Speaker 1: 1:25

Welcome to the show, everybody. This is the Next Level Human podcast. I'm your host, dr Jay Tita, and I'm here with a new friend of mine, dr Dana Cohen MD. She is an internist who's been doing integrative functional medicine since the late 90s and, as she and I have been talking, just before we jumped on, we were talking how we had both been around for a while and really had not run into each other much until what was last. I guess it was.

Speaker 1: 1:54

May maybe Dana like May, something like that March, april, may in Chicago at the IF1, at the, I guess, jeffrey Bland's conference, yeah. And so the reason I wanted to have Dr Dana on for all of you is because she has a brand new book out called Fueled Up or Fuel Up, right, fuel Up. And this book is right in alignment with a lot of what we talk about on this podcast, and this is this idea that in the health space, we can get inundated with information and get very, very confused about what to eat. It all becomes very complicated, and this is the kind of book I love, because it really brings you back to basics and gives you a very simple way to begin to approach a nutrition. Now I'm just going to frame up real quick, dana, then I'm going to let you take this away. I just want to let everyone know, remind everyone on this show, that, from my perspective, if you're going to be successful, yes, cooking and prepping food and all these kinds of things is very important and probably what most people are going to need to do at least some of that. However, you're also going to need to be at least some of that. However, you're also going to need to be able to manage eating out, eating processed foods from time to time, reading labels, figuring out what are the things that you can do that are going to be good for you. So one of the ways I usually frame this up is I talk about the s diet and it goes like this soups, salads, scrambles, shakes, smoothies, stir fries, skillet meals, sours. These would be things like fermented foods and things like that, spices, and then, of course, some of your favorite food. Now in this list we have shakes and smoothies. So these are things that come out of a blender, which is a very convenient way to approach nutrition.

Speaker 1: 3:54

I remember way back when I first discovered Bruce Lee and my love for Bruce Lee in terms of his philosophy and his teachings. He's one of the first people I believe, at least some people, give him credit for this idea of blending up food. He used to take chicken breast, broccoli and stick it in a blender with some water and blend it up and carry it around with him in the thermos and eat it for his meals, and so I remember reading about this and thinking this guy probably created the first, you know, protein shake smoothie. But, dana, you're doing something incredibly interesting and I always like to say practitioners like you, who probably seen a lot, a lot of people. You come up with these solutions because you know that most people are way too busy to eat and prep wild caught salmon and kale every single day. They need simple solutions, and so I want you to just tell us a little bit about your story, how you came up with this concept, a little bit about the book, and let's get into this discussion. I'm really excited to have you here.

Speaker 2: 5:00

Thank you. Thank you so much. I have another S for you, which, by the way, I love that Sours and shrubs. Shrubs are vinegar-based drinks that are becoming very popular now.

Speaker 1: 5:14

Shrubs. That's the first time I've heard that that's called a shrub. Very cool.

Speaker 2: 5:19

Yes. So there you go. So, yes, the book. How did I come up with this book? So my first book was on hydration Quench. It was written about water, it's movement.

Speaker 2: 5:31

We really are the first people that put together hydration and fascia you know, so, and we talk about Dr Pollack's work Fourth Phase of Water in that book. So that was my first book and through that book my co-author, Colin Sapphire, who invented the Nutribullet and then sold that company, now has a gorgeous new blender called the Beast. Check it out, it's incredible. And he was really the person who sort of and the Nutribullet was really where the personal blender came in, meaning you can take it off the thing and drink it right from the cup and be on the go with it. That's really what the Nutribullet did. So now the Beast is this beautiful, much more powerful, gorgeous personal blender. So he had gotten in touch with me and for like a long time we were figuring out how can we work together. You know he has a hydration element of his Beast. You know he has a hydration element of his beast and in our talking I realized he's got a ton of what I call colonisms. You know he's a lay person, he's not a scientist, but he's got great. You know he struggled his whole life. He was a marathon runner but hated vegetables, didn't eat well and it wasn't serving him and figured out. Well, when he invented the Nutribullet he figured out this is how I need to do it I'm going to sneak in these vegetables somehow and it changed his life. So, and he had all these little terms that I loved I was like Colin, we need to let's. Why don't we write the book? Why don't we, you know, come up with the next book? And basically, this is like the next step of it, just all fits in with quench and then, and then where we're going from here. So, so that's what we did and this is what we came up with.

