[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, there, it's Ramsay here. This is my deep dive on health and fitness. I had a little bit of a runny nose yesterday, and I woke up this morning with a scratchy throat. I thought to myself, seriously, I'm getting sick today. Right as I'm about to get ready to do a deep dive on health and fitness, not only did I worry about the sound of my voice, but also pridefully about my credibility, because my premise is that I'm a pretty healthy person in pretty good shape, ready to share my nuggets of wisdom. And now I'm getting sick. So I did what I always do when I feel like I might be coming down to something. Yesterday, I doubled up on my immunity vitamins. This morning, I popped a zinc tablet and a capsule of quercetin. I also gargled with some antiseptic mouthwash, which has 1.5% hydrogen peroxide as the active ingredient. I'm happy and relieved to report that I feel fine again. No runny nose, no scratchy throat. Maybe I'll need to run through that drill again today. Or tomorrow. Maybe not. I can once again obnoxiously claim to be healthy. I don't know. Maybe this story isn't making any sense. What I'm trying to say is that I've got a regimen of things that I do to stay healthy and fit, and they usually work really well. Maybe that means I should share them. But I also have no credentials, no training whatsoever. I'm not a doctor. I'm not giving health advice. I'm just reflecting on my own experience, talking about what I think I've learned. Please, take it or leave it as you like. I've never had any serious health problems, but I also used to get sick a lot. Maybe four times, times or more of per year. Typical head colds or allergies or flu, or who really knows what. In my thirties, I was a bit overweight, soft, only in good shape. If it was soccer season, it was always a struggle to find the energy to go to the gym and work out. But there were never enough french fries or sodas or cheeseburgers. I was okay, but not great. Then at some point, I heard about the health benefits of pure iodine. Iodine? Like the stuff in salt or the red stuff you put on your cuts? Yeah. No, iodide is in table salt, which is enough to stay alive, but not really to do much of anything. Betadine is the stuff you put on cuts totally different. There is also an ingestible form of pure iodine that you take just a few drops at a time. The thing is that people's thyroid glands will store and use iodine. My understanding is that if it doesn't have enough iodine, the thyroid will take up fluorine instead. Like fluoride, maybe you can guess where the body often gets fluorine from. So I heard that if and when I start taking iodine, it flushes the fluorine out of the thyroid. It might take a week or so, and when it's happening, it might include head colds, symptoms like a stuffy or runny nose. But after that, I should feel amazing, which is totally what happened. After a messy week and a couple more weeks after that, I felt great, had all this extra energy. So I went to the gym and lifted weights and started running again. I started eating better and taking other vitamins and supplements, and I did not get sick anymore, like, at all. I went from being sick and having allergies four times a year or more to not getting sick once for like ten years. So, yeah, maybe I've got some things to share, and maybe I sound like a privileged health nut who has never really suffered from any chronic illnesses or disability. Please feel free to take it all with a grain of iodized salt. But here's my approach to health, and keep it simple and keep it natural. I try to learn a lot about nutrition and vitamins and supplements. I try to give my body all the right raw materials. Likewise, I try to eliminate, or at least minimize the artificial chemicals and pharmaceuticals. I currently don't have any prescriptions. My blood pressure is a little high, and I should probably do more about that, but. Well, like I said, I take immunity vitamins by force factor. It includes vitamins a, C, D, three, e, zinc, and selenium. Vitamin C is legendary for its health powers. Vitamin D is less flashy, but I've heard and read that it is even more important to have on board. Zinc is especially important, and I take more of it when I feel like maybe I've been exposed to some germs or feel like I'm coming down with something. When dealing with a virus, zinc has a very special friend called quercetin. Quercetin is a supplement that is naturally derived from fruit peels. I understand that quercetin is a zinc ionophore, which means that it enables zinc to disrupt viral replication. There's a whole sciencey explanation for how that works that I don't claim to fully understand. Hmm. Seems like there was a virus a couple years back that we were all really excited about. Trying to think of the name. COUGH. Excuse me? Yeah, I understand that zinc and quercetin and combination are highly effective in stopping that viral replication, especially early on in infections. The other thing I mentioned earlier is antiseptic mouthwash. This should actually make some sense when you think about it. Where does a cold virus start? In my nose and throat. So I try to kill it there on the spot before it really takes hold. Some people also use nasal sprays or rinses or neti pots. That's probably great, but that just sounds too gross to me. Sorry man, I got limits. But getting back to the basics in terms of eating, I try to eat healthy, natural whole foods. I try to limit processed foods. I'm not perfect. I still eat out or eat junk food far too often, but I try to eat real food. There seems like there's a wide, diverse set of opinions these days about eating, and they seem to cover the whole range of approaches. Some people have a vegetarian or vegan diet. Usually that is for ethical reasons, either to combat animal cruelty or to reduce environmental impact, or both. Meat production certainly involves much more energy and other resources to produce than growing crops on a vegetarian or vegan diet. The trick is to get enough protein and the right types of proteins. Proteins are made up of amino acids, and while animal proteins naturally include all the necessary amino acids, the proteins from plants do not. So it's