The Mindbodygreen Podcast

This week's guest needs no introduction. As the most accomplished Olympian of our time—and any time, for that matter—Michael Phelps is a wellness icon for the ages. In addition to pushing what the human body is capable of, we can thank Phelps for using his celebrity status to bring often-taboo topics like depression to the surface. I was lucky enough to sit down with the 23-time Olympic gold medalist to learn about one of his latest initiatives: water conservation. This is Phelps' second year partnering with Colgate on their #EveryDropCounts initiative, which aims to show how the simple act of turning off the tap while you brush your teeth can add up to significant water savings. Through the course of this episode, he shares how his growing family conserves water at home and why the water access issue strikes such a chord with him personally. And of course, I had to ask about the more esoteric fitness and recovery practices that Phelps has helped popularize. We talk about his experience with cupping, visualiz

Adi Jaffe, Ph.D., is a world-renowned mental health expert, the CEO of IGNTD, and the host of the IGNTD Podcast. His new book, The Abstinence Myth, is all about overcoming addiction and transforming your life without judgment or shame. Dr. Jaffe is well-known for questioning the status quo and the rules we've been living by when it comes to addiction and sobriety. His wife, Sophie Jaffe, is the woman behind Philosophie, a line of superfoods that are designed to promote health from the inside out. In this episode of the mbg podcast, I sit down with Dr. Jaffe to talk about his journey from dealing drugs and using meth to get through exams during college to becoming a researcher, lecturer, author, and successful entrepreneur. He gets candid about what he learned about life and humanity from spending an entire year in jail. Today, Dr. Jaffe's goal is to help as many people as possible recover from their own addictions and improve their lives. His approach is unique in that it doesn't always require a person to qu

By now, you've probably at least heard of Simple Mills: The line of gluten-free and paleo-friendly cookies, crackers, baking mixes, and frostings taking over grocery aisles around the country. But we bet you didn't know the story of the brand's founder and CEO, Katlin Smith. Smith launched the health food brand at the ripe age of 24 after seeing how cutting out dairy and gluten completely transformed her life. She first set out to, as she says, "raise the standards of what healthy food looks like" by cooking up GF-muffin mix in an industrial kitchen on the weekends while balancing a full-time job in consulting. Back then, she couldn't even afford a mixer, but Smith didn't let setbacks stand in the way of her goal to add more nutrition to the center aisles of the grocery store. She started off demo-ing her mixes in three Whole Foods Market stores and the rest is history. Now, Simple Mills has 28 products sold in 12,000 stores across the country (and we're not talking specialty health shops either—you can find

This week, I sat down with Dr. Dean and Dr. Ayesha Sherzai—directors of the Alzheimer's Prevention Program at Loma Linda University Medical Center and authors of The Alzheimer's Solution—to talk about all things brain health, a topic that is more important now than ever before. Did you know that half of the people who live to the age of 85 will have Alzheimer's? It's quickly becoming the most pressing health issue facing our world today. As we learned at revitalize 2018, when the Sherzais quickly won over the crowd with their well-rounded perspective on brain health—the Sherzais are on a mission to prevent Alzheimer's, slow its progression, help patients and families cope, and hopefully soon even find a cure. There's no doubt about it: They have a lot of hard-earned knowledge to share. In this episode of the mbg podcast, you'll learn about the lifestyle factors that are hurting your brain the most. High on this list is multitasking. Many of us think we're skilled at performing more than one task at a time, bu

If you've ever had a Perfect Bar, you understand the hype. The protein-packed snack stuffed with superfoods has picked up a serious cult following, thanks to its simple filling ingredients and downright addicting flavor (a box of the dark chocolate peanut butter bars has been known to disappear from the mbg office fridge in about three seconds flat). Co-founded by siblings Bill and Leigh Keith in 2005, the initial idea for the brand actually dates back to long road trips their large family took decades ago. In this podcast episode, the duo recounts how their father, Bud Keith, would use his background in nutrition and mind-body medicine to make a healthy snack product his (thirteen!) children would actually want to eat. Bud would ground up whole-foods supplements, mix them with peanut butter, honey, and protein, and the results were a sweet, hearty treat that he deemed "perfect." Nowadays, there are still at least 20 superfoods—like kale, spinach, alfalfa, and celery—slyly packed into every refrigerated bar,

