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DR. DREW TIMMERMAN’S | WITHOUT HEALTH THERE IS NO WEALTH

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Hosted by
Mike Ayala

Today on Investing for Freedom, Mike Ayala is joined by Dr. Drew Timmermans, a license naturopathic doctor who has a passion for connection with his patients and strives to optimize human performance. 

Dr. Drew Timmermans is the founder and medical director of Regenerative Performance. Dr. Timmermans is passionate in helping others invest in themselves and reach their full potential. During this episode, Dr. Drew Timmermans shares his thoughts on the current healthcare system in our very reactive world. Mike and Dr. Timmermans discuss the importance of putting as much focus into your own health as you do in your finances and the positive impact this can have on your future. They also share some advice for the listeners on how they can start to live a longer, better life! 

“What does it profit you to gain the whole world, to meet your goals, to achieve financial freedom but then to lose your health?”

HIGHLIGHTS:

  • [0:01] Introducing Our Guest 
  • [2:52] Show Introduction 
  • [3:26] Start of the Podcast 
  • [4:09] Who Has Had the Greatest Impact on Your Life? 
  • [7:46] Greatest Impact and What Did You Learn from It? Greatest Setback? 
  • [13:42] Advice You Find You Share the Most 
  • [16:15] Back to the Basics 
  • [21:20] Is It Ever Too Late? 
  • [24:08] Our Reactive World
  • [30:08] Why Do We Put More Focus on Financial Health Than Our Own Health? 
  • [33:46] Dr. Timmerman’s Health Consulting 
  • [36:36] Investing in Your Health 
  • [41:52] Top 5 Things That Listeners Should Do to Live a Longer, Better Life 
  • [46:48] The Importance of Exercising 
  • [47:49] Improving the Quality and Quantity of Sleep 
  • [49:30] Maintaining Social Connections 
  • [51:35] The Impact of Outside Influences on Our Body 
  • [55:19] What Nature Gives Us 
  • [59:37] Closing Thoughts 
  • [1:00:54] Connect with Dr. Timmermans
  • [1:01:45] Outro

RESOURCES:

Regenerative Performance | [https://regenerativeperformance.com/] Instagram | [https://www.instagram.com/regenerativeperformance/?hl=en] LinkedIn | [https://www.linkedin.com/in/dmackayt/] Twitter | [https://twitter.com/dr_timmermans?lang=en] Youtube | [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMzbSGI3GyPY9VTvjr3nr4Q] Gerolsteiner Water | [https://www.gerolsteiner-usa.com/where-to-buy.html]

Contact us! | [team@investingforfreedom.co]

FULL TRANSCRIPTION:

If you found value in this episode and you know, someone who’s wanting to start further alone in the journey toward investing for freedom, I would be forever grateful if you would share this show with them and help me get this message out to more listeners. Also if you enjoy what you’ve heard, I would appreciate it if you take 30 seconds and leave me a five-star review and share this with your friend and until the next episode, cheers, to moving further along in your journey of investing for freedom. 

Mike Ayala: So I was kind of watching him for a while, following him and just really liked his methodology and the way he approached everything and just kind of really related to him. And so my wife ended up actually going and seeing him first. And then I switched over. I actually was having some health issues and my previous doc was, she was great, but she wasn’t paying a lot of attention. And one of the main reasons why I hire coaches all the time is for accountability, etc. And so that’s kind of why I left and went to Dr. Timmermans. I was looking for that level of accountability and it’s interesting as high achieving people, whether it’s in our careers or in our financial world, investing world, whatever, we tend to always have coaches, we’re always measuring our results, as I always say, but we don’t really, a lot of times relay that over into the health arena. And I often think of that scripture in the Bible that says, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but to lose his soul. And it’s kind of the same in our investing in, our financial planning and, our investing careers, just our career in general, what does it profit you to gain the whole world, to meet your goals, to achieve financial freedom, but then to lose your health. To die at the age of 45 or 50 or 55, or as I’ve said so many times, I’ve got a mentor that’s 80 some years old and he’s done extremely well but can’t sit on an airplane for four hours. And it’s that same old thing of enjoying our golden years of retirement. And we’re constantly talking about this from a financial standpoint, but the health part of this is probably more important than any of it, because if you don’t have your health, it doesn’t matter how much money you have. There’s no amount of money in the world that can bring you back from the dead. So anyway, I’m excited to bring you Dr. Timmermans today. We’re going to get into a lot of amazing stuff. As I’m sure you can guess, there’s only so much that we can talk about in one episode, I’ll be having Dr. Timmermans in the investing for freedom Facebook community from time to time, we’ll be doing some Facebook lives and some Instagram lives together. So probably not the last time you ever hear from him on the podcast. Because as I said, there’s just so many things to talk about, but what he does get into today is pretty interesting. And with what we’re dealing with COVID and everything else, I mean, some of the basic principles of health and longevity can help you get through anything. And I’d just like to, before we jump into this, just say, Dr. Timmermans believes in. And so do I, that the body 

is a machine it is designed to heal itself. And so I’m pretty excited to get into all this, enjoy the show. 

[Intro] 

Are you looking for freedom, freedom from the daily grind and hustle, or just finding a way to live the life you always wanted, then join us on the investing for freedom podcast? Our hosts, Mike Ayala will help you discover new ways to find freedom. With tips, insights, and interviews, you’ll learn the exact systems he’s used to travel the world and live his best life. True success and happiness are all about freedom. And here’s your roadmap on how to find freedom on your own terms. Welcome to the investing for freedom podcast. Here’s your host, Mike Ayala. 

Mike Ayala: Thank you for joining us on the investing for freedom podcast. Today I’ve got dr. Drew Timmermans who actually is my personal physician. I’m just really excited to get to bring him to you today. Just a wealth of knowledge and experience. And he takes kind of a different approach than many of our traditional doctors do today. So we’re going to get into a lot of great stuff, but doc, I appreciate you taking out the time and being with us today. 

Dr. Timmermans: Thanks for having me on Mike. I am excited. We’ve had to reschedule a few times, but we made it happen. 

