Ep 22: Best Natural Health Lessons from 2023 | Plans for 2024

In this episode, host David Maloof reflects on the key takeaways from the first 26 episodes of Adventures in Good Health. He emphasizes the importance of listening to our bodies and recognizing the signs of good health. He also discusses the benefits of incorporating bitter herbs into our diets and explores the concept of integrative medicine. Additionally, he shares his initial reservations about intermittent fasting but expresses his willingness to try it under the guidance of an expert. Finally, he announces that the podcast will transition to video format in 2024.

Takeaways

Listen to your body and pay attention to its signals for better health.
Bitter herbs can have powerful medicinal benefits and should be incorporated into our diets.
Integrative medicine, combining traditional Western medicine with alternative approaches, plays a significant role in recovery and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
Intermittent fasting can be a beneficial practice when done properly and with a plan.
The podcast will transition to a video format in 2024, providing an additional avenue for communication and education.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Gratitude
01:25 Lesson 1: Listening to Our Bodies
03:28 Lesson 2: The Power of Bitter Herbs
05:28 Lesson 3: Integrative Medicine
08:14 Lesson 4: Understanding Intermittent Fasting
12:03 Plans for 2024
15:09 Closing Remarks

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Transcript

David Maloof (00:00.526)
Hello everyone, this is Adventures in Good Health. I am your host, David Maloof. Welcome to the show. 2023, that year is in the bag. But before we move on to 2024, I would like to spend a few minutes talking to you about the podcast. I'd also like to just review some of the key points or takeaways that I took from the first 26 episodes.

of this podcast. And then finally, I'd like to give you a few spoilers about what we're planning for 2024. But before all that, I want to start by saying thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching. Your feedback that you have given me through this show, through the comments or through the direct feedback has been wonderful and has helped me.

with my development as a podcaster and has helped chart the direction of this show. So thank you very much. And Hey, I plan to continue to earn your audience going forward through 2024. Now some of the key lessons after 26 episodes.

The first one is, is a topic that was brought up a number of times by Dr. Tate's and some of our other guests. And that is for natural approaches to good health, to work. We need to do a better job of listening to our bodies. And I can even say from personal experience, our bodies will give us feedback.

And our bodies have an amazing ability to heal if we give them a chance and if we set them up for success. But it's that part about setting them up for success and listening that can be a challenge. And I'll give you an example. One of the first episodes we did, we spoke to Dr. Tate about constipation. And constipation is one of those things where people develop

David Maloof (02:26.302)
a personal rhythm and perhaps they go every two or three days and they say, well, that's normal. That's what I've been doing for 30 years and that's just me. And what we have to realize is that is not normal. Your body needs to expel and your body is designed to expel on a certainly more frequent rhythm than that. But we get used to it. I think they call it normalization bias.

We just get used to it and we don't listen to our bodies. And so one of the first takeaways is that we have to learn to listen to our bodies, get used to listening to our bodies. And then when you listen to your body and you start to understand, you start recognizing, well, what is good, what is not so good, what is normal, what is not normal, then that's kind of the first step toward starting a chart.

towards a natural approach to improving your health.

Now, the second takeaway involves bitters, bitter herbs. I've been taking Doc's blood tonic for 10 years. So it's a bitter tonic. I personally am used to it. I actually kind of like the taste at this point. So the concept of having bitters in the diet is not.

born to me, now prior to 10 years ago, I never would have even considered that. I liked sweets and savories and salties, never would have considered bitters, and certainly the term, the words, bitter is better, that combination of words would never have come out of my mouth. But then I started learning more. But doing this podcast, I started learning more than just, well, bitters are better. We started learning more about why they're better.

David Maloof (04:24.376)
So the explanation.

is that there are different types of herbs. And a lot of people think of, excuse me, a lot of people think of culinary herbs that tend to be leaves and flowers. And those type of herbs can have very important medicinal benefits. But the most powerful herbs, the most powerful compounds in the herb plants are often found in the roots and in the bark.

And those particular parts of the plant, as powerful as they are, aren't necessarily the best tasting. They tend to be rather bitter. But bitter is good. Bitter means that you're getting the right compounds for the required benefits that you're looking for. So, bitter is better. And doing this podcast, hopefully listening to this podcast, you've learned a little bit more about

why they're better.

My third takeaway has been about integrative medicine. Now, I don't know about you, but I really didn't know that much about integrative medicine. So my perception is that prior to this podcast, you have the world of traditional Western medicine on one side, and then you have the world of alternative medicine on the other side.

David Maloof (05:57.406)
and the two didn't really talk to each other. Great deal of distrust, misunderstanding, they were just two different worlds. And in talking to some of the guests who've been on this show this year, it's become pretty clear that is not necessarily true. For example, one of our earlier episodes, I spoke to Melinda Dingle. Melinda is a naturopath, and I was a little surprised

as she was walking me through her practice and how she helps people, she mentioned that.

Some of the people who come to see her are patients of oncologists. And it's the oncologist who's referring the cancer patients to Melinda. So how that process works is for the majority of those people that they've completed their cancer treatments, which do include chemotherapy. And then the oncologist forwards them, or I should say refers them to Melinda, where she then...

works with them to use natural approaches to detox, to get those harsh chemicals out of their bodies so that they can recover faster.