Speaker 2: 7:36

And you know, the idea is how to cheat your way to good health using a blender. You know, it's that simple. Um, the blender. Something like 96 to 98% of households have a blender, and it's fun, it's easy, it's quick and it's really. You know, I said to you earlier, you can't mess up. Nobody puts cake or, you know, junk into their blender. You're getting real whole food.

Speaker 2: 8:07

So the big message, the overall message, is how to get rid of ultra, or how to limit ultra processed foods, how to get more real whole food into your diet, and then whatever science we can find to back that up we talk about. You know, 30 different plants a week can really help your microbiome. How to do that, how to make it easier, but, but you know, every step of the way. Number one do not beat yourself up. There is no diet, there is no deprivation in this. Just up level your health every step of the way. So it's not just smoothies and shakes, there's cocktails and mocktails, there's, you know, dressings and sauces and soups and desserts, and then weird ways that you can use your blender breads and flatbreads and stuff like that. We even do have a chicken salad recipe in there. You know, I think it's pushing it a little bit, but you pulse it and it's fine. Yeah, so, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 9:06

Well, you talked about it as a cheat, and to me it really is. I've always said there's the cheat code for health and fitness really is the blender, and so when I saw this I saw you post on social, I think and I was like we really should cover this on the podcast, because, from my perspective, it's like what are the big movers? You know, most people to me, I, you know, we have this idea of one to five big things you can do. Well, if you know how to use your blender, it's going to change the game for you in terms of your health and your fitness. Now, if you don't mind, I want to as we get into this. I want to because I'm just, you know, just kind of selfish. I want to learn a little bit from you about let's go back Before we cover a little bit more of the new book. Let's go back to Quench a little bit and talk about this idea of hydration, and so this would be your first book, I guess back in 2021, which is the precursor to this, and so you had mentioned that. I want to kind of start there and then go into the new book, but walk us through just a little bit about this idea because I assume well, I'll just tell you my premise here Right, one of the things that you hear about is you hear a lot about this fourth phase of water, this so-called exclusion zone water or, you know quote, structured water, and this idea that we can just drink this out of a beaker, and my thought has always been or out of a water bottle.

Speaker 1: 10:36

My thought has always been that really, where this water is, is it's in biological substances. So I've always thought, like you know, when I go down to Costa Rica, I eat, all I do is eat fruit all day long and feel fantastic and I wonder. I've always wondered it's really just about? Is it really just about me getting hydrated through this food? And so this is sort of something I've been wondering about. I'm wondering can you educate us a little bit on this idea of hydration hydration through food, perhaps? And you know this idea of, you know, exclusion zone water or structured water, because obviously, university of Washington and you know, and just to also be clear it's a hypothesis, it's not a proven thing, but it makes complete sense to me.

Speaker 2: 11:41

And you know, some scientists water researchers are not on board, but most water researchers do believe that there are other phases of water. And now it's even coming out that there's probably many other phases of water, not just four phases. That was the whole impetus for me writing that book. By the way, that's mind blowing to me. We've always known that water exists as three phases water, ice and vapor, you know, and liquid ice and vapor. And when, you know, when I started to hear about this, I was like what are you talking about? And so that was mind blowing to me. And then, when you start to look at it, and basically the idea is how H2O, the simplest molecule in the world, yet the most complex, when I got into writing this book, I was like, oh my God, what did I get myself into? I'm not a researcher. This is way beyond, but we do a good job of simplifying it. And it's the idea of how these H2O molecules layer upon each other or structure, right, and it's in that layering that they start to share electrons and then, and then the charges change a little bit, right? And so it's believed that it's in that form of water, this fourth phase of water, and Dr Pollack believes it's H3O2. So it's not really H3O2. It's just in that layering that they start to share electrons, that it changes a little bit, and it's in that phase that's believed to exist within ourselves and that it exists in nature, right?

Speaker 2: 13:13

So the byline to our book is eight glasses a day is not the way, yeah, right. So first of all, how can you know a five foot sedentary person who never sweats have eight glasses and a six foot two athlete who's sweating? You know, it doesn't make any sense, and I'm here to say that it's different for every person. What you know, what their optimal hydration level is. We don't have a perfect way of measuring it. I do have something that I will give to your people listening the best way to know if you are well hydrated is to look at your urine output, right? So we are meant to be urinating every two or three hours while we're awake, and I have people do hashtags. You know, I've been known. I'll sit at my desk for eight hours straight, not get up once to pee and I'm like what am I doing? I know better than that, you know. And the truth is it is the one thing that I'm a real stickler on.

