171: Metabolic Secrets of the Slim and Healthy – with Dr. Philip Ovadia

We uncover the untold “secrets” to metabolic health in this episode – straight from a heart surgeon. 

However, Dr. Philip Ovadia is not your typical allopathic cardiologist dishing out drugs and selling surgery as the only solution to heart issues. 

Dr. Philip is on a mission to keep people OFF his operating table. 

In this episode, Wade and Dr. Philip zero in on something called metabolic health – an approach to wellness that focuses on five simple health factors that you are probably already familiar with (blood pressure and blood sugar being two factors.) Dr. Philip explains how these five health indicators provide a gauge that directly relates to a person’s risk for heart disease, diabetes, and stroke. 

Considering only twelve percent of Americans are metabolically healthy, you will probably benefit by tuning in. Dr. Philip knows what it is like to be morbidly obese, staring at a future filled with many negative health issues. 

Impressively, Dr. Philip lost over 100 pounds and has kept it off for five years now. He can relate to people struggling with weight, blood sugar, high blood pressure, and all the typical red flags the allopathic system talks about (but offering as the solution things like outdated food recommendations, drugs, or surgery to treat symptoms.)  

You will learn how our guest took ownership of his health and is now in that metabolically healthy twelve percent. 

Dr. Philip Ovadia is a board-certified Cardiac Surgeon and Founder of the Ovadia Heart Health clinic. He is also the author of the book Stay Off My Operating Table: A Heart Surgeon’s Metabolic Health Guide to Lose Weight, Prevent Disease, and Feel Your Best Every Day. 

Dr. Ovadia grew up in New York and graduated from the accelerated Pre-Med/Med program at the Pennsylvania State University and Jefferson Medical College. His residency was in General Surgery at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in New Jersey and a Fellowship in Cardiothoracic Surgery at Tufts New England Medical School. 

When you hit “Play,” here’s the juicy nuggets of knowledge you receive: 

• The five factors that reveal your metabolic health

• Why did Dr. Philip become morbidly obese?

• How Dr. Philip lost over 100 pounds

• How the typical American diet is crippling people’s metabolic system

• How a journalist – not a doctor – changed Dr. Philip’s life

• How Dr. Philip’s colleagues responded to his unconventional approach to heart health

• What happens when we become metabolically unhealthy

• Which diet does Dr. Philip consider the best for health?

• The number of times you should eat each day

• Dr. Philip’s surprising views on exercise

• How heart patients can make lifestyle changes and transition off medications while seeing their current doctor

The Problem with Healthcare These Days

As Dr. Philip was talking about the metabolic system, he made this interesting observation: “One of the problems with our healthcare system, these days, is that we don’t tie things together. We don’t look at the root causes.”

“So, you might go to your family doctor, and he’s going to start you on treatment for your high blood pressure.”

“Then you’re going to end up seeing an endocrinologist who’s going to take care of your type two diabetes.”

“Then, you’re going to see a cardiologist who’s going to be working on your heart disease.” 

“All those folks are not going to tie together that all three of these conditions come from the same root cause and that you can address that root cause and then better manage, even reverse those conditions, which would provide more impactful results and ultimately a better outcome for the patient.”  

Dr. Philip’s First Principle for Good Health

There is so much good information in this interview. Dr. Philip provides many insights through his medical training and personal health challenges. 

About halfway into the episode, Dr. Philip shares this health principle from his book: “The first principle that I outline, and I put first because I think it’s most important, is that you need to think of your health as a system, not as a goal.” 

“That’s a key mindset issue that often plagues my patients. Too often, we focus on short-term goals around our health. For example, ‘I want to lose twenty pounds.’”

“When you focus on a short term goal, one of two things is going to happen – you either make the changes and meet that goal, but then the tendency is to say ‘okay, I got where I wanted to be, now I can go back to what I was doing before.” 

“The second scenario is probably more common – you make some changes then fail to reach your goal, which leads to frustration and disappointment. Then you think, ‘why bother? I’ll go back to what I did before.’” 

“What I try to coach people to do is to begin thinking of your health as a system. If you want to be metabolically healthy, you simply find the habits that support becoming and staying metabolically healthy.”

“That’s a more sustainable way to think.” 

Dr. Philip is a breath of fresh air in a time of eroding customer service happening in healthcare these days. He is motivated to keep people healthy – not manage symptoms of the disease. Following Dr. Philip’s five-point guide to metabolic health is a great place to begin your health transformation. This episode is straightforward and easy to follow – but you must tune in to reap the rewards. 

Check out this episode –  time to lose weight, feel great, and improve your quality of life!

