From 15 Bathroom Trips A Day To A Clean Gut: Fixing Poop Issues NATURALLY - With Josh Dech

Ben Greenfield (0:00)

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Boundless Life podcast.

Josh Dech (0:05)

I'm always doing new things to keep my gut fitness up in a world that frankly is no longer compatible with our biology. I got really sick, because my gut had just been teetering for well over a decade.

Ben Greenfield (0:17)

You got started as a paramedic.

Josh Dech (0:19)

And I figured if I can heal something else, I can heal the gut. My brain was exploding with the possibilities of the human body.

Ben Greenfield (0:25)

Welcome to the Boundless Life, with me, your host, Ben Greenfield. I'm a personal trainer, exercise physiologist and nutritionist. And I'm passionate about helping you discover unparalleled levels of health, fitness, longevity and beyond.

Josh Dech, my podcast guest today, is a certified nutritionist. He is a consultant for Crohn's and colitis, a former paramedic, personal trainer, strength athlete. And he has helped hundreds and hundreds of people find the root cause of and reverse their bowel disease. He has a podcast called Reversible and literally helps people reverse Crohn's and colitis naturally. I and he are not physicians, so do not misconstrue what you are about to hear as medical advice. But it is a fascinating discussion. If you have gut issues or as we discussed in the podcast, a so-called princess gut, you should definitely listen in.

bengreenfieldlife.com/gutsolution is where the show notes reside. Let's go talk with Josh. You got started as a paramedic, from what I understand in my little bit of stalking that I did of you before the show. But now you're kind of like a gut health. I don't know if you like this term, but like a gut health expert. People go to you to fix gut issues. So what's the story in terms of going from paramedic to the gut guy?

Josh Dech (1:59)

It was an accident, all of it, like 100%.

I actually thought about going into medicine, be a doctor, and I was like, I don't want to go to school that long. So I went into paramedics, loved it. But honestly, I lived in, I was born and raised in Ontario, kind of central eastern Canada, moved all the way out east, worked in Newfoundland.

Crap job. I mean, great people, but the job and everything sucks. I decided to jump across Canada, look for a better job, better pay. Couldn't get the license to transfer for the life of me, and I picked up personal training. So I was like, I've been weightlifting. It's actually one of my starts. I used to follow those old 80s bodybuilding books. And Ben, when you were actually doing a lot of bodybuilding and fitness and strength stuff on your blogs, I was back in high school and college. I was reading all your stuff then. Oh, geez.

Ben Greenfield (2:42)

Now you make me feel old.

Josh Dech (2:43)

Yeah.

Ben Greenfield (2:45)

Of course, in my defense, I was probably also pretty close to like 19 or 20 years old when I started putting that stuff out anyway. So we might have been at a similar age.

Josh Dech (2:54)

Still is bring chicken. Well, long and short, I got into personal training space. I fell in love with it. You know, one of my first clients, she was she was at 57 years old. She was on 17 pills and a shot of insulin for breakfast. She had nine pills and insulin for bedtime. Slept with a CPAP machine, had high blood pressure. She was on disability, like just circling the drain. Right. We started working together. Basic lifestyle and nutrition and strength training three days a week. And by age 59, just two years later, here she is. She entered a Canadian raw powerlifting federation and broke a world record. She was off all but two medications, completely healed. She had only two medications because she had a stomach surgery done as a gastric bypass. But that was my first window to the body can really heal itself. Right.

And I started diving deeper. So I went all in and I called up physio clinics and chiropractic clinics and Chinese medicine naturopaths. And I said, can I just come and sit and watch and listen and learn?

And I started picking stuff up. So I had people coming in who were dealing with sciatica, seven, eight years of chronic sciatica, had surgeries done and in seven, eight weeks, they're fixed. And I started doing this over and over with carpal tunnel syndrome and chronic pains. And the body just started healing. And I was like, this is kind of amazing.

Ben Greenfield (4:08)

Yeah. You mean now with like a magic wand that you were waving, but you were learning specific, like rehab, therapy, physical training techniques that were helping these people?