Speaker 2: 14:11

Day in, day out, hour by hour, we need to stay on top of our hydration. Okay so, because hydration is the single most important thing you can do to treat and prevent chronic disease, hands down, before you start any supplement regimen, diet regimen, whatever it may be, always start with hydration. Learn how to hydrate first, and that means drinking some water. That means eating your water, I believe a smoothie is. You know, one green smoothie is equivalent to two or three glasses of the same amount of bulk water.

Speaker 2: 14:47

You know in the way that it hydrates your cells because we're holding on to it better. There's fiber in there, there's minerals in there, there's electrolytes in there. These all these things that help maybe structure the water or just hold on to the water or get into the cell better. We don't know for sure, but I do know, know that in my 30 years of doing this, 28 years of doing this, that when even my athletes, when they come in and say I can't quench my thirst, no matter what I do, they change a few things add a smoothie a day, add some electrolytes, get some sunshine, start to ground. These are all things that are hydrating. Move differently, and when I say move, it's not necessarily exercise. I'm not an exercise specialist, although I was an exercise physiology major, but I lost all that information. But movement we talk about micro movements in the book. It's a lot of information in a few minutes, sorry.

Speaker 1: 15:47

Yeah, no, it's perfect.

Speaker 2: 15:49

Good. So movement is a hydrating act and it's my belief that you know why sitting is the new smoking because we're squelching delivery of hydration to our periphery Right. So we talk about this thing called micro movements, and basically we made them up. It's you know. This is a micro movement, meaning, you know, shrugging your shoulders, turning your head, moving all your joints. You know, from an anthropological view, we have something like we're born with I'm going to mess up the numbers Three hundred different movements when we're, when we're infants, and as we get older, we only use 30 or 40 of them.

Speaker 1: 16:32

Yeah, isn't that crazy.

Speaker 2: 16:34

Yeah, so we need to, like you know, move everything that you can think of Start in the morning, start from your toes and twist and turn and do all this stuff and then, throughout the day, do some movements, and I think I touched everything.

Speaker 1: 16:49

Yeah, and actually I'm sure you're familiar with Herman Ponser's work. He's kind of who I regard as probably the premier expert in metabolism in the world right now. He's out of Duke University. He did a study on the hunter-gatherers and looking at the different movement patterns that they use. This is not for Dana, but it's for all you listeners.

Speaker 1: 17:09

I'm sure you know this, dana, but one of the things he found that was really interesting, that the major difference was these hunter-gatherers walk about as much as us, a little bit more, but they're not like doing tens of thousands of steps more than we are per day. The major place where they are different than us is in the way they rest. They have active resting positions where they're kneeling, they're standing in particular ways. They don't have chairs and these micro movements that you're calling them are going on all the time. Anyone who's ever gone into a primitive man deep squat and had to support their body know that their body's sort of moving like this constantly. And this is what they found were one of the major differences between us and our hunter-gatherer ancestors as it pertains to movement. They don't necessarily do a ton more movement than us. They do do more, but it's not like a ton a ton, but the way they rest with these sort of micro contractions in the muscles is very different than us, and so it just reminded me of that when you were sort of bringing that up, and I love the way you're talking about it and I want to sort of get your take on this too, because isn't it interesting? And maybe as an internist you're a little different than me, so maybe you're going to correct me on this.

Speaker 1: 18:28

But one of the things that I have always found bizarre in the field of medicine is that we don't have great ways to even measure hydration, even still in individuals In terms of lab values, in terms of other things.

Speaker 1: 18:44

There is no great way to measure how hydrated someone is in general. And number two, basically on an individual level, and I find this absolutely mind blowing that that is still the case when it is probably arguably and you seem to agree with me, or I agree with you probably one of the most important things we can do as humans. Yet medicine has no real way of evaluating hydration on an individual level in terms of cellular hydration, sort of real hydration, and so, other than signs and symptoms and blood volume, right, it's like, what else do we look at? There are a few measures kidney, you know, anion gap, chloride, sodium, all these things that you can infer but there's not a really good way in my mind to measure this and I'm wondering. You're nodding your head, so it seems like you're in agreement with this, but I was wondering maybe you have a secret that I don't know about, given your, but isn't that crazy that that's the case?

Speaker 2: 19:46

Yeah, yeah, no, we definitely don't, and we talk a lot about that. That's why I said the first thing. I said the best way is to measure. Look at your urine output and make sure that you're peeing. Even the color of your urine is not, is not perfect. It's not a great test. I mean, you know, if you take the B vitamin, then all uh, yeah, it's not a great test, it's okay.

