268: How to Heal from the Inside Out and Master the Art of Being Well with Dr. Will Cole

In this episode, Light Watkins sits down with Dr. Will Cole, a leading functional medicine practitioner, New York Times bestselling author, and pioneer in telehealth medicine. Dr. Cole’s journey from a rural upbringing in Western Pennsylvania to becoming a trailblazer in functional medicine is nothing short of inspiring. He shares how his parents' passion for health and nutrition shaped his path and how his unconventional childhood helped him break through traditional healthcare barriers to create the first virtual functional medicine clinic 15 years ago.

Dr. Cole dives deep into the intersection of diet, emotional wellbeing, and gut health, offering insights on how small, sustainable changes can lead to profound health transformations. He explains his mission to make wellness more accessible, his role in advocating for the removal of harmful food dyes from popular cereals, and why he believes in a “both-and” approach to healthcare—balancing modern diagnostics with ancient, holistic practices.

Light and Dr. Cole also explore the importance of presence in daily life, the power of anchoring yourself to the present moment, and how it directly influences better decision-making for health and happiness. Whether you're curious about the latest in functional medicine, looking for practical health tips, or seeking inspiration to live more mindfully, this conversation is packed with valuable takeaways.

Join Light and Dr. Cole for a thought-provoking discussion that challenges the status quo and empowers you to make choices that truly love you back.

Transcript

WC: “To me, like the degree, the training was like a means to an end. Let's get through this. Let's get through this. I want to get this doctorate, that's when I can help people, that's where my life can start. And I didn't necessarily enjoy the training so much because I was thinking like, I have so much stuff to do, time is ticking and that. I don't know. It was a massive drive to like, get it done and get it done and get it done versus maybe a balanced approach. I would do it today. At least I'd like the thing I would, where I would, yes, I'd have a purpose to like an end goal. But how can you appreciate this moment where it maybe seemed mundane or arduous studying and doing all the training, like I loathed many parts of it because it was just seemed like a waste of time and effort to get to my end goal, which is to help people once I “arrived”. But you know, it served me well, I can't go back and change it because I graduated and I started the first functional medicine telehealth clinic in the world. I didn't call it that back then I called it a virtual functional medicine clinic because that was my plan. That was my plan is to get through school, get my doctorate and go and help people around the world. So it was just, like, nose to the ground, in my lane, relentlessly pursuing this goal.”

[INTRODUCTION]

Today's guest is Dr. Will Cole. Dr. Cole is a leading functional medicine practitioner, a New York Times bestselling author, and a pioneer in the telehealth medicine space. He grew up in rural Pennsylvania and he developed an early passion for nutrition and wellness that set him apart from his rust belt community.

And this early foundation led him to become one of functional medicine's most innovative voices, launching the world's first functional medicine foundation. telehealth clinic 15 years ago. He has authored four influential books exploring the deep connections between diet, gut health, and emotional wellbeing.

And in our conversation, we explore his perspective on America's food system, the intersection of wellness and policy, and how finding presence in our daily lives might be the hidden key to making better health choices. We also talked about his involvement in the recent efforts to remove harmful food dyes from popular cereals such as Froot Loops, as well as his vision for a more integrated approach to health care.

Let's listen in.

[00:02:23] LW: Dr. Cole, it's good to see you.

[00:02:25] WC: Hey, man, nice to see you I Just I hate that it takes a podcast for us to hang out, but I'll take it.

[00:02:33] LW: think that's the way things are going in the future, right? Like, we're going to be meeting at cafes, putting the phone on the table and turning on record and just, because, the thing is you're a really fascinating individual. Like we've been in the same room a few times and I've known you peripherally for a very long time.

You're in this sort of LA America wellness scene, even though you don't live in LA, we all know Max, Luke with the air and Mark Hyman and all these, people. I was writing for my body green for a while, you were writing for my body green for a while, is that where we first met at the revitalize?

[00:03:09] WC: Yeah. It was, I'll set the stage for people. It was the Sonoran desert. It was the desert in Arizona, middle of nowhere. We were at a dinner table talking about life. Yeah. That's where it was. It was a long time ago, but yeah, it was all those, you and I went to pretty much all of them. I think it was like the United Nations of wellness back in the day. So it was good times for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:03:31] LW: It's cool because you see everybody like what everybody's doing these days and everyone is like so accomplished and become like the go to influencers for anything based in wellness. I got my friend Megan Monahan was telling me that Andrew Huberman was at one of our

[00:03:51] WC: Yeah, he was there before the world knew who he was. He was just a guy from Stanford. They're talking about Biohacking or something like that. Yeah.

[00:03:59] LW: I didn't remember that, but I vaguely remembered it, but I could have very well been sitting at a table, a dinner table with

[00:04:05] WC: Oh, yeah, he was there. I remember just one year he was there. But he I remember he was on a panel. But yeah, he yeah, you're right. Everybody's doing their own thing now

[00:04:15] LW: yeah, I swear I met Rich Roll at Revitalize,

[00:04:19] WC: Rich Roll. Rich roll and his they can't went to everyone we would Hike in the desert every year. It was fun. It was a really cool time in history. I told Jason and Colleen from Mind Body Green. Bring it back. I get it. Like there was a pandemic, but it's over now. Let's bring it back.

That's what stopped. It was the pandemic. And then they just never brought it back. So if you have any influence like that, I don't have, cause they don't, they're getting annoyed with me at this point and they trying to like bring the band back together and I'm rallying the troops.

[00:04:48] LW: I get it, man. I get it. I've hosted events before, retreats and stuff. And it's a big lift to do all that.

[00:04:55] WC: Yeah, I'm, I can only imagine. Yeah, and the landscape has changed. I think one of the things I heard from people involved in events like that as a whole was that people are like, because the economy, it doesn't necessarily like look the best where it's like people are coming together and having this.

I don't know if that's true though. I think that you look at massive events. Coachella is still happening every year. There's people festivals happening every year. I don't think it's any different for people in wellness. So, look, this is me on my soapbox and try to get revitalized back together.

But I think it's a good idea. And I think wellness in the diverse voices that were there, all talking about innovative advancements within wellness as a whole is a good thing.

[00:05:39] LW: so when I do these interviews, I like to do deep dive research into the personal journey and you have four books. Normally, you just get one of those books you'll find in the beginning of the book person like talks about, Their personal journey growing up and blah, blah, blah. You don't really do that as much in your books.

And I find that it's, it was hard to find details about your life. Yeah. Other than the fact that you worked at finish line and

[00:06:04] WC: You did, man, you really did, you did your research. 

[00:06:09] LW: I was like digging, bro.

[00:06:10] WC: you about me?

It's funny.

[00:06:12] LW: We'll get into the professional stuff, but I really wanted to know. About your superhero origin story. And I know you grew up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, and you currently live in Pittsburgh, which I find to be, interesting, because it's not necessarily the wellness capital of the world, anything like

[00:06:29] WC: No,

[00:06:30] LW: but you do telehealth.

And so you see, 90 percent of your patients are elsewhere. So, in order for people to really appreciate your perspective, I would really love to hear how you how you grew up, like, what was your household like? And what were the philosophies and ideologies? You mentioned your mom was back into a bunch of healthy stuff.

And

[00:06:51] WC: Yeah, both of my parents were. Yeah, both of my parents were. I so I grew up, wasn't even in the suburbs, like, very rural country western Pennsylvania, and now I'm back here living that simple life. And I, But my way of growing up was different, I would say, than other people, because it is the Rust Belt.

We're talking about areas of rural and urban food deserts. We're not, there's not a lot of, it's probably better now, but definitely in the 80s and 90s, it was not, it is I think because of the internet. You can order things that you don't have access to locally. You didn't have that growing up.

So it was a lot of like, food co ops, organic health food stores that were there, the choices the options we had weren't great, but it was, we ate different than everybody else did in the healthy, crunchy way of the time. My dad was a bodybuilder and, I, It was one of those things where I thought it was normal to have your dad like Lubed up with baby oil and like a turquoise speedo and you're like remember those big massive like camcorders and you're My mom would be put my dad be posing on video Just try to get the poses just right in the sort of that bodybuilding world and I'd go to the competitions and everything So like that I was in my eyes like a kid of a baby bodybuilder you ate and understood food differently and beyond just the bodybuilding.

My dad was interested in nutrition and wellness and health at that time. So yeah, that kind of was very different than the Rust Belt life around me, where it was a lot of fast food and chains and the food of the time, the standard American way of eating. And it's pretty much the same in many ways.

[00:08:41] LW: did he have a day job yet?

[00:08:43] WC: Did I have a day?

