Alyssa Goodman, welcome to the show.
Elissa Goodman (03:30.53) Wow, that was quite an introduction. Thank you very much. I wish everyone would introduce me that way. And I do feel better than I did 20 years ago. So it's pretty awesome.
Josh (03:33.164) Well deserved.
Josh (03:41.231) Well, it is incredible. Now, your assistant, when she submitted this first inquiry, there was quite a story about your history battling cancer and all kinds. Can you tell our listeners who you are and a bit about your story? I really want them to know why it's so important to listen to what you have to say.
Elissa Goodman (03:57.946) Yes, it's a bit of a long story in terms of health circumstances that I endured throughout my lifetime. I was born with a low white blood cell count, so my immune system wasn't terribly strong, so I got sick a lot growing up as a kid. So I was labeled a sick kid, and that wasn't so much fun. So definitely felt like behind the eight ball, not a lot of energy. Oh, wow.
You're, are you freezing?
Josh (04:28.891) So I am freezing a little on this side, but it's okay. So Riverside FM, what it does, oh yeah, we're great. So it actually records locally on both computers. It won't miss a beat. We're all good, yeah.
Elissa Goodman (04:32.606) Is that, okay. Just go ahead and keep going. Okay. Okay, great. Okay, I know that's so interesting because I did a podcast last week and the same thing happened, but I've not experienced that before. So, okay.
Josh (04:48.131) Yeah, this software records locally on both sides and then syncs it, so even if it skips, it records everything you won't miss a bit.
Elissa Goodman (04:55.006) Okay, okay, should I just backtrack a bit? So.
I have quite a healthy journey. As a kid growing up, I was always sick. I was labeled a sick kid, got every illness that came out. So I always felt behind the eight ball, energetically, low energy, probably brain fog, not really, you know, I couldn't even keep up with my older parents who were getting up at five and working out and like just, you know, racing through their day and felt energized.
And I was always tired. And so, but I was brought up with these two type A individuals that were climbing the corporate ladder and very successful. So I thought that's really what you're supposed to do in life. Moved to New York from Arizona where I grew up after I graduated college and worked in the advertising business, long hours, late nights, you know, lots of entertaining. Always tired, always sick in New York City, plus the weather too.
Elissa Goodman (06:00.228) when I got married, like, I just need a quieter, like, better weather place to live, and that was California. And then basically moved out to California, and I landed a phenomenal job with Vogue magazine. And six months later, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma.
So it was quite a wake-up call at 32 years old. I was getting a massage and the masseuse felt a lymph node on my collarbone. And so I would never have really known probably about it without that massage. So the massage really saved my life. And then it was so cool to be in California or in Los Angeles when I got the diagnosis because there were juice places, there were naturopaths, there was Mrs. Gooch's, there was just like yoga was very popular.
not as much of these things in New York City. So LA was sort of becoming the Mecca. There was an arowan in those days as well. So I really dove into all the healthy.
avenues because it was an early stage of cancer. And one of the doctors that I had seen, he was way ahead of his time 30 years ago. He sat me down after it was staged and he said, what's going on with your emotional well-being? Are you happy? Are you passionate about what you do? Do you love your husband? Do you love your work? Do you love your life? Do you love yourself? And I was kind of blown away because nobody had ever asked me that. I'm especially a doctor. And when he asked me that
sort of burst into tears and I said I'm always stressed. I don't even know what happy is. I don't know what calm is. I don't know what loving myself is and that was a huge turning point as well. I was like he goes we can get this under control. We need to get you in a better state of mind. So between you know going into juicing and eating whole foods, becoming vegan, doing yoga, doing colonics, doing everything LA had to offer and also emotionally getting my head together.
Elissa Goodman (08:01.066) was a home run for me. It was just like game changing, life saving. I ended up doing some radiation because my family was all freaking out because I didn't wanna do treatment. I didn't do chemo, so I did half the radiation.
Doing half the radiation did do a number on my thyroid, so I got a hyperthyroidism, and I ended up getting Hashimoto's and some other health issues. But I know, I know. But then I did go on to have two girls, and 11 and a half years later after my diagnosis, my husband's diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Josh (08:23.399) It's always something.
Elissa Goodman (08:35.754) So he is 43 and a half and he goes into major like Western treatment to bone marrow transplants and ends up dying at 45 years old of fungal pneumonia.
So another huge wake up call, two girls at home at 10 at 7, and both of their parents had cancer. So it was like, holy shit, what am I going to do now? I was exhausted, completely depleted, as well as I was scared about the idea of my girls being worried and thinking they were going to get cancer because both of their parents had it and one didn't make it.
So I went back to school and got certified in Eastern and Western nutrition, Ayurvedic, Chinese medicine, all the Western modalities in a two-year program. And I just did it just for myself, my own well-being and for them. And then after I graduated, a couple of the restaurants here in Los Angeles, Cafe Gratitude, it's a vegan place, and M Cafe was a macrobiotic place, hired me to put a food program together for them. So I just lucked out,
didn't think I was gonna do anything with it for a living. And then these two places hired me and I ended up having so much fun handholding cleansers, they were both cleanses, and finding out how to help them beyond the cleanse and beyond the food. So I worked with functional doctors and natural paths and all these amazing people 10 years ago. It was such a small circle, the wellness world, as compared to where it is today.