Mike Ayala: Yeah, it’s going to be good. By the way, there’s so much information in the health world. My intent is to get doc on here as many times as possible. So go ahead and reach out to him on Instagram and all that and tell them how amazing he is. So he’ll keep coming in and talk to us. So doc four questions that I always ask every guest getting going, who’s had the greatest impact on your life. 

Dr. Timmermans: So, I had to really cause you sent these questions over beforehand and I really had to think because there have been a lot of influential people in my life. I think looking back, it was probably my dad. And I’ll give you a little bit backstory on that. So in, pretty sure it was 1998. In 1998 or 1999, my dad sold is dream car, it was a Cutlass, 69 Cutlass, sold his dream car to start his own business. He was a cabinet maker. So woodworker, carpenter by trade. And he wanted to start a picture frame business where he would sell wholesale picture frames to different places across Canada. And so yeah, he sold his dream car. I’m pretty sure he sold it for about 8,000 and that was his startup money to, help put more food on the table and just do something he was really, really passionate 

about. And just growing up, my dad worked in a shop in a factory from, I think they started probably at like 5.30, 6:00 AM. He got off at 3.00 PM, would come home nap, eat dinner, and then he’d be out in the shop doing his passion. The thing that he loved the most. And so, I obviously got to see a lot of him, but I always knew him as, he wasn’t the type to just screw around and just waste away the weekend kind of doing nothing. It was, he was doing what he loved and at the time, like I obviously had, no, I couldn’t grab onto that and say, Oh, that’s, you know what, I want to be what I want to do. Like I never had any of those thoughts, but Looking now at, me taking the path of, probably not going to be the most money compared to other medical professions and there’s definitely less fame being a naturopathic doctor, there’s actually way more scrutiny. And so, but I’m living my passion and I’m doing what I absolutely love to do. And I wake up every morning excited to do it. And I don’t mind if I have to work on weekends because it doesn’t feel like work. And so I would, and so looking back, I thought this probably about two years ago and I was just like, I bet you any money that came from my dad, just looking at how he was happy. Well, how he was not happy with the factory job that he had and how he was trying to use his side hustle and his passion to get out of that. And I think that just really had a huge, huge impact on me over the years. And it’s probably led to just my internal motives and drive and how I look at happiness and passion and work and how it shouldn’t have to just be work. So I probably have to say my dad for sure. 

Mike Ayala: That’s awesome. And I had mentioned your Instagram profile earlier, regenerative performance. But you can tell, I had followed you on Instagram long before you ever became my doc. And you can tell the amount of time that you put into your trade if you will, and what you do. And so I can, I resonate with that. It’s obviously you’ve spent a lot of time studying and understanding, what you’re up against. It’s not the little, you got 18 seconds to talk to your doc. That’s what I really appreciate about you. So, okay. If you could narrow it down to one thing, that’s had the greatest impact on success, on your success, what would it be? 

Dr. Timmermans: So in high school, when I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with kind of the rest of my life, we had a civics and careers class where they kind of just exposed you to different things and talk about whatever, and you take some online tests and, they thought you might be good at this. And that was kind of that class was what it kind of turned me on to medicine. Even though I had had, like, I remember when I was growing up, I was probably seven or eight years old my parents got me this and it was my first and I wish I still had it, but it was my first anatomy book where it was those old school books were like, it was kind of see through, and each time you turn the page, you saw a little bit deeper into whatever 

the thing was. And so this was the human body. The first page was the scan, and then you flipped it and the transparency got less. And so now you could see the bones. And so I’d always had an interest and anatomy, the human body and science and everything, but it was really, it was that high school class that kind of set me on that path. But so at that time, I, I have no idea what naturopathic medicine was. All I knew was, Oh, you’re just doctor. Which is what most people in the world think of. They think of Doctor and candidate, just MD, cause we don’t have dos in Canada. And then here in the States, everybody thinks of an MD or a DO as
doctor. And then everything else is either don’t know about it or it’s just quackery. And so I actually set my sights on allopathic medical school to become an MD and went through phases on what I wanted to do. At one point it was cardiothoracic surgery, cause I really was fascinated with the cardiovascular system and I always knew I was a hands-on person. And so there would always be some form of whether it’s surgery or procedures or something like that. And so anyways, so set my path on that, went through undergrad, did kinesiology, wrote my M CAT. Actually wrote it twice because my first score wasn’t good enough. And then applied to allopathic med school. I had an interview at Western university, which is in up in Canada and didn’t get accepted. And that was obviously a really, really like, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. Like I had a good GPA, I had a great MCAT score. I was a varsity track and field athlete. So I felt like I checked all the boxes, but I was dumbfounded at people I knew that were applying with me, who I did not have as good a GPA, screwed around all through college and their MCAT score wasn’t as good and they got accepted and I was like, that’s really weird. And so then I was like, okay, well, I’m just going to, I’m going to take a year off obviously. Cause I was done school. I’ll take year of work as a personal trainer and I’ll reapply. Well, in that year, when I was working as a personal trainer, one of my clients, she noticed how excited I got when I would talk about other clients getting off blood pressure medication, getting off cholesterol medication from the nutrition and exercise stuff we are doing. And, I was starting to explore more on different supplements cause I was looking for ways to help my clients at the time with everything they were struggling with, whether it was joint pain or whether it was blood sugar issues and that type of stuff. And she said, Hey, you should check out naturopathic medicine. I think you might be really interested in that. And I was like, what? And so I go online, and I look into it and instantly just the six principles of naturopathic medicine, which in a nutshell are basically treat the human, use nature and the human body healing capacity, whenever you can. First do no harm, the whole Hippocratic oath thing. And it just, like I read that, and I just went, Holy shit, this is my calling. This is exactly like, this is how I think internally about medicine without anybody having to put that idea into my mind that yeah, we should use herbs when appropriate instead of medications. Yeah. We don’t need to 

jump right to surgery if there’s something less invasive we can do, all that type of stuff. And so, and then from there it was just, my path completely changed, and it turned into where I am today. And so, I think getting rejected from med school, not being accepted one, I think was the universe telling me this is not your path, because I still don’t understand why I didn’t get accepted from on a paper standpoint. Maybe I’m super awkward in the interview. Who knows? I probably butchered that part. But like on paper, I should have been accepted because just of where everything I had done and I didn’t, and obviously that I couldn’t see that at the time. But I think that is probably the biggest setback I had that turned into me being where I am today. And obviously I’m super grateful for not being accepted into med school, because it allowed me to go down this path that resulted in me being happier, I think, and living out my passion more. 