Speaker 2: 20:15

Um, you know and I want to just say something on that note too, when we look at our urine, we've a lot of people have been told like we want crystal clear urine at the end of the day, then you know you're hydrated enough. Um, I'm not sure I I agree with that. I think there's, um, I see, almost on a weekly basis I definitely on a weekly basis, if not more than a few times a week where patients are overhydrating and their sodium is low and their chloride is low Not enough to be detrimental, but enough to give them. Like when I asked them are you getting cramps? Are you getting? Are you fatigued? Yeah, because some of the same symptoms of overhydration is with underhydration. I also want to differentiate between low-grade, subclinical dehydration versus overt dehydration. We know what overt dehydration is. That's easily measured. You need to go to the emergency room. Your eyes are rolling back in your head because you've been vomiting or whatever, diarrhea all day long Different.

Speaker 2: 21:18

It's this low grade, subclinical dehydration that affects all of us that we need to stay on top of every single day, because that's the stuff that that leads to chronic disease, diabetes, alzheimer's, certain cancers. You know that is a risk factor for those things.

Speaker 1: 21:38

Yeah, and just so everyone understands I think most people know this, but maybe you want to say something about this as well your sense of thirst is not a good indication of how much water you drink. So what we're hearing from you is that okay? Yeah, maybe urine volume, you know, peeing every two to three hours, maybe some degree of looking at urine color, but you certainly don't want that too clear, you know, because you're losing minerals and all that kind of stuff. You know there's other tests you can do, like the pinch test of the hand and how fast the skin bounces back and stuff like that. And, of course, acutely speaking, we know what overt dehydration looks like. That's a medical emergency, but there's no real way to adequately look at our hydration from an optimal standpoint in the current way we look at it, and so it's really interesting to hear you also say that, having written a book on this, and so let me ask you about this, dana. So you mentioned, and is there anything else you want to say about this idea of what happens when we are getting our hydration through food? We can go back to some of the stuff like with Gatorade which I know that's like a sin to even mention Gatorade for us functional medicine practitioners, because of you know some of the stuff that you know the brominated, you know vegetable oils and all the things that some of these things can have. However, that original research does indeed show that when you have glucose along with electrolytes, along with water, you are going to get better hydration, and I'm wondering if you have any other information on this in terms of getting your hydration through foods and through fruits and these kinds of things and through vegetables.

Speaker 1: 26:06

I mean, when you think about fruits and vegetables, one of the interesting things about these things, we tend to think of them as very nutrient-dense foods and we tend to think of them as sort of low-carbohydrate, and we tend to think of them as very nutrient-dense foods and we tend to think of them as sort of low-carbohydrate and we tend to think of their calories. What we don't often think of is that they're loaded with water. This is why they crunch when we bite into them. These things are loaded with water. So one of the things I've always often thought is this idea of dry foods versus sort of these wet vegetables and fruits. And of course, this discussion will bring us into your new book, because now it seems to me, and I don't know if I'm jumping the gun here, but it seems to me we can engineer this water based food delivery system when we are using a blender when we are using a blender.

Speaker 2: 26:54

Yes, so, first of all, cauliflower is dry, but it's something like 90, I may be messing up the number 96% water. So vegetables naturally contain a lot of water and hydration. They also contain fiber and minerals. So those things alone. Minerals are electrolytes. The fiber is going to hold on to that water like a sponge help you hold on to it better. The electrolytes help you push it into the cell.

Speaker 2: 27:23

Going back to the, you know, the Gatorades and those kind of things, yeah, there is, I'm on the board of an electrolyte company, c know, but there is. You know, there is good research that we, you know, some of those electrolyte drinks. Not everybody needs them, um, and certainly we don't need to purchase them. We could maybe even do some real salt is a great way to get some of those electrolytes in some of our water. But I think we talked about this earlier, maybe before we were talking. Even some of my you know my really super healthy yogis, let's say. You know they do hot yoga all the time and they're the ones who say I can't quench my thirst, right? I know this is the time when everybody starts to drink or everybody starts to move, and that can quench my thirst.

Speaker 2: 28:15

Well, you know, you add one kind of either electrolytes or a little bit of salt to some of their waters. You don't need to do every single one, and it changes. You know they're holding onto that water better. Or do a green smoothie a day, so it changes how you know how they're holding, I believe, how they're holding onto that water, and you're not just drinking bulk water and peeing out your electrolytes. Um, so I think that's the difference. That's my belief in why it works better. Um, and yeah, so, and the thing about the Gatorade yeah, there's just all these other additives that we don't need. I wrote myself a note. I'm going to make sure I send you a copy of quench, so thank you, great yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:57

Everything you said we talk about. Yeah, you're going to. You're going to enjoy it.

