Dr. Don Clum is an international Doctor of Chiropractic and has experience practicing and educating throughout the United States, Spain, and Costa Rica, where he worked as the Peak Performance Doctor for the Olympic Teams in Central America. His programs have reached hundreds of thousands of people globally.

In 2010 Dr. Clum and his wife started a fully integrated wellness center while also transitioning a traditional pain management medical practice into a wellness center serving as the director of wellness & the onsite lab.

Dr. Clum’s programs for insulin resistance, specifically focusing on diabetes, diabetes prevention, metabolic syndrome, weight loss resistance, obesity, sleep, and cardiometabolic issues, led him to join a population health company, ADURO Inc., serving 140 employers and over 1,200,000 employees. Dr. Clum designed and delivered the first alternative diabetes prevention program and outperformed the National Diabetes Prevention Program from the N.I.H. and C.D.C.

Today Dr. Clum's 100% virtual practice and programs teach how to reverse insulin resistance with “Functional Rotational Fasting,” Advanced Metabolic Nutrition, Functional Fitness, Sleep Enhancement, and Stress Resilience.

TRANSCRIPT

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  You made it to Chiro Hustle! Sit back and learn from the greatest influencers in the profession on the world's number one chiropractic podcast. Before we dive into this powerful episode, please remember to subscribe to our channels and give us a 5-star rating on iTunes to continue hustling.

This episode is sponsored by the Transact Card, A-Line life, Brain-Based Health Solutions, Chiro HD, Imaging Services, Chiro Health USA, Chiro Moguls, Pure Chiro Notes, Titronics, Sherman College of Chiropractic, New Patients in a Box, Life Chiropractic College West, Pro Hockey Chiros, Pro Baseball Chiros, the IFCO, and 100% Chiropractic. Let's hustle!

LUKE MILLETT (PRODUCER):  Hey guys, welcome to episode 551 of the Chiro Hustle Podcast. I'm your producer, Luke Millett, and here's your host, James Chester.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  So today we have the opportunity of interviewing Dr. Don Klum, and if you want to hear the story about chiropractic and nutrition and how that affects innate healing, stay tuned. Welcome back. This is another episode of the Chiro Hustle Podcast. This is a long time coming. Today I got Don Klum coming on with me at episode 551. We connected five or six months ago, and we were talking about how to get this thing going. I said, hey, we're scheduled out X amount of months. Let's do this thing. And you took the opportunity to do it, so thank you.

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  My pleasure. Thanks for having me. It was a great conversation then, and I expected better one even today.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah, and you know, after doing this for six years, I had to come up with a big message of why do we do this still? So I'm going to share that and we'll jump into your story, okay? Bring it. So our big why, we protect freedom of speech with this show. I think it's really important as we've seen what's gone on in the past couple of years with freedom of speech. There's a lot of sensory and shadow banning of people. We've never done that in our show, and I think it's really important that we stand for that. The show also protects the family health freedom and medical freedom. So we want people to speak openly about what matters to them when it comes to protecting the rights of their families to get good chiropractic care. And then medical arena is so confused. And chiropractic is a standalone profession that kind of got botched into this medical world. So chiropractic is very, very important to me, and it's very important to the message that we produce here. So with that being said, we also do protect the sacred trust. If you guys don't know what that means, go and search right now, stop and pause this and go find BJ Palmer's last words. Go and find out what the sacred trust means and read that. You're going to learn more about chiropractic than you ever could imagine just by reading that one document that BJ Palmer wrote. And then we do believe in subluxation based chiropractic and support subluxation based chiropractic and innate intelligence and universal intelligence. We believe that the power that made the body heals the body and that there is a universal intelligence in all bodies and that adjustment can connect man to physical or man to man or woman the spiritual. So when you get adjusted, it does connect you to an energetic field that lets the body heal without any pills, potions or lotions. And with that being said, Dr. Don, welcome to the show.

