Transcript of Episode #118 Guest Appearance on "Stay off my operating table" with Dr. Philip Ovadia New

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Welcome back, folks. It is the Stay Off My Operating Table podcast with Dr. Philip Ovadia. Our guest today is the star of stage and screen— well, star of a podcast anyway— Dylan Gemelli. Host of the Dylan Gemelli Podcast. Phil, I did a little bit of research on this guy. I'll confess, sometimes you have guests on that I think, oh God, what are we going to talk about? When I started digging into this guy, I thought, oh my God, we're not going to have enough time to talk about everything I want to know about. So I'm going to try to sit quietly and listen, but I'm making no promises. Please take it over.

Yeah, I'll say that Dylan really has become one of the most interesting people I've met in the space, and he's got a just a wealth of stuff that we can talk about. I was honored that he had me on his podcast, The Dylan Gemelli Podcast, a few months back, and have been really looking forward to the opportunity to turn the table, so to speak, and have him on as a guest, dig into all his interesting background and everything he talks about these days. So we will get into it. And Dylan, maybe just start with sort of the intro. How you— what kind of led you to where you are today?

Let me say one thing before I do that first about you that I want everybody to know about. So I hadn't met you yet, and I was in a group that we were both in and let everybody know I was in the hospital and had something happen. And you reached out to me, not knowing me from anybody, offering me help, giving me advice on things I was frankly scared about, and gave me comfort. Pure stranger. Thankfully, now we're friends and that I got to meet you. And that's how God works. But I just want to point out to the audience the kind of person you are. And to thank you because I never really did. I mean, I did, but not directly, you know, like this. And, and I just want to say that before I even say anything about myself. You are a stellar human being, not just because of the knowledge and the things that you provide, but who you are. And, and I appreciate it, man.

You know, thank you for that. I appreciate the kind words.

So For me, I'll keep it brief to the best I can. So everybody always wants to know, like, how did you, how did you build this? How did you do this? Frankly, coming from college, I was a college basketball player athlete. I got injured. I got into acting and modeling kind of against my will at first, but it kind of fell into that path for me, which was not the right path. And leading into what I generally say is my second chance in life, I went to prison and I fell into this lifestyle of money and worrying about what everybody thought of me, how I looked, all of the vain things and selfish things you could ever have in your life. I mean, the total polar opposite of who I became, but that shaped me for what I became now and what I do now. And it really led me on the path of righteousness and truth, which is what I do and what I work on. So once we start from scratch at 30 years old, coming off a 15-year prison sentence, which I did 2 years of and, and got out thankfully, that's when I started to dig into nutrition and fitness and started to work with bodybuilders, started to study anabolic steroids, learned about peptides and SARMs before anybody ever heard of them and really dug into the supplement world and into the types of what?

SARMs. Those are selective androgen receptor modulators. They were viewed in the bodybuilding world as alternative to steroids, but they were designed for people that were suffering from muscle wasted. So think osteoporosis patients, think HIV, cancer patients, because HIV was a little bit more prevalent at the time, you know. So that's what those were, and we can get into that later in terms of how they compare and contrast. But nobody was talking about those things back then. Very few. And I discovered the underground research chemical market. And before you know it, I had millions of subscribers on YouTube. So that's how I got the notoriety at first. 2, 2 YouTube channels later that were shut down, I started to focus on Instagram and, you know, social media where I was finally invited to actually speak at Mr. Olympia. And that was my big opportunity. And that's when I discovered the biohacking sphere. And that's when everything changed for me. I, you know, I made all these contacts after speaking, got home, got COVID knocked out in bed. And within that time I had met a company called Stem Regen who are very prominent in the biohacking sphere.

And I started to study what they did, who they were, and that's when I stumbled upon what I do now. And I called my wife in as I lay in bed unable to move or do anything. And instead of pouting, I turned it to God and said, man, I don't know why this is happening, but I trust there's a reason. And I said, I'm about to change my whole path that I'm on. And a year and a half later, here we sit.

A year and a half later.

Yes.

Yeah. You know, like you said, people, people oftentimes don't realize the struggle, right, that it takes to get to the success. And, you know, you've done an amazing job of turning things around when you could have just continued down the same path that you were on. I guess, you know, a good place to maybe start the conversation is what led you sort of into the whole biohacking, you know, we'll call it alternative space, right? And not, you know, to the traditional medical treatment. You know, you had some diagnoses, right? And you've talked about, you know, you had eating disorder and, you know, some other things that could have been treated more traditionally. What led you kind of away from traditional and into the, you know, like you said, underground, you know?

Right.

Uh, space that you, uh, now find yourself, uh, in?

So I've always been an, like, deep, intricate studier by nature. So the reason that I got fascinated with the anabolic steroids at first was because of what happened with baseball, and I knew that there was so many things missing on what we were led about them. So I began to study them, and I mean intricately study them, and I learned about them, and I started to teach people the dangers. I learned about the science, how they actually worked, and what they did inside your body, how they were altered in their structure, and what the causes were for all of the toxicity, the heart problems, the cholesterol, the blood pressure, everything that goes alongside with that. So during that time, I started to see more and more people struggling. Obviously, heart disease was a prevalent thing for steroid users, liver problems, kidney problems, the whole nine. And that's when I discovered things like Tudka and these shortcuts that people were using to treat themselves as opposed to doctors who they couldn't go say, hey, I'm taking steroids, you know, what am I going to do here? And that's when I started to learn about these other methods of treatment.