Speaker 1: 29:01

Yeah, yeah, I use. I use electrolytes all the time and I've used many different forms element from, but I don't think I've tried quench yet, so yeah, I'm excited.

Speaker 2: 29:12

No cure, oh cure.

Speaker 1: 29:13

Okay, quench is the book. Quench is the book. Yeah, cured is the electrolyte. Okay, so let's get into this idea then. So this is making a lot of sense in terms of what we need to do, and now let's kind of talk about this new thing that you've done. We kind of got a little bit of the background, so walk us through sort of the general idea here for the person who's like. You know, dr Dane, I've never thought of using a blender in this way, and so what's the way that? Are we doing this? Like every meal? Are we blending our meals? Is this, like you know, one morning smoothie? Is this, you know, just the idea of like, including it several times a week? Walk us through what you recommend.

Speaker 2: 29:59

So you know, the big gist of the book is how to eat more food, as mother nature intended. That's it, you know. So trying to get rid of ultra processed foods, trying to tip the scales in more favor of real foods versus UPFs. Right now it's anywhere from 50 to 65 percent of our diets include ultra processed foods and every single day there's some new research that's coming out that's showing that's the real cause of chronic disease. Right, yeah, and so we need to start.

Speaker 2: 30:33

You know we talk about cooking for ourselves. I think that's super important. We do give even some recipes. There's a lot of recipes. There's 100 different recipes in the book, some recipes even how to, how to roast a chicken. We've lost the art of cooking. You know how to, how to poach a fish, how to roast a chicken, how to grill a cauliflower steak. You know and you know.

Speaker 2: 30:57

So, blending, and it's no, you do not want to blend every single meal. We need to chew, we need to sit down to a table, we need community, we need to savor our food, smell our food. This is not that. However, you know, think about maybe not your audience, but maybe your audience's family members, who they're trying to change their eating habits a little bit. What are they eating for breakfast and how can that be better? You know? So a smoothie for breakfast is a perfect, great way for to start your day.

Speaker 2: 31:32

Nutrient density, like the, the amount of vegetables that you're getting in there, um, and and real food, and then and protein. You can, you can either we we try to always try to eat real food, so we give ideas on different ways of getting protein in that shake hemp seeds, chia seeds, whatever that may be, or or protein powder, which is a good cheat, and then we also give tons of recipes on sauces, and the whole impetus for me writing the book is this there is a steak sauce that I love. There is this specific brand of steak sauce that I love, and the reason I love it is because it has horseradish in it. I love, love, I crave. It has horseradish in it. I love, love, I crave, love horseradish and, um, and for some reason, I never wants it. I never looked at the label, and one day I looked at the label and I was like, oh my God, what am I doing? You know, the only reason I love this is horseradish. It's got four.

Speaker 2: 32:28

the first four ingredients are four different kinds of sugar, including high fructose corn syrup, and I was like I can do better than this and you know, I started with an organic ketchup and horseradish and I was like all right, this is better, it's not bad, it was actually really good. And then I had a friend who's a chef helped me create this much better steak sauce and it's in the book and it's easy and it's done in a blender. So I was like that's, you know, and so you want to up level your nutrition every step of the way, right? So instead of store-bought even like you know the junky yogurts and stuff, like you want to get real yogurts and then you can, you can, you can enhance them. We have enhanced waters, you know.

Speaker 2: 36:15

Enhanced um sauces, condiments are a big one, right. So there's tons of recipes and it just gives you ideas on if I can get people to start thinking about reading the labels even me, you know and this is why I said to you early on, I was like, oh God, what kind of audience am I talking to? Are they going to all be rolling their eyes at me?

Speaker 1: 36:35

No, you're talking to an audience that's very receptive. They love this stuff.

Speaker 2: 36:39

But we need to all hear it and we need to constantly be reminded of it. So how to up-level every step of the way? How to look at labels? Look at them more often. You know the usual suspects shop the perimeter. Get more real foods. You can't cheat in a blender, because nobody's putting junk in a blender. It doesn't. It's just it's weird. You know, nobody does that.

