May 5, 2018
Podcast from: https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcast/how-to-be-well-with-dr-frank-lipman/
[00:00]Runga
[03:22] Kion Coffee/Gainswave
[06:58] About Dr. Frank Lipman
[09:46] The Anti-Inflammatory Turmeric Oil that Frank Mentions in His Book
[15:25] What is Mandala?
[20:36] Dr. Lipman’s Tools for Doctoring Up Bone Broth and His Favorite Flavors
[24:13] Dr. Lipman’s Favorite Flavor Combinations for Bone Broth
[26:38] The 10 Habits of Successful Vegetable Eaters
[32:25] Penguin Random House Audio Books/Organifi
[34:53] Why Dr. Lipman is a Cacao Connoisseur and Some of His Favorite Brands
[42:19] Dr. Lipman’s Quick Workout Protocol of Hang/Squat/Bear/Crawl/Handstand
[46:03] The Four Ways You Can Heal With Sound
[53:34] Why Dr. Lipman is a Fan of Self-Massage and the Routine He Has in His Book
[1:04:06] End of Podcast
Ben: Hey, it’s Ben Greenfield. Before we go I’ve got a big, big announcement. I just partnered up with my buddy and his name is Joe D’Stefano. He puts on these immersive weekend getaways all over the world and he’s just put one together in the Napa Valley. It’s an amazing way to press the reboot button on your body. And this is a high, high end. We’ve rented out a mansion. We let in 14 people into the mansion for the weekend and we’re all going to feast on these organic mouth-watering meals prepared by world-famous chefs. We’re bringing in some of the best body workers on the face of the planet, kundalini yoga instructors, kettlebell instructors. We’re doing breathwork training along with ice spas. We’re doing raw chocolate-making workshops. My wife is coming and she’s going to do a sourdough bread-making workshop so you finally learn my wife Jessa’s fantastic sourdough world famous bread. One of the guys who I rely upon for Graston therapy and scraping and massage, Scott Dolly, he’s going to be there.
We’re going to be combining amazing nights of sleep and pressing the reboot button on our bodies with amazing workouts during the day. I know I’m using the word amazing a lot ‘cause this thing will be amazing. Only 14 people get in. I’m going to warn you because we’re going to be on one of the most iconic country sides in America and we’ve rented a beautiful mansion in Napa Valley, this is something that you’re going to want to do if you’re big into all out five-star 100% inclusive experiences. So don’t even think about this unless you’re one of those people who just like to go all out and really treat yourself. It’s October 11th through the 14th. That’s a Thursday through a Sunday. I’m going to be there. My wife’s going to be there. My buddy Joe and his wife are going to be there. My buddy Scott and his wife are going to be there. It would actually prefer couples but there’s single too. There might be a few other single people there. I’m just saying and we’re in a mansion. Anyways, it’s called Runga. Runga at a private mansion in Napa Valley. To get in now, go to bengreenfieldfitness.com/runga18. That’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/runga18. There’s a password there the password is Ben. Alright, bengreenfieldfitness.com/runga18 and use the password Ben to get in. This thing’s probably going to fill-up. This is the first time I’ve announced it on the podcast. It’s probably going to fill up in about 24 hours or so. So I’m just saying you better look at your schedule and talk to your people and figure this out soon. Just saying.
[Sipping] Oh, Do you hear that? That was the sound of the brand new Kion coffee. This is Ben Greenfield and yes, I’m sippy sipping on some coffee right now. Some of the purest most antioxidant rich coffee that you’ll ever experience. Today’s podcast isn’t about coffee. It’s about ways to doctor a bone broth. 10 Habits of Successful Vegetable Eaters, 30-second office workouts and a whole bunch more. I’ve a friend and his name is Dr. Frank Lipman. He is a very good medical practitioner in New York City. I met this cat the last time I was there speaking. He’s a wealth of knowledge. He just wrote a book, so I figure I should dish out him to you.
Back to the coffee though, before we jump in with Dr. Frank Lipman. This coffee is not only the most antioxidant rich coffee that you’ll ever get your hands on, meaning it actually does what coffee is supposed to do for you. We start with the healthiest possible green beans. We actually test them for the highest antioxidant levels. It’s all certified organic which less than 3% of the coffee on the planet is. We rigidly test for toxins. We even select the beans that have a perfect symmetry to them. Like any bean that’s chipped enough to risk an uneven roast, we toss aside. Never contains mold. It’s grown sustainably. It’s hand-picked. It’s hand-selected. And we use this very cool scientific roasting protocol that lowers all the carcinogens and concentrates the antioxidants. I don’t need to go and on. You’ve just got to try this stuff. You’ve never actually experienced coffee until you’ve had this coffee. I’m telling you. That’s actually what I’m sipping on right now and I actually sprinkled some [0:04:19.1] ______ on top of it just to get my testosterone up. I did that, trying that out. Get it at getkion.com/coffee. Kion is my company K-I-O-N, getkion.com/coffee and you get a big fat discount at that URL.
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In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show:
“I became pre-diabetic many years ago because I was eating tons of fruits and vegetables and tons of grains. I thought that was the healthy way to eat, and I believed in the low fat nonsense. Music’s part of the human condition and it’s as ancient and primal as we are, in South Africa for instance, growing up in African cultures there was different music for funerals and music for weddings. Music is always an integral part of most cultures.”
Ben: Hey, folks it’s Ben Greenfield here and it was a few months ago that I was in New York City. I was speaking at my friend and chef David Bouley’s fantastic restaurant over there. If you’ve never eaten at his places in New York City you’re missing out on an important part of life.
