you don't mind doing me a big favor and giving this podcast or writing a review on iTunes, that would be hugely, hugely helpful and helps us show where the ratings and exposure so we get exposed to more people and more listeners so we can get our message out there. So really, really appreciate your help. If you want help also with your running or with your health optimization or you want help with mental toughness coaching, check out all our flagship programs over at Lisatamati.com. Hit the programs button and you'll be able to find out all about our running hot coaching, our epigenetics in the mental toughness mindset you e-course right now. Today's guest is sitting in Amsterdam and he is an incredible person who has a background actually in investment banking and finance. But has now done a completely one 80 pivot into health optimization. Someone who has a, she has a lot of interests with what I do, and I know you're going to get a huge amount of value out of this interview. So without further ado, over to boomer Anderson.

Speaker 3: (01:25)
Well, everybody needs to tell me to here and welcome back once again to pushing the limits. It's fantastic to have you with us again. I'm super excited for today's interview. I have a very, very special guest who is the host of something called a podcast called decoding superhuman. And you guys have to check this out. This gentleman is sitting in Amsterdam, which is a first for me. I haven't had anyone from my son's name. He's actually so welcome to the show boomer Anderson. Welcome. I'd really

Speaker 4: (01:54)
Release a thank you for having me. This is an absolute pleasure.

Speaker 3: (01:58)
Oh, it's so cool to have you. So boomer and I have connected other, the love for podcasting really and through an audio engineer of all things, Roy Roy, Roy helped me and taught me. And Burma is, it does stuff that's right up my alley. So very much a expert on human performance and in many seats is other word. And his, a podcast as a seed called decoding superhuman and has a very interesting backstory as well. So boomer, let's start with a little bit about we from who you are and your you know, your, your career before you got into this.

Speaker 4: (02:40)
Oh, how long did we actually have here? So let's start with the beginning, right. And then, because you mentioned that I love all things performance just like you do. And that's absolutely the truth. And it started from a very young age, you know, growing up I had the benefits of the son of a yoga teacher on one side and then a finance professional on the other. So I had this kind of eats me at East meets West growing up experience. And you know, I was been obsessed with performance from a young age, whether it was academics or athletics, it was always, how do you push it to that next level. We can talk about it later, but sometimes that hurts when you push it to the next level.

Speaker 4: (03:25)
And you know, that next level led me to go to college in Minnesota and then eventually work on wall street after two years in New York and I, I was in New York at times that people don't want to be in New York. Right? Like my first day on wall street was the day that Lehman brothers filed for bankruptcy and AIG gets nationalized. Oh my gosh. Hell of a first day. Right. And so my career path kind of changed forever. And after two years I've moved to Singapore where at a very young age I became the head of a, a deck capital market stuff covering South Asia. And so my responsibility was 14 different countries helping companies and governments raise money across the world. Yeah. That all sounds amazing and glamorous. And I had the pleasure of traveling to 40 countries over the course of four years, basically living on a plane.

Speaker 4: (04:19)
And that entire time I thought I was healthy. Right. Because if you read men's health, have you read whatever it is, whatever those fitness magazines are, they tell you that diet and exercise are all that really matters. And you know, I was one of these guys who not following whatever the diet your was, I've probably tried them all with the exception of maybe being vegan. And then I was also very into a sport called CrossFit. And I pushed, I know there's a very, there's a very strong theme that I think reverberates in both of our lives is that I pushed everything to the extreme, whether that be work, whether that be play, whether that be exercise. And so, you know, I was the guy who was like, I'm going to work this investment banking career, get you know, from the age of 18 to 30 is getting four to six hours of sleep per night.

Speaker 4: (05:10)
And I'm going to try and work out like rich Froning because I had a goal of beating rich Froning and the CrossFit games delusional goal, but it was a goal. And so, you know, go bigger, go home. Right? And so this eventually has a wall that I hit, but I've had, and we can talk about that wall here in a second, but there's this constant reverberating theme of trying to elevate performance. I now consider it my mission in life to elevate the human experience through health. And I look at that through a number of different lenses and a result of the learnings on the journey, so to speak come up with a fairly elegant system in order to help others do this. Wow,

Speaker 3: (05:58)
That's a, that's a nutshell. A pretty amazing life. So investment banker in the finance world, I mean, that's a dream for many young people to get into that, that world was, is just idea for us. A short second. Did that burn the hell out of you? You know, physically, obviously traveling all the time, but also the meeting side and the pressure in that game.

Speaker 4: (06:23)
Sure. So let's talk about that because most of the rumors you hear about investment banking or Kennedy true. When I started in investment banking, I lived mainly in the office. And frankly that changed over time. But it was more, I lived with a cell phone instead of in the office. And you know, I've spent many a night where it was okay, you worked the entire night, go home, change your clothes and come back into work the next morning. I've slept in a desk. I've done many times where I've gone into this is actually embarrassing Lisa, and I can't believe I'm telling you this story. But like I went into, I went into the bathroom, put my legs up and fell asleep to get 20 minutes of sleep. Right? And so just like in those kind of extremes produce extreme results. And so you know, you, he pushed your body to the limits.

Speaker 4: (07:19)
And of course as you get more and more senior, there's the stress of you have to meet a budget, you have to worry about a coworker stabbing you in the back. All of these things. But the experience itself of, and I was helping companies and governments raise money and experience of itself, of being able to look at how a country funds itself and saying like, Hey, I had an impact on that. And there's one or two countries that I can point to and say I had a significant impact on how they fund themselves even till today is pretty rewarding. But yeah, the stress is ridiculous. And so let's talk about some of the warning signs, so to speak. Right. And so one of those warning signs I collapsed in my shower just from exhaustion. I've been to the hospital more than once for exhaustion.

Speaker 4: (08:11)
I've had parasites. I was traveling to places like India, Bangladesh, all these things, parasites. I was vomiting. I was, you know, falling asleep at my desk. All of this stuff. I was doing three, four and a half hour red eyes from DACA and going into the office the next day. All of these things you can add, you can look at it and say like, Hey, any, any person with any reasonable level of intelligence could have looked at this from afar and said, at some point this kid is going to go head first into a wall. But that kid wasn't willing to admit it. Yeah.

Speaker 3: (08:48)
Well you live in, you live in that world where it's expected, this hard performance is, you know, 24, seven, the labels of your anxiety must've terrific.

Speaker 4: (09:00)
Terrific. Yeah. And I've you know, it's something that I talk about openly now and it took me awhile to talk about it openly, but I've had issues with panic attacks you know, getting in front of people and you know, starting to sweat for no apparent reason. Just extreme nerves at an occasion. And then when you start breaking your circadian rhythm, cause I was traveling time zones all the time, right? Like I was doing, I went to Europe one year, 18 times from Singapore. So that's that's already a six to seven hour time change. I went to from Asia to the U S six to seven times in one year as well. And so you're talking about like my circadian rhythm was not existing. And so like I developed social anxiety, I developed anxiety around people and it just became this one big ball of anxiety.

Speaker 4: (09:52)
And you just kind of look at different ways to deal with it. You know, at that point I was self-medicating mainly through alcohol, but it's so medicated through alcohol and CrossFit, you know, I was just looking for anything to escape. Right. And, and so like, I had this brilliant job and I, I don't think I appreciated it at the time, but I got this brilliant job and I was like just stressed. And you know, there were times when I was younger in New York where I just walked down on the street and pray that like a taxi cab would hit me because I would get some sleep in a hospital. Right. And it's just, yeah, I guess to answer your question, yes,

Speaker 3: (10:34)
It's a little bit stressful. It's a little bit stressful and to show up and, you know approach you for being open about this because this is the, this is what my podcast is known for and we tell the real shit here and we died and I've had panic attacks, I've had anxiety, I've had depression, I've, you know, been in shitty relationships. I've lost all my money and revoke myself. I've, you know, I've been there and the people know that the dramas that I've gone through, and I think the power lies when you share those shitty moments and you share the difficulties that you went through because the learning is in the air for the people that are listening that we have really can shortcut the people, you know, not repeating the same problems to go. That is the whole point. And to, to be able to you know, withstand that huge amount of pressure and to, to live at that high performance level. And I totally get your mentality of, you know, go hard and go home and extreme and and when you're young, you're Bulletproof, you're Bulletproof and nothing can break me. But I know in your story that came to a crushing sort of how to, at some stage it's go into that story a little bit.

Speaker 4: (11:47)
Yeah. So the silver bullet, so to speak, came shortly after my 30th birthday and I was one of these people. So for a very long time we were talking about how I grew up kind of East meets West and realize that health had a, an input in this idea of performance, particularly workplace performance. And I'm pretty nerdy when it comes to data. And so I actually calculated what was my return on health investment. So I would invest X amount in health per year and would get X amount growth in my bonus, so to speak. It wasn't a direct correlation, but it was just a way to justify what I was spending on these things. And I, you know, I'll caveat this by saying I wasn't necessarily spending it in the right way. I was spending on things that like Tim Ferris recommended or whoever, Dave Asprey in those days, actually it was the early days of day out.

Speaker 4: (12:38)
And Dave asked for even before them and as a part of this little esoteric forum on the internet called quantified self. And so I became very interested in the idea of if I monitor this data point about myself and it can be subjective or it could be something like my aura ring that I'm wearing now, you know, how do I take that information and apply it to perform better in my life? And again, for a long time I wasn't doing this in the right way. And so, you know, I was spending all this money and for my 30th birthday I was on the verge of resigning at this point from my job because you know, I done already gotten so much in investment banking and at that point everybody is quitting to build apps. And I was just like, I'm going to build an app.

Speaker 4: (13:25)
I didn't really have a good idea, but like I'm going to build an app. And so in the process of resigning, I went in and got all of these tests and one of those tests was actually calcium score and the calcium came back as positive. Now, as a 30 year old having calcium in your heart, I was at a 95% risk of a cardiac event. And so I had a blockage of my left anterior descending artery. Like any person who gets diagnosed with heart disease, what do they do? They give you a Staton? Well, the Staten induced chest pain so much so that I could barely walk down. If you're familiar with Singapore, there's this area called call your key and it's basically you go from Tanjong pagar over to my office and I was walking down that street and like gripping my chest in pain.

Speaker 4: (14:15)
And I said to the cardiologist at the time, you know, Hey, I think this has something to do with this stat. And he said, no, and you know, I don't fault him at this point because the education wasn't necessarily there, but now there are genetics that are associated with stat and the do chest pain. So I'd take, I stopped taking this, the Staton because it wasn't really a cholesterol issue in the first place. And really the pain went away. And so that was kind of the aha moment. Like, Hey, there's this data out there and I had it from my 23 and me test. That's not an advertisement for 23 meters. It was just like the easiest just to give them time. And I realized like, Hey, what else can I do with this stuff? And that was kind of how I went from, well there's a whole journey there on how do I make sure I don't die. But also as I was making sure I don't die, people were like, Hey, this is interesting. Can you do it for me? And that was really what became my, my transition.

Speaker 3: (15:22)
Wow. And now this is so interesting cause isn't it funny when you have either a personal evangelism, not my case with my, my family and my mum. That it just totally changes your, the lens that you're looking through. And as in you have a huge intimate thank you. That's very kind of listen to your podcast, but you have to have a huge intellect, you know, and I'm struggling half the time to keep up. But anyway. So you've taken that huge intellect that you applied, excuse me, to the finance world and you've gone, even though you're not a doctor or anything like that, you've gone into plot all that data and that ability to analyze data across into a new world now, which is what I find fascinating that you've made this transition and I've seen a number of other professionals through this as well who have suddenly gone into the world of health and understanding that the knowledge is now, you know, coming and out there and the, you've, you've gone across from the investment side now into the health side and quantifying it all and using data and using genetics and using all the other tools to now actually helping people with their health, then there'd be a good summary of what you're doing now.

Speaker 4: (16:37)
Yeah, absolutely. I think the underlying theme there, and actually before I get into the underlying theme it's just funny, a story came to mind, Lisa, the other day I was talking to a friend and the friend said, you know, the best psychologists all have some sort of underlying psychological issue that they've worked on. And that's why they became psychologists, right? I never intended to be in this world at all. I was going, like I said, I was going to build an app because everybody built apps, right? And I got into this world because I had to fix myself. And as I was fixing myself, I did it in something that made sense to me, which was data. So very strict measurement, very much defining objective strategies and tactics and executing with a certain level of discipline. Cause like we talked about earlier, you and I take things to extreme, right? So you know, just taking it to a certain level of extreme with the discipline side of things. So I see things a lot better.

Speaker 3: (17:37)
Yeah. Amazing. So you've now actually made a new empower, if you like, around helping people with high-performance, helping people with their health issues using the lightest. And this is what I find fascinating and we're, I think the future is turning to the old model of you had to go to medical school to become a doctor, to become an expert in health. And that was pretty much it. You were a nurse, a doctor or a you ma. Maybe there was a chiropractor or a naturopath in your town or something like that, but they were, you know, re era. And there was this, this linear thing thinking to the medical model and that is dying. Thank God is changing. We made the allopathic medicine model, but we also need it to change and we need the what would you call them? Accelerate viewpoints because, and you don't necessarily have to have gone to medical school and to have some really amazing insights.

Speaker 3: (18:43)
I mean you just mentioned Dave Asprey, the who, you know, some of the things I agree with and some of them I don't, but like he has certainly blazed the path for someone who's not himself, a medical doctor who's also come from, can walk computer science and his case into the, to the world of health and applied that, that brain and that, that ability and so a new area and you see this happening again and again. So what are you passionate about now? So you have the podcast decoding, superhuman, you have some incredible guests on there. What is it all about for you now?

Speaker 4: (19:22)
Sure. I guess before I outline what I'm involved in, what I'm doing, let's construct the theme to have it all makes sense, right? If you look at my personal mission, at least to what it's become over the past couple of years, it's to elevate the human experience through health. Now what do I mean by that? Elevating the human experience making, are enjoying our personal lives, enjoying our work lives, operating a certain level of energy, being compassionate being in, in shape, in the sense that, you know, extending health span, all of that is elevating the human experience. And the best way I know how to do that is through health. And so when I say that, that's the, the underlying theme of everything that I do. Now, you just mentioned one thing that I do, which is the podcast and the decoding super even podcast is top 100 business and careers podcast on iTunes and several different countries occasionally the U S as well, but also it let's go kind of from left to right.

Speaker 4: (20:34)
I do have the one to one consulting business where I work with predominantly entrepreneurs and executives through a process called health optimization. I'll come back to that in a moment. I work with an organization called health optimization medicine and practice. And that's a nonprofit foundation founded by my mentor, Dr Ted Achacoso's, which is basically U S and now I'm opening up the European arm here and there'll be an Australia, there'll be an an that arm as well. And it's kind of going global now in 2020 and then I, I do have some involvements and a, a nootropic which is going to be launched later this month. And I can talk about that too. So there's, there's a lot going on and there's more projects in the waiting, but you know, people look at me and say like, Hey, are you doing too much? Well, I view it all as complimentary.