Episode Resources:

Learn more about Dr. Ovadia at www.OvadiaHeartHealth.com

Dr. Ovadia’s Amazon Author Page

Dr. Ovadia on Twitter

Ovadia Heart Health on Instagram

Dr. Philip’s weight loss success story on the Low-Carb Action Network

Read The Episode Transcript:

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Wade Lightheart: 321 good morning good afternoon and good evening it's weighty light heart from by optimizer with another edition of the awesome health podcast and today we're going to talk about.

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Wade Lightheart: metabolic health and we have an expert with us, Dr Philip ovadia, who is a board certified cardiac surgeon and founder of the aveda health.

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Wade Lightheart: heart health his mission is to optimize public's metabolic health and help people stay off his operating table.

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Wade Lightheart: As a heart surgeon who used to be morbidly obese Dr vaidya has firsthand seen the failures of mainstream diets and medicine.

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Wade Lightheart: He realized that what helped him lose over 100 pounds was the same solution that could have prevented most of the thousands of open heart surgeries he has performed.

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Wade Lightheart: In stay off my operating table a heart surgeons metabolic guide to lose weight prevent disease and feel your best every day shares the complete.

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Wade Lightheart: metabolic health system to prevent disease, he grew up in New York graduated from accelerated pre MED MED program in Pennsylvania State University and Jefferson medical college.

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Wade Lightheart: This was followed by a residency in general surgery at the University of medicine and dentistry at New Jersey and a fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery at tufts New England Medical School.

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Wade Lightheart: Dr welcome to the show.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Thanks wait it's great to be here, I really love the messaging of your podcast you know awesome health is what we should all be aiming for, and unfortunately way too commonly these days, people don't realize that awesome health is possible.

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Wade Lightheart: Well, you know here's, this is a conundrum that strikes me, one of my my.

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Wade Lightheart: One of my passions is is i'm always impressed with how hard.

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Wade Lightheart: medical industry professionals work to get to their positions, one of my dear friends, is a fellow by the name of Dr Horst filter who was part of the team that put the first stent in the body.

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Wade Lightheart: And he's about 80 years old he's a great guy and what's interesting is he's he himself was morbidly obese and now he's starting to kind of go down, but you think here's a heart surgeon.

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Wade Lightheart: You know all about the problems of what causes a bad heart and the risks and cardiovascular risks and the drugs and the surgeries and it's incredible what you guys do I mean it's really.

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Wade Lightheart: complicated to become a surgeon, and then to become a heart surgeon, is another level it's like.

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Wade Lightheart: it's it's it's a really grueling tough thing to be part of, and you pay a huge price oftentimes to get to that position, which is kind of contra indicative if you will do what you're trying to achieve what was that journey like for you.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah so you know I knew from a young age, that I wanted to be a physician and actually I specifically for reasons that I still don't really know always wanted to be a surgeon.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And as you said, you know the path to get there is pretty difficult, you know going through Medical School and then the training afterwards to become a surgeon, and then you know, specifically to become a heart surgeon, it is a very long and difficult path.

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Wade Lightheart: How many years did that take you.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: So after I completed Medical School I then had seven years of training to become a heart surgeon, so you know 11 years of the ED in medical school and then college, you know before that, so you know very long journey.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Lots of you know kind of long hours and, obviously, a lot of knowledge that you need to take in, and I think you know, during that time, a lot of physicians don't pay attention to their own health, you know we're there to serve our patients and we put our patients needs first.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: But even more concerning to me is you know, when I look back, I realized that even if I was interested in, you know my own health during that time, the advice that I was learning in school.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: did not serve me did not keep me healthy and that same advice that I had been giving to my patients for many years.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: I again realize was not helping to keep them healthy our focus in the healthcare system is how to manage people who are diseased.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: We are not focused on how to keep people from getting those diseases in the first place, and you know, thankfully, I had my eyes open about five years ago, I was able to improve my own health and.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: What I came to realize is that what has allowed me to improve my health would be the same things that not only would.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Help my patients recover better from having heart surgery, but actually could help people prevent the need from heart surgery, in the first place, and so that has become my new you know mission my new calling to help people to stay off my operating table.

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Wade Lightheart: yeah I think it's very fascinating there's so many people, and one of my.

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Wade Lightheart: pet peeves is that there's people in what I would call the health advocacy industry and there's people in the medical industry and they're both trying to keep people healthy.

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Wade Lightheart: from a different perspective I think and oftentimes they're at odds with each other, as opposed to seeing that they're both different sides of the same thing is that's to keep people alive and thriving and.

