Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to The Dr. Gundry Podcast, the weekly podcast where Dr. G gives you the tools you need to boost your health and live your healthiest life.
Dr. Gundry (00:13):
The top three foods for weight loss. All right, still struggling to lose weight. I get it. I was 70 pounds overweight for years and no amount of exercise or healthy eating helped until I discovered that weight loss comes down to what you eat and what you don’t eat. So today I’m sharing my top three foods you should be eating to help you shed the pounds and live your happiest, healthiest life.
Number one, and I can’t say this enough, prebiotic-rich foods. Now there’s always some confusion about a probiotic, a prebiotic, and now a post biotic. So real quick probiotics are friendly bacteria and probiotics have to eat something and the foods that they have to eat are called prebiotics. Now prebiotics most of us associate with fiber, but a lot of prebiotics really aren’t fibers.
For instance, in my new book Unlocking The Keto Code, I introduced you to the fact that polyphenols, which are plant compounds that give plants their color are actually prebiotics for the bacteria in our gut. And with each passing year evidence is accumulating that these polyphenols may in fact be the most important part of prebiotics that we’ve neglected over fiber per se. Now don’t get me wrong. Fiber that is edible by our gut bacteria is equally important because gut bacteria use fiber, use prebiotic fiber, and use prebiotics to make chemicals called post biotics. And this is where it gets really confusing. Post biotics simplistically are the byproducts of bacteria, probiotics, and eating prebiotics, and these post biotics are signaling compounds.
As you’ve heard me talk before signaling compounds tell our mitochondria what to do, tell our genes what to do, and tell our cells what to do. And the exciting thing about these signaling molecules in terms of weight loss is they actually promote weight loss by having your mitochondria literally waste calories to do a caloric bypass on the food you eat. And that’s actually exciting news because it means that a calorie in equals a calorie out is not true. And in fact, many of the calories that you eat, which are prebiotics, whether they’re fiber, whether they’re polyphenols will actually make you lose weight more than the amount of food that you are eating, which is really, really exciting. This was brought home to me years ago and it’s worth retelling.
There’s a group of Islanders in Papua New Guinea called the Kitavans and the Kitavans are well known for their longevity. And they’re well known for never having heart disease or cancer despite the fact that they smoke like fiends and the Kivitans eat actually a very high fiber diet. About 60% of the foods they eat are fibrous tubers and coconut meat and fruits and vegetables. And they’re very skinny. And for years they were the real Achilles heel of the ketogenic diet, the low carbohydrate diet because here were these skinny people who were eating a lot of carbohydrates.
I was one of the people who used to poo-poo the Kitavans as well they’re skinny because they don’t eat very much. They’re starving to death on that island. Well, it wasn’t until the work of Dr. Stephan Linberg who spent his life studying the Kitavans that we learned, in fact, the Kitavans eat a lot of food and the Kitavans don’t exercise like fiends. And it wasn’t until we realized it was the types of foods that they were eating that were promoting mitochondrial uncoupling and weight loss, that it all came together. Even though they ate a lot of food the food that they were eating was feeding their gut bacteria. Their gut bacteria were eating a lot of the calories that they were eating and keeping it for themselves. And then they were making more compounds that additionally help people lose weight.
So long story short, the more fiber-rich foods you get in your diet, the more polyphenols you get in your diet by eating brightly, dark-colored vegetables and by using spices. Spices are dense in polyphenols. And so anytime you can add fiber and polyphenols you’re going to have a weight loss benefit. You can use spices in everything. One of the easy ways to get these compounds into your diet is to make a smoothie. It’s really easy to get fiber tasty in smoothies.
Now, there are a lot of fiber supplements out there, but beware a number of fiber supplements like Metamucil, for instance, are loaded with sugar, or if they’re low calorie or no sugar added they use sucralose, which is Splenda or any of the other artificial sweeteners, which believe it or not kill off your friendly bacteria. So please be careful about fiber supplements. It’s much easier to add fiber to your diet. One of the easiest fibers to add to your diet is inulin. Inulin is present as a powder. It has a slightly sweet taste. You can put it in your smoothies. You can add it to your vegetables. There are inulin-rich vegetables, asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, sometimes called sunchokes, the Chicory family like radicchio, like Belgian endive like frisee rich inulin. So the more of these sorts of vegetables you get in your diet, the easier it is to do this.
