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We're talking all about weight loss in this one, from calories to thyroid, to hormones, to testosterone, to insulin, to carbs, to fat, to protein, to ferritin, to cortisol, all of the factors that come into play when we're talking about weight.
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So many of you focus, and this is a fault of mine. So many of you focus on just thyroid, just testosterone. That's all I need. More medication and I'll lose weight or put me on terseptide. Put me on an injectable to make me lose weight. But you have to be doing all the things.
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Even Thyroid Fixer, the Mac Daddy supplement for weight loss, the one that increases the amount of fat that you are burning sitting on your couch watching Netflix, cannot overcome you shoving too many calories in your mouth, too much fat because you're doing a wackadoodle keto diet. It's not going to overcome you sitting around and not working out.
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And this is coming actually from personal experience. So within the last week, and all y'all know that I'm optimized, within the last week, I've put on some weight.
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Why? Because I've been eating way more and I'm in tune with myself. I know what my choices are. I know what my caloric intake is. I know how I feel when I take in more food. I know that my hunger has been increased and, you know, listen, your hunger can increase from hormonal shifts, hormonal changes. Yeah.
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Who knows why? But I know that mine has been increased. I know that I've been eating more. And I know the reason why I put on weight, but that made me sit back and think,
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How many people aren't in tune? How many people are moving through their day and they're not tracking their food? They're not tracking their calories. They're not tracking what they're putting in, in their minds, because I see this with my patients, in their minds, they think that they're doing just fine, that they're eating clean, that they're eating well, that they're staying in their caloric intake plan, right?
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And then they're not. And then you're not. When you start tracking and you write it down and you really pay attention and look, and I talk about this on the podcast, look at what you are taking in. It's eye-opening. So dive into this very brief, but very pointed topic-centered podcast on all about weight and weight loss.
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We're continuing on with our all about series talking today all about weight loss. And I know this is a big one, but I'm still going to try to keep this episode short and sweet. So we can just highlight all of the different points, all of the different factors that come into play when we're talking about weight.
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Now, we have to start where we always start, and that is the thyroid. Now, I'm not saying this because that's what I do. I'm not saying this because I'm the thyroid fixer. I'm saying this because the thyroid gland regulates your energy expenditure. It regulates your metabolism. Okay.
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Period. End of story. You have to start there. And in my opinion, if more doctors, if more of these bariatric weight loss centers were to focus on the thyroid first, we'd probably avoid a lot of surgeries gone wrong. A lot of bariatric surgeries, a lot of stomach shortening surgeries
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After a person goes through years of misery, not being able to eat large quantity of food, battling heartburn, all kinds of issues that I've heard ad nauseum from my patients who have gotten one of these surgeries in an attempt to lose weight, we'd avoid a lot.
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if we did things the right way and looked at the thyroid gland first, making sure that that is optimal. If that's not optimal, if your reverse T3 is high, I'll say this in every episode that the thyroid gland comes into play, whether fatigued, weight loss, whatever topic we are talking about, when you start with the master gland that literally has control over your body,
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and regulates whether or not you're going to lose weight, it would be a no brainer. It makes no sense to not start there. So we start with the thyroid gland that regulates your metabolism. And when that is off, when reverse T3 is high, your body's in a shut down survival mode.
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When free T3, your active thyroid hormone that gets to the cell, that gives you energy, that produces ATP at the cell level, that gives you that metabolism, the ability to burn body fat, that regulates body temperature.
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When that is low, you're done, you're screwed. You will have no metabolism. You will have all the signs and symptoms of hypothyroidism and you will have no metabolism. So that means that you are either not losing weight despite all of the other things that you're doing, which we're going to go over today, or you are literally gaining weight while barely eating anything. That's why we start with the thyroid.
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Next up, sex hormones, testosterone. Testosterone regulates body composition. Lean muscle mass is more metabolically active. So when you have more lean muscle mass, i.e. muscle, lean body mass, you are going to be at an advantage for burning fat.
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You're going to have a better body composition because having that lean, sexy muscle just looks better than having squishy white fat all over your body. So better body comp, better longevity, better protection of your bones.
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more control over your insulin because having more lean muscle mass actually helps with insulin resistance. That'll come up next in our list. But we need that testosterone component to be optimal in order for you to be able to burn stored body fat and to actually build...
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and produce hypertrophy of the lean muscle mass that you have when you activate it. So that means when you're actually taking the time and making the effort to go to the gym, to lift heavy shit, to do some kind of workout, to activate the muscles, then those muscles will break down. That's what we want them to do, break down and then rebuild. And in that rebuilding phase, that's where hypertrophy comes in and we get that slow growth of the muscle.
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Those muscle fibers expand, they take up nutrients, they take up protein that you need. And that is what produces that better shape, better strength, better protection of your bones, all over better metabolism. But you need testosterone for that. Next up, we have insulin. So I don't know how many times we have to talk about this.
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Insulin resistance is so prevalent, so prevalent, especially in this country. We are an just obese society. And I challenge you, go to Disney World, go to an amusement park, go to Walmart, go to a grocery store, go to a restaurant and observe. Just sit there and observe all the people around you.
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Sometimes my family and I would play a game. We would play the game of count the fit people. And I don't mean the 20-year-old skinny mini that she's just lucky she still has a metabolism. She hasn't had a kid yet. Her hormones are still okay. I mean the honest-to-God fit people. Maybe we should put a cutoff. You have to pick somebody 35 and up.
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that is actually in shape, that actually looks like they're healthy, that they take care of themselves. It's very rare. You can usually count them on one hand. We are an incredibly obese society because of what we eat. And yes, there are those other two factors that we just talked about.