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Wade Lightheart: And, and so forth, but i'm curious to find out as someone who was through the allopathic model, what was the trigger point for you to say hey you know what I got to make a change in my own life, where i'm going to end up on the table that i've helped so many other people.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah, so I would say there was a you know combination of triggers and then you know a little bit of good fortune.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: That ultimately allowed me to get healthy, you know so about five years ago, I was now 10 plus years into my career as a heart surgeon, I was morbidly obese, I was pre diabetic.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And I knew that I was going to end up on my own operating table, so to speak, I had two young children at the time and a wonderful wife, and you know I I needed to do something.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: But, quite honestly I was at a loss as to what to do, because I had tried what I had learned in medical school and in my training and the advice that I was giving my patients, you know eat less move more eat a low fat diet.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: The US you know the food pyramid all of that had failed me as an failed, many of my patients and thankfully I started to come across some alternative thoughts about you know why we get obese why we get unhealthy.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: One of my earliest experiences was actually hearing Gary taubes lecture at one of the medical meetings I was attending and you know immediately read his books.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: At that time the case against sugar and why we get fat and good calories bad calories and you know the concept of the types of food that we eat.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: is more important than the amount of food that we eat, and that was the first time that I had heard that, and you know I I adopted a low carbohydrate dietary approach, I was able to lose the weight reverse my pre diabetes and then I started asking you know why didn't I hear this before.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know why was I hearing this from a journalist an investigative journalist and a book author, instead of you know, hearing this from.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know Medical School professors or my colleagues, or you know the medical societies.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And that led me down a path where I came to realize that you know, we have the wrong focus in healthcare, we are too focused on taking care of sick people and that doesn't allow us to help people not get sick in the first place.

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Wade Lightheart: You know this is, which is a, which is a bold conclusion to come to and one that's not, I would say popular, especially within the industry.

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Wade Lightheart: As a professional in the industry What was it like when you came to these conclusions with your colleagues and your mate you've made your own transformation.

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Wade Lightheart: And then you decide hey i'm going to write about this as a medical doctor i'm going to write about my process.

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Wade Lightheart: What was there, supportive elements were there resistive elements what was going on in your professional career, because I think that's a big issue for a lot of people who come up with discoveries that might not be lockstep with what's currently involved.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Exactly you know, and this kind of shows.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know the sort of you know skips a frantic nature, I guess, of medicine and of healthcare practitioners, because obviously you know my colleagues saw the great results that I had gotten.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: They saw how healthy I had become and despite that you know when I talked about what allowed me to do that, and it goes contrary to you know much of the advice that.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know, we are given being a heart surgeon obviously you know the recommendations of the American heart association.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: are very important in my field specialty and most of what I was now advising you know contradicted that or at least you know somewhat questioned.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Some of the validity, they are so that certainly has led to some pushback from colleagues, but you know, again I let the results speak for themselves.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And that goes both ways I you know i'm not shy about pointing out that.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: We have been getting the same advice about what to eat, you know the US dietary guidelines, the American heart association dietary guidelines have essentially been unchanged for the past 40 years and during that time, our health as a nation has clearly worsened, you know.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: We are now at a point where 88% of the adults.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: In the United States are not metabolically healthy heart disease remains the number one killer in the United States and worldwide, so we really have to start to question you know, we are not getting the results that we want.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: What you know, we need to take another approach is the bottom line.

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Wade Lightheart: So, how would you classify that terminology metabolic healthy like what would what, what are the classifications and designation, so people would understand how you define that versus say how maybe the American heart association might define that.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah so you know the simple the simplest explanation I give to people about what metabolic health is is that when you are metabolically healthy.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Your body is properly utilizing the inputs that you're giving it mostly in the form of food and it's doing you know what we're supposed to do with food.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Which is one of three things basically we can either turn it into energy to use immediately feel all of our activities on both the you know kind of macro level, as well as the cellular level some of it.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: is used to build and rebuild our tissues, which is a process that's always going on in our bodies and then some of it supposed to be stored in case we get into situations where food isn't available.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: What happens when we become metabolically unhealthy, is that we end up storing too much of this food and too much energy and we're never able to tap into those stored energy.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: supplies, you know.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And this is directly related to you know the types of food that we're eating and the ways that we're eating.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: There are a few metrics that I advise people to look at that are commonly accepted, you know to measure metabolic health.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And I think it's very important that people know these metrics and far too often what I see is that you know the information is available to people, the information is available to physicians.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: But they don't put it together properly to determine whether or not someone is metabolically healthy.

