The Gut-Brain Connection

Philip Pape 0:01

you've tried every diet out there , maybe track your macros , you still feel powerless against those irresistible food cravings . What if I told you that the key to conquering these cravings isn't more willpower , but understanding a hidden brain in your gut ? Today we're diving into the fascinating world of the gut brain connection . My guest will share how this second brain in your gut could be secretly controlling your food choices and what you can do about it . From the impact of gut bacteria on your cravings to your mood and even physical performance . We're going to geek out today on a new way to think about your body . Get ready to discover the power of your gut-brain axis and how it could transform the way you look at your health .

Philip Pape 0:42

Welcome to Wits and Weights , the podcast that blends evidence and engineering to help you build smart , efficient systems to achieve your dream physique . I'm your host , philip Pape , and today I invited on Dr William Farrow , founder and CEO of Better Health , a leading health and wellness company focused on gut health and personalized nutrition . He's also the host of the Quacks and Hypochondriacs podcast . Dr Farrow has observed firsthand the limitations of conventional healthcare and has since championed a holistic approach to well-being , putting gut health at the center of his methodology . Today we're discussing the surprising links between your gut and other aspects of your health , why personalized nutrition is so powerful and how understanding your unique gut-brain connection might be the missing piece to your health and fitness .

Philip Pape 1:43

Dr Ferro , welcome to the show .

Philip Pape 1:48

Thanks for having me . I'm really excited to be here . Appreciate the offer . So , doc , what is this second hidden brain in our gut that we've heard about , and what kind of superpower does it have ?

Dr. William Ferro 1:54

yeah . So we spend , you know , most of our time studying the 10 trillion human cells of the body . Give or take a few trillion . We focus on the dna , the human , and yet there's 300 trillion natural bacteria some people call it the microbiome that are living on your skin , living into your cheeks .

Dr. William Ferro 2:12

I call it cheek-to-cheek nutrition because a lot of people think that the digestive system , your stomach , is an internal organ . It's actually an external organ . Its whole job is to only let good things in and keep bad things out . And that gut microbiome , that bacteria , is something that over the last 20 years people kind of scoffed at like could that really be a thing ? And that's just because we didn't have the scientific instruments to look at it very well . So it has exploded onto the scene and now study after study is just showing that everything from 99% of your genetic expression so for those of you who think that I'm doomed with my genes , I have bad genes , I'll never lose weight 99% of how those genes are expressed have to do with your gut , and that's just one specific area of how it keeps you healthy .

Philip Pape 2:56

So a couple of interesting things you mentioned . There is how it's on the inside but it's still on the outside , kind of this barrier , this tube , if you will cheek to cheek , and with tons and tons and tons of bacteria , the genetic expression part of it . How much control do we have over that ? Because I think of genetics but I also think of epigenetics and what percentage of the impact genetics has versus the things that we do . What are your thoughts on that ?

Dr. William Ferro 3:20

Yeah . So epigenetics is the right term here , and the studies are showing , you know , put a percentage on it 90% , 99% , whatever you want to say . A good percentage has to do . The expression of those genes being turned off or acting a certain way has to do with how healthy your gut is , which makes sense , because how healthy your gut is also makes how healthy your diversity of the food that you're eating . It also is how healthy your external environment is . How much exposure do you have to chemicals and pollution in the body ? So it's more important about the world and the environment you're living in .

Dr. William Ferro 3:56

This shouldn't be called Ayurvedic medicine , excuse me . Ayurveda . The practice is about how you're reacting to your environment or your environment's acting upon you , and that's the same thing . When it comes to genetic expression , epigenetics is way more powerful and you have so much control over it and it's not a journey . I think people think well , how am I going to do this ? Within minutes and seconds of feeding your body and nourishing your body , you're already changing that expression and that's how fast your body works to try to get back to homeostasis .

Philip Pape 4:25

Yeah , and that's a good way to put it right . The body is always adapting to the stimulus you give it , and it can be very quick . We see that in strength training . You know people who haven't trained for years and then all of a sudden they start training and within a week they're just much stronger and feeling differently , and it's amazing . Before we get into more of that , I am curious when it comes to talking about the gut as a brain . It's kind of the connection I wanted to explore here . There's a term called the enteric nervous system right , a bunch of nerve cells in there . I actually am not too familiar with this concept and I'm not sure the listener is , so can you explain that for us ?

Dr. William Ferro 4:58

Yeah , so full disclosure . I'm a gut health enthusiast more than biological expert . I just have watched it work wonders within my own practice . So maybe I'll give you a little background . I'll go into that .

Dr. William Ferro 5:10

I was a chiropractor . I had 30 chiropractic offices and gyms . I was watching people struggle . We added in physical therapy , massage , medical doctors , we had every modality known to man working inside these clinics , inside these big gyms , including personal trainers . And then I was young in my world thinking I can out-science the body . So I started doing breath tests , saliva tests , poop tests , you name it . And as I thought I was getting closer to the truth , it just took me further away until I started realizing we keep blaming the plant and not looking at the soil , and that's what got me down the road of digestive health . So I know just enough to be dangerous , but I do things like .

Dr. William Ferro 5:49

One of our medical doctors is from Duke University . You know Paul Wishmeyer . You'll hear him on our podcast . He knows every study that has ever transpired . He can trace every molecule in the body down to the enteric nervous system . So what I will just say is that the gut brain , or the cheek-to-cheek nutrition I'm talking about every step of the way , relies on good gut bacteria and that's where the gut bacteria is actually creating a lot of these neurotransmitters which you just mentioned , a lot of the hormones within our body , and they're communicating back and forth . We think that your brain is just controlling your body , but actually they're starting to realize that more of it's coming from the gut . Now there's a direct line connection from the vagus nerve , so there is a nerve connection , but if you really looked at it pound for pound , there's more neurologic activity actually coming from the gut brain , from the rest of the body , than the other way around . So that's why they're calling it the second brain and some people are saying it might even be the first brain .

Philip Pape 6:47

Yeah , that's really fascinating . So it's bidirectional . Not only is it bidirectional , you're saying , maybe this second brain is more predominant in our outcomes . So maybe we could break down what does that mean for how our gut health then influences ? We know it influences digestion , but our mood right , Our cognitive function , the things that we normally associate with our brain , even our performance and things like that how does that work ?