Josh (10:03.312) Hmm.
Elissa Goodman (10:16.4) seeing like really talented people and I learned so much and I just became kind of obsessed with it all and obsessed for myself too.
Josh (10:26.315) Well, that's an amazing story. And there are what I would say are sort of the grandfathers of functional medicine and then holistic nutrition. And then at bridging the gap. And you're one of those people who are really at the foundation of bringing this forward. I mean, 30 years ago, 31 years ago, you just got started with these doctors who had an idea, even the basic idea of any kind of functional medicine approach or holistic approach of any kind. And that's created.
this pathway for you to be on where you are now. And it's really laid the groundwork. Now, even today, I specialize in inflammatory bowel disease. And I see a lot of people who are very, very sick, whose doctors will say food has nothing to do with it, nutrition doesn't matter, which is insane. We still see that today. So what role, I guess is my question, did you see, and I wanna branch out, I have so many things I wanna ask you about, but what role would you say your gut has played for you?
in all of your health, sickness, wellness, everything.
Elissa Goodman (11:29.834) I would say like 100%. It's, I mean.
Josh (11:34.427) That's an easy number to remember.
Elissa Goodman (11:38.454) You know, it was like I listened to my gut instincts when I got diagnosed with cancer at 32. You know, I knew that the Western treatment wasn't gonna be good for me. So, and whenever I go into anything, you know, it took a while to get myself back to paying attention and believing my gut. But once I did, it tells me everything. I mean, it just tells me what foods to eat, what supplements to take, you know, who to hang out with and spend time with. I mean, it's everything.
Josh (11:59.577) Mm-hmm.
Josh (12:08.967) So can you explain that to me a little more for our listeners? And the reason I ask, I'm a very, let's say logical, rational, science-based individual, right? It's all about the microbiome and the bacteria, the neural feedback and all the things they perform in the body on a biochemical function, right? Very measurable. But the gut instinct is something we can't ignore. I mean, they're the same tissue in utero, or your brain and your gut. So we know they're connected, neurologically they're connected. There's an immense amount of things.
Can you explain a little bit more about the gut instinct, the gut intuition, and how important it is physically having a healthy gut to allow that gut instinct and intuition to actually do its job?
Elissa Goodman (12:50.335) Yeah, I mean...
you know, we were born with incredible instincts, really. I mean, that when we come out as babies, you know, we really know what's good for us and what isn't good for us. And as we go along with the food, the bad foods we eat, or the stress that we encounter, right, or trauma, you know, all kinds of, you know, even taking a lot of over-the-counter medications and things like that, we just, we veer off and don't really, aren't able to reconnect to our gut.
Because you're right, the gut isn't healthy and it really can't, it can't talk to you. You really...
I mean, it was so important as a kid. And then also you have people along the way that say, hey, you shouldn't feel that way, or that's not the way you are feeling, even though you know better than that. So it's so, so crucial to have a healthy gut, to pay attention to what your gut is telling you, to pay attention to how you're going to the bathroom and how you're digesting your food and all of that, because that's...
is where the cornerstone of your health is, is your gut. So it definitely, I've had numerous, I had gut issues all my life because I grew up in a very, very stressful household. They thought it was physical. I think it was very emotional. So I held on to things. And when you hold on to emotions, you're holding on to them a lot of times in your gut.
Elissa Goodman (14:25.274) So, and you're not digesting your food, you know you're not absorbing your nutrients. Then I had a lot of antibiotics as a kid because I was sick all the time and we know that over the counter meds, not just antibiotics, are a killer for the microbiome. Anything synthetic, you know, things with fillers, all those things do, and sugar, certain foods, do a number on your gut.
Josh (14:48.727) Yeah, it's remarkable how many things in our day-to-day lives destroy our bodies. You know, there's an interesting statistic that I like, I have hard time saying statistic. That's a tough one. I feel like Jim Carrey, who was that liar, liar or fun with Dick and Jane statistic. But this, this stat will blow you away if you're not familiar. So my listeners may have heard this one already. The United States of America as a global population, it's less than 5%.
Now, inflammatory bowel disease covers Crohn's and colitis. So for those who may not know, you're talking 10 to 50 bowel movements a day with blood and mucus and pain. Bowel movements have been compared to childbirth, okay? So the USA is 5% of the global population, but they have 50% of the world's cases of inflammatory bowel disease. 72% of Americans complain of some kind of gut dysfunction at least once a week that's bloating, constipation, diarrhea, acid reflux, cramping, pain of some kind.
Our guts are an absolute disaster. Why do you think it is that our guts are in such rough shape?
Elissa Goodman (15:54.346) Well, it's because of the food we're eating.
