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The mind is the source of all disease and also the source of healing. That's why any time we talk about health and wellness, we have to start the conversation of what our thoughts are doing, because they're determining our destiny. Everything takes root in our thought, our intentions. That's why we have to be so mindful of that. For my patients, a lot of times we get focused on outwards things that need to be fixed in the body. We're saying, I'm going to change my diet, I'm going to take this supplement, this medication. We're trying to bring in outside things to fix what's wrong here. To be honest, John, from years of medical training and by seeing thousands of patients, one thing that I've learned, our body is incredibly intelligent. Everything we need to live a long, healthy life is right in here. The problem is we just get in the way.

Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turned their wisdom system into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out and become passion struck. Hello, everyone. Welcome back to episode 482 of Passion struck, consistently ranked one of the top alternative health podcasts, as well as health and fitness podcast in the world. A heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you who return to the show every week, eager to listen, learn, and discover new ways to live better, to be better, and to make a meaningful impact in the world. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here, or you simply want to introduce this to a friend or a family member, and we so appreciate it and love it when you do that.

We have episode starter packs, which are collections of our fans' favorite episodes that we organize into convenient topics that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either go to spotify or passionstruck. Com/starterpacks to get started. I am thrilled to announce that my book, Passion Struck, was a winner of the Mary P. Smith Reader's Choice Award, as well as winning Best Nonfiction Book at the International Book Awards. You can find it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Target, or wherever you purchase your books. In case you missed it earlier this week, the one and only Gary Vaneerchuk joined We discuss his new children's book, Meet Me in the Middle, and his incredible work with his company, The Friends. Gary is known for his unique insights and practical advice, so you don't want to miss this episode. I wanted to thank you for your ratings and reviews. They go such a long way in to helping more people find this podcast and join our community. If you love today's episode or that one with Gary, we would appreciate you giving it a five-star review and sharing it with your friends and families.

Today, I am thrilled to introduce Dr. Chidi Pari, one of the leading integrative medicine physicians in the country and the visionary founder of integrative health and well-being. Dr. Parik's debut book, Intentional Health, Detoxify, Nourish, and Rejuvenate your Body into Balance, with a forward by Deepak Chopra, has revolutionized how we approach our health. This comprehensive roadmap empowers individuals to take charge of their health by blending 5,000 years of ancient wisdom with cutting-edge science. Inspired by her intensive travels, frontline work during the COVID-19 pandemic and her personal battle with long COVID, Dr. Parik aims to help us achieve a balanced and healthier state of In our conversation, we delved into several fascinating topics from her book, including why we set healthy goals from sleep and digestion to mindfulness and breathwork. We go into her seven ancient secrets that revolve around understanding our body functions through things like circadian rhythms, our gut microbiome, metabolism, and the mind-body connection. We discuss her 28-day reset, which is a transformative way to bring your body back to balance, as well as going into her 20-minute daily ritual, and how to rewire your brain for positivity using three actionable steps to cultivate a positive mindset.

Chidi's Insights will provide you with a deeper understanding of your health and the tools you need to maintain it, especially when life gets challenging. Tune in to learn how to make your body your best ally in achieving intentional health and balance. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. Hi, I'm so honored to welcome Dr. Cheti Parik on Passion Struck. Welcome, Chidi.

Thank you so much for having me, John.

So, Cheti, I'd like to start these episodes out by giving the audience some background into you. Something you probably had no idea about me is I've been to India at least a couple of dozen times, all areas, everything from Trivandrum to Bangalore to Chennai to Hyderabad to Goa. I've been to India many times, and that's where you as a young child were raised. I wanted to ask, how did your life in India develop your interest in ancient traditions like yoga and meditation?

We'll be speaking the same language as what I say. You understand what I'm saying because you've been to India so many times. Where I grew up was a small town, and I still remember when I would get sick, my grandma would take me to the kitchen, open up the spice box, and put some concoctions together, and it would taste pretty disgusting, but I would feel much better after a few days. So growing up in a culture like India, food was... Medicine was in the kitchen. So yes, I went to doctors, got shots, and the usual things you do as a child. But for me, taking care of your body was very much an intuitive process, an intentional process that you participate in from day one. And not just wait till you're sick, but you do it on a daily basis. And that's what I learned from my parents, my grandparents. And on top of that, besides growing up in India, I also spent a year, before I started medical school, backpacking across Asia by myself. And this was pre-Google, this was pre-iPhone era. I still had my guidebooks, and I went through different countries in Asia and spent a whole year just learning more about the culture, the medicine, the people, what life truly looked like.

My upbringing in India and my travels have really shaped what I do now, personally and professionally, and I'm so grateful for it.

Well, thank you for that. I know that it must It must have been a trying time for you when you moved here as a teenager. Can you explain that transition and what helped you to navigate coming into this new United States environment?

It was a massive culture shock, to say the least, because my introduction to America was really based on some Hollywood movies and some TV shows. And that's what I thought America was like, especially from a lens of a 12, 13-year-old girl. And when I came here, there were so many aspects American life that really shocked me. And one of the biggest ones was really food, because I knew Americans like to eat fast food. So I was fascinated by the idea that you can drive up to a place and just get served food right away. So things like McDonald's or going to a grocery store was like going to an amusement park. I've never seen grocery stores this big with so many aisles and colors and options to choose from. So our grocery store was basically there's a vegetable person who comes in with his little cart every single morning, whatever is fresh. My mom would pick out the vegetables she wanted to cook that day, and then the milkman would come, bring the milk over. So that was the extent, is growing up, especially in a small town. So this was just I just couldn't believe what I was saying.

