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Jonathan: Hey, everyone, Jonathan Bailor back with another epic session, talking about the modern advancements we have in eating and exercise, and just like we don’t use the same phones we used 40 years ago, why practice the same eating and exercise guidelines that we were given 40 years ago? And when thinking about effective, modern ways to deal with a lot of these conditions which are just impairing our ability to live our fullest and happiest lives, I can’t think of anyone better to bring in than the wildly best-selling author of The 17-Day Diet, a great guy who cares deeply about people, and he will get into some of the awesome community service efforts he has started and continues to run. He is a family practitioner. He is my friend. Dr. Mike Moreno, welcome to the show, brother.
Mike: Thanks for having me. As usual, I really appreciate it, and your passion, and the introduction, and I know you share the same passion that I do, so it is always a pleasure to talk with you.
Jonathan: Dr. Mike, the key reason I wanted to bring you on the show, there are a couple, but first and foremost is that you continue, despite all the literary success you’ve had, and in the media, to see patients, and spend time with people, on the front lines, day in and day out. What is the biggest challenge you face in helping individuals to modify their eating and exercise habits?
Mike: I think the biggest challenge, and I think most people would agree, is that life seems to get in the way. I did take a few months off when I was working on some other projects, and I have to tell you, after three to four months, you miss that interaction. You miss going from room to room. It’s like anything else. You can get sick of eating strawberry ice cream if you eat it every day, but after a while, if you avoid it, when you go back to it you realize there is this fondness that you have for it. For me, it was seeing patients and that interaction with new patients and older patients, and again, it’s a great, great job. It’s a fun job. And I feel honored to have a skill that not a lot of people have, and it’s just a fun thing to do.
To answer your question, I’ll tell you, the thing that really sticks out over and over is these barriers that exist, day to day, for people, whether it’s work, or being a single parents, or working two or three jobs, or whatever it may be, it’s the day to day challenges that plague everybody. I think anybody out there listening will agree that sometimes it can feel like this daunting task to be healthy, and I think life gets in the way. There are so many new ideas, new philosophies and new things coming out, and I really try to steer my patients in the direction of showing me what it is they can’t do, and I’m going to tell them how they can do it. It’s what you can, and how you can, not what you can’t and what you didn’t. We give people some ideas and thoughts to help them with creativity, because at the end of the day that is how we are going to get to where we need to be.
Jonathan: It sounds like finding that prescription which is customized for each individual’s lifestyle, and Dr. Mike, along those lines, it seems like what a lot of people are told is just the opposite of that. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that no human being can be happy and healthy long-term if they are hungry.
Mike: That is true. That is absolutely true, and applies 100% in this particular situation.
Jonathan: Just like I wouldn’t want to go to a physician and have them say, “Oh, well, just sleep less.” That doesn’t really help me. So, what do you, then, tell your patients, if it’s not just, “Well, eat less of your existing diet?”
Mike: What it is, and we’ve learned this, and you know this as well as I do, with all the great work you’ve done, it is not how much you eat, and this whole idea of food in, and exercise out, doesn’t apply any more. I know people that eat minimal calories and work out just like crazy people. I don’t how they have the time to do it, because quite honestly, I don’t, and I know you don’t, and most people will say, “Oh, that’s great that you have three hours of a window every day to go work out, but it’s just; it’s crazy. I mean, it’s nice, believe me; enjoy it if you have it. But that’s not the general population.
The idea is that it is not necessarily just calories in, calories out. I think it is realizing what you – and this is what I say when it comes to food. It’s not just how much you eat, it really isn’t. It’s what you eat, it’s when you eat it, and how much you eat of it. It’s types of foods, it’s when you are eating them, and when you are integrating them into your day. Because, let’s face it, it’s not about all protein and zero carbs, or half-and-half; it’s a balance. And that balance is going to be different for every individual out there, based upon their lifestyle, based on what they have to do, day to day, based upon their body, and based upon their genetic make-up. There are so many factors that contribute. Yes, we can generalize and say we want a certain amount of carbs, proteins and fats, but that doesn’t apply to everyone, so I think it is learning your body, understanding your metabolism, understanding your metabolism, understanding how certain foods affect you. This is where food journaling is going to be a fantastic tool, realizing that you are different, that we are all different.
