142 | 4 Health Nonnegotiables in 2026! - Dr. Barrett Deubert

Welcome back to the Real Health Podcast. Happy New Year. If you're driving to work, out on a walk, or just bouncing between meetings, this podcast is for you. It's commuter style. We'll be done in about fifteen minutes.

So let's dive in. Let's give you the most amount of valuable content in the shortest period of time. Our aim is that value to you in your health journey. Today, I wanna talk about what health really looks like. If you're setting goals for 2026, let's have some non negotiables here.

Let's talk about what health actually is and what health isn't. Cause every year there's a new perfect diet. Every year there's a new perfect routine. Every new every year there's a new perfect supplement or some herb or spice or whatever. And whether it's cold plunging, whether it's sauna, whether it's a perfect diet, we get caught and somehow we're more exhausted, anxious, and inconsistent than ever before.

There's more content than ever. There's there's there's more information than ever, yet we're more exhausted than ever. So things aren't aligning. And when we look at the health culture today, it's not healthy. Like, the health culture isn't healthy.

We're gonna break that down. What does that mean, doctor Barrett? Like, what is the health culture not healthy? What does that mean? And what does health actually look like?

After being in the business for twenty years, you realize, wow, we have it jacked up. And I think social media is probably the biggest influence of that. In a positive way has helped a lot of people and in a negative way. So let's get you out of the negative and put you into the positive. The problem is health has become extreme.

Now, if you were to look at my life, you'd probably say I'm extreme, but it didn't take one year to get here. Right? And that's why I tell people all the time, you can't compare your journey to my my health journey. I've been I've been at this for twenty years. Twenty years of consistent discipline living is gonna produce probably an extreme lifestyle comparatively to most.

But let's be honest, healthy culture today often sounds like if you don't eat this way, you are doing damage. Or if you miss this habit, you're falling behind. Or if you don't optimize everything, then you're failing. And health becomes all or nothing, black and white, and it's identity based, and then it's fear driven. It's FOMO, it's fear of missing out, it's guilt because you didn't do something right, and you just feel like you're never able to accomplish the task at hand.

Let's talk about this. Go back to our previous episode where we dive in about how to set healthy goals that are identity based, that are for you, that are gonna nourish you in this next year so that you can have a proper plan because you can't you can't bite off more, know, than you can chew. So let's make sure that we are reframing our health in 2026. K? So health is a tool.

It is a tool, not an identity. Who are you? It's a great question. We talk a lot about it on our Mana Monday podcast. If you wanna learn more about identity, faith, and spiritual growth, make sure you listen to Man of Monday every Monday morning when it comes out.

Because health is a tool. It's not your identity. Who you are is a child of God, son and daughter. Okay? What is health?

And health serves us as a son and a daughter. Okay? It serves us. It serves our purpose while we're here on earth. Here's a foundational shift.

Health is a tool. It is not your identity. That is the shift we have to make. You don't exist to serve your routine. Your routine exists to serve your life.

My routine is carved out to maximize my efficiency and energy systems for the purpose of serving people first. That's why I wake up at a certain time of day. That's why I go to sleep at a certain time. That's why I eat at certain times. That's why I train at certain times.

That's why I drink my tea or coffee at certain times. Health is a tool. Your routine exists to serve your life. Don't flip it around. You don't exist to serve your routine.

Health should support relationships and your calling, your work, your faith, your longevity. It shouldn't replace them. It exists to serve them, not replace them. And when health becomes your identity, any disruption feels like a threat. Any setback feels personal.

Any deviation feels like failure. You know, it's the I didn't do this today. I'm a failure. Right? If we're in that mindset, we are failing.

So we gotta get out of that. It's not identity. Health is a tool. It's not who you are. What are the four pillars of real health?

Let's simplify this. Instead of chasing perfection, anchor to these four non negotiables. Non negotiables are essential to health journey. The first one is consistency over intensity. When you look at setting goals, a consistent repeated change is more important than an intense change.

Like, for instance, if you've never fasted before ever. K? And this is a plug for our workshop for Monday night. Okay? So when this pod comes podcast comes out, we're gonna have workshop Monday night at our West location.

Make sure you go to our Instagram and sign up for the workshop where we talk about fasting and and nutritional recommendations and strategies. Let's just say you haven't fasted before. And all of sudden you're like, I'm gonna do a five day water only fast. It's probably the stupidest idea. Right?

Let's be real. Not ideal. Okay? But what if you were to say, hey, I'm gonna do a one day twenty four hour bone broth fast. That's probably wise.

That is and then can and then it's enjoyable. Okay? For the most part. And you can continue to push that needle to thirty six hours, forty eight hours, seventy two hours, and keep building. But don't set yourself up for failure.

Don't do a whole 30 and go to an extreme nutrition if you're eating McDonald's three times a day, right? So the first thing is consistency over intensity. You don't need the perfect workout. You don't need the perfect diet. You need the next workout.

You need the next meal to be better. That's it. Better. K? You're looking for better, not perfection.

