7 First Things I'd Do If I Had to Start My Health Journey Over

If you've tried to get healthy before, maybe more than once, and it didn't stick, today I want to walk you through exactly what I would do if I were starting over. And so imagine you lost it all, every habit, every result, everything that's been in your path, and you were starting over with your health and rebuilding a new foundation.

Today I'm going to walk you through the things that matter the most when it comes to resetting your health and transforming. And if you're a person saying to yourself, I don't want to just see small improvements. I want to see a complete transformation in my body physically. I want to look younger. I want to feel younger.

I want to do the things health-wise that make the biggest difference and where I will see results the fastest. Well, today on the show, I'm going to walk you through how to do just that. Welcome to the Dr. Axe Show. So in this episode, I'm gonna walk you through these 7 things that I would do if I had to start my health journey all over.

These are the things that make the biggest difference the fastest. That's the whole episode. The 7 things I'd do first if I had to rebuild my health from zero and in the exact order I'd do them. So let me start with an idea that sort of reframes everything, and here's what I've discovered. For many people, Health is not simply a motivation problem. It's a sequencing problem.

Most people fail because they start with the hardest, flashiest thing, right? The extreme diet, the 5:00 AM boot camp, the intermittent fasting, or the hardcore cleanse. And then it collapses and they blame themselves. When you do the right things in the right order, each one makes the next one even easier. And that's the entire episode in one sentence. So let's start here. Listen to this fact.

12% Of American adults are metabolically healthy. And this is most closely tied to insulin resistance. I mean, when you look at the statistics, and I want you to think about that, 88% of people in America today are not metabolically healthy. That means their metabolism is off, their hormones are off, especially insulin, including cortisol. They're aging more quickly. They don't feel well.

All of those things are happening to nearly 90% of Americans today. And there was a study done on this. Researchers checked nearly 9,000 Americans on 5 basic metabolic markers, okay, blood markers. Only about 1 in 8 cleared healthy marks on all of them. So if your health has drifted, you're not the exception, you're the rule. And the rule can be broken in this case, okay?

So here is the math of ordinary habits. 5 Ordinary habits were linked to 12 to 14 extra years of life and a 74% lower risk of dying during the study. And so the 5 things were this that mattered most: eating real food. Now notice I didn't say you had to be paleo or keto or carnivore or vegan, no. So again, so here's the 5.

First one is the people ate real food, not packaged food, real food like apples and steaks, they moved regularly. Again, there wasn't any specific type of exercise. It wasn't CrossFit or marathon running. It was just they moved. They had a healthy weight. They didn't smoke cigarettes. And if they drank alcohol, it was in moderation.

So there was no biohacking, there was no supplements or anything like that. Okay, so here's what the basics are worth. And let's look at this list one more time. Again, And there was nothing that required a gym membership or a prescription or taking the newest fad supplement. It was all about building a healthy foundation.

Now, before I dive into the 7 here, do me a big favor, subscribe to the episode. If you're getting value already, hit subscribe. It's free. It takes 2 seconds. It is the single biggest thing that helps this show reach the people who need it, and then you don't miss a thing. Okay, so now let's dive into number 1. So number 1, know your numbers first. Now here's why it's first.

You cannot fix what you don't measure, and you will not stay motivated by how you feel. Feelings drift, numbers move. Watching your labs improve is the most underrated motivation tool in all of health, and I can tell you from taking care of tens of thousands of patients, the thing that seems to move people the most is when you see the actual number, right?

If you see that your magnesium levels are half of what they should be, and it's connected to the symptoms of why you're getting migraine headaches or fatigue, well, you know, well, okay, that number has to get better. I need to take action. There's a level of proof there.

And this is why one of the things I've found over the last 5 years is I have almost all of my patients Get some sort of blood work today. Now listen, you don't have to get blood work. You could just look at your symptoms and then maybe put a ranking next to them. You could, you know, you could get Chinese medicine tongue diagnosis or you could have your body fat measured, right?

And that doesn't necessarily take blood work, but starting off with markers and knowing exactly where you are and where you're deficient is so incredibly helpful. Most disease is silent for years before it has symptoms. That's another problem. And so if you're just waiting until you have symptoms, oftentimes there's an issue.

I can tell you I've had so many people people, including loved ones and other people I knew who just waited and waited and waited. They never tested. They never— in fact, sometimes they just said, I'm never going to go to a doctor, which I don't think is the right thing either. Did you know that nearly 50% of people have heart attacks?