Speaker 4: (21:28)
I'm just sort of solving my problems along the journey. Right? And so if I look at the one-to-one business, I only work with executives and entrepreneur types whether that be in digital marketing or whatever industry it is, because I know that lifestyle and I came from that lifestyle. And so I can speak a lot to that lifestyle. There's certain lifestyles that I just can't speak to, I can't work with, but we apply a rigorous amount of data. And perhaps Lisa says, okay, if I go down the health optimization realm right now cause I'm interested in more than anything and this wraps. Sure. So let's, let's talk about health optimization. And so as I mentioned this is all something that I'm spreading the word on through an organization called health optimization medicine and practice homehope.org. And so and so that organization is designed to teach doctors and health practitioners on how to optimize for health.

Speaker 4: (22:29)
If we think about why we go to a doctor currently, and I have nothing against doctors, right? I have zero qualms with the medical industry at all. It's people go to the doctor because they're sick because they want to get better from some disease. They want to discover what diseases, et cetera. But who are you going to for your maintenance? Right? Who are you going to for the tuneup if you're that car, we don't have anybody that just does the oil change and sends you on your way. Well, health optimization, medicine and practice is that oil change. And so what do I do now with my entrepreneurs? My executives is, look, I, I still have and gather a lot of data. I'm very comfortable with data, but I also think because we now have the ability to test for a number of different things, it's the best way out there because not only can we just assign probability, which is what we can do with genetics, we can actually see where your cells are right now.

Speaker 4: (23:31)
And that's through the metabolome. So when we start working with a client, what we're doing is we're measuring the levels of metabolites. We're looking at things like nutrients and hormones, we're comparing those to optimal ranges. And I'll define what optimal ranges is in a second. And then we're balancing really through the idea of a network. So rather than just taking one esoteric biomarker and focusing on it, I'm looking to upgrade an entire network. Because if you take one esoteric biomarker, all you're going to do is just Jack the thing out of balance again. And so what we want to do, you don't kind of ad hoc overhauling network, you balance networks. And so what we're actually doing is we're measuring those metabolite levels and looking at nutrients and hormones and then we're balancing that by looking at really what your optimal formo levels as well as nutrient levels should be through a 21 to 30 year old.

Speaker 4: (24:30)
Now I'm not a doctor so I can't prescribe hormones and so what do I do is I focus on the nutrient side of things. There are certain things I can do on the hormone side and there's oftentimes where I pair up with physicians and do focus on optimizing in that way, but that is where we're looking at is how do we upgrade your network so that your nutrients are balanced and so that you're able to perform at your absolute best. Now there's no claims there. I'm not saying that this anything here is treating disease. We're not doing that. All we're doing is giving your body maintenance and that allows you to perform at your best for longer and with a longer degree of health span

Speaker 3: (25:11)
In longevity, and this is absolutely Misa below mix. This is a new term that since listening to your podcast and coming across dr [inaudible] in, in starting to delve into his world, which is sine amazing. And this is providing a new lens to look through and looking. So this is even an hour practice with our company. We do epigenetic testing and if we, we have certain limitations, we can't go outside of our scope of practice and we have to bring in sometimes physicians and other experience in areas and that can be quite difficult. Certainly lock in more streamlined way of doing that and could be the people to work with. A little bit limited here where we are. But this is a, another lens to look through and I'm, I'm really wanting to layer on, you know, you have the expertise in like you've done with the genetics tasting and things like aura ring and using different data points and now your board and dr Ted's whole way of looking at it.

Speaker 3: (26:26)
And I, I, I have to talk to you privately afterwards about what it to, to become involved with that because I'm quite excited. I'm hoping I'd have the intellect to do it, to be honest on listening. Like, Oh my gosh, that guy is intelligent. He's a, he's a ball. He's statistically one of the smartest people in the world. So yeah, the Turlock, he is literally one of the top people in the planet. So that's what I'm saying. Everyone can keep up with it. But so what are the, you're working mostly in these cases still on the one on one system or are you sort of doing this for, can people contact you to get help or how does they work?

Speaker 4: (27:10)
I generally work with the, and the website hasn't been updated in a while and it will hopefully be up to it very soon. But I generally work one-to-one with people and it's almost strictly referral. But on occasion I do take in new clients. And so what we do is we do measure that metabolome and that. So let's just define those terms. Right? And so if you think about genetics, genetics is really popular, really sexy right now as is that the genetics and genetics is really the blueprint of where you should be, right? If you think about putting together a building, a, it's the blueprint of where you should be. It's that architect has drawn something fancy up. And I had the pleasure of doing one of these presentations to a group here in Amsterdam and there's actually a construction person in the audience. And I asked him, how many times does the blueprint actually end up as the actual house?

Speaker 4: (28:02)
And much to my amazement, I thought it would be somewhere in the range of like 10 to 30%. So zero. And you think about that, what actually influences the building? It was environmental factors. It was the soil, it was material. They'll ability. Now if you passport that over into our lives. Environmental factors are certainly something that we face every day. Material availability in terms of the nutrients that we need the weather outside, whether or not you gain enough sun and that's really your epigenome, right? And so we can keep going further and further down. The Omix line is, Oh, mix is very trendy right now too. And we can eventually get to this thing called the metabolome. And so the metabolome is really looking at yourselves and seeing what is happening right now and what has happened. And so what do I mean by that?

Speaker 4: (28:57)
We look at metabolites again across nutrients and hormones and we can determine things like vitamin deficiencies but also looking at anything from neuro-transmitters, although that's a little bit less reliable to heavy metal toxicities. And so, and then once we have all that information, what we can do is very much quite clot, a precise roadmap. And each one of my clients gets with is basically like a 10 to 15 page, a nutrient and lifestyle plan. And what they do is we're able to come very close and become very precise as to what nutrients you need to balance that network. Because after all, we're coming back to balancing the network. I can give another analogy if you want. Sure. So if you think about humans as as a whole, we're actually a collection of organisms. And what is interesting about the term super organism is the term superorganism really just means your collection of the same organism.

Speaker 4: (30:03)
The actual term that I prefer to use and was taught to me of course by dr Ted and Dr. Scott, who I know you had on the podcast before, is called Hola biomes. And the whole of Vajente is really just acknowledging that humans are actually a collection of organisms and we can measure those organisms through things like metabolomics and the health of those organisms and allow that to be a balancing mechanism. And so let's just run some examples here, right? And if you look at our current cell, our current cell is constructed of a symbiotic relationship between mitochondria and a, an ancient cell, right? And so that symbiotic relationship came together. And so we are actually fundamentally a collection of organisms. Now add on top of that, you have things like microbes, you have gut bacteria, you have viruses, you have all of these things, and you have this external environmental influence.

Speaker 4: (31:02)
And there's this book in 1992 and I'll get you a link in 1981 or Nigeria to that came out that turned this, the whole of biome. And so you as a human are actually a whole lot beyond. And so we can assess this whole of ion to actually measure. And again, I am very much into data measure the health of you and sir use it as like a term of benchmarking, right? So you come in every, I like my clients to see me, you know, once every three to six months for testing. And then eventually we want to get them to once a year, but usually starts at once every three to six months. And then when they come in, we benchmark how your whole Obiang is doing, you know, how are, how's your gut bacteria? Do we have good bacteria balances there? Do you have any sign of parasites there? Are there any sort of factors that we need to look at on the nutrient side? And once we benchmarked it, we then start to optimize, right? And so it's what I find, I consider it to be the most elegant equation to human optimization author.

Speaker 3: (32:09)
Wow. So this is the nix label from just what you've been doing along with the genetic testing and coming out with data that, that producers and actually looking at. So how is the hollow buoyant and the metabolome actually tasted? Is it through blood? Is it through a combination of, you know, saliva, blood, urine, you know, how was it actually the data collected?

Speaker 4: (32:35)
Well, that's a very good question. And so fundamentally with any clients, I run three tests now. Those three tests are a blood draw, a urine sample, and a stool test. And those three are allow us to assess metabolites as well as bacteria in balances. And so we're able to gather the picture in a very simple manner.

Speaker 3: (32:58)
Wow. And then [inaudible] and this is now international, the home hardcore Donald. So you don't need specialist labs to chase that. Can you use your name?

Speaker 4: (33:09)
Yeah. You can't get in exactly. Walk down to your local doctor and say like, Hey doc, I want to test. You know, I want my I w yeah, first off, you know, you may get some pretty weird looks if you mentioned the word hold by aunt, but it's pretty hard to go down and say like, Hey, I want to go test eight. Oh, HDG. Right. Which is oxidative stress or DNA damage. Even that's pretty difficult to test at most local labs. What we, what we do is we use a specialist's lab around their global little bit less of a presence. They have a presence in Australia called Genova diagnostics. They're based in Asheville, North Carolina, which is where my parents live. So I get to go make the pilgrimage every so often down to their labs. But yeah, Genova diagnostics provides those tests. You can get a metabolome analysis from other labs. And of course we're looking at those labs. But this one we use current.

Speaker 3: (34:08)
Wow, that's amazing. Okay. So they knew you'd get these tests done and then you can, you can analyze them for these things and give them specific recommendations, both lifestyle nutrients in other interventions, I imagine. Absolutely. And this is, so this is all, you know, like we both agree that, you know, the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff approach is not where we want to be. In for our own health and for the health of our loved ones and the people that we work with. We want to be the, at the top of the class before the stuff happens. And this is the key difference in the approaches. And then a second difference is that our allopathic models are very pharmacological based. And you know, don't you believe that that money doesn't talk, you know, the money that pharma companies have at talks and, and that is influencing the decisions fate that your doctors are making.

Speaker 3: (35:09)
And it's also the way it's set up. And so this has been a very one sided, you know, and, and farmer pharmical logical intervention certainly has the place, but they have a way to bigger space in the world, I think at the moment and comparison. And I think , you know, like looking at hyperbaric and Dr. Scott shows, who's now involved with you guys is a, is a classic example of a therapy that works that doesn't have a pharmaceutical backing or no way to make tests because there's no way to make money out of it. They can't patient account, patient oxygen cause it's already there. You know, you've got situations, same with hormones, you know, by bioidentical hormones. You know, they haven't been able to paint it them. So they made some physical Mons for women and hormone replacement therapy and, and you know, that caused a whole lot of headache. So there's this, this is systematic problems in a boom boom, top of a, of a generations within the system. And a lot of it is, is very much a stick a bandaid on the, on the wound and not look at, well, where did the wound come from and why is it there and what's causing it, you know. And that's what we have more about and learning.

Speaker 4: (36:23)
Yeah. And, and I think, you know, even taking it one step further, because you know, looking at the wound and seeing where it comes from, that's a lot of what functional medicine is doing and they're doing well. What a health optimization does and health optimization, really medicine and practice is what we're doing is as you know, functional medicine, we'll look at that quote unquote root cause and what health optimization medicine practices doing it is seeking to just balance and perform that maintenance so that, you know, going down the line rather than having to basically take all of the life's maintenance and put it, you know, I, I come from finance, so like let's feature value all of life's maintenance into this one big event down the line, which in my case probably would have been a heart attack. Why don't we do little bits of maintenance over time so that health span happens.

Speaker 4: (37:25)
Right? And so I think going back to the finance analogy, it's like an annuity every year or every six months or even three months. You come in, you get your Tufts, you benchmark, you figure out where you are, and then you seek to optimize and balance or balancing networks here. And what we find is, is that people tend to perform very, very well, and you can start to measure these things, right? There's a, there's really cool clocks out there. I'm a big fan of the Horvath clock. I just enjoy it. And I know that these clocks are evolving every single minute. You know, people like chronometer my DNA age, a few others that are looking at methylation marks on the Nissan and the on DNA and determining biological age. There's also something out there called the grim age, which I'm super excited about because that one is,

Speaker 3: (38:13)
Oh, that's a new one on me. What's interesting, right? And this is

Speaker 4: (38:17)
Not for everybody, I'll admit this, but for people that are somewhat sadistic like me, this is apparently an a way to extrapolate a distance between now and first potentially more tality event, right? And so it's like now in between now and the time you die, but you can do stuff about it, right? And so I'm the type of person that if I have an issue, I want to be confronted with it. And so that, you know, I wasn't the kid who basically when I found out I had heart disease, I broke out a spreadsheet and figured out, okay, what's the average is a person dies and I put that day's number in my spreadsheet and that motivates me to, that motivates me to do stuff every day. Now that's not for everybody, right? And I recognize that I'm a little weird in that sense, but these are types of things that are out there that allow us to get not only not only just more, more data points, but also allows us to benchmark the success of our modifications, right? Because all we're doing is nutrients and lifestyle modifications, but nutrient, lifestyle modifications can be very, very powerful.

Speaker 3: (39:35)
Underestimated it, you know, like the basics and sometimes underestimated. We get into all this fancy stuff, but sometimes it comes down to are you drinking, are you sleeping? Are you getting sunlight? Right? Like, are you connected to nature? Are they saying those clocks? Or I'll have to get the links to that because I'm very sort of beach marking, biological age or, and, and you know, they, my age one, it sounds very interesting because that's something that's missing in our regime right now is being able to, is actually getting that macro for people and benchmarking and all these things cost. So it's always a cost way up. But it gives you something to aim for when you've got a line drawn in the scenes. I think

Speaker 4: (40:17)
I think absolutely. And I think a grim age is not yet commercially available. So the biological age is there are two companies that I know of that are producing them at various price points. The other thing that is really interesting and it's something that, yeah, the other one that I like for benchmarking is the promise 10 global. There's promise tents for everything, but it's just a simple survey and the statistics behind it are quite promising. So that's something, it's cost-free, but it's a great way to benchmark clients and their success rates.

Speaker 3: (40:55)
Okay. Okay. I'll, I'll be definitely get paid to get those links off here because a, a beach mapping system is what's missing and now, yeah, right.

Speaker 4: (41:03)
And what we, what we do, and it, sorry, I know I cut you off, is I gather a lot of data, right? It's like hell, I've said the word data. How many times?

Speaker 3: (41:12)
Yeah, you're right.

Speaker 4: (41:15)
So anybody that works with me has to be on board with that. And so whether that's from your wearable, whether that's from whatever survey that we send you anywhere from every day to every week you're, we're gathering data on you to make sure that everything that we're doing is working. Cause after all, like humans are complex adaptive systems to say we're not, is just categorically wrong. Right? And so when we look at a human as a complex adaptive system, we need to build in feedback loops. And so how do I get a person to, to sleep more than four hours a night? Well, I can't tell them to get eight hours a night just because the book says, right. What is actually physically happening there is, okay, let me show you your aura score every day. And you know, or whatever. It doesn't have to be aura. Let me show you that score every day. And that when that score goes up, how you feel and if you feel better than you subjectively just want to get more sleep. And so what we're doing is using the technology and leveraging the powers of technology and data to help assist in those behavior modifications.

