Shownotes
In this informative episode, health coach Mike Vera, emphasizes collaborative critical thinking for sustainable behavior change. He discusses the importance of questioning authority, tackling censorship, and encouraging individual responsibility in information consumption.
Learn all about Creating Time Wealth
Discover more at Red Pill Health & Wellness
Find all of Mike Vera's links!
Dedicated to providing the tools & resources need for coaches & entrepreneurs to share their message in a strategic way in the world. You can find the tools & resources you need to succeed online at https://stan.store/StrategicOnlineProfit Your purchases support this podcast.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp
Transcripts
Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we have with us Mike Vera. He is a board certified health coach and also a host of Healthy and Awake Podcast. His mission is more healthy and awake.
::World Place for us to all live.
::Welcome to the show, Mike. It's really great to have you here.
::Thanks, Jill. This is going to be fun.
::I think so. So
::What got you started in?
::All of this, it's kind of.
::Health coaching is not like something.
::I thought about being when I was growing up, did you?
::No, definitely not. And it's still a new and emerging thing and I guess on that note, one of the biggest challenges I do face is trying to help people understand exactly what health coaching is.
::Is and that's a whole conversation. But what really got me started? As weird as this sounds is at 13 years old, George Carlin really woke me up the stand up, comedian George Carlin told me Challenge authority question everything. Be skeptical. And as a 13 year old kid, I was not hearing these things before.
::All I was hearing actually was the opposite. Listen to authority. Do your homework. Go to your room. It's all you know, authoritative instructions. So that really was like when my consciousness shifted on. I feel like in a big way. And so that moment, some might call it a red pill moment, a waking moment.
::That never went away. And really in in my mission with Red Pill health and Wellness, to make the world a healthier, more awake place.
::It all really does come back to that.
::That waking up moment with George Carlin, so that's.
::What I'm here to do?
::I actually got to see George Carlin in concert once. It was a really small venue in San Diego, CA back.
::Wow, that's amazing.
::In the 80s.
::Wow, I'm jealous.
::It was amazing. We were sitting outside, it was outside. Even the ocean was over on the side. It was. It was an experience and I'll never forget.
::It and he was.
::Oh, I bet.
::An incredible he.
::Being way before his time, just the things that he put out there, the freeing of our vocabulary.
::You know, was back in the day when they were still censoring stuff. I don't know if you're old enough to remember the.
::Smothers brothers that.
::Ohh you should look them up amazing group couple of men but they they're funny as all get out but they were always pressing.
::I'll write them down, yeah.
::The what do you call them? The people that.
::Correct the propaganda people.
::Sensors come up with the word.
::They're always pressing the sensors.
::I wasn't sure if.
::You were referring to like. What is it, the FTC or something?
::Like that that that does the.
::Yeah, they I think they do the censorship.
::Well, it was. It was actually the studios in the 70s, the 60s and 70s, that.
::OK.
::For regulating what kind of content could be put out there and.
::I saw.
::I saw one of them on the smother or on the Johnny Carson show and he was bombed.
::Obviously drunk that was back in the day and I didn't watch that much TV when I was growing up because we lived overseas and I didn't have a television in my own home. It was when I was babysitting somebody else. I saw that show. But.
::Anyway, back to health coaching.
::Now that we've detoured off into the censorship realm, which is?
::Kind of like.
::It's kind of relevant to what we're talking about in terms of what you're doing. So what, what is your goal? What's your mission? How do you, how do you frame?
::That for people.
::Yeah, it really is to make the world a healthier, more awake place. And you know, so we can address health.
::1st As a health coach, I help people change their habits and behaviors and it's very conversational, right? So I like to call it collaborative critical thinking. We use that word a lot when I post and in my videos and my podcast collaborative critical thinking. Because the reality is most people know what they should do.
::For their health, most people know they should maybe be moving around, then they already are. They should maybe not be eating that junk food at midnight, flipping through their phone, they know they should eat. Maybe some more real food and less processed.
::Most people know these things, but it's a matter of not only implementing them, but making them stick. Like really sustaining those behaviors because health is this ongoing process. And so health coach is really a, I guess you could say a partner along that process and through collaborative critical thinking we determine.
::You know what's worked for you in the past? What have you tried in the past that didn't work? And where did you go wrong? What could we do differently this time? What's your routine like now? And how can we fit in small changes over time? So a lot of different things to think about.