Yesterday, I saw patients all day, and a gentleman said, “I don’t understand.” And I know, Jonathan, you’ve heard this before. “I have a friend and she eats as much as I do, or twice as much, and she’s thin as a rail, and she never does anything.” It is what it is. My mom used to always tell me something when I was growing up. This is an old-school proverb. I’m older than you, I noticed that. She used to always say, “Never mind the Joneses and the Smiths. You do what you’re supposed to do.” And the saying was you never mind your next door neighbors. Whatever they do, that’s what they do. You do what you know you’re supposed to do. And diet applies to that, too, very much the same. So, learn your body, understand how foods affect you, and realize that it is how much you eat, yes, but also what you eat, and when you eat it. It is integrating the proper foods in your diet.
And then, as far as the activity portion of it, it is becoming creative. We don’t live in a world where you go to work from 9 to 5, and then you go to the gym. Now, some of us may, but I don’t think this is most people. It’s not me, it’s not you. We don’t live in this world where we just go to the gym, and an amount of time is set aside for the gym. That structure is gone. Life has become too complicated, too difficult, too overwhelming. We need to figure out how to become creative and integrate activity in our day. Life is going to, quite often, unfortunately, work against you, so you need to figure out a way to take those challenges and those tasks and those hurdles, and make them work for you. Once you figure that out, I think you can be ahead of the game quite easily and integrate your diet and exercise into your life.
Jonathan: Dr. Mike, as a practicing physician, you are up on things, you are progressive; you get it. But, as you know, you are the minority. There aren’t a lot of people out there like you. So, for the viewers who are watching this that go to their physician, and their physician does not have this updated information, and maybe wants to write them a prescription, or tell them to just try harder, what should they do in those circumstances?
Mike: I think what you would want to do, first of all, is just having a health maintenance assessment, and understanding your medical issues, if there are any. Are you a diabetic? Do you have high blood pressure? Is your cholesterol an issue? Really, getting baseline labs and understanding what things you are working against, and that is the first part, and then also realizing that you are capable of exercising and understanding that. But I think it’s a matter of working with your physician, and I think this is where the old days of the family physician, and really getting to know your doctor become really important, because there are cultural diversities, there are sociological diversities, there are so many things that come into play.
I think it is understanding where you are, from a baseline standpoint and what medical challenges or health risks you may face. And then I think it is really hammering down with your physician or health care provider. What is the appropriate calorie intake range? And I really want to stress that word range, because anybody that says, “You’re supposed to eat 1400 calories a day,” listen, there is nothing that is spot-on. Everything these days is a range. If you look at any blood test, if you look at anything in life, everything is a range. [?? 09:49] genetics and how your body works and processes foods, and two, the range is there because there are different heights, there are different lifestyles.
Some people, unfortunately, work 18, 16, 14 hours a day, every day. I don’t know how they do it, quite honestly, but it is understanding that you would like to get a proper range of calories, but you really need to walk through your day with your provider, because we assume oftentimes that our days are similar to theirs, and they may not be. It is quite enlightening when you talk to somebody and you say, “Take me through your day.” I would literally say that to them. “Let’s take five minutes, and I want you to tell me when you wake up in the morning. I know there are some changes from day to day, but when you wake up and that alarm goes off, I want you to walk me through your day. Take me through every moment, from the time you shut that alarm off to the time you put your head back on the pillow and go to sleep that night. Walk me through it.”
And you find the little gives in that day, where you can squeeze a little movement in it, you know, you can get a little five minutes here. I go to the extent of telling people, when you are brushing your teeth in the morning, don’t do it in front of the sink. Walk around. It sounds so silly and so crazy, but you can burn more calories walking around brushing your teeth than you can standing in front of the mirror. It is silly things like that, and it really invites you to find extra calories throughout the day. I think the short answer to your question is, develop a relationship with your provider, get them to understand what it is your day entails and then help them to become creative in integrating things.
And it’s up to the patient, themselves; I mean, it is a two-way street. We need to become accountable and creative, as well. It is learning the proper foods, and integrating them properly, as we said at the top of the hour, and just knowing when to have them, how much to have them, and which ones to have, and I think it’s not really a certain number of calories. I really don’t think it is. You can have twice as many calories if they are the proper ratios and types of foods, if they are properly integrated into your day, and so, there is a lot of give there, it is just understanding where it is and understanding how to achieve it, and then of course, as you know, being active and creative. The days of getting in your car, going to the gym, and having 90 minutes to work out and then shower, quite honestly, those days are gone. They are for me. And you have to realize that it just may be three 10-minute walks that you get in on a single day, but I guess it still counts. So, be creative, understand your body, how your body handles certain foods and activities, and use that in your favor.