Second best food to add to your diet is avocados. I can’t say this enough, do not be afraid of fat. Contrary to popular belief eating an avocado a day does not make you fat. In fact, avocados do exactly the opposite. I have an entire video entitled Does This Food Make You Fat about avocados here on YouTube. Avocados actually help you burn calories. Avocados help you absorb the nutrients in food. In fact, there’s a very famous study of having people eat salads with and without an avocado. And it was found that the addition of the avocado made people absorb the nutrients and vitamins and minerals in that salad much better than if the avocado wasn’t there in the first place. Avocados have great monounsaturated fat.
It’s called oleic acid. It’s the same fat in olive oil and avocados are rich in prebiotic fiber. And so these compounds actually help you lose weight. How many should you eat a day? Well, there is a human study that shows the addition of one avocado a day actually improved weight loss over not having the avocado a day. So what the heck have an avocado a day, have some guacamole, and please don’t put tomatoes in guacamole. That’s not supposed to be in guacamole. Have an avocado, take the pit out, put an egg yolk in each hole, and put it in the broiler. It’s a phenomenal breakfast. It’s a phenomenal snack. You can find the recipe in my cookbooks.
What can you substitute if you’re sensitive to avocado? Well, we have a few people who do react to avocados. It’s unusual but it does happen. In that case, don’t have an avocado. Instead, use other sources of fiber rather than an avocado.
The number three thing that you should add to your diet to help you lose weight is MCT-rich foods. Now, most people have heard of MCT oil, medium chain triglycerides. It’s becoming easy to find. Costco even as MCT oil. If you can find C8 MCT oil that’s the one you’re looking for. A lot of them will be C8 and C10 and those are okay. Coconut oil does not have the same benefits as MCT oil. Studies that I talk about in Unlocking The Keto Code show that people who asked to have MCT oil as part of their diet versus people who did not have MCT oil as part of their diet lost three to five kilograms of weight in six weeks just by adding MCT oil to their diet. And we’re not talking about a lot, probably three tablespoons a day will do it for most people. Now, the other great news is that MCT oil is present in goat and sheep products. So goat yogurt, sheep yogurt, goat kefir, sheep kefir, goat cheese, and sheep cheese. Thirty percent of the fats in these products are medium chain triglycerides. So what an easy way to add MCT to your program without the oil. Just have some goat products and what a wonderful way to lose weight by having yogurts and cheeses from goats and sheep.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
As you all know by now, we do our very best to align the right sponsors to the podcast. It’s a lot of work behind the scenes and I’m incredibly grateful for your support. We are currently running a quick survey at podcaststudy.com and we are giving the first 150 people a $10 digital Amazon gift card as an incentive to complete the survey. The information we hear from you about our sponsors is incredibly important to this show and we can’t thank you enough for taking a few minutes to help us out. Upon completion of the survey, you will be asked to include your email address and we will send the first 150 people a $10 digital gift card to Amazon. Go to podcaststudy.com and thank you again for helping our show and our sponsors.
Speaker 4 (13:48):
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It’s no secret that I’m a huge advocate for gut health and one of the best ways to do that is through probiotics. Personally, Pendulum’s Akkermansia Probiotics are my favorite. I can’t stop raving about this incredible new innovation in gut health and that’s because the only way to obtain this powerful lectin-blocking bacteria is through supplements since you can’t get it from food. For decades, scientists have been trying to capture this special bacteria as a stable supplement but no one could figure it out until now. They are the first and only company to offer probiotics containing the Akkermansia muciniphila bacterial strain in a standalone probiotic, GI Repair, or in Pendulum Glucose Control. I’ve noticed a huge difference in my digestive health. And so have my patients that I’ve recommended it to and for the listeners of the Dr. Gundry Podcast they’re offering a 20% discount on the first month of an Akkermansia membership with code Gundry20. Go to www.pendulumlife.com and use my code Gundry20 at checkout that’s pendulumlife.com and use my code Gundry20 for a 20% discount on your first month of membership.
