Week 8: A Doctor's 52 Week Journey to an Unprocessed Life

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQ7SFJcileo

Summary of Key Points, Decisions, and Next Steps from Speaker

Dr. Brent Laartz

Key Points and Decisions:

Experienced a setback during a busy period, leading to less exercise and disrupted sleep schedule

Embracing setbacks as opportunities for renewal and comeback

Aiming for 6 days per week of following the 5 pillars of an unprocessed life

Focusing on avoiding processed oils, increasing intake of colorful fruits/vegetables, and finding friends to exercise with

Implementing mindfulness practices like the rose-thorn-bud exercise and 4-7-8 breathing to improve sleep and mental well-being

Emphasizing the importance of surrounding oneself with positive, supportive people on the health journey

Next Steps:

Continue working towards the 6-day per week goal for the 5 pillars of an unprocessed life

Explore options for reducing plastic usage, such as using reusable produce bags and glass containers

Expand social connections by joining local community groups, run clubs, and longevity-focused Zoom calls

Plan a trip to visit his daughter in Paris as a motivating "bud" for the future

Prepare for an upcoming Sunday Science podcast episode discussing the nuances of testosterone replacement therapy

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

[ 00:00:14,620 ]All right everyone welcome back

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:17,480 ]And I welcome myself back too because I have had a little bit of an extended break here, um not a break from anything necessarily, but I had a lot to do, busy time for a lot of different uh aspects of my other businesses that I've had. And when that happens, everybody has that happen, right? So what happens when you get so busy that you get sidetracked from what you really need to have in your mind as the most important things in life, and that is your health and your family and your loved ones.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:00:56,350 ]and what really matters. And so, uh, uh, I had a lot of help with this, uh, warehouse thing. We had a warehouse issue that we had to move warehouses and, uh, for one of my other businesses and that took a lot of time away. Less time to exercise and, um, really was able to keep on my diet, keep at least somewhat of a schedule of sleep times, et cetera. Uh, but, um, I think some of the exercise components took a back seat. Um, but while I was doing this, uh, warehouse moving, we were doing a lot of moving.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:01:34,720 ]In other words, a lot of movement, a lot of steps. Each one of these days that I had steps, a lot of steps. Does that count really? Um certainly for the most part manual labor can be exercise, but it's not complete exercise and and it doesn't exercise necessarily all of the components of of what you need for strength training and your cardiovascular benefits. But um there was at least some of that there. And so I welcome now this um because what I determine this to be is a setback and some failures.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:12,790 ]and I need to embrace those failures for renewal. Renewal is what this is.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:19,040 ]Every setback is a setup for comeback. I think that was um Mr. T or someone like that said that. Um and every one of these setbacks that I've had, every week, there might be one setback, there might be two setbacks. And I think I've mentioned this in the past in some of my social media. I kind of treat this as like Duolingo. Have you ever done Duolingo and you get...

