Week 20: A Doctor’s 52 Week Journey to an Unprocessed Life
Welcome to the Go Unpro podcast, a doctor's 52-week journey to an unprocessed life. Now, here is your host, Dr. Brent W. Laartz, Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases and Internal Medicine, Neuroscientist, and best-selling author. Alright, welcome everyone for week 20 of a doctor's 52-week journey to an unprocessed life. This is going to be a little bit of a short one. I have a flight today. I'm getting traveling done and getting some connection with some traveling and culture and also exercise where I'm going. So a little bit of a talk about the economic benefit of longevity and healthspan. Some people want to retire X age, but I see it all the time. I see people retiring forcibly, right? And those people who I see that are 50 years old, sometimes even in their 40s.
early 50s people are getting cancer now earlier especially colon cancer earlier and now testicular cancer we talked about in the Sunday science recently breast cancer earlier there is an economic benefit however too if you can live healthier longer So let's say your health span or your lifespan is the same at, let's say, 80 years of age, but yet you live a few years or maybe even 10 years longer healthier because of everything you're doing now and I'm doing now. I hope that that is the case. Obviously, fate or not really fate, but whatever happens, happens, could happen. And however, if I can live healthier longer, I can work longer. That could be a big benefit, especially someone who is making a lot of money.
And if I can, a lot of doctors, you see doctors working into their 70s even. I do not want to work into my 70s, but I do want to work into my 60s and late 60s, maybe even to 70. Okay. even if I retire from medicine, I am still going to be doing something creatively, objectively, entrepreneurially that is going to make me happy. Okay. So, and I think that drive to do things that make me happy is also one of the things, that connection, that creativity, that purpose. And, you know, there is overall society wise, they say that there's an economic benefit of $38 trillion over a lifetime if one lives just one year longer. When I say one lives, let's say every person in the United States lives one year longer and a healthier during that year.
That work production, that less deferment of pay, etc., and their retirement income, their productivity, and potentially a deferment of a year longer before they need to use any entitlement such as Social Security. So that's $38 trillion over a lifetime, let's say maybe 50 years, or let's call it 50 years. I'm not sure exactly how many years they took that. That's $38 trillion. That is the amount of our debt, approximately, the country's debt, $38 trillion. So it now just went over $40 trillion, right? a big deal economically for the United States and could have drastic consequences. However, if we could, everybody live healthier, everybody use less Medicare, Medicaid, etc. Because we're healthier, that could make a big savings to the United States. So it is not just altruistic to yourself.
It is altruistic to the country and to other people to live healthier. All right. So and obviously an individual that can continue working one more year can make that much more money, that much more money toward retirement. That's a big deal. If you can work 10 more years, which I think it is definitely beneficial if you can live this whole food diet, exercise, resistance training and less meat and. more connection, better sleep, and less plastics, then I think it is possible to live 10 years longer, healthier, and I think potentially knock on wood and get us to there. with everything and the goals we're setting, to 110 years of age, to 110 and being healthy and fit and doing things we want to do and love to do, okay?
So that's potentially $100,000 per year for 10 extra years of savings into retirement. That could increase your um social security because your your maximum is your top 35 years and it could also increase potentially if it's 100 000 a year for 10 years that's more than a million probably a million 1.3 million dollars over that timeframe, probably more like maybe even $1.5 million possibly. So that's $1.5 million extra. And obviously not everybody's saving $100,000 per year. And that maximum 401k, the maximum IRAs, the maximum, et cetera. If you can potentially put that into a deferment of your retirement and make that much more money and obviously a lot of people are not in my situation that they can make that much money that they can save that much money but even every little bit helps if you are living on x amount of money now and you can make that much and put one percent two percent five percent ten percent of that away
In that 10 years extra, you live longer, all the better. So all the more reason, a selfish reason, more money, that's the capitalistic way, right? If we can make more money to get there. I see people disabled at 50 years of age, and obviously not all of it is lifestyle. and certainly not all of it is preventable.I think a lot of it can be preventable. That's a return on your investment, right? So let's go. The other thing that I want to do here in week 20 is do a root cause analysis because we're not going to make a whole lot of changes. We're going to really double down in week 20 on what we're doing. Because I think I know that some things work and some things don't work.