[00:08:44] LW: no, did your dad have a day

[00:08:46] WC: Yeah, he was in health. He was in wellness. He was in the natural health world, getting people healthy. So he, yeah, so it definitely formed a lot of how I saw the world, how I saw how food impacts the world. Human health and would have these like conversations as a kid.

So then that evolved to me wanting to learn more about this. So I, as you said, I, my first job was at the finish line at the mall and I used my paycheck to go to the health food store and buy the latest superfoods and herbs that I was reading about. And really wanted to biohack before biohacking was a thing.

And I made my family in like, because I moved to, I would say the extreme, but I really loved it. It wasn't obsessive. It wasn't, negative at all. It wasn't disordered, but it was just. Like a passion to optimize and to experiment with food and nutrition and all these things that I was learning about.

And I made my family look like the standard American in relative to me because they were like, what are you, why are you packing your lunch at like 14 years old? Was I packing my lunch with these super foods? And I really stood out with like my peers at school, but I didn't care. Like, I really just loved what I did.

And Yeah. Anyways, it was just my thing. And then I wanted to be formally,

[00:10:07] LW: What were you reading? Like, how were you understanding these? Did you have a mentor in 1 of these health food restaurants

[00:10:12] WC: was books. No, it was books in the, in our house. It was old nutrition books in our house. So a lot of like, this is like the world that I'm in now. I know all these guys, not all of them, but I know like Andrew Weil was one. He was now in his eighties and I'm like texting. 

[00:10:30] LW: Eight weeks to optimum

[00:10:31] WC: Yeah. He had so many books.

I don't remember the, all the titles, but yeah he was like, even before he was part of like the psychedelic movement and the Nixon Reagan, the Reagan administration came after him and with the war on drugs, with this wanting to research psychedelics and understand the sort of the health issues.

Implications of them and beyond psychedelics, just herbs and foods and real foods and understanding the environmental connection to it all. So it was books from Andrew while that were really were formative to me. And now he's in his eighties and I'm like friends with him. And it's such a cool thing to be he's to me as such a legend.

And, he started one of my favorite restaurants, True Food Kitchen. Shout out to TFK. Go to True Food Kitchen whenever you can. And Jason Karp's now involved with them too. He's another friend of mine. So anyway, so this, these guys that were in me, like to me, like the superheroes of the world were very formative.

Jordan Rubin is another one I'm now friends with too. Like he started, he had a book. It was, I think, self published. It, then it was re published. Republished with the publisher, but his, I somehow had his like self published book called patient heal thyself. And it was a stark contrasted picture of him with Crohn's disease, inflammatory bowel issues on one side of emaciated sickly.

And then the other side, the sort of virile, strong, a healthy guy. And it was called, it was all about health food. Sort of Hippocratic concept of healing yourself with food. And yeah, so it was those type of guys reading books from people like that really took my passion to the next level.

[00:12:08] LW: Did you go to the public schools, private schools? Like what was your schooling situation like

[00:12:12] WC: I love that you're asking this, man. This is good stuff. You're really getting to the weeds here. I went to. A private Christian school all the way up until I was in my junior year and my senior year. I went to a public school.

[00:12:28] LW: So the food was probably better than public school food, but you still brought your lunch

[00:12:33] WC: no. These were like poor, I would say like poor, generally like homeschooling ish type people. No, it was, I don't know how bad the bubble school food was, but it was like pizza, it was like the local pizza

[00:12:47] LW: you it wasn't great.

[00:12:48] WC: No. You

[00:12:49] LW: pizza. Said milk.

[00:12:50] WC: Look, that's my gripe with. Religious sort of institutions like the church in the sense of like, you're talking about your body as the temple, the Holy spirit, but you're certain, why are you serving God's such crap every day?

I have a problem with that because they should know better. Like Maya Angelou said, when you know better, you do better. They should do better, but churches don't, they don't, But yeah, you would think, but no, it was probably just as bad as a public schools as far as food is concerned. Now, the environment itself was very nice.

I'm a very loving group of people. So I had no problem with the school itself, but the food. No bueno.

[00:13:24] LW: Alright, so there's history in your family of autoimmune conditions, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, all this. So with that, right? And watching how your parents talked about it and maybe how they help people navigate it, or maybe they were experiencing it themselves, I don't know, but. Was there a sense of empowerment around this or is it just, was there a sense of, Oh, we need to go to the doctor.

We need to go to the doctor. We need to take these pills. We need to take

[00:13:49] WC: No. Yeah. Well my fit my extended family. Yes, and then so they have autoimmune I've autoimmune conditions of both sides of my family. So that looks like autoimmune thyroid issues Neurological inflammatory issues like MS type issues Other inflammatory bowel issues as well on both sides of the family.

And then, yeah, I think for the most part, you would see that those people would go the traditional medicine route, which has its place, but you just didn't see them really getting better, right? It was well, they were managing their diseases better than not managing the disease, but was there another path?

Was there a path towards optimizing and healing? And like, what is the body capable of when you give it the chance to do so? So that. Was something that, it was formative for me too. Cause of just looking of, and then later on, like through my own health journey, I started seeing inflammation issues rise up in my, for my own self.

And I wanted to say, what could I do to really, that was another motivating factor beyond just it being a passion to me when I was eating away, that was predominantly plant based and for a time exclusively plant based, it was better than the standard American diet. But I saw, okay, look, this isn't driving with my biochemistry longterm.

So I could optimize it and figure it out within the confines of what I've thought was better way of eating plant based. But then I find, in hindsight, it can become ways of eating. Just like so many other things can be become part of your identity and when, and you're confined yourself, limit yourself from pivoting and evolving because you think, what served you for a season has to be your identity forever and ever.

So I think that for me, it was learning, no, it's okay to pivot. It's part of being human. And again, when you know better, you do better. How does that propel you to do better? The next right thing for yourself in this season in this moment. So, always wanting to figure out how can you optimize your health in the best way and for myself, but also I wanted to impart it in my family as well.

[00:15:58] LW: I definitely want to spend a lot of time talking about that because I think we have that in common. I was speaking for, I think, 12 years. You were plant based for what, 10

[00:16:04] WC: Yeah, yeah.

[00:16:06] LW: But I just have a couple more questions from your superhero origin story, 

[00:16:10] WC: Yeah, let's go there.

[00:16:11] LW: what was, when you were growing up, what was your idea of success?

Like, having watched your parents and watch the world in Western Pennsylvania, what were you thinking for yourself? And this is before you went to college and all that stuff. Just.

[00:16:22] WC: I really didn't I don't know I don't know if I thought I guess it would just be finding something that brought you joy and like really that you could be in the in a flow state if I had to think about how I saw the world back then it would Be something like that.

It would be like well, what is Bringing you purpose. What is bringing you joy? What is like when you're doing it, you're fully present and like dialed into being a channel. I would say I wasn't in my family. We'll tell you that's even today. Like I'm not motivated by money. I'm not motivated by like the flashy things or like, of course I like comfort.

I'm not saying I'm like some sort of like Saint, but I not so motivated by that stuff. But it's. A blessing and a curse, like it is like a blessing to not always be in that frenetic FOMO way of being, but it can be difficult because you get stuck in like a routine of like doing your own thing. And you don't necessarily want to hear everybody else's opinion because you just want to stay focused on being a channel.

So I've learned to try to balance it out a little bit and ask for help and to seek other people's opinion when the time is right.

[00:17:34] LW: So as you were filling out your application for USC and is it USC you went to or Southern?

[00:17:42] WC: S C U. And so it's a integrative medicine school, Southern California university of health sciences. Yeah. 

[00:17:48] LW: Got it. Okay. So when you were filling out that form, what were you thinking your life was going to be like? Like, what was your idea? Okay, I'm going to go there, get this degree. And then what?

[00:17:58] WC: I knew that I wanted to help people. I knew I wanted to help people within functional medicine. Really early on. was one of the youngest ones in my school because I really took, I took summer classes in my undergrad. I was tenacious in wanting to get it over with, get the schooling over with so I could go and help people.

To me, like the degree, the training was like a means to an end. Another life lesson that I would, if I could go back and do it over again, I would, because I wanted to, I was just, Like looking to the future as like, okay, when I get to have my degree, when I have my doctorate, I will, well, then I could go and help people versus like soaking in that time, that incubation period, that learning period and loving learning versus seeing learning as a means to an end.

I would go back and do that differently. So what I was thinking about when I applied was, this is a means to an end. Let's get through this. Let's get through this. I want to get this doctorate, that's when I can help people, that's where my life can start. And I didn't necessarily enjoy the training so much because I was thinking like, I have so much stuff to do, time is ticking and that.

I don't know. It was a massive drive to like, get it done and get it done and get it done versus maybe a balanced approach. I would do it today. At least I'd like the thing I would, where I would, yes, I'd have a purpose to like an end goal. But how can you appreciate this moment where it maybe seemed mundane or arduous studying and doing all the training, like I loathed many parts of it because it was just seemed like a waste of time and effort.