Anyways though, at one point I went on a two-mile run through the city with my wife to go visit the offices of this person that David told me I had to go and visit. This guy is an author I had come across his books before. I’ve never met him. I’ve never been to his clinic. And his name is Dr. Frank Lipman. Frank Lipman L-I-P-M-A-N. He has this wellness center in New York City called Eleven Eleven Wellness Center which is over in kind of the flat iron section of New York City for those of you who are familiar with the area. And he sat down with my wife and I and just intrigued us with all of his amazing ideas when it comes to health and wellness and some of the unique things that he does especially regarding food and movement and even like sound healing and self-massage and some of the things that we’ll delve into on the show today. So his new book is wonderful. He gave me a copy. I read it. A bunch of pages are folded over, so I had to get him on the show. The book is called “How to be Well: The 6 Keys to a Happy and Healthy Life”. How to be Well. And the show notes for everything that Dr. Lipman and I talk about can be found over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/lipman that’s bengreenfieldfitness.com/l-i-p-m-a-n. Dr. Lipman, can I call you Frank or would you prefer for me to just continue to call you Dr. Lipman?
Frank: Frank. Frank is preferable.
Ben: Far less awkward. Alright. Cool. Well, like I mentioned our mutual friend Chef David Bouley is a big fan of you. When did you guys meet?
Frank: Well, the feelings are mutual. I’m a big fan of his too. I mean, obviously I always knew about David’s restaurants and had eaten there but a couple of years ago he invited me to talk at one of his, he has his gigs where he asked. You have spoken there a few times too…
Ben: Yes he’s restaurants where he serves you like a five-star eight-course meal and then folks arrive, talk to people while they’re eating.
Frank: Exactly. So that’s where I met him and we fell in love with each other. So you know, philosophically we’re on the same page. He’s an intriguing type of guy [laughs] so we’ve just stayed friendly.
Ben: Yeah, and he actually in his kitchen and he has this amazing turmeric oil that’s anti-inflammatory turmeric oil that he uses and I think you were responsible for creating that recipe. Weren’t you?
Frank: No. I’m always interested in finding ways to help people get healthy. So over the years, I’ve been a physician for almost 40 years and it was very early on that I realized that Western meds wasn’t really helping a lot of the common problems of the day and that was even in the 80’s, people who were tired and have headaches and backpain and can’t poop and can’t sleep, and Western meds is wonderful for crisis care and I probably don’t have to go into and your audience obviously knows this stuff. So for all these years I’ve been searching for different ways to help my patients and over the years as you refine it and refine it I keep on looking for ways to get healthy ingredients into them to make eating fun, to get ways of getting spices ingredients that are good for someone’s health into people and David has a way of creating different oils with herbs that I find quite intriguing and actually very helpful. So I didn’t create, he creates the recipe…
Ben: Okay, so this was his recipe and you’re just a big fan of it. You talked about it in your book.
Frank: Yeah, so in my book I have a lot of these experts. He’s my expert on spices. I have someone who’s an expert on bone broth, so I use these people and I try to incorporate their wisdom and distil it and put it out there. So…
Ben: Okay, so tell me about this turmeric oil recipe. Walk me through this. If people want to make this.
Frank: Okay, so I was blown away by how he uses oils in his restaurants. He’ll take whatever oil it is. He uses often a mixture of olive oil and avocado oil and sometimes grapeseed oil which is the one he uses with turmeric. And then he mixes in some herbs and creates a sort of spices – the spicy oil, and then he dribbles it over food so for the turmeric oil, and I have the recipe in the book. He uses one cup of ground turmeric to three tablespoons of oil. His recipe is a blend of equal parts of avocado oil, grapeseed oil and extra virgin olive oil. I have made it a little bit easy as well. I have given people an option and personally when I use it at home, I just simply blend one part of ground turmeric with one part of avocado oil and one part of extra virgin olive oil. So I make that easier but either way you can do it you just fill a glass bottle or a jar with the oil and the turmeric or the oils and the turmeric and then you cover it and let it sit, and you keep it away from light and two weeks later you have this wonderful spice-infused oil and it’s fantastic for dribbling over cauliflower florets before you roast them or I’d drizzle it over some wild salmon before we cook it or any other veggies you want to roast. Sometimes I put it into soup. It’s just a wonderful way of getting these good fats into you and these spices so he is just a master of infusing oils with these herbs and he often uses ginger and garlic or vanilla.
Ben: It’s a very cool way to make the turmeric lipids or fats soluble. Turmeric, it is fat soluble already but the body absorbs it better when you blend it with lipids.
Frank: Yep, and then you can just ground up with a black pepper on so it absorbs even better but yes, because turmeric needs fat to be absorbed properly. Yeah, he’s one of these crazy food as art. I think he’s an artistic genius using food as his medium.
Ben: Yes, the thing I recently learned about turmeric is it’s a pretty potent antioxidant at the gut level. Meaning, it can help with leaky gut and inflamed guts but it actually doesn’t really do a great job getting past the gut until you actually do something like blend it with lipids. That’s where it would for example, act on let’s say the blood brain barrier or more systemically. So this is a great little trick to get a full body anti-inflammatory, joint inflammation or anti-inflammation and muscle anti-inflammation effect from the turmeric. You’ve got the full recipe in there but it’s very similar you know, what I do is I take turmeric and I add it to Pau d’Arco tea because the Pau d’Arco tea has a lot of what are called beta-lapachones in them which are really fantastic for mitochondrial health and I blend that with a little bit of coconut oil or sunflower lecithin or krill oil and I kind of use that as a base for smoothies or sometimes I just drink a cup of it, and it’s a fantastic way to get my turmeric in a very similar way as this David Bouley anti-inflammatory turmeric oil that’s in your book. So I love all the little recipes that you have in here and I want to take a dive into a few more of them but first I wanted to ask you about the over-arching theme of the book and that would be this idea of what you call a Mandala. Can you explain what a Mandala is and the relevance to these six keys?