I, like you guys, I cheat. I cheat on my diet. I cheat on my exercise. There are days, there was a day not too long ago, I was traveling, going through an airport all day long, only had like 3,000, 4,000 steps. And, but I'll tell you, we can compensate for that, right? So the root cause analysis, we need to kind of go through a few different things. The first thing is your feelings and what happens when you cheat or decide not to do something that is in your best interest. or do something that is not in your best interest. Okay, so that root cause analysis, the first thing is what you're feeling. Why did it happen? What are you feeling at that time?
Is there a psychological reason, or is there a limiting belief, or is there a... a sabotaging going on that happens when that happens and for me i think it's it's usually when I’m exhausted uh maybe haven't slept well we talked about that in the sleep portion of Sunday science about why that happens And the fact that if you get less sleep, you have more of the ghrelin and less of the leptin that will impact your hunger and you'll be more hungry and hungrier for bad food when you're tired because of lack of sleep. And certainly there's other things as well that we need to think about and where you're at when it happens. Are you at work? So can you avoid something you're around at work that happens?
For me, it's the doctor's lounge, right? It's the doctor's lounge. It's that free food, right? For other people, it might be they're at a work and their cafeteria has nothing good, okay? So that, and then also who you're with when that happens, who is the enabler of the bad situation and who potentially in good situations, again, that root cause analysis, what works, okay? Where are you at and who you're with and what are you feeling when it does work? So that's a really important thing to think about. and really drill down, and this goes into actually writing it, and actually maybe when you're meditating, when you are... Quiet and alone, not busy. You really have to take the time to think about this, okay?
And it could be in counseling even if you are beneficial, if you are fortunate enough to have a counselor, which is great. And talk with them about it, because I think that is the situation where you need to think about those things, those limiting beliefs that could be impacting why you're doing this. OK. All right. So. For me, I think I know that my girlfriend is a baker, right? So she cooks with, in general, for me, she has taught me a lot about how to live healthy. But at the same time, there are other times where she goes whole hog right into the cream and with the butter and with all of that stuff for her baking and then that food is there and it's present right there in the in the kitchen boom you know i'll take a bite of that right so and think about those things.
Think about the other part is alcohol, who you're around when, let's say you need alcohol and that kind of thing. And so if that seems to be an issue, if you cannot get down to that eight to 12 drinks a month or less, you can't get down to that. There's got to be reasons for it, right? All right. So this week we're continuing this 50 vegetable challenge. Not really that great of a success. I think I counted, I had 29 or so vegetables and fruits and nuts and beans this week. I think that there were some issues with some things we were doing on days that we went to the beach and days we went places and work.
OK, so I didn't go shopping, didn't do what I wanted to do to get to the Sprouts, my favorite grocery store to get these things. We are. traveling again, traveling a lot, problems with work. And so we are doubling down now on the preparation of food at home. Okay. And meal prepping, et cetera. Movement. Again, there are days when I don't have the time to get there and that happens. Okay. Take it as a rest day. Take it try to take some time and compensate later. And that's what I'm doing, okay? That's what I'm doing this week. When I'm off, going to be able to get out and do some things on my own. Get out into nature. And again, there, who are you with when you're able to do it?
Who wants to do it with you? This. month, I'm going to try to get the 30 day average to above 12,000 steps. My goal is to hit 14,000 average, but right there, I need to get rid of the 3,000 days, get rid of the 8,000 days and get more like this 15 to 17,000 days I've had this last week. Sleep, working on seven hours, working on working on the connection to my sleep and to myself, getting meditation, getting the dark blackout room. I haven't gotten it accomplished yet. That is on the goal there this year to get that blackout curtain in there. And connection, again, doing some things that I used to do with sailing and connection with the sea.
I think that's very important for me for connection with myself is to get connected to the sea and the mountains. Went to the mountains last week, going to be in the mountains this week. Plastic. Again, I told you that I am taking a month to double down on getting rid of plastics. I've got my cotton, 100% cotton shirt. This is from Un tucket. Really great, 100% cotton polo. And it really is high quality cotton because it's not, I don't usually like cotton because it's not, it doesn't iron well, it oftentimes has wrinkles and it doesn't fit well. Um, and so trying to get some athletic wear, maybe Merlino will, but be careful. I want to do as much research as I can to avoid heavily processing or the plasticizing of natural fibers, because you can take natural fibers and process it with a bunch of chemicals and make it into basically plastic.
