558: Unlocking the Secret To A Healthier Life: The Link Between Health, Happiness And Finding Your Purpose with Dr. Bryan Walsh

Podcast Transcription: Unlocking the Secret To A Healthier Life: The Link Between Health, Happiness And Finding Your Purpose with Dr. Bryan Walsh

Ted Ryce: Dr. Bryan Walsh, great to have you back on the show. 

Bryan Walsh: Yeah, well listen, I was thinking about that – like how long has it been? Is this like, when, what's his name? Matt Damon did another Bourne Identity movie like 10 years later and shows up a little older, a little grayer, or whatever it was. I mean, that wasn't even video back then. I don't even think they had video, did they? 

Ted Ryce: I don't know, yeah, I'm pretty sure they did. But we went audio and, I believe the last... 

Bryan Walsh: It was like Skype. Skype was your only option. 

Ted Ryce: Exactly. And I believe, and you had to have a special recording to record the video. So, we didn't do it back in those days. But I believe we also talked about testosterone. 

You've been on this show a few times, but today I want to have you back on, because we're 10 years later, it's like there's more information than ever, and I recently joined your Clinician's Code mentoring program where you teach all types of coaches and even medical doctors, chiropractors, etc., how to use better evidence to look into blood work to make better decisions and recommendations based on the best data we have.  

And I want to get into all that, but just because it's been a while, can you talk briefly about who you are and what you do? 

Bryan Walsh: It's going to be a lot shorter than it probably was 10 years ago. Listen, I mean, just as a going back, so health has always been interesting to me. 

I distinctly remember buying a nutrition book, like when I was in eighth grade through the mail with cash. And  it was before I was even driving because I was reading this book while my mom was driving me to school. So, and I was a Boy Scout way back and I remember Charles Atlas and the kicking the sand in the face and the isometrics, like I bought that thing. 

So, health has kind of been interesting to me for a long time. And then that culminated, going to naturopathic school because, you know, I was, I was a massage therapist, I was a fitness professional, it's always been my thing. And then that just was the umbrella that fit everything, right? So you learn chiropractic adjustments, you learn herbs, you learn acupuncture, you learn homeopathy, you learn nutrition. 

And so that seemed to be a pretty good fit. So, I did that. Best thing about that, however, was meeting my wife there. She too was in school for that. And then fast, we've been working together for a while. 

I should say separately in our own practices, but then six kids later, and I don't know how many years it's been since we graduated, but yeah. Listen, man, I mean, I love information. I love learning. I'm constantly reading studies. I don't listen to podcasts or read blogs or go to seminars or do any of that stuff. 

It's all biased. It's all watered down. And I just, it's like if you really want the truth about something, you got to go to the source. So, I spend most of my time combing through the scientific literature as much as I can to see what the truth is, to see what people are talking... even though industry is a little funny too, right? You can have some nefarious characters publishing some pretty bad information. 

And I really like helping people. And so, what we do now, we've joined forces, my wife and I in our business, we joined forces and everything. You know, I work from home, business is from home. We have six kids. We homeschool, we love God. You know, I mean, that's just kind of our life.  

And so, that's what's important to me, God, wife, kids. And then, the rest of it is just kind of keeps you busy and the bills paid and that is helping practitioners help their patients because I can help a lot more people by helping practitioners than I can by helping people themselves. I don't know if that's a good nutshell or not, but that's what I got.  

Ted Ryce: It's a perfect synopsis of what you're about right now. I remember, because I was considering going to naturopathic school and I remember asking you what your thoughts about it. And you said, "Well, you learn a bunch of stuff. Most of it's not good." And I think we're in this situation right now where there's a big dichotomy or seeming dichotomy.  

There's the mainstream medical practitioners who say, "Well, you know, acupuncture's nonsense, supplements don't work," although this is changing. But I'm just talking about the extremes. You know, supplements don't work and it's all about medicine, or surgery, and then on the other side, you have people in the alternative health, for lack of a better term to describe it, the alternative health world. 

And some people say the most ridiculous things and you're like, "Wow, that sounds amazing. Where did you get that from?" And it's like someone said it or just made it up. And so can you talk a little bit about the state of information and from the perspective of someone trying to figure out who do I listen to? 

Bryan Walsh: That's a big and great question, so I'll try to take that apart a little bit. Number one is, it's called the information age, right? That's where we live right now, is the information age, and clearly there is more information at our fingertips in a fraction of a second than ever before. 

I guess our age, when you went back and you had to do a research study, I mean, remember microfiche in the library, you know, and like twisting the dial and like looking for old newspaper articles that way, I mean... So you know, what we have available now is not only more information, there's more scientific journals than ever. 

There are more pathways that have been “discovered” or “invented”, whatever you want to call it. There's more tests to run, there's more markers to look at, and availability to that information has gone faster too. So, it is an overload. And what that's done, number one, to your question, is it's confused the heck out of people, out of patients, and practitioners.  

Because, you know, I talk with both and I have had patients that say, "I listen to all these podcasts and so-and-so eats low carb. And then they say, eat carnivore. And then they say low fat, and then they say, eat Pritikin," and all this stuff.  

And they'll tell me literally, and this is a quote, "I don't know what to eat anymore because you hear that there's arsenic in the rice," you know, and like everything has been destroyed. And these poor people just looking to be a little healthier, just losing a few pounds.  

Like I... and I'm quoting them, "I don't know what to eat anymore." That is an... what an awful, awful feeling to have. Like we have been eating as a species for a really long time, and unless it was poisonous, not caring about it, you know, like food was a commodity. 

Food kept us alive; food kept us sharp, strong, and healthy. All you tried to do was avoid the bad stuff so it didn't kill you. Nowadays, people... and it's not even enjoyable anymore. Like, I'm going to, I'm eating my rice, even though I think it has... that's what an awful place. 

