Dentistry Uncensored with Howard Farran

How to perform dentistry faster, easier, higher in quality and lower in cost. Subscribe to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dentistry-uncensored-with-howard-farran/id916907356

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• Kary Odiatu BEd., BPE & Dr Uche Odiatu BA, DMD - http://www.fitspeakers.com/ 

Howard Farran: It is an honour today to be talking to the fitness guru, legend of all of dentistry. I mean you are buddy, you are an unbelievable role model. So tell us, how did you…it’s Uche Odiatu.            

Uche Odiatu: Yeah that is perfect. 

Howard Farran: Thank you, and your father was from Nigeria and my idol in dentistry, Dr Bamiduro Oguntebi, who taught endodontics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, was from Nigeria and his wife was Cammy and they had three kids, Coco, Daji Boy and Filaka, and he was just so amazingly genius and I asked him one day, I was babysitting his three kids. He needed a babysitter so I was a student, I’ll babysit. I can babysit. I grew up with five sisters and a little brother, and I asked him why are you so smart and you know that he said? He said something very profound, he said you know when you are grow up in Nigeria and you’re studying root canals, there is basically three major camps. There’s kind of the Germans who effect all of Europe. There’s kind of the Japan that effects all of Asia and there is kind of the United Stated which effects all of North America and if you grow up in America or Europe or Japan, you just drink the Cool Aid. But when you’re in Nigeria, when you’re in Africa, you always are studying between these three opposing philosophies and the truth is always somewhere in the middle. And he goes I think Nigerians were taught to think, where people in America were just like this is how you think and what you do. In Europe, this is how you think and what you do, in Japan here you know…and he was the most intellectual son of a gun I ever met in my life, and then you said your father moved to London where he met your mother, and 100% Irish and your mother is Irish Catholic so I know…

Uche Odiatu: O’Brian, born in Dublin and met him on a blind date in the early 60’s in London England. 

Howard Farran: So I’m wondering who was crazier, your Irish Catholic mother or my Irish Catholic mother. In fact, what’s funny is we’re coming up on March 17^th and that’s the day Dentaltown was born in 1999. So it’s always a big day. It will be 16 years for us. So now tell us, how did you get into fitness and dentistry? Tell us how that started because you are, when anybody thinks of fitness guru and dentistry it’s you. How did you get into this?

Uche Odiatu: Yeah thanks Howard. You know what? I like Abraham Lincoln’s quote he said: all that I am and all that I hope to be is because of my mother. And my mom gave us fish oil, cod liver oil back in the early 60’s. You know each of the kids from tallest to shortest, you know we had a big teaspoon of cod liver oil and funny thing is that silver spoon had a dent in it, because it was the same silver spoon that she used to beat us with, okay? So had mixed emotions when it came time to nutrition. 

Howard Farran: Oh she was using it for punishment?

Uche Odiatu: Oh punishment, food you name it. We stirred the pot, you name it. She paces around the house…but nutrition was number one. You know wheat germ went on our cornflakes. My mom gave us cold liver oil for our brain, and you know I’ve have seen it now, Harvard and Tufts and John Hopkins, you know are still doing studies 40 years later, saying is fish oil good fro the brain? I’m like my mother and her mother and her mother have been giving fish oil for 100’s of years and we’re still studying what I call the painstaking restatement of the obvious. You know, not every one’s out there in the skinny branches studying the fringe stuff. Most of us are doing the safe and tried and true. So anyway, so I grew up with this fish oil and to this day I give it my kids. Now we have a little girl. Eight, six, another one three. One on the way Howard, so in six weeks Karen and I are expecting a little baby.

Howard Farran: Which number is that for you?

Uche Odiatu: Number four.

Howard Farran: That’s how many I have. So is this your caboose or are you going to go for five?

Uche Odiatu: Who knows? I think you can’t get a show on television without having at least six, so I don’t know, we will see you know. But nutrition was number one and so my mom fed us well. My dad was huge lover of books. We had books everywhere in our house. You know I slid over Dale Carnegie books. I slipped on, you know Napoleon Hill books and to this day our house is full of books. You know I am a veracious reader and I think a big part of getting fit and healthy is looking at the common threads. You know I see so somebody getting stuck on P90X, or Shaun T or Richard Simmons or Pulido or CrossFit, Low-Cal and what I’ve done is, I look at the common threads because there’s more similarities than dissimilar. So when you put it all together and you share it with passion, and I firmly believe you know enthusiasm is the sizzle that sells the steak, just to get audiences and readers…creating some leverage to get them to make changes. I can create changes and I love some of the emails and stories I get back after about people losing ten pounds and twenty pounds and many of them haven’t bought even our book, for crying out loud! But all of it is, is something in something we’ve said or a story has resonated with one of their hundred trillion cells and they say, I’m going to make it happen. You now Uche…at 10 o’clock this morning you shared something that turned my heart on and 60 days, 90 days later, they’re emailing me saying Uche, I’ve lost 15 pounds, what’s next? What do I do next? So I love that. I like to learn more so I can share more. That’s my philosophy.

Howard Farran: Okay, so let’s start. I am going to start pinning you down to the oldest ideas, we know that some people are born with… what do they call it…ectomorphic body where they’re just always skinny.

Uche Odiatu: Sure.

Howard Farran: And there’s a mesomorphic body, which I think I have been told by personal trainers I am, and then the endomorphic?

Uche Odiatu: Yes.

Howard Farran: And what is the endomorphic, just a bigger body?

Uche Odiatu: Endo means you have more rounded corners, you know. Ectomorph is thin, naturally thin. Mesomorph, which is natural muscular, which is almost like The Rock, like Dwayne Johnson. Endomorph is like Jim Belushi or John Candy, Elvis Presley, like rounded. So skinny is like Hugh Grant. Mesomorph is like Dwayne, The Rock, Johnson and endomorph is like John Candy. So mesomorph rocks, however a skinny person who is out balance will gain weight and look like John Candy if they are living a life out of balance. While an endomorph, a John Candy, if they get out of balance and they have like body dysmorphia, and they can have a thing like anorexia or orthorexia which is obsession with correct eating, they can get too skinny. So the whole idea is to honour your type of body. So if you’re mesomorph, use your muscle and your transformational language and your metabolism the way it’s supposed to. If you’re naturally thin, don’t try and put on 60 pounds and go to body building contests. Just enjoy a thin, wiry lean physique and be a runner. You know you can do CrossFit but you’re never going to set any records, but…so I say honour the type that you were born with and use it. If you’re an endomorph, you’re probably a really solid person. You probably have a lot of hardiness to you. You know, but if you try and be whip thin, you’re going to mess up with your mind, so I’d say discover where you are and then use that type to your advantage.

Howard Farran: And what are you?

