Jay Feldman 0:12
Welcome to Episode 62 of the energy balance podcast, where we teach you how to live without constant hunger and cravings, fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep and other low energy symptoms by maximizing your cellular energy. I'm Jay Feldman. I'm a health coach and independent health researcher, and joining me again today is my good friend Mike Fave. Mike and I have been studying health and nutrition together for a long time now, and Mike also draws on his experiences from working within the healthcare industry. Today's episode is part two of a not so typical series on this podcast where we won't be discussing health and nutrition as directly, but instead we'll be detailing our health journeys. If you haven't listened to part one yet of this series, I'd highly recommend you go back and do that, where we discussed under eating fad diets and our discovery of the bioenergetic view of health. And then we'll be continuing that discussion here in part two, where we'll be discussing how we dove into the bioenergetic view of health and the many mistakes we made along the way. And if you are looking for some episodes dealing more directly with health and nutrition, then I'd highly recommend going back and checking out any of the previous episodes of this podcast. And if you're newer to the podcast, then I'd highly recommend checking out episodes one through seven, where we took some time to build a foundation as far as the bioenergetic view of health is concerned. And in today's episode in particular, we'll be talking about the many mistakes that we made after finding repeat and the bioenergetic view of health. We'll be talking about our refeeding periods that involved eating over 5000 calories and 700 grams of carbohydrates per day. We'll be talking about our experimentation with various supplements, including thyroid B vitamins, fat soluble vitamins, prometabolic hormones, antibiotics, methylene blue and various other supplements. And also what we learned along the way with this experimentation, we'll be talking about how long it took for us to see major improvements and stability in our health, which is probably quite a bit longer than you might expect. And we'll also be talking about why nutrition alone is not enough for optimal health and what other factors we should consider. And we'll also be discussing our experiences in authoritarian environments, especially within the education system and the medical system, and our experiences working to shed that dogmatism. To check out these show notes for today's episode, you can head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at the studies or articles or anything else that we referenced throughout today's episode. And if you are struggling on any of the various diets that Mike and I discussed throughout this series, maybe you're jumping from one to another, or you're not having the results that you were hoping to have on that diet, or maybe you're experiencing various symptoms that we described or that we experienced ourselves, whether that's insomnia or cold hands and feet or low energy, low libido, depression, anxiety, joint pain, bloating, weight gain, histamine intolerance, allergies, psoriasis and viral and fungal issues, or if you're dealing with any other low energy symptoms or any chronic health conditions, whether that's autoimmune issues or diabetes or heart disease or any other chronic health issue, then Head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course where I'll explain how these different symptoms and conditions are really caused by a lack of energy, and I'll also walk you through the main things that you can do from a diet and lifestyle perspective to maximize your cellular energy and resolve these symptoms and conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, let's get started.

And so that kind of transitioned to the stage where we decided like to kind of go in full peat, take out the starch, take out the dried fruit that we didn't think were those things were helping us. We took out the PUFA. We stopped doing salmon, we started doing milk, we started doing juice. We started doing, you know, the honey and sugar and everything dished olive oil, yeah. And we started doing more seafood, like, more like shellfish, like, more sugar, less muscle, meat. And there we had a lot of like, it was kind of like another kind of mixed bag, because on one hand, I think it was a lot better than high starch, and especially for me, but we were also doing a lot of dairy. At that point, we started, you know, we got excited about the or got into those recommendations of, you know, two liters of milk a day sort of thing, you you more than me. I kind of kept my milk to a more moderate intake, but you were having a lot of milk, and that caused some problems.

Mike 5:00
Well, the thing is, for me, I think what kicked me out this high starch, is when I got, like, that skin infection, that and then, but now looking back, I didn't, I think, like, at that time, I thought I had an infection. It was, like a, like, pretty bad, like rash and, like skin peeling and everything like, and I didn't know what it was, and I thought it was just, I thought I had gotten a skin infection. But I eventually, now I look back, I was just, like, I formed a, like, pretty bad reaction to something with the plantains. But I had, I there's. I had gotten an issue with the plantains and whatnot. Like, I was like, pretty bloated with them. And especially the, especially the, like, green plantains, like, I was extremely bloated all the time, and, like, my I was, like, having like, like, a decent amount of diarrhea with them, with how much I was eating. And then I remember, like, developing, like, really stiff joints and tendons, like my ankles specifically. Like, I would wake up in the morning and I would have to, like, it would hurt to get out of bed because my ankles were so stiff, and I was just, like, my belly was very I remember having, like, my belly, like, extremely bloated, like, very, very bloated, and being really uncomfortable with that. And but I was getting much stronger in the gym, and I was putting on a lot of muscle, but yeah, when I had gotten the skin infection, and so I thought it was an infection. Eventually I realized I just started, I developed some type of allergic reaction or something to the plantains, because now, every time I eat bananas, like, it triggers whatever was going like it can trigger, like, a similar, not to the extent that it was but a rash, um, but essentially, yeah. Like, I, once I took out those the plantains, like, I got to stay off starch for a little while, because I started getting symptoms with it, and I started realizing that some of my symptoms in that phase were from the starch. And something like, Oh, what if I, at that point is like, what if I try sugar and like, what if we move over fully to peat and try sugars? We were already doing dried mangoes and stuff. So it was like, what if, what if we just went to sugar instead of the starch, and then that's when I think I added in juice. But now at this point, so we added in juice, and then we also added in tons of granulated sugar, and then we were still eating fruit. It was like melons and oranges, and we weren't eating like as much mango. And I remember just like, we feeling a lot better after that, and like, making, like, a full turnaround from when I had the infection and everything. But then we started finding, this is where we started finding the low fat stuff, because I didn't hop right into dairy right away. I remember we went to sugar first, and then I started because I knew I had issues with dairy prior, and I was, like, very hesitant about in adding in dairy. And then, essentially, it was like, we then I started going really low fat. And I remember at this point in time, because I was seeing it on the forum, and like, Pete had talked about low fat, and Danny had talked about low fat, and from my bodybuilding phase, they had talked about low fats. I was like, let me try. So then I went really low fat and higher sugar. And then I had, like, when I was doing starch and fat, my libido was excellent. And even when I was doing high fat, low carb or keto ornament fasting, my libido was excellent. When I went on this zero or it wasn't zero fat, but like very low fat diet, I remember like I couldn't get an erection, I didn't have morning wood. I had no libido, like I was seeing at this point, like I was dating different girls when I was in college, like, just sort of casually. And I like, like, I just, it just completely fell off the map. Like I couldn't, like, one of the girls I was with, I was, like, I was very attracted to and whatnot, but like, I could not get, like, a full erection at all, and so I, like, couldn't figure out what was going going on at this point. And then, like, since I had done so much experimenting previously, I was like, All right, let's just see what happens. Like, at first I was a little worried, but then eventually, like, okay, let's just see what happens. But I also started getting, like, lots of hot, like, adrenaline rushes, and I started getting like, brain fog, and I started getting, like, my workout started to suffer again with this. So, yeah, that this for this. I know you were doing lower fat too, but I think I went way lower fat than you did, because I also wanted to see, like, what would happen, because people reporting XYZ result. So I was like, there's only one way to find out. So I was like, so I did it like, basically guinea pig myself. And it was bad. It was like a it was a bad experience. I don't think I'd ever go, like, super low fat, like that. Again, I was just plus, we were using tons of sugar to make up the difference, like, granulated sugar. And I definitely think that that was a problem as well. Um, like, we were adding, like, tea, I remember, like, counting like, 50 teaspoons of sugar to my juice, just like a reach my like caloric, my caloric requirement, or also, I was super hungry, and then we were spooning sugar. We, like you said, on the couch when we got back from school. I remember, like feeling better mood wise, with sugar and everything. But like those other things started to take a hit when I dropped my fat really low.

Jay Feldman 9:58
And I don't think I went low fat, like you. Did, maybe I did to an extent I don't remember, low fat compared to where we were, sure, yeah, well, yeah. I mean, we're coming from high fat, you know, keto, yeah.

Mike 10:09
But I had gone to the other spectrum, where I was, like, I was that like, 40 grams of fat a day, which definitely wasn't enough.

Jay  Feldman 10:17
Yeah, And so it was from there that you started doing milk is that, is that what

Mike 10:22
after the low fat experiment, I was, I didn't, I didn't necessarily link it to low fat yet, so I figured something else. But it's like, maybe it's the sugar, whatever. And so, like, then I played around with a bunch of different things. And then eventually it was like, Well, let me try milk. Like, maybe it was minerals. And so that's when I hopped into the milk with, like, we hopped in the milk together. But I, I know I started with whole milk first, just because I liked whole milk better than skim milk. And so, yeah, then we that started the milk phase.

Jay Feldman 10:55
Well you were having a gallon a day.

Mike 10:56
Like I was a gallon. I, like, ramped up to to that amount, right? But I remember, I like, started with, you know, a glass, and then it was a glass with every meal. And then I like, then it was two glasses with every meal. And then, like, I started to remove some protein that I was eating because of the high phosphorus content, or whatever, whatever I was thinking, then to balance my calcium the phosphorus ratio. And so then I started replacing meals with milk. And then it was like, then it was like, oh, let's try milk and orange juice. So like, just a whole bunch of mini experiments in there with all different stuff. And then it was like, let's try 2% let's try skim milk. Let's try milk with honey. Let's try different types of milk. Let's try different vendors, and just like trying all those different types of stuff.

