Week 17: A Doctor’s 52 Week Journey to an Unprocessed Life

https://youtu.be/3AGBaUVXQgs

Go UnPro: Week 17 Progress and The Comfort Crisis

Summary Of Each Speaker

Dr. Brent Laartz: Provided a progress update on his 52-week journey toward an unprocessed life. He focused on the psychological and physical benefits of embracing discomfort, the importance of tracking goals, and the ongoing effort to eliminate plastics and processed habits from his daily routine.

Key Points And Decisions

Goal Reassessment: Dr. Laartz emphasized that goals should not be "set and forgotten." He advocates for weekly tracking and reassessment to identify obstacles and adjust behaviors accordingly.

The Comfort Crisis: Drawing from Michael Easter’s work, the host discussed the "Misogi Challenge"—a commitment to seeking out discomfort to foster personal growth and health. He noted that the brain is evolutionarily wired to avoid discomfort, which must be actively countered.

Plastics and Inflammation: The discussion highlighted the link between microplastic exposure and systemic inflammation. Dr. Laartz decided to replace plastic office equipment (mouse and keyboard) and garden tools with natural materials like wood and steel.

Movement and Nutrition: The host reaffirmed the "five pillars of movement" (strength, cardiovascular endurance, balance, flexibility, and muscular endurance). He decided to prioritize variety in exercise modalities and continue his 40-vegetable challenge and intermittent fasting protocols.

Next Steps

Dr. Brent Laartz:*   Continue the 40-vegetable, fruit, nut, and bean challenge to ensure nutritional variety.*   Maintain the weekly 36-hour fast and the monthly 48-72 hour fast to inhibit mTOR and promote autophagy.*   Implement the use of cedar planters and unbleached paper cups to further reduce plastic exposure.*   Prepare for the upcoming "Sunday Science" episode, which will analyze a study on the impact of exercise variety on mortality.*   Plan for future interactive sessions, including live Q&A calls on Substack, YouTube, and TikTok.

Announcer Lucas

 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

 All right everyone, welcome to week 17 of a doctor's 52-week journey to an unprocessed life and here we are progress one third of the way through the year now. We were at a fourth of the year now we're at a third of the year really making some progress on our journey here and as and as we get to a half a year away from being finished with this and it's never finished it is an ongoing process even after 52 weeks I'm still going to find ways to improve my life and improve what we're doing here for getting rid of plastics getting rid of unprocessed I'm sorry getting rid And it's a challenge. Right.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 And so we need to reassess our goals every so often. Right. And some of these recommendations for assessing goals and doing, let's say, our vision boards and that kind of thing suggest that you should make them and then put them away for good. Right. I don't believe in that. I think you need to have a reassessment of everything all along, not every day, not every other day, but this is the reason we track these things so we can see where they're at. What are our problems? What are our challenges? What are the obstructions to getting to our goals? Okay, so our reassessment of the goals. reassessment of our language every once in a while.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 You know, I used to use passwords that had candy bars in the name and candy in the name. And then I started using vegetables in the name. That was the very first start of the process of language change, right? And that doesn't matter, passwords, right? But it is a matter of fact that we need to speak the language of what we want to accomplish, okay? If we say, I am always, or I have always been fat, or I have always been not very active because I... I have never been an athlete. I've never been effective at exercise. I've hated it. I've been uncomfortable with it. If you can't get the language down, how are you going to get the behaviors down?

Dr. Brent Laartz

 How are you going to get the actions? But then from that, so our manifestation journey for this is not just about the language. If suddenly I just say that I am going to be skinny or I am going to live a long life and then I don't change the behaviors, change the actions after that language change, boom. nothing will happen. So you have to do the behaviors. You have to do the language. You have to do the actions. You have to overcome the challenges that life is going to put at you to keep you from accomplishing your goals. This past week had a bad week. Last week, I was working a lot. I had to cover for another doctor.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 So I was even working harder. So what I didn't accomplish as many of my goals, as many of my trackings of the diet that I wanted, the exercise that I wanted to do. But hey, get back up on the horse, head out into the sunset and get that goals reassessed every week as you track things. You can see on my tracking apps for my diet, et cetera, you can see a bunch of big red X's. in my tracking apps okay so boom made some changes right here great thing is i have a week off this week and i am getting back to it okay so um i am getting back to our

