Fix What Doctors Can’t – The Shocking Power of Functional Health Coaching with Vince Pitstick
In this episode of Hormones, Metabolism, and You, Dr. Cassie Smith sits down with functional health coach Vince Pitstick for a deep dive into how functional health coaching and traditional medicine can work hand-in-hand to create powerful, lasting results for patients. Vince shares his own health journey and introduces his transformative “Four F Process,” shedding light on the root causes of chronic disease, especially hormone and metabolic issues. Together, they explore the importance of a systems-based, collaborative approach, showing how lifestyle changes, patient empowerment, and functional medicine principles can pave the way for sustainable wellness.
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Vince Pitstick is a leading functional health coach with over two decades of experience in health and wellness. With a background that bridges personal training, clinical nutrition, and functional medicine, Vince has helped thousands of clients reclaim their health by addressing root causes instead of just symptoms. He is the creator of the “Four F Process,” a framework for navigating functional health, and works alongside doctors and practitioners to bring integrative care to the forefront.
Blog/Transcription:
0:03 Welcome back to this week’s episode of Hormones Metabolism and You. I’m your host, Dr. Cassie Smith. I’m a functional
0:08 endocrinologist. Thank you, thank you, thank you for spending this next hour with me. Thank
0:14 you for wanting to better your health and get really good education on how to
0:19 feel better and live a happy and healthy life. Today I am ecstatic to interview
0:25 one of the best functional health coaches there is, Vince Pitstick. So if
0:30 you are in the functional medicine space and you know anything about functional medicine, you know that nutrition counseling and coaching is becoming
0:37 huge. I have one of the OGs, the original functional health coach um
0:44 ever, Vince Pitstick. Today on this episode, we dive into so many great
0:49 things. We talk about what inspired him to pursue functional health coaching and how his approach has evolved over the
0:55 years that he’s done it about 15 years now. I asked him to tell me the key differences between functional health
1:01 and traditional medicine where they’re intersecting how we get traditional providers to collaborate with functional
1:08 with functional health coaches and vice versa. We talked about common misconceptions doctors have about
1:14 functional health coaches and the misconceptions functional health coaches have about doctors. And we talked about
1:20 how his team look at lab work, hormone panels, GI maps, Dutch test, all the
1:26 things when working with clients and how they utilize those to make those clients better. We talked about in particular
1:32 certain things that they treat PCOS, hormone imbalances, hypothyroidism, insulin resistance. what are the key
1:39 pillars in these people? Like how do we make these people better from a lifestyle perspective? I asked him to
1:45 kind of walk us through a general outline of programs that he offers his patients with these hormone issues and
1:51 we talked about the role that gut health, nutrition, sleep, stress, all those play in this approach of actually
1:57 making people better. So with Vince Pitstick with over 19 years of
2:03 dedication to health and wellness stands as a testament to the power of evolution in the realm of functional medicine and
2:09 nutritional health. His journey originated from humble beginnings as a child struck with a rare illness at age
2:16 8 which I’ll let him tell you about. He fought for over 20 years to find freedom and became a personal trainer and a
2:22 nutrition coach. This blossomed into a role as a practitioner in the lifestyle and functional medicine world and became
2:29 a nutritional coach. He created this new field of practitioner called the functional health coach in 2010. In
2:35 2012, he channeled his passion and extensive knowledge into founding vital coaching known at the time as dynamic as
2:43 nutrition dynamic. This venture was more than a business. It was a mission to offer a new form of concier functional
2:49 medicine delivered by a coach. It was not just a company but a beacon of hope for those seeking a path for better
2:55 health. And then over the last decade he immersed himself into the practice and science of functional health. He made
3:02 this new transformation 4f process. It’s a comprehensive care plan for health and
3:08 wellness which is taught to medical practitioners and coaches all over the world at his university called metabolic
3:14 mentor. you today. His original concier’s medicine coaching program, Vital Coaching, stands as the largest
3:21 one-on-one health coaching company in the United States. Its mission and the mission of his health network is to
3:28 fight the global health pandemic, one client at a time. This is not just a statement, but a really, but it’s
3:35 actually realized every single day. The 4F system is now offered in over 2,000
3:40 programs worldwide, reaching millions a year. his social media. We will uh put
3:45 all his handles in the show note. I am so excited for this interview. I hope that you guys find it very helpful as we
3:52 kind of tease out functional medicine, functional coaching, and how we can use this with traditional medicine to make
3:59 people actually better. I hope you found that information educational. I really
4:04 wanted to let people know that there is an outlet even in traditional medicine with these health coaches. They are
4:10 amazing. Modern Endocrine has a phenomenal health coach and I really think that this is one of the keys to
4:16 bridging that gap with traditional medicine and helping make people not so sick, being able to help people become
4:23 well. And so I thought that this was a great conversation just to help people understand the difference between
4:29 functional and traditional medicine and how we could incorporate some things even if you are in a traditional medicine system to really help start
4:36 opening your eyes and helping patients get well. So if you are somebody who is
4:41 looking for a health coach or you want this more holistic approach, you think, “Man, this sounds great.” Modern
4:47 Endocrine has a license in 39 states now. We do virtual visits. We have a health coach. We would be happy to see
4:54 you. There’s more information on our website with a list of every state we can do virtual visits in. If you liked
5:01 this information, please make sure that you leave us a review. Follow us wherever you get your podcast. Whether
5:08 it be Apple, Spotify, or YouTube, we’re there. But reviews help me know that I’m doing what I need to be doing and you
5:14 like the education. I’m very active on social media, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok. Find me there. Send me messages.
5:21 Let me know what you want to learn about. I’m happy to help educate you. And remember, please share this because
5:27 education is how we are going to change the trajectory of healthcare. Join me
5:32 next week on the next episode of Hormones, Metabolism, and You have a great week. All right, so I have Vince
5:39 Pitstick with me today. You guys, I’m so excited about this interview. So, thank
5:44 you for being with me. Thank you for your time. I think you do amazing things for people. I want to start by saying that. And then I just want you to tell
5:50 everyone what first inspired you to pursue functional health coaching and how has that like evolved over the last
5:58 15 20 years that you’ve been doing this? Yeah. So for for your listeners or watchers, I I would suggest to strap in.
6:04 This isn’t like your mom’s functional medicine conversation because uh my story of getting here is pretty wild and
6:10 I think it speaks to like the first certification should be by life. Like what you go through is makes you more
6:16 adept to be able to help others. And so you know if people are looking for an exciting uh hour they should they should
6:22 stay tuned. But what happened is I was really sick, seven years old, diagnosed with a bunch of really rare conditions. Nobody knew what was wrong with me.
6:28 Turns out it was chemical exposure on the farm, emotional trauma. My parents divorced, separated. It was nasty pretty
6:34 early. And I was kind of boy in the bubble. I was I I lived boy in the bubble for a very very long time. And
6:39 nobody could figure out what’s going on. And different physical, mental uh diagnoses or labels were slapped on me.
