Plant Based Doctor Turns Carnivore!

hey guys just want to take a second to thank our sponsor carnivore bar I don't promote many products because honestly all you need to be healthy is just eat meat and that's what you should do but if you're hiking or road tripping or stuck at work and you want something nutritious that is just meat and fat and possibly salt if you want it the carnivore bar is a great option I like this product not only because it is pure meat but also because I really want the carnivore Market to thrive as well the more we support meat only products the more people will make meat only products and this will bring this into the mainstream so if this sounds like something you'd like to check out then take a look and use my discount code HTC to get 10 off which also applies to subscriptions giving you 25 off total all right thanks guys hey everyone welcome to another episode of the how to Carnival podcast we're joined by Dr Anthony chafee the plan free MD again welcome Anthony hey yeah thanks man good to see you likewise good to have you here and we've got a special guest Dr Max gulhan uh I think I pronounced the last name right uh who's from Aubry here in Australia and is a low carb slash carnivore doctor getting amazing results with his clients um so I can't wait to learn more about you welcome Max hey Simon how you going and hey Anthony good to be on your podcast gentlemen good job yeah yeah and then Max had me on on his podcast which is great and had a great talk there and so thankfully uh you're able to to come on uh with us so that's great thank you for that yeah awesome I'm stoked to uh to talk to you guys and uh yeah like uh give you a bit of an idea about what's happening down here in Albury yeah it sounds like there is a lot happening between you and and Jacob walkie who Doc chafee and I have also interviewed um he was awesome so yeah we had to get you on um so max what what was it that triggered you to head down the low carb slash carnivore Rabbit Hole um as a doctor yeah so I basically was uh going through a early 20s doing a bit of exercise doing a bit of cycling and not not having a lot of intentional thought about my diet and at the time I was drinking a lot of those up and go shakes you know would go for a big ride and before we'd go out we'd have an up and go eating oats you know all kinds of just generally not junk but carbohydrate-based based food that was thought was healthy and throughout that early 20s I developed quite bad acne on my face and as you can imagine it's not ideal to be you know suffering from acne in the you know early early 20s where most people have that problem you know during their teenage years so I developed this this acne and and I went at the time I went to a dermatologist after obviously failing the kind of first line treatment and a story with the dermatologist was was I was put on you know escalating Doses and of a progression of pharmaceutical drugs to kind of treat this this skin problem and um you know Anthony will know that that the I will put on antibiotics like doxycycline and doxycycline is is a an antibiotic that we use for you know atypical pneumonias and you know if you get a cut by some obscure Marine bacterial pathogen you get put on doxycycline and you know if you're going for malaria prophylaxis you get put on doxycycline so it's an antibiotic and and that we're using it for acne treatment so I got on doxycycline didn't work got got went through all the dermatologists again got put on Minocycline which is another tetracyclone antibiotic that didn't work so um I ended up on a drug called roacutane or isotretinoin and that's a pretty heavy duty um drug it's a it's a vitamin A analog and it's used for a whole range of kind of very specific you know medical treatment reasons and that was around my you know early mid-20s and I just made me feel absolutely horrible and this is a very protracted drawn out process um and not once did the dermatologist mention or discuss lifestyle and diet or anything like that so I I ended up going off off uh the the isotradinoin because it just made my mood too bad and and at that point I was in medical school and um around that time there was a lot uh about plant-based eating and maybe I was an earlier doctor this was back in 2017. I thought okay plant-based eating is good for me it's good for the planet you know it's good for everyone this is going to be a good solution to my health issue and to you know help every every everyone else short story or to cut a long story short uh basically you know 18 months of worsening acne bloating recurrent upper respiratory tract infections just generally feeling quite off uh and no no improvement at all so that kind of process of you know hitting kind of rock bottom with my skin with my digestion and being in medical school I thought come on there's got to be a better way around this um and nothing I was being taught and medical school was giving me any answer to my own health problem so at that point I stumbled upon the low carb down under YouTube YouTube page which a lot of you your list would know is an amazing repository of information about low carbohydrate and lifestyle medicine and at that point I watched a lot of low carb videos I cut out the grains I cut out the sugar you know I cut out all the the tofu and all these kind of foods and my symptoms started getting better um and just it was a gradual and gradual and gradual Improvement and then around the end of my medical school training you know I was eating a keto you know low carb diet I had my kangaroo steak and and my salad you know in a salad that I was taking to to medical school and at that point I was also watching a lot of bull sardino and Sean Baker one of the carnivore type doctors and I remember fiddling with my uh meal and I'd eaten all my meat and I was you know gazing down at these spinach leaves and I just thought to myself like is this really necessary you know as I'm trying to force them into my mouth and at that point I tried to go um I went full a full carnivore and that process was very very very interesting because I found it basically another gear above I felt amazing at another level above what I had been feeling so that was in you know the beginning of 2019 and it's 23 now so I've been mostly Carnival since then periods of of interspersed with some fruit consumption when I was living at a higher latitude and and periods of of fermented veggies I'd include at some points but um having moved right back down to Albury I'm I'm basically 100 carnivore again and feeling fantastic so um that that's I guess my story and it's it's one of being a patient I think first and having that brush with the medical system and and finding myself not being served and not being um given the right advice uh that was the kind of stimulus for me to explore this area and then offer that um to my patients yeah well great and so if you've been able to incorporate that in into your practice as well yeah so I have I I so I worked in um emergency medicine um after I graduated med school for for a couple of years and then I moved down to Albury particularly to