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with testosterone, with thyroid problems, 100%. And sometimes weight is not a behavioral issue. It literally is a metabolism issue. But insulin resistance, if it's not due to the thyroid being thrown off, thyroid is off, insulin signaling will be off. This is where I see insulin resistance in my carnivore and keto people.
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because they have no control over that insulin signaling, majority is what we put in our mouth. The types of food that we are choosing, be it the high carb process garbage box food on the shelves,
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to eating out more often and not having control over what goes into your food, the type of oil that they're using, the PUFAs that actually contribute to insulin resistance, or it's just a large amount of glucose that we're eating in the form of high fructose corn syrup hidden in our food and fructose itself in the form of sugar, in the form of fruit. Fructose is fruit, it's the fruit sugar.
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And yes, it's nature is candy, but it's exactly that. It's candy. And we all tend to over consume fruit because we have it in our minds. Hey, it's healthy. It's an antioxidant. We've been told since we were wee little that fruit is good for us, but fruit is a sugar and it's going to be broken down by our body like any other O's, like glucose, right?
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It's going to be broken down like an Ose. And in that chemical breakdown for your body to utilize that for fuel, because all the food that we eat is energy. Calories that we're going to talk about soon. Calories are a form of, they're just a measurement of energy. So all of the food that we eat has energy.
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And it provides us energy. But the question is, what does that food contain macronutrient wise? What does that food contain chemical wise? What is its predominant macronutrient? And how does that react in our body? So when we're eating fruit, it's an Ose. And our body knows that it has to pump out more insulin from the pancreas.
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It needs that insulin to take care of the sugar, to utilize that sugar, to break it down, to shuttle it where it needs to go and to put some in adipose tissue into storage as well. Now, fat, dietary fat does get stored in adipose tissue, but it's in relation to the other macronutrients that we're eating with it and that our body is really taking in in that day.
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So if you are, let's say you're on a ketogenic diet. Now, even on a ketogenic diet, I never, ever, ever recommend consuming as much fat as possible. And that's why I keep saying I will write this book one day. Somebody's probably going to beat me to it as I say this out loud. The Polito Diet. You know what? Maybe I will trademark that. Yeah.
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The Polito diet, blending paleo and keto so that you're not using the ketogenic diet to literally eat as much bacon and pork rinds and cheese and heavy whipping cream that you possibly can consume because you can go overboard with fat.
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And that will cause weight gain. Dietary fat is most of the time stored as fat unless it's combined with a low carb diet. And then your body shifts into what we call ketosis, hence the ketogenic diet. And it starts burning ketones and fat for fuel, the dietary fat that you're eating, as well as the fat on your body, instead of glucose. Glucose.
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Our bodies will burn glucose first all the time. Your glycogen stores get filled every time you eat sugar, every time you eat carbohydrates, every time you eat fruit in the form of fructose. It will fill those glycogen stores. Your body will tap into those glycogen stores during a workout or sitting at your desk using your brain.
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Our brain uses glucose, our bodies use glucose. And once that glucose is used up, now it switches over. Now it uses that alternative fuel, ketones,
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And it will start burning our own body fat to produce those ketones for fuel. Now, some of you do have a fatty liver. That's a whole nother story where the body starts tapping into the liver glucose stores because fatty liver is actually not, I mean, it's fat, but it's because you're eating too much glucose. You're either drinking too much alcohol or you're eating too much sugar. And it's literally being stored in your liver and weighing it down.
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So that's another topic for another day. Yes, that is a possibility that the body could tap into that. But in general, the body will utilize stored body fat and produce ketones for fuel. That's why we really want to look at the macronutrients that we're taking in, in addition to the calories, but we ultimately want to reduce, we'll get to that. We ultimately want to reduce our insulin resistance. We want to become insulin sensitive.
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meaning that when we do eat a few more carbohydrates, when we have that piece of watermelon and the corn on the cob at the summer picnic that we just want to enjoy, our bodies don't freak out and go into this fat storage mode. Our bodies can actually be sensitive to the insulin that our pancreas is putting out
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in order to take care of the carbohydrates that we're eating, to break that food down, to shuttle it where it needs to be shuttled, to lower the body's glucose number. That's what insulin does. So that we're not walking around with high glucose all day. We want to become insulin sensitive. When you are insulin resistant, you're going to be able to do that.
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meaning that fasting insulin above a six, I've gone over this in other episodes, A1C above a 5.2, fasting glucose, we want that below a 90, really closer to around 86. Every point above that is a 13% increase risk of type two diabetes, that's your fasting glucose. We want all that to be in alignment so that we're not insulin resistant. If we are insulin resistant, we are more apt to store body fat.
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and to not be able to tap into our own body fat for fuel. Other things that come into play before we get into calories and actually food. Other things that do come into play, and they're kind of tied together. When we're under large amounts of stress and our adrenal glands are pumping out cortisol, that high cortisol state,
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will increase glucose. We just talked about that. So with that high glucose all the time, let's say you're pumping out that glucose, that high glucose all throughout the day, then you're naturally going to be more in a fat storage mode. High amounts of stress will absolutely pack on the pounds. I mean, even think about when you take prednisone.
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And I guess, I mean, we could go down that rabbit hole of medications too and how medications can contribute to weight gain and the inability to lose weight. We see that with antidepressants. Those are big ones. We definitely see it with prednisone. That's what I was kind of transitioning into talking about the adrenals. Prednisone is probably one of the most evil medications out there.
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So very effective at lowering inflammation. So there was a time where I had a horrific sinus infection. Literally could not breathe out of my nose. I was mouth breathing the whole time. And you know, that gets old. You start to gag. You can't get air in through your nose. It was horrible. It was like my nose...
