1705. Habits That Changed My Life

Join Dr. Martin in today's episode of The Doctor Is In Podcast.

 

TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE

Announcer:  You're listening to The Doctor Is In Podcast, brought to you by MartinClinic.com. During the episode, the doctors share a lot of information. As awesome as the info may be, it is not intended to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent any disease. It's strictly for informational purposes.

Dr. Martin:  Well, good morning everyone. Once again, how are you? Welcome to another live this morning. Hope you're having a great start to your day. We appreciate you guys more than you know. So, our new book is coming out, okay? Our new book is coming out and you're going to love it. I mean that, it's for everyone. You'll love it. Rebuilding Your Temple. This is a little teaching that I have, okay? Tony Jr. and I, we sort of split up the work on this book. Tony is quite the teacher, as you guys know, and he loves the book of Proverbs. Okay? So I'm going to steal a little bit of what he did and I'm going to combine it to what I've done. I love Proverbs too, but let me just share this. Okay? So I call this little lesson in the book, and so for 30 days there's lessons like this, okay? So that's what the book is about, and I think guys, you'll find this extremely profitable just for you, for your health, okay? Both spiritually and physically. Okay?

So here's a little teaching. I call this ignoring God's boundaries. Okay? So here's the proverb. Proverbs 25 and 28. A man or a woman without self-control, according to Proverbs is like a city, an ancient city. Think of an ancient city. When I think of an ancient city, I think of Babylon. Do you know that they had walls 350 feet high? Incredible. That's why they thought nobody could ever defeat us because you can't get in here. 350 feet walls. But the book of Proverbs says, a man without self-control is like an ancient city without walls. And here's the practical teaching from that, okay? I've written down some things that discipline has helped me with, okay? Self-control, and I call these things that changed my life. They changed my life, physically, spiritually really helped me. Okay? And I want to just give you a little lesson from this using my personal experience. Okay?

So here's Doc Martin Sr. okay? Things that changed my life. One of the things physically that I did when I was young. I tell you this story all the time because my dad was diagnosed, when I was 16 years old, my dad was diagnosed with diabetes and my dad was really my hero. I love my mom too, but my dad, oh my word. He was just that type of guy and I had a good daddy and I loved him dearly and I never could stop talking about him. Rosie, when we first met. Like what? Quit talking about your dad all the time, but he was my hero. Anyway, he gets diabetes. I didn't even know what that was when I was 16 years old. I knew my grandfather died of it, and my dad changed his life on day one after the diagnosis, I watched him do it. He changed his diet completely. My dad ate more steak in his lifetime than anyone in the world I'm sure of.

And he was the first guy I ever met that went jogging. Jogging, there wasn't even a name jogging in 1968, as far as I know. The only people that ran were running away from the police. Unless you were at a track meet. My dad started jogging on the spot on the carpet. My mom kicked him out, get off you're going to ruin my carpet. I don't even know what you're doing, but my dad, he said something to me, I got diabetes and son, it's called sugar diabetes. What? Well, you're going to see I won't be eating any more sugar. So at that age, can I tell you what happened to me? I stopped eating sugar. That's 16. I didn't eat sugar anymore and I never had another chocolate bar in my life. And I mean that. And was that hard? Yeah, at first. Okay. Now, if I said to you, I never had a piece of birthday cake or ever had ice cream or ever, no. I mean guys, I pretty well went cold turkey. I just stopped eating sugar. Did that help me? I think so.

And we know because I talk about this all the time, and you guys know me, I talk about sugar all the time. We were never meant for the amount of sugar that we consume. Our bodies were never meant for that. And I always talk about the destructiveness of sugar. So one of the things, and I did this in my office year, year after year after year with patient, after patient, after, tens of thousands of patients, they got nutrition 101. I always taught them that. And I said, if you do nothing else for your body and you cut out sugar, I said, you watch the difference that makes, okay? You watch the difference that makes in your life and you give yourself 30 days of not eating any sugar, and you'll see not only what your body will do, but you will see how you were addicted to it. Sugar added to coffee, sugar on this, sugar, sugar, sugar. We're not meant to consume what we're consuming today. 200 pounds of sugar a year, a dump truck load.

