Dr. Gundry's Routine: 11 Things He Does EVERY DAY To Live Long and Feel Young!

the 11 things I do every day to live long and stay strong. Now, I've been a heart surgeon and a doctor for a very long time. And after all those years of cutting people open, I finally figured out something rather inconvenient for a surgeon to admit. Most of what keeps you alive and strong isn't in the operating room. It's in the simple, unglamorous things you do every single day. So today, I want to pull back the curtain and tell you exactly what I do, not what I tell my patients to do while I go home and eat a pizza. These are my actual daily habits, and every one of them comes straight out of the science in my books. All right, so let's get into it. Number one, I take a shot of olive oil. And I put it on everything else, too. I've said it a thousand times and I'll say it again. The only purpose of eating any food is to get more olive oil into your mouth. Now, why bother eating anything you don't pour olive oil onto? No, I'm only half joking. Extravirgin olive oil is loaded with polyphenols and your gut buddies convert those polyphenols into powerful anti-inflammatory compounds. Olive oil kickstarts autophagy. That's your cell's recycling program. It reduces inflammation and it even supports the growth of new neurons in your brain. In one four-year study out of Spain, people who consumed about a liter of olive oil a week ended up with significantly improved cognitive function. So don't be shy with olive oil. But first, buy a good first coldressed extra virgin bottle and use it with abandon. All right. Number two, swap out diet coke for a daily healthy soda. Now, instead of reaching for a diet coke, which, let me be clear, kills your gut buddies, I add a splash of balsamic vinegar to a glass of sparkling water. I've been telling people to do this for 20 years, and I'm delighted it's now become a trend. Now, balsamic vinegar is a source of fermented polyphenols, meaning they're already in their active state, so your body can put them to work immediately. It's fizzy. It's the color of your old cola, and once you try it, you'll never go back. Number three, now I practice timerestricted eating with [clears throat] all of my calories eaten within a 2hour window. Now, I'm a professional driver on a closed course. Don't try this at home. This is actually the cornerstone of everything I do. But I don't want you to do that. I built up to this over the last 25 years. And you got to start slowly. Research now shows that probably the best eating window, the best timerestricted eating window when you consume the food you eat is about 6 to 8 hours a day and stopping at least 3 hours before bed. Now, why do I do this? Why does the research say we should do this? Digestion is hard work. It's when your gut wall suffers the most stress and when it's most vulnerable to attack. By shrinking your eating window, you give your gut buddies and your gut wall a much needed break to rest, repair, and regenerate. Now, think about it this way. We know that sleep is essential. We cannot go without sleep. Why? If for no other reason, your brain needs a time to rest, repair, and regenerate, it also needs time to clean out all the waste that occurs in thinking. So why wouldn't that also be the truth with the largest surface area in your body, which is your gut? It needs time for rest and repair. Now, the other wonderful thing is that when you're not eating, it nudges your body into producing ketones, which strengthen the gut wall and help you become metabolically flexible. Now, the important thing is don't leap straight to 6 hours. You will probably be miserable. Start with a 12hour window. that is you start eating at 8:00 in the morning and you finish your last bite of food at 8:00 at night. Now, every study that's ever been done shows that a 12hour eating window will not promote ketosis. You've got to get a shorter eating window. And like I've written in all my most recent books, start with that 12-hour window and then start shaving off an hour per week. So, if you're used to eating at 8:00 in the morning this week, you start at 9:00 in the morning. Do that for a week. Take the weekends off if you like. The next week, head to a 10-hour starting point and go from there. Now, the good news is, as I just mentioned, you only have to do this Monday through Friday. On the weekend, live a little. All right. Number four. I eat fermented foods every single day. Now, for years, everyone told you to eat more fiber. And that's actually true. But here's what everybody missed. Fiber isn't much good to you until your gut buddies can process it. And they can't do that until the fiber has been pre-fermented or that you have postbiotics available to kind of start this product. Fermented foods, it turns out, are the missing link. When you look at old cultures, we realize that the only way to store food for a long period of time was through fermentation. And fermentation actually did two things. It got rid of the sugars in these foods which were the result which could rot things but