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March 17, 2025 - Dr. Oz Podcast
42:39
Dr. Oz’s No-Fail Plan to ELIMINATE Sugar Cravings for Good! | Dr. Oz | S6 | Ep 11 | Full Episode
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Time Text
Shut down your sugar cravings in no time.
Stop feeling fat, tired, and sick.
The no-fail plan to break the grip that sugar has over you.
The easy routine to reprogram your brain.
Plus, many believe in the power of prayer.
I do believe that there is something more.
How it can cure disease and add years to your life.
Coming up next on Dr. Oz.
Is how much sugar you are eating.
142 pounds of sugar in a year.
Because your body's been conditioned to crave sugar.
Don't blame yourself for feeling that tired and sick.
It's the sugar.
Today, we're shutting down your sugar cravings in just 14 days.
Because here's what sugar's been doing to us.
So you're a sugar addict.
Isn't everyone?
It's not like you're eating that much sugar.
Right?
Wrong.
Let's break it down.
The average American consumes 142 pounds of sugar a year.
That's right, pounds.
That's 1,463 bottles of soda.
Not a soda fanatic?
Well, try 5,855 cookies.
That's 16 cookies a day.
Who needs 16 cookies a day?
Or for that matter, 1,894 cups of chocolate ice cream.
Think of it this way.
You're eating the equivalent of Bruno Mars.
Bruno Mars made of sugar.
You know that can't be good for you.
So how do you stop craving so much sugar?
I've got a plan.
And oh yeah, it takes just 14 days.
So let's get started.
I'm focused on 14 days to stave off your sugar cravings.
At that time, you can create a routine to reprogram your brain.
Let me show you an example.
You see the pathways that light up in your brain?
That little bright area?
That's what happens when you eat sugar.
In just two weeks, you can shut down the cravings by satiating your brain with new foods to take sugar's place.
Mary, Flora, and Wendy are here.
And you know what?
They say their sugar cravings have held them back, prevented them from losing weight and taking control of their health.
So Mary, what does it feel like just before you have sugar?
What's that craving like?
It's an obsession.
I cannot focus on anything else.
I can't do anything else, think about anything else until I get sugar.
And Flora, when you do finally get that sugar...
What does that feel like?
I feel happy, ecstatic, like a kid who just ran for the ice cream truck.
That feeling they get, that's how I feel.
It probably starts at that age.
Juanita, how often does that happen?
Do you have to have to have to have to crave the sugar?
Oh, that's daily.
At least five or six times a day.
I'm pretty much a chocolate fiend.
That is my vice, unfortunately.
All right.
Let's get to our 14-day plan to shut down your sugar.
I'll meet the rest of you later on.
So let's first talk about the basic structure of your day.
Again, if you're going to replace over two weeks what's already programmed in your brain, that craving for sugar, you've got to do it in a structured fashion.
So here's what your new table is going to look like.
You're going to eat slow carbs with protein and healthy fat at every meal.
Okay.
Again, if you do that repeatedly, your body will develop habits that allow you to crave this, not the sugar you used to want.
Okay.
So, over that 14-day period, I want half your plate to be made up of slow carbs.
If you do it the right way, you'll stop yourself from consistently bumping up your blood sugar.
And when you do that, you won't send your brain the wrong messages.
You'll also tell your brain you're full.
That's what the healthy fats and the protein are all about.
So you're satiated.
You won't have to go for the sugar.
You'll start to control your own destiny.
These are carbs?
Well, these are actually carbs, but most of us don't think of carbs in this form.
Yeah, I think of potatoes and bread and rice.
Exactly.
Starchy carbs.
But there are some carbs that are actually designed to help you get off sugar.
They don't get converted to sugar quite so quickly.
They're slowly absorbed.
And those slow carbs are wonderful because they've got a lot of fiber in them.
They're low glycemic index foods.
So again, it's all about keeping that sugar level where it needs to be, not addicting you and taking you back down again with fluctuating levels.
You don't want to be in a roller coaster.
Okay, I can do that.
Surprisingly, you mentioned broccoli and asparagus.
Who would have thought?
But they're exactly what I'm talking about today.
A lot of green leafy vegetables are.
There's some low sugar fruits like apricots.
Dried apricots, in fact, work.
I didn't know that before the show.
I always thought that everything dried was going to be fairly sugary.
They are sweet, but they're still...
My criteria, because they're high in fiber and they're low glycemic index.
Okay, great.
Apples and grapefruits are as well.
A little bit less sweet fruits generally will qualify.
A lot of beans, chickpeas, for example, lentils, and then there's quinoa and some different oatmeals will also get you where you want to be.
Great.
So that's the first part.
Second thing you've got to do is focus on healthy fats.
And this is important.
If you were to eat these foods, you'd probably start thinking differently about the sugars you crave.
Is that true?
Yes.
So what would you normally crave?
Chocolate.
Caramel.
Maple syrup.
The Plot Dickens.
Yes.
I like chocolate-covered almonds, actually, would probably be the first thing I'd think of.
