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Nov. 9, 2023 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:38
Detox Made Simple: Achieve a Cleanse without Juicing | Dr. Oz | S6 | Ep 18 | Full Episode
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Detoxing isn't all juicing and fasting.
Dr. Oz shows you how to detox with food.
Real foods that give you real results.
Go from overweight to healthy weight.
The easy to follow seven day plan for everyone.
Plus, Joan London's fight to survive.
The brave act that's inspiring women all over the country.
Coming up next on Dr. Oz.
So when most people hear the word detox, they think of this.
Juicing and starving.
Do I have it right?
Sort of appealing, but it's sort of a hassle.
It doesn't have to be that way.
You can get these results by eating all of this.
Real, whole foods.
Dr. Woodson Merrill, who studies the power of detox through the eyes of a doctor, is here with a plan.
Thank you for joining the program.
You argue that we do not have to detox using all these difficult juice programs.
You can use real foods.
Have we been scammed all this time?
The juices are great, but they're hard to sustain even more than three days.
You absolutely can do everything you need to do with whole foods.
You do not need juices.
And that's one of the great things about what we're talking about today.
If you stick to a rainbow plant-based diet, whole foods will provide you everything you need to be maximally healthy and to be able to detoxify fully.
So all these colored foods, the different ones we're going to talk about today, if you can eat them without the juice, just get the real food, they'll get you the same place.
Absolutely.
And this is something you can sustain for the rest of your life also.
The same diet you do to detoxify is a diet you actually just sustain for the rest of your life because automatically it makes you healthier.
We have to detox.
Who is it right for?
Everybody needs to detox.
The Center for Disease Control has shown us that each of us has approximately 140 toxic chemicals in us.
That's huge.
And these chemicals have been implicated with so many of our chronic problems, migrating headaches, chronic fatigue, brain fog, allergies, asthma, indigestion, even diabetes and weight gain.
And moreover, studies have shown that actually 70% of chronic illnesses is a result of Imbalance in lifestyle and environment.
And that's something you could change.
You could change your environment and you could change your lifestyle.
And today we're going to talk about how to make huge changes by changing your food.
So let's get into the plan.
It's seven days long.
The foods behind us are the ones you're going to be eating for the next seven days.
And again, this is an important concept.
This is something you're going to do for seven days.
You could do it for a lot longer too, but for seven days, something that you should be able to do.
What makes these foods so special for Well, these are nature's gift to us, and there are five basic colored food groups, red, orange, green, purple, and tan.
And if you have one to two of these every day, you will be maximally healthy.
Moreover, it allows your body to detoxify, to reduce inflammation, and to get rid of free radicals.
This is what you need to stick to for the rest of your life, but also in this next seven days, we're going to talk about how to intensify it with a plant-based diet to actually detoxify.
So when he worked out a seven-day plan, it's broken up into two parts.
The first part, which is three days long, you argue is super important.
But why even have two to begin with?
Well, there are two phases.
First of all, there are two phases of detoxification.
The first phase of detoxification, your body, you're identifying, you're tagging, and you're activating the toxins.
And you actually turn them into free radicals.
And then in the second phase, what the body does with the nutrients we're putting into it is you neutralize and you eliminate the toxins from your body.
Every cell in the body and the liver does this.
And so what we're doing today is talking about two parts of the diet, part one for three days and part two for four days to actually make this happen.
So let me show you how Dr. Merrill's detox plan works.
It all actually starts deep inside the body in our biggest organ called the liver, this big brown organ down the right side of your body.
Now inside the liver, the blood vessels will bring toxins, things you shouldn't have eaten, things from the environment.
These toxins, little balls get stuck in the liver cells, these big brown things.
And inside the liver cells, the body has to identify them, so it stamps them, it tags them, it activates them, literally cutting around them, poof, and leaves its mark on it.
So now you know what kind of toxin this is.
Once they're enabled, they're clawed out of the body in one of two ways.
Either they're pushed into the bile, there's the gallbladder, all that bile pours into the intestinal system where it meanders its way down and you poop it out, or it'll send toxins to the kidney, to the blood vessels.
Kidneys will excrete it in the urine as it goes to the bladder, waits there until you can go to the bathroom, and out it goes.
That's how you get rid of the toxins.
Now let me show you what to eat to detox.
You guys excited about this?
Let's get to it.
So the first few days, days one through three, are all about soft foods.
Yes.
I'm actually curious why you prescribe soft food.
What makes them so important?
Well, everyone should chew their food, obviously.
That's the key.
You want to make your food so it's easily digestible.
And the key to that is chewing.
Most people do not chew enough.
So what we've done is help you out by starting the first three days with food that's soft.
It's much more easily digestible so you absorb the maximum number of nutrients you need from each food.
So walk me through some examples for these first couple of days.
Breakfast.
Now, this is interesting.
People wouldn't think of having a sweet potato, but this is a sweet potato with berries and actually cinnamon on it.
The sweet potato is one of the orange foods, obviously, and it has lycopene for heart protection and cinnamon, which actually lowers blood sugar.
We move to lunch.
Now, this is a fun one.
This is cauliflower.
Most people don't like or don't eat cauliflower.