To get to my end goal, which is to help people once I quote unquote arrived. But you know, it served me well, I can't go back and change it because I graduated and I started the first functional medicine telehealth clinic in the world. I didn't, call it that back then I called it a virtual functional medicine clinic because that was my plan.

That was my plan is to get through school, get my doctorate and go and help people around the world. So it was just, like, nose to the ground, in my lane, relentlessly pursuing this goal.

[00:20:11] LW: You've mentioned in a few places how this guy, Dr. Kharrazian

[00:20:16] WC: Datis Karazhan, yeah.

[00:20:18] LW: How he influenced you, what did you see in him or feel with him in his presence that kind of inspired you?

[00:20:27] WC: Well, he was one of those I would say the earlier voices in functional medicine, he's still, as far as I know, teaches for IFM, the Institute for Functional Medicine. So all the, like the Cleveland clinic has a functional medicine center. All the doctors that are trained through what's called IFM, the Institute for Functional Medicine.

So myself, my team's trained through them. Datese Kharrazian, who had gone to my school before me. And that's how I heard about him because he was this sort of voice in functional medicine. Yeah. So it was just, I get, I think. Just like Andrew Weil and Jordan Rubin were earlier on as a child adolescent, teenager, for me people like Datis Kharrazian and Jeffrey Bland were early voices within functional medicine that really, to me, narrowed down Versus what I would say like Jordan Rubin and Andrew Weil were more like larger integrative medicine, like hallmarked just decades of using food as medicine and herbs as medicine and natural therapeutics, mind body practices, all these things.

All of that stuff's contained within functional medicine, but it's a little bit more of a granular way of to me, I think it's a both and not either or approach to health care, which really I thought was an innovative way of doing things. And that's another sort of governing, I think, through line in my life was seeing these sort of tribal, this tribalism within all spheres of the world.

And it really just, Got it's doesn't appeal to me. It's very tired. And I think having an integrative both and approach and the best of Western medicine, which in my opinion is diagnostics and research, all of that stuff and the best of alternative complimentary natural medicine, if you're actually getting people healthy.

And I think we can have a both end approach of like, what is the most effective option for people that's not causing them side effects and having this approach. So that was. What turned me on to, instead of it just being general natural medicine, a specific, I think, subset within natural medicine and functional medicine early on really appealed to me.

[00:22:38] LW: So you mentioned you have a clinic that's been around for 15 years. It's telemedicine, functional medicine clinic. So I know from my own experience, I've been around this kind of, holistic healthcare system. I've been in the meditation and yoga and wellness space for over 20 years.

And one thing that you get indoctrinated to believe when you go through your training is that everything needs to be done in person. Everything needs to be done You know, very close to the people that you're serving. And if you do something, if you try to teach somebody meditation through a book, if you try to do it online you're doing a disservice to the patient.

So there's this sort of block that someone sees the potential of using technology

To help more people that you have to overcome. Or at least I'll speak for myself that I had to overcome in order to do the things that I'm doing now. And now it's just common, it's a common approach to use technology.

Did you have that 15 years ago? I'm sure in your clinic. They talked about, the importance

[00:23:45] WC: Yeah. Yeah. People didn't get it. People didn't get it. I would say that's definitely true. People or they would be like, how are you doing that? Like, what's that look like? Don't you have to see people in person? Like, we weren't doing physical exams. Obviously, there are certain aspects that are you're not going to do in telehealth.

We're not replacing their local PCP. We're not, yeah. Replacing their local specialist. We are providing them a functional medicine perspective and guidance and clinical insight And monitoring and getting them healthy. So again both and if not either or yeah people didn't get it. There was like a Certain percentage of people that got it, right?

We grew our clinic that way but it Obviously, we did not plan for a pandemic, but in 2020, like the percentage of people that got it really got it because they found out they thought they've discovered, wow, we're doing a lot of life very inefficiently to like to just do the basic things that you don't need to drive an hour in traffic to find parking to go sit in a, Waiting room for an hour to go see the doctor for five minutes.

Like it's, it doesn't make sense. Most times when you're talking about optimal health, yes, it's needed sometimes but, and then many spheres, even outside of health, like even like with what you do, right? People think, well, you have to do it this way. And there's only one way. And again, it's. It's not that it, there's some things that are completely there's something ineffable energetically being in person.

So I'm, I absolutely know that, right. But I've both and approach to get people world class support and guidance and functional medicine. You don't need that energetic exchange all the time. And it is an interesting thing where you can hold people accountable. And I'm saying this because I know people roll their eyes, but to hold space with for people that are going through heavy things, you don't need to be in the same room with them because I have that energy exchange completely the same online that I need to achieve the goals.

Like, if you look at the outcomes. We're getting, we're healing people. We're getting people better. We're improving their labs. We're optimizing their health. Their body doesn't care if I'm in the room with them or not because we're providing them that oversight and guidance and tools and support that they need to achieve their goals.

So I haven't seen it be a, an impediment to getting, seeing results and improving labs.

[00:26:08] LW: Why did you decide to go back to Pittsburgh? I mean, you, You were in Southern California where people are actively looking for this kind of stuff, and there's not enough to go around. And then you go back to where I imagine nobody's looking for this stuff. And you got, pull a gun on people to get them to come in and see to deal with the root causes of their issues.

[00:26:25] WC: Well, I knew it's like, yeah, I knew this the telehealth again virtual Approach to health because I was writing about functional medicine online on websites like mind body green like how we met early on we're talking about the mid 2000s like early mid 2000s when this started And then after obviously all the years after that, but Yeah, so to me, I was there, not for my career.

I was there For a simpler life. I was there to raise my kids. I was there because I too little, my wife was pregnant actually when we moved out of L. A. My son was two or three years old. So it was a young family knowing L. A. was not like for us in that way. And actually, I don't know what I would have done.

It was actually my wife who wanted to move more than I did and she's from Los Angeles. She's like a Los Angelino through and through, but she doesn't, she was like in LA, but not of LA. She was like, she was missionary, like a nurse missionary in Uganda in the jungles of. East Central Africa. So she wanted we compromised.

Somewhere between L. A. and Kampala, Western Pennsylvania. So I we landed there and still living that simple life. But not as remote. I could still do my things here in the States.

[00:27:52] LW: Have you treated a lot of your family members since you're in the area or do they do you just keep that separate and just let they just see you as

[00:27:59] WC: I have family all over the place. I have family all over the place. So yeah. People ask me a lot, like it's definitely, what's my take on this? What's my take on that? It's part of, yeah, I just expect it. I expect it. Yeah. But it's an honor, right? It's an honor to be thought of where people want to know what I think on things.

And yeah, so I, I get. What's my hot take on any given health related thing? It's a daily, it's a daily thing for me and not just for family, but friends and, people that I've met they, yeah. And I feel bad cause they don't always get around to answering everything. Cause it's like at the end of the day of seeing patients, I just have like a list of texts and emails and people wanting my perspective on things.

So I don't always get back in the timeliest of manners, but I'm doing my best here.

[00:28:47] LW: I went to go see an Ayurvedic doctor and I've seen a lot of different practitioners, man. I've done the iridologist thing. I've done the person who, looks at your tongue and read your pulse. I've always like sought out that kind of alternative care throughout my life. But I remember going to see this Ayurvedic doctor and, He, of course, talked about feelings and talked about, your relationships and all of this and how all this can affect.

And then he gave me this protocol of, like, 15 things that I had to do every day, which, of course, I didn't do because it's just it's too much. And I'm sure, you know, when you get trained, In functional medicine and you're dealing with root causes, you have to consider all these things. But what did you find when you first started out in the field, right?

Dealing with real people with real issues. What did you find that translated the best? What did you find that? Was harder than you thought it was going to be and in terms of your relationship with your patients and how people responded to, I'm sure it was great information you're giving them, but, sometimes even as a meditation person, I had to scale my stuff down and I was giving way too much information in the 1st, a few years.

And now I just keep trying to keep things very simple.

[00:30:01] WC: Yeah, right. I mean, That's the duality of, I think, a lot of practitioners or doctors or clinicians, coaches, whatever. If you're dealing with people, Teacher is another example of that. There's a science and art to what we do. And the science is like, we know all this stuff now. Like, let's just like push a square peg through a round hole because this is the way the art, you cannot ignore the art part.

And the art part is. That resonance between that person understanding the head space and heart space and where they're at in their journey at this point in their time and Evolving the protocol or the recommendation or the tools to where they're at this point in their life So you craft that you have like an intuitive skill set over time of seeing people to allow you to be pragmatically be the most progressive in getting them better, but in something that's going to be realistic and sustainable for them, something they can stick with and something that they are, it's not going to be a source of obsession or dread or, they're going to hate.