they also produced these short chain fatty acids like butyrate that feed but producing bacteria. Plus they contain other postbiotics like polyamines that help protect your gut wall. So, how do you get it? Well, here's the great news. Coffee is a fermented food. Most tea is a fermented food. Cacao is a fermented food. Vinegars are fermented foods. If you want to go beyond that, plain sheep or goats milk yogurt is a great fermented food. sauerkraut, kimchi, low sugar kombucha, and cheeses from Italy, France, and Switzerland. Now, try to skip the conventional yogurt, even Greek yogurt. It's not only loaded with sugar, but most of our yogurts in the United States contain an inflammatory casein A1 cow milk, and that's not what you want. All right, number five. I try to get polyphenols every day in coffee, tea, and dark chocolate. Now, some of the most universally adored foods on earth are also the richest in polyphenos. Coffee, tea, and chocolate among them. So, I drink my coffee black and I choose extra dark chocolate. I usually go for about 85%. And remember, don't undo these polyphenols with adding cream and sugar. Dairy will bind the polyphenols in your coffee and tea. Now, remember, for years, we could not figure out why polyphenols were so good for us because all the research showed that we don't absorb polyphenols well. And it wasn't until the human microbiome project was completed in 2017 that we realized that polyphenols are actually incredibly important prebiotics for your gut microbiome. And your gut microbiome loves them, fermentss them, and then the fermentation of polyphenols allows you to absorb those fermented polyphenols. So, it's a winwin. They get what they want to eat and they deliver the polyphenols to you in a form that you can actually use. All right, number six. I walk my dogs twice daily from 30 minutes to an hour. Now movement is nonnegotiable and walking is embedded in our very design. We are a walking animal. We are not a running animal. My good friend Mark Sison recently a wonderful ultrarunner of all time published a book born to walk and he's absolutely right. Remember, our genes expect us to walk. I love taking a stroll with my wife Benny and our dogs who are always eager to get outside. In fact, you probably know I often write my patients a literal prescription to get a dog. And many of them actually frame that prescription as the only physician prescription that was of any use to them. Now, dogs force you to go outside and get you moving. And here's a bonus. They get dirty. They track in pollen, dirt, and exposure to all other bacteria, which actually diversifies your microbiome. Studies show dog owners live longer than non-dog owners. Here's another great thing, and something I learned from going to Italy and France quite often. A 10-minute walk after a meal dramatically lowers your blood sugar. And if you can walk up and down some hills, all the better. Working against gravity stresses and strengthens more muscles. Now, even if you don't have hills, like I've written about in the energy paradox, and you really don't like stairs, take the elevator up in a building, a couple of floors, and then walk down. Believe it or not, you will get excellent strength training by walking downstairs. And even my most lame patients can usually walk downstairs, even if you have to hold the handrail. All right. Number seven, do my strength exercises even while brushing your teeth. Now, my friend, the late Jack Lane, the godfather of modern fitness, taught me that you only need two exercises to build and maintain real strength. That's squats, deep knee bends, and planks or push-ups. Now, together, they work all of your muscle groups and hit every one of them, and they work against gravity. So, to this day, I do squats every morning and night while I brush my teeth. I mean, I've got nothing better to do, and I keep my gums healthy and my lower body strong at the same time. Now, remember, 60 to 70% of your muscle mass is in your butt and your thighs. muscles are actually what make the difference in terms of selling the food you eat to them. And I see so many people get a trainer or go to the gym and they're doing weights to get guns. Guns don't eat a lot of calories. On the other hand, legs and butts eat calories. So spend your time working on the large muscle groups in your legs. It's not sexy, but it works long term. Now, as Mark Sison would tell you and the research would tell you, chronic longd distanceance running scars your heart and wrecks your immune system. Every study shows this. And most of these longdistance runners are sadder but wiser as they get old. So, I'll stick to hiking with my dogs. I work with a trainer two times a week. I do strength training without a break so that I keep my heart rate somewhere for an hour between 125 and 150 beats per minute. There's study after study that shows that two strength training sessions for a half an hour works wonders for building muscle. All right, number eight. I get my vitamin D from a supplement. Now, I do believe in getting morning sunlight, but