Uche Odiatu: I’m more a mesomorph. I’m like you. I am lean. They say mesomorphs are often articulate, fiery, quick talkers. We have fast metabolisms. We sweat when we eat because it’s fire and water coming together. We are transformational, you know. We make things happen. We insight, we ignite and that’s part of the mesomorph. Look at The Rock when he was on WWF, how he’s able to transform a crowd of 15 000. Look at you at a Townie meeting, you know. Getting carried out of the room on four body carts. So I’m definitely a mesomorph. I’m hardy you know. I left weights but if I were to try to get really thin and tiny, I would have all kinds of problems and if I try and run a lot, my flat feet like Freddie Flintstone give me all kinds of knee problems so when I do my cardio, with my flat feet I know now, elliptical. I know now cycling is better. I know now, and if I ever tried to be a runner, my back and my hips and my knees are going to get out of whack and I want to be a 80,90, 100 year old man still going to the gym. I don’t want to be showing pictures of me at age 20 in a marathon, you know. So I say honour your body type and use it and don’t try and change your structure. It’s impossible.

Howard Farran: Because a cheetah is one 1% body fat and a lion is 38% body fat and I don’t think a lion can go on a diet and be a cheetah and a cheetah probably can’t start drinking protein shakes and be lion. Is that kind of what you’re saying in a way?

Uche Odiatu: Correct. But you know, every one of those three types can look good and be healthy, but I do find though…if you think of 70% of the Americans are now overweight, 35% obese, it’s crazy. You know you think of 300 million Americans or 330 million North Americans, 70% or almost 220 million people in this continent, North America, are overweight or obese. You know diabetes is killing people. What I saw on stat the other day is that 2000 people a day die of heart attacks in America. 2000! 2000 Americans die every day of cancer. You know that’s terrible and that should almost be almost on the ticker tape on CNN or Fox News. You know it’s now February 25^th, live doing this, and I’d say if it’s been 70 days, 140 000 Americans have died of an heart attack. That’s crazy.  

Howard Farran: I want to ask you something about…you know it’s interesting… I think the smartest people are guys like you and me who have had the opportunity to go around the world. I mean how many countries have you been to?

Uche Odiatu: Seven. I am going to Denmark, I haven’t been to 50, but I am going to Denmark in April, all over the US, Canada.

Howard Farran: Yeah, so you know like in the United States you know they always want to…I think it’s natural heuristic to oversimplify everything. There are those who would say the reason that Americans are fat is because of McDonalds. Then I think, well I have been to 50 countries with a McDonalds on every corner and there aren’t fat people. It is just that they walk to miles from their house and go to McDonalds, eat the same thing you do and then turn around and walk two miles back. Whereas you get in to your car and then go through the drive through and then drive back home and eat it in a chair. So there are so many variations, but one thing that is all over Dentaltown and everybody talks about it. It was going to be the first question that I was going to ask you. There are people saying that there is…one theory that why Americans are so fat is that Americans are 5% of the planet. They take half of the antibiotics. I grew up in Kansas so I knew as a very little kid that probably 90% of all the antibiotics made in America goes into cattle feed and pig feed because those entrepreneurial farmers figured out back in 1950 that when you feed cows and diary cows and pigs antibiotics, they get fat. Do you think that one cause of the obesity is that we have messed up our microbiome, our gut bacteria from our mouth to thirty feet to the back door with all kinds of Keflex and Cephalosporin and all this stuff like that? Do you think our gut microbiome is off?

Uche Odiatu: For sure and that’s a finer point, but for sure. I have seen in the USA today, your national newspaper had an article where they said since the 70’s medical doctors have said…they have been trying to lobby congress to say no more penicillin, penicillin and tetracycline are the most often used antibiotics given to cattle to make them big and fat. It’s a business model, I can understand it. If I was a farmer I would be probably wanting to give my cattle penicillin and tetracycline also, but I’m not. So since the 70’s the doctors have said, it’s not the dentists giving antibiotics three times a year. It’s not your ear infection where the mom brings her kid down because the ear is sore and the doctor gives him antibiotics. We always think oh, I don’t want to make my child resistant because he’s been on antibiotics three times this year. It’s the fact that all the meat, and the average American eats half a pound a day. If you eat conventionally raised meat, in these cattle I’d say 98% are fed corn and soy, cattle are meant to graze on grass and hay in the winter, but so if a cattle is fed corn and soy, they’re big and fat, they’re huge, you get a big juicy steak, big juicy hamburger. You give them therapeutic and growth producing, you know penicillin and tetracycline, you have a fat swollen cattle full of corn and soy. You know cattle are meant to eat not corn on the cob, they’re meant to graze. So if we’re eating half a pound a of that every day…and medical doctors, the AMA for years have said to congress, please tell the cattle producers not to give antibiotics to the animals. Only for therapeutic purposes. You know for disease. The lobby group of the cattle producers is so strong they said okay, how about we do it voluntarily and congress said okay doctors, what’s that like? And the doctors went that’s not enough. And the cattle farmers said this is what we’re going to do. And congress went okay. So that’s where we’re at. 

Howard Farran: I just want to say one thing to international viewers, because so many times, dentists around the world will tell me well I think this is a good idea because that’s how your country does it. And I want to remind all of our international viewers, because these podcasts are listened to in every country, is that the American government only has, there’s only one motto of the American government: money is the answer. What’s the question So just because America is doing it has no correlation to whether it’s a good or a bad idea. It’s just about big money and I’m and American. I am 52 and I have the right to say it. I voted in every election. America is, money is the answer what is the question? So if we are doing it, it could be the best or it could be the worst idea ever found, but continue. So then the question is going to be, well if that cow is eating, you said penicillin and tetracycline?

 Uche Odiatu: Penicillin and tetracycline, they are the two biggest ones according to what the FDA says. 

Howard Farran: But you said they’re eating a half pound of meat. Well are you saying there’s trace antibiotics of that in the meat or are you just saying it has just changed the meat?

Uche Odiatu: Sure. No, the food chain condenses as you go up the food chain. The polar bear is one the most toxic animals in the Arctic because it’s eating all the seafood which is…basically the ocean is the world’s sewer so the polar bears, all they eat is you know food out of the ocean sewer, so they’re a pretty toxic group. Very few of them, having problem procreating, you know they can’t even swim, they’re having their own problems. Human beings are the next big end of the food chain. So nutrition and toxins condenses and goes up the food chain, so whatever the animal eats, we’re eating it and that’s why the same… if you want me to give you an analogy, when you eat garlic, the next day what does your sweat smell like?  

Howard Farran: Garlic.

Uche Odiatu: So everything you eat is in every one of your cells, effects every one of your 100 trillion cells. I don’t want to get to far off the beaten path, you know there are so many ways for people to get in shape. But, if an animal is eating antibiotics not just for a couple of weeks, a year because of infection. If they’re eating it daily as part of their feed, trust me it’s in your hamburger, it’s in your rib eye, it’s in your T-bone and you’re eating it. And if you’re eating half a pound a day, you’re eating bacon at breakfast, a Whopper at lunchtime, you’re eating a half pound steak at night-time from your favourite restaurant, you’re getting antibiotics, three meals a day. But you know that being said, you can still be healthy if you can choose free range or on the other hand, one of the best ways to detoxify what we are talking about is to fast. You know a lot of the world religions talk about fasting. It is not just about spiritual practices. Fasting gives your body a break from digestion. Digestion is one of the biggest users of energy in the body. That’s why after Thanksgiving and Christmas Dinner, we are what? High energy or low energy?

