“After Stress Ripped My Immune System to Shreds, I Cured Myself” | Robert Zembroski on Health Theory

But look, there's crisis care, there's drugs, there's lotions, potions, there's bionics and robotics. Phenomenal. Thank God we have all that stuff. But the reality is that doesn't restore health to anyone. So, if people worry themselves sick, could they not change the way their brains create vibration in the body to create ultimate health or at least start the healing process? Absolutely. So, when you see people overcome these major health challenges, what's the first thing you see them do? Change your mindset. Eating food is the biggest variable in our lives, the biggest. So, why not eat the best? Why not eat nutrients instead of calories and you watch your body rebuild and transform? According to medicine, some exercise physiology journal, they're saying that those that ride in a car greater than 10 hours a week increase death by cardiovascular disease 48%. [music] Everybody, welcome to Health Theory. Today's guest is Dr. Robert Zambrowski. He's an author, physician, functional medicine practitioner, and cancer survivor. He has quite literally written the book on how to rebuild yourself from even the most terrifyingly poor state of health. And that is the thing, Dr. Z, that I find the most interesting about your story is having gone through it and I think anybody else having been diagnosed with cancer, um, like you were, the temptation is to give up or the temptation is to think that the best you can ever hope for is to maybe get back to zero or some semblance of who you used to be, but you've gone way beyond where you started. Walk us through that. Like, one, just what exactly happened that landed you with the cancer diagnosis, and then how did you come out the other side better? So, [clears throat] years ago, I mean, my world imploded. You know, I had an avalanche of stress. A relationship fell apart, it was pretty caustic. I had somebody, personally, I had my front desk person stealing from me, the feds got involved, there was drugs involved, all of that. And it was literally all at once. My typical MO as I grew up, I always held things in, so I didn't express myself. So, it was always this gut-wrenching stress that I don't know why I just didn't go to somebody get help. It was just like, I'll figure it out. Maybe it was the guy thing. I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. And I didn't, right? And so, just like a lot of people do when they they go through major stressors, they self-medicate. I couldn't sleep. I had diarrhea. I was my stomach was upset. I mean, I was I was literally out of my mind with stress, so I medicated myself with the booze to put myself to sleep. I was eating crappy food. I was always on the run. And that didn't work. And so, I'm so shocked. Exactly. [clears throat] And so, um the smoke cleared, the relationship end, the house is back to normal, the the the person who was who was stealing the the the law took care of that. And so, my life seemed to come back in order, but about 18 months, maybe 2 years later, I started to lose weight. I didn't feel good. Uh my energy just tanked. And I knew something was wrong, but I just kept chalking it up to maybe it's adrenal fatigue, maybe there was something there that I just burned myself out with. And one morning, I woke up and my left pupil was the size of a golf ball, and I said, now I'm dying. I need to like jump into this. So, I had blood work done, and believe it or not, nothing in the blood work really showed anything. And so, I went to a friend cuz I started to get pounding headaches when I bent over, and he says, just come to the office. Let's take a shot chest uh picture of your your your a chest chest x-ray. And so, we took a shot, and he leaves the room, and he says, let me let me just I'm going to redo that. And I know this radiologist, good friend. He never does that. So, now my you know, hair on the back of my neck is standing up, and I'm like, uh-oh. So, he comes back in, and he puts the film up. He goes, you got a 5-in tumor in your chest. Whoa. So, the reality became, you know, as I think back about it, people jump into the fear-based thing immediately. It wasn't fear for For Tom. It was anger. Anger over what? Anger cuz I was a major contributor, a player in the develop my own disease. And as I say, many diseases are self-inflicted, which they really are. Yes, there's genetic components, and we get all that, but the majority of the time it's what we do and don't do to ourselves, whether it's ignorance or just innocence, if you will, like things happen. So, I didn't take care of myself. Stress, as we know, stress is a major player in it all. That just ripped to shreds my immune system, and it just so happened lymphoma is an immune dysfunction. There's no vitamin that's going to help me get through it now. So, what do I have to do? So, I I do what everybody else did. I I I dove into crisis care. So, I had 7 months of chemo, I had 4 weeks of radiation, and then to boot, at the end of it all, I said to my medical team, I said, "Now what? What do we do with this? Why don't we just cut it out of my chest? Just saw me open." They said, "Well, we don't do that for that type of disease or tumor behind that sternal mediastinal tumor." And I said, "Well, I'm going to die either way. Why don't we just do it?" So, the surgeon met with me 7 days later, and he opened me up, and that was it. And it's funny cuz when I woke up, you know, I when I woke up from the surgery, and I'm looking at the painkillers dangling and the bloody tubes out of my stomach and chest, the first thing I thought about my the first thing I thought about when going through all this is I need to rebuild myself. All right. So, I want I want to get to the mindset, cuz this is really interesting. Okay, so, you do the traditional crisis care, you get you convince them to remove the tumor, which is actually sort of the first really fascinating part of your story. So, the doctors don't want to do it. You're trained, so you've been to medical school, so was that what gave you the courage? Like it it's pretty hard to look a doctor in the face and say, "You think it's dangerous or a waste of time, and yet I would like you to do it anyway." What gave you the courage to do that? Is it your personality type? Do you think about mindset? Like Yes. What was that? One mind-mindset that what [clears throat] they were offering in my mind and my education and my research wasn't going to work. It was