NBA Legend Chris Paul on Longevity, Nutrition & Staying Elite at 40

Mark Hyman, MD

Dr. Mark Hyman is leading a health revolution—one focused on using food as medicine to support longevity, energy, mental clarity, happiness, and so much more. Mark Hyman, MD is a practicing family physician and an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and advocate in the field of Functional Medicine. He is the founder and director of The UltraWellness Center, Founder and Senior Advisor for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, a sixteen-time New York Times best-selling author, and Board President for Clinical Affairs for The Institute for Functional Medicine. He is the founder and chairman of the Food Fix Campaign, dedicated to transforming our food and agriculture system through policy.

He is a co-founder and the Chief Medical Officer of Function Health. He is the host of one of the leading health podcasts, The Dr. Hyman Show with 150+ million downloads. Dr. Hyman is a regular medical contributor to several television shows and networks, including CBS This Morning, Today, Good Morning America, The View, Fox, and CNN.

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Full Transcript

Automatically generated. Please forgive any typos or errors in the following transcript. It was generated by a third party and has not been subsequently reviewed by our team.

Chris Paul
You have to fall in love with the monotony. When you're really good at something, you just think, I ain't gotta change nothing. What you realize and learn is that you don't know what you don't know. Somewhere, this became a mindset, not just in sport, but whatever I do.

Dr. Mark Hyman
If you have a million dollar racehorse, you're not gonna feed at McDonald's. Inflammation is sort of the enemy of the athlete. Right? The more inflammation you have, it's gonna affect your performance, your recovery, your longevity, everything.

Chris Paul
But 2019 is when I went plant based. To see the way inflammation disappeared for me. It was crazy. People don't realize your second brain is your gut. What I learned is that the thing that's passed down from generation to generation is recipes and habits.

The thing that money can't buy you is health.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Today, I'm joined by NBA legend Chris Paul. He is one of greatest point guards of all time. At 40 years old, he is redefining elite performance by mastering the data of his own health.

Dr. Mark Hyman
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Chris Paul
Yes, sir. Thanks so much for having me.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Thanks for being here. You know, people know who you are generally, and if they don't, you're a basketball player. If you're somebody listening to health and doesn't know anything about basketball Yeah. This guy's one of the OGs.

And people think that success like you have is sort of just talent that you're born with or that it just kind of lucky. But, you know, you talk a lot about how it's just a lot of hard work. And we were just chitchatting. You said you were in the gym at seven this morning. You were on the court at 08:30.

You've been working all morning. You you have to do the hard work to actually make something yourself in life.

Chris Paul
Right? Absolutely. You know, it's funny having kids. Right? I have a 16 year old son, a 13 year old daughter.

I think people see you now a lot of times and don't realize. I'm sure my kids can't imagine me when I was their age. Right? I'm sure it's hard for them, or they probably don't even want to think about me when I was their age, but you don't always just have it. Right?

Like some people have talent, but I think you you have to be coached and you have to be nurtured, and sometimes it comes from loss, comes from defeat, and you just never know what's gonna happen in your life to make you have that drive and that want to. I knew I wanted to make it to the NBA when I was a kid, didn't know I wanted to play football.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Totally to a million other kids.

Chris Paul
Exactly. Exactly. Once you get

Dr. Mark Hyman
My son wanted to be one of those guys.

Chris Paul
Right, but once you get there also, I didn't know I wanted to be 21 years. Yeah. Right? Because there's been a lot of heartache along that process, but somewhere, I can't even point out what year it was, obviously there's been a lot of setbacks here and there, but somewhere it was just this became a mindset. Yeah, the mindset.

That not just in sport, but whatever I do. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, you know, was so touched by reading about your story with your grandfather, Papa Jones, who's you know, it was the first black owned service station in North Carolina, and he worked really hard, and he didn't have a lot of employees. He was the guy who ran the station, and Yeah. You were his employees, probably didn't get paid. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and you had to go show up and change the oil, and change the tires, and do the work, and that ethic, you know, of just showing up day after day doing the hard things is what actually makes people, you know, have a life that that is worth worth living in a way?

Chris Paul
It's the things that you don't think about. Right? Like, you have to fall in love with the the monotony, and going to that service station, whether I wanted to or not, I had to. If I wanted a new pair of shoes, my granddad was like, You're gonna come work for it? It just instills something different into you, and as a kid, you don't always understand why you're doing these little tedious things.

Right? It's almost like that Karate Kid movie where he keeps making him put his jacket up. He keeps making him put his jacket up.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Like the details you're

Chris Paul
talking Yeah. Over and over again. So it's if you have your kids making their bed up every day, and they get up and they about to run out the house, and you're like, you ain't made your bed up. Right? You don't appreciate some of those things until you get older.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Maybe you could share the story of when your grandfather died, he was 61. It was a big influence on your life, and you had to play a game that next day. You know, it just shows sort of

Chris Paul
like the story of your mindset. 11/14/2002, it's crazy it's been that long. I signed my letter of intent to go to Wake Forest. It was a huge day for me and my family. My granddad was there, took off a Wake Forest hat and gave it to me and put on I put the hat on, and that night me and my granddad went to go see Wake play, just me and him.

I always say that I knew my brother went back to school, my parents were probably at home, but it was just me and my granddad, because his wife, my grandmother, had passed away when I was seven, and that was on November 14, we go to the game. On the fifteenth, I'm at a high school game, a Friday night, watching a football team play, and I get a phone call from my parents. My brother called first to tell me that he was coming back home, and I was like, what you mean you're coming back home? And he said, my granddad was sick. As I was going to the car, a cousin stopped me and told me that they had found him murdered.

November 19 ended up being the funeral, and the twentieth was the first game of my senior year. Wow. And I scored 61 points in that game, and my grandfather was 61 when he died. But you threw away the last

Dr. Mark Hyman
you could've got the last shot, but

Chris Paul
you threw Yeah, had 59. I had 59. My career high up to then was like 34. Wow. Right?

So it was absolutely a out of body experience, but we were actually playing against my mom's old high school, and all my family was in town for funeral. Yeah, I had 59 points, I drove, made a layup and got fouled. Knew I had 61, and I didn't want to score anymore, so I walked to the free throw line and threw the ball out of bounds. My dad was my assistant coach, I remember just walking off the court falling into his arm. So it's definitely one of the most memorable experiences I've ever had in sport.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah, I got the chills, because, you know, it's like your grandfather was playing through

Chris Paul
you right then, right? No question. I still have that basketball from that game. It's in a trophy case at my parents' house. But my granddad was everything, right?