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:02:47,030 ]a freeze if you've taken one day off and then the next day you need to use a streak freeze to uh or to undo that streak freeze and you can't string two failures in a row otherwise your streak goes back to zero. Um if I can do that, if I can make my setbacks only one setback at a time, get back on the horse, get back to where I'm going, get back on the journey, get back on the railroad track.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:03:18,180 ]get back where I need to be as soon as possible, then it those failures become less and less because you try to string together a string of successes and don't let those failures and setbacks, um, string up into a streak of failures also. So, I try to go no more than one day on some kind of, let's say I might, um, have a day where I need to eat something that's not as healthy. When I say need to eat, I don't need to eat that.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:03:51,800 ]but somehow for some reason that either convenience factor or something else led to that and um I'm not a robot, I can't go, you know, 365 days a year without um some kind of setback on the diet, sleep. I had to um get something ready by 1:00 a.m. and uh last uh two nights I was up late, so had some setbacks as far as the sleep. All of these things are learning issues, right?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:23,440 ]Don't procrastinate that thing, uh, that I need to get done that caused me to have to stay up until 1:00 a.m. to get done with something in order to get something, uh, shipped to me that I had to prepare, um, for that.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:04:40,540 ]So it's nothing but feedback, right? So I had some great feedback over the month of March into the month of April. Here we are at week eight. Here's where I want to be this week. Um, and so that once per week failure maybe. I'm trying to get to six days out of seven with all of my five facets of this unprocessed life. Um, and you know, um, that reminds me about Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill once said, success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:20,740 ]I am so enthused about this journey and about what I can do and just really just permeates throughout me, just vibrating and getting me into a frenzy about what I need to do for the rest of my life to get going. To get going, I know that I've been relatively healthy in the long run compared to other people.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:48,380 ]But I know that it's not enough, okay?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:05:51,420 ]I know that I know many patients, many friends, many family members who seemed like they were healthy. Maybe they weren't that overweight, maybe they were uh had a pretty good diet. They had some exercise.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:06:05,510 ]they had uh they said they went for walks or whatever.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:06:09,820 ]None of these people lived to be a hundred years old. None of them escaped life without certain health effects, cardiovascular disease, dementia, diabetes. I always thought my parents were healthy growing up. I thought they ate well, what was maybe thought to be a whole food diet, but then in thinking back on it now, um you know, macaroni and cheese became a staple in our household and spam and that kind of thing.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:06:46,170 ]and my parents bought into the whole industrial revolution of convenience made for our ability to have time for other things and family. And that was very important to me. Our family had a lot of time to spend together playing, playing in the backyard, playing on the river, playing with water skiing, playing with a lot of different and camping. We took a lot of trips together. But um the corollary to that was the need for something simple for some of the diet things that they did.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:07:24,830 ]and then they ended up having diabetes in older age. And I'm sure there's some genetics there that I have now in me that I need to assess because I am almost pre-diabetic, or at least at the last time I did blood work, and I need to correct that. Um, and so that's where I am along the journey. You know, week eight is um is getting close to one fifth of the way through the year, right? So I'm almost there. We're about one sixth, right? One sixth of the way through the year. We're almost there. We're almost to, you know, two months into this.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:08:03,750 ]And um I'm getting there. I'm proud of what I've done already. Um but I'm uh I'm also at the same time not proud of some of the failures, but those failures, I'm learning from them, okay? So, I'm getting feedback on this journey. Getting feedback with the scale that I see with some of the blood work that we're doing. And um that's going in uh to um the bucket here, the bucket of success, the bucket of everything that I'm saving up for my health, for my retirement because I want to be healthy in my retirement.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:08:38,840 ]I'm already 56 years old, 57. Um, 57 now after this uh after the beginning of this. I was 56 during the beginning of this journey. Now 57 years of age. And tell you, um, that bucket of success is piling up of successes that we're having that's going to enable me to be 70 years of age, 80 years of age, hiking into my 80s to really get a health uh benefit here, okay? So, um, something I'm looking forward to here.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:09:14,160 ]Um, look at Think about this and that is surrounding yourself with people who are in it for their own health also. Okay.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:09:24,550 ]so you have to have people that you surround yourself with that do the right thing also. 'Cause you will follow them, they will follow you. Um kind of if you've heard of the crabs in a bucket metaphor. If you ever um seen and or put a single crab in a bucket and that crab sooner or later figures out how to reach its claw up to the ledge to get itself out of there.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:09:53,950 ]But if you set four crabs in there, and the one gets his way up onto the ledge with the one pincer, pretty soon, one of the guys down below, one of his little crab friends reaches up and grabs him and pulls him back in.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:10:13,560 ]And when you have four crabs in a bucket, they don't escape. They all stay in the bucket because that's what crabs do. Okay, so don't surround yourself with those crabs that are in that bucket with you. Surround yourself with the guys who are like, um, let's say a bear. We've seen uh bears where they, um, the mother bear helps the uh cub up over the fence or or we've seen other examples in wildlife of people and animals, um, helping people and animals. So you've heard seen some people rescuing, um, animals.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:10:51,300 ]you've seen other animals rescuing other animals and and helping them, uh, uh, jaguar helping one of its prey that seems to be in trouble. I'm sure that's a little bit altruistic to himself, uh, more so than the other one. He's probably going to have a prey that's going to live that he can, that he can hunt later on and might, uh, might, uh, provide a meal. But let me tell you, um, surround yourself still with people who help you along your journey and that you can help along the journey too, because the more you help someone else, and this is where this community is that I want to build, okay?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:11:30,130 ]I want to build you to help me, and I want to help you with what I'm doing. Hopefully, you can follow me. Don't follow me to a T. Don't follow in every single thing that I do because every person is different. I tell this to my patients all the time. Um, I'll tell you. Um, you know, patients ask me exactly what they need to do, and I tell them or what exactly is going to happen them to them along the way with their health journey. Um, and I tell them every single person is different. That n equals one. Um, you learn each person learns differently.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:12:09,470 ]Each person has their own baggage that they bring along to the journey that's going to affect them differently and I have that baggage. I have some of the things that I've learned incorrectly that are making things difficult for me.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:12:29,070 ]And we really need to keep that in mind that just because I'm doing something doesn't mean everybody that is correct for everybody. And just because somebody else does something, uh, and it seems like a success, um, and and that gets me to my next thing because we're going to talk in Sunday Science pretty soon. We're going to talk about testosterone and I think that while, uh, there is a lot of data and common sense for the use of testosterone replacement therapy with aging.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:13:04,780 ]There is also a lot of data out there for longevity that suggests that lower testosterone is actually better and certainly too much testosterone is certainly a detriment to longevity. Uh but it seems intuitive that testosterone replacement would help overall quality of life. There's a lot of data for that and there's a lot of data for increasing muscle mass and increasing uh lean muscle mass for this.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:13:36,080 ]But, um, we're going to talk about the actual data to show that potentially longevity is, uh, not a friend of testosterone completely. Now, with that said, that's not for everyone and test- and testosterone replacement is not for everyone, and neither is no testosterone. So speak, um, I'm speaking with physicians and, uh, my medical care practitioner to talk about this on a, on a annual basis to assess that need.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:14:09,110 ]Okay, so, um, so certainly don't listen to, um, things that are out there in the media, out there in the social media, because one person is going to show you, oh, I'm on whatever medication, it could be creatine, it could be testosterone.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:14:31,270 ]it could be