I didn't know what to do with all these options. It was fascinating. It was like a kid in a candy store. But one of the things I did started to miss as I indulged in that is some of the homey touches, some of the familiarity of foods. And And I still remember one of the other culture shocks I had. I told this to my husband one day, and he was laughing at me. But one of the culture shocks was having a six-pack. So I went to the grocery store within the first couple of weeks that I was in America. And in the grocery store aisle, when you're exiting with all these magazines, you see all these men with six packs. It was a humbling thing because the only other time I'd really seen people with six packs were these poor day laborers. My dad I owned a construction company, so I would go on the sites with him sometimes. And these day laborers would be toiling away in this hot sun all day, and they had six packs. And not the bulky, the lean six packs, because we were working constantly and eating a very simple diet.

So for me to see that on a magazine, it couldn't put the two and two together. It just goes to show you not just how naive I was, but how you perceive things such as a six-pack in such a different context, depending on your upbringing. So I hope I still hold on to that innocence and that naivete to a certain degree, because that helps me put myself in the shoes of different people who come from different cultures, different economic, social backgrounds. I can be more empathetic towards their needs and how unique they are, and really cater to that on a more personal level as a physician.

My first experience really living internationally, I had been out of the country, but I I had never really lived internationally until I was in the military, and I went to the duty station in road of Spain. I had the opposite effect, because when I was a teenager, I had always worked in supermarkets. And so when I went to Spain, it was completely different. They had very few where our stores have these massive centers of the stores with all the preservatives and all the foods. Very little of their store was like that. Much more of it was built around your fresh vegetables, your fresh seafood, meats that had been brought in for the day, et cetera. And so what I learned by watching the Spaniards and the way they shopped is they weren't in there like we do here in the States, shopping for a week's worth of groceries. They would come in and pick maybe 24 hours worth, or it could be just a meal. And when I looked at how healthy they were, you can make that correlation between that ancestral type diet that they're on and why they are living more healthy than we were and are in the States.

So That was one of the biggest takeaways for me.

Absolutely. And that's how travel defines your perspective and experiences. That health is so much more than, it's not just the food you eat, but how you eat, how you cook it. That's why in the book, I talk a lot about food energetics. That food is alive. It has energy in how it's prepared, how it's preserved, how it's eaten. When our mental emotional state is when we're eating it versus cooking it, all that affects it. It's not just the carbohydrates and proteins and fats.

So to me, one of the things that's been most interesting recently is I grew up, I think, like most people, eating a lot of foods cooked with vegetable oils and just the science now that's out there on vegetable oils, really all seed oils, and how harmful they are is really eye-opening. And not only that, how even when you cook with olive oil, how the heat at which you cook with it can also be a carcinogenic type of thing. So we're finding more and more things out. And to me, that's one of the most interesting parts of doing an Alternative Health podcast.

Yeah. It's the food has its own journey from where it's grown to how it ends up on our plate, what happens to it after we eat, and how our body processes it. So that's why food is not just the calories and the vitamins, but it's that whole journey that we need to take account.

So today, Chidi, we're going to be talking about your book that came out earlier in the year, Intentional Health: Detoxify, Nourish, and Rejuvenate your Body into Balance. And I really liked how you used the word balance, and that's a particular aspect that I want to talk about, but I was hoping you might introduce the book by talking about what you mean by the word balance when it relates to our health.

So often we talk about health. We are focusing on an image of perfection, right? It's about that six-pack. It's about a certain waist size or a number on the weighing scale that we're trying to attain. But health is so much more than that. Health needs to be more personal. It needs to be more intentional. It's all about balance because life is of ups and downs, right? So it's not about saying, checkboxes, I did this and I'm done. Life is ups and downs, so our relationship with our health and wellness also needs to go along with life's natural rhythms. So striking a balance is a very Eastern medicine concept. In Western medicine, we talk about perfection, a perfect blood test, a perfect CAT scan, right? In Eastern medicine, life is all about balance between the Yin and the Yang energy, because sometimes life gives you more Yin than you balance with some Yang. It gives you more Yang, you bounce with the Yin. So this keeps you always in the driver's seat, because once you learn the tools, how to bring yourself back to balance, you don't need to follow any fads or trends. You just listen to your body.

So you introduce your book by discussing your extensive background in both Eastern and Western medical practices. How do you approach integrating ancient wisdom with cutting-edge science?

It's funny that you say that because I find the more I learn about Eastern medicine and the cutting-edge Western medicine, I recognize that they're both coming to the same conclusion. They're both saying the same thing. Might just use different words to explain it. For instance, now Western medicine is saying every disease starts in the gut. It all starts with that in bounds in the gut microbiome. Eastern medicine has been saying that for thousands of years, saying every disease starts in the gut. I love doing this work because it really allows me to integrate best of Western medicine and also the ancient wisdom of Eastern medicine together, because we no longer have to pick one or the other. Why should we, right? If we have access to the best of both worlds, why not tap into both sciences and philosophies to better our health and understand our bodies better because they both have something that they do really well. Western medicine is very good at acute conditions. Someone has cancer, stroke, heart attack. Western medicine is phenomenal for But if you want to prevent something, prevent diseases, and talk about more of a balance between the mind, body, and the spirit, Eastern medicine has perfected the science of preventive medicine.

I think the future of medicine is looking at not just the present or the future, but also incorporating the past knowledge of Eastern medicine into what health and wellness really looks like as we go forward.

Yeah, I like to use this analogy on the show that I first heard I heard from Dr. Cynthia Lee, and she said that in Western medicine, we tend to treat the body as the leaves on a tree because everything is so protocol-based. In Eastern medicine, they tend to look at the whole tree as a system and try to get, just as you do in functional medicine, to the underlying cause of what's causing the impact that's happening at the leaves, but looking at more of the whole holistic system. So is that similar to what you're discussing?

