Week 3 A Doctor's 52 Week Journey to an Unprocessed Life

Week 3 My 52 Week Journey to an Unprocessed Life.m4a

Speaker-Organized Summary: Key Points, Decisions, and Next Steps

Dr. Brent Laartz

Key Points and Decisions:

Acknowledged the difficulty of staying motivated during the holidays, but emphasized the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Discussed the concept of "holiday heart" and the negative impacts of overconsumption of unhealthy foods and alcohol during the holidays.

Decided to implement pre-holiday and post-holiday work to minimize the damage to his metabolic health, such as having a vegan diet a few days before and after the holiday.

Outlined his diet plan for the week, including reducing packaged and fast foods, increasing water intake, incorporating daily berries and greens, and implementing time-restricted feeding.

Committed to increasing his exercise and cardiovascular activity to at least 3 times per week, as well as his resistance training.

Emphasized the importance of tracking his sleep and making adjustments to improve sleep quality, such as limiting light exposure and alcohol intake.

Discussed the importance of social connection, mindfulness, and self-awareness, and plans to engage in art therapy, writing, and reconnecting with friends and family.

Shared his plan to journal and identify his limiting beliefs, create daily affirmations, and use vision boards and manifestation techniques to overcome them.

Continued his efforts to reduce plastic usage in his life, including using glass containers, stainless steel water bottles, and avoiding plastic utensils and storage containers.

Next Steps:

Implement the pre-holiday and post-holiday work to maintain a healthy lifestyle during the holidays.

Continue tracking his diet, exercise, sleep, and other health metrics using the habit tracker.

Engage in art therapy, writing, and regular social connections to improve his overall well-being.

Identify and work to overcome his limiting beliefs through journaling, affirmations, and manifestation techniques.

Further reduce plastic usage in his life by utilizing glass, stainless steel, and other eco-friendly alternatives.

Share his progress and challenges with the audience and seek their input and support.

Announcer Lucas

[ 00:00:00,000 ]Welcome to the Go Unpro Podcast, a doctor's 52-week journey to an unprocessed life.

