In this episode, I chat with John Douillard, one of my favourite Ayurvedic dudes out there — he’s amazing! He’s super down to Earth, he’s raised six children, and he’s been a chiropractor and Ayurvedic Practitioner for decades. Dr. Douillard makes it a point to nail down the science behind things, so tune in if you want to get an earful on the inner workings and different processes that drive our biology.

We touch base on a multitude of different topics, such as ketogenesis, the paleo diet — including eating wheat or not eating wheat — and fermented foods. The overall gist of the episode is on tuning into your body this summer, what you need to do, and what you should be focusing on to experience improved connectivity in your physiology and digestion.

I rap with John Douillard about Eating Food for Summer and Boosting Digestion:

• How to tune into your body during the summer — and how this supports seasonal eating with balanced summer foods
• Why holistic, ecosystem-connected ways of living and eating are important
• The role of seasonal microbiomes and the necessity of eating globally
• The role of hard-to-digest foods and digestive atrophy in overall health and our bodies’ ability to detoxify

What you’ll get out of tuning in:

• Why you should tune in to your body this summer to figure out your personal path for connecting to your physiology and the season
• How to balance your doshas with the seasons and your stage of life
• How to navigate fad and high-fat diets and prevent digestive atrophy with hard-to-digest foods

Links:

• LifeSpa 3 Season Diet Challenge
• Buy Eat Wheat by Dr. John Douillard
• Ayurveda 101 Course: Coupon code “jdouillard” for 15% off the course!
• Dr. John’s Website
• Living Ayurveda Course

Related Podcasts:

• Should I Test for Food Sensitivities and Inflammation with Lila Ojeda 
• Strengthen your digestion + Eat Wheat with Dr. John Douillard
• The Paleo Diet Meets Ayurveda with Dr. Akil Palanisamy

Show Highlights:

• 3:30 — There’s a major lack of food variety in any given region, and it’s becoming increasingly necessary to eat globally to get the nutrition we need.
• 8:45 — Dr. John explains the importance of changing our microbiomes from season to season and how to ensure their diversity. Eating from our own gardens helps us get the diversity in our intestinal flora that we desperately need — these plants are the new probiotics.
• 10:00 — Hard-to-digest foods, like wheat, are critical for our bodies and for proper immune system function and protection. Scientific research suggests that people who can’t digest these foods have more mercury in their blood and fewer T-cells. This digestive atrophy is dangerous.
• 21:00 — We should be living in feast and famine cycles, not fad dieting. Our bodies have evolved to process all the beautiful plants coming from the ground during summer — not charred meats. Summer is the start of the feast season and a time of overwhelming nutrition to prep us for the famine of winter.
• 26:30 — Melatonin may be the most important hormone in our bodies. It’s the oldest, helping us sleep and detoxify. Our working lives now cause us to produce less melatonin, which means we produce less serotonin — leading to anxiety.
• 33:40 — High-fat and other restrictive diets are unsustainable, and they’re essentially starvation diets. This way of eating is great for springtime fat burning, but it’s not right for the entire year and is too harsh and acidic for long-term eating.

Favorite Quotes:

• “Part of what we’re trying to do, from an Ayurvedic perspective, from a microbiome perspective, is change the microbiome from winter to summer to spring.” – Dr. John Douillard

• “There are people walking around in our western world who have two or three strains of microbes in their guts. We’re supposed to have thousands!” – Dr. John Douillard
• “If you find yourself taking stuff out of your diet because you’re not digesting well, it’s a temporary solution that never addresses the bigger problem — your inability to digest an immune-supporting nutritional palate.” – Dr. John Douillard
• “We have to be able to detox the toxic world we live in.” – Dr. John Douillard
• “Start thinking about what you can eat more of as opposed to what you shouldn’t eat.” – Dr. John Douillard
• “A lot of the big solutions are really simple: getting a lot more day lighting in your life, exploring your ecosystem, getting a little bit more organized about your gardening and your kitchen gardening, and bringing the sanity home.” – Cate Stillman
• “What feels good is good.” – Cate Stillman
• “Everyone’s got a piece of the puzzle, but very few people have an idea about the entire puzzle.” – Cate Stillman

Guest BIO:

Dr. John Douillard, DC, CAP is a globally recognized leader in the fields of natural health, Ayurveda, and sports medicine. He is the creator of LifeSpa.com, a leading online Ayurvedic health and wellness resource with over 5 million views on YouTube. LifeSpa.com is evolving the way Ayurveda is understood around the world, with over 800 articles and videos melding ancient wisdom with modern science. Dr. John is the former Director of Player Development and Nutrition Expert for the New Jersey Nets NBA team, the bestselling author of seven health books, and a repeat guest on the Dr. Oz show who has been featured in USA Today, The LA Times, and dozens of other national publications. He has been in practice for over 30 years and has seen over 100,000 patients. Dr. John directs LifeSpa, the 2013 Holistic Wellness Center of the Year in Boulder, CO.