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Thank you, James. I appreciate it. Great to be here.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah, you know, like the major premise of that message that we just drop, sometimes people don't make it through a full episode. And I always want them to know like as soon as they hit that engage switch that they know what chiropractic is, and I'm going to spark some enthusiasm in their mind for them to say, oh, it's not just intersegmental dysfunction. Or oh, it's not just headaches, low back pain and neck pain. Or oh, it's not an insurance code. It's actually vitalism. And that's what I want to like always, you know, empower people to know that chiropractic is more than some medical system that's basically stolen chiropractic and inserted it into it. So I want everybody to know that chiropractic is a powerful profession founded September 18, 1895, 127 years ago. So those are the receipts. Those are the receipts.

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Yeah, well, we can often forget where it all came from. It came from a line of thinking, what we call a philosophy. That's where it stemmed from. It was an expression of it. That doesn't change no matter what the application does over the years.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah. And I know you come from a lineage of chiropractors. So I don't know this. I've talked to you a couple of times now, but I don't know how did you get into chiropractic like personally besides being in the family?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Well, you just said I was born into it. What else can I do? I got my dad, my uncle, my aunt, now my cousin, my sister, my ex-wife, my daughter's graduating in two months from chiropractic school. And so it's all over. I grew up in that model. And so I was never pushed into it, but that's just, that's what I know, it's who I am. And so it made sense to me. And so that's how I got into it. No big surprise there.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah. And I think that's really cool. How do you remember like when you got your first adjustment?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  No, absolutely not. I was probably still on the umbilical cord at that point. You know, I was just raising in the whole philosophy at the birthing center somewhere, I imagine, right there on the umbilical cord itself. Just like everyone in my family, it's just the way it's second nature to me. So people who choose chiropractic and people who decide that this is for them or leave one profession and go into it, I give them a lot of respect and a lot of credit because they made that definitive choice. I support my choice. I'm glad I made it. And this is where I live love and thrive. But it's just part of me and who I am. So it's less of a challenge, I feel less of the pressures of a lot of people out there when they go into this. And I just want to tell them if you made that choice to tip my hat and welcome.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah, you know, like nowadays, I think that people look at chiropractic as like an expensive Advil and they want like a quick fix because they've never taken care of themselves. And that's a different type of like understanding of philosophy of chiropractic than what you're born into. Like it's just the right.

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  I just say that. It even sounds foreign to me. I'm like, what, what are you talking about? You know, it's just it's a, it's an approach is an idea. It's a concept is the innate philosophy of life, living and healing, right? That that's where it came from. The application and the modality became chiropractic along the way. But is that is that innate healing ability and that optimal function that is a base of it all and everything comes from that. So when you say, you know, people want a quick fix yet, they've always wanted a quick fix. They, you know, even now I don't think an ad bill will do much for them. They're doing a lot more than an Advil out there for their quick fixes. And so, you know, will it work for that? I don't know. You know, I hope so, I guess. But there's so much more in there that, you know, that just seems silly to me.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  So I guess this is like a deeper question to that topic then. Why do you feel that vitalism lost popularity and mechanism became what people were focused on?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Well, mechanism is based on mechanics and mechanical measures. And that that's why it became more popular because it could be measured. It could be seen. It could be touched. It could be measured. It could be tested. And then when the different when medications came out and the double blind placebo controlled study, what's called the gold standard of medicine was invented and showed to be so efficient at testing treatments that became the standard. And at that point, they needed something. They were they were measuring everything to it, even though it's not designed for physical application or healing or measuring anything like that, which were chiropractic and so many other healthcare services fall in line. So, you know, we kind of got bunched into that and that became the standard, but it's really a standard for one kind of application that we try to, you know, round peg ourselves into that square hole.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah, you know, as I hear you talking about this, I know that there's a lot that goes into understanding how the body heals itself because there's a famous philosophy in chiropractic says the power that made the body heals the body. And a lot of times people say that kind of like a slogan or bumper sticker, but they don't really know what that means. And I know a lot of that comes from the metabolic healing source of the body, not just a pillow potion or a lotion. And if you can get the body to start to recognize that it can heal itself, ADIO above down inside out another, you know, bumper sticker for chiropractic, we start to uncover some of like the richness of the profession. And I think that that goes back to like, how does the body heal itself? How does above down inside out translate to quality of life and vitalism? And I think that there's a disconnect from the things that we know that we've been like taught and learned to the way that other people see chiropractic. They're like, Oh, they just crack your neck.