Or caramel sauce.
I could just drink it out of the jar.
That's okay.
You take the rest of the segment talking about your craving.
You've obviously thought about it a lot.
I can go on and on.
Some of those things have fats in them, but I want you to have healthy fats.
Again, these things you'll start to feel satiated with and therefore not desire the sweets anymore.
A handful of nuts would qualify.
Olives, just 10 olives would get you there.
Not the olive oil.
I'm okay with olive oil too, but for this purpose, we want the actual olives.
Just green olives or black olives?
Any olives will work.
Okay, good.
You want the fiber and the healthy fats with them.
Avocados are fabulous.
Many different sources of healthy fats, but these are good sampling.
And then finally, protein.
Now, here's an issue.
You actually want to get proteins that came from things with faces.
Okay.
So, you know, meat, poultry, fish, eggs.
These tend to have a more satiating effect on you than, for example, beans.
Okay.
So you have beans for different reasons, but not here.
And this will make you, again, if you eat this the right way, over that two-week period, elegantly take you in the right direction.
Okay.
How about those protein powders and protein shakes?
No?
Well, I'm okay with protein.
No, no, not the face.
I like these the most because they're the ones that have been shown to help with satiety.
But your point's an excellent one.
Any protein will help with satiety.
We don't digest protein that efficiently, which is a good thing.
So it stays with us for a while.
That's why eating protein generally is a better choice than eating carbohydrates, as long as you mix it up the right way.
So I want this combo to be eaten every three hours.
Every three hours.
You never want to go long periods of time because when you begin to fluctuate your blood sugar, you'll start to have those cravings and fall prey to them again.
Okay.
So as an example, this might be a typical breakfast.
You know, half the plate is greens, as I mentioned up over there.
Yep.
But any slow carbs would do.
You could have also had, you know, some chickpeas here or some of that fruit that I mentioned, like grapefruit or apples.
A quarter of the plate is made up of a healthy fat.
Walnut's a great example.
And then a quarter of the plate made up of a protein.
I'll give you eggs as an example.
But again, any of these samples, that would work.
Okay.
I can do that.
Now pay attention because it's getting interesting now because I'm thinking to a place that a lot of us fall down.
All right.
So here's the thing.
A lot of people start craving things at the bewitching hour.
Do you have a bewitching hour?
Yes.
Three o 'clock.
Three o 'clock.
Yes.
And what happens then?
Oh, I need to have sugar.
I start shutting down and I need a pick-me-up.
You need a pick-me-up.
Yes.
All right.
So I want you to start using dairy in the middle of the afternoon.
Dairy does something that's very important, and let me show you specifically what it is.
When you crave those foods in the middle of the afternoon that have sugar in them, you basically are taking sugar, go ahead, put some sugar in some water.
This is basically what your body sees.
It sees sugar entering.
Put some more in there.
Put the whole thing in there.
Be liberal about it.
That's basically what your body desires, and it desires for a very important reason.
When you give your body sugar, the brain gets a very interesting bolus of these feel-good chemicals.
And so you pour it on your brain, and you start to see specific parts of your brain begin to just enjoy this more than anything you can imagine.
It feels so good, you want to have more.
And especially in the middle of the afternoon, you want this sort of calming feeling in your body.
So this is pretty specifically what goes on as your brain begins to enjoy life more and more and more.
It begins to sort of liven up again, as opposed to the old flat brain you used to have.
Dairy has something in it that's very important.
It has something that allows you to rebuild serotonin.
Serotonin is a feel-good hormone of the body.
You can get to it through addictive substances like sugar.
Crack cocaine does it too, by the way, which sugar acts like in many ways.
Or you can get through it by giving yourself dairy.
Go ahead and pour some dairy on there gently.
And dairy does something to stimulate serotonin because it has chemicals in it, amino acids, that actually naturally allow the brain to make it.
So without having to addict the brain to stuff, you will naturally have the brain feel good about itself.
Therefore, you'll feel good about yourself.
So great sources would be a cup of milk, for example, an ounce and a half of hard cheeses like cheddar or Swiss or Parmesan.
A cup of Greek yogurt would get you there.
But I want you every day between 3 and 4 o 'clock when you normally have that witching hour come into your psyche to begin to do what you're doing right now.
Take some dairy into your body.
Now, which type milk do you recommend?
Either 2% regular?
I like 2%.
Excellent point.
Skim milk I don't like because it doesn't have the right fats in there.
Although, in fairness, any dairy will have this effect because it's the protein in the dairy that I'm interested in.
You did a very good job pouring that.
You didn't spill any at all.
You did better than I did.
Thank you very much, Laura.
Thank you.
Next up, my 14-day plan to shut down your sugar cravings are salt.
How are you?
Hi.
So, this may seem counterintuitive, but a tiny pinch of salt, just a little bit, can enhance the natural sweetness in foods, especially fresh fruit.
Mmm.
What do you like to eat that's really sweet when you get those cravings?
