Pizza and beer may make you feel good in the moment — but after an hour there’s a good chance you won’t be feeling so good anymore. Many of us do this: We eat what “feels good” in the moment without thinking about how we’re going to feel later. So many foods don’t really satisfy you. Instead they leave you feeling tired and hungrier than before you sat down to eat!

Entrepreneur and author Hannah Bronfman says it’s time to make a change. In her new book, Do What Feels Good: Recipes, Remedies, and Routines to Treat Your Body Right, Bronfman explains how people can live a lifestyle based on listening to their bodies and eating the foods that make them feel happiest and healthiest — without overindulging.

I’ve been telling my patients for years about the importance of listening to their bodies and connecting what they eat to how they feel. And on today’s show, Bronfman and I will discuss the surprising connection between your diet and breakouts you might be getting!

Bronfman will also discuss what it means to “do what feels good,” discuss her personal struggles with body image and an unhealthy relationship to food, and offer some practical tips about how to start listening to your own body, eat what makes YOU feel good, and have fun. But be warned: Bronfman’s positive attitude and approach to eating and wellness are contagious — you may even want to start doing what feels good as soon as you’ve finished listening!

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• • What it means to “do what feels good.” 02:10
  • Why some diets aren’t for everyone. 04:30
  • Ways to “check in” with yourself and some tips for discovering how you’re really feeling at any time of day. 14:00
  • Hannah’s personal struggles with body image and how she transformed her life in order to feel good inside and out. 16:00
  • How famous R&B singer Dionne Warwick brought Hannah and yours truly together. 25:30
  • How you can have fun even when you’re in the middle of a major lifestyle change. 27:10
  • How to deal with skin breakouts and the connection between your gut health and your skin. 29:00
  • Hannah’s favorite recipes and tonics, the magic of spices, and the joys of the Instant Pot. 35:50
  • How Hannah deals with criticism: “There are so many people who hide behind their computers or their devices and are simply trolling to be negative…you don’t need to make space for them.” 41:20
  • I share one trick for building more muscle and Hannah shares her own protein secret. 43:30

Mentioned on this podcast:

• Do What Feels Good: Recipes, Remedies, and Routines to Treat Your Body Right by Hannah Bronfman
• Hannah’s Website: HBFit.com
• Hannah Bronfman’s Instagram
• Hannah Bronfman’s Facebook page
• The Plant Paradox
• Dr. Gundry’s 30-Day Challenge

 

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Full Transcript:

Dr. Gundry: 00:01 Hey there, welcome to another exciting episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast, the weekly podcast where I give you the tools you need to support your gut, boost your health and live your youngest, healthiest life.

Speaker 2: 00:20 Each week Dr. Steven Gundry, a cardiologist, medical innovator and author of New York Times best sellers, The Plant Paradox and The Plant Paradox Cookbook, shares the latest in cutting-edge health information. He’s excited to be a part of your unique health journey. So let’s get started.

Dr. Gundry: 00:38 So before we get into this week’s episode, let’s take a look at our review of the week [Mitzy Dirtsue Charlie 00:00:43] writes, “Love your podcast. Dr. Gundry, thank you for the work you do and making this important information available. Can you talk about kombucha? Is it Plant Paradox approved? Please, please consider reading your next audiobook. I will be listening. Thank you.” So Mickey, I just completed reading the audiobook of The Longevity Paradox and because of the complaints of previous readers, and I promise I will read my next book, which will be out this holiday season of 2019 on how to feed your family.

Dr. Gundry: 01:24 Kombucha, you got to be careful and I’ve done a podcast on this. Most kombucha is pure sugar. So you’ve got to look at the sugar of these products, and most kombucha is too serving so you have to multiply everything you see by two and you will be shocked. So if you want me to read your review, make sure to rate and review the Dr. Gundry Podcast on iTunes.

Dr. Gundry: 01:50 Welcome to the Dr. Gundry Podcast. We’ve got a great guest on this week. Her name is Hannah Bronfman, and she’s a wellness entrepreneur, a DJ and a self-described beauty product addict and exercise junkie. I mean, now that’s a combination. She’s recently published a book, Do What Feels Good, I’m all for that, Recipes, Remedies, and Routines to Treat Your Body Right. Hannah, welcome to the podcast and congratulations on the new book.

Hannah: 02:26 Thank you so much and thank you for having me on today.

Dr. Gundry: 02:29 I want to talk to you to start with about your wellness journey, and then the new book and of course, food.