Practitioners are more confused than before because, like you said, there are all these people talking about different diets and different supplements and what tests to run, and just the general misinformation. I make fun of it all the time. I have this little bit, you've seen it, but you know, a practitioner knows they're not helping people as well as they can.  

Maybe because of their education or something else, feeling like an imposter. So, they go to a weekend seminar and they'll go and it'll be a weekend seminar on the brain by a lab company or a supplement company usually, and the presenters will present scientific papers kind of, that are so compelling, so compelling that this practitioner at the end is like, "Wow, the brain runs everything. The brain is in charge of the gut. The brain is in charge of the immune system. The brain is in charge of hormones. I need to start focusing on my patient's brain!" 

And they do, and it doesn't work all the time. And then they go to another seminar, let's say on the gut or on detox or thyroid or you name it, and the same thing happens. 

Then all of a sudden, the gut actually, according to these people, runs the brain. They're like, "Wait a minute. I just heard that the brain runs the gut," and so practitioners with this information, they are completely blown out of the water. They don't know what to do anymore. They're more confused than ever. I joke around, saying, "I wish I was still practicing in the twenties where all you had was like some people with some diabetes maybe or something, or sepsis, you know, like you step on a sharp nail back then you are kind of..." 

So anyways, it has led to, I'll just say massive confusion and if you've ever been confused in your life, you know that you feel like an imposter. So, the imposter syndrome is huge nowadays amongst practitioners. They're like, "I'm going to try this carnivore thing, because someone said to”. 

Also, to your point, conventional medicine, there's too much evidence now for them to ignore that certain supplements, diet, and lifestyle helps. 

And so, you know, back when I went to school, there was a bigger chasm, right, a bigger division between the two. There's just too much evidence now. It's in their face. They cannot avoid it. The problem, though, in the alternative medicine industry that you brought up is, and like I don't get incensed about, I don't know if  I mean, we're... I don't know. We're about the same age, right? Same generation, at least. 

I've calmed down a lot. I don't know that I was ever fully excited, but like, you know, things just don't bother you at a certain point, you realize your mortality, you're like halfway to a hundred, whatever. You know, you're just like, things don't bug you so much. That still really bugs me. 

The garbage that is said in this industry that is unregulated and people can just say, which, going back to my first point, is misleading people. It's confusing people that I have a huge problem with. And it’s totally are unregulated. People can say whatever they want about supplements, which... I mean, we could pick apart any one of these. How awful the functional medicine tests are in general, how completely unregulated the supplements are, and tons of claims are being made about them. 

And I'll tell you what it is, when you look at the dose that's in them, it's not going to do a darn thing for anybody. So that is a piece that my wife and I... We sign off our emails as "raising the bar." We're trying to raise the bar in the industry because conventional medicine does great stuff. They have professionalism. 

When you go to a medical seminar, the speaker at the beginning has to disclose if they have any financial ties to anything. Like it's the title slide and the next slide. The next one is, "Here's who I work for, here's where I get paid from." 

The functional alternative medicine industry doesn't do that. So, you get some guy up there and he's talking, turns out he gets royalties on every single supplement that they sell. 

And so that's why his protocol is 20 supplements long for every darn condition, and they're just, you know, buying their Rolex watches and driving their fancy cars. And meanwhile, they're... Practitioners aren't making any money on the products that don't even work. So anyhow, then to your last point on the question is how do you know who to listen to? 

That's the hardest, darn thing, isn't it? It's like a wolf in sheep's clothing is, I think you have to go to... You have to look for... You have to have discernment. There's a few things. The discernment, well, first of all, is just... Let's just call it like the B.S. meter, right? Like just is, you know, sometimes something feels a little funny and I think we need to listen to that. 

I'm not going to lie there, there's that. We were given that for a reason, and I think that that's something to be said, right? Like, back in the day, friend or foe, is this guy, is this thing going to eat me or am I going to... Is it going to be my pet? So, number one is: listen to your intuition. Number two is look for potential biases. 

Does this person make any money anywhere else potentially? Or their bias might be pride. You know, I want to be big and famous. I want the most likes on social media, so I'm going to make whatever cool video that I can. And then if you're... This is hard if you're just a lay person, but as a practitioner, one of the best things you can do is really know the science, really know physiology. 

Because you can... Someone will say something and be like, "That's not right. That's not right information." That was the best thing that I ever did, was learn biochemistry and physiology, because I'd go to a seminar back in the day and I'd listen to someone, I'd be like, "That's a thousand percent wrong. This guy doesn't know what he's talking about."  

So, you know, that's the hardest part. And, and like I said, so not that it means things to certain people, but I told you my priority list, right? God, wife, kids, the rest of life. Hopefully somebody that has that as their driving force will be an honest person with integrity and humility. 

But, you know, I don't know, that's a tough one. That's a hard one to answer. It was a long answer I realize. But that's a hard one to answer, man.  

Ted Ryce: I think you did a great job. And the end of the day, one of the issues I see in the industry as for me trying to promote myself is... I'm competing against people making really crazy claims, or it's about the fame. Right? And as a result, I'm becoming more famous on purpose. 

I like having a bigger following because I feel like I can get more information out, but I've had to really learn the game differently, the marketing game, if you will. But hearing that really helps me as far, and I know that people listening right now, they feel that way too. 

I've heard that many times. I just don't know who to listen to. I just don't know what to eat. So, you gave some sage advice.  

The next thing I'd ask you about is with, you know, you made a great point about in mainstream medicine, doctors, when they give a talk, in mainstream medicine, even if they're a PhD or whatever, they have to disclose their conflicts of interests. 