Speaker 3: (42:20)
Brilliant. Because people need to have and some people to move that data-driven than others. Some you recommendations. And that's, you know, working with your epigenetic type if you'd like, as to how much science you need behind the information. I like you. I like to know the why and the Watson dig 10 layers deep down, stand up. Other people, maybe not so much, but having these beach max does give you a line in the, and it's like having, it's like if I say to you by my, you know, we're going to try a new up for a hundred K, you've suddenly got a line in the same and you've got a timeline and you've got a goal that you're going towards and therefore your teen Tom's likely more likely to get the us than if we don't benchmark that. And if we don't have that goal in place to help them in knowing where you started from and where you finished and then you can actually see, I came all that way and that's a really powerful thing I'd been on.

Speaker 3: (43:13)
I'm really aware of, of the time you've, you've been super, super generous with your time today. And I am super excited to find out more. I think that dr Ted stuff is definitely on my horizon once I've gotten through some other qualifications that I'm doing at the moment. They might be the next one. Yeah, that would be, it'd be super awesome. And I'd love to stay super connected to you and what you're doing because I love, I love just being around people that have the, the, the knowledge that you have, the breadth of experience that you have and the dips that you go. You fascinating. Your, your show is amazing. So everybody must go and subscribe not only to this podcast, obviously pushing the limits but to, to decoding superhuman, decoding, superhuman. And in there any last words that you'd like to share, boomer to people out there what's your most important mission in life and what is, you know, a thing that's really important for you to get across and people like that you would,

Speaker 4: (44:17)
Yeah, sure. So let, let's start with that mission. So I mentioned it a couple of times, but it is elevating the human experience through health. And I look at the world and look, I don't need to go back and go into any sort of politics or anything like that. If I look at the world and just kind of the problems that we face or the

Speaker 5: (44:49)
Okay,

Speaker 4: (44:49)
You know, where we need to go in order to, I get in a lot of discussions about the future of work, right? Just because that's what I get hired as a keynote speaker to do a lot. Let's talk about the future of work. And so when I look at the world and sort of elevating the human experience through health, there's a lot we can still do as humans before we all of a sudden get taken over by Skynet and go into this matrix type scenario. Right? And so I think people, you know, in terms of the mission, elevating the human experience through health in terms of the point I want to get across to people, start measuring if you are, no matter where you are, you don't have to be super human. You don't have to be, you can be like on the other end of the continuum, right?

Speaker 4: (45:39)
And just start measuring where you are. Start associating behaviors with a certain type of measure and get out a spreadsheet, get out a piece of paper, whatever it is. Assuming you're listening to this podcast, I assume you have some sort of modicum of technology you know, getting out a spreadsheet and start tracking this stuff and just started associating what you're doing with a feeling. And that's just a great way to start tracking. You can eventually get into all this really cool high level tracking that I've been talking about today, but really start measuring. That's something that will help you achieve your goals faster. And will really just make the whole journey a lot more, lot more fun.

Speaker 3: (46:22)
Yeah, a lot more fun and move a lot more little goals to aim for when you know what you're dealing with. And this is something, you know, that doesn't have any come naturally to me, but I'm definitely moving more and more in that way. We met, you've been super, super generous with your time. I really appreciate the work that you're doing in the world. I'm excited to see where it takes you and however we meet working with you more. So people can go to decoding superhuman.com which be your website and you can around, they can reach out to them.

Speaker 4: (46:53)
Sure. so www.decodingsuperhuman.com is the website. That's where you can find all the podcast episodes again, iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, every podcast destination there is. We released six episodes a month. And I will also, you know, you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. I've basically gone through my new year's rerock of how I want to address social media. So you'll see me more in posting there as well. So I look in and please say hi like I am, I respond to every message is everybody knows so please say hi and let me know what you think of the opposite.

Speaker 3: (47:32)
Definitely reach out, check out the podcast, absolutely

Speaker 2: (47:36)
As a, as a master's, a minimum and ask the questions cause that's where conversations start and where you learn. So thank you very much, much. I really appreciate your time today.

Speaker 3: (47:46)
Awesome. Thank you so much. And one more plug. I guess if you want to check out the stuff that we talked about,

Speaker 4: (47:51)
About on the home hope side of things, just go to home hope.org yup.

Speaker 3: (47:56)
Yeah. Home hope.org. It's the website or

Speaker 4: (48:00)
We're working on launching the education foundation. It's part of, it's already launched. But it's something that you guys can check out and let let us know what you think. Can you can just drop me a message on social media?

Speaker 2: (48:10)
Yeah, it's definitely on my horizon. I want to, I want to get there. So thanks for doing that and thanks for spreading that word cause it's a completely new lens to look through. Thank you very much glioma and we'll talk again.

Speaker 3: (48:21)
No doubt. Absolutely. Thank you. Lisa.

Speaker 2: (48:24)
If your brain is not functioning at its best in, check out what the www.vielight.com do now. Be like producers, photo biomodulation devices. Your brain function depends largely on the health of the energy sources of the brain cells. In other words, the mitochondria and research has shown that stimulating your brain with near infrared light. Revitalizes mitochondria. And I use these devices daily for both my own optimal brain function and also for other age related to client issues and also for my mom's brain rehabilitation after her aneurism and stroke. So kick out what the team www.vielight.com that's V I E L I G H T.com and use the code T A M A T I at checkout to get 10% of any of the devices.

Speaker 1: (49:15)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.
 
 
 
Jan 9, 2020
8 years ago a 22 year old Chloe Hogan was on her way to work at 5.30am one morning. She was gearing up for her second marathon a few weeks out and heading to the gym where she was a PT but disaster struck.
An accident, a major one and Chloe was left with a massive brain injury.
She lay in a coma for weeks, the Doctors after 19 days telling the family to turn off life support, that there was no hope. 4 days later she awoke and proved them all wrong. But the damage was massive and there wasn't much left of their beautiful daughter. But Brian is a fighter and a feisty Dad who wasn't willing to give up on his beautiful girl so he started researching and working. He ignored all the negative naysayers and powered through years of hard grind, always believing, always looking for the next level and slowly inch by hard won inch they bought Chloe back. 
After 4 years they discovered Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, Chloe was still completely wheelchair bound, could only speak very slowly, and was incontinent. After 20 treatments the incontinence was gone, Brian did more sessions with her, another 165 to be exact and slowly combined with thousands of hours of physio, a change in diet and a never say die attitude Chloe got better and better. Now 8 years into their journey Chloe surprised her parents for Xmas with the greatest gift on earth, she took her first steps completely unaided.
 
Chloes story is outlined in my new book "Relentless" due out on the 11th of March. This book is about bringing my Mother Isobel back after a major aneurysm and stroke left her like a baby and she, like Chloe has clawed her way back. Against all odds and against all the medical professionals prognoses.
 
You can pre order "Relentless" right now at 
 https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless and if you grab it right now (before the 1st of February 2020) you will get free access to my MINDSETu online mental toughness ecourse. 
Valued at $275. 
So hurry over and pre order your copy right now.
 
To Watch Chloes feature story on TVNZ's 7 Sharp program go here:
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10162529755070114&id=552205113&sfnsn=mo
 
and reach out to Chloe on Facebook at Chloe M S Hogan.
 
We would like to thank the sponsors for this show 
www.vielight.com
Makers of Photobiomodulation devices that stimulate the brains mitocondria, the power houses of your brains energy, through infrared light to optimise your brain function.  To get 10% off your order use the code: TAMATI at www.vielight.com
 
 
We would like to thank our sponsors:
 
 
For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com 
 
For Lisa's online run training coaching go to
Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body.
 
Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program
Get The User Manual For Your Specific Genes
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?
Discover the social interactions that will energize you and uncover your natural gifts and talents.
These are just some of the questions you'll uncover the answers to in the Lisa Tamati Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others.
There's a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the "future of personalized health", as it unlocks the user manual you'll wish you'd been born with!  No more guesswork.
The program, developed by an international team of independent doctors, researchers, and technology programmers for over 15 years, uses a powerful epigenetics analysis platform informed by 100% evidenced-based medical research.
The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyze body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home
 
For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit: 
Develop mental strength, emotional resilience, leadership skills and a never quit mentality -
Helping you to reach your full potential and break free of those limiting beliefs. 
 
For Lisa's free weekly Podcast "Pushing the Limits" subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app or visit the website 
 
Transcript of the Podcast: 
 
Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa [inaudible], brought to you by Lisatamati.com

Speaker 2: (00:13)
If your brain is not function at its best, then check out the team at vielight.com. Vielight producers photo biomodulation devices. Your brain function depends largely on the health of the energy sources of the brain cells, the mitochondria. Now research has shown that stimulating your brain with near infrared light revitalizes mitochondria. I use these devices daily for both my own optimal brain function and to slow age-related decline and also for my mom's brain rehabilitation after her aneurysm in stroke. So check out what the team at Vielight like, do it and use the code Tamati. That's T A M A T I at checkout to get a 10% discount on any of the devices.

Speaker 3: (00:59)
Hi everybody, Lisa Thomas to hear it pushing the limits. And today I have a very special couple of guests with me, Brian Hogan and Chloe Hogan all way from Oakland. Hi guys. How you doing? Good. Thanks. Good morning Lisa. We've had a little bit of technical troubles trying to get you on here, but we've worked it out. So now I have, this is a very special story guys that I wanted to share with you, the audience because Conway's had an incredible difficult journey and who did in a family. And I wanted to shoot a little bit of the story because it sort of parallels a little bit. And so I'm going to start with you. Brian, we what actually happened to Chloe? Can you take us back eight years ago.

Speaker 4: (01:49)
Okay. Well in the morning of the 22nd her birthday, like she left to go to work at around five 30 in the morning and when about full bath rate case down the road, she for some unknown reason the stage well, what we want you to get or not chase way up to miss something on the road. There was a funny morning.

Speaker 3: (02:10)
Yup.

Speaker 4: (02:11)
Yeah, she lost control of the car and slammed passenger side on a heavy concrete pap on. She sustained a traumatic brain injury. Fortunately, there was a, a chromo theater nurse. Well, living within steady. Yeah. 30 meters of the crash. Yeah. It has been, came out sort of situation called the called his wife came out and she stabilized Slatery way stabilized, got a breathing soon after that. Somebody had run a very one of my mum and the ACE arrived and then the ambulance arrived and she was taken to Middlemore hospital. Yeah, no, we were there and it's seven o'clock in the morning, we're gonna knock on our door and our street placements, standing here and of course you get to wonder what this is all about. You think the worst and it was the worst or most and they say cloud and being involved in an accident and that she was very serious.

Speaker 4: (03:08)
Accident was Neha terminology. A great 9. And right team is a fatality, so like currently offers to drive us through the middle more, which they did at great speed. And we arrived to fund how he had been stabilized in the hospital and that she was totally unconscious. Of course it was hooked up to all sorts of houses and gadgets. And then they then we were told that they didn't have the, the equipment to continue the treatment there she needed through the engine and eventually medical intervention. So put it in an ambulance. And again, we following her, rushed through to walk hospital where she went into intensive care and wow. Yeah. So it was quite a day I had a morning.

Speaker 3: (03:56)
Yes. Yeah. So it was, and so Chloe was only 22 years old. Major brain injury. So she's hanging on for dear life. She's in the hospital. Of course. Clara, you won't remember any of this. Nothing. Thank goodness. That's a really good thing. So Brian, I know that then it was touch and go for a fairly long time. Chloe was in a coma and the ICU unit what was that time in your life like?

Speaker 4: (04:27)
Well, I guess that first two or three days you are just a sideline, I observed that really, you couldn't do anything. We were totally numb, totally numb, or it was like an out of body experience. You know, the way we can tell the truth is going to poke through and tell that she was going to die really new. So it was a time of great concern and she was blissfully sleeping. Thank goodness. Yes, I was sick. Mmm. But anyway, I think on the third day Dr. Stevens straight cold us coordinating with the family and set the stage, there was a a high likelihood that she wouldn't die. It's a big paper, a long journey and go with it right at the store.

Speaker 3: (05:18)
So I know that she was in coma for I think 23 days, but a day like 19 or something, they said to you, you might have to turn off the life support.

Speaker 4: (05:27)
That's correct. That's correct. She was transferred to high to begin and see after, okay. A week out of 'em [inaudible] and after, I think it was the 19th day or the 20th day, real cold to a meeting with them seeking you register on a high dependency ward, Hey saved to S there is no chance Chi [inaudible] out of her coma. Injuries are too severe and you probably the family to consider the alternatives, which was withdrawal of life support. And I pushed a document or pamphlet across the [inaudible] devastated.

Speaker 3: (06:08)
You were devastated and you actually refused and you're Brian, we've thought about it. Of course you're has five runs. So yeah, you, you basically you, you know, it came to be that you lifted the life support on and thank God you did. Is that what happened?

Speaker 4: (06:35)
Well, in it to the little no document on the wall that says they can't, that's where they are intervention. You know, I'm on the ward. You lost it all as your rights. Yes. Brilliant. And so that was it. And everyone went away pretty safe. But anyway, just normal for Kali on the .

Speaker 3: (06:58)
22 days she woke up, she woke up just four days later and I were expecting her to, you know, not, not wake up even at all. This is pretty frightening though, Brian. If you think about it, like how many times has life support been tuned off when it didn't need to be tuned off? Yeah, yeah. Certainly not three weeks on and to the drama. I remember with my mom, I was, you know, given non resuscitation orders to sign and I wasn't as polite as you just saying. No, I use some stronger language. It wasn't that way. Always still going there. And you know, so after Callie woke up, of course she had massive brain damage. And Chloe, what is the very first memories that you have? How many months passed or you know, your dad will be able to help you here, but how many months before you can actually remember anything? The first thing I remember was the patient. Okay. So you have actual little bits of memory of actually in the, in the hospital, so okay. No, and their rehab. The rehab. Okay. So after hospital.

Speaker 4: (08:25)
Yeah. Especially as an open book or hospital for two months to Kevin IBI, which was out in route around Nelly and yeah, so that was probably four months after accident before she has that numeric.

Speaker 3: (08:41)
Wow. And that was the very first one. Now the cloud we have any any movement, any, any speech, any memory of you at all when she, you know, after a couple of months or was she pretty much you know, non functioning

Speaker 4: (08:59)
Well at open hospital once well she had an issue with biting her tone. Yeah. We all them. So they had to end up vein was gadgets to stop it tongue movement, which was very divisive and terrible. So she had shaved an amount, the must gadgets stuck in the mouth and she had a trunk. Yeah. And she has had a pig on to tell me to be fade. Sorry. She goes, Oh, what up. So even though she had woken up, she had no real response. We couldn't, she couldn't talk. She could say us. And she made, she'd made eye contact. Yeah. The the left side of her body wasn't functioning, so she couldn't see out the left side. And so that will took probably six months to come back slowly.