Speaker 1: 37:10

Yeah, I love this. So this book really is. It's not just where it might look like, it's just about blending things up. It's actually a complete it sounds like it's a complete education on the basics that what we need, with a very powerful tool to make this happen and it sounds like you're saying level one would be just start, because you know, when we think about morning time, right, it's like this is probably the time where most people are messing up. Right, I would say most people are messing up first thing in the morning or last thing at night, and I'll tell you something that I've done even before seeing your book.

Speaker 1: 37:43

It's always been a cheat for me when I'm at my best, and that is, first thing in the morning, a smoothie with a little bit of protein, and then last thing at night, either before dinner or after dinner. Sometimes I do it both times to shut off my tending to overeat habit at night. I'm one of these people who can literally I'll eat dinner and I want an extra taste of something, and what I have found is that, as long as I get enough protein and fiber in that meal, I am much better, and so what I will do I have found is that I will usually do a pre-protein shake smoothie before dinner and then oftentimes, if I can't shut the hunger down, I'll do another one. And so but it sounds like you're saying level one is, hey, just get your nutrients in, you know, in the morning. This is a very quick way to do it. And then I'm bringing up this idea that you know in the research those of you who are wondering this is the concept of preloads and postloads. So a preload would be, you know, something that you take right before you eat, that takes the edge off and hopefully ideally has less calories than what you would eat to a meal and then decreases the amount of calories that you would eat at the next meal to a degree to offset it or even perhaps have much less of it. And so I love this idea. From my perspective, I've always used these things as convenience-oriented things and preloads and postloads. But it sounds like level one for you is like hey, jay, just start with a good, high quality, nutrient, dense, quick, blended breakfast.

Speaker 1: 39:25

And what might that look like? I'm imagining in my mind. I'm imagining something green, something purple, like blueberries or something like that, maybe a little bit of yogurt, maybe some protein powder. I mean, I'm sure if you want to get Rocky Balboa style, you could crack an egg in there. I don't know, but it sounds like listening to you. It's this idea of let's get some fiber in there, let's get some phytonutrients in there, let's get some electrolytes and nutrient-dense stuff in there. So I'm thinking about this idea of essentially blueberries a little bit. You know things like that. And what are we mixing this with? Are we mixing it with water? Is it almond milk? Is it skim milk? Like you know, some people they tend to think of oh, if I'm going to make a smoothie, it's got to be milk, you know. So walk us through what the ideal shake might be in the morning.

Speaker 2: 40:11

Yeah, so exactly what you said. So blended greens is always your, your start. Throw in whatever greens you have there. So greens and I typically do water, but you can do any kind of nut milk you can do. You know, I'm trying to think what other milks you would want. I don't particularly love milk, milk because I do think that as we get older we we lose the enzymes to metabolize milk and in my, in my career, I have found more people are sensitive to milk.

Speaker 1: 40:44

You know dairy, but and adding water and a handful of almonds is into this. Thing is like your own almond milk anyway, in a sense.

Speaker 2: 40:52

Exactly, Exactly. Or you can, you know, make your own milk. You know, nut milk M Y L K, or you can make your own milk, nut milk, M-Y-L-K, and then, yes, a fruit for flavor. Protein, either natural protein Cottage cheese is even a better source of protein, but the dairy stuff is there or protein powder, and there's. I mean, you go online, there's thousands of recipes. We have hundreds of recipes in the book, 100 recipes in the book, but easy, you know, easy enough to do your breakfast. I'm trying to think about forgetting anything.

Speaker 1: 41:28

And let me actually ask you this, dana, because you know, for me I hate to admit this you know, being a health care practitioner, but I do not like vegetables, right, and I imagine a lot of people don't. And I think a lot of people would think, oh my gosh, I'm putting this green stuff in. What is this going to taste like? But I'm sure you have ways of hiding this, and there's plenty of greens that you don't necessarily taste at all, trust me, you all I know because I've practiced with this but what are your favorite greens? For those of us who are a little bit averse to that swampy green sort of flavor, so spinach has no flavor, you put it in a smoothie.

Speaker 2: 42:10

You're not going to taste it, I will tell you. My co-author, colin Sapphire, said earlier he he hates vegetables. He doesn't eat salads. He hates it. He still hates it. But every morning he has what he calls green slime and he holds his nose and slugs, sucks it down. Um, and I have to tell you, I can't even.

Speaker 2: 42:30

You know, and I like vegetables and I was like oh I can't even do that, but he's found what works for him, I promise people. Like you know, we talk about making changing habits, changing tastes. Um, over time you will change tastes, but in the beginning you can. You know, we actually have three levels of smoothies a little more fruit forward in the beginning to green slime at the end, you know, and then hopefully, over time, you can work your way into some of that. Um, things I mean think about. I like to use this example because it really spoke to me too. Think about when we were, you know, you and I. I grew up in the seventies and I think about when I was growing up, we drank tab.