Announcer Lucas

[ 00:00:05,670 ] 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

[ 00:00:17,390 ] All right, everyone, welcome to a holiday edition of the doctor's 52-week journey to an unprocessed life. You know, this really makes me want to say this. It is difficult to stay motivated during the holidays. However, it doesn't have to be that way. As a matter of fact, that's an affirmation right there that you can use. I am going to stay motivated during the holidays. Um, so.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:44,800 ] You know, a lot of people are working long hours during the holidays. A lot of people are getting under a lot of stress. The concept of becoming healthy is not always foremost on my mind during the holidays. I'm very busy. I'm working. I'm trying to visit with family and it involves eating a lot of bad food right and bad food choices that, if you go to someone's house, they're not always going to have those good food choices that you have. So I need to use that time frame to think about things. So there's a concept we in the medical profession call a 'holiday heart' and this is where we see an uptick in hospitalizations for congestive heart failure, heart attacks, diabetes. A lot of different metabolic syndromes. After the holidays, because we see that these people are over consuming salty foods, sugary foods, fatty foods, alcohol, and then they come in a few days after the holiday with a heart attack or congestive heart failure because of that.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:01:55,350 ] And what I like to think of is that this holiday heart is not just those patients that are admitted. Because they're a... Plenty of people who have holiday heart that are not admitted in the hospital. But also even people who are healthy. Like me, potentially, that holiday heart and that holiday metabolic syndrome can affect you. And it can affect your mood and so it affects my mood and it affects my choices of diet. And my choices of exercise. And.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:26,070 ] I don't want to let that happen again, you know, holiday after holiday. So this happens not only just Thanksgiving and Christmas, but it happens at a lot of other holidays that are less.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:41,030 ] in uh less popular, etc. Let's say July 4th or even um even any holiday where you get a Monday off because of a holiday, you get that extra day of Sunday and Monday of eating extra and drinking extra. That can really take a toll on your heart. And as we've said in the past, any alcohol is bad. But obviously we need to limit it and you need to limit it to the timeframes when there is a reason for it— in other words, visiting with family and so on.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:03:19,960 ] What I have decided to do with my holidays is actually put in some pre-holiday work. and also put in some post-holiday work. So that worked. That occupation. I am making this an occupation of mine.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:03:35,510 ] For me. to get some exercise before that holiday. And.一 Well, before the holiday, if I know I'm going to cheat on one particular day, Thursday of Thanksgiving, then perhaps the five days before that, I'm going to have some better. Diet choices, vegan diet choices, before I might have some turkey or some seafood on that day of Thanksgiving, so the same thing afterwards. So now, after Thanksgiving, put in a couple of days of getting some cardiovascular exercise healthy food. You'll find that you can minimize that damage that you do to your metabolic health. By putting in that pre and post holiday work. So what are we going to do this week on our third week, the third week of the 52-week journey?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:30,520 ] And we talk about our diet, our movement, our sleep, our connectivity, our... um, and our mindfulness. Okay, so the first thing we're going to talk about is the diet.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:47,330 ] I've already eaten less packaged foods and I've eliminated fast foods almost completely. Certainly, it's... It's difficult to eliminate it completely.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:59,290 ] It can be difficult. It doesn't have to be difficult because there are always options that we have that can avoid fast food. And so if you can completely eliminate it, all the better. But if you need to cheat because of some certain situation, then all the better. We've started increasing our water intake and increasing.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:22,329 ] And I've started tracking my weight, started tracking my diet in this habit tracker that I've downloaded for my phone. I've instituted at first a daily one-day detox where I eat berries, water, and fiber, and eat vegan on that day. Um, and now, last week, we started eating daily berries and greens, and tracking this. Okay. In that same habit tracker, you can track your berries and greens and put in a 'greens' entry when you've eaten a salad that day without significant amounts of bad dressings, et cetera. And when you've eaten berries that day, you can track that. If you've had both, then you. you can put a 'B' in there on that tracking day for what I've shown you in the past. What I've basically now... I'm doing is I'm putting into my system dairy and red meat free most days.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:06:27,390 ] Okay, one, and then also one day this week, I'm going to have a time-restricted feeding. I'm going to have at least 12 or 16 hours on that day where I don't eat. And if that happens to has to be a day when I'm not working, that's great. Or if it can be a day like Monday or Tuesday. During the beginning of the week, we've already instituted that detox. If you can also time-restrict that feeding, all the better, to create a calorie restriction, basically. Time-restricted feeding, basically, the tenet of it is to basically create a calorie restriction, nutrient scarcity, and this is what inhibits the mTOR gene. And when it is turned off, it creates a system of autophagy that gets rid of senescent cells, gets rid of toxins out of your body, and certainly intermittent fasting is a part of this, and or just plain calorie restriction.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:31,070 ] But what I'm going to do is at least get a time-restricted feeding one day during the week with my goal to actually have time-restricted feedings. Um, on most of the week where I do not eat for 12 to 16 hours and certainly I need to keep hydrated, I need to keep um some Thank you.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:50,670 ] Uh... some new nutrients in my body and I'm going to have protein, I'm going to have the vegetables, and I'm going to have the vitamins but that time-restricted feeding. is not going to impact that because it's only 12 to 16 hours. I'm still going to be able to eat during eight hours of that day.