6:45 I kind of was one of the, you know, western medicine dropouts very very early. So I became aware of alternative
6:52 sources of medicine outside of western alipathic medicine relatively early because of necessity looking for
6:58 solutions. So that kind of turned into it was like 20 years I battled until I
7:04 got well and uh well enough we’re always recovering that ended up turning into a
7:10 life of education in the nutrition health space. Um, it ended up being a
7:16 combination of detoxing, working with functional practitioners, working with a
7:21 therapist, getting into the gym. All of these factors together were all co-c
7:27 collaborators on my recovery. And you really can’t take one of them out, which is one of the reasons that modern
7:33 medicine has a hard time solving chronic health issues, which is what I come to try to solve the problem for later. So,
7:39 I ended up building a uh medically integrated uh nutrition uh training
7:45 program outside of Chicago where people would come in by a membership. They get chiropractic, they get uh hormones from
7:51 the certain doctor’s office, they would be I would be their guide, I’d be their lead coach, I would train them, I would do their nutrition. That program blew
7:58 up. I got pretty popular and uh I got poached by one of the larger health
8:04 organizations globally, which is Metagenics. And uh I ended up training under Dr.
8:10 Jeffrey Bland who’s the founder of IFM uh Institute of Functional Medicine and
8:15 out in Gig Harbor, Washington and also in uh San Clemente, California. And I
8:20 had already been an expert in weight loss, aesthetic nutrition, fat loss, nutrition, training, all of these all
8:26 these other fundamentals that I think are still very rel uh relevant to to medicine. Um it is a form of functional
8:33 medicine because it’s root cause. Um, but when they exposed me to all the
8:38 research and I hope anyone listening to this realizes that there’s a whole world of research out there that you’re just
8:43 not exposed to that once you once you start opening that crack or that door
8:49 like it’s like pulling the string on the clothes that like just everything falls apart. Like I began to realize that there was all of this world I just
8:56 didn’t know existed and all of this science that was being done and I got trained in alternative functional
9:02 medicine which is root cause medicine which we could get into more later and then they because of my background
9:09 because of my story and because of my training they sent me out to be a functional medicine consultant where I
9:15 would go in consult for doctors practices networks I would help build their cash pay holistic healthcare and
9:22 weight loss loss and preventative health services. Um I would train their staff.
9:27 I would send them to the right I would ed we would certify them in certain practices and processes and um you know
9:33 I did that for many many years and I worked with hundreds of the best practitioners in the country that all
9:40 had their specialty and this is the problem I see with modern medicine is specialty. Everyone is so specialized
9:48 that when somebody comes in with a functional or chronic problem, the issue
9:54 is that it’s the body has problems in more than one system. So if I go to a
9:59 chiropractor and and I’m thinking that my problem is only muscular, but I’ve
10:04 had the problem for two years, it probably involves my immune system. It probably involves other systems. So if I
10:11 go to a chiropractor, it’s no wonder that every solution is an adjustment. If I go to a hormone specialist, it’s no
10:17 wonder that every solution involves hormones. We have so many specialists that don’t talk to other specialists.
10:24 And what we need is more generalists. And that’s what I realized. Someone that knew enough about everything that could connect the dots and organize the
10:30 information for you. That’s why Cleveland Clinic is more effective than almost everywhere else because it’s organized between collaborative
10:37 practitioners. But you can’t turn the world that direction. It’s just not medicine’s not designed that way. And so
10:43 I said, well, what how can we biohack? How can we hack the system? How can we change this? And then started to emerge
10:50 when I was in the field started to emerge this role of functional medicine and health coaching and functional
10:56 practitioners that started to become more generalists. They started opening up avenues of being able to work
11:03 multiple systems at once to get cohesion because it’s in the cohesion of the
11:08 ecosystem of the body that all of a sudden you start getting unimaginable health outcomes rather than just staying
11:14 in your little lane like your scope of practice tells you to which I understand if you need to be a good boy and girl or
11:20 if you’re afraid that you don’t want to upset the system or you’re afraid of peer judgment or getting your staff to
11:26 like turn and do this new thing and learn these new processes. All these challenges face the modern practitioner
11:31 and they’re they’re riddled with debt from their getting their license and
11:37 then they are threatened heavily by the system to be a good boy and girl and so of course they’re not going to expand
11:43 their practices. And so I learned from the best. And so then what I did was as
11:48 I because I sat in on cases. I mean I probably reviewed in my five years a 100,000 cases from every type of
11:56 different doctor’s perspective or practitioner. Reiki, MD, DO, ND, DC, you
12:02 name the initials. I reviewed their cases and saw how they approached the problem. And so then what I did was took
12:10 all the best practices and I organized them right into a process that we call
12:16 the 4F method which now today we train at our university which is also in over
12:24 um right now about a 1,500 practices in the United States and probably reaches
12:31 close to 500,000 people a year. And so that’s how this all crazy thing kind of
12:37 got started was just a sick boy trying to get solutions. I love that. That’s so amazing. So
12:42 that’s why, you know, I tell a lot of the providers I bring on or people I bring on, they have a story just like
12:48 myself. And to your point, like you nailed it, right? So I had 15 years of training. I got out of school $500,000
12:54 in debt. I’m an endocrinologist. And it, you know, you learn in school that you just treat TSH, women don’t need
13:01 hormones, like all these crazy things. And you’re right, you get out into the world and I saw people aren’t getting
13:06 better. This doesn’t make sense. And I had my own hormone issues as well. And I
13:12 was the same way as you. Like you start re like I remember the first time I started looking at literature about T3
13:17 and about hormones and women. And I was like, why don’t they teach us this in school? And then to your point, yes,
13:23 you’re just scared. Like all the endocrinologists I work with at the time are like you’re crazy. You shouldn’t do that. They still think I’m crazy, but
13:30 that’s fine. Um, but to your point, there’s just so many issues in medicine
13:35 where, yes, I was that person. I was that person where it’s like, well, here’s my box. This is what I belong in.
13:40 Although I’m a trained internal medicine doctor, which is a generalist, right? I’m also a specialist, so I’m only
13:46 supposed to look at this box. And then one day in 2020, I was like, screw this, the hell with all of it. Like, nobody’s getting better. I was just mad and I’m
13:53 like, I’m going to do what I want. And I went into the functional medicine space, and the last 5 years have been so rewarding in our practice. And I tell
14:00 people this all the time. They come to me and they like I tell them your first visit you’re going to be here an hour and when you leave you’re going to be
14:06 overwhelmed because I’m going to tell you every system in your body that’s not working and everything we need to do to fix it starting at your mitochondria and
14:13 then we talk about your gut and we you know and people are just like a lot of them are overwhelmed but some of them
14:19 are mad and they should be because they’re like I’ve seen 10 doctors. I saw a lady yesterday. I’ve seen 10 doctors.
14:25 I’ve spent $20,000 and nobody’s told me any of this and I just keep getting sicker and taking more medicine. You
14:30 should be outraged if that’s you as a person and we have totally failed you and the medical system, right? And so
14:37 that’s why I love what you do because you do kind of what I’ve sort of figured out on my own. I wish I would have found you 5 years ago. You could have made
14:43 this process a lot easier because it’s been really hard to figure out on my own. But that’s what we do is like we
14:49 help you figure out to your point all the systems that aren’t working, your hormones and your gut. I mean, there’s
14:55 so much synergy, and when one is offbalanced, they’re all off balanced. And when your gut’s off balanced, you’re
15:01 inflamed and your mitochondria don’t work. And then it doesn’t matter how many boatloads of supplements, medications, whatever I give you, it’s
15:08 not going to work, right? So, let’s take let’s let’s give people a real world application of what you’re
15:13 saying, right? Like, let’s give a real case study example of what the difference would be because I want
15:18 people to understand the reality. I want like a water bottle for them to be able to hold it and understand it. It’s very hard for people to understand and
15:26 because here’s the problem. Most practitioners are working at a disadvantage. Like a cardiovascular
15:33 doctor is really looking at the system that’s probably the third system involved in the problem, but it’s where
15:38 they identified the problem. This is where inductive reasoning is faulty.