Mike Ayala: That’s awesome. So was that also the answer to number three? What was your greatest setback in what you learned from it? 

Dr. Timmermans: Oh yeah. I thought that the question I was answering.
Mike Ayala: No. So if you could narrow it down to one thing that had the greatest 

impact on your success, what would it be? 

Dr. Timmermans: Oh, I think both those, I think both those things would go together. 

Mike Ayala: Yeah. It made sense when you were talking about, yeah…what is the piece of advice you find yourself sharing the most? 

Dr. Timmermans: Oh man. That’s tough because, so if I were to, if I had to pick one thing, I don’t know. That’s a tough one. Cause I give out so much advice. I’m trying to really pare it down. I think it’s just within the conceptual framework, the advice of just get back to the basics and I think that’s probably what I focus on the most when I am, obviously when I’m one on one with patients, the basics are always involved, but that’s when we can get more strategic and get more tailored and we can talk about higher dose nutrients or IVs or injections and all that other stuff. But when I’m just talking with people in general, you know, through social media platforms or if they’re not a patient, it’s just like, just get back to the way we used to live 150, 200 years ago. It’s obviously the benefits of cell phones and all that, but it’s just like, you need to sleep. You need to drink water. 

You need to not eat crap food and you need to exercise and move. You need to get out into nature. It’s just liked those basic things that our bodies are built on from 

thousands of years of living like that. You know, we’ve only been living this way in basically a chemically toxic soup for 100, 150 years. So it’s really just focusing in on those basic things that give your body the opportunity to be healthy, give your body the opportunity to fight off an infection that comes or give your body the opportunity to heal if you all down and roll your ankle or something like that. 

Mike Ayala: That’s so good. And the reason why I ask these four questions is sometimes it opens up something that, you know, you and I necessarily weren’t thinking about. I was just sharing with you. I was on a phone call this morning with a group of guys and we had listened to Dave Asprey who I know you like and appreciate. And I’ve listened to Dave Asprey for a long time, but where the phone call. So yesterday we were on a zoom call with Dave and he was just, you know, talking about everything that Dave talks about. He’s a very intelligent wide range of things. But when I was having this call with this group of guys this morning, it was like, what were your big takeaways and the challenge for me. And I love what you just said. It’s just come back to the basics. I think we live in a society. I’m interested in your thought on this. So I’m going to just share my thinking and then I’d love to hear what you have to think or say. The society that we live in, whether it’s fast food drive in, we want everything now. We can click a button and we have Netflix. We can literally go on our phone and we have any food you want 45 minutes later. And so in the realm of biohacking, which I’m super interested in, what are the shortcuts that we can do in our body to make our body more efficient, bigger machine, but the bottom line is there’s all these, you can invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in biohacking and maybe technically think we get quick results, but the reality, when you say, get back to the basics, I mean, our body is a healing machine. It was designed to heal itself and even working with you, like I’ve got some things going on and you’re like, just eat right, eat less this, and eliminate dairy because you have these issues and you’ve got cholesterol. But I don’t, not that I want the pill, but I want the magic pill. Right. And so what do you think about all that? Is that what you mean when you say, come back to the basics? Like I know that there’s Eastern medicine, Western medicine, there’s a pill for everything, but we’re kind of not in a great place when it comes to taking pills for all of our problems. 

Dr. Timmermans: We’re not, this is, I think it’s such a multilayered issue because this has to do with the way pharmaceuticals are advertised in this country. And just the mentality around everything. And I don’t think it’s going to get any easier or better. I actually think it’s going to get worse. In 10 years, that 45 minutes while you’re waiting for door dash to show up is not going to exist because it’s going to be star Trek world. You’re going to push a button and a 3D printer is going to print 

you, whatever food you want and you’re going to be good. It’s just going to get worse. And so, and the more we get away from the basics, the more the basics become important. And in terms of the biohacking stuff, there’s a time and a place for that, for sure. There are the, the peptides and the red-light therapy and sauna and all that stuff can have therapeutic use. It’s just, it needs to, it’s like building a $5 million home on a foundation, that’s 200 years old, like you can just, what’s the point of spending that much money up top to have some sort of visual appeal or to be in a biohacker community and talk about all the cool things and feel like a part of that if you don’t have the foundation, it’s just all going to fall apart and there’ll be scrambling and it just ends up being a terrible situation. So I think it’s going to get worse before it gets better. I hope at some point there will be a major shift in our healthcare system. And in our agricultural system that helps change the way people think about health and have it been blessed, a sick care and healthcare. The current healthcare system is not designed to promote health. It is there to help you when you’re sick and it’s reactive medicine, and that needs to change at some point in. And I think we need to start empowering people more to realize that our bodies can heal. It is mind blowing, how many people I’ve talked to, who their doctor has convinced them. And not even like they had to form a logical argument to convince them. It’s just like one sentence they told them on, there’s no fixing this. There’s no cure for this. You’re just going to have to deal with it. And they are locked into this idea that nothing can help them get better. And I’m like, you just got to like, sleep, exercise, proper nutrition, hydration, all that stuff may not fix you a 100%, but it’s going to give you the opportunity for your body to try and figure it out. And most likely see improvements along the way. And then we can layer in other therapies that probably wouldn’t have worked if you don’t sleep, don’t exercise, always eat processed food, all that type of stuff. And so it’s really unfortunate that people think that their bodies can’t heal. And I think that really needs to change because once people start to realize, Hey, my body can heal. And I just have to put in the work to do that. Maybe, maybe people will be more apt to do the things that are tougher to do, but more important. 

