Functional Medicine & Natural Healing Podcast

Are You Willing To Do ANYTHING?

Dr. Houston Anderson, BS, BS, DC, MS Season 1 Episode 107

Monday morning motivation!
Are you really willing to do anything?
What about change your beliefs?

https://drhoustonanderson.com/FM107

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Welcome to the functional medicine and natural healing podcast where we share the secrets to upgrade your digestion, improve your hormones, restore your immune system and detoxify your body. I'm your host, Dr. Houston Anderson. Now let's get started. The following discussion is for educational purposes and is not intended to diagnose or treat. Always discussing medical treatments or medical intervention, your personal physician. Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast, today's title, are you willing to do anything? Okay, this is actually a really fun topic for me only because I'm somewhat of a you know, backroom motivational speaker kind of guy. I love motivational speeches. And I know that when people have chronic illness, it's hard to stay positive. And honestly, people that don't resonate with healing, and getting better and staying positive, don't resonate with me in the office, because we're always looking to do the best we can to help someone heal, and stay positive and healthy, but so on. In my free time, I always say like, even if tomorrow was the day that I died, like, I would want an awesome like Positive Motivational, critical thinking exercise about, you know, the afterlife or something like that, right. But I'm always down for a little bit of critical thinking motivation, and in thinking about how I can do better at what I'm doing. And so today, I'm gonna kind of offer that guys for that for you guys. I'm not a rah, rah guy, but I'm just a critical thinker, right? So all the time, I get people that come into the office and say, I'm willing to do anything, Doc, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to feel better. I'm just so tired of this, right? That's probably you if you're listening to this podcast, or maybe it's not, or maybe you know, someone that's in that situation. Okay. So usually that person's like, you know, whatever it costs, I will buy the supplement. If I need to pay more, I can do that. Okay, that's the first thing everyone always wants to give more money, right? As if money is going to magically make someone healthy. Okay, the next thing they offer to buy more supplements, what well, Doc, is there any more supplements I need? Can I buy some more supplements, because I really simplify people's protocols down to you know, hopefully less than five or six supplements altogether, including everything, I give them everything they're taking at home. So with that being said, they're like, are you sure I don't need to buy a green drink and a multivitamin and a hormone pill and deliver pill and a kidney pill. And they just keep chasing it down for a while. So the second thing everyone wants to buy it is another supplement. Okay, then, probably by far the most common is like what food do I need to avoid? Once again, as if diet was the only secret to healing? The people that come into my office functional medicine followers, you know, if you're someone that's listening, the podcast often is saying like, like, Oh, yeah, I'm more than willing to give up my my artichokes, I'm more than willing to give up my sweet potatoes. I'm more than willing to give up almost any food that you list. And and it's funny, because more often than not what I need is not someone to avoid a food. I need someone to eat a food, right? Eat more of this than I want. I don't like that food. Right. So that's, that's more common. So that's kind of like, entry level stuff. Right? So this is entry level requirements commitments that are people looking for. And everyone's willing to do it. Right. But it's because of these are all esoteric things because they don't know what they're asking for yet. And and so I want to take this, maybe, you know, a little bit more. Well, the two three layers, I guess, say like, like, What about? What about if I asked you to not do cardio anymore? No yoga, no Pilates, no high intensity interval training. No CrossFit, no orange theory. And you were only allowed to go and do heavy lifts at the gym as if you were competing to let to do the biggest deadlift. Okay, what if I only told you to train for muscular building? Right, what a question. First question. Does that wreck your paradigm? Is that some Now I'm not saying I recommend that to everyone? I'm just saying, in your mind, if Dr. Anderson or whatever darts you're working with said today? Absolutely. No more running, no more activity, no more yoga. Only go and work on your bicep curl until you just can't feel your arms again, because they're so sore. Is that something you're willing to do? Or is that something that's stuck in your head? Like, Oh, no, no, that's not that's not right. That's I read something about this. Right. So literally, that's my favorite thing. Well, well, what do you think about this doctor? Well, I think what I just told you, right, and we all have our protocols. And I always say this to every one of my patients. Like I don't need to be smarter than anyone else. I don't need to be better than everyone else. I just need to have an effective protocol that works for whatever the person is coming in for. I sit down with everyone. I'll tell them if I can help them and even if someone's already paid me money. I'm happy to send them away. Okay, so the reason why is because it's all about having a protocol that works for the people. Now the protocol is different for everyone. But maybe I can only treat 60 conditions and the other, you know, 1000s of conditions that exist just starting don't fit in my office. So it's just important to know that Okay, what about stopping hormone replacement therapy altogether? You know, next, next thing I get, oh, well, my doctor said that my estrogen is low, or I tested, I had no testosterone. But But the question is, you know, if you're willing to do anything, right, that's what that was the original statement of the patient? Are you willing to stop all your