A lot of time, you know, it's the, like I was just saying, it's the sugar, it's the gluten, it's the dairy, you know, it's the processed food, it's the bad seed oils, you know, it's overdoing the animal protein, even though some animal protein isn't bad for you, but some of the animal protein has toxins in it. I mean, it's the toxins. We get all the heavy metals and lead and arsenic in our food and in our water, and then you've got all the medications that we're taking. I mean, people are popping Tylenol Advil like crazy, thinking it's no big deal.
rather than you know the doctor prescribed medicine but that's doing a number on our gut so it's a stress is also doing a number on our gut as well so it's not allowing us to like really digest our food properly so I think that you know we get stressed when we're eating so we don't break down the food as well and it gets stuck in our gut or in our colon or you know a small intestine I mean
I always say this, it kind of blows my mind, but it takes 14 hours for cow dairy and animal protein to go through your small intestine, and it takes about 90 minutes for a plant-based meal. I don't know if you know that, but that's wild. So people are eating breakfast, lunch, dinner, animal protein, cow dairy, and their food is fermenting.
in their gut or in their intestines and their colon. And we really aren't, we're eating enough fiber, we're not eating the right kind of fiber, we're not hydrated, we have an epidemic of dehydration. So there are many, many reasons. And I would say the number one thing though is stress. So the minute we're stressed, our digestive system shuts down.
Josh (17:42.171) Well, something that keeps coming up is stress. Let's use kind of our keyword for the day to day. So stress is the one thing we keep coming back to and I'd love to tap into that a little bit here. Now you got a couple of different books, right? You talked about the cancer hacks, you got pro-aging hacks coming out. How does stress impact both those things, cancer and aging?
Elissa Goodman (18:04.394) Um, it's huge. It's... That was, yeah, like, oh my God. I mean, you know, stress is just... There's a really... One of my favorite books, it's a cancer book, of all times, it's called Radical Remission. Do you know it? By Kelly Turner.
Josh (18:07.81) It's a shitty question that was loaded and I won't apologize.
Josh (18:25.056) I don't, but I'm gonna find out.
Elissa Goodman (18:26.11) No, she did her PhD, and I think she did a couple of years of investigating. It might have been stage four cancer cases. Now, these stage four cancer cases did not do Western treatment. They holistically healed. And she had 10 modalities that she came up with all these people that healed. Seven of them were emotional and stress-related. The eighth one was food, the ninth one was supplements, and the tenth one was exercise.
So it's just, I mean, that says it all. Really.
Josh (18:59.075) No kidding.
Elissa Goodman (19:00.062) And we know when we're stressed or we have negative thoughts and it shuts down our immune response. So we definitely don't do as well when we're stressed and have those subconscious negative thoughts that were constantly recirculating in our body. So when you and I operate maybe 5% conscious, maybe close to 95% unconscious, which also is kind of mind boggling. So a lot of times people don't know
or they don't know they're having these negative thoughts, or they have some trauma in the past that keeps recirculating, that is stressing them out, those thoughts need to be removed, they need to be taken care of. It's hard these days. That's a whole deeper level to all of this stuff we're talking about. I mean, you can go to talk therapy and talk about these thoughts, but to actually release them from the body, from the tissue,
from the cells, from your subconscious thoughts. That's a whole meditation, breath work, plant medicine. That's what does that for releasing those things and can really change people's lives as well.
Josh (20:17.179) There's so much to it that I think we just don't understand, particularly in the Western world. You know, there's this approach to wellness in a holistic level, wellness in a mindset, wellness in self-love and self-care and stress. These are all things that you might find in books like The Body Keeps the Score, or You Can Heal Yourself by Louise Hay. Right, these are all incredible books, but they're not modern practices in the Western world. So I wanna throw a scenario at you.
And I'm gonna make it a tough one, Alyssa, because I trust your expertise. And if the recommendation is bad, we'll just cut it out of the podcast and pretend this conversation never happened. So picture you've got, I'll give you a scenario. You've got a mom at home raising four boys by herself. She's stressed, she's working all these extra jobs. Money is tight, food is tight, she's getting sick. What kind of recommendations?
would you give to someone in that position?
Elissa Goodman (21:17.979) You did say, was it a mom with four kids? You cut out there a little bit. Okay, so mom with four kids, okay, working, right.
Josh (21:21.131) I did. Yeah, sorry. Mama for kids busy working 12 hour job. Money's tight. Kids are not she's stressed. She's sick. What does she do?
Elissa Goodman (21:31.106) So.
I feel like what she does, first of all, I would make sure that she's sleeping okay. Getting her into bed at a decent hour and getting eight hours of sleep for her will be a home run. And that can be challenging. So whether it's some herbal supplements to take to calm her system down before bed or practices in regards to getting her into bed and sleeping well.
huge. Then secondly, I would say that she needs to get a meditation practice if it's just 10, 15 minutes a day. Maybe it's the morning to set up her day so that she doesn't just jump out of bed and raise those cortisol levels and go through the day massively stressed. So we have to have ways to calm our central nervous system down throughout the day. So really 15 minutes is
Elissa Goodman (22:33.473) and really taking care of yourself. And hanging onto the reins in a better way than just letting the reins get out from under you. So I think that's huge. She also absolutely needs to stay hydrated. That's critical, because if you're dehydrated, even the cortisol and adrenaline will be pumping through her system even more so from her adrenals.