At the same time, that professionalism doesn't exist in functional medicine, and we're in a situation where people are going to medical doctors and medical doctors, I would argue, based on my experience, they may or may not know the science. And if they do know the science, they can't implement it. Because a lot of it has to do with behavior change. 

How do you get someone to get out of a depression? Well, you exercise, get them in nature, expose them to light, but get them around friends and, but they don't have the time to not only explain all those things but to coach a person on how to change their life, which is a long-term process. So, it's so much easier to give someone an antidepressant. 

Another example would be, I had a client - and this is something I learned from your mentorship course, The Clinician's Code - had a client, he got these blood tests done and his cholesterol was high, his triglycerides were high. His hemoglobin A1C wasn't in the pre-diabetic range, but it was 5.5 and the, you know, the cutoff is 5.6, so he is not doing great there. And, fasting glucose was a little bit high.  

But the doctor talked about his heart risk. And one thing I learned from you, and I've been hearing for a while, it's like, well, the standard lipid panel doesn't really show you their risk. You need to look at apo B and lipoprotein a, these other things. And what it really showed was some... the beginnings of some insulin resistance.  

Bryan Walsh: Metabolic issues. 

Ted Ryce: Yeah, metabolic issues, right. But if we wanted to look at his heart disease risk, we would have to do additional testing. And so even the doctors aren't doing what is conventional by testing apo B for example. Can you talk a little bit about that? 

Bryan Walsh:  Yeah, so again, you're asking these great questions. There's so much into that. So real quick, the standard lipid panel, total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, and triglycerides is, I will say, almost completely worthless in evaluating one's cardiovascular risk, and by that it's basically stroke or heart attack. 

You can, I mean, there's ischemic heart disease and congestive heart failure, but, but really it's like atherosclerosis. Something gets stuck somewhere and you get a stroke or heart attack.  I'll put it this way. Metabolic issues like metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance, those correlate with cardiovascular risk. 

So that lipid panel, and this is, this is getting nuanced here. That lipid panel is the most useful thing it's for, is for identifying metabolic issues, insulin resistance, which is related to cardiovascular risk, but the lipid panel itself is not related to cardiovascular risk. So, it's indirectly related, if that makes sense. 

Ted Ryce: It does, but it only makes sense because I'm part of your mentorship program. 

Bryan Walsh: So, it indirectly relates, right? Because if it's abnormal and it points to glucose dysregulation that is related to cardiovascular risk. So, I can't say it's completely inaccurate, but I'll just say this: If yours is normal, that doesn't mean you're not at risk for cardiovascular issues.  

So, a few things with that. Number one, you brought up the part of a, of a panel that has been most ingrained, not only to doctors, but just our society in general. I mean, you think about it like you could get two menopausal women, you know, having lunch together and be like, "What's your cholesterol?" 

You know, like nobody asks, "What's your sodium?" Or, you know, "What's your uric acid or bilirubin?" So it has like been just, you know, I mean, remember back in the day, like Time Magazine, like good cholesterol, bad cholesterol, pictures of eggs and bacon on it, and butter and all those things.  

So, everybody knows about that, and it has been so ingrained into the doctors, and I'm not getting into the pharmaceutical and who cares about all that?  It's that they, they don't know better.  

That's just like, I mean, you think about that, I'm just trying to think of any example that we might have in life where it's, it's just so in your brain, like if I were to tell you that your eyes are not responsible for seeing, you'd be like, "No, that's not true." It's so ingrained into them. You can't undo that. That's number one. 

Number two. It takes a while, unfortunately, for what's in the scientific literature to make its way into conventional medicine, not because it's the doctor's fault, it's because of their organizing body's fault. When you think about it, they have standards that they're supposed to follow or else they get in trouble.  

For example, if you have a type two diabetic, you're basically supposed to put them on a statin regardless of what their cholesterol level is. And if they don't, they get in trouble. Now the patient doesn't have to take it, but they're supposed to do this, so they have rules to follow, which in functional medicine we don't have incidentally. 

So, it's not the doctors, it's just a very slow system. I mean, I relate it to government like when's - I know you're in Brazil, but like the last time you went to go to the, the DMV to get your driver's license, I mean, good heavens, like long lines, totally incompetent workers and I mean nothing against them. 

Or call the IRS or something. Oh my gosh, what a like, paleolithic way of doing things. It's so slow, there's no customer service. So that's kind of like conventional medicine. It's this really well-established system with this hierarchy. And these poor doctors to make any money, have to only spend 10 minutes with people because they get only a fraction of the insurance.  

And because they are on the insurance model, they can't run an apo B, they can't run any of those markers because the insurance company doesn't necessarily cover it unless the doctor can prove that that person actually needs it. I talked to a cardiologist like 15 years ago and it was a young one, you know? So, I was like, oh, she's got to be cool, right? 

And I said, I think I asked her if she was running homocysteine or it was, you know, it was one of the like newer markers at the time. She said no, and I was like, "Why not, it's kind of a cool marker." She said, "I ran it on one 80-year-old lady and the insurance company refused to cover it." And so, it cost this 80-year-old lady, like $200 for the single marker. 

And who was the lady mad at? Not the insurance company. She was mad at the doctor for running it, so she's like, "I don't run it anymore." So, I'm not real big on blaming anybody because I think it's all of our fault. Patients aren't willing, we're not willing to pay out of pocket. So, we have to use insurance. 

And then there's the insurance company, and then there's the doctors and the scientific community, and there's a bit of pharmaceutical interest in some of those things. So, it's not anyone, I'm not going to be like, oh, it's so-and-so's fault, you know, it's everybody's fault.  

So, I don't blame the doctors. They're busy in their practice. They barely have enough time to keep up with any of the science. Much less specific, you know, like is there a better way of evaluating cardiovascular disease? So, it's just kind of the state of the industry, unfortunately. And, when you first started asking the question, I will tell you the way that I use conventional doctors, what I think they're good at.  

