Become Your Own Hero by Listening to Your Body

In this podcast Dr. Rodney and Karen share a fun experience they had while in Colorado. You will so identify with pushing through to new heights in order to create powerful memories and focus on your purpose.

The best advice in this area is to push yourself while doing what is uncomfortable within limits. The good news is that your body will respond appropriately. 

This is the same principle we discussed regarding exercise.
Link to podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1875417/episodes/13185641

Here are a few of the areas that you can focus on when listening to your body:

• Heart rate when exercising 
• Level of breathlessness
• Belly fat
• BraIn fog
• Response to stimulants - caffeine/alcohol
• Energy level throughout the day
• Digestive issues
• Sleep issues

Keep in mind that you can always improve also in the following areas:

1. Diet and supplementation
2. Dehydration
3. Movement
4. Stretching
5. Chiropractic.

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Transcript

[00:00] Dr. Rodney: Welcome to Stance for Health. This is Karen Sebastian Wirth, aka the Hope lady. Your longevity coach. And I am here with Dr. Rodney, and we are so excited. We just got back from Colorado, and we had the best time. It was a beautiful experience.

[00:17] Karen: It was the best time. Beautiful is the operative word for sure.

[00:21] Dr. Rodney: It was kind of a spontaneous decision to go. It had to do, I think, more with the weather forecast here in Dallas area. That was going to be in the hundreds over the 4 July. So we decided that we would take a trip up to one of our favorite places to South Fork. We discovered a new adventure up there. We had been cross country skiing and wanted to go to the places where we had done that and the trails of that.

[00:48] Karen: Yeah. And mission accomplished.

[00:50] Dr. Rodney: It was. We went past one of those places and we found a really big challenge. You want to tell us about it, Dr. Reddy?

[01:00] Karen: It's a big challenge because it's such full of know. We as people are oftentimes in the scriptures we're referred to as either wood or trees. Right. Oaks of righteousness. I see. Yeah. I see people walking as trees. Well, here we go. And we're surrounded by all these trees in the Rio Grande National Forest National.

[01:26] Dr. Rodney: Yeah.

[01:26] Karen: And we're driving by that place that you talked about, and we got out and looked at it, and it said one third of a mile up this ridge and up this trail, and you'll get to see the biggest of those trees in this forest that doesn't even seem to belong here.

[01:43] Dr. Rodney: Right. Because it's the only one that's that big. Yeah, big enough around that it would be am I exaggerating? Three to four people.

[01:51] Karen: Easily three people, yeah. And so that's on the way up and on the way down was full of metaphors.

[01:59] Dr. Rodney: So it was at about 10,000ft, right?

[02:04] Karen: Somewhere between, I would say yeah, 9000ft.

[02:08] Dr. Rodney: So we started. It was great because we do high intensity interval training and I knew when to stop.

[02:17] Karen: Well, don't forget breath work, too. How much of a difference that makes.

[02:20] Dr. Rodney: Oh, yes. The last summer, we went to our daughter's wedding, and I was very breathless. I've been telling my husband, who is Dr. Rodney, by the way, most of you already know that I didn't want to take the time to do breathwork. But after that trip to Colorado where I felt so breathless at 8000ft, I decided I want to start doing breath work to build up that capacity. The beautiful thing is continued to stop, would start again as soon as my heart rate went down. Went back on up and just kept going. He was incredibly patient. I don't think your heart rate went quite as high as mine that quickly.

[02:58] Karen: What's so interesting about that question is that we're going to discuss here kind of a spoiler alert. We're going to talk about listening to your body. For me, I can tell that my heart rate is racing, but I can't always tell that my heart rate is racing based on how breathless I am.

[03:15] Dr. Rodney: Right. And I was not breathless, but I could feel the heart rate.

[03:20] Karen: Yes.

[03:20] Dr. Rodney: Kind of like I always take it adhere in my neck, and I could start to feel it. And sure enough, every time that we stopped and I measured it, it was 140. My goal is not to go over.

[03:32] Karen: 150, and it's a little bit off topic, but still on topic is, okay. So the question might come to your mind is you kind of might wrestle with this idea, well, I'm 45, I'm not 65, or I'm whatever age group.

[03:49] Dr. Rodney: I am number that we qualify ourselves with. Yes.