Dr. William Ferro 7:13

Well , I think it does go this way up , because your brain can't eat an apple , right ? Sure , even if I didn't think about it , if someone forced me to eat an apple , I'm going to get the benefit of that apple . And so this is what's so important to me . Number one if you're listening , it's not your fault . If you take nothing away from this podcast , it is not your fault . I just watched another Instagram post yesterday of some beefy character telling people you just got to work out , you loser , you're a piece of crap , you're lazy , you're unmotivated and I'm like , okay , great .

Dr. William Ferro 7:47

So here's a baby being born in the last 20 years , exposed to over 256 chemicals before it takes its first breath . 200 are cancer causing . Then it comes out , most likely C-section , because C-sections have risen . It doesn't get past the mom's good bacteria . So one of the best gifts your mom's ever going to give you is that first culture of bacteria to propagate this ecosystem , this soil , this cheek-to-cheek nutrition . So a lot of people are devoid of that .

Dr. William Ferro 8:14

And then what do we do ? We give antibiotics immediately . So we do everything we can to kill off that microbiome . The studies show one round of antibiotics can throw up your gut for up to a year dysbiosis , and so this already you start , not at the starting line behind . Then you get into the world of okay , well , the drinking water . Now , if you can Google this , is the rainwater safe for human consumption . Nope , there's forever chemicals , and not just in cities . Every part of the planet you find forever chemicals PFAS you can look that up . I always love when I hear things like they're still not sure if it can negatively affect the body . I can tell you clearly any chemical that is man-made , don't eat it . So that's that .

Dr. William Ferro 8:57

Then you look at the pharmaceuticals in our drinking water . You look at the microplastics in our bloodstream , the rates of infertility and inflammation . That is what is causing this disruption of the brain-gut connection and I think , to start the podcast , that's what's going to make you feel like you're running an internal marathon . That's what's going to get your adrenal glands fired up . That's what's going to get your body craving sodium , potassium and sugar , because it's constantly in fight or flight or freeze mode and your body is actually doing , is acting healthy to an unhealthy situation and is exactly doing what it's designed to do .

Dr. William Ferro 9:27

So stop thinking your metabolism has left you for a younger man or a younger woman . Stop blaming yourself that . It takes willpower . And I understand that you're full of doubt because every commercial tells you you should be doubtful , that you should look outside for your health . But that's just not the case . If you start with this gut , the gut takes over and puts you on autopilot . And so me sitting here and thinking well , if you get the gut it's supposed to be , I'm going to lose weight effortlessly and easy . No way , that's how you were designed right .

Philip Pape 9:56

Yeah , no , I love it . So first of all , about those beefy 20 something fitfluencers on Instagram , you know , this is why I try not to get too beefy . People think it's easy , right ? You mentioned a few things there , not least of which is from birth . You're exposed to things and there's choices your mother did or didn't make , and we're not judging any of that . We're just saying you don't control that . It happened and it's in your life . I've even heard whether you have pets , whether you eat food from the ground versus from the store , all of those things throughout your life and that your metabolism is very sensitive to things . I know that for sure . It's funny .

Philip Pape 10:30

I'm going through shoulder rehab . I had rotator cuff surgery last year and it was getting very inflamed recently and my metabolism was dropping . I had a little cortisone shot after getting an MRI . My weight dropped like three pounds in a few days and everything just started to change in my metabolism . Right , I mean , it's just so sensitive to little things and I like how you're starting with one thing . You're starting with the gut and we're going to talk today about what can people do about it , because I know what people are thinking right now . You mentioned chemicals and pharmaceuticals Are you going to give us the whole ? You got to do these 20 crazy things and avoid EM radiation and do cold plunges and red light therapy . Okay , so that's what I want people to know is probably a simple approach here and I want to start getting into that . Do we want to jump right into that or there's a more context first ?

Dr. William Ferro 11:21

Do a little bit , but my goal here is to first make you independently healthy and then , if you can get independently healthy , then you can do all that fun stuff and spend all the you can biohack the rest of your life , but right now we can do such small steps to maximize your health .

Success Through Elimination Diet Protocol

Dr. William Ferro 11:37

I'm going to tell you the exact thing I take everybody through . There's no secret . You don't have to go through a labyrinth for me to tell you exactly what I discovered . So this is what I've discovered and now I've had I started with . You know probably 50 , 60,000 patients of failure , so I know what failure looks like . And now I have probably 150 to 250,000 people after I learned and I feel bad for those people because I didn't keep their names and numbers . I wish I could call them from my old clinic , but now I know what success looks like . So here's what success looks like when you work with us , get you on the phone with a coach and we say all right , we believe that the gut is important and we know from science that the gut , lining the enteric system you talked about , can replenish itself . Give or take two weeks . I know that it actually starts to heal right away , but completely repair or whatnot for most people to about two weeks , and then I know three weeks in my experience is if I can reduce inflammation and things that are causing inflammation in your body for three weeks , that gives your body enough time to repair completely to the point where all the allergens are out of your body , triggers are down , and then I can bring back in food one by one so you can figure out what food works best for you .

Dr. William Ferro 12:46

So I'm not a genius . It's an elimination reintroduction protocol , right , it's a gold standard . It's always been there . The difference is is I've had the opportunity to watch 50 , 60,000 people fail and quarter of a million people succeed , and so I manipulated my what I call level one food list to be the list that I'm like . I can't tell you why I don't have broccoli or cauliflower or salmon on my list , like scientifically , you know , because if you read the plant paradox , you read a carnivore study . Someone's going to prove me wrong and switch studies in 10 seconds , flat , right , great . If that works for you , awesome . I'm just telling you that I've made people take pictures of their food for the last decade every single day sleep , mood , bowel movements , stress levels , activity levels .

Dr. William Ferro 13:30

I've watched all this and I'm telling you that if you just stick to the food list that I give you and follow the protocol which some of it's counterintuitive you will see success . So this is what I do . I tell you all right , get you on the phone with the coach . Coach will say all right , do you cook or not cook ? First question if you cook , great , we have some really easy recipes .