To name a few, Snickers, chocolate Haagen-Dazs ice cream, chocolate cake with some chocolate icing.
They're applauding for this now.
They're applauding for Juanita.
So I want you to replace the sweets you normally desire.
Okay.
Because we all have them.
And it's in a two-week plan.
I've got to get you to give it up somehow.
This is a very straightforward way of doing it that most of us haven't thought of.
I want you to give up that sweet desire and switch it out for desire for something that is not quite as sweet but will taste as sweet to you.
And you're going to do it by topping something, for example, with a grapefruit with some salt.
So go ahead and do that as a little example.
Take a pinch of salt, add it on a pear, an apple, a grapefruit, whatever you like.
Okay.
I think you're going to be fascinated by this experience.
I might need to put some extra salt on.
No, no, you won't need to.
That's plain.
Go ahead, give it a shot.
I'm going to turn you into a salt craver now.
Okay.
Actually, this is kind of good.
Please do.
We only do this twice a day, everybody.
Twice a day.
But your taste buds naturally desire sugar.
Salt opens up the taste buds for sweet stuff.
So it lets you taste more robustly things that really aren't that sweet.
So you get this nice feeling.
Even though you're not getting all the sugar.
So you're not wreaking havoc with your hormones.
You still feel good about life, but you're not getting ups and downs that we're talking about.
Now, does it matter if you use regular salt versus the sea salt?
Any salt works.
Any salt?
Any salt works.
And the salt's not bad for your high blood pressure?
If you're taking tons of it, yes.
80% of the salt...
Because I like sugar, so...
If I have a choice...
You know, most of the salt does not come from the salt you add.
It's from the salt and processed foods.
So just add a time.
I'm asking for a pinch, not much.
And only the two times a day you'd normally go for sweet cravings.
So the five times I have to just suck it up.
Three of them you gotta suck up.
This whole season is about these kinds of ideas, though.
It's about small, little nudges, little steps, tiny steps.
When you add them together, it adds up.
Think about this.
Look what we just did.
We made a different program for every three hours, so you don't ever have depths and downs.
You have a very simple way of making sure you have the right kinds of feel-good chemicals in the brain for people who have an addictive mindset for sugar.
Get that with dairy.
And now I'm giving you a little tip, salt en-sweet, to make eggs and more.
You know, it's about my Snickers time anyway.
I need a fix.
All right.
You can log on DrEyes.com for the full plan and let me know how you're doing with your sugar cravings via...
All right, you sweet toots.
Now that you're prepared to cut cravings, tell us, what's your guilty pleasure?
What else?
Chocolate.
I make sure to work out daily so that I can indulge.
Don't worry, you can tell Dr. Oz.
Share yours on his Facebook page.
Coming up, some may argue that faith and health are unrelated, but this doctor says that the power of prayer can reduce the risk of stress and add years to your life.
Can the power of prayer help you heal?
Prayer can cure disease.
Coming up next.
Sherri Shepard and the best female doctors on the health issues you're talking about.
No topic is off limits.
Did you smell it?
I did.
It's just like a man that sniffed it up.
All new eyes.
That's coming up tomorrow.
God saved my life.
A direct answer to thousands and thousands of prayers.
The big conversation today, can the power of prayer help you heal?
Kent Brantley, the doctor who was treated for Ebola and recently released from the hospital, credited prayer and God with helping him heal.
I've seen too many miracles as a practicing surgeon to ignore the potential power of prayer, and I'm not the only one.
The doctor you're about to meet has tangible evidence that the power of prayer can actually help you heal.
Meet Dr. Harold Koenig.
I'm a trained medical scientist and a physician.
My primary training is to conduct research in an objective and scientific manner.
But I do believe that there is something more.
That is the power of prayer.
Our professor of psychiatry at Duke University, Dr. Harold Koenig, is a pioneer in connecting the worlds of medicine and spirituality and identifying the link between prayer and health.
He's even seen the effects of prayer on his own well-being.
Prayer has helped me a lot in terms of dealing with my own chronic pain that I've had for 20 to 30 years.
Dr. Koenig is convinced that people who are religious lead much healthier lives and that the power of prayer is so profound it can add 7 to 14 years to your lifespan.
He didn't learn about it in medical school, but Dr. Koenig firmly believes that practicing religion and prayer can be, for many people, a crucial key to healing.
People need more than just medicine or surgery.
It helps a lot, but it's not enough.
And that's kind of where faith enters into the picture.
The world's top expert on religion and health, Dr. Harold Koenig, is joining us.
Do you think prayer can really heal or cure disease?
I think that prayer can heal and cure disease.
But, you know, it doesn't happen very often that a person prays and the disease is gone.
Most of the time we pray and we get the strength to endure the condition.
And, you know, when we're coping better with the condition, we actually do better physiologically.
So it's been preciously difficult to actually find hard data in this area.
I've done research in this area.
Others have as well.
But I want to show you, if I can, some very new research that's just come out.
These are images from a recent study.
That Dr. Koenig brought to my attention.