medications, hormone and placement therapy, obviously, in a safe manner, and with your doctor that prescribed them all that fun stuff? But it's just about matter? Are you willing to do something like that? Or do you? Or do you fear that that would be too crazy of a change for you? Okay, what about doing a carnivore diet like 100%? Eggs and red meat only? Okay, so everyone listening to this is probably like, No, no, I need my vegetables. That's the only healthy way that's extreme. There's no way you could be healthy doing that. But But are you willing to do anything? Right? Are you willing to make that kind of change? What about scheduling one full hour of relaxation per day? Are you willing to do that? Well, I don't have time for that. I have kids, I have a husband, I've got to make dinner, my life is so full, right? So I didn't say is your life busy? Right? I said, Are you willing to schedule one full hour of relaxation per day? Can you find a way to do that? Or is this your sticking point, right? Is this something that stopping you from doing something that you need to do? Once again, I don't prescribe one full hour of relaxation per day for my patients, but some of them might need it. And maybe that's you. So what about committing to never taking a probiotic? Again, everyone that comes to my office, I tell them, please stop taking your probiotic. You don't get to take a probiotic until you're healthy. And guess what happens? When I see them a year later, guess what, they're taking a probiotic again, right, and they come back. And like, I don't know why my guts altered, you know, I said, because I didn't want you to take that probiotic. And that's the protocol that makes you stay healthy for this extended period of time. So we've already talked about the diet, but now you introduce a supplement that may alter what we're trying to accomplish with the diet. Because once again, it's about how someone goes about the whole being. So in my office, we don't use probiotics. I've never, maybe I don't I think I may have sold one one time. I really don't think I have maybe like an experiment or something like that. But but we don't use probiotics. I don't have a probiotic in my office that we carry, I don't have one I recommend, I won't even Google it for you. I promise. I won't even look into probiotics for you, because it's not what we use. But how many people came come into my office and then leave and then end up taking a probiotic? A lot of people, right, because they decide that you know, the accumulation of information is better. The other way. And I understand I understand there's a lot of research out there. And even some of my favorite doctors that were semi anti probiotic before have recently switched over. Hard to say when you develop your own probiotic, you know what your motivation is there. But But overall, I would say there's not many of us left that aren't big supporters of probiotics. And there's the reason why just because if you ever listened to my probiotic stuff, or read my website and my probiotic articles, there's just better ways. That's it, in my opinion, right. So it's not that they don't work. It's not that they couldn't work. They have a lot of side effects. And, and I treat very sensitive patients, and there's there's just better ways to get the same result in the digestive microbiome. Okay. That wasn't the purpose of the podcast. We weren't talking about probiotics today, but maybe they should be a podcast soon. But that may have felt a little hard, right? We talked about strength training, hormone replacement therapy, a diet for relaxation, probiotics, right, all that stuff. And I say, well, well, let's get even deeper. Okay, everyone, once again, I'm willing to do anything, Doctor, I'm willing to do anything, I just want to get better. Okay. What about changing jobs or changing careers? Can you if you look at your job or your career, can you assess that maybe you're too busy? Or that it stresses you out? That you ended up in a job that you didn't want to do? Because you had bad life circumstances when you started, but it's convenient and easy. Maybe you need to go back to school. Right? I'm not suggesting These are things you need to do. I'm just helping you realize what what things contribute to your health, that you may be brushing off and saying, I'm doing everything I can because that is the most common statement I hear in my office, right? Like, like, Doctor, I've tried everything. I've tried everything. You know, he said, Well, have you tried changing your jobs? You know, I don't really say that to patients because I don't really recommend that. But the question is, if that's something that's in your wheelhouse, that needs to be thought about, is that something that you can do? What about Your relationship problems, okay, what maybe you have a relationship problem with your spouse, maybe you have a relationship problem with your children, maybe a relationship problem with your parents, your cousins, your co workers, whatever your relationship problem is, what are you willing to do about it? Are you willing to go to family counseling? Right? Are you willing to sit down with your spouse and new counseling? Are you willing to sit down with your children and do counseling? Well, that's only for people that, you know, have real problems. So the question is, if that's something that stresses you out, and I would say that almost all my patients that have teenage children definitely are stressed out on a regular basis, but they don't do a lot about it, right? They just fight about it. And they say, well, life's too busy. And and they don't get too far. But maybe this is something that's impeding your health, maybe when they move out, it will be better, but odds are relationships don't just improve by just watching them. We actually have to do something. But just another example, right? You have stress, you know, you have that relationship problem, but you're not willing to address it. And and, you know, of course, then there's that that's a whole counseling and psychotherapy and things that I don't know a lot about, to be honest, you know, I don't know how to do those, because that's not my my problem, right? That's not