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:14:32,210 ]a lot of different things, and they will say, I've got such success because I've lost weight, etcetera. Um, we don't even know if that's true. We don't even know, um, what the outcome is. Five years later, that person could have a heart attack because not necessarily because of that intervention, but because of every other thing that they do might impact that. And so, the more I feel like I stick to a mind diet,

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:15:02,000 ]the Mediterranean diet, less meat, less processed food, more vegetables, more fruits, and the more I stick to a sleep schedule, the more I stick to a movement schedule, and uh and connection, the better. Okay, and then also we're reducing plastics. So the five pillars of our uh unprocessed journey. Okay, so here's uh this week, week eight.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:15:27,660 ]Week eight is a little bit of a rehashing. It's a very short podcast, rehashing of some things, but um I am going to a um in a processed oil avoidance, okay? So, um that doesn't necessarily mean seed oil versus others. I know that potentially olive and avocado oil are potentially healthier oils than some processed oils. And we we all know that, oh, you can't use olive oil with really high heat.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:16:00,070 ]and so I'm also trying to uh decrease the number of um the high heat of of cooking and also trying to avoid oils also to a degree. All oils.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:16:13,800 ]Cooking with water. You know, with the wok and and Asian cooking, uh, for a long time, they cooked with only water, not any kind of oil. And slowly over time now that has been replaced by now using a lot of oils in, uh, cooking with, uh, woks and and with stir fries, et cetera. But, um, I've been working with trying to avoid all oils and cooking with water as the, um, as the lubricant you should one would say in the pan and

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:16:49,420 ]but I try to use 80% olive or avocado oils and then about 20% trying to use cold pressed seed oils. And is this um an exact science? If you look at your general packaged processed foods and you see oils in them, what do you think the likelihood is that when you see canola oil, sunflower oil, or vegetable oil or the the magical, it'll say uh vegetable oil in parentheses it'll say canola, safflower, or um some other oil and or and it'll put an and or in there.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:17:27,540 ]that gives them the complete ability to substitute those based on the lowest cost oil of the day, right? So, um, how do we how do we believe what they then, you know, a lot of foods that I try to eat that are packaged or processed