Dr. Gundry (16:14):
We’re going to talk today about the four common mistakes we make while drinking water. Number one, you can drink too much water and you will actually flush out your electrolytes in doing so. I can’t tell you the number of times I see people who drink a lot of water before we draw their blood in our clinic. And they do that because their veins are hard to find. But invariably, after drinking a glass of water in the morning, a huge number of my patients will have actually very low sodium and chloride, that’s salt, and potassium levels in their blood. And many of you know that the vast majority of people who die or collapse during marathons don’t die from heart attacks. They actually die from hyponatremia and low sodium levels. And that’s because they’re drinking water at all those refill stops rather than water with electrolytes.
So number one, there is such a thing as drinking too much water. Number two, there’s actually never been a study that shows that you should drink eight glasses of water a day. Apparently, no one ever told gorillas and chimpanzees that they have to drink eight glasses of water a day. In fact, they don’t drink much water at all. Why? Because they actually get most of their water by eating leaves and fruits that contain the water. And one of the things I try to convince my patients is that if you’re eating organic lettuces and organic vegetables you’re actually using the plant’s filtration system to get healthy water into you and actually activated water into you. So think about that the next time you say, oh my gosh, I have to have another glass of water for health. You’re going to lower your electrolytes. You’re going to lower the efficiency of your heart pumping. And it’s easier to get it out of a big head of lettuce than drinking a glass of water.
I frequently see people who are addicted to drinking water and we actually have to have them supplement multiple times a day with salt tablets or electrolyte powders. Otherwise, they literally faint throughout the day. They won’t give up the water and this is the only way we can fix it.
Now stop drinking carbonated water, number two. Carbonated water actually acidifies the water. Now for the good news, in Italy by law carbonated waters have to be pH balanced so that they’re a normal pH. No other country has that law including the United States. My favorite is San Pellegrino. I have no relationship with them but I drink it all the time. Why do I drink it? Two reasons. Number one, it’s pH balanced. It has a pH of 7.0 but number two San Pellegrino has the highest sulfur content of any bottled water. Sulfur is incredibly important for making hydrogen sulfide, which I’ve talked about in The Energy Paradox and in Unlocking The Keto Code is one of the key post-biotic gases that improves your blood vessels, improves your brain, and you can get sulfur by drinking San Pellegrino. Finally, San Pellegrino has actually been measured to have the lowest level of impurities of any water tested. Now the other good news is that Italian waters by law have to be pH balanced. So if you can’t find San Pellegrino, you don’t want to spend the money there are a number of Italian waters on the market that you can find at Trader Joe’s. You can find them at Costco. They’re easy to find. So Italian carbonated waters are the way to go, but San Pellegrino stands head and shoulders above all the rest of them.
Number three, please, please, please avoid water in plastic bottles. Lots of reasons for this, but the most compelling one is that plastic bottles leech a chemical called phthalates into the water, and phthalates are one of the worst endocrine disruptors that have yet been discovered. Endocrine disruptors change how signals from estrogen and other female and male hormones are interpreted. And there’s very scary evidence that I’ve written about in The Plant Paradox and my other writings that phthalates can actually change the imprint in babies’ behavior about whether they are more female gender or male gender even if their genitalia are the same. We know that phthalates actually shrink the size of baby boys’ penises and that doesn’t sound like a great idea. We know that women who eat chicken that is wrapped in plastic have much higher phthalate levels in their bodies. So please avoid water in plastic bottles. I realize it’s convenient but it’s deadly for reasons you can’t feel or see. What’s the alternative? Get yourself a glass bottle or a stainless steel bottle. They’re easy to find. They’re easy to carry. There are bunches of insulated ones now on the market. Change your plastic bottles out. Just get rid of them. And good news San Pellegrino comes in a glass bottle for very good reasons.
Number four, stop drinking tap water. There are toxins in our water among which are fluoride and chlorine. You can actually go to a site to check out your water quality. And it’s called Ewg.org. I have it in The Plant Paradox but go to Ewg.org and you can put in your zip code. You could put in your community and find out the water quality and it’ll actually shock you for the most part. Now, do you want filtered water? So this is a personal preference, but certainly, a Brita water filter, and I have nothing against them or for them. I’m not a paid spokesman for them. I’m not a consultant for them, but a Brita water filter will work just fine for your purposes.