Exactly. Start by figuring out the root cause, and then they'll give you an insight how to determine the treatment plan. Because once you know the root cause, you not only know how to treat that disease, but you also know how to prevent it in the future. So it just makes sense. It's just a more efficient, more holistic way of approaching anybody or any condition we're looking at. And that's all about expanding our framework to say, where did it come from? How can I treat this? But also make sure it doesn't happen again, because the same root cause can become so many different diseases. It's not just that this root cause only causes one disease. Like you said, this root can become so many different leaves. So let's focus on that route so that we can prevent it and address the current condition we're dealing with.

Chidi, I thought it was pretty interesting because I've never experienced this myself when I've gone to my primary care physician. But when you meet a new patient, you start by asking them, what is your health intention? And I'm sure that throws them for a little bit of a loop. Why do you believe it's so important to begin the conversation about health with this question?

Often when we talk about, when I talk to patients about what is your health intention and what is your goal, they're giving me answers that they should be saying to a doctor, right? I want to make sure I want to lose weight, or I want to make sure I don't get this cancer because I have a strong family history of it, right? Because that's the right thing to say, and I understand that. But intentional health is all about asking yourself a question, what does health really look like for me? And the reason why I focus on this question so much, because it's like putting instructions into a GPS. We're tapping into the subconscious mind, the mind-body- spirit connection. So when we set that intention, when we're crystal clear what this health intention is, it's not just the body that does the work, but the mind also starts to collaborate and cooperate with everything that happens afterwards. It's just like putting instruction on the GPS. If you know where you're starting from, where are you going, then you can map out your entire health journey. But if you only focus on, this is what I want at the end, but you have no idea where you're starting from, how do you map out that journey?

So it just makes sense for me to really understand the person I'm going to be working with, my patients. It's very important to understand what their motivation, what their health intention is, so I can collaborate with them. It's not about me I'm saying, I'm looking at your blood test. This is what you need to do. Who am I to say that? I would much rather be a partner on this intentional health journey. And the first step starts by setting the health intention.

And a follow up to that is, how common, now that you've been using this question for a while, do you find the answers, or are they really scattered across all the patients and different?

It runs a whole gamut. And one of the most shocking things I found when I first started practicing Integromedicine many years was that when I asked that question, I wasn't ready for the emotional reaction it would bring, or emotional release it would actually bring for so many people. So I would say, no, it's the most fundamental, most important thing in my office is always a tissue box, because so many people actually tear up when I ask that question, because they're expecting all these things. They're like, Oh, the doctor's going to ask me about my allergies, my medical history, my family history. But no one has ever asked them, What What does health really mean for you? And that just opens up a whole new avenue for them to think about. So I often find a pause, some tears, and then it's eye relief because they finally find a right place where they know they'll be taken care of as a whole person, not just their diagnosis, not just their symptom, but someone's actually taking the time to get to know them and get to know their head of intention and be a true partner in the health journey, not just someone who's there to just tell you, Do this, do that.

So it's a game changer. And as much as I don't want my patients to cry, I do want them to have that aha moment because that's where healing starts. It's that mind-body connection, something that clicks. It really opens so many avenues for them.

So one of my favorite episodes that I've done on the podcast was with Jill Bolt-Taylor, who you may be familiar with. But her story is truly inspiring to me. Here you have a woman who is studying the brain and in her mid-30s ends up having a stroke that is the type of stroke that for most people would be almost life-ending because her life afterwards was so debilitating. But she found that she could control her thoughts. And by controlling her thoughts, she could control her healing process and basically cured herself and wrote a couple of books on it. And this is something that you dive into in the book as well, is how our thoughts can either the root cause of disease or a source of healing. Can you elaborate a little bit more on this topic of intentionality and how being intentional with our thoughts and maintaining a positive mindset can impact our physical health?

Absolutely. The mind is the source of all disease and also source of healing. So that's why any time we talk about health and wellness, we have to start the conversation of what our thoughts are doing, because they're determining our destiny, right? So everything takes root, takes seed in our thought, our intentions. So that's why we have to be so mindful of that. And for my patients, a lot of times we get focused on outward things that need to be fixed in the body. So we're saying, I'm going to change my diet. I'm going to take this supplement, this medication. So we're trying to bring in outside things to fix what's wrong. We think what's wrong here. And to be honest, John, from years of medical training and by seeing thousands of patients, one thing that I've learned Our body is incredibly intelligent. Everything we need to live a long, healthy life is right in here. The problem is we just get in the way, right? So the first step in collaborating with our body and letting it do what it's done so well over thousands of thousands of years of evolution is by supporting it with the right thoughts, right intention, right positivity.

That's the source of health and healing. It's not some magic supplement or a superfood because you could be eating all All of those things. But if the mind is not in the right place, the healing cannot happen. So that's what I partner with my patients and with my readers in the book, I say, this is step number one. Everything else you do is a cherry on top, and we'll work so much better if the mind and body are truly aligned and become your partner in your health and healing.

So, Cheetah, the way that your book is organized is we just talked about part one, a couple of aspects of it. But part two the book is you really go into what you call the Seven Ancient Secrets. And the first one is a topic that for me is very important. I listen to Andrew Huberman a lot, and I'm a big fan of his work. And I remember him talking about circadium rhythms on one of the episodes and how not only is it important to get outside, but it's important to spend several minutes outside at the beginning and then at the end of your day without sunglasses to help reset your clock. With this as a backdrop, I was hoping you could talk a little bit more about our chronology as you talk about in the book and why that's so important.

Absolutely. So the way the book is designed is we're setting our health intention, and then the seven ancient secrets are helping you put these intentions into action. We need some practical hands-on knowledge from both Eastern and Western medicine to make the intention into a reality. And step one, which I talk to all my patients about, is your circadian rhythm, is your chronobiology. If you were to go to an Eastern medicine doctor, an Ayurvedic doctor, or traditional Chinese medicine doctor, acupuncturist, one of the first questions they'll ask you is about your daily routine, and that's what I do with my patients. They often think I'm going to ask them about their diet and exercise routines, and yes, that's great. But the first thing I ask them is, Walk me through your typical day. What time do you wake up? What time do you go to bed? And what time do you eat your meals? The shorter the answer, the healthier that person is. The longer the answer, the more work we have to do in chronobiology. It's the foundation by which all metabolic physiological functions rely on. So that's when Eastern Medicine, that is the first we focus on.