I talked about this yesterday. Insulin and cancer and how insulin operates, and one of the biggest drivers of insulin is the presence of sugar in the bloodstream. It's in a no parking zone, and today, almost half of the population is either pre-diabetic, and that's diabetes guys. There's no such thing as really pre because you're a diabetic. It's just that your body, it can't handle sugar. So it's one of the best things that ever happened to me, okay, healthwise, I stopped eating sugar. And guys, I've been preaching that you know that I've been consistent about it. What else did I do? Just some of the habits for me. I started drinking water. Two things I drink, water and coffee. Okay? How much water does Dr. Martin drink? Well, minimum 64 ounces or two liters. And I can tell you by measuring viscosity of blood, I can tell you that the vast majority of people are very dehydrated. I know that from my clinical experience, okay?

So what were the good habits that I formed? I drank water and I started drinking coffee. And you know me, it's the real vitamin C. So you got two vitamins you should be drinking, vitamin W, water, and only water is water. Coffee's not water. Tea is not water. I know you make it with water, but it's not water. It gets processed differently. I've taught you folks this. Only water makes the river of life, your blood move, and if you want your heart to work a hundred times harder, be dehydrated because you got 60,000 miles of blood vessels and that heart, you don't even think of it until it don't work. Boom, boom, a hundred thousand times a day. Boom, boom. You don't think about it. But you take a lot of pressure off that heart when you're drinking water. And I used to have a lot of men, not women, men, usually. Dr. Martin, I hate water, I drink juice. Yeah, that's a big problem.

So one of the greatest habits I ever formed self-control is that I drank water and coffee. And coffee is not acidic. Coffee does not dehydrate you. I pushed back on all of that. Hey, you got a gift. God gave you a gift. Enjoy it. Why drink tea when you can drink coffee? Okay, and guys, you want to have a tea, but it's not the same, doesn't have the same. It has some benefits, but it doesn't have the same benefits, okay? There's nothing like drinking water and coffee. So that's habit. Almost 60 years I've been doing this. Cut out the sugar as much as you can. Drink water, drink coffee, talk about habits. Here's another habit. I emphasize protein. I emphasize cholesterol. I emphasize animal foods. I emphasize that on my plate, okay? It's a habit. Eggs, meat, and cheese. So when you hear me say that, it's not like I don't eat that. That's what I eat. It's not that I don't have some fruits and vegetables unless I'm doing the reset. Okay? What a habit.

Look at your plate. What is it emphasizing? What the world tells you to do? Grains, you need grains, whole wheat, 12 grain, 15 grain, a hundred grain bread. No, you don't. That shouldn't be your emphasis at all. You need oats in the morning. No, you don't. You're not a horse. And so emphasize animal protein and fat because in the animal kingdom, you have exactly what you need to eat. So you have protein and fat, protein and fat. That's the way you're meant to eat. And yes, it has cholesterol, but that's good. God, don't trust you because a lot of people, eggs, I limit my eggs. I limit bacon. Bacon. Dr. Martin, are you kidding me? Bacon? Bring me any fruit. Bring me any vegetable and put it up against the nutritional profile of bacon and it ain't close, guys. It's not close. I'm not telling you can't eat from the plant kingdom. I'm just telling you don't put it first. These are habits that I did before I preached them to other people.

Whenever I preach from the Bible, I always tell people when I'm pointing out at you, how many fingers are pointed back at me, right? A lot. It's about three to one pointing back at moi. Start with you, start with me. So before I preach it to someone else, I want you to get the memo, but I had to get the memo to me first, and when I read my Bible, the lessons are for me before I can share them with anybody else. That's me. It's the way it should be. It's a good habit, isn't it? Listen, Linda, listen Larry, listen, okay, that's a good habit too. Here's another good habit that I got into. I surround myself with people, good people, counselors. You know who my number one counselor is? My wife. She's smart. She wasn't that smart marrying me, but she's smart and I mean it because a lot of times she's got to straighten me out, like stop, and I listen. When I'm smart, I listen, but that's a good thing to surround yourself. The Bible talks about that. In a multitude of counselors is much wisdom.