do general practice training and I chose this place because um it's a mentor of mine Dr Rob Sabo who you might know he's uh he's a very experienced and and old uh uh as in he's been in the game for a long time in diabetes reversal and using low carbon carnivore so I moved I relocated here to to kind of work with him and and and learn off him and um uh yeah that's what I've been doing so since February I've been um using the low carbon Carnival as a as a treatment option in in patients who are interested and willing and uh to reverse attempt to reverse their obesity their metabolic disease their fatty liver um and yeah getting getting some really great results um already so it's been it's been fantastic what are some of the results that you're getting is just um I mean because there's obviously you know uh Professor Steve Penny as shown in clinical trials you can reverse type 2 diabetes with it just a ketogenic diet in general which of course a carnivore diet is unless you're you know not just eating meat but if you are just eating meat then it should be um and so what if your results been yeah so so my what I've seen so far is is most of being weight loss so I've had patients come to me um for weight loss and and look I'll I give them an option and I say um depending on what your lifestyle depending on on where you're at depending on your family situation we can do this as quickly or as slowly as you'd like and and certain group of patients um um yeah we just lost Max by um eating only meat and those the results that I've seen from patients who are eating uh mostly a carnival diet and perhaps a restricted eating window or you know only one or two meals per day um you know within two weeks one after my initial consult you know four kilo three kilos four kilos of weight and you know three four centimeters off the waist circumference um is very common um and that they're so happy they walk in with the biggest smile on their face um you know beaming and I think if one patient in particular and I've seen him about uh you know maybe three times or four times in the past two months and uh he walked into the room you know on Thursday and I could you know the amount of weight he's lost is it's incredible you can see how how great he looks and and he's got so much energy so it's it's gone really well you see it's a carnival or low carb so he's carnivore he's he's fully carnivore um yeah yeah and so obviously because you are limited in time in your consultations you know to give that big full rundown on this obviously it's not always possible to do that in in the consultation setting you have a you know a packet of information and things like that and homework to send them home to go uh you know read up on themselves yeah definitely and unfortunately I don't have any to show you but I basically just made some um A5 card printouts and there's there's four that I have um one of them is what not to eat and and that's just got my the three main criteria of of processed foods um and carbs so carbohydrates seed oils um and sugars and then I've got another one that's that's the low carb handout and another one that's a specifically a carnival uh handout and then a one that's just got General Food rules so I I basically go over the basics of it and then I um give them these these the patients the cards depending on what approach they want to take and uh yeah we we basically go from there the the other thing that I do which I've really found helpful is I hand people off to my podcast and you know Anthony we recorded uh a couple months ago and I've got another great podcast with Dr Sean O'Mara and these are really good um intro and Dr Kilts as well their introduction and and they cover Carnival in a really in a deeper way so it's it's a it's a really useful tool to extend the value of the console um and help the patient really understand because they can just hear hear us talk and hear uh in a long form conversation and really backs up what I've kind of discussed briefly in in the in the Consulting room oh it's great um and so I was just going to ask you do you track their their lab results obviously you're gonna be looking at their HBO and see business with diabetes um you find this is something that's been coming up recently you know uh someone on Twitter was saying that they're actually surprising they promote an omnivorous sort of diet but they are you know quite interested and surprised that you know long-term carnivores like Michaela Peterson aren't really having any nutrient deficiencies I'm not having nutrient deficiencies a lot of other people aren't either is this something that you uh track with your patients and and what have you seen yeah so the the patients that I've uh that I'm treating have are basically starting their Carnival Journey so I haven't been a longitudinally following any long-term kind of voice um so so I I haven't seen any Frank deficiencies on people who have treated a long-term kind of rule myself and I I I guess I look at a range of markers and things as you mentioned insights into metabolic health and the way I I think about it is there's just simple simply like different Windows into the same room when we think of things like you know raise fasting blood glucose you know erase fasting insulin raised hbo1c um and then you've got other markers like your liver function like your alt and and you know your rate levels so the the way I think about it they're just different organ manifestations of the common underlying you know metabolic dysfunction process but it's interesting how and you know we can measure all these Labs but so often and it's simply just that waste measurement and calculating that waste to height ratio that I like to use um with it with a cut off being you know 0.5 for guys and 0.48 for women that I use um it's just amazing how reliable that simple measurement is and that is such a reliable marker of visceral fat that um you know if someone has a raised waste circumference I'm like on Race to height ratio I'm like well there's a problem and the test that the labs are just simply confirming what what we what we already know and and I talked to Sean O'Mara and and he basically ran a concierge medical uh Clinic process for you know heads of state and he said you know look I had every lab you know at my fingertips but essentially the most useful thing is is identifying visceral fat and he's using whole body MRI scanning to look at visceral fat at different parts of the body so around the heart obviously around around the abdomen and then looking at fatty infiltrate in the muscle which is called myosyntosis and just essentially identifying and showing the patient their visceral fat um is just such a powerful way of of identifying um you know their metabolic dysfunction and and then giving them something to kind of hang on to to measure their uh their um progress against yeah I was um you know that reminds me you're looking at that you know visceral fat and the and the myostatosis like intramuscular fat that that's something that the point that I've made you know when you when you're metabolically unhealthy it's the same thing that's