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:17:47,230 ]I try to get the ones that say either cold pressed or um on the ingredients and not just plain vegetable oil and canola oil because who knows whether they've used organic cold pressed and or um something healthier than something that's been heat processed chemical processed that could have impacted the quality of that oil. So the other thing about diet this week is trying to again increase the number of reds, yellows, oranges, and tomatoes.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:18:19,520 ]um and when I say that these colors and maybe the purples and the blues, um increasing those again this week, trying to increase those, trying to uh get to the blueberries, get to the red yellow and orange bell peppers. I love bell peppers. And also love habanero peppers too, but um and tomatoes. I love making my own uh tomato sauce.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:18:41,880 ]Okay, so a really good spicy uh marinara sauce that's homemade from fresh tomatoes, you can't beat it. Why can't you beat it? Because it was cooked there right there, didn't have to come, you know, thousand miles from a factory, put into a a can or a jar, it's right there for you.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:19:04,320 ]you mix it

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:19:05,440 ]the vegetables are fresh, the vitamins are fresh, the minerals are fresh, all of those antioxidants are fresh, not processed, not heated, not irradiated probably, who knows what they do with these canned foods. And then also you have less plastic, right? All of these cans have plastic linings in them. So we're avoiding that and making fresh foods every week. And um I've really been impressed with what my son has done too. He's just out of college and he's cooking for his own life now.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:19:43,050 ]and he is doing meal preps on Sundays, uh and so, um, I've been really impressed with what he's been doing and what my daughter's been doing up in DC, uh, and, uh, in school still. And, really, uh, impressed.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:19:59,430 ]uh with what hopefully I've taught them, um and certainly growing up and I hadn't started on this journey yet, but I think that all of the things that I had to do for my son, let's say for his uh dairy allergy and making um our own, let's say cream of mushroom soup for some kind of a noodle dish, I had to always make my own ingredients for him for some of these dishes that he loved for for let's say a noodle casserole of some sort with cream of mushroom soup, making it with fresh mushrooms and um and some dairy-free uh products that were real.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:20:39,580 ]Um, you know, some dairy-free products out there are not very real and it's uh it's kind of disappointing when I read some of the ingredient lists and I eat a lot of dairy-free yogurts. Um, and but um, I think I think they've really taken after this whole journey as well. So it's exciting to watch that. Um, okay.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:21:02,990 ]So movement, um we are really this week I am concentrating on finding friends to run with and I found uh my girlfriend also has uh helped me a lot with this trying to get me out on the road, out uh running. Um potentially this week again we've talked about um

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:21:23,770 ]mixing up the types of exercise daily and getting some bike riding in there, getting some tennis, but finding a friend to run with or gym at happy hour, instead of happy hour and going out for drinks, find two friends to go to the gym with. And and and invite them over to go for a happy hour run. I have a really good friend that over the past couple of months we've been doing a happy hour run every once in a while. We used to go to happy hour together and and or go to the yacht club together at happy hour.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:22:01,940 ]And this friend, uh, I'm gonna invite him over this week to do a run at happy hour. Um, and again, we talked about movement being six days a week, uh, maybe a seven-day walking challenge, getting out there, uh, if you need to get that minimum 10,000 steps. So we're working on getting to that, uh, timeframe. Um, really should be six days a week, get a week of, get a day of rest in there, okay, during that week. Um, and I'm trying to get that rest and restoration. I think the Oura ring is helping me figure out when I need to get that rest as well.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:22:40,300 ]Um and uh that leads us into the next uh step is that restoration and sleep.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:22:46,280 ]we've talked about using entrainment theta waves uh at night for sleep and we've talked about other things. Um really the next thing is um with that meditation at night and with um maybe the feeling good feelings of the day, right? So wow, what a great day every day is that I have. But you know what?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:23:09,950 ]there are stresses. I had a stress recently that um turned me off a little bit and I really had to recover from that and get uh get the mindset back, the positive mindset because there was some there was somebody around me that really just struck a negative tone and I really had to think about it. I really had to um concentrate on getting that negative out from somebody else. And uh it wasn't successful for a day or two.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:23:46,240 ]certainly, uh, went into that, uh, and went into that negative sensation and letting somebody else affect you. And, um, certainly there are, um, self-help people, uh, Mel Robbins, who says, you know, let them, right? Let them have let them do what they do. All I can concentrate on is myself, okay? Let them do, let them ruin their life. Let them ruin their life with the negativity that they are