They're good at finding the acute bad stuff. And so, if you see something really weird on a blood panel, I always say sign them to the doctor. Have them rule in or rule out whatever it is. And once that's done, then come back and we'll deal with the rest. So, you know, are your kidneys falling apart? They're the ones that should find that. 

Not, not you. Right. So, if that makes, if that, if that makes sense. They're really good at looking for bad stuff. 

Ted Ryce:  Yeah. Or cancer diagnosis, right? 

Bryan Walsh: That's what I mean. Like, like chronic, like congestive heart failure, you know, and chronic kidney disease, anything like that. But what they're not good at is the chronic stuff. 

And so that's where, you know, you're just saying like high normal A1C, but not really in the diabetic range yet. Lipids are a little bit weird. That's where you can crush it because you will spend the time with a person, you will coach them, you will hold them accountable, you know, all the dietary and lifestyle things to do and supplements if necessary. 

So, I say like, stay in your lane, and this is just true of life. You're talking about marketing and getting more famous and stuff. You know, we talked about this before. Stay in your lane. If you don't be all things, all people, you will do great. 

That's true as a husband, as a father, as a doctor, as everything. So conventional medicine, do the acute stuff, rule out the dangerous, the bad, the ugly, and then, you know, nutritionists, health coaches, functional medicine, we'll clean up the rest, we'll do the chronic stuff because that's our lane. Right? 

Ted Ryce: Yeah. It's a great perspective and what I love about it in particular is that, it's free of the, oh no, doctors are evil. They just want to do this. And it's not true. It's more nuanced and complicated and, and that's what I love about your approach. Did you have something to follow up with? 

Bryan Walsh:  I was just going to say, if I was going to interrupt on that, like, here's the deal. Like, are there a few bad cops? Yes, there are. There are a bunch of phenomenal ones. And then the ones in the middle are just trying to like do a good job and help society. Are there some truly bad doctors? In any industry, including ours, a thousand percent mean, nasty with horrible ethics and morals? 

Are there some phenomenal ones? Yes. Then the rest of them are just kind of in the middle. Like most people became a doctor to help people and make money doing so when you think about it. Otherwise, you go into like public health. So that's fine. So, it's not, it's not wrong to want to make money and to help people while doing it. 

So no, there's not, most of them are doing like, and this is the thing like, and here, have you ever been wrong before? Yes. But in most cases, were you trying to do the right thing? Also, yes. So, you know, I have run, for example, some of these tests that I'm now embarrassed to have run when I looked into it myself and stopped listening to other people, I made it. 

But my intentions were good, you know? And same with these doctors. I guarantee you. Most of the doctors giving a statin, educating their patients on cholesterol are not like, I'm going to kill this person on this statin and, and like, I'm not telling them that their cholesterol's not really a problem. 

That's not true at all. They're like, your cholesterol. You are going to die with this cholesterol level; therefore, you need to be on a statin. They mean that because they believe that and they're just trying to help the darn person. So, I think the whole, like, they're evil, we are good, we're bad. Like, well, that's like a Hollywood story, you know, like the hero. 

Like we're not the heroes. We do certain things good and they do certain things good. And it's my humble opinion that most people, not all, are doing the best that they can with good intentions. 

Ted Ryce:  I'm with you on that 100%. It's a hard place to be because I do believe the Hollywood story - I mean, I'm working with a marketer, or not a marketer, but he's helping me with my content and I have to tone him down so we choose the right way or an ethical way to put information out, but still captures people's attention. 

Which is something you actually talked about people's attention. I forget if it was on, no, it wasn't on the call. It was on one of the Practice Up videos where you were talking about people don't have as much attention available as they used to in the past. So, I don't want to go down that rabbit hole though it would be fascinating.  

What I'd love to ask you about now, because to go with this theme that we're on right now, where, okay, well medical doctors are evil. They just want to put you on statins even though you know this, the whole story, which is not true. But then they turn to functional medicine practitioners. 

And what you said is some of the tests that you've run in the past, you're even embarrassed to mention. What should someone know who's not satisfied with the help they've gotten from their doctor because of the reasons that we've been talking about for the past 10 minutes or so? And what do they need to know about some of the functional medicine tests and claims so that they're not falling into another trap on the other side? 

Bryan Walsh: Yeah. You asking some good questions, dude. This is why, you know, before we record, it was like, I'm not heading down to Brazil anytime soon, but, you know, just to sit and chill and drink some, I guess, what do they drink. Yerba down there? Something like that. And just chat about this. So, you ask great questions and, and this is clearly, you know, not pre-planned.  

So, I think one of the most important, this was right here, this is a great question. You started, you alluded to this at the very beginning, about there's more information now than ever. And as you were saying that, I was thinking to myself a lot of that clouds things and gets things more confusing sometimes. It improves things though.  

And just to give you just little off topic, but to give an example, so hemoglobin A1C. That that completely revolutionized conventional medicine's ability to look at type two diabetes, because before that, all they had was fasting glucose. It was the only marker they had. 

So A1C was this amazing discovery. Amazing, it's not really an invention, but a marker that, that really changed how doctors look at type two diabetes, for example.  

In most cases though, these additional pathways, and these additional tests, and these additional things, I will tell you, having been around in the industry for a long time and having talked with, you know, at this point, hundreds, if not thousands of practitioners around the world, a lot of times they'll adopt one of these new tests. They'll run it for a while and they're like, not really changing how I do things and I'm just going to stop doing it. Stool tests, hormone does like all these different things. 

As a consumer, as a client or a patient not getting what they want from their doctor. My wife hates when I use this phrase, but it back to basics. Because like we as humans have not changed a whole lot, I'd say over the past like few thousand years at least. 

