Warriors at Work Summer Series - Optimal Living with Dr Wendy Warner

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Welcome to the Warriors at Work Show. This is Genie Koomber,
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your guide and host. This is a show for men
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and women in the workplace who want to move from
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the predictable to the potent. This is your weekly dose
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of inspiration with an edge. I talk with CEOs and shawmans,
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sports marketing executives, and therapists. All of us are like
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minded thinkers and doers who tell stories, share wisdom, and
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challenge each other to have the best life possible inside
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and outside the office. Welcome to your Warrior Conversation. Hey everybody,
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it's Gennie. Thanks so much for joining me here at
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Warriors at Work and Happy July. As we reach the
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halfway point of the year, it's a natural time to pause,
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reflect and realign with ourselves. So over the coming weeks
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I will be resharing podcast episodes from Warriors at Work
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and the intention here is to help you to reconnect
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with your your self, refuel your energy, and move forward
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with clarity. Let's make the rest of the year really
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count enjoy. So welcome doctor Wendy Warner. I am so
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excited to have you here with me Warriors at Work
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to have this conversation. Thank you again, for being here.
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It's a pleasure to be here. So what's fun about
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this is you've been such an integral part of my
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life for the last number of years, and I get
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to turn the tables on you and get for you
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to share your wisdom with a much broader audience. And
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so what I want to do is, first like take
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a big step back, and I want for you to
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share a little bit about your story. You practice integrated
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functional medicine, and I would love for you to describe
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your journey into this space.
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Okay, I did the usual college medical school residency trying
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to conventional OBGYN, did conventional OBGYN training practice for fourteen
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years now. Very early on, I mean it's really corny.
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Very early on, I figured out that I needed to
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deal with my own PMS or nobody was going to
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work with me for more than about three months. And
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I did not want to do daily prozac, which is
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what I was trained I was supposed to take, so
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for the three or four days that I yelled at people.
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So I honestly don't remember now how I even found this,
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but I realized I'm not the first person who's had
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to deal with this. There's got to be some other
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way to handle it, and I was really interested in
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getting into botanical medicine at the time because I'm a
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gardener and found the right plant. It worked beautifully, and
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I kind of kept it to myself because we're talking
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the early nineties. No docs did this kind of thing
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back then, and I was brand new in the area
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and I didn't want to get run out as some
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kind of weird witch doctor, so kept it quiet. I
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eventually took pity on a patient who had the same
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symptoms that I had when she burst into tears and said,
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I think my husband's going to divorce me.
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So I said, Okay, go.
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To this health food store, get this, take it for
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three months, call me back.
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It worked.
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Her friends found out about it, they were happy, and
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I realized, O good, maybe I'm not going to get
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run out of town. So all the time that I
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was doing conventional OBGYN, I was actually learning about integrative
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medicine and then functional medicine myself, and I was getting
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training in botanical medicine and lots of other cool stuff.
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And at some point, you know, some of my business
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partners were not very happy about it, and we had
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a big blow up and I started my own practice.
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It was an awesome, awesome place. I had all these
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cool practitioners under one roof, everything from acupuncture and massage
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and energy medicine, shamans, stress management guys. I mean, like
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all kinds of things.
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It was great.
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Eighteen years COVID kind of changed all that, And so
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now i close my brick and mortar and I'm doing
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fully telemedicine consultations only and it's fun, and I do
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a lot of teaching. I teach for the Institute for
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Functional Medicine, and I teach for David Winston's Center for
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Herbal Studies, and then do a lot of like webinars
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and things for different people.
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Wow, what an interesting journey. And where I think it
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would would be really helpful too, is I think people
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do not understand what integrated functional medicine actually is and
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how it's different from quote unquote traditional medicine. So I'd
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love for you to define that for us.
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Okay, And I actually, well, okay, conventional medicine. The way
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I was trained is you basically try to fix the
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symptoms and make people happy and everybody, and I think
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this is most patience experience. Also, different doctors kind of
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stay in their lane, and so you're not really being
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seen as a whole person. In my mind, integrative and
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functional medicine are slightly different. Integrative medicine simply means you
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see the whole person and you have different tools in
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your toolbox. You might use herbs, you might use something else.
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Functional medicine is sort of it's sort of like a
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subset of integrative medicine, but it's a thing unto itself.
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It teaches you to.
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Look at the underlying processes of what's going on and
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to fix the basic process is rather than just fix
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the symptoms. So you know, if you have inflammation, which
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is a process, it may show up as blood sugar instability,
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it may show up as Alzheimer's, it may show up
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as perimoonopausal symptoms. So you say, how it's very, very
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different than how a conventional doc would look at those things,
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because in conventional medicine, those are all different.
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Right. Well, it's interesting to give the background on why
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I came to you, and I think a lot of
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people that are watching and listening are going to relate
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to this. Is you know, I've been working for a
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number of years. I have probably what you would characterize
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as like sort of a high stress job as an
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executive coach. I'm in very intense conversations with people all
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day long in the workplace, and I started to ask
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myself bigger questions based upon my mom passed away suddenly
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have a heart attack when she was sixty two. My
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dad died of complications from a stroke when he was
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seventy eight, when he was in great health. It had
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happened very very quickly, and I started asking myself bigger
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questions because I was having anxiety. I wasn't managing my
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stress well. My sleep started to get crazy, it was
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heading into menopause. I just was worried all the time,
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and I knew that I didn't want a quick fix.