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Wade Lightheart: Whatever goes metrics Out of curiosity.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah so the five you know what I would say standard Lee accepted metrics and metabolic health are.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Your waist circumference so people can measure this at home, you take a tape measure just above the level of your belly button best to measure it first thing in the morning.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And if you are a man you want that to be less than 40 inches if you're a woman, you want it to be less than 35 inches.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: The next metric is your blood pressure, again, you can check it at home, you can go to any grocery store or pharmacy these days, get it checked, or you can go to your doctor's office.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And you want your blood pressure to be less than 130 over 85.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And importantly, that needs to be without the use of medication, so if you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure and started on medication for it, that is a sign that you are not metabolically healthy.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And then we look at some basic bloodwork your fasting blood glucose level.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And that needs to be less than 100 milligrams per deciliter, these are the United States unit.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And again without the use of medications if you have type two diabetes you've been started on medication to lower your blood sugar another sign that you are not metabolically healthy.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And finally, we look at the cholesterol panel and what's most interesting here is that the one cholesterol number that most doctors and most people are focused on the ldl cholesterol so called bad cholesterol is not a measure of metabolic health.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And there were there were two other numbers on the standard cholesterol panel your hdl cholesterol, which is your good cholesterol.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And as the nickname implies the higher the better there, and if you're a man you want that to be over 40 if you're a woman, you want it to be over 50.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And finally, the triglycerides which are another number on your cholesterol panel and you want that to be less than 150.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: So you look at those five measures if three or more of those are abnormal you are diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, and that means that you are a very high risk for developing things like.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: heart disease, many forms of cancer or alzheimer's disease type two diabetes, high blood pressure, all of these things have been related to poor metabolic health.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: If you have one or two of those abnormal it's a warning sign, because we know that you are likely to progress to get three or more abnormal in the future.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And if you have all of those in line if all five or where they should be.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Congratulations only 12% of the adult in the United States today meet all five measures of metabolic health.

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Wade Lightheart: got it only 12% I mean that's that's shocking now.

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Wade Lightheart: You mentioned something here I think that's really important to understand and that, if you so let's say.

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Wade Lightheart: We have people listening to this podcast, without a doubt, who them or someone they love is suffering from a variety these conditions and oftentimes with the doctor say well.

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Wade Lightheart: we're going to give you a Stat and drug we're going to put you on insulin for manage your blood sugar we're going to go.

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Wade Lightheart: You know something to manage your blood pressure right right so, can you walk through what the standard procedures might be for someone on any one of those conditions and then.

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Wade Lightheart: What you would suggest an admin will set you up for what you've discovered going on in your book in your own journey.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah exactly so you know the standard.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know, when you go to your physician, and they diagnose you with high blood pressure or type two diabetes.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: The standard is they're going to start showing medication for it they're going to tell you that's the only option.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And they are going to know they may or may not say this, but they are going to know in the back of their mind.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: that this problem is only going to worsen over time and you're going to need more and more medication to manage it and it's going to lead to more complications in the future, the reality is is that.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Both type two diabetes and high blood pressure, are due to poor metabolic health primarily from the foods were eating.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And if we focus on that root cause of poor metabolic health and we adopt habits that are going to improve your metabolic health what we eat.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: The activities that we do all of these other things that you know I talked about in the book.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: We can actually reverse type two diabetes, we can reverse high blood pressure we can get people off these medications.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Or we can you know prevent them from needing it in the first place by focusing on this early enough.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: But you know, one of the problems with our healthcare system, these days, is that we don't.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: tie these things together, we don't look at these root causes so you might go to your family doctor and he's going to start you on treatment for your high blood pressure.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And then you're going to end up going to an endocrinologist who's going to take care of your type two diabetes.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And then you're going to go see the cardiologist who's going to be working you know, on your heart disease.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And they're not going to tie together that all three of these come from the same root cause and that we can address that root cause and you know better manage, possibly even reverse these conditions, and you know ultimately have a better impact, a better outcome for the patient.

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Wade Lightheart: So now, when in your case were you did you have any of those symptoms like or you know that cat those categories.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah so I was pre diabetic you know my fasting blood glucose was elevated my hemoglobin a one she was elevated so I was, I was on the border of it.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know my waist circumference was certainly higher than you know more than 40 inches so I was failing that metric and my cholesterol numbers.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know, did not look good so yeah I you know I had many of these things, myself and i've now improve them, and I am proudly one of the 12% that is metabolically healthy and can meet all five of those measures.

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Wade Lightheart: So what did you do and how long did it take you on this because losing 100 pounds is I mean that's a remarkable accomplishment How long have you had that off.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: it's now been about five years that i've been able to.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: maintain you know lose and then maintain that weight loss over the past five or.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: five plus years, and you know I went through an evolution, as I said it started, you know when I heard Gary taubes talk and I eliminated sugar from my diet and then kind of went more of a what I would call a dedicated you know low carb diet keto.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And finally, I came to be carnivore you know and have now maintained primarily carnivore diet for the past three years or so, but importantly, you know what I want people to realize, is that there isn't necessarily one right way to do this.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: One of the sections of my book.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: talks about you know all of the or many of the popular diets of today, you know literally both carnivore and vegan you know low carb diets like keto and Paleo and Atkins, and the Mediterranean diet and I try and highlight you know what is metabolically healthy about each one of them.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Right and what may not be metabolically healthy about each one of them, because they all have their sort of pitfalls there and I think looking at metabolic health as the measuring stick, is what is ultimately going to allow people to you know get the results that they are looking for.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: What too often happens is we get into our dietary camp, and you know keto worked for me, and so, everyone needs to go keto or you know vegan is the only way to go, Korea, where is the only way to go.