Howard Farran: Low.

Uche Odiatu: Low energy. So if you fast… there is new research now, it’s called intermittent fasting, I am not sure of you have heard about it? Intermitting fasting, a lot of athletes are doing it know and the research now in the last five to ten years in intermittent fasting is, it can increase sirtuin. Sirtuin is a neurotransmitter or a growth hormone in your body, or sorry a hormone in your body. What it does is, it makes your cells replicate more accurately and it’s life extending. So people who regularly fast have longer life expectancy than people who eat three meals a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So you can even eat…they didn’t even quantify eating bad or poor, all they’re saying is give your body a break from digestion a few meals a week or a day a month or day a week, if you’re really into it, and you could increase the quantity of sirtuin in your body. And what it does is, it makes the 70 DNA replications which is how the body makes more cells, more accurate in how they get made. Your body makes less mistakes with more sirtuin and mice studies, it was all done with mice. Mice live about an average of two years. They can increase the life expectancy of a mouse by 30% by decreasing the core intake by 30%. So these studies have now been extrapolated to humans and there is now restriction societies in the America which are saying, no matter what you’re eating, if you lower your core intake you live longer. So that’s not even talking about antibiotics. So antibiotics and gut flora are maybe one of the hundred we can be concerned about, but ideally I look at the six pillars of health, Howard. I look at sleep. I look at food. I look at exercise. I look at your thoughts. I look at how you breathe and I look at how much water you’re drinking and the seventh pillars that I always like to add in my mouth body connection seminars is oral hygiene. Because inflammation in the mouth seeds inflammation everywhere, so those are my seven pillars basically. 

Howard Farran: Yeah I got sleep, food, exercise, thoughts, water and oral hygiene. That’s six. 

Uche Odiatu: And how you breathe. Breathing is huge. My eight year old daughter one time came up to me, we were talking and she said dad, what is the most valuable thing on the planet? Is it gold? I said no. Is it diamonds and I say no. Is it mom? And I said I love mom, but I have been without mom for four days when I was speaking. I said I can’t go more than two minutes without oxygen. She goes you mean oxygen is more important than mom? I said you know what, I can’t live more than two minutes without oxygen. So she goes, okay, oxygen first and then mom? And I said no, I said sleep. I’ve never gone more than two days without sleep. And she goes okay, air, sleep and then mom? I said no, water. I can’t go more than four days without water. And she goes where do I fit in? And the joke was, and now whenever she’s with a group of adults, she always says I know what the most valuable thing on the planet is. And every adult always says what, palladium, platinum, titanium, diamonds, fuel? Every adult gets it wrong. At the next party Howard say what’s the most valuable thing on the planet and people kind of know it’s a trick question but they’ll say gold or fuel, and you tell them to hold their breath for 30 seconds and they’ll soon realise oxygen. So how we breathe literally changes the physiology of our cells. I mean in the middle of a seminar I’ll have people hold their breath and breath differently and I can share with them how they can actually experience euphoric thoughts or depressed thoughts simply by changing how they breathe. So I think breath is one of the top three now, ways that you can change your health and vitality.

Howard Farran: And how old are you by the way?

Uche Odiatu: I am 51. I was born in 1963. 

Howard Farran: Oh my God, I am 52. I was born in ‘62. You look like you’re my younger brother. But it’s true because when we were, look at how the fighting sport has changed. From boxing was the big thing when I was a kid, Muhammad Ali, Frasier and Foreman and now it’s UFC and you look at those UFC, the Brazilians came in there, and you know these Americans want to slug it out and box and whatever and Royce Gracie and those guys said what does a cheetah and a lion and a tiger do? They don’t go boxing, they don’t go kick you, they go right for your throat and Royce Gracie, he would walk out and you would think this guy is going to get his butt kicked and he just slip a choke hold on him and the biggest guy in the world would tap out.

Uche Odiatu: I’ve seen a big guy and a small guy fight, Gracie trained. And the big guy would pound the small guy, pound the small guy and all the little guy was looking for was a way to get a hold on you, and I also thought this little guy has been banged on the head, banged on the back and the next minute I saw this guy hold his arm and the big guy didn’t give up, and all of a sudden the guys arm was broken. His forearm broke and match over, so it’s definitely, I think thinking smarter, training smarter. A dentist that’s smarter definitely has an advantage in 2015. 

Howard Farran: Okay I want to stop you right here because you’re a dentist. I mean you always talk about fitness but you are a dentist. When you, I’ve been in dentistry 25 years. Do dentists and hygienists and reception assistants, do we have different health issues because we work in a dental office? Do you think there’s anything unique to dentists and hygienists, you know working as opposed to working construction or working physical? I remember when I was little sometimes we would bale hay and I mean spending a day throwing 90 pound bales of hay in the back of a truck is very different that doing a DO composite every hour. What is unique to dentistry and what advice would you give to people who work in the dental industry and our type of job because, granted we don’t get any exercise in dentistry, would you agree?

Uche Odiatu: Great question. You know the funny thing is? I lecture dental audiences mainly but about 20% of the time now I do lecture the general population and believe it or not, when I look at a general population audience as compared to hygienists and dentists guess what? We are healthier. I see brighter smiles. I see sharper eyes. I see better posture. I see fewer wrinkles. I see more health and vitality. When I look at a general population I see a lot of slouching, and people sucking back coffee and, I think that overall, just my own ad hoc observational study, dentist audiences are healthier than the general population so we are doing something right for sure and I think part of it is…I just saw a report where it said out of the top seven jobs or careers now in North America, dentistry was number one. Did you see that? 

Howard Farran: Yes.