Dreading powder that I love and I make sure my clients do up to like 90 ounces of water a day and hopefully with minerals because that's a that's a home run and I would say you know just other easy things for her. I mean
taking time to walk 20 minutes lowers your cortisol, to get outside and get in the sun, just 20 minutes again, short, simple practices, because there's a lot going on, but probably.
first and foremost is really to be able to tap in and go, I really need to come first here. I'm important, these boys and my family are important, but nothing's gonna happen unless I'm okay. So I need to be the one to take care of me, not be selfish, but it's a selfless idea that the moms need to be taken care of and have the inner strength to be able
and they need to take care of themselves first. But that's also something that we don't do. You know, we get on an airplane and we're told that every time we get on an airplane, but we get back to life on land or grounded and we do not do that. We do not take care of ourselves first. So I would.
Josh (24:17.947) Yeah, it's very much putting your own mask on first, isn't it? I love that. Well, let's, uh, let's change directions here a little bit. I'd love to chat about some of your books because they're super cool books. I would love to write a book one day myself when I give myself the time to do so. I started about two years ago and I've got like four chapters and that's where it sat. So maybe I'll try some meditation. So let's talk a bit about your book. You got cancer hacks and pro-aging hacks. I'd love to discuss.
Elissa Goodman (24:20.65) Yeah, yes.
Josh (24:47.547) both, which one would you like to dive into first? Ooh, good choice. That was my choice as well. It was also first on my list. So let's talk a little bit about cancer hacks. For those who have never read it, first of all, where can they find it? Cause they should read it. Second of all, what's it about besides cancer hacks?
Elissa Goodman (24:50.35) Cancer hacks.
Elissa Goodman (25:07.486) So it's on Amazon and it's also on my website, alisagobin.com, they can find it. So it really is about my story and my husband's story. And I would say what we did right and what we both did wrong.
So it covers everything. It covers everything from emotional sleep, diet, supplements, you know, detoxing the body, like picking the right doctors, you know, trying to figure out the right blood work, just really diving in, but it really is a personal, more of a personal story of, you know, where we came up against obstacles and we overcame them or we didn't overcome them.
Josh (25:50.011) Hmm. So walk me through if you could a couple of sort of gave me a synopsis will say sort of a chapter by chapter overview of the book so our listeners can really understand a bit of the details in there. So a lot of great stuff we talked about stress, we talked about food, basic nutrition. What other things do you cover inside of that book that someone who might be dealing with cancer or has a family risk of cancer can really take away from listening to this episode?
Elissa Goodman (26:14.57) I mean, we talk about, I mean.
Definitely the things that are very crucial for cancer, which is the inflammatory foods like sugar. Sugar's a huge one, because that's a killer. So really knowing how to balance the amount of sugar you eat per day, plus also knowing your blood, tapping into your blood sugar levels, that's really crucial. Also, there's cleansing. Daily detoxing and cleansing the body, I think, is crucial.
doing that when I was 32, when I was diagnosed, I started juicing, I started eating like about eight to 10 cups of vegetables per day. That's where all the nutrients are.
It's really about getting the right food so your body can properly detox on a daily basis because we're onslaughted with toxins and we're overloaded with them. Even as we come into the world as kids, babies, we're toxic and I don't think we really realize how toxic we are. So a lot of it is in regards to how to detox the body on a daily basis, easy ways, whether it's through the hydration, whether it's through the green juices, whether it's through the food,
whether it's through infrared saunas or dry brushing or lymphatic massages, you know, there's so many great like modalities out there these days that it's incredible what is offered or even doing IVs or glutathione which is a master antioxidant to help detox or making sure your MTHFR gene, you know,
Elissa Goodman (27:54.658) if you have a defect of MTHFR, which is the phase two detoxification of the body, making sure that if you do have that, you're taking methylated folate and taking care of that.
There's so much in terms of, I feel like I focus on cleansing, detoxing, not hardcore, but you can do it with food and sleep and hydration and exercise and sweat, which we all can easily do. And it doesn't cost any money.
Josh (28:24.923) So that's really operating under the idea that, which I totally agree with, that cancer is not a random disease that just happens. It's not from rolling in a pile of nuclear waste. It's something that doesn't just creep up. It's based on inflammation, stress, and toxicity. And these are what causes inflammatory markers, the spike in mutation in your DNA or your cellular processes, creating this massive replication leading to cancer. Is that right? Love that.
Elissa Goodman (28:47.198) Right, absolutely.
Josh (28:49.819) Now there's a detox bath that I picked up. I have to credit it to Dr. Carrie Matage. I found some of her stuff on Facebook. I'm not sure familiar with the work she's done, but she works a lot of detoxing. And so she recommends a bath with borax, bentonite clay, magnesium and baking soda, which I've actually done myself a few times. And I'll tell you, I've got Candida that I'm working on now. I did a GI map not long ago. It's a process, you know, Candida. And I'm still in it. And so what Candida has done to me is it's created
Elissa Goodman (29:14.593) Yep.
Josh (29:18.855) a lot of gut issues, of course, stress, it's exacerbated ADHD, it's caused a bunch of liver toxicity and sluggishness, it's also created acne in what looks to be almost like a foot fungus. It's not like people might think of fungus like goopy, sticky, disgusting feet, but it's not. It just looks like calluses on the top of my toes. And what I've done is gone to these detox baths. And like normally I go in, I'd scrape, I'd pumice stone, I'd lotion, I'd the works, they'd come back the next day.
pop in a detox bath, they're gone for a month before they come back. It's some pretty powerful stuff.