I mean, from many perspectives. It was funny when you said, we talked about testosterone 10 years ago. Guess what? Men still make testosterone. It's still the same pathway. We might've discovered a couple things about it, but not really. Right?  

So, in my sort of like hierarchy of what's really, truly important for health, which is really what people are after, is number one, and most important than anything else is you said friends. I'm going to say purpose. And the literature on this is clear. I had a practice up on that a while ago, but like, purpose in my humble opinion is almost everything. Not, not everything, but it's almost everything. And I even have some, some science to back that up from a physiological perspective. 

Like you have to have a thing, and now your purpose dictates your priorities, right? So, your purpose, the bigger you can make your purpose, the less likely it will be taken away. So, if your purpose is your kids, that's a great purpose. I have news for you, they're going to move out someday. And then your purpose just left. 

And then you get this like, woman who put, because her husband's a chump, put all of her, her focus on her kids. Her kids move out and then she's lost. She doesn't know what to do with her life because that was her purpose.  Someone to make money. Let's save something falls through and you can't make money. You just lost your purpose.  

And the classic example is an athlete who gets injured, you know, and then they can't compete anymore and they become suicidal or depressed or all these things. They lost their purpose. So, the bigger purpose outside of yourself that you can make, not money, not fame, not all this stuff, because that can be taken away. 

There are pretty interesting studies showing that that actually does something to your physiology. And just one quick example, if I may, and then I'll jump on. I'll keep going with your question there.  

There was a study for, there's many studies on this, but there was a study that was done on college kids, and they basically got a vaccination and they found that the kids who had more of a purpose subjectively than less of a purpose actually made more antibodies to the same vaccination as the ones who had less of a purpose. 

Like your immune system knows if you have a purpose or not. Like that's a trip. And all you need is just that one thing to know that and be like, and like get chills and be like, what else don't we know? What else? Because then, then you're like, oh, take echinacea. No. Like how you feel about your life and you and your place in life has massive implications on your immune system.  

I don't know if you watched that one on SIBO that we did, but one's attitude towards all that I will say influences your gut bacteria. But what do we do in our little myopic view of things? Oh, take probiotics. And when that gets old, because we don't have an attention span, we're like, well, that's no good.  

Let's take prebiotics and feed the gut colon, whatever the gut flora. And we're always looking for the next, the new, the shiny, the flashy, the extra, oh, here's a new stool test that tests for this. You know, and like that's where we get lost when it comes to our health.  

So back to your question, I said back to basics, like you have to have, for healthy physiology, and this is so backwards, right? Most people are like, exercise, get some sunlight. You know, like eat healthy, organic, time-restricted feeding, intermittent fasting, whatever. Whatever the current narrative is. And then they'll say, well, if you do that, then you'll be happy. 

The healthier your body is, the happier you'll be. I'm telling you I think we need to find joy, contentment, happiness, and purpose and your physiology, in many cases, not all (because there's someone that's like, well, I have an autoimmune condition, or I have like), there's no protocol to this, but I think that that comes first. And your physiology, I will tell you, will change to some degree.  

Ted Ryce: I want to hear more about this because I feel like we hear too much about all the things you mentioned, the intermittent fasting, your calorie restriction, and the supplements and the exercise and the optimization. But I mean, it brings up, I started as you were talking, I started thinking about my purpose. 

I have a pretty strong purpose, but I don't think it's super-duper clear. I mean, I got a lot of things that I have been through, and I get up in the morning and I'm here to make a difference. I'm here to help, but I would love to hear what else you have to say, like, how do you coach someone on finding a purpose or how would someone go about finding a purpose? 

Bryan Walsh:  All right, we'll come back to that in a second.  No, I totally will. I want to answer your first question because I've been teaching for a long time. There's people that might be watching this right now. They're like, that dude's all over the place. I've heard everything. I talk too fast. I'm all over the place. I'm scattered all that stuff.  

Whether or not that's true, it's actually part of this like bigger story. So, I will finish your first question and then we'll jump back to that.  

So, and you've seen this in Clinician’s Code when it comes to just, just the basics of getting healthy, calorie amount that you eat matters. 

A hypocaloric diet is associated with decreasing basically every chronic disease, right? Alzheimer's, dementia, type two diabetes, fatty liver, cancer, like all the things, right? So, what you eat matters. Protein is the most important micronutrient, hands down, no questions asked.  

What we treat people to do is hit their calorie mark. And then hit their protein mark and then fill in the carbs and fats. If you do a lot of exercise, more carbs, if you do less exercise, maybe more fats if you don't have a gallbladder, more carbs. You know, like, and, and to fluctuate that because I think that we get too crazy with, you have to eat a certain macronutrient ratio, that's so stupid.  

We've never done that throughout human evolution. And so hit the calories, hit the protein, and then let the rest of the kind of fall. Number two, like we do have to move around, period.  

Diet is probably more important for overall health than is exercise. But we have to move. We're designed to move, like you have to do something, I don't even like the word exercise, but move. Lift heavy stuff some days, you know, go for long walks, other days, just move.  

Three, like outside sunlight, that stuff. And then when it comes to supplements, I crack up at how many patients we'll have and they'll show us their supplement list. Glutathione and resveratrol and curcumin and berberine and like all this stuff. I'm like, where's your multi, like just let's, let's just start with the basics, you know? So, a good multivitamin, I tend to tell people, and it depends a little bit on them, but no iron, no copper.They can be highly reactive. You don't know if you need them or not.  

But a good multivitamin, I say add an additional fat-soluble vitamin. Because in most multis, their vitamin A will be betacarotene and not vitamin A. Like betacarotene is not vitamin A. It turns into vitamin A, but it's not vitamin A. 