And from there, that led me into, okay, I discovered this, I discovered peptides and SARMs. And I said to myself, okay, it's kind of like when I discovered Yahoo when I was in high school and tried to tell my parents to invest in it and they didn't listen to me. But these things, they happen. And you have to understand that you can't think everything's cuckoo and crazy. You have to have an open mind to say, this may be the future when I start to study this and I see the structures, how they're made up, but where is it going? And then I began to learn about how things really work in the supplement industry with what it takes to get FDA pre— approval, who you gotta pay, you know, how the marketing works. Well then, I found a heart condition on myself, and that's when everything changed. I began to work with a doctor, um, on— that was a YouTube doctor, and he said, you know, everybody that works with me goes and gets a calcium score. And he said, you're in perfect shape, you're young, you probably don't need it, but I want you to do it anyway.

It's very important. So imagine my surprise when I go get a calcium score and it comes back 120, um, when it should be zero at I believe I was 40 or right around 40 or 39 years old. And I'm talking, you can't get in much better condition than what I was. But I had prior steroid use, prior eating disorder, and my father had a heart attack when he was 59. So, there were some things there that I had to be aware of. And then, I discovered, as I told you before, Philip, I had an extremely elevated Lp(a). I'm talking 330, which then led me to all of the studies I did into that.

Okay, quick for our listeners, define what that means, please.

So yeah, please, you go ahead. You're the expert on that one.

Yeah, I'll jump in on that one. So Lp(a), lipoprotein a, this is basically a modified cholesterol particle. It's a modified LDL particle. That has this extra protein that makes it— I always describe it as sticky, right? But it predisposes people to the development of heart disease, not because of the cholesterol that it's carrying around, but because how it interacts with the blood clotting system and makes more people— makes people more prone to blood clotting issues, which can lead to plaque in the arteries, strokes. All sorts of cardiovascular conditions, and it's mostly genetically determined.

Okay. And, and that's, that's when I learned that it's not something you really can fix with your diet or exercise. I mean, obviously you still want to do those things to protect yourself from any sort of heart damage, but that particular problem is something different. And my assumption was that my, my— I probably inherited it from my dad because of his condition and dying at a young age. I don't know that for sure, but that was my assessment at the time. So I start to then study it. And I mean, when I tell you guys I study, I never go to bed with my wife. She kind of is used to it. I'm a 2, 3 o'clock in the morning guy, and it's not because I'm up having fun. I mean, to me it's fun, but I'm up reading. And you can imagine when I discover this on myself, my Type 1 personality is like in overdrive. So I, when I tell you I read, I, I don't want to say I became an expert, but I guess I did because I, I didn't just read it for myself. I talked to some of the best cardiologists that I was referred to in the world that weren't just conventional.

I did both. I went to both sides of the fence because I wanted to learn about the condition itself. I wanted to learn about experiences on people that had reversed plaque. I wanted to learn about different types of treatments and medications. So you can imagine that I had one side that was telling me statin this, statin that, statin this, and I had this other side preaching me niacin, for example, for Lp(a), but then PCSK9 inhibitors and things that I was learning. So, you know, I, upon all of this, my advice was go to the gold standard Mayo Clinic. Okay. So, and I, and I say that and you'll see why I say that so sarcastically. So I lived in Iowa at the time, so we drove to, to the clinic in Minneapolis, which is supposed to be the best, or Rochester, wherever the hell it is. 3 and a half, 4 hours later, I get up there, go in, and was told that it would be bad practice to put me on anything other than a statin, and they didn't have enough information on Lp(a) to really assess my problem and to just not worry about it.

The statin would save me. Well, mind you, and, and Doc, you can attest to this, a statin increases your Lp(a) on top of the other controversial sides of things. So one of the very few times I got into an argument with my mom and my wife on the way home was, well, they're the experts and you're telling me that da da da da da. And I said, fine, I don't know who I'm talking to in the car and I certainly don't know who I was talking to there. I'm gonna do it my way. And sure enough, I was told you test that Lp(a) score once, you're kind of stuck with it. And guess what? In a year it went from 330 to 94 and is still going down. Hopefully. I do believe you can reverse arterial plaque, Doc. I will let you answer that, but I firmly believe that as well. And I've been implementing a lot of things in that manner. I haven't gotten another calcium score. I wanted to let this work for a while because, you know, the calcium score only assesses the hard plaque and not the soft. And I don't know the differences I had there and etc., but I implemented strategies, natural and PCSK9-related.

So I used Repatha, also used Vascepa. I did a big long bout of niacin but had to stop because it was— I think it was damaging the liver too much. But, you know, glutathione, topical glutathione that actually works. I've implemented a lot of strategies that have really proven otherwise against the more conventional side, and I am not completely anti-conventional by any stretch. But I will tell you, there's a lot better or alternative therapies that work for people that they need to be aware of.

Yeah, you know, and I'm glad you kind of went through all that with your answer to my question, because that was kind of exactly where I was hoping we would get to, that you know, you've done the research, right? You're not just out there sort of, you know, as you said, right, there are a lot of people in this world, to be honest, right? Or just like anything that comes out of the traditional system, you know, is wrong and we got to just do the opposite because it's the opposite, right? And you've taken a very different approach. And, you know, as you discuss this, you take a different approach and what you just said, Yeah, there is some useful stuff that you can pull, you know, that we can get. And but there's also alternative stuff that, quite frankly, the doctors just have no insight into. Right. Many of them don't even know it exists. And if they do, they just have this, you know, automatic sort of gut reaction of, well, no, that's got to be wrong because, you know, it didn't come from my education. Right. And it didn't come And unfortunately, we know that, you know, the pharmaceutical companies have a, um, uh, you know, have a lot of influence on what doctors get educated on and what they don't learn about.