Functional medicine expert, mbg class instructor and Collective member, and my dear friend Will Cole, D.C., IFMCP, grew up in a wellness-focused household. But after 10 years of struggling with poor digestion and low energy on a carb-heavy, vegan diet, he knew there had to be a better way to eat plant-based. That's when he discovered the brain-boosting benefits of the ketogenic diet and fueling his body with healthy fats. If you haven't heard of the ketogenic diet yet, it's a high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb diet (we've written a lot about it on mindbodygreen). It's typically associated with eating lots of meat, dairy, eggs, and other animal products. But in his new book, Ketotarian, Will shares how to meld the two seemingly opposite diets—ketogenic and vegan—to get the best of both worlds. On this week's episode, I sat down with Will to explore what ketosis is, what it's not, and who should (and shouldn't) try going keto. We talked about the pitfalls of a conventional ketogenic diet and how it can work

Nicolas Jammet, Jonathan Neman, and Nathaniel Ru know what sweetgreen customers want because they are sweetgreen customers. More than 10 years ago, they were frustrated by the lack of affordable and delicious food that was also healthy and made them feel good, so the three then-college seniors set out to make salad cool. In 2007, they opened the first sweetgreen and immediately knew they were on to something. They have since grown the ingredient-driven, fast-casual chain to 86 locations across the United States and continue to innovate and elevate healthy food. I sat down with Nicolas and Jonathan to talk about their mission of connecting communities to healthier food, what "passion with a purpose" means, and how they build trust with their customers. They explained how a salad restaurant ended up hosting a music festival, the combination of art and science behind everything they do, and where they find the local artists that decorate their stores (spoiler: in line at sweetgreen). We also touched on the emot

Jon Sebastiani is no stranger to the world of entrepreneurship. At the age of 8, Jon got his taste of working as an entrepreneur on his family’s vineyard in Sonoma Valley, founded in 1894 as one of the wine region’s first vineyards. He continued to work on the business side of the family brand throughout his 20s and early 30s, until the company was sold in 2005. After a self-proclaimed identity crisis of sorts, Jon shifted his focus to his own health, which led him to run in the New York City Marathon, and shortly after, put him on the fast track to launching a jerky brand, KRAVE. Now, his passion for wellness influences the majority of his business endeavors as founder of Sonoma Brands, one of the most well-respected and innovative venture capitalist firms in natural consumer packaged goods right now, with investors in wellness favorites like Hu Kitchen and True Botanicals. In this episode, we trace Jon’s entrepreneurial spirit from his beginning wine days to the genesis of Sonoma Brands, the trend of miss

Jasmine Hemsley has been a force in the wellness world since she started the world-famous Hemsley + Hemsley brand alongside her sister Melissa in 2014. Their first book, The Art of Eating Well, flipped the script on dieting and proved that eating well can be delicious, soul-satisfying, and not at all restrictive. Since this book became an international best-seller, Jasmine has served as a food consultant to a celebrity clientele, penned two more cookbooks, and traveled the world sharing her food philosophy with the masses. Along the way, she stumbled into a food philosophy that would ultimately change her life: ayurveda. The answer to why she always preferred hot, stewy foods and would take a burger over a salad any day, ayurveda is an ancient Indian approach to whole-body healing that focuses on centers of heat within the body. It extends far beyond food and touches on how we can find balance across our lives. Though it dates back around 5,000 years, its remedies for everything from poor digestion to anxie

Erik Oberholtzer is a renowned professional chef who spent 10 years in some of the best fine dining kitchens in California. After getting his start at Chez Panisse, he cooked everywhere from Lark Creek Inn to Left Bank to Shutters on the Beach. Inspired by his relationships with local farmers and his access to fresh ingredients, he became passionate about finding a way to bring farm-to-fork to the masses. In 2006, he opened Tender Greens, a slow-foods-meets-fast-food restaurant in Culver City with an emphasis on affordable chef-created dishes. It has since grown to 28 locations spanning across both coasts and is backed by hospitality giant Danny Meyer. In this week’s episode, Erik and I discuss how he cultivates culture at Tender Greens, America’s shifting relationship with food, and why it’s an exciting time to be in the food space. We also talk about the "forgotten foods" you might be seeing on the Tender Greens menu soon, his commitment to regenerative agriculture, the collision of technology and food, an