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I wanted to look deeper what was really going on.
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And so I found my way to you. And one
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of the things that really changed for me, very very quickly,
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is the care and the time you take to explain
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what is actually at the root of what's happening. And
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it isn't a quick fix. It is investigation, It is
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trial and error. It is a lot of natural supplements
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and things that work with your natural body chemistry, and
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it isn't necessarily only a pharmacological approach to things. And
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I just found your style to be warm, inviting, fun, lighthearted,
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and you've just been such a key part of like
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my team, if you will, my personal, my professional team,
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and I'd love for you to talk about I mean,
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this is Genie's experience with you, but I'd love for
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you to talk about your approach. So somebody reaches out,
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they get to your team, they go through their blood
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work process, and they get to meet doctor Wendy Warner.
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Talk to us about your approach.
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Okay, Well, like all functional medicine practitioners, or at least
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good ones, you know, I need to know your basic
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medical background, and I need to know your family history,
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and I need to know how you live your life.
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Like you know, I have a nutritionist slash coach who
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does intakes for me for all my new patients so
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that we can get a real detailed feel for how
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is this person eating, is this person sleeping? Is there
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any exercise on board? Blah blah blah, because we need
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to see the whole picture. Yeah, I get lab work
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that is very different from what most primary care practitioners,
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for instance, would get, because I need to see as
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much detail as possible, and I will, like most practitioners
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who do this kind of medicine, you know how, you
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get your lab report and it'll have the reference range
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there next to it, and it may or may not
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be flagged as abnormal. And I know you've had this
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experience where I've said, oh, yeah, it actually doesn't look
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as good as you think, because we're gonna look at
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these reference ranges differently, because we're looking for optimal ranges,
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not just what the lab says.
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Is okay, because.
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Sometimes what can conventional medicine would consider okay is really
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not optimal by any means. And sometimes the lab references
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there's no science behind them. They just run the test
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on a couple thousand random people and plot all the
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results on a Bell curve, and that's the reference range.
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So you need to understand that because otherwise you're going
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to miss a lot of detail. And if you're so, Basically,
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I'm looking for all the clues in what you've told
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me and in your labs and in your symptoms, and
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I put it all together into okay, Well, this process
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is out of whack. And this process is out of whack.
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And I don't know if you've ever had this experience.
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But sometimes when I'm telling people all the different things
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that are like, well, this is off, and this is often,
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this is often this is off, I see their eyes
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getting really big and they're thinking.
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Oh my god, I'm so screwed.
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You don't have to go No, You've got all these
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different things going on, but they're all related. And because
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they're all related, we just need to fix this and
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this and this and all the rest of it is
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going to take care of itself.
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I want to build on the word optimal that you
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just talked about and get you to talk about common themes.
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So what are some of the common themes you're seeing
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with patients? So when when you think about this notion
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you're looking for optimal, it's not perfect, it's optimal, which
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I think is an also an important distinction. There's no
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A in this. Yes, speaking from somebody who's always looking
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for am I hitting the optimal performance number? It's like, no,
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there's no perfection here. But I'd love for you to
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talk about like the common situations, themes, challenges that you're
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seeing in your practice.
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Well, I can tell you the two things that I
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talk about all day long. I talk about a drenal dysfunction.
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And I talk about blood sugar instability because I mean, historically,
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I've always had a small group of people in my
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patient population who've had unstable blood sugar. And most Americans,
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well most people around the world, their adrenal hormones are
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a little off. But it has gotten so much worse
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in the past couple of years. I spend all day
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talking to people about blood sugar instability, and that is
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that's a good example. Well, actually, both of these are
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examples of how your lab results may make it look
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like you're okay, but you have to be asking the
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right questions and drawing the right labs and then interpreting
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them correctly. So good example. Hypoglycemia, lots of that means
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your blood sugar is crashing periodically. People feel that. Well,
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if you're twenty or thirty something, you call it getting angry,
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because you're really angry if you haven't eaten. Other people
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will just say, well, yeah, sometimes if I haven't eaten,
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I get a little dizzy for a second, or or
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I'll crash if I eat you know, a really starch
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heavy meal. That's bloods your instability. Well, if you're a
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conventional doc, I was trained. You get a fasting blood
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sugar and if it's normal, meaning it's under one hundred,
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the patient's good. And so even though this person feels crappy,
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you've just told them that they're okay. Well, I would
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look at the fasting glucose and what's called a hemoglobin
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a one c. That's a three month average blood sugar,
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and I would also get a fasting insulin. All right,
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That paints a different picture because in somebody with hypoglycemia
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who feels the way I just described, their fasting gluecase
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might be fine in the nineties, perfectly, okay, Their hemoglobin
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A one c might be way down at the bottom
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the normal range, like four point eight. Well, okay, if
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they're normal, if they're fasting glucose is on the higher
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end of the normal range, how do you end up
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with an average that is that much lower. Well, that
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kind of, by definition is hypo glycemia, and that matches
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with how the patient feels. And so the person is
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not only validated because you know how many people come
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to me going I feel like crap, and my doc
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keeps telling me I'm okay because they just didn't ask
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the right questions. But it also lets me then monitor
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over time as we go to fix the problem. Are
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those numbers matching up.
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And talk it does well, I'm living. I'm living that
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story you just talked about. I also love for you
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to talk a little bit more about adrenals, particularly how
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stress is impacted our adrenal system.