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:08:13,320 ] That's our goal: to inhibit mTOR mTOR. is the enemy of longevity. Okay, so we need to try to restrict the amount of mTOR activated in our system. Okay, so the other thing we're doing this week is increasing my exercise and cardiovascular exercise to three times per week, at least 10 minutes minimum. And as you know, I'm an athlete, so, and I'm a runner. So I can increase that cardiovascular exercise to three times per week and I'm going to try to increase my resistance training also to three times per week and get one day of rest from that and certainly I am, even though I've been an athlete, I've been a runner, I have a busy schedule. You have a busy schedule. Everybody has a busy schedule. Trying to get to that six days a week of exercise is difficult. And I have to make it. So it's not difficult. So I put in the time, put in the work. Okay. So I have made it a passion.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:09:15,720 ] To get to this. And you know, passion is energy. So I have to have that passion. I have to have the reason. I have to have the why, right? And my health. is the why. And, um, Energy flows. where attention goes. So I need to put that attention to planning. My week. To make sure that I can get this exercise in, even on vacation, even during holidays, even during a rough week of work, right? So I've started. Uh, a work schedule that has a week full of uh extra work. Okay. So I've need to start to plant those things. So start on that day of Sunday, when you're starting to do your meal preps. On that same day, start to prep your exercise schedule. I've done it and have failed sometimes. You know, sometimes I'm only this past week. During the holiday, I only got four days of exercise. Um, I can do better.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:10:16,100 ] OK, so I'm working on that. The next part is the sleep. So we've gotten our diet change again for the week that we're going to that I'm going to institute. My movement change to get to six days a week of exercise and sometimes it makes it easier if you're off that week to make that change, but I'm also going to track my sleep so that's the third pillar that third of the four pillars of our um of our longevity. And I'm going to start to track my sleep better. I'm going to put this into my habit tracker. That's an easy way, cheap way to track that. If you can get a ring, like an aura ring or whatever. Type of ring you want to get, or I'm looking at some different watches I'm going to get, so I'm going to start tracking this better. I need a cool ambient temperature, which is not so easy in Florida sometimes.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:11:17,540 ] And you know, the deal is that in the wintertime, we have less daylight hours. And so it becomes easy to inhibit our sleep by increasing that light all the way to bedtime. And we've already talked about this in past episodes in the first two weeks of decreasing our light exposure. Exposure during the late night before sleep so increasing just exposures to red light trying to decrease those exposures so and we're going to try to get a minimum of six hours of sleep at night. We talked previously about also Um, increasing our bright light exposure in the morning that helps set your circadian rhythm but also limiting alcohol. And, you know, once you get to these trackers, And you. can find out. basically by trial and error. by tracking this. This is going to be the important thing over the next year as we do this 52 weeks.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:12:22,370 ] change to our life, to an unprocessed life. This unprocessed life You're going to learn. through some sort of tracking whether it's through an aura ring or apple watch or or some other kind of tracking watch You're going to find and I'm going to find that alcohol is the biggest thing that interrupts our sleep. And you're also going to find that those. Light issues of late night light and keeping light on or caffeine could be a big one or oral intake of fatty foods or sugary foods or processed foods, especially in the evening from after 6 p. m. or 8 p. m., those things are going to impact your sleep.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:13:09,270 ] Immensely. So track those things. Track for yourself exactly what you can find did it for you.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:13:18,720 ] I'm hoping to find I'm already a good sleeper that I can track myself in the past without doing an intensive study, but hopefully I can delve deeper into it because I feel like I sleep all well already. I don't really have that much caffeine intake. I don't have much alcohol intake. So hopefully, I can impact that even better. I've limited my alcohol to no more than 15 drinks a month. If I can decrease it even more, all the better. There are ways that you can do that. Obviously, there's more and more choices for zero-alcohol drinks out there that don't have a lot of sugar because also sugar is the enemy.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:14:01,470 ] And so limiting those drinks is going to help us immensely with our sleep. The next part we've already talked about every time, the fourth pillar, the connection, the social connection and the mindfulness and the self-awareness. These things. go hand in hand, all of these things, your connection to other people and your connection to yourself. I find that when I am connected to myself, I'm also connected to other people very well. I'm going to start even more so. in the future, some art therapy. I'm going to get back to painting what I have done in the past. And as you know, I'm an author also. I'm going to get back to writing some poetry and that kind of thing that I've enjoyed in the past. Those things, those simple things you can do. There are ways you can do these things simply, right? So if you want to try to write some poetry, it doesn't cost much, right? Maybe painting. and or some other art like music might cost a little bit of money.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:15:02,250 ] If you need to buy an instrument or buy an easel, I used to have an easel. I'm going to look at getting an easel and paint set again.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:15:10,290 ] And, you know, if you are partaking in some of this music, I want you to show me your product and I'll show you some of my product that I make on here. Um, when we get together. I want to see that once a week. I want to see me getting into my art once a week again. And I'm also, we already... talked to in the past couple of weeks about reconnecting with people via text, phone calls, and lunches. And, you know, it's in descending order of priority. Certainly, texts are something that are very impersonal, right? So certainly, that's an easy way to start to get connected with people by texting them and telling them you want to get reconnected with them. Go through your phone book in your... a phone. And I've started to do this starting with the letter A and find everybody with the letter A that I want to get reconnected with. And just send them a simple text and say, 'Hey, haven't heard from you in a while.'