Especially at that age for me, right? Because I lost my grandmother when I was seven, and You got kids? You got grandkids? Coming up. Coming up.

July. Yeah, congrats. Congrats. Because to think of me, right, being seven when I lost my grandmother, and 17 was when my grandfather was murdered, my mom lost her mom and dad. Right?

Yeah. And I'm so blessed to still have mom and dad. And now, to see my parents, and specifically my dad as a grandfather, the way he is to my I just thought about this, my son is 16, right around that age that I was, which is to watch that relationship and that dynamic makes me understand how it was with me and my granddad.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. They're beautiful. That mindset and that determination, those values that he taught you every day, working in the station and doing things he did, sort of helped you in your career. I mean, you you put your head down, you work hard, and you become who you become and had an incredible longevity in the NBA. Most people are out by the time they're in their late twenties, early thirties, and you're pushed up on 40.

Chris Paul
Yeah. I ain't pushing up. I'm there. I'm 40.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, you're 40?

Chris Paul
I'm 40.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, damn. I thought you were 39. Okay.

Chris Paul
I'm there. Sorry. I'm there. Yeah. I'm there.

Yeah. So you're like

Dr. Mark Hyman
in the Tom Brady zone now. And, you know, you you you kind of, in the beginning of your career, you kind of had your head down, brought talent, worked really hard, but you were eating crap. Like you were sharing with me before, you would stop before the games in New Orleans and get a McDonald's meal, and before your practice and kinda just kinda running on crap. Right? And and and you can kinda get away with that for a bunch of years.

Like, you can do that.

Chris Paul
And what

Dr. Mark Hyman
what you wanna have longevity. You can't really do that as an You can't fill your body with crap. If you have a million dollar racehorse, you're not gonna feed at McDonald's. Right?

Chris Paul
Yeah. It's it's it's gonna be hard. Yeah. It's gonna be hard.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So when was it like that kind of moment where you're like, oh, wait. I gotta if I wanna have longevity in my job that I love, when was the moment you realized you had to focus and take care of your health?

Chris Paul
It's funny, because when you're really good at something, right? Like, when you're really good at something, you just think, I ain't gotta change nothing, right? Can just keep doing what I've been doing. Yeah. And what you realize and you learn is that you don't know what you don't know.

When I first came into the NBA, and we practiced in Oklahoma City, we used to practice at this junior college, I think it was a junior college, it was called Southern Nazarene University, because we had got displaced because of Hurricane Katrina.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah, right.

Chris Paul
So, every day on the way to practice, I would stop by McDonald's, and I'd get a McGriddle combo.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Mershee, don't know what that is, but

Chris Paul
Oh, McGriddle? McGriddle is fire. It's almost like two pancakes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, eggs and pancakes.

Chris Paul
No, no, no, no, no. Griddle combo, right? I get a sausage McGriddle, right? So, it's almost like two pancakes and then sausage in between. Oh.

Right? Right? Wow. Relax. I would get a hash it'd come with a hash brown and a large orange juice, and I'd usually get an extra hash brown.

And it was pizza at night, it was all these different things. Me and my brother living together. Yeah. Yeah, it worked. Well, you think it's working, which it is, right?

We're winning games, you're playing at a high level, I would

Dr. Mark Hyman
When you're young, you can get away with stuff. You wanna keep going for twenty years, you can't do that.

Chris Paul
I had I had to change. I had to change.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So, you you had that that injury, would you take us back to that injury that day that you kind of had that hamstring injury? What happened, and how it made you kinda shift your mindset to actually focus on your

Chris Paul
health

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. A little

Chris Paul
So, I started doing food sensitivity back in 2011, right? And so, I had some injuries here and there, and I was like, man, what is going on? Why do I keep getting injured? And I'm one of those people that I'll try whatever. I was eating right, I felt like I was hydrating, all these different things.

So, I got hurt my first year in Houston in a very critical game in game five of the

Dr. Mark Hyman
The finals, right?

Chris Paul
Western Conference finals. And then I hurt my hamstring again next year. And I was like, man, what gotta do? What I gotta do? I gotta change something.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And then, what did you shift?

Chris Paul
Yeah, so that summer twenty nineteen is when I went plant based. I needed to try and see what that did differently from my body, and I tell you, when I say The body is amazing, it's crazy, and what I've learned is too much of anything can be bad for you, right? But if you can try different things or what not, just so that you can see what the body is

Dr. Mark Hyman
capable of,

Chris Paul
what works for you and what doesn't work for you, you should absolutely do that. So on that journey for me, and getting a chance to see the way inflammation just disappeared for me and all of that. So it was it was crazy.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's powerful. Inflammation is sort of the enemy of the athlete. Right? The more inflammation you have, it's gonna affect your performance, your recovery, your longevity, everything. Most people don't realize the diet that most Americans eat is super inflammatory, and it's driving not just, you know, obesity and diabetes and heart disease, but it just makes people feel bad, and it makes people function less poorly, make people have brain fog and be sore and achy, and the things that, you know, it's of are subtle that people don't really think about are related to food, but when you change your diet, you notice it.

Chris Paul
But you

Dr. Mark Hyman
you you changed your diet in 2011 from the food sensitivities. You didn't notice a big change then, or you did?

Chris Paul
I did. I did notice a big change then.

Dr. Mark Hyman
But it was more dramatic when you had the

Chris Paul
Yeah, it was a lot more dramatic. But what happened was, I did the food sensitivity year in and year out, but what started changing, the very first time I did it, I had 27 reds and yellows. So anyone who I know, when you do a food sensitivity test, they test basically your allergens against like 200 different foods and all this stuff. So you get these red, yellows, and greens back. I had 27 red, And

Dr. Mark Hyman
it was stuff you're eating all the time.

Chris Paul
Yeah, and we usually do it every six months or whatnot, and so then it changed, right? Because as an athlete, as player, everybody on the team's doing it. So, when we get hours back, you're hoping you don't have but so many reds and yellows, because you want to be able to Eat whatever you want. Exactly. Yeah.

And so, what was funny is being on a team with Deandre Jordan and Blake Griffin, right? It's crazy, these little Snackwell cookies that used to be on the plane.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, man.