::Now in terms of awake, that is, there's a lot more to that because there's several, just like there's several layers to help. There's several layers to being awake. I had my first waking up moment with George Carlin at 13 years old, and it's not like I stopped waking up to things like every day. I still wake up to things that I didn't know before.
::And really, we focus on.
::Propaganda influence institutional corruption. When the governments telling us to look away, we look even closer when they say trust the science trust. The experts don't question us. We especially look even closer. So that's a big part of what it means to be healthy and awake. It's not just the exercise and the eating, right. But it's really being skeptical and.
::And being a critical thinker.
::Yeah. And that's really important. Probably now more than any other time that I can remember in history it.
::I'm old, so I remember a lot of things that went on when people were just trusting the government. They really thought that the government had our best interest at heart and it has never been true.
::Sorry to burst anybody's bubble out there, but they really are in it for the money and the power and.
::Personal gain at everybody else's expense. They don't really care about us, we're just like.
::We're slaves to their system. There's just no other way to put it. They work us, they want our money.
::There's a lot of evidence for that, too. People don't like to hear that and believe me, I put a lot of stuff out there very similar.
::To what you're.
::Like, be skeptical of the government. Like, look at some of the atrocities they've committed. Look, you know just.
::Look at what's there, and there are some people, for whatever reason, who adamantly defend the government or adamantly dismiss any potential claims that they could have done anything malicious there. They many people just refuse to believe it, which is fine, you know, I.
::I personally as well as us at red pill health and Wellness, we respect differing opinions and we're not judging anybody. We come from a place of compassion. But I think these are conversations worth having because I mean some of this stuff is just undeniable. I mean, top of my head Tuskegee incident is 1.
::Egregious example of some pretty horrific acts on behalf of the government and people act like OHH that could never happen again today.
::Look at the past.
::Few years, you know.
::So I'll leave it there.
::Yeah, there's a lot of bigger scale.
::But there is good parts to that because when you do something so egregious.
::And you try to.
::Do it on a global.
::Scale it. It makes a larger number of people aware of what's happening.
::And it.
::You can reach a tipping point and it doesn't take that many people to hit the tipping.
::Can wait and then you get people like you and I out there going. Hey, your health is really important to you.
::Pay attention to what people are doing out there that is impacting your health, because there's policies that are made that impact things that do impact your health.
::And if you're not aware of those things, you know 5G is a good example. It's great. It's really fast Internet, but it has repercussions to your health and some people are really sensitive to it and aren't even aware that it's causing them health problems.
::Right.
::You're the air that you breathe. You know the policies that are made around pollution.
::Directly impact your, your health and the health of your loved ones and the water supply. I mean, all of these things are public policy things that directly impact how we live in the quality of our lives.
::And to be fair, there have been some things that have been done, especially in the 70s that really have sort of shifted the way things were going.
::And those were policy changes. You know, the whole cleanup.
::Clean up the planet and clean up the water supply. Thing was huge and they did make good some good inroads on that.
::Yeah. Yeah. Climate change is an interesting one because that's another area where people feel very strongly about the beliefs that they already hold. And you know, I get it. There's a lot of propaganda out there on that and not to go on another tangent. But, you know, when I say propaganda, I just mean the propagation of information in a coordinated.
::Passion to shape the minds and behaviors of a population. So that doesn't mean it's a bad thing, right? The World Health Organization, they engage in propaganda.
::If for public health right, they want to shape the minds of people about how they think about health. So with something like what you're talking about with climate change, undeniably there is propaganda there. And just today I posted something about climate change geoengineering. This is basically well documented.
::Government efforts, not only in the US but across the world.
::To use several different tactics to manipulate the weather.
::Military experimentation has been done on this front. There is something called stratospheric aerosol injection. I can go on and on. This is very real.
::I love the way you put that.
::And only people that are kind of awake well understand you're talking about. And I'm not going to say it.
::Right.
::Well, you know, people hear this talk and I realize it sounds super crazy to go. The government is manipulating the weather. It sounds nuts.
::But there's so much evidence, and you have to wonder, why is it so quickly dismissed when there is so much evidence? So forget the United States. Most people you know. If I show them an article saying China is manipulating the weather, they won't have it. They'll go oh, OK that you know, that's real. They're manipulating the weather. But the second here in the US that you go like, oh, it's the United States government doing it too. They go. No, that's not possible.
::It's they're just spraying water into the air and maybe you're right. Yeah, maybe you're right. But why are you? Why are you so pushing back against me? Asking questions about our government that has been known to lie in the past.
::Feeding the.
::Clouds. That's what they used to say.