So we've made cauliflower rice that actually is incredibly easily digestible.
It's delicious and actually supplies the body with the foods you need for the cruciferous vegetable family to help detoxify very, very powerfully.
And is it avocado?
What's in the middle?
It's avocado with tahini in it.
So it provides protein and it provides avocado with some great saturated fats.
And for dinner in this first couple of days?
For dinner, mushroom soup, much of soup, one of the tanned foods.
Mushrooms are arguably some of the most powerful immune-stimulating substances on the planet.
They have many nutrients to help the gut to be more powerful for digestion and for the immunity.
I would never imagine the very prominent Dr. Woodson Merrill would recommend.
What is that?
Sorbet?
Well, it's sorbet, yes.
So ideally you can make sorbet without using much sugar.
You could clearly do the berries on their own, but it's a treat so you don't feel deprived.
And there are days when we have people say, just do baked apples and cinnamon, but we're having a sorbet, just kind of a treat for the first day.
Very compassionate, Dr. Merrill.
Okay.
So that's the first three days.
Again, the first three days are tagging and mobilizing the toxins of your body.
Yes.
So that we can move to days four through seven, which is about adding detox power foods.
If you don't mind, explain what these are and why they're so powerful.
So first of all, every day of the first three days, there are at least two of each color of the food group.
So you're naturally beginning to detoxify and provide the body all the nutrients you need.
Now we're talking about adding in some of which you use in the first three days.
The three main powerhouse groups, as I identify them, they're...
Allium, which are the garlic and onion family, cruciferous vegetables, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower, and the citrus family.
One example I love to give is in smokers.
Now, smoking is obviously one of the worst toxins you can have in your body.
They did a study where they took smokers.
They didn't change anything else they did.
They kept smoking as they were smoking.
All they did was eat watercress or cruciferous vegetable once a day, and they tripled the amount of toxins that left their body.
Tripled it?
Tripled it, yes.
So first of all, don't smoke.
But this points out the power of these nutrients.
Well, frankly, even if we don't smoke, we get exposed to toxins all the time.
It's sort of cool it could happen.
These things in the phase two of detoxification, they literally are like a claw.
They're pulling and grabbing these toxins and just making them flush out your body.
The claw foods.
The claw foods.
I like it.
They're clawing out the toxins.
So how do these meals get you to claw out those toxins specifically?
Well, for breakfast, we start with the tofu veggie scramble.
And this actually has asparagus and scallions and broccoli added to tofu with some turmeric, which, by the way, one of the other powerhouse groups are herbs and spices.
Parsley, rosemary, turmeric, ginger.
These are incredibly powerful detoxifying agents in your body.
So we add that.
Liberally, when you're having a plant-based site, you want to make it taste delicious.
One of the best ways to do that is to add herbs and spices to it.
So for breakfast, you start right out with a cruciferous vegetable and some protein.
Lunch, you've got beans.
Lunch, you've got beans and garlic, which is one of the allium family to help you also detoxify.
Very powerful for the emissus.
Also for breakfast, part of the citrus family with grapefruit.
And you have actually red cabbage as well, which is one of the cruciferous family and a red food.
And for dinner, we have a three-bean saute.
And what's interesting about this is not only does it have protein and have the cruciferous vegetables, which kale is, but this dish here contains over 100% of your daily requirements of vitamin C and vitamin A. This is a powerful nutrient.
So if you've had three meals full of all these clawing foods, the foods that we know are so important in mobilizing the stuff you've been trying to detoxify, then these are snacks to These are snacks.
So every day you get three meals and two snacks.
And honestly, you can eat as much food as you want.
You want to count colors, not calories.
That's the key.
I've been doing this for decades, and people are not hungry on this diet.
They actually feel very satisfied.
They find when they weren't used to a plant-based diet, it's delicious.
It's incredibly nutritious.
They feel dramatically better for so many of the chronic problems that they've been having as well.
You have a very busy practice.
Is this the first thing you give to people when they come see you with that mixture of many problems?
Yeah, lifestyle.
You have to focus on lifestyle because that's the core of what makes you tick.
Your stress level, your exercise level, and the food you're putting in your body and the toxins you're hopefully not putting in your body.
Thanks for joining us.
Thank you.
The entire seven-day real food detox plan along with tons of recipes, and I mean tons of them, are on DrRoz.com.
Check it out.
We'll be right back.
Have you ever tried to cleanse?
And did you get results?
It was tough.
I was really hungry and cranky most of the time, which made my husband avoid me like the plague.
But I like detoxing.
God knows I needed it.
Share your experience on Dr. Oz's Facebook page.
Next, her unexpected decision made national headlines.
Joan London's act of bravery is inspiring and empowering women everywhere.
As she shares the latest on her journey battling her illness, Dr. Oz shares a surprise of his own for Joan.
Next.
All new Dr. Oz.
Can you trust your supermarket?
Slick tricks they use to get you to spend more and eat more.
What they don't want you to know.
All new Dr. Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Look at this photo of TV personality Joan London.
Her brave fight against cancer is inspiring and empowering women everywhere.
For nearly two decades, TV personality and former Good Morning America host Joan London has been sharing her life with viewers.
From her struggles with infertility to her successes with surrogacy while in her 50s.