Mike Ayala: We’re going to get into some practical things that our listeners and audience can do for everybody from your perspective. But before we go there, you just triggered some thoughts in my mind. And so is it ever too late for the person that just heard everything that you’re saying, and they’ve been told certain things that, and maybe that’s not even, maybe they’re not there yet where their doctor said, there’s nothing you can do about this. But I think some people feel they’re too fat. They’re too far along. They’re too old. This is in my genes. This is in my 

bloodline. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. And the second-best time is now. So is it ever too late? 

Dr. Timmermans: So when people ask me that, this is the example that you usually give. So if we look at the most extreme aspect of health and disease, is cancer. There’s a lot of research in the cancer world that the amount of muscle mass you have is directly related to your chance of survival. So the more muscle mass you have, the higher, the chance that you will get through whatever cancer you know that you have. And now obviously I always say there’s a, obviously a spectrum, there’s the less lethal types of cancers like prostate cancer. There’s the more lethal types of cancer, glioblastomas and that type of stuff. And so it’s obviously a spectrum within this, but the data consistently shows, the more muscle mass you have either at the time of diagnosis, or even if you put on muscle mass during chemotherapy, radiation, whatever it is you’re doing for your cancer, that has an impact on your mortality rate. And so even the sickest of the sick can benefit from something as simple as exercise to put on muscle mass. So I don’t think anybody is too far gone or there’s no hope and you just have to take the meds or there’s always, always, always things that can be improved. And what I tell patients sometimes is, and I obviously don’t work in oncology, but it’s just easiest to think about oncology because it has a kind of hard end point, right? It’s mortality, it’s death. And if you got two scenarios where you did all the hard stuff, so you have a cancer diagnosis, you properly hydrate, you eat organic, you eat pasture raised meats, you do everything right on the nutrition front. You don’t eat processed foods. You exercise, you meditate, you drink enough water, all that type of stuff, even if that doesn’t change your mortality. So that the date that you’re going to pass on, what if that improves your quality of life, like 20% so that you can spend more time feeling better with your loved ones, because you know that your time is limited. And so that’s just the way I try to frame it up for patients. And again, I don’t treat oncology. I’ve talked with enough docs who do, and that’s just what they consistently see is, it ends up being a quality of life thing, which that translates over into a patient who is morbidly obese, and has a severe, severe insomnia. And they are just extremely fatigued all the time. Like simple things can make huge, huge impact. 

Mike Ayala: This is obviously the investing for freedom podcast. And the majority of what we talk about is about financial health and wellbeing and etc., etc. The reason why I wanted to bring you on is because we put so much time and emphasis on building out our wealth and all of that. And I kind of, what was it all for if we die, when we’re 45 or 55 or 65, or, or I’ve got a mentor who’s 80, probably 82 years old now. And he told me probably 10 years ago, he couldn’t sit on an airplane for four hours. He’s done extremely well in life. And he still lives a great life. But the reality is, he worked his tail off his whole life. He’s had a great 

family, but now he’s at a stage where, you know, he’s enjoying his golden years, we’re taught to go to school, get a job, go to college, work your butt off till you’re 65 or 75. And then you can enjoy your golden years of retirement. This is kind of our message all the time. But the reality is, and this doesn’t get talked about enough. The health component is as important, if not more important than the financial piece. And that’s why I really wanted to have you on here. But I look at it a lot the same, because people ask me all the time. They’re like, I want to start investing in real estate. And I’m like, you got to do the hard work first. You have to set money aside. You have to invest in yourself. You have to invest in your knowledge and experience. If you go out and you just buy a piece of real estate tomorrow, you may fail because you didn’t invest in the infrastructure. It’s like the foundation you were talking about. If you don’t build your investing career on a good financial foundation, you’re going to have problems. And so it’s the same thing when it comes to health. And so even that patient or client that you’re talking, so we went to the worst-case scenario, which I appreciated you doing, but the reality is those core things that you talk about. That’s really the, it’s more important than our investing. 

Dr. Timmermans: That is a huge, huge, I think overlooked piece and not just the investing financial world, but everywhere is people are. And I think it just ties back into the concept I was talking about, about, we live in a system that is reactive healthcare. There is no incentive to living a healthy lifestyle. You know what I mean? The insurance model is not set up that, it’s not like what auto insurance companies are doing right now, where, Oh, if you go two years without an accident, we’re going to do this or this, or drop your rates or whatever. There was nothing like that in the healthcare system. Here’s the money that you’re going to spend every month on healthcare, on your insurance. And if you get sick, we’ll take care of you. But other than that, that’s it. There is no incentive to eating healthy and preparing yourself for the ability to deal with whatever kind of it kind of comes at you. And the insurance model is they’re not really interested in that side of the equation as well. Peter Tia did a podcast. This was probably six months ago now where he talked about the mathematical model of insurance companies here in the U S, which is obviously different than the socialized systems like Canada, where both you and I grew up. So in Canada, and again, I’m not saying that Canadian system is by any means better than the American system. There’s pros and cons to both and both have good and bad, but out here, on average, the stat is that a person is with an insurance company for three years, because most of the time people are changing jobs or the company is changing insurance company. And so their mathematical models are not, what can we do for this person with diabetes now, or prediabetes now that will save us money in 30 years when they’re 80 years old, 

when we inevitably know that this is going to be worse, based on the data. They think of it as, how little can we spend for this next three years to get this chump onto the next person and so it’s not our problem anymore. Yeah, so it just goes back to those basics and, you know, making sure that you are doing things that are going to allow you when you’re older to actually enjoy retirement. To be able to take the wealth that you have and be happy and comfortable with traveling and going and doing things and not being burnt out and sick that you can’t anymore. And it’s like, what was all that hard work for the last four years’ worth if you can’t actually enjoy what you’re doing because of your health. 