On the other hand, if you can afford it there are a number of reverse osmosis filters on the market that are either freestanding or can be built in. Because of their popularity, they’re getting more and more affordable. So if you can find one and can afford it get a reverse osmosis filter. Now you can actually over-filter water. Some people take this to the extreme and buy distilled water or distill their own water. The problem with it is water should have some valuable electrolytes in them. You’re going to get rid of all the potential good minerals and micronutrients in your water if you distill your water. My recommendation, if you’re going to do that, and that will guarantee the purity of your water, please consider adding a multi-mineral supplement to your supplement regimen. Many of you have heard me speak that we are actually devoid of multiple minerals in our diet, very important minerals that used to be in our soil that are no longer in them. So don’t be afraid of adding a multi-mineral supplement.
Number two, if you’re going to drink water, please consider adding an electrolyte supplement to your regimen. There are a number of good ones out there. I’m particularly fond of LMNT. My wife uses it every day but really if you’re going to use a lot of water for hydration please also add multiple minerals, particularly sodium, potassium, chloride, and magnesium to your regimen.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
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If you’re following a lectin low diet then you probably know how hard it can be to find all of your favorite foods in one place. For years, I found myself making two or three stops just to check everything off my grocery list, but not anymore. With Thrive Market grocery shopping has never been easier. It’s become my one-stop shop for all my grocery essentials and it’s all online. So I don’t even have to leave the house. I’m able to find everything from wild-caught seafood and natural wine to eco-friendly cleaning products and lectin-free baking supplies. In fact, I’ve even curated my own Dr. Gundry Grocery Store on thrivemarket.com, which features Gundry-approved foods that can help you and your family boost your gut health, energy levels, and more, but it’s not just convenient. Thrive Market members save an average of $32 on every order, $32. And if you find a lower price elsewhere, Thrive Market will match it. Want in? Join Thrive Market today and get $80 in free groceries. That’s thrivemarket.com/gundrypodcast to get $80 in free groceries. That’s thrivemarket.com/gundrypodcast.
I always make sure to stay active throughout the week, but my wife Penny is quite the athlete. So sometimes keeping up with her can be tough. That’s why I like to supplement with creatine. Since doing so I’m finally able to keep up with her and creatine isn’t just for huge bodybuilders. It’s for anyone that wants to improve their health and have the energy they need to do the things they love. Creatine is actually naturally produced by your body, but we only make about half the amount necessary for functional energy. That’s why it’s important to take a creatine supplement. I only take Con-Cret Creatine, the only micro dosing creatine on the market and the number one bioavailable creatine created with 70% greater plasma uptake than other products on the market. Since it is a micro dosing creatine there are no common bloating side effects that other creatine products cause. The best part is that I’ve noticed a major improvement in my endurance.
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Do you suffer from sinus pain, congestion, runny nose, and watering eyes? For many of us, these pesky allergies plague us almost all year round not just when the pollen is in full bloom. Finding a solution to these conditions can be tough, especially with all the over-counter medications and prescription drugs that wreak havoc on your microbiome.
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Dr. Gundry (32:18):
Stepping on the gas. I can’t tell you how important it is for you to produce gas in your intestines. I know. I know what we’ve talked about before, that gas is an embarrassing subject, but I want you to actually embrace your gas. Because in this lecture you’re going to learn how important gas is as a messaging system, as a language system from your microbiome to your mitochondria, to your brain, and the power that gas gives you for living a long time and living well and taking care of your mitochondria. So let’s dive in.
As most of us know the intestinal gas that believe it or not all of us produce has been the subject of jokes, ridicule, and embarrassment. You know all the stories that he who dealt it smelt it or whatever, but believe it or not, that gas, which is a byproduct of the fermentation of the prebiotic fiber that you ate is actually a language that is produced to tell your mitochondria what to do, to tell your brain what to do, and to be a substrate for energy production that you knew nothing about. And in fact, in some cultures, farting at the table is a sign of respect for the chef. So if you take nothing away from this class, I want you to embrace your gas, and here’s why I want you to embrace it.