Chris Paul
It's sort of just what you eat when we're flying and playing cards. But, I remember one year, that was sort of one of the ingredients was on all of our red and yellows. So, we would get on the plane and grab them, just throw it to the other guy, Right? Just throw them at each other, just messing with each other, because you know you couldn't have them. Yeah.

It's cool when you have accountability partners too. Doing that as a team, and sort of knowing what other guys could do or whatnot, sort of holds you accountable. So I enjoyed it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
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Yeah. I mean, that's powerful. I think, know, what you're about is is is actually a food sensitivity, not true allergy test. And what happens is if if you're eating crap and your gut becomes affected and you get what we call leaky gut, then food proteins leak in, it creates inflammation, and it can affect, you know, performance, recovery, just how you feel. And most people don't realize that.

And so we I mean, I created something called the ten day detox diet, which essentially gets rid of all the most common allergens and inflammatory foods. And like in ten days, people get rid of seventy percent of the symptoms from all kinds of conditions just by a very short window of time. And you were saying like, when you did this initially, you started seeing all this sort of mucus come out, all this stuff happen when you changed your diet and got healthy.

Chris Paul
So when I first did it, it was 2019, like I said, I went cold turkey or cold tofu or whatnot To watch my body transform, would sit the first three days or so, I would literally just be sitting there and my nose would start running. Nose would start running, and that was literally the mucus leaving my body. I think one of the biggest things that I learned, what you just said, was people don't realize your second brain is your gut. Yeah. Right?

And when you're growing up, and especially being African American, and you seeing people with high blood pressure, gout My family's from the South, right? I'm from North Carolina, but my dad was born and raised in South Carolina. And my parents noticed, I will never forget going to visit my family in South Carolina when I was we would always go every summer, but I might have been around six, seven years old, and one of my great uncles, you you're kids and you're going to see your grandparents, brothers, and stuff like that, and I'll never forget walking in and looking down and seeing his foot. His foot was huge. Swollen.

Swollen. But as a kid, and I got an older brother, you know, we're like, what what what You know, like, you're kids, you don't know. And so then, when you get a little older and your parents explain to you what gout is and all this different type stuff

Dr. Mark Hyman
All diet related.

Chris Paul
It is diet related, but it also comes from education, right? I think also food deserts, you know, what people are exposed to and not having those different options and all of that, and different inner cities and all this stuff. But I think the thing that I've tried to do and why I've been so grateful for function, especially with my family, is that I'm point 00001% of my family that's gotten the opportunity to live the life that I live. Yeah. The exposure that I've gotten, the fact that I was introduced to the food sensitivity test, and to able to learn all this, I try to bring what I get informed about back to my family.

Family, yeah. Because like, our culture and everything in our family, we all say, you know, I got this different disease or whatever going on because my mom had it, or because my aunt had it, or because this person had it. And what I learned is that the thing that's passed down from generation to generation is recipes. Recipes and habits. And habits.

Yeah. Exactly. And it's crazy because for me, when I talk about my first six years in the NBA, right, nothing against all of this stuff, right? Because you don't know what you don't know. But, I didn't even know sweet unsweet tea existed.

Right. I didn't even know there was a such thing as unsweet tea. First of all, I don't drink that, but, like, I grew up, it's sweet tea. Me sweet tea. Give me like, you don't understand all the sugar, all these different And things, so, just like with money, what I learned is that I have to budget.

I have to budget, right? And food and all that should still be fun. Right? Like food should still be an experience, but what I learned is I have to budget with different things that I eat or what I may want to eat because that gut thing when your gut doesn't feel well, it'll change your whole day.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It will.

Chris Paul
It'll change your whole mood, attitude, and everything.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It probably affects your game too.

Chris Paul
Yeah. Yeah. I used to get bloated sometimes during games, right? Oh, that's And just like real gassy and like burping and all this type stuff, but you don't realize that's from a lot of the stuff that you consuming. And it affects

Dr. Mark Hyman
your problems. I think you mentioned functions for the people listening. You're talking about Function Health, which is a company that gives you access to all your personal health data, and you're head of the NBA Players Association for a long time Yep. And advocating for players. I mean, they were in the sixties, they were making nothing, and they were taking advantage of.

And so you you know, you've really been one of the leading players in the in the last decade, taking care of other players.

Chris Paul
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And and one of the things you did was sort of partner with Function Health to help get access to data for players, they would know what's going on their body, and

Chris Paul
they would know what's going

Dr. Mark Hyman
on their health. Like and just like you've done with your your test, your you said your family is getting to actually understand this. What what are you finding out about your family, and what are they kinda learning from the

Chris Paul
Man, to tell you the truth, it's it's really cool to find out the information that I'm finding out about functional health because I'm one of two boys. I have an older brother. Having a wife now, having a daughter also, so one of the most interesting things to me was that the women that do the functional health, you have to do it twice. Have to get blood work twice. One when you're on your cycle, one when you're off.

That just shows women dealing with a whole lot of things. Like, serious hormones and all these different types of things. My wife, to find out some of the information that she found out, the thing that I appreciate so much about functional health, and especially people in general, but especially like black men, a lot of times you don't go to the doctor. No. Right?

Because you don't wanna know. You don't. It's a masculinity thing, it's a scary thing. I think for me, a lot of times it's been like, just scared. Yeah.

Right? Like, you don't know I

Dr. Mark Hyman
know what you're gonna find, right?

Chris Paul
Exactly. But, when you find out, you can actually

Dr. Mark Hyman
Do something.

Chris Paul
Yes. Yes. It's actually a relief when you know and you change something, and you're like, oh, this will help me. This will help me. I told a story one time before about my dad.

I'll never forget my dad's sixtieth birthday. My dad had just turned 60, and I did a partnership with Just Egg. Right? So my parents, my family, everybody, you know, eating Just Egg and stuff. And so my dad I don't think people realize how just subtle changes of not so many juices and all of that, just consuming water, well, that'll change for you.

Yeah. My dad, just being around and all that stuff, he made a few subtle changes, and my parents are sort of at that age and back home where, unfortunately, they're constantly at funerals. Yeah. At funerals, or friends are sick and diagnosed with this or that, my dad called me, and I was on the four zero five driving, and my dad was crying. So, I pulled over, said, Dad, what's going on?

This was on FaceTime. And he said

Dr. Mark Hyman
You're on FaceTime when you're driving.

Chris Paul
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I answered, right? But now, in cars, I got the little thing so you can put the phone over there and whatnot. But I pulled over more so because my dad was, like, crying. Yeah.