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had swollen shut. And the only thing that gave me relief was prednisone. Taking two days of prednisone, I put on 10 pounds that I could not take off for about two months. I have other patients who've been put on prednisone for whatever, usually some type of infection.
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It's supposed to be used short-term. If you are on long-term prednisone, you got way more issues that we need to take care of. I mean, that's basically shutting down your adrenals. You're walking around in a high glucose state all the time. You're going to just pack on the pounds. It won't leave for years. That's another topic. Even short-term use of prednisone. I have patients that feel miserable.
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It dropped their immune system. It kicked up other autoimmune conditions. It caused EBV to go active.
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It caused anxiety, agitation, insomnia, and yes, weight gain that they now cannot take off. And I don't really have a good answer as to how to overcome prednisone's effect on the body. There's not a magic pill to rid your body of the horrific effects of prednisone. There just isn't. I'm kind of tying this back to being under stress all the time. If you are under that constant stress,
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your body will shut down its fat burning. It will shut it down. Also remember that our bodies are smarter than we are. So whenever we are in a survival state and you might not think it's survival state, you're just like, I'm just dealing with BS at work and I got kids that are...
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needing to be taken to soccer and dance and football and gymnastics. And I need to be five different places at one time. And I still need to pay the bills and I got to go grocery shopping. All of that is daily stress.
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that absolutely can put your body into survival mode because your body knows that you are trying to multitask. You're trying to do all these things. You have things on your mind that are contributing to your adrenals, pumping out more cortisol.
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It's that low-grade constant stress. Or it can be chemical stress. It can be environmental stress. It can be the chemicals that you're exposed to. It can be that you're living in a moldy home. You're working in a moldy environment. Maybe you, and I've said this before in a past episode, maybe you got something, one of the bioweapons that was put out in the last couple of years, and that is burdening your body. I'm seeing it over and over again with weight.
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literally putting the body in a shutdown mode to where it cannot release its own stored fat. It can't, it won't with everything else being perfect. Thyroid is perfect. Insulin is perfect. Testosterone is perfect. Sex hormones are perfect. That stress on the body, that burden on the body
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won't allow it to release. And it's the same thing I said with prednisone. I don't have an answer as to how to rid the body of something that we put in it that is now locking it down. I think in those cases, all you can do is keep going. All you can do is keep doing the things that you know contribute or don't do the things that contribute, do the things that will help.
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like optimize your thyroid, like get your insulin under control, like optimize your testosterone, optimize your hormones, and keep your diet in check. Don't put anything in your body or on your body that is an additional toxic burden.
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And that might mean springing for the organic fruits and vegetables and buying the grass-fed, no hormones injected into it meat and staying away from restaurants and staying away from processed foods. Yeah, you might have to do that for a while just to support and love on your body as your body detoxes. The other big factor, again, before we get to...
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calories is your liver. When your liver is burdened, the liver controls, and I have a separate podcast for this, all about the liver. The liver controls all metabolic processes in the body. If that is burdened, and I don't mean fatty liver, I mean, when we're looking at that alkaline phosphatase, ALT, AST, if those numbers are a little bit off,
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ALKFOS below a 60, ALT, AST, really high teens, low 20s, anything outside of that, your liver needs some love. Your liver needs some support. That's why I put on liver fixer, right? Thyroid, that's where I put on thyroid fixer, T2, because that will increase your base of metabolic rate. There are things that we can do to address all of these different points that
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but they all have to be done together. You can't do one without the other. We can't just throw on thyroid fixer and you be on T4 only, and nobody's helping you with your elevated reverse T3, and nobody's helping you with your low free T3 and elevated reverse T3, right? We can't just do that. We can't just support the liver, and here you are walking around with insulin resistance.
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We can't just do one thing without doing the other things. We have to do it all together. The liver is a factor in weight. Low ferritin, a factor in weight. Low ferritin will mimic hypothyroid symptoms. I have a whole other podcast on this. Mimic hypothyroid symptoms and will actually contribute to weight gain and the inability to lose weight. Okay.
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So we're going to move into diet here. And yeah, okay, there might be some points that I missed, but I'm really trying to keep this concise and to the point. These are the things that I talk to my patients all the time about. All of these factors. This is what we have to look at. As we move into the food component, I've touched on it throughout, but let's really focus on it now. I talked about calories. Is a calorie a calorie? That is a big, big, big debate in this space.
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I've had Dr. Elaine Norton on. He's gone into the biochemical, the biology, the ins and outs of how the body utilizes calories. And yes, I do agree with him that if you consume more calories, units of energy, than your body can utilize calories.
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It will store. And it doesn't matter if all of those calories are in the form of meat and you're a carnivore. It does not matter. And that is where the ketogenic diet goes wrong. And that is why you hear people say, I did a keto diet and I gained weight.
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It's because they are consuming way more calories in the form of fat because fat has nine calories per gram where protein and carbohydrates have four calories per gram. They consume so much fat. Their calories are through the roof. They're taking in 3,000, 4,000 calories a day.
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or maybe even 2,500 calories a day, and that's too much for their lifestyle, for their amount of activity, for the amount of calories that their body burns. Yeah, that will absolutely lay down body fat. It doesn't matter the combination of macronutrients that you're eating, you're taking in more calories. Now, the flip side of that is, I can also at the same time, and this is why it really is a kind of a dual-sided argument,
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At the same time, let's say that you are expending and we can measure this. You're expending...