Elissa Goodman (29:49.878) Wow.
That is really powerful. I mean, I believe in all those items that you mentioned for the bath. I mean, I love, there's a ultra binder that I love from Quicksilver that does have like the bentonite clay and activated charcoal. You know, I mean, magnesium is super crucial. I love Epsom salt baths, but this sounds like a bunch of steps further than that. But I love like also, you know, taking things that remove toxins out of the body
Josh (30:01.457) Mm.
Elissa Goodman (30:20.632) lower pathogens in your gut. Like all the herbs I'm into, like oregano oil or nutribiotic grapefruit seed extract and the ultra-bi- like that activated charcoal, it's changed people's lives in terms of their gut.
Josh (30:37.379) Yeah, well, there are incredible detox protocols out there. I think it's interesting and something I'd like to state very clearly for our listeners. Working in the health field, you understand this probably more than most do, is that when we start looking at food and nutrition, it's the hardest thing to change. The easy one is buy supplements and take those. And I think we often miss it. And I wanna make sure for you listening that these detox protocols, BAS, supplements do not by any means replace nutrition. It's very important to keep that in mind.
but they make an excellent pair with nutrition. It's like, otherwise you're trying to put out a fire, but you're also putting gasoline on it. It's not gonna help anything. So talk to me a little bit here about your next book coming out here called Pro Aging Hacks. By the time this episode airs, that's probably gonna be out. People can find some information about that. So Pro Aging, tell me about it.
Elissa Goodman (31:28.65) Yes. So.
You know, nowadays it is all about turning back the clock. A lot of functional doctors, Dr. Hyman, Peter Atiyah, Tony Robbins, they all wrote great books this year about really feeling vibrant and energized as you age, which is what has happened to me. When I did an age test, I think a couple of years ago, I was 10 years younger than my actual biological age. So that was...
so phenomenal and I felt that way and just there's the protocols to be able to you know turn back the clock are pretty fabulous today in these days.
the blood work, like really diving in and looking at a blood work on an optimal level rather than just a general level, seeing what kind of nutrients you're deprived in or just what's going on with the blood sugar or the hormones or your systemic inflammatory markers. All of that is, or your liver numbers, everything is...
really great there, you know, the NAD has come out for cellular metabolism, which has really changed the game for a lot of people in terms of aging, NAD IVs, ozone. You know, I got COVID last year and I ended up really not feeling well with COVID brainwise. I felt like my head was in a vice and no matter what I did with the modalities that I knew, nothing was helping. And so I went and did
Elissa Goodman (33:09.036) treatments. I know it's not accessible everywhere, but if you're in a major metropolitan city and you find someone good, it was a game changer. Like after four ozone treatments, I felt amazing and also felt better than I did prior to getting the COVID. So there is just so much out there in terms of I want people to know that as they age, they can sleep better, they can have more energy, their digestion can work, their skin can look better.
you know, they can mentally feel great or better than they did prior. I mean, you know, now we know so much these days as I don't want people to really think, oh my God, I'm aging and I'm in my sixties or my seventies and I'm not going to feel great. It's not okay because we have so many years to live a lot more, you know, a lot more years than we did in the past 20, 30 years. I mean, who wants to live that just feeling okay.
You want to feel great. Yeah, or worse, right?
Josh (34:07.699) Or worse. Yeah. I mean, we've really sort of normalize this decline after 40. And I think as the world gets more toxic and people get generally sicker, we've normalized, oh, I'm 30. Oh, this hurts, that hurts. I can't sleep now because I'm 30. It just doesn't make any sense. It's like you said, there's so many more years of vitality ahead of us if we do things properly. Now, I'd love to touch on the ozone thing very quickly because I've used ozone injections. I've injured my neck before I got kicked in the head. It's a long story.
Elissa Goodman (34:28.106) Yes.
Josh (34:36.387) but I've done them for tissue injuries and musculoskeletal stuff. I'm gonna be using ozone actually for some antimicrobial for my sinuses, but I'm also told, of course, it's very toxic to the lungs to breathe it. So when you talk about ozone therapy, I don't want people sucking back a can of ozone. What is it that you have done for ozone therapy that you found so beneficial?
Elissa Goodman (34:47.543) Mm-hmm.
Elissa Goodman (34:51.895) Wait.
Elissa Goodman (34:56.374) That's very true. No, they take your blood and they oxygenate it and then they put it back in to your body. So it's like cleaning up viruses, bacteria, fungus in your blood. It's killing off those things in your blood and actually having your blood go back in cleaner. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's done wonders for autoimmune cancer, lime, mold.
Josh (35:14.671) like a dialysis.
Very interesting.
Elissa Goodman (35:26.354) It's really exceptional.
Josh (35:30.267) That's fascinating. It's something that I'll say I've heard of in the same sense I've heard that unicorns exist, like it's been talked about in passing, you know, but it's not been like, oh, here's a hard science. It's like looking for pictures of Bigfoot. So you see them, but you don't know how real it is. But I'm glad I got like a real case study in front of me to talk to. Ozone blood therapy, it's something I'm gonna look up and look into, because I deal with a lot of autoimmune disease in my practice. And the root causes we see for IBD, number one is gonna be bacterial dysbiosis.