A lot of people, you know what it is, and I used to see it in my office all the time. People would come into my office and what's wrong? Nothing. Why are you here? I don't know. My wife made me come. You feeling good? Oh yeah, a hundred percent. I said, well, your blood work ain't showing me that. No, I feel great. So I'm going to tell you what to do now and believe you me, I had this happen to me a lot in my practice. Here's the plan. If you listen and you implement this plan, it'll change your life. You got to trust me. You have to discipline yourself 30 days and you will thank me after this, but if you're not willing to do it for 30 days, I can't help you. Okay? I can give you the results, but I want you to implement a plan and it's start with your diet. Are you ready? They got glassy-eyed. Some of them, most didn't. Of course they didn't, but some got glassy-eyed, meaning I'm not listening.

You ask people, that have worked with me. I always had a great staff and sometimes they would say, well, Dr. Martin, why didn't you emphasize this maybe a little bit more? I said, they weren't listening. I could tell. I give you one example. I had a guy come in and we did all the blood work and all this and that. I come in and I go, you're a diabetic. What? I'm not a diabetic. My doctor never said it. Well, I said, you're peeing sugar in your urine. I said, that's better than any other test to know if you're a diabetic or not. You're a diabetic I said, you're peeing out sugar. Your body's in overdrive to get sugar. Obviously insulin's not working properly anymore. So what's happening is you're peeing out your sugar. It was the old way of testing diabetes, by the way.

And he looked at me like I had two heads. What? I don't believe that. That's not true. I said, well, I'm just a messenger here. I'm trying to save your bacon here. He didn't say, I don't believe a word you said, but I tell you, he never came back, never came back. He was an unhappy puppy and he thought spending time with Dr. Martin was a waste of his time. I wasn't even pleasant. I'm not pleasant. I said, you want me to couch this? You want me to tell you everything's going to be all right? I'm not telling you that. I said, I'll tell you what, diabetics are 50% more likely to have heart attack. Diabetics are 50% more likely to get cancer. Diabetics are in deep doodoo. They're not only on the Titanic. They hit the iceberg already. I said, you better get into a lifeboat and turn your life around big time.

So getting back to Proverbs, a man or a woman without self-control is like a city, an ancient city without walls. Isn't that interesting? Good habits. Vitamin E. My dad started jogging. Guess what I did? I started jogging. I wanted to be with my dad. I said, get me up in the morning before school. I'm in high school. My dad gets up early, goes for a run before he goes to his practice. And I said, dad, wake me up. And I'm 73, almost 74. I've never stopped vitamin E, the real vitamin E, exercise, okay? I don't run anymore except when I'm playing major league, 70-year-old. I'm actually going up into the higher division of 74 year olds playing baseball. I love baseball. Well, slow pitch, okay? When you're my age, it's slow pitch. I'm active. Is that guaranteeing you a long life? No. It doesn't guarantee it, but it's a good thing to do, right? So I'm just talking about habits. Habits that changed my life. Food, coffee, water, exercise. Cut out the sugar, get up in the morning and read your Bible. That's what I started doing. Get up in the morning, read my Bible every day, seven days a week. Good for me. Spiritually it's excellent. It's amazing. I did it.

Vitamin D, what a habit. Take vitamin D. If I can't get in the sun and I'm not talking winter in the sun in Canada, good luck. You're not getting vitamin D. You get melatonin, but you're not getting vitamin D. I've been preaching vitamin D for 50 years, 50 years. Take vitamin D. When people were talking about vitamin C, and I don't mean coffee, I mean ascorbic acid. When they were talking about vitamin C, I was talking about vitamin D. I was talking about vitamin C, coffee because it's better than ascorbic acid and vitamin D, the sun. And you read any of my books, any of them, vitamin D, vitamin D, vitamin D. You are a solar panel. Every cell in your body's got an antenna looking for the sun. So that's a great habit and people are scared skinny. My generation, especially my parents' generation, scared skinny of the sun because Johnson & Johnson and the dermatologists of the world, do you know what they did? The sun will kill you. Get out of the sun, get into the sun. Now, don't go burn, but you need it.