That was interesting to hear that, but it really surprised me. But over the course of 26 episodes, I became less surprised. As I started talking to natural paths who are also nurses, who have medical backgrounds and science backgrounds, you start to realize there is some cooperation. Integrated medicine is a thing. It most certainly does exist.

David Maloof (07:45.078)
Not everyone supports, I mean, that's to be understood, but it's there and it plays a very important role, a very important role in people's recovery and maintaining healthy lifestyles. So I just thought that was amazing and exciting. And then finally, number four, this was a topic that I was not real excited about when I started the podcast, and that is

the concept of intermittent fasting. Because when people say fasting, what I heard was starving. And that did not sound appealing. So we had an episode with Dr. Tate's, and I believe he mentioned that he did a fast that was like over 100 days. I was like, oh, there's no way, no way I would ever even consider doing that. I do like food.

But then Doc sat me straight. Basically what he was saying is that fasting does not mean starving. And that you can fast, which means refrain from solid foods during the fast, but you can still take nutritious liquid foods, a liquid diet. That way you don't always feel constantly hungry and your body is getting the nutrients it needs during the fast. The other thing

is that there's a process and a plan to fasting. You don't just wake up one morning and say, yep, I'm gonna go ahead and fast for the next week because that's a setup for failure.

Not just if you're anything like me and you like food and you like to eat, that's not at all appealing and that would be a recipe for disaster or failure, if it was me anyway. What Doc explained is you need a plan and part of that plan is you prepare for the fast. So in the day or days leading up to the fast, and the plan kind of depends on how long you're gonna fast.

David Maloof (09:49.85)
is that you phase from solid foods to liquid foods. Then you're on the fast. And the fast doesn't have to be for long periods of time. It can be for half a day, it can be for a day, or multiple days as you slowly build up to that process. And then when you're done with the fast, you kind of slowly phase into solid foods from the liquid diet. And you don't go running.

to McDonald's or the giant buffet as soon as the fast is over. That's also not good. And then listening to Doc, I was thinking, this is something I may be able to do. Maybe I do have enough discipline to actually do a proper intermittent fast. So I did talk to Doc, and we're gonna, he's gonna put me on a program that's gonna include fasting, intermittent fasting.

And this is probably one of the best things that someone can do is having an expert pretty much by their side, guiding them and coaching them. And so doc is gonna put me on a program. I'm gonna try it. I'll document what happens and I'll share the results with you. Success, failure, hey, how do we learn? How else do we learn in life unless we're willing to do things?

that's outside of our comfort zone. And how else do we learn if we fail, if we don't go back and look at that failure and say, okay, where did things go wrong? And let's do things a little bit differently the next time. And that is how success is built. And goodness, I'm making a one day, I'm making a one day fast sound like I'm gonna be climbing Mount Everest or something, don't I? You can really see my mental, where I am mentally on this.

but I will share it with you and I hope you enjoy it. I hope you learn from that experience. Okay, so that's a review of some of the top points from 2023, now let's talk a little bit about 2024.

David Maloof (12:03.114)
If you're listening to this podcast on one of your favorite podcasting services, then probably the only thing you've noticed different is that I'm the only one on the show. But if you're watching this podcast on YouTube, you've noticed a little something different, and that is its video. So for 2024, the majority of our podcasts are going to be video when they're on YouTube.

So you will be able to see the guests as they're talking, as they're sharing their knowledge. But the video is also gonna allow over time, more graphics, more overlays, and it's all about another avenue of communication. And this is an educational podcast, now YouTube channel. And so just adding that extra layer of communication.

For those who feel that they would benefit from it, I think that's the best direction that we can go. So starting next week, our podcasts, our main podcast every week will be a video podcast. Now, just to give you an idea in terms of what the schedule is, this will continue to be a weekly podcast, but we will be following up every Wednesday with Doc's Herbal Corner. You know, Doc loves doing the herbal corners.

we get a tremendous amount of feedback and you may not realize this, but Doc has been doing Doc's herbal corner for over 20 years. So he is, the way he explains the herbs and how to use them and the things to be aware of and what to look for and how, you know, he has his style and he has this style of communication and it's not something that just started. I mean, he has over 50 years of

herbal experience and you can just hear that in his passion and in his voice. So I hope you get a chance to check out the Doc's Herbal Corners. I think we've done 12 herbs. How many are there? I mean, I was looking at the herbal encyclopedia the other day. There's hundreds of herbs, hundreds of herbs that potentially could have medicinal benefits.

David Maloof (14:28.842)
So yeah, I think we have a lot of content that we can work with. And so I look forward to sharing that information with you. And with that, we are done with 2023.

Bye bye 2023. Now we are heading into 2024 and we've got a lot of exciting things to learn and to discuss and I hope you join us along the way. So thank you very much for listening and watching and providing your feedback. I really do appreciate you. So until next week, this is David Maloof signing off with Adventures in Good Health.

That does it for this episode of Adventures in Good Health. We would like to hear from you regarding this podcast and any suggestions you have for future podcasts. Please subscribe and leave a rating or a review.