405 Using Food as Medicine, How Naomi Murphy Healed Her Body, Created Effortless Weight Loss, Overcame Epstein-Barr virus, EBV, Heart Palpitations, and Heart Disease, Whole Food Plant-Based Diet and R

IT'S HERE! Learntruehealth.com/homekitchen Use coupon code LTH for the listener discount! How To Reverse Diseases Through Whole Food Plant-based Diet  https://www.learntruehealth.com/how-to-reverse-diseases-through-whole-food-plant-based-diet Highlights: What are the benefits of going whole food plant-based, no oil, no salt and no sugar Glowing skin from eating whole food plant-based How to reverse diabetes How to reverse heart disease How to reverse plantar fasciitis How to reverse other illnesses   In this episode, Naomi Murphy shared with us the benefits of eating a whole food plant-based diet. She shares different stories that support how whole food plant-based diet has helped various people in reversing illnesses. She also shares the benefits of eating a whole food plant-based diet.   [0:00] Intro: Welcome to the Learn True Health podcast. I’m your host, Ashley James. This is episode 405.   [0:00:13] Ashley James: I am so excited for today’s guest. We have on the show a dear friend of mine, Naomi Murphy, who has been a listener of the show. She’s been my stalker. What I love about Naomi is she’s been a health warrior. She has reversed some health issues and I’ve really been honored to be her friend and be part of her health journey. Watching her recover from Epstein Barr virus and from several other issues. It’s just watching you transform has been amazing. In this last year, her and I have really joined forces together in the way we cook, the way we eat and the way we use food as medicine. When we’re all alone and were making health changes, it’s really, I felt very isolated in my past when I’m switching to a new diet or when I’m getting on a new detox protocol and there’s no one else to do it with me. That’s why I love the Learn True Health Facebook group is that at least there’s some sense of community. People can come in feel supported, feel some sense of community. So when Naomi decided to go whole food, plant-based, no salt, sugar, oil for her heart to heal her heart, my husband and I were already eating this way. So it was so great to have a friend join me. We started texting each other almost daily pictures and recipes. We’d bring each other food. So to have that camaraderie was so amazing. So I’ve watched you transform your health and it’s been wonderful. I keep saying I got to have you on the show because you’re really inspiring and you’ve done so many things. You’re so disciplined and so focused on making sure that health is first. I know that you are just chock-full of wonderful information to help the listeners today. So I’m really really excited that you’re finally here on the show.   [0:02:27] Naomi Murphy: Thank you, Ashley. I have to say it’s a little surreal to be on this side of the podcast because I’ve been a listener for so long. When I met you you told me about your podcast. I think it took a year before I even checked it out. Then my life started to change and expand because of everything I learned. I was like, “Oh my God. This podcast is amazing.” I started recommending to everyone and talking to your more because I already knew you and yes, stalked you and asked every question I could think of. Lucky for me we have become friends. I agree about eating a diet that’s kind of outside the mainstream way of eating. It is so great that others that do that. That’s really how I’ve eaten different ways before like been surrounded by acupuncture students or MD students working at colleges. Getting into fun cleanses and things like that. Now I’m a suburban mom. I’m not in that holistic community as much as I used to be. So it was great to have you to talk to. I think it was imperative almost that I had someone to talk to because I was even going against my family culture a little bit. Even if my husband wants to be healthier, not everyone’s ready at the same time to start eating. It was eating whole food, plant-based, no salt, oil or sugar.   [0:04:12] Ashley James: Which sounds really boring and hard and expensive and not delicious. When I first heard that, my thought was I can’t do that which is really funny. When I first heard about these very specific parameters like whole food, plant-based meaning there’s no animal products. No dairy, no cheese, no eggs, no meat, no fish. Lots of fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes and beans. That and whole greens and no oil, and no salt and sugar. I just thought, “That food sounds so bland and so complicated.” But then I started hearing the health benefits and the studies. I kept hearing these doctors who are reversing major diseases. It kept just etching ion my brain this every meal, this every single meal that I eat with oil and salt and sugar and animal fat or whatever. It kept, because at the time I was doing keto because I was sold this idea that keto is the absolute number one healthiest way to eat but my health was getting worse on keto not better even though I was working with a naturopath. We go weekly to the naturopath and show them everything we ate. They’re like, “Keep at it. Add more fats, add more eggs, add more cheese,” whatever I was. We were getting, just we were deteriorating. Our health was getting worse and worse and worse. I want to eat in a way that heals me. I’ve been frustrated that I’ve done over 30 diets, several of them led by doctors. I’ve looked into science because you can find a study to say that the Oreo diet is healthy for you because there’s a lot of paid study out there. So there’s a lot of misinformation. I was looking and searching for a food, a way to heal my body with food and the keto was not doing it for me. When I kept hearing over and over and over again because all the guests that I’d interviewed, I wasn’t going out looking for whole food, plant-based doctors. They found me a lot of times. I kept interviewing them and interviewing them. I just kept hearing like cancer reversed, type 2 diabetes reversed, type 1 diabetes significantly improved to the point where they cut insulin in half easily. I heard one guy, he cut his insulin by 70%. He’s a type 1 diabetic. Because his body became so efficient, weight loss happens as a by-product of this just achieving a healthy weight. Immune health like crazy. You’re living 30 years longer and really healthy in your senior years. So I kept hearing it over and over and over again. That’s when I started to go, “Okay.” Then chef AJ, she tries to make it be delicious so I started to look at it. When I interviewed her, I started to look into maybe I could do this. Let’s try it. Let’s just do 30 days. So I decided to do a 3-day challenge. Actually, at the time, a friend was visiting from Canada. Kat Hernandez, visiting from Canada. This was two years ago. Yeah. We did the 30-day challenge. By the end of the three days I couldn’t believe it. I was like, “This food is delicious. This food is easier to make.” It’s easier to make because there’s no meat I have to think about, which I didn’t realize was kind of you know, like food poisoning. You got to really make sure that things are cleaner whereas when you’re just cooking vegetables and greens, that’s not part of the equation. After one month of just trying the challenge, I was on board because I could not believe how good I felt. I always thought I’d eat meat but after three days of eating no meat just as an experiment and eating a whole food plant-based diet with no processed foods, my body was buzzing with energy. I wake up in the morning, jump out of bed and just be ready to go. Whereas before, I just had that low-level fog follow me. It took me a few hours to shake it off. Whereas now, it’s just on I’m on. In the morning I’m on.   [0:08:36] Naomi Murphy: I think many of us are functioning under a misunderstanding, which is promoted by our government because the government subsidizes the foods that are actually not good for us. The meat industry and the dairy industry are subsidized and so they want to promote those foods. There’s science that supports eating plants or health that is available to everyone. I was just listening to T. Colin Campbell in the book Whole. He was saying when he wrote The China Study, which shows that eating a whole food plant-based diet is the best for health. It’s the optimal diet for health and it’s backed up The China Study. He said that he was really naïve. He thought that he would bring that information to people and it would change everything. It would change legislation around food and nutrition. It would change medicine, it would change everything but instead, he met a lot of resistance in his own community, in the academic community, which is why he started writing books for people to read and to have access to the information. So, I think The China Study was written in 1976 and when he wrote Whole he was 79 years old, when he read it anyway, hearing him on audible. So there’s a lot of resistance to changing our way of eating away from animal products. It’s in our language. We have to get to the meat of the matter. I always thought that the most satisfying part of my meal that really stuck to my ribs, that made me feel satisfied and full was the protein from an animal product and the fat. I thought the protein and the fat were the satisfying parts and that I needed to add some fiber and some color for healthy. My mind was blown when I cut out all animal products and I did it cold turkey.   [0:11:11] Ashley James: Yeah. We’re going to get into that story though.   [0:11:13] Naomi Murphy: Okay. I was blown away and I continue to be actually, that eating a high fiber diet in the form of fruits and vegetables, is way more satisfying than eating meat and fats ever was and I have the added benefit of never ever feeling like I’m having a food coma or I’m getting kind of ill from eating. I like to eat so I don’t eat tiny portions. I eat a big amount of good food that I make. I just feel like the pressure of being full, I don’t feel disgusting or tired or fatigued or anything. I don’t feel any and there’s definitely no hangover the next day.   [0:12:07] Ashley James: The food comas and the food hangovers.   [0:12:09] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. We can spend holidays with great delight, interesting, flavorful food that makes you lose weight instead of gain weight if you need to lose weight, which I do and without trying. Just by cooking the whole food plant-based food.   [0:12:38] Ashley James: Right. Yeah. You did Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year’s all eating the whole food plant-based diet, your whole family including your parents, which we’ll get into your story. But you guys had a successful whole holiday season and no one felt deprived and everyone got to eat amazing, delicious foods. We filmed some of it and put it in the membership, the Learn True Health Home Kitchen membership. Yeah. It’s delicious. You’re right. I’m sitting here and I’m feeling my body and we just about half an hour ago ate your amazing, made from scratch whole food plant-based side paneer, which is delicious Indian food. I feel so satisfied right now like I do not need to eat for the next five hours. I feel so satisfied and there was no meat in it.   [0:13:30] Naomi Murphy: There’s no oil in it. There’s not even an oil added to sort of make you feel satisfied and full. So it is amazing. It is amazing to me. I think it will be amazing for a long time.   [0:13:42] Ashley James: The Ashley three years ago would not believe the Ashley now. That’s how much my world has changed in the last few years. I did what your husband is doing which is I slowly adapted to the whole food plant-based whereas you went –   [0:14:03] Naomi Murphy: You went whole hog but not cold turkey?   [0:14:04] Ashley James: Right. I am now whole hog but I didn’t go cold turkey. All the meat talk. Whereas you went totally cold turkey just like my husband, right? He just woke up January 1st –   [0:14:17] Naomi Murphy: Well, I have some strong motivation. I have some strong motivation. When you guys were eating whole food plant-based, no oil, I just thought, “Well, that’s a bit fussy. That’s a bit extreme but I could accommodate that. I could cook something for you.” But I didn’t imagine that I would want to do that. It just didn’t occur to me that that would be a good solution for me because of all the ether health information I’ve been following. The way that I’d been using whole foods. I remember about a decade ago, there was a number of books kind of about using the whole food. People talked about, “Eat the chicken skin. Eat the whole thing because there’s benefits to all parts.” But what they don’t mention is you can get many more nutrients in plant foods than you can in a chicken skin. It’s just that if you have to be eating chicken, which turns out to have a lot of problems if you read Proteinaholic and if you read How Not to Die by Dr. Michael Greger. You can learn that there’s some significant problems associated with eating poultry that I never imagined possible actually because poultry has been considered healthier version of meat.   [0:15:45] Ashley James: Well, what’s funny in the Proteinaholic he cites a study where they showed that eating poultry is associated with weight gain. On all the diets where I gained weight and not lost weight, I was just beating my head against the wall desperately trying to lose weight, I was eating chicken.   [0:16:05] Naomi Murphy: Think of all the people eating chicken breasts.   [0:16:08] Ashley James: Thinking that they’re doing something really really healthy but of all the animals you could eat, chicken, which we associate with low fat and weight loss, is actually the one that causes the most amount of weight gain, unhealthy weight gain.   [0:16:21] Naomi Murphy: It’s also associated with prostate cancer, developing prostate cancer and I don’t remember what else. It’s very strongly associated with some serious illness. Now that my husband and I are in our mid-late 40s you know it’s just becoming a time where we’re really paying attention to health changes and really wanting to live healthfully. When you’re a teenager in your 20s you can abuse your body and you don’t necessarily feel the impact.   [0:17:00] Ashley James: Right. Now we feel everything.   [0:17:02] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. So it’s interesting. I wish I would’ve had all these information when I was younger.   [0:17:09] Ashley James: I do too. I know I’m ready to hear it, which is funny because we were talking about that before we heat record, that I owned the Colin T. Campbell’s book, The China Study, in the early 2000s. I was reading it. I didn’t finish it obviously. I remember being on an airplane reading it flying somewhere. I think I was flying to Florida for Christmas and then I left it there, lost it or something. Imagine how different my life would’ve been if I had actually taken that book seriously in my early 20s. I mean, my life would’ve been very different. But I’m really really happy with where I am now. I think regret and guilt and shame are very toxic emotions. I’ve heard some people compare it to every time you feel guilt or shame it’s kind of like smoking a cigarette. If we think about, it is toxic for the body. First to stay in that level of vibration of holding on to regret, shame and guilt; and I could totally go there. I could totally feel the amount of regret of my past, right? We are the people we are right now because of our past. So let’s just transform it into a positive. I appreciate the person I am now and I’m still growing, I’m still on a journey as are you, as are we all. I can appreciate my past. If I had taken it seriously, oh my gosh, my life would be so different now. So, it’s pretty amazing that I had the cognitive dissonance to just shut it down and not listen.   [0:18:43] Naomi Murphy: Yes. I recall actively dismissing that book. Sean and I, we were talking about it when we were dating. So let’s say 17 years ago, he had a friend who ate whole food plant-based, no sugar. I don’t know about the oil and salt. It was based on reading T. Colin Campbell’s book The China Study that scientifically shows that way of eating is the healthiest. I remember saying, “Well, I’m going to pretend that you never said that.” Because it just was not workable in my mind at that time.   [0:19:28] Ashley James: We have to be ready to hear it because you were facing some health challenges. I know that listeners want to take their health to the next level. Some of them are in an acute situation facing health challenges while others are just really interesting in achieving those health goals. Let’s talk about your story and paint that picture. What have you gone through in your life? Because I know you have really healed some stuff. So, what have you gone through in your life? Tell us your story.   [0:19:57] Naomi Murphy: When I think about my relationship with food, a key memory was when I was in high school and I just wanted to be thinner. I remember depriving my body of food and then standing next to a refrigerator and eating ice cream and that’s it.   [0:20:18] Ashley James: It’s like anorexia and then binging. You weren’t throwing up?   [0:20:26] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I didn’t eat that much but my food choices were obviously bizarre and not healthful. I didn’t have a concept of a health-promoting. Though my mom was a good home cook. She was often on Weight Watchers. We ate chicken and white meat but still with plenty of oils and plenty of animal products. We did some healthy things back then. So it was that experience of being anorexic I think that made me think like I don’t really want to diet for weight loss. Any diet that I have should be about health primarily. Of course, weight loss can happen when you have a healthy diet. But I just realize that I needed to have a boundary around that.   [0:21:30] Ashley James: You mean you wanted to make sure that your diet was never about restricting portions because you saw that you could become extreme and start eating really unhealthful?   [0:21:44] Naomi Murphy: I had to be careful with it. Later, maybe about 10 years ago, my husband and I did do Weight Watchers for a short period. Or we’ve done My Fitness Pal when you track what you eat. I think that really helps with portion control. So that really didn’t trigger extreme behavior. That was good for showing me that I was eating more than I needed to eat.   [0:22:12] Ashley James: That’s good because, well like in Weight Watchers, you don’t want to only eat five points a day, right? If you have the anorexic mindset you might try to say, “I want to get under five points.” Whereas you’re supposed to be eating 23 points a day. So Weight Watchers is like, “We want to get you to this goal. We want you to eat 20 points a day.” Maybe not 23 or whatever. SO they try to keep you within parameters. Also My Fitness Pal, you may be staying 1800 calories but you wouldn’t want to be like, “I only want to eat 300 calories a day.”   [0:22:51] Naomi Murphy: But neither of those things. Those were like a short-term experience to be informative of how I could eat better. That level of calculation and also their food recommendations didn’t help me feel better. So it was not sustainable. It didn’t engage me. It didn’t feel healthy but it was helpful for portion control at that time. So in my 20s, I worked at Bastyr University.   [0:23:22] Ashley James: Which is the naturopathic clinic here.   [0:23:24] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. It’s a college. I worked at the clinic for the college. So I was surrounded by health nuts. That was awesome and fun like the people who worked in the admin roles and also the students that we knew. So, there was always a way to learn about the different elimination diet or a cleanse. I had some depression and I just happened to mention it to one of the docs. She said, “You should come in and do an elimination diet because you have dark circles under your eyes, which indicates you have a food sensitivity or food allergy.” So I did that. Instead of having my blood tested, I did an elimination diet and slowly tested the foods. I think it was a few weeks that I did not eat any allergens and then you slowly test them. If you have a reaction you don’t eat for like three or four days any of the other foods and then you add another so you can see what response is. So that became a really long drawn out process that lasted about six months. I did find some things that I really responded to so it made me really afraid of food. So that affected my eating for a long time. I did eat such a clean diet that I did. I lost like 25 pounds. I did feel a lot better. It didn’t help me achieve a healthier diet in the long run. I mean, I did eliminate some things but I was not counseled, which I think is really interesting now about how to address gut health, which was sort like, “Why can’t I eat gluten? Why do I respond to these things?” The answer was that it may be just a problem with my gut. But then no one pushed me to continue seeing somebody to address gut health, which I know so much more about that now. So it seems obvious that they would’ve helped me heal my gut back then. But it didn’t happen for whatever reason. I didn’t pursue the appointment and the supervising doc didn’t recommend it. So I don’t know. It’s a question I have about that.   [0:25:46] Ashley James: Yeah. This is where we have to advocate for ourselves as patients. I have had that experience with a doctor kind of just say something in passing. What they really should’ve done was made the entire appointment be about that, you know. The, “Oh. You should just heal your gut.” Then like, “Goodbye.” Well, okay. How? What? Yeah. We need to advocate for ourselves. Knowing what you know now, those doctors that you were surround with every day because you work in the clinic, those doctors should’ve been screaming, “Everyone needs to heal their gut. The gut is the first thing. If we don’t have a healthy gut we don’t have a healthy anything. Everyone, everyone quick. Come over here. Eat this fermented food.”   [0:26:30] Naomi Murphy: And it is a teaching clinic so perhaps they wanted to keep more people coming in that didn’t work there or something. Maybe just have to do with being an employee and using their clinic. I wish I would’ve started addressing my gut health back then because it would’ve change everything.   [0:26:52] Ashley James: Well, you’re addressing it now.   [0:26:55] Naomi Murphy: Yes. So I have three children. I had my last child when I was 40. I became very fatigued and tired and had some brain fog. All of these things I attributed to being a mom of three children that were five and under. I don’t think that anyone would dispute that that’s a possibility. So it didn’t occur to me until my youngest child went to kindergarten and I was like, “Great. I’m ready to kick butt now.” Then I noticed that I actually felt worse. I didn’t have energy to do all the things that I’ve been waiting to do while I was a stay at home mom. That was a big wakeup call for me. I ended up being diagnosed with Epstein Barr virus. Starting on protocol with an MD, I had a little improvement but not a lot. I was overweight. So I thought, “Well, maybe if I just lose weight I will have more energy and doing this Epstein Barr protocol will be more effective if I could just lighten the load of my body.” With the permission of my doctor I started doing keto. I did keto. I followed Facebook groups and there are people that I knew at the time that were keto. I ate probably the most unhealthy version of keto whether it involves eating bacon and cheese.   [0:28:41] Ashley James: Bacon wrapped cheese and cheese covered bacon.   [0:28:45] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I didn’t last long with that. I did feel a little bit more energy from eating keto at first. Then the lack of fiber in my diet was impactful. I just felt funny like making a tofu stir fry for my family and then I ate a piece of cheese and a piece of bacon and a small serving of cauliflower or something. It just didn’t feel right. So that didn’t work for me long term. I got a better protocol that involved eating the foods recommended by Anthony Williams, the medical medium.   [0:29:32] Ashley James: Okay. Who’s the medical medium?   [0:29:35] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. My doctor also recommended his foods for treating EBV.   [0:29:41] Ashley James: So you stopped keto.   [0:29:43] Naomi Murphy: Stopped keto. So at that point I started EBV with food and it was whole food but it involved spoonful of coconut oil sometimes, plenty of meat. Anthony Williams doesn’t promote meat but I did. I did eat healthy meat.   [0:30:09] Ashley James: Well the meat your family gets, just to paint the picture, there’s a farm up in Camano Island and this beefalo which I never knew what they were until I met you. But it’s a hybrid of a buffalo and a cow.   [0:30:23] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. They are entirely grass-fed, no pesticide.   [0:30:26] Ashley James: They live a wonderful life out on the pasture.   [0:30:29] Naomi Murphy: Very small farm.   [0:30:31] Ashley James: Then your family buys like have of one and puts it in the freezer.   [0:30:35] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. We fry it and no fat comes out. It’s really lean.   [0:30:39] Ashley James: Your family was looking for high-quality protein. It wasn’t really a standard American diet, although you were eating the same amount of protein, same amount of meat as everyone else. Just high quality. Here you were, you were very tired every morning. You really were fatigued. You could hardly function, could hardly leave the house.   [0:31:05] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I started having some neurological symptoms like dizziness and fatigue is considered a neurological symptoms as well. I had numbness and tingling as well in my legs sometimes in my hands. At one point like my whole right side of my body got tingly and numb.   [0:31:30] Ashley James: There were several times you thought you got a stroke because you were –   [0:31:33] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I used to constantly ask that kind of question to myself like, “Do I need to go to the ER or what do I need to do?” So that was a stressful time.   [0:31:48] Ashley James: You also had some cardiac symptom too, right?   [0:31:51] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I had some heart palpitations and some arrhythmia, I guess.   [0:31:59] Ashley James: Weren’t you having shortness of breath also?   [0:32:01] Naomi Murphy: That was later. That was later. But that’s not what I started out with. So I treated my Epstein Barr using foods that are anti-viral and herbs that are anti-viral. I did some detoxes. I did the parasite cleanse, which I’m on again from Dr. Jay Davidson.                                                                                                                                             [0:32:26] Ashley James: That’s a great episode to listen to.   [0:32:27] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I love that one.   [0:32:29] Ashley James: You got a sauna. I remember that.   [0:32:30] Naomi Murphy: I got a sauna.   [0:32:32] Ashley James: You do regular coffee enemas. You would drink the smoothie green giant like 60 oz. green smoothies.   [0:32:43] Naomi Murphy: That’s when I started with whole food plant-based.   [0:32:46] Ashley James: Oh really? But before that you were doing the juicing of-   [0:32:49] Naomi Murphy: I did juicing. Juicing.   [0:32:51] Ashley James: Anthony Williams recommends juicing lots of celery so you were doing lots of celery juice.   [0:32:55] Naomi Murphy: Right. For over two years, every morning I had a pint of celery juice. My husband was very supportive in helping make that happen. I bought celery by the case.   [0:33:06] Ashley James: Organic?   [0:33:07] Naomi Murphy: Yes. Organic celery by the case. I did heal my gut. That was amazing. I’ve since learned that you can heal your gut using all kinds of vegetables. It doesn’t have to be celery juice but that was the protocol that I was using at that time. The consistency of my application of that I think help. Yeah. Things really changed.   [0:33:39] Ashley James: So you were on this healing EBV protocol for how many years were you working on EBV?   [0:33:47] Naomi Murphy: Well, over two years but it was two years that I think I was on the whole food mostly plant-based but with plenty of oil.   [0:33:58] Ashley James: And beefalo, right?   [0:34:01] Naomi Murphy: And also eating meat. That was for a couple of years. So I did have some health improvement. But there was also some slippage eventually because I’m a mom and I cook for others. I wanted to talk about when I did have my chronic illness but didn’t really realize it was a chronic illness. I relied heavily on dairy products to feed my family. Cottage cheese, melted cheese, kefir. I made kefir that felt good using good milk with probiotic. That was something I felt really good about. I felt that protein was the most important thing to feed my kids and I no longer think that. I’m no longer worried about that. I think that if there’s any health benefit to that way of eating was at least we were eating whole foods. We were eating whole foods all along.   [0:35:04] Ashley James: As opposed to eating a bunch of cereal in front of them.   [0:35:06] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. We were trying. We try. We weren’t perfect. Whole food was our –   [0:35:15] Ashley James: Unprocessed. As much unprocessed food.   [0:35:16] Naomi Murphy: As much unprocessed food. But of course, listening to those people who were saying, “Eat the chicken skin. Use everything. Get the benefit.” Maybe even back then drink the red wine because of the benefit of the –   [0:35:35] Ashley James: Resveratrol in red wine which is like just eat the grapes dude. Just eat the grapes. You don’t need to get alcohol into your system. I mean, I get it.   [0:35:46] Naomi Murphy: When my health kind of tanked, there was no alcohol involved in my diet anymore.   [0:35:52] Ashley James: Right. You’ve been very strict.   [0:35:53] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. So when you and Duffy were eating whole food plant-based, no salt, oil or sugar, I remember thinking it was a little bit extreme and not something I would choose but fine for you. That’s great that you were doing it. I was supportive of you.   [0:36:12] Ashley James: Didn’t we have you over for dinner? Didn’t we have you guys for dinner and we cooked that way or did you cook for us?   [0:36:21] Naomi Murphy: I think I tried to cook for you when you came over and I made something that fit like a coconut milk soup. Like a soup with coconut. Like a Thai thing.   [0:36:32] Ashley James: Your Thai coconut soup is oh my gosh, it’s amazing. We’re going to have to film that by the way and put it in the Learn True Health Home Kitchen because it is memorable. I’m actually like I could actually taste it in my mouth right now. It’s really good, your Thai soup and it’s full of vegetables. It’s so delicious.   [0:36:46] Naomi Murphy: Well, you’re lucky because I have some on the refrigerator right now.   [0:36:50] Ashley James: I’m going to have to take some home with me.   [0:36:53] Naomi Murphy: So, my motivation for going whole food plant-based was I saw a practitioner and was told that I had heart disease. Because of the location of the heart disease that it might be affecting my breathing.   [0:37:08] Ashley James: Was this back in June?   [0:37:09] Naomi Murphy: This was July 15th, 2019.   [0:37:10] Ashley James: July 15th, 2019.   [0:37:14] Naomi Murphy: I was completely flummoxed because I have been focusing about EBV, not worried about calories, not worried about my weight, focusing on just eating high-quality food that was anti-viral. Really wanting to focus on that and then I heard heart disease, which never occurred to me as a possible problem though it should because it’s the number one –   [0:37:43] Ashley James: It’s the number one killer.   [0:37:44] Naomi Murphy: It’s the number one killer of our country.   [0:37:46] Ashley James: Statistically, if you’ve been eating the standard American diet, you are statistically more likely to die of heart disease than anything else. So this conversation is the most important conversation for everyone to have because this is the diet proven to reverse heart disease. Now, at the time you saw the practitioner six months ago, can you believe it’s been six months? You were noticing, because you go on weekly walks around your neighborhood with a walking partner with a neighbor, and you notice that you were having shortness of breath along with all your other heart symptoms.   [0:38:18] Naomi Murphy: Yep. With all my other heart symptoms and the poor circulation, which is causing the numbness and tingling. It all was attributed to me, in my mind, as part of EBV and EBV attacking different parts of my body. But this practitioner said, “You don’t have EBV. You have heart disease.” So I was like the break squealed and I changed my direction entirely. He said whole food plant-based. I went home.   [0:38:48] Ashley James: Well, first you came over to our house.   [0:38:50] Naomi Murphy: I went over to your house to talk to you about it.   [0:38:52] Ashley James: I made fresh rolls.   [0:38:53] Naomi Murphy: You fed me fresh rolls. I’m like, “This is delicious. Okay. This is a good start.” So that was strongly motivating for me to hear the word heart disease because it never occurred to me as something that I should be looking at because of my focus on the anti-viral lifestyle. So I immersed myself in information about eating whole food plant-based. Dr. Esselstyn, because he wrote the book prevent and reverse heart disease, was kind of my gateway educator which I found his interview that you did. I don’t remember in what order but I checked out the iThrive documentary. I bought the iThrive documentary because Sean’s mom has diabetes.   [0:39:45] Ashley James: Sean being your husband.   [0:39:46] Naomi Murphy: Sean is my husband. Yes.   [0:39:51] Ashley James: Just a little plug, LearnTrueHealth.com/iThrive. For people that don’t want to check out that docu-series. It’s really good. It really helped you, right?   [0:39:59] Naomi Murphy: Yes. Yes. It was great information. I learned so much about diabetes too which is important for everyone to learn about because it’s so prevalent in our society right now.   [0:40:12] Ashley James: Well, Type 2 diabetes is a byproduct of eating a high processed fat and high meat diet, which is it blew my mind. It took me a really long time to get that even though they kept saying it because in my mind, I have been indoctrinated that sugar is the cause of diabetes and it’s not. I really like how Dr. Garth Davis lays this out in his book Proteinaholic. He really does a good job laying out the studies that prove that people who are on a whole food plant-based diet, even if they eat a tremendous amount of carbohydrates they have amazing insulin sensitivity so they do not have insulin resistance. The more someone eats animal products, which is high fat, even if you eat a chicken breast there’s still a lot of fat in it. The more fat we eat, the more insulin resistance we create. That blew my mind because I had too type 2 diabetes and I reversed it with food. Now that I am eating this way, my insulin sensitivity is the best it’s ever been. My glucose is the best it’s even been, which is really exciting because I’m eating like 300 grams of carbs a da. Whereas when I was eating really low carb, I wouldn’t allow myself to more than 50 grams a carbs a day which is very restrictive. But that just goes to show because people who are type 2 diabetic who eat, let’s say they eat a potato and their blood sugar shoots up because they’re eating a potato with animal products with oil or butter or whatever. They’re like, “See, I can’t eat those carbs because my blood sugar goes up. Sugar’s the problem. Sugar’s the problem.” No. The insulin resistance is the problem. We need to heal the insulin resistance just as we need to heal the gut first. When it comes to blood sugar regulation, carbs are not the devil. We need to heal the insulin resistance and then you can eat carbs and you’re body uses and utilizes it in a healthy way. That blew my mind. That whole docu-series, iThrive docu-series really lays that out in a beautiful way. So you watched the docu-series.   [0:42:32] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. And I think one of the main things that I learn from that is that diabetes is it’s not just an epidemic, it’s a pandemic. The level of illness from diabetes that we have in our country from diabetes is so high and so serious that that’s what we’re dealing with. It’s reversible with changing the diet. It’s sort of like going back to the days of the black plague and people not realizing the cause of it so not being able to stop it. That’s how we’re acting like there is no solution and there is. So if you think at the level of dysfunction that’s going on that we can solve it but it’s sort of like an outlier information. I no longer feel that way because I’ve immersed myself in the doctors and other people that write about this and speak about it. Go back a year ago, I thought that taking medication, managing blood sugar prolongs life. I thought that my husband’s mom was doing well. She’s managing her blood sugar eating lots of dairy and meat and vegetables too and taking the medication. I think that’s she’s doing really well. But people who are managing their blood sugars with medication and a high protein diet are not prolonging their life. This is a statistical reality. So that blew my mind. That there is a way to reverse it and it’s not what all the diabetics are talking about or being taught or being told by their doctors.   [0:44:34] Ashley James: No. It actually really angers me. So I’ve helped people for the last eight years now coming up on nine years. I’ve helped people reverse diabetes and there’s countless. Like countless people who have gone to their doctor 20 years being kept on Metformin or insulin and Metformin or other drugs. Then they go to their doctor after working with me for under three months. They go to their doctor and they no longer have type 2 diabetes. No longer have it. The doctor doesn’t even ask a question. They go, “I want to go off this med. Here’s my blood work. My blood work shows I can get it off this medication.” The doctor takes them off the medication. The doctors been prescribing the medication for 20 years and they go, “Don’t you want to know what I did?” Like 99% of the time the doctors do not want to know. They don’t want to know. They don’t want to know what diet and lifestyle changes cause their patient to no longer need medication for the rest of their life. That is the definition of health. Symptom-free on no medications. That is the goal post. That is the goal for all of us to be on zero medications because we are so healthy we don’t need it.   [0:45:50] Naomi Murphy: Well. Yeah. I think it’s something that you keep showing us through your interviews is that our medical system is not centered around health.   [0:45:59] Ashley James: It’s not centered around achieving health. It’s maintaining disease.   [0:46:03] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. Right. It’s managing disease, which is different. It’s different than achieving health.   [0:46:10] Ashley James: So we have to be outliers. I love to use that word. But we do. We have to be the salmon. We have to swim upstream to not be a statistic. So eating, like you said, this is kind of extreme. I get it. The Ashley from three years ago would not think that this was an easy way to eat. But now, the Ashley today is like, “This is the only way I want to eat for the rest of my life. It’s delicious and I feel amazing.”   [0:46:34] Naomi Murphy: Right. But even if people choose to eat meat, they can get tremendous health benefits just from increasing their vegetable consumption.   [0:46:43] Ashley James: Yeah. Tell them about Sean.   [0:46:44] Naomi Murphy: Especially like variety of vegetable consumption. So you don’t just add one vegetable. So yeah, I want to talk about my husband Sean. He said about ten years ago, so he would’ve been in his mid-30s. He’s a first-grade teacher. He used to teach the kids how to embroider self-portraits. So using a needle, threading a needle for 24 kids because they weren’t able to do that. They’re not able to do that in first grade. So he had to help everyone. Then all of a sudden he needed glasses, he needed readers to do that. He had heard or read somewhere about improving your eyesight by eating a lot of vegetables. So he had just increased his vegetable content, reverse that problem. We were still –   [0:47:34] Ashley James: He was still eating meat.   [0:47:36] Naomi Murphy: We were still in the whole foods of all kinds. So he just   [0:47:38] Ashley James: Eating dairy and eggs. He was still eating all that.   [0:47:40] Naomi Murphy: He just amped up his vegetables.   [0:47:41] Ashley James: Just add with more vegetables.   [0:47:43] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. So he reversed that.   [0:47:47] Ashley James: I love it. Yeah. Think about it. It’s all the antioxidants you’re getting, the vitamins and the minerals and all the nutrients our bodies need.   [0:47:54] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I think Dr. Fuhrman is a big, you interviewed him, right?   [0:47:59] Ashley James: Yes. Dr. Joel Fuhrman.   [0:48:00] Naomi Murphy: Dr. Joel Fuhrman. He’s a whole food plant-based doctor. I think he recommends or says that eating up to 7% meat is healthy. I just think that for some people it’s easier to calculate 7% of your diet being meat but I think that kind of opens the door to if you don’t want to be extreme, you could just say, “Sure. I can eat meat sometimes.” It just have to be under 7% and then I can get all the health benefits of eating this way without restricting myself. I can eat whatever it is at a certain holiday, your birthday or anniversary or something if you need to.   [0:48:42] Ashley James: Yeah. I think it’s something like a one or two meals a week would contain fish or meat. Joel Fuhrman, his whole food plant-based diet, he calls it the nutritarian diet and I’ve adapted so much from him because he talks about for example onions and mushrooms. You want to eat a half a cup of mushrooms a day. He shows the studies. He correlate, he brings all the information beautifully together. He shows if you eat half a cup of mushrooms a day, even just the plain white ones, doesn’t have to be the fancy ones. Make sure it’s organic. Cooked and with half a cup of onions every day, I can’t remember the exact percentage but it was a significant reduction of breast cancer, significant reduction of all cancers. It’s a huge huge support system to the immune system. It actually has a chemical, mushrooms a very healthy chemical that stops new vasculature growing to a tumor. So if you currently have a little bit of cancer, everyone has cancer cells in their body that the immune system is cleaning out. But if you are actually, if you’re body’s developing a tumor right now because you won’t know for another few years. Because tumor takes years to really get to the point where we notice them. Most tumors grow slowly. So the body’s creating new vasculature to the tumors. Just something as simple as eating half a cup of mushrooms, which almost nothing. You can hide it. If you don’t like the taste of mushrooms, you can probably hide that in a soup. You could probably hide it somewhere. But just using it as medicine, it’s just one example that it reduces the ability of the body, it almost shuts it off, the body’s ability to create new vasculature to a tumor. So you’re just cutting it off before the tumor ever gets to grow. I mean I’d rather half a cup of mushrooms for the rest of my life than be put on chemo. It’s like that makes total sense to me.   [0:50:33] Naomi Murphy: You think?   [0:50:34] Ashley James: Yeah. I’d rather pay for it now than pay for it later. So when he, many actually of the experts that we follow, do kinds of great things where they say, “You eat broccoli because of this. You want to eat cabbage because of that. You’re healing this part of the body with beets.” Beets are wonderful for the liver and amazing actually for the cardiovascular system. They increase the nitric oxide and heal the endothelial lining of the heart and of all the arteries. So it’s like every single food we go through it. We do this in the Learn True Health Kitchen membership. You can go through. When you’re eating a food and you’re like, “I’m healing my liver right now and I am healing my eyes by eating this. I’m healing my brain right no by eating that.” You’re eating with a purpose and it’s delicious food. You know you’re healing your body. I love that a lot of these experts that we’ve been following do that. Joel Fuhrman says, I think I’ve heard 10% you’ve heard 7% but he basically says you’re significantly reducing. It’s not meat added every meal it’s maybe once a week. So some people can have that flexibility. I had to really ease into this because I was a huge believer that meat was the most important food in the entire world because I really bought the Atkins. Oh yeah, I bought it. Hook, line and sinker because people that I really really looked up to, mentors of mine, said it’s the most important part of the world. I had several mentors say that it was most. I mean I really bought, I feel like I drank the Kool-Aid big time on that. So I had to like eat one meatless meal and I kind of freaked out about before. Even just preparing a meatless meal I’m like, “I don’t know how this is going to go.” Then I was like, “Okay. That was doable.” So I really like had to ease into this whereas my husband just woke up and said, two years ago he woke up and said, “Never again will I eat meat.” Which helped reduce my meat intake because I stopped buying it for the household. So we only ate it when we went to other places outside the house. But yeah. It constantly surprised me how good I felt not eating meat. It’s okay to ease into it. It’s okay to go meatless Mondays or I’m only going to eat meat at dinner. You can ease into it.   [0:52:53] Naomi Murphy: All the whole food plant-based recipes or the way that I just eat it, it didn’t taste delicious right away but it really only took a matter of days for me. I mean, maybe a week, maybe ten days   [0:53:05] Ashley James: Well you’re an amazing cook too so I have to give you props. My husband is waving at you and giving you a thumbs up.   [0:53:11] Naomi Murphy: Isn’t that why we decided to make the website though?   [0:53:15] Ashley James: Yes. We decided to do the membership because we’re both really good cooks.   [0:53:19] Naomi Murphy: I love your cooking.   [0:53:20] Ashley James: I love your cooking. We should just hire each other to cook for each other.   [0:53:26] Naomi Murphy: I know. I know. I wish we lived closer like next door.   [0:53:30] Ashley James: Well, you never know what the future brings. Maybe we’ll be neighbors one day.   [0:53:35] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. That’d be great.   [0:53:36] Ashley James: That’d be great. We live like 40 minutes away from each other, but it’s worth the drive to come eat your food. So, that’s why we did the membership. So that we could share with you guys our recipes, which I’m still thinking about the lunch I just had because it’s so delicious.   [0:53:50] Naomi Murphy: I don’t think, like I was saying, I don’t think I could have done so well eating whole food, transitioning into whole food plant-based without Ashley as a friend. The experience that she had and the pointers. So, that’s what we want to be for everyone who joins the membership. We just want to be – if you don’t have someone in your community or in your family that’s up for it yet like you may find them, but you know in the meantime like we could all be that for each other. We could be your friend that eats whole food plant-based.   [0:54:21] Ashley James: Naomi and I are your friend. I’m here to support you in eating more whole foods in your life, eating more plants in your life.   [0:54:29] Naomi Murphy: So, I have a couple of favorite stories –   [0:54:32] Ashley James: I want to hear them.   [0:54:33] Naomi Murphy: – about healing with whole food plant-based. Okay. So these aren’t my stories, but one is someone who has been on your show and I don’t think he’d mind if I told his story, Eric Thornton.   [0:54:41] Ashley James: Yes.   [0:54:42] Naomi Murphy: Yes. Okay. So, he told me about his experience of going whole food plant-based. So, seven years ago, maybe a little bit longer now, but seven years ago he had a really serious heart attack. It’s a kind of heart attack that kills many people and it didn’t kill him. So, that’s great. So, after his heart attack he became a vegetarian and he ate an egg white omelet every morning with a teaspoon of coconut oil. He ate lots of vegetables the rest of the day and he had like a piece of cheese like an ounce of cheese every couple of weeks that would be added into his diet. Vegetarian, ate egg in the morning probably cooked in oil, other things cooked in oil but used coconut oil, obviously was –   [0:55:35] Ashley James: But no fish, no meat, no fried food.   [0:55:37] Naomi Murphy: Nope. Nope. Three years after his heart attack his cardiologist said that he needed emergency surgery.   [0:55:46] Ashley James: Because his clogs got so bad in his heart.   [0:55:48] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. So he had heard of eating whole food plant-based to reverse heart disease. I don’t remember his pathway for learning about that but I know he did end up working with doctors at True North. He spoke to Dr. Esselstyn. I guess Dr. Esselstyn will talk to anyone who wants to talk to him eventually.   [0:56:07] Ashley James: Yeah. Dr. Esselstyn called him. It was actually really neat. Eric was, and I haven’t heard the whole story but Eric told me this that when he was walking into his cardiologist’s appointment to talk about the surgery, the emergency surgery, Dr. Esselstyn called him back and Dr. Esselstyn talked to him and laid it out and said, “Stop eating that one egg a day or whatever. Stop doing the oil. And stop doing the cheese.” Those three things, if he had just had stopped doing those three years before, he would have already had reversed his heart disease.     [0:56:45] Naomi Murphy: Right. Dr. Esselstyn will say things like if people who are like basically at death’s door, have tried everything he will just say, “Give me 16 days.” So this way of eating can actually arrest and start to reverse problems very quickly. So if you’re considering experimenting with whole food plant-based eating, you don’t have to change your life. You could just do a cleanse like a whole food plant-based cleanse and see what happens. Because people have reversed very serious conditions. So I’ll get back to Eric’s story. So he had angina so bad –   [0:57:27] Ashley James: Which is chest pain.   [0:57:27] Naomi Murphy: Chest pain. He had bad chest pains and he needed help walking. He needed to be pulled up out of his chair to walk. He was breathless when walking. He was weak.   [0:57:44] Ashley James: He was in his 40s.   [0:57:45] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I wasn’t sure of his age.   [0:57:47] Ashley James: I’m pretty sure he was in his 40s and also he was kind of fit because before he’d gotten to the work he does now, he was a contractor. He’s always worked with his hands. So it wasn’t like he was out of shape.   [0:58:00] Naomi Murphy: So he cut out the oil and the egg and the piece of cheese every two weeks. Just cut out those things, cut out all oils. Within three days his angina was gone and within three months he was off seven of his medications including high blood pressure medication doctor’s orders because his blood pressure was getting too low and he didn’t need surgery.   [0:58:29] Ashley James: Yes. So he decided not to do the emergency surgery and instead try the diet and the diet worked.   [0:58:36] Naomi Murphy: Now, he’s a healthy guy, walks his dogs, looks fit.   [0:58:44] Ashley James: Doesn’t have any heart issues, any heart clogs. Yeah. I mean just think about it, when you hear that the medical system, “The cost of heart disease is whatever billions of dollars.” Replace the word cost with profit. Diabetic, and I’ve heard that the diabetic costs $12,000 a year, right? I think it’s more now but to manage diabetes cost $12,000 a year. That isn’t a cost that’s a profit. There’s a lot of companies that want to protect their profits and that would not want people empowered and healing their diseases. There are scores of people out there that want you to be sick because it profits them. Not so sick you die because they want to keep making a profit. Just sick enough to be on medication and need surgeries and need stints and need their procedures. They don’t want you healthy. So, that’s another motivator for me because I want to completely blow all the statistics out of the water. I don’t want to be any of those statistics. I don’t want to you know die of any of those. I want to blow everything. Everything out of the water. I want to live to be a hundred and totally healthy and running marathons at 100. That’s a goalpost for me. So we have to navigate our lives knowing that all the marketing, all the information out there in the mainstream is designed to keep us in that box called sick and on medications. It’s our job to be the outliers and the mavericks.   [1:00:29] Naomi Murphy: Even the most well-intentioned doctor, if surgery and medications are what they have in their toolbox they don’t they’re not informed in how to keep you healthy. So it’s not that the individuals involved in the system are all but they’re just using what they’ve been taught. If our medical schools are supported by big business making money then they’re going to make sure that what doctors learn are to use their product.   [1:01:01] Ashley James: Yeah. The thing is, if a surgery can save someone’s life do it, if a medication can save someone’s life do it. Absolutely. Preventive medicine is about catching it before you need that. I’m not saying that the surgery shouldn’t exist. I’m saying that when you go to most doctors that’s the only option they’ll give you. This is my problem when you look at naturopathic medicine versus MD like going to a medical doctor. They will both look at the same blood work and drive completely different things. An MD will wait until you’re sick enough to give you a medication. An ND will say, “Okay. You’re starting to go in the wrong direction. Let’s change some things now so you won’t need to go on medication.” So prevention is what 100% of listeners can do right now. We can all prevent things by shifting little things in our diet and our lifestyle if we want to get really gung-ho about it, dive into the whole food plant-based diet because it can significantly reduce your chances of dying of a heart attack.   [1:02:06] Naomi Murphy: Right. Yeah. It’s just interesting to see what kind of results a healthy person can get. If you think you’re doing well, just give it a try. Just do it as an experiment and see if you notice any differences. But people have gotten very dramatic results and extended life. They get to live by changing their diet. So, another one of my favorite stories, again it’s not my story but it’s Dr. Greger’s story, I think what led him to a lifelong job to educate people about nutrition. His website nutritionfacts.org is an incredible resource. He does that all without any payment or any advertising because he never wants people to think that there’s profit associated with him sharing information about health.   [1:03:13] Ashley James: What was the website again?   [1:03:14] Naomi Murphy: Nutritionfacts.org.   [1:03:16] Ashley James: Nutritionfacts.org.   [1:03:17] Naomi Murphy: It’s a great resource. It’s a great resource.   [1:03:19] Ashley James: I actually really like it. I like those videos he makes.   [1:03:21] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. Some are videos and some are articles. I have actually started using it because I was listening to his book How Not To Die and he would say something like some statistical information about eating chicken and prostate cancer. I think like, “Whoa. I want to share that.” So, rather than taking a picture of the book and sharing the picture, I go to his website. Everything that I’ve looked for from the book there’s either an article or a video about it that I could share with whoever it is that I’m thinking of. He has a great story. So when he was a young child, he was five or six, his grandmother was in her 60s and she had heart disease. She had had all the interventions that they were able to do. She had had bypass surgeries and I don’t know what else. She had debilitating chest pain and was in a wheelchair and couldn’t walk. She was sent home from the hospital basically to die given a couple more months to live. The family was devastated. That’s just like everything had been done possible to help her.   [1:04:40] Ashley James: Being in your 60s is so young.   [1:04:42] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. Yeah. So the family was devastated. She checked herself into a Pritikin Center and I don’t know the details of Pritikin diet but is a whole food plant-based diet I don’t know specifically what else is entailed. Within a short period, she was not just walking but she started walking 10 miles a day. Then she lived 30 more years and saw her grandchild graduate from medical school.   [1:05:16] Ashley James: So, that’s why he was excited to become a doctor because he saw her heal herself.   [1:05:22] Naomi Murphy: Yes. He wanted to become a doctor to help heal people the way his grandmother was healed. So he was accepted to 17 different medical schools and he decided to choose which school to attend based on which had the most nutrition training. So he chose Tufts University which offered 21 hours of nutrition in their medical program.   [1:05:53] Ashley James: That’s a lot. That’s a lot of hours. Most MDS get maybe one or one to five hours worth of nutrition training.   [1:06:04] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. So, every day while I’m cooking or eating or living my life, I ponder the fact that we have a tool to reverse or prevent disease and doctors are not being taught that tool. All of the doctors that I’ve mentioned and Ashley has interviewed, they are all outliers. They’ve all gone rogue against their profession.   [1:06:34] Ashley James: How dare they use food to kill people instead of medication. How dare they. I bet the AMA is just frothing at the bit. How dare they heal people.   [1:06:42] Naomi Murphy: I’m sure they are. They have resisted. Yeah. They’ve done.   [1:06:45] Ashley James: Yeah. We’re the resistance aren’t we? We’re going to rise up. Got my carrot in one hand and my kale in the other. So, six months ago, I can’t believe it’s only been six months. Six months ago you become totally whole food plant-based overnight. Jump on board and three days later your shortness of breath, your heart issues go away, right?   [1:07:09] Naomi Murphy: Well, I don’t know if my shortness of breath improved that quickly, but it definitely improved. So that was summer. So I was walking a lot for exercise.   [1:07:18] Ashley James: Well, within the first week you texted me and said that you’re walking partner was like, “Wow. You’re going really fast.”   [1:07:27] Naomi Murphy: Was it only a week?   [1:07:28] Ashley James: It was like a week after. Let’s go back in our text messages because I’m pretty sure you’re like, “Seven days on. I’m eating this for seven days.” Then you kind of didn’t believe you’re walking partner. You’re like maybe they’re just tired, but you’re like, “I’m not walking different. They’re just tired.” So then you started walking with your kids and your kids were trying to keep up to you whereas you normally are the one behind them. That’s when you’re like, “Oh. I am walking faster.”   [1:07:54] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I was downtown with my, he was nine at that time. He is used to walking in front of me and waiting for me and kind of commenting that I’m kind of slow. We were walking together and he looked over at me and said, “I’m trying to keep up with you.”   [1:08:13] Ashley James: He’s athletic.   [1:08:14] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. Oh gosh, I’m going to cry. That was very moving for me because I do like to walk quickly. I’ve always liked to walk and hike and things like that. So, to have restrictions in my movement was something that I become accustomed to but it also was very uncomfortable.   [1:08:39] Ashley James: You don’t want to feel like a prisoner in your own body. You’re so young. No matter what age you are, you’re so young. Whoever is listening, whatever age you are you are young because there are a 100-year-old women running marathons. So you can run. We can live at it. We can have youth in our body no matter what age. Here you are, a young mother and you were feeling so restricted in your body. You were exhausted, you couldn’t walk fast, you were fatigued.   [1:09:08] Naomi Murphy: So first of all, I don’t think you should call me a young mother. I think that’s misleading. I’m already 48. I’m almost 50 years old   [1:09:14] Ashley James: But in the last few years, you started out as a mother in your 30s. I’m about to be 40. So 40 now is my mind has to be young. Okay. You could be like, “I’m a young 70-year-old.” Whoever’s listening, just say the word young in front of your age and then make it so. I am a young 99-year-old. Make it so. We need to tell ourselves. In order to be a maverick, in order to pull ourselves out of that matrix where we’re driving through fast-food joints eating fried food, on medications. We have to pull ourselves out of the belief system that age = illness and disease and debilitation because it doesn’t. It doesn’t. So you are youthful. You still have youth in you, lady. You’re a wonderful mother and you were trapped. You were trapped in a prison.   [1:10:14] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I have active children especially my younger two. I want to be involved in their life. So, I do have to be able to keep up with them and be playful and be energetic and be able to get out there and do things because otherwise like I don’t get to partake.   [1:10:32] Ashley James: Right. So the whole summer you kept saying, “How am I going to get my parents on this? How am I going to get my parents to do this?” They’re in their 70s. Your dad recently had a heart surgery from something he was born with but that it manifests later. It happens because of wear and tear on the heart. So we can decrease wear and tear.   [1:10:51] Naomi Murphy: Exacerbated. Exacerbated by wear and tear.   [1:10:54] Ashley James: Right. We can decrease wear and tear with diet, which Dr. Esselstyn points out and teaches. There’s certain foods that really helped to heal the heart and there’s foods that hurt the heart.   [1:11:03] Naomi Murphy: Right. My parents actually lost a substantial amount of weight. My mom plateaued but my dad is down to his like age 25 weight, I don’t know.   [1:11:15] Ashley James: You skipped ahead. So, you all summer long wanted to get them on it. They were kind of like, “Low carb and keto’s the way to go.”   [1:11:25] Naomi Murphy: Right. Which made me worry as I had more education around the longevity of people eating keto. Keto is good for some short-term things, which is why I wanted to mention that they did lose weight using keto. But I was worried about them and using keto in an ongoing way. So, my parents are very traditional eaters. My mom’s a great cook but very traditional in the sense that my dad has always liked meat in the dinner. Meats in the meal.   [1:11:56] Ashley James: There’s a bit of old-school rigidity. You were worried that they would not take well to this diet.   [1:12:03] Naomi Murphy: Worried? I didn’t have any idea that they would ever take to it. But I started talking to my mom at a time a very vulnerable time when my dad was having open-heart surgery. I was reading one of my books. I think it was Dr. Fuhrman. I don’t remember which one, but I was just telling her tidbits. I might have been reading Dr. Esselstyn’s book even but anyway. She heard what I had to say and she believed what I said. Instantly, sort of negative messages came up to her like what will we eat on Christmas? What will we eat for Thanksgiving? What will we eat? If you’ve transitioned to eating a different way you just simply think like, “Well, you eat delicious food that you enjoy.” We don’t have to eat the foods that we’ve always eaten if they’re made of eggs and flour and butter. We don’t have to.   [1:13:07] Ashley James: She was worried about calcium. Because we’ve been taught that you get your calcium from dairy, which is a complete marketing lie actually. The cultures that eat the most dairy products are actually the ones with the most osteoporosis and the ones that are most plant-based have the stronger bones because we’re getting our calcium from plants. She was worried about certain things.   [1:13:35] Naomi Murphy: She has some concerns that I might be irresponsible in raising my kids and not giving them adequate nutrition. Well, I can experiment however I want. I’m an adult.   [1:13:44] Ashley James: Don’t experiment on kids.   [1:13:46] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. That I shouldn’t. So she really worried about them. Then they watched Forks Over Knives and The Game Changers and I talked to –   [1:13:58] Ashley James: Which are on Netflix. I don’t know Forks Over Knives is on anymore, but Forks Over Knives is really good as an introduction. A good one. Game Changers is very entertaining.   [1:14:08] Naomi Murphy: It’s very inspiring. Yeah. It’s inspiring and entertaining. Yeah. So they watched both of those and then apparently they were sold and started eating whole food plant-based and they’re just going getting better and better. Even my dad doesn’t want to go back. He’s been great. He’s a master at smoking turkey. We always wanted papas smoked turkey for our birthday. We could choose whatever we wanted. Most of the members of my family choose smoked turkey and my dad made that for Thanksgiving as well. This year at Thanksgiving we had a whole food plant-based feast, which was bowls. We filled the table with different things like different toppings to put on grains or potatoes. It was phenomenal and delicious and colorful and wonderful. My dad just mentioned, he said, “I sort of miss making the turkey.” He likes it. He likes contributing in that way. They didn’t go whole food plant-based until fall. Already by Thanksgiving he wasn’t wishing he was eating the smoked turkey, which he is renowned for in our family. He just kind of missed being the one that made the smoked turkey.   [1:15:28] Ashley James: Well, tell him he can smoke vegetables if he wants to because I have smoked some vegetables in a trigger and it was really good. So, that’s a fun thing. He could smoke some tofu if he wanted to. Smoked mushrooms are really delicious. So, your mom though and her testimonials in our membership, the Learn True Health Home Kitchen, she had her arthritis go away.   [1:15:54] Naomi Murphy: Yes. Yes. So she has blood clots. She had blood clots after a surgery and then ended up having a blood clot and had to go to the hospital. So she’s on blood thinners and she would like to be off blood thinners. So, she is motivated to eat whole food plant-based and specifically eat some foods that are better for your circulatory system like beets and I don’t remember what else right now. But she’s trying to eat those every day. But a side effect of her trying to get to her goal of getting off her medication is that her arthritis went away.   [1:16:39] Ashley James: Being in the whole food plant-based diet her pain is gone, her arthritis is gone, they both lost weight. Your dad who has been doing –   [1:16:45] Naomi Murphy: They feel better.   [1:16:47] Ashley James: He goes to a, he does some kind of rehab gym because of the heart surgery he had.   [1:16:53] Naomi Murphy: He was the best in the gym.   [1:16:54] Ashley James: He was beating everyone else. In The Game Changers the movie they talk about how your endurance immediately goes. So athletes notice right away when they go whole food plant-based, no salt, sugar, oil that their endurance goes up immediately.   [1:17:09] Naomi Murphy: Also, so for the type of surgery that he had, the valve replacement surgery, it’s my understanding that everyone who gets that surgery is on statins for the rest of their life and is on high blood pressure medicine for the rest of their life. The last visit when he was at the doctor, the doctors are experimentally letting him off of statins. So, that’s wonderful. I think after listening to Dr. Greger there’s hibiscus and flax and I don’t remember what else. But hibiscus is as good as one of the regular high blood pressure meds, functions identically. So I think there are ways that you can by not only improving your blood pressure by eating a whole food plant-based but there are foods that you can eat or drink to control your high blood pressure so you don’t need to be on the high blood pressure medication. So, I’m proud of my parents for advocating for that and for making it happen. I’m very relieved. It’s like a dream come true when you hear about something that is so preventative of harder health conditions and your parents voluntarily do it. My mom’s even become a contributor helping us with the recipes, trying recipes, creating recipes.   [1:18:40] Ashley James: She’s really a good cook also.   [1:18:42] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. She’s fantastic.   [1:18:43] Ashley James: Yeah. Your kids, you’re allowing them the flexibility. You’re not restricting them. If they want to go eat meat when they’re out they still do what they want to do, but at home that they actually have embraced this a lot more than you thought they would. Even your oldest. You want to talk about that?   [1:19:03] Naomi Murphy: My oldest son is a foodie. He’s 13. He just turned 13. I think he’s getting to an age where he’s able to intellectualize and understand the things that I’m saying that Ashley says and things he may he overhear on podcast that I have playing in the kitchen. So, when I changed my diet he was up for changing his diet too at home and was good about getting some exercise. Walking home from school before it started raining or being cold. He lost 11 pounds. Anecdotally, I would say that his emotions were much easier for him to manage. That was a positive thing for the whole family when you have a tween now a teen who manages their emotions better wherever you are. Then there’s an improvement, a big noticeable improvement. That was great for all of us.   [1:20:03] Ashley James: Duffy, my husband, also shared with me that he felt more even keel, that he felt more comfortable in his own skin after eating this way, after transitioning. So, there is an emotional component.   [1:20:16] Naomi Murphy: I want to one-up that because I’m going to be competitive with Duffy right now and say that I actually feel happy. That’s something I’ve struggled with depression. Obviously when you have fatigue and a chronic illness that involves fatigue and different health problems and anxiety. Heart changes that the cardiologist attributed to anxiety, which I think is just a physical manifestation of a problem in my case.   [1:20:51] Ashley James: Emotional manifestation of a physical problem.   [1:20:53] Naomi Murphy: Yeah.   [1:20:54] Ashley James: You were feeling in a state. You’re feeling a state that your body was in but it was a reflection of the state of health that you were in.   [1:21:02] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. It’s triggered by a physical situation. So, but not the other way around. I guess I just don’t think the heart problem is caused by anxiety. I think that there’s a health problem that causes the anxiety.   [1:21:17] Ashley James: We’ve talked about this and you identify your anxiety as a reflection of your current health.   [1:21:23] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I’ve experienced both kinds of anxiety, but I would like a doctor to dig deeper if their solution is or if their diagnosis is, “Well, you have a heart arrhythmia which we associate with anxiety.” That’s to me attributing it to like a mental condition that I have rather than a health problem triggering anxiety.   [1:21:48] Ashley James: Anxiety. Yeah. Exactly. Like you feel a heart palpitation.   [1:21:52] Naomi Murphy: Why do you have the anxiety? Yeah. Why do you have the anxiety? Because there’s disharmony of some kind in your body.   [1:22:00] Ashley James: You weren’t sick enough for them to do something about it.   [1:22:03] Naomi Murphy: Right. I’m thinking back. I haven’t been back to a cardiologist and I’m going to try to see a local ND cardiologist who you recommended. I don’t think he’s been on your show yet.   [1:22:15] Ashley James: He has not been on my show yet but I’ll give a shout-out to Dr. Pournadeali, who is basically a cardiologist naturopath. He’s a naturopath but he has got the status in the naturopathic community as a cardiologist.   [1:22:28] Naomi Murphy: He was the cardiology instructor at Bastyr.   [1:22:29] Ashley James: Right. He’s pretty great. I mean, he’s not specifically like whole food plant-based. He agrees that this diet is great, but he’s also really really great. He helps patients get off of meds. He likes to work with natural remedies and he’s fine with working with meds if the person needs to get on that.   [1:22:49] Naomi Murphy: But he’s also interested in healing. So I want to see him because when I saw a cardiologist I think the cardiologist just checked on my complaint, which was arrhythmia and said, “That’s the type of arrhythmia we normally see associated with anxiety.” I didn’t need medicated. Conversation over. It wasn’t from that cardiologist that I learned about my developing heart disease. I would have to go back and say, “Could you look at the test and tell me if you see anything of concern? Is there a developing heart disease?” I would assume that there would be. That didn’t all –   [1:23:24] Ashley James: It wasn’t enough.   [1:23:26] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. That didn’t manifest in one year. That it was building up from –   [1:23:32] Ashley James: Well, you talked to cardiologists and they’ll say, because I’ve had people say this, “You look good for your age.”   [1:23:39] Naomi Murphy: Right. You fit the profile.   [1:23:41] Ashley James: Your heart looks good for your age. You only have 40% blockage. I mean, they’re not going to put in a stint until it or get you on some meds but that you have to get sick enough for them to do something. That’s the really frustrating part or they’ll put you on whatever their heart-healthy diet is, which does not reverse or prevent heart disease. This is the infuriating thing. That’s why I love the interview with Dr. Esselstyn because has the world’s longest study on reversing heart disease with diet.   [1:24:16] Naomi Murphy: Any interview with Dr. Esselstyn is great because he has a single message and it’s consistent. He thoroughly knows it. He’s been touting the same diet. I think he made a little some changes involving gluten or something recently.   [1:24:35] Ashley James: Really?   [1:24:36] Naomi Murphy: No. Maybe not. He’s made some changes along the way at some point but I don’t remember what they were.   [1:24:43] Ashley James: He recently, like in the last few years, he added more balsamic vinegar because of the nitric oxide.   [1:24:52] Naomi Murphy: That wasn’t part of the original?   [1:24:54] Ashley James: He said on our interview that he’s had this new thing, which is he gets a cardiology patient to do –   [1:25:00] Naomi Murphy: That is six cups of greens.   [1:25:01] Ashley James: Yeah. Every two hours you’re eating a steamed greens with like you’re dripping it into your body. So get a bowl of steamed green vegetables, rotate between he gives you like 15 different vegetables to choose from. Steam them, put some balsamic vinegar on it and chew it and swallow.   [1:25:21] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. So no smoothies. Yeah. No smoothies. That’s how I like them.   [1:25:25] Ashley James: I don’t think he would have a problem if it’s just like – I really like the quote in Proteinaholic by Dr. Garth Davis. He says the nearly perfect diet you follow is better than the perfect diet you don’t follow. So, you know what, if you have to do one of your servings of vegetables has to be a smoothie in order for you to get it in you then do it. I know some experts are like, “Never do smoothies because you should chew your food.”   [1:25:55] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I could never eat a blender full of kale if I had to chew it all. I literally fill my Vitamix with kale with a little bit of fruit on top and I like that now. Like I didn’t start out liking that. It was a slow –   [1:26:08] Ashley James: You’re hardcore, dude.   [1:26:10] Naomi Murphy: Yeah.   [1:26:12] Ashley James: Well, you’ve healed yourself. You don’t have EBV, you’ve lost weight as a by-product. You’re even trying to.   [1:26:20] Naomi Murphy: Yes. I lost 40 pounds. I lost 25 pounds just like a lot of the docs say. Just the anti-inflammatory, eliminating dairy and sugar for a month. A lot of people who are overweight can lose about around 25 pounds in a month. That happened for me. I’ve lost 40 pounds. I can assure you that I am not trying because I am making carrot cakes. My husband wants to go whole food plant-based but he needs to really ease in. I’m trying to please my family. I’m trying to impress kids. So, I am making cream cheese out of cashews, which I wouldn’t eat if I were serious about weight loss. I’m eating carrot cake. Sometimes I eat pudding made of tofu.   [1:27:07] Ashley James: This carrot cake is a whole food plant-based carrot cake and you’ve got a pudding you just mentioned. The pudding’s made of tofu. So all these foods are still very healthy but they’re not conducive to rapid weight loss.   [1:27:19] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. Also, I eat plenty of food. I never deprive myself. If I like what I’ve made for dinner I will have a couple of servings. I continue to lose and I just got below a weight that I haven’t been for a long time, 210. I’m below 210 for the first time. I have an eight-year-old child. So, I can’t remember. It was probably after my pregnancy with him I actually gained weight. That was when EBV became a problem. I actually gained weight after my third child, which was the first time that it happened. I went up from around 200 to like almost 250 eventually.   [1:28:09] Ashley James: So, the weight you are now is before your last child. So, that was eight-nine years ago.   [1:28:20] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. And I continue to lose ounces. I’m not focused on the weight loss but I continue to lose. I’m really looking forward to being below 200.   [1:28:31] Ashley James: You’re going to get there. You’re just eating super healthy food every day. You’re not feeling deprived. There’s some recipes that we put in the membership that taste amazing. Your cream cheese, which blows my mind. Your kids fight over it. I’s so delicious. The carrot cake is super super healthy carrot cake. So delicious.   [1:28:49] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. It doesn’t have any maple syrup. It’s sweetened with all fruit, blended fruit.   [1:28:54] Ashley James: Yeah. But all the fibers in there.   [1:28:56] Naomi Murphy: Yes. All the fibers in there.   [1:28:57] Ashley James: I’ve actually lost just over 80 pounds. I noticed that my weight loss is consistent because my problems always been my liver. My liver gets really angry and inflamed in my past whenever I tried to lose weight since my 20s. So I’ve had this problem where I go to lose weight because my liver can’t metabolize it. It would become a distended. It would stick out of my body beyond my ribs and be very swollen. My blood work would show that my liver enzymes were through the roof. I would get an ultrasound and show that it was a very angry liver. So my problem’s always been detox around weight loss. So, I’d lose a little bit and then get really sick and then gain more. Then try a different diet. A lot of diets are focused on weight loss but not nutrifying the body and not healing the body. Whereas this one is all about nutrifying and healing the body and weight loss could be a byproduct. So, I’m finding that weight loss is the easiest with this because you’re full, you’re satisfied, you’re nutrifying every cell in your body. My liver is the healthiest it’s been in a very very long time. I’m just like everything’s getting better and better and better. Coming to your house today, we haven’t seen you in about a week, and I just noticed like your skin is glowing. Like you are, you look so vibrant. The energy coming off you.   [1:30:24] Naomi Murphy: That is an important side effect of this diet to discuss especially. As people, as we get older, you don’t even notice your skin kind of getting rougher. My skin is so soft now and continues to get even softer. I have been using a sauna so that’s probably helping. But just changing my diet, just eliminating sugar, oils and animal products has changed my skin so much. Yeah. It’s amazing.   [1:30:52] Ashley James: That’s awesome. I love it. So, your husband is slowly transitioning. Anything he noticed when he started to just eat more this way? He’s still eating meat occasionally. Still, he’s not 100% but he is transitioning more and more into this way. Just seeing how it feels, anything that he’s noticed that he’s liked that’s improved in his health?   [1:31:13] Naomi Murphy: Well, he’s had great bowel movements.   [1:31:16] Ashley James: Which is perfect. All of us by the way. That’s a side effect. Everyone has perfect bowel movement.   [1:31:21] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. We talk about that all the time. We won’t go into detail here.   [1:31:25] Ashley James: Well, I have a whole episode on how to have the perfect poop. It does include a lot of whole fiber. But yes, bowel movements we should be having at least three a day, well-formed. They’re so good for detoxifying the body. If you’re not pooping three times a day and well-formed poops that you don’t have to strain at all, then you are constipated and that is damaging to your body. It has actually the potential to create cancer in the body. It also helps to regulate hormones. It’s pretty amazing that by having good bowel movements we are helping our hormones balance, we’re helping prevent cancer, we’re helping to detoxify, get rid of the toxins, we’re ensuring that our gut flora is in balance. So many good things. Has he noticed anything with energy or mood?   [1:32:15] Naomi Murphy: Nothing that he’s commented on yet because like I said, he’s easing into it. So, if he eats whole food plant-based for three days in a row that’s like a record. He’s always loved vegetables and actually that used to be kind of a concern that he brought to me like, “Can we have more vegetables in our diet?” I was telling you earlier, I don’t think I’ve said yet in this interview, that it was just so easy for me to fall back on dairy products and just trying to make foods that appeal to the kids that were –   [1:32:55] Ashley James: Here, have some mac and cheese. Here, have some hotdogs.   [1:32:58] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. Moderately healthy, homemade home cooking but I just didn’t have energy to –   [1:33:05] Ashley James: Yeah. You were sick.   [1:33:06] Naomi Murphy: So, I’ve obviously done a 180 on that. Now, it’s all vegetables so he’s happy. He’s always asked for that and wanted that. So that’s a part of his diet. He just is not ready to be 100%.   [1:33:24] Ashley James: That’s fine. Wherever someone is. I just want everyone to get more vegetables. Also try it as an experiment. That 30-day challenge that I took on two years ago, it was over the summer so it might have been two and a half years ago, really was an eye-opener.   [1:33:44] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. Thirty days is impressive, but like I said, Dr. Esselstyn will ask for 16 days of people on their deathbed. So you don’t need – and Eric’s angina went away after three days. So, you don’t need 30 days to kind of have a little snapshot of how you might feel different eating whole food plant-based foods you can have a week.   [1:34:10] Ashley James: Yeah. Soon after I did the 30-day challenge, Duffy and I went downtown Seattle. There was a vegetarian festival like Veggie Fest I think they call it. We were sampling all the food, all the vegetarian food. So, I’d eaten. Then they had a booth that was taking people’s blood pressure and blood sugar. That’s like a health booth. I thought, “Why not. Let’s see.” My blood pressure was the lowest I’d ever seen. I mean, in super healthy ranges but then I burst into tears and I just completely had this meltdown when they took my blood sugar because it was the lowest I had ever seen it. Low in the good ranges. I never had problem. I was always hyperglycemic. I was never hypo. So, to see my blood sugar, my glucose levels that low after he’s basically eating nothing but carbs for the entire morning. We were sampling tons of stuff, eating tons of stuff. We had eaten two hours before. I think we had breakfast or something. So, it was I did not expect it to be good, but I thought “Why not. They’re doing free glucose tests.” It was nurses that were administering it just to raise awareness. My blood sugar was so good I burst into tears seeing that number because I’d never seen it. So I wasn’t diabetic anymore but I still had not seen the healthiest ranges possible. It wasn’t achievable until I completely cut out all animal products and embraced whole food plant-based. We’ve been oil-free for a long time because one of the naturopaths we follow says oil is really not great. Although we had added back for keto added back coconut oil thinking that was great.   [1:36:12] Naomi Murphy: Dr. Wallach, he says that it’s bad because of the free radicals.   [1:36:17] Ashley James: Yes. Dr. Wallach says don’t do oil because of the free radicals.   [1:36:22] Naomi Murphy: But I think it was Dr. Garth Davis in Proteinaholic talked about how the oil coats gut biome and makes it so you can’t absorb nutrients as well.   [1:36:32] Ashley James: It starves the gut biome. There’s a few things. They’re speculating that it does, but one thing is when we eat oil it causes an anaerobic environment for the gut bacteria meaning it just coats it and it suffocates the good gut bacteria. So the anaerobic bacteria, which are the bad bacteria, thrive. So we’re creating a playground for all the bad bacteria to thrive and we’re killing, like mass-murdering, billions of cultures of good bacteria in our gut every time we eat oil. So they’re seeing –   [1:37:03] Naomi Murphy: I think this is an important piece because many people think that healthy oils are part of a healthy diet. I think knowing that just maybe not eliminating anything else besides the oils can really help your gut biome. So, I think that’s why I feel happier. I didn’t notice there’s much of improvement after having celery juice every day for two years.   [1:37:27] Ashley James: You mean you’ve gotten more of a difference out of cutting out oil than did out of drinking celery juice for two years?   [1:37:31] Naomi Murphy: Definitely. I mean all I noticed after having the celery juice for two years was that I could tolerate foods that I was sensitive to before. I had a sensitivity to salicylates found in foods.   [1:37:46] Ashley James: A ton of foods. You were so restrictive.   [1:37:49] Naomi Murphy: Especially in healthy foods and spices and things that are very healing. So, I didn’t eat those things or I ate a low-value of those things for over a decade.   [1:38:03] Ashley James: I remember when you came over like three years ago I couldn’t put any seasoning it all into the food I made because it would cause a huge allergic reaction for you.   [1:38:12] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. It’s terrible. So, all of a sudden I could tolerate gluten, though I chose not to eat it, but I didn’t have a reaction anymore. So I thought that was cool. That felt like a superpower after being gluten-free since 1997. Just to be able to eat it and not feel like I’d taken a sleeping pill. To be able to use herbs and spices for health without any reaction, that opened up so many doors. That’s why cooking and eating is so much more exciting than it was. Though I think I did well as a whole food cook without the spices and herbs.   [1:38:51] Ashley James: You figured out how to do well with a limited amount of things to make it taste good. After you cut out oil how quickly did you notice a difference?   [1:39:00] Naomi Murphy: Well, I just felt better. I mean if before I felt this way of eating was extreme, any concern about that has gone out the window because I feel so much better. It doesn’t matter. It’s not inconvenient because eating this way is delicious, easy and totally worth it. So, I think that’s important about this diet. Some diets are so picky and you have to count your carbs, you have to write things down, you have to know about the nutrition content of everything. I just try to eat the most colorful foods in their whole form. It’s very simple. Is it a whole food? Is it come from plants? Then I can eat it. Then when I want to cheat I eat flour. I bake something with flour that’s a whole grain. So it’s not as good as eating the whole thing but that’s when I get naughty. Eat the refined version of a whole food but still I don’t have to I don’t need sophisticated tools to figure out how much of everything I should be eating. I try to eat some non-starchy vegetables like I used Chef AJ’s red line. I think everyone can check out her –   [1:40:30] Ashley James: Eat to the left of the red line.   [1:40:31] Naomi Murphy: Eat to the left of the red line.   [1:40:42] Ashley James: Dr. Greger calls them green light, yellow light, red light foods. They pretty much match up with her. Yeah. Absolutely. The last thing I want to talk about is addiction. That’s something that has been sort of a passionate topic of yours. You, for me, it’s such a pleasure being your friend. You’re so intellectual. It comes naturally to you I feel is psychology. That really, like in a former life, you were a psychologist. You have helped me so many times to perceive events in a different way that helped me heal. You have a way of making things cathartic because you can gain a really healthy perspective on human behavior. One thing that you’ve always been interested in is looking at the human behavior in psychology around addiction and noticing the addictive tendencies in yourself and in others and how these interpersonal relationships play out when our addictions come out. I think that everyone on the planet has some addictive behaviors. I think it’s part of our neurology. It’s being hijacked and being triggered by being awoken by the food industry. A good book is –   [1:41:55] Naomi Murphy: Pleasure Trap.   [1:41:56] Ashley James: The Pleasure Trap by Dr. Lisle and Dr. Goldhamer. We talked about that in episode 230 with Dr. Goldhamer.   [1:42:02] Naomi Murphy: Wow. What a memory.   [1:42:04] Ashley James: The reason why I remember is because it’s my husband’s joke. What’s a good time to go to the dentist? 230, get it? 230. So I always remember episode 230. I should memorize the other episodes that – the number like with Esselstyn. But with Dr. Goldhamer he talks about this. The book is wonderful. If you listen to the audio version of the book it’s done by chef AJ. She’s the narrator. So if you like her voice you should definitely listen to it instead of read it. So, the idea that the addictive parts of our neurology are being awoken and exacerbated by food because of the food industry. Also in society –   [1:42:49] Naomi Murphy: Dairy products and cheese have a streamlined relationship with your –   [1:42:56] Ashley James: The dopamine response.   [1:42:57] Naomi Murphy: The dopamine receptors. So it’s such a relief to remove those things. It’s such a relief. It is such a relief. So, I have noticed, and chef AJ described it perfectly, that eating whole food plant-based diet turns down the volume on compulsive behavior. So, whatever is your thing like that agitates you –   [1:43:27] Ashley James: Gambling, alcohol…   [1:43:28] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. Right. Eating this way turns down the volume. I have described my experience as just merely feeling happier. I just feel lighter. I’m more amused by problems that used to really drag me down. It’s noticeable. My mom in the testimonial, one of the reasons she was willing to give whole food plant-based to try she told you, she hadn’t told me that, was that she noticed how much more even-keeled I was. So she’s known me my whole life. I can be an intense person. I’ve had strong emotional reactions to things. I had addictive relationships to different things and people. So, what a relief to have a way to turn down that volume. You don’t have to have a sophisticated understanding of nutrition to do well with that. You can eat plants. Eat plants. It’s okay to eat. It’s okay to eat brown rice. It’s okay to eat grains. It’s okay to eat those things. But just eat the plant foods and try to get some quantity of the non-starchy in there.   [1:44:47] Ashley James: Yes. Non-starchy vegetables.   [1:44:49] Naomi Murphy: There’s so much variety. There’s so many different ways to do that effectively.   [1:44:57] Ashley James: Yeah. I love in our membership because we’re making all these videos and there’s over three hours’ worth of content right now we just launched the membership yesterday. So far all the members who have joined love it and it’s exciting and I want you to join it. I want everyone who’s listening to join because it’s fun what we’re doing. Every week we’re adding new lessons. Every week we’re adding new videos and new content, new recipes. The point is, we’re creating these recipes that are delicious. Not everyone loves everything, right? So, you have three kids with three different palates. If you get and there’s some recipes in there that all three kids love. We say this, is like a home run. We haven’t found someone who doesn’t love this. So there’s certain foods that are like so –   [1:45:47] Naomi Murphy: I have one kid that has an aversion to vegetables. He has a vegetable barometer. If he sees green or if he sees anything he is turned off. So, yeah. There are healthy things that he has just embraced entirely and loved and wanted more of and that’s awesome.   [1:46:07] Ashley James: Yeah. That’s exciting. Your husband I think at one point in a video I called him picky and he didn’t like that. So I’m not going to say he’s picky because I figured out what he is. He has really high standards for food. So instead of calling him picky he has high high standards. He’s really brutally honest. If he doesn’t like something, he’ll say he doesn’t like it.   [1:46:31] Naomi Murphy: Also. Yes.   [1:46:34] Ashley James: This is a compliment by the way. So, it’s good because here we are having to cook for people who have high standards and have a very particular tastes. We’re coming up with recipes that are whole food plant-based, super healing for the body and are pleasurable and can be adaptable also for different palates.   [1:46:55] Naomi Murphy: Well, he’s also into health. So there are plenty of people that have promoted a healthful diet that involves organ meats, that involves some things. I think you’re going to have Terry Walls on your show. He really was impressed by his study of Terry Walls work. So, I think he’s a little bit like my mom worried about the calcium. Well, what if you eliminate your opportunity for healing by taking out some of the healthy foods?   [1:47:40] Ashley James: He’s saying, “Well our kidneys and eating kidneys and eating liver are healthy for you. What if I don’t eat them?”   [1:47:45] Naomi Murphy: He’s like us and many people. He loves food. So, sometimes we might hold on to some of the less than healthy parts because there are some good things. Like people who want to drink wine for health or hear that olive oil is the part of the Mediterranean diet that is most health-promoting when it’s not. Just sort of things that you might have gotten attached to and just want to keep that.   [1:48:16] Ashley James: Well, wherever you are is fine. I think it’s good though to be open-minded enough, not have the cognitive dissonance to shut down, but to be open-minded enough to look at new information that comes our way because like Dr. Garth Davis, he was fully on board with Hugh. He’s a weight loss surgeon, gastrointestinal surgeon who for a living helped people lose weight by cutting out half their stomach and telling them to eat protein. Eat more protein and he basically put them on something very close to an Atkins diet. So he was very invested. He had a TV show that ran for two years. He wrote a book. His reputation was on the line. He had to completely have a bruised ego in a sense that he had to put his ego aside and he has now come out saying everything he’s promoted for like twenty years as a doctor was wrong because he has looked at the science. He did a whole 180. Now his latest book Proteinaholic is that 180 where he figured out. He had to heal his body because he had in his 30s had cholesterol deposits in his eyes. He was losing his vision. That’s what had him wake up and go, “I need to figure out a diet that’s going to heal me.” Then he dug through the research. I listened to the audio, which is great, but I also bought the book. In the book in the back, something like 50 pages of scientific references. So it’s heavily referenced to a lot of studies. We all have a certain amount of cognitive dissonance. We all have a certain amount of we hear something we want to hold on to that like, “Oh, but dairies good for me. I was told it was good since I was a kid.” If we can just challenge our own belief system and be open-minded enough.   [1:50:15] Naomi Murphy: I would say you’ve read a book about the dairy industry like Sean has and knows that raw milk has so much more to offer than pasteurized milk. So, therefore wouldn’t it be nice if raw milk was a superfood? Because yum like it’s creamy. I mean, I’m not interested anymore but that used to be like easy to like that data, right? Because we wanted to eat that food.   [1:50:49] Ashley James: Right. So, you can hold on to studies that say this is good and that’s good or I heard this is good or even I was raised or I was raised to believe this is good. The problem is, if we hold on to our old belief systems and not be willing to be flexible, we might be going down the wrong path. The best thing to do is to ask yourself, are you getting the results you want with your current diet? With the current way of eating are you nutrifiying your body in a way that’s fully healing yourself? If you’re not then be willing to be open-minded enough to just try it.   [1:51:24] Naomi Murphy: I’m completely open to accepting but at some point in my future I may need some kind of animal product to heal something.   [1:51:36] Ashley James: If that comes up.   [1:51:38] Naomi Murphy: What I am feeling now is that every day is a stair-step up you. So, it’s easy to continue on this journey. I think this way of eating, it doesn’t feel like a diet. I think I have said several times that I don’t restrict myself that I end up making some treats. I know I’m always trying to feed you guys treats.   [1:52:02] Ashley James: Your version of treats are very very healthy.   [1:52:05] Naomi Murphy: Okay. But still. That I eat plenty of food. That it’s just a sustainable way of eating. I am completely fine with eating this way for the rest of my life. It is less expensive if you buy whole foods and prepare them at home.   [1:52:28] Ashley James: It doesn’t take that long. So, I keep saying, the membership the Learn True Health Home Kitchen membership, which can be found –   [1:52:34] Naomi Murphy: There are ways. I mean, a lot of the cooking is time-consuming. Let’s be honest about that, but that there are plenty of ways that we do things efficiently like lentils.   [1:52:46] Ashley James: So fast.   [1:52:47] Naomi Murphy: Sprouted lentils. Rinsed them three times a day and then you top it with some kind of sauce and you have some fresh spouted protein.   [1:52:55] Ashley James: You’ll never ever need to buy protein powder again. It’s a whole food form of protein that also has contained youth building enzymes. My thing is that this way of eating, we are saving a ton of money. We’re actually noticing that we have more money in the bank at the end of the month. Going, “Wow. We really are saving money eating this way.” There are ways to do it incredibly fast, ways to cook. We show some nice hacks in the kitchen to speed up the ability to get dinner on the table. So there are ways to make it fast. There are some recipes that are more time consuming, but there’s a lot of ways to do it that are quick.   [1:53:41] Naomi Murphy: Well, I think just because of having to chop many things.   [1:53:45] Ashley James: Which you can do in a food processor. There’s ways to speed things up. Plenty of times I’ve gotten out of an interview and been like, “Okay. Got to make dinner on the table. Like 15-20 minutes later we’re all eating. So it’s like, “Okay. This isn’t that bad.” So we’re saving time, we’re saving a ton of money, we’re saving our health and it tastes delicious. So there’s four points. Four points. LearnTrueHealth.com/homekitchen. There’s a coupon code for listeners. This saves you a nice chunk of money. It is very affordable by the way for everyone to join, but go join. LearnTrueHealth.com/homekitchen. The coupon code is LTH. You can get a free tour.   [1:54:27] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. We want it to be affordable for people who are raising their families and need some help.   [1:54:36] Ashley James: Yes and want to just dive in and learn this and whether you want to do it 100% or whether you want to put your toe in the water and be like Sean and just eat more vegetables. Either way is very healing for the body. I think it also depends on the severity. If you’re someone who wants to reverse a major issue then jumping in and doing this at 100%, you’re going to get faster results. When you go to LearnTrueHealth.com/homekitchen, you can watch the tour. Some people just buy, jump in and start learning, start lesson one. But if you’d like a tour there’s a video that gives you a tour so you get to understand what it comes with. Every week there’s new modules added. So it’s going to be this ever-evolving, ongoing thing which is really cool. If you love our aprons I talked about it in the membership. There’s a way that you’ll earn an apron. You get to earn an apron or win an apron, Learn True Health apron. They’re really cool. So, I’d love to see all you guys wearing the Learn True Health aprons in the kitchen while you’re making food that’s medicine and healing your body. My last question for you, Naomi, is if I could put you in a room with the Naomi from one year ago, what would it look like to have a conversation with her? What advice would you want to give her?   [1:55:57] Naomi Murphy: Well, I think I would just tell her to be on the path that I am right now. To try whole food plant-based eating and also to educate herself about it. I have to say that the education part is what’s given me a lot of inspiration and a lot of fire. It was it was very quickly after I started eating this way that I had a strong desire to spend my life promoting this way of eating.   [1:56:37] Ashley James: I remember. I remember you message me.   [1:56:38] Naomi Murphy: I was wondering how I could find that kind of role.   [1:56:45] Ashley James: You’re like, “Am I going to become a health coach? Do I need to go back to school and be a nutritionist?” I remember having that conversation with you.   [1:56:51] Naomi Murphy: How can I help spread the word about this way of eating because just talking to my husband about it constantly that wasn’t very appreciated.   [1:57:07] Ashley James: She’d message me and be like, “I can’t talk about health stuff anymore in the house. My husband is not allowing it. I am talking too much about health now.”   [1:57:16] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. It’s a little bit stressful to hear about it all the time. He is enjoying. He did say this weekend I think I just said that he’s whole hog but not cold turkey. He’s all for it and he really enjoys it. It’s just hard to go all the way. That’s fine. I was highly motivated to do the 180 that I did and it’s easy for me, but I’m all or nothing kind of person. So, it would be harder for me to integrate animal products into my healthy lifestyle because I wouldn’t know how many and when.   [1:57:57] Ashley James: I think it would’ve been easier for me if I had just said, “Okay. From now on it’s just this way.” I think that would have been easier. I made the transition harder on myself by saying I’m going to do this slowly. I was really working on my mindset and I was working on a lot of old belief systems about food. That’s where education comes into play because the more we dive into the books and the interviews and the summits by these different doctors who are on a regular basis healing people with major health issues like cancer gone, diabetes gone, healing many many many people. Many many diseases across the board. Autoimmune gone. Unbelievable stories of just people. So many people healing so many different things from this one way of eating. So for me if I had just said, “Okay. Jump on board 100%.” Instead I dragged it out. My transition I dragged it out a little bit. I just ate less and less and less and less meat. That’s where I was.   [1:58:59] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. So to answer your question, I think the advice I would have given myself is to not be afraid, to just be experimental, give it a try and not be intimidated. I wish I would have had curiosity about this 17 years ago when I heard about it. Because I just chose to not. I chose to not. So, I wish I would have had the courage and the curiosity to dive in. Like when I heard the term heart disease then it was a no-brainer, but before then I was like –   [1:59:38] Ashley James: You were ready to hear it then.   [1:59:39] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I just wanted to say one more thing and that is I had plantar fasciitis before. That’s just gone away completely.   [1:59:47] Ashley James: It’s gone? You hurt to walk and now it doesn’t?   [1:59:51] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. It was terrible.   [1:59:53] Ashley James: That’s really cool because Dr. Wallach says it’s a calcium deficiency that causes plantar fasciitis. You’re getting way more minerals now, way more calcium now through eating a ton of vegetables. So it’s interesting plus antioxidants, the decrease inflammation in the body. But it’s interesting that your body’s reversing something that many experts would say is not reversible without therapy, like physical therapy and procedures done to the foot.   [2:00:25] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. It was one of those things that I just thought of recently actually. Because if you’re starting to feel better if you don’t write in everything down you sometimes don’t remember what’s gotten better. Then I remembered, “Hey, yeah. I used to have plantar fasciitis remember?” It was such a problem but it just gradually went away. I haven’t even thought about it in months.   [2:00:43] Ashley James: I love it. Naomi, this is so exciting. Thank you for coming on the show and sharing your story. I can’t wait to see what our lives are like a year from now or even six months from now. It’s been six months you’ve been fully on board and you’re healing your body with the whole food plant-based diet.   [2:01:03] Naomi Murphy: Well, I just have to thank you because I have so much gratitude because I am a home cook and you are sharing your platform with me for helping get out the word of cooking whole food plant-based. I wouldn’t be able to have access to people that want that information without you. So thanks for inviting me.   [2:01:31] Ashley James: I can’t wait for all the listeners to learn from you. All the listeners need to learn from you because you’ve got so amazing. The recipes are great but also you do these cool things. You make your own teas, you make your own spice blends, you make your own seasonings, you drink a ton of healing herbs throughout the day. I want to do a video on that. You have lots of little health habits that you do that you’ve integrated into your day effortlessly that you don’t even think about. You just kind of take for granted all these wonderful things you do but other people need to learn about it.   [2:01:32] Naomi Murphy: A lot of those do make a difference. If I don’t drink the anti-inflammatory tea that I drink every day it does make a difference. So, even eating so many vegetable foods still the teas is really helpful.   [2:02:16] Ashley James: Yeah. So we’ll a whole video on hat.   [2:02:18] Naomi Murphy: I learned some tricks along the road to better health. Not tricks, I mean –   [2:02:27] Ashley James: Tools, solutions.   [2:02:28] Naomi Murphy: Some good tools.   [2:02:29] Ashley James: Right. Well, if you think about it, a few hundred years ago we would have all learned from our grandmother’s, right? These things would have been passed down. A few hundred years ago our grandmothers would go into the woods with us and pick herbs out of the woods and made different remedies with them. Few hundred years ago, our ancestors used food more as medicine, right? We lost this. We just lost this over the last hundred years. We’ve lost this connection with the earth and the ability to incorporate plants to heal on a regular basis. One of my guests, I think he might have been Dr. JJ Davidson, talked about how if you talk to old school farmers they would say that it’s been passed down from farming generation to generation. It was passed down that everyone in the family that are farmers along with their animals twice a year will deworm, will go through and do certain herbs with the animals to remove parasites from their bodies and that we knew this. As a society we knew this a few hundred years ago but we’ve lost it now because we’ve all bought into the allopathic medical system. So we’ve lost this connection with the earth. So you’re doing things on a regular basis. You’re kind of like, I’m not calling you a grandma because you’re young, but you’re like the grandma we need. This very young, youthful woman who could help us be like a surrogate grandmother. Teach us these techniques like the herbs that you use to heal in your regular every day.   [2:04:09] Naomi Murphy: Well, I’ve been a groupie. I’ve been a groupie around holistic medical providers. I worked with students and then I worked for doctors and acupuncturist. So, I like to learn.   [2:04:26] Ashley James: Now you get to teach us. Teach us everything you’ve learned. That’s wonderful. Awesome. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Is there anything else you wanted to say to the listeners to wrap up today’s interview?   [2:04:40] Naomi Murphy: I hope you check out the membership. Bowls, I think bowls is something we showed in the listener community Facebook group. If you’re interested in one whole food plant-based recipe, check out bowls.   [2:04:59] Ashley James: Bowls is lesson seven I think it is. I think it’s lesson seven module one. We did a little mini-lesson for free in the Facebook group. So check out the video section of the Facebook group for the bowls video. When you become a member, go to one module one and look up bowls.   [2:05:22] Naomi Murphy: We’ll be constantly adding to the bowl items the things that you can use in bowls.  I’m excited. There are some recipes in there that are staples in providing those mushrooms. Like having some meaty mushroom.   [2:05:38] Ashley James: The meaty mushrooms.   [2:05:39] Naomi Murphy: Having meaty mushrooms stuff. When we were talking about mushrooms before I’m getting a half cup. It’s effortless really if you make a big batch of the meaty mushroom stuffing do you call it?   [2:05:47] Ashley James: Yeah. We couldn’t figure out what the name of it.   [2:05:50] Naomi Murphy: I just call it mushroom stuffed.   [2:05:51] Ashley James: Mushroom stuffed? The meaty mushroom stuffed.   [2:05:53] Naomi Murphy: So, if I have that in refrigerator I can mix that into lots of different dishes or if I’m using the beefalo that my kids are still eating because we have a freezer full of that I may put in there meatballs along with some other grated carrots or something like that. That helps us get those key nutrients that you can only get in mushrooms. You should have that and just have a scoop here and there on top of what you’re eating or in your salad. So, anyway.   [2:06:24] Ashley James: There’s a way to make –   [2:06:25] Naomi Murphy: Bowls and mushroom stuff. Top of my head right now is –   [2:06:28] Ashley James: Meaty mushrooms, meaty mushroom stuffing. It’s in the I heart vegetable section the module of the membership. It is so freaking delicious. I remember when we were making the recipe, we’re filming making the recipe. You hadn’t had any yet because I was teaching you how to make it. You’re kind of like –   [2:06:47] Naomi Murphy: This is not, it wasn’t scripted.   [2:06:48] Ashley James: No, nothing is scripted. You’re kind of like, “Okay. Yeah. I get it. It’s nice.”   [2:06:52] Naomi Murphy: It’s not a reality show.   [2:06:53] Ashley James: Then I made it. So I made it on camera showing you how to make it, showing everyone how to make it. Then you taste it. You’re like, “Wow.” Then Duffy turns the camera off and you go, “I didn’t believe you. When you said it was this good I thought you were exaggerating.”   [2:07:13] Naomi Murphy: You have lots of natural enthusiasm. So I heard that it was good. I believe that, but then it was kind of –   [2:07:22] Ashley James: “Dang girl. That’s good.”   [2:07:26] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. I call it the Campbell soup of whole food plant-based cooking. That’s just maybe my personal history growing up with a suburban working-class family.   [2:07:45] Ashley James: Yeah. Get the cream of mushroom soup.   [2:07:47] Naomi Murphy: It was the cream of mushroom soup with different things. I felt like a chef with that when I was a kid. So meaty mushroom, it’s like that. It has multiple applications and it has more flavor and more health-promoting properties than the Campbell’s version. Yeah. It’s super fantastic.   [2:08:06] Ashley James: Love it. Awesome. Well, I’m excited for listeners to check it out. I’m really glad that we created this platform. We spent the last four months working on it.   [2:08:16] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. It’s fun. It’s been so fun.   [2:08:18] Ashley James: It’s just going to uphill from here or it’s just going to get better and better and better. I’m just really looking forward to – I’m imagining myself a year from now. The health that I’m building now and the hope that you’re building now. I think we could all take a minute just to think about the body we want and the body we want to live in a year from now. Like we renovate our house, we prepare our car, right? We do things to upgrade where we live. We need to think about our bodies like our house we live in. We need to like you know we need to like put on a new roof or build a new foundation.   [2:08:59] Naomi Murphy: If you’re younger than my age, 48, you don’t have to wait until like things start to break down. It’s okay to experiment and be curious and brave about your health before someone says a devastating diagnosis.   [2:09:18] Ashley James: I love that even your parents in their 70s got such quick results. So, any age. Any age is going to get great results. We can use food as our medicine and that’s the message.   [2:09:26] Naomi Murphy: My mom’s not 70 yet.   [2:09:27] Ashley James: Don’t let her listen this episode. I just assumed I guess. Okay. I’m sorry. A woman in her 60s. Well, it still works for people in their 70s though.   [2:09:39] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. Of course. Yes they’ve been great. They’ve been having great benefit and really loving it and that is just the most amazing thing ever to me.   [2:09:51] Ashley James: Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you and everyone’s going to see us in Facebook lives in the Facebook group.   [2:09:59] Naomi Murphy: Wait, one more testimonial. I finally got my mother-in-law with diet with type 2 diabetes to watch the iThrive documentary and then she started fasting and is going plant-based. She’s replaced all the foods in her house with – she was eating basically keto and she’s eliminated all the dairy products and animal products from her home. She has plant-based foods lined up to make big batches. She’s already off the metformin.   [2:10:29] Ashley James: She’s been fasting on and off for the last two weeks now?   [2:10:33] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. She fasted for a week then ate a small lunch that was plant-based with no grains. Then she fasted for another week and then a standard American diet for some reason. She had guests so she –   [2:10:50] Ashley James: Decided to eat whatever they brought.   [2:10:52] Naomi Murphy: They brought over some stuff. Yeah. They brought over some –   [2:10:55] Ashley James: Did not feel good about it?   [2:10:56] Naomi Murphy: Then she ate plant-based for a few days and now she’s back to fasting.   [2:11:01] Ashley James: So after two weeks of fasting and almost solely plant-based, she is now off of metformin?   [2:11:08] Naomi Murphy: Yeah. She lost 37 pounds.   [2:11:09] Ashley James: I love it. I’m really excited for her. I’m excited for when she stops fasting and dives 100% into the diet. Although, fasting is a wonderful way to reset the neurology so that you become more neural adapted to the food.   [2:11:25] Naomi Murphy: Yep. That’s her desire because when I told her about this she really scoffed because she doesn’t enjoy vegetables. She’s getting a lot of health benefits from the fasting, but her real motivation is to enjoy plants more.   [2:11:44] Ashley James: So, if you don’t like the taste of vegetables do some water only fasting to reset your neurology. That’s discussed in episode 230 as well, which is with Dr. Goldhamer. So, yeah. I love it. Well, we’ll have to keep everyone updated with your mother-in-law and also your parents and how they’re all doing and LearnTrueHealth.com/homekitchen. Use coupon code LTH. Thank you so much. I’m really excited to see where this goes.   [2:12:17] Naomi Murphy: Thank you, Ashley. This was fun. It was fun. I can’t believe I’m going to be in a podcast.     Join the Learn True Health Home Kitchen! Use coupon LTH for listener discount! https://www.learntruehealth.com/homekitchen