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:24:15,330 ]having, right? So, um, I can only concentrate on my own positivity and um, and something my kids have done uh with me for a long time is um, I think that really helps me periodically is to think about the rose thorn bud um aspect of life and thinking and uh concentrating on those things that are positive. It's you can't ignore the negative, you have to bring it in, but you have to also then think about the positives that that's going to bring about, okay?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:24:53,960 ]so that you get that rose, you think about the great thing that happened, you think about the thorn, and you think about what that impact is on you, but also how to turn that around and turn that thorn into a bud, because there are buds right next to that thorn, right? So there are buds that can that are going to come off of that rose bush. That rose bush has a thorn, and then you notice that probably, you know, just one inch up the stem, there is a bud, and that's going to become a flower, right? So what we need to think about every day and every night when you go to bed, um, is about that one good event that happened that day. Think about three of them, because there are more than one good event.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:25:34,040 ]I have I have many patients I see every day. And there are so many good events every single day in that uh in that life and and obviously I have negative ones too because people um don't always turn out uh for the best in their health journey. But um think about that one improvement um that you could make and that's the thorn, okay? So that is one way to think about this thorn and the negative thing that happened in your life. What's an improvement that could happen to make that thorn um not so much of a thorn?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:26:11,430 ]Then think about the bud and think about how that thorn could or maybe even just the good good events or something that I'm looking forward to in the next day, next week, or something like that. So, you know, today I met with a physician today that really could help me advance in my career and advance my practice of medicine and really was a positive meeting. This person is someone I have looked up to for a long time and so that meeting went very well. Okay, so, um, that was the good event today.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:26:50,710 ]and I'm going to think about that today when I go to bed and and expound upon that in my brain and about what that's going to have for the future for me and hold and abundance that's going to come to me because of that meeting that I had. Obviously, I could have stuck to exactly what I was doing on a daily basis and stuck, you know, had blinders on and and not tried to improve things. But I went out of my way to have that meeting and every time I have one of those meetings, it is a joy to my life, right?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:27:23,160 ]So, um, and today, uh, and I talked about this earlier in this podcast, um, the thorn was the fact that I was up until one in the morning last night and the night before.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:27:34,960 ]And waking up this morning was more difficult obviously, right? So my sleep quality score on my Oura was in the 50s and 60s, and I need to improve my time management. Um, and that is one that thorn can turn into a an improvement because I can improve my time management and not procrastinate doing that one thing that I needed to get done. And obviously, I'm busy. I am running a few different businesses, running this podcast, running uh, and I've I have an author event coming up and um book signing event.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:28:13,060 ]and so I am so busy that sometimes uh life gets away from me, but as long as I can limit that, nip it in the bud, and get back to what I need to, then uh then everything is uh better. And I'm thankful for my morning routine, my bedtime routine as a usual basis. Um then um you know, my my real bud here is something that I'm starting to plan and that is uh looking forward to visiting my daughter in Paris and I'm making preparations for that and I can't wait. And that is something I'm looking forward to.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:28:50,080 ]I'm looking forward to getting to Paris and I love, um, Paris. I love France, I love, uh, any of the different places that I visit on a monthly basis. I travel a lot and, um, everywhere I go, uh, myself, my girlfriend, my kids, we all meet people and we love taking away different things from, uh, people. Um, so that the rose thorn and bud that I'm going to think about that's going to help me in my sleep gets rid of, you really can't dwell on things that are negative during your sleep because that impacts things.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:29:26,910 ]that meditation, that thinking about the rose thorn bud, um impact on my life. The other thing that I'm going to um impact into my uh nightly routine in addition to meditation is a 4-7-8 breath. Um this um is a relaxation technique that helps to uh helps to bring about the parasympathetic system into uh the forefront, the jugular um venous um system for the parasympathetic system. Uh the 4-7-8.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:30:01,870 ]So what the uh 478 breathing is, um, is a way of breathing that, um, that relaxes. It, uh, and your what the idea is is to hold