Hannah: 02:37 Sure.

Dr. Gundry: 02:37 Because you write about food, I write about food. And I understand that you’re trying out The Plant Paradox way of eating. Is that right?

Hannah: 02:46 I think I’m starting on Monday. I need I had a lot of travel going on. And so I want to get fully prepared. I don’t want to go in like half-assing it.

Dr. Gundry: 02:56 All right. We’ll talk maybe some tips for somebody who’s just diving in.

Hannah: 03:01 That would be great, yeah.

Dr. Gundry: 03:03 Okay, your book, Do What Feels Good, there’s lots of crazy diets and programs out there and I get these questions all the time. It really stresses people out. They don’t know what’s going to work for them. And you’re saying it’s okay to not stress out about all this. Do What Feels Good. What does that?

Hannah: 03:28 Yeah, so in my experience, I’ve kind of tried a lot of different diets and ways of eating and living and exercising and ultimately what I have found is really that listening to my body and understanding the way food makes me feel has been really important for my happiness and overall health and it’s really about tuning in and figuring out what works for you. There are so many diets out there and everyone’s telling you to try this thing or that thing or the other thing.

Hannah: 04:06 It can be good to give things a go and figure out what works for your body and what doesn’t and I would just say that you just need to kind of figure out what it is that works for you. And if you’re going to try something, stick to it for a couple months that you can really understand how it’s making an effect on your body and your mind.

Dr. Gundry: 04:30 That’s kind of a different perspective of a lot of wellness folks out there.

Hannah: 04:35 Yes, it is.

Dr. Gundry: 04:36 What were you noticing in the wellness industry that inspired you to write this book and with this in mind?

Hannah: 04:45 What I’ve been noticing over the last like, I don’t know, seven to ten years, is that everyone seems to be selling a product or a way of life and that we are continuing to still put people in boxes and that you should be doing X, Y and Z and then you will get X, Y and Z result and that everything is kind of marketed to you as a quick fix. I personally don’t have that approach. I think that with real results comes a lot of discipline and really a longevity. Like it’s not a sprint, it is a marathon.

Hannah: 05:33 And yeah, I think what I’m saying is a little bit different than what other people are putting out there simply because I’m really kind of telling you not to buy in to one specific way, but rather try a few things and figure out what works for you. I mean, so many people I think take an approach like, “Oh, I want to try keto.” Or let’s actually use a different example, “I want to go plant-based.”

Hannah: 06:01 So plant-based diet does have a lot of grains and sometimes someone who have a lot of yeast in their system for instance, that type of eating might not benefit them because carbs turn into sugar and whatnot. I’m just saying like it’s hard to say one thing fits all. You really kind of need to tune in with yourself and figure out what’s going on with you. Is it sugar that you’re having a hard time quitting? Okay, well then maybe you should try to limit sugar but just start with that and not necessarily go into all the other things and go into a full ketogenic diet.

Hannah: 06:48 There are ways to kind of make this more successful as opposed to what I think a lot of people are setting up for people to kind of fail ultimately. It can be overwhelming and really difficult. Actually, that’s one of the things I love about your books, is I find that the way you break everything down seems to be very attainable and you really start from the before you start to the beginning days and how you maintain that afterwards, but there aren’t a lot of diets out there or lifestyles that are broken down into such easy, attainable buckets.

Dr. Gundry: 07:32 Yeah, I certainly don’t consider my program a diet. I actually hate that word. Yeah, it’s a lifestyle. I think this is a really good place to dive in. How do you determine, how does somebody determine what feels good? Somebody who’s listening to us says, “Gee, I love 12 donuts and that really feels good.” How do we define what feels good?

Hannah: 08:06 Okay, so that’s a great question. And in this book, I think I really start to ask questions and people always say, “What do you want people to get out of your book?” And I say, “I want people to have a better understanding of themselves.” And that this book really does start to ask you questions that really you need to be truthful with yourself about. We go through our days and our lives and a lot of the time we are not being honest with ourselves and we’re masking how we’re feeling and we’re compensating for emotional baggage that we might not have gotten rid of otherwise.

Hannah: 08:44 So when you say someone who’s eaten 12 donuts and they think that that feels good, I would agree with you. It would feel good to someone who is not in tune with their body. You know what I mean? Like yes, eating pizza feels good, but ultimately I get a stomachache because I’m lactose intolerant and I have a sensitivity to gluten. So even though in the moment it might have felt good to eat pizza with my friends, there are so many alternatives like a cauliflower pizza, dairy free cheese that will give me the same satisfaction, but will actually physically and mentally make me feel good.