Dr. William Ferro 13:47

If you don't cook , I have a nationwide meal delivery service . Because of some of the health plans that we're covered by , we only get paid for performance . So I didn't want to be in the food business and I'm not really . But it's actually cheaper than cooking yourself because I have people on Medicaid Medicare coming to us . They can't afford half the time to go buy all this stuff or they live alone , so it doesn't make sense sometimes to cook . So we have that . So basically , we have all the resources you need to be successful . But the coach's job is to say hey , let's just pick an upcoming Monday where you can just start to follow the protocol for three days . Three days of no alcohol , no artificial sweeteners .

Dr. William Ferro 14:19

Oftentimes we send you a scale Now . Weight loss to us is just a byproduct , but it's an indicator of fluid retention inflammatory retention that , if you look at a daily basis , can give you a lot of insight . So we send them the scale . There's no app to download . All of our technology is built through text message . Now Even our AI 24-7 is built to that . It's really awesome because you can just take a picture of your dinner and it can take all the ingredients and pull all the ingredients down and then ask you hey , is this all the ingredients ? 10 years ago this wasn't possible . It was awful technology . Now it actually amazes me how good it is . They can take a Chipotle bowl and tell you everything that's in it .

Philip Pape 14:53

Hold on . Is that a part of your backend technology ? Yeah absolutely , that's cool .

Dr. William Ferro 14:57

Okay , I had an app and our app stinks Long story . But what I learned from it is I started with an online portal over a decade ago that morphed into text messaging and then text messaging with pictures , but we couldn't scale it because there was no backend back then . Now I created a backend so my coaches can see that text message and the AI can jump in between . But the great thing is is that I tell someone no alcohol , no artificial sweeteners , beef , chicken , steak , lobster , shrimp . You can be vegan , vegetarian , you could like Mexican cuisine , Indian cuisine , I don't care what .

Dr. William Ferro 15:28

We have tons of recipes for you and the food delivery if you need it . And make sure this weekend you get prepped . You know the prep is everything right being prepared . So we just focus on that prep . We make them take pictures of their grocery cart , we make pictures of their food prep and then we say , great , you're ready to go . If you don't do that , you didn't fail . We just postpone you to next week . And if you don't do that , we postpone you . There is no such thing as failure . It's just being not prepared and we're not going to let you start unprepared .

Philip Pape 15:55

No , I was going to say . It's like when a client says , well , I did bad or I did good , it's like , no , you just you missed your target or you hit your target right . It's data , let's move on , yeah .

Dr. William Ferro 16:02

Agreed , and I mean you'll catch me eating a slice of pizza on a Friday night with my family , Like this isn't about , you know , being the restriction yeah , no

Holistic Approach to Gut Health

Dr. William Ferro 16:10

way . But during the level one , I try to get people to stick to it as closely as possible , but I don't have to put a hammer on them because , say , look , here's the food rotisserie , chicken , mason jar , salad , simple things that you can make and your family can eat it . So here's the difference If you go on a keto and I'm not knocking any of these things , but anytime you go on something that your kids can't do , your family can't do , it's not going to be sustainable . And now you have the food prep for you and the other bozos running around your house , like my boys . So instead , because I'm using rice and burgers and chicken and they can eat along with me and they understand that , hey , this guy's not eating for calorie counting . So I never have people count calories and not weighing it . I'm just asking them to stick to this food .

Dr. William Ferro 16:51

If you can get the highest quality meat , great . If you can get organic , phenomenal . You can't . But more importantly , I just don't want iodized salt in it . I want , you know , celtic or sea salt . I don't want you to saute in oil , olive oil , I want you to use it for flavor , cook in broth , so we give you some ways to cook . And then , if you just get up in the morning and weigh in , if you take pictures of your lunch and dinner , you have your fruit . In between we have apples , strawberries , blueberries , oranges and grapefruit . That's the kind of where we start . And then again , no pork , no tuna , no salmon and no turkey . Those are the only things we avoid . And then certain vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower , which always boggles everybody's mind Like oh , is that because it's a cruciferous vegetable ? I have no idea .

Philip Pape 17:35

Gwaetrogens . Wait before you continue . What's with this big and growing no list ? I'm curious . You said alcohol and artificial sweeteners . There's also iodized salt . You mentioned certain actual what most people think of as like tasty lean foods , like pork . What's with that ? What's the principle behind that ?

Dr. William Ferro 17:51

Yeah . So it's just my observation that when I'm trying to reset the gut , the people that were having pork products didn't get as great results . People with turkey products didn't get to get results , and so I just try to eliminate the variables . The faster I can get you to see results , the better it is . Now , remember that's only a short period of time , it's only a couple of weeks , and then when you bring it back in , it may be fine , or it could be the difference . So you could buy chicken at Publix and you can buy chicken at Lowe's and the person could literally have a different response . So I am just trying to reduce as many of the variables .

Dr. William Ferro 18:25

To start , turkey right , sliced turkey versus actually someone made a turkey Bacon . I'm in North Carolina . This is like the bacon capital of the world . I can tell you that there's certain places . If you get the bacon from , it's going to react differently than the bacon gets somewhere else , which makes sense because of how they process it , what they put into it . So that's why it's just about eliminating the variables . And salmon holy crap , what did they do to salmon ?

Philip Pape 18:48

Even wild-caught salmon .

Dr. William Ferro 18:50

No , so they didn't get sockeye .

Philip Pape 18:56

Okay , yeah , no , I just I wanted to interject because I've definitely seen lots of different elimination diets . Some are very generalized . It's like cut out dairy , cut out gluten , cut out a couple other things . Do you have major groups or is it actually this very specific , curated list ?

Dr. William Ferro 19:08

It's a curated list . We do cut out gluten for the first little bit . We have dairy sparingly , because if you're a vegan or vegetarian it can be tough to get the proteins . Certain beans I cut out initially , but if you're vegan or vegetarian so we adapt it . And again , it's not steadfast rules . It's like all right , at least stick to this for three days .

Dr. William Ferro 19:27

But here's what happens in three days you lose weight . Your energy goes up , even if you haven't lost weight for 30 years . You lose weight . You're like what the heck ? And then , of course , you're like well , doc , that's just water weight . I don't care what weight it is , it shouldn't be there , right , whether it's fat or water . And I can prove to most people that it's fat . And the way I know that is when I was doing this in the clinics . I was doing bioimpedance testing before and after , because I was nervous . I was like people are losing weight , so dang fast on this , they're probably losing lean muscle tissue . So I started doing bioimpedance testing and then I realized , oh , actually it was fat that they were losing and I was increasing their intracellular water by like 60% , which is the big thing . Right , if you get water into your cell , that's where your metabolism is at its highest , you can stave off cancer . So I didn't put people on this just blindly .