15:43 There’s a book called the problem with induction. And you’ll learn about problem solving inductively in a complex
15:50 system like the human body. While it chops up really nice for liability purposes and who gets what money and you
15:57 go where for what, it doesn’t lead to healing, which is why we have record numbers of disease, but also record
16:03 numbers of GDP related to health care spending. Okay. Because there’s more
16:09 doctors, more research, more pills, more health care networks, and yet we’re sicker than ever.
16:15 Yeah. I saw your post. Yes, I saw your post about nurses and that was so true. I you did this amazing post on social
16:22 media about how nurses are sicker than they’ve ever been. They don’t pee. They don’t drink. And that’s the same for
16:27 providers, too. I would say like I used to niche down, but this is all
16:32 healthcare workers, right? But like I used to literally go to work, Vince, at 8:00 a.m. And if I
16:37 didn’t get to eat before I got there, then I was lucky to drink water. And I would hold my urine until like 400 p.m.
16:43 and not drink water because it was like next patient, next patient, next patient. Oh, something happened over lunch. And then one day I was like,
16:50 “This is literally insane.” Like literally insane, right? Like I
16:55 literally gave myself a UTI from holding my urine all day. And I was like, and
17:00 not eating lunch, you know? And like and but the whole eight hours I was doing that, I was telling people like, “Oh,
17:06 you should be nice to yourself and you should eat better and you should not be stressed.” And I was like, “I’m done
17:11 with this.” Like this is insane. Right? So you see, you know, the biblically there’s a story about know them by thy
17:18 fruit. So like like the fruit that something bears will tell you if it’s good or not. And when you look at the
17:24 fruit of the modern healthare worker and their reliance on western medicine, what
17:30 they were trained in to take care of themselves and then you realize that the average practitioner is on four to five
17:36 medications over the age of 30. When you realize that their obesity levels are almost higher than the average
17:42 Americans, when you realize that their average health is tend to be sicker than the average American, you begin to
17:47 realize how could they ever possibly take care of you when they can’t take care of themselves.
17:54 Correct. I say that all the time and people get a little offended by this, but I’m going to say it again.
17:59 I highly recommend when you go see a new doctor that you ask that doctor
18:04 questions about their own personal beliefs as far as health and just look at them. You know, if I walk in to see a
18:10 cardiologist and they weigh 300 lb, with all due respect, I’m not going to take a lot of medical advice from that 300 lb
18:17 cardiologist because it’s like, how can you tell me what to do for my health when you can’t do it for yourself? And I get a lot of hate on social media when I
18:23 say that and I don’t care because like that’s just factual. Are you going to take financial advice from somebody
18:29 who’s broke? Are you going to go to a trainer that weighs 500 lb and tell them, “Hey, teach me how to make muscle.” It’s the same about your
18:36 providers. That’s how I feel anyways. Yeah, you’re exactly right. And so what we did
18:41 the so the system is the problem and the record
18:47 number of ill because of our society. So, one of the things that I had to do
18:52 was go back and go, okay, the challenge is actually modern society and the
18:58 record number of ill. And then you’re putting pressure on a system, right? So
19:04 the system then obviously is also insurance companies looking how to pay for it all and they’re trying to make more money and then it puts it on the
19:10 networks and then the networks put it on the provider and then the prov like the different providers put it on the nurses
19:16 and it just kind of like it goes all the way down the line and what I have to recognize is that the methodology that
19:22 they approach things with is not the most effective tool and they’re put in an impossible situation where the
19:30 patient believes that healthcare is free and is their responsibility and so they’re put in this impossible scenario.
19:36 And what we’ve learned through my 20 years of being in the field is that part
19:42 of the problem is how you’re solving problems. So for let me let me give you an example. The 4F method that I’ve
19:49 created starts with very specific systems and unlocks those systems in a
19:54 certain order in order to reproduce uh verifiable results in a very high
20:02 success rate. Okay. So, we took 7,000 people, didn’t do labs, followed the 4F
20:09 process to prove a point for a second that it’s not as much about the labs as it is the getting the ecosystem back in
20:15 alignment. So, we didn’t do labs on every condition that you can think of. Autoimmune, PCOS, hormone imbalance,
20:23 PMDD, I mean, gut issues, doesn’t matter. We applied the 4F process. It
20:29 had an 88% success rate of people who achieved a 90% symptom relief or more in
20:36 a six-month period. Right? They achieved 50% had a 90% in three months, right?
20:44 And the reason that I did that and we’re about to study the flush which is what in at USF by the way um we’re getting
20:51 into the research side because I’ve got to get the world to see what we’re we’re doing here that really works. But what I
20:56 want you to understand is that the body is not that mystifying if you start at
21:01 the right place and you end at the right place. So let’s go back to high blood pressure. Okay doctor someone comes in
21:09 to the doctor. They’re not changing their diet. They’re not changing any of these factors. their blood pressure is really high and they’re like you know so
21:15 the doctor sees that the doctor gives them maybe an ACE inhibitor starts with a leinipril and then says come back in
21:21 three to six months to see me okay that’s making the assumption that the RAS system is the problem okay which is
21:29 related to heart kidney lung all that and so by the the the kidney is the problem so if I lower the ACE uh in in
21:38 in in the release from the lungs actually whatever but that the kidney
21:44 localized to the kidney I can deal with the problem. Well, actually if you were to start with if you started with
21:50 something like the nervous system which controls the RAS system, the lymphatic system which puts pressure on the RAS
21:57 system and and your vascular system. If you flushed out the gut where cellular most immunological inflammation that’s
22:04 putting pressure on the kidneys is coming from, you flush that liver and that gut out. If you just started there,
22:10 right, and get total body water back into the muscle and not in the
22:15 lymphatic, not on the in the subcutaneous tissue, you could reduce
22:21 blood pressure by 15% within 10 to 20 days. Okay? So, and we have a system for
22:27 that. It’s called the flush. So, we’re able to in a in a very short period of time without medication, work the blood
22:34 pressure issue without even touching the like really focused on the kidneys or giving a medication for it. Or you can
22:39 start with the medication, work the process. What I’m getting at is if you start with those systems and you keep
22:45 going in order, the next the next system would be fully working the gut, right? Then after that, you go into the vessels
22:52 and work certain hormones. So the pancreas, you look at insulin, ghrelin, leptin. These are like nutrient partitioning hormones that dictate blood
23:00 sugar levels, nutrients getting into the cell. That’s when you start working cellular inflammation is by working
23:06 those particular hormones. Then you go into the cell and you work mitochondria and the your uh your your your DNA,
23:14 which you can do cellularly. There’s things that you can do. Get rid of the bad cells that are in your body. Replace them with good cells. And then you
23:21 finish with the endocrine system. Even though I stimulated thyroid in the beginning, at the end you balance out
23:27 sex hormones because sex hormones are an enduser product. They are not a beginning product. They’re an enduser.