my problem that I specifically have, I have good relationships where I'm at, I'm lucky to have that. But for some people, that can be a real problem. And so it has to be worked on and not only worked on, and this goes for all of it, like especially relationships, past traumas, things like that. It has to be worked on and let go. Easier said than done. But But I know a lot of people that do constant self work and a lot of constant counseling. But they never get through it. Right. They never get past it. I don't know much once again, about specifically counseling therapies and sessions and things like that. All I know is that we have to get through these things in order to to continue to improve our health. What about committing? So this is this one that kind of goes back to the beginning, where everyone says, like, what does it cost? I'm willing to pay money for it. What about committing $50,000 to health per year? What if you said I need to spend, you may say like, well, that's more than my entire salary. And I understand that. But I want to put a number on this right? I want to put a number that's very uncomfortable, right? a number that makes things change. Oftentimes, people are like, Well, I'm not sure I can afford an office visit with you. And I say, well, would you have any subscriptions to like Netflix or Amazon? Or do you watch any movies? Or do you go out on the weekends. So seems like for most people, if they could control that for a couple of weeks, they'd be able to afford an office visit, right or a phone call with me $97 phone call right now, which is going to double next year. So in four months, that prior three months that that price doubles. So it's going to be harder and harder. And functional medicine is getting more expensive and more expensive, because people are getting sicker and sicker. And the amount of time it takes to manage a patient is getting longer and longer. So but what what are you willing to commit? Why don't you put $1 to that? Okay, and I would suggest that if you're not, and the $50,000 that I threw out there? Like, if you're going to commit such a big number, that's fine. That can be you know, include all your doctor's visits. I don't think you can count health insurance in that because health insurance does nothing for you, unless you're using it right. So it doesn't do any good just to pay that bill every month. But But if you were doing 50,000, okay, you have a gym membership, do you need a personal trainer? Do you need an accountability group? Do you need a functional medicine doctor to get your diet and track? Actually, as a functional medicine doctor, I don't do dietary guidance, right, I help people with their health problems. So maybe you need a nutritionist and a functional medicine doctor, and you need a mental health counselor. And you need a life coach and you need a business coach, right? All of that's happening. And your your prices are adding up fast. But I can tell you that the longer you wait soaking in your health problems, you know, you're not getting anywhere fast, right? So So I always say you know, money is a commodity. We use it to help us improve things that that value to us. I'll always say that function medicine, nobody really cares about their health. nobody really cares. I mean, if you go and say what's your motivation to get healthy? It's not it's rarely because you actually believe that health is is very important. A health is only important because you want to do other things in life. health is important because you love your family health is important because you love your job. health is important because you have goals. health is important because your image is important or that health is only important for whatever value you place upon it. Right? So it's important to know that that money is just the objects that allows us to do a lot of these things. And I'm not going to get too much into that. But yeah, if if you could spend$50,000 a year on your health, would you do it? Or is that an obstacle right? Is that something that you and your spouse like oh no, we we tried once we went to the doctor wants it If I were to take all my patients because I don't do an actual plan for them, or in other words, I don't require people to come back all the time. How many people come in once and never come back? How many people come in once. And maybe that's because they don't think I'm a smart enough doctor or whatever that is. But I would suggest that a lot of them go and get a visit. And they get treated, and they're not perfectly better in two to three weeks. And they're surprised that they're like, well, I thought I was going to get better. It doesn't quite work that way. And we'll get to this at the end, because it's one of the most important tactics or strategies that you need to know. And when we talk about finances, and just because I, I didn't really want it to be a money podcast, obviously, this is about your health. But what about selling your house and downsizing? So your finances aren't stressful? Right? If every month you're worried about where does the next dollar come from, and the credit cards adding up things like that? What about downsizing and a lot of you guys listening to podcasts may have already downsized as much as you can, maybe you're living in apartment and spending more on your health. And I'm always impressed by the people that that truly dedicate a large portion of their salary to health, when they don't have a lot when their salary is less than, you know, $35,000 a year and they have kids, and they still find a way to pay for things that are related to health and their chronic condition, for example. Okay, but here's the thing. This podcast was never really about you making any of those sacrifices. Those are all your choices. But I wanted to know, once again, what are you willing to do and everyone says they're willing to do anything? And let me suggest you what the secret is, the secret is that you improve 20%. And then you become persistent. Okay, so everyone comes into a functional medicine office or looks for a new supplement online or finds a new diet plan, and they say, Hey, you know, if I can do this is not to throw something under the