But now, Joan is sharing what may be her most challenging battle yet.
Stage 2 breast cancer.
She's been documenting her entire journey with hopes of inspiring others.
I'm here today for another...
Chemo treatment.
My first ever blood transfusion.
After surgery, I'm waiting to hear from the doctor.
Women across the country had been moved by Joan Story.
I did see Joan Lundin's story, so I figured I can rock this just like she did, and I buzzed my hair.
When I was going through my treatments, I decided not to wear a wig, and even though it was really hard, Seeing her made me feel more confident in my decision to do that.
I'm a 10-year breast cancer survivor, currently living with metastatic disease.
Your willingness to share your story at such an intimate time in your life is really meaningful to women just like me.
Joel Mondew, come on out here.
Come on.
Thank you, thank you.
So you look wonderful.
Are you feeling as good as you look?
You know, I feel really pretty great right now, but that's also because I had 12 weeks of chemotherapy during the summer, and then I had a lumpectomy a couple weeks ago, and now I'm into the second round of chemo, which will take me a couple of months.
But I just, you know, I'm kind of like at a place where most of the chemo from the first round is out of me.
So, because it does get cumulative and it does really wear you down.
And, you know, I mean, I got to the point at one point that I just could hardly get up a flight of stairs.
I mean, you just, it's startling how weak you get and had to end up getting a blood transfusion.
But I really think I'm making it through pretty well.
I'm eating clean.
Yeah.
No wheat, no dairy, no sugar.
I work out every day.
And I have a positive attitude.
It all comes together.
That's huge!
I think it's very important.
You may be in the eye of the storm right now as you say you've got more to go but there's no question a lot of times you don't pay attention to how much the body can help whether you're getting chemotherapy or frankly any other ailment you're trying to get through.
I am fascinated by the decision you made to be on the cover of people as beautiful as you look with no hair.
Explain why you did that cover like that.
That was not an easy decision.
I mean, they started talking to me right after I announced my diagnosis in June.
You know, we shot it in September.
And I agonized for that entire time.
And then I finally said, you know what?
I'm a health advocate.
I'm out talking about health.
All over the country all the time, it would almost be uncharacteristic for me not to do this.
I need to be a voice for the millions of people out there who feel like they don't have a voice.
I need to say it's okay.
I mean, yes, we're going through this, our hair will grow back, but we'll live, you know, if we fight it.
And if you get early detection, there's a good chance you'll survive it.
So take me back to the moment when you first realized what you had done.
So you shaved your hair off.
Yes, I did.
And you look in the mirror, and what goes on?
Well, when I first shaved it and I walked into a place, I mean, I didn't even know the guy.
Juan.
Thanks, Juan.
And he shaves my head off.
He just put my head down forward and just started shaving.
And at first, I felt like G.I. Jane.
Or in my case, G.I. Joan.
That's right, G.I. Joan.
I felt like a warehouse.
I was empowered because I didn't wait around and wait for the Herald to fall out.
I did it.
Then I have to admit, I mean, I feel like I need to be totally honest about this, just for everyone out there that's going through it.
And after a while, you look in the mirror and you say, somebody erased part of me.
I hate to say it because it makes it sound like hair is too important, and I guess it's kind of superficial.
But it's part of what you look like.
And when all of a sudden you take it away, and then, I mean, when the day came, I woke up one Sunday morning.
I had eyebrows and eyelashes.
That night I washed my face, and they all washed off.
Oh, my.
And I looked in the mirror and it was like somebody just erased part of my face.
And it was shocking.
I mean, I saw a cancer patient looking back at me.
So I wanted to be able to go out there and say, it's okay.
I mean, here I am.
I'm going to put a smile on my face, even though I have no hair, and try to be a voice for a lot of people.
You've done just that.
And I've got to speak to the entire audience now.
You've been public about your battle.
You've inspired so many women.
I hear about it on the streets.
I hear about it from folks writing in to us.
Thousands have reached out to you personally, I know, in emails, messages and the like, tweets.
What does their message of love mean to you?
I've got to tell you something.
We didn't have social media when I ended my time on Good Morning America.
So you knew that there were millions of people out there, but you didn't touch them.
They didn't respond to you.
All of a sudden, I mean I've had just thousands and thousands of people reach out to me either on my website or on social media and it's been an incredible awakening.
It's been like putting a face on all of those people who have been in a way friends of mine for decades and it's really been an incredible source of strength to me.
Just to think that they would stop and take a moment in their day To write an email or a tweet and to say, I'm going to include you in my prayers.
I mean, I never knew.
That was like a whole...
I never knew that was going to happen.
Gives them a chance to touch you back.
It does.
So it wasn't hard to do, but we have a bunch of folks in the audience who'd love to speak to you.
Some of them actually had their own challenges.
If that's okay with you?
Absolutely.
Come on, walk on over here.
I'll escort you.
Oh, it's got to be the pink session, right?
So let's go ahead over here.
Lisa, come join us.
Hi.
Mine looks just like yours.
Thank you.
I actually got a little peach fuzz that came back, and my oncologist told me this morning, don't get used to it.
It's going to go away again.
Even the peach fuzz.
Yeah, again.