[03:53] Karen: So check your recommended max heart rate before accomplishing anything we're going to talk about or attempting any type of exercise program, because you don't want to exceed threshold for more than three sets in the early going. And we've been doing this for years.

[04:12] Dr. Rodney: Seven years.

[04:13] Karen: Yeah. So that might be part of the breathlessness versus heart rate question. So anyway, that's just the qualifier.

[04:21] Dr. Rodney: What I loved about this experience, Dr. Anne, was that I didn't disqualify myself, and it was the first to hike up. It wasn't an established trail, I will give it that. And it was just a beautiful experience. It was though tiring, and there was the mental side of it, because I got to what I perceived should be the top, and there was a felt log that I was able to sit on. And I just said, you know what? I can't go one more step. Would you just go come back and show me a picture?

[05:00] Karen: And that's the irony of it, is that as soon as she said that, I went on. I was like, okay, well, she's done. I'm just going to go do it, because she's in no danger. I haven't seen any wolf sign or bear sign. And was the deer on the way up or the way down?

[05:18] Dr. Rodney: Way up.

[05:19] Karen: We did see deer, and that was less than 20 yards away. But I thought, she's going to be safe, she'll be okay, and it's not that far. I'll take some pictures and come back down. I'll be done in ten minutes. Well, as soon as I turned a corner around the band, I'm within a stone's throw of Karen, and I see the tree.

[05:45] Dr. Rodney: Exactly.

[05:46] Karen: And the fenced in area. That was where it was. So I said, Come on, you can do this. You can come just a little bit further. And it wasn't that hard. And sure enough, you know the rest of the story.

[05:58] Dr. Rodney: She made it, I made it. And it was a beautiful experience. And then Dr. Rodney says, well, why don't we do a breath hold up here? And I'm like, sure. And so I was able to hold my breath for four minutes up there at that.

[06:13] Karen: And that's the thing, is that keep in mind, too, is that even if we started out at, say, 9000ft, I'd say we ascended at least another 200 to 500ft. Wouldn't you easily go on a third of a mile?

[06:27] Dr. Rodney: Yeah. So what we want to talk about with that basis of that story is the fact that most of us go like we talked in the last couple of podcasts. We'll either go to the extreme or not doing enough. And that's a word that keeps popping up all the time with our research, is hormesis. Can you explain that a little bit better? It's a fancy word.

[06:53] Karen: Hormesis is something that actually the medical profession came up with to describe pharmacology or pharmacy or drugs. And they figure that there's a couple of things in play when you take a chemical. And one is that it stimulates and then you take too much of it and it starts to reach a point of diminishing return or it inhibits the body's normal functions, which if you do too much of it, then it'll kill you. Right. Even if your body which means your body hasn't had a chance to develop tolerance to it. Well, you can apply that. What we've discovered is you can apply that to any substance or activity. Not enough exercise. In other words, sedentary lifestyle. If you do it for a week, it takes four weeks to recover from it. Which means sedentary lifestyle is deadly.

[07:42] Dr. Rodney: Yes. In fact, they're calling a term we heard a few years ago that sitting is the new cigarette.

[07:49] Karen: Which is funny, because the minute you inhale smoke, what is your body's natural tendency? Cough. And yet people smoke enough that they develop their respiratory system stops coughing because it's inundated with that substance. And so then the body figures, well, here's junk. What's a little more junk? So all of these things with hormesis are meant to encourage you. And the metaphors are here so that you can grab hold of something and be encouraged because there's plenty of encouragement here. Yes. So keep listening. This is not about, oh, I'm not exercising at such and such a level. So I'm dead. No, I'm not saying that. We'll get into more detail here in a minute.

[08:44] Dr. Rodney: Think that clarifies it a lot because we want to stay in a level. How about defining hormesis as balance?

[08:53] Karen: I love it. Yeah. So what we really want is for everyone to experience their sweet spot based on their perceived highest level of performance versus their lowest level of activity.

[09:07] Dr. Rodney: Oh, I love that.

[09:08] Karen: We want to find a sweet spot.

[09:10] Dr. Rodney: Yes.

[09:10] Karen: And so that'll mean, like, how much protein do I need? How many carbs do I need or can I tolerate before something starts happening where I feel either irritated or agitated or start to put on pounds, particularly belly fat.