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2000 calories a day, and you're looking to lose weight. So you consume 1800 calories a day or 15, let's go 15, 1500. So a 500 calorie deficit per day to equal one pound, 3,500 calories, which is one pound of body fat loss, body weight, body fat loss at the end of the week.
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But those 1500 calories, we have to look at the breakdown. So if those 1500 calories are in the form of high carbohydrate foods, you're eating your breads and your pastas and very low protein intake, the majority is high carb.
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and you're spiking your insulin, you are increasing your blood glucose level, you're putting your body into a state of insulin resistance that we talked about earlier. Insulin resistance is mostly what you put in your mouth. So if you are consuming that, but you stop at 1500 calories, yes, you're still at a deficit. Yes, it can be argued that
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Really the first couple of weeks, you should notice weight loss because of the caloric deficit. That's why all diets work in the beginning. All calorie deficit diets will work. But then the question becomes, what is it doing to your body long term? What state is it putting your body in?
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So those high carbohydrates that we know have an impact on insulin, the pancreas pumps out insulin over and over and over again. Eventually gets tired. You start moving into insulin resistance. Now the body can't tap into its own fat stores for fuel. We keep adding to the stores.
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and the body moves closer and closer to type 2 diabetes, where it can't even regulate its own insulin, yes, it doesn't matter that you were in a caloric deficit. The food that you chose to eat put you into a state where your body can no longer handle it. And you are insulin resistant, and now you are a fat store, not a fat burner.
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But at the same time, if you went into that caloric deficit with a proper balance where you had really good high quality protein, which does have a slightly more thermic effect
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So TEF, thermic effect of food. Protein has a little bit more to it. Now you can overeat protein 100%. We can get into the gluconeogenesis aspect where protein can absolutely be converted over into glucose, sores glucose. But if you have that balance and you have really good quality protein and a decent amount, an average amount of good high quality fats, you're staying away from the PUFAs.
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and you have a focus of carbohydrates on real food, vegetables, and some sweet potatoes, maybe even a little dark chocolate, then your body can utilize those macronutrients because they are in balance. They're not processed. You're not putting a bunch of chemicals into your body.
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then your body can utilize that food and yes, enjoy the caloric deficit to burn stored body fat so you can drop weight and not have a negative impact on your overall health and state of your body and how it uses food.
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So hopefully that makes sense. The breakdown of food, the macronutrient breakdown, absolutely 100% matters. It matters. Calories matter, but so does the type of food. That matters as well. Now we can go the other way and we can eat too little. And yes, the starvation mode that you heard about in the 90s is real. Right?
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I've known many people do completely destroy their metabolisms and it can take years to come back, years and years to come back. When we consistently eat too little calories, so I'm not talking about a 500 calorie deficit, a 200 calorie deficit. I'm talking about these people that go on the HCG diet or you were crazy like I was, although I never went into total starvation. I'm gonna say that.
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When we were competing, we definitely dropped our calories, but I knew some trainers that would put these girls on like 800 calories a day. It was insane. And they wonder why they gained 40 pounds after they stopped dieting for the show. After the show was done and they stepped off stage.
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I could literally see this in the gym. All of these girls that just competed and you're looking at them when they're doing the posing practice and they look so good and they're in their bikinis and you're like, oh, damn, I want to look like that. Ballooned up to become unrecognizable in three weeks after the show. I'm talking easily 30, 40 pounds on some of these girls.
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And the guys would be like 50 pounds heavier. So yes, that starvation mode that our body goes into when we starve ourselves, when we don't eat enough calories, that alone will shut down your metabolism. It's like it down-regulates the metabolism. So actually it could be argued that you're better off overeating because your body's metabolism will eventually ramp up.
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to whatever those calories are that you're taking in. So let's say you're taking in 2,500 calories, 3,000 calories, you might gain weight at first, but you'll eventually balance out provided that you have a good thyroid function to have a normal regulation of your metabolism. It'll eventually amp up to meet those calories that you're taking in. So your body's burning, the body's furnace will actually amp up a couple of notches.
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Same way it will drop down a few notches if you're not taking in enough calories. Starvation doesn't work. I know many of you try it because you're desperate, because you're in this state of, I can't do this anymore. There's nothing I can eat. That is going to come back to your thyroid and your hormones. That's what you need to get under control so that you don't have to starve yourself in a desperate attempt to lose weight.
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That is weight loss as a big overview. The all about weight loss overview. Like I said, we could nitpick and get into medications. We could get into, oh gosh, we could go down so many rabbit holes of different types of diet, food combining, genetics, right?
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But as an overview for most of you, I'm going to say 98% of you will fit into this episode, will resonate with this episode, will be able to check the boxes,
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of this episode and say, okay, I think I know what I'm doing right or wrong for my body. Now, of course we didn't get into, because I have other episodes on this. We didn't get into the importance of protein. We didn't get into the types of fat. There's a whole other episode on that and the PUFAs. We didn't get into the specific macronutrients.
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But I think in general, if we say eat real food, nothing boxed, get in decent amount of protein, one gram per pound of lean body mass. And you can figure that out by just saying, what do I want to weigh? What is my happy weight? That's probably around the grams of protein that you need to take in. Now, I get it if you're walking around at 250 and your happy weight is 200, but
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Okay, maybe dial that back to like 180. You might not need 200 grams of protein. But again, this is the in general rule. In general. In general, we are covering things that are all about weight. Now, the things that you can do, get your thyroid under control, get your testosterone optimized, get your insulin under control, use berberine for that. So I have blood sugar fixer.
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Help your liver process all things. Support your liver. Make sure your ferritin isn't in the tank. Make sure your basic nutrients and minerals aren't in the tank either. Because again, that's another rabbit hole that we could go down. I mean, we could make this episode four hours. We could go down so many scientific holes. It would drive everybody crazy. Yeah.