And I called, said, dad, what's wrong? He said he went to the doctor, you know, for his checkup, because it was his birthday, his doctor asked him what he was doing differently. He said, Your numbers, your vitals, all this stuff look so much better. Yeah. I think my dad was just so emotional because like I said, for him at his age and having a lot of friends that he's losing and stuff, and it just shows you, you know, my biggest maybe flex is that I have my family.

Yeah. Right? And selfishly You want them around. What exactly I want them around. Even if they want to be hard headed about certain things or whatnot, I've had that conversation with them.

I said, You know what? At this point, it's not even about you. It's about the fact that I don't know what I would do without you. Yeah. Right?

So that's why Function Health and making sure that we give everybody and anybody opportunity to be better.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's true. It's like, you know, it's the biggest gift you can give someone is the gift of health, and knowing your information, you know, people are scared about it, but people don't realize that, like, over 90% of of your health is determined by what you do, your choices that you make. Like, we talked about earlier about your food choices, exercise. You tell your dad, you know, we wanna golf. You gotta exercise.

Yeah. You're moving. Yeah. And people don't realize that you can modify these things. These are you find your tests are not fixed.

They're actually changeable, whether it's you've got diabetes or whether you've got high blood pressure, or you've got low vitamins, or you've got hormones that are off, you can fix everything. And that's the thing that, you know, you learn with function is you actually have a road map on what to do.

Chris Paul
Exactly. And even for me, being a professional athlete for all these years since I was since I was 19, there's a part of you that feels invincible. Yeah. Right? Like, oh, that's what happened to them, that ain't gonna happen to you.

I'm telling you, after 35, and then especially at 40, at 40, I'm at the age where I've lost people that I know, or people that have different sickness, disease, and all that stuff, so it becomes really real, and

Dr. Mark Hyman
What notice did and find out that you didn't know about yourself from testing?

Chris Paul
I had really bad gut issues, right, and I think that's from stress. Yeah. Right? And that is the biggest marker, right? One of the things That's a great question you just asked me, because when you asked me, I'm like, woah, there's a whole lot of things.

Yeah. But one of the things that I try to pay a very close attention to is cortisol. Yeah. Right? Mhmm.

And that's one of those things that

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's your adrenals, yeah.

Chris Paul
Like, levels, you can become stressed thinking about being stressed. Yeah. Like, seriously Well,

Dr. Mark Hyman
stress is what happens between your ears, really? Stress is what happens between your ears, and it registers in your body.

Chris Paul
Yes. You think about your heart, and how all this stuff can be affected, and I think for me, knowing the different gut issues that I've had have been somewhat stress related. It's trying to simplify things if you can. Because the hustle and bustle of life, y'all want to work, we want to do this, you want to do this, you want to do this. So I found that I have to sometimes say, Let's take a break.

Slow down. Slow down. Let's chill. Let's reset. Let's make sure I get around my family, because trying to be everything for everybody, it'll run you ragged.

What you learn too is everyone thinks that money is everything. Right? There's a lot of things that can come with it, but it can't buy you happiness, it can't buy you peace, it can give you convenience and all these different things, but the thing that money can't buy you is health.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Health, that's right.

Chris Paul
And when you see that, when you see this person that has all this wealth, know, gets sick or whatnot, there's nothing you can pay a doctor or something like that. There's no pill or anything like that yet that you can buy, and it says, give me a clean bill of health.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, it's mostly what we do to ourselves. I mean, that's that's what you've learned for yourself is if you want to have a long career in basketball, you've got to take care of your health. And it's not just exercising, it's what you're eating, it's what you're putting in your body, it's the supplements you're taking. And you you only can know what to do if you actually get the data. Right?

Chris Paul
Yeah. And I just thought about something when you said that too, which which you also realize is that it's really an individual journey. Right? As much as I love being on a team and being together, it's an individual journey because no matter if it's your spouse, your partner, whatever it is, you can't make that person get up and exercise. Right?

You can't pass, like, some of your heart to that person. Right?

Dr. Mark Hyman
I did lock my mother in my house once for three months, and I made her eat everything I gave her. She lost, like, 30 pounds, she reversed her heart failure, her lungs got better, so they get off her oxygen. It was pretty amazing. But she I made her go on an exercise bike because she

Chris Paul
I might have to

Dr. Mark Hyman
find out

Chris Paul
what stuff. Used.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, she she couldn't drive. She was really sick, and she couldn't go anywhere. So she just had to eat what I gave her.

Chris Paul
And and how was she, like, afterwards? Not health, but

Dr. Mark Hyman
Emotionally, she was so happy happier. She could live on her own again. She was functioning. Of course, then when she went to back live on her own, she started bad habits again. Went to to me.

Right.

Chris Paul
But at least that was something she got

Dr. Mark Hyman
a

Chris Paul
chance

Dr. Mark Hyman
to see. Yeah. Mean, but, you know, it's it's the thing is, you you know, when people know the data and information, there's things that they can do. And so whether it's your dad making those changes after learning his lab data and getting insights about his health that he wouldn't have known, or you're making changes that improve your performance and health and well-being, or, you know, giving this gift is a is a powerful gift.

Chris Paul
Information is king.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And and you're you're doing this for the NBA players too, so what how do you imagine them using this? And and because you mentioned a lot of guys just don't pay attention to their health, and it's

Chris Paul
Yeah, so I'll tell you, one of the things that I'm probably most proud of as president of the union, the time that I was there, was that we're the only sports league that has health insurance for retired players.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah, that's right.

Chris Paul
Right? Only sports league that have that. And so retired players, every so often in different regions, we have clinics that players can show up and go to, and there have been a number of players who have been to these clinics and they found out different things. The legend, Tiny Archibald, I'll never forget when he went, he found out that he had a heart condition, And because of that, they were able to save him. Yeah.

Right? And so, for all the different players in the league to be able to use function, it's a tool, right? It's

Dr. Mark Hyman
Are you hearing stories from them?

Chris Paul
Not yet. A lot of guys are kinda private with their but you will, you will at some point, because You know the average career for an NBA player?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Ten years?

Chris Paul
No. Not even close. It's like three and a half.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Really?

Chris Paul
Yeah. Because a lot of times people see the stories of myself, Kyle Lowry, LeBron, all this stuff.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Like the Jordan, yeah.