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Well, it goes back even further. Like you said to healing that what we call healing, body doesn't heal, right? It replaces. It doesn't repair even. It replaces. And as it replaces, if it, if it doesn't replace it wears down, if it replaces at the same level it was when it started, it stays the same. If it's, if it degrades in that replacement, it goes backwards or disease or breakdown. And if it replaces into a better form, then we call that healing over time, but nothing repairs. It doesn't fix it. It gets rid of it and puts something new. And we talk about the body getting the body to recognize it can heal itself. We have to recognize that the body knows what it's doing. The body's always in control. The body's always doing a hundred percent of what it needs and can do at the time when it needs to do it. And it's us that gets confused in what that looks like, feels like, or the process of it. And we screw that up. And rather than letting the body and putting it into an environment where it can do what it is built and designed forever to do, we try to tell it what to do and push it in one direction to the other and judge what it does. And that's where we start to see a breakdown in all applications.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah. And that's what I believe you just described as adaptation.

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Adapt change. Yeah. Change. Adapt or die, right? You know, think or die. It's the same concept. We are always adapting. You either adapt well or you adapt poorly and that makes all the difference.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  And having adjusted nervous system in a clear spinal column helps you adapt in a positive direction rather than a more diseased and dysfunction direction.

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Well, it allows it's our nervous system is our response system is our response system. You know, BJ went through, like you said, above, down inside out, I believe it's outside in and below upward now that we know, because the environment is telling our body where we are, what we're doing, what's going on, where we are on the planet, what the weather is, what the terrain is, what our stresses are, and is telling the brain, the brain, therefore, is responding to that. And as it does, you want the best response possible, the clearest communication quickest and the most app provo, so to speak, that it can have so that you can adapt to that environment. And so what people tend to do is they want to change how they want to change that response rather than change the environment to get a better and more appropriate response for what where they're at.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  So turning the page a little bit forward, I know you got your background and nutrition and then chiropractic, correct? Yes, I did. How have you learned how to navigate nutrition and chiropractic and let them live in the same ecosystem?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Well, they all stem from the same philosophy of the healing power of the body, the innate living concept of it, and chiropractic fits within it. It doesn't own it. It's not the proprietor of it, but it's part of it. And so when I got traditionally trained, it's very medical system. You know, if there's highs, you want to bring them low, if there's lows, you want to bring them high, if there's numbers, you don't want to go deficient, you want to do all this. It's very therapeutic. And like Dr. Williams wrote in his book, you know, when is a potato uphill, you know, even nutrition then can become a therapeutic modality, a drug, so to speak. And I moved away from that and I went right to state with chiropractic, a strict upper server calls. I'm a BJ Green Book Thumper from day one. And then when I got into challenges in my life at a time where I didn't think I should have these challenges, young, in living in Costa Rica, in paradise, you know, making money, doing well. And I had to face some realities that my, I was in concurrent with something. That's when I realized a bigger picture. And that brought me back into the concept of environmental and behavioral based nutrition, not therapeutic nutrition, not clinical nutrition, behavioral nutrition. What are we doing? How are we interacting? How are we using food? Not as a fuel source, not as even a nutrient, but as information to the system in judging how it responds.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  And as you've gone through that journey, I know that you're the fasting guy. How have you integrated fasting into the chiropractic culture?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Well, initially, you know, being, when I was in practice, we had multiple offices, strict up, straight up a cervical chiropractic, you know, the nutrition side. I struggled with it. And then when I had my own challenges, I had some diagnosis. This is an next thing you know, I was changing my diet. I had to tighten up my ship. I knew what to do. I was getting adjusted. You know, I don't take drugs. I've never had a prescription medication vaccine or anything like that in my life. I knew that wasn't part of it. So I tightened up my ship. And as I did, I went through different nutritional concepts, eventually led me backwards into fasting. And as I did, I started doing fasting on a rotation over time. That's when my diagnosis changed. I had, I was diagnosed with cancer, skin cancer, but not confirmed two to separate times a number of years in between, right? I was diagnosed by a dermatologist and by a family practitioner, but I never got it biopsied. I never did anything medical. So I can't say what it was. That's why I say diagnosed, but not confirmed. And as I went through this process and tried these different things and tightened up my ship along with chiropractic, that's when they eventually got, got ugly, did their process and basically fell off.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah. So let's talk about fasting specifically. What does it mean to you and how can other people utilize it?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  I'm a traditionalist. When this started happening to me, I started looking at it. Next thing I know was undeniable that I had to look at what fasting does. I started training. I started training and fasting to me is extended fasting. It's one full day or more. It's not the intermittent concept of just skipping breakfast or eating in a window or doing these different things. Those are what I call intermediate fasting steps to get to fasting. For example, now I'm in a 30 day fasting challenge that I'm running called September fast. And this is day 12. No food, water only. And this is my second one of the year. I did one in April as well for 31 days. And what I'm doing moving forward is a seven day fast a month and the two 30 days a year to get to 130 days of fasting over a course of one year. And the concept here is the benefit and the compounding healing effect of regular on-the ongoing fasting when it's set up right executed and followed through well. And it fits with the chiropractic philosophy. All of the stuff that I do is based out of the sophomore text and Stevenson's chiropractic text with the second half of the sophomore text, everything that chiropractic degrees or approves with. That's the language that Stevenson wrote and BJ signed off of. And it's all congruent because we're unleashing that healing potential and those mechanisms that only come out and play with us in the deep fasted state. So for me, fasting is extended fast. It's not skipping breakfast or eating in eight hours or that kind of thing. It's more than that.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  So if you think about it on that level, how challenging is it for somebody to go one day? Depends on the person.