more of let's do something that's not done before, right? So, as I encourage people like I did for myself, you need to be your own advocate. And sometimes you need to become your own expert with whatever the the situation may be and people are forced to become their own experts. While major cancer hospitals and disease hospitals are really pros at rep- you know, repairing a bullet wound and taking a an arrow out of your shoulder, sometimes you have to think outside of the box. And it's those moments where you go, "If I go through, if I listen to what you're saying, there's a chance I die. So, why don't we do something we haven't done before? And if I die on the table, at least it was a cool cause and you have film and video and whatever." And so, yes, I think it's part of my personality cuz I just don't give up. And if there's a way, it's like water finds its way, like I'm water, I got to find a way. And so, it was it really was just a mindset. How do you talk to people that you work with now about becoming their own advocate? Like how um I'll use my own words, how adversarial are you? Like when so, my wife um has gone through a tremendous amount of issues with her microbiome, and there were definitely times where I felt like I had to be adversarial to push the issue. And I thought, "Whoa, if I hadn't trained for 15 years as an entrepreneur learning to overcome obstacles, learning how to persuade, learning how to push, learning how to walk that line between winning them over and letting them know like I'm not going to back down," which I'll say is slightly different than not giving up. Like how did you think about that? Many professionals, practitioners, whatever the name of the the the the the degree or profession is, people come with a specific set of lenses. They come with a specific set of lenses that they're trained to follow. So, if you go outside of that training, then it becomes quote-unquote maybe adversarial rather than you saying, "Look, there's got to be a different way. There's got to be something else that it can be had, looked at, resolved." Most treatment for chronic health issues and disease, it's wash, rinse, repeat. You know, it's uh wash, rinse, repeat for cancer and heart disease and autoimmune things. It's basically the same thing. And for me, looking at that, I just said, "It's just it won't work." And again, it was it was my drive, it was my personality, but I think it was also my want to see what would be different. Mhm. Okay, so now this notion of I'm going to rebuild pops into your head. Were you thinking I can actually make myself even better than I was before, or does that notion come later? Well, maybe it came a little later, but for me, it was like I need to rebuild myself. Why did this happen? And what can I do about it to then reset the internal terrain, the mechanisms, the networks in my body so I don't get sick again. So, walk me through that process. One thing um that I think is really interesting is your mom died of ALS. And I don't know how knowledgeable you were about cancer when you walked into it, but how do you begin a process learning about cancer, learning about ALS? How how do you become knowledgeable enough to start this rebuilding, to change the internal terrain, to even take ownership of all this requires a certain level of understanding what's going on. How do you approach something that big and unknown? So, there [clears throat] it it is difficult because a lot of people don't have the information that we have. I mean, I'm in a clinical setting all day. And so, my brain is already geared towards find mechanism. You know, I'm addicted to learning mechanisms. And so, for me, it was it became a process process of saying there's always a root reason why. And if you ask the question why seven times, typically you kind of get to the to the answer. Can you give us walk us through like the the whys in that? Cuz I've heard this in in business we use that all the time the layers of why but if somebody's never heard that process before what does it look like? So let's say you're dealing with an end stage pathology. You receive a diagnosis of something. Okay. The end stage pathology is the absolute end stage until your brain picks up a signal something's damaged. So even if we rewind the movie right the end stage pathology had to be created by systems pathways mechanisms. And if you rewind it and drill it back then we start to understand okay what are some of the players is it an inflammatory response was there an infection was there a nutrient deficiency or food toxicity was there something that damaged the genome your genes to set the stage perhaps for something. So it really becomes an understanding of if these are the end stage things how far do we go back and ask the question why to create the evolution of the process so it's always rewinding the movie to say is there a starting point we'll just take me for an example how does a B lymphocyte develop and mature and how did what is its functions and all of a sudden it puts you into these different mechanisms into these different stages of the puzzle piece. Mhm. And then you can really again rewind the movie and drill it down to say wow so cortisol for me could have suppressed natural killer cells genes can get damaged because of inflammation and nutrient deficiency which is probably all happening during that period of time which then set the stage for a disease. And so whatever the health issue is people have to focus on not the end stage diagnosis not the end stage pathology but why it happens which really brings up the reason or or the the mindset of functional medicine right? Where functional medicine really is asking the question why? Right. Why does this disease occur? Not just how to treat but why is it actually happening? Exactly. Look, there's crisis care, there's drugs, there's lotions, potions, there's bionics and robotics. Phenomenal. Thank God we have all that stuff. But the reality is that doesn't restore health to anyone. We can if if we have a greater understanding of why it happens, then we can actually go in and reverse, work with the the initial mechanisms that created this. Cardiovascular disease is an inflammatory condition. Yeah, you can stuff a stent in a coronary artery and take a statin to reduce inflammation, which is really the power of statins and cholesterol-lowering drugs. It's an It's an anti-inflammatory, but what damaged the artery? Ask the questions why. It's in the history. It's in the lifestyle. It's in your