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Maybe Huberman and I can do this, right? He's into like the two, three hour episodes, which I'm down with. I mean, Andrew, if you want to jam on this, let's do it. I wanted to keep this one short for you. Really nice and short. That's what these all about episodes are about so that you can just listen and go through your mind and check this box, check this box, check this box, check this box.
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Okay, maybe I'm not doing this one thing here. Maybe I'm not doing this over here. And that's why I'm stuck. Oh my gosh, I can't let you go without talking about exercise though. Movement, it kind of ties into calories, calories.
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And yet it doesn't. It kind of ties into the testosterone piece in the beginning, lean muscle mass, increasing your metabolism. Yes. So when we're talking about exercise, any form of movement is good. At the end of the day, I want you doing something that brings you joy.
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But, right, and there's always the but, there's always the flip side. If you're just walking, probably not going to change your body composition that much. Now, walking will lower insulin. Studies have shown that just taking a walk after dinner significantly improves your glucose control and lowers your insulin.
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That is fine. That is great. And physically, if that's all you're able to do, that's fine. If you are in a wheelchair and you can only do upper body movements, that's fine. But I would still argue, lift some weights, build that upper body muscle mass so that you are more metabolically active, so that you are changing your body composition. I would still argue that.
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Sometimes those basic things that we go, you know, kudos, you're at least moving and you're walking. You might need more than that. You might need more. You might need to gradually add in some weight training, even if it's hand weights, even if you're starting with the machines or a body pump class or simple body weight exercises like pushups or yoga, where you are activating exercise.
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your body, you're going down into a low pushup, even if that's on your knees to start and you're gradually building up that strength.
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My point is with movement, with exercise, yes, in a perfect world, I would have all of you lifting heavy shit to change that body composition. But we have to look at the abilities of everyone. So now if you're just walking as an excuse because you're not motivated enough to go pick up a weight or go to the gym or work out in your garage, then no, shame on you. Too bad, so sad. I have no pity. Okay.
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You need to be doing more, period. But if you're just walking because literally you have injuries and that's all you can do, I would still encourage you, let's do some PT if you haven't yet. Let's get a physical trainer. What do they call it? Physical therapist. Let's get a physical therapist or a personal trainer, either one, PT, PT, and
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to work with you to activate the muscles that maybe surround that injury so that we can reduce the pain. Let's work those muscles that are not around the injury so that you can build those up while maybe protecting the area that is injured.
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So if you have a low back injury, why can't you do upper body? Why can't you do some bicep curls, some shoulder presses, even some lat pulldowns, wear a brace, you know, get that shit fixed, throw in some stem cells, do some PRP. Let's get you better so that you can progress in your activity level because movement is life. Movement is life.
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So without that movement, we shrivel. Then we start breaking bones. Then we have more diseases stack on and pile on. Stay active, doing whatever you need to do to stay active.
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Get yourself up and going. And if you're injured, let's do something about it so that we can get some movement, get some activity in to increase the amount of calories that we're burning, to increase our muscle mass, our lean muscle mass, which is more metabolically active. And then that movement actually has an effect on our hormones, right?
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Because after you lift heavy, your testosterone increases, as does your growth hormone. That's going to come back and help you with weight loss. When we exercise, I already talked about going for a walk. Something as simple as that improves insulin sensitivity. Doing things like yoga and deep breathing not only activates muscle, but decreases cortisol and improves our body's stress response.
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So that's why movement is very, very key. Could be called the cornerstone, really. I don't know. Food though. Yeah. What we put in our mouth is way more important than movement, but it all ties together.
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There's a lot of equal weight here with movement and food and hormone balance. And that's why we have to check all the boxes when we're talking all about weight and weight loss. Hey, guys, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. I hope you loved it. And as always, if you would be so kind to leave a review, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts,
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That would be absolutely amazing. I read all of them. Also, anything that you hear on this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any kind of medical condition. So we always recommend that you check with your medical provider, your doctor, your nurse practitioner before implementing anything that you hear on this podcast.
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And if you want to find out more about working together, you can click the link below in the show notes to book a discovery call. And there you'll be talking to a member of my team. They are an extension of me. They're amazing. And you and I will talk after that. Once we get you all signed up and you and I get to work together. All right. I hope to see you soon.
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We're talking all about weight loss in this one, from calories to thyroid, to hormones, to testosterone, to insulin, to carbs, to fat, to protein, to ferritin, to cortisol, all of the factors that come into play when we're talking about weight.
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So many of you focus, and this is a fault of mine. So many of you focus on just thyroid, just testosterone. That's all I need. More medication and I'll lose weight or put me on terseptide. Put me on an injectable to make me lose weight. But you have to be doing all the things.
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Even Thyroid Fixer, the Mac Daddy supplement for weight loss, the one that increases the amount of fat that you are burning sitting on your couch watching Netflix, cannot overcome you shoving too many calories in your mouth, too much fat because you're doing a wackadoodle keto diet. It's not going to overcome you sitting around and not working out.
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And this is coming actually from personal experience. So within the last week, and all y'all know that I'm optimized, within the last week, I've put on some weight.
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Why? Because I've been eating way more and I'm in tune with myself. I know what my choices are. I know what my caloric intake is. I know how I feel when I take in more food. I know that my hunger has been increased and, you know, listen, your hunger can increase from hormonal shifts, hormonal changes. Yeah.