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Okay, we're going to talk about how stressed not only
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impacts the adrenals, but also how that impacts all of
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our health. Like I said, all of us. I mean,
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you know, we have a crazy society where we all
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live way too fast, in sympathetic overdrive all the time.
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And there was a time where we could kind of
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deal with it and it wouldn't really bother us all
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that much, most of us. But in the past few years,
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I mean, I think it kind of started during quarantine.
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We all lost our resiliency. So now when we live
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these crazy busy lives, our adrenals are trying to do
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the fight and flight reaction day in and day out,
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and that becomes very dysfunctional. I mean, cortisol is a
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good thing. You need it to get out of an emergency,
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you need it to get up in the morning, but
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the fight and flight reaction is only supposed to last
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this long. It's not supposed to be every day. So
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if you're asking your adrenals to pour out this adrenaline
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cortisol all the time, they'll do it. But in order
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to do that, their function becomes abnormal. Because this other
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hormone that's supposed to balance you out, called dha. Dha
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keeps you calm and happy during the emergency, well they run.
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You can't do both.
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So if the cornisol is really high, your DHA gets
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lower and lower and lower, and so that starts messing
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things up. So the adrenals get tired, and you can
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go from you know, all the way to being overly
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active to limping along barely able to make any cortisol.
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Now over time, that starts messing with almost almost everything
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in our body. Because think about it, our adrenals only
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have one real job, and that's to keep you alive.
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That's kind of an important job. So they get to
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interfere with pretty much anything they want to. For instance,
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they will tell your insulin, hey, listen, we're running away
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from the tiger right now. I don't know when I'm
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gonna eat again, so I'm gonna block you because I
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actually need this glucose because I don't know when I'm
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gonna run against, so I'm what I'm gonna eat against.
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So it'll block the insulin and that throws off your
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glucose metabolism and it either makes you initially hypoglycemic and
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then eventually, you know, could lead to diabetes because it
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doesn't know your adrenals don't know you're going to do
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this for the next you know, ten years. They think
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you're gonna do it for five minutes. They will mess
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with your sleep because you know, if there's an emergency,
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your body doesn't want you in a deep dark sleep.
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It wants you sort of you know, one ear open
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just in case. It'll make you live in your mid
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brain too much. Our mid brain does emergencies. Our mid
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brain is really good at getting us out of trouble,
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but it doesn't remember things because that's not its job.
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So that's why when people are really stressed out, they
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start getting that weird brain fog and they can't remember anything,
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like even as something as simple as where gonna put
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my car keys? And oh, dang, I just met this
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woman last week.
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What is her name? Yeah? Or why am I in
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this room? What did I come here for.
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You walk in well, and it also makes you really distractable.
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So when if you realize that you can't stay focused
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on anything, that's almost always an adrenal thing because think
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about it, the amygdala, the mid brain, the emergency brain
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doesn't want you focused on one thing. It wants you
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scanning the horizon all the time for the next emergency.
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So you walk into a room to do something, you
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don't get around to doing that. You get you notice
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something else, so you do that and then that sents
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you to another room and you do that, and you
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do that, and you do that, and you never did
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do the first thing. Yeah, boy, you're describing a.
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Lot of my life.
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Well not just you, I think it's a lot of us. Yeah.
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Well, I'd love for you to share. I mean, you
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have so many tools and perspectives in your toolkit that
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are is so so interesting. But you know, beyond supplements,
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I'd love for you to talk about, like particularly around
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managing cortisol and the stress response. I'd love for you
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to talk about some ideas you have and some results
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you've seen.
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Okay, I do always use some kind of supplements. There's
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a whole category of herbs called adaptogens. They are very helpful,
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and I honestly think at this point I don't know
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a single person who couldn't benefit from some adaptogens.
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However, I always couch it.
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In these terms. You've got to remember they're just herbs.
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So if you're taking herbs to support your adrenals, but
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you're still living your life like a tiger's chasing you,
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the tiger's going to win. So it's our job to
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constantly tell our adreanals we're fine, you can settle down. Yes,
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we have a problem. It is not life threatening now.
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I sort of figured this out really early on in
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my own career about how much adrenals are going to
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bother me, and it's relatively.
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I don't know.
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It's an interesting story, I think, because I don't know.
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I was thirty two or thirty three. I was a
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conventional lobgyn. I'm sitting in the delivery room at three
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or four in the morning and talking to the night nurses,
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waiting on a baby to show up, And honestly, we
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were gossiping about some of my older colleagues who were
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about ten years older, so they'd been doing this longer,
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and they were all getting sick now the guy who
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wait donuts all the time. We expected him to get diabetes. Yeah, okay, fine,
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But there were two guys that were athletes. One was
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a runner, run was a cyclist. They ate well, I
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mean I saw them they I saw him eating lunch
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and dinner in the delivery room. And despite that, one
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got hypertension anyway, and the other one got an autoimmune
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disorder and became an insomniac. Now obstentricians canna sleep anywhere,
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So that was like really weird, and we're sitting around
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talking about how how weird it was because these guys
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appeared to be doing a pretty good job taking care
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of themselves, and all of a sudden, this light bulb
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went off and I went, oh, guys, it's this and
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the nurses went, what do you mean? I went, we're
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awake at three in the morning all the time. That
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makes our body think there's a problem because we should
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be asleep. And it was all those emergencies that we
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dealt with in the delivery room and in the operating
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room and in the er and will I'm the first
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one to admit I was an adrenaline junkie. That was
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the fun part of my job because I always used
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to say, well, you know, if a baby's going to
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come out easy, you don't even need me.
