Once I really realized, and once people actually started telling me the things they heard me say they did, and there they started reversing all these irreversible diseases. That's when I realized I had been manipulated by these pharmaceutical companies this whole time. And then I started finding out about all the things that pharmaceutical companies do. They are trying to treat symptoms only, because all medications, and people think that that Medicare, oh, man, they probably have three or four adverse effects, not even close on every single medication out there has at least 30 adverse effects with major harmful effects means they made the drug to do this, but yet it affects all these other things in the body that they don't know. And then you need more medication.

Intro: 00:47 

Welcome to the Defining Moments podcast, where leaders, innovators, and everyday heroes share the moments that changed everything. These are the stories behind resilience, purpose, and legacy. Now let's dive into today's defining moment.

Melanie Warner: 01:03 

Hi everyone. It's Melanie Warner here, the host of Defining Moments TV show and podcast. What happens when you've spent nearly three decades helping people with medication, only to discover the answers that you've been looking for might begin long before that prescription pad. Today's guest says one conference changed not only his entire career, but his entire understanding of health. So that's coming right up.

First, I'd like to acknowledge our sponsor Defining Moments. This is our show where we explore the moments that change how we think, how we lead, and how we live. Because sometimes one little discovery can change everything. I'm Melanie Warner, founder of Defining Moments Press, the host of the Defining Moments podcast and TV show where we chat with authors, experts, corporate leaders, high level coaches, and people who are turning their experience into best selling books, premium brands and powerful media platforms. This episode is brought to you by Defining Moments Press. 

We are a US-based publishing company, and we help experts around the world to write, publish, and promote a non-fiction book to elevate their expertise, their brand, and create meaningful impact in eight weeks or less. So today's guest is no stranger to that process. He's also written a book. We're going to hear a little bit more about that today. Please welcome Dr. Steve Hughlett. 

Thank you for being here.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 02:28

Oh, thank you so much for having me here. This is going to be wonderful.

Melanie Warner: 02:32

Oh absolutely. Now you guys Dr. Steve spent more than 35 years as a clinical pharmacist before one assignment completely changed the direction of his career. And what he learned while researching childhood obesity challenged many of the assumptions that he had held through decades in health care. Today, he educates people about nutrition, metabolic health, reducing dependence on medications when appropriate, and working alongside health care providers and his wonderful wife to help people pursue healthier lives. So, Dr. Steve, thank you again for being here.

I am going to ask you a couple of questions. We're just going to hop right in if you're okay with that.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 03:13

Sure. Go for it.

Melanie Warner: 03:15

All right. So after 27 years of being a pharmacist, you were asked to speak on childhood obesity. Looking back, why was that assignment so different from every other presentation that you had given?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 03:28

The main thing is, all the other presentations that I gave at this was an annual pediatric seminar that I was talking at, and it was always about medicine or disease state or anything like that. And this time they asked me to speak on childhood obesity. And, you know, I really didn't know anything about nutrition. And I just knew the same stuff that I've been spoon fed through my entire career about the food pyramid and how you have to eat mostly, you know, grains and breads and pastas is the biggest part of it. And if you want to lose weight, you got to decrease calories and exercise more.

And, and all this stuff that I have now found, it is absolutely ridiculous. The most opposite thing we could ever know. And so it made me find out that that's not true, that's actually wrong. And that's the best. That is the actual path that leads to not only type two diabetes. 

And again, type two diabetes is like an umbrella disease. If you have type two diabetes, that's like saying I have high blood pressure. That means you have everything you have. You have a fatty liver, you have a fatty pancreas, you have a fatty heart, you have all these things. And once I found out about this and I started reading this book, there's one main book that I read that just totally the whole time I was reading, it's like, what, what? 

This isn't, this isn't true. This isn't what I've been taught all along. And I just kept reading it and I almost got irritated like this can't be. But yet it made perfect sense. The book made perfect sense. 

So as soon as I closed that book, I started getting other books and other books. And that's, that's what all this is. I could not stop reading and, and learning about what was going on. And once I found out that all these things that I was told was irreversible, you know, progressive, chronic, irreversible, and people are changing them all the time. Type two diabetes. 

I've always thought that that was supposed to be progressive, chronic, irreversible. And now I'm telling people they're reversing their diabetes all the time. And they're reversing their fatty liver and rheumatoid arthritis and irritable bowel syndrome and all these other conditions that I've always thought was irreversible. And so I, I, after I gave the talk, everybody came up and said that was because I changed, I changed the talk and started telling everybody this. And they all came up and told me that I needed to write a book. 

So that's what I did. I wrote a book, and then my wife told me I needed to start a podcast. So I did that also. And then and it wasn't even me going out there. People were coming to me after, you know, I'd give a talk or something. 

I'd give a book. And then later, sometimes within a month later, they'd be contacting me saying, I listened to what you said, and I'm off on my diabetic medications right now. I thought, really? And then I had, I had had people say, you know, they had rheumatoid arthritis for the last 15 years being treated with it, and now they have no pain at all. They're on zero medications, high blood pressure, everything. 

So that convinced me. It's like, okay. Okay. Now, I personally know these people that are actually reversing all these diet, all these things like type two diabetes. And I, I felt, I felt betrayed, I felt hurt, I felt manipulated like my entire career. 

I mean, I went to college for 12 years, and practiced for 35 years. And I never saw anybody get better. I mean, unless it's something like trauma or something like this, they just kept coming in and getting their medications every single month, getting their medications, getting bigger and bigger and more and more sick. And then they find out they're on dialysis, which is the, you know, number one reason for somebody going dialysis, type two diabetes, they're getting fatty liver disease, they're getting all these conditions. And now, finally, I thought, I can help you, I know, I know for a fact this, this can help. 

And the answer is so simple, not quite easy. But the answer is so simple in how these people can now reverse it. That's why a lot of them did it even without our help, because they were so sick of it. They said, whatever I need to do, I'll do. And that's what they did.

Melanie Warner: 07:34

So what would you say was the biggest defining moment for you as a pharmacist or in your professional career?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 07:42

That once, I really realized that once people actually started telling me the things they heard me say they did, and there they started reversing all these irreversible diseases. That's when I realized I had been manipulated by these pharmaceutical companies this whole time. And then I started finding out about all the things that pharmaceutical companies do. They are they, they, they are trying to treat symptoms only because all medications and people think that that Medicare, oh, man, they probably have 3 or 4 adverse effects, not even close on every single medication out there has at least 30 adverse effects with major harmful effect means they made the drug to do this, but yet it affects all these other things in the body that they don't know.

Melanie Warner: 08:29

And then you need more medication.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 08:30

Without a doubt more medication.

Melanie Warner: 08:33

I remember you saying to me, like you were shocked as a pharmacist to understand that even with diabetes, that taking the diabetes medicine actually made it worse.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 08:41

Yeah.

Melanie Warner: 08:42

And that created other issues that made you dependent on more medication, which made me mad because I know people that have suffered with both type one and type two, that could have been a completely unnecessary epidemic, wouldn't you say?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 08:55

Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt. And when I found out exactly the history of diabetic medications and realized this was on purpose, they did this to make more. They even admitted it. They didn't even make any new diabetic drugs from 1985 to 2000.

Didn't even make one because they said there weren't enough type two diabetics. And from 2000 to 2025, they came out with an additional 25 new diabetic medications. And the reason why is because of diabetes, they I've always been told this diabetes is a problem of having two high blood sugar. And whatever you do, you've got to get that blood sugar down. So I believe that. 

And all the patients believe that all the physicians out there, we they all believed it. And now I know that is not true. Having high blood glucose is a symptom of diabetes. Diabetes is insulin resistant and a full fat cell. When a fat cell gets so full, you can't put any more fat in it because all glucose gets turned to fat. 

That cells becomes resistant, and the more fat cells you fill up, the more resistant you become. And so while they're having everybody focus on glucose, they say, my drug will help get that glucose down. But the way all diabetic medications work, they either make your pancreas produce more insulin or they make your cells more sensitive to insulin or both. That's how they all work. And that's when it got me. 

It's like we are giving people we're, we're giving them the wrong. We're taking their eye off the ball. We're having to focus on the glucose. Everybody's wearing the CGM and they're testing their blood glucose all the time, and they want to see what meds. It doesn't matter. 

I mean, yes, that's kind of good to know where your blood glucose is, but what you don't know is how much insulin it takes to keep that blood sugar low. So if you go to a doctor and he sees your blood sugar is normal, he was like, hey, you're fine. But that's very possible it is not true. It's how much insulin have you built up over the years and decades? How much insulin does it take to keep your blood glucose normal? 