personality. It's in your cultural behaviors. It's all there. It's all there. That's super [ __ ] interesting. All right, so let's drill into that. Everyone's different, totally get it. I'm going to caveat the [ __ ] out of this, but I I really want to give people something super actionable. Let's talk lifestyle at a general level. Right now, the people watching this, many many many of them are in a state of ill health, whether they realize it or not. Most of them have brought that on themselves. Um how can people go through the process of changing their lifestyle so that they're least likely to get, we'll call it the major killers? So, I think to answer your question, the first point, and I think it's important, is people have to have a vision for what they want. One, you have to have a vision for what you want. Maybe you want to get low fat and lean, you want to get ripped. Maybe you want to reverse a disease process. Process. Maybe you want to resolve a gut microbiome. You have to have in your mind what you want to have happen. That sets the stage as far as the mental capabilities to really start to reverse things. And then as as Jack Canfield says, you have to just act. You have to dive in and act. And so I encourage people to act. And again, when we talk about lifestyle stuff, I don't like the word lifestyle. I don't like the word prevention cuz it's just there's You don't like prevention? No, cuz it's lackluster. Yes, we want to prevent issues, but even if we talk about health as an abstract concept, health is abstract until you lose it. Yeah, yeah. And so I think if people focus on like the main things that create good health for us, it puts them in the control seat, it puts them in a path of understanding what's wrong with themselves and repairing themselves. Okay. Diet, exercise, the mindset. Does your personality drive your success? Of course, it does. So, if people worry themselves sick, could they not change the way their brains create vibration in the body to create ultimate health or at least start the healing process? Absolutely. So, when you see people overcome these major health challenges, what's the first thing you see them do? Change your mindset. That's really interesting. So, let's pretend for a second. This is I love that you bring this in. Uh I just got my cancer diagnosis. You're my first call. What the [ __ ] do I do? So, one, we get all the data, we get all the information. So, if it was like a real-life situation, a real thing, it's like, let's go through the data. What is it what we can we do? You really have two choices. You go through conventional or you don't. And I'm not going to ever tell anybody don't go through do not receive conventional because it saves lives. So, I'm going to go conventional, but my mindset's a mess. I'm not taking action, and I need now my plan. And I'm definitely looking for something prototypical, and I'm well aware that there is no one-size-fits-all, but I also think that there is sort of a a median of if you do this, it will help the most number of people. First, you have to see the finish line. And once you're comfortable knowing that you will come out strong with this and be a victor rather than a survivor. it. That's what you mean by see the finish line. a mindset. Right, if you say Beetlejuice three times, he shows up. So, what what makes you think that you can't change the way the body starts to heal as soon as you change your mindset. One, we have to encourage people to change their mindset, not worry, just this is a battle that you'll go through, but millions of people come out victorious. So, one, it's mindset. Am I visualizing? Absolutely visualizing. And what do I visualize? A tumor shrinking? Me running a marathon? Absolutely all the above. You visualize like I did these natural killer cells, these white blood cells natural aggressive white blood cells that go in and their sole job is to get rid of cells infected by viruses and cancer cells. That's what they do. So, for me, the first thing was I'm going to come through this. I'm going to rebuild. I'm going to be become victorious. The second thing was I'm going to start visualizing, which I did. I'm going to visualize my body destroying things like nobody's business, like little mini Hulks going in there and just destroying things. And then that's when I we create the protocol. That's when we say, "What are the biggest influences of all physiology?" Food and exercise, really. And so, we help people and I encourage people to get rid of foods known to create health issues. Gluten, uh unrefined, you know, white flowers and sugars, unfermented soy is perhaps. Um gluten, white sugar, dairy products. And so, we we take the offensive things away so the body can start to do what it needs to do. And the other thing is like if we're just talking about a cancer diagnosis, if people choose to go through the conventional route and chemo, which is really toxic and sometimes can be nasty, what you do and the actions you take can prevent the toxicity from from overwhelming people. What's the number one reason why people stop cancer care? Toxicity. And so, certain foods that you eat make the chemo more effective. Certain foods that you eat make medications and statins more effective. So, an absolute abundance of plant-based plant-based foods for micronutrients, phytochemicals, diff- different things to regulate gene function, reduce inflammation. We also need our macronutrients, our protein, carbs, and fat for a slew of different reasons. So, people that go through chemotherapy, actually they will develop a lot of people develop sarc- uh sarcopenia. Like when I went through it, people like, "Hey Z, what happened? Your ass is gone. What happened to your butt? It's missing." I'm like, "What?" And so, the body actually will start to devour itself for fuel. Sarcopenia is muscle consumption, right? Yes, muscle loss. Yes, yes. Um muscle loss. And so, protein, [clears throat] fat, carbs. Include fat with your meals. Include three or four protein sources through the day and plant-based foods every time you eat. So, you really just want to ensure you that you're getting all the different micronutrients, macronutrients, the different plant-based compounds that could really start setting the stage for healing. And what are some of those compounds? I've heard you talk a lot about like vitamins and micronutrients and stuff. I know you've talked about mushrooms. Um you you have a list of like superfoods. Like what are some of those things that I I need to be