Frank: Sure. So for many years when I started out as a traditional physician and when I started learning Chinese meds in the mid-80’s, for many, many years I was trying to understand what the Chinese were talking about from a Western perspective. So what is chi? What are meridians? The meridians from a Western perspective they are these facial planes. What is chi? Are mitocochondria, chis? For many, many years I was struggling to understand what the Chinese were talking about in their language and what it meant from a Western physiological perspective, anatomical, pathological, et cetera.
So I was brought up as a Western doctor, so for this book after years and years of doing it I said to myself, why not take all the knowledge I’ve learned from a Western perspective and put it into this concept of a Mandala because a Mandala is used as a tool for establishing a sacred practice especially in Eastern traditions. They deploy their practices of meditation as a focal point of contemplation to help you gain awareness of yourself from the physical aspects to the spiritual aspects. So for this book, I took a Mandala and I’ve created what I call a good medicine Mandala. It’s sort of a new med for a new era of medicine. Around this organizing structure of a Mandala and this Mandala, I’ve been influenced by it as I said is used in so many Western traditions around the world and almost always a circle which represents wholeness.
Ben: Yes.
Frank: And what I did is I put you the patient, the reader in the middle because they have this organizing principle of a Mandala and this collection of these simple actions and practices that can improve you and maintain your wellness but ultimately it’s about learning about yourself. So you are at the center and you’re surrounded by these six rings and these six rings are what I call my six pillars of health. How to eat, how to sleep, how to move, how to protect yourself from all the chemicals and toxins around you, how to unwind or relax, and how to connect with oneself with your community and with the earth at large. So it was you in the middle and these six surrounding circles which are six pillars, so there the Mandala is this organizing structure.
Ben: Yeah. I’m a little bit familiar with the Mandala, I guess based on my conversations I’ve had with Paul Chek. Paul paints Mandala as in he and I actually made a painting together and I have it hanging here next to me in my office. It’s a painting of a tree in a circular Mandala form and we did it together as part of a meditation and so he paints Mandala for meditation. His whole home is full of Mandalas.
Frank: Well, that’s interesting. So is my office and part of my home. But that’s interesting ‘cause Paul Chek was one of those people that opened my eyes to the whole musculoskeletal aspect of health because in Western medicine you unlearn about the fascia and the soft tissue. In Chinese medicine, you don’t learn about that. I mean, I’ve got some of that in my yoga, so to understand, but Paul Chek was actually really instrumental in helping me understand the importance of functional movement and so that’s interesting that you say that he’s got his Mandalas because he was one of my influences in that sort of over-arching idea of health that I have which sort of brings in all these other aspects.
Ben: You guys would get along quite well. I’m sure. I don’t know how often he gets to New York City maybe I’ll…
Frank: Just send him my ‘hi’. He was..
Ben: Maybe I’ll connect you guys after the show.
Frank: I remember that book of his what is it called? I mean that soft brown covered book, it’s just fantastic.
Ben: “How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy.” Yeah, How to Eat, Move and Be Healthy. Yeah, I’ll link to that one in the show notes along with your book.
I want to get into some of the specifics in your book that I found absolutely fascinating. Bone broth. You’re a fan of bone broth and you have all these cool ways to doctor up bone broth. Specifically, you’ve got three kinds of like tools that you consider to be essential tools that you keep around for doctoring up bone broth and then some really cool flavor combinations. A lot of people just get into bone broth and they suck down their cup of bone broth and plug their nose and throw it back or taste the bone broth and frankly, just bone broth in a cup doesn’t really turn me on. It tastes like liquid cardboard. What do you do with bone broth? What are your tools for doctoring up bone broth and some of your favorite flavors?
Frank: So once again this is an area like I use David for the spices. I went to my favorite bone broth maker Marco Canora who started his place called Brodo Broths in New York City and to me bone broth was chicken soup. Whether or not that’s bone broth, I mean, yeah, I knew it was good for you but I never realized how tasty it could be until he started developing all these delicious flavors. So he became my expert and turned me into so many different ways of making bone broth but he talks about the three important tools you need to doctor your bone broth. They’re very simple. First one is a mortar and a pestle because you need to pound those herbs and those roots into a paste and then you just place the paste at the bottom of your cup and you pour your hot broth over. So you get this magical flavor. It’s not just that standard bone broth. So you get flavor from the taste of whatever you’re putting in.
Ben: Okay, so basically take the mortar and pestle and then the herbs that you want. I know you’ve got some recipes we’ll get into here in a second and all you’re doing is just using a mortar and pestle grinding up all the herbs and then putting those into a cup and pouring the hot bone broth overtop of it.
Frank: Exactly, but here’s like the fun. You’re going to enjoy this part. Now the tool that he says is essential is a battery-operated milk frother. And that’s because it’s usually as do I adding fats into the broth like [0:22:12.6] ______ ghee or butter or MCT oil, coconut oil even bone marrow and he often also blends spices into the fat before he puts it into the bone broth and then the frother just sort of spices it up or mixes it all up. So you mix in this fat and these spices into so it’s more fatty and it has more good fats in, has its spices and it just mixes it in. So that’s a great tool to have. In other words, if you want to take your bone broth to the next level you need a mortar and a pestle. You need this milk frother and then you need some type of grate. He recommends a Microplane…
Ben: A grate?
Frank: Yes. Something to grate fresh ginger or turmeric or garlic or just get creative with spices, I mean, he uses radish and horseradish. He gave me a couple of different flavors. He recommended that I put in the books. You know, once again it’s like going to these really good chefs or the Paul Cheks of movement and going to these people and saying, what the hell do you do to make it easy for your clients, to make it tasty for your clients because I’m just a mere doctor, what do I know about this stuff? So I went to people who really know their stuff because I can know the theory of yes, this is good for you but if we can make it tasty and simple for people then people are going to gravitate towards us.