But I just want to thank you.
You have been an inspiration.
I've been going through this with you.
I'm still going through chemotherapy right now.
And seeing you on People Magazine was just amazing.
It made me realize I don't have to hide my baldness.
The hair thing is such a taboo.
And you realize it's the chemo working.
It's not the cancer.
It's the chemo that is working.
And you have a nice, round head like me.
So it looks good.
And I just want to thank you so much.
Congratulations.
It's fine that some of my family and friends are seeing me without a head wrap or scarf.
Oh, good.
Yes.
Lisa, thank you.
And I wore a wig today to show that you can also do this.
And, in fact, you can wear a wig every day.
You can be someone new every day.
Dimple, come join us.
You have a question also.
Hi, how are you?
Hi, I'm just so grateful.
I hit 40 and realized that, you know, that was something I had to do, get the mammogram, and then I saw your story, and if someone as seemingly invincible as you are jumping off of I've gotten my mammogram.
It's all clear, thank goodness.
But you went and got it.
I did.
And it wasn't as bad, right?
Everybody makes such a big deal out of it.
And it's empowering because it makes you realize that, yes, if I catch it early, if I catch it now, then I do stand a chance.
And it's something that I will continue to do.
It's something for women, I mean, this is, you know, it really kind of falls upon us.
And as important as mammograms are, self-breast exams.
You know, you really have, because I have all these young women writing me at 27 years old, 32 years old.
What if they waited until they were 40?
You know, they did the self-exam, they found a little lump, and they went in, and they found cancer.
You know, and allow us, because you made it cool to talk about it.
So God bless you.
All right, go ahead.
Joel London.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you both of you.
We'll be right back.
Coming up, a bedtime intervention.
Hooked on sleeping pills?
One milligram is usually the dose you offer.
You're taking about 35 milligrams.
How to break your sleep aid addiction.
Reclaim your good night and finally sleep naturally.
Stay tuned.
If you feel like you can't get to sleep without melatonin, we'll pay attention.
While you think you're doing the right thing by getting rest, you could actually be putting your body in danger.
That's exactly what's happening to Keisha.
Take a look.
I haven't had a good night's sleep in about two years.
It all started when I moved and changed jobs.
I moved from Dallas to Houston, and after the move and starting a new job, I have not been able to get a good night's sleep.
I'll lay in the bed for 30 minutes, 40 minutes, and I still just can't get any sleep.
I've tried Chinese medicine, acupuncture, herbs, things on the internet, warm milk, exercise, literally anything, and that's how I ended up taking melatonin.
I thought it was a natural remedy.
I take my melatonin around 9 o'clock.
If the melatonin isn't working, I'll do housework.
Dishes, laundry, I'll walk my dog.
Come on, sleepy.
Another night, sleepy.
After three o'clock in the morning is when I take the second dose.
After I take the second dose of melatonin, I'm usually able then to go to sleep for two hours.
And I wake up at seven.
Another restless night.
I do worry about the amount of melatonin I'm taking.
I started off with one pill and it was great.
Now I'm up to almost 12 pills.
I just know this many pills cannot be healthy.
And I'm kind of scared.
Dr. Oz, I am exhausted.
I am tired of being tired.
Please help me get some sleep.
Keisha's joining us.
So I'm going to help you and help everybody who's on melatonin and not getting success because they want that desperate sleep back.
So I put you in the truth tube.
So some simple questions and observations.
Why did you start taking melatonin in the first place?
Well, I thought it was healthy.
I thought that's what you're supposed to do.
Like, it wasn't a drug.
It was something I can get.
And it started working.
So you started taking it in the very beginning and normally we recommend if you're going to use it, and it does work when used correctly and we're going to cover that, one milligram is usually the dose we offer.
Yeah, okay.
I'm a little past that.
You're a little past that.
So I look at the diary you kept for us, and you're taking about 35 milligrams.
Yeah, just a little past the one.
A little past the one.
That's a lot more than I thought you'd take.
Frankly, I didn't expect it.
So I began looking into what happens at those kinds of doses, and even at far less than that, you start seeing significant hormone changes.
Oh, okay.
So can I ask some questions about the hormones in your body?
Of course.
So we checked some of your blood tests, and we looked for hormone fluctuations, very specifically looking for things like progesterone and thyroid.
The good news is, all your hormones are fine.
Okay?
So I'll dance with you on that too, that's good.
Then the second thing I started asking myself is nausea.
That's a pretty common side effect of this.
Do you get nauseated very often?
Not really, no.
Okay, shake that off my list, it's fine.
I got two more to cover.
Next one is headaches.
Oh, yeah.
I get headaches, and then I also get migraines.
Both of them?
Yeah.
So I'll keep headaches on my list.
It's something we've got to be able to address.
And the last issue is grogginess.
Oh, I'm tired right now.
You're tired now?
I'm putting you in bed.
All right.
So I look at those signs.
There's the two that I'm going to keep an eye on because it'll come back later on.
Now, you also kept a sleep journal.
Yes.
And we want to do this because we want to understand exactly not only the number of pills people are taking, but also what kind of result they're getting from it.
So the average amount of sleep that you're getting seems to be about three hours and 33 minutes.
Yeah, that's a good day.