Jay Feldman 1:44
Yeah, and you so during this time, you were still experiencing symptoms. I was, I mean, I still had some symptoms, but I was doing way better when I first started bringing in the milk and the juice and taking out the starches and taking away the Omega threes, I remember we also did, like, kind of a gut protocol, like a bunch of supplements, thinking that we both had some gut issues, which I think we did, and a ton of pro metabolic supplements as well, like high dose aspirin and niacinamide, and I was methylene blue, and we were starting to get into some of those hormones as well, and still working out. And so I, at this time, I was feeling like better than I had ever felt for a while, like energy was way better. My general like, feelings of well being and vitality were, like, just on another level, and in a way that I never would have even described them before. Like I never would have even recognized that that was an issue. But I remember, like, I remember starting to just feel good all the time, and like the sun was brighter, sort of feeling another, like, another issue that I'd had chronically was congestion and allergies, and those had cleared up a lot at this point as well, after being issues from when I was a kid. And I even got allergy shots for a couple, you know, several years when I was younger, because my allergies were so bad. And even after that, they were still bad, and so that went away. And my cold extremities, like cold hands and feet that I was getting all the time. The blood sugar dysregulation was getting way better, like I was, I remember doing really well during that period for for a while. And we also started going to the gym a lot less, like we started listening to it, like we got into that whole relaxation, like listening to our bodies, like we were so tired of forcing our way through the gym, through these long workouts. And it would start out is like, we would go to the gym for the workout, and then you would always cut it short because you were tired, and I would never have done that, but because you were doing it, like, thankfully, you would do that, because then I would stop too, or I would, you know, we'd start to go less frequently then. And either would be a lot of times where you'd go and you would just start off with your warm up, and that would be it, like, we wouldn't finish the with the workout. We would just do the warm up and be like, No, I'm tired.

Mike 13:42
And then we just chill out and just like, go outside and in the sun and on the field and talk and maybe do like, little yoga or something, right.

Jay Feldman 13:49
Right, yeah, and just Yeah. And it was such a great mind state to be in. And I remember this was also so, like, we had ballooned up a little bit before this toward, like, 222 15, 220 and then around here, I know I was around like, 205, weight wise, and I was lean, like this was definitely, like, the most muscular and lean, not like that combination, the most that I ever had been for me and like this was while working out less and eating way, way more. But I know I had resolved a lot of my gut issues, or at least improved a lot of them at the time, and so many of my symptoms had gotten way better at this point. But that was not like and you too, in a lot of ways, but you had this whole journey with the milk that I remember carried on for like, maybe six to 12 months, where for me, like my lactose tolerance, like, kind of like you said, like I had to start off small, but it got a lot better, and to the point where I could wake up in the morning and I would have, like, six like, 16 ounces of milk mixed with like sugar and collagen without an issue, and I would have it throughout the day as well. I another interesting thing, or just something to point out during this time too. I think I see this so often with clients this point where they see those stress hormones start to drop, and. And I remember being ravenous at this point, to the point, I don't know if you remember this too, but we would, I do prep the night before. Like I would, we would prep the night before, like 60 ounces of for me, it was 60 ounces of orange juice with a few spoons of sugar and collagen. And I would also do 60 ounces of milk with a few spoons of sugar and collagen. And I needed to have them ready the night before so I could have them as soon as I woke up, because if not, I would get started too late on eating, and my blood sugar would be all wonky, and I wouldn't be able to get in enough food for the day. There's like, this antagonistic relationship between, like, metabolic needs and how fast your digestion could be. And I had, I remember having to use so much sugar and really easily did I easily digestible foods to get enough fuel for my metabolism, because otherwise I would just feel too full and I couldn't eat enough. So from like, the time I woke up till the end of the day, everything would have to be spaced out in a way where I was eating, like every two hours as much as I basically could comfortably, to where I wouldn't have any digestive symptoms, but I would keep up with my hunger and metabolic needs. And it was good, like it worked really well. I felt really good at that point, but I was, yeah, I just remember being absolutely ravenous and needing to be so on top of eating all the time. And I've seen that kind of similar phenomenon with other like, with clients in a similar place, and I will get here, but later down the road, this shifted to a much more normal place where, like, I didn't, if I didn't get my next meal, it wasn't like, the end of the world. I wouldn't have to eat as frequently. Like this got a lot better, but at the time was actually really, really helpful to be eating that much.

Mike 16:29
Yeah, it definitely took time. I remember being I remember when we were coming out of, well, I remember we first introduced carbs, with starches and stuff, and we said, hey, we can actually have as much carbs as we want, I was extreme, like, people thought it was funny, or everyone thought it was funny that I was going to eat like, six plantains a day, or five plantains a day for a period of time. But the thing was, is for a period of time, that's how much I was actually hungry for, because coming from like, like intermittent fasting and keto, like being starved for that long, like, it took me like five, 5000 6000 calories, to like feel full again, and to like to recover from what I did to myself, like being so low for a period of time. And then I remember when we got rid of starch and we introduced sugar instead of starch, just like the amount of orange juice and and oranges and other fruit and melons and like sugar and whatever else. Like, I just started, like, hammering super hard because I was so hungry for it, and I hadn't gone super low fat yet. And then for me, I think I was lactose tolerant, like, right away. Like, I didn't have issues with milk, with like, like, anything like that. And I known that I was lactase persistent beforehand, because I had had 23andme testing like that was like a gift one year I got from my dad for, like, my birthday. So I knew I was lactase persistent and but the and my mom was lactase persistent too. She didn't have any problems with dairy, but my dad had, like, terrible issues with dairy, um, particularly, not necessarily because the lactose, but more because the casein. And so I was lactase black, taste persistent, but I was casein intolerant, so I had, like, like, responded very poorly to casein. And so basically, I went on and this, this is sort of like, it's out of our timeline, I guess, but like, for probably, like, a year to two years, like you said, I tried all different types of dairy. I tried cow dairy, I tried raw cow dairy, I tried different vendors of dairy. I tried goat dairy, I tried. At one point, I tried camel I tried kefir, I tried raw goat dairy. I tried. At one point, I was literally considering like, seeing if, like, maybe the issue is with my microbiome. So like, I did a bunch of like protocols on myself to see if that would make a difference. The one time I actually used some antibiotics, I made myself worse. So, and that took a couple weeks, or like, a couple months, actually, to recover from. And then at another point in time, I was like, considering, like, maybe, if I, like, try to somehow get breast milk again, it will fix my microbiome, and then I'll be able to tolerate milk. And then I tried the milk protocol at one point, which is, like, just endless amounts of milk for a period of time. So I tried that, and but I, like, added honey to the milk then, because, like, I wanted to still make sure my adequate carbohydrate intake. So like, I tried all this stuff into essentially, it came to that I just wasn't tolerating milk, and it had nothing to do with lactose, and had everything to do with casein. The one thing I will say, though, is, out of all the milks that I had, that I tolerated, I tolerated goat milk the best, like, by far, goat milk was the best for me. But the casein effect, like the brain fog, the lowered motivation, the like, it made me put on a lot of water weight. And, like, my libido was completely, completely trashed with milk. So I and then I started reading about the effects of case of morphins and the opiate effects of milk. And some people, they break down the case morphins into XYZ. So basically, I determined that I was, like, not taught. In the casein and I stopped doing the I stopped doing milk. And then at this point for me, after doing milk so long, I had issues with my gut. So this is where I essentially hopped on, like a carnivore esque diet to fix what was going because I throughout the whole time, I still had some digestive issues, whereas you got better with, like, with the milk stuff, sort of right away.