But, um, you know, I've come largely to the same conclusion. Uh, I've looked into a lot of these same things that you talked about and you've looked into, and I see the usefulness of them. And I think there is a very a good path forward that you, you know, bring these together and we can use the traditional stuff when it's appropriate, but we have to understand when it's not appropriate. And then we can bring this other stuff in. And I think it's a fascinating way that, you know, we can all move forward together. So I Maybe. Yeah. Let's talk about what you see in the biohacking world, we'll call it. Right. And some people call it the, you know, the Jimbro world, the biohacking world, or however you want to talk about it. But, you know, what do you see there that maybe, you know, they aren't as open to some of the traditional things And, you know, let's be frank about what you see there that just may not be serving people well.

You know, I think that this relates to literally every aspect of life, whether it's politics, whether it's sports, whether it's this with medicine. People feel like they have to pick one side or the other. They have no comprehension or understanding of open-mindedness. Realizing that there's a mix and you have to be precise in how you're going about where you get your research. Here's the problem. And what happens on both sides is that it becomes this environment where it's so caught up in money and people start to believe their own BS, their own lies that they, that they don't even realize they're telling or they're regurgitating. And they fall into this one-track mind that this, this way and it's the only way. And that is just not factual. When it becomes all about money and you forget the purpose, that's where we go wrong. Everything starts off with the right intent, but then more and more people see that, they say, oh, this is a gold mine. And then that's where it gets convoluted and things go by the wayside. That's like— so for instance, you have a bad experience with a doctor. Okay, we all do.

And you go in there, you have a— even me, like I have had bad blood draws where my arm is just destroyed. That— does that mean that every time I go it's going to happen? No, it does not. Does that mean every single one of them doesn't know what the hell they're doing? No, it does not. It just means that it happened, and it means you got to be more aware of what you're being told. So for instance, I do know, because I have plenty of friends now that have either gone to medical school recently or are in there, that they're being taught a certain guideline and set of things that they're missing like a whole portion of actual health issues and credentials that they need to possess. It's kind of like going to school where they don't teach you about credit. They don't— they, they want to teach you about how to sew a freaking pillow or take wood shop or do art class, as opposed to teaching you about things that are going to really relate to your everyday life. So they're being taught one thing and one thing only, and that's, that's what they then go and give their patients.

So of course We're going to have this mindset that every single thing they tell us is wrong because they're on a one-track mind. The problem is, is that there are some things that mix well and mesh well that you actually need. You can't just be reliant on conventional medicine and you can't just be reliant on natural herbs and supplements. There's a combination and a use for both. The problem is confusion, and I know that's the problem because I study comments. I have millions of followers and I know what the main problem is for every single human. It's one word. It's confusion because of all the marketing, all the money, and the loss of the actual, like, reason for doing all of this. So that's the problem. The purpose here should be to provide people with the actual insight that's going to help them. And if you sell a product and the product's not for them, or there's a better way, if you're, if your product's as good as it is, it doesn't matter if you lose one person to be honest and tell them the truth. And that's it. And that is the problem in both sides.

And in biohacking especially, it's become more of a, a business as opposed to, uh, help. It's become this, it's, it's every single thing that you look at, it's how do we set, how do we provide people a hook to get them in to watch this? How fancy can we make our shorts to get them to watch it, to buy whatever we're doing? And we've lost sight of the education part. And it's not just the science part, it's the real life. Here's my blood work, I don't— I— and here's what my clients respond to. Not just some paid-for study, but the real life stuff. And, and then showing who you really are. You see, when I do content, when people send me a script that I work for, I, I take it like this and it goes right into my trash can because I'm not doing it. I'm not reading a script. And then if they don't like it, I can't work with them. I'm going to use some talking points, but I'm going to tell people the truth and how it works. And that's where everything's lost in translation.

But we want things to be black and white, Dylan, and we'd really like to have things so that we don't have to do a whole lot of thinking for ourselves. What's the deal, man?

That's the other problem is what you just said, Jack. It is, it is the lack of desire to actually do anything. And that falls into one word: accountability. And accountability applies to every aspect of life. And we all need to be accountable for our own health. No doctor, nobody else is going to do that for us. They can't see inside of, of our brains and what we're thinking and feeling. You have to ultimately be the one that researches. You have to be the one that ultimately takes control. It's like this. When I was in college, if I walked into a class that I was starting and I saw that the teacher was going to be a headache, or it was like something was off, I took my ass to the counselor, dropped it, and found another one. So if you go to your doctor and you find something doesn't seem right, leave and go find another one, because there's plenty of options, you know. But that's just it— not accepting something that's off or doesn't feel right. You have to take control. Creatine, one of the most proven and studied compounds in existence, yet still one of the most confusing.

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Where do we go here, Phil? I want— there's lots I want to know about.

You'd be lost anywhere you like, my friends.

Yeah, let's talk about maybe what you think some of the most interesting tools are, right, that people don't know about. And maybe, you know, we first talk about general and then since, you know, you have focused in on heart disease, you know, because of your own story, maybe we'll get into what are some of the tools around heart disease that people should know about but don't?

You know, one of the things that I use that I learned about, uh, in terms of helping to reverse arterial plaque or even stabilize it, et cetera, that I talked to you about before is pomegranate juice. And I've been doing that. Doesn't taste the greatest if you get the right one, but that's one of the things that I've been doing that's helped me a lot that I actually implement. That's like a small little hack for people to use, I guess, so to speak, that you maybe wouldn't think about in pomegranates themselves.

Obviously, can you put it in vodka?

And that may defeat the purpose, but yes, you could.

Oh man, I love it.

We should probably cut that part out, Phil.