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Wade Lightheart: Right and.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: I don't favor that approach, you know.

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Wade Lightheart: What I say that.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah ultimately yes carnivore works great for me, but I work with patients who are vegan I work with patients who were you know keto and low carb and everything in between, and we need to find what works for you.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: With the framework being whatever we're doing is either improving our metabolic health or it's not improving our metabolic health.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Right and if it's not improving our metabolic health we got to make some changes to get our metabolic health where it needs to be.

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Wade Lightheart: it's beautifully said and matt and Mike my business partner matt and I he's a ketogenic guy and i'm a vegetarian.

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Wade Lightheart: we're pretty far on the Pole and i've did raw food vegetarian he's done carnivore so we've been about as polar opposites, and we run the same company and we've come to the exact same conclusions and have had plenty of discussions, we also have identified that.

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Wade Lightheart: there's advantages and disadvantages to every diet and by understanding the different styles of diets and the benefits that that may come from it, or the liabilities.

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Wade Lightheart: You can then course correct even inside your chosen diet, so, for example, for myself getting certain essential fatty acids, is a little bit more difficult.

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Wade Lightheart: than if I was on a ketogenic diet and so you know I have special LG oil concoction that I have here that's been made by this lady that gives me the essential fatty acids, that I don't get in my.

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Wade Lightheart: Plant based diet accordingly matt his diet is very low and vegetables and certain certain elements.

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Wade Lightheart: That he supplements vitamins and minerals that he is lacking from that diet and and then you know what the different people were dealing with genetics and epigenetics response you look at possible mutations and.

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Wade Lightheart: You know, some people are more susceptible like I manage carbohydrates extremely well my blood sugar looks like when I do my homework I our tests blood glucose.

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Wade Lightheart: Blood glucose and blood sugar response insulin response, well, it looks like i'm on a ketogenic diet, if you look at my numbers and i'm eating carbs every day, but I have a high fiber consumption.

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Wade Lightheart: You know so there's someone else can follow my diet and you know they'd be willing them into the er.

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Wade Lightheart: You know, so how was it that you were able to come up with these parameters in order to provide the guidelines, I guess, so people can check the results and how do you teach your students do the book or there's some pieces i'm missing, so they can determine which ones right for them.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah so you know, for me, it was a lot of you know kind of trial and error, you know, as I said, you know the the you know, eliminating sugar low carb and initially and then.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know I got pretty good results, but you know i'd started tinkering and and, as I said, ultimately came to carnivore you know I basically tried all of these things, and you know found what worked for me.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: But what was most enlightening I guess was then looking at you know what are the commonalities between these approaches.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: and the one that really stands out in the end, and this is, you know, one of the seven principles of metabolic health that I outlined in my book is to eat whole real food.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Because when you look at it, you know whether you're vegan carnivore.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know Paleo you know, whatever whichever camp you end up falling into the more whole real foods you eat within the strategy, the better your metabolic health is going to be.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: We can't get away from the fact that you know processed food.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: is damaging to our health, and you know, there is some argument, there is some discussion about what is it in the processed food is it the carbs Is it the vegetable and seed oils.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know, and my answer, ultimately, is I don't know for sure, but I know that the combination that is in all of our process food of those things is not good for us.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: So you know I think the first principle, the primary principle around what you eat should be eat whole real food and then you can figure it out, you know kind of from there.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know, based on your preferences based on your situation you know your genetics all of those like you said play a role in it, but that rule I haven't found anyone who can thrive on eating processed food in the end.

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Wade Lightheart: yeah it's very difficult for certain now in in your diet, do you eat multiple times a day or your one meal a day guy or you have multiple, how do you how do you integrate that into your.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah so I usually end up around the two meals, a day, just because you know.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: carnivore I think lends itself to it, you know you're eating nutritionally dense foods you're eating a lot of protein and that keeps you pretty satiated.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: So for me it ends up being twice a day, and this is another sort of principle that I talk through with you know my patients and my clients, is that you know I think intermittent fasting is great, but i'm not a fan of forcing intermittent fasting.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know I don't think it's, the first thing that you do.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: What I tell people to do is find a way of eating that makes you hungry less often so that you just naturally start fasting.

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Wade Lightheart: that's a I think that's a really salient point and I think a lot of people aren't able to actually look at the framework of how different our world is compared to our ancestors, who would go long periods of time.

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Wade Lightheart: With frankly restricted choices of food they spent a considerable amount of time outdoors everything involved physical activity, they did not have access to preservatives and chemicals and agents, most of the food was local and seasonal and.

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Wade Lightheart: And if you find it interesting people talk about the historical diets of humans and i'm like well what part of the world where they live in because i'm quite sure that the.