it's sunlight for my eyes, not to absorb vitamin D. Vitamin D is closely linked to longevity, largely because of how it protects and heals your gut. And the higher your vitamin D level, the more diverse your gut microbiome, which is a very good thing. You also need vitamin D to activate the stem cells in your gut wall to grow and replace dead cells and prevent leaky gut. It's been fascinating me through the years that people with leaky gut and autoimmune diseases usually have low levels of vitamin D. And it wasn't until I replaced aggressively their vitamin D that we were able to make real strides in healing their leaky gut. High levels of vitamin D mean you have more butyrate producing bacteria and more of one of my favorite gut buddies like acrimancia mucinophilia. Now don't shun the sun completely. Get outside, but don't delude yourself into thinking that all you need is vitamin D from the sun. You will develop a sun callous and the more you turn tan, the less vitamin D you absorb. So that's why I think and other researchers think that the average person needs supplemental vitamin D3. Now, one of the leading research groups at UC San Diego suggests that the average American needs around 9,600 international units daily to reach safe therapeutic levels. And they haven't seen vitamin D toxicity even at 40,000 international units a day. And neither have I. All right, number nine. I eat my melatonin. Now, you think of melatonin as a sleep hormone, and yes, it can make you drowsy, but that's not why it matters the most. Melatonin is only one of two antioxidants that actually protect your mitochondria from damage. And here's the kicker. You don't just make it, you can eat it. It's found in many of the same foods that give you polyphenols. Pistachios, mushrooms, olive oil, red wine, almonds, tart cherries, and even that sidewalk weed the Aarians eat personally. Now, many of us believe that this is maybe the real reason the Mediterranean diet works so well, because it's so loaded with melatonin. All right. Number 10. I protect my sleep and I let my brain wash itself. How do I do that? First of all, my wife and I go to the bed at the same time every night and we wake at the same time every morning. Now, sleep is not a luxury. Your brain, your body, your gut bodies all depend on it. Now deep sleep usually occurs in the first 2 or 3 hours of sleep and during deep sleep your glimpmphatic system literally washes your brain. It scrubs out the debris that otherwise builds into the amaloid plaques and towel proteins linked to Alzheimer's disease. Losing even one night of sleep raises amaloid in exactly the regions of the brain most vulnerable to dementia. So I aim for a solid 7 to eight hours. We go to the bed at a consistent time and I finish eating 3 hours before bed so my blood flows to my brain instead of my gut. Now this is key. Digestion takes huge amounts of blood flow and we shunt huge amounts of blood flow to our intestines during digestion. To get this glimpmphatic system, the washing machine of our brain, you've got to have huge amounts of blood flow to power that. So, if the blood flow is down in your gut, you're not going to have the blood flow to wash your brain. And that's why it's so important to not nibble before you go to bed. The other thing, make sure you shut off all blue light at night. It fools your body into thinking it's summer, telling you to stay up and eat. All right, now here's a bonus. Community connection. Every study shows that super long lived people, one of the things that goes across all communities is this sense of community, a connection with people. I socialize with community every day with my patients. I see patients six days a week, all day. I've seen some patients now for over 25 years. I know them. I know their kids. I know their grandkids. I know what they've been doing. We catch up between what they've done the last 3 to 6 months. So, I'm always in community. Here's another bonus. Learn something new every day. I'm on my phone looking at research for one to two hours every day. usually early in the morning, but often a break at lunch. I don't eat lunch, so I got time. The more you learn something new, the better your brain works. Always have an inquisitive mind. There's always something new to learn. Okay, so there you have it. 11 simple things done every single day. Now, notice that not one of them requires a prescription pad or a trip to the operating room. In fact, I just turned 76 and neither my wife or I are on any prescription medications. These things just require you to take care of the trillions of gut buddies who live inside of you and who in turn take care of you. The more I've been at this and the more I study this, the truism that Hypocrates noted 2500 years ago, all diseases begin in the gut. So, if you give your gut microbiome what they want and you keep the wall of your gut strong and intact, you get to enjoy the ride for a long time, for a strong time, and a sharp time for many years to come. Remember, it's not how long you live, it's how many years you live. long.