Welcome to Episode 364 of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast, hosted by Melanie Avalon, author of What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine and Vanessa Spina, author of Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight.
Today's episode of The Intermittent Fasting Podcast is brought to you by:
LMNT: For fasting or low-carb diets electrolytes are key for relieving hunger, cramps, headaches, tiredness, and dizziness. With no sugar, artificial ingredients, coloring, and only 2 grams of carbs per packet, try LMNT for complete and total hydration. Go to drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast to get a free sample pack with any purchase!
Blissy: Get cooling, comfortable, sustainable silk pillowcases to revolutionize your -sleep, skin, and hair! Once you get silk pillowcases, you will never look back! Get Blissy in tons of colors, and risk-free for 60 nights, at blissy.Com/ifpodcast, with the code ifpodcast for 30% off!
To submit your own questions, email questions@IFpodcast.com, or submit your questions here!!
SHOW NOTES
Beautycounter: Keep your fast clean inside and out with safe skincare! Shop with us at melanieavalon.com/beautycounter and use the code CLEANFORALL20 for 20% off, plus something magical might happen after your first order! Find your perfect Beautycounter products with Melanie's quiz: melanieavalon.com/beautycounterquiz
Join Melanie's Facebook group Clean Beauty and Safe Skincare with Melanie Avalon to discuss and learn about all the things clean beauty, Beautycounter, and safe skincare!
LMNT: Go to drinklmnt.com/ifpodcast to get a free sample pack with any purchase! Learn all about electrolytes in Episode 237 - our interview with Robb Rolf!
BLISSY: Get Blissy in tons of colors, and risk-free for 60 nights, at blissy.com/ifpodcast, with the code ifpodcast for 30% off!
Go to ifpodcast.com/shield and get a $400 supplement gift card when you sign up for the SHIELD Program!
The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #189 - Dr. Megan Rossi
Dane's poor health history
Being close to death early in age
CMV
Difficulty with prednisone
Getting into rest and digest
Meditation, prayer, journaling
Victim mindset
Reading inspirational books
Law of attraction
You don't have to be perfect
GI Map for SIBO and imbalances
Missing the important clues on standard tests
Leaky gut and loss of microbiome diversity
The liver's role
Food philosophy
Feeling unsafe in your body
The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #27 - Nick Ortner
SHIELD Program
Our content does not constitute an attempt to practice medicine and does not establish a doctor-patient relationship. Please consult a qualified healthcare provider for medical advice and answers to personal health questions.
TRANSCRIPT
(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)
Melanie Avalon:
Welcome to Episode 364 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. If you want to burn fat, gain energy, and enhance your health by changing when you eat, not what you eat with no calorie counting, then this show is for you. I'm Melanie Avalon, biohacker, author of "What, When, Wine" and creator of the supplement line AvalonX. And I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Spina, sports nutrition specialist, author of "Keto Essentials" and creator of the Tone Breath Ketone Analyzer and Tone Lux Red Light Therapy Bannals. For more on us, check out ifpodcast.com, melanieavalon.com, and ketogenicgirl.com. Please remember, the thoughts and opinions on this show do not constitute medical advice or treatment. To be featured on the show, email us your questions to questions@ifpodcast.com. We would love to hear from you. So pour yourself a mug of black coffee, a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine, if it's that time, and get ready for the Intermittent Fasting Podcast.
Melanie Avalon:
Hi, friends. You are in for a super special treat today with today's episode with Dane Johnson, I think you all will find it so inspiring. This episode is honestly for anybody, anywhere, whoever has struggled with health issues. We talk about so many inspiring things. And for those of you who do suffer specifically from IBD, Crohn's, colitis, definitely check out Dane's program. You can get a completely free evaluation appointment if you qualify by going to ifpodcast .com slash shield. And then if you do qualify, and you do do that free appointment, and decide you do want to do the program, you will get a $400 supplement card with the program, which is awesome. You also get three months of coaching, lifetime support, so many things. After hearing Dane's story today, you'll really see how he completely changed his life and is changing so many other lives. And even if you don't technically have IBD or Crohn's or colitis, but just suffer from GI issues, IBS or actually any health issues. This episode is for you. It is so inspiring. We talk about so many things when it comes to reclaiming your health. I can't wait to hear what you guys think. Now enjoy the show. Hi friends, welcome to episode 364 of the Intermittent Fasting Podcast. I'm Melanie Avalon, and I have a very special guest on today's show. I am just so excited about this conversation. I think it's going to help so many people. So the backstory on today's conversation, about a year ago now, I went to Dave Asprey's biohacking conference in Orlando, and I met the fabulous, amazing Erin Smith. I think I had known her through email a little bit because she works with a lot of really amazing people. But I met her in person. She works with slash represents a lot of really cool people and was like, you have to meet my friend Dane Johnson. He has this incredible story about reversing IBD and dealing with IBS. And he's just changing so many lives and just has this incredible energy to share with people. So I was like, yes, please let me meet him. And so since then we scheduled the show, I went and listened to some of Dane's interviews and friends. I'm just so excited to have this conversation now because I think everybody is in for a journey when they hear what he went through and what he's doing today changing so many lives. So today he's the founder and CEO of Crohn's Colitis Lifestyle. And he's also a board certified nutritionist, specializing in reversing Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. But Dane, well, first of all, thank you so much for being here. And like I said, I have listened to some of your interviews and it's having been in places myself with IBS and also with hospital stays and things like that. I really, really appreciate you sharing your story and everything that you've gone through to, you know, reverse what you went through. But I obviously can't put your story in words for me. So first of all, welcome. Second of all, what's your story? What happened? I mean, it's crazy. I'm like, so excited to hear it now from you, like in real time.
Dane Johnson:
Thank you. Thank you for having me and what an intro. Thank you, Mel. It's awesome to be here. Shout out to Erin. I've been with Erin for years. She's been a best friend and a connection to this industry and she's got that same excitement for what we're going to talk about today, guys. Yes, we need to get this out there about nutrition or biohacking or drainage or what's going on with the liver or cells or all these underlying issues that we're not hearing from our great, fabulous doctors in their own right. And so, yeah, she's amazing and I love working with her. Shout out to her and thank you for having me so much on here on episode 364. I'm going to bring the heat today, guys. Grab, you know, get pen and paper. If you know someone dealing with IBD, this is the moment I'm going to bring you as much value, as many to -dos, as much aha as I can at the time we have. I'm not going to hold back and I'm excited to help change lives. So I dedicate to you, to anyone out there who's chronically sick, who's stuck in that prison like I was, who feels like there's no answers, the biologics aren't working, the steroids aren't working, the antibiotics aren't working, doctors are talking about cutting out body parts. This... is dedicated to you, you're not alone.
Melanie Avalon:
some listeners might think, Oh, well, I don't have a technical diagnosis of IBD. I just want to share, this is really going to be for anybody who has experienced any sort of GI distress, just from, based on what I've listened from, you know, your story, just as a really quick random side note tangent. I was interviewing Dr. Megan Rosie a while ago. She's more in the plant -based sphere, but she works with gut health and digestion. And I learned, I think it was during that conversation, I learned that they actually have changed sort of recently, or when I interviewed her, it was recently the official criteria of IBS, which I thought was so, I find it really interesting how they even diagnose these things. Cause I realized I didn't technically qualify anymore because like I have a ton of digestive issues and have historically and deal with them through food and diet and lifestyle, but like now the criteria requires actual pain. And I was like, Oh, I don't, I don't actually have pain. So that's kind of like a tangent rabbit hole, but I find it really interesting, all the different labels and diagnoses and things. What are your thoughts on all of that for people?
Dane Johnson:
If you want to. go into conspiracy theory, maybe it's because we can't have 35% to 45% of the United States diagnosed with IBS because everyone is having these issues. At what point is it just, okay, everyone is having this? Why is there such an epidemic? And to your point about this isn't just IBS, IBD. I've worked with tons of people who are undiagnosed suffering. I'll give you one example. I worked with this guy, Steve. He worked at his father's business. He lived in Newport Beach, California, and he could not figure out what's wrong. 15 baboons today, 50 pounds under weight, no diagnosis, no inflammation, and just suffering. And we were able to get him off. And he was taking antidepressants because they would constipate him, not because of his mental issues. So that's how screwed in his case, he was just tied up like, I don't know what to do. This conversation is for anyone who wants to learn about how do I get happy and healthy at the same time and optimize my gut. And my story is going to help you with that. Because I was a good old boy from Virginia. I worked at Papa John's Pizza for four years. What do you think I ate five days a week? Making $5 .50 an hour. Okay, I worked Domino's, Papa John's Pizza. I ate fast food every day. I went to college and drank beer and ate whatever I could afford. We'd go to La Hacienda, like Mexican place, and just get the free chips and salsa with a cheese and tortilla queso, and it would cost three bucks, because I was broke, right? I mean, so that's when I started getting UC symptoms, and I was also really big in the gym, if you're someone who loves your GNC whey protein. I got to have 300 grams of protein a day to build muscle kind of guy. I can relate with that. If you're someone noticed thinking that your hormones might be off with gut health, I'll try to address that today. Everything is connected. The gut health, and I'd say, it's probably an argument on what is more important, both are extremely important, is also the liver. The liver and the gut have a lot of core issues that we can discuss today on how can we start to clean these? What are root causes? How do we find them? Should we invest in lab work? What's going on with food sensitivities? What is the microbiome? How do we start to build it? How do we know when it's getting better? How can I deal with things like constipation, diarrhea? What are some root issues that might be happening with that? So there's a lot we can discuss, and everyone with IBD, I want you to realize this in the connection. Just because you've been diagnosed with inflammatory bowel disease or IBS doesn't mean you have an alien gut. You still have a normal human gut, and when you optimize a gut that has a diagnosis of IBD, you actually might get healthier than what a quote unquote normal person might see in their gut. there's a lot of words. Does that make sense, Melanie?