Uche Odiatu: And hygiene was five. Isn’t that crazy? So I think just having good financial solidity takes…a lot of times dollars off your worry list. Even though dentist worry about getting wealthier and hygienists want more money. I think the moment you don’t have finances off your worry list, you can then start thinking of am I really happy? Am I walking enough? Am I spending enough time with my wife or my children or my husband? So I definitely think dentists and hygienists and assistants will have it where it’s going on, but I also find, I think because we spend an hour with patients, patients look up to us. I think patients right now are starving for attention. They are starving for wellness advice. Any time I share with patients about, that vitamin D is good for their brain, but vitamin D not only helps you absorb calcium better. Vitamin D acts like a hormone in the body. It has 2000 roles in the body. I tell them that Omega 3 is an anti-inflammatory and there was one study in Harvard that they looked at 9000 people and what they found out was people who have a regularly had 1000 mg of fish oil in their diet everyday, are 20% less likely to have periodontitis and that’s all said in a minute after I put my topical on and patients look up at me and go doc, I learn something new every time I come here. They haven’t seen my cone beam, they haven’t seen my CEREC. All they know is that I care. That I am telling them the latest information and they can’t wait to come back and I haven’t even done my office tour. So I think dentistry, because of our long contact time and hygienists out there because of our long contact time and assistants, when we go away to do our hygiene check, assistants, you can talk about your marriage coming up or whatever but if you start sharing about your own experience with being healthy. I slept well last night so I feel better today. Patients look to the assistant for that information. I come back in, we’re all talking the same language and then I’ll tell the, you know what, you are going to need a crown on that tooth. They already think wow, doctor, you care about all of me. I’ll say yes to the crown. You know so the metaphors for health and patients that feel that you are taking care of all of them, and they never get that anywhere else. I know there are very good medical doctors out there and very good nurse practitioners but overall, dentists and hygienists and assistants we have 60 minutes usually of their undivided attention and if you can share with them little snippets of health information that is pertinent to their health and their overall body, they say yes to your caring. They say yes to your case presentations and they also say yes to come in more frequently because you’re showing them, when you take care of inflammation in the mouth, it takes care of inflammation in the rest of the body. And people are suffering from arthritis, cardiovascular diseases. They’ve shown that cancer has inflammatory origins and when this rolls off people’s tongues easily, they’re saying yes to your office. They are bringing in their husband as a patient, they are bringing in their kids and it’s a crazy avalanche of energy.

Howard Farran: You know it’s funny because you said your pillars were six. You said sleep, food, exercise, thoughts, water, breathe, oral hygiene and the thoughts thing is what I’m keying in on what you’re saying because I have been in the offices of all the legends and I have been in a gazillion offices that needed a consultant and it’s so tough when you are consulting with dentists because the one thing that is most important isn’t the CEREC and the CBCT and the whatever, it’s all the guys that are crushing it, they walk in with the thoughts, the energy, the karma, like how are you doing and what is going on? And they talk about the person, so it’s all about the person and then the person who just can’t get it going, they just walk in and they are just low energy and they’re like how are you doing, Uche, you have toothache I hear. You have interproximal decay and you’re going to need a root canal, and that is the hardest thing to teach! It’s like the most important thing you have to teach a business owner is that positive thoughts and karma and energy and metabolism, surround yourself with people who just love what they’re doing but they want to focus all that the secret of success is going to the Pankey Institute for six weeks and learning occlusion and then going to Spear and Kois and learning full mouth restoration and they missed the whole thing. All of those things aren’t going to apply until you walk in there and own the room with energy and karma and like Dale Carnegie said, you know everybody wants to hear their own name, and when you are talking about health that’s about that person. They want to hear about them living 30% longer, they don’t want to hear about your grandkid and your marriage and your negativity and you go into offices and the patient is going like, how are you doing? Well my husband…you know we haven’t been getting along very good and he doesn’t do the dishes and never helps me and it’s like God! And then their question is should we get a CEREC machine? 

Uche Odiatu: There’s no doubt that technical skills are important. You know I have been to Pankey. I’ve only been to see one. 

Howard Farran: So have I. I’ve been to Pankey…I’m not throwing those guys under a bus, I’m just saying you’ve got to have the right thoughts and energy and karma first.

Uche Odiatu: But I think dentists, because of our personalities, we’re so OCD. We are so structured to look for evidence. We are so structured to find out, could you show me the 30 studies that showed that, could you show me the 52 studies, and what’s the analysis? I’m like, if you need an analysis before you do something, if you want 50 000 papers to be shown to you before you do something…there’s research that shows that exercise is going to increase your quantity and quality of life. There’s research to show there’s thousands of papers showing that Omega 3 helps you. There’s 100’s of papers showing that sitting all day is bad for you. There’s 100s of papers that show that if sleep six hour or less per night, you have more inflammation. Are you doing any of those? And the dentist goes I guess it’s not evidence that I need more of. I just need some motivation. So they realise now, there’s studies and books and papers to show that positive thinking, and I think I saw, it was the WHI, World Health Initiative, since 1994 they did a 20 year study on a 100 000 woman and what they found out was, if you’re an optimist you decrease your chances of cardiovascular disease by 30% compared to pessimists, and you have 14% less likely chance of dying from all the diseases than pessimists. So if a dentists wants proof that being a optimist helps you, if I can increase my chance of living longer by 14%, and if I’m earning…the average dentist makes 140 grand a year, if I add another ten years on, it’s going to give you 1.4 million dollars if you are an average dentist by practising 10 more years. Put a smile on your face, put it with scotch tape on until you can really do it, and start being an optimist. So I don’t think dentists need more evidence, they need more people like you, they need people like me giving them proof, but also letting them feel it. Sharing the evidence but at the same time though, in audiences with participation exercises, showing them how quick they can go from feeling in the dumps by breathing with their head leaning over to putting their head back, looking up at the sky and saying okay, when I think about my overhead now with my head up breathing deep, it doesn’t look so bad. When I look now, thinking about my overhead it looks like overwhelming. So even changing your posture can change how you think. So I think dentists love information, they are information junkies like yourself, but at the same time now, I’m going around the world just sharing my evidence but at the same time engaging people with audience participation exercises. They can feel what I’m feeling to leave them with a sense, okay he gave me hope. I think it’s possible. I’m going to get started today. That’s my mandate: get started today. 

Howard Farran: You know Sandy Pardue once told me, this is probably confidential and I shouldn’t say it but you know, it’s never stopped me before. She always told me that most successful office that she has seen her entire life, and she’s seen thousands of offices, was a guy in Louisiana named Jerome Smith and Jerome told me one time that his doctor told him that he shouldn’t been jogging anymore. He’s getting too old and it’s hurting his bones and back and everything. So Jerome quit jogging, you know taking his doctor’s advice but he said after six months he didn’t care about whether it was good or bad for his body. He said he didn’t like where it was taking his mind and he realized that, he runs when he wakes up, a five mile run for him just gets him in the zone mentally and he didn’t care if that we good or bad for arthritis or knees or anything like that and I just think that people think that they should eat right and diet and all that stuff so that they’ll look good in a bikini for the next pool party and that’s all true and everything but it’s what it does for your three and half pound brain, is why you need to exercise. I mean you want to exercise because everything you think and know is inside your little noodle here and when you exercise, that noodle is just so much better.