You don't always get it right, but you can even if you don't get it right the first time, you can further pivot what you're doing because plan B, If plan B, meaning that if it wasn't your original recommendation, right? Plan a was like, it wasn't sustainable for them. They were overwhelmed. They, how could you tell me to do all this stuff?

I can't do it. Even though yeah, you can do it, but you're getting in their own way for whatever reason, or they're making excuses. Like their excuses are bigger than their why, and that's okay. That their excuses are big and their why is not big enough. So we have to shift that.

If you can shift your recommendation to. Plan B, but plan B is a source of joy. Plan B isn't what you plan, but it's something that's realistic and practical for them and they can stick with over time. Plan B ends up being more effective on plan a, because of all those things I just mentioned. So yeah, it's something that I'm assuring your world too.

Like you're, you can craft that and formulate and curate a protocol that checks all those boxes for those people and the idealist in me especially certain that people on my team, like functional, other functional coaches and nutritionists on my team that haven't been in this world as long as I have, they're more idyllic in that sense.

Like, no, plan A, we know we can get them better if they just do plan A. Yes, but they're not going to do plan A. You cannot shift their entire paradigm. overnight. So go to plan B stick with plan B when they start feeling better and seeing the changes and they have more resilience and bandwidth and maybe trust in you as a practitioner, but also confidence in themselves that they can do it.

And when people feel better, they want to do the things that love them back then they can pivot to plan a down the road. So yeah, it's my secret stealth plan that I just shared to everybody, but that's that's It's what you have to do sometimes to get people better.

[00:32:58] LW: So, when you're talking about health across the board, right? What's, yeah. What's something that people can do? Let's say they don't have some ailment that drives them to see someone like you, but they just want to be healthier in general. Right? What's something that they can do to get a quick win when it comes to feeling better where, whether it's like, walking or drinking more water.

Is there anything that just without having to know a whole life story about somebody's background where, like, maybe 1 or 2 things that people can do starting today to just feel better?

[00:33:31] WC: Well, and I, we see a lot of people that do want just to do like that, just that. They want to optimize. They know their energy isn't the way they want to be. They know that their nervous system's a little bit dysregulated. They know their digestion's not, so they're not like diagnosed with the autoimmune issue, but they know they're not living the best, their best selves.

And they want labs to figure out, okay, what is that? But let's just remove that for a bit. Moment. So if someone's just like, Hey, I don't want a functional medicine doctor, but I know I want to feel better than I am feeling right now, then I would say, number one, I would say, look at what I call the inflammatory core four these are four food ingredients or foods that I would say would be the most likely to be problematic for the human microbiome and The human immune system, i. e. inflammation be number one would be gluten. This is a no particular order. So don't like come at me people with saying like he said, this is worse than that. I'm not saying that. So number one would be gluten containing grains. Now look, we can have a nuanced contextual conversation.

Is it the gluten? Is it what we've done to it? I think it's probably a bit of both. We've hybridized it. We've sprayed it with herbicides and pesticides. We're not properly preparing a prop like it's from an ancestral preparation standpoint like soaking it and fermenting it etc to break down some of these plant compounds. So I understand that but for the sake of simplicity looking at gluten And then either properly getting better for you versions of it or avoiding it for a time. 

Number two would be industrial seed oils Controversial like is it really that bad? But it's the over consumption in my opinion of foods that are packaged and include ingredients like industrial seed oils, like canola oil, vegetable oil, soybean oil. These are things that are high in omega 6, which a high omega 6 diet has been shown to increase inflammation, which is the commonality between just about every health problem.

But you can get better for you versions of these polyunsaturated fatty acid oils, these industrial seed oils. say limiting or avoid them. On top of that, they're, the way that they're processed and refined, they're pro oxidative and not the cleanest of ingredients. 

Third would be added sugar, which most people know that, but even the nicer sounding euphemisms for sugar, like look at the label, educate yourself, empower yourself with knowing the words on the back of a label.

Look at the grams of added sugar. In a label things like agave nectar look super it's greenwashed terms, right? It's like looks so natural because it's just like they're squeezing agave Into that glass and it's just so farmed a table. You can't even help yourself. But the reality is it's still refined processed sugar that's lacking fiber, which is going to spike your blood sugar and impact a lot of things in the body.

And then fourth would be conventional dairy. Again, nuanced conversation. I'm not against dairy. I think raw dairy, grass fed dairy, A2 dairy can be really wonderful, but the average dairy people are consuming is it, or is a shell of itself. It's homogenized, it's pasteurized, it's denatured, it impacts enzymes and protein, and it's just Not the nutrient dense food that it should be because of modern farming practices.

I know that was more than two, but if you could just lump those things and saying that making that one light, someone to follow your rules of saying two things, it would be look at the inflammatory core for. And if I had to have a plus one, it would be alcohol. I think it's one of those things that have been kept within people that quote unquote eat healthy, but still have alcohol on a consistent basis.

And then there's no healthy amount of alcohol. So I would look at that. And then number two, you want to make that food, like, what do you want to have instead? I would say, focus on. 

A lot of people have unhealthy guts, the human microbiome is really having a tough time out there and focusing on more soups and stews. Things that are gentle, these sort of things that, our ancestors would have made when people were sick, that sort of cliché of chicken noodle soup when you're sick. It's not the noodle part that's so restorative it's the broth, it's the soft vegetables, the pureed vegetables, it's the soft meat.

So I would say that bringing more soups and grounding foods, restorative foods for the, your gut health. 

 And then if I got one more of my body practice, it would be the more nebulous side of health, but still just as important is not just what we're serving our body with breakfast, lunch and dinner, but what are we serving our head?

What are we serving our heart on a daily basis? And this sort of. overlaps on that Venn diagram with your work of like, how do you take your thoughts captive and really start to address your relationship with the present moment. 

And using me as an example in college of just not using the present moment as a means to an end. A lot of people do that. And it really creates a lot of inner resistance and anxiety in our life. And that, impacts inflammation and our gut health just as much as a food that didn't love us back. So I think that this sort of, I talk about gut feelings, the gut and the feeling side of both and approach here again to health is really important.

[00:38:42] LW: What is the present moment? How do you and how do you access the present moment?

[00:38:46] WC: It's like the biggest question in the world, right? That's like the it's everything. Life happens. It's life happens.

[00:38:54] LW: What I mean, though, because in a real world sense, like somebody heard, just heard you say being the present moment. Okay. So I'm, I have, my 9 to 5 job. I was going to go to what's a burger today. But now that you've talked about what's, polluted and added. Now I'm rethinking that how do I get into the present moment so I can figure out what the best choices for me are the choices that are loving me back.

[00:39:18] WC: yeah. And I don't, it's very, I'm talking to somebody that everybody knows this. Light knows what light years more than me on this stuff. But what I would say here for everybody, from my perspective is it's ineffable. And the minute you try to define it with words, you're diminishing what it is.

But I would say it's less of a definition using human language and more of an experience. That you know, when you're in it. So it, I would say the, my best advice in this circumstance is to find an anchor to the present moment. So those anchors that kind of shut down the reactive mind where you're worrying about the future.

the future, you're regretting the past, and you can shut that down for even for a moment and can have that, that peace that passes understanding. To me, what has worked for me personally and to our telehealth patients are things like breath work, meditation, Inner body awareness, like just being mindful of your body.

Grounding, like getting in nature and connecting with nature. There's moments where, yes, you're still have your mind, but you're using your mind instead of your mind using you and you are realizing you're not your thoughts and emotions. You're the observing presence of them. That's what I talk about. It's something where the reactive mind is the monkey mind as it was known is not always chattering and going and you're not confusing. for your thoughts and emotions. I think that to me is what the present moment is because you can make more mindful, guided proactive, not reactive decisions in your life, right?

If somebody is grounded in the present moment to a certain degree, we're not all like saints or monks, but we are having at least some. Anchor to the present moment. You're way more likely to make decisions that love you back because you're not that are stuck in that reactive mode because many people will stress eat, or they aren't eating foods that love them back because they're so numbed and distracted and not fully grounded or not partially grounded to realize what are the things that love them back in life.

So, to me, I think that headspace and heart space, at least cultivating some. Awareness there will anchor them enough to start making more mindful decisions into, when it comes to food or habits or relationships that don't love them back. Maybe they'll have a lot more intuition on that and governance and agency in their life.

