Week 13: A Doctor’s 52 Week Journey to an Unprocessed Life

https://youtu.be/Kypfcr9PwyQ

Go Unpro Podcast: Week 13 Progress Report

Speaker Contributions

Dr. Brent Laartz: Provided a comprehensive update on his 52-week "unprocessed life" journey, detailing his transition to a new home, dietary modifications, and lifestyle habits centered on longevity.

Key Points and Decisions

Dietary Shifts: Dr. Laartz decided to completely eliminate beef and pork from his diet, focusing instead on poultry, seafood, beans, and fermented foods to support microbiome health.

Movement and Environment: The host emphasized the importance of "forest bathing" to reduce cortisol and committed to a structured routine of resistance training and cardiovascular exercise.

Sleep Optimization: To improve deep sleep metrics, the host identified light pollution as a primary obstacle and decided to invest in blackout curtains and motorized window treatments.

Plastic Reduction: A decision was made to systematically replace all plastic kitchenware; the host successfully replaced plastic cutting boards with stainless steel alternatives, reaching approximately 60% plastic-free status in the kitchen.

Lifestyle Pillars: The discussion reinforced the five pillars of longevity: diet, movement, sleep, connection/creativity, and purpose, with a specific focus on reducing screen time to improve mental well-being.

Commitments and Action Items

Dr. Brent Laartz:*   Install motorized blackout curtains to mitigate light interference and improve sleep quality.*   Establish a weekly tech-free board game night to foster family connection.*   Maintain a Sunday meal-prep schedule for beans, hummus, and fermented foods.*   Implement a one-hour "no electronics" rule before bedtime to enhance meditation and sleep hygiene.*   Continue the transition toward a 99% plastic-free household over the remaining 39 weeks of the year.*   Write down ten non-tech activities to pursue for personal creativity and connection.

Announcer Lucas

[ 00:00:00,000 ]Welcome to the Go Unpro podcast, a doctor's 52-week journey to an unprocessed life. Now, here is your host Dr. Brent W. Lartz, associate professor of infectious diseases and internal medicine, neuroscientist, and best-selling author.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:15,980 ]All right everyone.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:17,630 ]Welcome to week thirteen of a doctor's fifty-two week journey to an unprocessed life. This is moving edition. We had already the travel edition earlier. Um we had the packing edition where we were packing up our old location and this new location, this new house that I just bought, fantastic. A whole brand new start to my unprocessed life. Really getting things uh situated here. Um we are setting up our podcast studio here, relatively small, but um and you'll see it take shape. You can see boxes in the background here.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:56,030 ]Um you can see the book still uh sitting on the shelf there. We're going to put some shelves in here that are even better. Um my little uh coconut here with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers uh logo there. Uh amazing situation we're going to have here. Um it it really makes a reset. Things you can throw out, thing the plastic things I can throw out, the the different things we now need to get for a new house and the new kitchen. Um and uh we'll show you that in a second. During this edition, week 13, we're going to have a little field trip to the kitchen.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:01:32,620 ]I'm not going to have any other field trips this week, but we're going to do a little field trip right outside to the kitchen. Um, uh, we are renewing these areas uh to decrease our plastic, increasing our ability to do um some home fitness also. We're going to have a little gym that I'll show you guys a little later. Uh, increasing our ability to grow food also out

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:01:54,700 ]Now I have a yard.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:01:55,940 ]uh I'm not sure if I mentioned before about the location that I was in before, but I was in a relatively small uh condo and though it did have a nice um gym there and it had a nice situation to get out right out the front door to the street and get to my running route. Uh this is a little bit more of a neighborhood feel getting down along the river to um the area along the riverfront of Tampa. So uh it's I'm really excited about this.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:28,450 ]Um, and really this provides me with a really good, um, restart, uh, reset to this, uh, to even go even further. Again, this is week 13.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:40,180 ]I'm one fourth of the way through the year. Uh one fourth of the way. And this is not a situation of increasing, um, our exercise and better improving our diet, improving our sleep, and improving our connection right away. We can't get rid of all of our plastic. We can't get, uh, all nobody can get a full cardiovascular VO2 max to the max and their resistance training to the max right away. You have to, um, set yourself with smaller goals, okay? The psychology of it is...