Because nobody checks fasting insulin. And that is the one thing that we're having every one of our clients do. That's the only way you're going to know if you are pre-diabetic or diabetic or healthy.

Melanie Warner: 11:11

Yeah.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 11:11

It's horrible.

Melanie Warner: 11:12

I had dinner with a good friend, an old friend who we always get together every year to celebrate our birthdays. And she was just recently diagnosed with diabetes. And she was shocked. She didn't even understand the symptoms. And so she started wearing a glucose monitor.

And even just like at dinner, you know, not having sugar per se, but just having something like a tortilla or a fajita. It spiked her blood sugar. And she's like, how did that happen? There's not even any sugar in this. And so people don't always, they're not always educated about what sugar and what glucose is like, you know, carbs, your body can process carbs like sugar. 

Correct. So what advice do you give people for recognizing symptoms? And then what should they do immediately if they're concerned about this?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 11:59

The symptoms can really kind of vary, even getting high blood pressure, a lot of times that's because you're getting insulin resistance. A lot of times it is a lot of stress, you know, different things like that. The main thing is if you find out that you're hungry all the time and you are thirsty all the time, those are the two big ones. That's like, why is this going on? Although that doesn't help either.

Because like you were saying earlier, people eat all this food from the food companies thinking that the food companies would not put anything out there that is bad, when in reality, food companies put nothing out there that is healthy. It is all bad glucose. The difference between sugar and blood sugar. That's two tablespoons of sugar. That's a molecule that's 50% glucose and 50% fructose. 

Blood sugar is only the glucose portion. So that's another way they take your eye off the ball, because they want you looking at your labels and looking at sugar or sugar free or all this stuff. That just means they didn't add any more glucose fructose combinations. But glucose is the basic building block of everything that comes from the plant. So definitely everything that man makes in a laboratory. They load their stuff with glucose and fructose and seed oils and chemicals. 

Everything is toxic to your body. But anything that comes from a plant has glucose because plants use glucose for their energy source and also for their structure. We, you, we're supposed to use fat for our energy source. And there's a huge difference because if you use glucose for your main energy source, which our bodies can for a little while, What that leads to is obesity, fatty liver disease, fatty pancreas, fatty kidneys, fatty brain dementia, Alzheimer. When you use glucose as an energy source, your body doesn't know what to do with all that glucose because we don't, we aren't made out of glucose. We don't need glucose. 

So that's why the food pyramid was the most ridiculous, the thing that's killed more people ever, because it's continuously killing people.

Melanie Warner: 13:58

It's and it wasn't the food pyramid created by the food companies and not scientists. It's not like there weren't any nutritional facts in it. It was literally just created to sell more. Yes, it is.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 14:10

It was, it was, it was. And I was told, and I haven't checked this for sure, but it makes sense that it was actually the sugar industry actually came up with the food pyramid and gave it to the food companies so they could start promoting that. And that's why they're doing everything they're doing now, you know, stay away from red meat. Stay away from raw milk, stay away from animal foods. Stay away from butter.

Stay away. They want you away from the healthy things because they know that will get you healthy and that will reverse any of your diseases. They want you eating their stuff.

Melanie Warner: 14:40

Yeah, they profit from you being sick, which we.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 14:42

Without a.

Melanie Warner: 14:43

Doubt, which we all know. But I mean, it's funny. I always joke and say, you know, all my pharmacist friends are like good drug dealers. You know what I mean? They're the drug dealer next door. That's the good one.

But they're, you know, because everybody's pushing pills and that's the job. Like the doctors, the whole system thrives on people being sick. And the doctors get kickbacks for prescriptions a lot of times. And then the pharmacists are just trying to process the requests and the need, you know, and it's like everybody's just kind of stuck in that system of taking a pill for your illness. But you're saying that, that these medications are specifically designed to make you sicker so that you need more medication. 

And then you got the food. And I hate the fact that I think that food and drugs should not even be in the same sentence. But I do believe that food is medicine. I think there's a huge conflict of interest with the FDA. Like food and drugs should not be regulated by the same people. 

Because it's a conflict with both. And the food has been horribly compromised, which we all know. And the beauty of consumers is we do have the power to vote with our dollars. So the more that we talk to experts like you, the more that people kind of come out of the woodwork and educate people, especially people that are professional doctors or people that are medical experts, nutritionists, pharmacists that are seeing this across the board and, and going out against kind of their, their belief system, their whole life, like you said, you were professionally trained to believe these things by these companies. Right. 

And you decided to take a stand. Yeah. So at what point did you realize, I don't think I can continue practicing exactly the way I have been.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 16:29

It. Right after I wrote my book and I started the podcast and started talking to people, I was still working. But I noticed when I walked in, I just, just internally, I felt dirty. I felt like I have wanted my whole career to help people with their health to get healthy. That's why I went to school.

That's why I did everything. And now I'm walking into this system that just sits here and just churns out people using medications for nothing. And we weren't helping anybody. And eventually I thought, I, I, I, I can't do this anymore. And what actually happened, it was, I was just getting ready to turn 59.5. 

So I started looking into, when can I start living off my retirement? You know, not not to live off of it, but to give me some money so I can actually start a career where I can actually start helping, helping people actually get off this, get off the medication, reverse their diabetes. These people come and they are the saddest thing. It's actually the most wonderful thing. But they tell me after they've gotten off all these things, all these drugs and they've reversed their diseases, they're like, I truly felt like I was dying. 

I just, I was just sitting around waiting to die. I was getting heavier. I was getting more medicated and, and I didn't have an out. And now, now they do. They've lost weight. 

They've got rid of the medications for their disease that you know the pain. So many people have pain that I didn't realize. Foggy head energy. These are all things that I found out since I wrote the book and started the podcast, these are things that a lot of people are having issues with all the time. And I didn't know until they came to me. 

They're gone. They're gone. I used to be dragging all the time. I used to have pain when I got out of the bed and I'd walk in the morning, you know, and then I'd hurt there and I couldn't lift my shoulder. and they're like, it's all gone. 

And now I have more energy than I've ever had. I don't even know what to do with the energy because that's a deal. When you change your nutrition, it doesn't take special supplements, it doesn't take exercise. In fact, we tell people, if you're obese, don't even think about exercising. You don't need to, you will lose your weight and you will get all the fat off your organs just by changing what you eat. 

Which goes back to what I said earlier, the food company, because the food pyramid and all this other stuff, they're all they're all have their little hands in the till. By doing that, they have forced people to use glucose for their energy source. And we don't have a lot of glucose stores. So whenever you eat that, you feel like you have energy for about 2 to 3 hours, and then all of a sudden you start going down. Well, as soon as you start going down like, oh, I'm getting hypoglycemic, I'm getting lightheaded, I need more food. 

So they call what the food manufacturer, they call that food. And so they eat more of this food, which is just more glucose as glucose and fructose. And now they pick back up again, and then they drop back down. Then they pick it back up again. That is what leads to fat storage first in your fat cells and then around your organs. 

And that means every organ in your body. Once you switch that over and start using your fat for your fuel source like God made us to do, that's what makes me sick. Everybody thinks, you know, you know, medical professionals, they're smart and scientists are all so smart. All we're doing is trying to figure out, what did God do? God has made something miraculous, marvelous here, and we think we can fix it by changing this one little thing. 

And that's when we find out it screws everything else up, which goes back to the adverse effects most drugs have anywhere from 30 to well over 100 adverse effects, just like statins. They're. They are toxic.

Melanie Warner: 20:10

Most. Wait, let me stop you for a second. Let's say here that again, most drugs have 30 to 100 adverse effects.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 20:18

Or over 100. Yes.

Melanie Warner: 20:19

Wow. On your body.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 20:21

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And what happens? So you take that one that has 32/100. And now you start having these adverse effects.

So now they give you another one to take care of that symptom. Well that has another 30 to over 100 effects. So now they start interrelating. So now then that's what adverse effects are. That's kind of what our big job was when people get put on medication. 

Look, are there any adverse effects? Of course there are when.

Melanie Warner: 20:44

It's creating the problem. And I think that you also mentioned there was a correlation between childhood obesity that was being misdiagnosed. And so what's shocking to me is how many young kids are on these multiple medications. Yes. And now you've got generations of kids, parents and grandparents that are just taking meds every day to get through the day.