Jay Feldman 20:23
Yeah, you, I remember, I remember you had, like, a lot of bloating. You're, like, hands and feet would be cold. I remember, I mean, there was, like, this conference that we went to, and I remember, especially then, like, bringing, you, bringing your gallon of milk and adding a bunch of salt to it, and just being cold and, like, not, like, a great mind state, and bloated, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike 20:41
But eventually, what I realized, though, is, like it took, throughout all this time, I didn't realize how much the gallbladder surgery had negatively impact my impacted my digestion, and so I had, I had like lingering effects from that. And eventually I found out that I they left staples inside my gallbladder surgery, that's, I think that's normally done. And I had developed an allergy to the staples the I had issues as far as, like, if I eat too much, bats, like causing my bile acids to reach my colon and cause, like, a bio like bile acid diarrhea issues like that. And then I also had a lot of scar tissue in my abdomen from the gallbladder surgery that I actually wound up working out manually myself, like with very deep massages, and then also going to an active release technique practitioner to break some of that up for me. So that made huge the breaking up the scar tissue made a huge difference, and then sort of figuring out how to balance my fat intake for what was going on my gallbladder, and then as far as the staples, that's still a work in progress, and what exactly I'm going to do with that. But I remember, like, for a while, I actually went on a carnivore diet, and the diet was literally meat, and I didn't do zero carb at this point because I was knew that that wasn't a good way to go. Like, I'd already been through the low carb thing, and I knew that I needed sugar. So what I did was more like an elemental aspect, where the carbohydrate that I had was just like cane sugar. It was like cane sugar soda for a period of time, and then, um, I did well with that, but I eventually got some issues from not having enough vitamins and minerals. And then, like, I also from eating way too much meat and not enough the fiber and whatnot, I started to get, like, little bits of constipation from it, or, like, just some upset in my I felt like in my colon. So then I started adding in, I added in my carrots, and I was tolerating those because I always had. And then, like, slowly as I worked out the scar tissue and I was on that diet. I also realized when I was on like, the meat and cane sugar diet only that I was getting like B vitamin issues, because I started to get like, numbness in my toes, like, like, like, loss of sensation in the tips of my toes. And I realized that that was related to, like, having, not having enough of certain B vitamins. So when I supplemented the B vitamins, that recovered, but I realized that, like, that wasn't a that wasn't a long term strategy that was going to make sense. So I I started to, like, try and introduce different foods, and that's why I started moving to fruit juice and whatnot. And so, like, through all of that, I determined that it's not carbs that were the problem. It was starches for me, and that I could digest fruits and sugar just fine. And as long as the fruits and sugars, glucose to fructose ratio is fine, because, like, I still had issues with mango and, like, really high fructose things, like, too much honey. That was something I learned from my my dairy days, when I was trying to do a lot of honey and so essentially, like, I each each step of the process that I went through, I learned a lot of different things, like little nuances like that, that have allowed me to be able to make difference for people, if they have different foods, or, like, oh, well, you're if you did this, what if you tried that? But yeah, I remember that that's I turned the corner later on than you, and that's when I got rid of dairy, and I moved more to, like, a paleo esque diet, but it was higher carb, like, much higher carb from only fruits with very little starch, and then I could have vegetable fiber, but, like, like, I could eat cooked greens. I could eat raw carrots, I could eat, like, vegetables like that, but, or like, cooked cauliflower or cooked boiled broccoli didn't bother me either. Like, I can eat those fine, but, like, I couldn't do starches at all. And then, like, my protein sources were meat and seafood, and I wasn't very big on dairy. So as far, I constructed my diet, around that the only thing that I've ever had issues with, nutrient wise, has been getting enough calcium, just because a lot of calcium supplements, like, I haven't found one that I fully like the way I feel on it. So that's still a work in progress. That's still something I'm I'm figuring out. But besides that, like, that's where I turned the corner. It was essentially a. Sugar, Paleo esque diet with adequate like adequate carbs, adequate fat, and then protein from meat and seafoods, and then obviously, avoiding PUFA, avoiding a lot of PUFA, whatever I get for omega threes is from whatever seafood I eat. And that's fine, and it's usually like the crustaceans and shellfish and like cod or or flounder, or fish like that. And then whatever Omega six I get is, it's actually like, very low, and that's just whatever's in the fruit or the meat that I eat. And the meat is like, is very much I don't eat any, really eat any white meat. But even when I was doing paleo before, neither of us really liked chicken that much. When we were doing all the Paleo intermittent fasting stuff, and I remember when I was doing all the bodybuilding stuff and all the plant based, or like, health conscious diet stuff, I didn't really like chicken that much. I felt like it was dry and disgusting. And the same thing with Turkey. So I've always been one for red meat. That was always something that I digested well, and I did well with. And I actually like we're for me, I feel the best when I have it in my diet pretty much every day. So that's when I turn the corner. I know you turn yours was a little sooner when you reintroduce more dairy.

Jay Feldman 26:12
Sort of so. So for one, for the grilled chicken, the grilled chicken thing, I remember, I would still force that was my lunch throughout high school. I don't know if it was like throughout all four years, but I would force a grilled chicken sandwich with, like it was, like, maybe had lettuce and cheese on it, so it's, like, pretty dry. There was, like, it was just and bread. I mean, I liked it, but it was more in the name of health than anything else.

Mike 26:35
I never liked the chicken.

Jay Feldman  26:38
Yeah, yeah. But so, so, you know, I had kind of turned that corner relative to where I was before. But then there was actually a period very soon after, maybe a few months after, with a pretty decent amount of stress and really, like, a lot of lack of sleep, and that kind of set me back a little bit. But not only that, the like when I so I kind of thought what you thought like? I thought that I turned the corner at that point and everything was kind of smooth sailing till now. And then, when I went and looked back at my log, because that was five, six. Was that Six? Seven? Yeah, six and a half years ago or so, and then when I looked back in my log, I realized that it was not smooth sailing after that, not that it was bad, but I just like all these symptoms that I've been dealing with would come and go. So my lactose tolerance varied for years, where I would sometimes have issues with milk on its own. I would just have to have it with food. I would have to have smaller amounts. I needed it with coffee. Some you know, go through periods without milk. I would go to periods with milk. I did the goat milk for a while, which was better. I did goat kefir, which was something that I think actually helped a lot along the way. But yeah, so lactose tolerance varied a lot. My digestive symptoms varied a lot too, like various amounts of bloating with different sometimes those different fruits, sometimes with certain dried fruits. Sometimes it was starches or bloating. Sometimes I would have pain, I would have gas, like that was something that varied considerably over the years. My congestion and allergies would vary a lot, too, and that was generally a pretty good telltale sign that something was going on, if I was getting stuffy. And so that would happen. I also had histamine symptoms for a while, like itchiness on the back of my neck, and sometimes it's some other spots, and I would get hives, even, and that would be like, when I would be in a certain state, and then I would have a lot of quote, unquote high histamine foods. Those kind of symptoms would come up. My hair was still thinning throughout that time. It's hard to tell again, like, especially because it's in the back. It's not something I could see very often, but it seemed like it slowed down or stopped at points, but maybe would kind of come back at others, the and that kind of, well, I'll get to that later. Energy would come and go as well, like when, when you don't have those stress hormones driving you, you notice those fluctuations a lot more. And that happened for me, where that just general energy, that feeling of well being would vary over the over the years. Blood sugar would vary a lot too. I was still getting adrenaline symptoms sometimes throughout the day, the cold hands and feet, tolerating coffee was a huge thing, where I would try all different types of coffee, or tried in different ways, and that would kind of vary. Same thing with thyroid. I was using small amounts of thyroid over you know, sometimes it'd be t3 sometimes t4 sometimes desiccated. And my tolerance to that would vary too, where sometimes I wouldn't be able to sleep at night, regardless of when I took it, or I would just have stress symptoms throughout the day, like stress hormones and blood sugar fluctuations. And that would sometimes happen with other supplements too, with the sleep I remember, like anything that was generally pro metabolic, whether it was like a drop of vitamin E or vitamin K or B vitamins, anything like that, would prevent me from sleeping at night, like being able to fall asleep, that was something that would happen. I would also get viral symptoms too, like sores around like in my mouth. I had fun. Issues that would that would vary as well, which you know, could have also been correlated with the congestion and the allergies a little bit, and then also on my feet. And then, okay, some like various skin variations to, like a little bit of psoriasis, some like minor amounts of acne, very would vary. My weight would vary a lot as well, like I would go through periods, where I would hold on to a lot more weight, like sometimes 20 pounds. Like, my weight would fluctuate up and down 20 pounds in a year. And I wouldn't change that much. Diet wise, I wouldn't really change anything macro wise. I mean, it very might experiment with some things, but it was never directly correlated. It sometimes it correlated with, like, the season, but sometimes it seemed to correlate with stress or, like, something else entirely, like, periods when I couldn't sleep, I would never, like, I got past that phase of, like, restricting when my weight would go up. Like, I definitely, like, was able to think about it better. But sometimes my weight would fluctuate from, like, 185 to 205, and kind of it always stayed in that range, but it would go from one end to the other. And I would, like, get clothes fitted, like a suit or something, and then I wouldn't be able to wear it, or it'd be way too big or way too small, but it always just varied, like, based on these different experiments we would run with different types of foods, different supplements, different time like weather, time of year, stress. So as you were talking about before, those are the kinds of things that have informed, like, a lot of where we are now and and the kinds of things that we tend towards and the kinds of things that we stay away from, or or tend away from, it tends to be from these years of experimenting and seeing fluctuating symptoms along the way. There's, I do want to say that there's, there are quite a few things that seem to always help and help push things along when I could tolerate them. So that would be a lot of those pro metabolic supplements, whether it was using small amounts of thyroid or B vitamins or methylene blue or something like that. I found those to always be helpful when they were used, right? Sometimes they were harmful too. And again, sorting out that context, yeah, exactly like sorting out that context was something that came along too. Like, recognize, like so many people, they see the forum and they're like, oh, this person had this experience, and then they try and they have the opposite experience or something. And yeah, so like having that experience ourselves, of like, knowing how different something can be just between you and I, or between us and somebody else, was very informative. For sure, one thing that I found to be really helpful was low dose prescription antibiotics, particularly touch cycling, again, not necessarily advocating this for anybody, but just throwing it out. There was something that that's what helped you, yeah, yeah. Helped me a lot with like energy and congestion and sleep. Like I would feel like, like energy and well being was way different too. Like I would feel way better when I would use those small amounts for a period of time, you know, a few weeks to a month. And I did that several times over, over a few years. And kind of like the kefir, the kefir seemed to help too, but it was never quite as clear of a difference, like the tetracycline eating enough was huge. And so you did mention the low fat, and I never went low fat like you did, but during that point when you were realizing how much having enough fat was helpful, I remember emphasizing fat a little more and I and I don't think it changed, you know, maybe it was going from like 25% to 35% or 30 toward 40% something like that. And that did help a lot for me too. Like, I definitely felt better with higher fat. And, like, making a point to get a lot of the saturated fats, my cholesterol was too low. That was part of the key as well. Like, part of the clue that I needed to get more fats in. And I was hard. You know, people say, like, fructose helps increase cholesterol, but I was eating, you know, 600 grams of carbs, mostly from sugar, and my cholesterol is, like, 160 maybe even in the 150s so having saturated fat with that helped bring the cholesterol up. We're gonna say something.