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:03:19,020 ]The affirmation of living a longer, healthier life is needing to have that goal and realizing what is your purpose and setting those goals in a slow but steady progress. Finding those who support you also. I have a great girlfriend who's supporting me in this uh situation and then finding community in it, okay? So you have to have a purpose in your life. And I do. I already have that purpose of being a physician and educating everybody that I know about what is best for the for my longevity. And again, it's n equals one.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:03:56,830 ]not everything is that is good for me is good for everybody. Not everything I do, um, is the best for, um, everybody else either. So finding that purpose in in your occupation, finding that purpose for your family, finding that purpose for your longevity and knowing how important it is, and then what is the importance of that for your family and for your connection and for your longevity and for your financial well-being.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:30,850 ]Um, if you figure that you can work um x number of years more, if you are healthier, it can make you more money and have give you more money for retirement, save more money, et cetera. So, all of this can be part of the purpose of living longer, a longer, healthier life and doing these things now that will matter ten, twenty, forty, fifty years down the line. Um, again, we stress on this podcast, um, and this education about the microbiome.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:06,790 ]Every element of my life from my GI system to my heart, my brain, to my lungs, uh to my hormone health, everything about that centers around the communication that the gut has with the brain and other organs through cortisol, through the vagal nerve, through the uh system of GLP-1 and GIP, these peptides that everybody talks about, you can influence these peptides with your own diet, okay?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:38,220 ]and you can also influence these uh other your cortisol and you can influence your um we talked uh last week or two weeks ago um in our Sunday Science podcast about the ability for your microbiome to affect your um ability to perform