intaking and why? So, let's go with the mushroom thing. Medicinal mushrooms, white white button mushrooms, maitake, ganoderma, all those. The data really shows that the compounds there's a sugar in these mushrooms that activate the natural killer cells we mentioned that make them kind of more aggressive and do a better job. And so, if we want to have the immune system turn on to destroy disease, mushrooms are a staple. Mushroom extracts, the beta glucans, the carbohydrate, the sugar from them are a staple in driving the immune response for health. Vitamin D is another big one. Like I I can't tell you how many people are vitamin D deficient. What do you think is the perfect number? I would say 80, 90 to 100 ng/mL. All right. And don't let anybody tell you different. If you look at a reference range, like a standard lab reference range, maybe 30 to 100. That's a reference range. That's not a therapeutic range. And what does it have to do with Tom? Right? Do you fit in the mass population of unhealthy people, a reference range? And so, where do you fit in that reference range? The data shows therapeutically if you get your vitamin D levels up to a much higher level, it will regulate inflammation. It will reduce help regulate B cells and T cells and immune response. Vitamin D is another one. Do you supplement or try to get it all from sun? I do both. Because we can't assume that we're going to get enough activation the UV radiation to activate skin to make turn cholesterol into vitamin D. So, I think it's Before we move on from vitamin D, can I ask you a weird question? This is always like freaking me out. So, it especially for northern Europeans, it just doesn't seem like we would ever have that much sun. Like in the winter, we would be covered up. I'm always hesitant to supplement though I'm I really would love to be convinced otherwise, but I'm always a little hesitant to supplement though vitamin D is the one supplement I take. But, when would northern Europeans be in the sun that much to drive up into the 80s? Well, maybe unfortunately not, but they can certainly all over the world we can certainly eat fatty fish for vitamin D, right? We can eat certain food sources that provide us with a vitamin D. The other thing and the other problem that I typically see is you may take enough or eat enough foods with vitamin D, but it doesn't show up in your blood. So, then you have to be the detective and say why isn't it going up? Is it a different mechanism in the liver, the kidney? And so, we have to investigate further. But, vitamin D can be had from all your fatty fish. It can be certainly had from sunlight, you know, nothing better than sunlight. But, there's nothing wrong with supplement. I mean, why wouldn't you supplement? What is the definition of supplement mean? It's an add-on. You're paving you're you're you're you're patching the potholes in the road. So, nothing substitutes food. Nothing. you get vitamin D from grass-fed beef? There is a certain amount from from grass-fed beef. Um there's vitamin D in eggs. There's vitamin D in a lot of different things. You know, and again, that just makes a dieting unique to people because you if you and I eat the same foods, we may not get the same effect. Will we get the vitamin D in there if we both had 4 oz of grass-fed beef? Absolutely. How your body's going to digest it, absorb it, assimilate it, turn it into vitamin D is then something different. So, your medicinal mushrooms king. Vitamin D, absolutely. I'm big on cruciferous vegetables. So, if people are going to do these three type of foods or take this advice, cruciferous vegetables, if you can break them down, you're going to get bloated and gassy and different problems with it. Crucifers are absolutely the bomb of of plant-based foods. Broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts. You know, they have these compounds, these phytochemicals in it, one of them being indole-3-carbinol. The data in the research is absolutely astounding. And certain compounds in plant-based foods make chemo more effective and don't reduce the therapeutic effects. Certain compounds in plant-based foods, even vitamin D, um protect us from toxicities, protect from these things. So, if you were to take three things or at least ingest things, eat some mushrooms, get taken foods that maybe fatty fish that are high in vitamin D, and certainly um your your cruciferous vegetables. And there's nothing wrong with supplementing. Nothing. It's really interesting. I know that people when you were going through chemo, they were calling you the freak because you were getting like the strongest chemo, but you were um much lower in terms of negative um side effects. Absolutely. And is that from the protocol that you just described or was there You talked about um intravenous vitamin C as well. Like I'm really interested uh for people that haven't seen your own transformation, it's bananas. Seeing you like post surgery and then seeing your physique a couple years later, dude, it's crazy. You like I You don't just have a good physique for um a normal person. Like you have a good physique for like a 25-year-old who's on T. You're 51? Yes, sir. 51, post chemo, 10 years cancer free. Like at some point it's and this is definitely covered in your book. It's not about getting back to zero, it's about almost I mean now I'm using my own words, but it's like becoming superhuman. So, what what is that protocol look like? Is it similar? Is it my mushrooms, my cruciferous vegetables, getting my vitamin D? Like how do we really now start pushing? Were you able to naturally elevate your testosterone levels? Like the amount of muscle you put on is pretty crazy. Yeah, and so [clears throat] I took my health and fitness to a new level cuz I wanted to. I wanted to prove that that my Frankenstein ways would build what I wanted to build. What can I do to my body, my health? What can I do to my blood work, my testosterone, my vitamin D? What can I do to muscle physiology? What can I do to a drop foot? What can I do to all those things? Did you have drop foot? I did. From the chemo? Yep. Oh, [ __ ] So, what did you do for that? So, that was just again I exercised, I fired muscles that supported those that area. I took specific nutrients as I said, the medicinal mushrooms, I3C, the vitamin D. And so, the protocol that I basically used was, you know, I would eat for protein sources four or five times a day, small amounts through the day. I'd eat when the sun was out, not when the moon is out. I