Ben: Okay, so you’ve got some recipes and flavor combos in here that I find just fascinating ‘cause a lot of people don’t think about this stuff when it comes to bone broth. Like for example, you’ve got adding coconut milk and ginger to bone broth or…
Frank: Favorite.
Ben: Adding Bragg liquid aminos and then whisking that with an egg yolk in the bone broth. You’ve got about 20 different recipes in the book. Which one would you say would be the top bone broth flavor combo or the top couple that you really like that you think people should tap into right away?
Frank: Well, a really easy one is just coconut milk and ginger, but you need to use chicken for that. That doesn’t work as well with beef. But just a garlic puree and some thyme. My favorite one because it’s got so many different spices is coconut milk with a pinch of ground turmeric and some ground ginger and smashed garlic and pepper and salt. That is absolutely delicious but once again when you’re using coconut milk it’s better to use chicken broth than beef broth. But for beef just using ginger and some fresh or some ground turmeric also works well and also once again has some anti-inflammatory effects and the turmeric and the fats in the bone broth has, all these things work well together.
Ben: I love it. I love it. Okay.
Frank: Another really good one if you like that Middle Eastern flavor is that Middle Eastern spice that ras-el-hanout spice. He used this a lot to put some butter and some cilantro and some lime juice so you get that. I love Middle Eastern flavors and food so you get that Middle Eastern sort of flavor.
Ben: Yeah, I have a bunch of boxes. My wife makes bone broth sometimes, but I have these boxes of organic Kettle & Fire bone broth. It’s a perfect size and one of the things that I do with them. This is not something you have in your book but maybe you’d like to know about this is I take it out when I get up in the morning and by the time I have breakfast a few hours later, I take it out of the freezer so it’s like of a slushy consistency and then I dump that into a blender and I blend it up with like some cinnamon and some stevia and little bit of like cacao powder. Sometimes a little bit of protein powder and the blending I blend for a couple of minutes and then I top that with cacao nibs and coconut flakes and it’s almost like Wendy’s Frostee that I have in the morning for breakfast so I almost have like dessert for breakfast and I use frozen bone broth as the base.
Frank: Yeah, that’s fantastic. I love that.
Ben: Yeah, now obviously there’s a lot of other things we could talk about when it comes to nutrition and something I find fascinating in was the 10 Habits of Successful Vegetable Eaters. The 10 Habits of Successful Vegetable Eaters. I hadn’t seen a lot of these stuff written about before. Can you delve into the habit of successful vegetables eaters?
Frank: Yes, so whatever your diet whether you’re vegan or you’re paleo or Mediterranean, whatever it is I think veggies especially the green leafies and cruciferous vegetables for most people, obviously not everyone, should always take up you know, I say mostly your plate should be, your main course or your main plate should be the vegetable plate and your side plate should be your fat and your protein. I’m a big believer in eating a lot of veggies and how do you get people or how do you make it easy for people to get those veggies in to themselves. These are the tips that are fun, really helpful like for instance, just make a layer of green mixed vegetables the foundation of every plate and then on top of that, an easy go to meal for my wife is my ship basically but she does this foundation of veggies and put some eggs on top.
So something like that just always make your veggies your foundation and then put something on top. I think when you have something that’s ready to eat, it’s always easiest when you go shopping just spend a little bit of time afterwards and cut and prep your veggies so you don’t have to spend time when you want to eat and they’re basically ready in a bag for you. I think that’s another easy way. I think once a week maybe roasting and prepping veggies for the week. I think in New York I don’t know when you are in the middle of nowhere you probably have more time. Everyone’s in such a rush here. These are the tips to try and make it easy for people it’s because I’m always getting that comment, well, I just don’t have time to cook but if you get things prepared, it’s easier.
You’re making soup from vegetables and then adding broth for instance is something easy. You can do replacing pasta with spirals. You know, like zoodles or whatever. You can roast a spaghetti squash and scoop out the springs. Even kelp noodles you can have. So there’s so many things you can do and like here’s one that we use all the time there. Everyone is going to use which is wonderful is using cauliflower. Yeah, you’re making cauliflower rice or cauliflower mash so you get that satisfaction for the desire for starchy food but it doesn’t affect your blood sugar. So I mean, cauliflower has become one of my favorite vegetables because basically you use it as rice and potato now. Who needs rice or potatoes?
Ben: Yeah, one of the things that you talk about a couple of things that you talked about I personally do. My wife makes amazing diners and sometimes amazing lunches as well and I take anything she makes. From her quiches to her fish to even steak and I always serve it over a big bed of either wild plants or mixed vegetable or some form of vegetable. You know, you say the bed is the first thing. If we have pizza for example, I put the pizza on top of the salad and I eat the salad through the pizza with a fork and knife. Exactly as the way that you talk about in the book. And other few things that you mentioned was roasting. That’s another thing I’m a big fan of is it’s so easy. You chop up a bunch of carrots, cauliflower. I even roasted cucumber before and you just drench it in olive oil and on sea salt and then you put it in the oven and walk away.
Frank: Yeah, this is the way of David’s spice and oil tops really help because you just take that turmeric oil and you like drizzle over your vegetables and roast them. It’s fantastic. Yeah.
Ben: And you prevent a lot of the oxidation. You see a lot of lipid oxidation especially with meats but you want some vegetables, so yeah, using the turmeric as the oil works really well for that. So yeah, I like a lot of the tips that you have here. You even have certain folks that you like to follow in terms of vegan or vegetable or plant-based oriented feeds. Now are you a plant-based yourself or do you eat meat?