Speaker 3: (09:57)
Then we came back. Okay,

Speaker 4: (10:00)
Well forget, say what, say you on a high rot side, but hang on. Oh God, that ran the wrong way. My left and right. She could say, say on her right side and left side wasn't functioning. So she couldn't say, Hey, we'll stop. Stop. But then anyway, they, it's but now we're getting after the two months when it was obviously she was stabilized and she was reactive. And little by little like pulled some of these troops and things out. But you're so stuck with us math thing. But once the truck and that came out and I was there on the, not a senior nurse sick, well I think she can cope what ourselves and we're going to remove. So she moved there and they pulled them out, I think to me, his daddy.

Speaker 3: (10:59)
Oh, then it might give so she remember Jude, she had obviously some functions and some memory still there. No really good sign because I'm early on in the pace, you know, it's pretty hard not, you know, you don't know. I know with mum I didn't know whether she knew who I was and what I was or anything. And Tony, you've got a very, very special mum and dad, haven't you? Yep. So you've been now in this journey for eight years and from that time that you woke up from the injury and then that whole time you've been working really, really hard and your heart and your appearance and your family been working really, really hard to bring you back. How hard is this journey been for you and what, what does it mean? Like terrible. Yeah. So hard. Tell me some of the worst things that you've been through. Like at the very beginning you obviously couldn't control anything in your body at all.

Speaker 4: (12:04)
No. I don't think so. Well she had 'em up a little reasonable. Not reasonable, but okay. Up. I've I've actually, but she had, you know, we had to help feed her every meal, months, probably six months. Like to go back to one thing and it might, your audience might be interested that and for others going through this, you know, I did as much research as possible. Everything. Dr Google is probably really wonderful. Yeah. And one of the other things on that that I found out was stimulation was important no matter what. So while she goes and well while she was in and and not and high dependency, she I used to sing to her.

Speaker 3: (13:08)
Okay.

Speaker 4: (13:09)
And I also used the read to this, I agree to a book laugh out loud so she could hear it, but every time I did that end, even my staying here hat right wig down. So she was selling it for around 90 to a hundred beats per minute hot. Right. Well it had dropped her 70 almost every time. So she was getting it. She was, she was [inaudible] and stimulating and that suddenly, you know, for folks that are in the same situation, they might like to try that. There was a young guy at IBO who was a boxer and he sustained a traumatic brain injury in the prefab and his training and he was almost totally climatized. So his mother was, they regulate but wouldn't, she wasn't nice gun sit with him. And I talked to him about boxing and gosh, you just, yeah. You could say he'd smile and he'd give me . Mmm. Your responsible. Sorry. Can I just, as I said, never give up and try it. I was like this possible, but know simulation on happiness. Is it great? Mmm.

Speaker 3: (14:23)
And I think it's really important that people treat them as if they are the or O'Brian. Don't talk to them as a fan, not reasons or over them. That's what I found very, very frustrating. In the early days, did you find that like they would talk with a car? We didn't exist.

Speaker 4: (14:41)
Yeah. Do you let the medical staff talk to, talk over her as like when you're in hospital? But I might've pissed no, and I made them talk to her and address that. Ava, she was our sponsor. We just, we just stuck with it. We're not gonna give out.

Speaker 3: (15:04)
Yeah. And, and giving people that respect, even though they can't respond, is very, very important for anybody who has disabilities or anybody who can't communicate or has had a stroke or brain injury, you know, always give them the full respect that you'd give anybody else and talk to them about this situation. You know, I find that really, really offensive when people don't do that, even though they can't respond. Yeah, you, you went to dr Google. That's exactly what I did. I went like hardcore researching every thing in the universe on brain injury. And I know like for the listeners, Brian and I connected a few years down the track with Curry and actually I was probably half a year in or a year and with mom's rehab when we connected, I think, and you rang me one day about hyperbaric oxygen therapy and see what I, what I thought about that. I think you'd, yeah. Tell us a little bit about that journey cause that happened already. That was already four years in or so to two colleagues rehab, is that right?

Speaker 4: (16:07)
Yeah, it was it. Well, almost daily diary, as I said to medical staff, you know, how bout hyperbaric oxygen treatment. And so every single person, every single metal comparison I spoke to gave him no joy at all. Don't know anything about that. That's not proven. It's a hurry. But I, you know, I played, I played in the open rugby up hydrocod color dry for seniors and we played Navy and I took the bait fuck shelf it before it was no blood.

Speaker 3: (16:40)
Was almost an old black. I'm sure he was glowing

Speaker 4: (16:47)
That vaccines may or the boys go and you know, we're talking after the guy and mother boys go into the, into the decompression chamber, which I had on the night device, but the next day after the game, and I said, you could watch bruises disappear now that was when I was about 19 or 20. So it was a hell of a year long, long time ago. But that sort of stuck with me. So one of the early things I thought about or have have hyperbaric Novia with it and I, I sort of gave up on it because we got so much negativity from it.

Speaker 4: (17:24)
But anyway we, she hadn't had an operation, a middle matter hospital to correct her foot. So while we're sitting on the there for bed awakened and I was reading books like really got stuck into this hyperbaric and I found this chamber that's private chamber in, the seven mountain Nelson. And so that was approximately four years. Oh, on this journey. Did we rent them out to her? And Jose, actually, if there's someone who's down the call, I was going through hopper. Greg did, I rang you or she had 2020 treatments of MACRA the first time. And within a week of coming away she'd be, she'd be, she got control of about, so she was before years there was incontinent, a nappy for four years. And and so that, that was just a huge step. Now there was nothing else different than we did the fixed date.

Speaker 3: (18:27)
So this is 4 years. I want people to listen. Keep it. This is four years into the rehabilitation cause a lot of people have said to me, it's too late. I had a stroke five years ago or 10 years ago. It's now used to be doing that for years after the event. 20 sessions. And you've already got a major, major breakthrough. This might not sound major, but as it is, as both of us and all of us have gone through, being in consonants is major and it's not fun. It's not fun as it Chloe and after 20 treatments to get control, that means that part of the brain is coming back online. That's what that is. And then you, you had to go all the way to map or, so there's a, there's a a medical hyperbaric facility down in map or a Nelson, which I think is unfortunately closing if it hasn't already close his it, Brian.

Speaker 4: (19:20)
Ah, yeah, it's on the, in the process of closing down, but the much, Oh, absolute tragedy, you know, saying there's so much pressure from people who know about it. So it starts trickling along, but it'll eventually closed. I imagine by the end of this year,

Speaker 3: (19:40)
If we had, if we had lots of money, we'd go and buy it and get it up and running again. And no. So dr Tim are, is the, is the, is the doctor down there? He was in charge of the costume, a hyperbaric facility before he went in private. Now hyperbaric is a hugely beneficial, and then if you're listening to this guys, he was a, one of the world's leading experts on this podcast over two years ago now, Dr. Scott Scheer, who she has insights and go back and look up and I'll put it in the show notes, the link to that episode because this is really powerful. You did that 20 sessions and then you went back again and this, each time you're taking Kali right down to Nelson, you're staying, living down DHEA, which is a hell of a sacrifice day, isn't it?

Speaker 4: (20:24)
Oh yeah, I see it. You want to have a holiday? I got him out. Poets.

Speaker 3: (20:29)
It's a lovely place. But in karma you had to go in this chamber every day pretty much every day. Apart from weekends, weekends I got to go shopping. She's an expensive daughter, isn't she? So how many sessions did you end up having a map or Brian?

Speaker 4: (20:52)
195, I think.

Speaker 3: (20:54)
95 of the medical grade hyperbaric treatments in as she progressed. What were the things that you saw come back online? Cause when I met she was fully in a wheelchair, unable to stand or anything like that. What happened over there? 185 sessions. There's a lot of sessions, but that's, it's nothing when you compared to a lifetime.

Speaker 4: (21:18)
Oh yeah. Like it was well it just changed everything. She, she gained weight gain control of her alum. So her feet, you know, the walking out of it, she doesn't and I, I'm a high Walker.

Speaker 3: (21:39)
Yep. Yep, yep.

Speaker 4: (21:40)
And she has to have somebody in front of it pulling in somebody behind my conception 40th and the tray. That's as good as she had got. After half the Brack, she was able to walk to the gutter frame and assisted, you know, over a period of talking to them while we were down there. So her fake placement there was a first thing I noticed was probably after 40 stations she could manage her feet and place them in the right place instead of getting them 10 without. So then she was stable on like other friends. So it didn't make a person in front of the person to be healthy. And from that she's going on, she entering the Walker and now she's four, she's walking through and we'll link to basketball court.

Speaker 3: (22:27)
Wow. Probably tell you you were on television recently. We'd show because it was a Christmas miracle that you gave to your dad. What did, what did you do? May and Jane organized, did they own seven shop? Oh, I wanted to be on TV. Hey, curious, why not? And you showed them and this buddy you showed your dad and your mom, you for the first time taking some steps, is that right? Yeah. And I caught it on camera. I'll put the link to that guy, that video. Guys, these are copies for your steps. Now this is after 195 hyperbaric sessions, thousands of hours of physio therapy. Goodness knows what else you've done as well, Brian, for everything you've done, everything under the sun, pretty much. If someone sees this weird musical therapy, have you stuck? I've got lasers that I stick up mom's nose. I've done everything possible.

Speaker 3: (23:33)
Yeah, I've still got that. I actually think it's great. You know, in other words, we didn't just, both of us approach this with try everything. If it's risky, try it. And if it's risky, we'll weigh up the risks and we'll have a go at it and research like how, and take responsibility. Don't wait for the medical professionals to give you the go ahead. Don't wait for the green light for hyperbaric therapy. You know, this isn't an advert for five very clear free, but it is a very powerful therapy if you have enough sessions. And it's just an absolute travesty that Maffra is perhaps closing because the regulations around the just terrific. That made it very, very difficult from what I hear for dr terms to function and you leave are these stories. My mum has had 250, half of Barrick sessions. I ended up buying a, what they called a mild hyperbaric chamber, which is not as good as the one in Maffra, but it was the best that we could do. I had the first 53 sessions with you in a, in a proper, if you want to call it then a proper chamber. But it was through a dive company and it was, you know, taken off and we couldn't use it anymore. And I created that would giving me enough brain back of mom's brain that I could then teach you to walk and to do the things. And the same would have been with you I Brian with the, with the, with the policies coming back.

Speaker 4: (25:05)
Oh yeah, absolutely. And I like fake placements, quite important now with ums and she's got control of them. And I put that down to hyperbaric because nothing else is, well, she's had lots and lots and lots, lots and stuff. But I suppose that's been one of the pickiest parts of the puzzle and putting it back together.

Speaker 3: (25:32)
It's the key of it because it ha so what hyper hyperbaric does people is it hyper oxygenates your your body. So you're getting about seven times the amount of oxygen into the body and it's compressing the oxygen molecules so that it can actually pass through the blood brain barrier to the parts of the brain that are damaged but not deed. So the deed pats were unable to bring back. But typically around the deep parts of tissue there is what they call way ischemic penumbra and these are cells that are alive but they're not functioning. And these are the ones that we can hopefully target with hyperbaric and bring back. It also hits the inflammation pathways in the brain and in the body. And it also helps produce more STEM cells and all of these things help the body to repair it. So it's not a quick fix.

Speaker 3: (26:18)
It's something that you need to have a lot of sessions in. But as you can see with probably after four years of not getting very far at all and then having these 185 sessions over the period of, I don't know, a year and a half, two years, she's now walking that is massive. She now has control over her bowels and 40 in control over a hell of a lot more. Whose features also improved greatly, hasn't it? Karma. You're talking pretty now? Cause when I, when I meet slow, yeah. I think when I met you it was quite slow. It was. It was, and that's a huge difference. So it's a hugely powerful and you've got your whole life ahead. You're a super young lady and I know that you've got your 30th birthday coming up. Is that right? You're invited. Oh, I'm invited. It's fantastic.

Speaker 3: (27:09)
I'll try and get to that point. And so Chloe's dad and I have had sort of exchanged notes along the road, however we, Brian and given each other tips, some trucks of what we've learned along the way. And this has been really a multipronged approach. It's not just the one thing, a huge part of it has been hyperbaric, but it's also thousands of hours and the therapists and training and retraining the mind. It's having the guts and the determination like if Brian wasn't such a feisty, don't take any shirts person who is going to push through every barrier and if I wasn't the same then I don't think mum or Chloe would we be with AR. And by the same token, Chloe and mum are also identical and that they are fighters. They are people that persist that resilient. The positivity that Callie brings to this really difficult journey is nothing short of mind blowing. I've been absolutely astounded to watch you over the last few years on how you've just fought your, your differently. A chip off the old block, aren't you daughter?

Speaker 3: (28:23)
I have lots of grit. Exactly. So call me. You are just a couple of weeks away from running your first marathon when the accident happened. Day one. So I forgot. I forgot. You'd already need the one. Sorry. I was going to do it and then you want to smash that toe. I'll tell you what though, that dream is still alive in you, isn't it? To athlete again, get out there and race and be in a, in a, in a racing, you've actually done a fiveK , is that right? Yeah. Fun run. And you did it on your, your frame at that time. Zimmer frame funding. Yeah.

Speaker 4: (29:14)
She doesn't, well, yeah, I guess because it, but yeah, she doesn't walk. Oh by Southwest. We have lots of people around helping her. Oh, and encourage her, right. Very steep that she needed.

Speaker 3: (29:30)
Yeah. That's insane. That is so amazing. Chloe, you've got mum, I'm up to two Ks with mum. The five K's yet. And story in Brian's story is in my new book, which is coming out in match called relentless. And it's, it's another example of an incredible comeback story. And that's why I was really keen to share this. And Brian is hopefully gonna write the book one day and Brian and chloe, you're gonna get the bums into here and share this insight as well. Even though writing a book is a mission. I hope so because this is an incredible story, Callie and it's not finished yet and she's still got a week wise to go on on. Definitely to get full independence. Ron, do you think Chloe will ever reach full, full independence again and be able to no flat on her own or, or live in a house with, with flatmates and they talked to them.

Speaker 4: (30:28)
Oh, without a doubt. But they have a death.

Speaker 3: (30:30)
Really? That's amazing. So at the moment you with mum and dad? Yeah. Yeah. And yet are you sick and mum and dad, do you want your own independence? He goes away sometimes. So it's okay. It's just you and ma and then you girls go shopping, but more on spend. Spend some more money there. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't really like shopping. They keep a grip on it. They'll say, Oh, hype site. So I call it. What are the next steps in your journey? What are you working on at the moment? Because you're always working on something. Hey. Yeah. To be able to walk without the Walker. Oh, like a long period of time. Yep. Yep. And what are the things that she's struggling with Brian in that respects as a balance or spatial awareness or con coordinating your face and things. Don't

Speaker 4: (31:28)
A balance really chase get, you know, like every day she gets better at it. You're like, we, we have been away to Tyro since Christmas or so before Christmas. And even I notice even though we're here all the time with it, even I know she can climb the stairs and stairs now with minimal assistance, whereas at Christmas it was, you know, you have to keep a class on I, but she can do it all by herself. Now just with my mind,

Speaker 3: (32:00)
Are you using functional neurology? That's something that I'd highly recommend you go out and start looking into if you haven't to Willy, which is using a, so doing things like with your eyes balancing, you know, different eye exercises that really helped me with non, with your facial awareness and who balance stuff. So if you, if you, are you doing that at all with, with PI?