Mike 33:48
I just there's a bunch of things that come to mind too when you talk about so then go for it. Yeah, go ahead. Like, for me, the like I use tetracyclines. I used higher dose, and I hurt myself pretty bad when I did that. And I learned a lesson about, you know, doing things too much, doing things too strong, like, the dose is important, but for me, what made, like a huge difference was a natural desiccated thyroid. Like, I felt a huge difference from that. I still use it. I still like it. It, Like It changed things for me. When I first with the high fat stuff, when I came off low fat, there was a and when I came into, like, carnivore and all that, like, there was a period of time where I needed a lot of fat to feel good, and then eventually, like, I started feeling a lot better after like, I slowly could, I slowly was able to lower down my fat. Like, at one point I was doing like, 200 grams a day, just because, like, that's what I felt like I needed, and I was just following that, and I felt a lot better. And like, mentally, I was doing great. And then eventually I, like, lowered it down more, and I was able to tolerate slowly. So there's a period where that was helpful for me, like, really helpful for me, and then the another. Thing that I think was, I don't know it's I'm gonna go on another tangent with that one. I was gonna talk about, like, different lifestyle things, but this one, yeah, for me, I think stress was a huge one, and that was related to my job and working in the hospital and working like 14, 1516, hours at a clip, or even up to, like, 1213, 12, between 12 and 16 hours at a clip was something that was like, pretty stressful for me, and caused, like, a like that had a pretty negative effect on my health. And then working night shift was something that had a pretty negative effect of my health that I still like, like, my sleep patterns have still been slightly messed up ever since I worked night shift for like, a whole year and a half. So some of the lifestyle things like, had a where I had, like, pretty strong effects on on my health, even besides the diet and like, all this, all the supplements and stuff, I tried those. Some helped with that stuff. But some things like, also made like, didn't help and actually made me worse. And it was depending on, like, the context I took them, like, if I took a whole bunch of cortisol lowering supplements, like, say, took an aspirin and some progesterone and pregnant alone and DHEA and so vitamin C from Camu, camu and magnesium and whatnot. And I took that, like, in the middle of my night shift, and I still just stay up the rest of the night and, like, do work, like, actually do, like, hard work, like, my patient was crashing, like that had a noticeably negative effect on me, because I crashed my cortisol, and I was staying up all night and I, like, I had nothing to run on. Like I was just I was struggling. Like, I don't know where I was pulling this energy from, but I that would, like, really messed me up. So, like, I noticed things like that and just different supplements affecting me at different times. But there was a period of time where I needed really high fat and to feel good, and then eventually I was able to lower down and, like, do better without with less fat. And then also having thyroid. Like, using thyroid was something that was helpful for me, especially over time, and like, titrating it, the way brota Barnes and Dr pdev described, that was really helpful. And then B vitamins are also things that were really helpful for me. But I did find that in certain times, if I took them, they actually were stressful because they pushed the gas pedal I didn't have I didn't have it. So those were the job stress. So the B vitamins were pretty important, but yeah, again, all the supplements is the determining on when you're going to use it, and then also lifestyle factors like stress are, I think, really significant. Like Me loathing my job and loathing having to be there for X number of hours a day, and like, like that had a pretty negative effect on me over the long term, and it's just now that I recently got out of it, and I feel a lot better with that so, and I'm still, like, trying to recover from some of the stuff that I did. But yeah, that was the night shift in the and just like, working that and not liking what I was doing was, like, pretty negative for me, and pretty negative health wise. And no amount of diet and supplements was fixing that.

Jay Feldman 38:02
Yeah, yeah. And it was, and there was some, like, learned helplessness, sort of situations there too, I know for you, like, just feeling stuck. I mean, we talked, and I'll get into this for myself too, because stress has been a huge part. But like, the financial stress and needing to do things for money that we know are sacrificing other areas of our life. And it's such a to say it's a stressful place to put you. I mean, it doesn't like it's it's you're so confined, you're so stuck, you're so cornered. When you're in a place like that, it's a very uncomfortable place to be in, and it takes away all of your your feelings of like, openness and creativity and and, like a lot of the things that we talked about, really coming about when we did transition towards a lot of the repeat stuff, yeah, yeah, that was...

Mike 38:48
The thing that helped with that, though, is just like creating a plan out and doing something about it was something that was helpful for me to get over it. But yeah, the that environment like it wasn't that I had to work for money, as much it was that what I was doing to work for money, I absolutely loath and, like, I didn't agree with what I was doing. And I was very like, at my job, I was cornered because I had to do things a certain way based on protocol and, like, moral they were, like, moral and value judgments there that were in conflict, like, on a pretty regular basis. And then just the conditions that I was that was in where it's like, I'm understaffed on the floor, and I have to do X, Y and Z task in X, Y and Z time. But I could never do it all on time. Like it was impossible to do it all on time, no matter how good I was, no matter how optimal the system I was, I created at work was, no matter, you know, what I knew and how I organized things, like I was always, I was constantly falling short, like I was constantly losing the battle that I was going to like, so three or four days a week, and that was like, pretty to be honest. Like I just, I absolutely hated it. I absolutely like, I remember coming home and just getting in these huge arguments with. My dad about it, and him just telling me, just like, you just got to do it for now. And just me just being like, I absolutely love this is like, this is absolutely I hate this environment. I hate the situation. There's a lot of like, terrible things that go on there that I don't agree with. And this is like this for context. This is working in the hospital as a nurse. There's a lot of stuff that went on that, like, people don't know, but that goes on behind the scenes that, like, were just huge moral and and ethical conflicts for me, and just the way, like some, like, people are treated there, and just the environment in general was just antithetical to my belief system and my understanding of things, especially having gone through some of that stuff when I was in high school and and the surgery and all that. And then also, like experimenting with all these different supplements and all these different diets and strategies and whatnot, just like seeing people suffer and get like, bad advice and get told the wrong thing, or get told things that just aren't true, and then suffering even more, not having any like that I can't say anything like, I'm completely closed down. Like, I'll lose my job. It'll ruin my reputation. I won't be able to get hired again, and I needed to eat, like, having to, like, make those judgments were just kind of were, like, I think negative for me for a period of time. Like, pretty negative. So the life, those lifestyle, situations were were serious, and then the not sleeping one is still, like, I don't think I'd ever recommend anybody ever do night shift after, like, after doing it for the year and a half, just because it was like, even to this day, I still haven't gotten my sleep schedule. And this was almost like, two years ago, I still haven't, like, hammered out my sleep schedule perfectly because my body was so used to staying up all night long. It's like, now I've, like, moved things back, and I haven't been able to switch it back completely where I'm going to sleep at, like, like, I haven't gone to sleep earlier than, I don't know, probably 12 o'clock in years. Like, I just and even if I went to sleep earlier than 12 o'clock at night, I would still wake up at like early in the morning and feel like I just took a nap only. So it's just that was really, that one was kind of like an a pretty negative thing for me, and I still like trying to, trying to fix it. So

Jay Feldman  42:21
Yeah. And for reference, when we were in college, we were waiting. I mean, we would go to sleep around nine o'clock some nights. I mean, obviously in weekends, we would be up late. But yeah, we were like, not, you know, we you used to be, like, an early night, uh, early morning kind of guy.

Mike 42:36
And then when I well, then the thing is, is when, when I switched back onto a regular shift schedule, which was during the day, I had to wake up at like, 430 or 5am to go to work. But, and this, this is, this is partly what ruined the circadian rhythm. Stuff still is. I would the days that I would work, I'd have to wake up at 430 to five to go to work, and then when I would come home, like some days, I wouldn't be able to eat the whole shift. So I would, like, I would have to, I would want to eat more to, like, make up that difference. But when I get home from work, I couldn't eat, like, I needed to just do nothing. And so I would, I would just lay down on the floor or on the couch after some of the shifts, and I would just stare at the ceiling and, like, take like, 20 minute nap or something, and just lay down and be useless for, I don't know, for however long, for a couple hours. And so then I would wind up eating my that meal. So I'd get home from my shift to like seven more, like eight o'clock, and then I'd take like, three hours to just unwind from, and, like, calm down from everything I did during the day. And then I would have, then I would wind up eating at like 1130 or 12, and then I would go to sleep at one to two. The problem is I had to go back to work the next day, or I had to, or like the next day was off, and then I would wind up sleeping from like 12 o'clock, if I ate at 11, till like 11 or 12 the next day. And then I would have to, then I'd have that day off, but the next day would have to go back to work, so the next day I'd have to wake up at five or 430 but I had woken up that previous day at at 12, so I couldn't go to sleep until 12 again or one again. So it just been flip flopping all over the place sleep wise. And then there's been, there's been a few days since I stopped doing that, or like there's been times where I got seriously burnt out on nursing that I just had to take a couple months off, like, go work somewhere else, go do something else, go change what type of nursing I was doing, because the hospital, like environment, just cooked me so, like, I would take a month off and go do a job somewhere else and And essentially, what would happen is that I would, uh, I would, um, like, get like, two or three days of being able to, like, wake up at a normal time and go to sleep at a normal time and, like, just how I felt as a person was so different. Like, I wake up, I have energy. I'm excited to, like, go about my day. And. And I get so much, I get so much work done, as far as, like, my the research or reading or writing or whatever it is, and my workouts go so much better. But I just, I haven't fully been able to come out of that cycle yet. So I think that, I think that's important to talk about, like, how important sleep is. I think, like, I've just, and all this stuff that I've gone through with everything, I always see it as a lesson. Like, for me, I see it as a lesson. It's like, now I know how important sleep is, and why do I know it? Because I really screwed up my sleep cycle quite a few times from work, from whatever I was doing. So yeah, that's it's been something and I can either from doing night shift. I know strategies on how to manage circadian rhythm. I know how to like, I know how to make little tweaks here and there to deal with, deal with not sleeping enough, or how to recover from some of that stuff, and how to make the difference. It's just a lot of it takes, like, a lot of discipline, and when your schedule is constantly rotating, it's kind of hard to do that, because it after a couple months of trying to be extremely disciplined, but being tired from what you're doing with work, it's sort of, you sort of lose that excess willpower, sort of like you're just like, I just need to sleep today, and I don't care about my circadian rhythm, because for a while I would, I would go to sleep at 12, and I would still try and wake up that day at 530 so I kept the same schedule consistently, but after a couple months of waking up consistently at 530 and getting, like, a consistent, you know, five hours of sleep, like, I couldn't do it anymore. And so there's sometimes it's just like you and then you sometimes there's just, it's kind of hard to to deal with. But yeah, I learned a lot of lessons about sleep from night shift and then from my most recent endeavors with nursing.