Melanie Avalon:
It does. And super inspiring. Basically, you know, if we are having these issues, it's an opportunity to, like you said, not only potentially reverse them, but to really, truly optimize your gut health. Yeah. Okay. I'm so excited. Can you dive into your story? I can't wait for you to start telling it. And I don't understand just having listened to your prior interviews. I don't know how you were doing it. Like I don't know how you were showing up on sets in the condition that you were in.
Dane Johnson:
Yeah, yeah. And the last little thing on our tangent is my lab work looks better than everyone else's around me who are considered normal, who've never had a diagnosis. That's my point. My stool analysis, my urinalysis, my blood analysis, all of it, all of it. I look at normal people's quantitative PCR stool analysis and I find candida, I find Clostridia, I find dysbiotic bacteria, I find low stomach acid, I find fat malabsorption with no diagnosis. So that's what I'm saying, guys. It's for all of us. We're all together. IBD just means it got to a point where it's chronically inflamed, your immune system's freaking out, and now you're getting symptomatic. But there's a lot of people who are not symptomatic getting this symptom. So last tangent, let's jump in so people can understand about my experience. And as I said, the thing that really connects me is I never wanted this. I never wanted to be in natural medicine when I was younger. I was always entrepreneurial. I was always a hard worker, but I just wanted to eat what everyone else ate. I wanted to go where everyone else went. I didn't want to try to be this person who was restricting what I ate. I had a lot of problems being able to succeed in this. And the success came from a need, not a want, is the big point. So at 19 years old, I was going to College of Charleston in South Carolina, love Charleston, and I started getting blood in the stool. And the only thing I could think of is I was under a lot of stress with school. I had a breakup with a girlfriend at the time. And then I also was really getting into weightlifting. So I was having three to four protein shakes a day of stuff from GNC. And it was regular whey protein, which I came to find highly processed whey protein with a lot of additives, a lot of chemicals and sweeteners and different things that I think did affect my gut. And I started getting blood cramping pain as I calmed down on some of that protein. I calmed down on drinking alcohol. I calmed down on pizza that you have in college at 19 years old. I started noticing the symptoms did calm down. But by the time I was 23, it was kind of going on and off. I didn't I never heard of IBD. I never want to look at these problems. I wasn't one who wanted to go to the doctor. So I kind of put things off until I was about 23. And the reason is because at 23, I had started to have 12, 15, 18 bloody bowel movements a day. So I would go to the I would go. I mean, I was working in a lot of stress. Was it involved? I think a lot of us can connect with stress and symptoms. I was living in Washington, D .C., working a nine to five cubicle job, suit and tie, our commute there and back every day. I wasn't seeing friends. I was forty thousand dollars in debt from college. I was living on my dad's pullout couch, you know, trying to save money to pay off this debt. And I was kind of sad and miserable with it, but I was just willing to work hard. And I think my body started breaking down. But it looked like a crime scene and I didn't know what happened. And it was no longer, oh, I must have ate something off. And you kind of, you know, oh, you know, maybe it'll get better on its own. I think that's what we a lot of us do. It had gotten so bad that I had to start speaking about it. And I told my parents and then we went to the doctor and that's when they diagnosed me with ulcerative colitis at first.
Melanie Avalon:
Wow.
Dane Johnson:
That's terrifying. It was, too, because I'd never heard of it. And I didn't know what it was. And I remember sitting there, and I'm 22, 23 years old, and this doctor goes, yeah, you have ulcerative colitis. You're going to have this for the rest of your life. We need to start you on prednisone and mesalazine. So it's a 5 -ASA anti -inflammatory stomach coder along with cortisol steroid that helps knock out inflammation in your body. Long -term, terrible for you. A lot of problems with prednisone. But it can help knock out symptoms and make you feel like, oh, I'm going to be OK. But as you come off of it, it also has problems. So over the next few years, I just got more sick and more sick. So from 23 until I almost died of Crohn's colitis right around my birthday at 27 years old, it just got worse and worse and worse. So I just went through how everyone went through this. I used my insurance. I went to multiple doctors. We just did what they said. We even started reading about diets. So even while I was going on 6MP, Remicade, Intivio, anyone who's been chronically sick knows what I'm talking about. So these lifelong infusions of immunosuppressants and immunomodulators. So they usually put you on both, like an M urine and a Remicade or a 6MP or Intivio and you do both of them. Well, they were not effective. I was getting more sick on these drugs. I was getting terrible side effects. So I'm talking waking up in a pool of your own sweat, freezing, like you just jumped into the Atlantic Ocean in December. So, you know, sweats, headaches, pain, you know, three to four bowel movements a night, 15 bowel movements during the day. And then I started getting covered in cystic acne. And I didn't know what it was, but I was covered. My back, my chest, acne, I started losing weight. Today I walk around like 185, 190 pounds. And at my worst, I dropped to 120 pounds. So it was just like, you know, 23, 24, 25, getting worse and worse. And I had, God had blessed me with a career. I mean, when I was 22, I left that job. I took a one way ticket to California. I left this big job. I became a waiter in Los Angeles. You know, I left a big job with a 401k and, you know, a road to six figures. I left it all, became a waiter, got fired for my first waiter job. It made me laugh because I had a big job. And then they said, you couldn't cut it. You can't sell fish and wine, man. You're not good enough.
Melanie Avalon:
Would you get fired?
Dane Johnson:
for? I couldn't. I wasn't really good at reciting all the matchings of the wines with the different fish in Iran because I was working for reselling Oracle Software and they were begging me to stay because I was the youngest employee to get a promotion. I had gotten a raise in six months. I had asked for more money right out of college and my numbers performed best on the team reselling Oracle Software to the Department of Defense. They were excited. They wanted an IBM. There was another section was trying to get me. So I was, you know, barely my nose was up high, you know, and then I move. I say, no, I'm going to go live my life. This is my one time in life to go live and really just be myself is one of the happiest times in life. I just got diagnosed with UC. And then, you know, and I said, that's it. I got a chronic disease. I'm miserable out here. I got my degree. I got a year under my belt of office work and I got a resume, then get fired for my first waiter job. You know, when I moved to that, you know, hindsight, 2020, it did teach me a lot about my health. I'll get to. But, you know, I just was wanted out. I wanted I'm in California now. I'm living my own life. I've got like, you know, $4 ,000 to my name. And you know, I paid off a good portion of my debt for that year. I just put all my money towards the debt. But I just kept getting worse and worse. And you know, the 15 bound moments, the 20 bound movements, the chronic pain, so it felt like I was pooping glass and I started getting scared not to be around a bathroom. And as you said, Melanie, that made my story. We could take a whole, you know, hour on it. I want to trim it up for what's important for people to listen to. But God had blessed me with a career in acting and modeling. And I always thought maybe I could do it. So I went out there and I tried and I worked out it and shook hands and talked to people and figured things out. And I got signed with some of the biggest agencies in the world. And I started working with really good, clean commercial stuff like I was working for Nautica and Patagonia and Tommy Hilfinger. And I was working for, you know, Skechers and, you know, a lot of smiling young dad stuff as well. And so I was getting jobs like, oh, you got a job offer in Florida and Germany and Switzerland and Sweden. I'm going, this is all amazing, but I can't be without five minutes from a bathroom. And so that's a whole thing. And, you know, I was basically hiding it every once. So I didn't give up my career. I got booked for a 10 day job in Jamaica, OK, to shoot the Sandals Resort. Have you ever seen that commercial? I was one of the main guys in it where it's like a couple out on their vacation. So they paid for me to go out to Jamaica for 10 days. And I was on Prednisone. I had my mom actually had to wheelchair me to the airport. I mean, I was that bad. And when they saw me, I had lost 20 pounds from the casting. A month prior where they upset, they looked at me like, are you OK? You look a little skinny. I was just wearing baggy shirts. I told them, you know what I told them? I told them I was in Europe and Paris doing fashion shows and all that. And they wanted me skinny. I'm not kidding. It's a real story. And on set, we're shooting a commercial on set. I'm running off set into the jungle to take a crap and they're going, what's wrong? And I go, it must have been something I ate. I feel nauseous is what I told them. I mean, I am like double seven. I am hiding everything. I mean, and I did that for years. I mean, until one time I got booked just off my pictures, you know, because you get magazine pictures and commercials and one of my and I had agents all around the world and they called me and go, oh, this guy wants to build a fitness line around you and you're going to make all this money. It's going to be great. He just wants updated Polaroids on you. Well, I'm covered in acting. I'm 40 pounds lighter than my pictures. So my my and then I just I started just crying. I just lost it. I was in there with shout out to my booker at the time. My name was Chandra. I just thought my career was over. And it wasn't just about like the ego of like, I got this career. This is my one time to be a series regular or do all this. It was my freedom. It was that I could go off. I mean, it was one to my life. I was only going to be 20 something for so long. I was only going to have this experience one time. I wanted to live in California. I didn't want to go back to Virginia. So to get too sick was to give up my life in California and not have the money because I didn't come from a wealthy family where I would have to then just move back in with my mother and I did in Virginia. I didn't want to do that. So it was it was deeply like I had failed to let it go. And I just I I was I was a two faced person. I would put on this. I mean, I did a live on Good Day L .A. with Tommy Hilfinger himself. And I was literally losing vision as as I'm on the I'm on live television, you know, and and I weighed 142 pounds, six to in one of Tommy suits. He's like, you look good. I'm like, great. Thanks, Tommy. You know, and and so there was a lot of moments we could really go over that. Maybe one day, you know, I'll write all those stories. But it was like I was I was depressed, angry, anxious, hiding. You know, Marilyn Manson's makeup artist was working with me in Puerto Rico once. And I had to meet me two hours before set every day to to cover my body and makeup so they couldn't see all the acne. And I didn't fit. I didn't fit the clothes. So I kept trying to eat, but I couldn't gain weight. I was so upset. I was so angry And it was just getting worse. And then I was on set for uh doing uh, a show in same santa barbara For ug and then i'm literally shivering in a hot tub And i'm gonna tell you what the root causes we're gonna