Uche Odiatu: I think most of us…almost everyone starts dieting or eating healthy to look better. They want to look hot and go to high school reunion, they’ve got an anniversary coming up but when I think of the most powerful reasons to get healthy…forget the shallow cosmetic part. That will come in time that comes no matter what but focus on being a better communicator. Because 90% of communication is body language and if you’re pain free, if you’ve got a good back, if you’ve got good gut flora, if your neck doesn’t hurt, if you’re breathing deep, your body language is going to be committed so much more accurately. They’ve have shown that there is a neurotransmitter called BDFN – Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor. People who exercise have more of it in their body, so that’s why 85% of the CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies exercise and 85% of the general population doesn’t exercise because they want a person who is in charge of 10, 40, 50 000 people to be thinking powerful, big vision thinking thoughts. If you’re a sedentary CEO you’re probably not in charge of 50 000 people. Look at all of the US presidents. All of them lift weights, stretch, move, lift exercise. From Barack Obama down to Gerald Ford. You know Gerald Ford, he took his shirt off in the 70’s and the guy looked like a line backer. I think he was a college football player. So I’m thinking, if dentists are looking for reasons to look great, forget…you know a lot of times the dentists send the hygienist to see my courses. I look out on 800 people and I see 700 hygienists. I ask how many dentists here? Eight, and the funny thing is the dentists are all next door looking at the crown prepping course and I’m thinking you’re going to prep a lot more crowns with a better back, better eyes and better decision making if you come to my course and I think over time now, I’m seeing more dentists show up. But what they have shown is, if someone goes from being out of shape to in shape, they can increase their personal productivity by 25%. So if someone’s billing a million dollars a year and they’re out of shape, and they get a flat stomach, they’re going to bill 1.25 million the next year. Cone bean, CEREC, Pankey, that’s all aside. Simply getting in shape. So I am telling the male dentists and I’m probably speaking to the male dentists more than to the female dentists, because we’re the ones most guilty of just going to the crown prepping courses. Get in shape, earn more, think better, be happier, be a better leader and I love that JFK quote: when the tide comes in, all ships rise together and it’s beautiful to see.

Howard Farran: Yeah and I’ll just review every crown and bridge course I’ve ever taken. You take 2mm off the top, and then you go round and round and round. That’s pretty much it. I want to say one thing, how long is your course when you lecture at meetings? 

Uche Odiatu: It depends. I’ve flown down to Arizona, I did a talk for the Department of Housing. This wasn’t even dentists. I talked to 300 bankers and land developers and brokers and I gave a 45 minute course called maximize your energy. It was a keynote. I did five three hour session at Yankee two weeks ago. 

Howard Farran: What is your preferred length of time?

Uche Odiatu: I love a day. I love immersion.

Howard Farran: Because what I wish you would do is, we have 310 one hour long courses on Dentaltown and a lot of those people will put up a course and tell me that they’ll book 60 to 70 speaking engagements, because what they don’t realize is the mechanics of finding a speaker, and I want you to be a more popular speaker because everyone needs to hear your message, that’s why I’m interviewing you today, is…there’s 250 component societies. They get three volunteer dentists and they say, okay we need a course on root canals and one on gum disease and then find something for the staff. That’s why practice management is big because they need something for the staff, because for every dentist there’s a hygienist, two assistants, two receptionists and these guys, and they say don’t get the ones we had last year. Try and find some new speakers. So they go to Dentaltown and it’s like everybody’s one hour little debut and they’ll say well I’m in charge of an endo speaker, so they’ll listen to like six one hour lectures in endo and say well, I really like that guy and they hardest area to fill is the one for the staff and my God, if you had an hour course up on Dentaltown, I guarantee you’d get 50 invitationals for every time. Because people see it and say, oh that would be great for the staff. And anybody who hears you for an hour is going to love you and like you and all that. So that’s the mechanics, like when people say well why do you speak so much? It’s because they heard a demo somewhere on a tape, or a cassette or on Dentaltown or whatever, so do that for the dental profession. 

Uche Odiatu: Thank you, I will. I want to get out there. 

Howard Farran: So I want to pin you down to more specifics because I try to ask questions on these that aren’t for me, but I think what everyone is going to be asking. So what everybody’s sitting there thinking right now is, they’re either negative thoughts and saying oh Uche, you were born hot and thin and muscular and this is…I think it’s one of the reasons a lot of people like myself don’t really care for basketball because I was a wrestler. I used to wrestle that always weighed within five pounds of me. But if I tried to join basketball, well if you’re born seven foot four and I’m five foot seven, do we really have a game here? So a lot of people are thinking Uche, you were born that way but I know that the question a lot of people are thinking is, they’re so confused on the diets. They’ve heard of South Beach and Paleo and all these diets. So what diet would you tell these room full of hygienists? How are they supposed to eat? Are you pro vegan, do you eat meat? What is the diet they should follow?

Uche Odiatu: Okay I love those questions. One thing I walk my talk, you know. I’m 51. In grade 12 I weighed 212 pounds and five years after graduating dental school I was 230 pounds, five foot eight. I would say that if you put a pair of red cords and a red shirt on me I’d look like a little fat fire hydrant back in 1994. So 20 years later now, age 51, I’m 179. I’m about 8% body fat. I can do 23 chin ups on a bar. To get into the marines you have to do a minimum of three and most people who apply for the marines can’t do three. 90% of people that try and apply get kicked out. A lot of 18 year olds can’t do three chin ups. So 51 doing 23 chin-ups…I’ll tell people how they can do that shortly. There’s an easy way to learn how to do that. So I am also certified as a trainer in three different certification bodies, which is tough. Most trainers have one certification. I have NSCA, I have canfitpro and I have IFL. So I read about eight journals a month, plus my dental, plus me CE for my courses and my crown prepping courses. So with three kids and one the way, time, I’m time crunched. So I do hit training, which is interval training, I will show you how to do that right away. It is seven minutes of cardio, with interval training that’s equal to an hour of steady state cardio. We will talk about that right after, but the diet that I follow the mostly…I love the Mediterranean diet out of… there was a huge seven year study in Spain in 2013 and they put 5000 people on this Mediterranean diet. Have them eat more nuts, eat more olive oil, more grains, more vegetables, less meat, a little bit of wine and dark chocolate. They decreased their stroke exposure by 30%. In five years they had to stop the study because the people in the control group who weren’t eating Mediterranean diet were dying of stroke. So the Mediterranean diet is perfect and it’s very… it’s the most often…it’s the easiest one to… it has the least drop out factor, because you don’t count calories. All you do is you eat more vegetables, you eat more fruit. You eat yoghurt everyday, you have a glass of wine. If you’re going to have alcohol, you have to have it with a meal because alcohol in its own spikes your blood sugar which is not good for your brain. It’s not good for your pancreas, it’s not good for type two diabetes. So if you are going to have a glass of wine or a scotch or vodka, have it with your meal and the body can absorb it better and there’s less of what is called postprandial dysmetabolism, which is the scientific word of saying messing with your metabolism. Nuts, grains like quinoa, no white bread, limit your red meat, but if you’re going to eat your red meat, make sure that it’s free range, grass fed which is key and then the meat acts like medicine, because when you have grass fed cows and grass fed chickens, free range chickens…and you can find a farm in any state, in any province in Canada, I am sure in any country around the world, where you can order special meat delivered to your house. In Canada it’s about $200 a month, they deliver awesome cuts of grass fed meat to you house. So I still eat red meat, we still eat wild fish, we still eat chicken, free range chicken and free range eggs. So I’m eating nature’s medicines, pure and sanctified. So the Mediterranean diet kicks ass, sorry kicks butt, but at the same time though, I add intermittent fasting. So about a year ago I started fasting one day a week. I did that for a cleansing. Now on a regular basis, I’ll fast one day month and what it does is, it gives my body a break from digestion. It makes my skin look like this. It makes my eyes bright. You know, there’s no Restylane here. All it does is, with Omega 3’s, staying hydrated, drinking olive oil. A tablespoon of first pressed, cold pressed olive oil every morning, a tablespoon of fish oil every morning, Norwegian fish oil okay. Three thousand international units of vitamin D in a dropper form down the hatch twice a day. I will talk about vitamin D later. That is my recipe for looking a certain way and I just say if you have ingredients in a recipe to make apple pie, you will get that same apple pie every time. You can’t put ingredients in a recipe for an apple pie together and get a lemon meringue pie. So as long as people are following the science and, it’s not my science. I basically studied thousand of people and I put it together and I read the books and got the certifications. My wife and I live it, you know. Our kids, our little two year old jumped up on the chin up bar at home and she goes daddy, I want to do chin ups. I held her ankles and this little two year old pulled herself up seven times you know. So my family lives it. You know, we’re time crunched but we make time for fitness. I do seven minutes of cardio a day, not an hour anymore and 180 pounds is my line in the sand. I’m a general Schwarzkopf in Desert Storm. I will not go over 180 ever again. Many people have a grey area in the sand you know. They lose weight, the get down to 170 and their grey area is 200 and then two years later they creep back up again. So I think anytime someone loses weight, get a line in the sand and do not cross it. You know general Schwarzkopf said you know, Saddam Hussein, do not cross my line in the sand. Dr Uche Odiatu, do not cross this line in the sand. Mine is 180 and you can maintain a weight loss forever. Sorry I went on there. 