I mean, how do you live on even that much?
Forget about less.
I'm on national television because I'm barely living.
Like, I'm barely getting through this.
I need help.
And you're not alone.
Yeah.
And if it's okay, I'm going to give you a perfect example.
That's why I love having you here.
Okay.
Because this is going to teach all the viewers out there, everyone in America, exactly what's typically happening.
Let's go on over here.
Okay.
So it's 9 p.m.
This is your life, right?
So it's 9 p.m.
Please correct me.
Okay, hold on.
Yeah.
There's no sound on this, right?
No sound.
We have to take a sound off because I couldn't show it on national television.
Right, I'm just saying, like, I'll be single forever.
So, if I look at you right there, at 9 p.m., you take the melatonin.
Right.
And you took 15 milligrams?
I take six pills.
Six pills?
Mm-hmm.
That's even more.
The first dose is just six pills.
Alright, so again, my observation.
You took it at 9 o'clock, which again tells you, your body, that it's time to get ready to sleep, but it doesn't work for an hour and a half.
So you actually went to bed at 9 and took the pills at 9. The pills couldn't possibly work.
You're actually up watching television at 9.15 because the pills aren't working on you.
An hour and a half later, you fall asleep finally, and then you wake up again at 11.30.
Right?
And you're back up on your feet again, which there's time lapses.
So 10 o'clock, maybe you fall asleep at 10. You advance the clock a little bit.
At 11.30, you start getting up again.
And you're failing around.
And what did you do when you got up at 11.30?
Um, who knows?
I probably washed dishes, went to the store, walked my dog, all kind of stuff that you really don't supposed to do at that time of night.
And you took more melatonin.
I did.
I took, um, I don't really want to tell you, but it was like six.
Six more?
Don't judge.
It's judgment free.
No, I'm not judgment free.
That's why you're here.
Okay.
So, if it didn't work when you first took it, why would you take it again?
Oh, so I can get the other hour and a half.
So I can at least get three hours.
Like right now, I'm on three hours.
And I'm good.
I'm on your show.
You're functioning well.
Yeah.
Maybe with some nausea and with a headache, but you're still doing okay.
Yes.
But that's an interesting point.
I didn't think about that.
So you're sort of equating a lot of melatonin to an hour and a half of sleep.
And you're begging and crawling and pleading for that little bit.
So you'll do it again.
Yes.
Because I watched this tape.
So let's advance it again.
So 1130, you take some more.
You're tossing and turning.
And at 2 a.m., what happens?
You get out of bed.
And you're out of bed for a couple hours.
Mm-hmm.
Doing all the things you just said earlier, probably.
Yeah, plus eating.
I'm eating and then, like I said, I'm going to the store, walking my dog.
Have you been putting weight on with all these sleep issues?
Yes.
Like, ridiculous.
Like, in the last two years, at least 30 to 40 pounds.
You seem like you want to make a change.
Oh, yes.
I'm desperate.
I have a change that will work for you.
But it's going to take some commitment for you and some trust.
Okay.
This is not just for you.
It's for everybody out there.
What we're about to recommend is not what you would expect, but it has been proven over and over again to work.
I have a leading sleep specialist who's joining us here with a plan to help you and everybody else break your sleeping aid addiction and to get the night's sleep that you want.
Great.
But you've got to trust me on this.
Okay.
Because I'm trusting you that you can do it.
I can do it.
All right.
Stay with us.
us.
We'll be back.
How do you make sure that you get a good night's sleep?
Meditation.
Every night before bed.
I make sure to take at least 15 minutes to meditate.
It helps quiet my mind and relax me.
Share your story with us on Facebook.com slash Dr. Oz.
Next, kiss those tablets goodbye.
The 24-hour timeline to help anyone overusing sleeping aids get some rest and put your sleeping pill addiction to bed.
Coming up next on The Dr. Oz Show.
All new Dr. Oz.
Can you trust your supermarket?
Slick tricks they use to get you to spend more and eat more.
What they don't want you to know.
All new Dr. Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
If you can't get a good night's sleep without relying on steeping pills, it's time to stop suffering.
Sleep expert Dr. Michael Bruce is a solution for Keisha and everyone like her who's trying to break their steeping pill addiction.
So what is the biggest mistake you see folks making, especially the melatonin takers out there?
It's classic.
People go to bed too early.
Now, this is going to sound very counterintuitive, but believe it or not, I'm going to ask you to start going to bed actually later in the night.
It's a technique called sleep restriction, and we're going to hit you with five and a half hours of sleep only.
Now, I know that sounds crazy, right?
Yes.
Oh my gosh, you're kidding me.
No, it sounds actually good because I'm only getting three right now.
Exactly.
So, I'm okay with five and a half hours.
We got one right ready to roll, right?
So here's what's important that most people don't realize.
A lot of people think if I get in bed earlier, maybe I'll get a little bit of sleep.
And I saw on the video, right, you get in bed, you took a whole bunch of melatonin, right, and you got an hour and a half.
Then you woke up, more melatonin, another hour and a half.
What I'm going to have you do is actually get in bed much, much later in the night so that natural sleep drive starts to grow inside of you so that you don't actually need all of those things.
What?
