Tag Archives: david gottfried

Episode 20 Sara Gottfried

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Today is a huge day. We’re about to all get YOUNGER!

Given my emphasis on a clean diet [ketosis as of late] and a crazy level of weekly cycling [I even have my own coach], I figured I was in prime health for my age.

Well, as I learned and perhaps you too will discover, I was flat out wrong!

You see, apparently, my healthspan score was sub 60 points out of 100 despite my heroic efforts. I might be fit and able to ride 100-mile centuries, and recently up Haleakala volcano in Maui, the highest cycling climb in the US [10,023 feet up], but I was not tuning my genes and performing essential daily practices.

As you’ll learn in this week’s Regen360 podcast interview: that means turning on the good genes and off the bad ones. And yes – we have a huge amount of control over the nature and quality of how we live every single day.

I’m absolutely thrilled to share my interview with none other than my brilliant, beautiful and best-selling author wife, Dr. Sara Gottfried for this week’s Regen360 podcast interview. Today is also special because Dr. Sara’s third book, YOUNGER, publishes today. And given my insider track, we were able to score an exclusive book launch interview.

We discuss the progression of Dr. Sara’s work in going from hormone balancing and diet to taking on our DNA, gene switching and epigenetics. You’ll learn that we each need [and must] reach higher, learn about and then integrate this incredible body of knowledge.

How we live each day is imperative. Of course, we also want to live a long life. But what’s most important is the quality of each day. What good is getting to 70 or 80 and finding that we can’t walk, have Alzheimer’s and no energy or muscular strength?

As you know, I come from green building where we like to measure and data is paramount. We cherish and celebrate the beautiful performance of a LEED Platinum building that produces all of its own energy [net zero], captures and recycles water, and has zero waste.

Well, what’s the equivalent of a LEED Platinum healthy body; one that is vital, fit, energetic, strong and mentally alert for the long haul? Dr. Sara calls this our healthspan score.  Listen in now…

To boosting your healthspan,
David

Episode 19 Peter Ellis

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Every so often you meet someone who just blows your mind. At first, you don’t think they’re for real, but then you realize that such an extraordinary human being actually does exist.

I first met the renowned architect Peter Ellis about twenty years ago. His firm at the time, SOM Architects, had asked me to join their team to compete as the development, construction and design team for San Francisco’s Presidio Letterman complex. I’d be the sustainability consultant for the 26 acre ground up mini town within the old Army base located along the fabulous waterfront. A more prominent site was extremely rare anywhere in the world.

What was so unusual was how Peter intuitively understood the natural development potential of that inspiring site above the Bay. I think he must have been camping out on the site since he knew it’s natural characteristics so well: winds, groundwater tables, solar exposure, gradations, history, and indigenous species.

Whereas competing designs proposed building enormous monuments that felt more like cold windy urban downtowns, Peter sketched out a new town complete with main street, pedestrian access throughout, and mixed use appropriately scaled buildings surrounded by huge open parks. He had coffee and bike shops, and rental apartments along with new senior housing and a hotel, opening up the historic site to the public.

Even though we came in the runner-up position to George Lucas’ film production company, Peter and I remained friends and colleagues. He went on to design large cities, including Jaypee Sports City that would house a million people in India, 30 miles south of New Delhi. His city and campus design practice embraced new concepts on transportation, water, energy and waste. Another specialty is Peter’s focus in re-structuring of America’s 19th-century cities, always looking for how they could contribute positively to the natural environment.

It’s a true pleasure to share with you my conversation with Peter about his vital work in this week’s Regen360 iTunes podcast. I hope you’ll join me in being inspired by Peter’s vast vision and love of architecture that sustains.

Thanks for your support,
David

Episode 18 Rick Hanson

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What is your most important organ that you take for granted?

We worry about our weight. Many of us stretch and do yoga for flexibility. We meditate for reducing stress. We try to limit carbs, sugar, and GMOs for our health…

But what about our brains?

In this week’s Regen360 iTunes podcast show we dive deep into our neural networks as we focus on how to heal and optimize our brains. My guest is Rick Hanson, Phd, author of several bestselling books including Buddha Brain and Hardwiring Happiness. He’s a Senior Fellow at U.C. Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and Founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom.