Frank: Yeah, I eat meat. I love meat. I’m basically paleo. I became pre-diabetic many years ago because I was eating tons of fruits and vegetables and tons of grains. I thought that was a healthy way to eat. You know, I believed in this low-fat nonsense until one year I took my blood. I didn’t even realize I wasn’t feeling that great. I was a little bit puffy and but I never realized it was anything [0:31:40.9] ______ ‘cause I thought I was basically eating a pescetarian proper diet, tons of fruits and I was pre-diabetic so I changed my diet around completely and now I hardly eat any grains. I eat a very low carb/fat diet. When I do eat meat, it’s grass-fed and grass-finished or organic chicken soup. The source of my animal protein is important but absolutely I eat animal protein and yeah, I have some fruits now and then but I’m fine now but I’m not obsessive about it but for the most part I eat low carb paleo whatever you want to call it.
[Music Plays]
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[Music Plays]
Ben: I was pleased to see that you have a whole bunch of different tips on becoming a cacao connoisseur. Tell me about how it is that you came about becoming such a fan of cacao? What it is you like about it and some of your favorite brands that would be considered Dr. Lipman-approved when it comes to chocolate?
Frank: Yeah, I mean I’ve always loved chocolate. Little did I realize in the old days that chocolate is basically sugar. So chocolate sort of when I started getting off sugar that chocolate became my go-to dessert and then with time it just got darker and darker and darker and as your taste buds changes you start appreciating different chocolate and different cacao, and also realizing it’s not so bad for you either. It’s not the sugar that’s the problem. Not the cacao so I don’t know if I’m a connoisseur and to me I think you know, I try to find any brand, I always recommend even 70% that’s got a lot of sugar, so we’re always recommending at least 80%-85% dark chocolate. I just think people associate chocolate as comfort food and when I do a lot of cleanses I’ll get people off their sugar I mean, that’s probably one of the first things I’ll do. So having people know that they can have chocolates can be quite comforting for people and making people realize that, has your taste buds change, you’ll start appreciating different chocolates and it won’t have to be just sugar it’ll be more cacao so you know, I’m definitely not a connoisseur. We just mentioned some brands that myself and my write liked particularly. So that’s where it came from. It’s more about I’ve got into that space because it was a healthy dessert.
Ben: Well, it’s also a fermented food and a lot of people don’t realize. Now do you know how many probiotics you’d actually get from chocolate it being a fermented food?
Frank: I don’t know I mean, the way I look at all of this stuff, I stopped counting numbers or breaking things down into this small parts years ago because I just had a problem with the whole reductionist part of Western medicine and because I think the way chocolate, the way turmeric, the way all these things work, they work in the context. Let’s just take in Chinese meds, some herbal formulas are usually a mixture of different herbs. They don’t take the active ingredient and then usually the way they describe it and I think it’s true, these plants are made by gardener or the reason for them having these aspects of the plant because they often mitigate some side effects of the active ingredient for instance. I don’t look at it that way to be quite honest, I just see it as possibly good for the microbiome being this ecosystem in your gut. So I don’t really see it that way to be quite honest. The way chocolate comes into my way of thinking is really as sort of a healthier dessert. [laughs]
Ben: Yeah, the 90%-100% chocolate, I’ll have that as a full meal sometimes I’ll mix it with some macadamia nuts or some spirulina and chlorella you know, I’ll do that on an airplane, for example. Macadamia nuts, spirulina bits and then a handful of super dark chocolate and it’s pretty amazing and yeah, you do get some amounts of gut bacteria and as you delved into in the book. Theobromine, antioxidants, a lot of other benefits. You have some brands in there I hadn’t heard of like madecasse, raaka, wei what’s the kakawa one? You talked about drinking elixirs and kakawa?
Frank: The kakawa and the madecasse actually came from my writer ‘cause she’s obsessed with this as well. They are these elixirs made with chocolates and this kakawachocolates.com, so this is a whole Californian thing, I think. She was kept from California and really into health and we were trying to once again make it fun for people. So we put in these brands that are particularly interesting and different. For instance, wei. Wei chocolate is a very interesting brand unfortunately, some of the chocolates a little bit, isn’t [0:39:42.9] ______, it’s not 80% but some of it are. They put herbs and mainly herbs in this and they’ll chop it with some herbs to chill you out. All different, also not flour-based they put… it’s an interesting brand because they’re combining some therapeutic effects of herbs with the chocolate which I like.
Ben: And they make elixirs too, very interesting. It’s called kakawa K-A-K-A-W-A. I’ll put a link in the show notes. I’m such a sucker for good chocolates. Do you ever get to Sedona, Arizona?
Frank: I haven’t been for a while…
Ben: Yeah, they have a restaurant there called Chocolate Tree. It’s just amazing and it’s all based off of these fine chocolate elixirs and chocolate infused meals and anybody who travels to that or the world that I highly recommend that you check that place out.
Frank: And here’s another tip when you come to New York if you go to Marco Canora, the Brodo, the bone broth guys. You go to his restaurant called Hearth on the Lower East Side. Instead of a cheese board at the end of the meal he brings out a chocolate board…
Ben: Wait. How are you spelling that?
Frank: H-E-A-R-T-H, hearth.
Ben: Hearth.
Frank: It’s a restaurant on the Lower East Side. Marco Canora is the chef. He did the bone broth in my book. So instead of this cheese board he brings out this chocolate board and you can have a tasting of like five to ten. He has a chocolate team that he works with. He has his special chocolates from all over the world. From 70% to 100%.
Ben: Oh, wow.
Frank: That’s really interesting to have. [laughs]
Ben: Well, over there in New York you also have Hu restaurant, H-U. Not only is that a fantastic restaurant but they also do a paleo vegan chocolate that’s amazing. It’s like cashew butter flavored. They have a hazelnut butter. They have one with almond butter and puffed quinoa. H-U. They even have a new one I think it’s crunchy banana chocolate. And if anybody wants to buy their way into my heart an Hu chocolate gift card will do so. You can bribe me easily with chocolate. But I don’t know how much you’ve had their chocolates, Frank but they’re amazing chocolates.