Yeah.
That's like club time.
Club time.
Okay.
All right, so Dr. Bruce has got a 24-hour timeline to help anyone overusing sleeping aids to get some rest.
I'm going to go through this timeline carefully.
It's really important to get these details right.
So 2 p.m.
is when Dr. Bruce says we should have our last cup of coffee.
A cup of coffee or anything with caffeine in it.
Why 2 o'clock?
So lots and lots of people know that caffeine can keep you awake at night.
But a couple of things that people don't know.
Caffeine actually has a half-life of between 8 and 10 hours.
So it's still in your system.
Half of it is still in your system.
And lots of people who don't get a lot of sleep at night...
Drink a whole lot of coffee during the day.
I actually noticed on your sleep diary that you've been filling out for me that you have up to four caffeinated beverages almost every day.
I do because like regular time that you work and you go to school and stuff, I have to be up at that time.
So I needed to stay up.
So what we're going to do is over the course of the next few weeks, we're going to slowly taper that caffeine.
But the last caffeinated, I know you're looking at me, the last caffeinated beverage that you're going to have is going to be at 2 p.m.
So it doesn't affect the depth of the sleep that you are going to get.
Oh, okay.
When's the last cup of coffee you have now?
Right before the show.
You mean like...
Normally.
When you're outside.
When you're living your life.
Oh.
Maybe around two.
Okay.
That's good.
So you're getting closer there.
All right.
We're customizing this to you.
But for everybody else out there, roughly an hour and a half, two hours before you go to bed.
So for you, 11 o'clock at night, you're going to take one milligram.
Not 35. One milligram of melatonin.
Dr. Bruce, thoughts on this?
So there's a couple different things to understand about this.
First of all, melatonin, remember, is not a sleep initiator.
It's a sleep regulator.
So it helps change your circadian rhythm or your internal biological clock.
It's not a sleeping pill.
It's a sleep regulator.
So you're taking it and then trying to close your eyes.
It takes almost 90 minutes for it to reach plasma concentration levels for it to actually be effective.
And then a whole bunch of other things have to happen in your brain to make you sleep.
And by the way, the Appropriate dose between a half and one milligram.
You're overdosing by almost 15 to 20 times the recommended dose.
I don't like the word overdose, but okay.
Yeah.
Well, you're there.
All right.
1230, hour and a half lady.
Turn the lights out.
Everyone clear on this.
And then here's the key part.
It goes out at 1230. We know what time you're going to wake up, which we're going to say is 6 o'clock.
You're going to set your alarm for then.
But in between then, most likely you're going to wake up.
Let's say 2 o'clock like you did in that video.
So what should folks do if they wake up in the middle of the night?
So this is classic, very common.
And by the way, within the first two to three weeks of us working together, this will start to stop pretty significantly.
But the first thing, don't look at the alarm clock.
Because immediately what happens is you do the mental math and you say, right?
You know exactly what I'm talking about, right?
So you do the mental math and you say, oh my gosh, I've only got three and a half more hours.
What am I going to do?
I really feel bad.
Don't look at the clock, number one.
Number two, do not take another supplement.
Do not take another sleep aid.
Here's what ends up happening.
Once those sleep aids kick in, it's going to make you super groggy in the morning, very difficult to wake up.
That's partially because you're taking these sleep aids in the middle of the night.
So I really definitely don't want you to do that.
What I want you to do when you wake up in the middle of the night is do a technique that we call progressive muscle relaxation.
So what you're going to do is you'll tense muscles starting at the top of your head and moving slowly, tense and relax, tense and relax, tense and relax.
You're going to do that starting at the top of your head, moving all the way down to the tip of your feet.
It will distract you to not think about the fact that you're not sleeping because it gives you something to do and it allows your body to get that relaxation response.
And that's one of the things that's going to help put you back to sleep.
Okay, so hold on.
Question.
I'm single, but for everybody else in the audience, wouldn't sex be a part of the relaxation technique?
So this is a great question.
So one of the things we know is that sexual activity is much more relaxing and sleep-promoting for men than it is for women.
What?
Right?
You know, I keep hearing that.
It's very, very common.
And it'll depend on a couple of different factors.
If you have the opportunity in the middle of the night to have some sexual activity, I would say hold off while we're doing this program.
You can have it before you go to bed.
You can do it before you go to bed.
As hard enough as it is.
All right, anyway.
6 a.m.
in the morning, the alarm goes off, you're gonna get up.
Okay.
That's again, you're picking that because it's five and a half hours from when we started going to bed.
But it's really important.
This is the anchor of the program, is getting up at 6 a.m.
By the way, even on Saturday, even on Sunday, okay?
There's no sleeping in on this program, and here's why.
It only takes 24 to 48 hours of sleeping in to adjust that circadian rhythm.
We want your biological clock to know exactly when it's supposed to wake up every single day.
It's not gonna be like this forever.
But during this part of the program, the anchor, the absolute thing you must positively do is wake up at 6 every day.
There's also another thing you're going to have to do while you wake up, and that's get some sunlight.
Let's go over to this thing until you're up at 6. These days, you don't get up at the same time any day, right?
You're all over the place.
So, 6 o'clock, setting that clock.