::Just other I just don't get why people refuse to even think about it.
::It's interesting.
::I think it takes people out.
::Of their comfort zone. It's uncomfortable.
::To have to shift.
::Your mindset about how reality is being shaped.
::I believe we create our own realities by the things that we think about and believe.
::In in some ways, believing that you're living in a world where the government's going to take care of you relieves you of the responsibility for.
::Shaping your own reality and creating a world that is a better place for everyone, not just you, it's.
::Kind of a.
::Childlike mentality to not want to take responsibility for your own well-being.
::I agree not, and if it's not that at the very least it's intellectual laziness. It's like I have the ability to think about these things, but I'd rather just outsource my thinking because when I did post this and again.
::This was today.
::The gist of the responses.
::That I got pushing back.
::Came down to basically trust the science and trust the experts, you know, trust the authorities on this, which is no different than what we've heard for the past few years. So it is this. And I'm sorry. I don't mean to be insulting by saying this, but it is a type of intellectual laziness to go. I've already been told what to think about this.
::I trust what they're saying and I'm just going to roll with that. I don't care what new evidence appears and what else I might have to think about. The authority figures are telling me this is what I should trust, and therefore I trust it. That is the antithesis of thinking that is not at all critical thinking. That is outsourcing your thinking, saying they've already thought about this.
::Therefore, I can relax and just take their word for it. That is everything we're against at red.
::Pill health and Wellness.
::To further that, it's assigning.
::An intellectual component to the people that you're believing that may or may not be there when someone stands up and says XY and Z.
::And my mother used to say, just because you say it loud or doesn't make it, it doesn't make it true anymore. True. And.
::These people that stand up and tell you things and I can think of a few of them.
::I won't go down that road.
::You're not talking like World Economic Forum type institutions, are you?
::No, I'm talking about just individuals that stand up in front of large audiences and make exclamations about things as though they were the be all and end all of the authority on that particular topic and what they say is demonstrably wrong, that the population.
::Believes them because they're wearing a white coat or because they have some letters behind their names, which may or may not be actually.
::Even real, I mean, we're lied to so much that, you know, if you're not questioning who these people are that are telling you information.
::It's on you if you're duped because.
::You know they.
::They all have a history and if you follow their history and some of these people have a pretty nefarious history and there.
::Are some well respected people who have had, you know, not so complimentary things to say about them?
::It's it doesn't.
::Do the public.
::Any service?
::Yeah. And will you hit the nail on the head saying that somebody wearing a white coat and presenting themselves in a certain way can really make it easier for people to follow the advice that that person's giving, this is a cognitive bias known as the appeal to authority.
::To just accept.
::So if I were here today and I had a white coat on and a stethoscope around my neck and doctor before my name and I were.
::To say some.
::Things you know that you see those types of clips go viral, with doctors saying things that we know aren't true and maybe getting some of the details a little wrong because people see that and it it's a mental shortcut where they go. Oh, look at this white coat.
::That the scope wearing doctor.
::I can take their word for it and I'm just going to accept this information, but a real key to health that nobody talks about is the information we consume is very much like the food we consume.
::We don't want to.
::Eat dirty food with pesticides on it that are genetically modified and who knows what way similarly?
::We want to be very careful about the information that we consume, because if we're letting our guard down and we're just taking in info because some guy in a white coat.
::Said it. You know what? If he takes his white coat off and says ha-ha, I got you. I fooled you. I was just an actor playing a role.
::You know, we need to be more skeptical of these sorts of things so that we can actually make decisions that are in our best interest instead of in the best interest of whatever propagandist is out there, you know, putting out manipulative information.
::And there's almost always a financial component behind these people. And if you look at who's funding them, it's a good clue as to what.
::The validity of what they're saying. My mother had another saying. My mom had a lot of good sayings. Drive me crazy, but she had a lot of good.
::Sayings and one of them was quote your source.
::It went along with just because you say it.
::Loud or doesn't make it true.
::Yeah, definitely.
::There was a little woman, but she was deadly in an argument. You need to look at the source that they're quoting.
::You need to investigate the base documents that people are making claims about for yourself. You know the information is available. We live in the Internet age and everything is available on the Internet, which is kind of A2 edged sword because not everything that is available if you're.
::If you're looking at somebody who's synthesizing the information for you.
::That's where you get into trouble, but if you can look at the source documents yourself, and they're often not real easy to read on purpose. But if you take your time and you look through it, you can.
::You can come to your own conclusion.