Chris Paul
Yeah, but you don't see the guys who come in for a year and then they go overseas. For the time period that guys are in the league, the fact that you get a chance to get exposed to function health, right, if your career is on the shorter side, at least you've been exposed to this. Right? Talking about how I was exposed to the food sensitivity test. Right?

Once guys get exposed to it, and it's something that guys can do because there's a lot of things that when you're in the NBA, you'd like, oh yeah, we just get this because we in the NBA. Right. You want to find those different things that more of the masses can lean into.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Yeah. Because it's only a dollar a day, so most people, not everybody, most people can afford a dollar a day for their health.

Chris Paul
And that's what I'm saying, so that's why this is such a game changer, because it is for more people.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. And it gives you know, as we're as we function as becoming, you know, a more mature company, we're actually building more intelligence into the product, and so it gets smarter and smarter and smarter, and we're able to guide people on actually what to do. So it sort of like, you know, supports them in decision making about their own health, helps them work with their doctor better. It really creates an ecosystem where they can actually change their their health and see the change over time. And I think we never had that before.

Had to go to the doctor, you had to get insurance, most people wouldn't go. And it's it's it's empowering people in a way that we never had before. And, you know, like, can see this with your own family, like, they're probably finding out all kinds of stuff they didn't know about themselves, and they're able to say, oh, wait a minute, can do something about it.

Chris Paul
And the fact that you get to go to your phone Mhmm. And you can look at it and you can see it and you can check what's going on, and you don't have to wait a week or two weeks for the doctor to tell you, you know, this is what's going on with you, right? The fact that you can communicate and talk with somebody to tell you how to get better at it, because there's a lot of things that the things that I learned about food, right, when I said I went plant based, right, I started learning about all types of stuff that I had no clue about. Right? Like, I grew up in North Carolina.

My snacks was Lil Debbie's Oatmeal Cream Pies, right? And then being out here in California.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Lil Debbie's, yep.

Chris Paul
Yeah, and then being out here in California, my kids growing up asking for seaweed. Yeah. Asking for seaweed, and they coming up to

Dr. Mark Hyman
me Norries. Norries.

Chris Paul
Their breath smell like the ocean. Right. It's just it's it's different, but you don't know what you don't know. And so, like you said, the information that Function is able to give you is amazing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Was there anything in your results that surprised you that you were like, hey, I didn't know this and I would never have found this out?

Chris Paul
I'll be very honest with you. When you first get your results back It's lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's kind of scary, right?

Because I'm a self diagnosed hypochondriac, right? So, when I see the different levels or whatnot, and they say, this marker right here should be here, I'd like, oh, I'm dying. I'm dying. I'm dying. I already know, I'm dying.

You know, but

Dr. Mark Hyman
I just scored 42 points, but I'm dying.

Chris Paul
Right, right, right. But, to not just get the results, right? Because there's sometimes, people will give you results and be like, here you go, alright, and then you're like, what do I do with this? What am I supposed to do? And so, to have someone that can coach

Dr. Mark Hyman
you More supportive, yeah.

Chris Paul
Yes, the support. The support is necessary to be like, this is probably just like this because you were doing this, right? Or have you eaten a lot of this? Yeah. Have you

Dr. Mark Hyman
too much tuna fish and

Chris Paul
didn't know

Dr. Mark Hyman
sushi or Exactly. Mercury's really high.

Chris Paul
Mercury's really high.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You know, think you mentioned people don't have a dashboard for their health. Like, they they can go on their phone and they can look at their bank account. Yep. They can check their stocks or whatever, but they can't have a dashboard for their health. But now now people can.

Yeah. And that that's the beauty of this. And it's continuous over time. It's just like you don't check your bank account once, oh, I'm good. I don't have to check it the rest of my life.

You keep checking, make sure you're okay. Yeah. And it's the same thing with your health. You gotta keep keep after it.

Chris Paul
And to get the information, and even me being a professional athlete, feeling like I know so many different things. I have a nutritionist, her name is Mary, who works with me, right, who coaches me on my results and all these different things, and try to figure out how I can make it more performance based and all this stuff. And it's been amazing for me because, right, like saying I'm 40, at my age at 40

Dr. Mark Hyman
Don't stay over 35.

Chris Paul
Every little advantage that I I can get, every little edge that I can get.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And you're playing this guy's fifteen years younger than you.

Chris Paul
Exactly. Exactly. I mean, I'm paying attention to what I eat. So if game is at 07:00, I know my pregame is usually three hours before. 04:00, I usually eat my pregame meal.

Then, an hour before the game, have a snack. Right? So, game will start. Halftime, I have another snack. Because people don't realize the game is three hours long.

Right? So, one of the things that I didn't like to do early in my career is, and I'm sure there are plenty of people like this in the world, like when you're exercising, you don't like to drink.

Dr. Mark Hyman
No, right.

Chris Paul
Right? You don't like to drink. But I actually, in my brain, I've blamed a few of my injuries on hydration.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Being dehydrated, yeah.

Chris Paul
Yep. On being hydrated. Dehydrated. Yep. Had one of my trainers, you know, in the past few years or whatnot, whenever I come out the game, I'd be like, Give me my drink, even if I don't even ask for it.

Yeah. Right? Because you have to. For that amount of time that you're playing

Dr. Mark Hyman
And you're having electrolytes

Chris Paul
too, Exactly. That's the other thing too. I think a lot of times people think you're just drinking water. No, you need electrolytes because you have to replenish, Right? And so, of that stuff, when I became a lot more intentional and dialed in with that, changed everything.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And you said you noticed you mentioned earlier we were chatting, you said when you change your diet, like your face looks different.

Chris Paul
You're Oh,

Dr. Mark Hyman
less swollen or puffy, and less inflammation in your body, better recovery, less I'll

Chris Paul
tell you this, talking basketball, I was a real live killer when I played in New Orleans, right? Like, I downhill, that was before I had knee surgery and all that stuff, but it's so funny for me to look at pictures of me back then, right? And in weight, I may have been lighter, I think I was, but I looked so much heavier because my face is so much fuller. And like you said, I know now that that's inflammation. Yeah.

That's inflammation, and so

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's something you can pick up on the blood test too.

Chris Paul
You pick that up on the blood test, but I think what happens and why I'm not a hoarder of information. If I learn something, I want nothing more than to pass it to the next person. But people would be like, yo man, you don't hurt, you don't ache, right? Like, how how are you still playing? They'd be like, man, if I go out and play right now, I I hurt so bad.