And they did a study looking at people who are at risk of depression.
This image shows the area of the brain that makes decisions, the area that senses things.
This is the area down here that remembers things.
Now, this image is a compilation of people's brains who were depressed and had not done any prayer around that issue.
And the purple signifies that there's actually a thinning.
Let me show you the second scan now.
Same kind of thing.
They collected images of people who are high risk for depression.
For example, their parents were depressed.
And these people had prayed.
Notice the red and the yellow marks.
These yellow areas and red areas show us that the brain is actually thicker.
It's compensated by being able to cope better with what's going on.
This is the first evidence that I've seen of the power of prayer on the brain that's physically actually changed our brains.
It's as though the brains were doing bicep curls in order to make it a bit stronger.
In part because of this, some researchers have argued that prayer can help reduce the incidence of depression, a very difficult-to-treat problem, by 90%.
That's a big statement.
Now, what about people who aren't overtly religious but are spiritual?
Does the impact seem to reside there as well?
Well, you know, people who are spiritual and who are not particularly religious, they are going to derive benefit from things like meditation, where it's not so much focused on religion.
But, you know, when people pray in the context of a relationship with God, With God whom they see as a friend who can come into their lives and give them strength and hope, that really seems to make an additional difference.
I've noticed that the military is doing work on spirituality.
They actually have concluded that it's important for the resilience of folks in the military who are struggling.
You've actually given a number out of how much benefit prayer might offer to us, quoting a number I believe around 7, 10, maybe even 14 years of longevity.
How do you get those numbers?
Well, you know, religious involvement, including prayer, seems to affect our bodies in many different ways.
It affects our minds in terms of how we cope with stress and illness.
It affects our health behaviors, how we live our lives, whether we exercise.
What we eat, our smoking habits, our drinking habits, and it also surrounds us with a faith community to provide support for us during hard times.
So all of those factors seem to affect our physical health and extend our longevity.
I called my buddies who work at Real Age, which is a great way of assessing how old your body thinks you are, and their numbers were not too different from yours.
If it reduces stress, which is a big part of this, because we don't want it to be a stressful process to incorporate this into your life.
We showed Dr. Ken Brantley earlier.
He's been very vocal about the power of prayer.
He's argued that it helped him heal from Ebola.
There are some who question whether that's true or not.
How would you have an argument with them?
How would you defend Dr. Brantley's beliefs?
Well, I think that his beliefs are powerful for him and because they are so powerful for him, religious beliefs are one of the most powerful factors that you can imagine in a person's life and in their health.
Because he believes that, that probably has affected his immune system in various ways that have made him stronger and more able to resist the virus.
Now, you know, can we say that this is not a miraculous...
God-caused cure of him?
No, we can't.
Science cannot answer that question.
But what we can do, we can say that because of his positive attitudes, that his body was probably more able to fight off this virus.
That's good.
Thank you very much.
Religion is a deeply emotional and personal topic, obviously, and some may argue that faith and health are unrelated, but the connection has always seemed very real in my practice.
In fact, I think practicing medicine without a spiritual or religious element is a departure from the norm of history since the first healers.
We're spiritual leaders as well.
So religion does help cope with social problems.
It helps cope with life in general.
And I think we ought to embrace every tool that helps as long as people don't feel judged or uncomfortable in the process.
That's an important element because I don't want people feeling that way.
Tell us what you think.
You can join the conversation at DrRoz.com and tell us if you think the power of prayer can help heal.
We'll be right back.
Next.
Are you waking up in the middle of the night?
Mind racing.
Heart pounding.
Welcome to the 4AM Club.
You're not alone.
Uncover unique stress remedies to stop your mind from racing and keep you fast asleep.
Next. Next.
It's happening all over the world, and you may be a part of the club and not even know it.
I'm talking about women on the edge of 50 who wake up in the middle of the night with their minds racing and their hearts pounding.
Sound familiar?
Yeah, a lot of nodding heads.
Comedian and author Annabelle Gurwitch calls it the 4AM Club.
I'm Annabelle Gurwitch.
I'm a 52-year-old mother, wife, comedian, author, and I happen to be...
The founding member of the 4AM Club.
It doesn't take much to be a member.
Whether you had too much coffee during the day, or you're waking up thinking about what you have to do tomorrow, we've all been there.
We're up at 4AM.
And it's great to know that when you wake up in the middle of the night, you're not alone.
Annabelle's 4am club.
We're open.
What's up?
Annabelle.
It's 4am and I'm wide awake.
Me too.
I'm up and hit.
You can check the temperature in your room, but I think you're just having a hot flush.
I think cookies are like needed right now.
I don't know if cookies are asleep.
Do you have any book recommendations?
I have a great recommendation.
I just wrote a new book.
It's called I See You Made an Effort.
Annabelle.
Right on, Marcus.
So what wakes you up at 4 a.m. in the morning?
Okay, at 4 a.m., I start to wake up and I'm thinking about the things I forgot to do two days ago, the things I forgot to do 25 years ago.
