Latest / NHA Today Podcast / 156: Reversing Chronic Disease Through Fasting & Plant-Based Nutrition with Dr. Csilla Veress (Replay)

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156: Reversing Chronic Disease Through Fasting & Plant-Based Nutrition with Dr. Csilla Veress (Replay) · NHA Today Podcast

• 0:22
  All right. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the new podcast. I'm your guest host Maxim Sagi, founder and CEO of iFit Vegan coaching. And today, I have the great pleasure of speaking with someone who embodies the mission of nature through her work, her wisdom, and her unwavering commitment to lifestyle medicine. Doctor Sheila Barash is a licensed naturopathic doctor and a passionate advocate for whole food plant based nutrition.
• 0:47
  She's currently practicing at True North Health Center, where she helps patients reverse chronic disease through evidence based holistic care. With her deep understanding of the body's natural healing ability. Sheila blends science and compassion to guide people back to vibrant health, where she's speaking at conferences where we have the opportunity to connect a few weeks ago at NASA. Mentoring patients or educating the public.
• 1:09
  She's helping shift a paradigm from sick care to true health care. Sheila, welcome to the show.
• 1:19
  Yeah, absolutely. Well, I know we're going to have an interesting conversation today because I know a lot of people enjoy fasting, and we spoke before recording and gut microbiome is going to be a topic that you're going to be very excited to talk about. So before we dive into these two, you know, as a heated topic, but that people really enjoy.
• 1:38
  Let's just do a little background. So what got you to the place of of doing the work that you do and being so in love with, with wanting to serve people.
• 2:25
  Complete shift.
• 4:56
  Yeah. It truly is. And you know what I love about people story. They come to a place of wanting to serve is there's always that one pivotal moment in your story which a lot at the time was the worst time of their life. Right. Like I felt soulless. I didn't feel like myself. But it's always that pivotal moment to where you start to dive deeper into like yoga, Pilates, like, what can I do to kind of relax, right?
• 5:19
  And kind of be more in tune with myself, and then you just kind of make it start to make all those connections. And what's the quote by Steve Jobs? You can't connect the dots looking forward, only looking backwards. So it was a good thing that you went through all these things. You've helped a lot of people since then.
• 5:58
  Yeah.
• 6:39
  Yeah.
• 6:41
  Yeah. There's more compassion, there's more empathy. And, you know, that's that's the difference between just having theoretical knowledge and having life experiences. That's what really allows you to understand, like, oh, I know what it's like to be sneaking in cookies at nighttime and when you're not supposed to, but that feeling of you're eating it but you can't stop yourself, are eating it, but you know you shouldn't be eating it.
• 7:03
  Like you don't learn that in school. Like you have to have gone through and overcome it to be able to serve better. In my opinion.
• 7:31
  Yeah.
• 7:52
  Yeah. It just creates a that deeper connection with people and they know that you get it. So what made you go? What made you want to go specifically to true north? I know there was kind of an opening and they were interviewing, but what was the what was your relationship with fasting before you apply for the center?
• 8:55
  Yeah.
• 9:32
  Yeah.
• 10:31
  Yeah. So one thing I wanted to ask is where the, the relationship with whole food plan based eating kind of come into the picture as you're going through that journey.
• 11:03
  Experimented.
• 12:09
  Yeah absolutely. I think the idea too many people get an idea of perfection and it prevents them from actually trying to stick to it or even eat, you know, more plant based, more plant based foods. So I'd say just meet people where they're at. Some people are ready to go 60, 70, 80, 90%. Some people are ready to go 100%.
• 12:26
  But if you are to expect that, you should be 100% perfect all the time. People are like, well, I can't do that. So then they go in the complete opposite direction. Let me just eat fried food and chicken nuggets and all those things.
• 13:15
  Yeah.
• 13:23
  Yeah.
• 13:36
  Yeah. Yeah. I think I think it is the the best way to help people get healthier or fitter in general is. Yeah, hold hold space. Don't put any pressure on them. Let them make some progression. Let them give it a try. And then whenever they do at some point because you know, life happens and they're new, it should go back to eating like dairy or fish or eggs or potentially missing a few days of work out there.