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:30:28,410 ]Um, is to start with um breathing in uh for four seconds, okay? So you start out breathing in through your nose.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:30:40,430 ]Okay, so that's four seconds. And then you need to hold your breath for seven seconds, okay? So, and then exhaling through your mouth for eight seconds. So, that inhaling for four seconds and then a prolonged exhalation uh brings about um the parasympathetic system, calms the mind and the body, and it helps you during your meditation process. So, uh think about that.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:31:07,470 ]So, okay, so we're gonna um do this for a second here.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:31:28,160 ]Wow.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:31:29,680 ]that even just a single breathing uh in and out four seven eight really brings about you can feel your heart rate um decreasing, you can feel your stroke volume increasing in your heart to to um improve your vagal nerve, bringing about jugular venous uh distention and bringing some bringing some of the blood out of your brain and into your system and it really calms the mind, okay.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:32:04,030 ]so, um, I would say somewhere between four and ten of those breaths, um, is what I do. Um, if you do a lot of these in a row, then you could potentially, um, hyperventilate and that kind of thing, but, um, do at least, uh, for about ten minutes of this. Um, so I do, um, you know, maybe, um, and and I don't always do for the entire ten, all four seven eight breathing, but it does, if you do some majority of that, um, does help me to relax.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:32:37,960 ]and so I'm uh instituting that into my um connection here. So connecting with the mind, connecting with the body for sleep. And that's the deal. Um when you get past about 8:00 p.m., getting to that time frame where you can um calm the body, calm the mind and bring those roses, bring those thorns to the surface and deal with them and turn them into a positive, turn them into a bud, turn them into a bud that's gonna that's gonna become the flower, okay?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:33:15,530 ]So, you you start out with your rose because probably that rose that happened today, that rose that happened today used to be a thorn. And then it became a bud, and then it became a rose. That rose today didn't happen because some magical something else happened. Certainly, obviously the rose today of that meeting didn't happen just because that physician was there and their positive attitude and I'm surrounding myself with these positive physicians who have that. But I went out of my way to get that. Why did I go out of my way to get that?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:33:52,260 ]because there was some other thorn in my life that precipitated me needing to get connection with other people for success, right? So, at one point in the past, that rose happened because of a thorn and a bud that I saw an opportunity and I turned that bud into a rose.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:34:14,170 ]Now this bud that I have also that I'm thinking about about visiting my daughter. When I am in Paris and I'm going to sleep at night in a few weeks and I am thinking about that rose of being in Paris and being in the city of um uh lights and city of uh just a magical romantic city that it is.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:34:39,159 ]and all of the positive things that happened in Paris and all of the all of the great historical things that have happened in Paris, I'm going to be thinking about that rose, but that rose happened because of the butt of my thinking and also because of maybe the thorn of everything that that I had taught my daughter about travel and getting out into the world.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:35:04,480 ]And then the bud that she had in her life of wanting to be in Paris. Um, it all came it all comes full circle about these rose thorns and buds because thorns in your life, the failures in your life, the things that you think are negative in your life can turn into a positive, okay? So all of that, um, needs connection, right? So it needs family and that's, uh, that's the connection. Um, if you have family, we all have family that we think, uh, might, uh, be less positive and we might, uh, think we may not want to spend time with them, but, um, reconnect with some of that, okay?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:35:43,980 ]so obviously don't uh connect with an unhealthy connection that is going to bring you down, but connect to it in a positive way. Um, I'm joining uh small like community meetups, uh run clubs, uh Zoom calls. We have the Zoom calls that we've started here to um get going with a community. We are starting also something in the future that I can't wait for also and that's the bug that I can't wait for is to get out there into different communities uh to have some of these longevity community Zoom calls and community actual in-person meetings.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:36:22,620 ]And um we're going to really do some things during those meetings that will help me to get on to this process of uh and on to this journey and so I can't wait for that and and so I hope you'll join me. I think that it's going to be an amazing thing that is going to help us all. Um I hope that my positivity and and everything can impact you and I want all of the positive and I love all the positive outflowing that I have from everybody bringing their positivity into my life.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:37:02,890 ]like I love it. I love every bit of it. Uh I love every minute of it. Well that was a Lover Boy song, right? And I'm showing my age there. Um maybe, you know, age um is a number, but it also is an experience and I don't think any of you younger people here on on the podcast know maybe what Lover Boy is, but you know, they um they have a song called Loving Every Minute of It, right? I'm pretty sure that's Lover Boy. Um hopefully I'm not wrong and somebody's going to comment about this. But Loving Every Minute of It um is a song that uh really impacts uh what I love from you guys. So I love all of you guys.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:37:42,640 ]I love what you're doing with your life and I love what I'm doing with my life and I can't wait to go on further with this. And that connection, um, there are a thousand ways and a thousand things every day you can do for connection. Reaching out, we've talked about reaching out to other people and and keeping up with some of your friends that you might have lost along the way, uh very important, okay? So, um, that's the fourth pillar of the connection, what we're uh building. Um, you can find us on Substack, Facebook events, uh Go On Pro Longevity, the community Zoom call. Go to gonpro.com to see some of these these events.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:38:22,220 ]and um and we'll see you uh maybe in person in a city near you. Uh and we'll also see um you know uh starting here in Florida but also worldwide. Uh I might even set up an event in Paris for that matter. Uh I'm sure that there are some people uh listening in Paris potentially uh that could um that could come and I'll practice my French and we'll uh je vais à Paris, right? So, um um I don't know French that well but uh je t'aime beaucoup, okay?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:38:56,700 ]je t'aime beaucoup, euh et euh je je, ouais, mais je m'aime beaucoup, would be I love myself very much too. So, loving every minute of it. I love every minute of what I'm doing with this. Uh, I can't wait to get out there and see you, meet you, um see what you're doing with your lives and and I can't wait. So, uh plastic. Um, we have our uh plastic reduction, right? Here's something that um is a minimal small thing, doesn't cost a darn dime, okay?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:39:32,900 ]so to do this. Um, you ever go to the produce section of your uh market and they have those little plastic bags that you can't open up and and then you put two peppers in there?