going to be causing that as it's causing metabolic and health which is like you know carb sugar things like that it disrupts your metabolism it disrupts your um your your biochemistry and puts you in a different biochemical State and you start storing fat in different areas and this is why we give grains to cows and they get intramuscular fat and so why would we think that we're any different uh we're not I look at MRIs every damn day and I see this stuff I see this intramuscular fat you know when I'm looking at the spine you know I look you know we're seeing down uh you know the different sort of you know paraspinal muscles and different muscles you know in the abdomen and then you can see on these MRIs and you can see this you can see this fat in in the muscle and it fits their their body happiness and their and their lifestyle and so I make this point and then I think uh you know uh people like you know uh you know Lane Norton things like that like oh my God what is this Hogwart and it's called biochemistry Lane you know you might want to look into it it you know and um and that and that's the thing and then and that is what we are seeing as clinicians you know we are looking at this case he's not looking at scans he's never seen the patient he's he's not a medical practitioner and so all of his all of his entire field is purely theoretical and wrong and so you know when you look at these things in practice and you see actual patients in the in the real world settings you see this intramuscular fat you see this this deposition of fat in the muscles and that is that is a clear sign of of uh metabolic dysfunction and or health and also pain um there was a there was a conference in spinal surgery um that they were talking about that that intramuscular fat in the paraspinal muscles and things like that that correlate very strongly with back pain and and back pain that was not going to be fixed with surgery so you know I mean it actually is something that we see and it looks like you know you're seeing this as well yeah yeah and that that actually it was the stimulus for Dr shonamara to actually look at visceral fat because they were doing a case series or a very long cohort um analysis on people with lower back pain because it's so common in the US and what they've noticed after just looking after MRI after MRI after MRI is it the common denominator for the patients with symptomatic back pain was the presence of visceral fat so if you've got this this visceral fat that's pro-inflammatory that's leaching out these these poinflammatory cytokines um you know sensitizing the nerves all this kind of thing and you know that that's that's your answer into why these patients are having pain so you know the visceral fat is underlying this disease this disease process it's a common denominator and you know you can go into PubMed and you can type in you know kind of any disease basically and visceral fat and you will find that that's that's the common denominator you know polycystic ovary syndrome and visceral fat you know hypertension and visceral fat obviously diabetes and visceral fat um you know fatty liver and visceral fat it's all if if the presence of visceral fat is the you know in my opinion the the primary disease process that's driving this smoldering metabolic inflammation that is causing so much uh you know morbidity and and so much pain in in chronic and chronic disease in general one thing because I I follow Dr Sean O'Mara as well and I really like his stuff and I've sort of wondered whether it's the it sounds like the visceral fat is causing the issues rather than just being the result of or metabolic health and poor overall health is that kind of is that kind of the gist Max yeah look that that's how that's how I think about it and um you know if we're thinking about the contributors to visceral fat um you know processed food seed oils carbs and sugars you know alcohol and stress so cortisol constant stress and call it higher cortisol causes deposition of visceral fat um circadian disruption and you know that's the reason I'm wearing these glasses it's it's chronic exposure to to Blue Light um and disruption of the normal circadian rhythm will and poor sleep will cause deposition of visceral fat um and Omar is also Dr Mars also noticed uh chronic cardio exercises can can lead to visceral fat deposition so these are the processes that are that are I guess all contributing to the accumulation of visceral fat and yeah I think that's the the primary problem um and if we think biochemically and you know the the when there is stress of those adipocytes through you know exposure to uh the excessive you know linoleic acid breakdown products from um seed oils uh you know too much sugar carbohydrates that the the the stress in those adipocytes then kind of starts making them spill out pro-inflammatory factors which then um causes insulin resistance in the liver uh you know and then the process goes from there so yeah the the Crux of the issue and I guess the simple um uh the answer is that you know measure that way circumference uh if you if you don't have any resources and if you have you know the most resources get a full body or get an MRI and look at it but identify the visceral fat and then do something about it um I think that's the that's the main message um yeah um max Dr Shona Meyer is also like begin to Sprint into sprinting and resistance exercise and obviously sleep and stuff as well do you try and get that kind of whole message across or is it purely nutrition yeah so so that's a good question and and look I I try and approach this uh problem um as holistically as possible and I actually take it even a step further back from that and I use a dichotomy that uh Dr Lucy Burns is kind of uses which is the drivers of visceral fat and obesity physiology and psychology so and everything about visceral fat that we've talked about falls under the physiology category but almost equally important is the psychology side of things and I I kind of break that down I I and I talk to patients about this because you can ha you can understand um you know in your in your brain your higher in your cortex you can understand the concepts of insulin resistance you can understand all these um you know biochemical Pathways but if you have Behavior patterns entrenched habit Loops that are sabotaging or you know is a form of self-sabotage and kind of facilitating a food or sugar addiction then it doesn't matter how much how much uh you you understand that intellectually you're not going to make any progress from a health point of view so um as I mentioned it's like identifying what what kind of deep-seater trauma is in place you know what what what um are there Comfort eating is this in form of self-medication of anxiety and and when I kind of discuss those things um with with patients who are struggling to lose weight or um you know who who had even admitted that they that they use sugary Foods as a kind of crutch then I think um helping them on a concurrent journey of addressing the the psychological drivers and the physiological drivers uh is is the most effective approach