Dr. Steven Gundry has an incredible story of how he made the switch from being a talented heart surgeon to becoming a best-selling author and one of today’s well-known nutrition experts. Gundry graduated cum laude at Yale University in the early 1970s and has been heavily involved in medicine (mainly in the fields of cardiology and immunology) ever since.  As a cardiac surgeon, he patented multiple tools still used in heart surgery and was known for keeping hearts beating for extensive periods outside the body.
 
In the early 2000s, Dr. Gundry had a patient who he calls “Big Ed” that threw a curveball in his career path. Big Ed was a special case who had seen multiple doctors about his clogged arteries and had been continuously told that nothing can be done to help him. After Dr. Gundry had said the same thing, Big Ed explained that he lost forty-five pounds in the past six months and had been taking a number of supplements. Gundry congratulated him on the weight loss and said something along the lines of, “Good for you, but that isn’t going to help your heart.” Big Ed insisted that a new video be taken of his heart and Dr. Gundry was astounded to find that half of Ed’s artery troubles had been wiped away!
 
Thanks to this moment, Dr. Gundry started helping people that he would perform surgeries on to then adjust their diets and start taking supplements so they never had to have the same operation again. He also stated that he had performed multiple surgeries on the same patient several times. In one instance, he operated on someone NINE times. About a year after meeting Big Ed and when Dr. Gundry realized his methods were working, he decided he should be helping people before they ever need surgery so he started his own restorative medicine practice at the International Heart and Lung Institute in Palm Springs, California.1
 
From there, Gundry started to study his own patients more enough to write multiple books. His first book, Dr. Gundry’s Diet Evolution, was published in 2009. It focuses on weight loss and shows his root principles. His following book is what really sparked his popularity – The Plant Paradox. In both of these books, Dr. Gundry shows his interest in longevity by helping us achieve “dying young at a ripe old age” through adopting a healthy, sustainable diet that eliminates processed foods and strengthens our guts.
 
Most recently, he released a new book, The Longevity Paradox. Other than reading his books, you can also visit his website at gundrymd.com, watch videos from him on his YouTube channel, or listen to him on The Doctor Gundry Podcast or on one of his dozens of podcast interviews.

Here are some of the tips and quotes from Dr. Gundry that I’ve found most valuable:
​

• “I love cardiac surgery. But giving people the tools to heal themselves transcends just about anything I can do with a knife, needle, and thread.”2

 

• “Calories merely tell us how much energy is contained in a food, not how much energy your body can derive from it.”3  Dr. Gundry explains that for longevity purposes, it is more about the quality of the food you eat than the quantity.

 

• “Research has shown that it takes at least six weeks of continuous practice to instill a new habit.”4

 

• “My research has shown that if you can work your way up to consuming the equivalent of one bag of dark green leaves (lettuce, spinach, or other greens) daily, your life will change dramatically for the better.”5

  ​

• More than 80% of Dr. Gundry’s patients are deficient in Vitamin D3 and “anyone in my practice with leaky gut or an autoimmune disease has low levels.” Dr. Gundry states that this essential vitamin prevents leaky gut as well as bone degeneration. He also relates a lack of Vitamin D to prostate cancer and obesity.6 Take at least 5,000 IUs per day and if you have an autoimmune disease, take 10,000 IUs per day.7

1. Muscle Intelligence Podcast: Dr. Steven Gundry, Rethinking Everything You Knew About a "Healthy Diet."
2. Dr. Gundry's Diet Evolution - p. 131
3. Dr. Gundry's Diet Evolution - p. 24
​4. Dr. Gundry's Diet Evolution - p. 47
​5. Dr. Gundry's Diet Evolution - p. 132
6. The Plant Paradox - p. 113-114
7. The Plant Paradox - p. 275

From here on, any new subscribers will receive both Your Guide to Nutrition & Fitness as well as my brand new guide - Your Guide on How to Get & Stay Inspired! I split these up since I figure some of you are here for the nutrition/fitness tips, some just like the motivation, and some want both!

Whether you’re looking for a little bit of motivation, unsure what areas in your lifestyle you need to improve most, or if you are just starting your self-improvement journey, this guide will be a great help to you.

​If you are a subscriber, I would greatly appreciate any feedback you have on this guide. Did you find it helpful? Is there additional information that you wish would be included? The good, the bad, the ugly, I want to hear it all. I plan to update this document periodically as I learn new information and gather feedback.

You can either email me at [email protected] or comment on this post!

Shawn Stevenson is a general fitness and nutrition expert who has influenced hundreds of thousands over the past 10+ years through his book, Sleep Smarter, his fitness program, The Fat Loss Code, as well as his insanely popular podcast, The Model Health Show.

​It all started when Shawn was in high school. Shawn was on-track to be a star athlete but this came to a quick halt when he broke his hip while simply running a 200m time trial in practice. He dealt with constant pain and four years later was diagnosed with a degenerative bone disease and degenerative disc disease. When he got this diagnosis, he recalls asking his doctor, “Does this have anything to do with what I am eating.” His doctor looked at him like he was crazy and replied, “This has nothing to do with what you’re eating. Just carry on as you are because this is something that just happens. I’m sorry that this happened to you but it’s just something you’re going to have to deal with; this is incurable.” 
 