23:35 So if we do things in that order, people end up with hormone balance every single time as long as they’re still producing
23:41 hormones. And I didn’t even have to touch hormones or I didn’t even have to touch. So like that there’s an order
23:47 that if you follow the order of operations which is we call the 4F method you’re going to get it right every time close to it without getting
23:54 overly deep in the labs without like doing all this stuff. Not that we don’t love all those things and you can still
24:00 add those things. I don’t want to say don’t use evidence but the body’s realignment
24:06 is more of a trade school practice than it is of higher learning Harvard. you’ve
24:12 got to know biochemistry to this like nth degree in order to do it. It’s not.
24:17 And so it’s just super interesting and that’s why we’re training so many physicians and coaches because I can
24:23 take someone off the street and teach them this, right? And and under a practitioner or they get certifications
24:30 with nutrition and whatever and they just support them from the outside. That’s what we’ve been doing. We’re proving that we can do that at a really
24:36 high level. Yeah. Yeah, I it’s so fascinating and and I agree with you and I know that it
24:42 works. Our health coach went through your 4F, you know, program like I was
24:47 telling you and she’s kind of doing it with me right now. But it all makes sense, too, right? Like the sad thing I
24:53 think about traditional medicine is that doctors 2400 years ago had a better
24:59 grasp on holistic medicine and gut health than we do today. Right? Like Hypocrates, let food be thy medicine.
25:06 All disease begins in the gut. like he had a better idea over 2,000 years ago about how to treat people than we do
25:12 today. And we just it’s so frustrating because doctors miss this. And so, you
25:18 know, and a lot of it is our education, the traditional health care system, but
25:23 how do you see people like yourself, health health coaches, like how do you see integrating them with traditional
25:30 medicine? like how can we get rid of some of these you know misconceptions between health coaches are bad and you
25:36 know back and forth like how do you see a better integration system working? Yeah. So right now so what what I ended
25:43 up doing is I created the method and so after that we started scaling the
25:48 business and then brought on other practitioners like licensed oversight. So there’s there’s two ways to really do
25:54 this in my opinion whether you’re outside the medical system or you’re inside the medical system. I think I I
26:00 think I’ll talk about inside the medical system for a while. The the the problem is one is being able to show them quick
26:07 wins so that they can integrate and make profit early on because they’re under pressure. Whatever their sticktick is is
26:14 making them money and to divert patients away from that to something new has to
26:19 drive a revenue source right away that is also either billable or not billable.
26:25 And health coaching is becoming billable. I don’t think that’s the way that you would want to go because it’s
26:31 kind of poor and I’m sure the payouts take a really long time as with everything. Um, but the first thing that
26:38 we have to again do is that the practitioner has to open up a space for cashbased services in their business and
26:45 they have to be okay with that typically, right? Um and and that can be
26:51 challenging getting them to even open o offer cash pay services in you know obviously because there’s some legal
26:57 ease to be careful with but um and then being open to offering additional
27:04 services and prescribing for them. So this is where practice management always
27:09 got messy because a doctor might care a lot about this stuff may want to do it
27:14 but then they are often challenged with how do I train my front-end staff my
27:20 manager my nurses like how do I get everyone else on board and that is so
27:25 challenging a lot of times that like how am I going to do all this that’s why at our university we provide the education
27:32 and then we have integrators because it’s like integration without integr igation the education means
27:38 nothing. Yeah. And it and it’s so true. Like the frustrating thing to your point is the reason that healthcare I don’t think is
27:45 ever going to change. My patients ask me this all the time. So I don’t take insurance anymore. And my patients ask me all the time do you ever think
27:50 healthc care is going to change where you can get paid to do this through my insurance. And I just tell them point blank no. And they say why? And I say
27:57 because if you get better then you don’t need to go to the doctor. And so then the insurance companies start losing
28:02 money. If you don’t need labs, if you don’t need medications, if you don’t need MRIs, if you don’t need surgeries, we have built medicine on this system
28:09 where it is a profitable business and that’s a problem. And I don’t know how you fix that from an insurance
28:16 perspective. But I mean, I just don’t ever see it changing because to your point, as soon as you start actually
28:22 making people well, like the endocrinologists I used to work with in Oklahoma City, there was a there’s a
28:27 group of them. They’re employed by a hospital system, Mercy, but you know, they’re they’re like, “Well, if you get rid of patients, if you make them well
28:33 and they don’t come back, then who are you going to see?” And I’m like, “Are you kidding me? There’s millions of people that are sick. Like, who are you
28:39 going to see? Are you your mindset is not in the right place?” Like, it’s the mindset. So, we have we have a
28:44 scarcity mindset versus versus an opportunity mindset and don’t realize that there’s always business,
28:51 right? And and my thing is like yeah and the reason I love what I do like I tell patients all the time my goal is to get
28:56 you off medicine get you healthy you come in once a year let’s check on you let’s make sure nothing’s going ary
29:01 let’s talk about things but like I think a lot of the problem is that in medicine has become this giant like money maker
29:08 for the United you know for the United States and the other problem is to your point implementation so I remember when
29:14 I started doing functional health functional medicine and doing cash pay stuff yeah I mean it was it scared scary
29:21 because you’re like, “Well, I’m not going to get paid.” But let me tell you what, insurance companies didn’t pay me very well either. And I would take it
29:26 would go months and months and months and I still have insurance companies that owe me money and I haven’t taken insurance for a year. So, it’s like, but
29:32 the cool thing is people are actually getting better. And so, to your point, implementing it into a practice can be
29:38 difficult, challenging, um, scary. I wish I would have known about you over a year ago, but it is so rewarding. And
29:45 that’s like that’s what people need, right? And to your point, like these little wins, they need it. Now, we do
29:51 use labs at Modern Endocrine because I’m a huge data junkie. Like I love data and
29:56 I feel like some people, not all of them, but some people if you show them actually like look at your labs like you
30:02 know cuz I see people all the time they’re like I feel fine but my wife drugged me here and I’m like oh well that’s great your fasting insulin 60 and
30:09 you know you show them that and you show them their A1C is high and you show them data and then they go do the thing
30:15 whatever you tell them to do and then they come back and they’re like well I don’t feel any different. Um, and this is just some people when you show them
30:22 the data again, like, “Oh, well really your insulin went from 60 to 20, so I have a really hard time feeling or like
30:27 believing you don’t feel different.” Then at least they’re motivated to keep doing what they’re supposed to be doing because, right, they went from an F to a
30:34 a B+. So, and remember, I’m all about labs. I’m
30:39 just saying that we over complicate It’s true things when we say it needs to be a
30:45 million labs and we have to figure it all out. We can make people feel significantly better and get them to a
30:51 place that like they probably will be just fine on their own with a process
30:56 rather than over compl micromanaging with labs and making scalpel moves when
31:02 really I putting the body back into alignment will do 90% of the work for you. And that’s that’s all the argument
31:09 because I agree we we take we look at genetics. We do genetics coaching. I actually love genetics. We do a lot of
31:15 genetics coaching. Um, and we love Dutch test, GIM map, and advanced blood work. We love all that stuff. But, but again,