Did I give my kid enough greens?
And why did I go to bed with a sweater wrapped around my waist?
And then I realize it's not a sweater.
It's my waistline now.
It's grown up, yeah.
It's everything.
Yeah, you fielded lots of calls for women.
Complain about this 4 a.m. scenario.
There must be common themes.
Yeah, you know, I mean, since I started the book tour, I've met women all over the country, and I think it really boils down to stress.
We're really stressed out at this age.
So Amber decided to try some rather...
Some unusual stress relievers to help out our fellow 4AMers.
Take a look.
Ladies, thank you so much for coming over.
I've come up with some stress relievers that will help us get a little extra sleep tonight.
Are you ready to try something unconventional?
Yes.
Are you ready to get dirty?
Yes.
Not that kind of dirty.
You know, the right kind of dirty.
There's a lot of research that says that...
Singing, and in particular, singing together, releases endorphins, and that's one of those happiness hormones.
So I've arranged for a singing instructor to work with this, and the best part is you don't have to be a good singer.
Well, thank goodness.
Then I qualify.
*music*
For a first try?
I could see singing at 4 a.m. and being very happy.
Not so much my neighbors.
Meditation has been shown to be relaxing for the brain, and I like a moving meditation.
So I thought of dervish whirling.
Dervish whirling is an ancient technique.
It's from the 13th century in Turkey.
You guys, are you ready?
One, two, three, four, five.
My skirt's not going out.
I overworld.
People have been doing mud baths.
Since Roman times, right?
People say it improves your digestion.
It relaxes muscles.
This is going to be the thing.
This is going to be the thing.
It helps the sleep.
I'm going to help you guys stir up this brew, but I'm not hopping in.
It feels kind of amazing.
It does.
It's like playing in the dirt.
This is just soap.
Out of my comfort zone of the normal day that it just feels so good.
Thank you for inviting me because I'm not going to be a member of the 4am club tonight.
Me neither.
I might be cleaning up till 4am.
I'm so glad it worked for you guys.
Some very extreme measures.
Okay, you got an emergency kit for all the folks on the edge of 50 who might be suffering from not only 4 a.m. scenarios, but other things as well.
Yes.
It starts with...
I'm supposed to hold this?
Is this right?
Yes, granny panties.
Right?
They come back.
So I hold it like this?
Those might be your size.
All right.
Exactly.
All right, come over here.
Come on here.
All right.
So what do you do with these?
Okay.
Why do I need granny panties?
The granny panties are really for a sense of humor, just to remind you to laugh, because in menopause, you need your sense of humor.
And if you also, if you wanted some carbohydrates, you might need those too, because you gain weight so quickly at this age.
Okay, inside here, all right, you ready?
Tweezers.
Okay, tweezers.
On any given day, I can end up with more chin hairs than my teenage son.
Tweezers at this age, very important.
Then I've got a great selection here of reading glasses.
I don't need to tell you why, right?
I lose my glasses all the time.
Usually I'm wearing them when I'm looking for them.
You have to hide these around the house.
I do that too, by the way.
Always.
Great.
Okay.
Then the most important thing in the kit is the phone.
Why?
You're looking at me like, why Annabelle?
Why this, right?
Well, what I have really found that I need at this age is community.
I need my girlfriends.
Now my new trick is exercise dates.
Twice a week, standing dates with my girlfriends.
So you get two things.
You get your girlfriend time and your exercise time together.
Well, well thought through.
Last more of her wonderful insights in I See You Made an Effort.
It's a wonderful book.
It's out now.
Be sure to visit our Facebook page.
Enjoy it on Annabelle's 4AM Club Conversations.
Here's a home full number, by the way.
We'll be right back.
Next, it's often called the silent killer.
One in every three adults lives with it.
High blood pressure.
What you can do to get it under control.
And how you can monitor it right from your own home.
Coming up.
Sherri Shepherd and the best female doctors on the health issues you're talking about.
No topic is off limits.
Did you smell it?
I did.
It's just like a man sniffing up.
All new odds.
That's coming up tomorrow.
A third of the audience is standing.
Now, why is that?
Because they represent the one out of three adults with high blood pressure.
Now, this season, I'm asking you to take simple steps to better health.
Today, we're focusing on the very first step I want everyone to take to get their blood pressure under control.
Now, before I tell you exactly what that step is, I need a little help from my assistant of the day.
How about seat number 73?
Is that you?
Well, how are you?
Everyone else, if you have a seat.
Hi.
Come on down.
Let me put this on you real quick.
What's your first name?
Joanna.
Joanna.
Is that your family back there, friends?
That's my friend Karen.
Oh, I bet she was down here.
Now, your blood pressure, what is it?
Typically, it's normal, 110 over 75-ish.
Oh, you have good blood pressure.
Unless I'm really excited.
Like now?
Yeah.
Come sit.
We're going to check your blood pressure.
I have a remarkable effect on people.
I can raise anybody's blood pressure.
All right.
So.