Jay Feldman 46:47
Yeah, sleep and stress and so there was, I did have a semi equivalent period myself. So circling back like I know I had mentioned all those symptoms that were kind of coming, coming and going, from, you know, when we first really started doing the whole, the whole, you know, diving into the whole repeat thing. And so that happened for about two years really, where those symptoms were really fluctuating a lot, and then there was kind of like a jump forward instability. And then about one year after that, things were much more stable, health wise, for me. So the reason why I just wanted to point those things out is because those things I was surprised by when I went back and looked at my log like the fact that I was still experiencing whatever symptoms it was, you know, three years ago or three and a half years ago, and things were still way better, like I knew that I was still way on the right track, but, you know, some things were still lingering considerably and after so it was about three years in that for me, health wise, things really became much more stable, where even through this, these periods of stress and lack of sleep, it didn't affect me anywhere near as much, and a lot of those symptoms wouldn't come back anymore. So the reason why I wanted to put that out there was just because I think the timeline is helpful. So, you know, it's so hard to be patient, and so you know when, when you're dealing especially with significant symptoms, which, for the most part, ours weren't so bad, like we weren't dealing with any intense I mean, when you were younger, you had intense pain, but like later on, we weren't having intense pain, we didn't have severe autoimmune issues, we weren't having debilitating brain fog or fatigue like we had symptoms that were uncomfortable, but it wasn't as intense as it could have been. And so a lot of times, when people are in that you know are dealing with things that are much more comfortable for them, they just want to be there already. And I think it can be helpful to recognize just that it takes time for your body to adapt to a new like a new environment, right? When we're creating this energetically favorable environment, our body has to adapt to that and increase its own thyroid activity and its own pro metabolic hormones and shift out of the stress state. And those things taped take time. And, you know, we talked about our history and how much we depleted ourselves in various ways. And that was, you know, maybe for 20 years or so, until we started jumping into some of the repeat stuff. And other people have done that for 3040, 50 years, maybe not to the same extent, or maybe to the same extent, but so with those things in mind, these things take time. And that doesn't mean that in years, you can't be seeing dramatic improvements along the way, every step of the way, but to expect it all to change all at once, I think, is just a recipe for for like disappointment. So So I just think that's one thing that's helpful to keep in mind. But I do want to mention also, when it comes to like stress and sleep, the like stress with work was definitely something that I had and and there was the same kind of thing, like this financial stress and starting a business and not having any stability there. And there's, I mean, there's people who have done, like, entrepreneurial endeavors before, know, like, it's really hard to create boundaries, and you can just work yourself to death, like, from one. Tonight, and I definitely fell into those things. And, you know, a lot of ups and downs along the way that had made it really tough, and definitely took a toll stress wise, mentally, you know, a lack of so, like, definitely was a lot less active socially, and, yeah, just like, various aspects of things. And there was a point where I, you know, I had to get another job to help support things business wise, and that, you know, cut into my sleep. And in talking about that, I know you were meant, you kind of alluded to this, how much sleep affected you mentally and your outlook and everything. I definitely noticed that, like, shifts in personality with a lack of sleep. I think I've said this before, but like, sense of humor shifts and just brightness goes down, and just like, excitement about the days is so much less, and...

Mike 50:45
it's just don't have that, that kick to get stuff done. You just have it's like a get, like, a laziness about you, or just like, and everything is just like...

Jay Feldman  50:54
It's coasting. You just have to, you end up coasting through the day. And I think and that, and I know I've said this before, we've talked about sleep, and I'll link to those episodes. But episodes, but it's so easy to get used to that as the norm. Like, it's hard to recognize how different that is from, especially if it's been a long time, it's hard to recognize the difference there. Like, it just becomes a norm. But yeah, so sleep was huge, like, stress was huge for for many years, for me, in that same way, with just various aspects of business and all of that. And yeah, along the way, we, you know, still experimenting with diet and supplements. And yeah, you know, there's always small things that we're trying to continue to improve. I know you talked about, like, your hair situation before. And yeah, so I like, I know I mentioned my, like, the whole hair thinning in the back situation, and maybe that was more of a maybe that was, it seems, looking back at the timeline that that was brought on more by the lack of eating, like the low calorie restriction, like heavy restriction, malnutrition, sort of environment, plus maybe the low carb not helping, and that seemed to kind of stabilize in the back there, but just the hair overall, like, still, like, thickness hasn't necessarily changed, or at least improved, and in the front, like, it's, it's, I know, for me, like it started to recede slightly. And I know you talked about this a little bit too in that episode that we were talking about with hair loss in your situation, how, of course, like, there's a genetic predisposition there as well. I know at this age my dad was a lot more bald.

Mike 52:34
Like, all completely bald, right?

Jay Feldman 52:37
Yeah, and pretty U shaped at this point, yeah, that U shaped hairline, like, pretty significantly, and like, his brothers and father all have the exact same U shape, and all, like, had it very young. And so I'm, I mean, who's to say? Like, how I compare to that, and like what that's due to and everything. And there's so many kind of questions there, or, like guessing there, like, there's so little empirical work that we can go from but, yeah, I mean, those are like, they're tricky things and and as we're kind of alluding to, like, we're still not perfect. We're still working on getting our environment closer and closer to perfect. But as we talked about in that previous episode, there are always sacrifices that we're making for other areas of our lives, and we try to do that. We try to be we try to be, we try to put ourselves in a position where we need to do that less Right. Like you talked about how much of like, how much nursing has been, like, such a sacrifice for you in that way, and giving up your sleep schedule and like, long shifts and how that affected you, not only like stress wise and like asleep, sleep wise, just because of the job, but also the morality with it and everything, and that was a choice that you made. Because, again, I was kind of talking about, like that feeling cornered, but like, that was your option for a way to make a living. There wasn't a clear other option that you know at the time, and that was just the best thing for the moment and so to pay my bills, right?

Jay Feldman 53:55
Exactly.

Mike 53:56
It was either don't have anywhere to live and don't eat, or, yeah, yeah, or like, or work, or or work, and don't like what you were doing. And you know, you know, it's not saying it's the worst situation, because I only had to do it three days a week, right? Or, like, sometimes four days a week, but so I still had, like, all I had, still had a lot of time off, but at the same time, like, it was still, like, a huge drain. And I just the question is, who Ha, it's not, who has the worst situation out of them all? Like, I don't care about that argument. I don't. It's not to compare to somebody else whose situations were starving children in Africa, all that stuff. My question is always, why are those situations even existing like that? Like we know better at this point. Why are we doing this, right? Why are we creating these circumstances for ourselves when there's much better options at our disposal? Right? If you know and like, there's, there's tons and tons of research, research showing the issue with working more than eight hours, especially without breaks and whatever else, which is extremely common in nursing. You. Can work 16 hours easily without taking a break to even go to the bathroom just because of what you have going on while you're there. And then, like, there, there's known issues with those long shifts. There's known issues with time stress and jobs, and there's known issues with urgency in jobs, and there's known issues with like x excess number of tasks and short staffing, and it's like, despite all the research and despite all the known best practices, no, not a single place I've worked has even considered any of those factors, right? Everything is just comes down to at least, at least in my experience, and this is one person's opinion, it's just bottom line, what? How are we going to make money here? How is this going to be? How is this going to make the corporation money? We need to staff the full we need to we need to fill the beds. It's like a very common thing that you hear like, that room needs to be filled. This room needs to be filled. You need a patient needs to be so, like, it's like, there's just no like it, and it seems a lot of it when you're there, just seems like so common sense, right? Like, it was a couple of places I've been, it's like, you're starting a new floor. You like you have, you don't have a team there yet. You just open the floor where you're at. Why aren't you over staffing the floor to start so that you don't have an understaffed floor with entirely new team members there, new nurses who don't know this floor all and everyone there who does it doesn't know what they're doing, and you don't, and they're all short staffed. It's like, that is a terrible situation for the nurses and for the patients on the floor, and it like, all of that, like, I don't get what happens in the higher up levels. I'm sure there's something to do with the amount of like, they've calculated specifically how much money and energy can be spent in whatever process, and they're just going to make it doing that. But, yeah, just like, the entire environment just doesn't make any sense. Like, in there's tons of resource research to support it, but it doesn't matter what the research says and all that stuff. It only matters, like, what happens to the hospital's bottom line there? But it's like, even in other environments, it's like, Why are there people starving? Like, what is the actual root cause? Like, why are we not addressing that? Why are we sitting here and making, oh, my situation's worse, your situation's worse. It's like, let's just fix everyone's situations. That's where I see it. Like, what's the common theme behind them?What's, what's the strategy to fix them, instead of focusing on the problem?