um but or to your point about exercise and that's another another interesting point I I am of the opinion that we have to address uh the diet first um and often people are so um weighed down by brain fog and by just general fatigue of of being in this you know inflamed metabolic state that you know making them exercise or prescribing exercise before we've made Headway on these on this brain fog and this general feeling of tiredness is not really appropriate um and you know when you I'm sure you guys have seen you know driving on a Sunday morning you see overweight people flogging themselves in a CrossFit gym you know under fluorescent light it's it's 7 A.M on a Sunday morning you know sweating buckets and I just feel so bad for them because you know that is not the the correct order of operations in my mind um and so yeah it's it's all about allowing that initial healing phase in my opinion um to occur with a diet a light diet and our food diet and then one once they've got more energy recommending resistance training walking wherever the patient's at um I was just going to say quickly uh you know I agree with that and and I think that a lot of people especially now are in a state that that they really do need to address the diet side first and get into a point of Health that they can even safely exercise or have the energy to exercise some people you know are very unwell very sick and you know the weight can be a problem a part of that but there's there's generally more health issues going on as well and addressing the diet and addressing that and fixing that first and they get start feeling better their body starts working better they're going to get a lot more out of their exercise as well yes the the amount of effort that they put in they'll get a lot more return on their investment as as well I remember seeing something I think um Dr Peter attia was on maybe maybe it was huberman it was just sort of a Quick Clip and he said that uh that he thinks that that the main thing is is exercise he thinks it's most things exercise he's just saying hey if you can't do 10 pull-ups if you can't do 50 push-ups or whatever he said you know if you can't do certain exercises uh to a certain degree you know you need to focus on that first you don't want to like talk split hairs about you know the you know the the fine details about perfecting a carnivore diet or a keto diet or whatever diet you need to address that first and and I agree in the sense that you know if you've already got the diet down and then you're just you're just you know doing these fine little tweaks probably not you know the best um you know value for money right um and that you need to start working out so like you know us in our in our case here are we going to get the most bang for our buck saying well if you if you just tweak it just like this you know that's going to change it really you know the three of us need to go to the gym you know that's where we're at that's where we're gonna get you know more value for our money uh whereas someone else who's just coming to this and hasn't um you know lost the weight and uh or started to lose weight started to reverse their health issues they might not be in a position that they're ever going to be able to do 10 10 pull-ups you know maybe they need to lose 200 pounds first before they can start and start doing pull-ups as well and so I think that that you do have to get that order right and especially depending on where someone's coming from if they're quite unhealthy you really need to get that diet right first you need to get their health in order uh from that standpoint first and then then you maximize it with resistance training and so on yeah yeah and um look I think it also feeds into this kind of uh Collective societal trauma around food and eating and diet and uh I gave a talk recently at um at a restaurant here in New Albury um at the same time as Jake and I talked about the this idea of the dietary guidelines and how it's been you know since 1988 was the first edition of the Australian dietary guidelines and you can plot the proportion of adults in Australia who are overweight and obese and it was somewhere around 13 in the early 80s and you know it's now it's sitting you know well above 20 and and you can just see at each interval of the a new edition has been released you know there's no attenuation of that curve and that trend line up and to the right and you know as you and I Anthony and Simon would make the claim that in fact these guidelines have actually exacerbated the problem so you've had a a basically generation of people who have I think have a form of psychological trauma um because they've developed they've followed guidelines and I think people are um they often they're doing the right thing they're trying to do what they think is the right thing um yet they've put on all this weight um and they've been told to eat less and move more so to to kind of emphasize exercise as the first Port of Call for weight loss um and metabolic health is almost most in my mind really feeding into that you know victim blaming mindset of you know you're just lazy you know you need to just exercise some more so I completely disagree with that and um again we can talk about the biochemistry of say um patients with you know awaiting osteoarthritis wedding joint replacement we know that when when they resolve that metabolic dysfunction um and and that that fatty liver they get improvements in joint pain uh that are unrelated to Mechanical loading so so the liver stops making you know Matrix metal proteinases that are inflaming those articular surfaces um that's got nothing to do with actual weight loss and it's to do with the metabolic inflammation that's happening in the body and the hyperinsulinemia so um and once those patients have you know after a couple of weeks got that that initial phase of of uh improving in the metabolic function that then their joints hurt less and then they can start doing some exercise so um again it's it's all about the order of operations and I really think we have to look at diet like diet food diet um before we recommend exercise yeah and and yeah exactly and especially for people that are that are unwell you know this is just just someone who's just trying to like just improve their health and and do whatever um and is is in relatively good shape you know well then they can they can absolutely incorporate an exercise program along with dietary changes um you know I think I think what um Dr T was saying uh was that you know if you've been on on some like a carnivore diet for a while and you've been doing that for a while you know getting into the the sort of the last bits of fine-tuning it you know maybe you should maybe you should look at um you know at something that's more on Broken Ground that you should you should spend your time on and I've got a lot of respect for him as well I don't want to you know um uh you know people that think that I that I'm that I'm I'm bashing him because I'm not I'm just I'm just saying that that I think it's very important to make that distinction that it is unhealthy and someone