Speaker 4: (32:20)
Yeah. maybe they're not that I'm aware of. Exactly. If you could save me that.

Speaker 3: (32:26)
Yeah, I'll send you a couple of videos. I'm in links to doctors who, who teach this online. I'd also recommend you go to a good car, Frank, cause it knows about functional neurology or I'm not sure if there's up in Oakland or not, but and just get things looked at it from that perspective because adjusting the bet can also help with I've got mum at the chiropractor at the moment, we're trying to straighten out. It's fine. Of course things are going a little bit skew with after four years of being, you know, leaned over on one side and that can help with neurological function as well. So it's just say people like it's really important to share these insights and information with each other cause we're still learning, we're still growing, we're moving forward. And each time you come, you take a step forward, you actually come up against a new obstacle. I've found a Braun, there's something that, some new place that you haven't thought about. A new, a new level, a new deal sort of thing.

Speaker 4: (33:19)
Yeah. You know, like the other thing that I think is important is as I'm assessing the notes that you know, the right to make a significant difference as well. I think

Speaker 3: (33:33)
The right food for our brain is really, really important. And having good high fats, good Omega threes, really important. I have a whole regime of different supplements that I also have mum on. And we also do something called epigenetic testing. And I got into this Brian, it looks because it looks at your gene genetic makeup and how they're expressing now and gives the exact right diet for that person's genes. So it'd be something that we

Speaker 4: (34:02)
Yeah, for sure. I like look at them.

Speaker 3: (34:07)
Yeah. Cause I think what, what, what the key takeaway from this guys is obviously hyperbarics really important. Second is resilience in fight in persistence and not giving up in certainly having the support of a wonderful family or friends or people that can help anyone going through a drama like this and being resilient and then also the right diet and taking a really multipronged approach. Not just relying on drugs, not relying on just physio. It's not enough. It's not enough. It's a part of the puzzle, but it's, it's not, it's not enough for brain injury, but there is a way back and there is quality of life. You know, Chloe, you're pretty happy lighting it nowadays that you, you always seem to be jetting around the place and having all travel. You love travel, you've got a wonderful family. You're moving again, you're walking in, you're going somewhere, you've got your job, sort of sit for the next couple of years. What do you get yourself back to? More independence and, but near as quality of life and nearest happiness. Fear and it sounds, yeah, it's an amazing story guys. Brian, are there any last words or closing any last words that you want to encourage people who might be going through hardships? It doesn't even need to be brain injury, but just hard times.

Speaker 4: (35:23)
Well, I, you know, I, my bag disappointment through or laser as a, a number of the professionals just don't get it. And you know, like a lot, probably more than 50% of the you know, they use psychologists if you like. Have said in front of Chloe, you'll never walk again. You've got unrealistic expectations to hit face. And some of them say, you know, you'll never have you know, never have a pattern in your life and you got any issue and you're going to get [inaudible] don't get used to it. That's, that's how it's going to be. The phone a lot. And I've got so angry and in front of people, I never quite lose it, but I felt like

Speaker 3: (36:21)
A few times and my big brother have lost it toe a few times.

Speaker 4: (36:27)
Yeah. And it's just stupid. They put themselves up as so called experts and they, yeah, I know nothing for those facts. We just kept them. You don't want to know anything about them. I've tried them in the door. That's it. We're not coming back. We keep looking and, and we've had some absolutely wonderful caregivers or professionals that are help Chi and, and an event like I, we keep changing providers cause he goes to speech therapists almost every two or three years until we find the right one. But they run out of ideas. They run out of experience and colleagues continue to improve. So therefore some of them you get to a stage where they've topped out, I don't know any more and can't take it to the next stage. Or the challenge is to find the next person who can take it to the next day. And we've been relentless at that nonsense and we look constantly for people that can help. And we just kept the negative ones there immediately. Non-Native might, I don't know. And I just really totally surprises me how how these people lie and I still operate and I just wonder how many people get discouraged by that and just accept it. We're, you know, we document,

Speaker 3: (37:52)
No, we don't. And, and, and we've, you know, like the thing is like, we're feisty fighters. We, we not people that give up and how many people go under the bus who don't have feisty daughters or fathers or people that will help them. I had times at the hospital where, like in front of my mum, I remember vividly, we had a, we were finally got into a physio program and of course she wasn't ICC like you guys. So we didn't get a lot of support. And I finally got her into a physio program after a year and we did this training with him, which was excellent. And he preceded, I could have done more in my, you know, when lunch break than they did. And at the end of the six weeks, they'd done all these tests with here and they'd talk to her like she was an idiot.

Speaker 3: (38:35)
And we were in this panel that we had to present the senior, that we were allowed to stay in the program. And we were taken into this room and I said to her, look, Isabel is below the level of the worst dementia patient we've seen. There is excellently no hope. She will never do anything again. We not going to continue in the program and this is in front of my mum. Right. And, and I just turned around to my mum and I said how does it make you feel mum? And she said, well, I was feeling quite empowered until I heard that, that I'm below the level of dementia patient now I'm absolutely depressed and I don't know what to think. And the mouths dropped open. They have never heard her speak a full sentence because that talked down to her, realized she had an intelligence via that they, they had ignored. And these are the professionals, the doctors, they send the fuzzier therapists and you know, I'm not saying that all like that from pig. God, they're not complete idiots. We told them to stop the program.

Speaker 3: (39:42)
I bet you've seen hates cause I've seen hates and in people who had told me, even, you know, good physios who would come to the end of their abilities, who told me you won't get any more rubbish. Yeah. And you can imagine when you've got a 78 year old how they're even more so, because they're like, she's 78. What do you want? You know, made it go, no, she's my mum and I'm going to fight and I wanted to live to 120, you know, then my attitude and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not happy with where we're at it, I'm very, I'm glad we're here but I want more and Callie wants more. We keep looking for the next layer of people that can help us and that's why we keep exchanging ideas and I've got a couple for Chloe to look into. So

Speaker 4: (40:36)
Yeah, I guess that that was really my point. I think just don't give up and when you get a divorce that you don't think is right, seek a second opinion or just go elsewhere and I just tell them out. They're not talking to our my niece has just qualified as a medical doctor and I said to her, she was here just over Christmas period. Said to her, what you know, what did they teach your bed? Hyperbaric oxygen treatment. And she said nothing. Nothing, absolutely nothing. Absolutely stupid as that I've been back works for almost, even though I dislocated my shoulder playing rugby years and years ago. And when they told me what I need a shoulder reconstruction thought and I was functioning okay. But I couldn't wash my hair with my left. Well wash it with my right. But so I put up with that for years and years and after that first 20 treatments,

Speaker 3: (41:35)
Yeah. Wow. What's flowing? No question. That there's no growth like crazy me. It does. We don't ask Dr. Scott share who was on this you know, earlier this, this podcast he said to me, if we can get three treatments, if anybody who's had a heart attack or stroke within a few days we can have the mortality. Right. And I see, why the hell is this not an every single ICU in the world. And you see, because there's no money to be made in it. He said that I'm a doctor, this is not from [inaudible] the company behind it, the clinical trials, they won't do anything cause you can't patient oxygen and they can't make money out of it. And unfortunately that is the general state of our health system. It's very pharmacological based and it's very surgery based. And while that brilliant surgery and the brilliant at those parts of the puzzle, they're not good when it comes to chronic health management and they're no good when it comes to a situation like this. And that's why, you know, I know this is controversial, unnoticeable piss some people off, but this is our experience and it needs to be shared because there's a hundred other people that will back up what we're saying a thousand other people. Yeah. Interesting enough. Was the next a customer in the door, was that an American lady? And we're talking about, she said, well, funnily enough, almost every new mall would you go on until you are in the States nowadays as a wellness clinic.

Speaker 3: (43:33)
There you go. Yeah, it's growing and, and, and the popping up. We'll have New Zealand. I opened the clinic here with a, what they call a mild hyperbaric facility with, so we can't afford the big ones with the big medical grade, but they are justice just about as good, not quite as good, but it just about as good, they don't have a hundred percent oxygen and these are popping up all over the country. So you guys, if you want to find out about it, this is not just for people with brain injuries. This is for people who want an anti aging. Good for you, for athletes. This is good for healing wounds. This is absolutely proven stuff. And there is clinical trials. I have a season. It is a powerful and by the same token, there's a hundred other Sierra pays or biohacking or whatever you want to call it, stuff out there that is worth looking into.

Speaker 3: (44:21)
We can't give recommendations for everything there is, but there's a hell of a lot that I've tried. And all combined together. Nope. Do the restaurant, do the risk assessment yourself. And if you think it's for you, go for it. And don't be told what you can and you can't do. And you know, just keep powering on clothing. Brian, you've been fantastic today. Thank you so much for sharing your story. It's really awesome. It's so important Chloe, that you get out there and you tell people this journey that you've been on, there's a reason why you've been through this. We've got to tune it into a positive, even though it's been health, you and your family. This is why the book for me is important to get it out there, to share these insights so that other people don't have to have it as hard as we did.

Speaker 3: (45:11)
And if we can help people then it's great. So if anybody wants to reach out to calling weaker, they find you guys your famous snare Chloe. Yeah, my Danny that drew runnings, my Facebook page, my journey back to running Facebook. So clubby Hogan on Facebook and I can find you the year under Chloe Hogan. That be right. Chloe is Hogan. Okay. Chloe, Ms. Hogan, what a complicated name you've got. Wow. That is very fancy. So fire was my granddad. Oh wow. That's a pretty cool name. So Chloe, Amy's Hogan, if anyone wants to reach out to Corey, I'm sure she'd love to hear from you. If anyone wants to reach out to me or to Brian, please let us know. You can email me and I can pass any messages on. If you've got any questions. Thank you very much guys for sharing your story. We've got to get it out there more. It's an absolutely amazing story and you and mum, Chloe are both rock stars, so thanks though. Thanks Lisa!

Speaker 2: (46:20)
We're pushing the limits this week. I hope that that was really interesting for you and you took some really strong takeaways from that interview with Brian and Chloe. It's been a, an amazing to watch her journey over the last few years parallel to my mums and some of the insights that we've both gained a really along the same path. So I hope you'll take heat of some of the notes that we talk. I just wanted to remind you to hop on over to our website. If you want to check out our programs. We've got three flagship programs. We've got our online run training Academy running hot. We you can learn everything you need to know about running with you are doing your first five K or 10 K or maybe you're gone for an a half marathon. Or if you're doing a hundredth hundredth miler, we would love to help you.

Speaker 2: (47:04)
We have a holistic run training system that is based around our five pillars. So these are your run training sessions, you mobility work, your strength work, your nutrition and your mindset and all those pieces of the puzzle. Really, really important. It's not just about putting one foot in front of the other and winging it and seeing how you go. Certainly not when once you start getting into the longer distances or once you start running sort of any injury issues. So please check that out. We also have mindset U, which is our mental toughness Academy. And this is all about developing a stronger mindset. You know, all the stuff you just heard about. And the interview with colleague, that sort of stuff. It's about resilience, it's about persistence. It's about overcoming that negative voice in your heads, those limiting beliefs that were programmed into you perhaps as a young person.

Speaker 2: (47:53)
All of that sort of good stuff. So cheek out mindset you're in. The third program that we have is our epigenetics testing program. Now this is just really next level. Now this is a program that's been put together by hundreds of scientists working from 15 different science disciplines to look specifically at your genes and how they are expressing right now. And so this is the next step in personalized health. Never before in the history of mankind. Have we ever had an insight into our bodies like we do now. And then information can help us really nail down our health problems, our optimizing our house, tuning the clock back on time and reaching high-performance. It give you information right from like having Google for your, for your own body basically. You know, it'll tell you exactly the right foods to eat, the right times of the day, your chronobiology all about the different times of the day, your hormones, when they're replacing what your dominant hormones are.

Speaker 2: (48:54)
It'll give you information on your mindset, how your mind works, which parts of your brain you use the most are just absolutely next level of information. So if you want to check out our epigenetics program, hop on over to my website, Lisa Thomas E. Dot com and hit the programs button and you'll see all three of our programs. I've also got our new book relentless coming out on the 11th of March, 2020 then this is a story of bringing my bump mum back from a mess of aneurysm. And you can preorder that book. Now, if you do preorder it, you'll get free access for the next three weeks only to mindset you. So you'll get your free X's to mindset you, you also get a discount on the book if you preorder it. The book does not ship until the 11th of March. But if you support me in getting this underway, I'm actually going to give you access to mindset. You now, that's a value of $275 and that program has been running for a few years and has helped countless people. So if you want to get this as a onetime only offer only to promote the book, please head on over to the shop at lisatamati.com Under the books button and you'll find relentless the preorders available there. So thanks very much for your time everyone, and we'll see you again next week.

Speaker 1: (50:12)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at Lisatamati.com.
Jan 2, 2020

Sanjay Rawal worked in the human rights and international development sectors for 15 years in over 40 countries before focusing his love for photography and storytelling onto filmmaking.

His first feature, Food Chains (2014), premiered at the 2014 Berlinale and screened at Tribeca before securing domestic distribution from Screen Media. The film was produced by Eva Longoria and Eric Schlosser and narrated by Forest Whitaker.  It went on to screen in 1,100 more theaters during its theatrical, semi-theatrical & community screening tour.

A lifelong runner, Sanjay was happy to lose the pounds he gained eating Mexican food in farmworker towns and take on a project about running. His latest film, 3100: Run and Become, opened in theaters in fall 2018 and comes to New Zealand in February 2020.

 

Sanjay learned under spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy and studies in this film the power of running to connect humans to powers beyond themselves.

The film follows the incredibly long and brutal 3100-mile race held every year in New York City as well as diving into the long human history of long-distance running visiting The Mt Heiei Monks in Japan to the Navajo Indians to the Kalahari Bushmen.

A film not to be missed and an interview to open the mind to new possibilities.

 

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 personalized health”, as it unlocks the user manual you’ll wish you’d been born with!

No more guesswork. The program, developed by an international team of independent doctors, researchers, and technology programmers for over 15 years, uses a powerful epigenetics analysis platform informed by 100% evidenced-based medical research.

The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyze body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

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://runninghotcoaching.com/epigenetics

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

 

Transcript of the Podcast:

 

Speaker 1: (00:01)
Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa [inaudible], brought to you by Lisatamati.com

Speaker 2: (00:13)
You're listening to pushing the limits with Lisa Tamati. Welcome back everybody. Today I have a very, very special podcast, but before we get underway, I just want to remind you, if you want to reach out to me, you can do that at lisatamati.com Find me on Instagram. I'm very active on Instagram at least to [inaudible] the same on Facebook. And I'd love you to come and check out our website and our flagship programs. We have three programs. We mainly do our work and we have the epigenetic program, we have the run online run trading system running hot, and we also have mindset you, which is all about mental toughness, resilience, and being the best version of yourself that you can be. So make sure you go and check those lisatamati.com Right now. Today we have a very special guest all the way from New York city.