Dr. Brent Laartz

 reading that we talked about last week about the challenges to overcome and discomfort okay the comfort crisis we i just went through this book finished this book it was a great book um and about talking about the challenges that you face in trying to keep discomfort in your life okay so I need to keep discomfort in my life because things are not uncomfortable, things are not that are not comfortable that are good for you, right? So this can pervade every part of your life and every part of our five pillars that we've been talking about.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 And Michael Easter talked about the Misogi Challenge, and this is an annual challenge that is very important culturally, but we can take this same process and make it our own challenge, okay? Our Misogi Challenge. The Masogi challenge is to go out into wilderness, go out into discomfort so that you can find yourself. And it's normally inward facing. It's not outward facing, not requiring a social media post. And hence, obviously, I'm doing these social media posts of what I'm doing. Right. But and I'm doing these the this podcast and this vlog, as you will. about this. But with that said, it's not really outward facing.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 It's really about inward facing and detecting what are the roadblocks to you becoming and me becoming a healthy 100 year old person and avoiding the pitfalls that's going to create that. That involves getting out into the world and getting out into discomfort. Okay, so discomfort is what we need. It's discomforting to get out and exercise and weight lift and do all of these things with diet that you might be hungry you might be uh you might be not liking eating all vegetables or mostly vegetables and a lot of different things okay so let's finish that thought and how it extends to our brains okay needing the comfort your brain needs that comfort

Dr. Brent Laartz

 and the usual, the status quo, because your brain has taught you and has taught us as humans evolutionarily to avoid danger. And that danger is seen with anything that is strange or uncomfortable, okay? So my brain is sending me signals to avoid the discomfort, even though that discomfort is better for me. My brain avoids change, avoids conflict, and that's what I need to overcome in this challenge, in this Misogi challenge, as it might be, okay? So let's talk also about boredom, okay? So I've often, when I have felt a need to become creative, let's say when I was writing go somewhere by myself.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 I spent a whole first part of Christmas vacation, a whole week in the British Virgin Islands in a hotel room by myself. And did it have some comforts? Of course, it had some comforts. That place had a nice hot tub, a pool, a beach, and I was able to get out and kayak around this island, do some running around this island. But at the same time, sitting there in this island, bored, lonely, because I don't have family there. Sometimes that solitude is uncomfortable and it's absolutely called for every once in a while. We talk about the need for comfort and the beneficial effect that discomfort can have.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 There's also a beneficial effect of solitude every once in a while and the need to get rid of the noise. Kenny Chesney talks about having all this noise and all of the creature comforts that happen with that noise, the crowding into the brain that shouldn't occur. OK, so the we do talk about connection and creativity and getting connected to people and staying connected to people and groups. But it's not always the case that that needs to be every second of the day. I often, when I am in my car, go without any music. Maybe that's something that occurs with older age and needing to get rid of some of the noise.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 But I think our ADHD brains, and everybody has some element to this, our ADHD brains feel comfort when we have some noise so that we aren't. left to think about all the things we need to worry about and but that solitude can be a catalyst for creativity i feel um and when you're under stimulated it allows free thought allows brain searching and allows you to think about things a little more clearly Have you ever isolated yourself and improved idea building for business, for anything it might be? You might not have written a book, but isolating can sometimes be important. It is okay to have alone time. It is okay to run or exercise without music.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 almost every time that I exercise, not every time, but let's say half the time I run or I'm lifting weights, I don't have any music going at all. Sometimes it's, but it's motivating to have that beat in your ears, right? But sometimes it's good to be without music, okay? Then Let's talk about the different discomforts that we have that need to be had. All right, so let's talk about plastics, for example. We just had a Sunday Science episode here about the need for plastics and its effects on inflammation in our body. and around the intrauterine exposure from near childbirth and the inflammation that can occur in the colon and potentially the rest of the body as well.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Because if you have inflammation of the colon, you have a leaky gut, you have the potential to have inflammation elsewhere. So then inflammation is not just a small thing from that Sunday science we talked about. It's not just a small thing that six years, 11 years later, that intrauterine exposure to microplastics has, okay? And then certainly as an adult, microplastic exposure, having inflammation occur that then affects your colon inflammation, that then affects your cortisol, your sex steroids. All kinds of different things. There was a study recently where they took a dozen or so, 16, I think it was, couples that were deemed to be infertile and were having problems with conceiving a child.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Basically, an expert went into their homes, went into their life and got rid of processed foods and plastics. And almost to a T, almost every single one of them became pregnant within months, within a couple of months after achieving the absolute ridding of their life from these things. OK, so. There's more than just that. So discomfort in that book, they talked about prehistoric man traveling and how far prehistoric man traveled and how evolutionarily we are meant to be a cardiovascularly endurant species. And this is why we became such a force of nature. is because instead of being a cheetah running down an antelope in 100 yards, 200 yards in 30 seconds, we didn't need to be that fast. We weren't that fast.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 There are many animals that are faster than us in the 100 yard dash. But because we were upright, number one, we could carry things. We could carry weapons, but at the same time, we could carry things. We could carry things long distance. How far can a lion carry its kill? Like 100 yards to a tree? We can carry that kill. or let's say a bushel of whatever berries we found, we can carry that for miles. We can carry 25 miles. There is a researcher that said that the average prehistoric man ran and covered a distance of at least 25 miles every day. And we talk about the fact that we... you know, that's a marathon right there, right?