Frank: I like their chocolates. It’s just unfortunate a lot of it’s got too much sugar. It’s not dark enough for me but it is delicious. I agree.
Ben: Okay. Got it. Okay, so we’ve got chocolate in the book and you take a pretty good dive into that. And then I also like some of the workouts that you have. For example, one thing and this is something I tried yesterday as I was looking over some of the things I wanted to talk to you about in today’s podcast, you have a section on there about getting strong but you specifically have a very simple thing you can do. You say instead of a mid-morning coffee break and I did this yesterday, it actually works pretty well. Can you go through kind of your mid-morning coffee break workout sequence kind of this mini-workout that you detail in the book?
Frank: Sure. So I’m working out and exercise is definitely not a strength of mine so I’ve got this wonderful guy sort of like a Paul Chek. I actually met him through my writer. A really, really interesting character who really has a good understanding of the body…
Ben: Wait who? Your editor does?
Frank: No. My writer.
Ben: Oh, your writer. Okay.
Frank: She hooked me up with this guy Adam Ticknor who is a very interesting guy. A little bit like Paul Chek type of thing. A really great understanding of the body. He had been a yoga teacher and a marine I mean, he’s just a fascinating guy. So I met with him and spent time with him and I realized that this would be a really great guy to help me with the exercise section because his whole thing is to make it easy for people and too many people go to the gym and do certain things and they get injured too easily because of the mechanics. So his whole thing is to start out and get strong, get your movement patterns correct and turn on your trunk muscles and that in time will prepare your shoulders and hips and the rest of the connective tissue. So he has this great routine that we put in the book which is four things you can do for 30 seconds. It’s basically a two-minute routine. You hang for thirty seconds. If you’ve got to pull up that’s wonderful. If you don’t, there’s a way to do it on your desk in your office. So you’ll hang for 30-seconds and you’ll squat for 30-seconds and obviously the mechanics of how you do it is important. And a back roll for 30-seconds and then a handstand against the wall for 30-seconds.
So it’s just so easy to do and you know, the way he turned me on to do it is first in a two-minute set of time, so the first thing you do as you get out of your bed you jerk. Then you brush your teeth and then do it again before you sort of get dressed and go to work. Mid-morning instead of a coffee break you do this. He suggests you do this four, five, six times a day. Just squeeze these two-minute little things you can do any way into your day. I started doing it and I’m really not an exercise person and I found it very easy and very, very helpful. And then he helped me with going to the next step what you can add on to the next step but he was very clear as I’m sure Paul Chek and you would be. That too many people go to the gym and start doing deadlifts which I think is a good exercise but you need to be strong enough to do it first or using the kettlebells, so we developed a routine for people like me idiots or old folks like me who really aren’t strong enough to just go the gym and start doing a lot of things that I would have liked to have done said to bold it up slowly…
Ben: It’s very simple too, you mentioned you could even hang from your desk. I mean, you can hang from underneath your desk, yeah.
Frank: So interesting, I think part of this comes from his yoga training in the [0:46:03.2] ______. Been doing handstands for years in yoga. So we sort of incorporated that because each exercise does something completely different to the body but ultimately it is going to strengthen your trunk muscles and then get you strong and so there’s less chance of you injuring yourself going forward.
Ben: Yeah, so it’s hang for 30-seconds. And then squat for 30-sec0nds like a squat hold. Bear crawl for 30-seconds. Handstand against the wall which I recently learned. One of my friends Joe D’Stefano who’s been in the podcast before. He’s a Spartan coach coordinator and organizes this wonderful retreat called Runga every year. Really cool guy. He described to me how holding a handstand position against the wall is actually a form of diaphragmatic training because your diaphragm is having to breathe against gravity. So it’s a really great way to kind of learn how to breathe properly.
Frank: And everything’s upside down. I think inverted poses I’ve always loved. In yoga I’ve always found them really calming and helpful and I love the idea. If you say the diaphragm drops just when you’re inverted so I think your organs sort of shifts a little bit. I love inverted poses so we included there as part of this overall 30-seconds of hanging, 30-seconds squatting, 30-seconds of bear crawling, and 30-seconds of inversions. So you know, handstands sort of is part of just getting strong. And if you can’t do that there are other ways you can do it when you walk away from the wall and walk your legs up the wall. So that’s the starting exercise. You can go on from there but for most folks starting out, I think that’s a good place.
Ben: Awesome. So the other thing you have on there of course, is a loaded walk as a finisher. So again, it’s all kind of detailed on the book. You have all sorts of things in here. So of course, we’re bouncing around. Sound healing is something that you get into. Sound healing. Tell me about sound healing. You have some methods to heal with sound. You have four different ways to heal with sound. And a few of them I wasn’t familiar with like this guy named Jonathan Goldman or also the idea of a sound bath? Can you fill me in on these forms of healing with sound?
Frank: Right. So I’ve been obsessed with sound for many, many years. I think it really helped me growing up. I used music to get in touch with my emotions. But I mean, whether you know it or not we’re all using music to energize and to motivate or to comfort and soothe, and music’s part of the human condition and it’s as ancient and primal as we are. In South Africa for instance, growing up in African culture there was different music for funerals and music for weddings. Music is always an integral part of most cultures. And the right type of music or sound can slow down your brain activity, it can increase your endorphins, it can regulate your stress hormones. It can help with pain. It can boost your immune system. So to me sound is one of those ordinary actions that can have healing benefits or what I say the ordinary actions can have extraordinary effects on our cell. It’s how you use that sound.