Howard Farran: So you’re five seven?

Uche Odiatu: Five eight. So my BMI actually, if you look at my BMI, body mass index, it no longer works for muscular people. My BMI is 26. If you’re a doctor and you look at me, they’ll say you’re overweight because my BMI is…but they’ve actually shown now, the male clinic showed last year in March that waist is more important. So if you’re a man in North America, your waist has to be under 35 inches if you want to be healthy.

Howard Farran: Is that at the navel or at the hip bones?

Uche Odiatu: The narrowest place, so at your navel about.

Howard Farran: Navel. Okay so I want to pin you down on specifics. So you were talking about the Mediterranean diet, but walk us through what you eat in a day. You just woke up, until you go to bed. 

Uche Odiatu: Okay, I’m glad you ask. Immediately I want water in my body and it doesn’t have to be reverse osmosis. It can be tap even, but would rather have filtered water. I squeeze a little bit of lemon in, because what it does, it awakens your digestion. So I’ll drink about a full glass of water. That is the first thing that goes down the hatch, right. So my body gets set, my body hasn’t had water for many hours and as you know, water is one of the top seven pillars of health right. So my body is starving not for food first, water first. Then I, most often because I’m time starved being a dentist, I will have a shake. I have a great weigh protein powder. I put a teaspoon or a tablespoon of almond butter in, which is a great saturated fat. It’s also organic, so there’s no pesticides, herbicides or fungicides. Don’t worry about that yet. You don’t have to worry about organic food at this point. So I get almond butter in. My olive oil. I put a teaspoon of olive oil in. Again, when you give the body fat, it slows down digestion. It also makes you feel fuller longer and that is why a lot diets don’t work because people fill up on veggies and their body is starving for fat. The brain is two thirds fat. You know DHA is an omega 3 fat, has 500 functions in the brain and one in seven Americans have the right amount of omega 3’s in their bodies. Which is, so six sevenths are starving for omega 3’s and if the brain has 500 functions for DHA, which is one the omega 3’s, you’re not going to function. I don’t care if you have a CEREC, I don’t care if you have a cone beam, I don’t care if you have a Pankey trained hygienist. If you are not having omega 3’s, you’re going to make poor decisions, you are going to get tired, you are going to have inflammation, you are going to have sinusitis, and you are going to have a runny nose, aches and pains. Anyways, I will leave that aside, sorry. So anyways, so I have my weigh protein powder, I have my almond butter; I have my teaspoon of olive oil. I’ll often put a teaspoon of fish oil in, scented so I don’t taste the fish. I’ll put a scoop of frozen blueberries in. I will put some Greek yoghurt in. I put it in a Magic Bullet or Isagenix blender. I blend it up, it gives me a cup of about 500 calories of the most dense form of nutrition I could have. When I leave the office, or when I leave for the office two hours later, I’ll have some green tea. Green tea is full of antioxidants, the most perfect one is called EGCG, epigallocatechin-gallate. What it does is, the book called anti cancer and new way of live, and EGCG tells cancer cells to die off, because cancer cells are cells like the video, girls gone wild? Cancer cells don’t know when to go home after a party. So our normal cells have what’s normally called apoptosis. Normal cells are born, do their thing and die. Cancer cells don’t die. So EGCG in green tea, you need two cups a day steeped for five minutes. I have my first cup mid morning. That gives me my EGCG, okay. It’s full of flavonoids, it’s full of…a little bit of caffeine to give me a little bit of a buzz, but not the spike of coffee. You know you and I are mesomorphs. We have enough fuel in our body, fire and fuel and gasoline and vinegar to keep us going, so you and I don’t need a lot of coffee. It’s like pouring gasoline on a fire, but a little bit of green tea for you and I, the mesomorphs Howard, keep me going until lunch time. Lunch time I’ll bring a bag, a Ziploc bag now, I’ve refined my habits. I listen to one of my wife’s friends who is also a trainer. I put a cup of instant organic oatmeal in a bag. I put a handful of mixed non salted nuts. I put another scoop of chocolate protein powder in this bag. So at lunch time I open up this bag, I put it in a cup of steaming hot water. This gives me fibre, carbs, protein and fat and now I’m good for another three hours. And then in that three hours now, I’ll have half a can of salmon. All canned salmon is wild. You don’t have to worry about mercury and toxins because wild salmon can tolerate a bit of toxins because wild salmon and wild fish move around, and they process the crap that’s in the ocean. It’s the farmed salmon you’ve got to watch out for. All canned salmon is wild. So I have a can of salmon which is perfect for my omega 3’s, and I have a bunch of spinach, kale, miniature tomatoes, blueberries, nuts, and put a little bit of olive oil on. That’s my three o’clock meal. So think if it now Howard. I’ve given my premium, high performance race car body the best food of the day. Tuesday I still work seven am to seven pm. My patients come in and go, doc, it’s six o’clock, how are you feeling? I said I’m feeling pretty good. They go when did you get here and I said seven this morning and they say, doc you look like you just woke up! Because I am giving my body the perfect food and some people, the reason why they’re tired is because they are eating frosted flakes and they’re eating you know scotch and water at lunchtime, they’re having pop tarts, they’re having chicken fingers and fries, and then they wonder why they have chicken and finger thoughts and pop tart feelings you know? So I think if you’re putting premium food in your body…so when I get home now at dinner time, Carey will have ready for us steamed vegetables and we don’t make one vegetable you know, there’s thousands kinds of potatoes, so we have broccoli, Brussel sprouts, asparagus, you know cauliflower. She mixes it up in a very steamed medley. We have some quinoa, we maybe have some grass fed beef or we have some chicken, free range chicken or we have some steamed salmon and this is my life, you know. I almost can’t help but have a flat stomach because I am only putting the good food in you know, garbage in, garbage out and it has become a no brainer plus we don’t buy junk food for our house. The only time Carey and I will eat junk food and we call it OPH, other people’s houses. Okay because at ten o’clock at night when I am starving for some junk food and I’m going like, Carey where is your stash? She goes we don’t buy it. So unless I want to start the car in a housecoat wearing an OJ mask, go down to the grocery store to buy some junk food, I’m not leaving the house at -10. I am going to have some snack of nuts, I am going to have some sliced cucumber and I am writing my articles, giving myself the perfect fuel. So there you go, you have my perfect day. It’s very simple, it’s not complicated and I make it easy for myself to succeed.