has you know way to lose but metabolic issues to verse that that's really important because the first thing that that popped my mind when you said that was just like well I mean someone some people can't do a push-up a pull-up and they're not going to be able to until you know they they get their health in order and the diet is going to is going to facilitate that and the diet is going to get them into a point of Health that they're able to exercise that they're able to do push-ups and sit-ups and and pull-ups and things like that so I think that it depends on where you're starting from and if someone's quite unwell I think absolutely the diet and even even for someone who's in relatively good shape and lean I think I think diet is way more important getting that right than than just the exercise like I don't exercise all that often I love exercising I feel much better when I do it but I guess I just you know I don't always have the time and so but with my diet I'm always in shape I'm never out of shape I can get in better shape but I'm never out of shape I never go out of shape and I always feel great and depending on you know whatever you're doing you know if you're eating right you're going to get more out of it you're the exercise that you do the hard work that you put in is and and the and the benefit that you get out of it is a direct function of what's going in your body and so if you're putting in high octane crap or even a little bit of crap you know you're not going to be working prop quite right the body's not going to be able to respond in quite the same way you're not be able to work as hard not to be able to push yourself you're not gonna be able to recover as well and heal as well and build as well and so I think that I think that you I fully agree with you that you'd get the diet right first and then you start looking at other pastures but you know but at the same time if you're eating 97 meat and maybe you have a little bit here and there you know I think you can you can now start looking at at other things as well if you're healthy enough yeah no good that's a that's a very good point and um you know I I sometimes say to patients you know imagine if you had a Ferrari and you're pouring in you know cheap ethanol fuel into the tank um well yeah sure you might fill up a couple tanks and it won't make any difference but if you've done 10 years of putting ethanol in your you know V12 uh sports car engine you you're going to expect there's going to be wear and tear so um uh and I I don't know about exactly your audience um Anthony but uh it's very important to make that distinction and and if you're a patient if you're taking medications taking insulin high antio blood pressure medications if you're really in a different category to people who are just maybe a little bit overweight and wanting to lose a bit of weight and you know able to exercise have no pre-existing medical conditions so you know those are two different groups of people and and I'm really speaking uh to to the to the patients because those type of people um really should be seeing someone um especially if they want to try and come off medications um uh you know look and and he was here's a story on not too long ago I I had a patient and she has you know quite severe uh had quite severe heart failure um and you know started a carnival type diet uh themselves and uh you know and amazing results I mean in three weeks lost nine kilograms and symptoms of exertional uh breathlessness had was resolving uh fluid that had been retained for a very long time is coming off but um it's interesting how that this is such a powerful therapeutic tool but if you're a patient and you're unwell and you're medicated it really should be supervised because um we need to be helping you and guiding you through the process of of often de-prescribing uh these medications not not just doing it um by it kind of by itself yeah that's really important and that's that's something I try to stress to people that when you you need the the guidance of the doctor if you're if you're on different medications especially blood pressure blood sugar or medications because you you will be over medicated quite quickly which is good you know you're going to need less medications because your body's getting better on its own you don't need them but the problem is is that if you're still on them then it can be much too much you get you can potentially get low blood sugar which can be dangerous or life-threatening you can get low very low blood pressure can also be life-threatening and dangerous and just by some virtue of the fact you get up you get lightheaded you fall down you hit your head and you know you don't wake up again and uh you know it's and so it's very important to be cognizant of that and and to talk to your doctor ahead of time and just to say hey this is what I'm doing these are the results of people getting they expect that this will go in that way you know I may be needing to titrate my medications down let's work together on that and um and and hopefully you have a doctor that that's you know willing and able to do that and uh but yeah it's very very important we usually run into serious trouble when medications are involved yeah yeah so um very very strongly encourage everyone um and and look that's it that's another part of I think the uh what what we as doctors owe to our patients um you know we we owe it to our patients to be able to facilitate that process you know there's there's safe injecting rooms for people who choose to use um you know intravenous drugs so um people are going to make Lifestyle Changes whether or not it's been you know officially sanctioned from every kind of you know body body so if people are going to do it we we need as doctors need to be in a position to be able to help them and safely support them in whatever choice they make so um that's that's a I guess a a call to um you know any doctors listening to try and understand this process because um you know your patients need you as this um you know the the lifestyle um benefits have become so more and more well known that people are going to be doing these kind of things by themselves if if there's no one else to help them um sometimes you're muted sorry guys uh Max you got a very powerful message and you're already helping people what's kind of the next step for you like what where do you want to take this this practice and this message yes so I I think that the the message that I want to promote is why these I can or is there access to lifestyle advice to help people thrive and you know I really conceive of this or my my role in uh I've got a kind of stair type diagram so if your listeners can imagine three stairs and at the bottom of the stair you you've got a person who's dying they're in a possible bed they're dying you go up one stair and there there's someone who's merely surviving and I think that's the majority of people in today in the west and around the world is that they yeah they're going to their job you know they're getting things done but you know they're miserable they might be anxious or depressed they're