This is a big change in mindset for me.
It's not what time you go to bed.
It's the time you get up that sets your system.
And when you get up, you're going to either use a sound, which is the best, or a light like this.
And why do these work?
So, blue light, it turns out the spectrum of light, blue light, which is 420 nanometers, believe it or not, is what hits your optic nerve, bounces around, and ends up in your biological clock in your brain, and shuts off that melatonin.
Okay?
So by getting sunlight or a blue light, there are actually commercially available lights out there now that have specialized light to help make you more awake and more alert.
Those are the types of things that we want you to have at 6 a.m.
Because remember, we're resetting that clock.
So what we're going to do is we're going to have setting it at night with the melatonin.
Resetting it in the morning with the light, five and a half hours of sleep.
And when I can get you sleeping for five and a half solid hours, see, big smile, right?
That's what we're looking for right there.
Make it even better.
It is the most overlooked health problem we have in America, what you're suffering from.
And we joke about it and we get light about it and we take 35 milligrams of melatonin over it, but it ages us, it puts weight on us, and it ruins our vitality.
Yeah.
So we can fix that.
I have confidence you can make this happen.
This is the best guy I know in the area.
And he'll be checking in on you, Keisha.
Okay.
And we're going to share your story with everybody so we can all follow along because you're going to be the role model for a lot of folks.
Oh, yay!
And you have confidence in him?
I do.
I do.
Because I do.
We're going to make it happen.
For everybody else, we've got Dr. Bruce's entire plan to break your sleeping aid addiction.
It's going to be on DrRoz.com and I'll be right back.
Coming up, learn how to trick your body into lowering your cholesterol naturally.
Powerful cholesterol-lowering agents found in some of your favorite natural foods.
See how easy they can work for you.
Coming up next.
Whoever said a doctor's visit isn't fun has obviously never been to the Dr. Oz Show.
Is that right?
Make your appointment today.
Go to DrOz.com slash tickets and sign up for free tickets.
I'm in a quest to bring healthy back, and a big part of that is learning how to get your cholesterol under control.
So I'm committed to helping you with a segment that I'm calling Cholesterol Countdown.
Today, the power of plant sterols to lower cholesterol.
Tamika's here.
She's been struggling with high cholesterol.
How long has that been going on for?
A little over three years, Dr. Oz, and I'm ready to get it down.
So what have you tried so far?
A little bit of exercising.
Right now I'm taking omega-3, but I haven't exercised since maybe January.
That's a long time ago.
Alright, so this is exercise health, but I've got a really good idea today.
An idea that I think everyone ought to know about.
I frankly don't know why we haven't talked about it more.
Come on back.
We're going to talk about things called plant sterols.
Have you ever heard of plant sterol?
No.
They're the equivalent of cholesterol but in plants.
They're found in the membranes of the plant cells.
Okay.
And they're very important for reason but to explain.
So normally you go down, you're going to have, let's say, some eggs or sausage or bacon.
And so you put that cholesterol-laden food in your intestines.
It goes through the intestines and it begins to get digested and settles down on the lining of the intestines and rapidly see those little yellow balls.
They get absorbed.
The cholesterol molecules get sucked into you.
Then they go through your body, into your blood vessels.
They cause havoc with their head and their brain and everything.
You put a nut in your mouth that's got plant sterols in it.
That comes through your intestines.
Now, these plant sterols, they line up inside the intestinal tract.
They actually look like cholesterol to the body, and they block your body's ability to absorb regular cholesterol.
See, the cholesterols go bouncing away.
They don't get absorbed quite as much, so without any real effort, because they mimic our cholesterol, they trick us into not putting as much cholesterol from the food into our bodies.
Right, and I don't want to be tricked, Dr. Oz.
Well, you want your intestines to be tricked, but you want to let your taste buds know the truth.
Right.
Right?
So this is a good way of doing both.
Okay.
And plants are trying to help us out.
We just haven't been able to get the message straight.
So come on over here.
Okay.
Let's talk about how you can get these plant sterols in your body.
Okay.
What I love the most about this is all these plant sterols are in real foods.
They're already naturally out there.
We just can't get more of them in our body.
Absolutely.
So here's a good example.
Wheat germ.
You can get it from sunflower seeds and sesame seeds.
Nuts have them, brussel sprouts, bananas.
All these are rich sources of these plant sterols.
Okay, I love that.
And they all count to get you in there.
So you can get these in raw form, ideally.
Nuts are sort of easy.
That's why before you get raw nuts rather than roasted nuts, if you can.
And if you're going to steam the Brussels sprouts, for example, then at least a little bit of water, not too much.
Don't boil them.
Keep those nutrients happy and alive.
Now, Dr. Oz, I'm going to be honest, but Brussels sprouts, it's not my thing, but how would you get me to eat this?
All right, so let's get this off the table.
Okay.
I'm glad you're honest about this.
Okay.
All right.
Okay, we never saw that.
I don't want to get you scared.
You like bananas?
Oh, love bananas.
I had one today.
Easy one to get.
My favorite are nuts and seeds, which both have lots of these plant sterols in them.
Okay.
Are they okay for you?
Yes.
The nuts I eat with peanut butter.
Is that okay?