There's a word in yoga, in Ayurveda, called dinacharia, means your daily routine. That is the foundation to health and wellness, and even treating any disease that comes our way. So that's the reason I chose that to be the first the fundamental chapter in the book, because once you set that strong foundation, then what you eat, when you diet, when you exercise, when you go to sleep, your quality of sleep, all of those things will work so much better. Because our body, metabolically, physiologically speaking, is not the same at 9:00 AM versus 9:00 PM. Every single hour, we are prioritizing a different physiological metabolic process. In Eastern medicine, they'll say every hour of the day, there's a different meridian that's active, or in Ayurveda, they'll say a different dosha is active. Again, tomatoes, they're all saying the same thing. That's why in the book, I actually put the latest chronobiological 24-hour clock, and I show you the Eastern medicine clock that's been around for thousands of years, you can superimpose them on top of each other. They're saying exactly the same thing. So our body is doing something different every hour. So if we can match when we wake up, when we go to bed, when we're most productive, when we're eating our meals to our circadian rhythm, to our physiological clock, biological clock, metabolic clock, then our body works effortlessly.

On the contrary, if we're waking up or sleeping at different times or irregular, regularity in the schedule, it's often the Achilles heel that I see in my patients. They might be eating the perfect diet. They might be getting the eight hours of sleep, but there is no irregularity. Every day looks slightly different. And that's really throwing our circadian rhythm off And making sure our circadian rhythm is optimal basically means that every single function in our body is going to work properly, from diet, exercise, sleep, to our brain health, to our memory, our focus, our cognition. Everything comes down to our circadian rhythm, our master clock. Hence the first chapter, and hence the foundation of both Eastern and Western medicine.

And in this chapter, you talk about a gentleman named Simon, I think was his name, and you said that he was It's coming to you complaining of fatigue. And one of the things I've learned is that the symptom of fatigue is often the starting point for many health conditions. Could you delve deeper into how fatigue relates to metabolic syndrome and its various manifestations?

Fatigue, for me, is the canary in the coal mine. That is often not a symptom that most Western medical conventional doctors will pay attention to. They'll say, Oh, you're tired. Okay. Maybe you need to get more sleep, more rest. You just make sure you get your eight hours and you should be good. Your bloodwork looks fine. But for me, fatigue is a very strong message that your body is telling you that something is in disharmony, right? Our body, if you're generally healthy, the food you're eating, the rest you're getting through your sleep, if those things are balanced, we should have an enormous amount of energy. But fatigue is telling you that either your body is not making enough energy or getting enough energy, or we're wasting it. Something is sucking the energy, right? Something, some disharmony. So think about your car, right? You put a gallon of gas, but if the engine, you haven't done your routine maintenance of the car, for the same gallon of gas, you're not going to go 20 miles. You might go 14, 15 miles, and you're going to hear a lot of clicking and clanking, right? A lot of wear and tear.

Same for our body. If we're tired, we have to ask the question, Am I not getting enough energy? Or am I wasting energy in something else that's not really aligned with what my body is trying to do? So for me, I think that is a very important sign that your body is giving you, and we must pay attention to it before it becomes a disease, right? So fatigue is probably one of the top things I focus on, and I ask my patients about before I move into their regular diagnosis or diseases.

So when we think about supplements and mineral deficiency, often we hear vitamin D, we hear the need for more vitamin C. I remember interviewing my friend Dominic D'Agustino, and I asked Tim, what do you think is the least understood and most impactful supplement that you think people are missing out on? And he said, to me, the number one thing is magnesium because there's such a profound impact when you have magnesium deficiency on so many various metabolic systems. Can you talk about this at all and why magnesium deficiency is becoming such a big thing and why it needs to become a bigger supplement in our diets?

I'll take a step back and I'll ask you this question. Again, why does my body need more magnesium? Is it not getting enough or am I just not absorbing from the sources that I am eating? So in Eastern medicine, this is one of my favorite quotes. Eastern medicine, in Ayurveda, specifically, it says, Food that is digested or metabolized properly becomes nutrition. Food that is not digested, not metabolized properly becomes toxic and root cause of disease. Food is the same. So I know nowadays, a lot of functional medicine doctor, holistic doctors, everyone's talking about this supplement, that supplement. And yes, we are generally deficient in things like magnesium, vitamin D. But my approach is a little bit different. My approach says, Well, how come some people are getting enough and some people are not? It's not just the diet. The biggest issue I see across the board is that it's not the diet. You can take all the supplements in the world that you want. But if you're not digesting it, if you're not metabolizing it properly, it's not going to become nutrition. It might just overload your kidneys, your liver. They're already overloaded by toxins.

Now you're adding more supplements and things like that for it to process. So before I talk about any supplements and vitamins, I first focus on optimizing someone's digestion and metabolism. So one of the most common enemy to our digestion, we all have weak digestion, weak metabolisms because of that imbalance circadian rhythm. We're waking up at different times eating at different times. We are rushing through our meals. We're not mindfully eating. So when that happens, our vagus nerve is not active. We are constantly in this fight and flight state. So no matter how many magnesium supplements you take, how many kale salads you eat, if your body is not in that balanced state, your digestion goes down by almost 50%, right? So yes, we can take all the supplements, but yes, besides magnesium, how many more are you going to take? While we're doing that, why don't we also focus on optimizing our digestion, our metabolism, so that whatever we are taking, whether it's through food or supplements, can have the maximum benefits, so it becomes nutrition, not toxin. So I know this is a different perspective, but I want to introduce the idea that we have to focus on optimizing our metabolism and their digestion, and not just hyper focus on diets and supplements, because it can only take you so far.