You, you may want to. But the other thing about pomegranates is they do contain urolithin A. Now there's better ways to get that, but then you're also looking at treating your mitochondria. And I think that we need to keep focus on mitochondrial health. As it relates to everything in our life. And I talk about that quite a bit on, on my channels and everything, discussing the cellular side of things. Um, you know, one of the other things that I talk quite a bit about is the use of creatine and understanding the multi-faceted uses that it has. It's often misconstrued as just being something for muscle building or something that's going to retain water and etc., when in reality there's a multitude of benefits that people have uncovered, especially like more cognitive side. And, and another thing that I think is very important that you have to piece together with this that I've been studying is on the neuroscience side. And it's really that so many people walk around and they're kind of stuck in a sympathetic state where they're kind of in that fight-or-flight mode. I know that me on a personal level, as aggressive as I go in everything that I do, that happens to me.

And I have to— I do it through prayer. That's not everybody's Every— some people don't like to hear that, and that's fine. That means get yourself into a state where you have some silent time or some meditative time to reactivate your, your vagus nerve and get that, that parasympathetic nervous system going so you are not stuck in this mode all day. Because if you are and you're stuck in that, where a lot of people are highly stressed, they don't sleep well, they're kind of all over the place, they can't sit still, they can't fun— uh, focus, that's when you know that there's probably a nervous system issue too.

Bill, unpack all of that a little bit. I, I, I mean, I could chase this particular rabbit for the rest of our conversation, but, um, I know that, that in my own experience 20 years ago, um, the reason— the core problem with my own health issue was I'd just been redlining for years. I was in fight or flight mode constantly, and it had been going on for so long that I wasn't even aware of it. It felt normal to me. I'm grateful that I found a healthcare provider who was able to say, oh, here's your problem and here's how to fix it.

Yeah, I think this is a big one. And, you know, again, I think the medical you know, the traditional medical world has a tough time with it, right? Because we don't have the measurement, right, that, that can tell us, you know, how big a problem this is. But I agree with Dylan, and I'd love to hear him go more into this, right? How, how do people for themselves maybe start to figure out that this may be part of their issues? And, you know, for the doctors that are in our audience as well, right? How should they be looking at patients and thinking about the role that this is playing in, you know, and again, it's pick your disease, cardiovascular disease, you know, or anything else, right? I do think this plays a big role in most of the diseases that we struggle with.

So, we're looking kind of, when I look at this to assess it, I start symptomatically and I understand that— and, and this is the process because you know this quite well— there's a lot of similar symptoms for a lot of similar, like, differentiating diseases or problems. So you start symptomatically, and when I start to assess, I can kind of tell when I talk to somebody by how they come across too. Because you have to— here's the thing, you, you really have to be more than just smart with the numbers and smart with like the correlation of, okay, this problem relates to this disease. You gotta be able to listen to people and you gotta be able to read people and look and understand who's talking back to you. And I think this is part of my like street smarts and my ability in, in things that I've done in my life that has always been people related, which has made me kind of be able to do what I do at a, a much higher level because I know when I talk to somebody what I'm seeing. And what I'm hearing. I can tell normally by looking at a person's face, their, their, the way their body moves, how they're acting in the way that they come across, what's really going on.

And if it's more kind of like internal or if it's more neurological, you can sense that. But let's forget that. Let's just say you don't have that. Then we go to the blood panels. All right. So let's say I have somebody that's— they just seem like they're having bad sleep. They can't focus. And we've ruled out some things with their food, cuz you need to learn about what they're eating too, because that plays a role as well. Cuz if they're having a high seed oil diet and highly inflammatory diet, that's gonna cause problems too. Cuz there's a lot of moving parts here, man. I mean, and that's where the blood panels come in. So then we're gonna obviously look at cortisol, we're gonna look at like, high sensitivity C-reactive protein. We're gonna check inflammation, check heavy metals. Look for parasites and other things that could be affecting as well. Once we get all of that and we're looking at it, then I can start to say, okay, how's your sleep? How's this? How's that? Look at it on the surface. And then I can determine, okay, this is more of a nervous system problem. This is more of a— you've got some other things going on.

That's where the psychologist hat comes on and you start to dig into that a little bit. So how do we stimulate the vagus nerve? You know, I have I use Apollo Neuro. I don't know if you're familiar with that or not, but Dr. Rabin is the one that kind of taught me the aspects I was missing on the neuroscience side. So I learned from him and that, that's a vagus nerve stimulator. But let's forget that. Let's say you, you don't wanna buy anything, you don't wanna use anything. We have to start implementing basics. So what do I mean? That means one, practice gratitude. I know that's not the answer everybody wants, but the more grateful you are, during the day and night about everything in your life, the more peace that you find and the more ability that you are able to relax because you have it in your heart and your mind that you're grateful for your time, for your family, et cetera. Two is getting out and moving in the morning and getting some sunlight. And I always do this. I'm not saying stay out in the sun 3, 4 hours a day.

That's not what I'm saying. And if you have a skin condition, be careful, but we all need a good 15, 20 minutes a day of sunlight and movement at the minimum, because you're not gonna get your vitamin D just through supplements and food. You need to get out in the sun and get it. And it's very important. And being in nature is also important. It's calming and it's soothing, and it, it really puts you at one with the earth. And I'm not talking like a hippie, I'm talking like a, a guy that understands what we need to do for our own health. And then that brings us to— and I am very bad at this because I work 7 days a week, 24 hours a day— the screen time, it's too much. The focus on the phones, it's too much. And the inability to get away from all the noise and just take some time. Like I said, I spend probably at least an hour or two a day in totality throughout the day in prayer, mixed in throughout the day. And I start my day that way, but you need to start in something meditative or something that takes your mind away and frees it, not— and, and frees it from all of the things that's going on, the noise, etc.

These are, these are basic biohacks, and I say that in quotation because they're not biohacks, man. This is just factual ways of living on how we were created to—

how to live better.