31:21 and the accuracy goes up with labs, which is great because there are outliers. There are things that are going on that you’re going to want to
31:26 address. But by and large, people with chronic health issues, it’s it’s it’s just it’s the same play more often than
31:33 you might think, even if they’re coming in with different labels, which are diagnosis. No. And I would agree with that because
31:39 I think I think from what I’ve seen and know what I know about hormones is I think all disease processes start with
31:45 inflammation. I know that they do cuz people that are sick are inflamed. And so it’s just what’s causing that
31:51 inflammation. And a lot of times it’s insulin and cortisol because of our gut and because of our lifestyle. And so
31:57 that brings me to your next to my next question for you, which is, you know, how do you so I preach all the time that
32:04 your gut and your nutrition and your sleep and your stress and all these things play into your health. I know
32:10 that you believe that as well. So kind of walk us through like how you feel like the gut and these things play with
32:18 health. And then tell tell people about the flush we were just talking about because I also am, you know, so I am
32:24 almost 40. I am that age of woman who believed that cardio was everything. Eating less was everything. Like you
32:31 need to be stick thin. You’re supposed to do an hour of cardio and you’re supposed to eat less. And then I turned
32:36 35 and things started changing. And then I turned 38 and things really started changing. And the harder I pushed, the
32:43 harder my body pushed back. And so now I’m smart enough to know that you need
32:48 to lift weights, you need to sleep, you need to give your body rest, and you need to feed it correctly. But I want you to talk about like you tell
32:55 listeners why when we turn 39 and 40 and we push really hard, our body pushes
33:01 back and sometimes we stop having menstrual cycles and we gain weight and like why why that happens and how we fix
33:08 that. This is this is probably the first time that anyone’s going to have ever heard this before. Um it’s very real. The
33:14 data, the science is very real. Again, 20 years trying to figure out what was changing women’s metabolisms. Women are
33:21 the um underrepresented in research. There are many conditions that are exploding in women right now that just
33:28 the NAH, NIH, AM, American Heart Association, no one’s paying attention to because the symptoms are diverse
33:34 enough that we’re not putting patterns together. Um we see that under the age of 25 or uh 25 and 35 cancer rates are
33:43 skyrocketing, strokes, um irregular uh you know uh responses to uh you know
33:50 whether it’s birth control or other medication injury, we’ll call it injury. We’re seeing alltime rates um and and
33:58 we’re looking at blood sugars and we’re saying well the problem is carbohydrates
34:04 and I’m gonna tell you right now that carbohydrates are not the problem. Um and this is because we are simple enough
34:11 human beings that we think that your blood glucose has everything to do with eating sugar because it turns into
34:17 glucose. And it’s like no no no that’s a that’s a complete misunderstanding of what’s happening. Your body makes
34:24 glucose. Okay? Like it converts it will make glucose because your body it’s one
34:30 of the ways it’s the nutrient driver. Okay? Now you have you have a recycling bin energy source too which isk ketones
34:38 things like that. But you think that your glucose level is dictated by your
34:44 intake of carbohydrates because you’re looking at the short term. If I cut all my carbs it looks like my sugars go down. And it’s like no. What’s happened
34:51 there is you’ve cut your calories and reduced u and and cut out inflammatory foods. So you’ve reduced inflammation
34:59 which makes glucose absorb faster which is why your sugars are down. For example, the flush program that you’re
35:06 doing right now 12 days is basically juice and fruits and carbohydrates
35:13 and and lower protein moderate fat. and we increase your calories and we can
35:18 show you with CGMs that your sugar is the average. I can get a diabetic, type two diabetic sugars to drop way more
35:24 using carbs than removing carbs. And we prove it every single day. That’s why we’re going to do their study at the
35:30 University uh USF um and uh show you guys because removing oxidative stress,
35:37 removing toxins, improving cellular uh function, supporting the endocrine system, calming the nervous system is
35:44 going to do more to calm what’s called the immune system. People think that food dictates your total cellular
35:50 inflammation in your body and I am sorry that is incorrect. Food represents about 20% of your do total daily cellular
35:58 inflammation. What dictates majority of the inflammation in your body is what phase of immune function that you’re in.
36:05 So this is where inflammation is two stages and it’s dri it’s drawn by the immune system. There’s the initiation
36:11 phase and the resolution phase. And one of the reasons that when you’re young and you can fall off a building and
36:16 drink poison and be good the next day and when you’re 38 and you sleep only
36:22 four hours and you feel like you have a hangover. The reason is what phase of immune system you tend to stay in
36:27 longer. And so that because when we’re in phase one, we have a bunch of unresolved inflammation. It’s why we’re
36:33 swollen, tired, bloated. you know everything starts slowing down because in phase one immune function most of our
36:41 cellular ATP or energy production is going to phase one immunity not to our
36:46 cells to produce energy be vibrant and be active right which is why women find
36:52 out about women as they get older they stop getting the flu they rarely get sick a lot of times especially as they
36:58 hit menopause okay their immune systems they feel like crap all the time because their immune system is overactive well
37:05 where is 80% of the immune system h housed the gut.
37:11 The gut is really not the thing. It’s the immune system in the gut that is
37:16 interacting with your microbiome that’s the thing because your gut doesn’t go to every system in the body. But your
37:23 immune system does. So if you trigger your immune system in your gut, you will have inflammation all
37:30 over your body. Right? So people don’t realize it. Getting down oxidative stress in your
37:37 life is going to be a more effective tool than cutting your carbohydrates. Carbs is not going to lengthen your life
37:44 the way that you think it is. It’s actually going to dra it’s going to tire out your thyroid. It’s going to make you nutrient deficient. It’s going to
37:50 plummet your hormones. Not that you can’t cut hor like carbs for a while, but your blood glucose level is a
37:57 measure of the inflammation in your body and the resistance to glucose easily getting into your cells. It has nothing
38:03 to do with your carbohydrate intake. Nothing. A short term, if I eat just
38:09 simple carbs with no fiber or protein around it, my sugars might spike a little bit more. But unless you’re type
38:14 two diabetic, spikes don’t matter. We’re looking at two-hour postparials and
38:20 you’re average throughout the day. That’s what matters. And you’re fasted.
38:25 Not if I ate some carbs and I spiked to 50 or 60 points or I only spiked to 30. If you have enough muscle and you have a
38:31 good enough metabolism, you can do that. It doesn’t matter. It’s when people start losing muscle. They’re too
38:37 stressed out. Um there so their phase one immune system is active because you’re stressed all the time. So your immune system is responding to your
38:43 thoughts. Your microbiome starts to change. So there’s there’s irritation in the gut between your microbiome and your
38:49 immune system. It’s dumping inflammation. You’re starting to have poor lifestyle habits. You’re sleeping a little less, which then you stop going
38:55 into phase two. Why do you think sleep is the longevity? Sleep is when you go into phase two resolution immune system
39:01 immunity. You start cleaning out bad cells. You clean out junk and you go into recycling.
39:08 People are no longer going into recycling and there’s no supplement that’s going to stop it. It’s called immunomabolism. So sugars start to go up
39:15 and that’s why cancer rates are skyrocketing. It’s why autoimmune rates are skyrocketing, infertility
39:20 skyrocketing. And the more antibiotics you take, the more viruses that you get, i.e. by COVID. The more that these
39:28 things happen, the higher your sugars are going to go, the more swollen and tired you’re going to get, and then the
39:33 more likely stroke, autoimmune, something’s coming for you, cancer, because phase one immunity creates
39:40 something called immunosiness. These are undead cells that sit in your body that are not processing glucose.