Dr. Brent Laartz

 So hence, the reason why people are geared toward running marathons is because we are marathon runners by example. That allowed us to track down and hunt and get to someplace if food was scarce in our camp. we could get 25 miles away. If there was a drought, we could pack up our camp, get 25 miles away. All of that evolutionarily makes sense for us in the long run and makes sense for us to stay that way because it's also about longevity because that cardiovascular fitness and the strength that's required to carry things. To carry in that book, again, the guy had to carry a 100-pound caribou.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 He wasn't just carrying, you know, caribous are bigger than 100 pounds, but he was carrying part of the caribou. And he was carrying 100 pounds for miles to get back to their camp before a winter storm set in. Right. So I encourage you to continue to look at that book. It's called The Comfort Crisis and it's by Michael Easter. OK, so that that running and walking each day. every day, consider that. Consider yourself a prehistoric man. Prehistoric man was not comfortable. He was not comfortable in his own house, not comfortable in a podcast studio. He was not comfortable going to work every day in a shiny brand new car.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 He was not comfortable every day taking an elevator, every day that we all do. And these humans would have been considered professional athletes in today's world. These prehistoric men were absolutely professional athletes. They were lean. Their BMI was certainly 15, 17, 19, because they went for periods of time without food. They had to be hunter-gatherers. They hunted for animal food, but most of the time they gathered because those that could do and eat anything they could survived better than those people who were only eaters of foraging and only eaters of carnival. carnivore diet is unnatural for the human body.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 The human body was meant to be an omnivore and it really wasn't meant to be that much of a meat eater as well. All right. So, um, all right. So let's think about these comforts and discomforts that we have. Okay. So, um, already figured out a problem here with my i've got another there you go um i just bought and we'll talk about this in a second i just bought a wooden mouse but apparently goes to sleep pretty easily uh so we'll have to see we'll have to search through this. And so that wooden mouse also comes with a wooden keyboard. We'll show you that a little bit more. And so getting rid of the plastics, right? So, all right.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 So let's talk about these comforts and discomforts as I'm able to now use my mouse. Okay. So, and that mouse is a comfort, but now it's no longer plastic. Okay. So Let's list them. What are our comforts that we have at home that are just unnatural? TV, air conditioning. And we talk about how obviously there is a need for air conditioning. There's a need to get out of the elements. But we do need to get outside, okay? Even in the summertime. In Florida, it is hot, right? So Let's talk about clothes.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Let's talk about the comfort of clothes and how really we are spoiled in what fabrics we use and whether we're in a all cotton shirt versus polyester or something that feels so much more smooth on our skin, etc. We want to have this moisture wicking, right? And let's talk about our computers, our delivery apps, okay, our delivery apps that make our food delivered right to our house and food prep that we have that is already pre-made food. What about work or the stairs at work versus the elevator versus an escalator at the mall? We think nothing of right there, right beside us is a stairway in the mall.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Speaking of malls and the comfort of malls, going to one place for all places to shop. But there's an escalator and there's stairs and you don't see anybody using the stairs. You see everybody using the escalator. Let's talk about hunger and during the day and computers and calculations and using. even using a calculator, think about these things and calculations. We now have AI at work and we have something doing it for us at work for an AI and somewhat we're forced to do that, right? And so let's talk about exercise and machines.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 and and um machines that we're using in our exercise right and they don't really mimic everyday life right um and just had to you know the doors opening the security system that's a comfort of home right security system and cameras and everything but I will forgo that part, right? They do not, exercise machines do not mimic everyday life. We need to get to more dumbbells, more movements that are natural and getting outdoors and doing these movements that are non-weight bearing.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 exercises so it's good to get away from the gym a little bit sometimes and get to dumbbells and get to movements that you can do the push-ups you know and the dips you can do every day and your chair you know you can just do them from a chair some of these exercises in leisure we have camping versus hotels we have vacations at all-inclusive resorts cruises plastics I challenge, and I have only been on one cruise in my life and I hated it, but I challenged myself from that day forward never to take a cruise, never to take a planned, pre-planned vacation where everything is planned for me by a travel agent.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 I just go to these places and I wing it. I don't want to, I do the research. I want to know where I want to go. But again, plastics that are used there as well. There's all kinds of ways that you can get rid of plastics and travel and leisure and get to natural things. Um, you know, just speaking of. shovels you know and you know doing some yard work and i've got these uh i have a uh rake that's made out of steel now and i have uh shovels that are that have wooden handles okay so certainly wood has its problems when you make it into a tool right because it can break but how often does Okay.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 So let's think about sleep then. Sleeping pills. Do the natural things that help with sleep. Do the natural things for mental health. Counseling versus pills. Pills do work. There's a place. Because we're uncomfortable about talking about things. get counseling, get a psychologist. I love getting with the psychologist to talk about issues. I love talking with people about problems. I love talking with people about their problems in the hospital. Okay, let's talk about connection. One of our pillars, right? Connection. It's a to get out and talk with people, right? It's not the status quo to get to a happy hour and cold call, right? So you need to meet some people, cold call.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 And that's certainly every single person when they're young, that's what they learn to do, right? They should learn to do. And that's part of what the crisis of loneliness is for our young men and women that are 20, 21, 22 years old. They don't know how to just go and talk to somebody that they meet at a bar. They expect to. get a dating app to introduce them and whatnot, and find people on social media. And that is start to do the discomforting things, okay, as far as connection. And the discomforting thing could be making up with a family member that's long lost or reconnecting with somebody. You don't know how to make the connection.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 But you can just find out and find the way. I was just, and it's difficult, right? I was just reconnecting with some old medical school classmates and we all are busy and we're trying to get back to, we have a homecoming, we have a reunion in two years. And that is difficult, right? And so it's difficult to connect with them otherwise, because we're all busy, right? But that connection doesn't necessarily have to be 100% connection meeting, but it can be just a text, can be a phone call. Try to advance it from there. Try to advance it from text to phone call. And plastics, all of these plastic things are a comfort, right? But try to get rid of those things.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 All right, so let's get into what we're doing in week 17 here. Again, the name of the game this week is variety. And we've already mentioned in the past the 40 vegetable challenge. um this challenge is to try to get to 40 and maybe we can get to 50 but 40 vegetable challenge that is trying to get to 40 vegetables fruits nuts and beans in one week that's going to take a little bit of a challenge of grocery shopping to get all 40 of those but if you can get just