::And then after you've come to your own conclusion, or gathered at least some ideas about what's happening, then go and look at other people's ideas of synthesis out there.
::And then.
::See what feels like it's true for you.
::And you know.
::What's true for you doesn't have to necessarily be.
::True for the next person.
::That's why freedom of choice.
::Beautifully said yeah, because.
::You know, one thing that happens a lot, especially with articles that have inflammatory headlines, really eye-catching headlines. If somebody agrees with it already.
::Then you get confirmation bias where you know sometimes they just see the headline. They don't even read the article and they go oh, here's another article confirming what I already believe. Let me just keep going on about my day and just accept this information. And again, that's another example of not only confirmation bias, but intellectual laziness. So just like you said, after we read something, we should contend with it a little bit.
::Right, we should.
::Reading something is not the same as thinking about.
::It if I'm.
::Reading an article, I'm kind of just consuming that food, consuming that information that's not exactly thinking, so I still need to go.
::OK, well, let's challenge this a little bit, especially if I agree with it, especially if I agree with it, because what's the harm in in, you know, using that critical thinking to go well, hey, I agree with this now. But let's engage in some critical thinking and pretend that I don't agree with this. Let me see what that feels like. Let.
::Me. Explore that a little bit.
::What would somebody say who disagrees with this? Even though I love hearing this, what would they say if they were very against it? And that's really how we find new ideas and that's how we shed off.
::Old ideas that were wrong because we can't claim to have all the right ideas in our.
::Head all of us.
::Are wrong about something, but many people out there just carry themselves through life as if they've got it all figured out. And that gets people into trouble.
::It does. It does, and being willing to change if.
::If you get new information, being able to change your mind, it's that's a hard one for a lot of people. They don't want to hear information because it might require them.
::To make a different decision.
::Yeah. And you know to actually shift that into health.
::I see that sort of thing all the time in health, where I'll meet with somebody and they maybe they've had trouble with some kind of goal like losing weight. And so we worked together for a few weeks and I've seen this multiple times where through conversation they'll have some kind of epiphany and a common one.
::Is oh.
::I've been my biggest obstacle. I've been the one holding myself back and this is new information for them to take in. Sometimes they really have to pause and process this new information because.
::Some people like to say, oh, you know, it's my circumstances, it's my job. It's the.
::Kid or the?
::The kids, it's the family, it, it's all these different things are preventing me from working on.
::On my health.
::It's like, well, didn't you tell me you were watching TV for a few hours, multiple days out of the week before? Like, you have some time to spend it. You're just, you know, finding all these areas.
::To blame in instead.
::Of the reality of the situation and I do say it differently than that in the coaching session, but that's the gist of it. And that leads to that epiphany moment where it's like, oh, I am making these decisions. I'm responsible for my decisions. I'm the one choosing to not do these healthy things that I want to do and that can be.
::A little disorienting.
::And sometimes just having to change.
::Which does change who you are, because once you start changing things you become a different person and in in making those changes.
::Your life changes and then things around you change, it says.
::It can be difficult.
::For people to, especially because I think somewhere in.
::Our heads, we realize that.
::Any decision, big decision we make is also going to come with ramifications, consequences of that decision, good and bad.
::Yeah, it is difficult.
::But we do have mechanisms that influence our decisions. And here's a perfect example.
::How many times have any of us gone into target and said I want to buy just?
::Two things.
::And then we leave and we bought.
::10 things or more.
::Well, so OK, what happened there previously? We said this is how we want to behave. This is who I am. I'm the guy that doesn't buy more than two things.
::Today, that's who I am right now and that identity that we formed, that decision that we made beforehand.
::Changed. You know, just a few minutes later. By the time we're leaving target, what happened there? Well, our decisions are susceptible to influenced by our environment. So the music, the positioning, the colouring, the packaging, the all these different factors really shaped the way that we thought and it really moved the dial on the decisions that we made.
::So I say this because.
::Other people.
::Business executives in suits know how to motivate us to do the things they want us to do. So why do so many of us have trouble motivating ourselves to do the things?
::We want to do.
::I think a big part of it comes from a lack of awareness of understanding these mechanisms and when we don't understand how we can have our buttons pushed and how we can have our strings pulled, we leave ourselves vulnerable to the influence of others to those corporate executives who just want you to empty your wallet. So you buy all of these things that you don't really.
::Need when really. If we understood it, we can.
::Say alright, how can?
::I construct my own environment to have such a powerful effect. I'd be crushing it. I would have that book written that I want to write. I would have that business that I wanna build. I would lose that weight that I want to lose. It really comes down to understanding what makes us tick.