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Who knows why? But I know that mine has been increased. I know that I've been eating more. And I know the reason why I put on weight, but that made me sit back and think,
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How many people aren't in tune? How many people are moving through their day and they're not tracking their food? They're not tracking their calories. They're not tracking what they're putting in, in their minds, because I see this with my patients, in their minds, they think that they're doing just fine, that they're eating clean, that they're eating well, that they're staying in their caloric intake plan, right?
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And then they're not. And then you're not. When you start tracking and you write it down and you really pay attention and look, and I talk about this on the podcast, look at what you are taking in. It's eye-opening. So dive into this very brief, but very pointed topic-centered podcast on all about weight and weight loss.
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We're continuing on with our all about series talking today all about weight loss. And I know this is a big one, but I'm still going to try to keep this episode short and sweet. So we can just highlight all of the different points, all of the different factors that come into play when we're talking about weight.
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Now, we have to start where we always start, and that is the thyroid. Now, I'm not saying this because that's what I do. I'm not saying this because I'm the thyroid fixer. I'm saying this because the thyroid gland regulates your energy expenditure. It regulates your metabolism. Okay.
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Period. End of story. You have to start there. And in my opinion, if more doctors, if more of these bariatric weight loss centers were to focus on the thyroid first, we'd probably avoid a lot of surgeries gone wrong. A lot of bariatric surgeries, a lot of stomach shortening surgeries
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After a person goes through years of misery, not being able to eat large quantity of food, battling heartburn, all kinds of issues that I've heard ad nauseum from my patients who have gotten one of these surgeries in an attempt to lose weight, we'd avoid a lot.
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if we did things the right way and looked at the thyroid gland first, making sure that that is optimal. If that's not optimal, if your reverse T3 is high, I'll say this in every episode that the thyroid gland comes into play, whether fatigued, weight loss, whatever topic we are talking about, when you start with the master gland that literally has control over your body,
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and regulates whether or not you're going to lose weight, it would be a no brainer. It makes no sense to not start there. So we start with the thyroid gland that regulates your metabolism. And when that is off, when reverse T3 is high, your body's in a shut down survival mode.
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When free T3, your active thyroid hormone that gets to the cell, that gives you energy, that produces ATP at the cell level, that gives you that metabolism, the ability to burn body fat, that regulates body temperature.
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When that is low, you're done, you're screwed. You will have no metabolism. You will have all the signs and symptoms of hypothyroidism and you will have no metabolism. So that means that you are either not losing weight despite all of the other things that you're doing, which we're going to go over today, or you are literally gaining weight while barely eating anything. That's why we start with the thyroid.
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Next up, sex hormones, testosterone. Testosterone regulates body composition. Lean muscle mass is more metabolically active. So when you have more lean muscle mass, i.e. muscle, lean body mass, you are going to be at an advantage for burning fat.
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You're going to have a better body composition because having that lean, sexy muscle just looks better than having squishy white fat all over your body. So better body comp, better longevity, better protection of your bones.
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more control over your insulin because having more lean muscle mass actually helps with insulin resistance. That'll come up next in our list. But we need that testosterone component to be optimal in order for you to be able to burn stored body fat and to actually build...
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and produce hypertrophy of the lean muscle mass that you have when you activate it. So that means when you're actually taking the time and making the effort to go to the gym, to lift heavy shit, to do some kind of workout, to activate the muscles, then those muscles will break down. That's what we want them to do, break down and then rebuild. And in that rebuilding phase, that's where hypertrophy comes in and we get that slow growth of the muscle.
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Those muscle fibers expand, they take up nutrients, they take up protein that you need. And that is what produces that better shape, better strength, better protection of your bones, all over better metabolism. But you need testosterone for that. Next up, we have insulin. So I don't know how many times we have to talk about this.
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Insulin resistance is so prevalent, so prevalent, especially in this country. We are an just obese society. And I challenge you, go to Disney World, go to an amusement park, go to Walmart, go to a grocery store, go to a restaurant and observe. Just sit there and observe all the people around you.
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Sometimes my family and I would play a game. We would play the game of count the fit people. And I don't mean the 20-year-old skinny mini that she's just lucky she still has a metabolism. She hasn't had a kid yet. Her hormones are still okay. I mean the honest-to-God fit people. Maybe we should put a cutoff. You have to pick somebody 35 and up.
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that is actually in shape, that actually looks like they're healthy, that they take care of themselves. It's very rare. You can usually count them on one hand. We are an incredibly obese society because of what we eat. And yes, there are those other two factors that we just talked about.
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with testosterone, with thyroid problems, 100%. And sometimes weight is not a behavioral issue. It literally is a metabolism issue. But insulin resistance, if it's not due to the thyroid being thrown off, thyroid is off, insulin signaling will be off. This is where I see insulin resistance in my carnivore and keto people.
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because they have no control over that insulin signaling, majority is what we put in our mouth. The types of food that we are choosing, be it the high carb process garbage box food on the shelves,
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to eating out more often and not having control over what goes into your food, the type of oil that they're using, the PUFAs that actually contribute to insulin resistance, or it's just a large amount of glucose that we're eating in the form of high fructose corn syrup hidden in our food and fructose itself in the form of sugar, in the form of fruit. Fructose is fruit, it's the fruit sugar.
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And yes, it's nature is candy, but it's exactly that. It's candy. And we all tend to over consume fruit because we have it in our minds. Hey, it's healthy. It's an antioxidant. We've been told since we were wee little that fruit is good for us, but fruit is a sugar and it's going to be broken down by our body like any other O's, like glucose, right?
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It's going to be broken down like an Ose. And in that chemical breakdown for your body to utilize that for fuel, because all the food that we eat is energy. Calories that we're going to talk about soon. Calories are a form of, they're just a measurement of energy. So all of the food that we eat has energy.