Dr. Tanzeem Bhatia, M.D., is a superwoman in her own right. She's not just an M.D.—she has functional medicine, integrative, and holistic physician training, and she's a certified nutritionist, acupuncturist, yoga teacher, and traditional Chinese medicine practitioner. Whew! She might be one of the most qualified medical professionals to help women, as she's seen thousands through her practice and has noticed a few patterns in the way health issues present themselves. Her book, Superwoman Rx, speaks to her experience by demystifying common health problems women face—low energy, unwanted weight gain or loss, and hormone-related issues, to name a few—by breaking them down into five different archetypes. Dr. Taz has been part of the mindbodygreen family since the early days. She's a class instructor, part of mbg's Functional Nutrition Program, and a longtime contributor. In this podcast episode, Dr. Taz and I discuss the reason we're facing a women's health crisis in the first place; how each of the five archet

Weleda is a green brand that goes way, way back—it's been around since 1921. Originally a plant-based medicine company, over the years it has evolved into a natural beauty powerhouse that calls on the power of plants for its nourishing products. In this episode, Rob Keen, who has served as Weleda's CEO for North America since 2016, gives us an inside look into the green beauty industry. He predicts the ingredients that are about to shake up our routines, describes what's next for skin care, and talks about what it will take for natural products to become the new normal. Along the way, he touches on issues of access in the natural beauty space, gives tips for spotting "faux natural" brands, and shares the nonnegotiable beauty products to add to your repertoire. For Weleda, at the end of the day, it's all about going back to the basics. Though the company is nearly a century old, its ingredient list has remained relatively unchanged since the beginning, which speaks volumes about its sourcing. "People and nat

Max Lugavere is a filmmaker, health science journalist, TV personality, brain health expert, and author of the New York Times best-selling book Genius Foods. For Max, brain health isn't just a trend; it's personal. After his mother was diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease at just 58, Max dedicated himself to understanding the link between diet, lifestyle, and cognitive function. After almost 10 years of research, he is sharing his brain optimizing philosophy to boost brain power, stimulate cognitive function, and prevent decline. In this episode of the podcast, Max and I talk about how modern dietary shifts may be messing with our brain, why conditionally essential nutrients are so important, and which foods to avoid to beat brain fog (spoiler: It's not just gluten!). He also makes a case for why red meat deserves a place in our diet, why sleep is non-negotiable, and how exercise stimulates the brain. This past weekend, he took the stage at mbg revitalize 2018 to bust common brain health myths and share

Nutritionist, functional mediation practitioner, cognitive behavioral therapist, mindbodygreen class instructor and collective member, and dear friend Dana James has helped more than 3,000 women clean up their eating habits and move closer to their happy weight over the course of her career. Dana's emphasis on psychology is unique: She believes that in order to lose weight, we need to first address the mental blocks that are holding us back. In her 12 years as a practitioner, she's identified the four personality archetypes that most people fall into. Her brand new book, The Archetype Diet: Reclaim Your Self-Worth and Change the Shape of Your Body, dives into how to find your archetype, identify the mental and hormonal blocks keeping you from your healthiest life, and conduct mind-body exercises that will leave you feeling vibrant. It's a must-read for anyone struggling with their weight or just looking to clean up their relationship to food a bit. In this jam-packed podcast, Dana introduces the four archet

Never heard of a chicken or lobster mushroom? Then you haven't talked to Julie Piatt. As the co-author of the new book The Plantpower Way: Italia: Delicious Vegan Recipes for the Italian Countryside, Julie can tell you all about them and will reassure you that they're vegan. This isn't the first book she's written with her husband, Rich Roll—the duo published their first vegan lifestyle book, The Plantpower Way, together back in 2015, and it became an instant hit. Between their success in the publishing world and Rich's own inspiring story of transforming himself from couch potato to endurance athlete (all of which is detailed in Rich's first book, Finding Ultra), it's safe to say that Rich and Julie—who are dear friends of ours, members of the mbg Collective, and mbg class instructors—are a wellness power couple. In this podcast episode, which is the very first one Colleen and I have ever hosted with another couple, you'll learn all about how Rich and Julie keep the spark alive in their relationship while w