That is their first symptom, and many of them will die from that. So you never want to wait until you have symptoms before you know where you're at. Now, here are some of the most important markers according to the studies. Fasting glucose and fasting insulin. So it's— and hemoglobin A1c. So it's looking at blood sugar, incredibly important. Triglycerides and HDL cholesterol or ApoB, right?

Looking at those numbers. Looking at high sensitivity C-reactive protein. This is looking at how much inflammation are in your cells and body. Vitamin D, very high up there also, but also magnesium and zinc and iron, critically important. Vitamin B12. And have them take your blood pressure and look at your body fat.

If you have just those markers alone, you can tell so much about where you're at in terms of your health. And fasting insulin is the one that most doctors skip and the one I would fight for. It often rises 10 years before your other blood sugar markers do.

And so if your blood sugar's off, we know insulin's high, your body is aging more quickly, And numerous diseases are linked to imbalanced blood sugar: cancer, diabetes, of course, heart disease, autoimmune disease, almost every condition you can think of. Okay, here's the second thing I would fix. So number one, get a baseline of where you're at with your health.

The biggest myth about inflammation and chronic symptoms is that they're all separate issues. In reality, your symptoms behave more like a chain of falling dominoes. When one goes down, it triggers several more, and before you know it, everything feels off. This new test completely changes things, and I know exactly what to look for.

I'm currently offering a simple at-home blood test that actually tests for the right things— targeted biomarkers that reveal the very first dominoes impacting your hormones, inflammation, your thyroid, and your metabolism— plus a full hour with one of my senior health advisors to review your results and show you exactly how the Health Institute can help you stop the chain reaction and finally balance your hormones and heal.

If you want to check it out and grab one before they're gone, just go to mybloodwork.com now. Number 2, fix your wake-up time first, right? Go to bed, wake up, prioritize sleep, but fix your wake-up time first. That's the first thing. I would anchor my sleep, okay, backwards from how everyone else tries. Forget forcing an early bedtime, okay? Pick one wake-up time and hit it 7 days a week.

Okay, then get outside light within the first 30 minutes of waking. Okay, morning light sets your body clock and your body clock sets your melatonin. And about 15 hours later, sleep starts coming to you. You have to— you stop chasing it. It comes to you naturally. And so pick a time and then get outside to balance those circadian rhythms.

And by the way, there is evidence of this according to medical journals that consistency, going to bed consistently at the same time, actually works better than you trying to just get more sleep. The most regular sleepers had a 20 to 48% lower risk of death, and regularity beat duration as a predictor in terms of getting quality sleep. Now, I'm not saying you should try and stay up later.

You shouldn't. You should go, you should wake up at the same time every morning, and as soon as you're tired at night, you should start going to bed. And at the same time, making sure you're getting at least 8 hours of sleep. Now, here's what— here's a study that was published pretty recently.

It was done on 60,000 people that wore trackers like Oura Ring and Whoop and these sort of bands that track your sleep. And it had tens of millions of hours of data. The steadiest sleepers won even against long sleepers.

So again, going to bed at the same time, waking up at the same time, that was the most important thing in terms of people getting deep, Restful sleep that restored and healed their mitochondria. Number 3, here is something I would do if I were starting over from scratch and said, okay, what are the biggest things that can change your health? Walk after your meals.

The great thing about this is it costs you nothing. And you know what? Your great-grandmother did it without being told to, you know, a short walk after eating. There's an old Chinese proverb, 100 steps after meals and you'll live to 99. Okay, so 100 steps after meals, you'll live to 99. Ancient Chinese proverb.

Chinese medicine has prescribed the after-dinner walk for centuries, and the old wisdom had the mechanism right. Working muscles pull sugar out of your bloodstream like a sponge, so it lowers your blood sugar. We talked about that marker, probably the most important marker earlier, the fasting glucose, the fasting blood sugar.

If you fix that, bring insulin back into balance, now every other hormone in your body comes back into balance with it typically. So again, walk after your meals. Walk for 10 minutes after breakfast. You know, when you're at work or you're at home after you eat lunch, go for a 20-minute walk. Go for a 15-20 minute walk in the evening. Try and walk 20 minutes 3 times a day, 1 hour a day.

You will not believe what that will do to your health, or even at least just 1 Time a day. Now, here's the evidence according to a medical study. 3 15-Minute walks after meals matched 1 45-minute walk for a 24-hour blood sugar control. So again, it could be, you know, 15 minutes and 45 minutes a day after each, okay?

And by the way, the walk that helped the most for blood sugar was the after-dinner walk. Now, this is something my family and I like to do sometimes after dinner. Now, we don't do it all of the time. But we oftentimes do this, sort of get out and with Chelsea and I, we always walk.