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And it provides us energy. But the question is, what does that food contain macronutrient wise? What does that food contain chemical wise? What is its predominant macronutrient? And how does that react in our body? So when we're eating fruit, it's an Ose. And our body knows that it has to pump out more insulin from the pancreas.
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It needs that insulin to take care of the sugar, to utilize that sugar, to break it down, to shuttle it where it needs to go and to put some in adipose tissue into storage as well. Now, fat, dietary fat does get stored in adipose tissue, but it's in relation to the other macronutrients that we're eating with it and that our body is really taking in in that day.
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So if you are, let's say you're on a ketogenic diet. Now, even on a ketogenic diet, I never, ever, ever recommend consuming as much fat as possible. And that's why I keep saying I will write this book one day. Somebody's probably going to beat me to it as I say this out loud. The Polito Diet. You know what? Maybe I will trademark that. Yeah.
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The Polito diet, blending paleo and keto so that you're not using the ketogenic diet to literally eat as much bacon and pork rinds and cheese and heavy whipping cream that you possibly can consume because you can go overboard with fat.
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And that will cause weight gain. Dietary fat is most of the time stored as fat unless it's combined with a low carb diet. And then your body shifts into what we call ketosis, hence the ketogenic diet. And it starts burning ketones and fat for fuel, the dietary fat that you're eating, as well as the fat on your body, instead of glucose. Glucose.
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Our bodies will burn glucose first all the time. Your glycogen stores get filled every time you eat sugar, every time you eat carbohydrates, every time you eat fruit in the form of fructose. It will fill those glycogen stores. Your body will tap into those glycogen stores during a workout or sitting at your desk using your brain.
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Our brain uses glucose, our bodies use glucose. And once that glucose is used up, now it switches over. Now it uses that alternative fuel, ketones,
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And it will start burning our own body fat to produce those ketones for fuel. Now, some of you do have a fatty liver. That's a whole nother story where the body starts tapping into the liver glucose stores because fatty liver is actually not, I mean, it's fat, but it's because you're eating too much glucose. You're either drinking too much alcohol or you're eating too much sugar. And it's literally being stored in your liver and weighing it down.
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So that's another topic for another day. Yes, that is a possibility that the body could tap into that. But in general, the body will utilize stored body fat and produce ketones for fuel. That's why we really want to look at the macronutrients that we're taking in, in addition to the calories, but we ultimately want to reduce, we'll get to that. We ultimately want to reduce our insulin resistance. We want to become insulin sensitive.
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meaning that when we do eat a few more carbohydrates, when we have that piece of watermelon and the corn on the cob at the summer picnic that we just want to enjoy, our bodies don't freak out and go into this fat storage mode. Our bodies can actually be sensitive to the insulin that our pancreas is putting out
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in order to take care of the carbohydrates that we're eating, to break that food down, to shuttle it where it needs to be shuttled, to lower the body's glucose number. That's what insulin does. So that we're not walking around with high glucose all day. We want to become insulin sensitive. When you are insulin resistant, you're going to be able to do that.
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meaning that fasting insulin above a six, I've gone over this in other episodes, A1C above a 5.2, fasting glucose, we want that below a 90, really closer to around 86. Every point above that is a 13% increase risk of type two diabetes, that's your fasting glucose. We want all that to be in alignment so that we're not insulin resistant. If we are insulin resistant, we are more apt to store body fat.
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and to not be able to tap into our own body fat for fuel. Other things that come into play before we get into calories and actually food. Other things that do come into play, and they're kind of tied together. When we're under large amounts of stress and our adrenal glands are pumping out cortisol, that high cortisol state,
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will increase glucose. We just talked about that. So with that high glucose all the time, let's say you're pumping out that glucose, that high glucose all throughout the day, then you're naturally going to be more in a fat storage mode. High amounts of stress will absolutely pack on the pounds. I mean, even think about when you take prednisone.
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And I guess, I mean, we could go down that rabbit hole of medications too and how medications can contribute to weight gain and the inability to lose weight. We see that with antidepressants. Those are big ones. We definitely see it with prednisone. That's what I was kind of transitioning into talking about the adrenals. Prednisone is probably one of the most evil medications out there.
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So very effective at lowering inflammation. So there was a time where I had a horrific sinus infection. Literally could not breathe out of my nose. I was mouth breathing the whole time. And you know, that gets old. You start to gag. You can't get air in through your nose. It was horrible. It was like my nose...
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had swollen shut. And the only thing that gave me relief was prednisone. Taking two days of prednisone, I put on 10 pounds that I could not take off for about two months. I have other patients who've been put on prednisone for whatever, usually some type of infection.
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It's supposed to be used short-term. If you are on long-term prednisone, you got way more issues that we need to take care of. I mean, that's basically shutting down your adrenals. You're walking around in a high glucose state all the time. You're going to just pack on the pounds. It won't leave for years. That's another topic. Even short-term use of prednisone. I have patients that feel miserable.
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It dropped their immune system. It kicked up other autoimmune conditions. It caused EBV to go active.
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It caused anxiety, agitation, insomnia, and yes, weight gain that they now cannot take off. And I don't really have a good answer as to how to overcome prednisone's effect on the body. There's not a magic pill to rid your body of the horrific effects of prednisone. There just isn't. I'm kind of tying this back to being under stress all the time. If you are under that constant stress,
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your body will shut down its fat burning. It will shut it down. Also remember that our bodies are smarter than we are. So whenever we are in a survival state and you might not think it's survival state, you're just like, I'm just dealing with BS at work and I got kids that are...