Philip Pape 20:52

So let's stop there again . Cause that weight loss people listen to show they know there's energy balance , but there's also the metabolic side of it and , like you said , water weight fluctuations . Do you know for sure that calorie equated ? We see this and therefore it's due to like an increase in metabolism due to more water in your cells or something like that . Is it that well known ?

Dr. William Ferro 21:12

What I can say is that they're drinking on average depending on the person . We have people in their 70s or 80s doing this protocol , so I'm not going to make them drink 90 ounces of water , but generally people are drinking between 40 and 70 ounces of water , which , if you weighed out , is two to five pounds . Okay , so if I get you on the scale and the scale is going down by a pound each day half a pound depending on your size right , this is all relative , the net weight . Is it really water weight ? Because you drank two to three , five pounds of water plus you're down , drank two to three , five pounds of water . Push it down .

Dr. William Ferro 21:43

I just tell people that inflammation is leaving the body . Your body is getting in a state of ease . You're sleeping better . This is the number one way to lose weight . Right , it's to sleep better . As soon as I improve your sleep , your body's just converting more fat to energy while you're sleeping . So there's all of these factors combined versus just one or the other , and when most our average person , by the time 30 days up , they're down five and a half to seven percent of their body weight . To me that's just a high five .

Dr. William Ferro 22:06

But what they learned was what healthy foods were causing an increase in retention of fluid , and I don't care if that fluid's fat deposit or water . They just learned how their body reacts . And once they learn that , the whole goal is just to get into a state of ease , which is the opposite of dis-ease . And when you're in a state of ease , your body functions the way it was supposed to do , which is go to sleep at night , get into a resting state , convert fat to energy . Let your brain let go of the day before that's the other thing Do the healing . And how does fat really leave the body Through respiration ? But what does every one of these listeners think ? They need to be in a treadmill , incline at a 45 , in the target heart zone , getting their ass kicked . In my experience , exercise is counterproductive to fat loss initially .

Dr. William Ferro 22:53

So like we work with a gym chain it's EOS Fitness . It's 100 gyms plus . They sign up 50,000 new members a month . All of their personal training clients get to do our program . That's 5,000 people a month .

Dr. William Ferro 23:04

Imagine me explaining initially to a personal trainer hey , I don't want you to really work them out real hard in the first couple weeks . It took me since 2011 to work with gyms because I kept getting shunned everywhere . Finally they said , okay , well , what clearly we're doing , which is knee buckling workouts , flipping tires in parking lot , a cross fix and herding no offense to cross fix , I call it cross fix . Anyway , all that inflammation . Do they have a sprained ankle ? Yeah , would you run around the gym in a sprained ankle ? No , well , they have a sprained digestive system because they live in this environment like we all do , and if you don't focus on that first , you're just going to be spinning your wheels , you're just going to get frustrated . Yeah , you can fool the body into weight loss , no matter what you do . You can pick any fad or fake out you want , but it always comes back because you never actually healed the gut , you never got the inflammation out of the body and once you do that , it becomes the most sustainable thing that you could ever accomplish .

Philip Pape 23:56

There's a lot of good stuff here . So have these groups or your clients gone through studies where you know , with randomized studies comparing the two groups and also any higher level of tracking with calories , macros and things

Maximizing Metabolism and Energy Flux

Philip Pape 24:10

like that , and their expenditure correlated with this ? And the reason I ask is it's multivariate , right ? If you're going to make this big change in your diet , of course you're changing a lot of variables all at once . One variable you're probably changing is your calories are probably going to drop just because you're eating more whole foods . Potentially , right . That's why I asked are the calories equated ? But probably , naturally , you're going to do that .

Dr. William Ferro 24:30

I missed your question because I'm always yapping yes , so you're right . So what ends up happening is right . You're eating these healthy foods , and I consider them the highest octane foods . Your body gets what it needs out of these high octane foods and whatever it needs outside of that , it gets while it's sleeping from your reserves . So , without a doubt , your calories are going to drop , but most of the time when someone does a program , they have such dieting mentality that we're literally screaming at them , like we just saw . That's why I make you take a picture too . I'm like you're not eating enough at them , like we just saw . That's why I make you take a picture too . I'm like you're not eating enough .

Dr. William Ferro 25:03

By and large most of the weight loss stalls we ever see . Here's the number one culprits behind the weight loss stalls . Number one not enough sleep hands down sleep . Number two not enough water , because now you're eating all this fibrous food and it needs extra water because the fiber is soaking it up , so you actually need to drink more water . When you're putting in that fibrous food and then just not eating enough , not rotating your proteins , you keep eating chicken all the time . You're not diversing the bacteria . You don't have enough digestive enzymes . I just take everybody through this algorithm and then I teach them to ask themselves these questions Right now . It's cool that AI is doing it it's actually analyzing all this stuff but before that I would just teach the clients , because those are the culprits . People will say well , do you think it's going to work for me ? I know your body works , ma'am . You built a baby in nine months without Googling it . You think this should be physical ?

Philip Pape 25:53

It's like the principles are all the same . Your individual response will differ , but you're taking them through the process of discovering that for themselves , hence the re-edition of certain things and tracking all the data , which I love . And the reason I keep kind of harping on the one little piece in my mind of your metabolism and your expenditure is I'm a big fan of energy flux , like eating more to move more , not restricting , not cutting , and even during fat loss , I want people eating as much as possible and still losing the weight they want to lose , which , like you said , sleep is huge , like five 700 calories a day of overconsumption when you don't get enough sleep , let alone the belly fat storage and the different body composition you know , nutrient partitioning and all that . I'd be very curious to see how much people's expenditure , metabolism has increased just in and of itself from this kind of approach anyway .

Dr. William Ferro 26:43

Yeah , I could equate to the fact that I know their metabolisms have increased or improved from the intracellular water . That's hands down . When I used to do that biometric , that was the thing that got me . It wasn't so much that I saw better body fat , it was the fact that you were increasing intracellular water , and that is huge . Right . You want the water in the cell get that tenacity so it can do what it needs to do .