That's fine.
Oh, okay.
That's fine.
Awesome.
So that's the first step.
Okay.
Come on over here.
The other thing that you can do is you can get some oils that are particularly rich in plant sterols.
Okay.
You want these to be high-quality oils.
For them to be high-quality, it means that they're cold-pressed and they're unrefined.
Okay.
You don't want some chemistry lab making this stuff for you because they destroy all the valuable plant sterols.
They'll strip them away.
Okay.
So olive oil works, sesame oil, flaxseed oil, all these wonderful, healthy oils that have not been refined are perfectly good solutions.
Okay.
Awesome.
You ever try any of these?
Olive oil, I love.
I even cook it with my pancakes.
Is that okay?
Pancakes?
I've never had it.
Does it taste good with pancakes?
Oh, it does.
I do add syrup, though.
I don't know about the pancakes.
You were saying you haven't exercised since January?
That was my New Year's resolution.
Okay.
That was a long time ago.
All right.
So, these are changes I want you to make in your life.
They're small steps, but they will pay off in dividends.
And that cholesterol problem has been plaguing you for three years.
Yes.
It's going to be a thing of the past, even if you don't exercise.
Okay.
So, okay.
So, oils.
And then the last thing is there are lots of enriched beverages now.
Milk, orange juices, rice milks, they all have them.
But you're going to look on the labels for two key things.
You're going to look for it to say that it contains plant sterols, what we're talking about.
Okay.
And then it reduces cholesterol.
They'll say it on the actual label itself.
You want about two 8-ounce servings of these, plus the other whole foods that I'm talking about, and that will actually lower your cholesterol.
Okay.
Now, I'm like maybe most of America, with milk, lactose intolerant, what kind of milk would I drink?
Well, you can either take one of the pills, but I would actually suggest that you don't bother.
Just take it off the table, too.
Put that with the Brussels sprouts down there.
Okay.
Are you okay with OJ or rice milk?
Okay with orange juice.
There are so many beverages out there now that are fortified.
Manufacturers know that more and more Americans are going to want this.
I am putting it on your radar screen.
You're going to hear so much about plant sterols this year.
Okay.
It's going to be an idea that you think, oh, everyone knew about it this time next year.
But I'm telling you right now, most of us haven't heard it.
Let's get it on the radar screen today.
Okay.
All right, Keisha.
Now, you ever play on Pinterest?
Not Pinterest, but Instagram.
All right, either way.
I like them both a lot because a lot of the folks who watch the show put their recipes on there, and I pulled one off Pinterest.
This is from Maggie.
And these are some of the best plant-style recipes I could ever imagine.
These are called peanut butter truffles.
Oh, sounds delicious.
We're going to make these together.
It's very simple.
You use the ice cream scooper.
Scoop little balls in there and put them in here.
It's basically peanut butter, sesame seeds with a banana.
Okay.
Mix them up.
Make a little thing in there.
It's good?
Yep, perfect.
You're going to put a bunch of them in there.
Go on.
And then you throw this in the freezer for two hours.
Put them in any container you want.
And after two hours, they will look like this.
Now, please hold the excitement back as you taste one of these.
Come on, put one in your mouth.
Put one in my mouth?
Okay.
These things are absolutely fabulous.
It's a simple, elegant way.
Everybody see these?
Yes.
Look like meatballs.
No, they look like meatballs.
Let's see.
It's a big bite.
Can you talk with that much in your mouth?
I'm kind of hungry, but it's good.
It's reasonable for a cholesterol problem.
Mmm.
It really is.
It's good.
Think of this as your daily dose for your cholesterol.
Toast to you.
Toast to you.
Let's go running.
We'll get you back and exercise it again.
We'll be right back, everybody.
All new Dr. Oz.
Can you trust your supermarket?
Slick tricks they use to get you to spend more and eat more.
What they don't want you to know.
All new Dr. Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
It's time for, in case you missed it, you can get all the benefits of a detox without the juicing.
You can eat real whole foods like these to offer the same benefits of detoxing.
I want you to try this whole food detox for seven days.
Here's the deal.
The first three days, you can eat only soft foods.
These meals are very easy on digestion, and they give a huge boost of nutrients to the body, so they free up some of these toxic elements.
That was the argument made by our expert today.
A meal, for example, in the first few days might look like this.
Here's sweet potatoes.
It's a mash of sweet potatoes with some cinnamon and some fruit.
Now the next four days, you want to add these detox power foods.
They're going to claw away those toxins and get them out of your body, help your liver and the other main organs.
A meal in the second four days might look like this.
This is a garlic green bean with red cabbage slaw.
Let's go through it.
Cruciferous vegetables are important.
Green beans satisfy that.
Red cabbage does as well.
You want some citrus.
It's one of those clawing foods.
Lemon zest helps you there.
And you want allium foods, things like garlic and onions.
Just add a little garlic to it and you're good to go.
Now let me close with a warning.
Please be careful about what you buy online, especially weight loss pills.
There are some dubious people online that prey on folks like you who are trying to do the right thing for your health.
Sometimes, they even try to make it seem like I'm endorsing their products.
I don't.
To see a full list of our trusted sponsorship partners, you can go to DrRoz.com.
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