get to that. So i'm i'm cold sweats I cannot keep warm my vision's going in and out and i'm supposed to lead a fashion show with like all these executives around the world outside And i'm supposed to be like looking cool and fit, you know, and I go to the main um sierra I go to the art director. I've worked with them for six years, you know three times a year And and I said sierra. I I think I need to go to the hospital. I just told her I said look i've been pooping blood I'm underweight i'm shivering. I can hardly even stay awake She said don't worry about dane go and I was like blacking out as I was driving to the hospital I'm calling my mom. I I feel it was like worse than a dui I could not drive but I had to get to the hospital So i'm driving from santa barber back to l .a Because I gotta get back to where I kind of live and also i'm under sag after insurance Which really wasn't that good because I hadn't really built as much as had a lot going on as an actor yet at that point And so my insurance sucked and so I just drove straight I got stopped and got some emergency packets just to try to keep my brain working And I drove to the uh ucla clinic And then i'm there for like two hours, right two three hours and they're pumping me with morphine Which is like, you know, it's legalized heroin Basically, they're pumping me with morphine to help calm down the pain and calm down my body They put me in it But they're kind of keeping me in this chair and not move me into a room and then they come back and say look Your insurance doesn't cover you here in our er room So you're looking at a hundred thousand dollar bill of if you like eight to ten thousand dollars a day Depending on how long you need to stay. Do you want to stay and pay or you want to go? I said, you know bleepity bloop bloop bleep No Get me out of here They pulled me in an ambulance and sent me to cedar cyanide Two three hours later cedar cedar cyanide tells me the same thing your insurance isn't going to cover me So they sent me inland to a predominantly chinese hospital where I almost died And that was you know, so was suffering. I mean I was I was chronically sick and during that time I was I probably had already spent thirty thousand dollars on nash bat doctors I went to I flew out to mayo clinic So we would take we would fly out to different specialists and get a hotel room and pay for flights and food And then we'd go on google and read about supplements and diets and we'd go to whole foods and spend six seven hundred dollars You know, my sister was helping to pitch in and we were doing anything. I'd wake up My mom would be giving me almond milk and gluten -free cereal You know because that's what I lived on. I loved cereal when I was a kid So the big point in all this guys, you know, it you know when I bring it up, i'm kind of reliving it It makes me emotional But you know, I almost died in that hospital and it was intense and my whole family flew out You know if you ever seen someone interview, I kind of can feel the emotions rising up You kind of relive that trauma. My body doesn't want to remember it and that's why i'm so passionate about what I do now And i'm so convicted is i've been through it. I'm not a guy talking from an ivory tower I'm not someone who just is just in the books talking about the clinical. I live it. I breathe it I'm on the i'm on the field like a like a general I fight along with you guys. I really do this Yeah, my whole family flew out. I almost died in that hospital December 14th 2014. That was 10 years ago coming up And my mom actually helped save my life By calling all these different doctors and finding good for root issues We'll talk about you know Even like a ex -girlfriend had broken up had came and tried to help take care of me because it was like I mean it was it was really heart -wrenching like we had just broken up after three years Three months before I almost died. I mean talk about stress, right stress and energy has a lot to do with it I was on a feeding tube. I was on 200 milligrams of infused prednisone. I was on four antibiotics. I was on Intimio Intivio, I was on antiviral chemotherapy that actually saved my life That was eventually what we figured out I was on three grams of dilated and dilated is seven times stronger than morphine So if you ever taken morphine imagine 7x and then imagine the max dose of that So three grams of dilated is what you give to a cancer patient who's dying So I was floating. I was floating now. I don't remember a lot there. My mom says i'm talking to the window I i'm talking to my twin sister I don't have a twin sister, you know, I i'm saying crazy stuff I was stuck in that hospital bed for about 35 days and I lost the ability to walk because I went from a So at the at the show 35 days earlier at the show, I was about 178 180 pounds When I left the hospital about a week outside of the hospital when all that water retention from all the steroids started coming off I was 122 pounds that took about 45 days so about 45 days. I lost about 60 pounds And I didn't have and all the Skin on my feet was decaying off because of all the toxins in my body My body had nowhere to store it had no fat And I had such pain in my legs, but the muscles there was So if I got a massage the next day you ever had like severe muscle cramps from running 10 15 20 miles
Melanie Avalon:
I've had muscle cramps, not from running that many miles, but you can have some muscle cramps.
Dane Johnson:
You ever had like that muscle twitch up and you're like, Oh my God. You're like hitting your leg because it's twitching up on you.
Melanie Avalon:
Yes. Oh, like the really, really pain, like the pure pain. Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Dane Johnson:
Yeah. So that's how it felt kind of chronically for about an hour or two after any massage. Any movement in my body, it was, and then when I went to the bathroom still 10, 15 times a day, it felt like I was pooping glass and it felt like my colon was going to fall out of my anus. And so I'm 122 pounds. I look like a caveman. I've got a huge beard. I stink. My feet are like coming off. I'm in severe pain. You can't even give me a rub touch. And then I've lost really ability to talk because I can't listen to you. If you talk to me, I forgot what you say within half a second. I can't comprehend. I'm like brain dead, tongue sticking out, drooling, brain dead at this point. I've been on chemotherapy, Dilaudid, everything. And so even it took about a month for me to come back. So I was housebound for a year. The first month was just, you know, I couldn't watch. You ever seen the old Robin Hood cartoon movie? Yes. The conflict of that movie was too intense for me. So like, I couldn't handle any conflict, any kind of, there's a problem and we need to go fix the problem. So why? So I'm stuck on a couch. My sister is living with me. My mom and my sister are taking turns living with me to make sure I don't, you know, keel over. And I'm like, we cannot watch this. We watched Space Odyssey. Don't watch Lion King. No, I can't. I can't. I can't handle any, any conflict, like even dumb and dumber conflict. Like you didn't pay the gas man. Do you realize what you've done? I can't handle it. Like I need Space Odyssey. Tell me about Mars. That's it. Like you needed the Taylor Swift errors.
Melanie Avalon:
movie.
Dane Johnson:
My adrenals were so shocked, my nervous system was so shocked, I couldn't hear any conflict. The shock in my body was like, it was the strangest thing. I've never been there. But imagine being very stressed and watching a horror movie like, what am I doing? This is turn this off. It's kind of like that for everything. So yeah, it was hell and it was really hell and I fought my way back. And I remember when I almost was dying, it was like, I didn't really care anymore. I was just in pain and there was this one day I started just uncontrollably crying and it wasn't from the pain. I told the doctors it was from the pain. It was because my ex -girlfriend showed up. That was hard. When you get so sick and then you see how much people care for you, it's, ugh. So let me get myself back here. See when you relive it guys, that's the thing when you get on, you relive this stuff. It's really tough. So about a month, I started being able to move. Now, luckily, I had already in that four years from 23 to 27, I had decided I want to get natural medicine school. So I started looking at different natural medicine school. I looked at becoming a natural medicine doctor. I looked at the pros and cons. I talked to people who were already, you know, got their DO or DC or went and became acupuncturist or NDs. And I just looked at all this stuff because I knew I wanted to get involved in this. So I had already been practicing natural medicine for about a year, year and a half before I almost died. And that's why one of the reasons I was able to keep up in the shows and do all that is I did start seeing some results with diets and certain supplements and getting rid of certain toxins. I stopped drinking alcohol and I started working really closely with my naturopath professor. And so that kind of saved me until it exploded my face because I really didn't understand what I was doing to the level I do now. And so I know it's a long winded story, everybody. And I want to dive into being here to help you. You know, the big point is, is, you know, I spent a year rebuilding my 40 hours a week I was working, I was reading everything I could on functional medicine, I customized my own plan. I learned the assets of how to get real results and why I was failing before, which we can go over. And then about a year after that, I've been good sense. I've had some speed bumps, as I call them, where little things have happened, but nothing drastic. Nothing. That's I haven't taken a medication in 10 years. I have had no surgeries, despite every doctor telling me I had to get needed a full collect to me. And I work with people with surgeries. That's fine. We do fantastic results there. And we work with people with 40, you know, 40 years of Crohn's colitis. And I've been predominantly, I'd say 90 percent symptom free. I might have a little bit of something calm, loose stool, diarrhea, but no major issues, no major reactions. And I had a lot along the way. So as I got healthier, then I lived in New York City for three years and I had to figure out how to stay healthy without a bathroom around, without, you know, a lot of good clean air and being around EMFs all day long and not being home. You know, if you ever live in New York, Manhattan, you're not home from 8 a .m. till 10 p .m. That's just New York life. So there was a lot of trial and errors of how, you know, how to do all these things. I worked three jobs for three years in my 30s to build CCL. I built bootstrapped CCL. No, I never got a loan. I built it to be what I needed when I was chronically sick. And I've been viciously trying to figure out how to help the world with Crohn's and colitis and figure out what took me large amounts of money and large amounts of time and a lot of pain and suffering to figure out. Because if I had what I know now when I was that sick, I never would have got that sick.
Melanie Avalon:
Wow, this is crazy.
Dane Johnson:
It's crazy. And so let's go back. I mean, one thing I want to give people about root issues I found, if I can give some people some value on that right now. When I was in the hospital, my mom was frantically calling every doctor I had ever met with trying to figure out why I wasn't getting better because antibiotics or prednisone had usually worked before. It wasn't working anymore. She called a doctor in Florida and this doctor, and I did colonoscopies with every doctor, right? Oh, you're in here. Let's do a colonoscopy. I was like, everyone's sticking some on my butt, right? I'm over that, right? I've done three. It actually just makes your microbiome worse. It disturbs the area. It can cause more issues with polyps. I mean, there's a lot going on with colonoscopies. I'm not saying they're bad, but there's a lot more than what's being discussed. And this one doctor said, in one of my samples, he found cytomega virus. Cytomega virus, CMV. He found CMV.