39:47 They’re dumping inflammation. And that is why you have to go through a process of using either some fasting or you go
39:54 into caloric restriction or you use resistance training or you try to sleep more and you reduce your stress. That
40:00 helps your body move into phase 2 immunity to eat those cells out of your body. And that’s how you’re going to
40:05 really reduce your risk of cancer, of anything, increase your longevity. Um, and that’s the real truth about healing
40:12 that nobody people should look it up. Immunom metabolism. It’s a whole field of biology that absolutely exists. No
40:19 one’s paying attention to it. That’s why all my books are coming out. I’m screaming at the hilt. This has nothing to do with your carbs. It has everything
40:27 to do with the net total oxidative stress level from toxicity, from over consuming calories, from eating
40:34 ultrarocessed food, from toxic environments, social media, toxic
40:39 people, places, and things. an unhealthy microbiome because of the assault from fillers and everything we do. And if we
40:47 don’t combat that appropriately, I don’t care if you get your blood pressure down, you’re still going to die young. I
40:53 don’t care if you take a metformin and get your blood your blood sugars down, you’re still going to die young. It
40:58 doesn’t change you’re just you’re just changing a biioarker. You’re not fixing the uh the ecosystem. And that’s what
41:05 people need to realize. They think that they’re they’re doing something and they’re not. It’s just making the pharmaceutical companies more money.
41:11 Yeah. It all goes back to again a holistic approach. Like I tell my patients, you have to be doing all of
41:16 these things and and to your point your nervous system. Like this world is so
41:22 stressed and we just have so many to your point negative thoughts. Like I I
41:28 call it break up with your phone. On the weekends I love to break up with my phone. People get really upset because
41:33 they’re like, “Oh, I text you on Friday and you didn’t respond till Sunday because I don’t want to look at my phone from Friday to Sunday if I don’t have
41:39 to.” Like, every time you get on social media, negative things. Like, it’s just there’s so much negativity in this world
41:46 and then we’re stressed and we’re being, you know, made to feel like we we’re not doing enough and we need to go to the
41:52 next thing. And it’s just kind of crazy. And all that yes, over time builds,
41:57 right? And it causes you to be very stressed and then to your or very stressed and then you’re not getting sleep. And it affects your immune system
42:03 and then it ultimately affects your gut, right? Like I take care of so many people who come in and they say, “I have
42:09 anxiety. I have depression. I feel stressed.” And then when you talk to them about their gut, they have constipation and bloating and diarrhea.
42:15 And you know, and then they’re like, “Can you fix it?” And I’m like, “Well, we have to address what’s causing all
42:20 that, which is normally other things, right?” And so that’s where medicine is. Just to your point, it’s it’s so hard to
42:28 just look at one thing. Like you have to look at all of it. And sometimes people get really frustrated with me. They’re like, “So you mean I need to eat better
42:34 and I need to move and I need to sleep and I mean yes, you need to do all those things because your nervous system and
42:40 your immune system are all functioning on on your cortisol, on your insulin, on
42:46 you know, all these hormones. To your point right there, so this is why this is why I believe the functional
42:54 care movement which I believe is is already occurring right now. The
42:59 movement is going to be very similar to the nursing movement of the 1940s to the
43:05 2000s where we saw it went from a about 180,000 nurses to about 3.5 million
43:13 nurses over the course of that time. It was a revolution in healthcare that
43:19 focused on the human element of healing. I believe that that revolution is coming again in the form of a of a health coach
43:27 that will be armed because someone the only way you’re going to get someone to make all those changes is if somebody
43:34 holds their hand because it is not medicine that will do it. It is the
43:39 human element of healing. It is one person helping another. It is the relationship. Western medicine fails to
43:46 recognize that it is the human experience of relationship that heals. It is not a pill, right? It is not a
43:53 procedure. It is a relationship. And through that relationship, a
43:59 practitioner can walk them through simple, organized stages of recovery
44:05 that are reproducible, organized, and simple to get someone from diseased in
44:10 multiple systems to vibrant living their best lives. And that’s the only way we’re going to get people out of the
44:15 matrix. It’s going to take an army of functional health coaches. And it just
44:22 so happens we’ve got an army sitting in every gym in America who just lost some
44:27 weight who is desperate to help another person, which are your trainers, fitness
44:33 goers, and we convert them into health coaches. And we get them into proactive care. And we really for the first time
44:40 in human history take the fight to lifestyle disease. That’s the only way to do this. I have done the math a
44:45 million times which is why I’m creating I have my own healthcare network. I have my own doctors coaches. You come in it’s
44:52 on all concierge virtually online and I’ve got a university where I’m converting people into what we call a
44:59 hybrid practitioner so that you’re more of a generalist and then we’re sending them out there to help others. We call
45:05 it the one in 100, which is one one hybrid practitioner for every hundred people in the United States because
45:11 that’s what nursing is at right now. And that’s the only way we’re going to change things. One person helping one
45:16 other person one at a time and that’s it. That’s the only way it’s going to get done. I’ve done the math a million
45:22 ways. You’re not going to protocol it out of existence. You’re not going to semiglute it tide it out of existence.
45:29 It’s going to take it and that’s why it’s already happening. uh all the technologies that are being created in
45:34 virtual health systems are all about coaching services and touch points and
45:40 all of that stuff and that’s why that’s why this is coming whether it’s AI generated or human generated this is
45:47 where it’s going. No, I completely agree. I mean, I think the amount of time you have to spend with someone is is a lot, but it’s
45:53 because there’s a lot going on and and they need a friend, they need a relationship. And that’s why, you know, part of the reason I stopped taking
46:00 insurance and that’s part of the reason, you know, my visits are longer is because it’s just you have there’s so many things that the education piece is
46:07 really important, too, right? There’s so much bad education out there. And that’s one thing I hate about social media is
46:13 anyone can get on social media and say they’re a whatever and start educating people and it’s like you don’t you have
46:19 no clue what the hell you’re talking about and it infuriates me. That’s actually the only reason I started this podcast and that’s the only reason I got
46:25 on social media. Hated social media. Hated it. I still don’t love it. But the
46:30 only reason I’m on it and the only reason I do this podcast is because I am a dual board certified endocrinologist.
46:36 Very intelligent. have the uh you know the credibility to teach you something
46:43 about uh about education. And I’m not saying I’m always right. I’m always up to learn. I have zero ego. I will tell
46:49 you when I’ve done things wrong and I have in the past. But like I want to give people good information so that
46:55 they can make themselves better. And that’s why I find people like you. I find whoever will come on that has
47:01 credible information to give and then I put it out there for free for people because you know if you’re listening to
47:07 this you can send this to as many people as you want and they can actually learn things that are valuable to their health
47:13 and true right and like one of the things which you said to me which I think is so important that people know
47:19 is I don’t care what you know what really frustrates me is women or men go to doctors and doctors say well you know
47:26 they’re judged instantly well you need to eat better and exercise more. And that is not the answer. The answer is
47:33 holistically fixing them, like you said, flushing them out, fixing their gut, fixing their lymphatics, having them
47:38 sleep more. And actually, you reverse diet some people where they’re having more calories. And I know this. And so I
47:44 want you to explain to people this mentality that we have is so wrong and it’s so broken because if it was that
47:51 easy, Vince, right, nobody would be obese, right? If you could literally eat 1300 calories a day for a week and lose,
47:57 you know, five pounds, people would do it, right? Like, it’s not that they don’t have willpower. That’s not the problem.