Jonathan: Dr. Mike, with the constraints of modern life and this idea of, “Well, just go for a 90-minute jog.” Not only is that not chronologically possible, but if I weigh 350 pounds, telling me to go jog on pavement is probably not the best suggestion.
Mike: It’s harmful, right.
Jonathan: So, what has been your experience with the seemingly very promising research about shorter, but more intense, forms of exercise? Have you seen personal success in your practice with those more interval-based or resistance training-based exercise?
Mike: It’s a great question, and you’re right, the idea of slapping on your sneakers and running for 90 minutes is gone, I think, both from the time standpoint that none of us have anymore, and also from the fact that, unfortunately, our country is still at the top in terms of obesity. I will add this caveat, and it really excited me, about a month ago was the first time in decades that childhood obesity rates have actually come down. That is a very promising statistic. All the hard work that people like you, Jonathan, and I, and so many other people are doing is starting to be reflected in our young population, so that is fantastic. But I think the thing is this, and it goes back to what I said a few minutes ago, which is, when you see someone who is really not capable of doing these things, and the new technology saying smaller bursts of activity or energy throughout the day are helpful. I think there are a lot of reasons why, and I don’t think it is fully understood.
My impression is this. People are more inclined to do something that they are capable of doing, and I think most people would agree with that. And when you come to somebody who can’t even get out of a chair and walk 100 yards, and tell them to go out and walk for 30 minutes, they’re not going to do it. They may tell you they’re going to do it, but they’re not going to do it. So, again, it’s understanding what people can do, and when you tell somebody to do something that you know, and they have agreed that, they can do, it’s going to get done. That’s one part of it. It’s giving people a task that they are capable of completing.
The second thing is, I think when people start to do these things and they see that achievement level, and they are able to realize that they can do this, it is like anything else, it is ramping up [?? 15:05] literally have problems just standing up from the chair. She was an older woman; she was probably in her early to mid 80s. But again, age doesn’t rule out the capability of still being healthy. So, this woman had difficulty just getting out of the chair. Now imagine, for years, and years, and years, going to the doctor and being told that she needs to go out and walk for 30 minutes a day and this woman can barely stand out of the chair. But you talk to them and you make them realize that that is okay, but we need to make that go a little further, and right on the heels of what you were asking, it was a matter of bargaining this way. I said, “Are you capable of getting out of the chair?” And she said, “Yes.” So, I said, “To start out, three times a day, I’d like you to just stand up out of that chair for a couple of seconds and then sit down. And I want you to practice that ten times, three times a day, much like anything else.” And that slowly progressed to, with an assistive device, being able to walk ten steps, and then ten steps back. And little by little, over time, here is a woman who could barely get out of the chair, and before you know it, she’s going back and forth down the longest hallway in her home, and back to the chair.
The idea is that we have to slowly awaken our body in such a way to get it back going. We can’t just jump into the fire. It’s very harmful, or may be harmful. It’s very demotivating in the sense that you are giving people tasks that they are incapable of completing. So, I think it becomes a struggle, both mentally and physically. It’s marrying those two entities, the physicality of it, with the fact that now research is showing that it doesn’t have to be this long, stretched out thing. It can be smaller sessions, whether it is taking the stairs as opposed to an elevator one day, or whatever it may be, integrating short little areas of exercise in your day, in what you have to do anyway, is helpful.
I think it is two-fold. I think it’s really giving people tasks that are doable, and seem achievable, and I also think it is giving people that joy of actually completing something and then wanting more of it. But the body responds better that way and clearly, what we are seeing is that people are responding better, I think we see less injuries, I think people are more capable, more likely to continue to do it, because it doesn’t so much seem as another task, it is just doing what you are normally going to do anyway, a little bit differently. It is a lot easier to do six five-minute episodes of something, as opposed to a 30-minute episode of something.
I invite people to take a look at their day and find small amounts of time throughout that day, and see if you can add it up to 30 minutes. And also be aware of tasks that you can eliminate. We get in the habit of doing things that, at the end of day, we may not really need to be doing. Some things you have to do, and I understand that, but there are certain things you say to yourself, you know, maybe it’s not about sitting down and typing up a 30-minute email, maybe it’s picking up a phone and having a 3-minute conversation. Whatever it is, try to find ways, and it’s not getting down on technology, because technology can be useful, but it’s just finding ways to integrate your lifestyle into some activity levels that you can benefit from at the end of the day.
Jonathan: Mike, when speaking about technology and modern advancements, when speaking with a physician about weight regulation, it is hard not to bring up weight-related surgeries, and I’m curious what is your – I certainly have an opinion, but I will hold my opinion.