[00:41:48] LW: I love that, man. I love that. We're talking about this because, they talk about how don't go to the grocery store hungry because you're going to end up buying things that you they're probably not going to love you back. But I think a larger understanding when it comes to this integrative approach to health is don't go through life with regrets, with worry, with anger, with sadness, because you're not going to make choices in life that love you back when you do that. And so I think a part of this approach that I'm hearing you say is that you have to somehow break that cycle. And it's not just that, you want to use the anchor as a case of emergency.

Do breath work. You want it to become a regular part of your routine so that you are preparing yourself for tomorrow's drama. That's, our tomorrow's twist and turn that's inevitably going to come. And those are the moments where we fall off the wagon. And even in my own experience, when I'm going through stuff, like, it's harder for me to go work out.

It's harder for me to eat. And you have these important sounding excuses that you use to justify pretty much whatever your emotions are telling you to do. And I, people, I don't think people realize how much their emotions, particularly those distressful emotions are and can run the show, especially if you are you haven't established some sort of foundation for that presence that you talked about.

[00:43:10] WC: Yeah, that's absolutely right. Cause life's gonna happen, life's gonna happen. So are you gonna, how are you gonna move through it? Are you going to be completely rattled at every given situation that doesn't go your way? You're gonna be at the whims of the reactive mind and the whims of life, which can often times be chaotic.

But if You know, I've heard a lot of teachers over the years talk about like we mistake ourselves for the, when there's a storm on the ocean, we mistake ourselves for the violent waves. We mistake our life for the violent waves. And we'll always see is just the surface of that ocean. But you go down.

Just a couple feet, let alone the depth, full depths of the ocean. There's a stillness there. And I think that we can still acknowledge, yes, things are happening on the surface, but it's not everything that I am. And, these sound. philosophical, but it's actually really not. It's a knowing of the full breadth of who you are.

And I think that these practices that you teach allow you people to discover all that they are. And they're not just the little me that you think you are on a day to day basis. You're a lot more expansive than that.

[00:44:20] LW: So let's say you start your inner work, your breath work, whatever meditation practice, but now you recognize, Hey, I've got some cleaning up to do in my, in terms of my diet. You mentioned not drinking alcohol, obviously that's good. And uh, conventional dairy and added sugar and the seed oils and the gluten free.

Is there a, you've written four books. And I'm sure you're working on another book right now, because that's what people who write for books do. They are always working on something.

[00:44:47] WC: I'll be honest with you, I'm not actually, I'm not working on it. I'm not. I've been focusing entirely on the telehealth clinic and the podcast, but I will be soon. And the reason for this, sorry for interrupting, is my son, it was going to college, and I didn't want any more distractions. I wanted to like, just fully focused on him for these months that I had with him.

But now that he's in and settled, I'll probably start back up again. You're right.

[00:45:14] LW: but all your books are focused on diet. You practice ketotarianism, which I'm sure is a term you made up to brand your book, the inflammation spectrum, intuitive fasting, gut healings. So

[00:45:27] WC: Yeah.

[00:45:27] LW: let's, again, let's talk about I'm sure you, I hate people, get me on a podcast and you just give us like, how do you meditate?

And it's like, well, it's not so simple.

[00:45:35] WC: Just tell me.

[00:45:36] LW: But, But there are a couple of things that people can do, like, sit comfortably and not to not fight your mind too much. So, when it comes to optimizing for the diet part of the integrative health regimen, what are some of the recommendations that you have again, that can apply generally speaking, obviously, there are all kinds of exceptions and, 

[00:45:58] WC: Yeah. Well,

[00:46:00] LW: situations.

Thanks.

[00:46:01] WC: sure. And each book's a different conversation, right? That, that a different application, a different tool within the toolbox. So I mentioned the inflammatory core for I mentioned these soups and stew concepts. I think that's a good point. starting point for everybody. Now, each book is like a deeper conversation in a different way with these conversations.

So ketotarian was a Mediterranean more plant forward way of doing the ketogenic diet, which has a lot of exciting science around it. And it's something that clinical tool that we've used for a long time with telehealth patients. So each book's kind of a. Born out of countless conversations I've had with telehealth patients and wanting to educate people in a different way and also use as a resource for patients.

So, Ketotarian was vegan keto actually, vegetarian keto, pescatarian keto Things like extra virgin olive oil and avocados and wild caught fish and these sort of polyphenol antioxidant rich, good monounsaturated fats and whole food polyunsaturated fats, not these industrial seed oils like wild caught fish, omega three, fatty acids and good saturated fats too.

So that was ketotarian, the inflammation spectrum was a deeper dive in inflammation and talking about food, but also non food things that impact inflammation, like that monkey mind that I talked about and the science around that and a deeper understanding of autoimmunity and inflammation issues. So it involves like, a tailored elimination diet approaches within that book.

Intuitive fasting was just my. conversations with patients that I then put in a book of how do you use fasting as a medicine and fasting as a meditation and really bringing a more mindful awareness using fasting as a meditation. And these are again, humans would have done this for thousands of years.

Use fasting as a medicine and meditation and really exploring. What does that look like in a modern way? I know where your ancestors came from. They probably use fasting for both of those purposes. And it was cyclical. It was intuitive. It's not always doing the same thing all the time, but it's using it as a post.

Meditation and medicine. So that's what intuitive fasting was about. And it was part two of ketotarian in a way, like I wanted to use it as a way to get more recipes in that were ketotarian ask with people. Cause ketogenic diet is fasting mimicking. So it was a way people would ask me like, I love ketotarian, but can you get more recipes?

So I use intuitive fasting to like get more recipes because it works with the science of ketosis, but fasting. And the ketogenic diet both tap into what Paracelsus, the father of toxicology said, he, who's also a mystic and like completely amazing human being. He called fasting the physician within, which I think is a beautiful way of putting it is like tapping into these inner healing, not just spiritually healing, but physically healing as well.

And then gut feelings was probably my least food book. It was talking about how chronic stress and unresolved trauma impact inflammation levels and it can be stored in the body. So it's dealing with both gut and feelings and this bi directional relationship between how physical health, like our gut health and environmental toxins and things like this, impact our thoughts and emotions, but then how do our thoughts and emotions impact our physical health and this cross talk between the two.

So, there's expansive things you can learn. Within my space. So I tried to have individual conversations between each book so they could have at it. That's the benefits of have write, reading a book. Right. They can just learn and you're not gonna, not everybody's gonna necessarily want to do everything in all the books, but they're gonna learn something in each of the books.

[00:49:50] LW: So you just mentioned that you didn't you're not writing a book because you want to spend time with your son, right? Because obviously writing a book takes a lot of energy and it's a long drawn out process and all that. So. Having been around these sort of mind, body, green, revitalize, places and just your own colleagues and associates, I think a lot of professionals who hear things like this and they hear, Oh, this guy wrote all these books and maybe there's something special about him where he can do all this.

And I'm just busy, with my schedule, my calendar, my family, my kids. What do you see as the difference? How are you able to produce all of this content with everything you got going on? You're seeing patients from morning to evening. You got a family, relationship.

That's a whole other kind of part time job. Keeping that going. Just talk a little bit about how you make this all happen and how can somebody listening to this, what's like some of the first steps that they can do to move in that direction if they want to become more of a thought leader.

[00:50:51] WC: Look, I'm going to say something that may sound a bit callous or, I know there's exceptions to what I'm going to say, and people, they don't get like when people say things like this, but I'm going to say it regardless is that we all have the same hours in the day, right? We all have the same hours in the day.

The difference is how much support you have. How much access do you have? I know there's a lot of variables there, but the end of the day, a lot of us, the big percentage of things, we all have the same hours. Like, what are we going to do with the time that we have? And it's going to look different for different people.

I'm not saying everybody, the outcome is going to be the same. And some people have massive disadvantages. I know that at the end of the day, I am not special. When people see things on social media, or they hear podcasts, or they read books, they think there's some massive advantage, they think that there's a massive machine behind them, that there's a massive money behind them, that allows you to have this mystique of whatever their perception is of you, right, and I'm like, nothing compared to what, our, the celebrity culture that people have, let alone a little doctor like me, but when people see our space within health and like the guys that are, and women are writing the books and doing the podcast, doing the things they think there's some glamorous apparatus that is propelling them to that.

And I have to say, we all like, and I know these people and it's not like that. It's not, it just takes a tenacious. Like, like that thing that propelled me through school, that sort of, when people say it as a pejorative of like, stay in your lane, I feel like I've always used that concept to the positive.

Like, how can I stay in my lane and be true to my calling? How can I be a channel for, to me, how can I be a channel for God in this life? How can I be of service to people? And do I always get it right? Absolutely not. Do I fail? All the time. Absolutely. Which again, you don't necessarily see that on social media, but it's just.

Part of being someone that's, isn't that relentless pursuit of doing your calling and allowing that to come to fruition. So this is creative force that I would say when someone's found their lane, there is a creative force that happens and there's different seasons in that. Right. You're not always going to be doing the books.