Yeah, and I think a great figure to point out that you have in the book is that our gut houses 70% of immune system. So if that gut health is underperforming, then it has a huge implication on us being exposed to diseases and other things in the body not being able to fight it.

Exactly.

So in the second element of your ancestral, I guess you could call it check marks, is really gut health. And how does our gut health correlate with autoimmune disease? Diseases. And if people are experiencing things like chronic pain or other things, how do they understand if it's gut related? And then what steps should they do to counteract it?

And this is once again where Eastern and Western medicine are coming to the same conclusion. So in Western medicine, we know that a lot of autoimmune conditions are really starting in the gut because the food that we're eating or exposure to different chemicals, toxins, antibiotics, throws off the balance in the gut between the good and bad bacteria. And when that happens, gut being the biggest immune system in our body starts to be constantly active. So when the gut immune system is constantly active, it creates a lot of inflammation. And eventually, the gut and blood barrier breaks, and then inflammation and the overactivity of the immune system that's in the gut now enters the blood and spreads to the rest of the body. And that will attack the weakest part of the body. And for some people, it could be skin manifesting as dermatitis It's eczema, psoriasis. For some people, it could be thyroid. For some people, it could be their joints manifesting as arthritis. And what Eastern medicine says is that, again, food that is not digested properly becomes toxic. So when the food that's not digested properly causes a lot of inflammation in the gut.

That will throw off the balance between good and bad bacteria. And over time, all these toxins, the partially poorly digested food, is going to sit in the gut, cause more and more inflammation, and then leave the gut and enter the blood and other organs. So I can basically diagnose someone with an autoimmune condition from Western medicine, from the blood markers, advanced gut microbiome testing, that is so satisfying to be able to say, You know what? From Eastern medicine perspective, this is where it all started. And put the two together when we're talking about a treatment plan. So it's just fascinating to say that food that is digested properly has the opportunity to become nutrition. The food that's not digested becomes a problem for immune system, problem for our gut. So let's focus on how we're metabolizing the food. And food is just one thing. I always say everything that enters our body, that everything we're exposed to from our thoughts, emotions, anything that enters to our senses, including When you're eating food, everything needs to be digested. So when poorly digested thoughts or poorly digested emotions often also surface up as disease. So it's just amazing to put this concept together and see it play out in the body and the mind and the spirit.

Yeah, so another thing in this chapter I wanted to talk about was testosterone, because we're finding more and more instances, both in men and women, of testosterone deficiency. How does this relate to good health hygiene?

Absolutely. So the type of bacteria we have in the gut actually determine what happens to hormones in our body. So often, when women or men have hormone imbalance, so let's say men with testosterone deficiency, we often are fast to say, Oh, our body is just not making enough testosterone, right? But often when we look at hormones, I always think about four pillars when it comes to hormones. So you have your cortisol, your sex hormones like testosterone, you have your thyroid, and then you have insulin. All these four hormones are always working together. So if the testosterone level is low, let's not just come to the conclusion that, Hey, your body's not making enough. Your body's not that silly, right? It's not that ignorant. It can figure out ways to make testosterone if your body needs it. But what it's telling you is that testosterone is not the priority right now because your body is focusing on fixing some other can balance within their hormone system. So then I have to look at what's going on with your thyroid, what's going on with your insulin, what's going on with your cortisol. Another one that's very important with testosterone is growth hormone.

So let's talk your growth hormone and how it relates to your testosterone. So anytime we talk about hormones, it's so important to look at the whole picture and figure out. That's exactly what we did with Simon. When he was stressed, he was fatigued. His testosterone levels were slightly low. But then instead of saying, Oh, you're just low in testosterone, we figured out it was the cortisol, the circadian rhythm imbalance, the stress, the jet lag, the long flights, long working hours, were driving up the demand for cortisol, so his body was shunting the testosterone into cortisol. That's how you figure out the root cause, and not just say that, Hey, your body is just making a mistake and not making it of testosterone. There's always so much more than what meets the eye, what meets the blood test. So that's why focusing on the root cause is so important.

Okay. And another thing I wanted to hit on is in the book, you have the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15. And there's been more and more people talking about the Dirty Dozen and how any of the berries, apples, et cetera, are inherently dirty, have pesticides, worms, et cetera. But I think people also tell us to buy things organically that we might not need to be buying organically. How do you balance these two lists?

So the reason why I emphasize something like a dirty dozen list, because first of all, we need to minimize exposure to these environmental toxins. Because no matter how healthy of a diet we eat, how much we exercise and meditate, if we're exposed to all these hidden dangers, we cannot do right by our gut microbiome or our liver, or our kidneys, or any organ in the body. It's so important to emphasize the importance of looking at the environment as a big factor, a big influence on our oral health. So that's where the Dirty Dozen list really comes in handy. And for me, I have to balance that out with practical things, right? In the ideal world, we can buy everything organic, right? We can even grow our own food, how our private chef prepare the meals. But that's not the reality for most people. Most people I see in my practice come from limited resources and limited means. So I always focus on what's practical, how can we prioritize things when it comes to our health, while not having to ask you to spend your whole paycheck on just some organic strawberries, right? So that's the reason why I emphasize what you really need to spend money on, educate yourself on what foods, what fruits, vegetables, the produce that have the highest amount of these toxins, and what are the foods that don't, right?

So that way you can save your money there. And Let's say it's strawberry season right now, so this might be a good time to stack up on organic strawberries that are on sale. You can freeze them and you can eat them when they're not so readily available or where they might be really expensive. So that's the reason why I highlight both sides so people know exactly what to spend money on, what to be mindful of, and what they don't need to spend money on. Because, again, we have to work with what everyone's resources allow them to do. And it shouldn't be that you have to be healthy. You can be healthy, only if you can spend a lot of money. It shouldn't be like that. It should really be accessible. Health and wellness should be accessible to all.