But it's because I found the different things for me that

Dr. Mark Hyman
And recovery.

Chris Paul
Yeah, recovery, and I eliminated as much inflammation as possible. And then, when I make choices, right, that I know could possibly cause some inflammation, then I try to take the proper steps or whatnot to get rid Yeah. Of know, to adjust it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So what's it like an average day for you look like when you're playing in terms of how you take care of your body, what you eat, and how you rest, how you recover from games? I don't Walk walk us through it because, you know, it's it's unusual. I mean, Tom Brady played, but, you know, he's quarterback, and he's just he's he's he gives a few seconds of intense

Chris Paul
Exactly. I'm running up and down

Dr. Mark Hyman
the court. You're like, going, going, going. Right? Yeah. And I love Tom, he's a friend, but

Chris Paul
like Yeah. And I'm having to guard these point guards, right, who, 19, 20 years old, and all that stuff like that, that's real shifty and all that stuff, but

Dr. Mark Hyman
Real shifty.

Chris Paul
And that's the competitiveness that comes in, and that's what makes me So, given days, I mean, at one point I felt like I was having digestion issues, so I wake up in the morning, I have celery juice,

Dr. Mark Hyman
right?

Chris Paul
Like, do that. And then, you know, when I was with the Clippers, what I would do is I would leave we practiced, I think at like eleven. So say practice is at eleven, I mean, I'm out of my house because it would take me forty minutes to get to the practice facility. I would leave my house around six, 06:30. Yeah.

I'm I'm up early. I'm up early and I'm I'm I'm gone. I get to the arena and my trainer Donnie, we would be in the gym and we would lift. Like, that's the other thing that I the older I got, the more I lifted. Yeah.

Right? That's the thing that I'm sure you know as far as muscle mass and all The that older you get, the more days the days you take off, the body you know, you don't use it, you lose it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. When you're younger, kinda got a lot of hormones going on, and then when you're older, you gotta I know. I'm 66, I get it.

Chris Paul
Yeah. You gotta keep

Dr. Mark Hyman
doing I gotta get after it every day.

Chris Paul
Yeah. Exactly. So, I'm at the gym, Donnie, me and my trainer, we lifting probably like 07:30 to 08:45 or so, and then I would go eat. I would go make sure I get my protein and all that stuff in before practice, because practice is at eleven. And then I would would usually be on the court maybe like around 09:30.

Is coffee good or bad for me?

Dr. Mark Hyman
This is a question I get asked all the time, and here's the truth. Coffee isn't inherently bad. It's a major source of healthful antioxidants in the American diet, and it can boost mood, memory, metabolism, even sports performance. But coffee can also be addictive, it can spike your stress hormones, it can irritate your gut and it can leave you crashing later. Now some people handle it fine while others don't.

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Chris Paul
not just a quick jolt.

Dr. Mark Hyman
If you want a smarter, more sustainable way to start your mornings, get up to 20% off non DACA and begin your intentional wellness journey at peaklife.com/hymen. That's piquelife.com/hymen. People often assume I love cooking because I'm a doctor and focus on food as medicine. But the truth is I love cooking because it's creative, it's grounding, and it connects you to what you're eating. In fact, last night, I cooked one of my favorite recipes, our Mediterranean lemon chicken soup.

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Try it today. Visit madeincookware.com and use the code Hyman 10 for 10% off your order. So we'll be there breakfast with the protein. Because being vegan, it's little more challenging to get proteins that actually build muscle. You need it to come in different combinations of amino acids and things.

How do you work around that?

Chris Paul
I mean, when I was fully plant based, would do that. But because I've started to incorporate fish and all these different things, it would vary, you know what I mean, on a given day. Maybe smoked salmon and things like that. Do that in the morning, and then after practice well, after practice is over, I'm laughing because I've had so many different stages of my career. Yeah.

Right? It when me and my brother just lived together. Yeah, eating pizza. It was me and my girlfriend, right? Yeah.

Then she became my wife, then we had one kid, then we had two kids. So, now, like, when practice get over, dad starts. Right? Dad starts. So, now, just go home, eat lunch.

Well, after practice, depending on what I have on my schedule that day, do you like the red light beds, the trifecta

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah, beds, red light beds, yeah.

Chris Paul
Yep. So, I would do that before or after practice, and I usually try to do a sauna. Sauna, cold In cold plunge.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You use hyperbarics too?

Chris Paul
Yeah. I've done hyperbaric. That's crazy. I need to go back. I ain't did that probably in the last month.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It helps recovery too.

Chris Paul
Absolutely. I used to have one I had one in my house, like the one where you zip

Dr. Mark Hyman
a Blow up one,

Chris Paul
You have to blow up one. They actually got the ones here in Beverly Hills where like two people, three people can

Dr. Mark Hyman
go in. The big hard ones, yeah.

Chris Paul
Yeah. You can actually like watch TV in them and That's right. So, I'm I'm open to all the different things, right? But what try to do is there's so much monotony in life, right? Like with drills and all this stuff, so with my recovery, I try to So change things up, some days I'll do cold tub, some days I'll do cold tub, hot tub, contrast.

Mm-mm. Right? Someday it'll be massage, right? So, just depending on how I feel. Why pick?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Why don't

Chris Paul
you do them all

Dr. Mark Hyman
the No, same

Chris Paul
that's a long day.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I know.

Chris Paul
That's a long day. But the other thing that the days or whatnot, what's really nice about the sauna or the red light bear, all these different things is the time without your phone. Mhmm. Right? The time to connect.

The time to just sort of Be. Be and daydream. I sort of talk about this all the time as far as kids with phones or iPads is growing up when we were in the car with our parents and we would be riding in the back seat and our parents would be listening to whatever they wanted to listen to, you would catch yourself just looking out the back window, right, and the trees just going by, and then you just start daydreaming about any and everything.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Like a meditation

Chris Paul
almost. Exactly. And, with the speed of life and everything going on in the world now where it's always a app, there's always a show, there's always something, there's very few time for us to Just to be, yeah. Disconnect. Yeah.

And so I find in those times, it gives me an opportunity to

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, that's how you focus and be so focused as you are to succeed at something. You can't be on your phone all the time if you wanna be an elite athlete, right?

Chris Paul
Or if you wanna

Dr. Mark Hyman
be successful in anything in life.