You're not always going to be doing the things. There's a lot of. Unsung unseen seasons that are just as important and formative. That's what I would say that comes to mind. 

The second is this. Have an amazing team around you. Like I am not doing this by myself. I'm not saying it's a glamorous apparatus, but I'm saying there's a few people on my team that are just amazing people that I do get to do life with that are supportive of our goal as a telehealth clinic. So I do not do it by myself, but it's not some massive apparatus. It's just like, I would say, scrappy people that are hard workers and want to get stuff done. And it's like perpetual startup land. It's just what it is. When you work for yourself, do your own thing. You just have to show up. And which I would say that sort of entrepreneurial, whatever. You don't work for a corporation spirit that a lot of us are in. There's not always a structure. And I have to say this, that I am highly structured. Like I have a day of patience. I have to say, I see a lot of people in my life that are in that sort of entrepreneurial.

I don't, I work for myself type of space, but that lack of structure. They need to impose structure in their life to allow themselves to come to full fruition, because I see people floundering like the, they're like at the whim of the day, and they have no structure for their day, and maybe some personalities don't need the structure but I think a lot of people do, and I think a lot of greatness can be honed whenever you focusing that light into that lane of what you're doing versus just again that 10 hour a day that you're working or whatever, if you don't have structure, like, how are you channeling?

How are you channeling what you're supposed to be doing? So I would say create, Structure in your life is another advice that I would say if you feel like you're not being productive and it's just easy for me because when you see patients online, you have to have structure. So I everything's blocked out for the day, but I feel like it really has served me well as having that structure because I'll show up and get the work done and not have excuses or get distracted or I just have to do it in the day.

And then, yeah, so those are the biggest advice I would say. And then like, for me, like practically, if you're asking about books, it's just finding a literary agent, which is like, maybe like, doesn't need to be said, but I do think that to me getting someone that was in that space, if they're interested in writing a book, that I'm not in that literary space, but have someone that can support you and give you guidance on what to do in that.

And I've all, to be honest with you, I never would have thought I would have for a books. Written in my thirties. I never thought I would do that. I never thought I would do that. Because I was again, I saw patients for a living. Like, I didn't what, how would that translate to books? But it was a way that I could help people that maybe didn't want or knew they, could have a functional medicine doctor, but how could I help them in a different, unique way?

And I had to say, too, I always loved writing. I always loved writing. I was like always obsessed with writing. And I told you, reading books growing up. So for me, it wasn't like this thing that I had to do because everybody else was doing it. I genuinely had a passion for writing books and writing as a whole.

So to me, it was like a natural expression of what I was passionate about.

[00:56:30] LW: Not only have you written these books but you are a New York Times bestselling author and having written, but I'm not a New York Times bestselling author. I understand that. It's very difficult

[00:56:41] WC: Well, let me just, that's for everybody. It's a complete look. I'm thankful for it. So thank you. The New York times, but the way it's done, it's not based on sales. I don't want to say it's a sham, but it's pretty much a sham because it no,

[00:56:54] LW: go after that, or was it, you're just lucky?

[00:56:57] WC: It wasn't at all. So I, obviously we all wanted as books that come out, but there's no way of, in my mind, I gave it to God because I was like, Lord, I, you can't control this.

I know people that have sold way more books than me that didn't make the list. So I know. It's based off of like a highly curated. Whoever the editor is for that week is going to cherry pick what they think. And yes, sales are part of it, but it's not based on direct sales. So, I know it was at the whim of the week.

And here's the crazy part. I've sold some. The books that made the book that made it actually intuitive fast and made it ketotarian sold way more than intuitive fasting and didn't make it. So to me, it's like, I think the Amazon. Sales are way more indicative. I think the world should esteem Amazon sales more than New York times, because it's based on direct sales. So that's my soapbox when it comes to the book world. But, and the New York times should, in my opinion, the New York times should give us their algorithm. Then show us your algorithm and how you pick books, because otherwise it's like the sort of like mysterious nebulous thing that nobody even knows.

And I think we should, honestly, we should move away from that and just base it on sales or they should expose, like share with, share how they pick these books.

[00:58:21] LW: But their whole like reason for not doing that is because they know that certain people will spend money to try to hack that

[00:58:27] WC: right. Yeah, who knows what they do. I know there's certain bookstores, independent bookstores, that report to the New York Times. I know there's some things that we know, but there's no way. I don't know anybody that can like fully hack it. I wasn't trying to. I just was like trying to get the book to as many people as possible.

But who, who knows? Who knows what's gonna happen?

[00:58:46] LW: Okay. So you're part of. A few very high profile wellness influencers and thought leaders who have declared war on food dyes and Kellogg in general, Kellogg specifically. So I want to talk a little bit about that. If you don't mind what the genesis of that movement was, how did you get involved and what was your, what is your.

Overall for yourself, for Dr. Will Cole, for being a part of this conversation.

[00:59:14] WC: I, we, our new moniker is, are the serial killers 

[00:59:18] LW: This is your real killer.

[00:59:19] WC: With the sea guys. Come on. But I invited you to be honest with you. I invited you to come by. You couldn't make it. I don't think. But next time.

[00:59:27] LW: comes to where? Wisconsin or Michigan or one of

[00:59:29] WC: Yeah. Yeah. Michigan. Next time, man. Next time. I wanted like to come with us.

 I wanted him to like hold a meditation of channeling light in, in around the Kellogg's, but that's probably why they didn't have a meeting with us because he weren't there. But the anyway, so how I got involved was I've known a lot of people for a long time, right? Being in the space. But yeah, Vani Hari.

Yeah. Dr. Josh Axe actually asked me to go to this. So he he's a friend of mine and he just told me to, hey, want to come to Michigan. So we went to Michigan and all spoke outside of the Kellogg's headquarters in Battle Creek, Michigan, which was a beautiful. I've never been to Michigan like that.

I've been to Detroit airport, but never got to explore Michigan like that. That was super fun. But yeah, but we all tried to make a change and raise awareness on this. And it really did. And what happened was Kellogg's didn't that we've served them over 400, 000 signed petition, the biggest, to my knowledge, the biggest food petition in American history led full fully.

I have to give full credit to Vani Hari, Food Babe and Jason Karp. of Human Co and they would, this movement would never have got the legs in the expansion if it wasn't for them. And it all, Vani has been a food activist for years and Jason Karp in March of 2024 wrote an open letter to Kellogg's as a shareholder of Kellogg's to say why are, why is American cereal?

Things like Fruit Loops and other cereals. Why do they have artificial food dyes and they're colored with artificial food dyes when you go just across the, like Michigan or like Erie to Canada and it is the cereals are. Colored with vegetable extracts and fruit extracts. Similarly, in Australia and the EU and the UK, these artificial food dyes are highly regulated and require warning labels and there's restrictions in its use.

And they're instead colored with fruit and vegetable extracts. So, That's just wanting Americans to be treated the same. And a lot of people in the health space, a good percentage of people didn't really get it because they know us and they know, well, even if the artificial food dyes are removed, you're not going to recommend this stuff.

Yeah. We're not feeding our kids like the Canadian fruit lips, but the point is, there's a lot of kids. In the public school system, 30 million kids in the public school system that are not fed well at home, they're not fed enough at home, they would starve if it wasn't for the public school system, and they depend on the public school system for their food and they have no choice in this, and we are feeding them foods that have been shown to increase behavioral problems and autoimmune problems, and they don't have a choice, and it's paid for, by taxpayer dollars.

So it's this sort of insidious, we're creating perpetual customers to these junk foods. In their school. And then on top of that, the SNAP program, like the food assistance program, the, it's, it is overwhelmingly on underprivileged, privileged kids and families. So it really was a conversation around that of, yeah, you're right.

The wellness aficionados aren't going to eat this stuff, but most of the country aren't wellness aficionados. So. We're not gonna speak out for these people who will, because they don't even, they don't, aren't interested in health and wellness and they don't even know that they're getting served a different cereal than other countries that these toxic ingredients are still here.

But, look, Kellogg's didn't do the right thing in that moment. I still feel like there's time to do it. And they're still gonna, as long as it's the law of the land, they're gonna, let them eat chemicals is really their take on it. And. The, but recently the FDA, there was reports, NBC News reported that the FDA could be banning red dye three at least within the next couple of weeks before the new administration comes in.

And hopefully a lot more happens. But yeah, it's. It's like the 11th hour and now like we're hearing ripplings of maybe some change with certain toxic ingredients, not just in food, but in, I also saw today the EPA is banning these two chemicals used in cleaning products. So a lot of things are happening because I think there's more and more awareness on something's got to change.