Dr. Brent Laartz

 of each of these challenges, of each of these varieties, of each of these four different things, 10 of them, and some of it you might have to stock up on like dry beans, etc. The other thing we're doing this week is making my own lunch every day. And my lunch is between 2 and 4 p.m. I am trying to advance forward my fiber to somewhere between 11 and 12 p.m. I don't eat breakfast. And that increases my fast time without fiber, still gets Gets my fiber at a time that's at least a couple hours before my lunch so I can have exposure to the nutrients.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Get rid of that fiber out of my system and out of the stomach anyway and out of the small intestines. Gives it a couple of hours. My lunch between 2 and 4 p.m. is yogurt and it's a homemade yogurt. Homemade oat milk organic yogurt. I've made it myself each week and I've added that to some berries, especially blueberries and some granola that I've found that's a less processed granola. I could also make my own granola at some point. That's something that's on. on my list at some point for the future. That'll be another future. I put cacao nibs, I put chia seeds, and I put honey in my yogurt. Also some dates usually, some sort. All right, so

Dr. Brent Laartz

 I am doing one 36-hour fast per week, and I'm doing one 48 to 72-hour fast per month. Hunger is a signal to the microbiome and brain, and it proves autophagy. That hunger is a discomfort. And that hunger, and I don't mean to make light of hunger because there is. a lot of people out there that hunger is not a laughing matter not a challenge it is a way of life that they have not chosen these people and kids even do not have enough to eat. And it is a serious problem. I don't mean to make light of that. This hunger is a choice because I have an overabundance of food in my life. I get free food in the hospitals.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 I get food. I have the ability to afford food. but it's too much. Okay. So, all right. So hunger being a signal to my microbiome, that there's a scarcity of nutrients, that scarcity of nutrients is a signal to my body and brain to inhibit mTOR. And that mTOR, we talked about the signal of excess protein. being a signal to mTOR to build muscle but we don't want that mTOR all of the time and at times we do need muscle building we do need some protein for resistance training for muscle maintenance but that resistance training is enough to maintain muscle if you do maintain resistance training.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 What I'm talking about in the excess protein that people get in midlife, 40 years of age and 50 years of age is people wanting to pack on the protein for maintenance of muscle when they're doing very little exercise. very little resistance training. All right, so let's get to another variety in movement, okay? So variety in this week's Sunday Science, we are going to go over a recent study, and we've alluded to this previously, but now we're getting more and more data about the variety of different exercise modalities. I've talked before about the five pillars of movement, okay? So there's strength, there's cardiovascular endurance, which is the VO2 max, there is balance, there's flexibility, and then there's muscular endurance, okay?

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Our entire exercise program needs to be geared toward all five of these, not just one. Resistance training without cardiovascular exercise is useless, does have some effect, but it's useless without the strength because we need the strength. OK, but muscular endurance is important. And so strength, as far as how much we can lift, it's not a one and two rep. exercise. We're talking 12 to 24 rep exercise, that endurance, the ability to do that over and over. Our strength as a human is not meant to be that strong as a bodybuilder. We were not meant to be that way. Hence the reason why these people have to take supplement after supplement to be able to be that bulky.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Man's reason for survival from prehistoric times is our cardiovascular and muscular endurance. Nothing to do with strength, because there were a lot of other animals that are stronger than us, and we weren't even meant to be that strong. Okay, so obviously we were able to carry 100 pounds, 200 pounds on our back. That kind of muscular endurance had to go for 25 miles. Otherwise, we'd be eaten by the lion that came along as a lot of lions. And you've seen the different television shows where they show the lion makes a kill. But because he can't carry that kill 25 miles, there's hyenas that come. There's other animals that come that steal it from him. And same thing with cheetahs.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Cheetahs are very fast, but they can't carry their kill, right? So here's where we're getting with this is about the variety and that longevity. Obviously, we do know that longevity depends upon cardiovascular fitness, that VO2 max improves longevity, strength improves longevity. So if we are a one person power, just went out in my podcast studio here. All right, everyone, we're back after a little power outage here at the podcast studio for Go On Pro. In the previous studio, we had uninterruptible power supplies. Here, not so much. So we're going to have to preserve our internet by purchasing a couple of uninterruptible power supplies. Another creature comfort. It's not that big of an interruption.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 One thing we found out, and we already knew this, that Zoom requires, and that's how we record this podcast is with Zoom right now. We're going to be moving to something else at some point soon, but Zoom requires an internet connection. And when it loses that interconnection. pretty quickly after that that uh decreases the um it disconnects the connection and disconnects the recording as well so all right so here we are and we are talking about movement we're talking about a variety of movement and so we're talking about the five pillars of movement that are necessary.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 And a recent study this year, and we've alluded to this previously, we've shown some of these graphs about the different types of exercise and their effect on longevity. And this study also shows that it's more than just those, that it's actually no matter and controlling for the amount of exercise. Those that only participated in one or two exercises did worse than those who participated in at least five or six different exercises. OK, so that. type of movement. So what kind of movements can we talk about in the study? And it really makes sense from a five pillars of movement, talking about the strength, cardiovascular endurance, balance, flexibility, muscular endurance, to think about which kinds of exercises you need to do.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 We talked about core exercises being a very good way of improving longevity. Why is that? Because you need to start and stop. And there are some injuries that occur with court exercises, right? So these court exercises have balance. They have a stop and go, and you have to get your entire weight stopped on a dime from here to get over to here balance it's movement on your feet okay and it's also at the same time cord exercises need grip so you need to use your upper bodies right so if you're a runner if you're a marathon runner and that's all you do