Chris Paul
Yeah, anything in life, but that's what basketball always has been, it's been a safe haven, and just sort of a happy place. So, when you can get out there on the court, a lot of guys probably don't even think about it. Yes, you love playing basketball, but what it is is you love being and not being on your phone, and someone asking you for something or doing something like that.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You don't even have your phone on the court. Exactly. They probably lock it in the locker room.

Chris Paul
Oh, yeah. It's it's gone. It's gone.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's right. So, Chris, I wanted to ask you also about sleep because, you know, you can work out, you can eat well, but you're on the road all the time. Different cities, different time zones, playing at different times, and all the circadian rhythms get screwed up. How do you how do you handle taking care of your sleep?

Chris Paul
Man, sleep is is is everything, and I don't have my aura ring on now, which is crazy. But I think about sleep as just as important as the diet and the food and everything. What's interesting is that I'm a napper, right? That's good. I'm a napper, and let my family tell you, they probably say I'm narcoleptic.

Because of the days, right? Days are so long and I'm up so early, and when you play in the NBA, you're on these planes and you get out of this high intense game, and then you fly and land at 2AM, then you got practice at ten, right? So, I don't get eight hours every night. No. But, when I do get home or whatnot, and I'm sitting there, I will nap.

I will fall asleep. I find time to do that because Napping is a

Dr. Mark Hyman
very good power skill, if you can do it.

Chris Paul
Yeah, I have to. Especially in season on a game day. On a game day, I allow myself two hours To nap? To nap. To nap.

Into a room, phone go on, do not disturb, I want the lights dark, right? You constantly learning stuff.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Little tricks.

Chris Paul
Yeah, little tricks, but even my wife, right? Because I played six years away. Like, six years I lived away from my family. One year in Oklahoma City, three years in Phoenix, one year in Golden State, and then one year in San Antonio. So my wife now, she would always sleep with the TV on, But she would do that because she's home alone, and she said she's hearing things, right?

Just the anxiety. Exactly. So, she would sleep with the TV on, and since this season, when I've been back home, I'll tell her, I'll be like, okay, we gotta cut that off, because I heard that when you're sleeping, even if the TV's on, it's doing To something to your

Dr. Mark Hyman
your brain, yeah.

Chris Paul
Brain and all that. Y'all see, just last night, woke up in the middle of night, I like, cut that damn TV off. Right? But the sleep thing is so important, and I'll tell you this with Aura, which has been amazing because

Dr. Mark Hyman
You can see what affects it.

Chris Paul
You can see what affects you, tells you your deep sleep, tells you all of these different types of things. And so, we had a playoff game, 2021, we were playing against the Clippers, ironically, when I was with Phoenix, and this was like game six, the game that could take us to the NBA finals. And, the funniest thing about Aura is, mean, I would be on the bus headed to a game, and it'd say like, You should be winding down right now, and I'm like, Wind

Dr. Mark Hyman
down? I'm winding up.

Chris Paul
Got 30 points ahead of score. Yeah, I got this game going on. But one of the best games I ever played in my career, I woke up that morning, and you know, like, when you get a good night's rest, it'll tell you Give you a score, like It'll give you a score, and it'll usually give you a message. Mine that morning said, Bring it on. Bring it on.

I'll never forget it. It said, Bring it on. My Oura Ring told me when I was about to have COVID. Wow. Yeah.

Yeah. I two games in a playoff series because that was the year that COVID was going on, but my Oura Ring was telling me that my body temperature was elevated.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, getting heart rate.

Chris Paul
Sleep is everything, and you In my profession, you also have to be able to function on

Dr. Mark Hyman
Little sleep. Little sleep. Kinda like a doctor.

Chris Paul
Exactly. No, seriously. And, I know pretty high functioning people that don't always get a whole lot of sleep, and I've never been I don't Eight, nine hours? Who doing that? That's not me, I'm not gonna I try.

Dr. Mark Hyman
But when you do, you take the time to really do it, and you see the difference in when you bring it on, when you had a good score, you got 41 points.

Chris Paul
Yes, and I believe in napping.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Napping. Alright. That's the trick, folks. Nap if you can, when you can. Yeah.

You you do a lot of sort of nonprofit work too, and food access, and try to help people. Yeah. Maybe share a little bit about that, because I think it's it's you you're trying to give back in a way to help empower people around their health.

Chris Paul
I'm always trying to give back to empower people, but also a lot of things that our foundation do, we start with kids. We start with kids because kids, they're very open to learning. Mhmm. Right? They're very open to learning.

If you can introduce things to kids sometimes people don't realize, but kids are teaching their parents things. Mhmm. Even think about technology, social media, and all that stuff, like kids are teaching their parents. So, if you can teach kids different eating habits or different things like that, which is already changing, right, as far as snacks or whatnot. So, my snack company, Good Eatin', the whole purpose of that was to lead with taste, obviously, but there are clean ingredients.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That's right.

Chris Paul
Right? So, if you can start with that, because obviously food, like breakfast, lunch, and dinner, whatever, it's hard to change that aspect, but people in general, like, if we were sitting here talking, I should have brought the snacks anyway, but people just find themselves snacking. Yeah, yeah. Right? So, when we talked about budgeting, right?

So, if you can at least enjoy the snacks that you eat, and know that you don't have all these different crap them. That was the whole point of me starting my snack company, because, like I said, I'm a snacker. Right? I like food, and so I wanted to make sure that at least when you're doing that, you're not feeling guilty and feeling bad that you put junk into your

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Saw some of those cookie recipes. Were kinda interesting. The ingredients were pretty clean, but they were like you'd think they wouldn't be, right? Like, Ragers or, like, cookies and cream popcorn.

Exactly. Exactly.

Chris Paul
And that's because I'm like,

Dr. Mark Hyman
wait a minute, Chris, wait a And I checked it out, I was

Chris Paul
like, alright, what's Well, that's the because, right, like, I mean, if I say it, like, kids are still eating Doritos and Cheetos and stuff like that every day. You know what I mean? Why not have something tastes good, but have better ingredients than that?

Dr. Mark Hyman
And are kids liking it? Love it. Love it. That's amazing. Wow.

And how do you think about the next phase of your life?

Chris Paul
Yeah, I'm excited about it. I have a production company, I have a snack company, I have a lot of other things that I want to continue to work on. But the thing that I'm most excited about is being present. Right?

Dr. Mark Hyman
With your family.