So it's creating a long term, you know, generational health issue that is keeping these companies wealthy.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 21:16

And what makes that so hard is because it has been going on since our guidelines came out in 1977. A little bit before that, but that's when it started happening. So now these. All these people are being born now, just like you said. They say, well, my grandparents had it and my parents have it.

And I have it's genetic, which is another thing that's what doctors are telling her, right? This is a genetic thing, it is not a genetic thing. I mean, there may be a tiny portion of somebody out there genetic. If it was genetics, we would have seen type two diabetes way before 1977. We didn't see any of that. 

We didn't see heart attacks. We didn't see dementia. We didn't see Alzheimer's. You look up any disease that you want to look up and see when it started, and most of them are just kind of going around the level until around the late 70s, early 80s, and then all of a sudden they just start skyrocketing, just like diabetes. Right now we have another just in America. 

We have anywhere from 2 to 3 million more types more every single year, type two diabetics being diagnosed Worldwide, I think it is like 23 million newly diagnosed every year that people come up with. That's not genetics. That is what pharmaceutical design is.

Melanie Warner: 22:28

Can you explain the difference between type one and type two diabetes? Because I always get them confused and I think other people do as well.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 22:35

Yeah. And that's really interesting that that kind of also lets you know how crazy what's going on right now is right now. I mean, in the last 20, 30, 40 years, type one diabetes means your pancreas stops producing insulin. It just stopped producing insulin. And this is usually called childhood obesity or I mean, anyway, anyway, it'll come to me, but you don't produce any insulin.

So long before the 1920s, because that's when we invented that's when insulin was invented. Before that, these people would come in with type one diabetes. So they don't produce any insulin. They came into the doctor and they were so emaciated, they had no fat, no fat on their bones. They had no energy. 

They said that their glucose, blood glucose was like over a thousand. So these people, they were eating this stuff. They didn't have any insulin, so their body didn't know what to do with all this glucose. So it was going up and it started burning the fat. So when insulin came along, they said, now we can give you some carbohydrates and we can give you insulin. 

And that insulin will turn those carbohydrates into fat, and we can start fattening up your fat cells again, which will give you your long lasting insulin. I mean, your long acting energy because because we have fat cells, all our body just, just put in perspective real quick, if you take all the glucose storage that you have, which is 10% of your liver, 1% of each skeletal muscle, all the glucose storage you have in your body comes about 2400 calories. That's it. £1 of fat has 4000 calories. So if you have £10 of fat on, you've got over 40,000 excess calories that you're not using glucose. 

When you only have 2400 calories, that's about enough energy to have you sleep all day long for 24 hours. That alone lets you know, oh my gosh, God did not design us that way. God did not design us to use glucose as an energy source. He designed us to use fat as an energy source. And when you use fat for your energy source, you burn the fat and that goes into your muscles and you get the fat off your organs. 

And that's why everything reverses. That's all we do with our program is get people away from being glucose burners to, to fat burners. But so anyway, so type one diabetics, they come in emaciated, tired, and they die. They were dying. The insulin saved their lives. 

Now fast forward type two diabetes means you have way too much insulin, way too much insulin. So now you're insulin resistant. So these are the people that when they eat stuff, their pancreas produces all this insulin and it starts turning it all into fat and storing it. So it's going to be producing insulin for years, decades while it's sitting here and storing up all the fat cells. Now that's genetics. 

How many fat cells? How many fat cells you have on the outside of your body versus now those are full. And now you start going on the inside. That's a whole nother topic. But that's what started happening now that they have a focus on glucose. 

So they're giving us medications that make our insulin go higher. So you have, you have a pre-diabetes for it, that's not a 1CA 5.7 to 6.4. Like, like we've been taught, like your physicians have been taught, prediabetes means your insulin levels are high and your glucose levels are low. And that can happen for like decades. And again, the only way you're going to know that is to get your fasting insulin level checked. 

But now there's actually what's called type two or double diabetes, because these people that their pancreas doesn't produce any insulin, so they are type one diabetic. So they have to get insulin. They have been taught by the medical system that it doesn't really matter as long as you can eat whatever carbs you want. You just need to make sure that you're giving yourself enough insulin so your blood glucose doesn't go up because of carbohydrates and glucose. Same thing. 

So if there's 50g of carbohydrates in something, that means there's 50g of glucose in something. And that's again, marketing where they say, you know, they have you look at the sugar, we have everybody look at just total carbs, total carbs. That's what you need to look at. And for every four grams of carbohydrates or every four grams of glucose, same thing, that's kind of equal to a teaspoon of sugar that you would see in your cabinet.

Melanie Warner: 26:39

I've heard from nutritionists and tell me if this is true and maybe, you know, like if you're going to have a carb, add a fat to it, that it doesn't actually spike your glucose. If you add a fat, like if you have a piece of bread and you add butter that it's supposed to balance it out so it won't spike. Is that true?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 26:55

No, no, no no. Actually, that is the worst combination you can do. Because if you just eat fat by itself. Okay. You say you eat a rib eye.

So you've got protein. You have the fat. It's all about your insulin levels. Fat does not affect your insulin levels at all. It doesn't. 

And insulin. Insulin is the only thing that determines whether you're going to store fat or whether you're going to burn it. Insulin. That's the one hormone that does that. When your insulin levels are high, it forces you to store fat. 

You cannot burn it. And I can tell you exactly why that is. When it's low, it forces you to eat the fat out of your fat cells. Okay. And use that for your energy source. 

You can't store it.

Melanie Warner: 27:35

Okay.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 27:36

When you and if you think of God and this is going to go back to your question, because when you think of God, when you think of nature, nowhere in nature do you see fat and carbohydrates together. It's not there. There's nowhere. They both have plants and animals have protein. But then again, like I said, animals have protein and fat and plants have protein and carbohydrates, plants and glucose.

Now some have more glucose in it. So flour is just powdered glucose. So that's why they say anybody, if you eat anything with flour, that's powdered glucose. Okay. And I'm going to get back to the insulin thing too. 

And starch. Starch is just long chains of glucose. Everything is glucose. So if you're having issues, you want to stick to the plants that grow above the ground because there's going to be less glucose in that. And that will usually be fine. 

The ones below the ground like potatoes, sweet potatoes, those have lots of glucose in it. Okay.

Melanie Warner: 28:30

Melanie Warner: 28:30

Oh, that's, that's really helpful. That's, that's actually really helpful. So root vegetables, anything that's grown below the ground tends to have more glucose. Anything grown above the ground has less glucose. That's really helpful.

Okay.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 28:43

So now back to your question. I eat a rib eye and that's all I have is a rib eye. So there's protein. Protein might spike your insulin a little bit, you know, depending on how much meat you're eating, but it'll spike it just a little bit. Fat doesn't do it at all.

So when you eat that meal, your insulin levels are low. So you're fat. They act like it's glucose or fat. Fat is used for many things in our body. Every single cell in your body. 

The cell membrane is made out of fat or cushioned. You know the joints are cushioned by fat or our visceral organs. They're cushioned by fat. We use fat for everything. Fat soluble vitamins. 

You have to have fat for that. Glucose has one function, and that's fight or flight energy. That's what it's supposed to be used for. So if I eat a ribeye with all this fat, it keeps my insulin levels low. I'm circulating that fat around to all the parts of my body that need all that fat and need all that protein. 

And that's how it is. It's not going into the fat cells. It's not being stuffed. Once I eat a carbohydrate with that, and most people eat a lot of carbohydrates with that, if you're sticking with broccoli or cauliflower or something like that, you're going to be fine. There is glucose in it, but not that much.

Melanie Warner: 29:51

Melanie Warner: 29:51

Yeah. It's not like the caveman was like, oh, I caught a wild boar, I'm going to eat it, but I need to wait till the risotto comes around.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 29:58

Exactly, exactly. And that's what I've also learned, is when I need clarity, I think, okay, what happened with Adam and Eve? What, what, what , what, what were they doing? They weren't on prescriptions. They weren't eating all these carbs.

They weren't eating all this bread and all this stuff. And what we have in the grocery stores is not bread. If you have actual, real, real sourdough bread, that's going to be fine. It's healthier than the regular bread, but still, it's still going to have a little bit.

Melanie Warner: 30:26

Melanie Warner: 30:26

And to clarify. So anything with the word enriched on the label is not healthy. No, it means it's man made ingredients that they added to it for the patents or for the recipes. But yeah, so you want to stick with things that don't say enriched, processed, obviously processed. Like you said, flour is like powdered glucose.