• 14:01
  Realize the difference in how they feel and like, oh, not that great. I didn't know I was feeling that great before, but now I feel terrible. Let's just not do this as often or potentially never again. Yeah.
• 14:19
  Yeah.
• 14:31
  Yeah. There's there's always, always a new level to how good you can feel if, you know, if you think you feel great, there's another level. Even if you're a whole food plan based and you exercise, add stress management and better sleep, there's a even new level of how good you can feel. So there's, it is a beautiful journey to take on because then you just realize how incredible you could have felt this whole time.
• 14:52
  But now there's nothing better like today to get started on feeling better. So throughout, throughout your work at a true North, you guys, you know, a lot of people go to you guys. I would say let me know if it's fair. A lot of people are really sick and are kind of like hoping to get that last straw.
• 15:10
  I'm assuming that there potentially is a little bit of people that are going there for prevention, but from my understanding, a lot of people go there because they're sick, they're trying to reverse or chronic illness or of dealing with it with a health issue. How do you guys navigate these different types of people and situations coming in?
• 15:54
  Yeah.
• 16:07
  Yeah.
• 16:34
  Yeah.
• 17:21
  Yeah.
• 18:08
  Yeah.
• 18:26
  Yeah.
• 19:07
  Yeah.
• 19:35
  Yeah. So as soon as you, I just created like a perfect environment for people to come in and be able to change their habits and relax. And because, you know, I'm sure you seen it with Chuck on when we were at him and I had multiple conversations about stress. Like, you can exercise, you can whole food plan based, but if you're stressed out of your mind, you're stuck in fight or flight like you will get sick.
• 19:55
  You won't feel great, and over time it'll take a toll on you. So I think for people to be able to disconnect, that adds such a massive element that I don't think people know the true impact of just being able to reduce the stress and step away from from daily life on top of, you know, you know, fasting and or eating, you know, whole food plant based and eating healthier foods.
• 20:21
  Yeah.
• 20:46
  Yeah.
• 21:03
  Yeah.
• 21:12
  Yeah.
• 21:26
  Yeah. Absolutely. And I'll add another piece to it. There's a, there's there's life elements that we that are out of our control. What I've seen with a lot of people like we attract who we are some very Type-A, caregiver esque energy. So I attract a lot of those people. The ability to struggle to set boundaries as a lot of stress to people, to people's life, and then they turn to food and they put themselves around to take time to work out or potentially cook healthy food for them.
• 21:55
  But I'll cook healthy food for other people. So there's so it is such a psychological journey to get someone to transform. It is not even about the workout plan or the meal plan necessarily. It's about like, let's sit with what's in your head and how you're navigating life and handling stress. That's what makes the biggest difference. Yeah. So I love to ask you because, you know, I, we had a dinner with Doctor Gold Hammer, plan and project last year.
• 22:24
  It was him, chef AJ, my wife and Nick. Mark and the whole and the whole gang. Surprisingly, he knew who I was because he watches poker. Apparently so, because I. My wife is on TV for poker. So I don't get like me saying that, but it was a very funny moment. So one thing of of fasting, like, what are the typical conditions that you guys treat and see people come with to, to the center just for the people listening that potentially okay, fasting sounds cool.
• 22:50
  I'm dealing with this. Would it be helpful for me?
• 23:53
  Yeah.
• 25:16
  Yeah.
• 25:30
  Yeah. I figured cancer would be on the list because, when my late partner was going through her breast cancer journey, we we had looked into going to the true north. At the time. Yeah. You question, you familiar with girls in therapy? Yeah. So, so she ended up kind of doing that just because it was at back in the day.
• 25:52
  We didn't have the funds for her to take a flight and kind of go to to to the center. So she ended up doing versing to someone just basically lent us the, the full, like $5,000 juicer to, to to use that to help her out on her journey. What is there commonalities between kind of Gerson and the fasting?