Chris Paul
Exactly. Being present for my family, even for my friends. Right? I'm so grateful for the life that I've been able to enjoy and play for all of these years, but I haven't been able to show up for friends, for my family, for them for a very, very long time. So I'm I'm really excited about

Dr. Mark Hyman
that. And that's a hard thing, you know? Success always comes with a price, right? Yep. You've gotta you've gotta work hard, you gotta do a lot, and, you know, your job entails a lot of travel, which means being away from your family, and that's that's gotta be one of the hardest parts

Chris Paul
in people But realize it's so much gratitude. It's been an unbelievable journey in my family. Everybody's been able to go on this ride with me, but now, you know, it's time to do something different.

Dr. Mark Hyman
One of things that I wanna sort of touch back on what you said, which I think is really important, is the power of community and and doing things together, whether it's your teammates, whether it's with your family. You know, you you kind of were chatting on another podcast about this group of friends you had for since you were a kid, and how you have a group chat. And they know you not as Chris Paul, the NBA player, but like, just this dude who's like

Chris Paul
You know, to speak on that, my homies, my fellas group chat back home. My boy John John, I think it was John John or Petey, probably like a week ago, which I need to follow-up with them because we talked about it, then nobody put it in motion. We said we was gonna do something for like a month, that we was gonna make a month challenge of but because everybody's body type is different, we was gonna do like a body fat loss or something like that, yeah, right? Yeah. And we said we was gonna do that, but nobody followed up, which just I need to follow-up.

Yeah. Because that's fun to do. Keep each

Dr. Mark Hyman
other accountable, yeah.

Chris Paul
It keeps everybody accountable, and my homies, I love y'all to death, but everybody definitely got different body types.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Well, know, as you get older, it's like, you don't pay attention. No,

Chris Paul
very different body types. And everybody makes sure they tell each other in the chat just about every other day. But, we can't just do body fat because a couple of them, they got a lot to lose, they got

Dr. Mark Hyman
a lot

Chris Paul
to lose,

Dr. Mark Hyman
my homies.

Chris Paul
I'm excited about doing this challenge with them because we said we was gonna do and I don't know that. You might know how to like, how do we make it competitive for all of us if we all got

Dr. Mark Hyman
to You just say the percent. The percent amount of but the thing is, you're not gonna lose a lot because you're gonna win the contest because you're

Chris Paul
already Well, gotta figure out how to make it competitive now. They can't just win just because they No, no, no, no. Nuh-uh. My cousin Rod, my cousin Suit well, Suit, nah, but

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. You can figure that out because it's percent, you know, of of change. Right? It matters. Like, where we start, like, how much can you improve?

Yeah. But if you're already really good, it's hard to get that extra edge. Right? If you, like, get that extra point one second on a 100 yard dash, it's not easy.

Chris Paul
We we gonna figure it out. That's gonna be a

Dr. Mark Hyman
fun competition to do with them. Yeah. Well, actually, created a program that's like we do a group program. We call it the ten day detox, but you can do it for a month. And essentially, it's it's where people eat an anti inflammatory diet for a month

Chris Paul
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And they get reset, and all their numbers better, can do function before and after, and you can compete on that.

Chris Paul
I'm a put that in the chat, dude. I'm a put that

Dr. Mark Hyman
in Get them all function, $365

Chris Paul
a it in the chat because that's actually been some of the coolest days for me. Right? Like, my homies that I'm talking about, my fellas group chat, I never get to see them. Right? We usually go on a trip once every summer.

Usually every season I try to bring them out to a game, but they have lives, they have things going on. But it'd be so dope when one of the guys or something put in the chat, or we all get on FaceTime and we look at I remember we looked at my cousin Rod one time when we was all on FaceTime and his face had just looked so different. We was like, Yo, what you got going on over there? He was like, Man, I've been basically doing like a detox or something like that. So, to have real friends that you can encourage to do things like that, because these are my real friends since we were younger, and some of them have had different health Health

Dr. Mark Hyman
issues. Sure.

Chris Paul
And when you find out these guys, they're in the hospital, you're like, what? Yeah. You know, they're in the hospital.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Don't care of yourself. It catches up fast.

Chris Paul
Yeah. So I'm I'm I'm a definitely put that in the group chat.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So just everybody gotta remember, it's really about, you know, doing it together.

Chris Paul
Right? Health and enjoying life and enjoying experiences, and the only way we get a

Dr. Mark Hyman
chance to do that is with our health. Last question is, Chris, you're looking back to your 22 year old self, and you're giving him some advice. What you advise him to do?

Chris Paul
Oh, I'm looking back at my 22 year old self.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Health advice.

Chris Paul
You know what? Honestly, I probably wouldn't have did anything that different, right? And I say that because I've learned

Dr. Mark Hyman
You had so Krispy Kremes and McGriddle?

Chris Paul
Yeah. Had to. Had to. Right? I had to.

Nothing against it or whatnot, but I've met kids that have never had a cheeseburger, never had a Well, not a cheeseburger, but hamburger, because I don't like cheese anyway. But they've never even experienced any of those things, right? So the things that I've gotten a chance to eat and understand, I learned a lot. 22, where was I? I was still playing in New Orleans at the time.

Maybe not as, man, my chef used to make this Krispy Kreme bread pudding. Woah. That's what I'm saying, I can't say that I wouldn't Crispy cream wouldn't do

Dr. Mark Hyman
bread that. It's definitely on the Doctor. Hyman diet. Yeah, yeah,

Chris Paul
yeah. But, probably at that age, what I would've done, honestly, if I could do anything different, is not as much sugar, because I didn't know.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Sugar, yeah. Sugar is most inflammation, and

Chris Paul
Everything that I had then, right? Was man, Like, to think about what I would have for dinner, I would have fried chicken, sweet tea, finished with that Krispy Kreme bread pudding. Wow. And then while I was chilling watching games at night, I'd go in there and get me a honey bun.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You know

Chris Paul
what I mean? Yeah. I'd probably double back, go get me a oatmeal

Dr. Mark Hyman
Thank God you were running up and down the court all day, you would have been $2,300

Chris Paul
What? Absolutely.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Amazing. Well, Chris, thanks for being an example for how to take care of yourself No. And how to get back to the world and taking care of the players and, you know, telling the world about, you know, why it's important for everybody to take care of their house. So thank you so much.

Chris Paul
Thank you.

Dr. Mark Hyman
If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Doctor Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the doctor Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts.

And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Doctor Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on The Doctor Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health where I am chief medical officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions.

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