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  I know, right? It totally depends on the person. And part of the reason I did this the second time this year, just as we were talking or before we were talking the first time, I was starting the April one is because that the preparation planning and training to get into extended fasting is so crucial that once you're there, the fast itself is the least of the issue. It's the preparation, the support during and then the reinforcement after that makes the magic happen. And when you do it right, it was so, I don't like to use the term easy, but it was so non eventful. It was so comfortable that when I talked about it online, in particular, people thought I was lying. They told me it wasn't true. It couldn't be done. So I said, fine, I'll do it again and I'll show you. And as I'm going through it right now, no issues of hunger, energy levels, irritation, headaches, hangry. You can see my shirt. It says, sorry for what I said while fasting, right? You know, there's a little tongue in cheek joke on that, but it doesn't have to be that way. If it's miserable going into fast, if you can't do it, there's a problem. You can judge someone's metabolic health and overall health and resilience by how long they can go comfortably without food. And as of now, 12 days in, not an issue at all whatsoever and as of night before last, I hit the secondary phase, I call it, where sleeping better than ever in my life. So it just starts to compound and this fast is different than my one five months ago, which will be different from the next one I do. And we're tracking that. This is the only data sets of these kind in the world right now. So it's pretty exciting stuff.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  I mean, I'm fascinated by it. I personally, I've talked to you about this. I said, I think I want to try something. And I was like, yeah, I think I'm doing something. I'm doing some intermittent fasting. And you're like, yeah, I know that's not really what we do. So I mean, I think it's important for people to know the distinctions between not eating breakfast and eating within windows of time and what a fast really is, right?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Yeah, absolutely. Well, the fast represents the fasting metabolism of the repair or what I call the replace the state of the body, right? And to get into that, it's not just stopping eating. You have to get into that. It's like training is like getting in the zone in a workout, like you talk marathoners talking about getting in the zone right after a few miles. They're in the zone. They can run. It's the same kind of concept. You have to train for that. And once you're in it, you're in that deep fasted state, you go through different levels of recycling detoxification and what's called a toffee that starts to take inventory and prepare you for replacement from stem cells of new cells, tissues and structures within your body. But if you don't do that, right, you just might be suffering through it, a lot of pain for nothing, right? You might as well buy the t-shirt and go home. But the concept of doing it well, preparing it well, rolling through it and then doing it again. Another point to build on what you've already done is crucial, just like chiropractic. You know, going to get your neck adjusted or your low back because you have a headache or back pain, that might be the ad will you're looking for. But that's not corrective care. That's not maintenance care. That's not wellness care. That's a comparison compared to a full care plan that people go through over months, if not years.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah. So I've heard you say a couple of times doing it right. What is doing it wrong?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Doing it wrong is like you see a challenge. I say, Hey, I'm going to fast for 72 hours. I love the people when they count hours. I'm doing hours. I might 100 hours. I might 94 hours. I might 31 hours. That's a new thing. You know, we used to count in full days, but I still do. But when they just jump into it, just think, stop eating and drink water or have their broth or their whatever electrolyte drink and, you know, kind of just roll into it. Is that better than not doing it? Probably probably better, but it's like someone who never worked out in their life suddenly going to jump in the gym and hit across their workout. Will they get through it? Probably. Probably. Will it be the best workout out? Will they enjoy it? Probably not. Will they feel it after? Definitely. Same kind of concept.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  You made it to Chiro Hustle! Sit back and learn from the greatest influencers in the profession on the world's number one chiropractic podcast. Please remember to subscribe to our channels and give us a 5-star rating on iTunes to continue hustling.