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:16:10,930 ] Or you could do something on social media, a direct message on social media.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:16:17,540 ] message start with that but also get it to: I'm going to get it to a point where I can have lunch with somebody and meet them for happy hour, meet them for a beer, meet them for a glass of wine. Right. So. That's it. We've already talked about, and I'm going to try to get to that at least once a week. Make it personal, not business. OK, so certainly you can discuss business if you want. And certainly. These things are going to help me to have a better connection business-wise also because these things will benefit you business-wise if you get together with people and connect. But I want to make it personal and find out about what's making people tick and making my old friends. And hopefully making them feel better. And that's also going to make me feel better. And we talked about mindfulness before as well. And self-awareness once a week now. This week, I'm going to start to journal. I've already started meditation, already started some yoga.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:17:22,550 ] Now I want to. Thank you. Bring that into journaling, to bring about my self-awareness of my limiting beliefs and how I'm going to overcome them. First of all, I... need to limit or list all of my limiting beliefs, okay? So there are certain things, those statements we talked about last week, those... I've always been X, right? Or I've always done it this way. Or I've always been a big eater. You know, anything. Or I've always been big boned. I've always been a little overweight. I've always been... Those kind of statements, those are examples of limiting beliefs. Those are limits you to what you think you are. In the past. And those don't necessarily have to be. What I am in the future. Okay, so something that I've always been a geek or I've always been nerdy or I've always been—um— an introvert. Right. So. Um that's not always been the case for me.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:18:25,540 ] I'm not necessarily an introvert all the time. But there are some times when I think that. If I can overcome that limiting belief and say, 'I'm not an introvert.' So you need to list those limiting beliefs, all of those things that you think you are.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:18:43,530 ] That you think you can overcome or that you need to overcome or that you want to change, okay. Certainly, the first step of change is wanting to do it. But you also have to know that that is the case, so that's where journaling is going to help me in listing out what my limiting beliefs are. Because when you don't have that self-reflection, you don't start to figure those things out, right?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:19:13,440 ] What have I believed in myself before, or before that came about? Where did that limiting belief come from? Okay, so where did that belief that is limiting you come from? That's also part of this journaling. That needs to occur at least once weekly and it should maybe occur daily. But I'm going to start with once weekly journaling.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:19:38,820 ] There are those self-limiting beliefs— could be also things I don't believe I could do— or and then, we have to start with how to change those things. OK, so and really you need to and I am going to change. These things to make myself healthier. Okay. So, previously, we talked about doing daily affirmations, vision boards and manifesting and those things.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:20:07,280 ] That you can do.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:20:09,810 ] You need to start doing those things and listing out.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:20:15,320 ] And recording a daily affirmation. Track. So listing 10 daily affirmations.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:20:23,770 ] That maybe deal with one of those limiting beliefs. So if I can take that, I am an introvert. And put into a daily track. Of an affirmation.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:20:37,810 ] That um I am popular, I am um an extrovert, I am able to comfortably talk with people. In a social situation, you know, something like that. So. And then you can bring about your vision board and say, and use those daily affirmations and those limiting beliefs to figure out how that.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:21:03,580 ] Fits in with your vision board and how you need to overcome these things to get to your goals. And then manifesting is certainly all of the steps of manifesting. From realizing your fears. This is part of those limiting beliefs, realizing your fears, listing those fears, and then overcoming those fears and taking action. And taking an affirmation of those. All right. So after the four pillars, we always are talking about plastics. And I've already removed plastic utensils from my life. And I've removed plastic storage containers and plastic storage bags and bought. Glass storage containers. I have steel cookware. And now I'm going to start to try to use less water bottles, trying to use filtered water. And I'm going to buy some different products that help me with that. Already I've... My first 32 ounces is in a stainless steel cup that I use and I put it in my car on my way to work so that I can have that first 32 ounces of water after I've taken my psyllium husk.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:22:12,880 ] I've tried to make sure that I don't use a lid or a straw with that so it's just plain stainless steel that I'm using.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:22:21,220 ] Um and not via any plastic but all you know, after that 32 ounces, I'm at work, I'm at a hospital, and I've found myself using water bottles because it's not as easy there. For me, I can get a bottle of water right in the hospital cafeteria. Same thing with a lot of you, I'm sure. And I've seen a lot of people taking bottles to work. With you, um, or um, but a lot of you, I see, are using your stainless steel Stanley's or your whatever product you use. And this is great. And if you can try to not use a litter straw, I think that's all better. Previously. Again, we've removed our plastic utensils. We've removed the plastic storage containers. We've removed the coated cookware that... potentially is going to bring plastics into your life. And I am becoming even more plastic free by the minute and weeks.