Dr. Gundry: 09:28 Yeah, one of the things I’ve been doing for the last 19 years is getting blood work on people every three months and watching what a change in diet does. And I’ll have actually a lot of people that say they feel good eating a particular way and then when we look at their blood work, we see that there’s all these markers of inflammation and maybe even several autoimmune diseases that they don’t feel. And then when I ask them, I will use an example, to take away their cashews and then retest them a few months later and their inflammation markers have dropped, in many people one of their autoimmune disease markers drops. So what I’ve done is take a, I guess a scientific approach to feel good. I want to know actually how the body is reacting. So do you do any blood testing with anybody?

Hannah: 10:41 I do. I’m big on this as well. And I always say to a lot of people who are a little confused on to where to start, they don’t necessarily know if sugar’s affecting them or if it’s lactates or what. So I always do say I think it’s great to get your blood tested. And I also think it’s great to get your hormones tested. And what you can do via blood or you could also do via saliva. I’ve also done all of the above, including stool and all the other things, but I think it’s really important to again, to have the scientific backup and to know what really is affecting you.

Hannah: 11:21 And I also say the food allergy testing can be really good for some people. Personally I didn’t love it, but I think … I also did it a while ago. So maybe I wasn’t really ready to accept some of the allergies that it might have told me I had, but I completely agree and I try to get my blood work done every four months.

Dr. Gundry: 11:45 Okay, all right. So can people without blood work make some informed choices about do what feels good. I mean, what intrinsically do you try to instruct people to do you mentioned okay pizza, bloats you, but it tasted really good going down. Is that a good place to start, how things are going in your gut, or what about mental changes?

Hannah: 12:16 Yes. So all of the above, I think some ways that people can really start to tune into themselves is really having a positive conversation with oneself and I think that that takes a little bit of time and a lot of effort to really kind of make that mental change because it’s so easy for negative thoughts to creep in and to even just go through our days without even checking in with ourselves. Obviously, we live in a crazy world and we’re always giving, giving, giving so much energy. And we’re not necessarily checking in with ourselves.

Hannah: 12:54 So I always it’s good to check in with yourself at least like three times a day throughout your day, practice breathing exercises, even like the little things. People are always like, “What does wellness mean to me?” And I said, for me, it’s not necessarily just about eating organic food and going to a boutique workout class. It’s about the in-between moments. It’s how I treat myself and others. It’s the little things that I’m doing for myself, whether it’s three minutes of self massage in the shower or at my desk or it’s making myself some sort of herbal tonic to combat how I’m feeling in the moment.

Hannah: 13:34 So feeling good mind, body and soul is a hard thing to achieve when we have not paid attention to ourselves. In the book I have a lot of kind of wind down routines, different herbal lattes that you can take, different bath concoctions, at home like DIY beauty facial masks, things that are already in your pantry, not things that you need to buy. And then when it comes to food, what I’ve tried to do a little bit in this book is take traditional comfort foods and give them a little bit of a healthified twist.

Hannah: 14:18 So I’ve got a like a recipe for baked sweet potato that kind of has all the fixings or you can mix and match. And a lot of what I talked about for the food is really for me what I love about cooking is how it makes me feel in the kitchen and it’s actually very therapeutic for me to cook and I don’t necessarily love following a recipe.

Hannah: 14:42 So what I did in my book is I really kind of gave an outline of like a basic kind of upgraded and like a loaded version of, and you can kind of take your own temperature and see what you’re in the mood for and omit or bring in certain spices or herbs just so that you can also start to again, understand yourself, understand your palette, what are you craving? Are you even hungry? Are you thirsty? These are basic things that I feel like so many people have just been going, going, going and are not kind of in tune with.

Dr. Gundry: 15:21 Gotcha. So, how do I check in with myself? Do I send myself a voicemail and listen to it several times a day? I mean, give me an example.

Hannah: 15:34 An example could be … Well also, setting an alarm for yourself to check in with yourself is not a bad thing. I really like that idea. Something I do is when I wake up in the morning, I take 10 deep breaths. I kind of have like my own little breathing practice and it’s very simple. It’s like, breathe in for five, hold at the top for five, breathe out for five and hold at the bottom for five. So I’ll take 10 deep breaths and I’ll repeat a mantra to myself depending on what the day is holding for me.