Exactly.

This—

we weren't intended to do what I do and never take a break. We were intended to take a break to be able to be more productive, you have to prioritize rest and recovery. So overtraining is very detrimental and bad, and never shutting your mind off is detrimental and bad. Um, I am trying to not only teach and preach that but implement it, and I'm telling you, the more I do it, the more productive I am, and I get way more done. You know, you guys will notice this, and I'm sure, Jack, you said you were kind of stuck in that mode. I bet you can relate to this. You probably are, were at go, go, go, go, go, and then wondered why you weren't getting as much as you needed to get done, done. And it's, and it's, it's because you're so stressed and stuck that you're not as productive as you should be. So you might work longer, but the production level goes down. Yeah.

And then I get stressed, then they get stressed about not being more productive and then, and that no time either. And then, you know, and then you wind it up a little tighter and Yeah.

Yes. I'm telling you guys, I am, I am a good teacher because I have made so many damn mistakes. I just don't make them twice. And I learned from the best. People ask me, how did you learn this? How did you do that? How did you do that? Because I was humble enough to know I was wrong and I was accountable enough to look in the mirror and, and understand, man, you think you know everything and you don't know jack. You just don't know. You have to be patient. You have to admit your faults. You have to be able to be accountable, and then you can be more productive and learn.

Learn.

That's the only way, because nobody is perfect and nobody knows everything. And when you realize that you can never know enough and you can always know more, then that's when you kind of get to the successful point. You have to be humble and appreciative of all of the people you interact with, all of the opportunities that you get to learn. And, and every situation and scenario has a purpose. They're not always good, but they have a purpose and a meaning to shape your life. And, and that's the gratitude part. And when you have all of that and put it together, that's how you start to get really full health alignment. You know, you'll notice better blood panels. You'll notice everything. You tell me, especially Phil, as somebody that has so many patients, you got somebody that is always down in the dumps, sad, discouraged, stressed. You got the most positive person on the planet. You tell me who's got the better chance of overcoming, surviving, being healed and easier for you to work with. And it's always gonna be the person that's more positive. Always. I guarantee it.

It's, you know, uh, one of the big things I look for, uh, in my surgical practice, uh, when patients are going into the operating room and they're like, I don't think this is gonna end well. Um, that always makes me nervous as a surgeon cuz they're probably right. But the patients that come in and they're like, you know, great, we got this. You know, we're, we're doing what we need to do and you know, I'm going to come out on the other side better. Those are the patients, you know, who do do well. And, you know, this, this is not something, you know, kind of woo-woo and unproven, right? We look at, you know, the studies, whether you're looking at the Blue Zones, you're looking, you know, at the Mediterranean diet. Right. But the reality is, is that what you see in the Mediterranean culture, right? That, you know, is the diet is probably the least important part of it, right? It is everything you were talking about, the community and the, you know, and the lifestyle, right? That they, you know, it's not what they're eating at lunch. It's the fact that they, you know, have 1 or 2-hour lunches with a whole bunch of people, right?

And, you know, that interaction, that community, just that, you know, that they've taken their break from work, you know, for a couple of hours to address that kind of mental health part of it. That's probably where the benefits come from, not necessarily the food that they're eating. So, you know, it's interesting, interesting to bring that all together. And again, unfortunately, it's something that doesn't get enough attention paid to it.

Well, look, everybody's got good days, everybody's got bad days. But I'll tell you this. Tell me on a bad day when you just don't feel good or something happened or whatever, and somebody just smiles at you, says hello or something, or you do it to somebody and you see their reaction. Dude, everything changes. Everything just changes. It's not by accident. It's not. That's what we're meant to do. And then that you will become a healthier individual by doing small little things that bring some sort of positivity to others, which will then in turn make your life more positive. It just, it is a, it is a pure fact. I don't need any scientific paper to prove it. I got daily data for the past 44 years to prove it. It's a guarantee. But you, you know, so many people get this, this mindset and it's, it's either a victim mindset or an anger mindset. And I will ask so many people this question that are listening. When has anger solved a problem and when has stress solved a problem? Or has it not only exacerbated the problem but also degraded your health? And I think if you see, sometimes You have to get people to say things out loud to make sense because everybody's so quick to respond and complain and pout and blame everything.

Say things slowly out loud, listen, and be honest with yourself. And then hopefully that'll help you develop some accountability. Let me tell you something, man. I had the conversation with my mom and when I was in prison, I remember the moment. I remember the day. I remember the, the setting where I was at. And I was pouting and complaining about, I just got strip searched and they're doing this to me and they're doing that to me in front of people. And I was just complaining. I mean, nonstop. And she said, Dylan, she said, did you ever sit back and think about all the people that are scared for you? The people that invested time and effort into you, the people you let down and the people that are scared for you. Did you ever think about that? I didn't know what to say. And you could see I've never had a loss for words. And I just sat there and then she said, were me and your dad really that bad of parents? And I broke. I started to have tears running down my eyes. And I don't want people in prison to see me crying anywhere, but I couldn't help it.

And I— that, that moment was when I started to take accountability. And I said, no. I said, there's not one thing you and Dad could have done better or done differently. I made these choices. I made the decisions. I'm going to deal with them. And I assure you, I will fix them. And that was the turning point moment conversation. And that's when everything changed. I'm not perfect. I'm far from it. And I screw up all the time, but I fix it. I'm accountable and I am the first person to admit when I'm wrong. And that has made me healthier and it's made me easier to get along with and more productive in what I do.

You know, a thought occurs to me. I've heard folks talk about accountability all my life, to be frank, without ever defining it. But yeah, what I just heard, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say back to you what I heard you say. I think you said accountability. What happened was you took responsibility for being imprisoned. It was your choices and your decisions that put you there. You accepted, I'm here because of me, and it's up to me to fix it. It's not somebody else's job. It's not somebody else's fault.