[09:27] Dr. Rodney: Because as people get older, that's where the fat tends to accumulate. And so that is very near and dear to my heart because of the fat zapper. We've talked about that sometimes that targets that specific area.

[09:40] Karen: So in other words, I think to add on to what you're saying is we're not saying that any of these substance that we're about to mention are bad in and of themselves, it's just how much of it you consume.

[09:54] Dr. Rodney: Listen to your body. Notice when this begins to happen.

[09:57] Karen: We believe that there are good carbs and not so good carbs.

[10:01] Dr. Rodney: Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And we had been eating basically keto in the beginning as an anti inflammatory way of eating, and Dr. Rodney was losing too much. We were listening to his body by the weight, but he was dropping and so we've added in some starch resistant carbs, which has really been good. What about brain fog? How does this play into that topic?

[10:33] Karen: I would like to reference the blood brain barrier and gut blood barrier podcast. So we'll have a link for the podcast that describes the gut blood barrier and the blood brain barrier and how brain fog or gut health reflects how you might be thinking at a given time.

[10:59] Dr. Rodney: Many people do not connect that. How does the vagus nerve affect that also? How is that a connection?

[11:06] Karen: That's great because when you consider how many there's twelve cranial nerves and they're all then associated with the head. This one, however, exits the skull on its own, the cranium, hence cranial nerve, and goes all the way down further than any other cranial nerve, at least that we've discovered anyway. Cranial that's cranial nerve ten and it goes all the way it affects clear down to the anus. And so we believe that there's three branches of that, and the third branch obviously is social, but the first two thirds of it have to do with fight or flight or in this case, rest and digest. So you're actually affecting the gut, you're then neurologically affecting the brain too by negative input or fight or flight information versus rest and digest. Take it easy, we're okay, we're not in threat, we're safe mode. Also known as parasympathetic.

[12:11] Dr. Rodney: Yeah, that made me think of you said that we saw a deer on the way up to the tree and it was like so close. I was looking at it eye to eye and I was talking to it like I do to my grandkids, and I'm like, oh, you're so precious, you're beautiful. Can I take a picture? And then when I reached for my camera, it ran away, but it didn't feel threatened until the camera came out. What if that'll preach.

[12:36] Karen: Yeah, but getting a little camera shy. But getting back to the vagus nerve, I said the blood brain barrier and the gut blood barrier, meaning that what they both have in common is that they are a single cell and they both are affected by bacteria and they're therefore affected by our white blood cells and inflammation. And if you have inflammation in your gut by virtue of the bloodstream, you're going to have inflammation in your brain. So that just opens up. I think what we'll want to do is make that a second reference. I'm sorry, that's part of the first reference to the link. Gut blood barrier and blood brain barrier.

[13:26] Dr. Rodney: That is so incredible because most people do not connect that those good buddies in the gut are so significant to the brain and how you feel with that. And I think that that's something to really keep in mind how you respond to stimulants like caffeine or alcohol. Listen to your body.

[13:54] Karen: Most of us, yeah, most of us, unless we've developed a tolerance for either of those two substances, can really I mean, I, I drink coffee, we drink coffee every day, but I don't drink coffee, I don't drink alcohol every day. And one is I just don't like to be that relaxed every day of the week. I'd really rather only be relaxed maybe one or two days a week like that and celebrate shabbat. That's the ideal. But our bodies have like a built in hormesis for either of those two substances. And I think that as a reference, some of us can tolerate more caffeine than others or coffee than the others. But 70 milligrams is about most people's.

[14:45] Dr. Rodney: Limits and that brings up the sleep issues because you said you feel more relaxed and yet if you drink too much, it can affect your sleep and people don't realize that.

[14:57] Karen: Absolutely.

[14:57] Dr. Rodney: So if that's your reason for doing it like say or having more later that night, you're going to have issues with that.

[15:06] Karen: Yeah, that's a great point because for the same reason you don't want to drink caffeine past a certain time. You don't want to drink alcohol past a certain time.

[15:15] Dr. Rodney: Wow.

[15:16] Karen: Yeah.

[15:17] Dr. Rodney: Another thing to keep track of is your energy level throughout your day and evening because there is a certain circadian rhythm, they call it, that has to do once again back to the sleep cycle. But if you are continually, perpetually tired, get to the root of it.