Howard Farran: Why is all canned salmon free ocean, not farmed salmon? 

Uche Odiatu: Good question. Because restaurant salmon has to be big, the want the big Chinook salmon so it’s hard to find a big salmon wild in the ocean, so farmed salmon is a lot more predictable. They put the fences in the ocean. They feed them all kinds of things to make the pink, big and plump and they come out nice and firm, perfect for the restaurant plate. So most of restaurant salmon is going to be farmed. And yeah, is there anything wrong with salmon? It’s better than chicken fingers and fries and potato wedges. I’d still rather eat a farmed salmon than you know chicken fingers and fries, but at the same time though, I want a salmon that’s free. I want a salmon that has muscle and swum around the ocean. It’s mated properly with different other salmon, not all with their brothers and sisters in the same fence. But all farmed salmon is mostly restaurant salmon and wild salmon is farmed because wild salmon is small and tiny and lean and muscular, you know like Bill Dorfman, or myself okay. So we are wild and lean but we’re small. So they don’t mind… when you cut up wild salmon and put them in a can, they don’t care about the size of it. That’s why canned salmon is usually small salmon but it’s wild salmon. Wild salmon is better, look at all the research. Wild salmon kicks the butt of farmed salmon.

Howard Farran: Okay I’m going to pin you down on more details. On this day you work seven to seven, did you get any exercise in or is that your recovery day or off day?

Uche Odiatu: Good question. Because I only do seven minutes of cardio, I won’t exercise many times on my seven to seven day, but sometimes though, I get home by eight o’clock, you know have dinner, say good night to the kids, Carey is on her coaching calls, Carey does some life coaching and coaching calls. So at 10:30, guess what this crazy guy is doing because Wednesday I don’t start until two o’clock. I don’t start till to two pm. I go down to my 24 hour gym, five minutes away I will do a 45 minute combined compound set weight training and cardio workout and I am back in an hour, and when you work out that late at night…guess who I work out with? You think I work out with 50 year olds plus? No, these people are 20 to 30 years old guys and girls. They’re wired, hyper, happy not complaining about their love handles. Not complaining about their spouse or their job. They’re just working out, listening to Pitbull and I get pulled along in that frenzy. I come home at eleven, a little bit wired. I read a bit, I sip some Chamomile tea to quiet down my metabolic fire and watch a little bit of E! Hollywood, a little Ryan Seacrest, a little bit of Kardashians you know, chat with Carry, off to bed by midnight. So but many times though, when I have that seven to seven day, intuitively if I don’t feel like working out, I don’t but I will go downstairs and do seven minutes of interval training on our stationary bike in my own home gym and seven minutes of cardio interval training is equal to an hour of steady state cardio.

Howard Farran: So what does that mean seven minute of interval cardio training? Does that mean you get on your bicycle and you go like a minute as fat as you can, and then a minute cool down, then a minute as fast as you can and the a minute cool down? I mean walk us through that.

Uche Odiatu: Yeah cool. This is a show in itself. You know because most dentists are so time starved, if we did a talk on how to make an exercise work for the dentists, I’m sure it would be popular. But interval training in a nutshell is, research now since the 70’s, a guy named professor Tabata looked at five minutes of cardio, it was a Japanese study and over four months they took these Japanese athletes and did five minutes of cardio three times a week and after four months, they had the same level of aerobic conditioning as someone who did an hour four times a week. So it’s literally one tenth of the time, but in that five minutes they did one minute of warm up. So if you get on a stationary bike, you do 60 seconds on a low tension right, just warming up your knees, warming up your lungs, getting your oxygen into your brain and your heart, and then 30 seconds you put it on maximum intensity. I would not do this if I was a deconditioned coach potato, so it’s not healthy for someone who is not an athlete or in condition person. So but for 30 seconds though, you put it on high intensity, so you are basically standing up on the pedals, you know pulling up on the pedal like you see Lance Armstrong going through the Pyrenees during the big yellow jacket race there, and then after 30 seconds you feel like your lungs are exploding, you sit down and now it’s 30 seconds of recovery. 30 seconds still pedalling, 30 seconds you think oh my God I didn’t know 30 seconds could go by that quickly, you jack it up to intense again and then you go 30 seconds again standing up on your pedals, pulling on the pedals, pulling on your handlebars. You’re going and you’re thinking my heart is going to explode and then you quieten down again and that’s…it’s the going back and forth that leads to a better, stronger…and the heart is a muscle. It adapts better, and now a lot of cardio rehab are doing interval training and maybe not full out high intensity, basically it could be as little as low intensity, moderate intensity so you’re basically walking between light posts and then do the power walk between the next light post, and then walking the next light post. So it can be moderated or attenuated for different people’s health care, status but five minutes of that is the equivalent of an hour Howard, so there’s really no excuse. Five minutes are crazy. Sometimes Carey will be making breakfast. I’ll come down in my housecoat while she’s cooking up the steel cut oats, I’ll walk down stairs to the basement, do six minutes of interval training, come up with a bead of sweat on my forehead, she goes, damn it, you worked out didn’t you? And I said I’m guilty, I did my five minutes and the kids go dad! Play with us! So instead of spending an hour running on my flat feet like Freddy Flintstone, I’m five minutes, come up, happy, hang out with the kids and I’m onto my day. 