Mike Ayala: Yeah. I don’t remember who said this to me, but we literally don’t have a healthcare system. We have a sick care system. And what I really appreciate about you is you truly are focused on the health care system. But the way that the program is designed, it’s really a sick care system. There’s a ton of money that moves into it and will help you when you’re sick instead of the preventative side. So doc, my mission at investing for freedom is to help elevate the financial mindset and escalate the net worth of humanity. And we often discuss the freedom formula. Number one, what do you really want, number two why do you want it? Number three, what are you going to do to get it? Number four, measure the
results. Number five, adjust along the way. I think that number four is one of the most important parts that we often leave out. Most people don’t have a financial system they’re not really tracking. It’s funny because we’ve talked to a lot of people and really their method of measuring their financial worth is what the number is in their bank account. And to me that’s just madness, but most people don’t have a financial statement and it seems that people put more emphasis on financial health, which I kind of alluded to earlier than they do physical health. So why do you think that is? Why are we putting more focus on financial health than physical health? 

Dr. Timmermans: I think it’s because there are easier ways to track. You can open up your bank account and you can see a visual number and it’s red or black than whatever variation in between. And that’s really difficult to see on a, with your health. Yes there are blood tests you know, that can give us insight, but even those are dramatically, dramatically flawed because there are so many people who go to their doctor saying I’m extremely fatigued or I have pain or whatever it is. And their doctor does some tests and goes, all the tests are normal. I don’t know what to tell you. And so there’s a layer of the objective data we can find. And then clinically and subjectively interpreting that based on a whole wealth of knowledge. That’d be like in the financial space, if having $4,000 in your bank account is good, but $4,001, it might be good. It might be bad. You have to have somebody else 

come in and interpret it cause you have no idea. And so that layer of complexity, I think makes it really difficult for people. And we have great drugs that suppress symptoms. And so people can be tired, and they’re given something that helps boost their energies or they can’t sleep, and they’re given a drug that can chemically basically just baseball bat to the brain for eight to 12 hours. And they feel like they slept. And so I think there’s just that added layer of complexity and understanding to it that it makes it a lot more difficult for people to see the value and objectifying and creating some markers of how I evaluate health, my health. And that’s going to be different for everybody. What I deem as me feeling healthy is going to be very different than what you deem versus the next person, the next person. And so part of clinical medicine is helping people to figure that out. I’ve people who are in severe, severe chronic pain. And if we can get them out of that chronic pain, even if they have issues sleeping and all that other stuff, I know that, and they verbalize it. They will be so happy just because they don’t have that one thing that’s causing them so much angst in their life. And so it just gets complicated and convoluted, and there’s no clear marker, benchmark for what is health. 

Mike Ayala: I joined a group called Gobundance, which I talk about a lot on the podcast and everything else, that’s been a huge impact in my life. But one of the things that I realized you know, even with all the investment properties and everything we had, the time that I would update my financial statement would be when a bank would ask for it. And then joining Gobundance, there’s a thing that they created called a one sheet, which basically just keeps our financial statement in front of us, it simplifies it. And I have a tool that’s similar to that in investing for freedom, because the question I get all the time, everybody I think wants to do better in life. They want more streams of income. They want to get away from, I talk a lot about the average Americans, one paycheck away from destruction. People want to get out of that. We don’t want to stay in the situation that we’re in. What I love about working with you, you’ve taken the time to really sit back and interpret that financial statement or health statement, if you will, for me. So you’re in Arizona, but for our listeners, you have a program where people can come to you and work with you, right? 

Dr. Timmermans: Yeah. So part of that has been born out of just having a larger digital media presence. And it gets difficult because people have always said like, Oh, who can I go see in my area? And it’s just like, well, there’s many thousands of cities across the US and there’s only a small handful of docs I know that think like me. And then there’s always a range of quality, and I’m not saying I’m top quality. I know there are docs who are way smarter than I am and better at what I do than 

how I do it. But it’s just, it’s so difficult to say, Oh, well, this person is a naturopathic doctor, so they must be the same. So go see them and that’s not the case at all, especially because in some States, naturopathic medicine is not licensed. And so you could be going to see someone who just took a weekend course, six-week course. It just gets a little scary. And so we started offering some telehealth options for people outside of Arizona which is not direct medical advice. So I’m not licensed outside of the state of Arizona, just licensed as a physician inside the state of Arizona. I kind of look at it as more of a health consultant or a health coach role. So we’re not diagnosing and treating medical conditions, but we’re looking at basically taking the information that they have from their lab tests and imaging and whatever else they have talked with them and then kind of pointing them in the right direction on where they should maybe look or where they should maybe focus and really, really focusing again on the basics. Because it is maybe one out of 30 patients that comes in that they actually have the basics dialed in.
And they did that because they knew that I’m not a cheap date by any means. And so they know that coming in and saying, okay, I’ve done all the things you’ve talked about on social media for the past three years, and now I’m ready for the top tier stuff where, I need help, but I’ve got all this stuff kind of foundation laid in. So that’s kind of the, so those are the options that we have for working with patients who are kind of outside of Arizona and still helping guide them along their journey. And sometimes that’s helping guide them to a physician in their area. If we’re going to work with somebody and they need to go get labs or something like that, we will now do our work on our end to try and help find a good physician that might be able to work adjunctively with us to figure out what’s going on and get them on the right path. 

Mike Ayala: You had made a comment about, you’re not a cheap date, but I would just pose the argument there. And again, the guys on the call this morning we were talking about this. Eating healthy is not cheap. Eating grass fed beef is not cheap. It’s much cheaper to go to McDonald’s and buy a 99-cent cheeseburger than it is to actually get some good pasture fed ground beef. So that being said, like, this goes back to the healthcare versus sick care. It’s not going to be cheap to spend the rest of your life trying to be healthier. But at the same time, it isn’t cheap to go through six months of cancer cure either, even if you have insurance, or, to get some kind of surgery or whatever, the typical sick care is. So I’ll just throw that out there. 