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Certainly, that's going to improve your longevity, but it can be done better if you can do a few other different things. Bicycling, court exercises, court games, running, team games, hiking, yard work, something that's going to move your body through. a useful motion, okay? Range of motion. The other part would be resistance training, okay? So five or six is the goal here, okay? Or more for that matter. Variety is the key. Hiking, rucking. I don't do any rucking, but mountain biking is important. That different types of effects on your... body of weight loading and weight bearing of the amount of weight onto different motions in different range of motions, different exercise, different muscle groups that you can use.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Running really requires just your lower body you do have some motion of the upper body you do have your torso but what about bicycling and the balance that you need to do that and what about court the exercise that that does it's cardiovascular but it's also balanced so think about the five pillars of movement strength cardiovascular endurance balance flexibility muscular endurance All of your exercises should be geared toward all five of those. And again, we talked last time about not having time for the gym and not having a gym right now in my house, whereas I had it in a condo and I don't have a gym membership right now, but I have different ways of doing body weight training.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Body weight training is what we all know about, all right? It's pull-ups, it's push-ups, it's dips that you can do, it's lunges for the lower body, it's burpees, it is everything that we do in these non-gym locations. You can do it yourself at home, doesn't have to cost you. $60, $20, $30, $60, $80 a month to join a gym. You don't need it. If you can do body weight resistance training, again, some of these things require that you If you're going to need strength, you're going to need to load your legs with more than your body weight.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 So ways to lever that so that you can increase your strength through body weight are things like lunges, where you're putting all of your weight on one leg. And you're extending your body over the top of that to put some leverage onto that leg, the side to side. um jumping gets your balance and the lunges and the burpees get your weight up in the air coming down with force onto your legs which is required for bone density right and so for strength all Again, a variety of movement is what we're talking about in that. We'll talk about it this Sunday. Tune in on Sunday, Monday, as we upload this podcast for the Sunday Science. We're going to be talking about this study.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 And I have it pulled up, actually. It's all highlighted. It is in the. British Medical Journal. It was from earlier, 2026. Again, I showed some of these graphs in one of my podcasts before. Um, and it is in British Medical Journal. Um, 2026. It was published in 2000. It was first released in 2025. But physical activity types, variety and mortality results from two prospective cohort studies. Again, cohort study, but it suggests that a variety is important. that makes common sense, right? Common sense about exercise, common sense about using weights in a non-machine movement, non-sterile movement exercise. Get your body used to the balance. All right, so next we're going to talk about sleep.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Here we've instituted, we've been doing this for a little while, but this week I'm really honing in on the use of the fan, the temp. That fan does two things. It cools the temperature. and makes a comfortable breeze in the room, but it also creates a kind of a white noise that prevents you from being woken up by just every little hither and tither of, I don't know, whatever small noises in your backyard might be. Partners. There are studies that say that partners actually improve sleep regardless of the snoring, that intimacy, and maybe even sex before bedtime, all of that improves sleep. it's that oxytocin release, which decreases cortisol, that oxytocin release of some sort of a connection at bedtime is important.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 And that partner actually, even with potential snoring and or tossing and turning actually improves sleep overall. All right. So There are a lot of studies regarding sex before bedtime as well as important connection and creativity. Let's talk about our one third of the way mission statement, our vision board, our evaluation and grading and assessment of change. And let's talk about what we've accomplished so far. with regard to connection and creativity. Let's talk about what we've lacked in our reassessment and our successes and our failures. I haven't been able to reconnect a lot with a lot of people and I think I can do better. And remaking the vision board in what we're learning.