• 26:11
  Because you I know you mentioned that sometimes you'll do like, potentially like a cleanse or use like whole foods for people that are not ready to transition.
• 27:26
  Yeah.
• 28:01
  Yeah.
• 28:46
  Yeah.
• 29:13
  Yeah. Okay. I was just curious out of at a personal interest because I know she had done that, like the last, I think the last few months of her, of her life. So when you, when people come in for fasting, you talk about changing some lifestyle factors. What are some things that you guys get people to go through when they are, doing a fast with you guys?
• 29:33
  Because what what's the shortest and what's the longest that they can go for?
• 29:46
  Okay.
• 30:09
  Okay.
• 30:37
  Okay. Perfect. Yeah. I was I was curious, like what? Because again, people have to take time off, right? To kind of get that time to relax and then de-stress and, so we mentioned earlier we talk about the microbiome, what is the relationship between fasting and and a healthy gut microbiome.
• 32:27
  Yeah.
• 34:17
  So let me ask you a multilayered question. I'm trying to keep track of it in my head as you as you were sharing these different terms. So yeah. So would so the anti-inflammatory effect, the the growth of those caregiving microbiomes and the control of these, you know, teenager microbiomes that are opportunistic with the with the would all three of those benefits come from just the fasting because you're giving a break to your body from digesting food because you're not you wouldn't be taking in, you know, a bunch of vitamins and nutrients and fiber from whole food plant based eating.
• 34:59
  If you're if you're fasting. So would the benefit come from giving a break to the digestive system and from you not eating foods like processed sugar or processed and refined foods that would feed those opportunistic cells to turn them into like bad microbiome, would that be where the benefit comes from?
• 35:35
  Yeah.
• 37:13
  Yeah.
• 38:07
  Yeah. So so basically a lot of the anti-inflammatory benefits would come from obviously the opportunity is excels in the microbiome being kind of neutralized. The good ones being able to multiply like the caregiver one being able to multiply. But as a second hand benefit, the fact that we're reducing the amount of visceral fat is going to automatically reduce a level of inflammation in the body.
• 38:31
  I know that's potentially an oversimplistic story of the how people explain it, but is there an element of because you're not eating food, your body is not spending a lot of energy on digestion and is able to kind of use that energy elsewhere to potentially heal things in the body. Would that be accurate or. I'm sure it's more complex than that, but is there an element of that?
• 39:08
  Oh yeah. More than three. We're a snacking country, that's for sure.
• 40:30
  Yeah. And so and that's why like obviously obviously not eating fiber at the point. But drinking water is going to be important to flush out some of those some of those dead cells and, you know, moving the lymphatic system and kind of getting rid of all the toxins that are in the body because a lot of toxins are stored in visceral fat as well.
• 40:48
  And so you're also releasing that when you're losing some of the fat too. And that's why maybe people have some of those symptoms or they feel a bit like lightheaded or, you know, a little bit weak or something like that.
• 41:08
  Yeah, it's kind of a build up.
• 41:54
  Yeah.
• 41:57
  Yeah. Because you can throw off the electrolyte balance if you're drinking too much because you're not taking anything basically. Yeah.
• 42:57
  Yeah.
• 43:02
  Yeah. And I think that's a big element is like they're not working out. They're not running and sweating, you know, a ton of water every day. They're actually resting. So I can see like how you wouldn't need any, any of that. I love to talk about the I would say we we said the word autophagy. I was like, I feel like we have to say it at least once in this podcast because we're talking about fasting.
• 43:21
  So just to kind of summarize it, for some people that potentially may be newer to that concept, what is it and how long does it take before it actually happens? Because, you know, some people say fast for 12 hours and then you start to get some of the benefits. Some people say fast for three days before you start to get some of the benefits.
• 44:43
  Yeah.
• 45:16
  Yeah.
• 47:00
  Okay. So like that 17 hour mark roughly you start to see you really start to see more of that process kick in. Yeah.