Speaker 2: 43:12

You know diet sodas, like all these things you know and but. But I remember as a kid making that switch from or or you know from regular soda to tab you're like this is disgusting, how does anybody do that? And now, if I were to drink a regular Coke, like that's disgusting to me and syrupy and too sweet, you know, over time are taken up. Not that I think anybody should be drinking soda, by the way, you know. I will say I will go to a restaurant every so often, have a Diet Coke.

Speaker 1: 43:43

You know, we all, we all pick our poisons when we need them and myself too, by the way, every once in a while. You know that can be nice and to your point, right. Remember the first time most of us had coffee or a beer or something like that. These weren't necessarily things that we necessarily love the first time we do develop a taste for this stuff. So I like that. You're essentially saying that.

Speaker 1: 44:06

And the healthier you eat, the more potent these taste buds get and you pick up subtle flavors that you may not have known that you liked. And of course, I do think part of it too is that we don't let ourselves oftentimes get hungry enough. I can remember the first time and I used to hate turkey sandwiches, for example. And I remember when I was young, my mom had me out chopping wood all day and I hadn't eaten. I came in and she had a turkey sandwich and I was like, and I tasted it, I was like, oh my God, it's the best tasting thing ever. Right? And now, from this day, I love turkey sandwiches, but it's it's this idea that our taste buds definitely do change.

Speaker 2: 44:42

Yeah, I like that you mentioned we lost the feeling of hunger.

Speaker 2: 44:48

We don't allow ourselves to be hungry anymore. We don't. We're constantly feeding. So I do think that that is important to overnight fast, no eating in the middle of the night. I have very few rules, though I do want to say in this book. You know, we meet people where they are. And I think you know number one we have to stop beating ourselves up first. You know, stop judging others, but stop judging ourselves, most importantly, and and and meet where you are. Like you know, I do ask that you be a little adventurous and try new things. I think that that is super important. So that's the one thing we do ask in the book, like just be adventurous. If you don't like it, toss it.

Speaker 2: 45:31

You know, I've made you know. This is why a blender is so much fun. You feel like a chef. You're putting all these things in there. Spices like, oh, I'm going to try this. And often it's like whoa, what did I do? Sometimes I do have to hold my nose and suck it down because I don't want to waste it, but it's fun and it's exciting and you feel it's creative.

Speaker 1: 45:55

It's also really creative and when you find that formula, that recipe that works, it's like any other recipe that works. It becomes a staple in your diet and makes all of the difference in your health. So I love that you're saying that. I also love you know, you and I are in a lot of alignment on a lot of things, but I'm the same way as you where to me, I think, sometimes I think one of the more toxic things we are doing that no one talks about is what we are doing to ourselves in our heads, this idea of constantly stressing out. Sometimes I wonder what's more toxic the things we're putting in our mouth or the chronic stress about the things that we're putting in our mouth?

Speaker 1: 46:36

It is turned into a huge sort of thing here when you deal with people and they're just at their wits end, and that's why I'm so grateful for work like this. It comes from practitioners who you can tell, have seen thousands and thousands of patients and know they need solutions that work for everyone. So I love this idea and I just don't want you, the listener, to miss what Dr Dana is saying. She's essentially saying do not beat yourself up. There's not a whole lot of rules in this book for that reason that you're supposed to try to find and do what works for you and to be just be experimental and open, and this tool can set you free in terms of what you are doing with your nutrition.

Speaker 2: 47:24

Yeah, up level wherever you can. Try to get those you know. Add those vegetables in at every step. Make those condiments have your morning smoothie. Up level your nutrition wherever you can. Don't beat yourself up.

Speaker 2: 47:45

You know, and I you know, having worked for Dr Atkins early on in my 28 years, I know that diets don't work and I can say this. My husband's given me permission to say this. He is somebody who the Atkins diet or the keto diet is the only thing that's ever really worked for him, and when he goes on it, he is so good on it. He's so good, but his whole life it's this.

Speaker 2: 48:01

And when he goes off. He is off the rails because he doesn't know how to eat. He doesn't understand the Mediterranean diet. He doesn't think that fruits are good for him because he's so used to thinking any kind of carbs are bad for him, you know. And he doesn't know how to eat in moderation because you know. So it's um, diets don't work. We have to learn how to eat real food, um, and how to enjoy our foods and not beat ourselves up. And, yes, stop putting toxic things into our brains.