Thank you for sharing that. And the list was helpful for me because I was finding I was buying organic foods that I might not necessarily have to and could save some money, especially avocados. So your next chapter goes into the topic of digestive fire. And you introduced this by saying that we often hear you are what you eat, but that isn't necessarily true, according to Eastern medicine. What you put in your mouth is only a small part of the equation. And what you write it is that what's even more important is how you eat and how well you digest your food, which I don't think we think often enough about. Can you discuss why those two things are so important?

Absolutely. I'm a strong believer, and I say you are what you digest, not just what you eat, because we've all experienced this. You could be eating the perfect diet, but some days you feel great, you feel energized. You have all the energy in the world and you're focused. But some days you're eating the same exact food, but something's just not right. You just don't feel like yourself. You might be more bloated, might have some more indigestion. So again, food is just a small part of the picture. How your body actually digests it, metabolize it, will determine its true destiny, either as a nutrition or as toxin. So that's why what I do with my patients is first and foremost, I try to determine how strong their digestion is, how strong is their digestive fire. Based on that, we curate a diet and lifestyle plan. So in Eastern medicine, there's no perfect diet. What works for one person doesn't always work for the other. And also what works for us, say in certain seasons, the food that agree with me, say in the middle of December, are not the same foods that I should be eating in the middle of July.

So Eastern medicine equips us with the knowledge that, Hey, we need to match what we're eating with what we can actually digest, which I think is a beautiful concept and a very new concept, but highly essential. I always hard to give this analogy to people. I say, When you're sick, let's say you got COVID or flu, and you're so exhausted, you are so sick, you have no energy. Do you ever crave in that situation, do you ever crave a big steak dinner or big tub of ice cream? No. When we're sick, what do we create? We want some chicken soup. We just want a little rice or something simple, right? Because we are actually listening to our body and saying, my body is using all its digestive power, all its energy to fight this virus. It's not trying to use all the energy to digest a steak dinner. So we eat something simple, right? So the key to health and well-being is identifying where your digestive fire is and matching what you're eating with it. If you eat a lot more than what your body can handle, what your digestion can handle, that's not going to be processed properly and become toxic.

If you eat too little, then compared to what your body can handle, then you're going to feel malnourished. You're going to feel weak, and fatigue, and exhausted because you're not meeting the body's nutritional needs. So striking that balance, eating what your body can digest, is the right diet for you at that time. So we need to go away from this concept that this is the diet for me, that's the diet for me. It's something you do in real-time. You check in with your body and you match it with your body can handle.

So one of the things that you talk about in the book to stimulate digestion is using ginger tea, something that I haven't really thought about. How would you recommend that people utilize ginger tea?

So ginger is an extremely powerful digestive. So the idea is that ginger helps you increase the amount of acid in the stomach. It actually stimulates your pancreas to release hundreds of different types of digestive enzymes to help you break down the food that you're about to eat. And that's one of the reasons often some people might have experienced this. When you go to a traditional Asian restaurant, you sit down and you get serve a small cup of something like a ginger tea before your meal. Or if you go to Europe, there's a tradition of having an aperitif. This is essentially a cocktail that has different types of digestive bitters that help you stimulate your digestion right before your meal. So these traditions have been around in many different cultures. And ginger is one of those things that has so many benefits. Boost your digestion, boost your immune system. So it's a win. So I think a lot of us can benefit with a little bit of ginger tea right as you're about to eat. And the counter of that is also not drinking a lot of fluid with your meals because it can dilute the digestion.

It can dilute the acid and the enzymes in the stomach. So I typically don't recommend drinking a lot of water with your meals. Instead, you can have a small cup of something like ginger tea. Another tea I introduce in the book is something called CCFT, cumin, Coriandre, Fennel. So, John, when you eat Indian food, I'm sure you experience all of these spices, right? The cumin, coriander, fennel is in everything. And that's exactly the reason why, because these spices actually improve your digestion, help you break down the food you're about to eat, even if you have a weak digestion. So these herbs, these spices, are not just for your tongue, not just for flavoring, but they actually have a significant medicinal purpose to it.

Well, thank you for sharing that. This next chapter I found really interesting. You call it the root cause. You start out by talking about a patient of yours named Sam. What Sam was experiencing was this feeling like he was overheating inside and out, which is something that I've experienced myself. What is that a root cause of? And more importantly, maybe you could go through the process of how you determine a root cause.

So I love that chapter because it's a completely new concept that I'm introducing. It's all about learning how your body is unique by using Eastern medicine. So in this chapter, I give you a couple of different quizzes to identify from Chinese Indian's medicine perspective and Ayurveda, which is traditional Indian medicine perspective, to understand what your unique constitution is. And once your unique constitution, you can identify things. You can say, Oh, you know what? I tend to run hot a lot. So I really like cold, cool climate, right? So that also means that you should be eating foods that tend to have more of a cooling calming property. And so something that has a more stimulating or heating property. See, they're all very new words, right? When we talk about cool and heat, we about temperature. This is a very different way of looking at foods. So that's why in this chapter, I introduce the concept, understand your body, your own constitution. And then I tell you exactly what foods, what activities, the ways of cooking the food might be most appropriate to match what your body is doing. So the example of overheating tends to mean that there's a lot of heat in the body in the sense that it could also mimic in some inflammation.