That's right.

On me.

That's right. And I'll tell you this, I actually put out an episode that was a solo one, and it was called The Lost Art of Accountability. And It's one of the biggest problems that I personally see, and I like to explain to everybody so I don't sound high and mighty, the years and years of selfishness, the years and years of excuses, the years that I never once looked in the mirror and said to myself, it's you, it's you, dude, you're the one that's doing all this. You know, people bring me on and they say, oh, you overcame prison. And I say, I didn't overcome prison. I put myself in prison. I made it through it. And that— and I learned from it. And it, it will never define me, but it would— it is the turning point that shaped my life. I made it through. I didn't overcome something I caused. People that overcome cancer and like, you know, natural disasters or situations and scenarios that seem impossible that are— they didn't cause. They overcame stuff. I just became accountable and beat it and didn't let it ruin me. But that's inspirational to people that they can do the same.

And that's what— why I so freely talk about it. I'm not ashamed of it. I'm ashamed of what I did. I'm ashamed of the actions. I'm not ashamed of being in there and what I learned from it. No, no, no, no. I regret my decisions. But it, it never made me. I was not that person. That was somebody that I became because of my surroundings that I let dominate my life, that I will never do again. And I learned a great deal from it that will help people that go through the same thing. And it helps me to teach people what's actually important in life, which I just did not understand. But I'll tell you what, One thing I want to stress is time. You can't buy it back. You can't create more of it. Once it's gone, it's gone. And I lost time. I lost Christmases, Thanksgivings, birthdays. You do the math on paper. Let's see, you live a long, fruitful life. Let's say you live to be 75, 80. That's only 80 birthdays or 80 Christmases. That's 80 days. And when you think that, oh, you, uh, it's not important or whatever. When you get a little bit older and you understand you missed a couple, yeah, it's going to make a significant difference.

And that's what's where the gratitude comes back into play and understanding that these things we talk about, these ways of taking care of ourselves and going, oh, I don't care about that, I'm young, or, oh, it's inevitable, or all this. No, because when you wake up one day and you're 40, 50, 60, you can't get that time back and you can't go back and say, oh, I wish I would have done this and not done that. It's too late, man. It's too late. So when we sit here and talk about these things that you can do to change your life, some people, yeah, they're out to make a buck. Yeah, they are. But there's a lot of people like me and you guys that are actually trying to teach people and prevent them from doing what I just told you, waking up and living in regret.

You know, I'm fascinated. I've been somebody who's worshiped at the altar of rationalism for a good bit of my life and struggled with the, the religion that I was raised in because I couldn't make rational sense of it. But over the last 20 years, one of the things that, that has continued to surprise me has been science reporting that the wisdom passed down through, um, the world's oldest religions, I think primarily of what I, the ones I know best, Judaism, Christianity, and, um, uh, Confucianism. Um, if we practice those fundamental things, it actually has positive physiological effects and positive psychological effects. Giving thanks even when things are crappy, being humble. I think it's in the book of Proverbs that says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of the wisdom, is the beginning of wisdom. And that fear of the Lord means, from a practical standpoint, it means I don't know everything. Moses instructed the Israelites to take a day off every single week to just stop normal life and take a Sabbath and rest. And we have, we have reams of research now that talk about the physiological and psychological benefits, the relational benefits, the community benefits of of practicing these things.

It's almost like the reason that these books of wisdom and these practices have survived for thousands of years is because they work.

That's right.

Look.

Yeah. You know, you said there, and I'm going to tell you something. I, I— the— my favorite thing to do and study now is science. The thing that I hated the most my entire life till the past 2 years was science. And first it was just because it wasn't interesting to me because I was so wrapped up in sports and girls and everything else that a young guy would be, you know. But then it was because I thought it was like anti-religion because I just didn't know what the hell I was talking about because I just listened to people. When in reality God created science. And if you look at science, let's look at body structure, let's look at our heart, let's look at ourselves, let's look at this intricate makeup of beauty and precision on how we were created and wired and all the moving parts. And you know, in the Bible, one of the big problems is, is people don't understand how to interpret what's being said. If it took God 7 days, or 6 days and a day of rest, to create everything And, you know, it says in there, he breathed this and it appeared.

No, no, no, that's a long time. Well, he had to design our makeup, go through all of the intricacies and structures. It didn't just appear. That took effort, that took time and his precision. And everything that was done was done for a specific purpose. And when you said that some of it you can't rationalize because in the teachings it's— we're not supposed to know everything. At all. And chasing that is actually a problem. It's the trust part of it that you— once you grasp the trust, the enlightenment comes, man. I just got done telling my mom this morning, I said, you know, Mom, I said, you, you, you're so close with God, as am I, but you don't listen and you don't follow. You get so stressed. And I said, ultimately, that's a sin because you don't trust. And I said, I give speeches all the time. I never go in with preparation. I don't, I don't script anything. I don't do shit. You know why I go in there? Because I know that I'm going to be told what to say. I can't tell you how many things I walk out of and I think to myself, man, how the hell did I even know that?

Where did that come from? It's Holy Spirit driven. And I didn't know that. I used to take all the credit. When you stop taking all the credit and start being humble, which you just said, and you have humility, man, oh man, oh man, the stuff that you can accomplish and do. But it takes time to learn and understand what we actually were given and what we have. And instead of people that are looking to read everything on the surface without grasping and understanding what the words truly, truly mean and getting a proper interpretation— which is not everybody's fault because a lot of the interpretations are man-made derivatives that are full of it— when you actually get the full understanding and grasp it, it— there is not one thing that you could ever read or do that is more enlightening, more fulfilling. And I always say there's no handbook to life because the situations and scenarios. But if you want the closest thing to it, I assure you, my friends, that is it. I've read the New Testament cover to cover. The Old Testament's a little trickier, but I have, and it has shaped and made my foundation so strong, and I am so equipped.