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:06:03,450 ]in endurance type training. And so this is something that can happen on a small scale, but it can happen on a maximum scale also. So if you are one of these people who's training for for a triathlon, etc., um go back to that Sunday Science and show where we've um exhibited some studies that show that um you can increase potentially by 50% the endurance of a triathlete.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:06:32,440 ]So this is not like going from a couch potato to a triathlete and showing that that uh that endurance is increased from a couch potato. This is an already trained, already an ultimate VO2 max person who can now run farther on a treadmill than he could before. And obviously this could impact persons who are um are couch potatoes to be able to do better with uh with their endurance also.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:04,410 ]So, um again, 100% of my diet recommendations to myself are based on some of these microbiome issues, okay? So this week, week 13, uh we're going to uh we've already pretty much eliminated red meat, beef, and pork from our diet. Um but pork is still there for me, um occasionally with breakfast, um if I need a breakfast. So, um we're going to completely eliminate uh beef and pork from my diet, okay? It's chicken and seafood, poultry and seafood are going to be the max.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:43,940 ]Um now with that said, I still will eat cheese uh at this point. Um I am uh increasing the beans uh from last week we talked about beans in my diet, increasing the beans and I have a system now set up where every Sunday I'm going to be um pre-making and meal prepping um the beans, um some hummus, some perhaps some sourdough crackers for for this and um other fermented foods that we talked about and we showed our fermented foods that we are doing.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:08:24,040 ]um with some cabbage and or my version of kimchi and we have some lemons we're uh doing as well. Um, okay.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:08:33,429 ]So, movement this week, not a whole lot of change to my movement other than the routes I'm taking for my running, uh increasing to seven days per week, uh a walk on day seven, uh my recovery day plus resistance training, um so we're going to to like eight days per week and twice a week we're going to be doing resistance training and cardiovascular, okay. Um and getting a variety is important. And and here's the real change for this week is is the either forest bathing, um getting into nature, hiking, trail running, doing a bit more of that.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:09:11,510 ]I have a group that goes trail running on Saturday mornings early. Uh, I'd like to do that a little bit later. Um, so I'm trying to get with them occasionally, but um, taking friends, getting out into the forest, getting out to um somewhere in nature. Not everybody lives um that close to nature and and where I was in this condo in down near downtown, uh there were parks in the area, so I could get at least a little bit of that. Now that is nowhere near um what is required for what is technically forest bathing because forest bathing requires you to get into a forest.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:09:50,730 ]getting into a park where you can't really see that much technology, that much of civilization. And forest bathing has a lot of it, a lot of evidence for decreasing cortisol. And uh I want to get into a little bit more of that this week. Um later in the week we're going to be doing that. Um and okay, so sleep this week, um I was really excited to get into this new house because I had a street light right outside my uh house in the condo that I was living before.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:10:26,460 ]and um even with the blinds fully closed, it just really let so much light in. In fact, I felt like it was affecting my sleep. I would wake up in the middle of the night a little bit and feel, and so my Aura Ring data, I think showed a little bit of that. I was not getting enough deep sleep. Um and so, uh we're going to try to increase our amount of sleep. I just ordered some blackout curtains.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:10:55,520 ]thought it was going to be great in this new house, but there is a neighbor in the backyard who has a floodlight who that is still on at 10, 11 o'clock at night, man, who knows how late it is after I go to sleep that he gets this uh floodlight turned off. So I'm ordering some blackout curtains for um I have a a large uh window um and a a walkout glass full-length uh door glass door in my bedroom and that is perfect for letting in the morning light, right?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:11:33,210 ]but, um, getting some blackout curtains. Better but not 100% in this new house right now. Uh so we're going to get this blackout curtain and automatic curtain, also motorized. Um certainly that's not something everybody has to get, that is uh that's a luxury. Uh but, um, again, we're going uh in search of, in search of. And that's where this uh Oura ring is helpful and and I can track my sleep, the amount of sleep I get, improving on that. Uh sleeping in a little more on the weekends. This is why I'm not going to do the 6:30 a.m.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:12:10,310 ]trail running

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:12:11,360 ]I'm gonna try to get out at 8:00 a.m. after sleeping in a little bit because I get up early in the morning when I'm working. So I need to restore that sleep on the weekends. So, um again, um really increasing the meditation and affirmations in the evenings and the mornings, one hour of no electronics, that includes TV before bed, perhaps some reading, um and and that meditation for a period of time before sleep. Getting getting really down into that.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:12:43,810 ]We're still continuing, uh, trying to improve upon the, um, entrainment also, and I, I think that we're going to work on that in the next few weeks as well. So, um, that creativity and connection. Um, working on decreasing screen time and certainly,

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:13:03,120 ]with someone like myself who is a podcaster and works with electronics all day long for and needing screen for for communicating with the office, communicating with nurses and and needing Instagram and Facebook for communication of some of this stuff. That is something that we're going to work on, decreasing the screen time. Having at least once a week a tech-free board night with the family. Here's what here's what I started to do.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:13:39,170 ]um writing uh an exercise this week is writing down the ten things I enjoy without tech and with friends or art. Okay, so um and some of those things, uh this week I want to just accomplish one of these things. I started with, you know, running. And and when I run and and I hope that some of you can um relate to this, that running with headphones really doesn't give me the peace of mind of of running. Um, I don't want to hear music and certainly the motive music can be motivating.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:14:14,730 ]So sometimes it is worthwhile. Um and it's worthwhile in the gym potentially, but with running and with sailing, um my kids and and getting out uh hiking we just talked about, and getting out into the forest.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:14:31,690 ]that connection, um, with art perhaps, you know, if you're going to one of these locations that has painting with painting with a twist or or the ceramics that you can do. Some things you can do without and we're going to try to accomplish at least one of those things. Um and getting that um connection with family but without tech, okay? Then we are all about continuing that connection via phone. Reach out to someone you haven't uh um heard from in a while. Reach out