Here, put your arms right through there.
And let me just see what it is.
And you sit there and try to make the world a calm place with all these people watching you.
And we'll put these numbers on.
And while I tell you about this a little bit, you ignore me.
You just concentrate on your blood pressure and relaxing yourself.
Now, you want to use a wide-range cuff.
These cuffs I just put on are designed for different sizes of arms so you don't get the wrong number for yourself.
And remember, the blood pressure is the number, everybody, of the blood rushing against your blood vessels.
The top number is designed to tell us exactly how hard your heart...
Pump blood into your blood vessels, how you push them out and engorge them with blood.
The lower number tells us when your heart's not pumping, when your heart's relaxed, how much you relax, how much your blood vessels are able to open up and let blood flow through them.
So the ideal blood pressure...
Is anything below 120 over 80 over there?
That green light that I'm identifying.
Anything between 120 and 140 over 90 is called the orange area.
That's called pre-hypertension.
Ideally, you don't want to be there.
It's better off if you're not there.
You want to be in that green light area if possible.
Anything in the red zone, 140 over 90 or above, we don't want that.
And your blood pressure?
Well, your lower number is great, 76. Your higher number, because of me, I'll take the blame on this, is 163.
But that's because you're a bunch of folks around you and you're like...
The beauty of what I want to talk to you about today is the fact that when we go to doctor's offices and we have that white jacket that you're wearing on, we raise your blood pressure.
When you're rushing to get to the office, it goes up.
The best place to take your blood pressure is at home.
That's when it's going to be nice and low, especially to keep your spouse out of it and let everything happen.
But the reality is, because so many of us have high blood pressure and we don't have symptoms, it's called the silent killer.
It's the most important thing to pay attention to.
If you don't know your number, you can't deal with it.
All right, let's get you up.
Let me walk you over here because I'm going to show you why I care so much about blood pressure.
And you're going to love this.
And it has to do with your blood vessels.
So we've got two blood vessels here, right?
And both blood vessels are normal.
They both could take you to your old age without having any problems.
But the water, which is the blood in your body, can either come in a very gentle way, sort of like this.
Gently massaging the inside of the blood vessel.
You know, interestingly touching it delicately.
Nudging it, right?
That's what you want.
A blood pressure that's in that green zone like there won't have any damaging effects to your blood vessels, so you don't have to fix poles and problems.
But if your blood pressure is that of a fire hydrant, right, and instead of being that nice number that I mentioned earlier, you're more like, I don't know, have like a jet engine, right?
And you do this to your blood vessel.
Watch what happens.
You see, ripping off the edge there.
Tearing it up.
Exactly right.
And as you tear it up, now you're left with a blood vessel wall that's got a big gap in it.
And when that gap is there, see all this down here?
This material?
This is the blood vessel that's being ripped.
And your body has to fix this.
So see this dark area that's left without a covering?
This teflon-like covering is missing.
Your body has to repair that.
It puts down plaque with cholesterol.
All kinds of bad stuff happens when this delicate lining is ripped off with high blood pressure.
So we don't want that.
Instead, what we want to do is to figure out ways of preventing it.
Now, under these sheets, I've...
Gotten examples of what happens over a long period of time if we tolerate that.
You put your purple gloves on.
The first specimen is pretty riveting.
I'm calming down.
You're calming down?
We'll do it at the very end.
How's that?
I'll race you for blood pressure at the end.
Okay.
This is the aorta, the major tube that carries blood in the body.
And you see these little chips?
Yes.
Go ahead and touch those.
That's like the torn up red in there?
Well, that's what happens when the torn up red is replaced by plaque.
These are little plaques.
Little chips here.
Describe them to everybody.
They're hard.
Much harder than you'd expect.
Much harder than I expected.
Bony is interesting.
It's a good way to describe it.
It's not supposed to be like this table.
Yeah, it feels like the table.
It's supposed to be like a very rubbery substance, and it's not that anymore.
And then over time, as this becomes rigid and unable to allow the blood to pass normally, your heart will change from this beautiful little baby, size of your fist, nice and elegant, right?
About the right size.
To this.
Oh.
This is a heart that's faced high blood pressure and burnt out from working hard every single day.
Since I've been talking, your heart's beaten a couple hundred times.
All of ours has.
And if we're pumping against that high pressure that I showed earlier, it's a problem.
So we don't want to have this in our life.
We don't want to experience any of this.
And the first step, the first step, is to know your blood pressure and monitor at home to avoid crazy numbers that aren't accurate.
So take your gloves off here.
Let's go through this.
How often do you check your blood pressure?
At the doctor once a year?
At the doctor once a year.
Yeah.
You know why we used to do that?
It was the only thing we had available.
There was no other way of doing it.
But research, without any question, shows the best place to do it is at home.
So I could come visit you at home.
Sure.
Come on over.
But most doctors aren't going to do that.
The best thing to do is to figure out an at-home blood pressure monitoring system that works for you.
I'm going to give you my guidelines real quickly.