necessary to eat the right combination of plant proteins to get all of the amino acids. One thing I just don't get though, about vegetarian or vegan diets, all those products you see in the freezer section of the grocery store with names like chicken nuggets with apostrophes and missing vowels. So what, you want to pretend like you're almost eating a different food? How many chemicals do they put in those things to get them to almost resemble a different food? Who even said that actual chicken nuggets were a good thing to emulate, is that seriously healthy? Don't even get me started on lab grown meats. Just seems creepy to me. Over on the opposite side of the spectrum, you've got people today eating a carnivore diet exclusively eating only things like beef and eggs and dairy products. They will supplement with electrolyte infused beverages. My understanding of the carnivore diet is that it is often used as an exclusion diet, meaning that if someone is experiencing unknown allergies, they can exclude just about everything and then bring things back one at a time. And the carnivore diet is sometimes used for weight loss. No doubt that animal protein and fat is highly energy dense, and you can make it through the day only eating steak, and it makes sense to me that you would lose weight doing it. One thing I cannot figure out about the carnivore diet is the lack of fiber and roughage. I always thought you needed fiber for, you know, moving things along. Anyways, there's also a really high fat diet, which is intended to put your body into ketosis, which I guess is where the body's metabolism switches over from deriving energy from carbohydrates to generating energy from fats. The keto diet seems like it was all the rage, but it also looks like it requires the most effort and fine tuning to get your body into ketosis. My understanding is that if you have too many carbs along with your fats, then your dream high fat weight loss diet might turn into kind of a dud. I just can't get behind any of those extremes. I try to eat in moderation with a combination of protein, fat, carbs, and fiber. Seems to me that sugar is basically the thing to minimize, especially processed or added sugars. But that's easy for me to say. I've never really had a sweet tooth. Things like cinnamon buns knock me into a sugar crash coma every time. So it seems to me I can't go wrong with fresh grilled meat, raw vegetable salad, and some grains on the side. Of course, I'd still rather have the french fries. The last thing I'll say about eating is that I've found myself to be most productive on days when I eat lots of small meals instead of any one big one lets my body focus its energy on my brain and not on my stomach. I guess thinking instead of digesting. In terms of exercise, I try to run two or three times per week for about five or 6 miles at a stretch. That takes about an hour. I think running is great, but I also know how daunting it is and how nonsensical it seems to those who don't do it regularly. I used to only run if I was chasing a soccer ball or getting back in shape to chase a soccer ball. Why torture myself for an hour running? Here's the thing about running. There's a breakthrough that happens. There's a flow state that I get into in the middle of the run. It is after warming up and before getting tired. If I remember my high school health class correctly, it is after the body switches over from anaerobic respiration to aerobic respiration. In other words, it's when the body is using oxygen at its full capacity. Seriously, it feels great, and my mind works at the same high level as my body. During that state, I do my best thinking or listening or praying in the middle of a run. Luckily, I've got some really talkative running friends. I'm no good at talking while running because I'm too busy breathing. But best I can do is talk in text message like shorthand.
Yep, doing good.
Kids are having fun.
Headed out this weekend that races how many miles? Yeah, I'm a running social climber. I don't do ultra marathons or all day relay races. Oh, well, here's what I'll say about exercise. Get some. Doesn't matter what kind. Do something fun that involves moving around out of doors, preferably with other people that you like. Like I said, keep it simple. Maybe the nuttiest thing I've been doing lately, health wise, is cold showers. Yeah, as in showering in cold water? No, I didn't think that I wanted to do that either. At first. It was one of the things I was doing for this Exodus 90 experience I was doing with some catholic friends of mine. We gave up certain things and took on certain other things, all to reduce worldly distractions, turn ourselves towards God and each other. Probably the signature aestheticism of Exodus 90 is taking cold showers. Look, you have to understand, I've really only ever hated one thing in all of my life that happens to be cold water. I've always felt like the only way I wanted to experience cold water was inside of a glass. So the cold showers were a pretty big hurdle for me. But after experiencing them in a variety of ways for three months, I cannot deny that a cold shower first thing in the morning, especially combined with some light exercise and a full spectrum lamp, is an undeniable way to wake up hard and fast. On days where I want to be productive and seriously attack my day, I still start them that way. I heard some podcast explain the neuroscience of how cold water, exercise, and sunlight can clear sleepiness right out of the body, biochemically way more effective than caffeine. I concur. But I also don't want to attack my day every day. Some days I just want to feel. Some days like today, I need to fight back against the germs that threaten to make me sick. So I'll hit my vitamins and mouthwash and go back to bed and take a hot shower later. And for today, that's enough. Thank you for asking.
[00:12:02] Speaker B: What's worthwhile? Visit what's worthwhile.net to learn more about me, Ramsey Zimmerman and please provide your name and email to become a supporter. I'm asking for prayer, advice, feedback and connections. The what's worthwhile podcast is on Spotify, Apple, iHeart, and Amazon. You can also
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