Melanie Avalon:
I had that too. That's so interesting.
Dane Johnson:
Oh, let's dive in. Okay. He said he believed that the CMV virus had taken over my body and my immune system could no longer control it. This also can happen to AIDS patients or cancer patients. Sometimes when you get chronically sick or the elders, like my grandpa didn't die. He had Alzheimer's. He didn't die of Alzheimer's. He died of pneumonia. His immune system couldn't protect himself from the pneumonia. Same thing happens with C. diff in the elderly's. What we see is that when a person's body gets so weak, these infections can kill them where other normal healthy people, it won't. My body had gotten so weak. It could be stress. It could be all these other things happening, but my body got so weak, it could no longer control the CMV. The CMV took over my body and that's why antibiotics weren't effective. That's why steroids weren't effective. That's why the antiviral chemotherapy saved my life. It started controlling the CMV. And then I woke up and I woke up. That's crazy. Isn't it? And then the doctors knew they called my whole family like he might not live the night. That's quote unquote what they told my mother. He might not survive the night. We don't know what to do. They didn't pick up the phone. Look, you guys are here for a reason. We need to be progressive. The worst mistake we ever did is delegate out our health. We need to be progressive about what is going on in our bodies. And I'm going to make that and through this whole podcast, I'm going to show that over and over again and prove it to you. We need to be the ones who know we need to be progressive and we need to be asking everyone more why and more what and more how. Don't just take someone's word for any of it. Because if my mom had made that call and done that, I'd be dead. On the other hand, if it wasn't for prednisone and TPN, I'd probably also be dead. So it's a combination of the natural, the functional, the conventional. You got to put it all together. That's what I've really done. During that year, I stayed on prednisone for a while and slowly tapered off. It was very hard for me to get off prednisone. When I was on 10, five milligrams, it took a long time. The doctor told me to just go 20, 10, zero. That was a mistake. If I go 20, 10, zero on prednisone, I'm back in a flare. I had to go 20, 17 and a half, 15, 12 and a half, 10, seven and a half, five, four, three, two, one, zero. That was that. My body was not addicted to it. And my body would freak. So that was my experience. This is not medical advice. So there's a lot going on there. So CMV was an issue. Now, once I started during that year, the biggest asset I had when I was stuck in housebun for a year is I had already decided that I was going to heal. I had already made up my mind that I could heal, that I would heal, and that I was going to use natural medicine, but I was also going to be open -minded enough to use conventional where I thought it could suit me. So the biggest shift I made in that year is I took the seat as the CEO of my health. Before, it was my GI doctor. We just followed what he or she said. And we got three or four GI doctors looking for them to serve as the CEO. Oh, Mayo Clinic, they're the best. We're just going to do what they tell us. Well, that didn't work. They were telling me food didn't matter. Same thing, cedar sign I said, same thing UCLA said. But if I did fasting, I saw the needle move. And I remember going to a doctor saying, hey, Doc, I had 20 bowel movements on average last week. I did some fasting. And then the day after I fast, I only had 10 bowel movements. Is there a correlation? Doc says not. Young idiotic sir, there's no correlation. Leave the thinking to me. have felt like that. And there was a correlation. It was an obvious correlation. And I'm not saying we all just need to fast for the answer. We can go over that, but we know the needle can move. If you see the needle get worse with stress, that means that the needle can move better with meditation and gratitude and love. If you see the needle get worse with processed food, that means the needle can get better with clean food. The law of relativity states for one thing to be true, its opposite must be true. And that is what I hung my hat on when I was sick as I knew I doubled down all chips in that I could affect my health. That I had a say and I was willing to do everything. Okay. So I'm going to give you some of my laws that I created in that year. Okay. I had a full time job. Get myself healthy. There's no failure. There's no quitting me. I almost died from this. I'm backed into a corner and you're going to hear a tiger start roaring. That's what I want to give you right now. You got to own this. I don't care if you're 16 right now, 18, 25, 40, you are the CEO of your health right now. I bestow it upon you. You're going to take full responsibility for everything that happens in your health, but you're also going to build your team. Okay. You drive the ship. Okay. It's not your fault. This happened to you, but it is for damn sure your responsibility. That was my biggest change right there. It's not my fault, Dane. I got to forgive myself that this happened. You're not supposed to be sick. Okay. Say this to yourself. I'm not supposed to be sick and it's not my fault that this happened and I am overwhelmed and I need a better team and I am willing to take responsibility and I love and accept myself anyways. Let's move forward. Start with the mind. First thing you got to do when I sat and I got that conviction. Okay. When you build conviction, you will act, the fog will start to clear. Okay. I've been in those shoes when you are sick and you need to get healthy, the fog will clear the moment you decide. I know it's crazy. It's divine energy. You got to get conviction. The energy of conviction needs to live in you because with conviction, certain answers become obvious. Watch this, Melanie. It's so obvious. When I got convicted, I came up with some laws that I never did for the years prior. I'm only going to eat what I cook. That's not hard. It's just hard to stick with with our lifestyles. I got so convicted and I was so sick and I was housebound that now that was going to be my truth. I don't know if I should be meat, plants, AIP, carnivore, SED, low FODMAP, vegan. I didn't know. I was in a very similar situation to you guys. I don't know, but I know that if I prepare everything that I eat, I'll learn quicker. I'll understand the variables better. It'll be cheaper because I also can't. work, it'll be cheaper and I'll be more likely to get better results. Here's the law. Here's the underlying law I want everyone to start with. If you're that sick or you really want to be convicted, if it can't hurt me and it can only help me, do it. That was my conviction. I mean, I'm talking. I was really screaming it from the mountaintop. If it can't hurt me and it can only help me, do it. So it just put away your shame. Prayer. I'm praying to God every morning and night. Why? Because it can't hurt me and it can only help me. It doesn't have to be, you know, the religious argument. Just give up that energy somewhere. Have a faith in something, right? And so I just decided to do that. Meditation can't hurt me. It can only help me. I didn't want to meditate. My match path professor was always telling me, you got to meditate. You got to meditate. Okay, fine. So I used to, then I started learning how to stack. So every, you know, every day I get an Epsom salt bath. I'd be reading a book and I do meditation and I knew I had engaged the parasympathetic nervous system when I started salivating. How do you know when you're in the rest and digest mode and you're signaling your cells to heal when you salivate? A lot of people don't know that. That's why when you're getting a really good massage, you're going to start drooling.
Melanie Avalon:
That's interesting. I've never heard that. Like ever.
Dane Johnson:
Yeah, all these little hacks by Nd Tommy that I said you the man good one So that's one to know and that's another thing when you're meditating Actually, if you can start to try to get yourself salivating and you practice that you'll engage the parasympathetic Because that's the rest in digest mode when you're in the parasympathetic your body creates more digestive enzymes. Those enzymes lives in your saliva Your heart rate naturally goes down. You're not going to be able to salivate and have 120 your heart rate going at 120 per minute, right?
Melanie Avalon:
Wow, yeah.