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Cabby can do that.
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So that's when I had this light bulb moment when
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I went, oh, I really love this work and it's
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going to make me sick.
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In ten years.
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So I don't want that to happen. So I had
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to go do some research because unfortunately they never really
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talked to you much in med school about a dreanmal function.
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So I had to go find how can I fix this?
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And it turns out the sign it shows two things.
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Our adrenal glands want to see a quiet brain on
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a regular basis. Now, I don't know anybody who does
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that unless.
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That's not normal.
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That's not normal for humans, right, we have to go
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like do it on purpose. So that's any kind of
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meditative technique, you know, seated meditation I did. I did
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seeded meditation alone for a long time. Honestly, in the
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past few years. That is more difficult for me now
385
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I can't stay focused as easily. So I've added in
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a practice called chigong, which is a part of Chinese medicine.
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Actually it's like a moving meditation, and I also ran
388
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across the research for the Institute of Heart Math. Now,
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the Institute of Heart Math has been looking at this
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for I don't know thirty years. How are yes, Our
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adrenals respond to what the brain says, but the brain
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determines our safety based on our emotions. And what it
393
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comes down to is every single negative emotion gets interpreted
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as crap, we're in trouble, and it tells the adrenals
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to stay turned on. Okay, anger and fear, you need
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00:24:11.799 --> 00:24:13.720
to do the fight and flight reaction. That makes sense.
397
00:24:14.640 --> 00:24:20.039
But it's every negative emotion, anger and fear, and pain
398
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and sadness and worry and brain chatter. Because brain chatter,
399
00:24:24.839 --> 00:24:26.799
even though we're all kind of used to it, it
400
00:24:26.839 --> 00:24:31.480
looks to our body like anxiety. So I mean, imagine,
401
00:24:32.000 --> 00:24:34.759
think of your adrenals sort of watching you, going Okay,
402
00:24:34.920 --> 00:24:38.440
I don't see a tiger, but she's still planning things
403
00:24:38.720 --> 00:24:41.799
and she's still worried about stuff, so there must be
404
00:24:41.839 --> 00:24:44.079
something going on. So they'll just stay turned on if
405
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you do a lot of brain chatter. Now, the good
406
00:24:48.039 --> 00:24:51.079
news is what they found out is that positive emotions
407
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do the exact opposite. If your brain sees that you're
408
00:24:55.119 --> 00:25:00.880
feeling grateful and joyous and excited and happy. It's sort
409
00:25:00.880 --> 00:25:03.039
of figures there's no tiger back there, because who in
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their right mind would you feel good if they were
411
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still in trouble. So they took all that data they
412
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came up with these techniques that are kind of like
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a meditation, but the difference is instead of just trying
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to be quiet, you are actively creating a positive emotion
415
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on purpose, sort of in a ritualized way, because like
416
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you're hanging out in an old memory and you have
417
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to actually recreate the feelings. By the way, I did
418
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that entirely wrong. For the whole first year I taught
419
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myself how to do it. I thought I was doing
420
00:25:36.440 --> 00:25:40.319
it right. I was actually just thinking about positive emotions.
421
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I wasn't actually feeling positive emotions. It took me a
422
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little while to figure that part out. But they've shown,
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and they've over and over and over again, under lots
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and lots of different situations, you can get your adrenals
425
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back to normal doing their techniques correctly four to six months.
426
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Most people can get it under control if they actually
427
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do it, and if they do it correctly and they
428
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do it enough, it's a lot of variables.
429
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Well, the enough part I mean as a student to this.
430
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The way that I characterize is it sort of cuts
431
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the noise right down the middle and you're inserting a
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different like I use like an energy or frequency. You're
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changing the dynamics of what's going on in that circumstance.
434
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And sometimes when I'm doing it, I'll just start humming.
435
00:26:31.359 --> 00:26:33.319
I know it sounds weird, but I'll just start humming
436
00:26:33.759 --> 00:26:37.119
to get me into that space where like, remember a
437
00:26:37.160 --> 00:26:39.240
time when you felt happy, Remember a time when you
438
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felt relaxed, Remember the time you felt safe. Haven't mastered it,
439
00:26:42.880 --> 00:26:46.240
but that's how I I think just even the act
440
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of doing the breathing around it also is just it's
441
00:26:49.480 --> 00:26:52.200
like a quick way to get yourself in a different state.
442
00:26:53.160 --> 00:26:55.359
And if you're in a different state, you have more
443
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optionality you can start to do. I think these techniques
444
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in a really powerful way. I also am very curious,
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like what's the future of a functional medicine, Like, how
446
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is it going to play a bigger role in the
447
00:27:11.640 --> 00:27:14.319
world of medicine. From your vantage point.
448
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I'm hoping that, well, let's put this way, it's going
449
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to have to change from from the ground up. It
450
00:27:30.680 --> 00:27:33.680
is not going to change from the top down. Our
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00:27:33.720 --> 00:27:38.720
medical system is too entrenched in the whole concept of
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insurance providers and pharmaceuticals and all that kind of stuff.