Dr. William Ferro 27:05

But the people that come to us I think from a study perspective we are a CDC-approved diabetes , fully recognized diabetes , which means we had to submit data . But all they were really looking for is how fast we can get somebody to 5% weight loss and how sustainable it was . And compared to our peers , not even close . Because people are so stuck in that paradigm of move more , eat less . All you got to do , it's so simple , like everyone else , and I'm just saying just get out of the body's way and remove interference .

Dr. William Ferro 27:31

You realize that when I do the call we have 400 people on our Zoom call each week . I'll say , okay , does anyone have a lotion right next to them ? And they'll say , yeah , I said , pick it up . What's the first ingredient ? It's either aqua or water . Why is that ? Well , because it can sell you a bunch of water , basically , and a bunch of chemicals and call it something cool . I said do you think that water actually moisturizes your skin ? No , if we absorbed water in our skin as soon as we came out of the shower , we would be a hundred pounds .

Dr. William Ferro 27:58

Like a sponge , yep we would be a hundred pounds Like a sponge . Yep , yeah , it's not that case . They just do it to sell you . And if it's water in it in a bottle , what else do they put in to keep it from having bacteria and antibacteria ? So you're literally killing off all the skin bacteria , which is a huge part of your ecosystem . Does that really cause an issue ? Take it away . Watch what happens . Take that stuff away . All these little minor things you can do to get maximal improvement .

Nancy 28:22

Take that stuff away , All these little minor things you can do to get maximal improvement . Hi , my name is Nancy . I'd love to give a massive thank you to Philip of Wits and Weights for his work with my 16-year-old daughter . When my 16-year-old came to me , you know she wanted some support with her nutrition . She wasn't happy with her body image and the trend that her weight was going . We were very concerned about what kind of help we could get for her , and all of those concerns were completely allayed by work with Philip . You know he was so respectful of any of our concerns . He adapted any of his programs to really fit working with a teen rather than the busy professionals that he normally works with . His coaching style really resonated with her and we're just literally so grateful that he has taught her so many of the skills and life habits that we hope now she'll take through her entire life so huge . Thank you , Philip .

Philip Pape 29:13

You were talking about the elimination diet at first , getting in tune with your body . You mentioned things like stress . You mentioned inflammation . I don't know if you mentioned immunity gut immunity yet either , but maybe let's start from there the stress and the inflammation because that can get really fuzzy in the way influencers talk about this stuff . It's out to lunch speaking of quacks . Educate us .

Dr. William Ferro 29:36

So the studies are out there , anxiety-related . So they're doing fecal transplants . Now , right , so you

Optimizing Gut Health Naturally

Dr. William Ferro 29:43

can take fecal transplants . They just launched a new study for autism where they showed promise in doing fecal transplants . So fecal transplant is taking the poop from somebody healthy and implant it to somebody who's unhealthy . They have studies on mice . You know overweight mice , skinny mice . They changed the fecal matter and the obese mice get skinny and skinny .

Dr. William Ferro 30:00

So to me there's volumes of information to say , yeah , this gut health is real . What really gets me the most , though , is the father of modern medicine already told us this 2,500 years ago and said look well to the gut for the root of all disease . That's Hippocrates . He also said let food be thy medicine . So I just take those two as my standard , and the only other person that I watched and learned from .

Dr. William Ferro 30:23

I got to see Jack LaLanne speak at one of the health and fitness trade shows , and I forget . Just like I told people , don't forget , it's not your fault . He said to me if man made it , don't eat it . And that's the simple principles behind it . Now , does that mean go run out and buy a probiotic ? Does that mean that you have to go get your gut and your breath test to make no , no , no , no , no , no . Your body knows what to do . The best pharmacist or chemist is already here . You just have to get out of its way .

Dr. William Ferro 30:51

And you're talking to a guy that I have supplements , I have probiotics and enzymes . The only reason why I did it is for it's like insurance . I want you to having kefir , I want you having kefir , I want you having sauerkraut , I want you to have real fermented foods that actually can help you repopulate the gut . But if you don't also eat the fiber , so when you eat apple and you're eating fibrous foods like salads , and even the proteins , it goes to your large intestines . Your body can't break it down , so it ferments . Well , that's a good thing , because that's what the bacteria live off of . So if you take , you know , some probiotic or the new fancy ones they have and say this is the greatest thing , it's like oh , did you eat an apple today ? Because if you didn't , no prebiotic . Oh well , that's okay . I took this other powder , prebiotic fiber . I'm not in those things , I'm just saying it's sitting on your counter already , the prebiotic fiber . An orange , Just go grab that . It's going to have much more bioavailability than anything in a bottle .

Philip Pape 31:43

Let's address that , because I totally agree and I think people overcomplicate this stuff and they try to fix everything with a pill and just eat more fiber , eat more types of fiber , diversity of fiber , and it tastes great and it fills you up and it's not very many calories . It's like everything win , win , win . I have a sweet tooth . All right , try some grapes or whatever . I know one question people talk about is if you've gone your whole life let's say 40 , 50 years very bland diet , you have all these things against you in early childhood potentially . And is it possible that your gut bacteria is so wiped out and depleted that there's just not much there to feed ? How do we restore that ?

Dr. William Ferro 32:20

So the refluorization happens , as I said , within seconds . The second you go to the store and go get kefir that has no blueberries in it strawberries right , a real good kefir , and so you can even make yourself home and you can have it infinitely for the rest of your life . Then you have an apple . That second , your ecosystem is already starting to get better , and then you just add on that . So it's very simple . It's step by step , minute by minute , day by day . Every cell , tissue and organ in the body is constantly replenishing themselves . So you'll see , on our website , when we talk about dramatic transformations and guaranteed jaw-dropping transformation , my jaw-dropping transformation isn't just that you have a good before and after picture . It's the fact that when I started , your refrigerator looked like a carnival and when I'm done , it looks like a farmer's market . And you mentioned something about cravings . What ends up happening is , as you just go step by step , day by day , your brain and gut start communicating it and they start craving good stuff . If you go through all my video testimony , people say I can't believe I'm eating more apples . I probably ate more apples in the last 21 days than I ate in the last 20 years , or I ate more and be like I don't know if I could do that , just give it three days , see the results , see how it goes . And then on the fourth day you're gonna say , all right , this is working . And then , day seven , 10 , people say why does your skin look so good ? Why is your hair so strong ? The most intense thing that I've seen two intense things . Number one , by the elimination .