Sarah Wilson is the journalist, entrepreneur, and author behind the I Quit Sugar empire who has helped people around the world give up the sweet stuff for the sake of their health. She is also a lifelong sufferer of anxiety. Her latest book, First We Make the Beast Beautiful, is a stunning account of how Sarah copes with anxiety and a must-have handbook for anyone who wants to understand the often illusive mental illness a little better. In this episode, Sarah—a longtime friend and contributor to mbg—dives into the practices and routines that have helped her reframe her anxiety as a "beautiful beast" instead of a straight-up monster. It's rich with practical information that anyone can benefit from, from how to talk your way down from a panic attack to how to help a friend or loved one through their anxious moments. She also covers the sugar-anxiety connection and shares some fascinating science on how the anxious brain works and how we can train ours to do things differently. Tune in to snag Sarah's No. 1 ti

Dr. David Perlmutter made waves years ago with the release of his book Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar—Your Brain's Silent Killers, which elucidated the connection between gluten, inflammation, and various modern diseases long before the mainstream media caught on. He's also a long-time member of the mbg family (and now an official collective member!)—he spoke at revitalize in 2016 about the connection between our guts and brains before anyone else was discussing it. Now, the neurologist is back with a new release of the book and tons of modern science back info on what we should actually put in our bodies. In this episode of the podcast, we dive deep into the science of eating for both brain and body health, including a fascinating discussion about Alzheimer’s—he shared some statistics that blew even my mind! We also talk about how, as he says, "the most important shift in the human lifestyle choice paradigm has been a shift from a diet that was fundamentally deriving its calo

Many moons ago, Robin Berzin was wondering how she would ever manage to merge her love of technology, health care, yoga, public health, functional medicine, and entrepreneurship. Fast-forward a few years—after working for Oprah, earning a degree in international relations, and becoming an M.D.—she's now the founder and CEO of Parsley Health, a successful membership-based holistic health practice with offices in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In this episode of the mbg podcast, my good friend and mbg Collective member Dr. Berzin talked about the most common health complaints she sees in her clinic and why there are some supplements she recommends to (almost) everyone. She revealed the ins and outs of the diet—a "plant-based paleo" plan, full of fiber, healthy fatty acids, and protein—that is a fit for pretty much all her patients. And finally, we talked about how our perspectives on life have shifted since we both brought babies into the world last year around this time; our daughters even have the

Even though she's written a book, filmed a TED Talk, and built an audience of 371,000 people and counting on Instagram, she still gets nervous before public speaking — it's one tiny but endearing example of what makes artist and poet Cleo Wade so relatable. Wade's first book, Heart Talk, is meant to be what you need it to be—a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear, or some simple spiritual inspiration to get through a creative block. In this episode of the mindbodygreen podcast, we start from the very beginning of Wade's career as a writer and touch on all-important and sometimes divisive topics like self-care, social media habits and overwhelm, and what it means to be an informed citizen in modern society. To the core, Wade marches to the beat of her own drum. She's constructed a life and vocation that not only supports her well-being but allows her to understand what she needs to live well. During our chat, she said that the promise she made to her audience was to make them feel less alone. "As soon as you se

As the best-selling author of Happy Gut: The Cleansing Program to Help You Lose Weight, Gain Energy, and Eliminate Pain, mbg Collective member Vincent Pedre, MD, is one of the country's leading experts on gut health. In this episode of the mbg podcast, we dive deep into the roots that shaped his current philosophy and lifestyle, from his Cuban background to how his family's immigration impacted his childhood. "If you're Cuban, you become a doctor, a lawyer, or a CPA," Pedre laughs, noting that, with two siblings filling the lawyer and CPA spots, there was only one real profession left for him to entertain. For him, doctoring is the perfect marriage of art and science, and he's perfected his field. In this episode, he shares the future of the microbiome, the most important foods to eat for gut health, how to know if coffee is good in your body, how to consume alcohol in a healthy way (including the surprising reasons he loves tequila), why French and Italian wines are healthier, and ways to cheat fasting so yo