Speaker 2: (01:05)
His name is Sanjay revile. Have you haven't heard of? Sanjay? He is an internationally renowned filmmaker. He was in the human rights and international development sector for 15 years and worked in over 15 so over 40 countries before he tuned his love for photography and storytelling into his new career, which is filmmaking. He's done a number of films. I'm most well known as his feature film, his first feature film called food chains. This was produced with Eva Longoria and Eric Schlosser and was an over 1100 theaters worldwide. And his latest film is what we're going to be talking about today. Now Sanjay is a lifelong runner. He's dedicated to doing just this running. And he was also a follower of the late Sri chum NOI, who many of you runners may know of. He was a Indian spiritual leader who died in 2007, but he was very much into unifying religions and to meditation and the power of a sport and athleticism to help you reach spiritual realms, which I find really, really fascinating subject.

Speaker 2: (02:25)
And the film that Sanjay has just produced is called 3,100 run and become, and it's based around the fact that human beings are meant to do this long, long distance running that we talk about that we're born to run. And it's particularly seen it on the race in New York city. 3000, 100 miles. This has been going for over 27 years, I believe around half mile block in New York city. And every year about 14 to 16 runners come to test the metal against horrifically long brutal arduous race. And the distances that they cover in that time is over 52 days. Is 3,100 miles set is over with just up, no, sorry, just over 5,000 kilometers. That's like going right across the United States, but in a half mile blocks. So you can imagine how hard this is. It's absolutely brutal. It's not something I would've ever tackled. It's too big. But he talks in chosen this foam, one of the characters, the main characters is the Norwegian runner who has done this over 15 times. And as really the world's best at the super, super, super long distances. So we get into a really deep conversation around philosophy and spirituality. The power of running to train, seeing yourself the healing abilities of running, how it can connect you with mother nature and you know, soul, a lot of our modern day woes. So without further ado, here's Sanjay.

Speaker 3: (04:01)
Well, hi everybody and welcome to pushing the limits. It's fantastic to have you guys back again. We're nearly at the end of 2019 and I can't believe it. And today I have a special special guest with me who is sitting in New York city at the moment. Sanjay Rowe. Wow. Welcome to the show. Sanjay.

Speaker 4: (04:20)
Thank you so much. It's a, it's a winter here, so I'm just trying to keep it together while you guys enjoy mother nature in a different way than I am right now.

Speaker 3: (04:28)
Yes, I've been, yeah. Well you're welcome to come over here anytime. We'd love to have you ever New Zealand. You can come and visit way. That'd be fantastic. So have you ever been to New Zealand?

Speaker 4: (04:38)
I have, I haven't been there in almost 20 years, but I am coming for about 10 to 12 days at the end of February. The screen, the movie that we're going to talk about.

Speaker 3: (04:48)
Oh wow. Okay. I've got to make sure I get to that somehow. So we'll talk about that afterwards. So everybody listening who doesn't know sanjay you will soon. So he has produced a number of films over his career. But recently won a film that we are going to be talking about mostly today is a film called 3,100. Sanjay, can you tell us a little bit about this amazing though?

Speaker 4: (05:15)
Yeah, I'd be happy to. So the movie's 3,100 running become and it follows a pretty diminutive relatively unheard of. Finished man named Ashbery. Hannah Alto is a paper boy by trade. At the same time, he is an underground, multi-day distance running legend. The film follows him trying to complete the 3,100 mile race and the year 2016 this race is the world's longest certified road race. It's almost 5,000 kilometers. It's just a few case short of five K 5,000 but it takes place all around a half mile, close to a kilometer along a loop. In the heart of New York city runners have to try to complete at least a hundred K a day for 52 days in order to finish the race. Under that window. It's grueling, but at the same time, although it sounds like an absolute misery Fest, a suffer Fest, people don't come out of it physically devastated. In fact, the only way you can actually tell the line for this type of mores is to have a deep understanding of the spirituality of long distance running.

Speaker 4: (06:31)
So in the film, not only do we follow Ash Briana, El Alto, but to kind of show how and why this race is even possible, we'd go back into time. We follow three other runners on their own quests, but runners who come from very deep traditional cultures of running a, we follow an ultra marathoner on the Navajo nation. In Arizona, we go to the Kalahari desert and Botswana at hunt with Bushman hunters who chase down game across two to three day law tracks. And we follow an aspirant in the Highlands of Japan who was doing a thousand day Trek of about 31,000 miles in the mountains outside of Kyoto. This shows the spirituality that's inherent to running that really fuels the runners in the 3,100 mile race.

Speaker 3: (07:20)
Wow. Well you preaching to the converted here and a lot of my audience, of course Evan runners. And what really surprises me, I mean I have to, I have to tell you a little bit of a story. I actually tried to get a documentary series done for discovery channel called run the planet and we actually uncovered, so the Kalahari, the Navajo, the, the Mount Tia amongst the, and a number of other tribes, people with stories and legends of doing long distance running. I didn't manage to pull it off. We did the the pilot for the series a in Australia reenacting an Aboriginal men story who ran 250 kilometers to save a friend of hers across the desert. And that was the end of the project unfortunately. But you actually manage the Paul was off which a huge amazing seat too though because I know what these sort of things take.

Speaker 3: (08:17)
But we, we came from the same premise that running is an inherently, we are born to run and stuff. The famous book is from Chris Google. We have born to run and we are made for this sort of long distance stuff and that we've done that throughout history. And you have uncovered these amazing people doing these incredible things. What's interesting for me is you've come from a very spiritual background and I've actually not come from that same background as a runner come more from the sporting and the, you know and I, I think I lived a lot of untapped potential sort of on the table looking back cause I didn't tap into the more spiritual side. I think I did to a certain degree without really understanding it. But you know, let's talk a little bit about Sri chum noise and what the races that he set up all around the world actually have to do with a 3,100 mile race. And, and your, your what, what your beliefs are around, she treats your NOI and has had a trick to long distance running.

Speaker 4: (09:25)
First of all. I so wish you'd completed that series. It sounds like it would have been awesome and I probably wouldn't have had to do this movie.

Speaker 3: (09:33)
It would have been complimentary, would've been awesome. Yeah. We didn't manage to pull it off. As, you know, there are lots of hurdles to jump through when you're totally, yeah.

Speaker 4: (09:44)
So, you know, to your question, I, I ran track in high school and I, I, I grew up in the United States and you know, the state that I grew up in, California has 35 million people. So a lot of people ran track, you know, but kind of got disillusioned from everything at university and ended up after graduation moving from the West coast of the U S to New York city where an Indian spiritual teacher named Sri Chinmoy lived his path really intrigued me because no harm, no foul, like there's no superiority or inferiority. But he really advocated a a pretty unified philosophy of not just making your heart strong and, and trying to develop the kind of beautiful qualities that we have inside, like love and peace and joy. But he also felt that physical fitness was a paramount importance to achieving that sense of inner peace. And so he came at running an exercise from a totally different vantage point than I did for me.

Speaker 4: (10:45)
You know, it was all about competition. And you know, when I was in high school, I would win a lot of races, but by the time I got to college, you know, I was no longer in that kind of top echelon. And you know how it is. It's like once you realize you're never going to be like at the very, very top, you know or, or you're not going to win every single race. I know you want a lot of races, you start really losing, you know, a sense of purpose. But when I came across region wise philosophy, it was totally different. You know, and, and this is reflective in all the cultures that we explore in 3,101 and become that there's something unique about running and we just have to take it on faith that unlike any other activity, however wonderful, whether it's tennis or swimming or biking, that running connects us to mother nature in a completely unique way.

Speaker 4: (11:41)
And when I, when you know, when I spent time with the Navajo and people will see in the film are our main Navajo character. Sean Martin says, when you run your feet are praying to mother earth, you're breathing in father sky. You're showing them, you're praying to them, you're showing them that you're willing to work for the blessings of mother earth. And that's a philosophy that I've seen reflected in traditional cultures all over the world. And that was in Sri Chinmoy. His philosophy, even though we don't actually, nobody really consider as Eastern philosophy as something that really revolves around an act of, of, of physical fitness, like running. Yeah. But in a sense, you know, it was men and women, humanity's first religion, that idea of connecting to nature and the energies both within and without through our feet. So when, when, when he kind of presented that to me and to others, that blew my mind, but I wasn't really ready for the philosophy. You know, I ran 800 meters and the 1500 meters, but when I moved to New York to study with them in 1997 that was the summer that the 3,100 mile race was launched and I hadn't, I hadn't even done a marathon. So the idea of doing 60 miles a day or 52 days just blew my mind.

Speaker 3: (13:03)
Yeah, absolutely. How does the human body, I mean I've, I've done, you know, the longest I've run is like through New Zealand, like 3000, 250 Ks in 42 days, which is not as much money per day is what they were doing. Given we were on the road and doing book tours and things at the same time. But the, the amount of pain in the suffering that you do go through and people have often said to me, did you reach this flow state? And then you became a, and I know that a lot of people experience that. And I, and I have to say I had had times or flow state when I was in a flow state, but unfortunately I couldn't leave a hole myself in that flow state. And the, the suffer face did, you know, it was about, you know, overcoming a lot of pain amazing levels of fatigue with a lot of willpower which we know as limited, you know, we will have a limited amount of willpower.

Speaker 3: (14:09)
And, and I was always hoping to reach that state of self transcendence really. And, and Neveah, but I hadn't been a catered myself to meditation and to the other sides of all that. Probably enough looking back which I'm much more into these days. But back then it was all about, you know, the physical, mental, the mental strength and the physical strength to actually prepare your body for this battle going in. And this is a completely different approach to what Sri, Jim NOI head and what these people that are doing the 3,100 have really it's, and I wonder how do they actually get to that, you know, as someone who's don't done a hell of a lot of running and not really achieved that flow state for long periods of time, at least how the heck do they do it.

Speaker 4: (15:00)
So there, there, there are two types of runners in the race and you know, again, no superiority or inferiority, but there are very few people on earth like you that have the mental fortitude to like will themselves through 40, 45, 50 days, you know, of of doing, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, a hundred Ks per day. Like, you know, that willpower will only take you so far. And, and in your darkest moments, you know, in the run, willpower is not going to offer you any light. If it's gone, then it's just Sufferfest. So a lot of people who come to the 3,100, whether they, there, they come from a background of faith or not, they realize either in their first attempt or beforehand that if they don't kind of develop access to a place within themselves where they can be happy, simply just happy in the worst moments.

Speaker 4: (15:58)
If they can't be in that flow state at will, then it's going to be a long 52 days. And you know, a lot of people, I would say probably at least a third to a half of people who do it the first time, you know, it's, it's it's a mixture of pleasure and pain and those moments like you experienced in, in your, in your cross-country run, those moments are enough to get you up the next day. But they're not necessarily gonna fuel every single mind mile. That said, it's like the people that come back and do it over and over and over, either through the race or outside the race, they really develop the power of meditation and at the same time, like unlike your race, and I think you'll appreciate this more than most, the reason why they do the race on a half mile loop is so that you have access to your aid every half a mile.

Speaker 4: (16:53)
You have access to a bathroom every half a mile. There's no traffic. There's foot traffic on this loop from just the public, but it's a pretty isolated area of New York and you don't have to worry about cars or anything. So in that sense your mind can like stop forgetting about the surroundings and, and it's, it's a lot easier that way. So that said, it's like this race, like the people that get the most out of it come at it the way you would now that come at it, knowing that you need to have access to that meditative side of you and you need to train with that in mind. It's like you have to find a way to find joy or happiness in those moments of exertion. And that doesn't come spontaneously out in the suffer Fest. You have to build that in your training.

Speaker 3: (17:38)
Yeah. And you have to develop that skill and the years and years of meditation, I should imagine to be able to reach that state. And that's something that fascinates me now. And I'm in, I'm developing, you know, those skills of late, but it's something that I wish on head back then instead of just the will and mindset. And I'm doing this no matter what. And, and it surprises me that how many people can override all of the the pain and the, you know, we do have an amazing ability to deal with things. But I cannot, I cannot, in all honesty, say to you, I enjoy it or I was happy in doing a lot of those races. There was a lot of, you know, I want to achieve this. It's a challenge. It's an opportunity to find out who I am. And I think when we, when we connect to nature and we do find out so much about ourselves and so even though I didn't approach it from a spiritual point of view, I think the stuff that I learned from it has been so, so powerful to helping me in, in everyday life.

Speaker 3: (18:51)
In, in getting through obstacles, other people that are doing these types of things, in your opinion just more, are they tapping into a higher power? Are they able to actually leave the the, the suffering behind in some way?

Speaker 4: (19:12)
That's a great question. So like going to the time that we spent with the Bushman and the Kalahari, these cultures that have been running for literally 125,000 years, they say you cannot separate running from God. Of course, if you want to run to become a better looking person running, we'll give that to you. If you want to run to become healthy running, we'll do that for you. But if you run with the intention, I mean this is wild, but if you run with the intention of getting closer to the divine part of yourself, to the divine part of the universe, whatever you, you label that as running, we'll get you there. I mean, just like if you meditate for just power of concentration, it'll do it. If you meditate to feel a little bit of peace, it'll do it. But if you meditate for a self discovery to discover the oneness you have with the divine, that's everywhere.

Speaker 4: (20:07)
Meditation will do that. And so when it, when it comes to running this particular race, people come into it as a pilgrimage. You know, you can either come into it what the mental attitude of like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to achieve this. But there was a runner on an Israeli multi-day champion and Coby Orrin who did the race, I think in 2017 and across the first thousand miles he was pushing. And he actually sat in Israeli national record for the fastest time to a thousand miles in the midst of this 3,100 mile race. But he realized that the true meaning of this race wouldn't reveal itself unless he moved into a completely different state of mind. And he realized that he had to take the race as a pilgrimage. And what that meant was not thinking about your splits, not thinking about how many miles you're doing each day, but really finding a way to focus on the meaning of each action of each step.

Speaker 4: (21:06)
And when he got into that sense of, or lack of expectation, and when he got into that sense of focus, he realized that there was, there was joy, there was actually happiness by looking at the moments, by looking at the specific actions and the steps and that happiness wasn't going to come. Looking at your watch or looking at your daily mile totals, that happiness kind of existed in the middle of all that. But again, it's like, it all sounds like fun and games, but unless we had that kind of intention, we don't actually find where happiness really exists.

Speaker 3: (21:40)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, overcoming changing perspective. I mean, I never went into races with the, the thought of winning, to be honest, most of the time it was all about, you know, survival getting through to the other in some which way. And I've had some very spiritual type experiences underway. Perhaps induced by, you know, fatigue, sleep deprivation, those types of things, hallucinations. And the things that you actually discover about yourself are just absolutely mind blowing, even without the spiritual aspect. But I do wish now that I had gone more into that side of things to be able to overcome the limitations. You know, what worries me nowadays as a, as a running coach and we train $700 sleets all around the world is, is the danger that is involved with ultra marathon running. Because there is, you know, you can do permanent damage.