Speaker 2: 48:29

Um and and you know and live in this world. Yes, there are. There are toxins, there are toxic foods. I'm there, is no way I'm never going to have another piece of birthday cake again from you know and you know I, it's just not going to happen, but it happens less and less and and I enjoy it less and less. So maybe it will one, you know, honestly, it's not a great example because I really don't think I enjoy it.

Speaker 1: 48:58

Yeah, yeah, you know actually, I want to say something about what I would call. You know, there's a. You know I'm an entrepreneur, and in the tech world they have this thing whenever you hire someone to do computer work for you. There's this thing called scope creep that basically you do the thing and then you keep adding things on and it turns into a bad habit. I think we get you mentioned something I just want the listener to pay attention to with your husband, and I think there's scope creep. That happens with a lot of these diets.

Speaker 1: 49:25

So, let's say, you go on an Atkins diet and all of a sudden, you read all this stuff about or keto diet, or carnivore diet or whatever it is, and you read all this stuff that you're not supposed to have. Let's say, and all of a sudden, in the case of the keto diet, you're eating tons and tons of fat, and so you get this sort of halo effect around fat being good and everything else being bad. Now, of course, rarely can you stay on this diet, but what ends up happening when you go back to your traditional diet? There's some scope creep there. So now, all of a sudden, you're eating more fat than you normally would otherwise, and there is a strong argument to be made that the major detrimental factor in the Western diet in research on diets, especially on rats, they call this the cafeteria diet, which is a diet that is simultaneously rich in fats, sugars, starch, salt and alcohol, and that this combination of foods perhaps is the big no-no. And this goes right back to the ultra processed foods, the UPS that we talked about and that.

Speaker 1: 50:30

So what happens is this scope creep of more fat when you go on an all fat diet or more carbs when you go on a vegan diet can lead to this, and I actually think the better approach almost always is a moderate approach. However, moderation is something that you have to learn through experience, and that's one of the things that we don't talk enough about, so we don't have to delve into that. But maybe that's the next book you or I write. These two authors right that this idea of what you know, the new moderation diet, you know that really teaches people about these combinations.

Speaker 2: 51:07

But I'm going to just say I want to add one quick thing about that, because we do, and we didn't even talk about this beforehand. We mentioned an area of psychology called harm reduction psychotherapy, and the reason being is it helped me 20 something years ago quit smoking. So I just want to, just I want to talk about that because and this may or may not and please, if anybody has an alcohol or drug addiction problem, get the right help, but we know that the recidivism rate of complete abstinence is hugely high. So there are instances where moderation in that field is appropriate, and the same in the health field. So we sort of relate it to food and nutrition.

Speaker 2: 51:58

This harm reduction approach where, once again, you meet people where they are complete love and compassion for yourself, judging it, for the practitioner to judge that person too at moderation is a is, it is a huge. You know it sounds so simple and it's such a simple message and and thing, but it really is where we need to go. Um, so I'm so happy that you mentioned that because I think, uh, yeah, we are unbelievably aligned yeah, we are, we are it's scary it's fun.

Speaker 1: 52:35

It's fun when we get to. You know, you don't know a practitioner. You get together and you know, sometimes it's also fun to have some, some differences where you can really learn. But yeah, it was so nice to connect with you. Why don't we uh let the uh any final thoughts that you have to wrap up and then let's make sure that everyone knows where to get the book and where to find you online no, I mean, I think I think we covered everything.

Speaker 2: 52:59

Hydration food is always the quickest way to to to good health. Always start there before you go on any you know medications or whatever. Learn how to eat first, learn how to, how to hydrate first and simple.

Speaker 1: 53:15

Yeah, and and the book. Everybody is fueled up. The and simple yeah, and the book everybody is Fuel Up. It's Harness the Power of your Blender and Cheat your Way to Good Health. It comes out, I think, october 8th. It's going to be ready for you, so make sure you go and get that book. The book Quench came out in 2021. That's Dana's first book and you can find Dana online. Actually, me and her talk on instagram a lot, so I know you're there, dana, you're what. What's your, your handle on instagram for everybody?

Speaker 1: 53:43

it's dr dana cohencom dr dana cohen yeah, dr dana cohen at dr dana cohen um on instagram, and I just want to thank you so much, thank you so much, uh, for your work. Do me a favor, hang on the line, just so I can make sure all this gets uploaded. But for all of you, thanks for hanging out on the show and we will see you at the next episode.