Hannah: 16:07 If I for instance lately, I’ve been having a lot of book events and it’s been amazing, but it’s a lot of outward energy. So as of late, I’ve been saying a mantra that’s really about preserving my energy and kind of getting rid of energy that doesn’t serve me. So that’s like one thing that I do to check in with myself in the beginning of my day. And if I need a middle ground of checking in with myself, maybe I’ll step outside my office and take a walk around the block and kind of tune in on what I’m thinking about, why I’m stressing, how can … And like kind of switch it to solution mode as opposed to like fight or flight, but like really kind of honing into that.

Hannah: 16:52 And then in the evening, really honestly, it doesn’t take more than a cup of tea and like giving myself a little facial massage. For me that’s the moment that I like to check in with myself. It can look very different for different people and different people respond to different things. I mean, for some people it’s acupuncture. For some people it’s taking 20 minutes or 10 minutes to foam roll, having those moments of doing something for yourself. Or even stretching, these are all like very kind of simple ways of checking in with yourself.

Dr. Gundry: 17:31 Speaking of checking in, you mentioned your love of cooking and you talk about your grandmother’s eating disorder in the book. Tell me all about that if you can.

Hannah: 17:45 Sure. My grandmother was a twin and her twin was born with a mild case of cerebral palsy. As a young girl because her brother had to be on a lot of medication her parents, unfortunately, also put her on a lot of medication, which is terrible, but being on medication at that young age and having no appetite and just … The things that I kind of I saw in my own upbringing in the ballet world I assumed were very different for her, but again, like main theme of kind of negative body image and identity at young age.

Hannah: 18:40 So when I met my grandmother obviously she was in into her adult, full adult life and I saw firsthand how she treated herself and it was quite scary and it was interesting to me because I had seen girls my own age kind of with this negative self-talk. And then I see my grandmother, who’s in her adult life, who’s held on to this negative self-talk her whole life. So I’m seeing firsthand what will happen if we don’t kind of take a hold of the way we treat ourselves at a young age. It can stay with us our whole life.

Hannah: 19:29 And unfortunately for my grandmother, who deprived herself of many things and treated herself with disrespect and she ended up passing away simply because her body could not support her anymore. I always had a good relationship with my grandmother despite the way I saw she treated herself and when she passed away, that’s kind of when I realized that I wanted to live the happiest and healthiest version of myself, something that I knew she really couldn’t do for her.

Dr. Gundry: 20:05 Well, growing up in ballet, certainly ballet is one of those activities, sports, however we want to describe it where body image has a large factor in your life. What was that like and how do you overcome that?

Hannah: 20:29 So that was really intense. It was definitely … When you are prepubescent, it’s not a big deal, right? Everyone’s kind of in the same situation. We all kind of look alike, fine, whatever, it’s not so much about technique. And then you kind of go into the age between 10 and 14 and a lot changes.

Dr. Gundry: 20:58 All hell breaks loose.

Hannah: 21:00 Literally a lot, a lot, a lot changes and when I remember I was at a sleep away camp, performing arts camp for ballet for seven weeks and it was very intense, very rigorous. And I remember if I wanted a second helping of dinner it would come with some side eye and some looks and if I wasn’t keeping up in practice or my leg wasn’t going as high or I felt like I was larger than the other girls, these were all kind of for the first time these negative self thoughts that were creeping in because of my surroundings.

Hannah: 21:43 And I remember when I came home from my first summer at that sleep away camp my mom was like, “You are much thinner than I remember you going.” I said, “Well, it’s not like they fed us a lot and I was dancing almost nine hours a day.” And I remember when I came home I started to eat normally and that’s also when my body started to change again. And so then when I would go back just to ballet after school, some of the girls would say, “Oh, you’ve gained weight,” and all these things. And honestly, these are conversations that I did not want to participate in and I really didn’t care what these girls were projecting onto me about myself.

Hannah: 22:28 And it was almost maybe a year or so after that, that I fully realized I was not going to be a professional ballerina and therefore, I did not need to engage in this any longer. It was a rough two years, three years, that little 12 to 15 let’s say. And then I went into team sports and everything changed for me, my confidence, my body. I was athletic. I was toned. I felt great. I was running around all day. I really kind of learned about my listening skills. I learned about my leadership skills, and I really enjoyed the collective effort to reach our goals as opposed to how it was very kind of cutthroat and each person was for themselves in the ballet world kind of. It was definitely impactful. It taught me a lot of discipline, but it was also a place that was really triggering.

Dr. Gundry: 23:48 Was this during a time when your grandmother had passed away or was it a different time?