This episode is sponsored by the Transact Card, A-Line life, Brain-Based Health Solutions, Chiro HD, Imaging Services, Chiro Health USA, Chiro Moguls, Pure Chiro Notes, Titronics, Sherman College of Chiropractic, New Patients in a Box, Life Chiropractic College West, Pro Hockey Chiros, Pro Baseball Chiros, the IFCO, and 100% Chiropractic. Let's hustle!

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  I'm kind of a neophyte to all this too, so I'm learning as I go. And say they do it right. What are maybe some miracle things that you've seen happen in people's lives that have done it right? I know you told us yours about going to be in an idea of having cancer, to not having cancer. So have you seen other people's lives dramatically shift and become more vital?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Oh yeah, definitely through the programs I've been running now for years, we've helped thousands and if not tens of thousands, depending on the level of the program, through everything from what people call intermittent fasting or what's really time-restricted eating or delayed onset eating, rolling into alternate day concepts, and then into what I call full fasting modes. And we've seen everything happen. We've seen everything. Weight loss is an easy one to track and see. We've seen diabetes reversal. And I'm talking physiological reversal. Not just lowering blood sugar. In the natural world, we have a lot of people out there who do these different products, potions, pills, powders, just like you said, natural or otherwise, or even with drugs. And they lower blood sugar and they get it in the normal range and they say they reverse diabetes. And I'm telling you, that's not reversed. The data is very clear. That is just diabetes with normal blood sugar at that point. To reverse the condition, you have to change the structure and physiology of how that body responds to food and stress to be able to say that so that if they were to then have a quote unquote normal lifestyle of eating, that they don't go right back to where they were. And that's what we see. So in order to get that regeneration, that repair replacement stuff going, you have to do more than just not eat for a few hours. The idea that in eight hour eating windows somehow is a fast, that's really just a normal eating span for humans. It might even be a long one for us, evolutionarily speaking. And so it's like a reversion back to normal now is suddenly a diet effort and what they're calling fasting. To me, fasting is longer than that. And what we've seen, we've seen cancer improve. We've seen every kind of digestive issue, autoimmune, everything is very similar to chiropractic. When you do it right, the whole body heals and responds better. It functions better. It doesn't matter what someone walks in your office with a chiropractor, if you check them and they're subluxating, you adjust them, they will get better somehow, some way. You know that same thing when you start to incorporate fasting the right way.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Well, I think what you were explaining to me, I'm just going to put it into like an analogy with saying that you've reversed type two diabetes, which you know, that takes a huge effort with mindset, relationship with food, relationship with, you know, a lot of different parts of a person's life. But what it made, what it brought to my attention was, it's like taking a piece of like electrical tape and putting it over the check engine light on the car and say, hey, car's fine now. We reversed it because we put the light out. And I think that when you think about like people's health and their quality of life, people are looking for, you know, how do I reset myself? And we don't want to reset, right?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  You don't want to reset. You don't want to go backwards. You want to grow anew. You want to become something different when it comes to getting better. You want to have a different response to stress and food in your life. And when you do these steps to reverse that path, pathology that we call diabetes, other things reverse too, like emotional eating, like cravings, like food addiction, because those become symptomatic, things like poor willpower suddenly come back without ever addressing it. Things like emotional eating that people come to me and they have a t-shirt that says they are the president of the club. Here's