overweight they've got metabolic dysfunction they've got visceral fat they might have irregular periods they might be suffering from infertility um you know polycystic ovary syndrome all the rest so that their men are age are um erectile dysfunction you know you name it that they're in that middle step which is merely merely surviving there's a third step and that is the top step which is thriving and that is what everyone capable of and that's you know having Boundless Energy waking up grateful and happy and joyful full of energy every morning having energy to uh look after yourself and I always say to patients you know you've got to put your oxygen mask on but first before you help anyone else when you are at that top level when you are thriving not you you are able to help everyone around you you are able to be a better partner a better um sign you know a better father a better um contributed to people in your community and and to get from those different steps what gets you from dying to surviving that's that's more than medicine and that's that's what we Anthony I I got taught at Medical School um but modern medicine can't get you from surviving to thriving to get to that TOP Step you need optimal diet and lifestyle so I guess my focus um is really um giving the idea or promoting the idea that um we need that that optimal diet and lifestyle to help our patients get um hopefully from either dying or merely surviving to living their most optimal self and you know there's so many facets to this but obviously the the low carbohydrate and animal-based diet is key because you know like like Anthony I believe that that's the most evolutionarily um appropriate diet um a key kind of Branch or facet to this whole idea is that what are the ethical obligations for someone who is recommending so such wide consumption of of animal foods and this is where my kind of link and my partnership with Jake Walker at the walkie Farm which is a regenerative Farm comes in because if I'm telling people you know look you should only be eating meat then or you that's an option for you then what what I I believe there is an obligation is that meat should be ethically raised in the most hot with the highest ethical standards so that there's a least amount of animal suffering um it should it should be the least impactful to the environment um and ideally if it can regenerate the environment then that that would be ideal so and that's where regenerative farming comes in and basically uh the process of of grazing the cattle in an intensively holistic way which involves regular Paddock moves um and allowing paddocks to regenerate and grow after you know over a period of months that that type of agricultural technique provides the most nutrient dense food because the animals are in their their native habitat eating their species appropriate diet so um that kind of holistic even you know bigger picture view is to to get optimal human health we need optimal Animal Health we need to be eating the healthiest animals and to be eating healthiest animals you need all the healthiest soil so to take my Approach all the way back to its fundamentals um regenerative farming is at the base at the base of that process and the more people we can promote and to to support regenerative farming the more land we can improve um in terms of soil quality microbial quality um uh and other kind of environmental indices the more animals we save from factory farming the more pigs we take out of these hideous um you know factory farms and these these poor chickens that are getting their beaks cut off um which people don't realize if they're buying you know Woolworths meat so um that's I guess the holistic picture and it's funny because the holistic human health requires Holistic Animal and ecosystem health so I guess that's the vision um to answer your question in a very long way uh Simon is that this is a this is a holistic Vision um and it and it goes Way Beyond just the just the GPU Clinic room awesome and that sort of ties into the question we were talking about just before we we went on which was you know what what sparked you to start the podcast in the first place yeah yes so that's um I've been following the low carb as I talked mentioned earlier I've been following local I've done under you know five six years and I um I thought there came a point where I realized that it wasn't okay anymore to just be a Amelia bystander um you know in that Spider-Man movie it was great you know great power comes great responsibility if I if I had it yeah if I had an understanding like a a biochemical and a physiological understanding of of how to help people after and having seen that with my my own experience I felt I had an obligation to really um speak and Advocate on behalf of of this approach if it meant helping patients avoid what I had to go through which was you know a couple of years of of unnecessarily Farmers uh pharmaceutical treatment of a condition that didn't even address its underlying causes um so I I see and I continue to see so much suffering um and unnecessary stuff offering which uh was was the kind of stimulus for me to yeah be a bit more vocal and and hopefully help people by giving them access to information and you know I I can see a patient for half an hour and I might see you know 18 patients a day but um you know Anthony 26 000 people have watched our interview so I mean how powerful is that it's and not to brag but simply to illustrate the power of social media and and and um you know these online platforms for helping people help themselves um so so that's and that's the Crux of it um I'm sure Anthony you'd agree is that you can't help anyone who does isn't ready themselves to be helped so I don't I don't push anything on anyone I I see myself as just um someone who's there to give a patient options and support them with whatever decision they want to choose and there will be people that for whatever reason their life circumstances then they're not yet ready to give away their their prescription for their diabetic medication and not yet ready to make big dietary changes that's fine I meet them where they are but for people who are willing and able they and and would do something about it then they deserve access to the information to help themselves so I guess that that's why I I've been more vocal lately about my about this approach oh that's good how how long have you podcast that oh I think we started in um December so it's been five months oh great yeah yeah yeah yeah that's awesome well you know I agree it's it's I think it is really important to get this stuff out there and to reach more people you know and even even in my my local community like when I you know just me living the way I do and and even the way I do talking to people you know they say like what's that about and I talk to them I have one-on-one conversations and you know especially especially doctors I could they're like that makes sense all of this stuff checks out and you know can you send me some of those resources absolutely and then you do and they go like okay and a lot of people buy into it and and change it