Hannah: 23:54 This was before my grandmother passed away. It was literally when I was dealing with all of these kind of emotions and feelings with my peers, I was also seeing at the same time my grandmother kind of treat herself poorly. So those things are coinciding.

Dr. Gundry: 24:19 This sounds like things are adding up to a big point of change. Was there one moment when you said, “I got to make a change in my eating habits, my lifestyle.” Or was it just a gradual process?

Hannah: 24:32 No, there was a very big change. I will say that if we fast-forward maybe almost 10 years from the world of ballet, I was about 21 years old, 22 and I was DJing almost like three, four times a week and I was partying a lot. I was drinking. I was not taking care of myself via my sleep or working out or nutrition. I was probably eating one meal a day and I was very burnt out. I woke up one day and I was like, something really needs to change. First of all, like I said, I was a very active teenager and younger years and I just woke up and I was like, I want to get back to feeling good and the things that made me feel good, and that is being active and cooking and taking care of myself.

Hannah: 25:39 And so I made a very conscious decision to change my lifestyle. Again, my career at the time was DJing and so I made the switch from DJing nightlife to DJing corporate events, which really opened up my entire day. It was no longer DJing for people in the club at midnight to 4:00 AM, but rather executives from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM. So I really kind of switched everything up and it actually was great. It was great money-wise. It was great for my lifestyle and it really allowed me to kind of go down this path of self-discovery.

Dr. Gundry: 26:25 Wow. So, what did you do? DJ Neil Diamond and Wayne Newton’s greatest hits? Or how do you DJ a corporate event?

Hannah: 26:34 No, no. My first ever event, corporate event actually was DJing for Vogue’s Fashion Night Out and I-

Dr. Gundry: 26:42 Oh, okay. All right.

Hannah: 26:43 … I opened for Justin Bieber. So I do basically what I do is like luxury corporate events. I do a lot of fashion parties. I do a lot of magazine publication, tech, hospitality. That’s corporate.

Dr. Gundry: 27:04 Little known fact, ladies and gentlemen, I was in an a cappella singing group at Yale’s and undergraduate and we used to open for Dionne Warwick in Miami, Florida.

Hannah: 27:16 That’s incredible. There you go. Little known fact about Dionne. My mom was actually in an Off-Broadway play with Dionne Warwick and my father was writing a song for her and that’s how my parents met.

Dr. Gundry: 27:31 Wow. So you and I are brother and sister from a different mother or something-

Hannah: 27:37 I love it.

Dr. Gundry: 27:39 Seven different ways of connection. Okay, very cool. So you’re living the crazy lifestyle. I have a good friend by the name of Scott Harrison who wrote a book recently on thirst. It’s about his wonderful organization Charity Water.

Hannah: 27:58 I’m very familiar with it.

Dr. Gundry: 28:00 Yeah, so your story reminds me of his. He was a bad boy. He would be the first to admit the original party animal. And he had an epiphany in much the same way. So I love to hear these stories and how all these things come about. So you don’t recommend that lifestyle anymore?

Hannah: 28:25 I don’t. I mean, it was certainly fun, but it was not sustainable by any means.

Dr. Gundry: 28:35 That’s a good point. So, how do you define fun in your new lifestyle? Give me the contrast.

Hannah: 28:44 Sure. So fun for me is having my friends over and cooking for them. There’s nothing that gives me more pleasure than nourishing and nurturing my friends. I mean, I love to go out and like have a night on the town, but now I’m more in bed at around 1:00 AM as opposed to 4:00 AM. I do drink alcohol. I’m not someone who says, “Green juice only.” I drink tequila, but for me, it’s a balance. I don’t drink every single night and probably drink maybe three times a week.

Hannah: 29:23 And fun for me honestly is now a little bit more kind of based in like activities as opposed to just pure nightlife. I love making like dates with my girlfriends, whether it’s a workout class or it’s some sort of like fun activity. I don’t get to do hiking over here that much in New York, but we have amazing things whether it’s like going to Chelsea Piers or going to a new exhibit or seeing the opening of a play. And I think this also comes with age, you know what I mean? There’s not too many 20, 21 year-olds that I know who are dying to see the new exhibit at the Whitney. You grow up a little bit. So those are the things I think are fun now.

Dr. Gundry: 30:18 Okay. All right. So we mentioned off-camera about skin breakouts and acne. Tell me about how you made the connection between skin breakouts and lifestyle.