And if I could get into every senior home, what do I always say? If I could get in to every senior home in Canada and the United States, you know what I would bring with me? Vitamin D and B12. What a habit. I've only been talking about B12 for 50 years. If you don't eat steak, you got no B12. I guarantee it. If you live mostly on the plant kingdom, there's no B12 in there. It's not even enough for a mouse, so don't fool yourself. Okay? Salad, I heard that for years in my office, Dr. Martin, I love salad and maybe a little chicken. Well, you got no B12 in chicken and salad, and you need B12. You need vitamin D and you need B12. What great habits to get into? Take it every day, eat it every day. You can eat vitamin D too. If you live off the animal kingdom, you got vitamin D in there. It's a fat soluble vitamin in the animal kingdom only. Now you got to eat that every day to get your levels up.

One more point, what other things did I do?Now, if you've known me for any length of time, you know me, I'm an encourager. I really am. I love people and I love to encourage people, okay? I like to pump their tires up. Well, one of the teachings I like to teach, okay? Remember one finger out at you, but three back at me. Be positive. Be thankful. Okay? This is the point. Don't live in the rear view mirror. What do I mean by that? Because a lot of people do and it really has an effect. Huge effect on their psyche, huge effect on their attitude. Huge effect on mental health. You know what it is? They live in the rear view mirror, the four horsemen of your past. Regret, anger. Look, I don't know your situation. I don't know your past, but you can't live there. You can't undo it. So regret, anger, unforgiveness don't live there. Like I said, I'm not minimizing, okay? Bitterness. Those are the four horsemen of your past.

I've seen that raise cortisol through the roof. If you live back there. I'm not saying you don't go back there because look, you're driving the car. You've got mirrors side one right in front of you, and it's not a bad thing. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Look what's behind me here. Okay? You got rear view mirror. You got your side mirrors. Yeah, but compared to your windshield, looking forward, think about this for a minute. Well, that's huge. Yeah, look forward. Don't live back there. I mean, you could look because history's not a bad thing so that you don't repeat the same mistake. Now, some of you have been abused, some of you have been hurt big time, but you can't live there. Physically, it can destroy your health. I've seen it a million times because remember I used to do horror-mones, and one of the horror-mones is cortisol when it's overused, because what it does, it robs your progesterone, ladies. It robs it, and that'll mess you up because it'll slow your thyroid to a role. A lot of people don't realize that the mental aspect, even of thinking.

I've done a lot of motivational speaking over the years, like don't get into stinking thinking and stinking thinking is rear view mirror stuff. Don't live there. You can glance for sure, okay? You can glance, but don't live there. Anyway, those are habits, guys. So I'm very thankful. I try and practice Thanksgiving. I'm thankful. I get up in the morning. Thank you, God. I got another day, okay? I look at my family. Thank you. I look at my health. Thank you. Okay. I'm very grateful. Okay? Little teaching that's in the book, does it take you a half an hour to read it? Probably not. Okay, but that's just a little snippet of what that book is. We're blending health and emotionally and spiritually, and we put it together in bite-size devotionals, coming to a theater near you.

You know what next weekend, I just about pass out, when I think about it, how fast it's coming. It's the American Thanksgiving, and there's a thing called Black Friday, right? Well, we even celebrate that in Canada, Black Friday, and we believe our book, we'll make an announcement, but it looks like the book will be available for sale coming on Black Friday. I hope I didn't get ahead of myself here, but it sounds like the publisher has told us that it'll be ready by Black Friday. Okay? Isn't that good news? And guys, this makes a great gift. Great gift to your friends, to your family, okay? You know what we talk about all the time? Well, it's a good way to put it in their hands and let 'em read it. Okay guys, we love you. Tomorrow's Q and A. Send in your questions, not too late. Send them into info@martinclinic.com. info@martinclinic.com. And we love Q and A, don't we? Don't you? I do. Okay, talk to you soon, love you.

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