For the following two years, he followed the doctor’s orders of remaining inactive and using medications for his pain. This, along with what he called his “TUF” (Typical University Food) diet, he gained over 40 pounds and wasn’t seeing his situation getting any better. Eventually, Shawn said, “Enough is enough,” and decided to take matters into his own hands. He started small: working out on the exercise bike, changing his eating habits, and sleeping better. After six weeks, he lost 20 pounds and within nine months, he reversed the damage done to his bones, healed his ruptured discs, and amazed his doctors that weren’t able to make progress by consultations, medications, and surgeries.1
 
After taking these steps to get his health on track, Shawn kept on improving what he calls, “the three pillars of health that changed everything for me: right nutrition, right exercise, and right sleep.”2 He changed his college courses to learn as much on health as he could, got certified as a strength and conditioning coach, and started assisting students and professors at his university.3

Soon enough, Shawn started to realize his passion for helping others through podcasting, writing, and speaking at events. He also realized after years working with clients one-on-one, how many people needed help with their sleep more than anything so he put his best efforts into his book, Sleep Smarter​, which was published in 2016.

Nowadays, the heart of Shawn's content is found at www.TheModelHealthShow.com, where you will find blog posts, upcoming speaking events, podcast episode information, as well as information on Sleep Smarter, The Fat Loss Code, and his upcoming book, Eat Smarter scheduled for release at the very end of 2020. Shawn's content has a strong focus on how our hormones are influenced by our fitness, nutrition, and sleep habits and how they effect our overall health.

Here are just some of the tips and quotes from Shawn Stevenson that I've found most valuable:
​

• ​Many people say that eight hours is the perfect amount. Shawn does not agree with this for multiple reasons. Mainly, everyone is a bit different: some people may be fine with eight but others might need up to ten hours each night. You also have many lifestyle factors that affect your sleep and certain times are also more valuable than others. According to Shawn, “It’s been shown that human beings get the most beneficial hormonal secretions and recovery by sleeping during the hours of 10:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. This is what I call money time.”4

​

• “Sleep cycles typically last for 90 minutes each and repeat four to six times per night. So, six normal 90-minute sleep cycles would equal 9 total hours of sleep… To make your mornings better and more energetic, start setting your alarm so that it goes off in accordance with these sleep cycles instead of the standard “8 hours of sleep.” For example, if you go to sleep at 10:00 p.m., set your alarm for 5:30 a.m. (for a total of 7 ½ hours of sleep), and you’ll likely find that you feel more refreshed when you wake up than if you set the alarm for 6:00 a.m. and interrupted another sleep cycle.”5 A couple suggestions Shawn has to optimize your sleep are that we should schedule our sleep around our ideal number of hours and to aim for a minimum of bare minimum of four sleep cycles (or about six hours) each night.6,7 

​

• ​Two things that can seriously impair your sleep are caffeine and alcohol. According to Shawn, you should set a caffeine curfew of around 2:00 p.m. the latest and avoid alcohol three hours before bedtime.8,9 Caffeine is harmful to your sleep because it causes your body to create adrenaline and cortisol and the half-life is between five and eight hours. To show how detrimental this is, he states that consuming caffeine six hours before bed causes one hour of lost sleep.10 When it comes to alcohol, Shawn explains how it is harmful because of how it and disrupts your REM sleep so your body and brain cannot recover properly and your memory also suffers.11

​

• Shawn explains that daily exercise is not an option. “If you’re really serious about being the healthiest person you can be, you’ll set your personal exercise appointment and sleep time first, then schedule everything else around them.”12 Many people believe running is the best way to burn fat but Shawn states that running is not the best because it can burn away your muscle if you run too much. Rather, on an interview with The Ultimate Health Podcast, he states that his suggested exercise plan is to lift heavy 2-3 times per week and to walk for 20-30 minutes each day, minimum.13

 

• “Strive to eat organic, locally grown, unprocessed foods for the bulk of your diet.”14 According to Shawn, this is the best way to get the nutrients your body needs. He always suggests natural forms of vitamins and minerals over supplements.

 

• “If you were to ask me… your relationships are the biggest governing force over all of it because that is the most influential thing on the decisions you make with your sleep, the decisions you make with the food that you eat, the decisions you make on whether or not you’re exercising or when or how you do it.”15

Over the next couple months, I will be providing short summaries of each of the experts to be featured in my upcoming book, Twelve Paths to Health & Fitness (Part 1)​ (this is a working title). To see a breakdown of the research I have done on each expert, go to my About Twelve Paths Page. Some of these experts focus on strength and conditioning, some focus nutrition, and others focus on physical therapy and these biographies show how they built their platform along with all of the tips and tricks that I've learned from them.

Whether you are a beginner on your own self-improvement journey, an intermediate lifter who wants to make tweaks to their nutrition or fitness program, or a coach who wants to learn what other coaches with enormous platforms have learned form their experiences, I guarantee you will be amazed by all of the helpful information in this book.

Each biography in the book is about 20-30 pages long, whereas the profiles in this series will be quick summaries with some of my favorite quotes and tips so you can get a taste of what the book will be like.

As I create each Expert Profile, I will provide the link to the profile below:

• Expert Profile #1 - Shawn Stevenson