JJ Flizanes has worn a number of hats over the years as actress, physical trainer, and most recently what she calls an “empowerment strategies.” Her most recent focus is to therefore counsel people to identify obstacles to success. Having worked with thousands of clients and a source of prolific advice and learning resources, JJ works to pinpoint why people fail to achieve their goals in health, weight loss, love, careers and other spheres of life. JJ is host of an impressive five podca...

Millions of people have been persuaded that the GLP-1 agonist drugs are the answer to their weight loss prayers. While they do work well in the near-term for weight loss, the long-term health price you pay is substantial with a future of increased risk for frailty, loss of independence, and premature death. A better way is to manage the amount and location of muscle and fat, i.e., shape and body composition. And you can do so easily, naturally, and inexpensively. Support the show...

Yes, you can lose weight by reducing calories whether through a calorie-cutting diet, bariatric procedure, or pharmaceutical. But the effect is almost always temporary and followed by a return of weight followed by significant downturn in health. You were also likely not advised that losing weight by cutting calories, we now know through tracking of large numbers of people over many years, likely abbreviates your life by several years. In this and future podcasts, I will be introducing...

There are a number of people advocating a diet low in oxalates, essentially eliminating many green leafy vegetables, Brussels sprouts, asparagus, celery, most nuts, berries, cocoa, and numerous otherwise healthy foods. Unfortunately, this advice is misguided and based on an incomplete understanding of the evidence. While there is no harm in reducing dietary oxalates beyond inconvenience, lack of variety, and the absence of many genuinely healthy foods, reducing oxalate exposure is not the pri...

Science journalist Lynn Peeples did something extraordinary: She spent 10 days in a nuclear bunker exposed only to dim red light but no blue or other visible wavelength of light. She also rid the space of all clocks or other time-indicating devices and even avoided having any human contact. What she learned opened up numerous questions on how to best manage our day-to-day light exposure, wavelengths, and the implications they have on the quality of sleep, our moods, even various aspects of he...

People who were previously ravenously hungry, struggling to be satisfied and tending to overeat, can find themselves miraculously back in control of appetite just by adopting a number of basic dietary strategies that begin with elimination of gliadin-derived opioid peptides that come from the partial digestion of wheat and grains. Add a handful of other strategies and you will be freed from abnormal and perverse appetite stimulation that comes from consumption of several foods, nonsensi...

There is a non-infectious epidemic occurring right beneath our noses. The likelihood that you are affected is around 50%. It's the epidemic of small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or SIBO. In this episode of Defiant Health, I run through the rationale that reveals that, even conservatively estimated, more than 100 million Americans have this condition. Because of the natural permeability of the small intestine designed for nutrient absorption, invading fecal microbes that have ascended fro...

My original recipe for SIBO Yogurt included three microbes chosen for their ability to colonize or germinate in the small intestine and produce bacteriocins, natural peptide antibiotics effective in killing the species of SIBO. The original formulation therefore specified L. reuteri, L. gasseri, and B. coagulans. However, B. coagulans proved to be unreliable in generating the high microbial counts we desire to overcome the trillions of invading fecal microbial species of SIBO. I therefo...

I’ve personally struggled with insomnia for years, unable to sleep more than a few hours at a time, experiencing frequent awakenings, sometimes awakening at 3 or 4 in the morning and unable to get back to sleep. And I tried almost everything short of prescription sedatives: tryptophan, 5-HTP, megadose melatonin, GABA, theanine, the antihistamine diphenhydramine, self-hypnosis, YouTube videos that claim to help you sleep within minutes. The few that worked left me feeling drugged the next day ...

You’re walking down the street, minding your own business, just out to run some errands. You’re wearing a black jacket, running shoes, a baseball cap. You pass the doors of a bank. Suddenly, the bank’s doors fly open and a man runs out, a man wearing a black jacket and a baseball cap. You see him running at top speed, disappearing around a corner. Moments later, two policemen burst through the bank’s doors, spot you, roughly spin you around, handcuff and arrest you. It’s a clear case of...