48:03 The war that we’re fighting is not a medical one. It is a social
48:09 um it is a physical and in my opinion spiritual problem, but it’s because it’s
48:14 all of those things together. Um, and so the doctors trying to fight an a fight
48:20 with one arm behind their back because they’re because we say that doctors are oracles. Go see your doctor about
48:26 everything. Your doctor is an expert in western medicine for procedure uh and
48:31 prescription approaches to to to care. And that’s good. That’s great. They should be there. But we like to hide all
48:38 liability behind them. We shove all those people to get answers from them that they don’t have. And then they’re expected to have the answers and be the
48:44 oracle. And so then they just kind of start saying stuff and just, you know, it’s it’s just it’s it’s a really tough
48:49 situation to put people in. Um I I will contend for you. And so that’s why what
48:55 I would like to see and what I’ve been fighting for for a long time is that if a practitioner is just willing to
49:00 prescribe a health coach, you would be surprised how many people would bite on it if you
49:08 just had one in your office, right? You have a generally supervised process. They come back in every 12 weeks to see
49:14 you just to make sure it’s good. We have a process for this. It wouldn’t cost much to take one of our licensed
49:20 coaches, right? Certified coaches, stick them in your office. They see you for
49:26 whatever the condition is, and you say, “Hey, I’m going to prescribe you Leinipril for this high blood pressure, but if you really want to get off this
49:32 blood pressure medication, make sure that your your dick works really good and get whatever else is they care
49:38 about.” That’s what they care about that one. I know. That’s why I said it. you for for men, you hit below the below the
49:45 belt and women above the waist. You know what I mean? Right? Waist up. And so, and say, “Go see him for 12 weeks,
49:52 couple visits while we’re working on this, and I’m going to work to get you off.” That that conversation alone is
49:59 all I’m asking for from doctors. That’s all I’m asking for. You don’t have to train them. You just got to build in a
50:06 referral and you got to write the damn script. Prescribe it, right? And we have
50:12 that if any doctor wants to reach out and say, “Hey, I’d like to give this a try.” I can give them a certified coach
50:17 in their practice tomorrow. Say, “Give it a whirl, man.” You know, what what do you got to lose? You know, you’re not
50:23 serving. Every pra every doctor is just really stressed, but they damn well know that they could be doing more for their patients. Okay? They’re aware. They’re
50:31 afraid. Okay? And so, that’s this is what we’re fighting for is to create these systems to make it easy for them.
50:39 And then if they don’t want to do it, then you can’t be mad. And this is the thing I was going to tell you.
50:45 Uh technology diffuses in really funny ways. So functional medicine and health
50:51 is diffusing in social media right now. It’s being spread. So it is a good thing
50:57 even though it’s it has its downside. It is a good thing that every Tom, Dick, and Harry is on the internet talking
51:03 about gut health, talking about this. Now, yes, does it cause some confusion? And yes, do some people get injured by
51:09 it or get taken advantage of? They certainly do. But I’m here to tell you that this is how industries are formed.
51:16 It always starts in chaos and everybody in their mom jumps in. That’s a good sign for the future of an industry. So,
51:24 while it is frustrating to hear people say random stuff and don’t know what they’re talking about, it’s better that
51:30 you have that and everybody else talking about it than no one talking about it at all, which is what we had just 8 to 10
51:36 years ago. And then soon enough more um certifications, more structure will come
51:42 in over time that will hopefully drown out a lot of those people that don’t need to be listened to and and bring in
51:49 like that’s why we need more people like you to give a muse of like here’s a cert
51:54 here here’s a licensed practitioner who also spent the time learning functional medicine that is available to talk to
52:00 you but because there’s not enough of you we can’t complain when freethinking
52:06 capitalists stick step in to fill the gap. Yeah. But what we can do is keep doing
52:12 what we’re doing and fighting the good fight and hopefully educating people because I will say, you know, I wanted a
52:18 health coach forever. I couldn’t find the right fit. And the one that I found is so amazing and, you know, has helped
52:24 so many of my patients, love her so much. And like I said, went through your program and has changed so many of my
52:31 patients lives already. And it’s not that, you know, and and here’s the other thing. I think some doctors have egos,
52:36 which is my ego got checked years ago. I have zero. But as a provider, sometimes
52:43 I think it’s hard to give up that like, oh well, I don’t know enough, so I’m going to let you talk to somebody who has less education than me. I tell my
52:49 patients all the time, Sarah, my health coach, you want to talk to her. She knows all of this. Like, I know it, but
52:56 I don’t have the time to sit here and give it to you. And she knows it in a better way. Like she even goes into them
53:01 like spiritually, mentally, keeps them accountable. Like that is her calling, right? My calling is to be able to
53:08 oversee it and make sure yes, she’s not outside of lines. We have very strict guidelines she follows, but like let her
53:14 do her thing with you because that’s what, you know, she’s meant to do and I’ll oversee it and make sure nothing bad is happening so that I can oversee a
53:21 lot of it. And I think sometimes providers just get very like they’re like, “No, I don’t want anyone else messing with my patients. I don’t want
53:27 to refer my patient.” That is the stupidest line of thinking I have ever heard of. Like I want all the great
53:34 people helping my patients, right? Like I know I can’t do it all on my own. And so I think that’s the problem too is
53:40 like as soon as you get one too, as soon as you get a health coach as a provider and you get a good one, your patients
53:46 will let you know in a week that it was the best investment you ever had. Like my patients come back and say, “Oh my
53:51 gosh, Sarah made me realize this and made me realize this and like, you know, I saw one the other day that’s lost 12
53:56 pounds in three months and has never felt better and you know, only talked to Sarah about trauma and this and that and
54:03 now she feel I mean just so many things and so it’s just that’s the other problem too is like some people have
54:09 glad you’re showing people egos, right? And that’s really dumb. So I always try to remind practitioners of
54:14 the oath that they took because the oath clearly states right that you will be that you were willing to be
54:20 collaborative to find solutions. And what happens is we become control freaks because we’re worried about
54:25 ourselves and we want and we don’t want anybody else getting involved in our stuff because it’s it’s the same crap you see
54:32 in fitness and there’s no place for it. And to me that is a dereliction of your duty, your fiduciary responsibility to
54:39 your to your patients. And I would say to people that were called to tend their flock, shame on you. Shame on you for
54:46 becoming self-centered about the the business of healing. A rising tide sells all ships. And the
54:51 more people you have in your circle cheering you on and telling you the same thing, the more likely you are to do it.
54:57 So, and and if you are a provider and you didn’t realize, there are hundreds
55:02 of millions of people that are so sick. And if you have an ego to think that you can take care of all of them, well, good
55:09 for you. But there’s always going to be sick people unfortunately for you to take care of. And so that’s the other
55:15 thing I think that providers need to just set that somewhere and say, you know what, there’s always somebody smarter than me.