[01:03:44] LW: You're a root cause guy. Right? So when we look at the root cause of these kinds of situations, probably it's not some mass conspiracy where they're just want to, they want to kill pro poor people, probably.

It's just they want to maximize profits for the

[01:03:58] WC: Yeah, that's predominantly it. Yeah.

[01:04:00] LW: And there's some guy whose job it is to increase those margins and to look at, they probably brought some management consultant guy and said, look, only 10 percent of people really care about where they use this food die. So let's just use it because 90 percent of people don't care.

We've done the studies. We've done the surveys, blah, blah, blah. So I feel like, how do we address the root cause of this? This issue, because it's probably happening at RJ Nabisco is probably happening at Coca Cola is probably happening at

[01:04:27] WC: It's happening. Yeah. It's happening a lot of places. So I don't know. I think, well, I heard one report. Again, I, it's I think it was Spin or some outlet reported that in the last, the 12 weeks since we went to Kellogg's and raised a lot of conversations around it. Like the whole conversation of Fruit Loops is now happening in governmental settings now of artificial food dyes in Kellogg's because of what happened in Battle Creek, Michigan in part.

They said that Fruit Loop sales went down in 12 weeks, like about 54%. So I don't know. I think that people can vote with their dollar. I think that's one grassroots way of, the group, the serial killers, as we're lovingly called now, the are using the hashtag cancel Kellogg's, which I'm conflicted in a way I'm conflicted in that.

I think it gets to the point. I think it's. I hate and I abhor cancel culture though. And I think that we shouldn't be censoring Kellogg's in that way. I wanted Kellogg's to call them to something greater or raise awareness for people to vote with their dollar and say, I'm not going to buy that.

I'm going to buy this instead. So they can have agency on their health and be pro informed consent on what they're consuming on a day to day basis. And it's interesting that a few friends of mine in this respite of ones from Western Pennsylvania, I thought, okay, look. These are educated people. They were actually teachers that I'm talking about right now.

They're public school teachers. Smart people work out, interested in health. They didn't know that artificial food diets were bad. They didn't, they were serving it for their kids on a daily basis. Their kids, their own biological kids. So to me, I thought that was a big aha moment for me. It was like, well, if nothing else, it's raising awareness on these things.

That's like, okay, let's start voting with our dollars in other areas. I, there's always going to be customers for Kellogg's. I want Kellogg's to thrive, but I want Kellogg's to do the right thing. And I want them to not come out with tons of health foods. That's not who Kellogg's is. But can they have better versions and for people to have informed consent and if they want to have a Kellogg's cereal, let's have it treated like every other country and pick the best option there.

Or if they're going to have Froot Loops, have one less toxic ingredient. So to me, I have a little bit more of a nuanced perspective on it because I don't want to like, Shut down Kellogg's and have some Orwellian state of the government telling companies how to run their life But I think there's some basic human protection Safety nets that we need when it comes to these ingredients that the FDA's equivalents in these other countries.

I Have determined that these ingredients are not good artificial food dye specifically. So yeah, how do you get the I'm conflicted because I'm a free market kind of guy in the sense of, I don't want tons of intervention, but there's a time and place for sensible. regulations on things that we know don't need to keep being studied.

They're just toxic. And when you can get the same outcome with a vegetable or fruit extract, maybe it's going to hurt your margins a little bit. But I truly believe that Kellogg's has used this as an example you Their sales could have skyrocketed if they did the right thing in that moment and said, look, we heard you.

We want to come out with this brand new thing. And I think that many people within the wellness world would say kudos to Kellogg's and want to promote them even more, even though we wouldn't say it's a health food, of course, but we're going to say, look, this company heard. The people and they want to do something better.

I don't know. Maybe I'm like an eternal, like a naive optimist when it comes to that. But I do think there can be a lot of other examples of companies that are wanting to be leaders instead of just doing things for profit and the sort of old archaic way of doing food because you look at the natural food industry.

Look at Expo West every year in Anaheim, it's the largest natural food expo. It's massive. People are voting with their dollars and you don't have massive companies like Pepsi and Coke and General Mills buying up these startup health food better for you healthy brands. because of their like, they're just interested in health now because the money's there because people are voting with their dollars.

So I think that this can happen within their legacy brands too of cereals that are like better than they used to be. And and actually will help sales in my opinion.

[01:08:45] LW: also just the human mind, the cognitive dissonance, the confirmation bias that I think that is also a factor in, how we spend our money because I grew up in Alabama. I used to love Fruit Loops, and all the Kellogg's cereals, In fact, they weren't sweet enough for me. So I would put sugar.

I put, refined sugar in them so that you got

[01:09:05] WC: Just to double

[01:09:05] LW: And if someone, yeah, exactly. And if someone, I probably would not have been, I probably wouldn't read some study about dyes or anything like that as, in Alabama because we ate mostly for taste and to get full and that was it.

There was no nutritional consideration. So a lot of ways food is like religion. To a lot of people and getting them to change those habits is, you're basically cutting them off of their whole, the, yeah, their identity.

[01:09:33] WC: Yeah.

[01:09:34] LW: So I don't know, man. I don't know if, know, I live in Mexico and people smoke a lot of tobacco here and you can see on the tobacco packages.

This will cause cancer. This is how your lungs are going to look. If you put this in your mouth, this is what your baby is going to how the form they're going to be. People are still doing it. You know, So you see the screen warnings and it's like, people are still doing it. I've even heard some people say, yeah.

Natural tobacco is actually a health. It's a superfood. So it's like, we just we find that one study. Oh, red wine. Oh, that that's a superfood because it justifies what

[01:10:08] WC: Oh, yeah, hundred percent right and you're right. I heard Bernie Sanders again. This is nonpartisan I think anybody should both sides should be talking about these things I heard Bernie Sanders talk about that very thing because he wants warning labels in the front Of the boxes of food and has been talking about these things for years and how the FDA has been sleep asleep at the wheel and not really interested in these things.

So they're either inept or complicit. However, you want to look at it in this sort of broken food and healthcare system. The. But his point was, with, when they did it with tobacco, sales did go down considerably in the states. I don't know, around the world, if they went down. So sales did go down, unless people smoked.

But you're right, that's what I mean, that's what I'm saying though. If, let's say they put the warning label, or like, the, yeah, these have been shown to da. There's still gonna be people that smoke. There's still going to be Kellogg's customers to me. It's like, okay, what even better would be like, how can you do this in a way that isn't going to harm people?

You can't do that with cigarettes, in my opinion, but you can do that with cereal where it's not going to be a health food, but it's going to be a better, less toxic way safe version of it. Yeah, you're right. There's always going to be cigarettes is an interesting one where it's a good example of people still going to smoke and cigarette companies still make lots of money.

They probably didn't make, they don't probably don't make the money they used to make back in the day when even babies were smoking or walking around the streets. They're still doing well for themselves. They're not like, struggling out there to survive.

[01:11:39] LW: I'm of the age when I was born in the little baby, incubator. I don't know what it's called, but the nurse brought me to my mom who was in the bed and I had a little burn on my forehead and the burn was because the nurse had a cigarette in her mouth and she was picking me up out of the little baby incubator

[01:11:58] WC: That is horrible. Was your mom like,

[01:12:01] LW: everybody was walking around the hospital smoking

[01:12:05] WC: That was life. That was life. Yeah.

[01:12:09] LW: Look, I'm not too I definitely keep up with what's happening in politics.

I like the idea of Bobby Kennedy being, having something to do with the FDA and looking at some of that stuff. And I didn't vote for Trump, but I also didn't vote for Kamala Harris either.

[01:12:23] WC: Are you Jill? Are you a Jill Stein guy? Is that who you are? 

[01:12:26] LW: I did vote for Jill Stein. Yeah, but I'm a resident of California too. So your vote probably made the difference in what happened in Pennsylvania.

[01:12:35] WC: Oh yeah, that's another reason why I like being here. I'm a, I determine elections over here.

[01:12:39] LW: yeah, it's so crazy. But I do like, I like how Bobby Kennedy is going to be a part of this and I like that, make America healthy again and all that stuff. You've known him for a while. So what do people get wrong about? Not that you're the expert on Bobby Kennedy, but just, being in the health space and knowing how he is and what do people get wrong

[01:12:57] WC: Oh, it's

[01:12:58] LW: what his

[01:12:59] WC: gets so much wrong on it. It's, it, you talk about how much negative spin, I am not a surrogate for Bobby Kennedy. I am not paid to, to talk about him. I just know enough about him. And to know that what you read in the press is completely, Taken out of context, spun, smear campaigns, hit pieces, hyperbolic headlines.