::When you're talking about that, I was thinking about our local Walmart. Walmart drives me crazy, but.
::I used to like to shop there because I knew where everything was and I'm not one of those kind of people that likes to go.
::And wander through stores.
::I have a.
::List I want to get what's on my list and I.
::Want to?
::Get out of there and so.
::They decided.
::For whatever reason, but I think it has to do with what you were just saying to remodel the whole store.
::This is a place I've gone to.
::For 15 years.
::When I tell you I knew where everything was that I wanted to buy, I knew where everything was that I wanted to buy, so they shifted everything. The dog food used to be in one section. It's completely on the other end of the store.
::You should have.
::Seen people as they're remodeling this place, you know, every third person you ran into there is like, where did they put?
::This stuff because.
::We're all in the same situation. I live in this small community.
::You know, people that have been shopping at the store have been shopping there since it was put up probably and we're all confused.
::But it's been a few months since they did that, and still.
::It's hard to find the things that you want to do or you want to find, so I don't shop there anymore.
::Yeah, that's a.
::This isn't disruption. So you previously you had your own routine which basically prevented you from making on the spot decisions. That is kryptonite to a corporate executive who wants you to spend more money. So they do pattern disruption by changing the environment which forces you to change your routine.
::I don't mind friendly, yeah.
::Which leads you vulnerable and susceptible to making decisions on the.
::Spot which makes.
::It easier to buy things that you don't need.
::And honestly, this is the same sort of approach that it takes to quit something like smoking or excessive drinking. If you have a routine, you have your ways that you're set in your ways. All these environmental triggers that tell you how to respond because you've just been conditioned from being in that same spot for so long. If you did do some pattern disruption, change your environment.
::It would have a big effect on cutting down on smoking or quitting drinking or whatever habit or behavior it is that that you're trying to change.
::And finding other things that you can substitute instead.
::I find helps a lot.
::I've recently embraced sobriety. It's been like four months now. It's not.
::It's kind of a big deal, but it hasn't been difficult because I did use pattern disruption, but I also use substitution when I'm doing stuff like that and I've developed an affinity for tea. I've decided that I'm a person who likes.
::Varietal tease. And I'm a snob about.
::These are just like stories I tell myself, so I buy, you know, really cool teas and I have, like, cool tea cups for different types.
::Of tea so.
::Like I have.
::This one that.
::I use at night when I go to bed and I drink chamomile.
::Tea at night and water and I used.
::To drink wine at night.
::And you know, I can't tell you how much better I sleep at night. I just decided, and it was a decision on my part. I don't like the way wine tastes. I don't like how I feel on hard liquor and beer gives me out. So.
::Why am I drinking?
::Just those little shifts in in, in my consciousness.
::Have allowed me to be able to.
::Embrace sobriety. I it's not even like I had to quit drinking. I didn't drink really all that much. And then I had an amazing encounter with a hawk. The day that I decided to embrace sobriety. So I've got this other story. That's super cool that I've attached to it.
::I've got.
::All these things that are just like.
::It's kind of cool to.
::It is cool.
::To be somebody that.
::Looking for alcohol all the time.
::It's empowering. Yeah. So you.
::See, it's really empowering.
::You recognized a change that you wanted to make in your life and you implemented protocols to make it happen.
::You said hey, you.
::Know I'm gonna do some pattern disruption, change my environment, and I'm also gonna drink some tea and. And you know, tea. There's a lot of different kinds of tea and tea can it's, you know, a lot of it's caffeinated can.
::Make you feel good.
::Can be productive antioxidants and all kinds of healthy stuff in there. So good for you for making that move.
::Yeah. Yeah, it's really it.
::I am happy with the results that I'm.
::Receiving from it, but it's. It's also a great example of what we're talking about here, where you can make decisions and really having coaches like you that understand how to implement these kinds of changes into your life to actually make.
::Long lasting.
::Changes in the outcome of how your life is going health wise.
::It's.
::Super helpful and I have had a lot of people granted. I've just interviewed them on my podcast, but getting to talk to people that are coaches around this sort of thing.
::And being in the in the community with other coaches, they actually helped me come up with some of these ideas for making this an easy process.
::Me. It has not been difficult and I know there are people that struggle with alcoholism and it is really difficult for them to stop. It's like people that are really struggling with their weight and you know, some of that is your head, it's in your head.
::Yeah, some of it. Definitely. I. You know, there's a lot of complexities to whatever.