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:15:05,680 ]continue that connection, okay? So that's what I want to do this week. Okay

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:15:10,100 ]So plastics, uh we're going to take a little bit of a field trip, um and we're going to come back afterwards. Uh we're going to be talking about this stainless steel cutting board that I have worked on uh obtaining. And um it is great for um meats and we'll we'll go to the kitchen here. Um and everything that we're doing here, um support for the above, amazing. Um everything we can do to get to um a plastic-free unprocessed life, okay? So, alright.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:15:43,560 ]so we'll see you here in a few minutes.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:15:49,140 ]Alright. field trip to the new kitchen. Can't wait for you guys to see what happens here the rest of the year. Um just wanted to introduce a couple of things. Uh we talked about some of the cutting boards you can get. And before we had the wood ones, you can see them there that we have.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:16:09,590 ]all wooden now We just threw away our last remaining plastic cutting board this morning, and we have two new stainless steel ones. This is perfect for meats, uh because you can easily clean them in the dishwasher.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:16:23,490 ]and and then you have your other ones We have this really cool one from the wood lab. Nice variegated look.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:16:35,490 ]and then another bigger one for bigger meals. Um again, this is not an immediate replacement of all plastic from the kitchen. You can see we still have some um right here. We still have some of these. These are going to be replaced in a very uh soon episode within the next few weeks. We don't have... we probably have about a 60% replacement of our plastics in this kitchen and we have our fantastic chef Emma uh in the shot here with us.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:17:11,160 ]we're cooking some um lasagna tonight and some bread, some sourdough. Um is her specialty. So Great

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:17:22,670 ]Uh we'll see you uh back in the podcast studio for the rest of the situation here for week thirteen. Thank you.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:17:38,680 ]All right.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:17:40,140 ]So, um thank you for taking that field trip with me to the kitchen to see our stainless steel cutting board, see the new kitchen we have. Amazing, uh, about what, uh, what things can happen there. And I have my girlfriend who's, who's a great cook and, and so a lot of great things are going to happen in that kitchen. We're working on it. We're, as I said, we're probably about 60% plastic free and we're getting there. Um, okay, so, all right, so that is week 13. Let's recap a little bit and this time instead of recapping every single little thing, we're going to go through just a tiny summary of what we're doing, okay?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:18:18,960 ]So

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:18:19,980 ]Um, in the diet situation, um, and for longevity and for health, here's the things that I'm doing uh in a in a 10,000 foot, 30,000 foot um level here, okay? So we're calorie restricted. We're gearing toward no alcohol, but very low alcohol, low sugar, unprocessed, and less packaging, mostly plant-based. And we're trying to get to 60 to 70, maybe even 90% plant-based.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:18:50,370 ]Um we're getting toward fermented foods, probiotics, prebiotics, high fiber, antioxidants, everything that is purple, orange, red, um in our food, in our diet, trying to get to a great variety. Um I have that forty uh veggies uh goal. Um and then uh water for my diet uh for my liquids, right? So, and again in a stainless steel cup, here's my water.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:19:21,040 ]And if I have to have some processed foods, I try to get toward something that is a little healthier, a little less sugar. Again, a little bit processed and uh is in an aluminum can, but but uh as much uh decrease in sugar as I can. Okay, so