Jay Feldman 57:17
Right? Yeah, and I get what you're saying, You're you're just kind of starting off, just like, we're not trying to play victim card here, just to card here, just explaining the situation. And yeah, it's not competition or anything. And obviously everybody goes to these situations and various circumstances, and that's why we're trying to shed light on that. I do. I just wanted to point out that it is, I don't know, thought provoking, that a hospital's incentive is to want to have beds filled as opposed to have beds empty. That's just, you don't make money if the bed's empty, right? Yeah, which obviously, like, yeah, obviously, kind of a conflict of interest there as far as money versus people's health. But you know that aside, kind of circling back to this idea we're just that we've, like, we have known the negative effects of some of these choices that we've made, health wise, and we've still made them. And that might have been because, long term, we felt like it was going to end up with a net positive, right? But we know that, you know, the way that we were working, it might have led to a lack of sunlight and time outside, or a lack of relaxation, or a lack of movement and excess stress, and those are all things that we would much prefer to do without. And so and we've continued to try to orient our lives in that way. And but the point being is that that's always going to be a work in progress, and there's always more room to go there, and it's not a and we're obviously like the environment that we're in societally is far from ideal from every direction. And that makes, you know, and not getting better right now. Yeah, it's and it makes it a very much an uphill battle. And that doesn't mean that there's a ton of things we can do to get from, you know, like one out of 10 to eight out of 10, but it's, yeah, just an it's just it's just an uphill battle. And yeah, so, so when it comes to certain, like, yeah, I guess that's, I don't know. I don't harp on that too much more. We talked about some of this, you know, this idea of, like, experiencing symptoms and stuff in the in that hair loss episode. But I think the general points there on that front.

Mike 59:19
Yeah, the only thing I wanted to talk about is that there was one point in time that I didn't mention, because it wasn't related to diet stuff, but I actually had, like, a pretty severe, like, depressive period when I, like, in my last year of school, and then after I graduated, I was, like, In a really, really bad state, like, suicidal ideation, depression type stuff, and like, completely incapable when I graduated college, like I was completely incapable of doing anything for about like four months where I just all I did every day, and so I had money saved up, because I worked in the summers and stuff like that. And I was. Thing. I was living with my dad at this point, but I didn't. So I didn't have a lot of expenses. I just had to pay for my food, and I didn't have health insurance. I didn't care, like I wasn't going to go to the doctor anyway. So basically, what I did was, all I did for four months was I woke up in the morning, I ate, and then I laid on the couch, and that was it. I didn't do anything else for days because I was so burnt out from like, I had a lot of family problems go on in my last year of college and in my nursing program to become a nurse, I actually load the program. I didn't like what I was learning. I clashed with professors very often. I didn't appreciate some of the ideologies that were being put into class, and so I'd often be in arguments with the professors about the ideologies, not only medical ideologies, like cholesterol, heart disease hypothesis stuff, but also, just like some of the like we had, like a lot of political and social ideologies being thrusted on us, and our classes, like, pretty strongly, and I was pretty much, like, pretty opposed to what some of the things they were talking about, not because, not on an ideological level, but just because I was reading research about it, and I was reading statistics and I was reading the information, just like, This doesn't make any sense. Like there's no basis for what you're talking about. Like you're literally making stuff up. And so I get into arguments with them. And then, besides that, I had a lot of family stuff going on with parents, divorce and family members, sick and whatever else. So like, I was like, at some points in that time, I was going to drop out of school, but I decided I just need to finish, because I knew with how nursing was going, if I didn't finish, I wasn't going to go back to that. So I just needed to get the degree as my last year, whatever it was. So I pushed through really hard. And I, like, used a lot of my my reserves, I guess, at this point in time, to really hammer through that period of time. And, like, regardless what's going on, I didn't go see anybody. I wasn't seeing a doctor. I didn't go to psychologists. Like my and, like, even my, like, my pillars report, like my dad, who was like, the main person I would talk about with this stuff was, like, having a really, really hard time too. So the only person I was talking to at this point about it was pretty much you. So it's just like you. And then that was it. And then I was just, like, half the time I didn't want to talk about it, because I was just just, I was just in a bad place. So essentially, like, I had gone through, like, a really hard time with that, and I was doing dairy too, which wasn't, which wasn't working out for me. And so when I graduated, I just, yeah, like, I, I took four months to just completely do nothing, and I just, I just didn't have the energy or the will or the power to want to do anything, just lay it on the couch, put the TV on, barely watched it, like, and just, I don't even remember what I did, because I just didn't do anything. I've like, like, loosely, went to the gym just because I wanted to take, keep give myself some structured routine. So I ate consistently, went to the gym, and just that was it, and try to do anything else. And I, like, went on walks in the park, and I was basically it. And I think I've seen this happen to quite a few other people that I know, where they just, they had to just take time, to just on, to unwind after, after, like, really stressful periods of time, to just do nothing. And one of the things that was really important is during this time, my when I was doing that, like, my dad never got on me about doing nothing. He was just like, all he said at the end was he was just like, you needed it, like, you need to just do nothing, because what you just went through was a lot, and you just need to, you need to just take the time for yourself. And he was cool with it, and he didn't give me a hard time or anything. He's just like, take what time you need, and then when you, like, when you're ready to get back to it, when you're ready to start moving again, like, we'll start the process, but just just relax. So I, I because you talked about not having any, like, Major, uh, psychological stuff. But for me, that was, like, that was pretty bad. Like, I know at one point in my in my senior year, like, when I was at my lowest point, like I was like, hallucinating stuff, and I was like, in a bad, bad place, and I just, I just pushed through, like I was just for me. It was like, a mindset thing, right? It was like, there's this is not, I'm not gonna be taken down by this stuff. Like, there's nothing that was gonna take me down. So it was like, there was a bit of arrogance there. And I was like, I'm just gonna go through and I'm gonna get it done and we'll see what happens on the back end. And so I just pushed through like that. And then, as far as like, suicidal stuff, like, I thought a lot about it, and I had like plans and whatever else, like, what I could like, I visualized things that I would do, but deep down, like, I for me, my mindset at the time was I would never do something like that. Like, it's just not who I am. Like, I'm a strong person and like, and this was, like, my idea of myself, and I can get through anything that I want to will myself through. But the point being with that is that, like, it took a huge toll on me, to the extent that, like, at 22 years old, when I graduated, I could physically not do anything for four months. So. That was, like a really rough period for me as well, and that was something that, like really negatively impacted my health as well, and it took time to just recover, like it really took that time.

Jay Feldman 1:05:12
So, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. I guess I had also forgotten a period of time. I mean, for me, it was, I was much younger. It was a little different. But when I was in middle school, and this, I think, started pretty soon after, I really started under eating as I went through a period of, like, pretty bad depression as well, which I think a lot of people experienced to some extent during that time, like just those kind of growth experiences, but, but nonetheless, that was definitely there. And I think I and that was, you know, I talked about, like, eating very, very little. And I think after eating at least more than that, I think that did actually help, looking back, yeah, like, that did help things. But, yeah, I mean, you were...

Mike 1:05:58
You were there with me when I was doing that you were there, like, except when I was at home, but you were there when in senior year, when I was really out of it.

Jay Feldman 1:06:07
And I wanted to talk about this too, a little bit more, like earlier, as far as, like, questioning things and and this kind of frustration and opposition with the system that we were learning through, like our education system, which I had, to an extent, but yours was to a much greater degree, I know, and like that that was, I mean, there was so much built into you going into your classes and not only being at direct opposition with your professors, but also, like the people around you, who were all kind of on that side as well. And I know that that was, you mentioned that a little bit, but I know that that was, like, a huge toll too.