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 And evaluation and grading of that, of that connection, of that creativity, making sure that our language and our behavior and our actions align with the goal and using gratitude, not using envy, using inspiration. Roxy Malfusi had recommended turning envy into inspiration. Okay, so don't be envious of what somebody else has. If somebody has that and you want to have that, don't be envious of them and blame them or... Make an excuse as to why you don't have it and they do because they have family connections or whatever. Don't make those excuses. Make your language, behavior, and your actions align toward your goal and it will happen. Trust.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 in the process okay just because it hasn't happened yet make sure that you overcome the tests of the universe okay and make those actions if those actions require you to go through discomfort go through the discomfort Okay, so we're going to be connecting with people in a more meaningful way, connecting with inner creativity, art, music, and the written word. Okay, so do a journal and make it into a challenge and make it a creative thing. Okay, so talk about your feelings about what is going on. and turn that into some creative outlet, okay? So that's what I'm going to be doing with this, and that's why I'm here. This week for plastics, we already gave away the secret. Boom, we got some wooden.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 mouse we got a wooden mouse wooden keyboard we showed you earlier and the other thing we're doing this week we're and with plastics we're doing multiple things per week especially because we just moved into a new house getting cedar planters those are being delivered this week And I'm growing some of my own food and taking care of my yard and trying to do so naturally, killing weeds with a vinegar solution with a little bit of soap in it, trying to get rid of any kind of unnatural compounds. Trying to use composting and that for fertilizer, not these commercial fertilizers that have unnatural compounds in them.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 The other thing that I did this week, I ordered and I got delivered to my house through Amazon, but I don't think that I could have found, and this is the thing about these comforts, I don't think that with this comfort of these delivery apps, it's difficult to find things that you needed that are natural. in the past, whereas now you can find it easily. And it doesn't necessarily have to be with the delivery service that I used and Amazon or Walmart, but it can be. Now the apps and the website so we can go and find Home Depot might have some of these things. But I'm using paper cups for fiber to take to work.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Before I put my fiber in glass and used water, I used the water from a bottle, a glass bottle in that sense. this is plain paper, unbleached, no coating, and take that fiber to work. That way, as I said earlier, I'm doing my fiber between 11 and 12 in the morning. And that, that those paper cups allow me to do that without having to bring a glass because fiber, this this husk that I use that can cake on the inside of a glass. So I'm using a disposable paper cup. It's unbleached, it's no coating. So therefore it's able to be composted in the garbage, et cetera. So again, getting rid of plastic is a little bit of a disposal thing, but okay.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 So All right. So that is week 17. And our, again, it's variety is the name of the game this week. It's discomfort. Okay. Some of these things we're talking about are not comfortable. And the rest of the year, these things are not going to be comfortable. These things that we need to do are hard work. Living to be 100 or 110 is hard work and it needs to be hard work. It will not be easy. It is not like the millionaire was doing. The billionaire, I guess he's a billionaire. The billionaire was putting supplements first and we all know how that ended up. And it's not about supplements. It's about getting these things naturally. And not every natural thing is good.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 Okay, so let's, at some point we're going to learn. We had some, I had a social media post that I put out a while back about. The fact that there are 139,000 chemical compounds in our food, and that's a natural organic food. How do we know that none of those causes cancer? How do we know that all of them are good for you? And so obviously, if you eat something and food that has a lot of saturated fat, we know that is not good for you. We know that we need some of it, some saturated fat, but the... But really, the challenge is to get omega-3s over omega-6s over saturated fat, okay?