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:19:38,840 ]movement

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:19:40,220 ]Um, here's where the four pillars of movement. And we talked about the five pillars of longevity of being diet, movement, sleep, uh, connection, creativity, and purpose. And then the and then the plastics, getting rid of plastics, okay. So, um, here in movement, there are four pillars to movement: cardiovascular training, resistance training, balance, and stretch and flexibility. And then we've tried to increase our cardiovascular exercise, our resistance training, which is oh so important, but also some some different activities that improve balance, and also the stretching and flexibility that we have always done, but really we're paying attention to it a little better. Okay.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:20:19,940 ]so sleep, that third pillar, um increasing the early light exposure. If you are getting to work um before the sun rises, um try to get outside during that just for 10, 20 minutes during that early light period. Um if you're really waking up way before dawn and you want to get some exposure to light.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:20:43,130 ]there are some types of devices you can use to get that early light, um late dark, um perhaps red lights instead of um instead of blue lights and at night try to avoid those. LED lights that are like the cool lights or uh daylight, getting toward the warm lights.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:21:02,760 ]and then also the red lights. Um decreasing caffeine in the afternoon, I basically don't have any caffeine at all. Um uh and Alright. So, and then Exercise

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:21:15,750 ]extremely important that movement actually helps your sleep, okay? Every portion of these five pillars improves your sleep. Your diet, decreasing the amount of food you eat after eight o'clock at night and and getting to that, and decreasing alcohol use. Um, if you've ever had an Oura ring or some tracking of sleep, you can tell if you've had two drinks, it's going to affect your sleep. Even one drink. Okay.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:21:41,320 ]we are using, um, and we're going to try to use a little bit more of entrainment to try to increase the deep sleep that I get into. Um, and then meditation and affirmation before bed, um, also to try to decrease the amount of stress that you go into, uh, your sleep with, okay? And try to decrease that heart rate. You want to decrease your heart rate and decrease your temperature, uh, right around bedtime so that's coming down. Uh, we've also used for sleep also some, um, some warm water therapy, hot water therapy, heat therapy.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:22:18,180 ]Um, and I don't do cold plunges, but some people do that in the morning. All right, so creativity and connection and purpose, we already talked about that a little bit, but certainly writing down uh my mission statement was the most important thing I could do uh to try to then live up to that mission statement. And then also creating a vision board. Creating everything physically that you can to get that purpose and connection and creativity. Um, increasing connection to those I want to become closer to, aligning my goals and behaviors, aligning those I am associated with to my um behavior that I want to have.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:22:57,110 ]and those who support my mission, diet, exercise, and plastics, all the more important. Those who say, "ah, you don't need to do that," well, you know, sometimes, um, that is someone that, um, I want to avoid, okay? So, um, art, uh, writing poetry, singing, reading, music, uh, painting, um, all part of the creativity, uh, pets. Very important. Pets can be very important for all manner of uh things, from exercise, needing to take them for a walk, uh, family and friends, um, those people who are important to you, okay?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:23:34,110 ]and then the plastics. We're getting rid of plastics in the kitchen, our clothes, basically anything I touch, okay? Bathroom hygiene, uh soaps, detergents, dishes, everything. So we're getting rid of these things. Again,

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:23:47,000 ]So, um, all right, so that's a little 30,000-foot uh overview of what we've done so far in one-fourth of the year. Um, really, I think I've um uh I've really accomplished um an amazing amount in such little time. And um, I feel like that I can really get to 99% um given another um given another what, I have 39 more weeks, that's the the other three-quarters of the year.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:24:15,900 ]uh amazing what we can do. Okay, so, uh again follow with me on all of my social media, um Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. We've got uh Threads.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:24:29,760 ]and and then follow the podcast and also some social media on Substack. Our podcast is on gonpro.com. It is on Substack. It is on anywhere where you can get your video podcasting from YouTube uh to YouTube Music and Spotify has now uh video and uh so does Apple. So Apple Podcasts uh check it out. Um and then also anywhere where you get audio podcasts you can get to. Certainly I apologize to those who are listening on audio as I show you some of these things that we

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:25:09,330 ]have such as in the kitchen where I showed my uh cutting boards that we just uh received uh and um let me know if um I can do anything better to uh show these things to you via audio to describe them.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:25:27,990 ]Okay So, um, thank you very much for uh attending week 13 and I'll see you soon.  thank you very much.