And it beyond that noise and hyperbole, there is a principled man who doesn't want to take people's vaccines away. Doesn't want to take people's like right to have whatever junk food they want. He just wants to have actually all sensible democratic positions that Democrats and left leaning people have wanted.

For decades, now that the he's painted to be this sort of. Woo crackpot, but it's really, he just wants, when it comes to vaccines specifically, he's just wants the same level of science and rigor that any other medication can have. And these special protections that vaccine manufacturers have that other pharmaceutical companies don't have.

Drugs don't have has to go away because sunlight is the best disinfectant. And if we're going to have vaccines, which we are, how can we have them the most safe, effective way? And the nuance and context is lost on people. It is like a religion in this country where you feel we have an industry, the pharmaceutical industry that gave us the opioid crisis.

knowingly made people addicts. We somehow feel like they had their come to Jesus moment when it comes to vaccines and they wouldn't hide and suppress information. But now we know what the Pfizer papers, that's absolutely not the case. They wanted these side effects from these vaccines to be hidden for 75 years because we know that there was potential side of us.

Now you could make the argument more good than bad. Maybe you can make that argument, but there wasn't informed consent to have informed consent. You need to know the benefits and the relative risks and decide for yourself. But when you get mandates involved and people would lose their job without getting this vaccine, then there's a massive freedom of choice decision that we have a massive legal problem now on our hands with what our government did during the pandemic.

So all this nuance is lost. The news likes to. Clickbait sensationalism, but you look at the biggest advertisers in our legacy media, it's pharmaceutical industries is a big player in that and they don't want someone that's going to reform the system that they have taken to the bank for decades.

So, yeah it's a massive corrupt system and. You have to have an independent person that's not bought out to actually make some change. And it doesn't mean you have to agree with them on everything. But can we see some good? And I think when you look at people, Bobby Kennedy has been Democrat his entire life.

The Democrat party is what is left him. He has not left it. And you have brave people on the left, like Bernie Sanders, like Cory Booker, like Tim Ryan, a former Congressman in Ohio, that are brave enough to say, you know what? We may not agree with him on everything, but we can, we definitely agree with him on this corrupt system and we're going to find common ground here.

So let's, time will tell. I think the big critique of this whole system of the whole situation with Maha is will Trump just use Bobby? Did he use him for just getting votes? Time will tell on that. I get people's hesitation on that, but when you look at the state of how things are this, we have a rare opportunity to make some change, at least potential for change, but I see people clinging so firmly to their self righteousness and their derangement and they're lacking pragmatism on if we even have a small opportunity to make some positive change when it comes to our food industry and health industry, why wouldn't we?

At least be hopeful that it could happen. Why do we have to be such lack of better word? Karen's about every potential good that could come there. So I have a problem with it. Cause that's like, I look at the people that I know personally that are interested in health, interested in food, but just because Trump is for it, they're going to be against it.

Like how narrow minded and intolerant are we? Where we end up being, when you serve your tribalism over people, you serve Your party over people, you become just as small minded and intolerant as the people that you hate. And I see that happening on the left a lot. Their orthodoxy, they're raging for the machine is a complete abandonment of their liberal ideas, meaning liber, free freedom free thought, free speech, free decision.

So I, I'm a passionate advocate for that, as you can tell. And I think I'm holding out hope for independent minded people of both sides that want just positive change and that's their primary goal.

[01:17:50] LW: Yeah. I think that will ultimately be good for us as a society is for more people to be more independent than to be on the left or on the right and you can just make your it. It does it. Causes you to have to really think and research and, and weigh these options. You can't just mail it in every year, like, like, we were used to doing.

So I think that is a good thing to come out of this. My prediction is that not much is going to change in terms of the FDA and the health, because it's so deeply driven by capitalist interests. But I think that, like you said, he's going to be able to expose a lot of sunlight. And the, okay, these are the real, we thought this was the issue, but actually, these are the real mechanisms that are driving this whole thing.

And this is what we need to focus on in the next.

[01:18:36] WC: Yeah.

[01:18:37] LW: maybe two or three elections from now, then things will start to change, but somebody has to get in there and just with a microscope and start looking at this stuff.

[01:18:45] WC: I agree with you. Only so much can change. I think we're talking about, it's not going to be some massive overhaul, I think, but at least some sunlight, which has never happened before in our lifetime, at least. If

[01:18:56] LW: And these guys have five, six layers of protection. These moneyed interests, they're not setting themselves up to be taken over by one renegade guy. Who's in there with a sledgehammer. They dissipated this. For

[01:19:08] WC: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Time will tell.

[01:19:11] LW: has Kellogg's come after you

[01:19:13] WC: Yes. Yes. Front groups

[01:19:14] LW: lawyers, letters and trying to shut you

[01:19:18] WC: Yeah. Well, they don't do directly. They pay front groups with very science y sounding names to delegitimize.

[01:19:27] LW: you. You're a quack. You don't know what you're talking

[01:19:29] WC: Yeah, they have. They're me and Vani Hari specifically. Because we're probably the two of the most vocal that's in health. And they're an easy, like, de legitimate, like, we're easy targets for them. It's, to me, if groups like that aren't coming after you, like, are we doing the right thing?

Are we making a difference to me? It's a sign that we are making a difference. And that's why they have to pay these front groups to like this writer, to like write something. And then you, because of the freedom of information act, you can find out, Oh, wait, they get their funding from big chemical, big food, big ag pharmas, big pharma.

I see it as like a badge of honor.

[01:20:04] LW: Yeah, awesome, man. Well, look you're fighting the good fight out there. Congratulations on doing that. I think it, it inspires other people to step up and go to those front lines in a way that they wouldn't if they didn't see someone that they recognize or someone that they respected up there. So, just want to acknowledge you for that and and just appreciate you coming on and sharing a bit of your story perspective, and I'm sure we'll piss some people off in the comments with.

Political discussion at the end, but, we got to be able to talk about everything. If you want to change anything, you got to be able to talk about everything. And just like when people come to you, that's like, I've reached out to you privately and I've said, Hey, man, I want to talk about my testosterone.

I want to talk about you got to talk about everything. And it's not, it's there's layers to the stuff. There's levels of this.

[01:20:53] WC: Absolutely. We need to have a free exchange of ideas again, like make speech free again. And that like the speech that we, the speech that offends us the most is the speech we should be protecting and the speech. And we need to be able to hear things that we don't agree with without wanting to shut it down or.

Deplatform them or why can't we have these conversations like Americans had them for years and now all of a sudden it's just like the, you can't go there, but I think it's important, especially because it's intersecting with health right now. It's intersecting with food and that's going

[01:21:26] LW: you said, everything is health, bro. Watching the news and being stressed out over election. That's affecting your gut biome. That's affecting your, your brain health. All of that is.

[01:21:36] WC: And people need to learn, they can always turn it off. They don't have to listen to it. If it's, it was awakening some triggering thing in you move on.

[01:21:45] LW: And you can have different, you can be on the front lines and not want the thing to get canceled. You just wanted to make this little change right now. You don't have to buy into every point on the checklist of whatever someone's agenda is to have an opinion or to be a voice.

[01:22:00] WC: Yeah. I went, I'd go to Kellogg's right now and be like let's come up with an awesome line. Still have your junk food cereals. Fine. But like, let's come up with like an awesome skew. That's like healthier. I want the best for Kellogg's and I want the best for Kellogg's customers.

I don't need to shut anybody down. I don't think anybody should be shut down. I just want us to do better.

[01:22:18] LW: beautiful man, because a good place to end it. Thank you very much. Great to see you and hope to see you again soon

[01:22:25] WC: Yes. Yes. Let's do it.

[END]

Thank you for tuning in to today's episode with Dr. Will Cole. If you'd like to follow Dr. Cole's work in functional medicine and food activism, you can find him on the socials at Dr. Will Cole. That's D R W I L L C O L E, or you can visit his website at at DrWillCole. com. And if you enjoyed this conversation, I highly recommend checking out my interview with Max Lulu.

And if you enjoyed this conversation, I highly recommend checking out my interview with Max Lulu there, which is episode 98. Max is the author of Genius Foods, and he breaks down the science behind eating for brain health and longevity, sharing his top five foods for a healthier brain. life. I also recommend episode 100 with Simon Hill, whose path to becoming a plant based nutrition expert began with his father's heart attack and him being told by a doctor that he could be next.

And if you know someone else who's out there making the world a better place, please send me your guest suggestions at light at light Watkins. com. Also, please take a few seconds to rate and review this show. It really does help. I hope to see you next week for another inspiring story of an ordinary person doing extraordinary things.

And until then. Keep trusting your intuition. Keep following your heart and keep taking those leaps of faith. And remember, if no one has told you lately that they believe in you, I believe in you. Thank you. Have a fantastic day and I'll see you for the next plot twist this Friday.