wouldn't be trying to digest all my food when I'm trying to sleep. I ate tons of plant-based foods knowing that if I ate those foods, I would start to introduce micronutrients and different compounds to help my body like remold into normal physiology. I worked out four or five days a week, 35-40 minutes at a clip. I made sure that I slept 7-8 hours. Come hell or high water, I don't care what the circumstances were, I would sleep. And the last big thing for me was I pulled the weeds. Anything that was negative around me that would cause stress, gone. That's interesting. And you know, and again uh How did you do that? You have a practice. You're going through chemo. The These are not stress-free things. So, how how did you And I like the notion of pulling weeds. How did you tend that garden? I didn't want to get ill again. And I didn't want to have something influence my biology again to maybe set the stage for recurrence, remission. I hate those words as well. But it just sets the negative mindset up for people. And I'm a driver, you know what? My mental mindset, as I said, when I woke up, I'm rebuilding. When I got clear and the tubes are out and I'm back at the gym, I'm going to take this to a new level. So, it's just I wanted to push myself to a different level. Each phase, I wanted to do something different. And so, as I said, that stress is a big thing and there's no stress. People like, "Aren't you worried about this, that, and money, and fine?" I'm like, "Nope." The house can burn down. Who cares? I want I I I really want to talk about that. So, is it Is it your shifting your mindset and saying, "I can't worry about that. So, I'm pulling this weed. Oh, what if I lose my practice?" Nope, it doesn't matter. I'm pulling that weed. Uh if you lose a practice, you could lose your house. Nope, it's fine. I'm pulling that weed. Is it something like that? Or how do you actually interrupt, like using cognitive behavioral therapy speak, how did you pattern interrupt that? Stress is a perception. Unless it's a physical thing. You break your ankle, sunburn, you know. Those are physical stressors. But there's two things that people need to realize and that I realized. One, stress is a perception. The stress reaction, Tom, is something totally different. Like we need to separate the two. If you can change your perception of the thing that's stressing you out, that's finances, you get a new car, we take a ride, somebody hits it, you're like, "Oh my god, my new car." I'm like, "Dude, it's metal. Let's just go get it fixed. You'll have a new one next week, you know." So, it's really changing the perception of how we see things. And if we can change the perception of it, we reduce the stress reaction, the physical part of that, like right away. Mhm. Do you meditate? I do. Well, I don't know what I don't know if I call it meditation, but I I I I sit quietly and I tap into the universe. And maybe that's Wow. What do you mean by that? I download. I'm downloading at the gym. I'm just I'm just I connect. I connect with universal laws and energy. Yeah, so for me, I just when I put my feet on the ground, I thank the universe, God, whatever it may be, I thank that that energy source for for me being alive. I thank it for my intelligence. I thank it for my want to help other people. And so, when I plant my feet on the ground, it's the first thing that I do cuz it sets the stage for my mindset every day. Every day. In the hotel room, it doesn't matter. Every day. Cuz then it just helps me set my mindset. Like you want to have some way to set your mindset, so you don't wake up and just go, "Oh my god, I got all these things happening." And then you're out of your mind, your perceptions are off, you start to release stress hormones, you're eating my crap, you're destroying your immune system, and here you go, you start to brew disease. So, for me, it's it's perception. And if I can change my perception daily, I I Tom, I've been through life-threatening disease. I had the Grim Reaper tapping with me with a sickle. So, stressors for me just become whatever. Like whatever. What what Why would I freak out about something one that perhaps I can't control? And if I can change my perception, what if I can What if I can change the stressful situation to something positive? Right. Yeah, I love that. Okay, so we're back to getting superhuman. How do you um How do you naturally raise your testosterone levels? Good protein for one. How much? In fact, I meant to ask you that. So, it sounds like you Would you say that you eat a vegetable-dominant diet? Would that be a fair way to say it or Yeah, I I think I'm I define myself as a varietarian. I make sure I have three, four, five protein sources a day. Not a giant brontosaurus burger, just enough three to four ounces throughout the day. So, I'm supplying myself with amino acids. And it's it's plant heavy in the sense that I I just love vegetables. I love plant-based foods. How do you cook them? Raw, sauteed, or All of them. Sauteed, cooked, steamed, raw, you know. Olive oil, avocado oil I think is the bomb. Avocado oil? Avocado avocado oil is bar none the bomb. An equal amount of omega-3s and six, it's high in threes and polyunsaturated fatty acids, super helpful. And it's got a good smoke point. So, anybody that's going to cook with it, you won't really smoke it and burn it. Sometimes with olive oil you can and then you turn those fats rancid. Not that it I mean, you'd have to like smoke it to death to burn it, but just to be safe, I just tell people go cold process, go extra virgin, whatever it may be, so you're not you're not using a process-based thing. Okay. Right? So, cold pressed extra virgin oils is probably your best bet. Okay. Yep. And so, coming back to the plant thing, I just eat tons of plants cuz I like them. And I know when I eat something, besides the 10, 15, 20 seconds of chewing it up, when I ingest it, it's going to do wonders for me. Food becomes something that when you eat it, if you just understood a little bit about what it did, you'd have a different relationship with food. Rather than people developing abnormal relationships with food with dieting and fad diets and all those things, develop a good relationship. It gives us life. We got 30 ft of tubing that food has to pass through and eating food is the biggest variable in our lives, the biggest. So, why not eat the best? Why not eat nutrients instead of calories and you watch your body rebuild and transform. So, to to build muscle, for me to raise my