And there's a lot of evidence that people are deficient in all the fat-soluble vitamins of fiber. And I know it is not sexy nor is it multi. But you might've seen the video we did. There are umbrella meta-analysis, which is a, a meta-analysis on meta-analysis on fiber. Show that to me on, I don't know, liposomal glutathione. It's not there.  

So, fiber, there's nothing that fiber doesn't help. I will just put that. So, these are not sexy. Move around, hit your calorie mark. Eat a lot of protein, multivitamin, fat-soluble vitamin fiber, you know, and just start there. And then, you know, there's some people say, what about a probiotic? You know, I don't want to get into all that stuff.  But if you start there and you do that for a while, a couple, few months, you know, you can make a lot headway.  

Back to the purpose thing, there's a few exercises that one might go through to kind of try to figure this out.  I will tell you what you can't do though, I don't believe in this at all, is a stupid book on like the seven steps to finding your purpose. 

I think that is garbage. I think that is just another, like, you talk about the marketing, people that you're working with, that's just another, like, it doesn't work that way.  

The first thing that someone has to do is like, why am I here? Why am I here? And I'll tell you what, that is one of the hardest questions. It can be one of the most depressing questions that somebody asks themselves. But what are we doing? We're like looking at our Oura ring. We're making sure we're sleeping; we're looking at our chronometer to make sure we're eating the right macros and the right amount of calories. And then we play a game where we look at social media.  

We distract ourselves like crazy so that we don't have to ask that question or even like think about it for a while, like, why are you here? And a lot of people be like, I don’t know. That's a problem. I think that instead of your Oura ring and your Fitbit and all this other stuff, like you should contemplate what ... 

You know when you have a purpose when, you said this, you said “to make a difference”. If every, any activity that you're doing, can evaluate is this leading to making a difference or not? You know you have a purpose when you can say, I'm eating right now, is this fulfilling my purpose in any way? And the answer can be no, but it's yes or no. It's not a maybe. 

I'm in a shower right now. Is this fulfilling my purpose? No, it's not. It's hygienic, it's clean. Like that's it. But like I'm scrolling social media right now. Is this helping fulfill my purpose? No. The next question is, should I still be doing this? No. Or like, or if you're a dude, like I'm looking at porn, is this fulfilling anything of even close to my purpose?  

I'll tell you the answer is no. So, stop doing it. Right? So, you know, you have a purpose if you can ask if the thing that you're currently doing is fulfilling that purpose or not, and it doesn't always have to. Like playing Candy Crush, it serves a purpose, you know, as long as you're not into like the crazy high levels, right? 

The, the first one is just to ask that. Now one of the exercises that you can do, and I'll just give you the quick version. You can, you should take a good 20 minutes to do this, but it's to say like, okay, like what you do is like close your eyes and a year from now you're dead. You die. You have a year to live 365 days, and in a year you'll be gone. 

That's it. Painless. Like no disease. You'll just, you just won't wake up the next day. And then, so, okay, so that's, that's your reality. What do you do with it? Like, how do you live your life? Who do you have around you? How are you spending your time? And, and you try to make it sensory. So, like, how does it smell?  

How does it taste? What are the sounds around you? Like, really get into that. You have a year left, and then after a few minutes of that, you say, okay, I have a month left. 30 days now, not 365, not 12 months. You have 30 days. Now what do you do? What does it look like? Who's around you? How do you spend your time? 

What's important? What's not important? How does it smell, taste, hear, feel all that stuff. Then you do a week, then you do 24 hours. 24 hours, you're going to be gone like literally, what time is it? 10:46 here in Maryland right now. Tomorrow morning at ten four. At 10:45 AM is my last minute. Okay? Like I have 24 hours left. 

What do I do with my time? Who do I have around? This can be powerful. I mean, you start getting tears in your eyes thinking about, like, because here's the deal. One minute that's going to happen, like your next minute's going to be your last. You don't know when it is. Going through this exercise and then you do one hour. 

You have one hour left of your life. In one hour, you're gone. Painless death. What do you do with your time? What's important? Who's around you, who's not? What are you not doing? Probably playing Candy Crush or scrolling through Facebook. Or counting your macros. Oh dang, I'm going to get my last meal. I want to make sure my macros are balanced. 

And if you can do that and spend a good 20 or 30 minutes really doing it, it's kind of helpful if someone talks you through it, I'm not going to lie then than yourself doing it. You know what's important to you, right? And then when you do that, and if you do it well and you spend some time doing it, you know what's important, you know what's not. 

In that last hour of your life, you know what's important to you, you know how you're spending your time, you know how you're not spending your time. And that helps identify one's purpose more than you know, just asking, why am I here? Because then you can stand back and be like, alright, well some, at some point I do have an hour left to live. 

I don't know where that's going to be. Why the heck am I, why the heck am I in this relationship? Why the heck am I working at this job and not traveling around? because that's always what I wanted to do. Or, you know, why am I not spending more time with my kids? Because in that last hour, that's who I wanted around. 

Well, how come I'm busy like doing other stuff, telling them to go away, because like dad's busy exercising or whatever it is. So that exercise can help, I think, narrow it down a little bit, if that makes sense. And once you have it is what I'm doing right now, leading me towards my purpose or away from my purpose. 

So, I don't know if that helps. And the last thing I want to say is your purpose can change. Okay? So, your purpose can be your kids. They leave. You can then all of a sudden decide you want to open up a used bookstore or you know, homeschoolers or something.  

And then that's your new purpose. So, it can change. It doesn't have to be the same purpose, but like when you get up in the morning, you should know why the heck you're getting up in the morning and you know if what you're doing throughout your day is going towards that or not. 