Howard Farran: Okay I want to ask you another thing. I want to ask you a question about yoga because a lot of dentists and hygienists, myself included actually have an occupational injury because I lean my ten pound bowling ball head over like this because… I know that I was supposed to look through a mirror, an indirect vision and all that stuff but I looked direct and I leaned my head over and I look direct and I’m telling the young kids out there, I am 52, I jack my neck and it was a dentist’s wife who told me like two years ago, she goes like your neck is really bothering you, and I said it bothers me all the time. She said do Hot Bikram yoga. So I started doing Hot Bikram yoga two years ago and I swear, I’m like a heroin addict when it comes to Hot Bikram yoga. I mean I love it, you can take away my bike, my swim, my cross trainers, you could take away everything, but you could never take away my yoga and all that neck and pain and stuff … what do you think of yoga and do you think hot yoga is any different than cold yoga? Back to stretching, there is a big debate on Dentaltown whether or not you should even stretch because some people say a lion and a tiger and a cheetah, they don’t stretch out before all of a sudden they go from complete stationary to chasing down a gazelle. So answer my question on what are your thoughts on yoga?

Uche Odiatu: Flexibility. When you think of the three components of a good quality, complete exercise programme: strength training is one, aerobic conditioning is the other one and third is flexibility. So flexibility is very important. So there are debates as to when you do it and how often and how long. The debate is do you do it before the run or after the run? The new thought is, you stretch to increase flexibility after your body is warmed up, when you stretch on the step before you go for a jog, that’s basically just getting your mind in gear for the job. You’re basically not going to prevent an injury. They’ve shown now that stretching before a run does not prevent injury. All it does is, from my aspect and why I see from the all the studies, it just sets your mind and gets you in the mind set. I’m preparing for activity. The lion just leaps off the ground right? So I totally understand where this is coming from, so the new way to do your flexibility is after you have already warmed up. So after the weight training, after the run. That is when you stretch for flexibility training and it should be two or three times a week for ten minutes, ideally. To give you ad idea of how easy that is to do…the sad part is only 4% of North Americans have a complete exercise programme, where they would do weight training, cardiovascular and stretching. Only 4% of 330 million, so it’s really not that many. But all things left aside, I do yoga now…I used to do it three times a week. My dad passed away in 2010 in November, suddenly and I thought I can’t go back to the same life, you know, here’s the guy…and the reason why I’m here, to honour him I was thinking for the next year, I’m going to do something completely new. I am a big person of you know like, like Carl Yung, there’s an am and pm to life. You do things in the pm differently than the am. So when my dad died in 2010, I was 47. I said to myself I want the pm now, the next 47 years has to be a little different. So I said what can I do a little differently? I thought…I parked behind this car in a mall and it said soul secret behind it, on the licence plate and I looked up and it’s in front of a yoga studio. I thought okay, I am a pretty intuitive guy, I listen to my gut. I’ve got good gut flora, right and I thought to myself, okay I went in there, signed up for a month for forty bucks, all you can do. I went 15 times. I went for a year, three times a week, hot yoga and never felt better. It was crazy how it made my neck feel better, my back feel better. I felt more limber.  You know my kids eight, six and three, they can do straddle holes, they can do pikes, they can do the splits. Here me, I am stretching down, I can’t do the splits so I realised as we get older, we get stiffer and I think rigid body, rigid mind, rigor mortis. Flexible body, flexible mind, flexible life. So I think for dentists who want to earn more, hygienists who want to earn more I think flexibility is a key part to having good langauging and good body control, and less injuries. I am just looking at a study here. I’m certified to the National Strength and Conditioning Association and this is one of our journals. I get these crazy, you know, 200 page journals every month and here is one. It was a first of its kind. It looked at Bikram yoga, which is a hot yoga and after ten weeks of Bikram yoga, adults, they had a large increase in shoulder and lower back and hamstring flexibility, and hamstring tightness is a big part of lower back pain and rotator shoulder muscles where, because we always lean over. No matter how big our loupes are, dentists we have tight chests, we learn over, very poor rotator issues, those four little muscles always being irritated, lots of shoulder replacements, spurs and tendonitis. You know you can be a high end athlete but if the shoulder is going to bring down the lion, you know having that shoulder that’s not stretching well. So this is the first of its kind in 2013 and it showed how there was a large increase in shoulder, lower back and hamstring flexibility and they looked at Bikram yoga in particular. So when I’m in town, I do now only an hour a week which is not enough, but you know an hour a week is better than nothing. But I do an hour a week every Friday night if I’m on town at 7:30. It’s a hot yoga class, it’s a $7 drop in. I am the only guy there and guess what happens when you’re the only guy in a yoga class? Guess what the ladies do? What do you do for a living? I’m a dentist. What do you think they ask next? Where’s your card? We want to come to you because you look like such a nice, balanced guy. I’m not even looking for new patients. If I was a 20 year old or 25 year old starving new dentist with cobwebs on my back, I’d go to yoga class in three different locations. I’d put my office name on my back, I’d put my office name on my butt okay, and everyone in that class would be saying oh my God! You’re a dentist? Where’s your office? They first want to know, this is so cool that a male dentist is here. Where is your office? So that would be my huge productivity advice to any of the listeners today. You do your hot yoga as a guy, you’re going to get two handout cards every time you go to a class.

Howard Farran: And for a guy, yoga is very different because you also get your cardio workout because those women are so hot. Your heart is just…poor joke. I said yoga is a cardio workout because they’re so hot in there, your heart is racing. I just want to say that, when I get up at five and do the 5:30 to…it’s 90 minutes. It’s 5:30 to 07:00, man when you walk into work after that you just feel jacked and then when somebody…then the things that used to bother you in the past, the insurance wouldn’t pay or they need a letter, this patient’s mad or something went wrong, in the old day when you woke up and ate frosted flakes, you might have angina and be mad and upset. But man, after you do 90 minutes yoga, I don’t care what the world throws at you, you’re just smiling that off. Hey I’m out of time, I’m at an hour and one, but seriously, I really wish you would create an online CE course for Dentaltown, maybe as part of series. I think it would be great business for you because it’s going to be the best marketing you could, from around the world. Those things are watched from here to Australia, New Zealand and all that stuff. 

Uche Odiatu: I’ll do it. 

Howard Farran: But seriously, I just want to end on one things and that is you know again, I got my MAGD, I got my diplomat and implants, I got my fellowship. I did all that stuff, but you what, none of those things matter if your instrument is not in order and if your body and mind and soul isn’t in the right place, you’re not going to solve any of your problems by buying a CEREC machine and man, what you do for people, I mean everybody I know that has ever met you, listened to you saw you, I mean they’re just all your fans are raving. So if you are looking for a speaker at your next study club or your next meeting or whatever, fire them all up. You would be the ultimate opener, closer, I mean all dayer, whatever but I just love everything you’re doing and kudos to you and I hope to see you again.

Uche Odiatu: Yeah thanks Howard. I appreciate the work you’re doing too and I’d love to be back and I take your challenge of doing that one hour CE course. I will do it. Trust me, I will do it.

Howard Farran: Alright, thank you buddy. Have a great day

Uche Odiatu: Thank you, yes you too.

Howard Farran: And happy Saint Paddy’s day, my Irish brother.

Uche Odiatu: Yes, my kindred spirit.