Mike: Perhaps I should hold mine, as well.
Jonathan: What is your opinion on when, if they are helpful, and when, if they are harmful? How do you react when patients bring this up?
Mike: It’s a great question. It’s a loaded question. I don’t want to say it’s never a justified thing. But I will say, it’s rarely a justified thing. I think that, at the end of the day, it’s a surgery, and a quite involved surgery, and yes, they’ve sort of whittled it down so that it is less invasive, to all types of procedures that weren’t the traditional gastric bypass where actually the stomach would shrink in size. They are doing sleeting, and banding, and things of this nature. But here’s the bottom line. It’s a surgery. And it’s a surgery that carries with it both intraoperative and postoperative risks, and that meaning, not to get technical, but there are complications and risks that take place during the surgery, and after the surgery, and when I say after, it’s not just an hour after, it’s a lifetime after the surgery. You are messing with the body’s ability to reabsorb nutrients and vitamins. Nearly all of these patients become vitamin B12 deficient.
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is, I think that it is not the answer. I think it is rarely the answer. I think it is short-term, and statistics show that most, again, not all, but most people don’t learn the proper strategies and tools they need to keep that weight off. So, I think it is risky, and I think that when somebody would say they are willing to take a chance of bleeding and infections, and quite often, possibly death, having surgery, and then a lifetime of complications following, merely to lose weight, I think it’s a pretty risky thing to do. It’s one of those things where I’m not a big believer.
That being said, are there times when it is the only option? I think there probably are. I think that they are far and few, but they are out there. I think some people, and this is multifactorial, it truly is, it’s physicality, it’s really mentality, and I think that’s a big part of it, but I think there are some people who are just at their wits’ end, and I think that there is no way, and we’re not talking 30, 40, 50 pounds overweight. We’re talking in the hundreds of pounds. And I don’t mean 100, I think even more. We’re talking 400-500 pounds. We see them. They’re there. Some of these people, when they can’t get up, when they can’t move, when they get to the point where getting out of bed is almost an impossible task, I think you would have to start looking at these people as giving them options. And I think that these people need help. But it’s tough. It’s going to be pretty rare that you’re going to find me signing off on that one, saying this is the proper way to go.
And then, in their defense, I have seen a few who have done it. In fact, a very good friend of mine, I pleaded with him not to do it for several years, but he finally did it. I just saw him on Saturday, a few days ago. He looked great, you know, and you have to encourage these people. We’re all in this game together, so I think, letting them know, “Hey, I’m proud of you.” And I told him, “I’ve got to tell you, I’m shocked that you’ve kept this weight off, because it’s been a few years now. You look good.” And I said, “Don’t slip. It’s a slippery slope.” It’s easy to fall back in those habits. I think there’s a tremendous mental, mind component to being successful with these things, but there are going to be very, very few outliers out there that I think are justified in doing it.
Jonathan: Dr. Mike, you’ve made a key distinction there. Let me know if I got this correct, here. The surgeries can be helpful if they facilitate or help you make lifestyle change, not in place of lifestyle change. And the reason this matters is, it seems if I am eating a nutritionally deficient diet and you just shrink my stomach and now I eat even less of a nutritionally deficient diet, which could be fatal.
Mike: Right.
Jonathan: And what you need to do is eat this higher quality food and have a healthier lifestyle, and in fact, if you are going to go so far as to change your body, it is even more important to do that now; it’s not less important. It’s even more important because you have less room for error, because you can only eat n number of calories per day. So, if you are doing this to avoid having to make lifestyle changes, is that backward, and in fact, you should be doing it to facilitate lifestyle changes?
Mike: And that’s the whole point. Our medical group does have a bariatric surgery program, but the program itself consists of a 12-month intensive, and I think most [24:17] mental component of this and really, as you said, changing your lifestyle. So, with these people, they give them an achievable and healthy goal weight to meet at three and six months, and nine months, and 12 months. Once they’ve gone through this program, and you have to lose a certain amount of weight in order to have the ability to get the surgery, what we are seeing is that about 30-40% of them don’t want it and don’t need it because they realize they are not a lost cause. So, exactly as you said, it’s not a reason or an excuse for how you can continue your current bad habits. It’s really a door to open into proper and good habits, both nutrition and activity.