Speaker 3: (22:44)
I've done some damage to my body. Why do these guys not have physical damage from doing these extreme races or do they? I've had, you know, big problems with things like rhabdomyolysis kidneys, you know, not functioning properly from repeatedly breaking down too much muscle. Things like that, fibroid problems, adrenal problems, adrenal burnout. Do these guys ever suffer from those sort of normal physical breakdowns? Of course, muscle tears and in those sorts of things as well. And if not, why not? Why do they not have that limitation, those very human limitations on them

Speaker 4: (23:26)
That, that, that, that's a great question. You know, as, as opposed to most ultra distance running, I mean this is more akin to your, your, your 42 days across New Zealand where you can't push it. You know, you can't win the 3,100 mile race in a day, but you can lose it in a day and it's not wanting a 24 hour race where you can say like, I can push myself past the limit because I can sleep for two weeks and I can take care of like the damage I do across the next six months or a year with the 3,100. Imagine doing a hundred K then waking up again and doing it again and then waking up again and doing it again. And the, the, the leaders are, are, are at about 120 K per day. So it's a totally different mindset. I mean, you know, they can't, they Canyon say that when you run long distances, whether they're 10 Ks or marathons, you have to run dumb.

Speaker 4: (24:20)
The UMB like in the 3,100 you have to have like a real sense of softness between your ears. You know, even physiologically, it's like if your, if your mind is thinking and thinking and thinking, your face muscles get tense, which tenses up, you know, your upper cervical vertebra, which have ramifications all the way down your body and you start getting repeated. Use injuries. Your, your knees aren't aligned, your tabs aren't aligned. But frankly it all starts in the mind. And so if you can find a way not to be in your mind, to cultivate, you know, your heart, your spiritual heart, that things that you focused on in meditation and bring those feelings and emotions and sense of self, sense of peace, sense of joy into your one, then it becomes an entirely different experience physiologically. You know, you're much more in tune with what's going on.

Speaker 4: (25:14)
You're much more in tune with the sense of balance. You have more patients. But in that patience, when you're not pushing, you can also experience a sense of happiness that you, you, you typically don't get in shorter races. And when I mean shorter like, you know, 24 hours and less, where are you going? Like, I've got to get there. I've got to get there. I can't stop. I can't stop. You know, when you've got that type of an attitude in a race, you, you rarely dissociate from your mind. I mean, the trick for those of us wanting shorter races is finding ways in training like the Kenyans to completely get rid of expectation and to find a way to get into that flow state in the first couple of miles.

Speaker 3: (25:53)
Yup. Yeah. And it does association. I mean, I definitely use it to some degree, obviously not to the degree that I would like to have used it and being able to take your mind away from the pain and the suffering in the body. And that's one of the tools that I, you know, teach about a little bit. And I do find like when you get into a rhythm, a rhythm is something that that is meditative. And I'm often, if I'm running behind, someone will use their feet as a little flicker of they fry, they fried and they, it's almost a trance like state that you can get into. But I can't keep it in the forever. That's a, that's the key point I think. And that's the difference between these guys. So they are tapping into things that we as, you know, average not so spiritual human beings, if you like, for the ones who have a bit of expression and you know, can't tap into.

Speaker 3: (26:52)
And that's what I find absolutely fascinating because I know what it takes to run 70 Ks a day. I cannot imagine the amount of pain that it would take to run 120 days beyond. It's certainly beyond my physical limitations. And the, the amount of pain that you'd have to overcome us is, is phenomenal. But what you were saying there about stress and stress is I listened to an interview with dr Chatterjee that you were talking about stress and how, why can't AIDS epidemic in our world. And it's one of the killers and it's one of the most problematic things. And we are living in a cult stunt state of alertness and fight or flight sort of state because of the society that we live. And we're no longer being chased by lions, but we seem to be living in that constant state is meditation and using even this, running this self transcendent, running a way of calming the body and stopping those stress responses.

Speaker 4: (27:59)
So the curious thing is that running is humanity's oldest physical practice, maybe dance as well. That movement through your feet and there is something electric when you're aware of it, between the connection between mother earth and our feet, our lungs breathing in oxygen and air, there's something deeply nourishing and effecting that way. At the same time, meditation is humanity's oldest practice of contemplation. Not just getting rid of stress, but understanding who we are, why we're here, what we're meant to do in any given moment. And meditation gives us access to different parts of our body and our, or of our being, I should say. It's like we've got a tool belt on and we've got 15 sets of tools, but we're using a hammer 24 hours a day. You know, it's like we might not even know all the other tools that we've got, but meditation is a very simple, very natural way for people to go, wow, when I'm stressed, I don't have to like think about it.

Speaker 4: (29:05)
I don't have to like, you know, just become obsessed with what's going on. There's another part of me that will allow me to feel something different, to allow time, for example, to take its course at the same time. If, if this dress requires something hyper-focused, you know, we can pull that tool out and apply it to the moment and get rid of that stress in a very constructive, you know, analytical way. Some meditation and running, you know, are really the two oldest tools that we have. But it's a question of, of coming back to that as, as a civilization, as a species. And you know, obviously as individuals we can come back to that just, you know, we just have to, we just have to take those first steps.

Speaker 3: (29:45)
Well, I actually had to an argument or not an argument, but a discussion with reduce your, of the, the portal, which is a new movie that's come out. Tom Cronin, who was on the podcast a few weeks ago and he was, he's, it's all about meditation and the power of meditation to heal the whole world. And I'm a very, very interesting man. And I said to him, I believe meditation running is a meditation. And he said to me, no, it's not a meditation. It's running. And I said, I know, and I had this discussion with an amazing no, because running you are in a sympathetic nervous system state and you're not in a parasympathetic state.

Speaker 4: (30:23)
It's that if for four, I would say for most people not myself included. That was true up until a few years ago. But I F I was trying to understand why the people who do the 3,100 mile race, most of them come back and do it a second time, a third time. The main character in the movie, Ashby Hunnel, you know, did it again last summer for get this a grand total of 15 times he's completed that race 15 times when when you understand that running and meditation can actually go together, you know, and you've explore what that truly means. I mean, again, it's, it's not simply the fact and I, I get where he's coming from. It's not simply saying like, my running is my meditation. The way that chopping onions is my meditation. It's like, you know, I, I get the kind of like, you know, hyperbole that that comes with that. But if you get into a state in running where you're completely beyond your mind, where you're completely in that flow state and, and you know, it's like the definition or the flow state is not an absence of pain, but it's finding happiness in the, in that exertion. And there there was a Hopi elder. Hopi is there. There are tribes in central Arizona, some of the best runners anywhere

Speaker 3: (31:46)
We uncover the swipe for that with a series. Yeah.

Speaker 4: (31:50)
Yes. W a Hopi elder had told us when I was on a prayer run with a bunch of native kids in Arizona, he told us as, as we headed off for monument Valley, he said, find joy through exertion. And that was mind blowing to me because how many of us, when, when we're really working hard, number one, feel joy, number one or number two, even know that we can feel joy in those moments of intense effort. And he said, not only do you need to realize that joy exists in the most extreme forms of exertion, but you can find it. You just have to be aware of it and find a way to, to tap into it. I mean, that totally changed the way I race that only that changed the way I run. It's like in those moments when you're really pushing to learn that joy actually exists there.

Speaker 4: (32:43)
That you can go beyond that pain by tapping into joy. I mean that that's how to get into flow. That's literally step one and to getting into flow. And when you're in that flow state as, as you know, it's like you can have experiences or you can tap into those same places within your being that you try to get to in your highest form of meditation. That said, learning and knowing how to meditate is going to help you get into that state a lot easier. And if you get into that state and running, you're going to be able to get into that state when you're meditating. So I completely disagree based on experiences that I've had personally, but more importantly, seeing these cultures that have understood the connection between prayer running and the spirit for tens of thousands of years.

Speaker 3: (33:33)
Oh, I'm so glad you've said that because I've, you know, had a debate with myself over the last few weeks because I took him on what he said, and I thought, well, that's probably got an element of truth about, you know, we're looking at the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system, and you, when you are in the meditative state, you have to be in the sympathetic state. But I have that, I've had that experience of being in a meditative state, running granted I can't do it on demand, but I have been there. So I, I was having trouble with that sort of like autonomy, if you like. They, they're sort of opposites. And that gives me permission to go back to the thought. And yes, actually there's a type of meditation and it is a powerful one and it's something that I've missed like the last four years.

Speaker 3: (34:19)
Sandra, you you wanna know, but I had a mom who had a mess of aneurysm and my listeners know the story and was in a vegetative state, basically would have any high function at the age of 74. And obviously the last four years I just stopped doing the long distance running because I had to completely focus on her rehab and that, you know, they're trying to make a living was all there was 24 hours in a day basically. And now four years later, I've just written her book. It comes out in March this year. It's called relentless and tells the story of, of bringing her back and she's now completely normal again. At the age of 78 against all odds. And I created, I created this comeback journey that I've been on with her, on to the fact that I've done this running.

Speaker 3: (35:06)
If I had not have had the mental skillset that I developed through running, I wouldn't have been able to, to do the things that I did with here to look outside the square to, to push through boundaries that most people would have, you know, quit long, long time ago. And to go up against some medical system and say, no, this is the, she will come back. And this the story is very powerful because it's in why I'm so passionate about getting this book out there is because it taps into these types of tools that we discover when we are doing these extreme things like you know, running long distance races and we learned stuff about ourselves and then how the body works and how that we are capable of so much more than what your average local doctor will tell you. What capable of, I mean, have you ever been to a local doctor and they've said, look, you can't run anymore. You've got a sore knee. Yeah,

Speaker 4: (35:59)
Yeah. I mean, I mean th th th the thing to understand is that we physiologically evolved as runners. You know, from, from an evolutionary biology standpoint and all your, all your listeners will know that the humanities first advantage as bipedal beings was number one, unlike Quadra peds, we could step without having to breathe. Many people can imagine what a dog looks like or a horse looks like in full sprint when their legs are extended, you know, splayed out on the, on the an extension. Their lungs, inhale air. When the legs come together as they all do, they all come together in the middle of the, of the center of gravity. It's like that's when the lungs are forced to expel air. So they're incredible anaerobic beings, but we're the only animals by virtue of standing on two feet that can like trot and not have to breathe every single time we take a step.

Speaker 4: (36:56)
And so that's given us a tremendous sense of endurance. You know, we can breathe, you know, multiple times per step, which Quadro peds can't do. And you know, we can, we can breathe every three or four steps, which also keeps our Arabic level kind of pretty low. So it's like, if you, if you look at that, you know, human beings are meant to move on our feet. The things that take us away from that state of being are all the, all the afflictions of modern day life. But I would say weirdly enough, like I, I'm on the medical team at the 3,100 mile race too, and 95% of the day to day trauma that the runners face. The pain, you know, we can take away through a deep tissue, we can take away through Raul thing, but it tends to come back day in and day out. And when that starts happening to runners, I tell them like, look, your problems are mental.

Speaker 4: (37:50)
Like there's no reason why if these problems are taken away through through some sort of therapy that they, that they should come back the next day. I find that 90% of injuries that people have through, you know, basically through a non-traumatic running racing is totally different. But when you're just in training and you're just doing like low stress low intensity type of stuff, you know, maybe heavy miles, the injuries that are repeated use injuries are really due to bad form, which really comes from a state of mental unrest from a state of anxiety and not allowing the mind to release. And then the body subsequently to release.

Speaker 3: (38:31)
There's not so much rinks in the core strength and you know, like we teach about, you know, you've got to have a strong core and strong had some things to be able to be upright. You were saying it's more of a mental stimulus. That's, that's the problem that we are because of the stress that we're all under or that we are thinking we are under we're actually inflicting that on our bodies as, as much as anything else.

Speaker 4: (38:56)
I mean of course is since most of us don't spend day to day, you know, I spend, spend our day to day kind of inner body the way we might've as hunters and gatherers. Yeah. Yeah. We need to do all the range of motion, all the core activities that we don't get from our, our, our standard nine to five jobs. Yeah. But still like you have plenty of students that do all of that and that still gets Phantom injuries. Yep. And then I'll take it

Speaker 3: (39:22)
Good. You know, I can do everything and I'll still be struggling with one or two injuries

Speaker 4: (39:27)
And that come that that comes entirely from the mind. Like the 3,100 mile race is a great Petri dish for it. Because like I said, like, you know, like LA last summer, Ashby hunt all did it and I was, his handler. It, I would kind of take care of his afflictions, you know, every break he had every six or eight hours. And after a few days of of him having calf pain and taking it away through simple, you know, deep tissue or, or Rolfing or, or, or you know, active release stuff. And I just told them like, I can take care of this every single day. But the reason why you're having these problems is somehow you're, you're not running fluidly, you know? And that comes in that race from overthinking, from stressing out, for thinking about stuff that you shouldn't be thinking about. Mainly from, from thinking at all.

Speaker 4: (40:18)
Yeah. And so I go, I go back to the time I go back to the time we spent with Sean Martin on the Navajo reservation. We're all you're supposed to do when you run is listen to the sound of your feet. Breathe in the universe through your lungs. And when you do that, you begin to feel the importance of the connection of your feet and mother earth and your breath and father sky. And that nourishes you. And that gives you the sense of happiness that you need from running. But most of us, myself included when I go for a run and looking at my watch, I'm looking at my pace, I'm thinking about my workout. I might think about like, you know what I'm going to eat afterwards, what I'm going to do afterwards. My, my, my, my experience of running is already done, you know, and I'm getting nothing out of each moment. I'm only just checking off a workout. And that's the difference. It's like unplugging from our playlist, you know, you can run with a GPS watch. We all do. But not worrying about what your watch says to you, but listening to yourself, listening to your thoughts, listening to your heart, and taking, running as a spiritual discipline rather than as an escape. I mean, that's when the fruits of running really, really coming to the fore.

Speaker 3: (41:34)
Yeah. And I'm just going back briefly to that story with mum. The difficulty if I haven't been able to do the long distance running in the, in the last, you know, three and a half, four years and I've missed the clarity of mind that came with it. You know, when you, when you spend hours a day running is indulgence as that sounds. It actually, you know, I had time to work through the problems that I was facing in my life and to get them out, it's very cathartic, sort of a, a thing to do. And when you don't have that, you can be missing that piece quite badly. And then, you know, so they, I think running is a physical release and a spiritual release in a, in a mental release. It's a, it's all rolled into one and the connection that you say to, to mother earth.