453
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What I believe and what I'm finding more and more
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is that patients people are really disappointed in that system
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and they don't feel as though they're getting the kind
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of care that they really need, especially for long term
457
00:28:00.319 --> 00:28:06.279
chronic conditions, because the medicine I was taught is about
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fixing problems. It's not about helping people be healthy, and
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people would prefer many people, not everybody. Many people would
460
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prefer to learn how to be healthy and not have
461
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to deal with just well, let me play wax the mole,
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fix a problem, fix a problem, fix a problem. They're
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getting irritated with that. So I'm hoping that there will
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be enough groundswell from patient demand that it's going to work. Now,
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there's a couple of things that are on the horizon
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that I think eventually insurance providers are going to pay
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attention to. The VA, believe it or not, is already
468
00:28:54.359 --> 00:29:01.039
on board. The VA has been interested in integrative functional medicine,
469
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and they're a big proponent of heart math. By the way,
470
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because it makes sense to them. I mean, think about it.
471
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They have a mandate to take care of their soldiers
472
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and to get them back, you know, to function as
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quickly as possible, and they have a limited budget. So
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it's the limited budget that pushes them because they just
475
00:29:23.559 --> 00:29:28.000
want to know what works, and this kind of medicine
476
00:29:28.440 --> 00:29:31.720
works really well for chronic illness and it is a
477
00:29:31.759 --> 00:29:39.960
lot cheaper than conventional medicine. Now there's also Cleveland Clinic,
478
00:29:40.559 --> 00:29:45.599
really well known, big clinic. Right they have a functional
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00:29:45.680 --> 00:29:51.720
medicine department that was started by my friend Mark Hyman
480
00:29:51.799 --> 00:29:54.720
and Patrick Hanaway was one of the first medical directors,
481
00:29:55.440 --> 00:30:01.359
and they're gathering data to prove that for many different
482
00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:06.640
chronic illnesses they're not only at least as good as
483
00:30:06.720 --> 00:30:10.880
conventional medicine, but they often get better outcomes than conventional medicine.
484
00:30:10.960 --> 00:30:14.480
And they are saving the system a ton of money
485
00:30:15.319 --> 00:30:18.640
and they're getting hard data to prove this. So that
486
00:30:19.519 --> 00:30:25.640
Cleveland Clinic's on board. They have a huge backlog of
487
00:30:25.680 --> 00:30:28.720
people trying to get into that practice, into that part
488
00:30:28.759 --> 00:30:35.119
of Cleveland Clinic, and I think especially people who are
489
00:30:35.160 --> 00:30:40.920
self insured organizations like Cleveland Clinic I and other large organizations.
490
00:30:41.240 --> 00:30:44.119
If you have to pay for your own insurance. You
491
00:30:44.200 --> 00:30:47.599
want to spend your money and get the most bang
492
00:30:47.640 --> 00:30:51.640
for your buck. And I think for chronic illness this
493
00:30:51.880 --> 00:30:58.200
is as effective, more effective, and definitely cheaper. Now we
494
00:30:58.240 --> 00:31:03.480
still need conventional medicine. It does great for emergencies. I
495
00:31:03.480 --> 00:31:05.920
mean I was really glad eight or ten years ago
496
00:31:05.960 --> 00:31:08.200
when I fractured my ankle that I had an er
497
00:31:08.640 --> 00:31:13.039
with an X ray machine that could help me. You know,
498
00:31:13.880 --> 00:31:18.359
I wasn't gonna just just do acupuncture, right, I did
499
00:31:18.359 --> 00:31:24.079
that for recovery. So for the current conventional model, the
500
00:31:24.160 --> 00:31:28.359
current conventional medicine does really, really well for acute care medicine,
501
00:31:29.640 --> 00:31:32.400
but they don't do well with chronic illness. They just
502
00:31:32.400 --> 00:31:35.000
spend too much money for chronic illness because they're not
503
00:31:35.039 --> 00:31:36.119
getting to the heart of the manner.
504
00:31:37.000 --> 00:31:39.519
Do you find with your patient base that you have
505
00:31:39.599 --> 00:31:43.079
to collaborate with other doctors outside of this functional space.
506
00:31:44.119 --> 00:31:49.319
Yeah, And what sometimes happens is that the poor patient
507
00:31:49.599 --> 00:31:52.319
is stuck between two people that they trust and like
508
00:31:53.440 --> 00:31:56.359
who were telling them completely different things.
509
00:31:56.759 --> 00:31:57.640
Yeah.
510
00:31:57.680 --> 00:32:01.039
And I do apologize to patients for that all the time.
511
00:32:01.519 --> 00:32:04.799
But I can show them the research and I can
512
00:32:04.839 --> 00:32:07.480
walk them through the science and explain to them why
513
00:32:08.000 --> 00:32:12.079
my approach may make more sense and their other doc
514
00:32:12.559 --> 00:32:18.119
usually can't do that. I would love for you to
515
00:32:18.200 --> 00:32:24.720
share with us who do you follow, Like, who are the.
516
00:32:26.200 --> 00:32:32.240
Voices that inspire influence your thought or even the research bodies,
517
00:32:32.319 --> 00:32:39.599
and why do you follow them. I'm going to tell
518
00:32:39.640 --> 00:32:40.480
you two different things.