I love that. That's really helpful.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 30:51

So now take that same meal. Now I have the ribeye, but now I have the bread. I have a baked potato. I baked a potato. Yeah.

So now once you eat that, your insulin levels are high. Yeah. So now your insulin levels are high.

Melanie Warner: 31:05

Even though there's no, it's not like, hey, I'm not putting sugar on it, but it's like, because it's processed as glucose.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 31:12

Yeah, it breaks it down. Everything you eat, there's three main macronutrients. It's protein, fat, and carbohydrates. That's it. And that's that.

So your bloodstream doesn't see what you're eating. It doesn't see a rib eye steak. It doesn't see a baked potato because your intestines, your stomach and intestines and your mouth takes care of all that. It breaks it down. So all our bloodstream sees is the basic building block. 

So when we eat protein, our bloodstream sees amino acids. When we eat fat, our bloodstream sees fatty acids. When we eat carbohydrates, our bloodstream sees glucose. So it all gets broken down into glucose. And that's where that's why. 

That's why they try to make you, you know, like, oh, get your glucose down, glucose down. But they're trying to get everybody to stop looking at the insulin levels. And that's where I'm back. Also the double diabetes. We were telling all these people who don't produce any insulin, you can eat whatever carbs you want, and just as long as you give yourself insulin. 

So now you have these people that used to before insulin came out, they came in emaciated, no energy. And now you've got obese type one diabetics. Never.

Melanie Warner: 32:16

And then you have people that are super skinny and they're diabetic and they don't look unhealthy. And I've seen that too, in just people close to me where they can eat whatever they want and never gain weight. And you think they're healthy, but you like you're saying they have fatty liver, they have fatty brains, they have all this fat. Even though it's not showing as visceral fat, it's still unhealthy. Even though they look on the outside like they're thin or they could be healthy.

That's exactly it.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 32:41

Right.

Melanie Warner: 32:42

Let's imagine somebody's listening and they're they're overwhelmed by so much conflicting nutrition advice, because obviously they're hearing all these different things from so many people like fitness, like I found to like even the guys at the gym or the women, you know, people trying to help you with fitness don't often know much about nutrition. I know doctors, if you look at how many years they go to med school, on average, it's years. And yet if you look at how much they study nutrition, it's almost zero. If you ask any of them, like not even one hour. And yet we're trusting some of these people in these professional spaces to give us nutrition advice.

So somebody listening to this, they're feeling overwhelmed by all this conflicting nutritional advice. Where should they begin?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 33:26

Oh my gosh, it's it's, there's so many books. They can start by buying my book. Yeah.

Melanie Warner: 33:32

Tell us about your book. Your Plate Is Your Fate, right?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 33:35

Yeah. It's called Your Plate Is Your Fate. But I mean, seriously, there are tons of books. This is not just me. I didn't just come up with this because I wouldn't have.

I was already brainwashed. I was already in the system. So I didn't know this until I started.

Melanie Warner: 33:48

But a book became a defining moment in your life. And that's what I love. That's why. Why do we do what we do? Because it inspired you to think differently, to go against an entire belief that you believed your whole life and even invested in a career and shifted something so powerful in you that look at what it's done to not only change your own health, but so many other people.

Yes. From just that book and then these other books. So Your Plate Is Your Fate. So, so, so tell us, where can they get the book and explain what does that mean?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 34:19

Your plate is afraid of just that people. Whether every time you eat the food that you eat is either going to make you sick or it's going to make you heal. And that's almost. I mean, it's one or the other. And when you're eating glucose all the time, and again, I'm not against fruits and vegetables, you know, but if you're diabetic, you do need to watch which ones you eat.

And, you know, everybody says, oh, I, you know, I eat healthy, I eat, I eat salads and I eat fruit. And. But when you think fruit has fructose and all plants have glucose. So fruit has glucose and fructose. And that's what sugar is. 

Sugar is glucose fructose. So people think they're being good because they're not eating sugar, but they just eat fruit all day long, just like a bear. When they hibernate, that's what they do. They go around and they scavenge all the berries that are in the area, and they hibernate that fattens them up and they hibernate. But yeah, so once, once I wrote the book and once people started reading it and started telling me that, because that's what the book is, the book is when I started, when I wrote this book, I had just, I had just learned all this stuff. 

I went and gave the talk. And in fact, my wife took my talk, the first talk I gave and just had it sent to Fiverr and had it just kind of transcribed for me. And I thought, well, I've almost got a backbone for a book. So I just went and started typing all the things around that I was, I was mind dumping is what I was doing. I just, I had all this. 

Almost anger, almost, almost like an anger That's. And I know I and I'm sorry come off because I think I come off angry too, but I am angry with the pharmaceutical companies. I'm angry with the food companies, sugar industry, chemical industry, the big ag, they're all feeding and they're making every one of those are making trillions of dollars off sick people. And they're trying to convince everybody that what they're doing is right. So when I wrote the book, I just, I just, I just thought dumped everything I was learning. 

I just tried to write. And I, that came out like five years ago and I've learned so much, but nothing that contradicts what I said there. Right. But I know a lot.

Melanie Warner: 36:24

I think you could call it passion. Passion is the other extreme of anger. I'd rather people be angry and passionate because that's how change happens than being complacent and passive, which is what we're just told. Just eat this and be healthy, right? Like, which is not true.

And, and then so many things that are disguised as food today. Like that's the stuff that makes me angry. And, you know, we have, I have a, we have a I'm an executive producer of a PBS TV show that also teaches people about this stuff that's very disruptive in nature because we're we got so mad at like the lies that are being told about food out there that we created this whole TV show. So I know that there are people that are literally hungry for this content that want to learn more. So they can get your book online or on Amazon, I'm assuming. 

Right.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 37:12

Right. Yeah.

Melanie Warner: 37:13

It's your book. Okay. Yeah. And it's here.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 37:15

In all forms.

Melanie Warner: 37:16

Your Plate Is Your Fate. So check that out, you guys. And then tell us you also have a podcast, right? What's the podcast called?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 37:23

And the podcast is a Nutrition Prescription. It's a wellness versus medication nutrition prescription.

Melanie Warner: 37:30

Okay. That's awesome.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 37:31

And that's why it's wellness versus medications because it's kind of one or the other. If you, if you hone in your nutrition, which basically means stay away from all laboratory made food. But what we say is if God made it, played it, if a laboratory made it, hate it.

Melanie Warner: 37:46

And that's.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 37:47

That's kind of what we do. So anything from a grocery store, seriously, if you've got a list of labels, you don't need to know everything I guarantee it's chemicals. No, I.

Melanie Warner: 37:57

I actually get angry. I get so mad when I go to the grocery store because I look around and think, this is all killing people. Like I get so mad, like I'm and I don't want to buy anything in there. And then I get this food anxiety where I just don't want to eat at all. Because in my head, everything I consume is going to kill me.

So it's like, I think that's where people feel anxious about food because they're aware of it. They don't trust big food companies, big ag, because they're all in bed with big pharma and big hospitals and like, they're all designed to keep us sick. We know that. So what's the one small change that you've seen consistently produce meaningful results for people?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 38:37

Quit buying food from the grocery store, find a local food farmer's market or farmer's group, and usually farmers and there's people becoming aware of this, you know.

Melanie Warner: 38:49

Know where your farmers go.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 38:50

Know your.

Melanie Warner: 38:50

Farmers market.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 38:51

Yeah. Right. And so, so we always tell them, if you're going to eat fruits and vegetables, eat them seasonally, if they aren't actually growing during the season that you're eating them, you know, they're genetically modified. They have chemicals on them that are genetically modified. So if it's your grocery store, you have no idea.

I guarantee that almost everything is genetically modified because they're trying to make everything bigger. They're trying to make everything sweeter, you know, bananas, watermelons, grapes, everything. They're trying to make them bigger.

Melanie Warner: 39:16

We know it is GMO. You might have heard, you guys may have heard GMO genetically, genetically modified. Is it an organism? Organism yeah, GMO. And so that means that that organism was grafted or put together by humans as opposed to growing it in the ground.

And sometimes it's just created in a lab. I mean, there's so many weird things happening with food these days. So the food that we think is food when we this is what I really don't like is we're so misled and lied to, specifically thinking innocently that we're going and buying food, not to mention organic fruits and vegetables. Even if you think you're eating healthy, if you're not eating organic, you're probably getting some type of pesticides. Yeah. 