Dane Johnson:
Beats per minute. So the little things, like, and I also, I started figuring out how to make what I wanted feel good. That's layer two, let's keep going over the laws, okay? Only what I cook, I'm gonna meditate, I'm gonna pray, I'm gonna journal. It's obvious when you're convicted, five minutes in the morning, five minutes in the night, Dr. Dane's gonna see patient Dane twice a day, how'd you do? So I'm praying, you know, and I got my prayer from Jordan Rubin, if you're into IBS, IBD, and you should definitely be reading his books. His books helped save me, and I'll tell you, I was actually doing a one -on -one call with Jordan Rubin a month ago, and I manifested that, because I'm gonna pardon with the man. He helped save my life. His books were huge for me. And he had a prayer in there, and I just read it morning and night, in his book, The Maker's Diet. And he calls it, makers as in God, Jesus, The Maker's Diet, right? And a lot of his emotional spiritual really is what I connect to now, even more than the diet he puts in there. But I read that, I would then do aromatherapy, and then I would sit down and I'd journal about what was gonna go on. So how did my night go? And then how's my day gonna go? And when you journal and you hold accountability, you'll figure out, wow, I had way more bowel movements than I thought. I ate way more crap food than I thought. I had to wait more snacks than I thought. I didn't have enough water today. I really wasn't good on taking supplements. This is the accountability of it. And then if you're doing too much, you just gotta calm down on what you say you're gonna do day to day. You're just trying to do too much. So you gotta calm it down, because consistency is worth more than perfection. That's also layer two. I want you to be consistent more than perfect. You come and you listen to these podcasts, there's 5 ,000 things you can do. Calm it down and get consistent with what gives you ROI. So I'm gonna journal every day. I'm gonna eat what I cooked. I'm going to put on positive music. I refuse to watch dramatic killer movies. I'm not watching crazy intense aliens or Terminator or none of that. I'm watching comedies. I'm looking to laugh. I'm listening to Bob Morley. So another thing is I created my, I called it my I'm already healed. I'm already healed playlist. There's another hack. Create a playlist and put 20 songs in there that make you smile and make you wanna sing along. The trick is, is that you find yourself skipping a song, you have to delete it and replace it with a new song. You're always signaling happiness. You were telling yourselves, you were telling your body, I'm safe, I'm good, I'm happy. Another thing, especially when you're housebound or in a wheelchair or something like that, get stuff on your schedule. Every day I was booked. I'm gonna call my best friend from college. I'm gonna call my childhood friend. I'm gonna help this person out. Even though I was chronically sick, I could get on the phone and talk to someone about their relationships. I got positive energy. Hey, Rory, what's up, bro? Are you thinking, yeah, you guys doing well. You've been together for two years. How's it going? How you feeling? I'm not gonna just constantly talk to people about my problems. I wanna help people solve their problems. The more I condition being a problem solver, the more I'm gonna come back to my life and be a problem solver. Practice being a problem solver, okay? Another point on that, if you're gonna tell someone a problem, tell them a solution. That was big. For years, every day I talk to my mom, I tell her what was wrong. I tell her how angry I was. God smited me. I never deserved this. Why do I have to eat like this? Why is no one else dealing with this? Why am I the only one dealing with this? When I became CEO and I decided I was no longer going to allow myself to feel like a victim and feel sad, you gotta get rid of those feelings. And it's not like you can just change it in your mind. You have to condition it. We could literally stay here for two hours because everyone listening, you have to condition. It's like a workout. You don't live for biceps one day. It's every day that that muscle is gonna grow. It's the same thing with positive thinking and about getting rid of depression, anxiety, worry, doubt, fear, resentment, all that happens when you're chronically sick. It's a vicious cycle. So you just gotta start being healthy before you actually feel healthy. Being is what you're doing in the present moment. Eckhart Tolle, read it. So that's why I love reading, okay? So you gotta feel good. You gotta practice the feeling good. So I'm not gonna watch it. I'm gonna listen to Bob Marley. Luckily I lived in Southern California. Doors are open, sun's in. I found other things. What makes me feel good? I started gardening. at 24, 25 years old. old. Like today I still take care of 80 plants. I'm growing tomatoes, I'm growing cucumbers, spinach, basil, you know, I'm growing strawberries, I'm picking it. Today my son was helping me plant some chamomile and some cilantro yesterday because it gets us outside, it gets us hands in the dirt, it gets our feet in the ground. So it feels good. Like I can do that at home. Another huge hack, reading. People don't realize this, okay? If you're listening to this in your car right now, you can do multiple things while you're listening. But if you're reading a book, you have to be present with reading the book. Meaning if you listen about cognitive issues, 90% of our thoughts out of the 40 ,000 thoughts we have a day, last time I read on the stats, 40 ,000 thoughts a day, 90% are the same thoughts on repeat. If you're reading a book on health, on manifestation, on positive vibration, on letting go of pain, anger, anxiety, doubt, fear, you know, I'm going to die, all this. If you're reading that, you can't think about your problems and read that book at the same time. You'll lose your place. So that's where I said, oh my God, this is brilliant. Just the act of reading is replacing my thoughts with this brilliant author's thoughts. If you hire Tony Robbins one -on -one, it's going to cost you a million to $2 million. But his book, five bucks, it's his voice. Let his voice sink into your spirit 20 minutes a day. Dr. Susan Blum, Eckert Tolle, right? Joe Dispenza, one of the best books I read on mental and all this manifestation, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Breaking the Habit of Being Myself. That headline literally says what we're talking about now. You have to recondition how you think the positivity. And it's a condition just like the gym. If you lay off of it, you're going to start getting those negative thoughts because it is impossible to cure a bad day or any disease because all energy can come and go. I'm feeling bad. I got diarrhea. I got a headache. I got bleeding gums again. I got acne again. It comes and goes. Energy comes and goes. None of it's eradicated. Cure means eradicated. So life is about a conditioning of balance. The body is a balance. So we have to get back in balance with our body. And that's a repetition. That's a consistency. So journal, positive energy. Learn how to identify negative energy. One thing is I talk to people who get me all angry and upset and it'd make me worse. I'd have more symptoms when I was upset. I know everyone listening feels the same. You get stressed, you get more symptoms. So when you're around negative energy, you need to learn how to either A, get away from it, or change that negative energy. You got to manipulate energy. When I was chronically sick, walking around with a cane, 135 pounds, trying to rebuild myself, I was fierce. There is no negative energy allowed around me. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to see it. And if I was around it, I couldn't just yell at someone because I'm being negative and angry. I realized this with my mom. She's telling me what to do. I start screaming at her. I know what I'm doing because I almost died. And I started getting shooting pain as I start arguing with her on the phone. And that's what changed my mind that every day when I talk to my mom, I'm just going to tell her what's good. I'm not going to keep telling her I still have blood. I'm going to tell her that the blood is 30% down. You get the difference? Hey, how are you feeling, Dane? Oh, I still have blood. No, that's negative. And that's stressful. My blood's 30% down from two weeks ago. I'm winning. I'm happy. I'm there. If I can get a 30% down, I can get a 70. Mom, this is what I'm excited about. Every mom listening right now wishes their son or daughter would be like that. Everyone listening for the significant other wants the positive energy creates positive energy. Stop enrolling people and enrolling people in what's wrong and start enrolling them in what's right. Because it's the law of attraction. You keep telling people things are going to happen. It's more likely to happen. That's read the law of attraction, the secret. It's an energy. If you want to stop feeling bad, you've got to start acting in ways that create a spark for positive feelings. Feelings are emotions, energy in motion. Your spirit has these feelings that can be changed based on experience, not just thought you can't talk yourself out of feeling bad. So I can go on tangents all day about the mind, but it really is the biggest thing for long -term success when you're on that battlefield. You start there, and then you have to start building what I call your daily blueprint. What is your plan? You've got to get balance because when you say you're going to take these supplements or eat this way, it's emotionally taxing. It's very difficult. When you're going to intermittent fast and do a 12 -hour or 15 -hour schedule, it's emotionally taxing. You have to condition yourself with it. Is that not true, Melanie? When you tried fasting, was it much harder then than it is now, emotionally?
Melanie Avalon:
Definitely. Now it's just second nature.
Dane Johnson:
Yeah, and so, but it's a conditioning. The first few times you did it, and you probably talk about it with people, that it's tough. And that you have to find that positive energy elsewhere. Okay, and we can go on tangents about that. I'll say one with food. I had to replace the desire for gluten and processed foods with the desire of freedom. It's a replacement, it's not a sacrifice. See, if we invest $100 instead of buying those new sneakers, what is the positive energy? I am investing in my financial freedom moving forward instead of the immediate sneaker. Same with food. I am investing on getting back to my shape, getting rid of this bloating, getting rid of these skin issues, getting rid of these migraines, getting a clear mind, getting natural energy. I don't need three cups of coffee a day. Being confident and happy in my own body, and not needing to use a restroom, not worried about stool, not worried about inflammation. And that means more to me than anything. And so every time I eat that healthy food, I'm just investing in that freedom. And then I give myself, you did this, Dane, so now let's go get some sun. Now let's go out and hang out with our friends. My goal was not to be able to add back in gluten. My goal was to be able to go out to a restaurant and see my buddies, even if I'm not eating what they're eating. Or go to a bar, even if I'm not drinking. I just wanted to be free. I was stuck to a bathroom. So what are you investing in? What is your desire? Forget the fear. What are you gonna get out of this? What are you gonna give yourself that you're excited about? That needs to be part of your daily blueprint. What you do from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, make sure you can be consistent with it. I'd rather you do less and be consistent than try to do too much that's overwhelming you. As you get better at this, you're gonna naturally want to stack. Melanie, as you practice, have you found that you can handle more protocol, do more biohacking, read more books, and ask yourself to do more in your day to day.
Melanie Avalon:
Definitely. And also a quick comment to that. I definitely went through a, because you were talking earlier about how, you know, trying all these different things and this idea of, you know, if it can't hurt, it can only help, then you do it. I had the struggle or the experience of like feeling like I needed to try all the things. So even if I thought it couldn't hurt and could only help, I got overwhelmed with thinking I had to do all these things to be getting better. So I had a really interesting evolution of trying to do all the things and feeling like I had to do all the things to like letting go of some of that. And then finally coming back to a place where now the way I see it is I do the things that I know enhance my life, but I tell myself I don't need them. Like I don't have to be doing them. It's like a mindset shift that has really helped me personally.
Dane Johnson:
Beautifully said because you're you change the fear to a desire exactly yeah, so everyone write this down get rid of I need and replace it with I want.
Melanie Avalon:
Yeah, I love that.
Dane Johnson:
no longer. If you ever hear yourself, even today, I still catch myself. If I ever come out and say, man, I really need, I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, I really want.
Melanie Avalon:
Oh, wow. So that's something, yeah, that you do.