519
00:32:41.640 --> 00:32:44.319
I'm going to tell you the people that if this
520
00:32:44.440 --> 00:32:48.400
whole idea of integrated functional medicine is new and you
521
00:32:48.440 --> 00:32:50.720
want to learn about it, I can tell you the
522
00:32:50.720 --> 00:32:56.119
people you should follow. I mean, I kind of keep
523
00:32:56.160 --> 00:32:59.359
an eye on what they do. Mark Hyman is a
524
00:32:59.400 --> 00:33:03.039
well known name. Mark's been around a long time. He's
525
00:33:03.240 --> 00:33:06.640
been with functional medicine from the very beginning. He's got
526
00:33:06.640 --> 00:33:11.440
a gazillion books out there. He has done an excellent
527
00:33:11.599 --> 00:33:15.480
job of getting information out and explaining to the world
528
00:33:16.279 --> 00:33:19.359
what functional medicine is. And I will give him a
529
00:33:19.359 --> 00:33:24.640
lot of credit. He is currently working hard to change
530
00:33:24.880 --> 00:33:29.440
in Congress what we do with like the farm budget,
531
00:33:31.160 --> 00:33:35.119
because if we don't change the food system in this country,
532
00:33:35.960 --> 00:33:39.920
we'll never get well. So Mark, I'm is a good
533
00:33:39.920 --> 00:33:42.960
person to follow. The Institute for Functional Medicine has really
534
00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:52.240
good information on their social media all the time. The
535
00:33:52.319 --> 00:33:56.400
p LMI Personal Lifestyle I'm going to mess up their
536
00:33:56.519 --> 00:34:02.119
name Personal Lifestyle Institute, Personal Lifestyle Medicine Institute p LM
537
00:34:02.200 --> 00:34:05.880
I that was founded by Jeff Bland, who is the
538
00:34:05.960 --> 00:34:10.000
founder of Functional Medicine. It's an organization that is doing
539
00:34:10.079 --> 00:34:15.079
research and they also have like they basically get people
540
00:34:15.119 --> 00:34:18.559
together and share research. They have a cool conference every year,
541
00:34:18.760 --> 00:34:21.760
and their social media has got really good information on
542
00:34:21.800 --> 00:34:31.280
it as well. I am currently personally interested more and
543
00:34:31.320 --> 00:34:37.000
more in regenerative farming and how to get how to
544
00:34:37.119 --> 00:34:41.480
get our food system to change. So Mark's a big name,
545
00:34:41.519 --> 00:34:43.199
he can go talk to Congress. They don't want to
546
00:34:43.199 --> 00:34:47.480
talk to me. I want to go help my farm friends.
547
00:34:48.119 --> 00:34:52.599
I mean I live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, very close
548
00:34:52.639 --> 00:34:54.480
by is where all.
549
00:34:54.360 --> 00:34:55.119
The farms are.
550
00:34:56.880 --> 00:34:59.719
Ninety percent of the food that I ingest I know
551
00:34:59.760 --> 00:35:07.880
who raised it, wow, both animals and plants. And what
552
00:35:08.039 --> 00:35:10.119
makes me nervous, and what makes a lot of people
553
00:35:10.159 --> 00:35:14.079
nervous is that the average age of an American farmer
554
00:35:14.719 --> 00:35:18.760
is in there is in the fifties. We have to
555
00:35:18.840 --> 00:35:22.719
convince young people to farm.
556
00:35:22.800 --> 00:35:24.280
Who's going to do it right?
557
00:35:24.880 --> 00:35:28.960
And I'm interested in learning about people who have taken
558
00:35:30.239 --> 00:35:33.960
the idea of regenerative farming and putting it into a big,
559
00:35:34.039 --> 00:35:40.639
bigger scale to make it financially more important and more reasonable,
560
00:35:41.000 --> 00:35:45.199
because you know, most of our farmland, it's ridiculous what
561
00:35:45.199 --> 00:35:47.760
we do to that land. You know, we're doing monocultures
562
00:35:48.159 --> 00:35:53.760
that are unhealthy. So the Rodale Institute, which is not
563
00:35:53.840 --> 00:35:56.599
too far from me, about an hour north, they do
564
00:35:56.880 --> 00:36:01.400
a Regenerative Agriculture conference every year and it's next September.
565
00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:03.960
It's next month in September, and I'm going to that
566
00:36:04.519 --> 00:36:07.119
so I get to meet some folks who are doing
567
00:36:07.119 --> 00:36:09.400
this work and see how I can help get the
568
00:36:09.400 --> 00:36:09.760
word out.
569
00:36:11.000 --> 00:36:13.760
I love that. Well, now I want to talk about
570
00:36:13.840 --> 00:36:16.360
you and what you're working on, so we have to
571
00:36:16.360 --> 00:36:19.320
do a little revealing out of your own personal life.
572
00:36:19.360 --> 00:36:22.280
So like, from a health and well being perspective, what
573
00:36:22.280 --> 00:36:23.639
are you working on for yourself?
574
00:36:24.719 --> 00:36:29.360
Build and muscle? And I'm not happy about it. Yeah,
575
00:36:29.599 --> 00:36:41.079
So menopausal women lose muscle easily. And although I have
576
00:36:41.199 --> 00:36:46.599
been active all my life, strength training has never really
577
00:36:46.639 --> 00:36:48.639
been very high on my priority list. I did it
578
00:36:48.639 --> 00:36:51.519
when I was right out of residency because I was
579
00:36:51.559 --> 00:36:55.000
in such bad shape and I have to admit I was.
580
00:36:55.920 --> 00:36:59.679
I liked being strong, and I liked how I looked.