Dr. William Ferro 33:49

There was a woman named Julie Hughes . She was working out at Eos Fitness . She had a personal trainer working out with them three times a week for a year , loved the trainer , loved the strength , loved the you know it was part of her lifestyle Didn't lose more than a pound . So what do we do when that happens ? We don't blame the trainer , we don't blame the doctors , we blame the client . Oh , you must be out eating Chick-fil-A and all this other stuff when you leave there , which , of course , if you beat her up enough and her inflammation's high , she's going to crave Chick-fil-A after that workout . Not her fault . So , anyway , she does all this , but she stayed true to her diet , right , and if you looked at it , it was turkey , it was lean proteins , it was all the things that you could get on any magazine she was doing right . The trainer says , hey , go check the doctor . The doctor checks thyroid , checks the liver . You know thousands and thousands of dollars to check this woman out .

Dr. William Ferro 34:32

She has outrageous anxiety and almost to the point of depression . And guess what happens ? She starts getting gaslit into thinking there is something wrong with her , just like every person who's struggling with their weight . Everyone's struggling with oh you know what ? It's just me , I have no willpower whatever . She goes on the program reluctantly . The trainer's like just try it Three days in . She's like okay , this is working . Four days in within 60 days she lost like 37 pounds . Great , high five . Whatever .

Dr. William Ferro 34:58

I brought her in to talk to all the trainers at the gym . I flew out there and she said that wasn't it for me . The fact that I backed off on my exercise reset my internal system was what really started to get the weight off . But then my anxiety went away and I just could sleep and I had energy in the afternoon and those were the real non-scale victories that were great and I said okay , well , lastly , tell everybody here what you uncovered from your trigger foods right , the foods that actually weren't working well for her Quinoa , greek yogurt and raspberries . Every one of your listeners right now is probably like , yeah , I have Greek yogurt and I'm not saying it's bad , but it wasn't working for her . So unless humans as buff as you are on anyone go through an elimination like I , think you talk about this .

Dr. William Ferro 35:43

It's about experimenting with yourself . Unless you go through this experiment , you'll probably never know . You'll probably be cycling through it . You'll probably fall for every bottle pill and fat out there because you're desperate , and then you'll be preyed on by guess what ? The pharmaceutical industry . Who's going to say we got this GLP-1 . We got this , and I'm not mad at you .

Dr. William Ferro 36:05

People say , well , that's because people want a quick fix . Dude , we all want a quick fix . If my car breaks , I don't want the mechanic to take a month , I want to fix things to do . So you go get this GLP-1 , which is basically the same chemical that's already made in the digestive system , the epithelial cells , and the one they made in the pharmaceutical lab is only 80% like that GLP-1 . Or just let your body do it . And what we found ? Our studies show that someone doing this protocol will lose double the weight in half the time and obviously at a fraction of the $1,000 a month that these stupid drugs are costing , and I guess stupid is not a great word . I understand why you're doing it , but if you're doing it you can come off of it . Help , of course , but getting you to think that outside in is the way to get your health . No , it's all inside out .

Philip Pape 36:52

Yeah , I'm fully with you and we did an episode recently about all those drugs too , kind of the dark side of them and who may benefit or not . But yeah , I hear what you're saying there . So a few things . You mentioned First that fermented foods , fibrous foods , can help . I think the term you used was reflora-ize

Optimizing Gut Health and Nutrition

Philip Pape 37:08

your gut Is that what you're saying ? Like the flora of your gut . I think it is a big misunderstanding that you have to take probiotics to do that . So that's a good takeaway .

Philip Pape 37:16

The second is the fact that this elimination diet if you've never done this before and honestly you're getting me to want to do one again Do it the way that you suggest , because I want to try that out Could be a game changer for the rest of your life , because now you know what your trigger foods are and they're not necessarily what everyone else's trigger foods are and you can't tell what they are until you do that right , until you get rid of them for a bit . Skin hair , you said looking better . All that , okay . Going back to the foods , what are the things you mentioned before ? You said alcohol . That makes sense . Sugar there's a lot of debate about sugar and artificial sweeteners . What are your thoughts in general , and let's separate maybe the types of sugar so people don't lump fruit in there necessarily . What are your thoughts on those ?

Dr. William Ferro 37:55

So as soon as we say the word artificial , jack the Lane man made it , don't eat it . So it's like one of the hardest things , I think , for most people . Well , what about my coffee creamer and all this other stuff ? And I said , look , put cream in it , put honey in it , put a natural form of sugar . If you need it , do it . If you can avoid it , great , you're going to get enough of those great sugars from the fruit that you're eating . So again , start with three good days , see how it goes . I think , as long as it's a natural sweetener , wives , don't listen to anything you say . I got too many stories about that , her coming home saying I think I should start doing something for my gut health . I saw something on Dr Phil . This was a long time ago . Not Dr Phil , dr Oz , and I'm like you know , this is what I do for a living .

Philip Pape 38:36

Oh geez , Don't try to coach your wife . That's not going to work .

Dr. William Ferro 38:39

Rule number one she was drinking those Zevias or the xylitol thing , and I'm like I know this is going to be the next worst thing out there . Just have it natural . If God made it , put it on this planet and it's not highly processed , that's your best bet . And my honey is a good way to go , if you can get a nice organic honey and put it in there and sweeten some things and what you'll see is that your gut bacteria , as it floralizes or refloralizes it , will crave just the right amount of everything . So I think you talked about like macros and micros before .

Dr. William Ferro 39:07

Unless you're training , training , right , so I would come to you and say all right , listen , I got their baseline . This person's ready to start doing next level stuff . Yes , you got to do macros , you're training them , you're putting them through more strenuous stuff , so that's what you have to do . But for the regular Joe , your body's going to know what macros and micros to give . You crave it , just like when you get dehydrated . Someone can do a test and whatever tastes funny to you is what you're missing from a mineral standpoint .

Philip Pape 39:33

Yeah , and I understand . So there's always a debate between intuitive eating and tracking , and my position is you can have both work together . It depends on what your goal is . If your goal is to change your body composition or your weight very deliberately in a certain period of time , the more precise you can do that , the better the outcome . And if you combine it with what you said eating the right foods for you , developing intuition , listening to your body while you do that you can kind of get the best of both , in my opinion .