Hannah: 30:32 Sure. Okay, so I had never had acne before and then when I left college and was indulging in this kind of crazy lifestyle my skin was terrible and I really thought that it had to do with this kind of toxic relationship that I was in at the moment. And when I exited that relationship, my skin still did not get better and I thought, okay, well, what do I do? So I went to a dermatologist who actually gave me tons of antibiotics and when my skin still wasn’t getting better, but now I was feeling like I had a weak stomach.,I had to take acidophilus to combat the yeast. Everything was kind of stemming from these antibiotics.

Hannah: 31:24 So then I said to myself, “I can’t take another antibiotic and I need to get to the root of what’s going on with my skin.” And I found a woman who tested my hormones and told me for the first time in my life that I had something called leaky gut and that leaky gut was probably the root cause of my acne and that she would be able to help me restore the situation. Lo and behold, I followed her program for about, I don’t know, maybe eight months and my skin did a complete 180. And then I found a dermatologist who did not believe in antibiotics as a solution, who kind of helped me with my acne scarring and a year-and-a-half later I was like a brand new person.

Hannah: 32:17 And for me, a lot of my confidence comes from having clear skin. I don’t like to wear a lot of makeup and I’m not one to kind of, I don’t know, hide what I’m working with. So I was really frustrated and I really wanted to find the solution. And so that was kind of my path of starting to figure it out.

Dr. Gundry: 32:39 Yeah, I think that’s so true. Like I write about and teach, I like people to think and not just think, your gut is your skin literally turned inside out. And the surface area of our gut is the same as a tennis court inside of us. So we actually have far more internal skin then we have external skin. And what is I think I’ve shown and other people have shown is that your skin is actually a reflection of what’s going on the surface of your gut. It’s your body telling you, “Hey, you’ve got a major breakout down below and we want to show you this.”

Dr. Gundry: 33:30 In my practice I see actually a number of young adults with cystic acne and I see a number of women, older women with rosacea, female and older woman acne. Rosacea is not older women acne, it’s leaky gut. And it’s amazing. They all go to dermatologist. They get antibiotics. They get all these topical things. And yeah, maybe the coloration is a little bit better, but it’s still there, it’s actually very obvious. When we seal the gut, when we heal the gut all that goes away. And we were talking off camera, as a teenager and in my 20s, I had severe acne and I was a debater, public speaker, singer, and that’s not good.

Dr. Gundry: 34:24 So I was on antibiotics from a well-meaning dermatologist for 10 years. And I was told I couldn’t have chocolate and I was told I couldn’t have pastries, but I still had acne and it really, until I began really shifting my diet and got off the antibiotics that things finally cleared up and thank goodness, I haven’t had it now for many, many years, but I’ll tell you a great story. You’ll appreciate this.

Dr. Gundry: 34:56 I have a lovely young woman from Southern California. Horrible cystic acne on her face, back, neck, beautiful woman. We got her on The Plant Paradox program and within six months all of her cystic acne had vanished, gone away and obviously she’s delighted, her husband’s delighted, her parents are my patients. And so long story short, they decided to have a family vacation in Paris, France for two weeks and they all go and dad says, “It’s on me. I’m paying for everything and about five days into the trip. Everybody’s eating croissants and baguettes and fabulous.”

Dr. Gundry: 35:44 She’s being strong and then she says, “This is ridiculous, I’m diving in.” Within a week all of her acne had just, I mean, blossomed. And then she got off the plane. She called the office and, “I got to see you.” And so I saw her and she said, “Look, look what happened.” I said, “What the heck did you do?” And she said, “I’m so good and that I couldn’t help it.” And so it was just a beautiful drama. For her, it was gluten that was the big driver of all this. And she said, “Wow, what an eye-opener. I can’t have this stuff.”

Hannah: 36:27 Wow. It’s crazy. It’s really true though. I mean, for me, I eat dairy and it shows up on my face the next day.

Dr. Gundry: 36:36 And I would propose to you that it’s actually not lactose. It’s actually casein A1 and when you read the book, you’ll see why I think that’s true.

Hannah: 36:46 I actually had a feeling you were going to say that.

Dr. Gundry: 36:47 And believe it or not, there’s no lactose in cheese, but there’s plenty of casein A1 in American cheese. All right, so you got a lot of great recipes. I’ve been looking at them. If you had one or two to pick to share with the readers to tempt them to get this book, what would you choose?