581
00:36:59.719 --> 00:37:03.199
I look awesome, But the reality was I was mostly
582
00:37:03.239 --> 00:37:05.679
hiding in the basement from my first husband because weren't
583
00:37:05.679 --> 00:37:07.760
getting along very well. So I kind of have this
584
00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:12.719
emotional thing about strength training. But I've been looking more
585
00:37:12.719 --> 00:37:15.960
and more at the research and on the appropriate way
586
00:37:16.719 --> 00:37:23.760
to gain muscle. It's all about lifting heavy things. Because
587
00:37:23.920 --> 00:37:26.760
you know, those of us of a certain age, remember how
588
00:37:26.760 --> 00:37:29.519
when we were younger, we were told, well, if you're
589
00:37:29.519 --> 00:37:32.639
going to exercise, do a lot of cardio because you'll
590
00:37:32.639 --> 00:37:34.840
burn off a lot of calories and you'll stay slender.
591
00:37:35.119 --> 00:37:38.119
And if you want to do weights, have them be
592
00:37:38.280 --> 00:37:42.039
small and do like ten thousand reps. Yep, Well that
593
00:37:42.159 --> 00:37:46.920
just doesn't work. If you're menopausal. Menopausal muscle and bone
594
00:37:47.199 --> 00:37:50.880
wants really heavy lifting. So I am working on that,
595
00:37:51.159 --> 00:37:55.079
and it's rocking my world. I'm not happy about it.
596
00:37:55.320 --> 00:37:58.199
Dead lifts, You're you're going to CrossFit or what.
597
00:37:58.719 --> 00:38:00.760
Well, right this minute, I'm still working from home to
598
00:38:00.760 --> 00:38:02.840
get ready to do that kind of stuff. No, CrossFit
599
00:38:02.880 --> 00:38:04.800
isn't even the right thing you have to do. There's
600
00:38:04.840 --> 00:38:08.480
a there's a doc she's an exercise physiologist who does
601
00:38:08.599 --> 00:38:09.400
research on women.
602
00:38:09.480 --> 00:38:10.000
Go figure.
603
00:38:10.920 --> 00:38:14.239
Her name is doctor Stacy Simms. She was a speaker
604
00:38:14.239 --> 00:38:17.360
at a conference that I organized this for Institute for
605
00:38:17.400 --> 00:38:22.000
Functional Medicine. Her research is amazing. I mean she has
606
00:38:22.079 --> 00:38:27.119
people doing very small number of lifts, but you're doing
607
00:38:27.199 --> 00:38:28.679
to eighty percent capacity.
608
00:38:29.239 --> 00:38:31.480
Wow, eighty percent.
609
00:38:31.559 --> 00:38:34.880
She goes when Yeah, she goes, basically, if you do
610
00:38:35.119 --> 00:38:42.079
eight reps knowing you could do two more with good form, Wow,
611
00:38:42.480 --> 00:38:46.800
very interesting. So as much as you can and then
612
00:38:46.840 --> 00:38:48.440
you just rest for a little while. And she goes,
613
00:38:48.519 --> 00:38:52.159
it's basically like hit. Like with cardio, you do really
614
00:38:52.280 --> 00:38:54.880
high intensity and but you don't have to do a
615
00:38:54.880 --> 00:38:56.599
whole lot of it. And she goes, and just think,
616
00:38:56.880 --> 00:39:00.840
when you get to that point, you're saving time. Yeah.
617
00:39:01.639 --> 00:39:04.800
I love this all right, So here's my last question.
618
00:39:05.239 --> 00:39:07.920
I want you to just take a step back and
619
00:39:08.119 --> 00:39:10.400
look out into the future. It's five to ten years
620
00:39:10.400 --> 00:39:14.480
from now. You know, what is doctor Wendy Warner doing
621
00:39:14.840 --> 00:39:16.559
and how are you having an impact?
622
00:39:17.360 --> 00:39:20.960
Okay, I'm gonna have to teach you that these kind
623
00:39:20.960 --> 00:39:27.000
of thoughts are silly. Because when I was thirty something,
624
00:39:27.960 --> 00:39:31.079
I sat down for the first time with a financial advisor,
625
00:39:31.440 --> 00:39:34.079
and they said, tell me where you're going to be
626
00:39:34.079 --> 00:39:39.159
in twenty years. I was one hundred percent sure. I
627
00:39:39.360 --> 00:39:44.559
was ninety nine percent wrong. I was in the same house,
628
00:39:46.559 --> 00:39:49.480
not married to the same person, not in the same job. So,
629
00:39:50.199 --> 00:39:53.039
cause you know, crap happens, all right, five to ten years.
630
00:39:53.519 --> 00:39:56.199
Five years, I'll probably be doing pretty much exactly what
631
00:39:56.280 --> 00:39:57.000
I'm doing right now.
632
00:39:57.679 --> 00:40:01.800
Ten years, I don't know.
633
00:40:02.440 --> 00:40:05.480
I don't know. I mean, I basically, you know, I
634
00:40:05.519 --> 00:40:07.360
spend part of my day. I spend a lot of
635
00:40:07.440 --> 00:40:09.760
my time seeing patients directly. I spend a lot of
636
00:40:09.760 --> 00:40:14.880
my time teaching. I imagine over time the proportion of
637
00:40:14.920 --> 00:40:17.119
that will change and I'll spend a lot more time
638
00:40:17.159 --> 00:40:23.519
teaching and writing and a lot less time seeing individual patients.