testosterone levels, It's all of that. It's good food. It's getting to bed at a decent hour and not eating carbs at night. If you eat any kind of refined carb or you load your belly with even good carbs at night, insulin levels rise, growth hormone will shut off. Now you're not activating the systems to create testosterone. So all you got to do is just eat when the sun is out in the and not when the moon is out. Don't eat carbs at night and your testosterone levels rise. And then when you test for them, they're high in the morning, which they should be, right? And that's when we test for them. So weight training and people say, "Oh, yeah, I you know, you you got your body to an unrealistic level." No, one, that's not true, but I wanted to take it to a level that I wanted to just see if I can prove what I'm saying really works. And the other thing was resistance training pushes testosterone. Aerobic training doesn't. Maybe there's a little bit of it does rather than rate raising cortisol. So why not do some weight training? As a guy, right? Why not do some weight training? And as women, like restore bone health, get testosterone levels up. Weight training and resistance training is high-intensity interval training with resistance is the magic. That's where it all happens. Is that how you do your hit cardio? You do it with resistance? I do it. Yep. Interesting. So you just lift weights really [ __ ] fast. Yes, well fast to the point like I'm not going to certainly injure myself, but you do a set, 45-second break, do a set, add weight, 45-second break, do another set, add weight. Because what are we really doing? You're increasing resistance. And you're not taking a huge break in between. Yes, you need to reoxygenate, and yes, you need to have glycogen come out of liver and muscle stores and do their thing, all that. Muscle hypertrophy is based on stress. So you I want to have hypertrophy happen, which is size and strength, and then to eat during the day, eat after my workout, so I create protein synthesis in the muscle all the time. So you're not tearing yourself down. People don't eat enough, then they go to the gym. I'm like, that that is the worst thing to do. Cuz then you you elicit a release of cortisol. What does cortisol do? Shut down testosterone production production. And all of a sudden you're doing this for none. So, it's it's it really is it it really does become I think fairly simple once people have some tools. Eat when the sun is out, not when the moon is out. Don't eat crappy carbs at night. Go to the gym. Get 7 or 8 hours of sleep at night. Take specific nutrients to to help repair some of the broken things that may have happened along the way in your life. So, let's go back to knowing what to eat. Um, am I looking for colorful foods? Am I eating seeds, nuts? Like, what is what is sort of the breakdown? To be a varietarian, as I call myself and and have fun with people when they come up with names for themselves, you know, and and and I'm I I understand why people I don't want to say create the identity or label or say I'm a vegan, I'm a vegetarian. I understand all the reasons for all of those things. But sometimes people, in my mind, develop that kind of uh negative relationship with foods and then just eating one way. Well, I'll say to people isn't even as I've written in Rebuild, like, be a varietarian. Eat a whole variety of foods and just don't eat things proven to damage our bodies. Gluten, dairy, you know, as we said, white sugars. Right. So, [clears throat] that becomes eating all your rainbow-colored vegetables, all your protein sources, from eggs to chicken to fish, grass-fed, organic, free-range. And people will say, "Organic so expensive." It's like, maybe, but are you are you worried about expense or you you are you taking your food and what you buy any as an investment? For me, it becomes an investment. So, I'm investing in my health, not looking at two two bucks more on a a dozen eggs. And so, the fat is kind the same thing. I just make sure I have fat and I use salad dressings to get the fat. I'm not a good fat digester based on stool testing. So, I'll take enzymes with certain meals. Certain meals that aren't super loaded with fat, I don't. I just let my body do its thing. What kind of testing do you do? That's actually really interesting. I've never heard somebody say that they actually test their stool for I'm assuming you there's actual fat in your stool. Absolutely. So, what do you test for? What do you test your blood for? What do you test your stool for? So, if if if it's just to kind of get a sense as a functional profile for people on what kind of testing, what should we do? What are we looking for? General blood work is good as long as it's specific to the person. So, as part of a blood profile, you're looking at hormones, you're looking at um inflammatory markers, you're looking to see if there's any broken pieces of physiology as far as blood work. If I could only check my blood for three things, what three things would you have me check for? Wow, that's a tough question. Yeah, buddy. I would definitely look at just general blood health, your white blood cells, your CB complete blood count, your white blood cell count, all the just general major things that are happening in the system bloods. I would certainly look at inflammatory markers, C-reactive protein. Okay. I would look at interleukin-6, I'd look at tumor necrosis factor. Those are things that can be tested for that tell you deep-rooted inflammatory things. Okay. And if those show up, Tom, then you better investigate why they're elevated. Interesting. And the last thing that I would test for I just do this on everybody is thyroid values and vitamin D. Just because people want to have energy, just because people want to make sure that their metabolic systems are doing their job, and certainly vitamin D. On top of the blood work, which ties into the thyroid, we're looking at hormones. We're looking at cortisol four times in the day, and we're looking at all the the the the the um androgens and other hormones, testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, and getting a picture of what that looks like. So, we have blood work, we have hormone profiling, and certainly stool testing. So, let's say somebody decides to go on a keto diet or something, and they're just like, "It just my gut doesn't feel right, or I eat fatty foods, and I my gut gets bloated, I'm in the bathroom." Okay, so let's run a stool test, because maybe through stool