Hannah: 37:07 I have a recipe in there for sex truffles, which are basically delicious raw chocolate truffles that have adaptogenic herb blend in them that is known to kind of help you get in the mood. I’ve been talking to so many of my girlfriends and with all of our hormones going all over the place and all the stress and everything, it can be hard to relax and want to engage in fun activities with your partner. So these truffles should surely help you kind of relax and do just that.

Dr. Gundry: 37:45 Oh my gosh. That’s a bestseller right there. Actually, I’ll confirm that. I have a very dear friend Jimmy Schmidt, who’s won three James Beard Award. And he has aphrodisiac chocolate truffle that he debuted at the Wynn Hotel a number of years ago at a corporate event and he guaranteed that good things are going to happen that night. I have no follow-up, but no, it’s true, there are some very cool herbs that will, and have some documentation, that will get the juices going so to speak.

Hannah: 38:24 And then I guess one other recipe that I personally love, that I think you’re going to like as well is my braised chicken with olives and lemon, because I know you love olives and so do I and I was really inspired after I went to Israel and just all their flavors and everything. So that one’s really good and it’s kind of an easy one. It’s just all one pot and it doesn’t take that much effort and you kind of just put everything in and leave it and it does its thing.

Dr. Gundry: 38:56 Yeah. I love these one pot recipes particularly and even with an instant pot because you can have friend-

Hannah: 39:03 I purchased an instant pot by the way.

Dr. Gundry: 39:05 Good for you. Because you can have friends over and you just can ignore the kitchen or just have everything ready so you can spend more time with your friends. We do the same thing. We love to have friends over and cook. But sometimes, you’re just kind of sitting in the kitchen doing 12 things and everybody else is out there having a good time. So yeah, one pot meals and actually I’m flying to Morocco in three weeks to visit our olive oil farm and ranch. So when you say chicken with olives and lemons, that’s a tagine to beat the band.

Hannah: 39:44 Yeah, absolutely. My husband and I actually got married in Morocco.

Dr. Gundry: 39:46 Oh, wow, I’ve never been, but I’m going to go visit our olive oil ranch. So I’m excited. All right now, earlier on you mentioned tonics as well and you got a lot of time of tonic recipes. What’s a tonic? That’s not tonic water, right?

Hannah: 40:01 No, it is not tonic water. A tonic is … It can be defined a few different ways, but I would define it as a herbal elixir that has a purpose to help with specific ailments. So I’m putting a specific kind of herbal blend, depending on what I’m looking to kind of alleviate or elevate and I will kind of mix this tonic together in the form of a hot beverage, which I like to call a latte, which obviously is not a latte you’re getting from Starbucks, but that’s kind of how I think about it.

Hannah: 40:45 I think herbs are really fabulous. And the whole thing about herbs is that they really only work when they are in your system. So I talk about creating kind of morning or night routines where you’re making these tonics and lattes kind of in the morning or in the evening to continue the function of the herbs.

Dr. Gundry: 41:11 I think it’s a great point. We actually have missed a period of time where the idea of herbal tinctures and the idea of spices as medicinal things has been lost. I spent a lot of my career studying the spice trade and why people would risk their lives to obtain spices and how spices became so lucrative. I think these people in the Middle Ages realized that things as simple as cinnamon or cloves or nutmeg or black pepper had incredible medicinal properties, it was not just to flavor food. And this was the drug trade of the Middle Ages.

Dr. Gundry: 42:06 And just like now there’s obviously a lot of money in the drug trade, but these were the drugs, the natural drugs that people would risk their lives for. So I think really we need to learn from that time period and these things have effects. We all know they’re provable effects. So good for you. Good for you.

Hannah: 42:28 Thank you.

Dr. Gundry: 42:29 All right. Last question. You’re a social person. You’re out there. How do you deal with criticism on social media? Not just personally, but as a word of advice for the 21st century woman that you mention.

Hannah: 42:46 Sure, so I have to say I have been inspired by the criticism and some of the “haters”. I really feel like when people doubt me, and this is kind of goes back even to like when I was in high school. When I felt that people question me or doubted me, it was really fuel for my fire and motivating me to actually execute and not just talk the talk. And for me in New York City as an entrepreneur, that’s everything.

Hannah: 43:22 And what I would say to the modern woman who is engaged in their community on social media that we have tools that we forget about. There are delete buttons. There are report as spam. There’s the unfollow button. And I really encourage people to use those things. There are so many people who hide behind their computers or their devices and are simply kind of trolling to be negative. Those people, you don’t need to make space for them.