Yes, I’ve feuded with this. I used to get so passionate. I was passionately against it. But I realized there are a few out there that are just at their wits’ end, and I don’t know that there is any amount of therapy or dietary changes, when the body becomes so flaccid and just incapable, and it’s so unfortunate. I think what we need to do is, guys like you and I, Jonathan, and so many other tens of thousands of people who are working on this, we need to intervene so that we’re not getting people to this point anymore, that we keep people from getting to that extreme, the likelihood of needing that surgery, or even wanting that surgery, for that matter, is going to decline, and maybe go away, I don’t know. A good friend of mine does the surgeries for medical schools, so he always gives me a hard time about that, but we have friendly feuds regarding that. But I think, like I said, there are instances where it’s an absolute must, but there is a tremendous amount of mental intensive that has to go on prior to the surgery, during, and postoperatively, because you can slip on these things very, very easily.
Jonathan: Dr. Mike, we’ve covered a lot about the body, physical things, physical interventions, surgical interventions, dietary interventions, movement-related interventions. But you and I know there are huge psychological components to all of this. What do you do with your patients to help there? So many of us might feel that we’re just broken, and we’re not worth this, on some level. Or there is something else. Maybe we are practicing bad dietary habits, and we don’t want to, but there is this stress that is causing us to self-medicate with food. What do you tell your patients in terms of the psychology of overweight?
Mike: You know, I always speak to my patients in terms of those that struggle, the type of patient you are speaking of. You know, I mentioned this earlier, you really have to get into their day. You have to understand what their difficulties are, because people can always say, “I work too much, and I have three kids.” But what does that mean? What is too much? And when do you work? So, you really have to get into their day, but you have to make them realize that it’s a very doable thing. When you look at people who are stricken with cancers, and not necessarily adults, I mean kids, when you look at people who are stricken with illnesses that were just unfortunately a product of bad luck, I really use a lot of these people and a lot of these unfortunate cases to get other people to realize, here is a person who doesn’t have a choice, and here is a person who has a stage IV cancer, whatever it may be, and get these people to realize that they have a choice, they have been given a life, and they have a choice.
And I think you need to be sensitive to what their needs are, and not just say, “Well, everybody’s busy, and everybody has kids.” You have to say, “You know, I understand that.” And gosh, you hear some stories that, quite honestly, I walk out of a room thinking, “My God, no wonder.” It’s challenging the way people have to live and make a live for themselves and their family. So, understanding what their day is, and really having that empathy there, and letting them know that, “Wow, that is difficult, but let’s figure out a way, in that lifestyle, to make it work.” And you have to start slow. You can’t expect them to extract large amounts of time from a day that is already seemingly too short. It’s just a matter of trying to pick and prod, and fine tune. And I always tell my patients, unfortunately, it will seem that life it working against you, all the time, and it will always seem like that. You need to make your life work for you. And when you’re working long hours, you need to find a way to make something in that job work for you, whether that is from a nutritional standpoint or a physical and exercise standpoint.
You know, I stress eat. That’s one of the things I get all the time, but there’s nothing that says that you can’t stress eat on healthier foods, and I joke around with patients all the time, and I say, “I guarantee you, if you come to my house, I will cook you dinner, and make you full.” Getting full is what you want. There is nothing that says in the bible or the doctrine of health that you have to stress earth on unhealthy food, and there is nothing that says that you can only get full and satiated on health food. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s getting them to realize new foods. I think cooking is a great thing. It brings out a more creative side to people, and it helps them experience and develop and learn new foods.
I think it’s really getting these people to understand that you have to surround yourself – and honestly, some of us have more willpower than others. Some of us can walk away from it, some of us can’t. In our break room at the office, you walk in, and inevitably, there’s not a bunch of fruits and vegetables and whole grains. There are going to be people that bring in and just drop this boatload of temptation. And you walk in there and you see some people eating healthy right next to this pile of donuts, and then you see other people come in and it’s really interesting to just watch human behavior. Everybody out there listening and watching, just spend five minutes in the break room of your workplace and you’ll see some amazing interactions. You’ll see some people come in and it’s almost as though they know that’s there and they beeline right for it.
There are extremes, and there are variations of willpower. You need to find out where you fit in that category, and if you know there are donuts, or whatever it is, in the back of your break room, don’t go there. Grab a healthy bag of some grains or snacks and a big glass of water, and rather than go sit in the break room for ten minutes. Go for a walk outside. Go for a walk through the hallways. Go chat with someone. Go say hi to someone. Tell someone good morning; ask someone how their weekend was. Move. Stay active, and get creative. But if the will power isn’t there, that’s okay. Don’t tempt yourself like that. Choose other options that you can benefit from.