You're going to settle down, sit in place for five minutes without moving.
With your feet on the floor, with no one bothering you.
And then you're going to start off initially by taking your blood pressure in both arms.
Because they can be different.
And you want to know if there's a difference.
There are lots of reasons for that, but you should know that.
And if there's a difference, more than 10 millimeters of mercury, then you actually want to call it to your doctor's attention.
You can use a wrist monitor if you want.
And if you use a wrist monitor, this is an example of one, you want to put it up by your heart.
It'll tell you.
There's a little light on there.
It'll tell you where to put it.
Like you're pledging allegiance to the flag.
And that little light will light up and it'll let you know that you're in the right spot.
So arm or wrist, they'll both work great.
You want to do this for a week, twice a day.
Then you'll know what your true blood pressure is.
We all have ups and downs, but you'll know generally.
And then after that, you can go, you know, to once a month or more regularly, depending if your blood pressure is high or low.
Does everything I may say make sense?
Yes.
And we're living in an era where we can know this.
Why not take advantage of it?
All season long, the Dr. Oz Show and Walmart are teaming up to bring healthy back.
That's our mantra, bringing healthy back.
And Walmart pharmacist Amber Bynum is here with some exciting news from them.
So share it with us, Bynum.
Take it away, Amber.
Dr. Oz, we're so excited.
We have the Walmart Healthcare Begins Here event.
It's going to be held this Saturday, October 11th from noon until 4 p.m. at participating Walmart locations across the nation.
We're going to be offering free blood pressure screenings, free blood glucose readings by licensed healthcare professionals.
And we're going to do what we talked about today, going above and beyond and providing information about those numbers so that we can help people live better.
And again, one more little tip because I think it'll help everybody.
Beginning tomorrow at 3 p.m. Eastern Time, you can go to DrRoz.com to be one of the first to win one of 300 free rely-on blood pressure monitors or one of 50,000 Walmart coupons for $10 off any Omron blood pressure monitor.
Take advantage of it.
It's there for you.
Be the world expert in your body.
Audience, I could not leave you alone without going home with these devices while you're all going home with a clean blood pressure monitor.
Top minutes of rely-on and Omron.
And thanks to our sponsorship partner, Walmart, for being there for us.
We'll be right back.
Coming up, learn the tips to shop like a pro and change your family's health.
My husband lost 10 pounds.
I couldn't believe it.
Insider Supermarket Secrets to buy what's best for a healthier family.
Coming up next.
Coming up next.
I've been telling you that small steps can make a big impact on your health.
One mom and her family are proving just that.
Lisa Leek overhauled the food in her home and changed her family's health.
How'd she do it?
She shopped the supermarket like a pro.
And she's here to show you how to do the exact same thing.
Welcome to the show, Lisa.
So how'd you overhaul your family's food?
Well, a few years ago, we had a huge wake-up call when we started researching the foods that we were eating and realized that a lot of the foods we thought were healthy were actually highly processed.
So we challenged our family to take 100 days of real food pledge.
100 days?
Yes.
Now, how did they respond to that?
Well, we certainly explained to the children that we were doing this for our health, and I think children generally want to do the right thing, so they were on board once we told them the reasons behind it.
What kind of results did you get?
Did the folks feel healthy or not really?
You know, we didn't expect to have any immediate changes to our health, so we were really surprised when my husband lost 10 pounds, I had more energy, my youngest daughter's constipation basically went away overnight.
Also, her asthma improved so much, and my good cholesterol, the number that you want to be high, went up.
By 50%.
I couldn't believe it.
And this is, again, small steps done right.
The way you describe it makes incredible impact.
Come on over here.
Okay.
Let's get to the tips on how to shop the supermarket like a pro.
The first thing you argue you need to do is to buy fast and easy food staples, things that you have to have on your shopping cart.
Yes.
Now, while it's ideal to shop the perimeter of the store and to get lots of fresh produce, it's not always realistic for a busy family.
So these are some of the staples I do buy from the middle of the store, starting with whole grain crackers and cereal.
These are 100% whole wheat pitas.
These fruit leathers are a great little snack.
I love popcorn.
I also love that it's a 100% whole grain snack.
And I want to show you a little trick.
You can take just a third a cup of kernels, put it in a brown paper lunch bag, and then you just fold over the top, and you can microwave this and make your own microwave popcorn with no additives or unwanted chemicals.
So you just put it in for about three or three and a half minutes.
And it's done.
And folks, it doesn't cost very much.
It's a paper bag, basically.
You got it done.
All right.
And over here, we have foods that you think we shouldn't be getting.
These are our foods, you argue, because they make health claims you might want to be wary about.
Exactly.
So, like, this says it's all natural, and it might be, but natural is not a term that's regulated, so you have to read the ingredients to be sure.
So, it was difficult for us to figure all these things out, but once I figured it out, it's so much easier now.
And you teach the kids.
Okay.
Lastly, you say shop in season.
Yes, that is a great way to save money.
And I have a tip for you.