It’s time we let go out of our Stone Age brains. We’re no longer under threat of being eaten and can learn to take in the good and utilize plasticity to manifest a different path forward.

-David

Learn more about Rick Hanson here!

Episode 16 Shawn Stevenson

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A few days ago I woke up in the middle of the night and had trouble falling back to sleep. Once my mind starts racing, an increase in cortisol ensues and the opportunity to increase my REM and deep sleep evaporates. My UP band sleep score depicts my poor performance by giving me a 62% sleep score.

When I measure my fasting blood sugar it’s 103 – some 25 plus points over my goal. During the day I find myself more irritable and the hunger drums bang all day even though I’m eating normal. I’m just off, and find it hard to focus, much less find my joie de vivre. Perhaps this resonates with you too.

Many of us don’t take sleep seriously. But it impacts everything. My wife, Dr. Sara says it has a PR problem. Fortunately, today I’m booting up an entertaining sleep expert in this week’s Regen360 iTunes podcast show. Shawn Stevenson is the bestselling author of Sleep Smarter, which includes a deep dive into sleep and practical measures we can all implement. Shawn has a #1health podcast show and is the founder of Advanced Integrative Health Alliance.

In this engaging interview Shawn instructs us how to boost growth hormones and our circadian rhythm. We learn to make sleep a sanctuary and its linkage to our gut health, losing weight and being more calm. Sounds too good, right? But it’s within our control if we find the right path.

To deeper sleep!

David Gottfried

Learn more about Shawn here!

Episode 15 Jason McLennan

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About two decades ago [in the pioneering years of green building] I had the privilege to work on an exciting fantasy green building project for Montana State University. They assembled a green dream team to brainstorm outside the box. The project catapulted by visionary technologies and design concepts was aptly named the Epicenter. It was to house the University’s Department of Chemistry.

One of the inspiring visionaries was a young architect that worked for Bob Berkebile at BNIM. His name was Jason McLennan. Bob and Jason came up with leading edge performance standards for the project which were unheard of at the time. This included advocating for net zero energy, water and waste and beyond. They also emphasized user health and productivity and individual control of their environment, including chem labs that would embrace “green chemistry”, also an emerging field.

Jason’s eyes sparked with hope and passion, his hair a bit long and scraggly, with a leather strapped ornament exuding a sense of power. He was bold and relentless as he helped advance the project’s unequaled performance metrics. Despite being in green building for some years, I learned about new integrated approaches and possibilities. It gave me hope that we could do better and lead our way to a more regenerative future.

Although the project unfortunately never got built due to funding reasons, Jason went on to advance his and Bob’s net zero ideas into the Living Building Challenge Rating system. In addition, he founded the Living Future Institute featuring its annual conference that draws thousands of cutting edge sustainable building advocates. Google has become the largest user of the rating system which also features a red list for unhealthy building materials. Together, the two initiatives have advanced our movement and inspired many to demand more and push higher.

I’m so excited to feature Jason in a personal dialog with me for this week’s Regen360 iTunes podcast show. We dive into his work in founding the Living Building Challenge rating system and what inspires his visionary practice. Jason demonstrates many of the attributes and steps for what it takes to build a movement. He’s also an author and recipient of the prestigious Buckminster Fuller Prize.

To a living future!
David

Learn more about Jason here!

Episode 14 Chris Kresser

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This morning I performed my daily ritual of stepping onto the bathroom scale, then walking upstairs to stab my finger for home blood analysis: my fasting blood sugar was at the lower end at 74 mg/dL and my ketones at 1.4 mm. Then, after my morning decaf coffee blended with MCT oil and pastured butter, I hopped on my bike trainer for a 75-minute spin. I’m 56, yet my resting pulse hovers near 50 and I’ve never felt better.

Not only is my food clean, but also how I move, sleep, stress and rid myself of toxins. Daily saunas, epsom salt baths, stretching, core and aerobic exercise are now part of my wife’s insurance plan for me. I don’t deserve any credit, but functional medicine does.

Dr. Sara practices a new form of medicine that’s personalized and preventive, as opposed to traditional medicine which is disease-based. Functional medicine looks at the body as the integration of mind, body, spirit, and addresses the five main causes of disease: toxins, stress, microbes, allergens, and poor diet. The goal of functional medicine is to increase our healthspan so that we can actually become stay young as we chronologically age.

