Radical Health Radio

Most chefs teach urgency in the kitchen. Chef Aran Goldstein thinks that's exactly what's severing us from our own dinner tables. Aran is a chef, writer, and founder of Unprocessed who's cooked from Tuscany to China and now feeds kids at private schools using nose-to-tail, farm-sourced ingredients most parents wouldn't dream of putting in a lunchbox. He grew up as the overweight kid glued to Julia Child reruns while eating two bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches on a Saturday. In Piedmont, he served blood sausage roasted over potatoes and tripe terrine on Fridays to schoolchildren, and they ran full-sprint to get it. Aran hasn't bought grocery store pork or chicken in almost two years. He talks about drawing hard lines: never McDonald's, never Chick-fil-A, and the mantra he uses before crossing the threshold into his own house so he doesn't dump frantic energy on his wife and kids. Paul Chek once said, “Your ‘yes’ has no value until you learn to say ‘no’”. Chef Aran has built a life around that sentence, and he doesn't sell an easy version of it. You’ll learn: [0:00] Introduction [4:45] Food as a lifelong thread, from an overweight kid to a career [10:56] Waking up before it's too late to change [18:57] Whether anyone can be truly healthy inside a city [24:42] The surrender experiment that led Chef Aran to Tennessee  [35:03] Passing on stress instead of nourishment, without slipping into a purity spiral [50:06] The stress of perfection harms more than the food itself [57:50] Power follows the blame finger and self-governance [1:05:12] Men have to move their water every day [1:18:18] The travel, obsession, and unconventional school kitchens that shaped his career Resources Mentioned: The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating by Fergus Henderson | Book Lineage Provisions - Grass-Fed Air Dried Beef Snacks | Product Heart and Soil - Beef Organ Supplements | Product Find more from Chef Aran: Chef Aran Goldstein | Instagram | Facebook | TikTok | LinkedIn Unprocessed Podcast | Spotify or YouTube Unprocessed | Substack Find more from Ste: Ste Lane | InstagramRadical Health Radio | Instagram | YouTube Heart and Soil Supplements | Website | Instagram | X | YouTube

By every standard metric I was doing great, and I was also miserable, which is where this episode starts. The cult of seriousness has convinced us that every walk needs a step count, every hobby needs a purpose, and every hour needs an output. My argument is that this obsession with self-optimisation is inefficient, inhumane, and the fastest way to drain the joy out of a life you're supposedly building. The head is a scarcity factory that runs on prediction and protection, and it will keep you safe by keeping you small. The heart plays a completely different game, and most of us have lost access to it because feelings are inconvenient in a culture that only rewards output. Andrew Wilkinson's line about successful people being "a walking anxiety disorder harnessed for productivity" sits at the centre of this one for a reason. There's a specific question I heard years ago that broke my brain and pushed me off the ladder I was climbing. If you've been performing your way through a life that doesn't feel like yours, this is the reframe I wish someone had handed me sooner. You’ll learn: [0:00] Introduction [2:02] The head as a scarcity factory built for survival [3:34] When everything in life needs a purpose [5:45] A ladder leaning against the wrong wall [7:30] Caring less does not mean caring about nothing [9:16] Asking what your heart wants over your head [11:29] Why a good question beats any answer given [13:19] You are the cause of and solution to your problems [15:01] Dropping the cult of seriousness as a frequency shift Resources Mentioned: Ste’s Post - Care Less | Instagram Find more from Ste: Ste Lane | Instagram Radical Health Radio | Instagram | YouTube Heart and Soil Supplements | Website | Instagram | X | YouTube

Skye sat on the idea of posting his workouts for three months because he knew that the second he hit publish, there was no going back. Skye Mackintosh is the Daily Reps guy, and he's spent the past year proving you don't need a gym, a trainer, or hours a day to get in real shape. He started with pushups and jump squats. Nothing else. What drew me in was his reason for posting. He didn't do it to build a brand. He did it because he knew that if strangers were watching, he'd finally have to follow through. We get into the moment his ego took a hit strapping on a weighted vest, why he just told his job of nine years he's done, and how consistency actually works when you're sick, tired, or having a bad day. There's a real conversation in here about people outsourcing their thinking to AI, why authenticity is becoming the rarest thing online, and how being bored around a campfire might be more valuable than any productivity hack. He also gets into fatherhood, marriage, and the standards he reads to himself every morning. If you've ever felt intimidated by fitness content or told yourself you don't have time, this one will hit differently. You’ll learn: [0:00] Introduction [3:16] How slogging for hours in the gym became unsustainable [9:20] Why intensity is the real lever behind 20-minute workouts [16:11] Reducing friction and designing your environment for consistency [25:06] Learning to celebrate a milestone that feels like just who you are [30:59] Finding yourself in silence and boredom [36:46] What actually changed in Skye's mind and body after one year [42:17] Imposter syndrome and standing in the fire of online criticism [47:46] The books, perspectives, and simplicity principles that have shaped how he thinks [63:13] Marriage, fatherhood, and what truly matters most [67:57] What's next for Skye, from a possible book to speaking on big stages Resources Mentioned: Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey | Book or Audiobook Essentialism by Greg McKeown | Book or Audiobook Effortless by Greg McKeown | Book or Audiobook The Power of Bad by John Tierney and Roy F. Baumeister | Book or Audiobook Find more from Skye: Skye Macintosh | Instagram Daily Reps | App Find more from Ste: Ste Lane | Instagram Radical Health Radio | Instagram | YouTube Heart and Soil Supplements | Website | Instagram | X | YouTube