So I have some ways in the book to use sound. But I’ll give you some simple ways I can’t remember exactly what I put in the book but if you want to chill, out you can put on music that beats a few beats in your heartbeat. So your heartbeat’s at around, let’s say 60-70 beats per minute. If you put on some music like Bob Marley or mellow reggae music, your heart or your rhythms entrained to this external rhythm and you slow it down. So if you want to chill out just put on Bob Marley. But you’re talking about Jonathan Goldman. What I use in my practice when how I actually got into meditation was using these CDs or there were tapes at that time that worked with binaural beats or frequencies, grand frequencies. So you sit down or you lie down and you put on this music. It’s best to use headphones but you can sit between speakers. You put this music on and usually you will put a beat of let’s say a frequency of 20 in your left ear and it’s a 12 in your right ear and your brain entrains at the difference so it sort of meditates you. So what I do in the book is I recommend people spend or get some of these CDs that work with your brainwaves and you know, 15-20 minutes can have a lot of beneficial effects especially for people who have a hard time meditating. These CDs and this sound healing, whatever you want to call it, was my entry point into meditation. But you can also listen to nature sounds. Everyone knows when they go to the beach they tend to slow down. When they’re walking in traffic they tend to speed up. So you can use the ocean or bird songs, I mean, things like that to relax.
Ben: Yeah. There are by the way, two people you should know about. One is Michael Tyrrell. I did a couple of podcasts with him and he produces soundtracks in CDs that he composes to specifically target different emotions of peace and love and joy based on the frequencies. They’re tuned to frequencies like 444 hertz or 528 hertz. These are all frequencies that elicit positive human emotions and they’re incredibly relaxing. I’ll put them on when I get a massage for example, just have my massage therapist put a table between two giant speakers or bring her the CDs and those are amazing. And then also speaking of Sedona, Arizona there’s this guy named Porangui who lives in Sedona and he is the most amazing in my opinion, sound healer in the world. You lay on the special sound healing massage table that he has and he blasts your body with didgeridoo and gong and drum and it’s an amazing sound healing experience. I hadn’t heard of this Jonathan Goldman guy you recommend. I’ll hunt down his, what do you call it frequencies, is what you call his tracks?
Frank: You can just go in Amazon and go to Jonathan Goldman’s. He’s got about 20 or 30.
Ben: Oh, wow.
Frank: Frequencies is like a starter one because it gives you an idea of some of the other like 7 or 8 different CDs. But they’re all, you know, they use drums and Buddhist chants and all these different types of sounds. They take you to another place. It’s very interesting.
Ben: Very cool. Very cool. I like how you weave all of these together into the book to where you put it altogether in this Mandala. You’re kind of going to be firing on all cylinders from a health standpoint.
Frank: Yeah, so the important point is to make people realize it’s not that hard I mean, if you enjoy music let’s try and start with using music to make you feel better. Once you start feeling better it’s a ripple effect. So then you may start sleeping better. You may want to go out and exercise. Once this is all happening then you may say, what, time to give up sugar. So that’s been my experience. One little change from a bad habit into a healthy habit this ripple effect starts happening.
Ben: Now you are a fan of self-massage. Which of course we have to be careful that we define some people’s idea of a self-massage is quite a bit different than others. But walk me through this idea of self-massage and how you do it? This whole method that you talked about in the book that I hadn’t seen before.
Frank: Right. So most people myself included when I use self-massage I’m using a foam roller or tennis balls to get into the knots and release the fascia. But with self-massage it’s the technique that I learned from ayurvedic medicine and it’s called abhyanga. Some people have probably had it and didn’t realize they can do it themselves. Sometimes when you go to an ayurvedic spa they use a sesame oil, warm sesame oil and then massage it onto your body. I’m all about trying to empower people to do things for themselves. So a lot of people go and get these massages but if you can do it yourself it’s an act of self-care, it’s not expensive, it’s deeply relaxing. So that’s why we put it in the book. So I just think getting people to get in touch with their bodies spend enough because this type of massage takes a good five, ten, fifteen minutes.
What we recommend is which is also more from the ayurvedic tradition if you want warming, if it’s fall or winter, you use that warm sesame oil. If you want to cool down a bit you can use coconut oil but you know, the techniques in the book how you use it, I think the scalp and the face and soles of the feet are the two most important areas. But the abdomen can be an important area and then your arms or you could do a whole body massage and the techniques on how to do it in the book but the idea of spending time with yourself, nourishing yourself can have a lot of beneficial effects. You know, once again my whole premise is to learn about yourself. To take charge of yourself. To be the author of your own health story. And that’s not the way we get taught or the way we see it in the West. We have these authority figures that we listen to. The whole gist of the book is how do you teach someone to become self-confident, to learn about themselves and to start using many of the tools and the techniques in the book to optimize their health.
Ben: Now if somebody were to be in New York City and were to come say visit you at Eleven Eleven, your wellness center there, are there anymore I guess like unique medical protocols that you oversee that you as a physician would administer to someone that you think are things that folks should know about or that you would consider to be kind of outside-the-box-thinking when it comes to medicine?
Frank: Yeah, so the whole philosophy here is individualizing things. So not everyone gets treated the same we take a good history, I take a good history, I see what’s going on where people’s needs are. Where they’re at because some people they’re not ready to make significant changes. You know, part of the process is to read that person and then decide where you’re going to get the most bang for your buck because some people want to just get started and like stop eating sugar and stop feeling good, lose weight quickly. Other people they’re not going to do that. So you’ve got to find out and sort out where people are at and come up with a program accordingly. So I’m lucky that I have a team here that helps me. I have a team of health coaches that will help, guide and support people with the dive to changes we make whether it’s telling them to incorporate more fats. Most of the time we’re going to tell them to cut out sugar, cut back on a lot of the carbs. Not everyone obviously but a lot of people we support them in terms of where they can get these things, what they should order when they go eat but also, I do intravenous vitamins if necessary.