Actually, on occasion, maybe once a week we'll go out and depending on the time of year, we'll go out and ride our bikes. But the girls will sometimes walk, sometimes they'll be on scooters, sometimes they'll be on bikes, but we love the after-dinner walk. And again, studies prove this. There it is, the great-grandmother habit that matched the workout, right?

So here's the thing, a lot of times we think to ourselves, I gotta go to the gym, And I gotta pump iron, I've gotta go and do hours of cardio. And what studies show, listen, and by the way, that's great, by the way, and I will talk about weight training 'cause that is incredibly important.

But if you're just getting started and you wanna know what is foundational for health, walking 45 minutes a day will make a massive difference in your health. All right, the number 4 component that will make a major difference in your health and help you build a steady foundation is lifting weights or doing any type of resistance training. Strength training twice a week.

And if you're over 40, nothing on this list pays you back more per minute. Okay. Of all the things I talked about, if you're over 40, this one makes the biggest difference in your health. And here's the reality. After 30 years of age, you lose muscle every year you don't fight for it. And muscle is your metabolic engine, your blood sugar sponge, and your independence at 80.

You don't need an hour a day. You need 2 sessions a week where the last few reps generally feel hard. Okay? Body weight counts, bands count, you know, a backpack full of books or, you know, doing, you know, rucking counts, but weights. Okay? And ideally, and you can do machines, you can do dumbbells, but move something to support the growth of muscle at least 2 days a week.

So if you're saying, hey, where do I get started? If you can walk 45 minutes a day and if you can lift 2 days a week, it will make a major difference. You could pair that like push or pull days. It could be a lower body day and upper body day, but do some form of resistance training. And listen to this study around it.

30 To 60 weekly minutes of strength training were linked to a 10 to 20% lower risk of death. So again, incorporate weight training. Okay. Next, number 5, crowd out, don't cut out. You know, when I opened up my clinic in Nashville, Tennessee, this was back like late 2007, okay, almost 20 years now.

You know that one of the biggest things that I learned in working with patients very, very early on was if I would tell them, you can't have this, and I didn't give them a replacement or a swap, it became very stressful. And they failed more often versus if I went to my patients and I laid out for them and I said, eat this, not that. Hey, you're doing white flour?

Let's switch over to oat flour and almond flour. Hey, let's switch from the canola oil over to the extra virgin olive oil. When I would give them the replacements and the swaps, it became so much easier. I said, you can still eat chicken Parmesan. You can still have chocolate cake.

You know, let's just buy this brand, use these different ingredients, and it's going to taste a little different, but I promise you, after a few months of doing this, you will probably like it just as much as you did before. Sometimes it tastes better because you're using fresher, more real ingredients, but I also guarantee you this, you'll be incredibly healthier for it.

And because of this, in my practice, I saw people reversing autoimmune disease, reversing hypothyroidism, you know, just healing in a dramatic way and being able to do it for their lifetime and not crashing and burning and fizzling out because, you know, they weren't coming into me and I wasn't saying, I need you to go on a keto diet for the rest of your life.

Instead it was, hey, let's just make these simple swaps. So this is all about food. It is addition with no subtraction. No banned food lists, no Monday cleanse, one rule at every meal, okay? It would typically be this. I would say, I want you to increase protein and fiber, and I want you to try and eat a lot of meat, fruits, and vegetables. That was it. And the results were incredible.

So again, you want to focus on building a healthy plate, high protein, and then get those plants, right? Get the wild, you know, the filet of salmon, the grass-fed burger, the chicken breast, and then let's do some veggies, let's do some berries, let's do some sweet potato, let's do some avocado, and let's see what happens. You know what happened?

People lost weight, they reversed disease, they felt great, all of those things happened and so, and it's gonna be the same for you. Don't chase these fad diets, instead build a steady foundation with eating real food and making good swaps.

The number 6 way that I encourage you to build a healthy foundation if you're starting over and saying, okay, I just wanna see big results, is focus on improving your gut and digestive health. Your gut health is tied to your brain health, your skin health, your heart health, the health of every organ, cell, and tissue in your body.

And one of the areas of your health that's of course critically important as well is your immune system. And around 70 to 80% of your immune system lives in your gut. So if you're going to improve immunity, improve brain health, improve, you know, of course inflammation, almost all of that starts in the gut. So focus on gut health because it positively impacts every other organ in your body.

And so the way you improve gut health is what I talked about earlier. It's getting good things like protein, it's getting fiber. In addition, fermented foods— sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, coconut yogurt, or real yogurt— these foods make a big difference. Getting more polyphenols, you're going to get those from things like berries and extra virgin olive oil and drinking green tea.