Dr. William Ferro 39:58

It starts with tracking , it gets back to intuition , totally agree .

Philip Pape 40:07

Yeah , and you can always throw tracking back in or it depends on what you're tracking . And all that Cravings yeah , I think that's really important as well , because I think we make excuses for ourselves when it comes to emotional eating Again a big hot topic out there but oftentimes you're trying to solve the trauma from your childhood to fix emotional eating , and I don't think it has to be that way Most of the time , like you said , it could be cravings , it could be emotional hunger , that once you find things that work for you , that work well for you , you can kind of satisfy what the craving was satisfying right With something that works with you .

Dr. William Ferro 40:34

For sure . So there is a chicken and egg scenario there . So in my opinion , if you do not first start with restoring the gut-brain connection , it's very difficult to have therapy emotional , mental therapy to actually work . So a good example would be go to a 22-year-old these days and say hey , how many of your friends are anxious and depressed ? They'd say who is it ?

Dr. William Ferro 40:56

Well , 90% of your happy hormone , or one of your happy hormones , serotonin , is made in the gut , and so we've been giving kids SSRI uptake inhibitors forever , not doing anything . The same way that when someone has acid reflux , we tamper down , we give an anti-acid . Acid reflux is your body saying I'm not breaking this food down properly , I'm trying to produce more acid to get the job done and you're bringing it down . You're not doing anything . So when it comes to this gaslighting of someone who has anxiety , depression , like well , I want to first just focus on your digestive health , get the soil right , and then , when you start to unpack those traumas , you're ready for it . And then , when you start to do those things that can bring to the , your body can absorb it much stronger , just like it can absorb nutrients much better if your digestive system's working .

Philip Pape 41:49

So it all comes back to the gut , love it . So then , another question for health with a lot of folks today is autoimmune conditions , everything from Hashimoto's for the thyroid to rheumatoid arthritis . Right , just how much of that is tied into the gut , do we think ?

Dr. William Ferro 42:01

So I'll just say this If you go on a website of any autoimmune and say what is the etiology of Crohn ? No one knows right , there's no known etiology for all these conditions . They're just we observe a certain thing that's going on with the human for three or more months and call it a chronic condition . And then we have markers . Right , there's some markers .

Philip Pape 42:22

Antibodies and stuff . Yeah , antibodies .

Dr. William Ferro 42:23

Markers . In my experience , things like PCOS women who all of a sudden realize they have PCOS . They can't lose weight , they have

Optimizing Health Through Lifestyle Changes

Dr. William Ferro 42:31

very tough times with fertility , fertility rates or infertility rates are going up . Some of the best . We have Carolina Conceptions here locally . They've been sending members to us forever and this was by accident . My neighbor was like hey , I did your program . Did you know ? I was having trouble conceiving and getting pregnant and I actually was able to get pregnant naturally , after trying IVF and all this other stuff .

Dr. William Ferro 42:51

Anytime you bring inflammation down the body , you reduce insulin resistance . Of course you can reverse type 2 diabetes , but all of this plays into a woman's hormones , the autoimmune issues , most of the time . So what got me frustrated as a chiro is we're doing all this work on somebody and their pain was getting better for a short period of time . Why is that was ? Were we bad ? Did we not know the right motions ? Were they not ? Was the member not doing the right ? No , they have systemic inflammation . Inflammation is the root of all pain and so you don't get rid of that . You're going to be chasing pain all your whole life . So 100% is a correlation there . And of course , go just go back to Hippocrates , look well to the gut for the root of all disease . And if you're going to talk autoimmune , which is just seems to be getting higher and higher each year , glycophosphate Roundup Ready . You know 50 years . It's 50 year anniversary of Roundup glycophosphate in our agriculture and it's got into everything .

Philip Pape 43:44

Everything , yeah , everything , yeah . I eat a lot of oatmeal and I get organic . For that reason , for the oatmeal , I know .

Philip Pape 43:51

Okay , yeah , man , I have a million other things I could get to here , so I'm trying to keep the list narrow for the interest of time . But you mentioned exercise and I totally get and again I talk about this as well like too much cardio , too much movement . Your body sometimes has a response , a negative response , to that because you're overstressing it , especially when you're not in a relaxed state to begin with . But what about strength training ? Like , where does that fit in ? Is there any tie-in that you look into related to lifting weights , especially heavy weights , and the gut health ?

Dr. William Ferro 44:21

Yeah . So that's why my relationships with people like you and with the gyms is that I'm really good at this 30 day . Let me just help you reset your lifestyle . Let me reset your movement . What will happen is , as your energy comes up , some weird thing is going to happen . There was a time that we used to drag you from the gym . Now we're going to have to drag you out . And now you're going to say , oh , now I know what it's like to be like a gym rat , because you always thought that gym rats had some type of mental superiority over everybody else . Their system was working properly . So as you start to add those foods that give you that more energy I think you talked about it more fuel to do more things , then you start craving it .

Dr. William Ferro 45:00

So , if you come in , strength training is one of the strength and flexibility , right . So you're either training for strength for today , but also at my age I'm about to turn 50 . I'm turning 75 right now . So strength training , without a doubt . You know people , when they work out , right , you put weight . You're like , yeah , I'm building muscle , but you're also building bone , right . So that is for strength wise , especially for females and put weight . You're like , yeah , I'm building muscle , but you're also building bone , right ? So that is for strength-wise , especially for females and males alike . You really want to do a strength training and do it the right way with a professional . If it's in your budget , get a professional . Everybody in the world who has a coach on anything does better . When it comes to fitness , it is the most important thing . What they can accomplish in a 15-minute session . You'd be walking around the gym for 45 minutes doing this every set 100% man , 100% .

Philip Pape 45:50

Yeah , you're going to learn what it would have taken you three years of trial and error in one session . Very important , okay . So those listening yet another reason to do what Dr Farrow is saying to get this reset so that you can have a better aligned nutrition . Gives you fuel , gives you energy , and then you want to go into the gym and now you have another craving and that is lifting weights and being active . So we love to have that . And then it's not willpower , it's not like an excuse , a punishment , a thing you have to do , it's a thing you really want to do and can't stop doing , which is fun . What about pets ? So we have two dogs , we have hamsters , chickens I've heard a lot of good things about pets and gut health .