themselves and then they that sort of branches out from there but it was when I I you know was doing more podcasts and just being interviewed on other people's podcast other people started seeing them and even you know even like the the consultants and things like that in my department started seeing my podcast uh before I started my podcast and they were like hey you know I saw a podcast you were on I'm like really like why why would you do that today and you know but they were interested about it and they you would ask me more about it and and um same thing it'd be like yeah you know it makes sense like what you're saying makes sense and um and so you go on like that but it wasn't until I started my own podcast that that really started to get even bigger and bigger and then people in Earth in particular start it started I mean I've had I've had doctors that you know I've interacted with uh but have never spoken about my diet and choices uh with all of a sudden they'll just come up to me and just start talking to me and just deep in it's like yeah yeah so you know I saw that guy that was on your you know uh you know like uh they were talking about like um you know I got from Mason survival uh who does like really slow like exercise in his backyard and and just just lifting weights in his in his backyard and um and uh it's like oh yeah I really like that you know I mean once a day I'm doing this he's like talking to me like we've had a thousand conversations about this and I've never spoken to him about this in my life and uh and it's really interesting because you know they've obviously seen you know my podcast they've seen my things and that's influenced them to change their lives and um which is which is great you know and so it's it's something that you can reach a lot more with yeah and you can't under you can't underestimate the the positive effects that that you can have and even helping you know one person the patient will come in but often if they're in a family the people in the family are making the same dietary changes so it's it's incredible and and really encouraging to see the Rippling effect of a positive or positive Lifestyle Changes um on on the whole families and then communities so I think you know to to not to sound too idealistic but uh you know this is how the world changes one person at a time and as that one person changes then the family can change then the family changes are Community changes and then it's the town then it's the city the country and then you know it it ripples out concentrically but it starts with the individual you know the Jordan Peterson um I'm just like you know what what can I do to change the world what can I do to all these sorts of things like clean your room you know start at the beginning you know like well how do I get my life in order you clean your room how do I change the world you clean your room you start there you clean your room you do that then you start saying okay I clean my room that's done what else can I fix what else can I can I do in my life if you get your life in order you're going to have you're going to be that first person you're going to be that Ripple or that that Pebble that starts the Ripple in the leg and that's something that can grow but it has to start with you and you can't just say like well my life is so I'm gonna go over here and try to you know uh change other people's lives well that's not how it's gonna work personally my life is because the world is so I have to go figure no no you can fix things in your own life that's really the only thing you have control over but once you do that then you start infecting other people and this is the idea in America of this decentralizing everything just having things in just your own the individual first and then going into the smaller communities and you deciding and fixing your own life and living your own life taking care of your own life and then making communities together of of like-minded individuals and and being able to self-govern and say okay well this is these are the rules that we want to play by that we're happy with and it just goes out from there and out from there and out from there and you know you had 150 years of that model in America and that was the that was the the largest and fastest growth and prosperity at the bottom level that the world has ever seen no no other Society has ever grown in prosperity um or the lowest level up than than in that period of 150 years uh before you know the more like you know the you know Woodrow Wilson came in and and you know the fed and and uh the um all the different changes that FDR made so you know it was it was very very good for people starting off as the individual taking care of your life taking control of your life and then working out from there and so it you know absolutely makes a massive difference uh on yourself but also in your community in the World At Large yeah yeah and you look you don't even have to have you know Brandy altruistic plans to um kind of take this kind of message on board because even if if your your uh altruism only goes as far as your family and you know how can you help someone if you're yourself sick I mean you can't um you're not you're not of use to to anyone if you're you you haven't as Anthony said cleaned your own room so you know clean up your own clean up your own diet first and then you're going to have enough energy power and um strength to kind of help help the people around you and on the topic of of that what you just mentioned decentralization I think that is essentially what what I I believe is is the solution in and and what we're doing or what we're encouraging is a decentralization of the sourcing of our food and it's we're going from a model where people are have been historically sourcing their meat from feedlot Factory farmed Pork Factory farmed chicken caged eggs with all the poor uh Animal Welfare or they've sourced it from a massively centralized cropped crop mono cropped Farm that's using all manner of industrial uh herbicides petrochemical derived fertilizers fungicides and that's all very centralized and what what we're seeing Works in terms of helping People's Health is a decentralized approach where you've got hubs like in your regenerative Farms like the Milwaukee Farm um you know there's a there's a farm tool poppy Farm down in Mount Macedon in Melbourne these are like little hubs and each of them are growing their own version of the most nutrient-dense food and when we interact with them directly as consumers um and support them directly we're kind of we're cutting out all those big centralized plates that have through you know centralizing of the their uh supply chain made everyone sick or supplied the food that is made around metabolically on well so by really um changing the scale of our consumption as consumers that's I think a critical part and as you say Anthony it's that decentralized aspect to it I think is is key yeah yeah and even just you know taking control of where your food comes from you can always you can always find a bulky Farm where you can find someone who's doing something in a way