Ted Ryce: Brilliantly, brilliantly put, Bryan and I know we haven't talked in a while, but if you're way off, I don't mind interrupting, but it was just, I think that's the thing that we're missing from the health and fitness conversation and I've been talking about it more. I talk about the bio-psychosocial model. 

That's basically one of the things that you're mentioning. It's the things outside of the biology and how it affects our psychology. Another thing though, I would ask about, I'll give a personal example.  

So, purpose, we need to have it, it's one of the most fundamental things that you've said this, I forget if it was the Clinician’s Code calls or the practice up videos, but you said if you have health problems and you have a purpose, you can still be happy because you're following your purpose. You're showing up, your mindset, your focus isn't on the problems that you have, but it's on achieving your mission, achieving your purpose, and it helps so much. And I feel like I have that.  

The next question I would ask you though is, I'll give a personal example. I kind of struggled with sleep the past couple nights. I told you I had this facial peel and I had a bad reaction to it. Didn't sleep well.  

So, I woke up this morning, I was excited to speak to you. It was, I was scrolling social media. I was not, you know, I was feeling bad. Didn't sleep that well. It's been a couple nights of that. And so, my point is that we do need to find, my opinion is we do need to find a balance between all these things. And you said you know, your kids, your purpose is your kids, but you're getting mad because they're interrupting the exercise. 

How would you, how would you coach someone on like, hey listen, we need to have this purpose, we need to have, you know, joy in our lives. But eventually your health can get in the way of you achieving your purpose. Can you talk a little bit about how you view that? 

Bryan Walsh: So, well, that's what I said is your purpose dictates your priorities. And so, people will think, well, if I don't get this workout in, then I'm going to lose a certain amount of muscle, or I'm going to get fat, or whatever. If your purpose is to look a certain way, you're not always going to look that way. I'm going to tell, you are going to lose that at some point, it is going to be harder to maintain it as you get older.  

You know what, we have six kids, 15 down to two. You are talking about sleep. So, my six-year-old came in last night, hopped on our bed it around 2 in the morning. Couldn’t sleep, I was up for hours. The irony of that is the kids will wake you up, they go right back to bed and then you don't.  

And so, I'm up, and what am I doing? I'm not twiddling my thumbs. I go on my phone and I know we're not supposed to do that kind of thing, and blue blockers and melatonin, but I'm sitting there and I was like, well, I'll just, you know, I'll research something or I'll read something that I'm into. 

I'm super tired. Like I'm crazy tired today, I feel it in my eyes, but that doesn't take away from my happiness because like I woke up to children in a house. That's messy. Guess what? Because of my children, and if I didn't have kids, my house would be immaculate, but I'd rather have a dirty house because of my kids.  

And I'll tell you, listen, I mean this is a little too personal, but you know, when you wake up or when you become conscious, but your eyes don't up yet, it's like, It's the, it's the moments before your eyes open. I have tried to make it a habit and just to be super personal, I mean, I will become conscious and I try to make the very first thing out of my mind is, “Good morning, God, thank you for another day where I can serve You!” 

Before anything else in my day. You know, and like, and without you, I'm making, I'm realizing what I'm saying now. The first thing out of my brain, my first thought is gratitude. “Thank you again for another day where I can serve You”, right? And so, I'm showing my hand here, my deck of cards, I guess. That's my purpose. 

Everything else fills within that. So how am I as a husband, as a father, as a business owner, as anything, as an employee and employer, whatever. That's my purpose. And so, listen, if I don't get an exercise in, we have a pretty decent gym here that we put together over the past about at our house. 

The amount of times that my wife and I actually get to use it nowadays with the business and the homeschool and the kids and all these things is kind of embarrassing. We don't even have to drive to the gym. We got to go downstairs. If I miss it, I miss it. Or maybe you can like fill it in here and there, like maybe the dumbbells are loaded up and when you go outside to give the dog water, you just, you know, you rep out ten five, do some pull-ups. 

You ask a good question. It's hard for me to answer because your purpose dictates your priorities. And when you have priorities, that means what is on top and what falls away. So, when you say like, but you want to be healthy, cool. If being healthy is your priority, then do it. But if it's not, then be okay. 

If that's like, my health is important because I want to, I have six kids. I don't know how many grandkids I might have someday, and I want to be around for all of them. I mean, my wife and I talk about the parties that we may potentially have, could be unreal with all the people, and I want to be there for it. 

And I want to be able to throw a ball at my grandkids, or swim or play or carry them or do all that stuff. So, my health is important to me, but I will tell you it's not more important than my kids. And so, if I skip a workout, I'll try to throw something in because our attitude is a little is better than nothing. 

And you know, my diet usually does pretty well. Not always, but a little bit's better than nothing. So, I don't know if that answers it because it's not concrete. But a priority list is like a pyramid, right? So, when you know what your priority is, you have to be okay with the stuff below that falling away if you can't do it. 

I would love to exercise every day. You know, back when I was single, eating - I was immaculate, you know, my house, my apartment was clean. Everything was clean. I was clean. When you know what your priority is, if it's something else, you got to let, you got to be okay with things falling away. I'm okay with me, I'm okay with my life. 

If I don't exercise, I'm like, all right, I'll do more tomorrow. Or I'll throw something. You know what? I don't know if that answers your question or not, but you have to be okay with, if you truly have a priority, you have to be okay letting things fall away.  

Ted Ryce: Yeah. I think that's helpful to hear and it brings up a story from one of my clients. He's 52. Dan, shout out to you if you're listening. And, he's about to be an empty nester along with his wife. He loves his kids and he got very overweight in the process of building his law practice and raising his kids and being a husband. 

And then now because the kids are leaving, he, I mean, he lost 56 pounds in a year of working with me. And, we're, interestingly enough, we have him so dialed in on his, weight loss, we've started talking about these other things about purpose, about the future, and so I think the example you gave was really important. 

