Ruminations on being attacked by Dr. Joe Mercola's geese

And what it has to do with infectious diseases

Yes, I was attacked by Dr. Joe Mercola's geese on a recent visit to his house.

No, I did not sustain any lasting damage.

I thought it was, in fact, hilarious.

Can you imagine being a 12 pound goose with nothing more intimidating than a mouth that can barely fit a crab apple, lined with teeth the size of grains of sand, and attacking a 183 pound, 6 foot-tall man with hands large enough to strangle you, or just break your neck?

Of course you can't. Your brain is many times the size of a goose's brain and you easily recognize how absurd this proposition is.

This mismatch in power and lethality did not deter the goose.

The goose made contact with the back of my left calf, and then beat a hasty retreat. He made a few starts at me later that day, but broke off his attacks each time once I made it clear that he was making a mistake.

What does this have to do with infectious diseases?

I'm glad you asked.

The decision of a goose to attack a grown man is similar to the idea that a bacteria might attack, say, a liver or a kidney cell within your body.

The bacteria has even less cognitive potential than the goose. And therein lies its problem, and the problem with the mainstream dogma that, "infectious diseases (pathogens) cause diseases by invading the body and over-powering your defenses."

There's no chance of this happening in an even remotely healthy host. You have to be severely compromised in order to "lose" to the microbes that inhabit your body. The one exception to this is if you are inundated by these pathogens, as happens in cases of contaminated water or food.

How does one become so unhealthy as to become prey to pathogens?

You gradually wear your body down with toxins and toxic exposures that sap your nutrition and your vitality, until you have little to no vitality left.

You might look good. You might even feel good. You might even be a high-performer or high-achiever.

But you could still be on the brink of death.

I'm not kidding. We have lots of people who come to us whose labs or vital signs are critically deranged, and who need to fix them - fast.

What's the secret to getting people as healthy and well as possible?

High-intensity interval training.

Just kidding. That can be part of the plan, but it has to be a PART of a much larger plan.

First, you have to decide what metrics you're going to track. Trying to define success without clear metrics is a waste of time.

This is the quantification phase.

Second, you have to restore normal, healthy functions of the body. This is the restoration phase. Restoring normal sleep, movement, meal-timing, nutrition, light, and more.

Third, you have to stop doing whatever is making you sick. This can take some detective work. Here is the short list of things I see making people WORSE because they are making fundamental mistakes in execution:

• Exercise

• Fasting

• Macronutrient balance

• Supplement protocols

• Restrictive diets

• Biohacking

• Sauna

• Sun exposure (yes, it can be too much!)

• Work

• Breathwork

• Relationships and their social life

And last, tracking and iterating. You have to track your progress, decide what is working, what is not, and what to try next.

This fundamental process is what Jim and I apply to every single case and decision we take on.

"Educations is not the memorization of facts, it is the training of the mind to think."

- Albert Einstein

I couldn't agree with this statement more.

We don't just treat people at my medical practice, we train them to be healthy, and this means training their minds to think about more than just an illness. It means training them to think about their wellness.

Join our Fundamentals of Wellness program, where we teach people these fundamentals with weekly coaching calls and a hard-hitting series of videos designed to help you get your fundamental habits in place as soon as possible.

Until next time, be well, and keep an eye on any geese you run into - they're vicious.

Dr. Stillman