Dr. Alejandro Junger - How to Transform your mind and immunity through what you eat

Community Immunity Podcast Show Notes 5/6/2020

Hosted by Lucia Hargasova

 DR. ALEJANDRO JUNGER – How to Transform your mind and immunity through what you eat

Our Guest: Dr. Alejandro Junger

In this episode, we speak to New York Cardiologist Alejandro Junger, founder of the Clean Program and bestselling author of Clean. Discussing his personal story of overcoming depression and controversy behind traditional vs holistic medicine and how we can indeed transform our life by simply changing what we eat bringing it closer to nature. His detoxification program developed 20 years ago followed by many celebrities including Meghan Markle.

Conversation Highlights

- how Alejandro Junge overcame depression

- the role of alternative medicine and meditation

- the concept of holistic health vs traditional medicine corruption

- the understanding that food affects everything, especially mental clarity

- why cell undergo dysfunction

- the concept that everything's connected

- to be transformed spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically

Quotes:

I signed up for the program immediately. I had lost 15 pounds. I didn't even remember what depression. I didn't breathe that well for the last 10 years. I finished the program. My skin was glowing, My eyes were white. I just felt and looked 10 years younger and any off the issues that I was given prescription medications for were not even. This is medicine. I have to learn what it is that right now it looks to me that is magic. But who cares, 

Contact Dr.Junger:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandro-junger-4226bba4/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/drjunger

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drjunger/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dralejandrojunger/?hl=en

Website:

https://www.cleanprogram.com/

Don’t forget to subscribe to the Community Immunity Podcast, created to support, guide and grow the spiritual, physical, mental and emotional community!

About Our Host

Lucia Hargasova is a Leadership and Life Coach! She currently works with high-performance international clients such as CEOs, entrepreneurs, influencers, and coaches. She combine strategic thinking and marketing intelligence with spiritual and emotional awareness, bringing to the table 15+ years of solid business and marketing experience.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucia-hargasova-leadership-coaching/

Website: https://luciahargasova.com/

Transcript

spk_0:   0:10
Welcome to the community immunity podcast. Every month I am bringing you to new guests from the world of spirituals. Physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing to strengthen your own immunity, to invite you to awaken the potential within. My name is Lucia Hargasova, and I am a life and leadership coach. All right. I am so excited to be introducing you to my next guest doctor, Alejandro Junger, New York cardiologists and detoxification specialist, best selling author and founder of The Clean Program. Alejandro, you have been part of my life for the last five years and part of my own well-being transformation. I am fully aware that there are millions of people who know your wonderful work, including celebrities. But for those who don't know you yet, how did this exciting journey of transformation start for you and why Detox.