::Individual experience someone is having and that's one of the beauty, the beautiful things about.
::Health coaching is.
::There are no cookie cutter approaches in in. What I do is somebody might come to me with they want to lose weight and somebody might want to.
::Quit smoking or.
::Alcohol and even amongst those sorts of goals.
::Different people might want to approach them differently and move at a different rate and all these sorts of things. So health coaching is really the missing piece.
::To the currently broken medical model, where doctors will look at you and will hopefully look at you, really look at the computer quite a bit, but they'll say, hey, you know, you have all these problems. Part of this is lifestyle related. You need to exercise more, fix your diet, that sort of thing. You know, a lot of people have heard that and in in the American.
::Medical system. But then they kind.
::Of just leave you.
::To figure it out on your own.
::And health coaching has kind of emerged because it's an effort to bridge that gap that a big part of the intention behind it is to say, all right, well, the nurse preps you to see the doctor, the doctor sees you to diagnose and figure out what's wrong. And now the health coaches.
::After the doctor and they say, alright, well, this is what the doctor said. Let's talk about.
::How we can make this?
::Happen. So that's kind of the.
::Quote UN quote perfect picture version of.
::It but.
::I go even further. I don't want to be part of a broken system. I'm not trying to fix a system that all these institutions and authority figures have said, hey, we're here to look out for you and your health. Meanwhile, health is declining more than ever, where people are more infertile than ever. People have more chronic disease than ever. People are dying at a faster rate, and they're dying at younger ages.
::How can anyone trust these people? So we're trying.
::To be part of a separate system.
::My experience is that you go to the doctor and he says I don't know what's wrong with.
::You here take this at home.
::Make the symptom not so severe.
::Or go do these tests that are, you know, thousands of dollars, and then they still won't.
::Know what's wrong with you?
::You may as well just go find a health coach and let them know what you got going on. Yeah, you're probably going to have to go to the medical community for the tests because they're really good at testing, but they're not really good at figuring out what to do with that information. Whereas really health coaches are trained to take that.
::Information and.
::And work with you in a way that can actually affect change in your life and show you how to make these changes in a way that's not painful and doesn't require you to take some chemical that is going to alter something else in your body. Because every time you take something in.
::Your body has to process it. It's not like it. It's not like waving a magic wand over you. You are art. You are artificially changing the way your body functions by adding these chemicals to your body.
::Yeah. You know, doctors are really good at doing what they're trained to do. I just don't believe that they're trained in the full story and they don't really focus on everything that we should be focusing on. Now, if I am in a car accident and I'm severely injured, you bet that I want to go see a doctor. I want to go to the ER.
::And I want to get modern medicine. Modern medical attention. That's what I want. But when we talk about chronic lifestyle disease, there are no mechanisms in place to really address these without going.
::What you have?
::Is essentially thought of by us as a pharmaceutical deficiency disorder. So let's give you a pill and take it from there. And we think there's more to the story than that.
::They're really good at critical care.
::There is, there is nowhere better than the United States when it comes to critical care, but as far as.
::Actually fixing.
::Your health.
::You might look at the Food and Drug Administration just to begin with. It's food and drugs and they started out as a Department of Chemistry.
::So pharmaceuticals and food are both regulated under the same umbrella.
::And I think it's about a third of all pharmaceuticals approved.
::By the FDA.
::Are eventually retracted from the market, and a perfect example of that is the.
::That thalidomide catastrophe where this drug was given to pregnant women, there's a lot of evidence suggesting that doctors and at least the pharmaceutical companies, knew that there were harms associated with this drug, and it caused the damage that we still see today in people who have malformations.
::Of their limbs as a result of the mother taking this drug while she was.
::There are countless examples of that the pharmaceutical companies, you know, I understand I hear a lot from people who say, hey, I need my pharmaceuticals, they help me with my health. I couldn't get through the day without it. I I'm not against that. I I'm happy you found help. But that doesn't take away from the fact that many of these giant pharmaceutical companies have committed horrible atrocities and have gotten away with it.
::I think both can be true. You can get help from your pharmaceuticals but.
::The companies pushing it are.
::Often bad.
::They're not designed to be on long term either. They're supposed to be stop gaps and the medical community doesn't follow up with people and people don't really understand that, you know, you're not just put on a chemical and then suddenly it's going to be fine. You have to keep going back and need those tests to make sure you're doing it right. And if you're not doing it right.
::Your body is. You're damaging your body more because you're not paying attention to the thing that you're taking and.