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:39:46,900 ]and put it in your cart

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:39:49,600 ]Um, yeah, there are certain things that that you can't collect without using a paper bag, but I try to just set those peppers naked in the cart, right? Why use a paper why use a uh plastic bag for that? Why use that? And that plastic bag is made with some really bad plastic, okay? So, um, I don't want that plastic next to my pepper skin that I'm going to be cooking later that I'll rinse off potentially, but um, I don't want that plastic next to it. Um, I get a lot of um whole uh nuts and and whole non-roasted nuts, whole raw, I guess that would be it.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:40:30,130 ]whole raw cashews, whole raw nuts, and I don't want to put those in a plastic bag. That's really getting stuff there that's going to be, I'm not going to wash off my um cashews before I make them into a cashew milk or a cashew yogurt or whatever. Um, what I've tried to start doing is visiting the checkout area, getting a couple of the small plastic or paper bags that you can put those in if you absolutely need to. Like let's say for the whole uh raw cashews. Now you have to have a bag for them somehow. That's some that's something you can put in your cart. So, um using those produce paper bags.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:41:10,470 ]or there's also a way you can get a um a hemp bag to put those in, um to be weighed, um and um avoid that then some some grocery stores, I know Sprouts does it at some of their grocery stores, putting some of those hemp hemp bags out there. You have to purchase the hemp bag, uh but it can be reused next time you go to the grocery store and then when you get home you can put them in a glass jar.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:41:38,100 ]I know that also in the past, I think at Whole Foods, um I bought some um I I use a lot of um quart canning jars, right? Or quart canning ball jars, et cetera. Um you could fill up uh that with your nuts and pay for the canning jar and um now it's in a glass jar now that you've uh done it. I use that a lot to store a lot of my food at home, use a lot of glass jars. Um trying to avoid plastic and or um you know the the plastic containers and we talked about that before.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:42:15,150 ]Um and we can reuse these uh paper bags, okay? Um more vegetables is gonna help also avoid uh that plastic uh overexposure. All right, so um that's week eight in a nutshell. Um we're almost a sixth of the way, getting toward a fifth of the way, couple of months under our belt almost. And um let's go uh do a rundown really quickly of things we've done in the past. We've um we've increased our movement, we've started our accountability by getting an app. I've um really gotten into my sleep and circadian rhythm tracking and my Sunday meal prep.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:42:53,410 ]I've avoided fast foods. I drink water daily. I get a prescription of a of water that's brought to me. Um, trying to avoid plastic, uh but uh it's not completely avoidable. But I I would rather drink water out of a plastic bottle um than drink a soda or something else. So, um, um, I have um increased my vitamin D um and calcium supplementation, B12 supplementation. Increased my um whole food diet and less meat.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:43:32,970 ]more vegetables