The gasotransmitters have recently been discovered. In fact, the Nobel Prize was awarded for this really just 20 years ago. And the first of the gasotransmitters that was discovered was nitric oxide and nitric oxide among other things is a vasodilator. It makes your blood vessels dilate. Believe it or not you gentlemen watching who are taking an erectile dysfunction drug like Viagra, you probably didn’t realize it, but you’re producing nitric oxide to make that magic happen. And quite frankly if you had the right mix of bacteria and you gave them what they wanted to make nitric oxide I can guarantee you that you wouldn’t have to swallow Viagra. So the fact that you have to swallow Viagra ought to be really scary, that you aren’t feeding your gut bacteria correctly.
I’ll give you another example. It was discovered recently in Japan that patients with Parkinson’s Disease were deficient in gut bacteria that make hydrogen gas. Now, any of you who were in scouting in the good old days may remember that on camp trips during the night you would have contests where you would take a Bic lighter and you would fart out your rear end and you would get a blue flame. And it was really great fun but that was hydrogen gas, a highly flammable gas. That’s what the Hindenberg was. Hydrogen gas it turns out actually helps the electron transport chain in your mitochondria. It’s a source of protons and electrons and low and behold the people with Parkinson’s had an intestinal microbiome that didn’t produce hydrogen gas, whereas people without Parkinson’s had an intestinal microbiome that produced hydrogen gas.
What’s even more exciting is hydrogen water called H2 Restore has actually been shown in studies in Japan to improve cognition and to improve Parkinson’s in patients who lacked the ability of a gut microbiome to make hydrogen gas. So rather than just something that you light your farts for fun, hydrogen is another incredibly important gasotransmitter that actually keeps your mitochondria healthy. So every time we say, oh, we don’t want to produce gas. You’re taking away a huge communication system to you and your mitochondria.
How about methane? Everybody knows about methane. That’s what cows are farting that is contributing to global warming. Well, not so fast. It turns out that methane is also a gasotransmitter that it carries information to mitochondria, to all cells, and to DNA about what to do and what not to do. And there is information once we broke the code. Now we know why these gases are there. They’re not a byproduct. They’re actually how the language is spoken between your gut microbiome and you. Another one, hydrogen sulfide, the rotten egg smell. For years, we have been told that hydrogen sulfide was a toxic gas. That it kills things. Well, it turns out that studies of the naked mole rat showed that one of the reasons that they live so long is they produce hydrogen sulfide gas from all the tubers and roots that they eat. Now, way, way, way long, long ago at the origins of life, we think that life originated in deep-sea thermal vents and that life started using hydrogen sulfide as the energy source.
So fast forward to now, it turns out that mitochondria with the right amount of hydrogen sulfide actually improve energy production while it’s true, too much, hydrogen sulfite will kill you. And it’s the hormetic curve that I speak about all the time. None is not good for you. Some is really good for you and a lot is really bad for you. So with all of this, a little dab will do you as we used to say. So these gases are there for a reason, so let’s not be embarrassed by them. Let’s embrace them and the next time you let one go say, “wow, I just talked to my mitochondria and told them to make some energy and I’m sorry about all the rest. I’m just looking out for myself”.
Okay. So that’s why gas is important and diets like the FODMAP diet that prevent you from making gas in the short term. Yeah. Maybe your cramps and bloating will be better but in the long-term, it’s one of the worst things you can do for your overall health because you’ve eliminated the natural communication system that exists since eons of time between your microbiome and your mitochondria. And please foster that communication. So I mean it. I want you to step on the gas and the way to get this is to give prebiotics to your gut microbiome whenever you can.
Heather Dubrow (41:55):
Hi everyone. It’s Heather Dubrow telling you to check out Heather Dubrow’s World on Podcast one. Every week we discuss the hippest, hottest news trends in health, wellness, parenting style, and so much more, including all things Housewives and Botched. Download new episodes of Heather Dubrow’s World on Thursdays and Fridays on podcast One, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Amazon Music.
Dr. Gundry (42:23):
Thanks for joining me on this episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast. Before you go, I just wanted to remind you that you can find the show on iTunes, Google Play Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to watch each episode of the Dr. Gundry podcast, you could always find me on youtube@youtube.com/drgundry because I’m Dr. Gundry. And I’m always looking out for you.