spk_1:   1:21
So I was born in Uruguay and, you know, I had a healthy life by default. There were no supermarkets and processed foods. And my mom used to prepare foods with recipes from her great grandmother. Life was very healthy just because it was very healthy. And then I went to medical school. And when I graduated. I moved to New York to do my internship residency and fellowship, internal medicine, and cardiology. And it was not easy, and it was really stressful and the food was really bad. And initially, I started gaining weight, then followed allergies, first seasonal allergies.  Then my digestion started turning toe a nightmare, and I would blow that I would have constipation and diarrhea. And then, you know, the drop that filled the glass was that I started feeling depressed. I started feeling this sense of doom, and it was kind of scary because there was nothing to be depressed about. If you looked at it from the outside, my life was going great. So I took a few days off. I went to see a gastroenterologist, and a psychiatrist and an allergist, they ran it up with three diagnoses and seven prescription medications, which did not make sense to me. I didn't want to take pills in order to function. So soon after that, I finished regulated as a cardiologist and moved to India to a monastery in India where I was I went there seeking for peace of mind. My biggest problem was in my mind constant, repetitive, pernicious, negative things that would consume my energy and take me out of the present time and gave me a sense of sadness. So, you know, one thing led to another,  I learned about meditation and I ended up in this monastery in India, mostly with my intention to study meditation. But in exchange for learning there, I had to offer my services. So I offer my services as a doctor and I was running a clinic. It was a big Ashram and I was running a clinic together with top raking therapists, massage therapists, ayurvedic experts, you name it. They were, you know, people ago. The action has an open mind. So there are alternative thinkers, alternative practitioners, and without even knowing it. We were running on integrative medicine practice. It wasn't even a thing at that time. This is 20 years ago. So it was an amazing experience. I not only opened my mind to it because I saw what they were proposing for each patient. And I obviously knew what I would propose for that same patient and it wasn't always the same or it wasn't ever the same. So but I was observing what they were giving the patient. Once I said, Okay, let's do that. I saw the power of herbs and acupuncture and bodywork and meditation and you know, many, many, many different modalities. And I got a sense of how these things can be combined. It was the For my depression, they gave me different recommendations, according to my dosha, and this and that, and things started improving. But once I returned after a year, returned to Palm Springs and took a job in a very busy practice, I started eating from the hospital cafeteria. I started feeling the stress of only being able to see people for seven minutes in those minutes, the only thing I could do. This was exactly what I hated was done to me. Just, you know, write prescriptions. Because here in the USA, medicine is very different. You choose what is least likely to end you up in courts. And actually, this is how they trained us. So you don't choose what's best for the holistic health for that person. You know, I remember one of the attending decisions, teaching decisions that teaching doctors at the hospital are our strain used to tell us when you write the progress knows you have to write it, imagining that you're sitting in court and this is what you know is going to free or you're in jail. So with that mentality with that atmosphere, I just felt super frustrated and having to do for people? You know what? I didn't want to do myself for myself, so I didn't know what to do. I was again gained weight and again, you know, feeling that the pressure actually came back with a vengeance, and then the irritable bowels until one day somebody appeared at my door. An old friend of mine that I hadn't seen for 10 days, and he was a transformed creature. His skin was glowing at lost 10 or 15 pounds. He was just different to the point that I was floored and asking, What did you do and say, Well, I went to a detox center. I said, Oh, I didn't know you were addicted. And he said, well, I'm not addicted to what you're thinking. It's not alcohol, okay? It's more sugar and gluten and things like that. I said, well, but so what did he say. Come. And it took me 10 minutes away from where I was living in the desert off California to a spa. But it was more than a spot. It was a place where people came from all over the world, and they've been coming there for decades, in which they put you through a detox program. It's a little bit intense. It's only juicing. It's colonics every day, you know, in a bunch of supplements and the same kind of vibe that I got from looking at my friend. You know, this blow that yet I could see in everybody because we walked around. There's a big living room. People gather and they people like the chitchat. But there's also rooms apart. He was showing me around and you know it was encountering people. And the more people had stayed there. The shiny skin and eyes, the more intense the frequency with which they were glowing,  my curiosity as a doctor was high. Because listen, at the end, when you go to a regular doctor, nobody talks about the glow. Nobody talks about the shiny eyes. Nobody talked about vibrantion. You know, it's blood pressure, cholesterol, blood. So but I was always interested in those things. Was how come I didn't learn in medical school how to make these people shine like they're doing in this spot what is in the water here? So I met the owner and I started listening to her. And because she wasn't a  doctor, her whole speech about detox sounded a little bit like a tree hugging grandma that took a little too much LSD when she was young and now lives in an alternate reality. Right? But something in what she was saying made sense and the most important things, crazy or not, people were really healthy and glowing, so you cannot argue with results. So I signed up for the program immediately, even though I couldn't stay there as a guest. I would come in and out between my rounds between my hospital visits and, you know, and I would drink my juices and get my colonics and swallow the supplements. Listen to some lectures and meditated. I had lost 15pounds. I didn't even remember what depression.I didn't breathe that well for the last 10 years. What? I finished the program. My skin was glowing, My eyes were white. I just felt and looked 10 years younger and any off the issues that I was given prescription medications for were not even. I did not even remember them. And that was it from I said.This is medicine, not what I'm doing putting catheters in people's necks and you know. So I have to learn what it is that is happening here inside the body. That right now looks to me like it's hokey pokey like it's magic, but who cares? I mean magic does that welcome magic?

spk_0:   11:17
I want to come back to something you said on the beginning of your story about the spiral of the thoughts, the depression, the mental in clarity and how you managed to turn this around, by something as simple as a change in your food habits. How can this have such a huge impact? How is this possible?