You know, now it’s become this big thing you go to the 711 and you can get an IV drip for a hangover or whatever. We don’t do that here. We do very targeted intravenous nutrition therapy if it’s needed. Ultimately, we try and teach people to take care of themselves. And I also have some other acupunctures and some body workers who do a chiropractor. People who do active release technique or targeted muscle therapy so we’re often combining acupuncture and targeted muscle release. And the two women who work with me, they are also are trainers so they help people with mechanics of how they work and then I work with outside meditation teachers, physical therapists so just from my influence I think teaching people proper mechanics is really important so they don’t go out and hurt themselves or they don’t release their tight hips when they go out and run they won’t get a sore back or a sore knee whatever. So we’re all about improving function on all levels.
In functional medicine we focus on digestion and we really tend to forget about the soft tissue but improving functioning of the soft tissue is definitely one of the things we do here in this office and also trying to meet people where they’re at and if they’re not sitting properly really making that an important aspect of their healing or if they’re not dealing with the stresses or if they’re on their cellphones too long or whatever it is, so we try and focus in what the issues are that people have and tailor a treatment strategy using all these different modalities to that person’s needs.
Ben: I like it. And so that one’s called Eleven Eleven Wellness Center. And for you when you kind of first started to do all of these apparently, you spent a lot of your time training in South Africa working at clinics in the bush. Did you bring back any of the modalities that you learned from that into your own clinic?
Frank: No not really, I mean, I think when I was exposed to that that was in the early 80’s in South Africa. When I actually 80, 81, 82 that was my exposure to traditional African healing, the Sangomas and I didn’t understand what they were doing. I didn’t believe. I didn’t really get it. All I realized was there’s got to be something to this because they were helping some of the patients and we couldn’t help them. I thought it was just major cultural thing which I think it is. I mean, I think it’s a major cultural aspect to any medicine. Same as most people go to their doctor in the West and they believe in the doctor and even as they get an antibiotic for a viral infection they get better not because the antibiotics helped them because they believe in the doctor and I think the whole cultural aspect the belief in the practitioner or the healer or the doctor is important.
So I think when I really got out of that, the bigger picture of medicine is not as cut and dried but I didn’t really understand what they were doing or explore deeper except to realize it, “ha, this is interesting there’s something here.” But this was early in my training and I was studying enamored with western medicine and I was just open enough to realize that there must be something here but I was interested in the whole cultural aspect of African culture. So I didn’t really get in to the medical part and I left South Africa in 1984 soon after that, so and really get a chance to dig deeper into African medicine.
Ben: Yeah, well I find your clinic fascinating Eleven Eleven and this is also a great book it’s called ‘How to Be Well’ , “How to Be Well.’ So I recommend that if want a really good read, really comprehensive read, tons of ideas from bone broth to cacao to ways to eat vegetables a lot more. It’s a fun read. It’s a great book. Anybody can wrap their heads around this one. It’s not like incredibly dense scientific information that’s going to make your head hurt instead it’s just like a fun read for learning how to be well. And I think it’s a great book. So congratulation on publishing this one, Frank, and also thanks so much for coming on the show and sharing this stuff with us.
Frank: And thanks for having me, Ben, it’s been an absolute pleasure to talk to you as it was when I first met you. You always come up with some interesting stuff so let’s keep it going and congrats on all and great with all the work you do. I love it. Thank you.
Ben: Well, then next time and it should be soon. Pay attention to the calendar if you’re listening in for the next time I’ll be in New York City speaking at one of Dr. Bouley’s events over there but I’ll definitely ping you next time I’m over there in New York, Frank.
Frank: Fantastic.
Ben: Well, folks until next time I’m Ben Greenfield along with Dr. Frank Lipman from Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in New York City. All the show notes along with his book will be over at bengreenfieldfitness.com/lipman. Thanks for listening in and have an amazing day.
How To Be Well
Several months ago, while speaking at chef David Bouley's fantastic restaurant in New York City, I had the pleasure to embark upon a two mile run with my wife through the city to visit the office of a true pioneer in both integrative and functional medicine: Dr. Frank Lipman.
Dr. Lipman is the founder and director of Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in New York City, a New York Times best-selling author and the creator of Be Well, a lifestyle brand which offers premium supplements, cleanse programs and personalized health coaching to help people achieve genuine and sustainable life changes. My wife and I sat down with Dr. Lipman to talk about his new book and much, much more. He is a true wealth of knowledge.
A leading international speaker in Health and Wellness, he has been featured in all the top magazines and profiled in many too, including the New York Times, New York Magazine and O, the Oprah Magazine, and has appeared on TV shows like the Today Show, Extra and Dr Oz. For more information, please visit www.bewell.com
During our discussion about Frank's new book How to Be Well: The 6 Keys to a Happy and Healthy Life, you'll discover:
-The anti-inflammatory turmeric oil recipe that Frank highlights in his book… 9:47
-What Frank learned while studying Eastern medicine and chi… 15;28
-Dr. Lipman's three favorite tools for doctoring up bone broth…. 20:35
-Dr. Lipman's favorite flavor combinations for bone broth… 24:12
-The 10 habits of successful vegetable eaters… 26:38
-Why Dr. Lipman is a cacao connoisseur and some of his favorite brands… 34:52
-Dr. Lipman's quick workout protocol of hang/squat/bear crawl/handstand… 42:40
-The 4 ways you can heal with sound… 48:07
-Why Dr. Lipman is a fan of self-massage and the self-massage routine he has in his book… 53:42
-And much more!
Resources from this episode:
–How to Be Well: The 6 Keys to a Happy and Healthy Life
-All Frank's books on Amazon
–The New Health Rules: Simple Changes to Achieve Whole-Body Wellness
–How To Eat, Move & Be Healthy by Paul Chek
–My podcast with Michael Tyrrell
–Jonathan Goldman's CD's on Amazon
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Do you have questions, thoughts or feedback for Dr. Lipman or me? Leave your comments below and one of us will reply!
Wow. I just tried Ben’s “Wendy’s Frostee” bone broth recipe and it is SO tasty!