my membership card. In the last few years, that's my problem of emotional eating over a course of time. And in a few months, when I go back to revisit that, they don't even remember that they had it because it's a metabolic symptom, the indecision, the impulsivity, what they consider weakness and willpower is a symptom of a stressed metabolic system, neuroendocrine tone. B.J. had it right in the safety pin cycle. I just don't believe it's above down. I believe it's down up. But it's the same cycle feeding back to each other. When it's better, we live better, feel better, look better. It's like when you're sick, you get in a bad mood. Doesn't mean you turn into an ogre. It's because a symptom of being sick, the same thing. When you're metabolically sick, you get these symptoms of what is seen and judged as weakness or poor willpower or indecision or impulsivity or emotional eating or connection to food. When reality, when the physiology changes, so do those without having to address them.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  So I want to go a bit more narrow-gaged. I just want to talk about something I think is really important for a lot of people today. I think now, as they say in the media, now more than ever, there's a lot of autoimmune conditions and people have been back-sengered and people need a detox. Have you seen fasting make an improvement in people's lives that have autoimmune conditions, number one, but also have this, as they call it, long COVID? Have you seen fasting helping people with these specific conditions?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, autoimmune comes down to stuff getting into where it's not supposed to be, in my opinion. Food getting into the big, large intestine where it's not supposed to be and then bacteria from the large, isn't getting into small intestine, it's not supposed to be. That dysbiosis right there is a source of most autoimmune condition right now and that can be resolved through diet changes and fasting accelerates that and heals the actual process in itself. The detoxification, you cannot detox your body. Your body will detox when you give it the environment to do so automatically and fast. Within hours, it'll start to detox, but you have to flip the switch from the fed state to the repair state in order to access the process we call detoxification. That I call recycling and replacement that people call autophagy in the science is all the same thing. It's a gradient that is on very, very low, barely detectable while we're in this chronic fed state. Once it's turned off, that dial can turn up into the deeper and deeper autophagy recycling detoxification states and then in the deep fasted state go even further beyond what is even known at this point and you start to see things not reset, but we'd be replaced with higher quality receptors, proteins, parts and pieces than it was before. And when the first immunotherapy recommendations came out, so to speak, when they did, I offered to every practitioner out there a free process to help support the system, get them as iron clad and tank ready to walk in if they had to make that decision to make it, so hopefully not get the negative effects. And then once they did, how to get those effects out of you as soon as possible, but the bottom line is we don't do it. We can change the environment and hope the body has what it needs to do it, but the body is going to do it. And the best way to get out of the way to let it do it is to keep the nervous system clear so all signals are working at 100% and then stop eating and let it be 100% in control of this metabolic system.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Well, coming from 23 years as a practitioner, getting your background and nutrition, growing up as a Chiro kid, being adjusted in the womb all the way to where you are today, I think that it's pretty profound to listen to the work that you're inspired about. And I think it's really amazing to just know that there's a resource out there that is you that is helping people go through this journey. You say somebody's listening to this and they're like, damn it, I'm ready. What do they do to prep themselves for their first day and how can they start to grab their head around? I'm not going to eat for 72 hours. You got to be joking. You got to be kidding me. Like, talk, talk people through that initial like, I'm going to jump into the deep end with a fast.

