“FROM THE TONIC BAR” Guy Pohlman, Composer and Pianist & Body Ecology Diet Success Story

In the third of the ongoing “From The Tonic Bar” series of interviews with Body Ecology Diet success stories, Randall Zamcheck – Certified Body Ecologist and Health Coach in Los Angeles – interviews Guy Pohlman, age 49, an established pianist and composer.

What got you into the Body Ecology Diet and how long have you been doing it?

Six years ago I got into the diet, by recommendation of Truth Culkins, who I’ve known for about ten years. I had been on macrobiotic diets and tried that and realized after going on Body Ecology that what I needed was a more plant intensive diet than a grain intensive diet because it was feeding the candida. And I had bloated situations since I was about 12 years old. Having survived on, you know, the typical American diet, stuff out of cans, the frozen stuff, and I finally started to in my mind come around to what really was food. It is something that comes from the soil and is cut away from the soil and consumed as quickly as possible. The rest of America’s food architecture is based on shipping. Cooking, shipping, thawing, and reheating. So these are my basic understandings of food and philosophy regarding food.

Was it hard to do when you first got on the diet?

Oh of course. It was very hard. I mean, I had all kinds of cold like symptoms and cravings and would cheat. I learned a lot about cheating with food and compromising with it a little bit. First month was very difficult; I lost 35 pounds or something like that. I weighed 175, so there I was at 140-142, and I felt very, very thin. You wonder who you are when you’re that thin. There’s a lot of psychological stuff going on. But then it balanced out and I gradually started putting it back. I used goat yogurt, I’m not sure if that is taboo according to the diet, but I ate that and some raw meat and I worked out and hiked a lot. I hiked sometimes 40 days straight. Hiking every day up in the mountains. Truth was kind of like a personal coach and taking guys that were babies up into the hills and teaching them really how to live with nature. So there’s a lot of conditioning that comes unblocked.

What changes have you recognized over the six years on the diet?

Well, my digestion has really improved and also my awareness of what constitutes a digestion that’s tolerable for me. We don’t know what’s going to happen to us in the future, but we try to keep things moving very quickly. You don’t want to go a day without. So you keep the bowel moving and you sometimes go to the edge of what you can’t eat, but most of the time you stay on the diet. You flow in and out of it, then you try to be very rigid on it. There’s a balance.

What has helped you stick to the diet for all this time?

Knowing that I could die at a younger age without it. You know, when you have those thoughts of yourself passing away or getting sick and experiencing high medical bills, you decide you’re going to stay on it.

What’s the best thing about the diet?

The best thing about the diet is that there is a diet and that someone had the chutzpah to make it happen for other people. Without that, we wouldn’t know, and we’d be guessing and trying things until gradually something would develop. So this is happening. The cultured vegetables are really the key to what I think is the best thing about the diet. I would make those, now it’s easier with the starter culture. But I was buying them for a long time.

What’s the hardest thing about the diet?

Staying on the diet. Well, I would say it’s interesting to be on the diet for a long time and watch other people just get on the diet. There’s a lot of things going on in people’s minds as they get on the diet and I can see their eyes just moving around. They’re thinking a lot of things in there. Being able to talk about the diet really helps people.

Any great recipes that have come together over the years?

Well, my favorite dish that I make is based on a diet that I think is easy to prepare and provides the most benefit at the same time. That would be steamed red potato, steamed broccoli, steamed brown onion, prepared with coconut oil, raw garlic chopped, fresh lemon and ginger on top. Broccoli tastes really great with that combination. Coconut oil makes everything taste better and it’s something I really like.

Guy Pohlman says Vitality Greens are “Smoother and have an easier feel to them than other greens. They taste good too” Read More and Order Vitality Greens Now.

What would help you do the diet better?

I think if I had more people around who were excited about it. If people had little dinners happening or lunches happening where you could hang out and do this and share the work and be more social. It’s a lonely thing if you’re doing it alone. You want to get other people involved and get a social network. And more products specifically engineered for the diet. I found the EcoBloom to be almost instantaneously beneficial for digestion and we couldn’t get that years ago. And the Vitality Greens, I’m enjoying those too. They’re smoother and have an easier feel to them than other greens. They taste good too.

Any advice for people who are just starting the diet?

Try and go through your symptoms and figure out if this is something you really need to do, because it is difficult. But try to do it. Try to stay on it. Value what your doing. Value yourself. Look at your life and the way you’re conditioned toward food. When you’re on it, try to stick to it for a period of time. Over the course of a year. In large chunks at least, you’ll come face to face with the other mind that you have, which is the mind that wants to indulge on ice cream.

Any advice you have for people already on the diet?

Find other people that are doing it so you can motivate each other. Even if over the internet. Be a spiritual person, as spiritual as you can in your life and in general. Try to shed the ego, as much negative ego as you can, and get real about life. We condition ourselves to believe a false untruth about how the world is, and when you really confront illness, you have to really start shedding some of that stuff or else you really won’t get down to the truth. And build. It takes time to build energy, build stored energy. I take the Cordyceps and the Tonix Ho Shou Wu. But you have to work on all aspects. You have to be exercising. Have to be walking. You have to be hiking. It’s good to get out in nature. It’s good to get out in wild nature. It’s good to detach from computers. It’s good to detach from television. It’s good to detach from struggling with money. Anything negative. And it’s good to detach from the way you may have been conditioned by your family to eat. You may go back home and see what they serve you and see how far you’ve come. Cause they’re going to serve you whatever you’ve grown up with unless you’ve changed them. Which is really hard to change a 75 year old woman who has been feeding you your whole life. There’s total resistance. Any kind of cultured vegetables, like kimchi, smells bad. They don’t like the smell. They have me take the kimchi out of the house like it’s a cigar. I still eat it every day!