Which you're either getting the pests or the pesticide in your body, which isn't good.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 40:03

And everything else pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, insecticides. There are so many chemicals that are going into our bodies.

Melanie Warner: 40:11 

So I think this is where I know I feel overwhelmed because it's like, what am I supposed to do? Go grow my own food again and become a pioneer and go backwards a hundred years, like where I, I got to go and do everything myself because I can't trust anybody. Like that seems extreme too. Right. And, and so where like, I guess my biggest question is when you think about it, is there one thing in everybody's pantry that you're like, you got to start with that first, like do that first, get rid of that first.

What would that be?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 40:45

And anything with and this, this wipes it out because the obvious ones are sugar flour and seed oils. If you look in your pantry and Theresa and I go to the store and we look at labels all the time, if you just say wipe out seed oils, because seed oils are extremely inflammatory to your body, all this soybean oil, safflower oil, all this stuff, if you just wipe that one thing out, you look at your labels, anything that says safflower oil or sunflower oil or vegetable oil or seed or whatever it says, if there's an oil in it, unless it's a fruit oil. So avocado oil, coconut.

Melanie Warner: 41:15

Oil, avocado oil is considered a fruit oil, not a seed oil. So that's good, right?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 41:20

Avocados are fruits. Coconuts are fruits and olives, extra virgin olive oil.

Melanie Warner: 41:25

So olive oil, coconut oil and avocado oil are good.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 41:30

Yes, yes, those are good.

Melanie Warner: 41:32 

All the other seed oils you want to avoid.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 41:34

Yes.

Melanie Warner: 41:35

And then vegetable oil is also not really good for you, right?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 41:39

No, it's all horrible. That's all.

Melanie Warner: 41:40

Horrible. That's what I thought.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 41:41

They spray. They spray all these vegetable seeds with all these. Like I said, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, insecticides. So you're getting all those chemicals and they do get in the fruit. They say they don't, and they do.

There have been all kinds of studies. It does get inside the product. Then they bring them in and now they're trying to get oil out of these things. So they get more. They put these petrochemical solvents on it to try and it dissolves everything. 

It tries to get everything out of there. Then they have to put bleaching agents on because they want to make sure it looks all really pretty for you when you see it. That's nice and clear and all that. So that's a bleaching agent. Then the people that work there, they say it stinks so bad. 

Now they put deodorizing agents in there, and so they've taken out everything out of the fiber, all the phytonutrients. They've taken everything out. Then they make this oil or and then they put the oil in a food that has nothing. And they might add just a little bit of, you know, B vitamins or something in there and say, oh, it's fortified. It's fortified because they took all the nutrients out. 

And they're putting a few ingredients in there. That's why I fortified. Basically, if you're reading a label, you need to stay away from it. Stay in the meat department. The meat department is fine. 

The production department, you know, again, depends. You know, the ones that grow above the ground versus the ones that grow below the ground. That's still going to be just stay away from anything. Box bottle bag can.

Melanie Warner: 42:57

And, and just to clarify for meat, I know I always, people always recommend meat with no antibiotics. Correct. Like you don't want antibiotics in your meat. Because if you're consuming meat with antibiotics, then you're kind of getting the antibiotics in your gut, which I heard is not good for you. Is that correct?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 43:15

That is correct because it can kill the gut bacteria, which is so vital to everything, almost everything that that we prescribe kills our gut bacteria. Anytime you take antibiotics, you're killing your gut bacteria. Anytime you take an acid reducer, you know, you're, you're killing the bacteria in your gut. I mean, we do so many things that are tearing up our gut. And that's why we see all the GI issues that we have now that we never saw before.

Inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, colitis, all these things. But yes, even though that's the case, if you stick to just it's called shop perimeter. That's where you're going to find your deli meats. That's where you're going to find your product. That's where you're going to find your dairy. 

That's where you're going to find your meat. If you have to buy your stuff from the grocery store, stick to that. Anything that's in a box, bottle bag and can stay away from anything that has a label on it with more than like four ingredients, 3 or 4 ingredients, stay away from it. That's the easiest thing. So that's why if you can find a local farmer, what we do actually what we do since I found out about this, is we just saved up our money and we bought, we bought a side of beef. 

We first bought a quarter of beef and we found out, oh my gosh, this is wonderful. So now we buy a side of beef. One side of beef lasts me and my wife all year long. And it comes to you getting everything. You're getting roast, you're getting rib eyes, you're getting steaks, you're getting tons of hamburgers. 

And we have the organ meats grind up into the hamburger and all of it for an average of about 650 to $7 a pound. So we're getting ribeye steaks and freezing them.

Melanie Warner: 44:47

And you just keep that and you freeze it and you have it for. Wow.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 44:50

Yeah, yeah. We have for years. So you can just go down and say, hey, what do you want to eat tomorrow? We plan ahead. We'll go down the freezer, take it out, thaw it out.

So the next day it's ready to go. Or we can put it in the crock pot or whatever. But it's like for six and a half, $7 a pound, you can't, you can't hardly buy ground hamburger at the grocery store.

Melanie Warner: 45:06

Melanie Warner: 45:06

No. I mean, I'm finding like one fillet is like 45 bucks at Trader Joe's even, you know, so it's like, that's a and I've heard a lot more people doing that. And, I live in California. So it's, it's, it's really easy. We live in an ag area where it's like 80% of the food comes from this region.

So I get to know my farmers and I've always been an advocate of that. But what if people live in an area like in Maybe. I grew up in Texas, a small town, and I never had fresh fish. We only had Mrs. Paul's fish sticks. Like growing up like that, I hated fish growing up and I was. 

The thought of sushi scared me until I finally had fresh seafood. But if you're in an area that's kind of landlocked and you can't get fresh food, you know what I mean? And your only option is cans or, you know, I mean, how do you do people? I guess now they can order food. Like there's food boxes online that you can have stuff shipped to you. So it's easier than it used to be. 

But what do you recommend for people that are kind of landlocked and they're not around farmers or they, they have to just go to the store. That's their only option for food source.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 46:14

That would be one that I would go to is go to the computer and look at who around you actually mails food to you. And they'll come in frozen trucks, come in frozen boxes with ice and everything and it gets. Yeah. And they're starting to be more and more and more because you just like we said earlier, you're voting with your dollars. If you're buying all this stuff in a box and Ben can, that's your way of saying, thank you so much.

Will you please keep giving me toxins and poison my body and causing disease? That's what.

Melanie Warner: 46:40

You're saying. I see more people building their own gardens, which is great. I see countries doing this like Japan, where they don't have a lot of space in the ground. So they're building these creative, these gardens on top of these high rise buildings, and they're putting dirt on the top floor, not just a swimming pool. And so now they've got, you know, these deep roots to grow these gardens and organic vegetables.

And then it becomes this co-op for the whole community in the building. I think that's so brilliant. So you don't necessarily have this myth of people being like, oh, I don't have a backyard, or I live in an apartment. Like there's nothing I can do. But there's still so many different ways that you can grow fruits and vegetables with minimal sunlight and water and just, you know, be able to have some control over that. 

If you live in an area that has sunlight.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 47:26

Right, right. And people have to realize you. You can sit around and make excuses for why you have to buy these toxins that are killing you, that are truly killing you, literally physically killing you. They're, they're killing every single organ. But I don't understand why you would want to make that argument.

You know, that's all I can afford. So now it's like, if that's all you can afford, then how are you going to afford all the medications and doctor bills and hospitalizations that will come from you eating that. And we see it everywhere versus saving that money and actually trying to research where a farmer is at a farmer's market in your area, some way you can get this. And in all honesty, a lot of people, that is why they don't do a lot of the produce. They will stick to mainly animal products because you can get the milk, the cheese, the Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, cream cheese, you know, eggs, you know, all that stuff. 

You can get that. So basically, if you anytime you're eating something, if you look at it on your fork, say, did that come from an animal? You're probably pretty good to go. But if it came from a plant, now you have to think, well, what kind of plant was above the ground? Was it below the ground? 

Was it from a laboratory plant? You know, a manmade plant? That's even worse. But but but but but but but but but but but but but people have to realize when you're talking about the cost of food, you've got to bring in the cost of medications and the cost of doctor bills and the cost of hospitalizations. Right. 

And the cost of your life. I mean, are you waking up? You are obese, you are in pain all the time. You are foggy headed all the time. That's all it is. 

It is almost all due to what you're eating. And, and, and I used to be able to say that kind of I think it's like all that. And now I feel 100% confident saying it is because of what you're eating. Your body is miraculous. God made a beautiful body. 