Hannah: 43:58 Something I talk about is getting rid of toxic things in your life. And if it’s limiting your amount of social media or deleting a comment or what, I think that’s really valuable. Of course, there are people who are going to ask questions and might not be the most well-thought-out way of asking the question, but if you feel like engaging in that conversation by all means, go ahead. Sometimes I know that it’s harder to just delete a comment than it is to respond, but understand that your actions have consequences and that with social media everyone is constantly reacting.

Dr. Gundry: 44:40 Good answer. Okay. Now, as I mentioned to you at the end of the podcast, we always take an audience question. So [Ellie Glow Lightly 00:44:48] on Instagram asked, “For someone who wants to build muscle,” and this is a female, so this will be perfect, “what kind of protein powder do you recommend? I find that really fit people and bodybuilders eat a lot of carbs or grains and protein to build muscle. How would you get the same results with just eating high fat?”

Dr. Gundry: 45:13 Well, that’s a really good question. I actually care for a lot of body builders and professional athletes and I actually have a … I won’t mention his name, a professional football player who is a type 1 diabetic who eats an 80% fat diet and is obviously thriving. On the other hand what I tell people who say, “Where do you get your protein from?” I say, “Where does a gorilla get his protein from? Where does a horse get his protein from?” The largest animals on earth with the largest muscle mass get all their protein by eating leaves and grass, and we can get protein by eating leaves. We can get protein by eating nuts.

Dr. Gundry: 46:06 My dear friends in the vegan and vegetarian community and I take care of lots of vegans and vegetarians, and most as you know, I am a [vegeqarian 00:46:15], I eat mostly leaves and vegetables. We get our food proteins from the leaves. We get them from nuts. I’m a big fan of nuts, but there’s no evidence that you have to get protein from grains and beans to survive. There’s absolutely none. So please don’t think that you have to get protein from these sources. They’re not needed for that.

Dr. Gundry: 46:44 One trick for bodybuilding, exercise on an empty stomach, wait about 20 minutes and then if you’re going to eat protein, eat it with a bit of a simple carbohydrate. In my case, I might have some blueberries. Believe it or not, I’d probably instead have jicama or a few nuts with my protein. What do you got for us?

Hannah: 47:12 Well, I actually just picked up only hemp protein powder that has a full amino acid chain blend as well as 20 grams of protein per serving. So for me, I would agree I work out on an empty stomach and then I usually make myself a protein shake after with my 20 grams of hemp protein. I might add 1/4 avocado and some spinach and maybe a little bit of almond butter and some plant milk. Is that a good one? You tell me.

Dr. Gundry: 47:55 No, that’s a great one. That’s great one. In fact, my green smoothie recipe that you’ll see in the book, if I’ve done a spin class or done some weights, I’ll just add, before I made my own I just add hemp protein to that. It’s a great source. There’s now some flax protein out there now and I think that’s a really good source. So yeah, there’s lots of options besides …

Hannah: 48:25 I mean, I’ve always been one to kind of have lean muscle and I think also it’s the type of workouts that you’re doing as well as kind of focusing on like how you said, 80% veg and lean proteins that are from sustainable sources.

Dr. Gundry: 48:45 All right, so that’s going to do it today. Hannah, how do people find you, find the book, social media?

Hannah: 48:52 Totally, you can follow me on Facebook and Instagram at Hannah Bronfman and my book is sold everywhere that books are sold, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, et cetera, and it is called Do What Feels Good and I hope you check it out.

Dr. Gundry: 49:08 All right. Hannah, thanks so much for joining us and good luck with the book and we’ll follow you on social media. And can’t wait to hear how you do on The Plant Paradox.

Hannah: 49:21 I will definitely let you know.

Dr. Gundry: 49:22 Give me feedback. All right, that’s it for today for the Dr. Gundry Podcast. Thanks for listening or joining in. Give us your feedback. You can give us your feedback or wherever you pick up podcast because I’m Dr. Gundry and I’m always looking out for you.

Dr. Gundry: 49:42 So for more information about this week’s episode please take a look at my show notes below and on drgundry.com. In the show notes, you’ll also find a survey and I’d love to find out more about you. Please take a few minutes to fill it out so I can do my best to provide information you’re looking for.

Dr. Gundry: 50:01 Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of the Dr. Gundry Podcast. Check back next week for another exciting episode and make sure to subscribe, rate and review to stay up-to-date with the latest episodes. Head to drgundry.com for show notes and more information. Until next time, I’m Dr. Gundry, and I’m always looking out for you.