Dr. Timmermans: It is literally investing in your health. It is spending more now so that you don’t, I have to spend more later. The number one cause of bankruptcy in the US is medical debt. And it’s like, that right there is just like the cherry on top 

of everything here. Is that if people are taking the shortcut, the financial shortcuts now, even when they’re 20, 30, 40, yeah, you don’t feel as much of the negative effects when you’re 20. Everybody remembers college where you could go booze and then hit up McDonald’s and get three hours sleep and wake up and do it all over again. But that doesn’t make it healthy. It just means your body’s a little bit more resilient. And can I handle a bit more of that, but you know, it, people taking the financial shortcuts to save a buck here, save a buck there. Mind you they’ll go to Starbucks and get an $8 drink every day, but they can’t spend an extra $2 a pound on meat. But yeah, it just gets back to everything that we’re talking about here. It’s investing in yourself now. So that way you can reap the rewards later. And it’s sad that reaping the rewards later is being a normal human, the way humans were designed to be, which is healthy. 

Mike Ayala: There’s such a correlation. And honestly, I never, even though we’ve been dancing around it, I never saw it as clear as I do now. The way that we’ve treated our health is the same way we’ve treated our financial future. The way we treated our health future, the same as financial future. Every week we get $500, $700 taken out of our paycheck and it goes to health care and it goes to a 401k. And we put that, we delegate our health to someone else, typically a doctor or the healthcare system, same thing with our retirement. We delegate that to a financial planner and we just hope that someday 50, 60 years down the road, we’re not that tragic disaster on the side of the road. And I think 90% of us are probably going to end up there because we delegated our health responsibility and our financial responsibility to someone else. Thank you for pointing that out. It’s huge. Real quick. 

Dr. Timmermans: And the sad thing about that though, is you get to cash out your 401k, you don’t get the cash out, everything you put into in insurance for healthcare. Especially if you did that and tried to lead a healthy life, you just paid hundreds of thousands of dollars over your lifetime for, and you paid it for peace of mind. And I understand that. I guess I should clarify that. I’m a big proponent of, I think you might’ve talked about this before, but I’m a big proponent of insurance and healthcare insurance for catastrophic events. You are in a car accident; you were badly injured. And for whatever reason, the current auto insurance doesn’t cover it, or some other tragic event happens, that you need to go to the emergency room and have emergency surgery. That’s not going to bankrupt you. That is super, super important to have that, but I’m not a fan of the portion of healthcare that we pay for chronic disease management, because it just goes back to what we said before. It’s reactive medicine and it’s not actually empowering people to invest in their health. 

Mike Ayala: Yeah. Well let me clarify something too. I’m a big proponent of retirement funds. So I hear you loud and clear. You’re not saying we shouldn’t have health insurance, and I’m also not saying we shouldn’t have retirement accounts, but what I am saying is that we shouldn’t delegate our health to a certain and we have to own that. And it’s the same thing with our retirement. And you made the comment and I agree with you, with the 401k, we get to cash it out. But the reality is, I don’t think a lot of people’s retirement accounts are going to be there and definitely not at the level that they think they are because they delegated that to a financial planner instead of owning that themselves. And that’s what I’m a proponent of. And that’s what you’re a proponent of. You’ve got to own your health. You’ve got to find a doctor that’ll team up and come alongside of you, but really at the end of the day, do you want a pill, or do you want health? That’s what I keep hearing you saying. So doc, what are the top 10 things that anyone listening can and should do to live a longer and better life? And obviously there’s 12 weeks of conversation we could have here. This is never ending, but if you just had to rattle off 10 things, and if you want to go in depth on any one of them that are more priority than others, what would that look like? 

Dr. Timmermans: Yeah. So the biggest things are, and so I’ll try to get 10. I might go over. Hydration, hydration is super, super important and really, really often overlooked. The general recommendation that we make is half your body weight in pounds in ounces of water per day. So if you’re a 200-pound guy, you should be getting at least a hundred ounces of water a day. And that’s, if you’re not exercising, there’s obviously other things that are going to factor into this equation. Us here in Arizona, we probably need a little bit more than that hundred ounces if we’re 200 pounds, because we’re more in a dry environment and it’s hotter. And so we’re going to lose water a bit quicker than somebody else. Someone who might live up in Maine or something like that. And then most of the time we want to focus a lot of that water when we first wake up in the morning. And so usually that’s, getting anywhere between 8 to 16 ounces before coffee or tea or any other diuretic, that’s actually going to dehydrate further because you just went hopefully eight hours, if you slept eight hours, but you just went anywhere from six to nine hours without any liquids. Which is not terribly bad in any sense, but you’re also sweating through the night, when we breathe, we actually lose water through our respiration. And so you wake up dehydrated almost every single morning. And so we have to be strategic about making sure we’re getting a water first thing in the morning. A few other caveats to that if anybody’s listening and they do have, something like stage four kidney disease, that’s a time where we actually don’t push water, be really strategic about limiting water. So that’s our caveat there. And then 

for anybody who drinks reverse osmosis water or distilled water, we actually want to make sure we’re adding back minerals. Because when we use reverse osmosis that actually strips out all of the minerals that are naturally present in water, electrolytes, magnesium some of the more trace minerals like vanadium and boron, all of those are beneficial for our health and actually help the water to stay in our system as opposed to just us peeing it right out. And so we want to make sure that we’re adding either some form of trace mineral drops, which you can get from a supplement store or whatever. Or just I prefer just like either Celtic or Himalayan sea salt, adding that back into the water to make sure that we are getting those minerals. 

Mike Ayala: There was certain water that you prescribed to me if you will. Because I was lacking some minerals. 

Dr. Timmermans: Yeah. So that’s our sparkling mineral waters. The one that I really like, and I’m pretty sure it’s the one I had told you about was
the Gerolsteiner, the German one, cause it’s really high in bicarbonate and really high in magnesium, like off the charts for magnesium. And so I like, again and this kind of goes back to the basics. Any time we can get certain nutrients, vitamins, minerals from food sources, I always prefer that, sometimes we need to go to the supplements because we need a levels that you can’t get from food. And so, yeah, the Gerolsteiner is actually really, really good for helping with magnesium, which most Americans are depleted in. And then the bicarbonate, which some Americans are going to have issues with that and be a little bit on the depleted side and their urine will be a little more acidic. And so we actually want to help to alkalize that. 