::Is it expensive? Yeah. Could you just go find a health coach and maybe fix the actual problem instead of just?
::Like going on.
::With the situation that.
::That you're suffering from. I think that's a better, better result. And I say that. And my mom was killed by the medical community. She believed that the doctors knew what they were talking about. She had psoriasis and lupus and.
::She was taking these.
::These horrific drugs that eventually.
::They eventually killed her because she just she wouldn't address her diet when she came down with, with the psoriasis. It was. It's really bad. I mean, it's like her whole body.
::And I have my ideas about where that started, but I won't share them there.
::But instead of changing her diet and I sent her juicer was like the first thing I did was send her.
::A juicer and.
::This was like 20 years ago, maybe 30 now and.
::She wouldn't do.
::It she's.
::Just like, no, I'm just going to take whatever the doctor says to take.
::And she suffered for, like, 20 years.
::Yeah. Yeah, the pharmaceuticals, the way they're presented. Make it easy to not focus on other areas of our life that maybe should be addressed first. Like you said, maybe our diet. But if our doctor's telling us, hey, look, the studies show that this drug solves your problem.
::Well, it makes it easier for me to go. Oh, well, my solution is right here in a bottle. Like, I don't need to change my diet. This is what the guy in the white coat told me.
::When there is just, there's so much to that conversation. I mean the pharmaceutical model really leaves out and this is going to be kind of technically heavy, but it leaves out the sequence of physiological events. So there's a natural like, let's say, with something like testosterone, because this is.
::Kind of away from diet and weight loss and that sort of thing. So let's say with testosterone now you see a lot of guys.
::Who are more than willing to inject themselves with this pharmaceutical version of testosterone?
::And on paper, according to the studies, it solves the problem that they're trying to solve. They go, hey, I want more testosterone. That's my problem. Maybe even it's low.
::So on paper, when subjects are given this testosterone.
::They have more of it. There you go. This is clear cut problem solution, but that is irrespective of the natural sequence of physiological events. So what is it? Naturally in the body that leads for me that that leads me to have naturally high testosterone. Why aren't we asking those questions? Because when you go out in the sun and your eyes see natural sunlight.
::That starts this hormonal process.
::That's that in part leads to natural testosterone, you.
::Have the.
::Food that in many cases are taking a hit on testosterone, you have microplastics that are taking a hit on testosterone, so there's all these questions that in the pharmaceutical model are completely unanswered. So really, a lot of these guys were taking this.
::Frugal could probably benefit from changing their lifestyle from eliminating sources of plastic from eliminating foods high in soy from eliminating all these variables that have just been taking a hit at a hit after hit on their testosterone. But people don't like to think about it like that because it's just so easy to inject. I'm good to go.
::It's really a broken system.
::And when you're injecting it, you're still not it. It actually makes the problem worse because a you haven't changed the thing that caused the problem to begin with. So the problem is going to continue to get worse because you haven't fixed the.
::Hole in the.
::Damn. And two, your body. It's actually gonna.
::Accelerate the damage. Because your body's thesis.
::Who think that it needs to produce more.
::So it's kind of.
::The balance is just not there when you start adding things like people that take melatonin all the time.
::Melatonin. Yeah, it might help you get to sleep the first night.
::But it has decreasing returns.
::And it also messes with your ability to make it yourself. Your body says, Oh well, they're just going to bring it in. I don't have to worry about that. I'll go focus on.
::Something else. So you.
::It it's the same sort of situation and it you know, you can buy melatonin over the counter.
::It's exactly the same situation, just like someone with high blood pressure. You know, a lot of those people don't want to address their food, just like people with low testosterone, they don't want to address those factors. They just rather take the injection, just like people have sleep issues and they need to take melatonin. They don't.
::Want to talk about?
::Using their phone at midnight, you know.
::A lot of people talk about blue light and the lights that are emitted from screens like the computer, the phone, the TV. It seems so easy to dismiss because it's just light. You know, there's light bulbs everywhere. Who cares? But what that's really doing it's kind of like a supplement of the sun. It's artificial sunlight.
::And what does that mean? Well, if you're blasting your eyes with artificial sunlight before bed, you're sending the signal to the body. It's daytime, so of course your body's not going to get to sleep. Of course you're going to be hungry because the body thinks it's daytime and you need to eat so you have energy for the day. So you have those midnight munchies. You're wired.
::You know the TV, the phone, the computer. None of that is helping, but a lot of people would rather take the easy solution, pop a few.