I used to get so stressed, and not that I don't, because I still do, but so stressed, so worried. So all over the place. And when I actually take the time and turn it over and, and understand that I'm all— that's all I have to do, that I'm not the one in control here, but I trust and I believe— I'm telling you guys, every single thing I do just falls right into place because I just, I just am guided now. I mean, I don't walk into here knowing we're going to talk about any of this, but you, you know, I'm always ready to talk about any of it. And it's not because I'm so great or so smart or any of that. It's just because I trust and I know that I'm equipped for whatever it is. I don't think I'm anything special. I'm just another dude that's good at what I do, that has a good following of people that I think that I relate with. I'm— I am only special as the next person because we were all created with something special to give to everybody, and that's it. And I think that everybody would be healthier if we all lived like that.

You know, and were compassionate and loving and care for other people and saw their strengths and applied it to everything that we do, you know, in communication and relationship-wise.

This is not at all what I'd anticipated this was going to be. But here's what I'm hearing for our audience. Your health, your metabolic health starts with your attitude. Yes. Give thanks. I recently saw a, uh, uh, a study and I, I don't, I didn't go into the details. I don't know how rigorous the study was, but the gist of it was saying yes, thank you. Every time something crappy happens results in better outcomes for those who practice it. Yes. Thank you. Uh, it was a fascinating, uh, fascinating thesis, fascinating study, but I can see echoes of, of that in what you're saying. I can look at my life. I tell people the worst things that ever happened to me were the best things to ever happen to me.

Thank you.

Had I known at the time that, Jack, this, this absolute nightmare you feel like you're, you're in is going to end up being an indescribable, unimaginable blessing, maybe I wouldn't have been quite so stressed out. Yeah. But that's been how I've seen life is that the worst things to happen to me were the best things to happen to me. And let me tell you, that's how much with that, that, and how health comes from that, doesn't it?

Yes. Listen, you imagine this scenario, you imagine that you are, and I'm from Des Moines, Iowa, right? So it's not a huge place, but it, you know, it's a decent size. It's the biggest city in Iowa, but it's still Iowa. And so you imagine that I'm coming from there. I'm flown to Milan to become a fashion model at the mecca of modeling. I'm starting to do acting. I'm auditioning for soap operas. I, you know, I'm rolling around and basically just thinking I'm the king of the world. Right? And then you imagine having all of this, and then one day, not only is it gone, but you're sleeping below a murderer that was in there for life that had just murdered somebody with rats running across the floor in a cell that has a crack in it. So all the cold air is coming in, and in the, the winter there's— or the summer, there's no air and it's 100 and whatever degrees. You got the worst food on the planet. Anything and everything under the sun. So you imagine going from that to that, and the— it sounds like absolute hell, and it is. But do you imagine what that taught me and the appreciation that gave me for everything that I prior had that I never appreciated?

And then once I got out, my— how my outlook on life changed. And then you take into account, well, had I not gone to prison, I would have never got sent to Maui to meet my wife who was put here for a specific reason in the way that we work together and what she's done for me, I wouldn't be talking to you guys because I certainly wouldn't be doing any of this. Who knows what the hell I would've been doing or where I would've went, and I would've never gotten into any of the things that I was put here to do and have the ability to not just talk about health and fitness. No, no. To get people on the right path in their life spiritually too, because for me, I talk about mind-body connection, but this is— it starts here and it goes boom, boom, spirit, mind, body. I can fix your mind all day. I can fix your diet, your training all day. But if we're not right spiritually, I don't care what anybody says, it's going to be a struggle to fix the other two. And I learned this through my hardships, just like the heart stuff.

Think about the stuff I'm able to talk about that I learned from, and then because I'm the way I am, I push myself in to talk to experts and learn from them. I had these happen and caught them early so I could teach people and help them. So all these things that scared the crap out of me, that sucked, that I have to deal with, that happened to me for a reason. And that's why I'm here.

You know, I wanted to just go back to the accountability piece as well. And let's tie that back to health. Where do you see that, you know, people's lack of accountability having negative impacts on their health journeys?

Well, think about it. If you're not accountable and you're overweight, you're going to blame it on something else, right? You're not going to take responsibility for your own doing, your diet. Now, let's obviously factor out medical conditions that maybe that are causing you to be overweight. Let's forget about that. Let's just talk about everybody else that's not accountable, or the people that don't ever go work out or don't ever train, or people that think that you can take a magic pill or supplement that end up causing themselves harm or actually causing regression, for instance. And I, I talked about the positives of GLP-1s because they're, they're there and present, but the people that rely on those, and then when they have to stop taking them, not— and they come back worse off, gaining more weight than they had. When you're not accountable for your diet, when you're not accountable for your lack of motivation to get moving and go work out, when you don't have that, then how are you ever going to get better? I mean, look, it, it takes a strong individual to be consistent with diet and training both. It very well does.

But you have to be aware of the fact that, hey, I have to do this. I'm lacking here. I can't just make excuses over and over because it's, it's not getting any better. And blaming everybody else for everything, once again, it falls into this, like, like you brought up. You have to take control and you have to, to ask yourself, and this is what I always tell people, what's more important to you, your health or the beer that you have to go out and have, or What— whatever it is, you know, whatever your little vices that you do that's just taken away from your health. People will tell me they don't have time, they don't have this. You do have time. Go to bed earlier and get up earlier. Make the time. We all have it. You just have to make it. What are you doing that's detrimental or not benefiting your health that you could cut out? I guarantee you there's no human alive that can't go down their daily routine and find something that they dispose of that's not helping them, that they could replace with a little bit of extra working out, a little bit of extra time to cook.