that you want and you can you can go direct to the source you know and you know someone you're in the business you know that that um you know that that a that it matters where you're coming from but also there are options you know that people can you know you know go to go to you and get you know this this meat that you Source go to directly to a farmer it's more difficult in in Australia in America you can just you just call a farmer call a Rancher and just say hey I want a cow you know okay fine you negotiate a price and you get it and um and but that that's really important for a supporting supporting those those local businesses but also they get more money from from you buying direct from them and you get it for much less money as well as long as you're buying a bulk obviously you have to buy the whole thing um and and that that helps everyone and that that keeps those supply lines running because right now there's some weird weird war on uh on on meat and in general and people just they just want to shut that down you know there have been dozens of fires of uh you know meat processing plants in America just last year over a thousand uh chicken uh ranches and egg farms and things like that burned down just last year in America over a thousand how could that be coincidence how can those all have been accidents you know they're not I mean someone someone is due doing something deliberately um for who I don't know who it is I don't know why they're doing it I don't know what the motivations are but something's happening and people are doing this and it is it is damaging the food supply and it's making things more expensive whereas if you just support your local farmer Rancher or whatever that's going to be better for the environment it's going to be better for the animals it's going to be better for you and it's going to keep those supply lines open because once those are gone you're in trouble and like when if I mean any War anyone everyone knows it's all about supplies all about supply lines your supply lines get cut you're in trouble you're you're going to lose you're going to have to run away and people are going to die so um you know just like with that interview I had with Maggie uh the ranch rep in Canada I mean she was saying she's like ranchers are going out of business ranchers are getting put out of business because it's just not it's not profitable to raise cattle anymore there's a big beef and all these sorts of things there's no such thing these people are barely making ends meet and a lot of the times they're they're not and they're and they're and they're having to switch to something else and they're using their land rather selling their land because very valuable now uh or they're they're turning to cash crops like you know corn and wheat because they get paid for that they actually they get a much higher uh uh payback for that and so you know we can we can turn everybody's hearts and minds and say hey meat is really the way to go but if those supplies are cut and those supply lines aren't there there's not gonna be anything for them to buy and to eat yeah yeah that's such a good point and um uh earlier in the year I actually spoke at a an event called the Australian beef initiative um again which was hosted down here in Albury at the walkie farm and it's basically a movement um with a bunch of people there's a guy called Texas Slim from the US from Texas and she's yeah yeah he's uh he's spearheading a movement to really promote that Grassroots sourcing of beef and really promoting people um trading directly with a farmer for Roger and meat as a way of of feeding into what you've what Anthony's just talked about which is food security food sovereignty food transparency so knowing knowing that your cow hasn't been you know injected with all manner of synthetic uh hormonal agents so it's a really uh really great kind of Grassroots movement I've got some uh some interviews on my Channel with um with Texas slim so um it's it's a it's a really interesting way that there's a kind of spontaneous uh decentralized movement that seems to be generating in response to to the events that you've talked about Anthony just then about um things like uh covert shutdowns of avatars these massive abattoirs and processing plants because they're simply just their point of failure um and they're centralized and their points of failure so you know if we can reduce that level of centralization and go back to a really uh Grassroots kind of movement then peop everyone wins the final wins they make more money they're able to keep their Farm the cow wins because it's it's it's finally treated ethically and it's able to to live in its appropriate environment and you win because you're getting food that you know where it's come from and you know it's the most uh nutrient dense so I mean that those are all the kind of positive uh externalities of of this approach and look at so many people can be sitting behind their computer or just you know commenting on YouTube like how about next weekend I mean here's a suggestion instead of sitting down and you know watching your phone and actually look up a regenerative farm and go and meet go ask them to meet them and and go to that farm um have a look around there's so these people are so willing and and lovely and welcoming they'll want to show you around so go and talk to the farmer and make it make a day out of it meet your farmer um buy some um beef off them and um it's a great way to be involved and it's actually something you can do rather than just you know talking about or uh you know typing online about Max I think you got it figured out big time so just keep going and and keep talking about it um how do people find you how do people get more from you yes so um if you just type in so I have a podcast a regenerative Health podcast and yeah talking to uh regenerative Farmers lifestyle doctors um you know cutting it Cutting Edge Health optimization people just just everything in the the uh Israel regarding holistic health um also an interest in fertility in helping couples kind of optimize their fertility before trying to to conceive because I mean that's another whole issue that we haven't even talked about which is declining sperm counts and and reproductive problems so um yeah the regenerative Health podcast is on Apple uh podcast Spotify Google podcasts and I'm on Twitter at uh M gulhane MD and I'm on Instagram at Dr underscore Max underscore cool hey and then I'm Consulting here in Albury at uh in general practice at the Gardens Medical Group and you can ring up and if you want to uh see me or get consulted you I can do Telehealth for anyone in Australia there won't be a Medicare rebate um or else you can come and see me in person so um yeah those are the the main channels that I'm active through at the moment very cool love it yeah well thanks a lot man it was uh good to see you again and a pleasure to have you on and and great to hear your thoughts on everything yeah thanks Anthony thanks and Simon I really appreciate the opportunity to speak to your audience um yeah thanks a lot of pleasure thanks for joining Matt