spk_1:   11:42
How could it not be that food effects everything? Because you are the food that you eat. So you are not only made off it right, your proteins and carbohydrates, your collagen, your bones are all molecules. Minerals. You know that. Where do they come from? Food. So literally texturally you are what you eat, but also food is information. So it's not only building you, but it's also in instruction. Manual foods that you eat are instructing your body what it has to do. And the reason why that is because this is a whole design of nature. How does nature were, you know, was animals in the wild don't get sick because they're living and eating what nature designed them to eat. And they are where nature designed them to be. And they're following the rhythms and they're eating what they find, which was put there by nature. So you know. But we have separated ourselves from nature, and we became more vulnerable creatures, right? I give you an example of the difference between a natural ecosystem and a man created a natural ecosystem. Right? When you look at a jungle right and even looking at it from above, you see it's a sturdy ecosystem is difficult terain. You know, something strange comes. It'll probably be eaten immediately or killed by a snake or, you know, like a crocodile. It's a system that has natural ways of defending and adapt sting. And it's sturdy right when you look at a cornfield or you know any field that is landing only one type of crop, it's an artificial way off. A plant growing in a natural way wouldn't ever grow for miles and miles and miles only the same species, right, And that's why it is not a sturdy environment is not a sturdy ecosystem, right, because that's why you need insecticides and pesticides and fertilizers and all kinds of things. That's not the natural way of happening in the land in the ecosystem is not a story, a strong, a stable as the jungle in which you have all this mixture. Right? This viral ability to the concept is that variability results in a stability. No, we as a species, we were immersed in this variable variety ecosystem and we would eat these things that this ecosystem would provide for us. And if you look in history and even nowadays, when you're looking, you see less industrialized counters. You said the eat all kinds of things, mostly plants. You know, I read recently that there was a time in which we would we even in America, would be more than 300 species of plants. Right now it's avocado, kale, cucumber. Cauliflower maybe. That's it. All right. So we have extracted ourselves from an ecosystem of variability and stability, and we have become like the cornfields were weak. And then so we have to give ourselves all kinds of fertilizer supplements and all kinds off insecticides and pesticides. Antibiotics. Right, Because we are attacked and damaged by, like your plants. The insects coming now the viruses coming in needing us up, you know? So this is a really important concept because it also translates to things that you can do right. And I always like to give people things to do because with all the information, people go really crazy. But if you understand how to apply to your daily life, then you know it becomes useful. And especially in these times and especially for you, the immunity community, this relates to the immune system so much because the new system in itself is a subsystem, a sub ecosystem, all right. And the new system itself is born. You know, the mother. The womb of the immune system in the bone marrow where white blood cells are produced. Now, the moment these white blood cells are being produced, they're coming out a certain environment, which is what? Your blood, your temperature, your PH, the routines that are running around the other cells that are running around. So if these cells come out, they have the ability to transform themselves. Why, because you know that biology reads itself, right? So these sounds come out and there's a bacteria infection going on. They turn into food, you know, and if there's an allergy, they turn into the healing and feel what is, and what it's not. If there's nothing going on that they need to do right away, they kind of migrate into the intestines. That's where most of the white blood cells that are producing a bone marrow. Deploying units like the immune system deploys soldiers to where there is more tenses off crossing the border, right? Where's the border? The intestines? So the immune system is there now with these cells of the musician. They stay there for a while, right? Every day the bone marrow is producing more tens of thousands off white cells that is thrown it, not tens of thousands. I think it's tens of millions or tens of billions. I don't even remember. So it's producing them, throwing them, and they're also going out and they're turning into what they're turning, and then they go up in and they end up in the intestine and the older cells start getting damaged. You stop and then they should die and then be replaced by his new words. But in order for that to happen, you have to have the dying system, which is called ordo faggy. Have a diet. The dying system percent a clearing up system off dead cells are old, damaged cells in the body.  You have to have that turned on a time because younger white blesses can eat the older damaged ones. But the process needs to be more than that. So imagine what's going on. On one hand, you have all these damaged cells that after some time they actually start dysfunction, an important problem himself. So those are the order immunities and all these things right now, the younger cells and they'll be produced enough because there are nutrients that are lacking, like the vital neuron. So there is not enough replacement and clearing up off the old and replacement with you. So new systems are tired and not prepared. So in times like this, that's how so many are getting sick right now, going back to a concept of variability and variety. This is what you can do for yourself and to maximize the chances of your bone marrow, producing your white cells, so  process to be given an opportunity. Probably things are really providing the immune system mostly, but all systems the nutrients necessary and the most amount of necessary nutrients are in vegetable fruit implants, all kinds of plants, right? And the more color off plans that you eat, the more chances that you are going actually provide all the necessary, like the bio flab like there are these substances in fruits and vegetables that vary according to their color, you know. And, for example, blue and purple color have Slavin Lloyd's that or poorly finals that our rain protected, you know. So that's an example of something that you can eat to give you protection in a system that is actually damaged as a consequence of what's happening in the guts. I am sure you had her about leaky gut. That also leaves your suspicion of the leaky brain, you know, and that's why mental for was happening in and the pressure was happening because my intestines were so busy. My immune system was so busy causing all kinds of allergic reactions and food sensitivities on the immune system were going crazy and therefore was getting confused and giving me allergies, right? And also so busy that I actually got a couple of cannot deal with everything here, the nutrients that I was getting or not really the right ones or the necessary ones or in the amounts necessary. So my nervous system around there wasn't producing enough serotonin, in part because it was, you know, putting attention on regulating other adaptation of survival mechanisms for my area. For my hyperpermeability virility, everything's connected so but also everything is connected to the food, that wheat. That's where everything starts at times like this, the least chemicals that you put inside. And the more color off plans that you put inside, the best chances you will have off having a we will bust and prepared immune system.