Elissa Goodman (35:45.963) Right.
Josh (36:00.291) every single time. Second to that mold. Third is typically Lyme disease, Bartonella, something like that. And so it's something I'm very curious to explore a bit more and see if I can get some of my, uh, my clients to try.
Elissa Goodman (36:11.806) I mean, it's very hard to get rid of some of those things. They're really like, you know, they hang on for dear life. So that's this, I've just been seeing clients like major turnarounds in terms of autoimmune antibodies going down and Lyme and mold, you know, I mean, it's really a game changer, but it's hard to find.
Josh (36:16.251) do.
Elissa Goodman (36:32.79) people that do the right ozone. That's what's tricky. So I would say that, you know, you really got to investigate and also use your gut instincts as to, you know, where you're going and who you're doing it with.
Josh (36:46.759) Fascinating. Just like anything, you know, I often talk to people about practitioner quality and that's something to explore and dig into and really verify. You know, there's a lot of doctors out there, like any profession, there's engineers and people working at the gas station who are just better at their job than others are. And just because they're doctors doesn't necessarily make them what I'd say, qualified to be filtering my blood through ozone. So what sort of things will we be looking for?
Elissa Goodman (37:12.514) Right.
Josh (37:15.247) for like an ozone therapy, is that something you can speak on?
Elissa Goodman (37:18.87) That's a good question. I'm not sure. I was lucky to find someone in Los Angeles who's been doing ozone for 30 years. And he developed his own technique of ozone. So he developed his own way of putting oxygen into ozone into that blood. So a lot of the places that are around LA, because it's become such a hot thing, hot ticket in terms of people wanting to feel better,
them, the ozone that other places are doing. So it really, I mean, you really wanna find someone that has been doing ozone for many years, who really knows, you know, a lot of them are newer than older, so newer places, not really, you know, like, it's not really the right amount of ozone, it's not really taking you into account of, you know, each time you do an ozone treatment, how you feel,
start to get really tired or what's it called when you like it's a Herx-Hermit reaction? Yeah so when you start to do that then the person doing the ozone should stop and not go on. So that's what's fabulous about this place in Los Angeles and this guy that I go to he basically builds you up with the ozone and so it's great for the body. Yeah.
Josh (38:24.603) Herxheimer. Yeah.
Josh (38:42.735) Very neat.
Josh (38:46.327) Yeah, there's a lot of different ozone devices out there. I actually looked into buying one for my house, just so I could have it for like antimicrobial and tissue injuries and stuff. You can get them for 75 bucks on Amazon, but I guarantee they're not doing the same thing as your $2,000 medical machine. Yeah.
Elissa Goodman (38:59.902) Right, right, it's true. Yeah.
Josh (39:04.207) Well, I wanna talk a little bit more about your pro-aging if we can. Now, you signed on for up to 60 minutes, so you're stuck with me for a little bit, Alyssa. This, this, yeah, you're hired and now you're fired. Your pro-aging hacks, can you give us like a checklist of your top five or top 10 favorite pro-aging hacks that you would use or recommend to somebody? Obviously on a case-by-case basis.
Elissa Goodman (39:13.366) That's fine. Fly with me.
Elissa Goodman (39:19.373) Hehehehe
Josh (39:31.511) I wouldn't recommend people just take these and try them. They could probably make themselves sick and cause damage. But in general, what would you be your top five or 10 different items that you'd want people to look at or consider in this pro-aging?
Elissa Goodman (39:44.138) Well, first I would say sleep.
Sleep is incredibly pro-aging. So I think women need eight to 10 hours of sleep. Men can get away a little bit more with seven hours of sleep. But in order for us to restore our adrenals, we need eight to 10 hours. And most women I talk to do not even get eight hours at all. So that in itself is huge. We all know when we sleep well and maybe investing in an aura ring to see what's happening with your sleep throughout the night, deep sleep, REM sleep.
That could be amazing just to really get a handle on it. I think sleep is crucial. I think, like I said, stress. I have a lot of practices. I love yoga. I'm always trying to de-stress because I'm a very high-stress person. I'm a type A and I'm an Aries and I'm a go-go-go girl.
Josh (40:36.047) You're a type A. I didn't get that from you at all. Ha ha ha.
Elissa Goodman (40:37.83) No, not at all. And it's done a number on me. Even good stress is stress. So I get overexcited about things. So I'm constantly trying to bring myself back and ground myself and also reconnect my head with my body. When I see clients on a daily basis, their head is over here or their body is here. They are not connected. Those two things aren't talking to each other. So I think that is crucial.
shows on your face and it really ages you. But meditation, I have phenomenal like meditation teachers,
notice that I work with to get me back on track for myself, energy healers, just like I said, and yoga and walking and just the sleep, that's really crucial. And really diving into my psyche and finding out what are the messages that I'm telling myself that are working for me and what aren't working for me. So like we talked about earlier with the immune system, it compromised our immune system with the negative thoughts that we have or the trauma that we're hanging on to.
And that has, that's been a game changer for me. I think of all things, diving into the subconscious and I experienced a lot of trauma growing up and seeing what was true.
with what I was telling myself with the trauma or the stress that had gone on in my life and what wasn't true. And then also seeing what the future looked like for myself if I kept holding onto these negative thoughts or this scared feeling of like fight or flight, like always living like the other shoe was gonna drop. That in itself was just very aging, I think for myself.