Dr. William Ferro 46:26

Yeah , so they are bringing something to your environment , right , soil , probably from the outside , which is probably the best . You're petting them against some soil . So I think that I'm not an expert on this , but I've thought about that too . My pup is sitting over there . I think the endorphin release you get from petting a pet is probably the one that's going to calm the gut down the most , and so , without a doubt , I think it's a positive . Now , it also could be negative .

Dr. William Ferro 46:51

So I had people go through the protocol and they're following it . When I go through these 10 triage things that I've learned , like sleep , water , all the things I mentioned , rotating proteins , not eating enough Then I go all right , we exhausted that list . Why is this person on a stall ? They have bowel movements , everything's going . What's the stall ? What's the plateau ? Well , I just moved into a new apartment . Ah , what did they have ? Is it carpet ? Yeah , are you allergic to anything ? I'm allergic to cats . Well , they probably had a cat , you know . So , when it comes to certain people , it could actually be a health detractor and could cause inflammation and couldn't make it difficult for them to see results in their health , because it's just another environmental factor that's causing issues .

Philip Pape 47:36

Yeah , fair enough . I used to be allergic to cats and then we got cats and the allergy went away and it all worked out , but I definitely know what that's like .

Dr. William Ferro 47:44

Points too . So like there's some people that start my protocol and say I can't have dairy , like don't even try it , and I say , okay , well , let's just go through 21 days and let's just bring it back in . But let's bring a high quality dairy in and see what happens . They go . Oh my God , my body's fine . Same thing with gluten . We have people that think that they're sensitive to gluten , but when they get rid of it for a little bit and they bring it back in , they bring a high quality one , one that's not got garbage in it , maybe fresh baked or start with sourdough type things they go . Oh , wow , I can now enjoy this finally .

Philip Pape 48:13

Yeah , it's so true , and I suspect that even one of the things we track with digestion is , even in the moment , the things you're eating . If you could eat mindfully . I suspect there's a lot of awareness of how things make you feel . That gets amplified through this process , because now it's like you totally got rid of it and now you're boom , adding it in . You can detect that easily , yeah , okay . So I'd like to ask this of all guests , doc , and that is is there a question you wish I had asked , and what is your answer ?

Dr. William Ferro 48:44

That's a great question about a question you wish I had asked , and what is your answer ? That's a great question about a question . This is what I'd like to leave with , because I wanted to give them practical stuff . I hate to like be the well . Only if you sign up with us , then you can . If you go to better healthcom , b-e-t-r healthcom you can go and find under our blogs I think it is it's the very first blog always is it's pinned and basically it's like the whole protocol is laid out what to eat , how to eat . You can get it for free . You can go download it all for free .

Dr. William Ferro 49:11

The only thing I'm offering is part of the community , a coach , like I mentioned , to give that guidance , planning and , of course , accountability . Man , it's always just helpful to have that accountability . And then , of course , the technology , the AI stuff . It's phenomenal for tracking , but you can absolutely do this yourself and you could literally start right now . You could go on there and just start following those things and I bet you you'll feel different very quickly .

Dr. William Ferro 49:34

The only thing I ask you to do if you're going to do it is if you get prepared . Let's say you're so gung ho , you go to the 24 hour grocery . Get all stuff , weigh yourself first thing in the morning , no clothes on . Now don't do that in your kitchen or in the front room just yet . Do it in the bathroom , weigh yourself and then , literally for yourself , take pictures of everything you eat off of that list . Track your sleep , track your bowel movements , check all those data elements and do it for three days and you will see such quick success that you will be amplified . Say all right , I think I can follow us .

Dr. William Ferro 50:06

It's a simple procedure , it's not rocket science , and we've been helping people reverse type 2 diabetes . We're covered by , you know , not only a direct consumer where people can pay out of pocket . We're covered by Blue Shield of California , florida Blue . I work that hard by getting them to do pay for performance . But some of the craziest things I've seen . We had a woman , 72 years old . She was on metformin , she was on Wegovy . She came off of all that and she loved it . She was down I don't know 30 pounds , whatever the poundage was , all these other great non-skill victories and she said , doc , I'm starting to get headaches and my vision's blurry , oh man . So I went through all my resources , couldn't figure it out . She went to three primary care . Finally , she goes to the eye doctor . Eye doctor says your prescriptions changed , oh . And I said okay , that makes sense .

Dr. William Ferro 50:53

She said no , it got better oh interesting and then when you start googling blood sugar and insulin and I , you know , you know , your you start to see that how you eat can affect your vision within days and it seems like such a miracle . But it's like then we step back , like oh duh , like yeah , of course , right From every cell in your body will start to get better instantly . As soon as you start focusing on nourishing the gut . You are instantly better .

Philip Pape 51:23

It makes total sense . Well , thank you for that . That's super powerful for folks to go to betterhealthcom and get that article , and it ties in with a lot of what we talk about here ,

Collaboration for Better Health

Philip Pape 51:32

and a lot of people are already going to be weighing themselves and tracking . So this little extra step of the elimination diet to kind of reset yourself could be super helpful . I'm going to go find that myself and shamelessly borrow from that as well for my clients and send them your way too if they need it , and the medical tie-in and insurance is all really , really great . So I think you already answered my next question , which is where can listeners find you ? I think you want them to go to betterhealthcom , right ?

Dr. William Ferro 51:54

Absolutely .

Philip Pape 51:55

Okay , is there anyone else on social that they can reach out , or is that the best place ?

Dr. William Ferro 51:58

That's the best place . I know we have Instagram and stuff , but that's not my , not your bag . However , I'm going to put you on the spot here , so are you now going to become a guest on my podcast ?

Philip Pape 52:08

Let's do it All right . Yeah , all right . Of course we're going to do it . Yeah , cool , absolutely .

Dr. William Ferro 52:15

I don't know what we're going to talk about , but it'll be fun .

Philip Pape 52:18

It's going to be all fitness . We follow the Quacks and Hypochondriacs podcast and you'll get that episode as well .

Dr. William Ferro 52:25

All right , Doc , thanks so much for coming on . It was a pleasure , my pleasure , it's fun talking to you .