So berries, for example, they are definitely a better deal when they're in season in the summer.
And I actually freeze fresh, local, organic blueberries and eat them all winter long.
And they are so much better than the frozen, packaged berries that you get from the store.
And another great tip to get your kids involved is if you're in the produce section, give them a dollar and tell them they can buy whatever they want.
And that's exactly how I got my oldest daughter to eat a cucumber for the first time.
She loves them.
So I think just because she was able to make the choice.
With a buck, if you can do that, we're well to do.
Okay, so after shopping, doing all these smart things you said, you've put a couple meals together.
Just as an example.
To tantalize you how cool this could be.
So for breakfast, what do you have for us?
Well, this is a recipe for my new book.
These are whole wheat banana pancakes.
And the great thing about this recipe is that the bananas are so sweet.
It's a great introductory recipe for someone who's just getting used to the taste of whole wheat.
And for lunch, you've got pita pizzas, which every child loves.
Yeah, these are so easy.
You just take those whole wheat pitas, and I use jarred organic tomato sauce from the grocery store and grated mozzarella, and you can toast them in the oven or the toaster oven.
And I actually make big batches of these in advance and free.
I use them for my kids' school lunches, and I pack them cold, and they love them.
They eat them up.
And this looks like a lot of work.
This is a slow cooker?
No, this is so easy.
So this is the most popular recipe on my blog.
I call it the best whole chicken in the slow cooker.
You basically rub some spices on the chicken, and you put it in the slow cooker with an onion.
No need to add any liquid.
And then you cook it on high for four hours, and it's like tender, falling off the bone.
This cannot be that good.
It is so good.
And especially if you have a recipe where you need to use cooked chicken.
This is how I always make it.
And then the best thing to do is you take the bones after you're done eating the chicken, put them back in the slow cooker, fill it with water, leave the cooking juices in there, add some veggie scraps, and I make homemade chicken broth overnight while I'm sleeping.
So you make something with ingredients you would have thrown away anyway.
I love it.
And finally, popcorn, which I think is the best snack for most of you who have issues late at night.
Yes.
Is that cinnamon on there?
Yes, this is cinnamon glazed popcorn, and just because you're on a real food diet doesn't...
I mean, you can't have a sweet tooth.
I love to make this.
You just mix melted butter and honey and cinnamon and ginger together, and you bake it on a low temperature together.
And I always give this to the teachers for holiday gifts every year with a little recipe card, and it's a big hit.
Does that help with the grades at all?
They're getting good grades to begin with, I hope.
I am very proud of you.
Thank you.
You invested a little bit of effort, made those small steps, and now you've changed the life of you and your family.
Yes.
And the next generation, too.
Congratulations.
Thank you so much.
You can check out all of Lisa's recipes in her new book, 100 Days of Real Food.
It's absolutely fabulous.
I'll be right back.
I made it.
All new Oz, some of the best female doctors are setting the record straight.
We've got lots of questions out there.
And no topic is off limits.
Is skinny shaming bad?
Are butt implants the new breast implants?
Are you serious?
And...
Did you smell it?
I did.
This is like a man.
Let's sniff it up.
Sharon Shepard stops by to share her unique view.
All new Dr. Oz.
That's coming up tomorrow.
Hey, oh.
Oh. *Cheering*
It is time for In Case You Missed This.
Starting today, I am challenging you to shut down your sugar cravings.
Many of you are eating your body weight in sugar every single year.
It's making you feel fat and tired and sick.
And it only takes 14 days to shut those cravings down for good.
Now I'm going to give you a surprising trick to satisfy a sugar craving.
It's called a pinch of salt.
Take a pinch of salt, sprinkle it on something that's not that sweet.
Let's say a grapefruit or a pear or maybe an apple.
And if that little tiny pinch can enhance the natural sweetness of your food, try a little bit on some fruit and you'll see what I'm talking about.
It'll reduce dramatically the amount of sugar you think you need to have in your diet.
Next, it's our big conversation point today.
Can the power of prayer help you heal?
Religion and health expert Dr. Harold Koenig says yes.
He's emphatic about it.
He believes that prayer can promote healing by reducing stress and anxiety, and it actually even helps depression by 90%.
Studies have found that physical changes in the brain happen in people who are religious and pray, and some may argue that faith and health are unrelated, but the connection has always seemed very real to me in my practice.
Next, shop the supermarket like a pro.
One way to do this, and this is, I think, pretty simple, is realize that it's not practical to just shop the perimeter of the store, although it's a good place to start.
You can buy fast and easy food staples everywhere.
For example, in these packages, I'll give you some of these.
You can have whole wheat crackers.
There's pita.
There's puffed rice cereal.
Again, check the ingredients.
Fruit leathers.
These nut bars are fabulous.
Again, look to make sure you don't have 25 synthetic things in there, but these can be easily found with a little bit of homework.
And even with things like popcorn, you can prepare them.
It's a wonderful late-night snack.
So 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 sponsors and partners, please go to droutes.com.
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