639
00:40:24.400 --> 00:40:28.039
I honestly don't see myself. My mom asked me this
640
00:40:28.159 --> 00:40:33.360
recently this summer, Are you planning on retiring at any point?
641
00:40:34.599 --> 00:40:38.639
And I like the way she worded that, at any point?
642
00:40:38.920 --> 00:40:42.000
Yeah, you know, I'm sixty four, so I'm starting to
643
00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:46.320
get that question a lot, and she's ninety six, and
644
00:40:46.360 --> 00:40:48.599
she just goes, I don't, I don't know, are you
645
00:40:48.679 --> 00:40:51.079
planning on doing it at any point? I go, I
646
00:40:51.119 --> 00:40:55.159
can't imagine not working now. I do want to learn
647
00:40:55.199 --> 00:40:57.559
to play a little more, and I don't want to
648
00:40:57.639 --> 00:41:00.039
work the way I always have in terms of the
649
00:41:00.119 --> 00:41:04.599
number of hours every week. But yeah, I can't imagine
650
00:41:04.639 --> 00:41:06.280
not at least still teaching.
651
00:41:08.320 --> 00:41:11.400
I'm so grateful that you are doing what you're doing
652
00:41:11.440 --> 00:41:14.159
in the world. And I mean, you've had such an
653
00:41:14.159 --> 00:41:17.280
impact on my life, and then I can have an
654
00:41:17.320 --> 00:41:20.199
impact in other people's lives. And I'm so so grateful
655
00:41:20.400 --> 00:41:22.519
that you shared all that you did here today, and
656
00:41:22.559 --> 00:41:26.159
I know that you have just helped numerous people just
657
00:41:26.239 --> 00:41:29.599
by what you shared in this conversation. So doctor Werner,
658
00:41:29.719 --> 00:41:30.400
so grateful.
659
00:41:30.960 --> 00:41:32.920
I thank you, And I want to say one thing.
660
00:41:34.440 --> 00:41:37.599
You're the kind of patient we all want because you
661
00:41:37.679 --> 00:41:43.440
are willing to go Okay, you're right, let me try this,
662
00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:46.679
as opposed to just immediately block block block. No, I'm
663
00:41:46.719 --> 00:41:47.760
not going to do it. No, I'm not going to
664
00:41:47.800 --> 00:41:52.079
do it even because if a patient doesn't want to change,
665
00:41:52.800 --> 00:41:54.800
I can have all of the tool I can offer
666
00:41:54.840 --> 00:41:56.800
all kinds of tools, but if the person doesn't want
667
00:41:56.800 --> 00:42:00.840
to change, I mean, you're a coach.
668
00:42:00.880 --> 00:42:06.519
You know how that goes? Yeah, yep, I agree, it is.
669
00:42:06.360 --> 00:42:08.960
It is it's not. It's as I said in the beginning,
670
00:42:08.960 --> 00:42:11.880
it's not a quick fix there is. It takes time,
671
00:42:12.079 --> 00:42:17.440
it takes revision, it takes measurement. But the way that
672
00:42:17.480 --> 00:42:20.280
I look at it is I want to live better,
673
00:42:20.400 --> 00:42:22.559
I want to do better, I want to feel good,
674
00:42:22.599 --> 00:42:24.920
I want to be happy. I'm not looking for the
675
00:42:24.960 --> 00:42:29.639
perfect experience, but there's so much to learn, and I've
676
00:42:29.679 --> 00:42:33.760
grown so much because of this experience, and so I'm
677
00:42:34.159 --> 00:42:37.840
thrilled to just bring your message to my world. Yeah.
678
00:42:37.920 --> 00:42:40.679
I think if people can just realize how much better
679
00:42:40.719 --> 00:42:44.679
they will feel emotionally and physically when they take better
680
00:42:44.719 --> 00:42:46.880
care of themselves, that's really.
681
00:42:46.639 --> 00:42:48.760
The only message I'm going to get across. Yeah, I
682
00:42:48.760 --> 00:42:51.960
love it. Thank you for joining me for another episode
683
00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:55.840
of the Warriors at Work Show. If you are interested
684
00:42:55.960 --> 00:42:58.920
in learning more about what we do at the Warriors
685
00:42:59.000 --> 00:43:02.159
at Work Show and platform, be sure to go over
686
00:43:02.199 --> 00:43:06.000
to my website, Genie Koomber and subscribe to my monthly
687
00:43:06.800 --> 00:43:10.639
Warrior Playbook newsletter. I share everything that I'm up to
688
00:43:10.760 --> 00:43:13.199
month by month, as well as some lessons and insights
689
00:43:13.280 --> 00:43:16.480
that I've learned. I'm also interested in hearing any feedback
690
00:43:16.519 --> 00:43:20.199
you have about this conversation or future topics, so reach
691
00:43:20.239 --> 00:43:24.519
out to me directly on JC at geniecoomber dot com
692
00:43:24.679 --> 00:43:28.360
or on LinkedIn. Be sure to tell your friends and
693
00:43:28.400 --> 00:43:33.719
your colleagues about this Warriors at Work Conversation, Subscribe, review
694
00:43:33.880 --> 00:43:36.519
and rate us. It's the best way to get this
695
00:43:36.639 --> 00:43:39.320
message out into the world. Be well,