Dane Johnson:
Yeah, because its need is an anxiety. I need more money. I need to get more time. I need to get a babysitter for these kids. I need to find more sleep. I need more time for my friends. It's all anxiety. Watch this. I want to find a babysitter with the children and be in balance with it. I want to be able to hang out with my friends and make sense of that time balance. I want to have more time that I can meditate and be with myself. I want to have more time with my wife. It opens up a how. It opens up a question. It's conversational. It brings credence to the date night. If you tell yourself another what you need, all they're hearing you is complain. If you tell them what you want, you're opening up a conversation for brainstorming. So desire, lead with desire, not fear is huge for me. And one of my first e -books I wrote, one of the chapters was, don't be surprised if you catch me eating a burger and fries. And it was because I had to break free of this idea that I had to be this perfect. It was one of my biggest fears when I really became an IBD specialist is I had to be this perfect eater that never did anything wrong. And I'm like, straight edge is all because that's what's expected of me. And it wasn't, you know, for me, I actually, this is way down the road for you guys, but I want you to be able to eat whatever you want. I want you to want to eat well and not poison yourself. So that's the thing. I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want. But I rarely ever choose to poison myself. That's true for people with IBD or regular gut health. If you're having, you gotta, it's a conditioning. So when you get educated about food and you get educated about processed foods and convenience taxes found in anything that you have to open, a wrapper you have to open, there's a convenience tax, I call it. And a convenience tax means if it's easy and it's made simplified, you don't have to cook it, there's something that's gonna tax your body. The latest research is gonna tell you something someone's gonna come out and finally say, oh, nope, that package has this. It's in everything, okay, it's a convenience tax. So when you can change that, but I wanna really dive into some of the like really big takeaway physical things people could start utilizing. Because I know maybe for you and I, Melanie, this stuff really hits home because it's so big for the growth. It's like for me, I just say it's like church. It reignites my spirit, it reignites my why. It gets me excited, it connects me with the community. I wanna work with you guys. I want you to win and me to win because I want our team to grow. I wanna be able to see you and talk about, hey, what solutions have you found and what place? I imagine a network in the future where no matter what town or city we go into, we have people working on creating good restaurants with no seed oils and no processed foods and no glyphosate and building conscious companies around these solutions. I wanna pardon with people who are inspired like this. Those are the friends I wanna be around. Those are the people I wanna go to dinner with. I'm interested in what you have to say. You know, I wanna be inspired by you. I only wanna be influenced by people who are happier or healthier than me. Not richer, not more Instagram followers. I don't give two craps about that. I wanna be around people who are happy and healthy. You know, those are the two things I look for. And so, you know, here are the things that I found. So when I got out and I started looking deep diving into functional medicine, I've been working in functional medicine about 10 years, and I've worked with a few thousand people with Crohn's and colitis. We put out a testimony of completely reversing people's symptoms once a week. That's how much we do this. We only see Crohn's colitis. We see about 130 clients a week with Crohn's colitis, and we see people all around the world. We have testimonies in Africa. Our youngest testimony is six years old. I've worked with a three -year -old. Our oldest testimony is 67 with 42 years of Crohn's, five surgeries. Yeah, we do it all. This is what we do. Everyone on our team, all our coaches and practitioners have Crohn's colitis themselves. So we live it, we breathe it, we own it, and we customize it. We work with vegans, we work with meat eaters, we work with people who AIP, we work with people whose goal is to be able to eat whatever they want again, whatever it is. You've got to decide what your North Star is, right? And so here are the things, the big things I found physically and the functional side of things that were really big problems that the doctors at Cedars -Sinai, UCLA, Mayo Clinic never mentioned to me, okay? The biggest one that you can get ROI on is a quantitative, just to start with, is a quantitative PCR stool analysis. I like to use the GI map. Some people will use Genova, a gut zoomer by Vibrant America, GI 360. There's a lot of them out there. And they're all pretty similar with a little differences, little color changes. But when I did that, I found large amounts of H. pylori. H. pylori is a bacteria that can cause low stomach acid, can cause ulcerations, can cause bleeding, can also be linked with SIBO because when you have low stomach acid, you're more likely to get bacteria overgrowth and fungal overgrowth, especially in the small intestine. And that can have a cascade of problems. So as you go over this, guys, remember that the body, it works like in a big circular motion. It's a moving circular motion and one thing gets off, it causes a cascade effect. So as symptoms, you could go, oh, I'm overwhelmed, I have so many symptoms, but once you fix one thing in that circle, usually a lot of things get better. So everything tends to get better or everything tends to get worse, you know? And so that was an upstream problem for me, was no one had ever told me I had a large amount. Now when I tested H. pylori and did a stool antigen chest at the conventional doctor, it had tested negative because they can only find what's called mid E to the fourth or greater, okay? Well, the PCR had showed about low E to the fourth. So it was coming up negative with the doctor's technology, but it was coming up positive with the PCR technology through functional labs. And also H. pylori, and this is deeper level understanding, is that it can be in biofilms, it can also burrow in the gut, so it can be hidden in your body and actually have much larger levels. Found H. pylori, I found large amounts of candida that was linked, in my opinion, to the skin issues, one of the problems with the skin. Why was I breaking out an acne everywhere? I was bathing in Neutrogena, you know? And today, with all the people who have helped with their skin issues, I could literally run a Neutrogena ad with all the skin I've cleared, working on the liver and the microbiome and the hormones and the food, right? And so I found large amounts of candida. I had a young, I'll give you a quick case on that, I had a young man in LA, and he had the best PPO insurance, he had a great job, multi -six figures, he was on prednisone, he was on biologics, 20 bloody bowel movements a day, about to get his colon removed because the steroids and biologics weren't working, doctors didn't know what to do. He starts working with me, I do a stool test on him, and I immediately find four times the normal threshold of candida, right there in an at -home, non -invasive stool test. And you gotta remember, just like mold or viruses, look at COVID, some of us, we don't have responses to it. We're freaking out to it. One person's in the R room from COVID, one person, no problem. It's the same thing with candida, it's the same thing with mold, it's the same thing with parasites, it's the same thing with all these things. I had a three -year -old with massive amounts of gliotoxin, we got rid of the gliotoxin mold, her gee, I heard calprotectin went normal. So that's the thing is a lot of times it could just be that you have a massive infection and no one's looking at it or no one's seeing it and the lab's insurance companies aren't really covering it. And most of the time, I don't know about you guys out there, but the doctors aren't running these tests. And even when they run a test, they don't go over the test with you, they just go, yep, nope, we didn't see anything. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, show me the test. That's what a functional doctor's also gonna do with you. They're gonna interpret and show it for you. And for me, I wanna actually train you on the ABCs of lab tests, so you can do them yourself whenever you want. Because we can actually order you a lab test in Dubai, Canada, America. We can do Australia all over the world. We can get you a stool test and you can order it on your own wholesale price. That's something we do. So, you know, that you can see. You can see, you know, pancreatic enzymes that can give you an idea of low stomach acid. You can see fat malabsorption. You can see zonulin for leaky gut. You can see dysbiosis. You can see really bad infections like campylobacter, Giardia, C. diff, toxin A or toxin B. So it's not a perfect test, but a lot of times I can just find obvious stuff right there. And anyone out there, I definitely look at, if you wanna invest in your health and you haven't done a stool analysis, it's a really good place to go. If you're on a budget, then I'd first work with a coach and build a plan, do that for a couple of months, then spend money on labs. Because labs are expensive if insurance doesn't cover them. Insurance doesn't cover most functional lab tests unless you have a really, really great doctor who's really cool and hip, but still very rare. And so that was, I found H. pylori. I found candida, the cytomegalovirus. Now the cytomegalovirus was the biggest one because that's what was killing me. So when I calmed that down, now I just had really bad IBD, but I wasn't life -threatening. So now I had the star, I started working on candida. I started working on the H. pylori. I had very low short -chain fatty acids, butyric acid. I had very low beneficial bacteria. I had very low stomach acid. I also found, later on, I found parasites. I tested positive for blastocystis hominis and cyclospora, I also tested positive for, so I had to work on parasites. Another problem that my skin was telling me that I later found out is I had severe drainage issues. My liver was so backed up. I had very low bioproduction. My lymphatic system wasn't working, especially when you're bed rested and you don't move. That's some of the vicious cycle. Because you get so sick and you don't move, well, your lymphatic system tends to work better when you're jumping up and down, or you're walking, or you're exercising, or you're sweating. Okay, so that gets the lymph to move, or pressure, like H -bot, hyperbaric oxygen chamber can also help that pressure or scuba diving can help push toxins out of the lymph, which also can help with anxiety, PTSD, or migraines. So a lot of times it could be a lymph issue, or it could be magnesium, salt issue as well. So you start to see all these problems. So, you know, I'm 30, $40 ,000 into this. I've gone to every major doctor, and no one showed any of that. No one found any of that, or even talked to that, or even looked for it. So that was really the big thing I want to say is there's so much underlying. And I want to say this is a big point, Melanie, and for everyone listening on this. When you get diagnosed with a disease, and someone says it's incurable and we don't know what causes it, and then you just look at the actual mechanics of the gut, you start to see that it's not just a root cause you're looking for, it's root causes, it's root issues. And no matter what disease you're looking at, specifically with autoimmune, I mean, I specialize in Crohn's class, so I'm specifically talking about that, but any autoimmune disease, nine times out of 10, I'd be willing to bet my bottom dollar, if we look deeply at your systems, we're going to find problems. Here are the top problems we're going to find. Beyond the pathogen infections we just talked about, that's a core problem driving autoimmune, but here are other basic fundamental problems of how your body is not working, like an engine. With autoimmune disease, I am finding commonly low stomach acid. Commonly, you are not breaking down food well. And guess what that stomach acid's doing? It's also helping to kill off bacteria and parasites and other infections that are now going unchecked into the rest of your GI. It's also causing problems with food sensitivity. Why is it, Melanie, most of us grew up, we were fine with bread, we were fine with a little bit of milk, we were fine with a little bit of peanuts, we were fine with a little bit of eggs, now we're all sensitive to it. We're not allergic, most of us were sensitive. See, I'm not allergic to those foods, but I couldn't tolerate any of it. Now, I could, my gut is strong enough that I could go eat an entire large Papa John's pizza pizza and my gut would be fine. Is it good for me? No, but my strength of my digestion, my microbiome, my gut lining, it can handle that damage, that poison. Before, I couldn't have a sip of water without a bloody bowel movement. So with low stomach acid, that's also affecting, it's part of the equation where we're getting more sensitive to food. Why is it dairy and gluten are the big two? Besides the glyphosate in the process and the A2 casein and the gliadin increase, The gliadin protein and the casein and lactose protein are the hardest to digest proteins. They're very dense. When you have low stomach acid, those are the type of foods that are gonna go unchecked through the stomach acid. So now you have partially digested proteins sitting in your small intestine that now need to be evacuated through the colon, causing more gas, more diarrhea, more cramping, and it's damaging your villi in your gut lining. So imagine all these little particles around your gut lining. Remember, your gut is 28 feet long. So it doesn't matter if you have IBD or not, that's a problem for all of us. As those undigested proteins go and try to be absorbed through the gut lining, they're big, they're dense, they're not supposed to be there. The gut then breaks itself apart to allow that to be pushed through, or it poops it out and that's where you get really nasty smelling gas and bowel movements and diarrhea, but it goes into the gut lining and that's why a lot of us are noticing derious causing acne. Because it's inflammatory, it's not being properly digested, and it's seeping into the bloodstream. And then it's backing up the liver because the liver is cleaning the blood. I can't remember exactly