Mike 1:06:44
Because, well, when I was in nursing school, I had, like, because I had argued with so many professors, I had gotten a reputation, and, like, the professors would talk about me behind my back and, like, say a lot of negative things, yeah? And like, even if I was gonna go see a new professor, that professor would like offhand say things to me, like, Oh, I heard about you, like, things like that. So every day that I was going to class, which was, Well, eventually I stopped going. I didn't go to class. That's basically what wound up happening, right? But every time I walk into the building, because I'd have to take tests or whatever they would like, I would there just be this air like, I would like, I would like, the people there, like, didn't like me, and my classmates, like, were very frustrated with me as well because they didn't like that. I was arguing with my professors in class. And just like, the whole, the whole environment, like, was just very uncomfortable. And then even when I was in the hospital setting, where I had to do rotations. I had another good friend who I was working with, and like my the dean of the school would, like, make recommendations to my, to my, my clinical leader who was, like, my preceptor, the person who was watching over as well as in the hospital. And like, like, I would get this, like, special treatment in a negative way, where, like, I had to, like, I couldn't be put with X number, like, I couldn't be put with my friend, or I couldn't be in certain group, and I had to be like, they had to watch me extra closely and stuff like that. And it was, like, a, it was a really uncomfortable experience. And then just to, like, everywhere you go, like, like, I felt like I was just like a pariah, or like I was completely ostracized. And like, in my classes too, like, like, I would walk into my class, and there was one class I had gotten an argument with over the professor because he just some, some petty stuff I had are, like, I didn't agree with the point of view. Like, and it wasn't, it was an idea, and I was very like, if I didn't agree with something, I was very vocal about it, right? Like, I didn't because I wasn't arguing their personalities. I was arguing an idea, and I was completely fine with, like, having an argument about an idea, or a debate, whatever it was, but they were not okay with it, and they weren't open to that. So essentially, like, the every time I walked into the class, like the professor would just, like he would, he would like, pick on me in the class and stuff like that. And then we would go back and forth with each other, and I would, because I would never, like, lay down. And then eventually those like, other tactics that they were doing, like, when they were grading my stuff, they were like, crapping on me for like, little things and just like, being really hard on me. It was just it was kind of like it was a pretty rough experience with that. So, yeah, there was that, and then, and then it was, like all the family stuff I had going on, and then we had whatever was happening with with the girlfriends, and just like it was everything, just sort of like it was like a ground zero type of thing, where everything was like happening all at once. I was having issues with health, with dairy. I was having issues with my family and my parents divorcing, and family members being sick and like you can complete, like schism across my entire family, like dividing up into sides, and then whatever we were having happened with our friend group at that point in time, because some of the stuff that was happening. It was one of our roommates, and then, like, breaking up with a girlfriend, like, it just all, like, hit me at once, like it was going well, and then boom. And then I was just like, I was just at the bottom for a while, and like, it was like, nowhere. I was going. I was being I was like, I felt okay, like I couldn't go home to talk about things we had, we had, like, issues going on with whatever we had going on in the house at that point, um, and then, like, I couldn't go to class because I was just being completely craft on by my professors. Was just, it was bad and that, I mean, but I think the experience, that experience like, I think having the experience of what was happening in class and seeing how the professors were was actually very enlightening and very helpful to understand, like, how what that at least University of Miami was, what, like a number 34 university in the country, or something like that, like it was one of the bigger universities, and to see, like how the people, the professors, like the supposed intellectuals, were Acting, was just ridiculous. It was just like a petty politic party with a bunch of a bunch of people, just like, flexing on their points of views. With no, I know there was nothing about like, let's have a conversation about something, or let's talk about a point of view. Everything was like, I'm right. Be quiet. And then the other thing was, I don't know where they were getting their information from, but it wasn't supported by, like, a lot of it wasn't supported by current research or research in general. And they were, like, discussing things as as fact, rather than like, this is a theory. Everything was like, Oh, this is the fact. Like, this is how it goes, and then when they started mixing in ideology, that's when it was just like, Okay, this is ridiculous. Now, like, You guys aren't even talking about research now you're talking about ideological points of view and political points of view. That is not what your job is. Your job is not here to educate us or indoctrinate us politically. Like, that's pathetic. And I remember just having this point of view about it, and just like this, I remember, like, going to class, like not going to class, and professors giving me a hard time about it, and just being like, why would I go to class as a waste of time? And then just sort of, and then also having the point of view is, like, I'm paying for this education. So if I'm paying I'm saying, right, if I'm going to pay for this, I'm going to do, you know, I'm going to do what I what's going to work for me to get the grades that I need to get, and sitting in your class while you trying to indoctrinate me with whatever is not helping me. Just give me the book. Tell me what the test is, when the test is, and then we'll be fine. And I know you experienced some of that with your professors too, but I don't think it was, it was as potent, because mine was more like, very much, like in the medical sphere. And so it had, there was a lot more about like, they were preparing us to go work in the hospital and be how they wanted us to be, instead of, like, just providing information. So it was a little different.

Jay Feldman 12:54
Yeah, right, yeah. I mean, I definitely have professors that were more open to a large extent, and I might not have agreed with their views, but they're at least open to discussions on it. Some weren't, but yeah, it's, it definitely says a lot, as far as, like, don't know, just that questioning things isn't tolerated in a lot of those spheres. And especially, as you said, getting into the medical system more and, and we've, of course, had our you've, I mean, that was such a great framework to see, like a preview of what we're going to experience when we start, you know, publicly saying some things like this. And then, you know, whether it's, I've had it quite often, whether it's like friends or colleagues or, you know, acquaintances who are in medical school or are doctors, some of which who are some of whom are, like, very open to these things, and I'm bored, but others who are extremely dogmatic and kind of react like your professor reacted and and we talked that actually was part of what inspired a couple of episodes that we did talking about some of the failures with the modern medical system. So I'll link to those. But yeah, it's it. It says a lot as far as that kind of framework and and what's really going on there. Another thing I wanted to point out, you were talking about how, when you would bring up an alternative point, like you would, you know, become this, like, personal sparring match with with the professor. And it's, it's funny, because you and I, when we're talking, you know, maybe it's talking you know, maybe it's talking about some topic that we're going to talk about in the podcast, or some, some other, like, scientific topic, or, like, even political, ideological, psychological, like, we have conversations about these things and we don't agree a lot of times, and then, and we, like, argue about it. We debate about it like, and sometimes it gets intense, but it never, like, there's never an ad hominem.

Mike 1:14:41
It's never like, I I'm mad at you. It's just like, Okay, Let's hammer this out, right?

Jay Feldman 1:14:45
And there's so much growth that comes from those things. Like we, and we don't always end up on the exact same page, but we we at least evolve our thinking because we have an opposite view. We, you know, you try to poke holes in the other person's and there's so much growth that comes from that that. To have an entire education system where you're supposed to be learning, to be missing out on that, it's like, what? What is education really, other than regurgitation at that point?

Mike 1:15:10
But well, that's really what it turned out to be. And then I know both of us like, towards our last two years of school, we're sort of done with it like it was the first year, was like, Oh, we're going to get good grades. And then after that, was sort of like, wow, this is kind of a waste of time, because we were just like, I remember once I got to nursing, especially the indoctrination and the Bs just like, skyrocketed, right? Because before I was I started pre med classes, and then that was, like, mostly hard sciences stuff. So the hard sciences were just, you know, there's this theory, there's this theory. Like, you have to understand this, you have to understand that. And I was completely cool with that. And then I, I was doing, I did my psychology. The second degree was psych, and like, in Psych, I took a lot of neuroanatomy and a lot of, like, heuristics courses, and a lot of social psychology. So just like, like, and I was all just like, check out this interesting study. And like, this is what this study said. And like, these are the heuristics they've uncovered. It was like, let me show you this stuff. Like, none of it was like an ideology, to a large extent. I mean, some of there was some of that in there, but like, you could largely ignore it, you know, because it wasn't the central theme. The central theme was, like discussing research, like that was the psych stuff. Was pretty heavy on that. And then the hard sciences were just like, this is the theory, right? Like, you need to understand all these different theories so that you can do X, Y, like you can do x, y, z, so, I mean there, like, there wasn't as much room for debate with some of that stuff at this point. It was only once we started getting into, like medics, like the medical stuff, and where you talked about, like, drugs and pharma companies and whatever. And it wasn't even talking about pharma companies, just like the drug ideas, and then, like, the whole nursing theories, and then, like, just like the treatment pathways and everything else that was going into there. Like there was so much BS and fluff added into that, that it just became, like it was on another level. And that was essentially like what it got to like in the medical sphere too. Like once I got into the hospital, into medicine, like there was just, it was just like, there's one way to think, there's this religion, and that's it. And like any thinking outside that that box is not rewarded like you are, like, literally, like you're a quack, you're a pariah, you're XYZ, right? So you get labeled. So you just have to follow the course and be quiet, and that's it. Yeah, and people make a lot of arguments without, without any sound basis. And like, yeah, just like a big hierarchy, dominant structure of indoctrination. Whoever knows the most amount of indoctrination or plays the game the best is kind of like, sits at the top. And that was my experience. Nursing School is like a primer for that. And I I learned real quick to just shut my mouth.

Jay Feldman 1:18:00
Well, not too quick.

Mike 1:18:03
Well, after school, like, I didn't even, that was it. I was done. I was like, there's, there's no, like, having a conversation about anything. And it's not to say that all, all doctors or nurses or anyone, was like that. Like, there's a lot of really awesome doctors who I worked with who, like, I would ask them questions, and they would love to, like, teach about things, and you have conversations, they would explain things. It was awesome. Like, that was awesome. But on the flip side, and some nurses were interested in talking about things, most of them don't care. Most of the ones that, in my experience, they didn't really care that much. It was more like, like, let me just, let me just get through my shift type of stuff. But there were some doctors like that, and some of them were just like, like, monumental. They just weren't, weren't like, nice people to be around, just like the way it was about things. But the hospital structures, too were kind of depending on which hospital I was in. It was, like, very hierarchical, like that, and it was just follow the protocol and be quiet like that was kind of the way it was.

Jay Feldman 1:19:00
And so contextualizing this, I think it's the reason why I wanted to, like I wanted to talk about some of that is because of how important we realized, prior to you getting into nursing school, which was the later part of your college, getting into the nursing classes until later, You know, learning about so much of these things from like learning about Ray Pete and a lot of his work helped, I think, to inform us a lot and helped to prepare us a lot for those sorts of things, and helped us to continue questioning what we were learning, what we're being taught, but also ourselves and like, what we were experiencing. You obviously were also helpful, just for me, as far as, like, listening to your body and helping me with that, because I would, you know, I would tend towards the regimented side and just following whatever I was, not necessarily what I was told, but what like was supposed to be best, you know. And Ray Pete talks about how the only real Protocol, or the only reasonable one, is perceive, think, act, and. And, like, I think that, like, that's kind of what we're getting at here, is that, you know, kind of shedding that dogmatism and being able to question things is all part of that process, and listening to your body, and those were things that beyond talking about the nutrition and the supplements, and this even the sleep and, I guess, somewhat distress, even outside of those things, this is such a creates such a shift, like in health and mindset, which go so tightly hand in hand, and just makes such a big difference for progress and for moving forward. And so, you know, and looking at things as experiments, and that kind of helps take some of the pressure off as well, and helps you actually learn from what you're doing, so that you're moving forward, as opposed to just taking sidesteps. So yeah, I thought that in addition to just going through our own journeys, as far as what happened, actual health wise, I mean, this is just such a huge part of of health as well.