I’ve been the beneficiary of marrying a functional medicine scientist. Since Sara makes most meals, all I have to do is eat her healthy balanced offering. But she’s not seeing patients anymore – she only works with people in our online coaching programs – and many family and friends want to know whom to see for the best functional medicine counsel.

Our go-to guy for referrals? Chris Kresser. He’s brilliant and prolific in his functional medicine understanding. Listen in here and learn more about why we love Chris.

-David

Learn more about Chris and his work here!

Episode 13 Paul Scialla

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I vividly recall that ornery night in Sevilla Spain about 17 years ago when I looked into the mirror and realized the person looking back wasn’t me. He had red bags under his eyes, a puffy inflamed face and was coughing away phlegm from his fourth seasonal flu, indicating a trashed immune system.

That was an epiphany for me. And I went on to invent a greening my life program, leading to my Life Balance Sheet [a 100 point rating system]. I scored just 53 points on my first pass. Fast forward to today, and I’m living much more in balance, and scoring in the Platinum 90s. To score well, I need to practice wellness in my personal life and where I live and work. It also values the transformational nature of my work.

In the past decade, I’ve associated green buildings and sustainability with health. It’s about health of the planet and its people [plus other living things that we forget are here too]. Of course, health of the planet is linked to our health. This includes not only what we eat and how we exercise, but also the quality of our air, water and soil.

Listen to today’s show on how life and the products and services we make all need to be clean and non-toxic: to promote health and productivity for today and tomorrow.

-David

Learn more about Paul and his work by clicking here!

Episode 12 Marc David

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It wasn’t wolfing down the third pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey that bothered me most. It wasn’t even the glob of congealed ice cream on the Natuzzi Italian couch that troubled me, leftover from my binge the night before. It was the crisis of my soul. As usual, the Ben & Jerry’s only briefly deadened the pain. As I stared blankly at my TV playing Mr. Holland’s Opus, for the third time that week, I wondered if I’d ever build my own opus.

I had moved to San Francisco after abandoning my career as a real estate developer in Washington, DC. My size 36 designer jeans were tight, and inflamed skin spewed out the hole in my thigh. They were several sizes up from my prime college 33’s. We had launched the LEED Green Building Rating system. In many ways, my life was rating high, but in terms of health and food, it was lower than I liked to admit. I’d put on twenty-five pounds since college and my food cravings were escalating.

Fast forward to today. I’m the lightest I’ve been since high school. Back into the 33’s. I’m the fittest in my life and completed five cycling centuries this summer. My food plan avoids caffeine, alcohol, gluten, sugar, fruit. My energy, mental acuity, and sleep are the best ever. No more leaky gut and autoimmune issues.

Many of us suffer from food or other addictions. Perhaps like me, you didn’t even know that food addiction existed and has many of the symptoms of alcoholism. I struggled despite being an avid athlete and having fulfilling work of passion and purpose. A deeper pain smoldered inside and played itself out in unconscious ways.

This week’s Regen360 podcast is about the psychology of eating, featuring our expert Marc David, author of The Slow Down Diet. In our conversation, we address the drivers feeding addiction. We talk about the movement he has built over the past thirty plus years in the psychology of eating. He tagged my “crisis in purpose, a crisis in your soul” during our dialog. Hear his perspective on why diets don’t work.

As I’ve mentioned, hope comes from finding active solutions that can help us not only sustain, but regenerate on a 360 basis, which is the mission of my Regen360 podcast. Listen in to better understand yourself, and help a loved one who’s suffering, as I did.

-David

PS: Have you found the music within? Even in my sugar-and-fat haze, I could hear the important lesson of Mr. Holland’s Opus, the film that I binge watched: “Playing music is supposed to be fun. It’s about heart, it’s about feelings, moving people, and something beautiful, and it’s not about notes on a page.” Back then, it seemed like I couldn’t seem to find the music within. Let’s work together to build your opus by understanding the wrong and right ways to approach food. Remember to subscribe and if you like the podcast, please leave me a review – it really helps to spread the word.

Learn more about Marc David here!