Give it the nutrients it needs, and people don't even know what nutrition is. Nutrition. Can I go into this?

Melanie Warner: 49:25

Yeah, sure.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 49:26

Nutrition. When you tear your body down, just just shred it up. When it comes down to basic things, your body is made out of protein. Fat, cholesterol. Yes, cholesterol.

That's another lie we've been told is that high cholesterol causes heart attacks. It's a lie. They're trying to sell statins, and they make billions of dollars every single year off these things. It's crazy. But anyway, your body is made out of protein, fat, cholesterol, vitamins, minerals, and water. 

That's it. It's not made out of glucose. Your body can make all the glucose it needs out of protein and out of fat. So the minimum daily requirement of glucose is zero. It's that that's actually that's out there. 

You never, ever have to put plant based food in your mouth ever. And you will live perfectly fine. You cannot say that going the other way, because if that's all you, even if you don't eat the, you know, box, bottle bank can and all you eat is plants. Plants do have protein very, very little. And I've actually got a graph that I show when I give my talks saying, you know this how much? 

And the highest concentration of protein in fruits, highest concentration of protein and carbs, and then just your regular meats, you know, so you get a lot more protein. So in order to get protein out, you're going to have to eat more plants and vegetables. When you do that, you're also eating more glucose because they all have glucose in it. You're not getting hardly any fat, and you're not getting nearly any cholesterol when you're eating fruits and vegetables. So when you think about the nutrients, what the body is made of, what the body needs, because we're replenishing our, our cells all the time, give it the things that your body is made out of, and it's not made out of glucose. 

It's not made out of plants. It's we are animals, you know, and so, and that, yeah, that, that, that once I heard that or thought of that, you know, it, it did me too. It's like.

Melanie Warner: 51:16

Yeah, because, you know, I think about it too. Like if you, if you have a really nice car, like a Ferrari. You're not going to put crappy gas in it, you know. You're going to put high, high octane, you know, really good expensive gas. And our bodies, like you said, don't care what we eat.

Most of our food issues are like we fight ourselves when we go to the grocery store because of relationships with food and associations with food and, and what shifted for me and changed my relationship with food forever is when I finally just said, look, I'm going to feed my body what it, what it needs, not what it's craving. And at the same time, I remember when I was upset one day and I was really sad about something. You know, sometimes when I was younger, I might, you know, grab ice cream or I might grab, you know, chocolate or something to cheer me up. That makes me feel happy because that's how we, you know, we, this is what we do for our kids growing up. We give them ice cream to cheer them up, you know, or they get good grades, they get ice cream. 

And every holiday is associated with candy and sugar. And so that they associate. We associate that with love. And so I remember the first time, it was like a food defining moment for me when I was sad or depressed about something and I ate healthy food and that self love that came from that and how good I felt about not bingeing on something, but actually feeding myself. And I felt better emotionally, physically. 

I found that certain foods that I eat made me feel sad, made me feel more depressed, like I didn't understand any of that for the longest time when I was younger, it was more like, this is my budget. I have to eat the cheapest stuff and usually the cheapest food is the most highly processed. And then I have to start asking if I'm, if I, if I spend more money on better food than I save thousands of dollars on health care costs and prevention. So it's a choice that I have to make. And I've been making that decision since I was in my early 20s, reading labels, trying to eat really clean. 

Personally, I cut out gluten, dairy and sugar. I felt better than ever. I finally was losing weight and doing all these things that just naturally happened when I just started consuming different foods. And changing that relationship with food. So I can definitely say that, that I, I can see the difference in my own metabolic health and my gut issues and things that I started having. 

You know, I was just blaming it on menopause. Oh, I'm heading to menopause. That's all it's all. Any evil in the world can be blamed on menopause. You know, the war in Iran is menopause.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 53:52

You know what I mean? It's all menopause.

Melanie Warner: 53:55

Someone steals your purse, it's menopause.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 53:57

That's right. It's not yours. So yeah.

Melanie Warner: 54:01

And so, okay, so if you encourage people to have better metabolic health and that may include getting off medications, why is it important that anybody that wants to consider changes to medications that they do that in partnership with their healthcare team. Like how do you recommend they approach that subject?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 54:23

Yes, and that's, that's huge. Thank you so much for asking. That's a great question. And because it does come up all the time when you go to your physician, you do want to let him know that you're getting ready to change your nutrition. You are not asking their permission to do this.

That's not what you're doing. You are just asking for their guidance. Because without a doubt, I've seen it over and over and over. It just happens when you change from eating man made food over to God made food and you keep the glucose down, you know, down or gone, you will lose weight. It's just because I remember what I said. 

You either use glucose for energy source or fat. When you use glucose, it forces you to store fat. When you use your fat, you burn fat. So obviously when you keep glucose out of your mouth, your insulin is low. You're burning the fat out of your fat cells. 

So 100% of the people lose weight when you do this. That's just what happens because now you're eating the fat instead of storing it. And when you do that, you start getting the fat off your organs. You leave your insulin levels down, which also affects your blood pressure. So when you start doing this, when you're not eating glucose, there's only one reason why your blood glucose goes up. 

Everybody talks about, you know, you know, how do I get my glucose down? How do I get my glucose down? That's not the question. The question is, why is it going up in the first place? And there's one reason because you're eating it. 

So once you stop eating it, your glucose will be down. So if you're taking a medication, diabetic medication now you're not eating it. So glucose isn't going up, but you're taking diabetic medication that raises your insulin, that's going to make your glucose going lower, and you will get hypoglycemic, and then you will worry about fainting and passing out all that kind of stuff. Same thing with blood pressure. When you start eating clean. 

And there's like five different ways that I can tell you right off the bat of just by leaving glucose out of your mouth, your blood pressure drops for five different reasons for what it does.

Melanie Warner: 56:12

Well, you don't need the medicine.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 56:13

That's right. And so if you're taking the medicine, your blood pressure is going to drop even more.

Melanie Warner: 56:19

And because I do see so many people that I know that are diabetic that are like, okay, well, I'm going to, I'm taking insulin because I'm going to eat ice cream. So I'm going to go eat this ice cream and I'll just take some insulin and that's it. They look at it as a way to manage their glucose as opposed to avoiding the foods altogether. Yep. And, then one more question when it comes to liking food with sugar, right?

That you're seeing a lot of zero sugar in foods. Is that safe? Because you're not eating the sugar, but then you're trading out man or natural sugar for man made substance.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 56:55

And there's really no such thing as natural sugar either. Have you ever seen sugar cane sugar cane? We went with some friends on a vacation in Louisiana and we went through a huge sugar cane cane field. It's a stick and you chew it. I thought it was going to be sweet.

I thought, oh, sugar cane. And I said to her, not on a stick, trying to get the sweet taste out of it. So I mean, sure, everything is ultra processed.

Melanie Warner: 57:21

People are going to, if, say, if they. There are a lot of people that justify, oh, I cut out sugar. So I'm going to have a Coke Zero or something like that. What does that mean? Doesn't that trick your body too.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 57:30

Yes.

Melanie Warner: 57:30

You're still eating sugar.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 57:32

Yes, without a doubt. Just the taste of sweet in your mouth is your body. In fact, you don't even have to put it in your mouth. You can just look at it. If you look at something like a table full of pies and donuts and cookies and all that, and you start salivating, that's your body getting ready for what it thinks.

You're getting ready to eat. Your pancreas produces insulin the exact same way. So just the fact that you see something, put it in your mouth, your body starts producing insulin. So now once your insulin is up, it starts making you store fat again. And so, so you don't even have to eat it. 

But when you do eat it now, what happens if you take all the glucose out of your blood? It comes to two teaspoons of sugar. That's all there is. In 1965, it was estimated that all we ate was two teaspoons of sugar per person per day. Our bodies could handle that, that was fine. 

It would take it and turn it into fat. And then we'd burn that fat. You're supposed to fill your fat cells and empty them. That's how it's supposed to work. That's how this works. 

So two teaspoons per person per day and 65 and 2015, they did it again. And it's estimated now we eat 65 teaspoons of sugar per person per day. What that was, and that was ten years ago. And that's what you think. Everybody's like, oh, there's no way. 

But when you think that a 112 ounce can of soda pop has ten teaspoons of sugar and all the soda pop, energy drinks, fruit drinks, flour, pasta, bread, crackers, cookies. People are eating glucose all through the day. And so again, it's not the sugar, it's the glucose. It's because blood sugar is glucose, and glucose isn't sweet, glucose isn't sweet. It's the fructose that makes that sweet. 