It could mimic too much energy, very strong or overactive digestion as well. And that's more common in certain people, but also in certain seasons. So that's the interesting thing is our body is not... Just because we have the same genes, doesn't mean we're the same for the whole life. Genes are a small part of our destiny, right? Epigenetics, which genes are turned on and off is really what we need to figure out. And that is influenced by so many factors. One of the biggest factors is obviously circadian rhythm, but also seasonal rhythms. Our body is very different in winter, summer, summer, spring, and fall. So when we adjust our diet to match what the seasons are changing around us, and also how our body is changing, it can really lead to a very balanced life, and really helps us prevent a lot of these illnesses that are very common around the change of seasons. So it's such a gracious experience when you actually read some of these things and you're like, Oh, my God, I've been struggling this my whole life, and none of my doctors ever said anything about it. And then you read this and you're like, Oh, you take the quiz and you answer it and you're Oh, my God, this describes me perfectly.

And you make those subtle dietary adjustments. You're like, Oh, my God, I feel so much better, right? So this is why I love combining the best of me use to medicine, because sometimes Western medicine doesn't help me understand the root cause. But when I look at it from this perspective, I can nail down the root cause with much more ease and confidence. And also from that, I can figure out the right treatment for the person.

And I like how you use the analogy of buying a car to how we need to look at our body, because regardless of the age of the car, if you're not taking care of it, it's not going to run well. And I think one of the things we fail to consider enough, and I know I didn't in the past, but I do now, is looking at detoxification of my system. So I happen to use a daily detox, but I've also incorporated intermittent fasting over the past few years into my diet as well. Why is this detox so important for us? And what happens when we don't properly detox the body?

So this is one concept that's very foreign in Western medicine, because in Western medicine, we have no concept of detox. It's a detoxing. We just say your body is able to handle it, and if you're sick, you take a pill, and that's it, right? There's no concept. In Eastern medicine, detoxification is fundamental to health and well-being. This is what you do with everything else around us, right? Our computers need to update the software. We need to get an oil change for our car. Everything around us needs maintenance. When it comes to our body, we say, just keep working 24/7 until it breaks down. So in Eastern medicine, the idea of detoxification is that your body, once again, has everything you need to detox. You don't need any magic supplements or foods or anything like that. The fundamental concept of detoxification is that you get out of the way, right? So your body uses enormous amount of energy when it comes to digesting And then at night, what it does when it's not digesting food is actually detoxifying. So that's why intermittent fasting is so helpful detoxification, because when your body is not digesting food, it has all this energy left over to actually reduce inflammation, to clean out the liver, to flush out the kidneys, and to fix the DNA that's been broken throughout the day.

So detoxification needs to be an everyday practice. So things like Intimid Fasting is very helpful, and periodically. So in Ivermectin, later, Trisha Indian Medicine, there's a concept of going through a more deeper detox, at least once, if not twice a year, around the change of seasons. That's when we tend to get sick a lot. So the idea is at the change of season, we need to dedicate some time. It could be one week, it could be 28 days, like I mentioned, the 28 day reset in the book, where you're simplifying your diet. You're eating foods that are very easy to digest. You're eating maybe slightly less, doing longer Intimate Fasting. And then also detoxifying your mind by reducing the overload we're exposed to. So cutting back on your screen time, focusing more on restorative things like yoga, meditation, or journaling. So that time is so important to help our body reset and detox from not just the food, the toxins, but also the thoughts and emotions that we've accumulated throughout the year. So I love that concept that we need to embrace day to day life, as you mentioned, but also doing a seasonal detox to really flush out and leave out a lot of the toxins that we accumulated over time.

So I'm glad you brought up the 28 day reset, because that's where I wanted to go next. And this is the third portion of your book. And in the 28 day reset, you talk about four phases: preparation, detoxification, reintroduction, and rejuvenation. Can you walk us through those four steps and why that order is so important?

Absolutely. Before I do that, I wanted to share a personal story with you that I don't really mention in the book that much. But the inspiration behind 20D Reset comes from my personal experience. So in April 2020, I was on the front lines in New York City dealing with very sick COVID patients. And very early on, I actually contracted COVID. And it came down with a relatively serious case of it. But what was worse, I actually developed very severe long COVID symptoms. So I was losing weight, losing hair, and just getting short of breath, even walking up a flight of stairs. And at that time, people barely knew COVID, let alone long COVID. So I was struggling immensely, and there were no answers in Western medicine just yet. This is when I turned to my knowledge of Eastern medicine. In Eastern medicine, there's a concept of something called panchakarma, which basically means detoxifying or purifying the five elements that are in our body. It's meant to be a seasonal detox. And I said, Let me do this. Nothing else does work. So let me just tap into my body's inner intelligence. I strongly believed in it.

So that was my intention. I said, My body knows best. It will heal me from this. I will just follow this ancient ritual and then let it do its So I did it for a month, dedicated a whole month to it, and the results were phenomenal. My hair stopped falling within the first few days, and I have never felt better in my life. I've never been stronger since that detox, and I do it on a regular basis now. And what I noticed after a month of doing the detox, that my hair and my nail were growing so fast. I was cutting my nail almost every three, four days, which I had never done before. But it was just an outward manifestation of how balanced my body really was, how efficiently. It was a glimpse of how well my body could actually function when the toxins were not getting in the way. So that's what inspired the 28 day reset. The punch of karma, which a detox can be a little arduous, and it's not for everybody, but The 28th Day Reset, I distilled down the important things that almost everyone can do. And the beautiful science of detoxification in Ayurveda really walks us through a very complex process, but simplifies it by putting it into four different stages.

It's not about jumping right into the detox thing, I'm going to keep on doing what I'm doing every single day, but the next day, I'm just going to live on green juices for a week, or I'm going to just do coffee enomas every day, or take all these herbs and supplements for detox. It doesn't work that way. Your body can either process It can process, digest food and supplements and herbs, or it can process toxins. So what we do is we take a whole week to prepare our body to ease into the detox process. Then for a week, we do an intense detoxification process where we really cut down on the type of foods we're eating to simplify it, stick to something we call a monodiet, where it's very easy to digest. You can save all that digestive energy and focus on detox. And week three, we reintroduce some of the food, some of the activities back into our life, and slowly ease out of the detox. And week four is when we reap all the benefits, it's the rejuvenation part. Once you have a clean slate, once your digestion is clean, you removed a lot of the toxins.