Jonathan: Dr. Mike, there is a pattern I have been seeing in a lot of what you have described, and you used the word explicitly a moment ago, and I think it hits the nail on the head. You used the phrase, “Have an attitude of empathy.” I think that is just so powerful, because just one other concrete example is, and I’m sure you are familiar with this, if an individual has an external stressor and they go on an anti-depressant medication, number one, the external stressor can often lead to poor lifestyle decisions. Then you go on an anti-depressant, which also impacts your ability to detect hunger, energy levels, things like that. There can be any number of things going on in their life that is causing them to make bad lifestyle choices. It’s not just, “Go to the gym for 90 minutes.” If your favorite team loses the football game, you just say, “Score more points!” Well, of course they need to score more points, but why aren’t they scoring more points? So, it is taking that deep examination. Who else can we look to besides our family physician to help us take that deeper look and that attitude of empathy toward our own lives?
Mike: I think that it may very well be our friends and family, but honestly, it may be strangers. It may just be getting out there in the world and looking. I’ll tell you, one of my favorite things, and I may have said this to you previously on the show, but I love, when I’m out walking, or out exercising, or even just out at the store, or whatever, and you see someone who you can clearly see struggles with their weight, exercising, walking, moving, I just want to go up to these people and give them a hug, and I don’t them, and perhaps I probably shouldn’t do that, and then I’d have to gab, but the point being that you just want to tell these people, “Way to go.” You want to go there and pat them on the back. And you see people that are morbidly obese that are out there trying, and have that attitude.
And I hope anybody out there watching and listening right now, I hope if you are one of these individuals, that you are patting yourself on the back. Because, listen, you’re getting it, you’re understanding it, you’re that person that we need to learn from, and so I commend you. But I think we need to look anywhere we can to get that motivation and it may not be a doctor, it may be a friend, it may be a relative, or it may be, as I just said, a total stranger. We need to look for examples of what we should be doing and really tap into what they are doing and how they are doing it, because it is difficult, and listen, I don’t do everything right all the time, in fact, far from it. You just have to try as hard as you can and try to do it more often than not.
It’s really looking to anybody you can and getting their energy, and then using that energy to cross-motivate, and motivate that person, and we always say, grab a [?? 35:12], grab your neighbor, grab your pet, whatever it may be, but [?? 35:27]. I’m not one of the conspiracy theorists, I still believe in the humanity in this world and I think everybody wants to see people succeed, and whether that is with weight, your health, financially, whatever it is, we’re in this together. We’re all on this planet together and we have to reach and ask for help, and give help when it is needed.
Jonathan: Dr. Mike, certainly you have committed your life to helping people. I know you have some exciting personal and professional things coming up next. What is next for you in this mission to help people live better?
Mike: As you know, I’m in San Diego, and I’ve been here for 14 years now, practicing. Next for me is trying to work on our community here locally, really getting not just our medical group involved with our patients, but getting our medical group involved with anyone and everybody, whether they belong to our medical group or not, reaching out to the community. So many people are out there and capable of helping, and probably want to help, and perhaps don’t, so it is really sort of focusing energy on what I’ve done in writing. As you know, there is a new version of The 17-Day Diet which should be coming out in January.
It is exciting; there are some great testimonials that really, really impress people, some of these people we have been talking about in the last several minutes, some concrete examples of that. It’s really trying to do more of the same, and trying to sort of spread this wellness disease, trying to get people to realize that it can be a struggle, but there are a lot of people out there, a lot of resources, and a lot of people that want to help, and continuing to do what you’re doing, Jonathan, which is spread the news that we’re not done fighting this battle, we haven’t even begun, and I think there are good things to come for all of us. So, reach a hand out, or walk over to somebody, take them for a walk, grab a glass of water, do something healthy, and realize that we need to spread that fever to everyone.
Jonathan: I love it. Dr. Mike, where can our viewers go to learn more about your new book, and more about you as a physician, and as a man?
Mike: As always, 17daydiet.com has a number of healthy recipes, new information, a great talking community of people there, and drmikediet.com is my website that I do. I interact with a lot of the people on there, as well, and there are some great stories, amazing photos, before and after. Simon and Schuster has a great website, as well, to promote other books that will be coming out and give people information they need about any and all things that make you feel healthy.
Jonathan: love it. Thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Mike, and all that you do in the other 99.9% of your life that is dedicated to making healthy as contagious as sickness can be.
Mike: I say that back to you, as well. Thank you for everything you do, I appreciate it.