• 48:03
  Okay. So I have a question for you. And I've I never hear this topic being talked about. Maybe because I don't listen to a ton of podcasts. I like to record them. I don't listen to a lot of podcasts. So there has to be like a, a mental emotional hurdle to fasting. Not from the element of like, hey, you're not going to eat food for X period of days, but because people use food as a coping mechanism for stress or for not dealing things, that's happening inside of their head, inside of their heart.
• 48:34
  So what have you guys seen in terms of of patients and navigating that when people are so used to I feel terrible, I feel stress. Let me eat something now. It's like you can't. So how do you find that people deal with that?
• 49:15
  Temptations. Yeah.
• 50:07
  Yeah.
• 51:06
  Yeah.
• 51:27
  Yeah.
• 51:42
  Yeah I can definitely see that. That's why I do monthly digital detoxes is to train myself to do nothing for seven days. I can definitely see that with the new generation. Now that's interesting because when I've done certain things like some fasts or some long periods of time where I force myself to do nothing, it can get emotional to just be in your own head and have to kind of deal with whatever comes up.
• 52:06
  But it seems like the element of community helps with you just feeling connected and not only having that distraction, but having that deeper bonding with people. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. As beautiful as one question is, like, no one ever talks about this, but it has to be emotional to not be able to turn to food for stress. But if you are, like I said, in your house versus a controlled environment, I can see how that would make a massive difference.
• 52:40
  Yeah.
• 52:48
  Yeah.
• 53:02
  Yeah.
• 53:08
  Yeah. And like you said earlier, like to me, when you pay, you pay attention like I don't I don't like doing anything for free. I don't like getting anything for free. If I value it, I will forcefully like, pay for it, even though sometimes people don't want me to. Just because I know I will pay more attention because I've invested energy into it.
• 53:27
  Yeah.
• 54:09
  Yeah.
• 54:19
  Yeah. I did a podcast on called the Transformation Flywheel. So when you try to move a massive flywheel at first there's a lot of effort. You have to keep your hands on it and push push push push push. But over time eventually you can just have a finger on there and spin it once you've been consistent enough with it.
• 54:33
  Right. Because the momentum is taking the majority of the work from you, but it's always a bigger effort, at the beginning to make a big change like that. So love to ask you. Earlier, we talked about, you know, the types of people that go for different condition, like prevention versus kind of being sick. There has been, an increase.
• 54:54
  And I talked about this with a few people at the NASA conference, an increase in the biohacking community, people that love to optimize themselves. Do you think that that's helped to bring more people in to true north in terms of prevention of people that are just simply looking to optimize themselves or people that, you know, potentially, you know, as people are getting older, they have more friends and family that are getting sick and are like, hey, I want to make sure I take care of myself.
• 55:22
  So I end up in the same position as them.
• 55:40
  Okay.
• 57:00
  Yeah.
• 57:36
  Yeah.
• 58:25
  Yeah.
• 58:37
  Yeah. I think there's, there's beauty in its simplicity. And I think that the people that are trying to do all those things that you just said weren't mentally ready to sit down and do nothing like it is. It is so much easier to work out every day than it is to sit down and do nothing like no TV, no distraction.
• 58:58
  It is. Even someone that doesn't work out would find it extremely hard to sit down and do nothing with no distraction.
• 59:07
  Yeah. That's why we book a two day campsite, and I sit in my camping chair, and I look into nature all day long, and I do nothing. It is the most I I'll work out for four hours any day. Sitting down in a chair for all day. Doing nothing is very, very hard. It's tiring.
• 59:40
  Yeah. Everyone I've ever spoken to that has actually tried it for, like, even a full day is been like, wow, this is a game changer. You feel fully refreshed. So I love to talk about, if there's any, about some certain studies, because I know the world of fasting has evolved greatly over the past few years. Is there any new emerging studies, or trends in lifestyle medicine or plant based nutrition that excites you right now?
• 1:01:57
  Yeah.
• 1:02:47
  Oh yeah.
• 1:03:11
  Yeah. Let's talk about that for a sex. There's, there's an element of people putting too much in one bucket. Like, if they, if they've found within themself the Master Nutrition eat whole food plan because they're so excited over it. Or, like, I'm not even going to try to focus on. Is that there? Because I'm probably going to suck at it.