testing, as you mentioned before, what if undigested fat shows up in stool, which can be a problem, because you're not breaking down fats and the cholesterol that make things in the body, the immune response, your cholesterol, your hormones. And let's say somebody comes in and their hormones are shot, maybe because of their lifestyle and cortisol, but what if they're not digesting fat well? So, they're not absorbing fat. And so, we would use stool testing as another one of those functional panels, blood work, hormone profiling, stool testing, and now we're getting into the functional gene testing, like gene snip testing for muscle physiology, fat burning, metabolism. So, there's a functional foundational panel that we do with people, blood work, stool testing, uh hormone profiling, and certain Now, these gene snips, they're awesome. They analyze the different functional genes that can be influenced by our lifestyles, what we do. Are there particular ones that you think people should be on the lookout for? No, I mean, I think it's just it's it's all done at once, so it's a big profile. It's not like we're isolating one thing. If you were anemic and your homocysteine levels were elevated, and I said, "Wow, Tom, you know, maybe you're not uh you have like MTHFR, like this big gene that hell is that? [laughter] It the um mother flipper gene, right? The MTHFR is a gene that if it's, we'll just say, broken or doesn't work, you don't metabolize B vitamins well, folate, B12, maybe B6. And so, the the byproduct of that, like exhaust from the combustion of gasoline, is homocysteine. And homocysteine as an inflammatory marker, which we also check for in blood, would say, "Uh-oh, you're not utilizing B vitamins well, and that could be a problem for you in the future." Homocysteine can elevate and damage blood vessels. So, if people are tired and they're just not getting enough energy and we say, "Why don't we run a gene snip?" And if homocysteine shows up in just general blood work, then we dig deeper. And that's that's when we uncover some of these gene things, which is pretty fascinating. Very interesting. All right, you said that you're going to go ham again this summer. You're going to get, I'm assuming, yoked. You're going to lean. Body composition is something you talk a lot about. I love that, telling people to to break their obsession with weight and to think about body composition, lean mass versus fat. Um you talk about over fat in your book, which I've actually never heard as a single uh word before, but I thought that was pretty interesting. Um walk us through body composition and then tell us very specifically, like what are you going to do to um get in amazing shape this summer? People are so obsessed with gravity, it blows my mind. Right? So, I stepped on the scale and say, "Oh, what did gravity tell you?" Are you obsessing about gravity or are you obsessing that weight means ugliness to someone? Like, if you look at BMI for somebody a 2-ft a 5-ft 5 bodybuilder at 250 is the same BMI as a 5-ft 5 person who's obese at 250. The body composition's completely different. So, if we divorce ourselves from weight, we've just gotten rid of a lot of emotional eating, a lot of of of different things and problems that that we create as a society for people looking to become healthy. Body composition is really I want to know the amount of lean tissue to my body fat. And what can I do to tweak that on a daily basis? How do I change my composition so I remain lean or build healthy lean muscle tissue and and get rid of body fat, which is really ultimately what people want to do, not lose weight. And so, the play on words is is um we we want to lose fat and not weight. And if you lose something, what do people typically do when they lose something? Find it. Go find it. And so people that are trying to lose weight and they're obsessed with gravity, they'll get it back. Instead of focusing on say, I want to make my my composition improve. And so I tweak my body composition by eating when the sun is out, no carbs at night. I make sure my growth hormone is flowing through my bloodstream while I fall asleep. I get 7 to 8 hours, no white lights in the room or blue lights. So I shut off and I really do shut off. So you control alt delete while you're sleeping. So you need to reboot those systems as well and then then the magic really does happen. And so my routine for working out becomes I'll hit the gym my hit the gym my hit the gym hard is somebody's different. But that's why you have to create your own plan, right? We can't do the same thing. We can't wear the rings wear the same ring size or wear the same shirt. It doesn't work that way. So we try to encourage people to create a plan unique to themselves and my personal plan becomes a little bit of cardio, high intensity that interval training, but more just weights. Why? Because it I feel better with it. Not because I'm a meathead. It's just I like doing it. It makes me feel good. It's when I get my best downloads. Uh so when you say downloads, is it happening automatically? You feel connected to some higher power when you're lifting? Like So physical movement for me makes my brain function better. Okay. And so have you ever been in a moment where you're either driving, talking to somebody, you're you're doing something and all of a sudden you're like, "Oh my god. This is what I've been wanting to say or think about." Yes. It's a download. It's it's a Okay, let's call it, you know, a synaptic explosion in your brain. Perfect. And so I'll get these explosions in a good sense and all of a sudden it's what When do I see the greatest time that happens? Physical movement. It's physical movement. Cuz physical movement drives postural muscles and joints, which all are connected to your brain and then your brain lights up. And so people have to realize you have to be physically active to keep well and and live to a ripe old age with no disease. Yes, we'll age, but we want to age gracefully with no disease. And then fall asleep like the woman on the Titanic, right? You just fall asleep and it's over. I mean, that'd be the ideal situation. Um [clears throat] But but people have to also realize if you're physically inactive, there's the danger. Yes, you have to you have to be physically active, weight train, do different things to to activate gene networks and reduce inflammation and really make these things happen in your body. But what's the crime when you don't? And what happens to your body or anybody else's body