And who knows if that's good for me. Who knows? We talked about that there are 139,000 chemicals in our food, all the same for our fibers that we use for our clothes, in that there are 139,000 chemicals that we haven't studied to determine whether they could cause any bad issues, whether they could be a, let's say, a cancer-causing agent. All right. So let's go back and more meal prepping, getting the yogurts, the hummuses and that kind of thing. We're going to recap what we've done in the last 20 weeks because our diet, again, liquids, mostly water in the morning. I do 25 ounces of water on the way to work in a metal container. stainless steel fiber. I usually do it about 11 a.m.
I used to do it at 6 a.m. when I did my first water in the morning. But now I do that fiber at 11 a.m. with another 25 ounces. That way I'm not getting fiber in the early morning when I'm still in that time-restricted feeding. And so I do another 25 ounces at around 11 a.m. and, uh, time restricted feeding 10 PM at the latest, trying to do it more like 8 PM the last food, um, till noon to four o'clock PM. Okay. So my time restricted feeding, and then once weekly on Mondays, I do a 36 to 48 hour fast from Sunday afternoon until. Tuesday afternoon. And then I have daily berries, daily fermented foods, beans as my protein sources, three plus days of vegan diet per week, which I'm getting a little bit better toward three days and want to get to four days.
Preferred meat is fish, followed by chicken, followed by cheese, trying to avoid full dairy. no dairy otherwise, calorie restricted diet, no fast foods, limited processed snacks, mostly whole foods, minimize protein, not maximize. I don't need the protein if I'm not growing and I'm not going to add, you know, I'm not bulking up like I'm 20 years of age and I'm a meathead, right? So I don't need to maximize the protein. I need to survive and it is actually lower protein level in middle age, maybe higher protein in old age, but lower protein is what is associated with longevity because of that mTOR inhibition of a low protein diet. Microbiome centric. That's that fiber, my fiber that I do in the morning, the psyllium husk, and also fiber in my vegetables, variety of vegetables, variety of fruits, low sugar other than the fruits, supplements.
I use Acarbose. Okay, so Acarbose is a prescription medication. And since I became almost a pre-diabetic, I started acarbose, calcium plus vitamin D, B12, testosterone. I take replacement testosterone and omega-3, vegan omega-3, okay? So toward movement, we talked about the five pillars of mobility, exercise and VO2 max and endurance and resistance training and muscular endurance and balance, okay? All of those are in running, bicycling, court sports, resistance training, weightlifting. And the goal here is not to bulk up like you're 20 years of age, obviously. Sleep, dark room, dark after 8 p.m., less of the screens. However, the screens. There is a setting on your phone that you could get to decrease the blue light on your phone. But I still would not try to do any screen activity after 8 p.
m. Early light in the morning, early sunlight, purpose, activity, you know, fill your day with that. Activity that's going to be purposeful and exhausting so that that drives you to sleep at night. A colder room is useful. And we've talked about a whole lot of other things about different entrainments and that kind of thing, which we're working on as well. Connection to family, friends, purpose, charity, reconnection with people you've lost. Okay, so culture, travel, creativity and art, and writing. Strava run clubs to get out and be social and get to get with people, okay? So the plastics we've done over the last 20 weeks, I have done at least I'd say a 50% job on my house, and that is going to continue the next 52 weeks, continuing the housewares, containers being glass, cooking utensils and pans being stainless steel.
You could use copper, personal care items, toothbrushes, combs and brushes and shampoos, soaps, personal care items, clothes. That's what I'm working on right now. Phone, pens, any business, any situation at work, any situations in your car. water glasses that you're using steel copper wooden glass is the answer okay and maybe obviously some other natural fibers and just make sure that they have not been highly processed that's what I'm trying to work on making that a habit all of these a habit And that is week 20. Thank you for joining me on this quick episode. It's probably going to be like a 15 to 20 minute video maximum, but I have to head out. Thank you very much for joining me.I love you guys. I love that you're joining me.
I love hearing what you're doing. So if you have a chance, drop me a line on any of the social media from Substack to Instagram to TikTok to... Facebook threads anywhere and LinkedIn obviously anywhere you can find my name brent w laartz l-a-a-r-t-z we are on Spotify we're on apple podcasts we are on Substack we're on YouTube we are on gounpro.com okay check us out there. Check out the video podcast. We have Sunday Science coming up. We're going to get a little bit late Sunday Science in. Also, probably won't be uploaded until tomorrow, but we'll get there and get everything for you. Love you guys. See you soon. Thanks.
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