::Melatonins and go to bed. But that's short circuiting your natural mechanisms. You're setting yourself up for failure, and even worse, you're setting yourself up, setting yourself up for dependency on these type of chemicals instead of living in any kind of natural pattern or routine that.
::Circadian rhythm fuels a lot of this, but that's a whole other tangent.
::Yeah, so true. So do.
::You work mainly with your clients, one-on-one. Do you do groups?
::How does that all that look?
::Yeah, mostly right now it's one-on-one this year I have some projects I'm working on to maybe do some group coaching. I have some programs coming out to cover all the health bases. So there's a time management one, there's an exercise. One, there's a general health one that talks about.
::Basically all the different health topics that are left out of the conversation, mainstream health conversation. So that will kind of allow me to help more people more quickly. But as far as coaching goes, it's all one-on-one.
::Awesome. And are you kind of the opinion that weight loss is just when people gain weight to me?
::Let me rephrase this.
::Having excess weight is a symptom. It is not a thing in itself.
::And if you fix the other things.
::That are going on in.
::Your body, the weight will come off.
::Yeah, yeah, that that's definitely true there. There's an interesting thing that's happening now in the culture where obesity is celebrated. There's a fat positivity movement.
::You know obesity.
::Is a clinical term. It it's not healthy.
::There's no way.
::You can use your propaganda to convince me that obesity is healthy. It is simply not. The evidence is very clear that it's associated with a whole lot of associated health issues. That's undeniable. But there are a lot of things that.
::You know, I can give people the benefit of the doubt because.
::The environment is very sick. It really is. So you go into a grocery store, all the options. Most of the options are garbage. So.
::You know the.
::People are dangling these low hanging fruits in our environment that do make it easier to make bad decisions. I lived in Philly.
::When I went to, I mean for first half of my life, but when I was going to school in Philly, I was in Olney. It's the serious ghetto and the biggest grocery store in the area.
::Is called bottom dollar. Now top dollar is a term meaning like the best like. If I want the best it's top dollar. This grocery store is called bottom dollar. Every single thing in there was packaged, processed. There wasn't a healthy food in this grocery store. So there is such thing as food deserts. A lot of people don't have good options and it is unfortunate.
::And even further.
::This other aspect of health that I touched on circadian rhythm is never talked about because as long as people are not getting regular sunlight and they continue to get artificial light every single night, they're getting blasted with blue light from their screens. Their body is never going to get the sense of the natural day.
::At night rhythm, especially if they're wearing sunglasses. This sounds nuts, but sunglasses basically.
::Tell the body that you're living in a dark cave because you're never getting exposure to those.
::Sun rays. So this total.
::Distortion of circadian rhythm. The body physiologically is confused.
::And that there is a lot of real evidence showing that this disruption in circadian rhythm leads to things like diabetes and obesity because our hormones are totally out of whack. So yes, there are a lot of people who could take some responsibility and accountability and make better decisions to exercise and eat healthier foods. That is true.
::But it is also true that in many ways they are set up for failure, so it's very complex.
::Yeah, it is. And there are a lot of especially on the lower end of the scale when you're talking about people that work in factories, they're set up to like, make your life difficult.
::And to mess with your circadian rhythm, I know a lot of the.
::Factories around here they.
::They switch people off between day and night.
::Shifts because they want more money and they want to keep their factories moving and.
::So you've got people that.
::Their bodies are getting messed up because they're switching and so their body.
::Doesn't really know what.
::What it should be doing at any given time?
::Really unhealthy.
::Well said.
::How can people get a hold of you?
::So I have a show called healthy and Awake podcast. That's the best place to hear.
::The things that I have to say.
::If you wanna work with me, my website is red pill healthandwellness.com, which I realize is a lot to type in. So if you go to mikevera.com, that's V as in Victor ERA, Mike vera.com takes you to basically my link tree page with all the buttons on there.
::Awesome. And then be sure to put those in the show notes. So Mike, what's the one thing you want to leave the audience with today? What do you hope they take away from this conversation?
::Be skeptical and critical. Think it might be tempting to listen to the people in the white coats or the authority figures, or the well established institutions. It can be very tempting to listen to them and I'm not saying distrust them and become a crazy paranoid maniac, but having a sense of skepticism.
::Is healthy. It does prevent us from making decisions that might not be in our best interest. So stay healthy, stay awake, and stay skeptical.
::Thank you so much for joining me today. This has been really informative.
::Thank you, Jill. This was great.