how many times, but I think, don't quote me on this, you guys can check online, but I think the liver cleans about 200 gallons of blood a day, something like that. So you've got all that. And then now you got damage to the gut lining where there's a cytokine reaction and then the mucosal membrane is also being weakened. So it's causing a downstream problem. So you've got to think upstream. So digestion is a big problem. Microbiome diversity. We're not eating from farms. Everything we eat has glyphosate. Glyphosate is destroying the microbiome. The more diverse the microbiome, it's already been clinically showing, the less likely COVID is gonna be a problem, the less likely food sensitivity is gonna be a problem, the less likely autoimmune is gonna be an issue. We're losing our diversity. And with the loss of diversity, we then can't control the bacteria causing SIBO. We can't control the fungus causing mold issues and other candida issues and fungal issues. So we're losing control of our environment, much like the forest, okay? So we need that diversity in there. The microbiome in the soil and the microbiome in the gut are very similar. We're losing the diversity in the soil and it's destroying our food on the planet and we're losing the diversity in our gut, it's destroying our gut. See the connection to the earth? We're human organisms. So microbiome diversity is a big problem. Second is that leaky gut. So that gut lining being inflamed in a weak mucosa membrane. So that's causing more downstream problems for everyone. Meaning, just because you don't have IBD or IBS doesn't mean you don't have leaky gut. So what is leaky gut? As those tight junctions and that gut lining are being weakened, destroyed, the membrane that separates the gut lining from the bloodstream is being winged out. It doesn't have the proper food, right? Like butyrate, probiotics, phosphatidylcholine are three foods for the gut lining. And since it's getting weakened out, the villi are then getting damaged and the villi get worse at absorbing nutrients. Right behind the villi is all of your cytokines. So the dendritic cells live there, the T cells live there. And that's where you're getting autoimmune disease because they cause the pro -inflammatory interleukin -6, interleukin -1 beta, TNF alpha, and IL -12, IL -23, all those cytokines start living right behind the gut. That's why they say the immune system lives in the gut. So right behind that damaged gut lining in the mucous membrane is all those cytokines, all that immune system. So now they're firing and firing. And that is connected, in my opinion, in my belief, with all autoimmune disease, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, diabetes, Crohn's colitis, of course, all these different forms, okay? So that's a core problem for all of us is the gut lining is not strong, the microbiome diversity, the digestion. Next is the liver. Almost all of us have a backed up liver. It is a core problem. I think Sinclair, she's doing a great job on this. She's really opening up. A lot of people are really opening up on this. But what's happening is our liver is getting overwhelmed with all these toxins. We're breathing in toxins, we're drinking toxins, we're eating toxins. As our liver gets backed up, we can't create bile. Bile is how the liver cleans itself. It attaches all the toxins to the bile and then dumps them into the duatum at the top of your GI tract, then to be disposed. So a lot of times with so much toxins, the duatum is at the top of your GI. So that means the toxins have to go through 28 feet of the GI tract to be exposed through the bile. They're getting reabsorbed into the body. They're not even getting properly dumped because the liver's overwhelmed and there's not enough bile production. There's not enough pancreatic enzymes. And we're cutting out our gallbladder is also a problem. Okay, and so the liver as it gets overwhelmed, we can't create glutathione. It causes more constipation. It causes digestion problems. Because without bile, you can't break down fats and you can't properly absorb your fat solubles. Vitamin A, D, K, E. Those are your fat syllables. So now, what's gonna happen? You're gonna see hormone issues. Okay, you're gonna see omega -3 to omega -6 issues. You're gonna see inflammation issues. You're gonna see cognitive function issues. Because if you can't properly utilize your fats, your brain's not gonna work. Your body's not gonna work. Your hormones are gonna work. It's a cascade. So liver, liver's a massive problem, especially if you believe that you have parasite issues or mold issues. Those two are gunk. It's like tar in the liver. Okay, and that's why people are allowed to talk about Castoril packs and coffee enemas and Nacetyl cysteine and tudka as a biosalt and bitters to help your body move and produce more bile. So there's so much going on in there. And even as you start dumping that out, and a lot of us, even if we're on a specific diet, we have these other core issues where the diet's not enough. Melanie, how many times have you talked to someone on a strict diet, but they're still having problems?
Melanie Avalon:
A lot.
Dane Johnson:
a lot, right? And so that's the thing is diet itself is only one stage. The whole point of diet is to reduce, you want to get rid of the toxins, right? The best thing you do with diet is defensive, get rid of the toxins, get rid of the inflammatory stuff. Okay? So the two things I want you to focus on with diet, whether you're plant, meat, whatever, the goal of it is it has to reduce or eliminate an inflammatory response from eating. So you're not getting an inflammatory response from the food you're eating. And number two is it needs to be bioavailable. Those are the two cardinal rules. I call it food philosophy. So in the shield program, what we do is we actually free you from a diet and we build a lifestyle that makes you happy and healthy. That's our mission statement with food, no diets. We build a lifestyle that makes you happy and healthy food philosophy. Food philosophy is measured by being able to have the self -empowerment to look at any plate of food and measure your ability to handle it. So can I look at that plate of food and assess its risk? So I coined that as I started trying to open up my diet because I couldn't have grains. And then I got scared of phytic acid, and arsenic, and Dave Asprey is making me scared of everything. And so I'm going back and saying, no, no, I have a normal gut. I want to prove it. I should be able to handle a bowl of oatmeal. That was my mission statement. It wasn't oatmeal is bad. I'm never going to eat it again. It was, I want a normal gut and a normal gut should be able to eat any of these foods properly prepared from the earth. So I should be able to handle an almond. I should be able to handle quinoa. I should be able to handle a red bell pepper and a tomato. Even though Gundry's got me scared of that. So it's like you look at all these diets and I'm telling you guys, this is how I've worked it out is my goal is to be able to eat whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want, but I need to use food philosophy to assess its risk. And I need to be strategic about can I really handle it and is it really causing a problem? And that's where lab work and all that comes in. But the stronger your microbiome, the stronger your digestion, the stronger your mucosa membrane, the more healthy your liver, your gallbladder, all those things. And the better you prepare the food without all the inflammatory stuff, you're going to be back to mother Teresa. You're going to be with the Italians, baby, having a good time. Give me whatever. Okay. Make it up, chop it up. It's all good, right? Get rid of all the nasty stuff. So, you know, that's my mission for you. I want to see, I want to desire that. I don't want to be scared of food. How many of you guys are done being scared of food? I want to be able to eat food from the earth. And I just assess, was it cooked in canola oil or soybean oil? I go to every restaurant. They're all cooking in trash. Where'd you get this chicken? Was it just fed corn its entire life and completely stressed out and given steroids to grow? And I mean, same with the fish. I mean, there's a lot of problems here. So, for me, it's not about just plant versus meat. It's the quality of the food and how it's prepared. That's the big thing we all need to get on the same page with. That's where you really start looking at what are the mechanics going on in the body. And you also, when you want to become a Jedi. So, if you're going, Dane, you've given me so much. I'm overwhelmed already. This is for that 10% who already know a lot of this stuff or are getting excited about it and want to take it to the next level. Here's the next level. You've got to change your relationship with how you feel about being a sick person. People who are chronically fasting and chronically on these diets, there's this deep feeling of also unsafety. Like, if you don't do it, you don't feel safe in your body anymore. You start to feel this inflammation. There's this lack of safety. I felt that about 18 months ago, I really started addressing that. And it's gotten better, but I still don't feel fully safe. To be completely transparent, I still don't feel fully, fully safe in my body. But from 18 months ago, I'd say it's about 60% better. you I'm sitting in Tahiti and I don't really have any symptoms, but I still feel like if I don't do all these things or take all these supplements to do that, that I'm not safe, that I'll be hurt again. Right, Mel? You get that, right? Now, me and Mel could probably just talk about this for hours because this is where we're probably at, so I want to give you some of what you're looking forward to. We have to re -trigger the relationship at a cellular level with our body of how we feel, feelings, like really address feeling. It's okay that you feel unsafe, but why? And start doing that. So, that's where I started doing EMDR, hypnosis, EFT are my three favorite. I think German New Medicine is cool, too. People have gotten results with it. I just think these are a little bit more, I don't know, there's more science behind it, more people are doing it. It's more broad. German New Medicine is more about tactics for IBD, but EFT tapping is emotional freedom technique. So, I meet with an EFT mental health specialist usually once a week, once every two weeks, and I'll tap on why do I not feel safe? I'll tap on why is this food thing? I'll tap on I'm going to, you know, whatever I'm scared of, or I just had a newborn baby, like my son is two months old and I'm freaking out over here, right? I'm tapping. So, from the lack of sleep and write that, so we're starting to release energy. Remember, that feelings are an energy. It's not physical. So, can you change the way you feel with just physical? Meaning my lab work, my supplements, my diet, my fasting, that's physical. You have to start opening up to the energetic side of it. You have to realize that energy actually transforms into physical. I'm stressed, turns into more bowel movements, right? Well, I'm at peace. I'm in love. I'm conditioning myself to let myself feel safe. Okay? And I'll do this right now for 10 seconds right now. I want everyone just to breathe for a second. And I want you just to try to feel the feeling. Just try to get the feeling of safety. Just practice right now. Feel it. Forget your truth or your reality. I'm safe. Imagine with all your best friends, it's the middle of the day, the sun is shining, you don't have to be anywhere, you're not worried about money, your job, you're not worried about what's on your plate, you're just here and you're safe. Feel that goodness. Just practice. Let it smile. Put a smile on your face because you can. Feel. Feel safe. If you've got that feeling right now, feel it, become aware of it, hold onto it and come back to me. We can change a feeling not just based on what we think reality is but because we choose it. You have to choose to wake up and condition a new reality and that's what hypnosis is helping with and that's what eye movement, desensitization, reprocessing is helping with and that's what emotional freedom technique is helping with. There's a signal at a cellular level that actually becomes physical. We need to send the signal to ourselves that we're safe, that we've arrived, that we're not meant to be sick and that we're okay and that needs to be conditioned and the more sick and the more suffering you've gone through, the harder it will be but you'll probably end up being a superhero for the world coming on and helping people like Melanie's doing. Usually the more suffering, the more superpowers and just realize that it's a balance. Let go of the idea that it's okay not to feel safe in a moment because in a moment in your life you're going to feel angry, you're going to feel lost, you're going to feel lonely. There's no way you're not. You can't eradicate those feelings. You will feel them again. You will feel like you're not as healthy as you want. It will happen. Just expect it. Make friends with it. It's okay. You can't eradicate any energy. There's going to be a day where you feel like you're not doing as well with your health. It's going to be a day where you feel like you're not doing as well with your marriage or your girlfriend or what's in the mirror. It's going to be a day you're not going to be doing as well with your food. That is called life. It's supposed to be there. The answer is balance. Can you feel it? Can you be okay with it and can you rebalance yourself? Winners win because of their best at rebalancing, not because they're the best at not feeling. The best winners in the world still feel loneliness. They still feel sick. They still feel off. They still feel like they're failing. It's their ability to respond to it that makes them winners. So again, the goal is not to eradicate anything. The goal is to respond. Can you stay in balance? If you stay in balance, you'll continue more often than not, send a chemical signal to your cells that you are safe and that you are okay. And your parasympathetic nervous system will engage. And studies show that when there's less stress, which is an energy, that there's less chance of cancer, there's less chance of disease, there's more likelihood of better microbiome diversity, there's more likelihood of better digestion, there's more likelihood that you're gonna stay married, there's more likelihood you're gonna have the best life. So whatever it is, the Jedi moment here is keep practicing the feeling, safety, happiness, love, gratitude. And that, when I bring it back, is why I decided to pray, because it changed the signal. Hope that helps.