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Wade Lightheart: The Vikings in the Scandinavian companies countries were living very different than you know the plains men in Africa or.

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Wade Lightheart: tribesmen in South America or North American Indians, I mean they're they're going to be living very different lifestyles and because of what's available you couldn't go to whole foods you couldn't go to the grocery store to get stuff how much does physical activity.

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Wade Lightheart: play into metabolic health from your perspective.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah so you know, one of the other principles that I talk about is moving more and I, you know, put it that way, very purposefully because I think too often we get caught up on exercising.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Doing dedicated exercise sessions and how much should we do and what type of exercise.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And really for most people if we just figured out ways to move more we're going to end up in a better place, and so that looks like.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know, taking the stairs instead of the elevator the escalator when you can I noticed you're standing while doing this interview i'm standing while doing this interview I try and stand up as much as possible and not be sitting at a desk.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know just simple things like that are going to have a big impact if you have the time to exercise, and if you, you know, want to exercise that's great, but I tell people it's really not necessary, you know if you are eating the right foods.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Exercise sort of becomes an optional add on now, what I find is that when people start to improve their metabolic health and they start eating the right foods they're naturally inclined to get more active and exercise more.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: I think when you're exercising building and maintaining muscle, is a good priority, because we have you know, we know that muscle, is the most metabolically active tissue that we have.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And we have very good data showing that the more muscle you're able to maintain as you age, the better your outcomes are going to be.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: So you know I think I tell people that that should be their priority in terms of doing resistance exercises those can be simple bodyweight exercises those can be resistance bands those can be lifting weights, you know, whatever kind of suits your your preferences in your lifestyle.

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Wade Lightheart: I think that's a you know if you look at the living long and living stronger as we look at a lot of people underestimate the role of muscle tissue, especially as we get older.

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Wade Lightheart: First, for mobility in quality of life, obviously metabolic health to keep your metabolism up, but just also from the component of.

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Wade Lightheart: osteopenia osteoporosis, some of these things that become very debilitating for seniors and they underestimate how much that can be reversed, even at advanced aged.

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Wade Lightheart: And so we're dealing with a lot of older clients, you know in their 70s and 80s, can you know, engage in strength, training, you know, a couple times a week.

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Wade Lightheart: and make remarkable gains in the quality of their life and their health and there was a study years ago and senior citizens over the age of 90.

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Wade Lightheart: And they did this eight week strength training program I forget the university study it was, and they were able to most of them were able to reverse conditions where they were using walkers and.

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Wade Lightheart: Movement aids and their quality of life, went up in their their their health.

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Wade Lightheart: The psychological health and ability to engage in life, and I think that's a strong message what other things do people need to know about metabolic health and that you outlined in your book without giving away and we should.

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Wade Lightheart: Where can people if you can let people know where we can get it, and your website and all that stuff i'd be great as well, so.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah the the the book is widely available it's called stay off my operating table it's on all the major online platforms, you can go to my website over at a heart health.com and if you go to you know the tab that says book, you can find it find all the information there.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And you know, so I go through seven principles of metabolic health, and you know we talked about a few of them already which are you know eat whole real food and move more.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: The first principle that I outline, and I put it first, because I think it's most important is that you need to think of your health as a system, not as a goal.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And that's kind of one of the key mindset issues that comes into this too often, you know we're focused on short term goals around our health, I want to lose 20 pounds.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And when you focus on a short term goal one of two things is going to happen either you're going to you know make some changes and meet that goal, and then the tendency is to say okay I got where I wanted to be I can go back to what I was doing before.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Right or you know, probably more commonly.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: you're going to make some changes and you're not going to meet your goal and you're going to get frustrated and you're going to get disappointed and you're going to say why bother i'm just going to go back to what I was doing before.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And instead, what I hope, people can do what I try and coach you know the people that I work with through is thinking of your health as a system.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: If you say to yourself, I want to be metabolically healthy and I am going to find the habits that support me being metabolically healthy that's a more sustainable way to think.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And you know it's a more positive way to think, and so I think it leads to better success.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And it becomes sort of self reinforcing because you start to see the success, you want, you will improve those metrics you know those shorter.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: sort of short term things like losing the 20 pounds or reversing your type two diabetes.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: But you're thinking of your you know overall system and you're basically finding those habits that you're going to be able to sustain long term, to make sure that you get the long term success we're looking for.

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Wade Lightheart: You brought up something early in our interview with and I want to address because it's a it's a very dicey subject particularly.

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Wade Lightheart: For people who are maybe suffering from one of these conditions and there's two levels to it, one that might have had surgery.

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Wade Lightheart: Or you know in some invasive technique in order to overcome that condition I got a family members who have gone through that so let's say someone's listening to this.

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Wade Lightheart: interview they're on a number of different medications for the one or more medications for the conditions that you said that were leading to.