So now we're being inundated where our bodies are trying to figure out what to do with that. So every bit of sugar, every bit of glucose that you are eating, your body is trying to conserve that as energy. So it turns all of it into triglycerides. If you go to your doctor and you have high triglycerides, that's because you're eating too much glucose, which means that it's not just sugar.

Melanie Warner: 59:31

That makes me so mad. I'm so glad we're doing this, because I think those are the things that I think most people have no idea about. That shocked me.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 59:40

I didn't even like it. Didn't know it.

Melanie Warner: 59:41

Shocks me. Like as a parent, I remember on our show, we had an expert that came in that said that sugar is like ten times more addictive than heroin, and yet we're giving it to our kids to soothe them. Sit down, be quiet, and you'll get ice cream. And then wondering why we have childhood obesity and all these things with kids and our host who's from India. He said when he was a kid he would be sad about something if his parents didn't give him sugar.

They would give him nuts, they'd give him protein, they'd give him just a snack. But it was a healthy snack. It wasn't designed to, you know, emotionally affect him because that, that, the, the, the effects on mental health with sugar are even more catastrophic when we think about how it affects our mental health and, and how food does become medicine. Well, thank you so much for sharing all this. I mean, this is gosh, I could talk to you all day. 

This is amazing. And I wanted to do one thing real quick. I want to bring in your beautiful wife, Theresa, because she also works with you in your practice. She's one of your business partners and she has a background in nutrition as well. So you guys make a great team. 

I don't want to forget to bring her in. Our audience can meet her as well, because she's the one that, like you said, took your speech and transcribed it. And, there's always an amazing woman behind a great man who's partner isn't there. And so we want to acknowledge you, Theresa, and find out a little bit more about how you guys are working together and how people can like, what can they do from hearing this? They can get your book, they can listen to the podcast. We're going to put those links in the show notes for you.

But what else can they do to follow up from here? If they want to book a call with you, like, what are those options?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:01:23

Yeah, definitely go to the website. And we have a big button.

Melanie Warner: 1:01:26

Right there and it says to book a call and you can reach out and we will gladly talk with you guys. A lot of the things that I do is kind of help with the mindset because a lot of eating issues are habits, emotions, you know, that we go through that we're trying to quit. And so that's how I help with this situation.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:01:44

So she's an actual certified life coach. Yeah.

Melanie Warner: 1:01:47

That's awesome.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:01:48

Yeah. But so that's how because.

Melanie Warner: 1:01:51

What's the website? Can you tell us about the website? We'll put it in the show notes as well.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:01:54

drstevehugelett.com.

Melanie Warner: 1:01:57

Perfect. Yeah. All right. We're going to put that on the website. And you guys heard it here.

So thank you for just all that. You do like taking this. I mean, like it must have been. Theresa, what was your thought when he said, I'm going to retire. I'm going to retire early? 

You know, everything we've been doing is wrong and I'm changing my whole life around like, how would that feel like for you as his wife to hear this? Like, oh, security here. You know, we're, we're disrupting our lives and industry. What was that like for you to experience?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:02:33

You know. I wasn't concerned about it at all because it was really a stressful time at the hospital.

Almost forced me out. She wanted me to quit. Yeah, I was ready. I was ready because we, you know, he had written the book and so we were already thinking about doing something else, you know, so whenever he said it and he was looking and we could do this, I was like, all right, let's, let's do this.

Melanie Warner: 1:02:55

I love it and I love that you used a book. We this is this is, as you know, like my mantra is like when you write a book, you become the instant authority. You, you're literally the expert who wrote the book on it. And like writing that book helped build this credibility plus the credibility of being a licensed pharmacist and having, you know, that background as well, from the medical perspective, combining those things. And then the two of you together with the mental side, the mental health and wellness side of being a life coach, along with the physical medical background that Dr. Steve had.

It's like, so cool to see you guys partnering together. And I had the pleasure of meeting all in person in Los Angeles. Yeah. At the beach.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:03:35

So fun.

Melanie Warner: 1:03:36

We got to film our Defining Moments TV show. So you're going to see their segment on our TV show, which is so exciting. And, more people are going to get to meet you guys and, and fall in love with you as well. And I just want to thank you both for your dedication, for your commitment as, as hard as it is to go against big Pharma and some of these big companies that don't want people speaking out against them. Like I always want to acknowledge the people that are brave enough and courageous enough to go against the grain and really fight to educate people.

And I think that, you know, these companies, I know they're obviously trying to make a living, you know, but I think that the more that that, that consumers are consuming and that we can vote with our dollar, that's where real change happens. So thank you for your courage to do that. And before we wrap up, I do have a few more questions, but I want to jump to a section that's one of my favorite sections of our podcast and our shows, where we feature a mystery guest. And you guys don't know who this is. You don't even know we're doing this. 

But at the end of every episode, I like to share a story about somebody that's similar to what you've been through and kind of share the rest of the story. What's the defining moment like? We often hear about the success of people. We see the book, we hear, you know, we see him on TV, but we don't always know that dark night of the soul. We don't know where they struggled to learn these things or struggle to, to share this with the world. 

And so I want to share a mystery guest with you. And, and this is, you know, a man who before nutrition became a mainstream conversation, before gut health became a buzzword, before anybody talked about lifestyle medicine, there was an Irish surgeon in the 50s and 60s, and he spent years working in Africa, and he noticed something that didn't fit what he had learned in medical school. Does that sound familiar, Steve?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:05:28

Very.

Melanie Warner: 1:05:29

Diseases that were becoming increasingly common in Western countries like colon cancer, diverticulitis, or diverticular. Diseases like diverticulitis, diverticulosis, appendicitis, and other digestive illnesses appeared to be remarkably uncommon in many of the rural communities that he served. He started realizing that disease was happening between our throat and our crotch area. So it had to be something with what we were consuming or in our environment. Now, most people would have just accepted it as coincidence.

There's more people on the planet. Of course there's going to be sicker people. He didn't accept that as a fact. He became curious and he began comparing lifestyles, food, activity, environment. And the more he studied, the more convinced he became that the way people lived mattered just as much as the medicine they received. 

So it was more about quality of life and wellness in general. Now, many of his medical colleagues initially dismissed his ideas. It was woo woo. There was no medical science behind it. Nutrition wasn't considered central to modern medicine, and still to this day, it's often dismissed completely. 

But he kept asking questions, and. His work helped spark decades of research into diet fiber and preventative health. And now, you know, the defining moment of Doctor Denis Burkitt. It wasn't discovering all the answers. It was having the courage to question assumptions that everybody else accepted as truth. 

So sometimes progress doesn't begin with certainty. It begins with curiosity. So, Steve, one thing that stands out in that story is that curiosity came from conviction. When you look back at your own journey, how important was simply being willing to ask, what if we've missed something, right? What if we're open to it, could there be a different way to do this?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:07:27

Yeah.

Melanie Warner: 1:07:28

How important was that for you when reading those books to, to, to be able to ask those questions for yourself?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:07:34

That was huge because when the first book that I read that basically let me know everything that I'd learned was wrong. And I didn't believe it. I didn't believe the book. I thought, who is this guy? How does he know which?

Actually, he is a physician. He's a nephrologist. So he deals. And that's why he wrote the book, because he kept having all these people that were being put on dialysis. And he's like, why. 

And they were doing the same thing, giving insulin. They just kept getting sicker and sicker. So, I started reading more and everything he said actually made perfect sense.

Melanie Warner: 1:08:11

And what was that book? I know people will want to know.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:08:14

It's called the the there was The Obesity Code. And then a second book was The Diabetes Code by Dr. Jason Fung.

Melanie Warner: 1:08:21

And okay, great. Thank you.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:08:23

When I read that at first I was mad at him, like he didn't know what he was saying. And then I realized, oh my gosh, he's the one that knows what he's saying. And I've been taught wrong this whole time. And again, my whole life has been trying to help people. I, I, truly care about people's health.

I 100% do. And that's what made me mad is thinking here all along. I thought that's what health was, is managing people's medications. And now I know, oh my gosh, health is getting people off medication, reversing diabetes or and all these other diseases. So we started going to conferences. 

And then once we started going all these conferences, we found out there's a lot of people who are coming to this awakening and there's conferences all over the place, and people are coming there wanting to learn more, and they get up to the mics and talk about all these, I mean, stage four pancreatic cancer, everybody, everybody dies of that. They say there are people coming out who said, I was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer 15 years ago. I have no you know, and they just went straight to eating clean because everybody thinks that the FDA is regulating food companies. They do not regulate food.