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:23:24,910 ] Three is well on its way, okay so um, one thing I've um tried to do uh with my plastic uh with my Elimination of plastics is that filtered water.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:23:40,840 ] I use a company that ships bottles of water to me that are in glass bottles, and that's helped me immensely. That's pretty expensive if I'm going to use that for cooking. So I'm going to buy this product that is a glass container that has a filter that also adds magnesium to the water automatically. I'm going to try to use that because that'll be a cheaper option for... my cooking water as I boil pasta or about boil whatever or cook with any kind of water. I'm going to try to use something like that. Okay, so certainly this time of year again, holidays. Okay, so Everybody deals with different stresses during the holidays. We have grief that rears its ugly head with, you know, not having a certain family member around because of different family dynamics that occur. If you have lost a family member and they're no longer there, that certainly creates some stress and/ or some emotional reactions during the holidays. That could really hijack my ability to have a healthy holiday.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:24:58,040 ] We might revisit our old selves. We might go home for the holidays and be somewhere where we weren't healthy before or have previous stresses or previous holiday issues. Certainly, everybody has money stress during the holidays, right? So you have to buy presents for people, and you have to— and you might have lost a job or something like that this year, or you might have relationship stress. So either having to deal with a divorced previous ex who you have to share certain either children or share certain stresses during the holiday.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:25:39,790 ] These kind of things, certainly, I'm going to use these journalings and this meditation and yoga, but something I've used in the past that I've never done. Uh, in the past, I've used therapists, and I think this um is an extremely valuable thing. Certainly, we... Um, Many people have used alcohol or drugs or medications to perhaps try to treat some of these things. That we think are self-treating the holiday stress, but there are different ways that this can be done, and those different things involve what we talked about—journaling, meditation, yoga, and therapists. I can't stress that enough: how much threat therapists have helped me in realizing that there is another way to this, and not have the stress of the holidays. Because holidays and the holiday stress, and the certainly the amount of food that's there and the amount of alcohol that could be potentially there.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:26:46,410 ] Can really hijack your health, because again, all of these things impact your life in the future and they can impact it. And so I just want to. Encourage people to find help through therapists, friends, family to cope with these things. Okay. So again, thank you very much for being here. We're going to be decreasing the plastics in our life. And, you know, the reason to do this is those forever chemicals, right? So those PFAS and those forever chemicals.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:27:29,270 ] All of these plastics that get into our food. If you have some doubt about what is happening in our food source, just Google. Lawsuit and orange juice and PFAS or just orange juice and PFAS and see what you come up with. These compounds are in fluorinated compounds used in clothing, nonstick pans, and just about everything in between. So, unbeknownst to us, they've been at extremely high levels they've been to keep products fresh. Since some preservatives don't need to be put on labels, you could be drinking in your orange juice and just about everything else you eat. So, learn about those things and try to figure out how to get organic, healthy foods, whole foods into your life. Because the less packaged foods and the less fast foods you have in your diet, unless I can eat those things, the more healthy I'm going to be.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:28:30,590 ] And I'm thankful for that. This Thanksgiving, is just the fact that I've become more healthy already. and just the small amount of changes I've made.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:28:43,540 ] Um, there are certain companies out there and these are somewhat expensive, but there are certain companies that can analyze your blood or urine to find out how much of these phthalates and bisphenols that you might have in your body uh at the baseline and see if you can track that. If you, if you have the inclination to do that, okay. So I've done that already and I think, through the healthy diet that I have instituted, I've already noticed some changes. OK, so. All right. So find us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok threads. Some of our. Products and some of our you know] I'm not selling any products when I say products, I'm talking about my products. I'm getting out there is the information I'm putting out there, um, to share with people about my changes I'm instituting. Those can be found there on social media, but also on Substack, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple podcasts.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:29:44,830 ] And anywhere where you get your podcast, we have a video format to this, and it's also on GoOnPro. com that's g-o-u-n-p-r-o com. It's available there. It's available on YouTube and Substack. Some of those require a subscription. But on GoOnPro. com, it doesn't require a subscription.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:30:08,830 ] We look forward to seeing you in the future. Share with me all of your challenges, all of your successes. I look forward to. seeing all of these questions you guys are sending in and I'll share some of those. Also look for our Sunday Science that we've been starting and also look for our meditation uh videos that we've also been putting out there in the um in the information stratosphere okay so thank you very much for uh visiting with us today and I appreciate it we'll see you next week for week four Thank you.

Announcer Lucas

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Announcer Lucas

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Announcer Lucas

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Announcer Lucas

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Announcer Lucas

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Announcer Lucas

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