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Wade Lightheart: Poor metabolic health and they're engaging in a program, that is, such as what you're outlining in your book and they're able to reverse those conditions.

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Wade Lightheart: How do you deal with it with the doctor, because many doctors don't want to take you off meds.

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Wade Lightheart: Right So how do you go about engaging in that process with your physician if you're already on meds and you found a way to reverse that condition, then you want to get off.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah so you know this gets to the fact that you need to be proactive about your health, you need to take charge of your health.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: realize that physicians are not supposed to be there to tell you what to do, physicians are supposed to be there to educate you to help you make the choices, you know that are going to best serve you.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: The the Latin root of the word doctor is you know, to educate.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: is too dense and you know, unfortunately, the healthcare industry again has kind of lost sight of that so I go back to even you know, in my role as a heart surgeon.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: When i'm meeting with people every day that you know have conditions that can clearly benefit from having heart surgery.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: I don't tell them that you need to have heart surgery, you know I tried to explain to them what they have.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Why surgery might be beneficial to them, but you know, in the end, some of them decide that they don't want to have heart surgery, and as a physician I need to be okay with that I am okay with that.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: But unfortunately, a lot of physicians aren't a lot of physicians see it as their role to you know basically command the patients to do things.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And you know, sometimes you can work with your physician on that sometimes, the answer is to find a new physician, you know we people shouldn't accept.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: poor health they shouldn't accept their physician telling them that medication is the only answer.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And, especially if you, you know if a person takes it upon themselves to start making changes and is seeing great results from those changes.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: If their physician is pushing back against those changes, for whatever reason.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: That is not going to be a beneficial relationship in the end, so sometimes, the answer is, you need to seek out, you know different physicians different partners in this journey.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: To support your metabolic health but, hopefully, you know when you share this information with your physician, you know if you say hey I read this great book or I was looking at this website.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And you know I started doing this and now i'm doing a lot better, you can see that my numbers all look better, hopefully, you know physicians are still curious enough to say why did that work for this person, you know why is this person.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know, able to get off of these medications that have never taken patients off before and that they'll start to you know come to some of these same conclusions.

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Wade Lightheart: And what about people who have had surgery, so I have family members who have had heart surgery.

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Wade Lightheart: yep and what are these principles applicable to them, are they able to you know, because sometimes the physicians will keep them on medication for an extended period of time after as a precautionary method, what is your suggestions for those who do address it in the book.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know I do talk about it and, basically, what I say is it's never too late to improve your metabolic health and you're never going to harm yourself, by improving your metabolic health, we might not be able to undo damage that has been done.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: But you know we can stop more damage from being done in the future so again going back to my role as a heart surgeon, you know when I operate on people, I now tell them, you know this.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: The surgery that i'm going to do is going to lessen the impact of you know, the damage that has been done to your heart, it is going to improve you.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: But it is not going to change what led to you getting the heart disease in the first place, and if you don't change what led to you getting to heart disease in the first place.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: it's highly likely that you know you're going to need more things done in the future.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: you're going to have ongoing damage to your heart and, ultimately, you know, this is something that can kill you and you know, most people respond well to that.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: If you go to a person you're you know if i'm a physician and a person comes to me, and they have a condition like type two diabetes, and I say to them, you can take this medication.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Your condition is going to worsen, you know the medication is going to help you.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Maybe slow down that progression, but we know that your condition will worsen, we know that you're going to need more and more medications and you're ultimately going to have complications from the diabetes.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Or you can change some things about your lifestyle what you're eating and how you're living and not need the medications and not suffer those complications, the vast majority of patients are going to choose the lifestyle and the diet it's just that we don't frame it that way.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And we usually don't even give patients that option, you know again most physicians will just say to the patient, you need to take this medication and that's, the only solution to your to your problems.

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Wade Lightheart: very, very powerful information and I have one question that's a little bit out of again.

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Wade Lightheart: If you can give us the title of the book and the worry, they can get it if you can hit a hit us up with that, again, we can put it in her notes.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah again it's called stay off my operating table, and if you go to obey the heart health.com slash book you'll get the links on where you can buy it but it's on Amazon, and all the major online platforms.

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Wade Lightheart: I have another question that you may or may not want to answer because it's something that has been coming to me.

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Wade Lightheart: I answer a lot of questions from our consumers around the world, and some of them go outside of the framework, and this is one of them and.

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Wade Lightheart: So there's a lot of concerns about inflammatory conditions around people who get the vaccination and that could complicate that situation and i've seen some of the various research but i'm not an expert in heart conditions or diseases.

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Wade Lightheart: What I would what i'm curious about in from the literature that you've read or your or your suggestions about people getting vaccines or not.