Then when you put in certain herbs and vitamins and supplements, you'll absorb them so much better. It's actually an extremely scientific, very intentional process. So that's the beauty of the 28-day reset. It's really for everybody. It's really meant to jumpstart your health journey no matter where you are, and we can all reap benefits from it. Even though it's 28 days, it can be a commitment. And I'm telling you, that's just how our body works. And when you work with your body, it does all sorts of amazing things.

Yeah. One of the things I found And interesting, when I was reading this part of the book is that most people hear that we should eat our biggest meal at breakfast. You actually say or suggest that eating our largest meal at lunch is when we should be doing it. Why the difference?

So there's an Eastern and Western medicine explanation to this. In Western medicine, our cortisol is typically highest when we first wake up in the morning. That's part of our circadian rhythm. And for a lot of us in our modern lifestyle, what happens is, the minute we wake up, we look at our phone, we're going through our emails or news and everything, that often spikes our cortisol even more. And that keeps our blood sugar high and blood pressure high. So then on top of that, if I eat a very big breakfast, that might spike my blood sugar even more. So that's a result of our modern day lifestyle is what I see. Versus lunch. Lunch is where our digestion is the strongest. That's what Eastern medicine says. So that's when we can digest a lot of different foods, heavier foods, heavier proteins, heavier carbohydrates. So that should be our biggest meal so that we don't stack on top of that higher cortisol that a lot of us have in the morning, where we actually do it at a time where the cortisol has a chance to come down, and our digestifier is the strongest. You're benefiting from both aspects.

That's why lunch should be our biggest meal.

Well, I guess I've been doing it now for years because I intermittent fast almost every single day, so I don't eat until lunch anyhow.

Yeah, so it's always the biggest meal. And also, I just want to mention one quick thing is the other reason why lunch is our biggest meal is also in the morning, some people might not empty their bowels, right? So in Eastern medicine, your biggest meal should really follow, it should come after you empty your bowels. So a lot of people suffer from IBS and constipation. So if you haven't done that, and then if you put on a big meal in the morning, that also contradicts with your physiology. So you might not be able to metabolize meal because you still have toxins from prior meals still sitting there in your gut. It's not really a healthy thing for your gut microbiome. So that's another factor I wanted to mention.

So Chita, you're a lifelong vegetarian, if I understand it correctly. What are your thoughts on how our blood types influence what type of diet we should be on? Because I understand that some blood types, through the research I've done, aren't as conducive to doing a strictly vegetarian diet and need more proteins as others. Have you found any correlation?

It's not just blood type, but when you even look at from everybody's perspective, different dosures of Chinese medicine perspective, different constitutions, there's no perfect diet, once again, for all of us, right? That's why we have to listen to our body. There's some people that do much better with a slightly higher, complex carb diet. Some people do much better with a higher protein diet, especially some more animal-based protein. And some people do better on higher fat diets, right? So it's all about listening to your body's physiology, its metabolism, and respecting that. Instead of just following some fat diet, always listen to your body. And how do you know if that diet is working for you? I always tell my patients, ask yourself the question, how do you feel after you eat certain foods, right? Do you feel more energized? Do you feel like you're balanced? Your gut is happy, you don't have much gas, constipation or bloating? Then that works for you. Your body is able to digest So that's your answer. But even if it's a perfect diet for someone else, you're eating that, but you feel more heavy, lethargic, you just want to take a nap, or you feel more bloated after that, you didn't digest that meal.

So that's not the right food for you. That's why it is so important for us to listen to our body and ask ourselves, what can I digest? If you can digest a meat-heavy diet, then that's the right diet for you. If you're someone who can digest more of a plant-based diet, then that's the right diet for you. So ask yourself, what can I digest? And that's the answer.

And Chidi, what is the best way for the audience to learn more about you?

To go on my website, intentionalhealth. Io, or follow us on Instagram @intentionalhealth_.

Chidi, it was such an honor to have you here today. Thank you so much for joining us and talking about your amazing book.

Thank you so much, John, for having me.

I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Dr. Chidi Parik, and I wanted to thank Hey House, Jessica Reda, and Chidi for the honor and privilege of joining me on today's show. Links to all things Chidi will be in the show notes at passion struck. Com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show. Videos are on YouTube at both our main channel, which is at John R. Miles, and our Clips channel, which is at passion struckClips. Please go check it out, subscribe, and join over a quarter million other subscribers who tune in weekly. Advertiser deals and discount codes are in one convenient place at passion struck. Com/deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. If you want to tune in to daily doses of inspiration inspiration and find meaning, then please follow me on all the social platforms at John R. Miles. And if you want to express your courage muscles, then join our exciting newsletter titled Live Intentionally, where each week we carefully craft a courage exercise that goes along with our most recent episodes. You can find it at passion struck.

Com. You're about to hear a preview of the passion struck podcast interview that I did with my friend Dr. Tessa West, Professor of Psychology at NYU, and author of the groundbreaking new book, Job Therapy: Finding Work That Works For You. In our interview, we discuss the secrets behind job satisfaction. Learn how to identify the psychological reasons that lie in career frustration and find out how to navigate your way to a fulfilling career. Tessa shares her insights on everything, from dealing with bad bosses to making bold career pivots.

Losses tend to loom larger than gains, and most of the people you're speaking with will have some insight into why the last person who took on this role failed at it. In fact, they might have more insight about what they did wrong or structurally wasn't in place for them to succeed than they will about what they did right. In fact, we are much better giving failure feedback to people than we are giving positive reinforcing feedback. And I think that's something a lot of us struggle with. It makes feedback hard. But you can embrace that finding, that losses loom larger than gains in the context of the interview and get unique insights about all the things no one is telling you that will lead to your potential failure.

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