spk_0:   22:22
I love how you answer my question because it is clear that we can indeed affect our all immunity but simply making better choices in how and what we eat now, given the times we're in. I had several people asking me, Is it safe to gold and detox right now? I

spk_1:   22:47
wouldn't go from 0 to 100 in a minute, like, for example, I'm doing now. Intermittent fasting but I'm doing like serious intermittent fasting, you know, I don't need for 24 hours. Then I had I have celery juice than 24 hours that only then I have a really good man with all the prototype. Yesterday I had a salad. You should see. It was it was like an explosion of colors. And and I added some fish because I kind of felt that my body needed protein and sometimes, you know, detoxification. It's not like you're doing a detox program. I called it that way because it was geared towards supporting the detox system. But you are you doing with that is doing a lot of things. You are coming down inflammation. You are somehow restoring the health of your gods, allowing the good bacteria to grow and promoting the bank activity to, you know, to be eliminated. You are balancing your pH. This you're doing every the intense details programs like I'm doing or the just water fasting Or they the famous what's it called the lemon and maple syrup and water. Anyways, those air too intense for this time is what it's true also, that once you start details and the body said Okay, and then it puts all his energy there and then and then also you say, You know, but a program like the clean program, which is really balanced to life in the city. And it's the ideal time because you don't even have an excuse to say, Well, I have a party or I have a dinner or have a wedding or, you know I'm going on vacation. The amazing thing is that it's not like you do the program for your immune system and then hope that, you know, be able to fight the virus. You're doing it for your self esteem, for your quality of sleep, for the look off your skin, for the feel of your skin, for the patience you gang the your family members afterward, many, many emotional people do. Temperature are women, and most of the women that have kids tell us some reports tow us something in that regard like I'm a better mother now. I'm more present with my kids. You know, I'd like to know. I feel freer in my body, so I play with them right things that they hadn't done for a while. So this is not Okay, I'm gonna do these. And you know you don't notice anything. Yeah, You're doing it for the needs of the expenses. Them whatever. You know, just like some of the supplements that we take for years. Supplements, supplements You need to do when you're just hoping, you know, And then you stop them and you realize you're feeling know what Daddy's. This is the transformative experience which will elevate you in every sense. Spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically.

spk_0:   25:45
Alejandro, thank you so much for your time. I'm looking forward to. Seeing clean program continue to find It's way too many more homes and people and transforming their lives just like you didn't mind. For those who would want to hear more and learn more, you can check out Alejandro's latest book, Clean seven as well as Clean program. Thank you so much for listening. They make sure you subscribe to the podcast, share it, or tell a friend about it until next time.