Speaker 3: (42:28)
And I think this is one of the major, major problems that especially our young generation are facing because we so on devices and we so connected all of the time that we have no time to just be in our own thoughts or just being with ourselves and to just be in movement. We just constantly wanting entertainment or connection. And, and not being connected to mother Ruth not being outside in the burning sun, the freezing rain, the, all of those things that really make us feel good. You know, when you go for a run in a storm, you can't come back, you know, if anything but invigorated and like alive, you know. And it might've been hard and it might've been cold and it might've been this, but you're alive. You're, you're feeling you're alive. And I think that they, in their very artificial world where everything's air conditioned and we jumped from Avalon to a garage, into the car and off to the mall and you know, all of these things is just disconnecting us so completely from, from the way that we are meant to be living generally, like outside of just running, but just not being connected to nature is, is killing us, I think.

Speaker 3: (43:44)
Do you agree?

Speaker 4: (43:46)
I'm, I'm totally with you now. You know, imagine that 3,100 mile race on a city block. It's sidewalk. Almost a K it's, but it's a square. So it's like you're going around right angles. It takes place in New York city summer, you know, for for almost eight weeks where the temperature last summer climbed above 41 42 seas. For a day or two. But much of the time in, in the heat of the day, you know, you're talking between 32 and 36 Celsius. Again, it's like unrelenting. You're pretty close to some major roads. There's buildings all around and it's not like you're running through the grand Canyon, but that, but that said, it's like if you're, you know, on the South Island or if you're in the grand Canyon, it's really easy to feel the power of mother nature. But our, our Navajo character's father is a, is a as a medicine man.

Speaker 4: (44:39)
And he told me mother earth is under the sidewalk to no mother earth is under the asphalt. That is mother earth. So on this course, you know, people are, are desperately, desperately struggling to maintain their connection to nature despite being in an urban setting. And you know, when you've got that type of intense focus on what you need when it comes to you, it's, it's in a much higher dosage than you can imagine. So like, yeah, in the 3,100, that connection to mother earth, even though they're running around in circles on a sidewalk, it's absolutely essential.

Speaker 3: (45:16)
Absolutely. And that you don't need, you know, people often say, well we don't lock them did on these rices and the Sahara and the Gobi desert and Dave belly and Australia and all like Himalayas. To be honest, actually it wasn't about,

Speaker 4: (45:33)
Yeah,

Speaker 3: (45:33)
The views, it wasn't about what you were seeing, keeping you going. In fact, most of the time, unfortunately, you know, your heat is usually down on the ground trying not to fall over the next thing or you're so, so tired. You can have the enjoy your surroundings very often. And, and of course it is more inspiring to at least go to these places and you know, in the before and the after and the cultural exchange that you have. But actually during the race, it's not about the beauty, you know, it's and running around and ran a block or running through a desert. They're both connected the both outside and nature. Like you say, they both are.

Speaker 4: (46:15)
And w one of the great things about this race happening in New York is that whatever you need, whether it's a new pair of shoes, whether it's a very specific type of medicine you're in New York city, someone will be able to get a volunteer. We'll be able to get it for you within a couple of hours. And as you know, it's like when you travel for these like international ultras, very often if you don't have something with you is stuffed, you are not going to get it. Yeah. It's not going to be a good experience for you.

Speaker 3: (46:44)
No, it must be. Yeah, it definitely has a be a great advantage to have all of the things around you and that half-mile block, although it's, you know, mind numbing and people think, Oh gosh, going around in a circle. I mean I've only done like 24 hour races, but they are easier than running across the desert per se, where you don't have access to anything. And if you've forgotten something, you're in deep, deep trouble, physically in trouble. But it does become about the mind and what you are, what you were doing. The so this, this movie is coming to New Zealand. This phone was [inaudible].

Speaker 4: (47:23)
Yeah. Yeah. So from February 10th through, we'll be traveling from, I think we're going to be an Oakland, Wellington, Christchurch maybe a few other places in between doing single nights screenings. The information is going to be up on our Facebook page, which I think is facebook.com forward slash 3,100 film and afterwards, after the 20th, that you can't make, one of those screenings will be up on all the online platforms. But Lisa, I would love to have to be able to, to, to ask you questions at one of our screenings. You know, I'm not sure what city you're in, but

Speaker 3: (48:02)
It would be fun. It would be really, really fun. I think we can make that happen. I live in a little place called new Plymouth, so you probably not coming here, although that would be awesome. But I can travel to, you know, walking into Wellington or something to make sure that I get to see this and I've seen the movie. But to actually meet you would be of course just, you know. Awesome. and you know, people out there, how do they get tickets so they can just go onto Facebook and find out where the screenings are. Get me tickets via that way.

Speaker 4: (48:30)
Yeah. The, the, the, the movie screenings are going to be in proper theaters and all of those cities. And so, you know, on our Facebook page there's links to the times and dates and we're going to be adding a few more things here and there. But yeah, all the tickets can be purchased online.

Speaker 3: (48:45)
Fabulous. And we will put all the links in the, in the show notes and stuff and all that. I do want to ask you a couple more questions about you and your background because you've had a fascinating life. This isn't the first movie you've done. Tell us about how did you get into filmmaking? Cause I'm very fascinated by filmmaking. I made a couple of, well eight documentaries, but on a very, very low budget documentaries. And I know I want to know, you know, how did you fall into this area and do the amazing things that you've done. So tell us a little bit about your life.

Speaker 4: (49:19)
I, I'm, I'm a Jack of all trades, master of none. Know I, I moved from California to New York to basically, you know, S to just study what's rich and white and spend a few years even with a good university degree, you know, just spend a few years working in health food stores and just, you know, getting to understand who I was and what I really wanted to do in life before launching into a career or whatnot. But switch in my head a lot of friends from other Theresa to Desmond Tutu and Mikhail Gorbachev and Mandela. And as I got more interested in kind of humanity specifically in, in like international development, humanitarian aid, human rights, I began having opportunities to work with some most rich and moist friends. So I got a chance to, to work with Desmond Tutu and you know, a ton of other people and gradually kind of like made my way into the world of humanitarian aid and human rights.

Speaker 4: (50:18)
So I kind of worked in that, in that sphere for about 15 years till around 2010, 2011. And you know, realize that a lot of the projects that I really, really enjoyed were ones that required me to take photos or to make little small documentaries, just being the only person with a camera for hundreds of miles. And I began making some short films, like my first one that most of them have been on sports, weirdly enough. My, my first one was called ocean monk and it was like an, a personal exploration of the connection between meditation and surfing in the winter in New York city. Of all things. I mean there is surfing like you know, in New York city in the winter here, you know, you might walk through, you know, half a meter of snow or a meter of snow to get to the water. But you can imagine like when the city's going like 24 hours a day to be out in the water was no one else around is probably the only experience of real nature we can get in New York city.

Speaker 4: (51:21)
But my, my second film explored, you know, kind of a curious aspect of streets and noise life. You know, after he stopped being able to do distance running, he took up weightlifting and he left, he lifted astronomical pounds, you know, in fact, when I was in New Zealand in 2002 and 2003 I was actually on a three month trip with him and one of, one of the cutest things he did was he went to a farm, you know, not too far away from Topo. A sheep farm and sheep are put into little cages and put onto this contraption that's reaching. Mike could sit under and he would like push up, you know, a cage with a sheep on each hand and you know, lifted a thousand sheep. It was just, it was really, really cute and childlike but also kind of mind boggling. And the physicality.

Speaker 4: (52:11)
I made a film called challenging and possibility, but then kind of went back to my human rights roots and made a film about the exploitation of farm workers in the United States. And that was, that actually achieved some success. You know, we had some famous people that were involved, Forrest Whitaker and then this movie 3,100 run and become was my second, you know, big feature length project. Wow. Oh, I should add as well. Just jumping back to the last topic that there have been two Kiwis that have done that 3,100 mile race, a man named Jade Lynn who did it I think in 2006 but there is a three time female finisher of the race. Hurry to Davey's. She lives in the States, but she's actually gonna be in New Zealand with us for all these screenings. They, cause she's doing a series of events during that time called the peace run. It just basically, it's like a, an Olympic torch style relay where they're going to be running from Oakland all the way down. You know, obviously what the ferry all the way down to Christchurch and stopping in a zillion schools. So she'll be at all though. She'll be at all the screenings too. I'll get to make a hopefully.

Speaker 3: (53:27)
And we also have another very famous lady. He used to do the 2000 kilometer race in New York city. Sandy Barwick. Oh yeah. Cause she's [inaudible] who was my role model. I feel like as a little girl growing up and who, who came with me to the family when I ran through death Valley, an incredible woman fates that again, just defy I think she had nine world records. I think some of them still stand. So we've got a, you know, great tradition in New Zealand of incredible runners and, and she was certainly way above where it, anywhere I ever got to. So we've got some amazing people. And on the note of shirt tree, Jim, he wanted to tell you just a little cute story. I was in the nationals. We have the streets of NOI, 24 hour race in Oakland every year.

Speaker 3: (54:17)
And it was, she was actually very, very sad while we were doing it was, it was in 2007 and we were doing the 24 hour race and a day before the race. [inaudible] He died as you would. Well, and, and so the people were devastated who were organizing. Right. And so they all just dropped everything and flew to New York basically. And I didn't really understand the whole street and rowing movement at that stage. I just, just was a runner turning up to the race to run and all of a sudden the rice was no longer happening. So one of the other runners and I, we decided we're doing it anyway, so we just, we ran around the track for hours. Well, I need actually made it to 20 hours that they ended. It was a absolutely torrential rain. The poor people in the street show me the way that were just so devastated.

Speaker 3: (55:16)
I just had to go, you know, they just had to be there to say goodbye to the master. And it was just a really for us back home running around in the rain, me and one other guy. And it was one of those special memories because it wasn't an official race. It wasn't going to be the official national race. And I'd been trying for years to qualify for the New Zealand team to go to the world champs. So I had to wait another year before I qualified, but we did get there in the end. But yeah, just the dedication to him was, was really moving and that they all just, they just dropped tolls and all just flow to, to New York overnight. It was really they were so, they were so devastated, obviously. Because he was such a great man and, and it was a man who, who really unified the religions rather than, you know, things are, don't matter. From what I understand. He was a very unifying figure. And yeah, for sure. I mean, his philosophy was, was, was love of God. Again, from an Eastern tradition, we don't really have the singular

Speaker 4: (56:24)
Concept of, of God being just, just, you know, a masculine energy, you know, it can be anything and everything. And, you know, we, we worship many different forms of, of the divine. But you know, his was about, you know, kind of an ancient path that way. But at the same time it was very accepting of people no matter what their backgrounds were. And, you know, he felt that you could live in the outer world and still achieve the highest. You didn't necessarily need to become a monk and renounce everything. And I know he loved New Zealand, you know, he, he had a, he's had a long friendship with a number of Kiwi runners like Alison Rowe, who he, I think he first met during the the New York city marathons. And you know, just to my great benefit, when we opened the movie in theaters in New York city and in November of 2018, it was during the week of the New York city marathon. And Alison was there to be inducted in the New York city marathon hall of fame, and she came to one of our screenings and did a panel. So I got to meet a lifelong hero of mine. And yeah. It's like, it's interesting because all the people that I've met through each and Moy still have, you know, you know, some sort of a connection with activities that his followers still kind of hold around the world.

Speaker 3: (57:41)
Yeah. Yeah. And even, you know, even my life. So through that we connected in some weird, weird, bizarre way, you know, and that's fantastic. And, and th the, the one that you did was the on the food food chain. Tell us a little bit about the food chain movie. And that was all about the, the site of conditions for workers migrant workers.

Speaker 4: (58:04)
Yeah. So most countries require some sort of foreign labor to pick their food. And especially when you're looking at like industrialized countries. I mean even England, you know, has had pre-Brexit you know, had a lot of, a big requirement for Polish workers, for Chinese workers, for Thai workers to come seasonally to pick food. You know, we know these are the hardest, most labor intensive jobs anywhere in the world and most people in developed countries don't want to do that kind of work no matter how much it pays. But in as we know it, those types of jobs don't pay much at all. I guess the big corollary in the South Pacific are the, the fishing fleets with a lot of indenture Thai workers, Filipino workers, Burmese workers working in essentially some in some cases like realistically slave like conditions. But the movie really delves not just interpersonal stories but looks at the kind of economic system behind it.

Speaker 4: (59:05)
Most of us, most places in the world kind of follow a food system that America set up. And that's like a supermarket grocery system where we expect to buy the cheapest possible food, good quality, but like very low prices. And w you know, Walmart in the U S a big chain kind of started that. And from their standpoint, they insisted on buying it ultra low prices from farmers and from meat producers and dairies, but buying in very, very high volume. And that created a set of conditions that not only had made it really hard to be a farmer in the us, but has made farm work essentially, you know, extremely low wage. Now we've see, we see these supermarkets all over the world and this is really a model that was created in the U S and exported to other countries. Even though you know, obviously there's, there's chains that are completely, you know, owned by people in their country.

Speaker 4: (01:00:04)
But when that supermarket system, that idea of convenience and being able to have the same types of food, you know, 365 days a year, that's made us in the U S rely on a lot of like New Zealand blueberries. But at the same time, you know, you guys get a lot of stuff into your country that are, that are not seasonal, that aren't grown in New Zealand, but that you still expected very low prices and we don't necessarily know the ripple down the food chain that it's causing farmers to really, really make very little at the same time. It creates this reliance on labor that's very colonial, that's very almost kind of feudal as well. And that's what the, the movie food chains kind of looks into.

Speaker 3: (01:00:47)
Well thank you for bringing it to light because it is a worldwide problem and that, you know, we have migrant workers here as well from the islands. You know, I, when I was the young girl I used to work on, on fruit, on, you know, Apple picking and kiwifruit cracking, I can tell you it's bloody hard work and very little money.

Speaker 4: (01:01:07)
Yeah. So yeah, so you, you, you, you, you absolutely know that it's, it's not something you would ever want to do the rest of your life.

Speaker 3: (01:01:15)
Oh my, no, definitely not. I'd rather run the 3,100 actually. There you go. There you go. Look st I would have taken up so much of your time today and I just really wanted to thank you for all the work you do, all the goodness that you put out into the world because it's very, very powerful what you are sharing and you're making people think and you're making people aware of some of these humanitarian stuff that you've done earlier. And also with this new wonderful movie that you bought out, everybody, you have to go and see this movie. It is, if you're into running, obviously you have to go. But if you are into just finding out about what the human body is capable of, what the human mind is capable of, and you want to see very average. And I put that into, you know, a quotation marks, average looking, average appearing, people doing incredible things.

Speaker 3: (01:02:06)
And that's the beautiful thing about ultra marathon running. We don't all look like Hussein bolt or Paula Radcliffe or or some, you know, elite specimen. We just normal people, but with very, very strong minds and strong willpower to do things. And in this case, it's all about the spiritual side as well. So thank you very much for doing this movie, for putting it out there. And I can't wait to see it and I hope we can connect and not, I can get to one of those screenings that would be absolutely fabulous. Meet you. It'll make my entire trip worthwhile. Right. We've got to make that happen. Thanks for not Sanjay. Thanks so much, Lisa.

Speaker 1: (01:02:48)
That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at Lisatamati.com.

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