Consistency compounds over time. Great books called Atomic Habits. Read it. Get it in your spirit. It'll help you.

The second thing is nourishment over restriction. A lot of times we wanna restrict our nutrition, restrict our life, actually nourish. By nourishing, you pour out, okay, the bad by pouring in the good. Okay? You don't remove the bad by removing the bad.

If you take a a glass of dirty water and you just take a a gallon of clean water and you just pour the gallon of clean water into the dirty water glass, sooner or later, guess what's gonna be in that glass? Clean water. But it's gonna take a gallon, two gallons, three gallons of clean water to finally push out all the sediment, all the dirt, all the grit. Okay? Your body has a bunch of sediment in it.

It's dirty. Okay? How do you get rid of it? You nourish. Right?

Does this nourish me? Does this support my energy? Does this fit my season of life? And as we nourish, we find that we start to avoid those things that are restrictive, that are draining our energy. Okay?

So for instance, instead of removing something from your diet, add in vegetables, add in fruit, you know, something in that's nourishing, add in protein, Eat your protein first. You'd bunch protein first on your plate, really gonna be hard to overindulge in other things at the end. Number three, recovery is productive. This is hard for me. I think if I rest, I'm not doing something, I'm not working, I'm not grinding, I'm not growing, right?

If I sleep in on a Saturday morning, I'm unproductive, I'm lazy, I'm good for nothing, okay? Remember, recovery is healthy. We need to recover, we need to heal. So recovery is productive. Sleep, recovery, margin helps regulate our hormones.

It improves performance, mental health, mental clarity. So make sure that you maximize your recovery windows when you have them. Yes, I power nap virtually every day. Yes, I choose a day where I sleep in. These things I do when I know that my body needs that rhythm.

Okay? And we shouldn't be guilty for it. And the fourth nonnegotiable standard is health should serve life, not replace it. If health practices isolate you, if they you obsess about it and you've you've missed the you've missed the point. Real health expands capacity.

This is something I've learned. Okay? Hard lesson, but I've learned. In the beginning, I'd go to a friend's house just serving something and I just wouldn't eat. I just sit there at dinner table and I'd eat.

Okay? It'd be like kind of a screw you, I don't want that food in front of me. Watch me, I'm so cool, I'm so prideful, I'm amazing, look at how I eat, right? But now I'm more honoring and no, that doesn't mean I go off menu, but at some level it's like, hey, you're not that cool. You're not perfect and it's okay.

Like it's okay to have a moment, a meal, right? Where it's maybe not on your perfect menu. It's okay. It's okay. There is some gray.

My wife says I'm black and white too much and she's teaching me how to be a little bit more gray. This is a moment of gray where health should serve your life. It shouldn't replace it. All right? Because then it's an idol.

So remember, those four non negotiables as you press into your health journey and that seasons matter, right? One of the most freeing truths is that health is seasonal. There's seasons to where you invest more in your health like January 1. You just feel more invigorated, make it healthier. Go do it.

Let's go make it happen. If you've got the energy, the capacity, the excitement, let's make it happen. Right? Okay. Well, December.

Right? From Thanksgiving to Christmas is probably not the time most people are making health changes. Let's be real. Right? They're making it January 1.

So in season, maximize the season. In season, maximize the energy, maximize the productivity, maximize your goals so that you're helping set up healthy rhythms throughout the year. And January 1 is a is a great time to do that. And also don't compare. You know, a a parent of a young kid is different than a single 25 year old.

Like that they're they're on different stratospheres of health thoughts and health outcomes and health goals. Right? High stress work season, vacation season, healing season, performances. Like the seasons, Ecclesiastes, season everything. Know what season you're in and maximize the seasons where you're most productive and protect the seasons when you know you're in a right celebratory, maybe Thanksgiving, Christmas time.

Okay? Simple weekly health check ins. At the end of the week, just ask questions like, did my habits give me energy? Can I continue to realistically sustain the changes I've made this week? Did this reduce my stress or add to my stress?

Does this support my actual life or compete with it? At the end of the week, just look back and say, hey, what can I celebrate? What wins do I have? What did I do to help add value to my health journey that I can sustain and be consistent with into pushing into the next week? And as you look in back and celebrate the wins, you live in gain mentality, not gap mentality.

If you're always looking ahead for perfection, you're in a gap mentality that's never going to be successful. You're always gonna live in guilt and shame, but when you look back and you realize how far you've come and you celebrate that, you will win. You'll win at life. You'll win in your health journey and health won't be an idol. It'll be a tool.

I pray this was a blessing for you. As we shift into the new year, just remember that health is something consistently built over time. Don't compare. Let it serve you. Okay?

Don't serve it as an idol. And make sure that if you want to learn more about fasting, if you want to learn more about nutrition like Whole30, Paleo, Carnivore, and Vegan, make sure you come to our nutrition and fasting workshop on Monday night. Thanks for listening to another episode of the Real Health Podcast. Our passion is to add value to your healthcare journey. Anything that we do, we want to do it within a community to help as many people as possible.

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