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Wade Lightheart: If they've had a heart condition or if they've had heart surgery or if they have a genetic condition of our heart So how do you feel safety measures around those those components.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah, so I think you know, in general, what I tell people around you know the covert pandemic is that this has been a huge missed opportunity.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: It has been clear from the beginning of coven that the people that get sick with it, the people that are most susceptible to it are the people that are not metabolically healthy.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And you know.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Not being metabolically healthy sets you up you know oftentimes means that you have chronic inflammation you know your immune system isn't working as it should, and you know.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Whether you get code or you get the vaccine, you know it can then set you off down a bad path, and you know, specifically now, when we look at people who have gotten a vaccine and get sick afterwards.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: They get infected with you know they get a coven infection, despite having a vaccine, or they have a side effect from the vaccine.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: We see that same pattern, that it is people largely who are not metabolically healthy that are you know suffering from these problems.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: So, ultimately, my message becomes you know whether or not you choose to get vaccinated you know, whatever else you're doing.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Around coven being metabolically healthy is going to be an advantage, and that should be something that we are focused on and, unfortunately, none of our public health messaging has focused on that you know.

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Wade Lightheart: that's a really powerful statement coming from someone in that industry in and.

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Wade Lightheart: And so, would you go as far to say that the principles inside of your book will help alleviate the risk factors for a variety of conditions, not necessarily related to heart.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah no I it's clear that you know these risk factors that we see are you know related to poor metabolic health and following the principles in the book are going to help you improve your metabolic health and therefore lessen your risk.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: If you get exposed or even you know getting getting the disease in the first place, we have data on both showing that you know, being in better metabolic health is going to lower the risk of getting the disease in the first place, and then you know getting sicker once you have the disease.

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Wade Lightheart: very powerful statement and now front before we go, I have one thing So what do you think it's going to take for this message to be kind of.

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Wade Lightheart: You know, put through our education system put through our medical system and put through our political system whereby we are looking at the long term care and vitality of our population is it through.

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Wade Lightheart: Better insurance option options is it through political policy, is it true.

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Wade Lightheart: You know D incentivizing lobbyist groups, is it about public education, what do you see us to change this messaging because, as you said, we're, why do we continue to miss the opportunity when it's very clear what the risk factors are and that those can be mitigated through lifestyle change.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: yeah so I don't think it's going to come from the system itself, you know, the system is set up to maintain the status quo, and you know those that have a large amount of influence on the system currently.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: You know the insurance companies, the pharmaceutical company, the food industry and, quite frankly, the government.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Is not inclined to change the system, so I think this is going to have to start as a grassroots type of movement and i'm optimistic, because I see that taking hold you know more and more I go to.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Medical meetings low carb focused medical meetings, for instance, that you know more and more physicians from all these different specialties are realizing the power of metabolic health and.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: starting to you know spread that word to their patients, I see lots of patients who are taking this to their physicians like I talked about earlier.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And ultimately, you know people are going to need to demand change one of my central messages is people need to take back control of their health.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: They need to be in charge of their health, they need to fight back against this message that we can't be healthy, as we get older.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: That we can't maintain good health through you know, the vast majority of our life and when enough people start pushing back then.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: The industry is going to start to respond to that because, ultimately, you know all of these things are businesses and they respond to the you know desires of their consumers, ultimately, so I think that is how change is going to happen.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: I think you know, there are some features within the system that are going to support this as well, we know that this.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: The United States and many other countries are being bankrupted by the cost of taking care of sick people.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: And so, ultimately, I am optimistic that the system is going to start to come around to some of this and realize that we need to be doing more to keep people healthy.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: But that takes a long time and for right now I think it's an individual movement and each individual needs to take back control of their health.

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Wade Lightheart: it's a beautiful message and it's something that you obviously are not only an advocate for but you're a product of someone who is transformed their health and that of others with your book.

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Wade Lightheart: Can you share where people can find you reach you and get more information, all the social handles all that sort of stuff.

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Philip Ovadia @ifixhearts: Sure thing, so the website is over, at a heart health COM bouvier da heart health COM on most active on social media Twitter, where I am at I fix hearts i'm also an instagram at underscore heart underscore health, and you know the website is really the best place for all of the information.

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Wade Lightheart: Dr at this is a an extraordinary interview and you've done a great service for our listeners and I encourage all of them to come out and check out your book.

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Wade Lightheart: and, more importantly, take on the message don't just read the book don't take on the information don't just follow the social media stuff or go in and say oh that's cool actually go through those five parameters that you outlined.

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Wade Lightheart: You know and get these metrics and look at it and concentrate on fixing those metrics because the benefits are certainly going to be well worth the journey.

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Wade Lightheart: I want to thank you for joining us today, and all of our listeners, if you like this.

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Wade Lightheart: Please hit the like button share button with someone there's probably someone that you know.

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Wade Lightheart: That is suffering from a debilitating heart condition and that could be prevented or reversed if you follow these principles, so thank you for joining us today and we'll see you all on another edition of the awesome health podcast.