[15:39] Karen: Yeah. And most of us, one of the first things that come to mind of the chemicals in that scenario that you mentioned is the cortisol adrenal axis, or the axis between the adrenals and the thyroid or the thyroid toxicity overstimulation with liver toxicity and all of those play a role with each other. So if your liver is really toxic and you're encountering a lot of toxins, then it's good strong likelihood that your adrenals are going to be exhausted as well as your thyroid overstimulated.

[16:16] Dr. Rodney: And the research or exhausted on adrenal fatigue, especially in women, is very high. And that is something that we've also already done a podcast on and I think you will find interesting. We've already mentioned the digestive issues, but it's like talk a little bit about how the digestion is kind of like another brain. How is that?

[16:43] Karen: Great question because consider neurons and the body's. What is basically a neuron but a cell that either discharges receives information and sends information or holds some kind of information in it almost like binary, like it's on or off. And that combination or that series of things in neurons allows for you to hold on to, let's say, memories. But is that a construct of the heart where PerkinsI fibers live? And we don't exactly know what those 50 to 60,000 Perkinsey fibers do, but there's also a neuronal component or neuronal component in the gut. And so there's this part of us that has memories that you will encounter, like gut related memories through the vagus.

[17:41] Dr. Rodney: Nerve I feel in my gut. This is a good decision and a.

[17:44] Karen: Lot of us will say, I feel it in my gut. And you are literally having a memory of what's safe or unsafe and your vagus nerve is transmitting that information socially. Like this is a good social thing or this is a negative social thing or this is a safe thing or an unsafe thing with a part of the brain that says that that is suitable or unsuitable for human consumption, right?

[18:11] Dr. Rodney: Or to take that decision or something is telling me this isn't the right thing to do and we need to learn to listen to that sense. Oftentimes it can be with a relationship where something doesn't feel quite right, talk ourselves out of it.

[18:31] Karen: So the part of the brain, if you're wondering, well, what part of the brain is that checked with? Sometimes it's the amygdala and sometimes it's the hippocampus. Sometimes it's the whole limbic system involved. It becomes fascinating. And even though you don't understand everything we're saying today, necessarily just realize that some of this truth will be revealed to you over time. Just have fun with it and hold on because we're going to keep going with these podcasts and you're going to discover some of the answers to your questions about some of these lifelong health issues, perhaps.

[19:08] Dr. Rodney: We so love sharing this with you because this is what I like to call a rejuvenation lifestyle. And it began for us well, it began for me when I met Dr. Rodney and we started doing the high intensity interval training right off the bat. I'd go over there before he'd head off to his other chiropractic job that he had and then he had a cancerous care. We began to eat in a way that was so different than what we had done before, but we feel so good about it. And we do intermittent fasting. I take a nap every day. We make most of our meals at home. We have a profound sense of rest. Once a week we sleep well. We do cold exposure. We do breath work. It's been amazing. And if that list sounded overwhelming to you, don't be overwhelmed we didn't start them all at once, but we created habits. And those habits grew into what we call non negotiables. So it doesn't matter whose house you're eating at or what event you're at and the food is being served. You pick what is on your healthy list to eat. You don't offend people. But this is a life choice we have made, and I am so happy we have made it.

[20:45] Karen: So when we looked at how far up this tree was one third of a mile. One third of a mile. That didn't sound that far.

[20:54] Dr. Rodney: It did to me.

[20:56] Karen: It did not.

[20:58] Dr. Rodney: I was like, I'm going to hike up that mountain one third of a mile. How am I going to do this? One step at a time.

[21:07] Karen: Or in this case, one interval at a time.

[21:10] Dr. Rodney: Yes.

[21:10] Karen: Because there were really 1012 intervals, and thankfully, you'd already prepared for that for years in advance.

[21:17] Dr. Rodney: Yes.

[21:18] Karen: So proud of you for doing that.

[21:20] Dr. Rodney: And then came down and it was truly a beautiful experience and it was memorable, and so we were so grateful we got to do that. So thank you for joining us today.

[21:33] Karen: And everything we do here, remember, is so that we can empower you to take your stance for Health thank you for joining us at Stance for Health podcast, where getting healthy and staying that way are not as complicated as you might think. Subscribe now and discover steps and small changes that can increase your energy and open the door to vibrant health and longevity. If this podcast has been helpful, please write a review. We'll see you next time. Bye.