Elissa Goodman (42:26.622) So it's either therapy or like I said, meditation, breath work, you can get into those thoughts and you can release them. Or journaling has been huge for me. So all of those things like sleep, emotional stuff, the stress, I feel like a lot of times we've got to figure out how to capture what we love to do in our life, hang out with the people that we really do lift us up.
That's huge too. And then I would say the third one would be, I am a huge juicer. I've been juicing for 30 years. And like fruit, like yes, vegetable juice. No fruit at all. Yeah, no fruit at all. No, like I juice, you know, celery, cucumber, lemon, ginger, parsley, cilantro, all the greens. And I've been doing that for years.
Josh (43:01.143) and not steroids like fruit juice. Okay. Just want to be clear. Yeah.
Elissa Goodman (43:19.59) on and off pretty religiously. And I would say that, you know, I get cups of vegetables, either I blend it or I juice it, you know, or I go get it. And that is huge. It actually lowers inflammation in the body. It lowers inflammation in the intestines and in the gut. It really helps keep your motility moving. You know, it also helps with antioxidants and phytonutrients. It's like a liquid IV of vitamins and minerals. I mean...
It's like a home run for anti-aging. So I would say that is huge. And then like also protein. I think that as we age, we need more protein than I think we think we do. I know that a lot of, you know, my vegan clients and I used to be vegan aren't as healthy as they should be. So they're not getting enough protein throughout the day unless they're really, really religious about it.
So I have found that adding more animal protein, clean animal protein, or bovine collagen powders, or cholesterol into my diet has been a game changer for my aging. And then...
I would say with, you know, I'm a huge supplement girl, so I do, I try everything out there. And I love, you know, like really high quality supplements. And I try not to overdo them, but I definitely test myself to see what nutrients I'm deprived in. And I always make sure that I'm like trying to meet those levels or exceed them. And, you know, simple things like vitamin D is so crucial. I do blood work on my clients and nobody's vitamin D is 50 or above.
And really I've seen if you're not 50 or above, you're not gonna have energy or cognitive function. Like you really, seeing people who are over the 50 ml on their blood work, they're energized and mentally more alert, depending on what's going on for them. I mean, you know, CoQ10, another great one for cellular energy.
Elissa Goodman (45:13.462) B vitamins, like the right B vitamins. You know, just there's a lot of vitamin nutrients that come into the picture for myself. The NAD, like I said, the glutathione, all those, you know, I do some peptides, which are hugely anti-aging. That's a whole other podcast in itself, I'm sure. But I feel like, you know, if we can see what we're deficient in, and then...
Josh (45:32.195) Yes it is.
Elissa Goodman (45:40.502) you know, actually take care of it, that's huge. You know, not just like throw supplements at people, like, you know, just blindly, but really do blood work and see the end, do nutrient deficiency tests once a year and see what's going on. And I mean, it's game changing.
Josh (45:57.295) I love that. Now, I do have a quick question for you that I want to throw it as my little curveball is, you know, we've covered it about digestion and digestion timing and all of that. What are your thoughts on plant based? I know you, I kind of have an answer already, but I'd love to kind of elaborate plant based versus animal based diets. There's a lot of advocacy on both sides of a spectrum, right? There's full vegan, there's full carnivore and everything in between.
Elissa Goodman (46:03.327) Okay.
Josh (46:24.547) What do you typically advocate for on a day-to-day basis for yourself or your clients?
Elissa Goodman (46:29.674) I would say that I'm definitely a middle of the road girl. So I feel like...
small amounts of clean animal protein to get the complete protein for people's for muscle and tissue repair as they age, I think is crucial. Unless you're a full vegan, like I have a cleanse that I cook and deliver in Los Angeles and it is mostly vegan. It does have some chicken broth, but if you are a full vegan, we will give vegan broth. But in on that cleanse, we, I really try
Elissa Goodman (47:06.7) the week. I love the fact that they can go on a plant-based diet and like get a reset as well. So, you know, some of them don't do so well on the plant-based, so I'll have them add a little animal protein. It just depends on the person. Everybody's different. So I feel like...
muscle and tissue, muscle building is really important, as you know, and like, really basically doing weightlifting and resistance training and for aging and the way to rebuild muscle is through protein.
So, I mean, and I think we overdo the protein. I think people like eat so much protein, they're not digesting it properly. And that's when I think they get into trouble. Maybe it's fermenting in their gut, you know, and staying there for too long. But a little bit of animal protein, it goes a long way. Like a little, you know.
palm size is like 30 grams of protein. So most people need 70, 75 grams at a minimum and it's hard to get, especially also if you're an intermittent fast, which is very popular these days. So people are just eating two meals or one meal and to get that much protein in the diet, it's hard. But I definitely, I am a foodie. I love everything. I, you know, I don't deprive myself unless they're foods that just don't agree with me and I don't feel good when I eat them.
So other than that, I want to enjoy food and enjoy my life and enjoy like socializing and going out to dinner. And I don't want to be that one that, you know, can't go to a restaurant because I'm
Josh (48:27.227) Mm-hmm.