Mike 1:20:50
Yeah, and I think that, I think something that is really important that I see, like working with people now, from my own experience, from us doing stuff together, and then seeing people in the hospital following how you feel and like really listening to what your body's telling you is extremely important, and that'll give you a lot of the best information you can do a lot of testing and all that stuff, and it's helpful, but it's just a snapshot in time, whereas, if you're continually feeling what's going on with your body, and you take Time to develop a connection with your body and actually move your consciousness, just from right here, down lower and sort of see what's going on. I know it sounds a little woo, woo. I don't think it's necessarily woo woo, like, regardless of how it sounds, but you can really get a sense of what's going on. You can really see what's wrong. You can start to And while you might not immediately get it over time, the more you listen, the more you can start to put things together and see how different things are affecting you and and see where you're going to go and what you're going to do, and and try and experiment and and like essentially, the goal is to create your own protocol, your own toolbox that works for you, Your own lifestyle that works for you. And so all that, I think, that we've really done is we've researched a lot of different things. We've tried them out, we've we've taken a lot of rays large picture, and we've really spent time to understand it, as well as the larger pictures of some of the other popular ideas that's going on, whether that's paleo, whatever it is, and then also taking concepts from modern medicine and like, basically pulling from all different areas, having a big picture there, and then experimenting and testing and seeing, like, how things go, and being aware of ourselves. And that's, that's really what I think the process is for, for pretty much everyone is to, is to see how you feel, gather, gather valid good information. There is good and bad information, right? There's, there's definitely wrong information out there. And over time, you get better at discerning it, the more you become aware of yourself, and you try different things, right? Like, when, as soon as the carnivore craze came out, both you and I were never like, oh, you know, Pete's wrong. We should hop on carnivore. Because it's like we already tried doing the low carb, like heavier meat stuff, and we already had an understanding of the physiology around what was going on, and we already saw the differences between lower carb and higher carb and different types of carbs. So we had a context to be able to provide information for to right, or to be able to have an input around around carnivore without actually having to specifically do it, even though I did it a little bit. So it wasn't 100% carnivore, but, and that wasn't because, in the instance of doing carnivore, the other thing is, the more stuff that we've that we've done, we've gotten out of the the idea of like, being a part of an ideology, and getting more into the sense of, like, what makes sense, what works. And we're going to keep that, and then we're going to toss out, at least for now, the stuff that we aren't finding that works or that doesn't make sense. And maybe we'll get, maybe we'll get back around to it at another point in time, right, and then retest it or whatever else. And there's, like, a lot of valuable, nuanced lessons that you learn when you go through all of these trial and error and experiments and whatever, what else, whatever else, whatever else you want to categorize this stuff as that aren't necessarily, like learning a new physiologic concept. It's more like, like, gaining wisdom, to some extent, about yourself and how things work, right? So like, like the idea of doubling down where it's like, if this is, if this isn't working, then I must do more, right? Or the idea of if, if one thing is good for you, then more of it must be better. Like you've changed from that perspective to, okay, what's the, what's the effective dose with the best benefit and the least amount of side effects? And does it make sense? And what makes sense in the large picture, right? So does what is, what you're using makes sense in your in your larger overall picture, you. And what is that optimal dose you sort of like you start to learn more things like that that become really helpful. And then obviously, one of the most important ones that we've touched on quite a bit is really listening to yourself and listening to how you feel and trying to make sense of it, instead of rationalizing or ignoring it.

Jay Feldman 1:25:18
Yeah, one thing that I really like that you talked about, there was kind of the how now we would see some other diet, maybe you'd call it a fat diet or not. I mean, what's the difference whether you call it that? But, you know, you see something like carnivore, and we wouldn't be tempted to go towards that now. And I think, yes, listening to our body is part of that, and another huge part of that is actually the understanding of physiology. And it made me think of how throughout all this time, and I know you had this as well. To an extent, we were always like our diets were varying a lot, you know, go from whole grains and raw nuts and seeds to white rice, let's say, you know, and paleo. And so the people around us would be seeing these shifts, and not, you know, just be seeing it from the outside and just thinking it was like some ridiculousness, and we're just jumping from one diet to the next, and it just kind of, there's no reason to, like, consider anything that we're saying, because it's just going to change in a minute. I would get that a lot, like, with family, whereas I go, like, what? What are you eating this week? And which is fine. I mean, it's but, but one thing that really helped along the way was building the understanding to because so even throughout low carb and paleo like, I mean, it was all building compared to before, but it was on such a different level from, I would say, the understanding of physiology, like the depth that with which we understand and can contextualize these different diets. And it's those things are not quick. It's not a quick thing to build that picture. It takes a lot of time, and it takes effort, but those are going to be the things that allow you to recognize. It's going to be a huge part of the picture to allowing you to recognize what's what makes sense and what doesn't, and help you prevent they'll help prevent you from just jumping onto the next diet. You know, going vegan tomorrow or something, because you know somebody around you talked about their benefits with it, yeah, and that's that's really important too. And I think it also prevents missteps along the way. You're gonna be less likely to, you know, and it helps you, I don't want to say stick to it as if it's some diet that you have to stick to where there's nothing wrong with eating a piece of pizza if that's what you decide is is the best option for you, or just the option that you want to make at that point. But it's actually understanding what goes into that those choices, and that makes the choices a lot easier than feeling like you're on some sort of a diet that you have to restrict to, but rather understanding that you feel better when you're eating whatever it is that you're doing or not eating, whatever it is, and also that you understand the physiology there. Just it makes it all a lot easier, and it also adds a lot of stability and helps, I think, helps you reach what I would consider would be truth faster. You know you're talking about correct and incorrect information, and the more that you understand to whatever extent you can, the easier it is to discern those things.

Mike 1:28:02
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I just think this reminds me of the idea that, like, something that I feel like both your dad and my dad talked about at some point was like everything in moderation, and it's just like, such cop out answers. There's something that we've always talked about where it's like, I don't know what's gonna I don't know exactly what's best. So I'm just gonna do a little bit of everything so that I don't it's like, the shotgun approach, like, so I don't have a problem, right? Yeah. And I feel like it's like, while we have gone through some things that have both made us, like, suffer quite a bit at the back end, we've been able to figure out things from that suffering and from and it's not even suffering, it was just painful learning, yeah. So just like, through some of that painful learning, we were able to really uncover pretty like, I remember every time I learned something like, from one of those experiments, just like that, aha moment. Just it felt so good. It's like, Oh, I I get it now. I understand why, you know, I understand why this XYZ caused X, Y and Z, and then it's like, now I can make this change here. So it's like another, it's like another piece that add to the puzzle. And sometimes, when you're doing that, sometimes you think you have a piece at first, and it fits into the puzzle, but not 100% and then, like, you have to, then you do an adjustment, and it's like, Aha, this is the piece. And it's like, sometimes your pieces will adjust a little bit. But I built, building the puzzle, building the picture overall, you know, it's at a certain like, when you first start, you're sort of, you're like, a little bit gung about it, because you don't know what can happen. And then it's like, that U shape curve. Then you hit the bottom, and it's like, you know what can happen, and you know, and you're like, oh, there's so much more to go. I don't know what to do. And then as you start to, like, build more momentum from the bottom, and you start reaching to the other side of the curve for, like, your knowledge level with things that you start to really make it that difference in your implementation and your understanding and what you can do for yourself. And. Like creating a sense around it, of like I'm figuring out what works for me, I'm figuring out a plan, or I'm figuring out a protocol that works for me, something that I can use going forward. It's my lifestyle, right? Like something very, very specific to you, not that it's, it's Oh, I'm paleo, right? In the sense that oh, this ideology or this framework, that's me. It's more like you're creating something of your own.

Jay Feldman  1:30:24
All right, that's going to wrap up this series discussing our health journeys. If you did enjoy it, please leave a like or comment. If you're watching on YouTube and if you're listening elsewhere, please leave a five star rating or a review on iTunes. All of those things really do a lot to help support the podcast, and are very much appreciated. To check out these show notes for today's episode, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/podcast where you can take a look at these studies or articles or anything else that we discussed throughout today's episode, and if you are dealing with any of the symptoms that we experience throughout our health journeys, whether that is insomnia or low libido or depression or weight gain or joint pain or anxiety or cold hands and feet or bloating or allergies or histamine intolerance or psoriasis or various infectious issues or any other low energy symptoms or chronic health conditions, whether that's diabetes or autoimmune issues or heart disease. Then head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, where you can sign up for a free energy balance mini course, where I'll explain how these different symptoms and conditions are really caused by a lack of energy, and I'll also walk you through the main things that you can do from a diet and lifestyle perspective to maximize your cellular energy and resolve these symptoms and conditions. So to sign up for that free energy balance mini course, head over to Jay Feldman wellness.com/energy, and with that, I'll see you in the next episode.