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:43:34,700 ]more fruits, more antioxidants, really impacting my microbiome. Um I've I've avoided dairy for my own purposes. Um I um in general I don't eat any red meat hardly at all, maybe once a month at the most. Um poultry and seafood only, um are maybe a couple of days a week. Um I do a lot of home prepping and home making of of stuff like hummus and bean salsas to try to get protein into my diet.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:44:06,810 ]Um, the other thing that uh we've done for our movement is um our resistance training, doing that three days a week, and increasing our psyllium intake for fiber intake. Um, I've gotten rid of a lot of my uh plastics in the kitchen and in the household. Uh, there's a lot of work to do with that, but I use only steel pans. Um, I use a lot of cotton um uh clothes. This is certainly not cotton necessarily, but I've increased it.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:44:43,280 ]this is I love my t-shirts that I have that are of Pima cotton, um that I use.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:44:49,240 ]And um, let's see what else. I'm going vegan uh two to three days a week now. I started out once a week, now I'm going to two to three days a week, and I'm hoping to get to that about six days a week at some point down the line. Uh we're avoiding processed oils, avoiding processed foods, avoiding packaged foods on a few days a week, trying to get to only whole foods. Only foods that you make yourself, only foods that are single ingredient foods, and that all impacts the microbiome. Something we've done uh once so far in the past um and trying to keep doing, and we'll do that again soon is that forty whole foods weekly. I think we're going to get that to that again.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:45:29,090 ]week ten we're going to do that, uh, forty whole foods weekly. So, forty different nuts, vegetables, or fruits, different forty different types during the week. It's a little bit difficult, um, and really some say not difficult, but it is something that is accomplishable. Um, we are, um, using less plastic bags, less, uh, and for the social connection, we've talked about creativity, uh, painting and, um, doing some poetry, doing some writing, reading, other things that impact us.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:46:05,950 ]So, I love that you guys are coming along with me on this podcast, along with this journey. Um, find us on all of the social media, um, Substack and YouTube and goonpro.com. You can find us there. All of these are available. Um, again, I'm not selling anything. I am potentially there are some of these uh things like Substack, they'll have subscriptions that you can pay for.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:46:33,560 ]But I'm telling you, um, the only thing that I'm making here is to to basically bring this, um, process and this, um, connection with you together by paying for websites, paying for the storage for this podcast. It's not, uh, not inexpensive to do all of this. So I love that you're with me. Um, keep showing up. I'll keep showing up as well. Um, thank you for, um, hanging out with me. Um, I'll see you next week and weeknight. And also for the Sunday Science, look for the Sunday Science podcast that'll also be next Sunday also on, uh, Testosterone Love it. Thank you.

Dr. Brent Laartz

[ 00:47:14,370 ]have a great day and be blessed B U be true to you Alright. I love it. Thank you.

Announcer Lucas

[ 00:47:43,780 ]No component of this content, including discussion or comments, shall be construed or implied as establishing a doctor-patient relationship. Before you translate or copy any of the information, diet, exercise, or products utilized herein or on any social media post to your own practice, consult your own research, physician, therapist, or nutritionist for your own health. No warranties or claims are made as to the benefits or risks of any treatments, diet, exercise, or products herein. Research any treatments, diet, exercise, or products thoroughly before trying for yourself. Referral, affiliate, or advertising fees may be garnered by this site.