Elissa Goodman (48:39.018) 100% vegan or that the salmon isn't wild or they're cooking with bad seed oils. I mean, yes, that isn't so great. Definitely agree with that, but it's hard. I don't want to add more stress to my life than what I already put on it because I'm so healthy at home. So I do think about those things when I go out. Yeah. Right.
Josh (48:44.676) Right.
Josh (49:01.331) Yeah, unless for the two evils, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, I kind of got to pick your poison. Do I go out and have fun and de-stress myself and consume a little seed oils or stay at home by myself, have less fun and not have the seed oils? Like, you know, it's just the world we live in and that is what it is. And there's a lot of talk now. I know guys like Paul Saladino talk about this, that, you know, consumption of seed oils can take up to two years for your body to finally turn over all the inflammation and all the by-products and junk created by it.
Elissa Goodman (49:15.626) Yes.
Josh (49:29.999) So it is something I think we need to pick and choose very carefully, but in general, yeah. If you're following these protocols, yes.
Elissa Goodman (49:33.45) Agreed, agreed, yeah. I'm just hoping that they don't do it at home, you know, that they eat healthy and clean at home and then they can go out and, you know, not have to worry as much, but it isn't good.
Josh (49:45.443) Yeah, I think the concern goes down as your total toxic load goes down, it's less to worry about. If your glass isn't already full, putting a little in there is not gonna kill you. Well, Alyssa, I wanna ask you one more question. This is my favorite question to ask. I ask all of my guests this question. Is there anything that we haven't talked about yet or anything you'd like to discuss or say to our audience before we start wrapping things up?
Elissa Goodman (49:54.122) Exactly. Right.
Okay.
Elissa Goodman (50:14.502) I know we touched on this a little bit, but about four years ago I had a bit of insomnia that was really, really bad. Nothing that I seemed to do that I knew how to do would help it. I realized I ended up doing one of my first plant journeys with psilocybum at that time. After that first journey, I really got to see.
you know, how much I didn't love myself, how hard I was on myself, and, you know, how much I was worried about my health. And...
I think that was such a huge pivotal time in my life when I got to see what it'd be like if I was calm and relaxed and had a sense of peace and really, really did love myself, not in an ego way, but just as this person is really important and I'm the number one person to be taken care of and worrying about, again, not just strictly for survival purposes. That was game changing.
So now on a daily basis, whenever I get stressed or I don't feel well or things get out of whack, I can go back to that feeling that I felt on that journey of, wow, I'm loving myself and getting into a state of calm and peace was everything. That was the...
You know, I seen on the cake, it also changed my relationships with everybody around me. It changed. I changed my relationship with my daughters. They saw like that I was more relaxed and more, you know, calm about life. And then they got to relax.
Elissa Goodman (52:06.934) So every, and then everybody around me, I think somewhat got to relax. You know, it was, it was so huge. So I can't preface that enough that a lot of my clients go, I don't, I say to them, do you love yourself? And they're like, I don't even know what that looks like or feels like. Like, what does that mean? I love my kids. I love my husband, you know, but I love myself. So that is something I encounter on a daily basis. That is, I'm...
so dedicated to helping people realize that is not selfish, it's not self absorbing, it's not egotistical. In order to calm down your sexual nervous system, to go into a sympathetic nervous place where you really do heal.
and rest and digest and where all the good stuff happens is you've got to be like, ah, exhale. And that takes, I think that really loving yourself gets you there.
Josh (53:04.231) Hmm. I think that's a fantastic way to wrap this up. I find the information fascinating and there's always so many unique takes on the body and health and wellness. And everybody's got their own spin because of their own story, their own history, their own education, their own experience. And the truth is so much of it is conflicting and completely counterintuitive to what we think we already know. But I think individual experience governs all. And like you said, gut feeling, try things out, see how you feel, lean in and...
give it a go and that's how we find kind of our optimal health.
Elissa Goodman (53:38.546) Exactly, exactly. I mean that, you know, I muscle test all my supplements on me, like everything. I'm always testing everything. I wish I could do that with my clients because I don't see them in person, but I always am trying to teach them to like test things. Don't do what I say just because I say it, but do it because you want to and because it feels right and you know it's right or you know it's making you feel better, whatever it is, you know, whether it's emotional supplements, food, all of it. So.
Josh (54:06.663) Hmm. You're a lot nicer than I am. I'm like, just take it and eat the food I told you to. And this is why you're sick because you're not doing what I told you to do. Very different approaches.
Elissa Goodman (54:15.454) Yeah, I might scream about that, like not in front of them, but...
Josh (54:20.283) But this is why I bring on my favorite is female staff when I bring on other nutritionists because they have such a nice bedside manner and they're so good at talking to people. I'm not. It's my wife loves that quality about me is how non-personable I can be. So well, Alyssa, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for sharing. You got so many years of knowledge and expertise and we really appreciate you just laying it out for the last hour.
Elissa Goodman (54:27.326) I'm going to go to bed.
Elissa Goodman (54:47.942) Well, thank you for having me. I'm so honored to be on your podcast. So
Josh (54:52.655) Well, it's been an absolute pleasure. People keep saying that and it still shocks me, but thank you. So I'm just going to
Elissa Goodman (54:59.758) You do great work.