55:21 There’s always somebody that can teach me something. And I’m the same way. Like I feel very educated, very blessed, very
55:26 trained. But I’m always like I want to be the stupidest person in a room. Always. I put myself in rooms where I’m
55:32 like I am the dumbest person. I feel very vulnerable. I feel But I love it cuz I’m like I’m going to leave here and
55:37 I’m going to learn something. Right. Just like you. Like Sarah told me about your program. I’m like, I know nothing about this. I need to learn about this,
55:43 right? Um that’s like what we should be doing. Like that’s I mean you’re you’re put here to serve, right? Everyone
55:49 that’s how I feel. I feel like I’m every day I’m here to serve other people. My calling is to serve people and help them
55:55 be healthy so that they can do their calling and serve people. And so you can’t do it with a closed mind, though.
56:01 You have to do it collaborative. But yeah, when you’re in a restrictive system though, it makes you give up on others and serve yourself. I
56:07 because it’s like nothing’s working at this point. It’s like hell, I got to get my check and I got to get out of here and that’s what happened.
56:13 And I understand that cuz that was me from 2017 to 2020. And to your point, it’s really scary because you owe all
56:19 this money. You have to pay this money back if you don’t do what you’re told by the system and see more patients, you
56:24 don’t get paid. But that’s just not like the oath that you took and that’s not how medicine should be. So I think
56:30 patients have to demand better and providers have to demand better for sure. So, so I want to ask, so, so I
56:39 want to ask you three questions before we go. This is great. I could talk to you forever, but um, so three questions.
56:47 Don’t overthink them. One-word answers. People love this. What is one food that’s most beneficial and why?
56:54 I said don’t overthink it. Just I know, but it’s just there’s just there’s just too many of them and you
57:01 can’t bone broth. That’s such a copout answer, but it’s a good one. No, it’s great. Why do you think it’s
57:06 healthy? Berries. Berries is probably the superfood, though, if I had to go with one is probably berries. Antioxidants. Okay, perfect.
57:13 What is one thing that anyone can do for their health that’s completely free
57:18 to better their health? One thing they can do for their health is completely free is is to do uh variable walking. So, split split up uh
57:26 20 minutes twice a day. The research is incredible. When you split your walking, you up postmeal. I love that. I see that too. And go
57:32 outside and do it with somebody you love. Oxytocin sunlight. Amazing. What?
57:38 And do it quietly. Quiet. We like to get the dopamine reset. We like We like quiet walks.
57:44 Okay. Quiet walks. And what is one thing you wish you would have known about your health 20 years ago that you would have
57:52 done differently today if you would have known that? That building muscle isn’t everything.
57:57 Like I I used to think that mTor was the most important thing and that muscle was the number one thing and I traded
58:03 everything else for muscle and then realized later that it while it’s important um it’s not as important as I
58:10 thought it was. I mean, it’s very important to have muscle. It but there’s a there’s for the for all my fitness people out there, there’s a limiting
58:17 there’s a limiting factor that eventually diminishing return that begins to to happen at 10% body fat or
58:23 at having uh a certain amount of muscle that’s putting pressure on your vascular system. When we think about longevity,
58:28 health, and everything, there’s there’s there’s a a window of of where muscle is really important, but it is not is not
58:35 everything. I know that’s probably like I know that’s probably counteractive of what we talk about, but to be quite honest with
58:41 you, the bodybuilding community is going to have a shorter lifespan than the average person because they’re over they’re overcommitting to the pro to the
58:47 muscle issue and it will have a limiting effect. Yeah, I’m a very um so I I try not to
58:55 put myself in like extreme boxes. I’m not an extremist. I’m a very like So I
59:01 love muscle, but like you know sometimes my coach is like, “Oh, let’s lean you out. Let’s make you big.” big and I’m like I’m I mean you know I’m good like I
59:08 I don’t like anything in extreme. So I like that you say that I like being jacked. Nothing wrong with
59:14 it. But if you overcommit to just the muscle side and you don’t realize other longevity tools and you’re only thinking
59:19 you’re driving mour. I’m telling you your lifespan is going to be shorter. It doesn’t it just doesn’t matter how good
59:26 you look. Your lifespan is going to be shorter. Bodybuilders that get a little too large they live 5 to 10 years less
59:32 than the average person. So like muscle clearly at some point is a limiting factor. Well, thank you very much for your time
59:39 today. I appreciate it. We will link all your stuff in the show notes. So your social media, all your courses,
59:46 everything that you do, but I just want to say thank you for spending your life, training and teaching people, fighting
59:53 the good fight, trying to fix this health care system. All right, it’s been awesome. Thank you
59:58 so much. Perfect. All right, have a good day. I hope you found that information educational. I
1:00:06 really wanted to let people know that there is an outlet even in traditional medicine with these health coaches. They
1:00:12 are amazing. Modern Endocrine has a phenomenal health coach and I really think that this is one of the keys to
1:00:18 bridging that gap with traditional medicine and helping make people not so sick, being able to help people become
1:00:25 well. And so I thought that this was a great conversation just to help people understand the difference between
1:00:31 functional and traditional medicine and how we could incorporate some things even if you are in a traditional medicine system to really help start
1:00:38 opening your eyes and helping patients get well. So if you are somebody who is
1:00:43 looking for a health coach or you want this more holistic approach, you think, man, this sounds great. Modern Endocrine
1:00:50 has a license in 39 states now. We do virtual visits. We have a health coach. we would be happy to see you. There’s
1:00:56 more information on our website with a list of every state we can do virtual visits in. If you liked this
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1:01:34 week on the next episode of Hormones, Metabolism, and You. Have a great week.
1:01:39 [Music] The information presented, including any materials discussed, referenced, or
1:01:45 linked within this podcast, are for general educational purposes only, not
1:01:50 the practice of medicine. No doctor patient relationship is formed from you listening to this podcast or utilizing
1:01:56 any of the information provided. I am a doctor, but I am not talking to you as your doctor. The information provided is
1:02:04 not intended to diagnose or treat health problems or take the place of the professional medical care provided by
1:02:11 your doctor. If you are experiencing any health problems, including problems you believe have been touched upon in any
1:02:17 respect within this podcast, you should consult your doctor about the problems without delay. You may ask your doctor
1:02:25 whether he or she believes the information I have provided would be helpful to you, but you should still consult your doctor immediately and
1:02:32 follow his or her medical advice as your treating physician. I’m just here to provide you basic knowledge about the
1:02:38 issues we discuss so you are more aware of them and can better discuss them with your doctor. That’s why we call it back
1:02:45 to the basics. Join me on the next episode as we continue our journey.
1:02:50 [Music]
Disclaimer:
The information presented including any materials discussed, referenced, or linked within this podcast are for general educational purposes only, not the practice of medicine.
No doctor-patient relationship is formed from you listening to this podcast or utilizing any of the information provided.
I am a doctor, but I am not talking to you as your doctor. The information provided is not intended to diagnose or treat health problems or take the place of the professional medical care provided by your doctor.
If you are experiencing any health problems, including problems you believe have been touched upon in any respect within this podcast, you should consult your doctor about the problems without delay. You may ask your doctor whether he or she believes the information I have provided would be helpful to you, but you should still consult your doctor immediately and follow his or her medical advice as your treating physician.
I’m just here to provide you with basic knowledge about the issues we discuss so you are more aware of them and can better discuss them with your doctor.
That’s why we call it Back to the Basics. Join me on the next episode as we continue our journey.