Melanie Avalon:
I would say yes. That was amazing. Thank you so much. So have no fear, everybody. The show notes will have a full transcript of all of this. So what you were talking about with reading, people can actually go and read this and take it in and only take in that information at the moment. I'll also put a link. You mentioned tapping. I've had Nick Ortner on the show, I think twice. So I'll put links to that if you want to learn more about tapping as well. So how can people work with you and what resources do you have?
Dane Johnson:
You can check us out check out also the show note in the links. I'll send it to Melanie where you'll be able to apply for a strategy session to talk to our team about your case so we want to put our best foot forward for you. Are our plan is the shield program that stands for supplements herbs imagination exercise lifestyle and diet. We will build you a customized plan we will train you on these things we will train you on labs and protocol nutrition and customizing what you're gonna eat what you're gonna take and why you'll be part of a community. You have full access to talk with anyone in our community our community is free governing so we don't restrict you talk with other members on their results and we have different threads for moms and dads and people in india or europe or australia or people who you know are doing surgeries or fish a lizard fishers you name it. The show program also includes three months of private coaching with your ibd coach who specializes in this has the these themselves and only sees krone's colitis or ibs something around that nature 90% are a form of ibd so that can include microscopic colitis lymphocytic colitis and colitis you name it and so we really are our impact driven company. And when you come in you'll apply for a complimentary strategy session to talk with one of our sports specialist who also have ibd themselves i love our team i'll talk with either becky or kelly or erica or lindsay and all of them actually have. Had some form of ibd since they were teenagers in the role in their late twenties and early thirties or fifteen years of experience with this surgeries by logic you name it so we immediately want to put you on a phone with someone who can relate with you connect with you and really help you feel supported cuz i would've done anything to talk with someone who had krone's colitis when i was sick. And just you know how they started getting their life back and so you'll be able to do that and see if the shield program is right for you and if. And you can also see us on instagram krone's colitis underscore lifestyle calm or YouTube youtube .com slash krone's lifestyle me dane johnson one if you want to say hello to me and let me know you came from Melanie. You know if you click the link in the below will know you came from Melanie because we want to support you, we want to support Melanie and just know like you know. That money took this time and introduced me to you guys i want to build integrity and trust with you and so that will be the show program and we have other other values that you can do and you can work with us so just reach out to us let us know what you need and we will have a solution for you.
Melanie Avalon:
So again, these show notes for today's show will be at ifpodcast .com slash episode 364. And that's where we will put links to everything that we talked about. All those resources will be there. Goodness, this was just so incredible. I really can't thank you enough, Dane, for everything that you're doing. And it's interesting because I remember when I had my own like rock bottom with health issues and I mean, I was not in the hospital for 35 days, but I was there for three days and it was not fun. And I remember thinking, I was like someday, well, I remember thinking two things. I remember thinking, I'll know I'm like on the up and up when I'm taking pictures again in public. Like when I'm at a restaurant and I have like pictures of me there with the family or like when I'm on social media again, because I was like so scared of like the world and like me and everything that was happening. So I had that moment. And then I had the moment thinking like someday I'll be grateful this happened to me like not right now, but someday. And I can truly say that now because I wouldn't be doing everything I I'm doing if I hadn't gone through those health challenges and hearing your story. I'm just so grateful for what you're doing. And sounds like you also wouldn't be doing everything that you know you're doing if you hadn't gone through that as well. So I'm just so grateful for you sharing your story and what you're doing. And it's incredible. I look forward to everything else that you have coming.
Dane Johnson:
Thank you. Thank you so much. I'll give you one that I was super grateful for. The day I could pee without having a bowel movement was like the biggest, oh my God, to like go into the stall and not have to like shamefully like run in there and release whatever is coming out. Like, you know, was so, oh my God. It was like, oh, I'm back. Thank God. Yeah, I'm grateful. And thank you for having me, Melanie. I mean, you put this together and you're the one who's putting the work in to create this, create this environment for us to grow and learn together. I just want, you know, I want to grow forward with trust and integrity. I want to serve people in Crohn's colitis. I want to do much bigger than even what we're talking about. We're going to build the most empowered Crohn's colitis community globally. We have big ideas. I want to create a win -win scenario for us. I am driven on impact, you know, connect this, whatever you need, please click the link in the show notes. We know you came from Melanie because we want to also support Melanie in that. And yeah, we're just here for you. And we know it's tough, but you're going to get everything you need to get real results coaching. We can get lab work around the world. Also EFT. I didn't mention this, Melanie. I actually just hired my EFT coach to come and do a free EFT session for a whole community once a week. So every week you can just jump on and do a live with her and she taps on everything, fear, optimism, doubt, worry, anger, and she does Q and A as well. And she's awesome. She has also colitis herself for 15 years. And then we have an ND who meets every week to go over like training on supplements and like stacks for constipation or different problems. So that's another thing we're adding is we're adding professors who just come on and do lives beyond your private coach. So we are thinking and we can ship supplements all around the world. You know, we're just doing big things and we're just really excited. And if you have IBD reach out, we want to, I know there's a lot of crap and craziness out there, but integrity and trust, that's what we focus on and we try to do our very best. Thank you so much, Melanie.
Melanie Avalon:
Thank you so much, Dane. And so for listeners, Dane has an incredible generous gift for you guys. So if you think that this program is applicable to you, you can go to ifpodcast .com slash shield. And then when you go there, you'll fill out some intake forms. And if you qualify for the program, you will get a free intake session. And you said, how long is that session, Dane?
Dane Johnson:
usually about 45 minutes to an hour, you'll talk with your IBD sports specialist who also has had IBD and recovered from IBD and be able to talk to you about your case complimentary.
Melanie Avalon:
That's incredible. And then if that resonates and you're fit and you actually do the program, then you also get a $400 supplement gift card as well to go with the program, which is amazing. And then Dane was telling me that the program includes three months of private coaching, and it's also a lifetime membership. Anything else you'd like to share about the program?
Dane Johnson:
Yeah, the biggest thing is we're building what we needed when we were chronically sick and it's about impact. That's the number one thing is we know you need a coach, you need a private coach, someone who specializes in IBD. You can really help customize your plan and how it's working and all the ebbs and flows. And we want it to be a one -stop shop. So yeah, you get $400 gift card included. So if we tell you to take a supplement, we're going to be paying for it already. So we want you to feel really good integrity with what you're getting and why. And you'll be getting free access to my live trainings every week. You get free access to EFT tapping with Rachel Turner every week. And you can talk to the whole community forever on your mobile or your desktop, all other members with IBD. It's a one of a kind where I think you're really going to be excited about it. We hope you take a look if you have IBD and you need support.
Melanie Avalon:
So amazing. I'm excited. So again, so listeners, the link for that is ifpodcast .com slash shield. So definitely check that out for that incredible generous gift. Dane, thank you so much. This was so amazing. I know we've like had this on the book for months and months. So it was so wonderful and beautiful to finally connect with you. And I'm just so excited to see everything, everything that you continue to do in the world. I can't thank you enough.
Dane Johnson:
Thank you for having me, Melanie. Amazing conversation. God bless. I hope everyone learned a ton today and let's move forward with positivity, optimism, integrity, and let's change the world. Thank you for having me.
Melanie Avalon:
Thank you so much for listening to the Intimation Fasting Podcast. Please remember, everything we discussed on this show does not constitute medical advice and no patient-doctor relationship is formed. If you enjoyed the show, please consider writing a review on iTunes. We couldn't do this without our amazing team. Administration by Sharon Merriman, editing by Podcast Doctors, show notes and artwork by Brianna Joyner, and original theme composed by Leland Cox and recomposed by Steve Saunders.
STUFF WE LIKE
Check out the Stuff We Like page for links to any of the books/supplements/products etc. mentioned on the podcast that we like!
LINKS
BUY:
Melanie's What When Wine Diet: Lose Weight And Feel Great With Paleo-Style Meals, Intermittent Fasting, And Wine
Vanessa's Keto Essentials: 150 Ketogenic Recipes to Revitalize, Heal, and Shed Weight
The Tone Device Breath Ketone Analyzer
The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast
More on Melanie: MelanieAvalon.com
More on Vanessa: ketogenicgirl.com
Theme Music Composed By Leland Cox: LelandCox.com
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review in Apple Podcasts - it helps more than you know!