Mike Ayala: That’s what I love about working with you. I needed zinc for a certain reason and you’re like, can you eat oysters? And I’m like, yeah, I like oysters. And you’re like, okay, so I want you to eat X amount of oysters per week and if you can’t, then we need to supplement with zinc. And I’m like, I’m like, I can try it. And there was, I realized like I love oysters when I go to a restaurant, but there’s absolutely no way that I was going to eat. What is it? Like two wasters a day or six or something. 

Dr. Timmermans: Have like three oysters, three to four times a week or something like that. 

Mike Ayala: I was like, in my mind, I like oysters. But the reality, you go to a restaurant and they bring you these nice fancy oysters and all the side stuff. But 

then the thought of eating three oysters a day every like I couldn’t do it. So I take supplements. So it’s interesting. I really appreciate it. 

Dr. Timmermans: And I think that’s important is giving patients the option. Some of my patients just like done, I don’t want to take supplements, I’d rather do this from food and that’s just how they approach it and other people try it. It doesn’t work for them, but at least we know that they tried it before we moved on to a supplement to achieve that goal. 

Mike Ayala: So hydration number one. 

Dr. Timmermans: Hydration, exercise. Even if it is just getting outside and walking for 30 minutes a day, even if you start at five minutes a day, it’s just doing something to get the muscles moving, get blood flow. Cause so many good things happen when we exercise. 

Mike Ayala: We actually produce what are called myokines, which are basically growth factors and cells or signaling molecules I should say from muscles that actually have very anti-inflammatory properties. So you can actually reduce inflammation with exercise. We can improve the blood sugar balance, improve cognitive function, whole bunch of really great stuff with exercise. And so, if people are exercising, making sure it’s varied, getting some strength training in there. Cause obviously muscle mass is important and if people are not exercising at all, just at least doing something, even if it’s five, 10 minutes every single day and over time kind of working it up. So exercise. Sleep, sleep is, we kind of talked about that in the beginning is a very, very huge thing. And so with that, it’s difficult sometimes to tell somebody, Oh, you need to just get eight hours of sleep. It really comes down to figuring out strategies that we can use in order to help improve the quality of sleep and the quantity of sleep. And so with that, it’s going to come things like morning sunshine. Getting sunlight on the face in the morning is actually going to help engrain a strong circadian rhythm so that cortisol is released better in the morning and the melatonin is released better at night. And then blue light blocking tech, whether that’s glasses on your phone, on your computer, all of the above, in the evening. And then something else that gets overlooked a lot with people is just turning off lights in the house after sunset. Most people, it’s nine o’clock at night. And let’s say they go to bed at 11 and every single light in their living room and kitchen is on and they’re watching TV and it’s just like all this light hitting the eyes, that is telling the body it’s daytime, when in reality it’s not. And it’s nighttime. So we usually tell patients to turn off half the lights in your house after sunset. So right now here in Arizona, 7.30 or so, it’s sunset and so half the lights if 

not more, are going to go off in our home and what we tell patients just to decrease the amount of light hitting the eyes. So those are probably the big things for sleep. What else? Social connections, which I know is like a super loaded question and statement right now with all the social isolating and distancing that’s going on in the world. But that’s a huge, huge thing. I’m not in the camp that it has to be physical, like you actually have to physically be with somebody with human touch. Mike Ayala: I think that is astronomically better than a text string, but even just things like being able to text with people or video call with people like that is at least something in terms of having a social connection with somebody else that is going to have a positive impact on your life. I have a caveat to that is that’s only if the people that you are talking with are actually positive people. As everybody knows, we are the sum of the five people we spend the most time with and so if all five of your closest people you talk to are all negative Debbie downers all the time, then that is actually going to be the opposite and that can actually worsen health status and make it more difficult to get out of the negative patterns that people sometimes get in with their health. And so with the social connection that’s auditing the people around you looking at, okay, when I spend time with this person, do I walk away defeated and do I walk away feeling like I need just to take time for myself for 10 minutes. Cause if you do, that means that that emotional relationship you have with that person is not healthy and you need to either do things to help improve the status of that relationship or a distance yourself or completely eliminate yourself, which that obviously gets difficult with no family and things like that. And I always get backlash being like, well I can’t, I can’t just not talk to my mother. Well actually you kind of can distance yourself and set up some barriers to protect your own health because your health has to be priority, not what you think somebody else thinks about you because you’re not talking to them. So social connections. 

Mike Ayala: Real quick. There’s so much to unpackage here and if we have to go a little bit long, I mean you’ve got things to do, but back to the light thing and then this also, I’ve realized in the last year or two years, like the light thing isn’t just a mental, Oh, the lights are on, these are chemical. This is like our bodies have like amazing. And it’s the same thing with the social connection. Cause I can remember a time in my life where I was thinking that the people that I hung around, if they were negative, it was purely just, it’s influencing my mind. It’s not just about your mind. And the lights, it’s not just about your mind thinking, Oh, it’s daytime. These are actual chemical systems in our body. 

Dr. Timmermans: 100%. So we actually like, so for example, if you are around negative people a lot that stress you out, that’s going to increase cortisol, that 

increase in cortisol can weaken your immune system. It can do a whole bunch of stuff to make it harder to lose weight, easier to gain weight. And affect your cognitive processes. Just all this stuff can happen. And exact same thing with light. That light hitting your eyeball is that actually sends chemical messages to your brain to say release cortisol, it is daytime. And then when that light goes down, the gas pedal of that goes down and that gas battle going down actually is part of what helps melatonin to rise so that you can actually sleep better. And so yeah, it’s not just a psychological thing. It is a pure, there are physiological processes that are happening because of X, Y and Z. 

Mike Ayala: And the same with the social connections or like even bringing it back to the financial arena. We’ve said forever, I think people joke about this at times, but it’s like, Oh, checks are coming in the mail and no, it doesn’t mean the checks are coming in the mail, but you know, the way that you talk to your mind or the people around you, there’s those people that are always like, nothing good ever happens to me. That’s like literally reprogramming chemical pathways in our brain and our bodies. So it’s interesting. 