The sun is not as damaging as you've been told… Zaid Dahhaj shows us where the research breaks. Zaid runs The Circadian Classroom and studies circadian biology from first principles, which is how he ended up pulling apart the mainstream narrative around melanin, melanoma, and sunscreen. Once you understand that the research demonising UV is largely built on isolated UV exposure, nocturnal mice, albino mice, and keratinocyte-only petri dishes, the whole "sun causes cancer" story starts to look a lot less airtight. Melanin gets reframed here as an active defence system rather than damage on a ledger. It's photoprotective, it dissipates UV as heat, and it even chelates certain heavy metals. Night shift work is classified as a probable carcinogen, and most people are living a low-grade version of it: dark days indoors, and bright nights under LEDs. That's the inversion Zaid keeps coming back to. We also take a serious look at sunscreen chemistry, vitamin D3, sunglasses and eye health, seed oils and burn risk, and how to build a solar callus without frying yourself on a beach in Costa Rica. You’ll learn: [0:00] Introduction [8:05] Night shift work's carcinogen classification and what it reveals about us all [11:21] Circadian repair restores UV-damaged cells so there's no accumulated damage [20:41] The sun-cancer research is built on nocturnal mice and isolated UV [30:34] The melanoma overdiagnosis problem and dermatology's stage zero caution [34:26] A tan isn't damage, melanin works as nature's sunscreen [47:16] The case for actively seeking the sun, and when to do it [51:58] Sunglasses remove one leg of the circadian stool [58:46] SPF 50 blocks the very anti-cancer vitamin D your skin needs [1:09:26] The exact daily routine to build your solar callus without burning Resources Mentioned: My Circadian App | Website Tap Zap App | Website In Defense of Sunlight by Rowan Jacobsen | Book or Audiobook Dr. Jack Kruse | Website A. Bernard Ackerman, MD | Wikipedia The Rapid Rise in Cutaneous Melanoma Diagnoses by Welch, H.G. et al. | Article Teo Soleymani, MD | LinkedIn Use code SUN to get 50% off Zaid’s 80/20 Circadian Course here. Find more from Zaid: Zaid K. Dahhaj | Instagram | X | Website The Circadian Classroom | SubStack Find more from Ste: Ste Lane | Instagram Radical Health Radio | Instagram | YouTube Heart and Soil Supplements | Website | Instagram | X | YouTube

Miesha Tate spent her whole life chasing a UFC world title, and when she won it, it broke her. Miesha is a former UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, one of the fighters who cracked women's MMA open at the highest level, and someone who has now spent almost as much time deconstructing what that pursuit cost her as she did chasing it. We sat down in Malibu and got into the parts of the story you don't usually hear. The moment she realised the gold belt didn't solve a single one of her problems. The years of eating disorders, distilled water weight cuts, and amenorrhea she was privately navigating while headlining pay-per-views. The pregnancy loss earlier this year that forced her to look at what her fighting career had done to her hormones. And the coach whose death became the reason she started her podcast. Miesha is direct about what she got wrong: the war she waged with her own body, the intuition she overrode because she'd signed on the dotted line, and the mental health cost of being the "strong woman" everyone pointed to. She's also honest about what actually helped her rebuild, from cognitive behavioural therapy to prayer to learning, for the first time in her life, how to be present. If you've ever confused discipline with self-punishment, this one will resonate. You’ll learn: [0:00] Introduction [9:53] 99% of a cage fight happens inside your own head before the walk out [15:20] How winning the belt became the biggest breaking point of Miesha’s life [24:15] The eating disorder, the weight cuts, and drinking distilled water for 72 hours [40:09] Women need 100 to 300 more calories in the luteal phase, and no diet accounts for it [52:36] The pregnancy loss she believes was tied to years of under-fueling her body [1:04:19] How prayer, reconnection, and a cognitive behavioral therapist pulled her out of the darkness [1:14:40] The balloon exercise that taught her presence for the first time in her life [1:25:57] Why Miesha believes public school was designed to divide the nuclear family Resources Mentioned: ROAR (Women Are Not Small Men) by Stacy T. Sims, PhD | Book The Period Brain by Sarah E. Hill, PhD | Book Hold On To Your Kids by Gabor Maté, MD and Gordon Neufeld, PhD | Book When The Body Says No by Gabor Maté, MD | Book Dr. Kayla Osterhoff | Website Find more from Miesha: Miesha Tate | Instagram | X | Website Built for Growth | Podcast Apogee Boise (Micro School) | Website Find more from Ste: Ste Lane | Instagram Radical Health Radio | Instagram | YouTube Heart and Soil Supplements | Website | Instagram | X | YouTube