bus, a whole 30 diet for 30 days, right? I love the whole 30 level to promote, you know, it could be the perfect diet for some people may not be the perfect diet for other people. But that's not the point. The point is, My only problem with the whole 30 is it's 30 days. So if you're looking at how long you can, you can persist. You know, you really have to be able to not only do these things for a very long time in order to heal. So there's there's a, there's a level at which you have to perform in order to level which you have to strive. So while you're sick, and while you're not feeling well. And if you want to reverse an autoimmune condition, you have to be willing to do something for a pretty consistent amount of time. Sometimes people get better in a week, sometimes they get better in six months, sometimes they get better in 18 months. But as well, all functional medicine doctors don't like my year health is not truly my problem. Your health is your problem. Right? So it's up to you how long you want to persist, I would suggest that a lot of people quit early. Right? So that's what the purpose of this podcast is. The secret to getting a little bit deeper the secret to are you willing to do anything? Yes, I'm willing to do anything great. It's gonna cost you whatever dollar financially it costs to eat healthy, take a few supplements, change your lifestyle, alter some of the things that your doctor recommends for you, and then go from there. But if you're someone on this, listening this podcast, you're saying, hey, in the next, you know, I found a new doctor, he says he's got a four week program, the four week program is great. The four week program usually gets you results, the four week program won't keep you cured forever, right? It's about persistence after the four week program. I hear this, you know, definitely with weight loss, and I won't even coach weight loss anymore, because it's just too emotionally draining for me. Because people need motivation. That's what they need to be able to stay on this weight loss journey. I get people all the time. And it's about half and half. Some people are really trying their best and eating flawlessly and still are having trouble losing weight, which we can cover in other podcasts too. But like other people, you know, like, well, I lost weight when I did the keto diet, but who can live on keto for the rest of their life? Well, the answer is, you don't have to live on keto for the rest of your life. But you have to live on keto, maybe for your body type, until you reach the goals that you're looking for. And once again, not to promote keto is the best diet on Earth. There's a lot of strategies and tactics that we can use in functional medicine that allow people to get healthy. So it's important to pay attention to what things you aren't doing. Because most of the things you aren't doing you probably right now think are pretty crazy, right? So if you look at a lot of function medicine practices, they're putting people on the carnivore diet right now. Right? They're saying nothing but eggs and red meat, and maybe some fish for the next six to 12 months. If that sounds crazy to you. It is crazy, right? So that's a crazy guys. It's not that it's erratic. It's just that it's it's an aggressive diet, that's a better way to put it. And with that aggressive diets, they're seeing great, great changes, though, right? They're seeing miraculous changes. And then still, though, of course, with every diet, you can sell problems. I know of people that have gained white weight on the carnivore diet, maybe lost some weight initially, and then actually started to gain weight because of hormone resistance. And it gets kind of complicated after that, but it's, if your body's not functioning perfectly, then maybe that maybe the carnivore diet is not for you. But point is I use that because it's kind of an extreme. And, and with that extreme, maybe you actually do need to go to an extreme. So many women come like my practice and say, like, well, I don't really like meat that much. And then I'm going to say, you know, well, let's try the carnivore diet, right. And that would totally throw them off their rocker. I got a phone call last week, from a phone console and said, You know, this, this lady said she was vegan, and that's okay. And we'll forgive that for now. No, I'm just kidding. But we really we can. We can have any diet and be healthy, it just requires more so. So the conversation was, Hey, I'm vegan, you know, if you're going to suggest that I eat meat, butter and eggs, like, I don't even want to talk to you. And I thought it was interesting, because all that information is available on my website. But it's not about whether I'm willing to do that, right. It's about what is she willing to do. So with a vegan diet, there's certain supplements that I require, right, there's certain things that I require someone eats in addition to their vegan diet, so they can meet the requirements that I know are there for healing. So I just want you to pay attention. Go ahead and look for your life, try and find maybe two or three things, maybe list two or three things that you are kind of afraid of that seemed too extreme for you, and see if there's not one that you're willing to try. See if there's not one that you're willing to do. And once you're willing to do something like that? Are you willing to persist? What new habit Can you develop over the course of the next year? that lasts for years at a time, right? So maybe our Carnival for four years? Okay, great. That's, that's great. You can still go back to a healthy diet after that. That's, that's includes vegetables and carbohydrates and things like there's a way to do it, right. But you're willing to sacrifice for a period of time in order to optimize your health and get your health back. So I want you to once again, think about those things that you're not getting in and, or you're too afraid to do or seems crazy and then start to persist, right? Go for the long run. It's not about the short haul, no one's gonna get healthy in a day. No one got sick in a day, unless it's infection based. So we'll see you on the next podcast and thanks. Thanks a lot for listening.