Dr. Timmermans: And there’s been a large number of studies that look at, if you are a preconditioned to something, so if you’re preconditioned to seeing a red colored shirt or something like that, throughout your day, you’re going to think there’s more red color shirts in the world because your brain has been conditioned to see that thing. And so because of that, you think that, Oh, why is everybody buying red shirts right now? And it’s no different. The number of red shirts was the exact same. Just your brain is now focused on seeing it more. And the exact same thing happens with negative things. If your world is all negative, whether it comes from a healthcare standpoint or a politics standpoint or whatever it is, if your world is surrounded with negativity, your brain is going to pick up negativity and everything else and it’s less likely to see the positives in all of these situations. And so, because of that, you can then flip it. And you can say, if you’re surrounded by positivity, you’re more likely to actually see the good in the world, the good in people. And you are going to be less effected by the negative things that you do see because your brain thinks that’s just minor. Those of you who walk around like the world is amazing, but there are a few negative things about it as opposed to the opposite, which is nothing ever good happens to me. 

Mike Ayala: Yeah. It’s so true. One of my mentors says the eyes only see in the ears, only hear what the brain is looking for. 

Dr. Timmermans: Ah, I like that. 

Mike Ayala: Sorry, I cut you off. Social connection. 

Dr. Timmermans: So, nutrition. People need to stop eating crap food, that is not actually food, period. I mean, I’m not a, it doesn’t have to be Keto. It doesn’t have to be paleo. It doesn’t have to be vegan or vegetarian. It doesn’t have to be carnivores. It doesn’t have to be any of that. The diet of people need to eat is what nature gives us. If it comes from nature, go ahead and eat it. If you can go to a field and you can pick it, or you can see the cow or whatever it is. And if you have a thing against conventionally raised farms for meat, great, purchase from a good quality farm that practices regenerative agriculture and regenerative farming and pasture raised and it’s ethical and humane and all that type of stuff. If you still choose not to eat meat, that’s totally fine. If you choose not to eat plants, that’s totally fine. I don’t care. But when you eat food that’s made in a factory where they literally have the machines set up to create this food, like it just has to be eliminated from your diet. I don’t know what the percentage is, but I would argue a large, like we can reduce the healthcare burden in this country simply by making those changes. By outline the different companies that create food from chemicals as opposed to farming and agriculture. And ranching and all that type of stuff that actually is just taking what this great earth is giving us and we are using that and feeding ourselves. And so if it comes in a box or bag, it’s got to go. And again, there’s always going to be varying degrees of that. I’m not perfect. I still eat food that comes out of a box or a bag. But I’m also, in terms of the health spectrum, I’m very close to the health side versus the sick side. So the closer someone is going to be to the sick side, the more that they are going to need to take action on this thing to actually go towards less processed food or completely eliminating processed foods. So that way they can help too more sharply steer their health towards where it needs to go. And then once they get there, they can lighten up and they can, I have a treat every once in a while, and things like that. But that’s probably a nutritionally the biggest thing. The one additional thing with nutrition, I think our society is under eating organ meat. I think we really need to get back to actually, because the muscle meat is great, provides a lot of protein and that type of stuff. But compared to organ meats, like there is so little nutritional value in a steak compared to a liver. And I absolutely hate liver. I can’t do it. But things like beef hearts or chicken hearts are less intense of a gamey flavor. There’s not as much iron in it than a beef liver. And so it doesn’t taste us terrible in my opinion. But that’s one way that people can really get enough vitamins and minerals through the day is through organ meats. And so processed food and organ meats are probably my big, big pushes right now for nutrition. 

Mike Ayala: We don’t have to get to 10 if it’s not, we’re at six. Oh no, we’re at five. I mean, it’s up to you. 

Dr. Timmermans: I mean, I think those are the big things that I push all the time. Sleep, exercise, nutrition, hydration, social connections. That is the basis. 

Mike Ayala: You should build, because again, in investing for freedom. It’s what do you really want? Why do you want it? What are you going to do to get it, measure results and then adjust? You should build some kind of scorecard for us around these five things. 

Dr. Timmermans: I can do that.
Mike Ayala: Yeah, that’d be awesome. 

Dr. Timmermans: Yeah. Let’s chat afterwards. I want to see the structure of how you would set some like that up. I’m down for that. 

Mike Ayala: Cool. Man, that’s a lot of stuff and I just appreciate you being here, and I know our audience is going to love it too. What else haven’t we touched on that you’ve feels important and we need to talk about. 

Dr. Timmermans: I mean, I think we hit on the big points. I mean, I think just to kind of sum up my purpose here is just that people need to invest in themselves and they need to see the worth. They need to have, they need to evaluate or place value on themselves so that way they can justify, Oh, I am spending more money on this pasture raised meat as opposed to a fast food burger because I have valued myself at whatever X. Or just I value myself, I value my health and I want to be able to play with my grandkids. I want to hopefully see my great grandkids. So it’s just investing now, even if that means that you have to adjust your financials to be able to afford to eat a little bit healthier, but the long-term ramifications when you invest in your health are, I mean astronomical. 

Mike Ayala: That’s huge. I love it. Where can people find you, doc? 

Dr. Timmermans: Instagram is probably where I am the most. So it’s
at regenerative performance. I’m also on Facebook under the
same regenerative performance. Newly on Tik Tok, which is kind of fun. 

Mike Ayala: Are you dancing and stuff or is it just… 

Dr. Timmermans: No dance. Still trying to educate. But yeah, well, LinkedIn people can connect. Although LinkedIn is an interesting place. Lots of spammers. But Instagram is probably the number one place if someone wants to message me and connect. 

Mike Ayala: And you’ve got a lot of amazing videos and content out there that just, Instagram specifically. That’s where I found you. Well, I really appreciate it and look forward to having you back around soon. 

Dr. Timmermans: Awesome. Thanks for having me on, Mike. Mike Ayala: Have a good day. 

If you found value in this episode and you know, someone who’s wanting to start or move further along in their journey toward investing for freedom, I would be forever grateful if you would share this show with them and help me get this message out to more listeners. Also, if you enjoy what you’ve heard, I would appreciate it if you take 30 seconds and leave me a five-star review and share this with your friend and until the next episode, cheers, to moving further along in your journey of investing for freedom. 

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Episode 28