when they don't exercise? You turn on a whole different set of genes that then start to set the stage for disease. Here's Here's a crazy stat. According to medicine some exercise physiology journal, they're saying that those that ride in a car greater than 10 hours a week increase death by cardiovascular disease 48%. Wow. Yep. And so, if we look at Think of We're not meant We're hunter-gatherers. We're supposed to be moving and doing things. And if we don't We're not meant to be on a computer and be on social media all day. We're not. We just do it because it's just society and culture now. But the genes haven't changed evolutionary speaking. Our genes really haven't changed, so we should honor them. And so, the body composition is about certain times of eating, when to eat, what to eat, what are you doing in the gym? And how many people do so much cardio that they burn themselves systems out? Can people over exercise? Yes. 100%. Can they damage themselves from exercise? For sure. Of course. But if you create something unique to you and you see your body changing and your health improve, then that's your plan. Right? Everybody's going to make general recommendations like, how much exercising should people do? I don't know. That All kinds of data and research says do 30 minutes a day. Maybe that's not enough for some people. Maybe it's too much. What if you have an impairment or disability? Maybe you have a metabolic problem where you can't do all of that. So, I think we just have to be aware that we have to find what works for us. Some people find that they lean out with a little more cardio, some people lean out with weight training. I don't you know, it's it's unique to the person. But body composition is based on what we eat, when we eat it, hormonal control, and certainly exercising. And so that composition is really important because as your body fat goes up, testosterone levels drop, estrogen levels rise. And not that estrogen's a problem, it's how the body manages estrogen. And then all hell breaks loose. Then we get inflammation and body fat, which creates more inflammation. It's just a nasty cycle. So, if you were going to cuz one of the things you talk about in the book is assessing your health, which I think is really important. What should people do? Is there like a checklist of questions that people can ask themselves to assess where they are? I think this section in in the book in Rebuild was assessing your health was really setting the stage for someone's mindset. And not just to set the stage, but to actually have people think about what they do to themselves and what they don't do. Mhm. Right? And so assessing your health through questions becomes more of where do I stand now? Where am I? Where am I in my health journey or not? What do I need to think about my future state and what do I need to think about the state that I'm in now? For me, that became a section or place where people can really just be honest with themselves because people need to be honest with themselves. Cuz if you're not, you're not going to change. And then you're going to blame somebody else like me saying you didn't help me. Really? So, is it really that I didn't put 100% into you or that you didn't put 100% into yourself? And so I think that section really does like drill it home for people that as you fill it out, you're like, "Oh, well maybe I don't or maybe I'm doing these things." But then changes mindset. And if you can reframe your mind, you can certainly rebuild your body, right? And so it's it's it's the mindset, it's reframing, um which is important. But that section to me is pretty impactful because we try to help people clinically like here here's tests you can bring to your doctor to have them do to give you information about cancer, heart disease, autoimmune, thyroid dysfunction, hormone problems cuz it's all it's all one. It's all one giant system working together. So the assessing your health I think is is for me just became a way to get people involved right now. Cuz if you don't see your faults you ain't going to change. Right. Sadly. It's true. Very very true. It's true. All right. Where can people interact with you and your ideas? So my website uh dr zembroski.com. Um if people are interested in rebuilding themselves certainly with with the book it's on on every major retailer. They can get it off my website. We uh if people do download or or get the book off my website we give them a gift. And the gift is a logbook. And so part of the things that I did in my past through my journey was I don't want to say journaling but it was writing down what was changing. And so I thought to myself well why don't we just give people a cool logbook a journal where they can record their mental state every day, their blood work when they have it every 3 months or whatever it may be so they can actually track and mark their personal rebuild. And so that's our gift to to whoever it may be. Dig it. All right. If people were only going to make one change what would be the one change they could make that would have the biggest impact on their overall health? Well that's a tough question. So to answer [clears throat] that I think one I mean the biggest thing for me I think we said this at the beginning was changing a mindset. And you have to have a finished line already set up in your mind. Right? So you have to reframe your mind and then rebuilding your body I don't think is a difficult thing. And then a couple other things I mean I think people really need to focus on the major things like eat well and don't things that create don't don't eat things that create inflammation. Get some exercise even if it's just a little bit. Socialize with people. I mean, how do you feel when you're chatting with buddies or or or your wife or friends or colleagues? There's something about the connection as well, and it's just what makes us human. So, there's a mindset to it. There's physical steps I think people can start to take right away. And again, I I don't think there's one thing, but if I were to pick the one thing, it's all mindset. It's all just an attitude. It is. Boom. That is a phenomenal period to this. Dr. Z, thank you so much. you so much. absolutely wonderful. Guys, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. [applause] so much for watching and being a part of this community. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. You're going to get weekly videos on building a growth mindset, cultivating grit, and unlocking your full potential.