So, if someone's listening right now and you're, you are thinking that you need a six pack or whatever, but it really isn't a priority for you because you're in a place where you're working a lot and you're raising your children. Yes. Find ways to be healthier. Do your best, but realize it's not a priority and you need to be okay with the consequences of that. 

Bryan Walsh: And if I could just quickly interrupt that you, you said that, you know what I think to myself often is like, God willing. I'll have time to do that later, when they're older. I mean, we're still changing diapers on one of them, right? I mean, that's like, so, but when they're older, I'll have time. 

I love to read. I don't have time to read right now. I mean, they wake us up early. They're up late at night. They wake us up during the night, you know, there's cooking, there's cleaning, there's all this stuff. I don't have time, but what I do is I'm like, you know what? In 10 years I'll probably be able to sit in my chair and just read. I'm cool putting that off until I can.  

I know that in 10 years I can still, again God will, I'll be able to still exercise and I'll work on my deadlifts then, you know, and so it's also postponing like the things that are, it's more important and less important. What's more important? My kids are more important right now.  

What's less important? I'm healthy, but not super healthy. I'll have time to work on that down the road. So, it's almost like postponing it until you can, you want to get a six pack when you're 60? Go for it. You know when, when you have the time. So, it's all, you can delay stuff too. It's cool. 

Ted Ryce: I think the thing I would add there is that I have worked with some people. For example, I worked with a couple, she was actually not in bad health, or I'm sorry I worked with a woman, but during working with her, some, some things happened.  she wasn't in bad health, but she started having, she was in her early fifties and she was working as an auditor, probably one of the best in the entire country. Total rockstar.  

And she would go nights without sleeping, working all night, and she started having, you know, heart issues. She had to go to the doctor, for nothing major, but it, she started having these irregular rhythms. During the time we worked together, which was for a year, her husband was a diabetic, also had a heart attack while we were working together, and they had these plans to retire and travel the world. 

And it's like, whoa. He got a massive wakeup call with that heart attack. And, obviously he wasn't getting the right information from whoever his medical doctor was, because it's like as you mentioned earlier, diabetes or metabolic issues are a big risk factor for heart disease, but it can also knock out your plans. 

You may not be able to do it later. What you said that I think is key is you said you're healthy now you're just not super healthy. So, I think that's a really important point.  

Bryan Walsh: No, my deadlift isn't where I would like it to be. I don't, I can't do it. Like, I probably have a little less muscle, a little more fat than I would like, and I just don't have the time to work on that. And that's why I said, God willing, I'm willing to put that off. And if I have the time and availability to do it later, I'll focus on that later.  

You know, reading is important to me, but it's not as important as spending time with my kids. So, you, but like that, you're right about the postponing. Oh, we'll, we'll travel a little world when we're retire. You might not get to that point. It's like maintenance.  

Listen, if somebody's health is their priority, that's good. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with it. There's no judgment on that. It's, we just have to choose what we have a purpose for. I believe it should be bigger than ourselves and not ourselves. serving other people or something bigger than us.  

And when you do that, like I said, it's very humbling. When we work on ourselves, we put ourself first. That is very prideful. When we put something bigger than us as important, serving others, for example, it's very humbling. And I think that when you are humbled, you're more grateful and I think when you're more grateful, you're happier. And I think when you're happier, you end up being a little healthier as a consequence. 

Ted Ryce: Bryan, this was such an incredible conversation. It took a direction I just never saw coming, but I'm so glad we went there and I know you don't typically do interviews these days because it's more about helping other practitioners like myself and, and your other students. But I would love to, love to have you back on again in a few months to talk more about this and to talk more about the things we didn't even get a chance to get into today. But, thanks so much for coming on the show. 

If you're interested in Bryan's information, if you are a coach like me or a medical doctor and you want to do some, you want to learn more about the type of things that Bryan's doing, or if you're a chiropractor, et cetera, you can go to www.metabolicfitnesspro.com and just start to look at his information and see if it hits home for you. 

And again, if you're like me and you really appreciate someone like Bryan who does have the time to sit there and read all the studies and to put things together in a way where you can get your clients or patients excellent results and get them clear. And also get yourself clear. You got to go check them out at Metabolic Fitness Pro. 

Bryan, where else would you like someone to go and connect with you? 

Bryan Walsh: I'm told I'm on Facebook, Instagram, and maybe YouTube. I have no idea. I am no part of that at all.  In fact, if you get practice up, we just released the new one today and I, and I talked about TikTok and how, just like, like I get nauseated thinking about social media.  

So supposedly I'm on some of these things and there's some videos if people want to try to check them out. I don't know the channel, Dr. Bryan Walsh maybe. You can tell it's not my purpose or my priority. I could care less about that stuff, but I'm told it's important. So, there's a few free things out there I think that people can watch some YouTube videos and stuff.  

Ted Ryce: All right. That's a very, I don't know what the right word to put there. But yeah, I think you're right, man. But I'll put up your Instagram and your other social media handles as well, 

Bryan Walsh: If you know them, m great. I don't. 

Ted Ryce: I do, I do. I follow you on social media, on the platforms I'm on. 

Bryan Walsh: Oh, good. Cool.  

Ted Ryce: So, I'll have that on the show today. And Bryan, thanks so much for coming on today. You are just, you know, you're my Yoda, man, and I've known you for so long, and there's nobody more that I trust in this industry to help clear up my own confusion about what to do with my clients. So, thanks so much for what you do. Really appreciate you. 

Bryan Walsh: That means a lot. And that's our goal, that's what we try to do. So, to know that we accomplished, at least in one guy in Brazil makes it worth it. So, thanks.  

Ted Ryce: Always great talking with you, Bryan. Hope to do it again soon!