Consider a probiotic supplement, even though first probiotics should come from your food. But getting more fiber and probiotics will make such a big difference in your health across your entire body. You know, there was a medical study that found this. Listen to this. A fermented food diet increased microbiome diversity and lowered 19 inflammatory proteins in 10 weeks.

So there was a study and they said, okay, how does consuming fermented foods, probiotic-rich foods compared to taking an anti-inflammatory supplement, a natural supplement, or even sometimes a drug. And you know what they found? A diet high in fiber and probiotics outperformed supplements head-to-head by a large margin. Listen, I love turmeric and ginger. Those are really foods in a way.

They're spices. Those are great, include those in. But what makes an even bigger difference likely is eating sauerkraut or having some yogurt at home, a major, major difference. It's foundational for your health. And number 7, if I'm saying to myself, I'm starting from scratch, I want to do the things that make the biggest difference in my health, here it is. Guard your peace and build joy.

This is the one I've never seen on another list before. When you're starting over, I'd guard peace like my life depended on it. I'd wake up every morning, I'd spend 10 minutes in prayer, reading Scripture before I ever picked up my phone.

I would have a real Sabbath, one day of complete rest with family and God every weekend, and then I would build community of people I love that are encouragers that brought me peace and joy. So focus on these spiritual practices. We know according to medical studies that if you don't have peace and stress is high, cortisol goes up, your body gets in that sympathetic state, it drives disease.

Cortisol goes up, well now insulin goes up, blood sugar, we talked about that being probably the most important marker when it comes to inflammation and aging. And here's a study to prove it. Women attending religious services like church, more than weekly had a 33% lower risk of death over 16 years than never attenders. Okay, so, and there's, there are a lot of studies on this.

And the biggest thing they found in the study were it was tied to a greater sense of community, having more hope and purpose in their life tied to faith-based attendance. So again, having that morning time to build peace, focusing on spiritual growth, having community groups, going to church. These have a profound impact on your overall health.

Our new book, Heal Yourselves, is now available for preorder. And if you've gotten value from this podcast, we would be so grateful for you grabbing your copy directly through our own channels at healyourselvesbook.com.

When you preorder with us, you're also going to get the Cellular Peptide Guide, the Cellular Supplement Guide, the Heal Yourselves Masterclass, and 40 longevity recipes, plus an at-home blood work kit For only $79, our lowest price ever, with a 1-hour consultation. Again, that's healyourselvesbook.com, and that offer won't last long.

I want to encourage you to take advantage of the offer because we're only going to do that for the next few days. So remember these 7 things. Know your numbers. Where are you at? Let me ask you this right now. Do you know what your vitamin D levels are? What about magnesium? What about your blood sugar levels? What about your inflammation markers?

Know where you're at and work to improve those numbers. Number 2, anchor that waking time, right? Wake up at the same time every morning and get out and go for a walk. Number 3, walk after meals, right? 45 Minutes a day, 15, 3 times a day. And listen, if you can't do it 3 times a day, do it 1 time a day. Do your best. Number 2, lift twice a week, right? Resistance training twice a week.

Number 5, protein and plants first. Number 6, more fermented foods and fiber. Number 7, Guard your peace. Here's what Lamentations 3:22-23 says in the Bible. Because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness.

So again, it might even be just 2 minutes in the morning reading something, meditating on for a minute can start to build peace. So here's my encouragement to you this week. Book the blood work and set one wake-up time for all 7 days. Walk after your biggest meal at least every day. Get 2 sessions of lifting in. Plant and proteins every single meal.

1 Fermented food daily and 10 minutes of stillness and prayer or reading every morning before you pick up your phone. And if you forget everything else from today, remember this: you don't need more willpower, more information, or a perfect plan. You need a starting line and a sequence. And now you have both. Start at the bottom of the stack.

Let each layer carry the next, and let this be the last time you ever have to start over. By the way, I created a guide for you. Okay? It's my top 25 blood markers PDF. It's worth $50. It's free if you go to the show notes and you can download it right now. And so that guide will walk you through exactly the markers you need to be looking for.

And then next up, if you want to dive deeper into this advanced nutrition and health information and go to the next level, check out my book Heal Yourself. It's in bookstores nationwide and on amazon.com. I want to say thanks for listening here to the Dr. Axe Show, where every week I'm diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, and spiritually.

And if this helped you, do 2 things for me. Subscribe so the next episode finds you and send this to a friend who keeps saying they'll start Monday or the one who just got lab results that scared them. It takes 10 seconds. And it might just transform their life. Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you next week.