You know, you've heard it all, Phil. Oh, you know, well, my, my kids are eating this, so I have to eat this. No, you don't. One, why are you feeding your kids that crap? And two, if you are, no, you don't have to eat that. No, you do not. No, you do not. That is just— that is one of those lack of accountability excuses. You know, and it just goes down the line. I say all of these things again, not because I'm lecturing or because I'm so great, it's because I messed all this up so many times and I've seen so many others do it. So I come from— I come and I take a different approach to everything I talk about. I'm the guy that went through all this on the street. I'm the guy that's got all the book smarts, but I also have all of the, the real life experiences, good, bad, and ugly and indifferent. I don't speak from anything other than real life experiences, and I shoot the shit as straight as you're ever going to get it shot. You're probably not going to like it half the time, and I really don't care because my only goal is to tell you what you need to hear.

I don't care what you want to hear. I really don't, because it doesn't help. There's a lot of stuff I want to hear, but it's not going to help me if it's not true. So, I mean, accountability, it relates to everything and really health is one of the top things that it accounts to.

Yeah. And I think, you know, the other aspect of that is people expecting others, right, to fix the problem for them. Right. You know, my doctor has to make me healthy, right? Or, you know, you know, I need the medication to make me healthy, right? And people not realizing the power that they have within themselves to make themselves healthy. And yeah, admittedly, right, not everyone's going to do the hours and hours of research like you do, right? But just the basic thing of, you know, when you're going to the doctor, it shouldn't be to say, you know, what can you do for me to make me healthy? It should be, how can you help me understand you know, my condition and what I can do to, you know, make myself healthier.

You're damn right. And that's, that's, that's it. That's it. You have to, to have to be accountable on that front. Like we talked about earlier, doing your own research, looking into things, having other alternatives in mind. You know how many times I've gone into the doctor and said, hey, man, like, I'm not the doctor. But I, I've looked into this quite a bit. What's your thoughts? Don't be a jerk and act like you know everything. Don't disrespect the doctor, but go in there and express what your concerns are, what you found. They're either going to say, oh, okay, or they're going to say, oh no, you know, that's whatever. But at least ask. I mean, like I said, what are you scared of? If the doctor, A, is a jerk about it or acts a certain way, go find a different one. It's not hard. You're not married to any doctor or anything. You normally— most people, unless you're in Utah or some strange country, you only got one spouse, you know? So I mean, just— you don't need to worry about that stuff. Just move on and go find a different one. That's it.

So, I mean, I think people are fearful, honestly. Like, they get scared and they just like to take orders. Nobody is in charge of you but you. You got to remember that. You know, I answer to and work for God, and that is it. Otherwise, I take control of everything. And that's what I always tell everybody, especially my loved ones. Well, so-and-so said this. Well, get out of there.

Leave.

You know, you know how many times people have said to me that I'm coaching, you know, prior especially, I'd say, these are the blood panels I want you to go get for me. Well, the doctor wants to know why I want this, or I don't need that. I said, hey, It's none of their concern why you want it. It's because you want it, because you want to know all of your numbers. And B, if they're telling you you can't, take your ass somewhere else or get online. The beauty now is you can get online and go order whatever you want. I mean, there's a million sites you can do that on, but prior it wasn't that easy, you know, and there were only a couple of places you could even do that from. And it was so expensive. So, you know, they don't need to tell you that you No, you don't need that. Or why do you want it? No, no, that's not acceptable. It's because you want it because you want to know. So, you know, that's, that's it. Just accountability and everything that comes to your health. You have to have it.

You do.

Wow.

The silence here is intentional, folks.

Yeah, that's, that's the mic drop moment.

Very much.

Yeah, you know, this is, this has just been an amazing conversation. I think there's so much more that we can get into and we're going to have to have you back on.

Anytime.

Into, you know, more of the, all of the interesting stuff that you talk about. But let's let people know where they can find more of this, where they can hear more about what you do and where's the best place to be following you at?

Uh, you know, Dylan Gemelli Podcast on Apple for all of my episodes. Instagram's the best place where I do the most posting, where you actually get me. I post on TikTok, but I despise TikTok, and if you message me on there, you'll never get a response because I don't look and I don't care to look. And then Facebook, and then Dylan Gemelli Biohacking on YouTube and DylanGemelli.com. Um, those are all the places I'm— I speak at a lot of biohacking conventions, moderate panels, and, uh, yeah, I am kind of getting around and talking more as opposed to just interviewing. And I, I really just hope it resonates. I don't do it for anything other than to provide people with inspiration and a different way of looking at life.

This is a— has been a different way of viewing recovering your health, start by taking responsibility for your health, where you're at right now. Wow. I could, I could just go, I could go so deep on so many of these individual issues. Since we are apparently in the same town, I'm going to call you and say, hey, let's go have dinner at Yak.

Anytime, man.

Bill, thanks, man. I'm this again. I'm, I'm never disappointed with our guests, often surprised, but this one was, this was seriously cool.

That makes my day, guys. It really does. And I just love doing this. And especially with, with now another new friend, but with Phil, who was already a friend, um, anything I can ever do or offer, you know, I always make time for everybody. So thank you for having me.

All right. Well, for Dr. Philip Ovadia, for Dylan Gemelli, this has been the Stay Off My Operating Table podcast. Thanks for joining us. Y'all who aren't subscribing, you probably should, because this is the kind of stuff that happens every single week. Thanks for joining us, and we will talk to you next time.