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  All right. Well, if you're going to go that round, you're going to do you want to get first thing you need to do is set your calendar. You need to plan. You need to prepare. You need to set your timeline. You need to give yourself that runway to roll into that thing ready, willing and accepting of what's going to go on and therefore make it as easy as possible as you go through it. And that can take days if not weeks. I prepare three months before I get ready for a 30 day fast, right? And I go month by month and I break it down. I'll just give you an example. Month one is all about cleaning out sugar and any kind of high insulin foods, which are processed foods, so anything made from a powder, you know, protein powder, flour, almond flour, coconut flour, any kind of processed flowers and sugars. That's month one. Month two, I'm getting rid of the rest of the high oxalate or most plant foods at all totally, completely, whether they're fresh or organic or what have you getting getting those narrowed down. And month three is about meal timing, spacing and frequency, starting with three meals a day, shifting it up, getting the rest of the plant food out of there and then making sure the whole time, making sure my exercise program is on point because that is a big determinant of whether you keep those new stem cells that you made when you come out of fasting or not is your exercise or physical activity level. And then I roll in by that time, I'm ready for that fast. I am ready this fast for 30 days, days to 12, but it actually started a couple of days earlier because I was ready. I'm like, come on, I don't got to wait till the first thing. I know I announced it. Isn't that you're just ready, the mentally ready? And you do that. All the detox reactions that people call symptoms from fasting were really detox reactions. I've already cleared out over time and you roll in and you don't have them. I don't get cold in my bones like a lot of people do. Like I used to do when I didn't do this kind of intensive process. I don't get irritability mood swings. I don't get headaches. I don't get hungry. I don't get preoccupied and fixated on food. I don't have sleep disturbance. In fact, I get the best sleep I've ever had. I continue with my workout, my life, my job, everything else, my relationships. It's called functional fasting because you have to function to do it. So you make this process and you map it out. You get specific. You learn how to do it and you start to little by little roll in so that when you're there, you're ready. You wouldn't show up to a race without training, right? Same thing.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah. I mean, I'm fascinated by it. I know that there's a lot more that we didn't talk about. There's so many questions that I could still continuously ask you, but I do know that we're coming up on the edge of our time. I do want to ask you some more things chiropractic related. Maybe we can do a quick lightning round. Who are some of your mentors? Who are some people that inspired you to become the chiropractor you are today?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  My dad is number one. Cameron Kasan, his chiropractor was beforehand and Dr. Sid Williams, my dad's mentor and one of his best friends growing up. I grew up in the realm. I follow my dad around seminars. I've ridden his co-tail since the beginning. He's a big name, if not the biggest right now in chiropractic. He has a senior statesman. So to speak, and I'm incredibly proud to say that. Just hanging around him, watching his relationships, some of the now old timers, that has been a key. My dad would be number one.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  That's really cool, man. A lot of people that watch my show don't know this, but my dad left the family when I was five. I've been out there fighting a war on my own a long time. It's really cool to see people that have that good resonance with their parental figures. It's really cool to see that your dad did create something really special for you to be proud of. It's really awesome, man. I congratulate you for that. The profession as a whole, we could all talk about how bad some things smell and why complain when we can make it better. So what can we do to make the profession better and where do you see it the next couple years?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Well, I think that as the chiropractors represent chiropractic, the best thing you do is live this thing and show that off, especially in our digital social media visual world today. Practice what you preach. I'm not just leading this 30-day challenge. I'm doing day by day lessons, and I am part of it, and I am reporting back. And so it's showing up and it's showing how to live like this, not just telling what to do. But as providers in the office, we can easily say, do this, don't do that. It's like when people ask me, what do I eat? When you're talking to insulin friendly, which is my brand, it's not a list. It's a way. It's behavioral based. It's a lot of things. You have to learn it. So as we learn it, we want to teach it. We need to live it. More people need to be doing this and showing the world that they're doing this, and it can be done like a 30-day fast. I will not die, I promise. And represent it more from a personal point of view.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Well the biggest fears in life are dying and public speaking. And I probably think Swimmer's Sharks is third or something. I don't know. Or falling, I'm not sure. But I know that we wanted to talk a little bit about a message to students. And let's close that with that. What is your message to chiropractic students?

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Get your message down. Get your 25-minute chiropractic philosophy, practice, engagement conversation, down path. Practice it. Have it in your back pocket, ready to go before you even graduate. Learn to speak it. If you don't have one, find one. Mimic it. Memorize it. Be a safety pin cycle. I did that in the beginning. Find a practitioner. Get that down to the point where you can give it on a moment's notice to any group. Adapt it. Speak it well. And you can give your truth through it. So that at the end of that talk, that anyone who heard it, if they want what you've got, you know they're on. If they don't, you know you gave them the best option and you can respect that choice. You didn't leave anything on the table or on set. If you can do that, then when you get out, you get in front of any group, you possibly can to deliver it anywhere, anywhere. Moments notice, that's my biggest thing. That fear you have in public speaking, we've got to get over it or learn to hide it very well because the public needs us. Not just virtually, but in person, in our office, in our community and everywhere.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  And even introverts can be extroverts and there's an introverts.