Melanie Warner: 1:09:26

Yeah. And pancreatic I, I lost a grandmother to pancreatic cancer. And, you know, you keep hearing like that's the worst like that, that you don't come back from that like it, it you, you hear from every doctor like there is no solution. It's terminal. So that's interesting.

And I think too, I know like Steve Jobs. Like he was a fruitarian and he died of pancreatic cancer, I believe. And it was and they said it was because he ate so much fruit. So he thought he was eating healthy. So those are those things that really make sense. 

Now I'm going to ask you a few rapid fire questions as we wrap up. If somebody listening wants to improve their health this year, what's the very first step?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:10:05

Very first step. Stop drinking sugar sweetened beverages. Of all the ways to get sugar in your body and fruit juices, fruit juices, all fruit juice, orange juice, grapefruit juice, all. All fruit juices are just like soda pop. It's sugar.

It's just sugar.

Melanie Warner: 1:10:20

As a parent, I would feel mortified. I felt so sad for my youngest because I gave him so much fruit juice that it ended up writing out his teeth when he was a little baby, and he had to have a baby root canal. And I felt like a horrible mom because I thought I was eating. I thought I was giving him healthy food, you know, or healthy fruit juice.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:10:36

And we did the same thing.

Melanie Warner: 1:10:37

Yeah. And that's really important for young parents to know. I think that one's really important too. And what's one health? What's one habit?

Oh, I'm sorry, did you want to finish that? Something on that.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:10:48

I was just saying one thing to make people think about it, is if you're going to eat fruits and vegetables, eat them, don't drink them. So you can eat seven oranges. I mean, you can, you can squeeze seven oranges and you can drink that down and ask for more, but you can't eat seven oranges because you're getting the fiber, you're getting the phytonutrients, you're getting all this other stuff. Your stomach won't let you hold that. So that's why I don't juice things.

Eat them. If you want fruit and vegetables, eat it. Don't drink it.

Melanie Warner: 1:11:15

Interesting. Okay. And what's one habit you believe has the biggest return on investment? The ROI for long term health?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:11:25

It's really hard because it's like somebody said earlier, it's like once you learn something, you can't unlearn it. And just the fact that you realize now that food companies are actually just feeding you toxins, you know, the food you eat, it either heals you or it kills you and that stuff kills you. There's no healing going on with that. So just the fact that you learn that and you start looking at things, you start realizing, oh, that's got a label on it. I don't even want to look at it.

You know, you don't have to learn how to read this? How do I know what all this stuff is? It's chemicals. Basically it's chemicals. So if you have to read labels, don't. 

And once you learn that, that will just keep you going. And that's why we say, like diabetes, you can get off diabetic medications in less than 30 days because we just teach you to stop eating glucose and now you don't need the medications. That doesn't mean you reverse type two diabetes. But when you continue to eat that same way, it's usually easy for people to do that because when they eat, when they clean up, the first two things that we hear all the time is their brain fog lifted. They feel so much more clear and their energy, they said they had never had that much energy. 

And then obviously the weight comes off, that's just a given 100%. So just that knowledge will keep it going.

Melanie Warner: 1:12:38

I love that. And one more thing I don't want to forget to mention is you two get together with a lot of people and you have a perch. You have a pantry perch party. Tell us about what that is, because that sounds fun. I want to come to one of the next ones.

Tell us about what that is.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:12:54

Yeah. So that is why we are on Zoom and we go live. So and it's who's willing to open up their cabinets and let us all take a peek inside there and see. Actually, we have you empty your cabinets before we come on so we don't see how crazy it was. But it's like we just look at all the ingredients and it's really just to teach you, you don't need to have that much stuff in your pantry.

You know, so many people, you know, people that we know we used to be family members, you open up their pantries and it is loaded with chips and crackers and cookies and non food. It just is. It's not food. And it's just, it's just you go through the pantries together and read the ingredients and like, really now, you know, he talks about all those seed oils now, you know, and all the sugar and all the additives and the coloring.

And that's how we do it. We have you empty the cabinets before we ever go on, and you'll get a little list to say that. And then we'll go through and we'll explain why a certain ingredient is toxic to your body. Just real quick, you know, two, three minute things.

Melanie Warner: 1:13:53

That's so.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:13:53

They go and then you go all through your food that you have sitting out on your counter now and decide, do you want to throw it away? Do you want to put it in a box to give away or donate, or do you want to go ahead and keep it in your cabinets? And what people realize when we start doing this is when they realize everything that was in my pantry was toxic. You know, when they find that out and that is what people find out is if you're eating healthy, you're eating out of the refrigerator, that's where your meat's going to be. That's where your fruits are going to be.

That's where your vegetables are going to be. You really don't eat from the pantry. And that's what we don't, you know, you may have things like beef sticks or beef jerky or pork rinds, seasonings, you'll have that kind of stuff. But, most of the stuff's gone. So it gives you a lot more room.

Melanie Warner: 1:14:37

I love it. So 20 years from now, what do you hope people will say about the work that you've dedicated this next chapter of your life to?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:14:45

I hope that they say, oh my gosh, I wish we'd known this sooner. Because it's just like when you look back when everybody thought, you know, the world was flat and then all of a sudden, no, it's not. Then they thought that everything revolved around the earth, and then they knew it's all around the sun. All these things that everybody would just steadfast against. And now suddenly you look back and think, oh my gosh, that's crazy.

I think that's where we're going to be now when we find out that we've been treating diabetes with drugs, that makes diabetes worse. And now we know what we knew when I got out of school, I got passionate. When I got to school, when I started pharmacy school, we still were treating type two diabetes with food. Type two diabetes. It just means stop. 

Stop eating carbohydrates. Now they've switched while I was in pharmacy. Now they say, no, you can eat your carbs. Just take your insulin with it. Right. 

It's so backwards, you know? So that's where I'm hoping in 20 years we look back and this is another one of those times like, can you believe we used to give medicine for this stuff? That food takes care of all these issues. I want to be in the group that would help educate people about that.

Melanie Warner: 1:15:51

I love that. Well, as we wrap up today, I just want to give you guys a chance to. Is there anything else that we haven't talked about that you feel is urgent for people to know about diabetes or about metabolic health? Anything that we haven't shared yet for both of you?

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:16:08

Yeah. So I think, you know, it's really important, like when you go to the doctor and you find out maybe you have been diagnosed or you're pre-diabetic or whatever the diagnosis is, it's like it is because some people don't care. And it's like, oh, good, there's a pill and this will just take care of take care of it. Well, you need to figure out why, you know, why do you care about that? I mean, you may lose a foot or you, you know, all of these things that can happen to you.

So I think the biggest thing is your why. Of course, my mental side of it. Why do you want to do it? Because this is simple. It just isn't easy to do this type of thing, you know, change, really changing your life.

Yeah. Especially when you're talking about just like you talk about, you know, giving sweets as a treat. It's a treat only for a few seconds on the back of the tongue. And after that, now it's down, the sweet is gone. And now your body has to deal with all, all the other stuff.

So, you know, people say, oh, it doesn't matter if I'm obese because you're supposed to love your body no matter what it's like. This has nothing to do with love. That, that a mind that's between you and God. Everybody should love themselves. But if you truly love yourself, you've got to realize your body is the temple. 

If you're a Christian, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. Is that the kind of temple that you're wanting to build for your Holy Spirit? And as far as the church body, if they go to a party, if they go to drstevehugelett.com, the same website, you'll see two big buttons. One is book, a book a call, and the other one is the Pantry Purge Party. So if anybody's wondering how to get on that, that's how you get it. 

It's the same website. Just click on that and get on our next one.

Melanie Warner: 1:17:39

Well, you guys are so much fun. Thank you so much for being here. I really, really appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Absolutely.

And you know, if you all, as you're watching, whether today's conversation challenged your thinking or confirmed what you already believed, one thing is certain you do have power over your health, right? Good health isn't built by accident. It comes from the choices that we make every single day. And you have the power to make those decisions. So thank you, Theresa and Dr. Steve Hewlett. 

We appreciate you all being here, and we appreciate all of you for being here. And we'll see you next time on Defining Moments. Take care everyone. Bye bye.

Dr. Steve Hughlett: 1:18:14

Bye. Thank you so much.

Outro: 1:18:16

Thanks for listening to the Defining Moments podcast. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.