It’s truly an exciting time. The information and science surrounding the microbiome is exploding. It seems that a day doesn’t pass without some new, interesting insight emerges on microbiome questions, providing us with unprecedented insights and strategies to get better control over health, weight management, aging, etc. Look at what we are accomplishing, for example, with our cultivation of L. reuteri and L. crispatus. But it also means that misinformation, misinterpretation, an...

When the first Wheat Belly book was released in 2011, it quickly leapt to centerstage, gaining a huge worldwide following. Millions of copies of the book were sold in 37 countries, the conversation was featured in major media from network news to Dr. Oz to . I don’t believe that this was due to my personal charm or charisma, but because it worked: people experienced unexpected and substantial health and weight loss benefits even if such things had eluded them for years. Well, over those...

While CT heart scans are becoming increasingly popular to generate a coronary calcium score as a gauge of coronary atherosclerotic plaque and thereby risk for heart attack, there is actually a treasure trove of other useful information provided by the scan—but often not reported to you. In this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, I therefore help make you aware of the wealth of information provided by a CT heart scan that can empower you further in maintaining health and preventing h...

Inulin is a common fiber, the fiber found in root vegetables like onions, garlic, shallots, asparagus, jicama and many other foods. Humans lack the digestive enzymes, however, for metabolizing inulin, but microbes living in your gastrointestinal track are able to metabolize it. When beneficial microbes metabolize inulin, they convert it to fatty acids with numerous beneficial effects on gastrointestinal, brain, and metabolic health. But, when undesirable microbes metabolize inulin, bad things...

Here are what I call "The Guardrails of Diet,' i.e.., metabolic markers that tell you whether your diet is genuinely healthy or not. Too many people put too much stock in either a single marker like blood glucose, or the wrong marker like LDL cholesterol that takes you down the path of health disruptions: weight gain, visceral fat expansion, protein glycation, insulin resistance, formation of VLDL particles, cause you to rely on unhealthy foods, even increased risk for heart disease and other...

Conventional healthcare and dietary advice are, unfortunately, virtually useless in providing effective strategies on how to manage blood pressure naturally and nutritionally. They have, for instance, the DASH diet that can reduce systolic and diastolic blood pressure by a few millimeters but not more. They provide bland advice like lose weight or move more. Yet there are effective strategies that you can adopt that powerfully reduce and typically normalize blood pressure. Such strategies may...

Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or SIBO, is now rampant, a virtual nationwide epidemic, a condition now carried by around 50% of the population. If you have food intolerances, fibromyalgia, restless leg syndrome, are overweight or obese, have irritable bowel syndrome, an autoimmune condition, atrial fibrillation or numerous other common conditions, it is highly likely that SIBO is either the original cause or at least an exacerbating factor. You can take all the antiinflammatory drugs,...

Bakers, breadlovers, even purported health information authorities such as the Mayo Clinic all spread the claim that all the problems associated with consumption of foods made of wheat are eliminated or significantly reduced by sourdough fermentation. Is this true? In this episode of the Defiant Health podcast, Let’s take each of those claims made, one by one, and examine the evidence to see if there is any truth behind them. _____________________________________________________________...

We’ve been urged to include plenty of dietary fiber in our daily routines, fibers that come from vegetables, legumes, grains and other plant sources. But there is an animal-sourced fiber that has nearly disappeared from the modern human diet: hyaluronic acid. Hyluronic acid has nearly disappeared from the diet because it is primarily sourced from animal products, especially organ meats like brain, skin, and tongue. But hyaluronic acid is a fiber crucial for the health of many human orga...

LDL cholesterol, apoprotein B, saturated fat, TMAO, statin cholesterol drugs: Over the last 40 years, we have been inundated with misguided advice on how to reduce your risk for coronary heart disease, i.e., risk for such things as heart attack, need for heart procedures such as stent implantation or bypass surgery, or sudden cardiac death, serious and often life-threatening events. Has it worked? 80 million Americans now take statin drugs to reduce cholesterol yet there has been no meaningfu...