Dr. Brent Laartz

 So again, it's not comfortable because those saturated fat, those sweet things are comfortable. They're comfort foods, right? That's why they call them comfort foods. I need to get away from the need for comfort foods when I'm sick, when I'm busy, when I'm stressed. Right. So here's where we're at this week. We're going to get rid of comfort foods. We're going to discomfort. Doesn't have to be completely uncomfortable. It's about the ways to make those discomforts actually comfortable and tasteful and fun. Okay. So Week 17, thanks again for joining us on the Go On Pro podcast, A Doctor's 52-Week Journey to an Unprocessed Life. This podcast is on video on GoOnPro.com, on Substack, on YouTube, on Apple and Spotify.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 It's audio everywhere else. So if you see, again, I say this every time, right before the end of our podcast, if you see a maroon podcast art, it's audio. If you see a blue podcast art, it is on video. And obviously, Sunday Science is the same podcast art either way. But in general, you can see this ugly mug. at the times when we're on this 52 week journey. But on Sunday Science, you can see the different graphics if you are on the video podcast. So again, we're growing. I love you guys. I love what I'm doing for myself. And I love to be with you guys. And at some point, point, again, we're going to be doing some Zoom phone calls with everybody.

Dr. Brent Laartz

 We're going to bring this on to live calls on Substack, on YouTube, YouTube Live, and TikTok Live, etc. Can't wait to get to that. And again, thank you for joining us. We'll see you soon.

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