• 1:03:29
  I'm just going to go all in on this and be proud of myself for owning that area, which is a beautiful thing. But it's a lot better to be not as perfect within that area, but add in some exercise, some stress management. Improve to sleep even 20% like all those elements, will make a far greater difference in someone's health and healthspan and longevity than if they just own one specific area and neglect all the rest.
• 1:03:51
  You need to move your body. You need to, you know, move your lymphatic system. You need to drink water. You need to sleep. You need to manage your stress. As for the peak performance, things like I'm I'm heading off to a scouting event to try and get a professional contract to play overseas for basketball in Asia. Europe.
• 1:04:09
  I've been training for five hours a day for the past three and a half months. There's nothing healthy about elite performance and peak performance. I think a big element of sports at that high of a level is can you recover faster so you can train harder and then do all of those things you talked about to minimize the damage so that when you are older, you're not completely destroyed from training, like, like a complete machine, basically, because I think there's it's really hard to be have health and longevity if you're training 15, 20 hours a week and just constantly beating yourself up, it's hard to recover from that.
• 1:04:49
  Like I, I nap every day. I sleep nine hours every night and still my recovery. It's a it's a fight to get to it.
• 1:05:04
  Yeah.
• 1:05:48
  Yeah.
• 1:06:14
  Yeah. It is. It is a very interesting topic. As much as I feel that humans are adapting to, you know, it's that you mentioned losing potentially some certain elements, like more people are sick, more people are dealing with issues as we're kind of evolving. There is that really small segment of the world where athletes are getting faster and better and stronger at an earlier age, and you look at the world records being broken, it's just it's getting crazy to keep up with it.
• 1:06:42
  18 year old kids now or like, you know, with athletes were when they were in their 40s back in the day, like 30s and 40s. So I think both elements are adapting to the worse. And it's getting really fast and really strong, and it's hard to keep up with both at that point.
• 1:07:00
  Yeah, a little side talk. I try to talk about that because it's fine.
• 1:07:11
  Yeah, I love those conversations. So, you know, I know we're coming up, on our time for for the episode. So I wanted to ask you, you know, one last questions. Because we covered a lot today about microbiome, about fasting. We talked about, you know, mindset and kind of how the gut microbiome works for the people that are listening that potentially are maybe newer to that world, because obviously, if they're they know about fasting, they already know about true north, the country already looking to you guys but are at the center.
• 1:07:39
  But what is one piece of advice you want to give to someone who wants to take control of their health, and doesn't know where to start? Like, just think of the typical American living in middle of the US. I'm from Canada, but I learned that a lot of them live in the middle of us.
• 1:08:29
  Yeah.
• 1:09:18
  Yeah.
• 1:09:27
  Yeah. Or banana's like five bucks. You can't. Yeah.
• 1:10:52
  Yeah.
• 1:11:19
  Yeah.
• 1:11:53
  Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. There's a camera. Who said this? But you want to build an undeniable stack of wins that you can stand on. Because a lot of people potentially, you know, you know, have tried to lose weight, have tried to eat healthier, have tried to exercise and do all those things. And they kind of reinforce to themselves that they are not the type of person to do what they say that they're going to do, and you need to reverse that through small wins and small action, as you mentioned, is perfect.
• 1:12:20
  Like just drinking one cup of water more, taking a few more steps, potentially stretching and not committing to, you know, a full Ironman training plan from the start when you haven't worked out in ten years and you're just starting small and building yourself up.
• 1:12:40
  Yeah. Yeah, it's it helps people build themself up because everyone needs to be built up. Even people that are highly successful have to build themselves back up. So to the last question for where can listeners learn more about your work and connect with you?
• 1:13:28
  Beautiful. Well, I'll make sure all those links are down below in the description. So you guys can just easily go click on them and go show some love. I should I appreciate you, thank you very much for taking the time of recording with me and everyone. Hope you enjoyed the episode and we'll see you in the next one.