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Absolutely. Even if they can, you know, just whatever it takes because it's not about you. It's about this message you're getting out of it. About someone hearing what you've got and making a change. You know, my practice now is 100% virtual. I have a six month program. I have these smaller programs. I work with practitioners in a mentor program to teach them how to do it with their practice. It's all virtual. I see them. I used to speak on stages at seminars. Now the seminars are less. So you have to learn how to do it. It's about the message. It's getting that message down. If you have a brick and mortar practice, that's how it built all of mine. I think we had 17 practices that you just get out in front of people and you just lay it out for them. Give them a big part of you and let them choose.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah, I think it's really important. And the middle ground between an extrovert and an introvert is called an ambivert. And I think that if, yeah, there's a middle ground there. There's too many words. You can be both.

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  How about just be you and just getting a lot of people see it.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah, and I do think that that's the truth is get out there and tell your story. I was at the first mile high chiropractic weekend. That was 10 years ago. And there was a guy named Joe Borrio that was up on stage. And he said this line, tell this story, tell this story, tell this story. Like more times than a person could actually digest. And I said after that, I'm going to go tell this chiropractic story a lot. So I took, I took your advice, Joe and Joe's, Joe's awesome.

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Danny Knowles is great. Grant is mile high. It's been a fantastic thing. And I tell people it like you, if you're nervous to speak, that's just where you want to be. If you're not, then you got a problem. People would come up to me after my talks and say, how do you do that? Don't you get nervous? I am very nervous before every talk up until the moment, even that I'm on that stage. Why? Because it means something to you. If you're not nervous, it doesn't mean anything to you. You can just say it and it doesn't matter to can thing, whatever. But if you get nervous, harness that energy, that's your body preparing you for only neural integrity, neural endocrine tone, getting you ready so you can deliver that as powerfully as possible. Want it, hone it, harness it and bring it.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Love it brother. If people want to work with you, chiropractors, medical professionals, or-

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  Nobody wants to work with me. Are you kidding? I tell them not to eat. Especially around the holidays. This is going to be my dormant season. I don't want to talk to me then. Now, go ahead. You can find me on Facebook, Don Klomont Facebook. My group is Insulin Friendly Fasting Secrets. My website is insulinliving.com. So insulin friendly living. How do you hear that? I just said my own website wrong, insulinfriendlyliving.com. And you can get all my content that I use everywhere in my programs. Pater, otherwise, there's somewhere online and one of those sources that you can find reading to look at yourself. You want a structure that you want it fed to you. You want it through a platform app and all that and coaching. Then that's when you can come to me. But you don't need me. You can find that information and start making it change today and see a benefit tomorrow.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  I think that's really cool man. Thanks for sharing so openly today. Thanks for your inspiration, enthusiasm towards making the world a healthier place. It's really cool to get to know you. And I really am thankful that you took the opportunity to be episode 551 of our show.

DR DON CLUM DC (GUEST):  551, great number. Anytime! I loved it, this is my gig. Nothing more I'd rather do. Thank you for having me.

None:  Great.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Yeah, and check out insulinfriendlyliving.com. Thank you for correcting me. And if you guys want to learn more about chiropractic and nutrition and doing the right thing for your body to help with your metabolic syndrome, reach out to Don and use this for your resources and then hire them. So with that being said, I'm just going to close out by telling everyone you're just one story away. Keep hustling everyone. I'll see you guys on the next episode. Thanks Don. Thank you sir. I'll see you next.

JAMES CHESTER (HOST):  Thanks for listening to Chiro Hustle. Don't forget to subscribe and check back next week to continue hustling. Please remember to subscribe to our channels and give us a 5-star rating on iTunes.

This episode is sponsored by the Transact Card, A-Line life, Brain-Based Health Solutions, Chiro HD, Imaging Services, Chiro Health USA, Chiro Moguls, Pure Chiro Notes, Titronics, Sherman College of Chiropractic, New Patients in a Box, Life Chiropractic College West, Pro Hockey Chiros, Pro Baseball Chiros, the IFCO, and 100% Chiropractic. Let's hustle!

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