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needing to be taken to soccer and dance and football and gymnastics. And I need to be five different places at one time. And I still need to pay the bills and I got to go grocery shopping. All of that is daily stress.
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that absolutely can put your body into survival mode because your body knows that you are trying to multitask. You're trying to do all these things. You have things on your mind that are contributing to your adrenals, pumping out more cortisol.
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It's that low-grade constant stress. Or it can be chemical stress. It can be environmental stress. It can be the chemicals that you're exposed to. It can be that you're living in a moldy home. You're working in a moldy environment. Maybe you, and I've said this before in a past episode, maybe you got something, one of the bioweapons that was put out in the last couple of years, and that is burdening your body. I'm seeing it over and over again with weight.
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literally putting the body in a shutdown mode to where it cannot release its own stored fat. It can't, it won't with everything else being perfect. Thyroid is perfect. Insulin is perfect. Testosterone is perfect. Sex hormones are perfect. That stress on the body, that burden on the body
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won't allow it to release. And it's the same thing I said with prednisone. I don't have an answer as to how to rid the body of something that we put in it that is now locking it down. I think in those cases, all you can do is keep going. All you can do is keep doing the things that you know contribute or don't do the things that contribute, do the things that will help.
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like optimize your thyroid, like get your insulin under control, like optimize your testosterone, optimize your hormones, and keep your diet in check. Don't put anything in your body or on your body that is an additional toxic burden.
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And that might mean springing for the organic fruits and vegetables and buying the grass-fed, no hormones injected into it meat and staying away from restaurants and staying away from processed foods. Yeah, you might have to do that for a while just to support and love on your body as your body detoxes. The other big factor, again, before we get to...
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calories is your liver. When your liver is burdened, the liver controls, and I have a separate podcast for this, all about the liver. The liver controls all metabolic processes in the body. If that is burdened, and I don't mean fatty liver, I mean, when we're looking at that alkaline phosphatase, ALT, AST, if those numbers are a little bit off,
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ALKFOS below a 60, ALT, AST, really high teens, low 20s, anything outside of that, your liver needs some love. Your liver needs some support. That's why I put on liver fixer, right? Thyroid, that's where I put on thyroid fixer, T2, because that will increase your base of metabolic rate. There are things that we can do to address all of these different points that
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but they all have to be done together. You can't do one without the other. We can't just throw on thyroid fixer and you be on T4 only, and nobody's helping you with your elevated reverse T3, and nobody's helping you with your low free T3 and elevated reverse T3, right? We can't just do that. We can't just support the liver, and here you are walking around with insulin resistance.
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We can't just do one thing without doing the other things. We have to do it all together. The liver is a factor in weight. Low ferritin, a factor in weight. Low ferritin will mimic hypothyroid symptoms. I have a whole other podcast on this. Mimic hypothyroid symptoms and will actually contribute to weight gain and the inability to lose weight. Okay.
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So we're going to move into diet here. And yeah, okay, there might be some points that I missed, but I'm really trying to keep this concise and to the point. These are the things that I talk to my patients all the time about. All of these factors. This is what we have to look at. As we move into the food component, I've touched on it throughout, but let's really focus on it now. I talked about calories. Is a calorie a calorie? That is a big, big, big debate in this space.
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I've had Dr. Elaine Norton on. He's gone into the biochemical, the biology, the ins and outs of how the body utilizes calories. And yes, I do agree with him that if you consume more calories, units of energy, than your body can utilize calories.
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It will store. And it doesn't matter if all of those calories are in the form of meat and you're a carnivore. It does not matter. And that is where the ketogenic diet goes wrong. And that is why you hear people say, I did a keto diet and I gained weight.
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It's because they are consuming way more calories in the form of fat because fat has nine calories per gram where protein and carbohydrates have four calories per gram. They consume so much fat. Their calories are through the roof. They're taking in 3,000, 4,000 calories a day.
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or maybe even 2,500 calories a day, and that's too much for their lifestyle, for their amount of activity, for the amount of calories that their body burns. Yeah, that will absolutely lay down body fat. It doesn't matter the combination of macronutrients that you're eating, you're taking in more calories. Now, the flip side of that is, I can also at the same time, and this is why it really is a kind of a dual-sided argument,
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At the same time, let's say that you are expending and we can measure this. You're expending...
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2000 calories a day, and you're looking to lose weight. So you consume 1800 calories a day or 15, let's go 15, 1500. So a 500 calorie deficit per day to equal one pound, 3,500 calories, which is one pound of body fat loss, body weight, body fat loss at the end of the week.
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But those 1500 calories, we have to look at the breakdown. So if those 1500 calories are in the form of high carbohydrate foods, you're eating your breads and your pastas and very low protein intake, the majority is high carb.
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and you're spiking your insulin, you are increasing your blood glucose level, you're putting your body into a state of insulin resistance that we talked about earlier. Insulin resistance is mostly what you put in your mouth. So if you are consuming that, but you stop at 1500 calories, yes, you're still at a deficit. Yes, it can be argued that
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Really the first couple of weeks, you should notice weight loss because of the caloric deficit. That's why all diets work in the beginning. All calorie deficit diets will work. But then the question becomes, what is it doing to your body long term? What state is it putting your body in?
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So those high carbohydrates that we know have an impact on insulin, the pancreas pumps out insulin over and over and over again. Eventually gets tired. You start moving into insulin resistance. Now the body can't tap into its own fat stores for fuel. We keep adding to the stores.
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and the body moves closer and closer to type 2 diabetes, where it can't even regulate its own insulin, yes, it doesn't matter that you were in a caloric deficit. The food that you chose to eat put you into a state where your body can no longer handle it. And you are insulin resistant, and now you are a fat store, not a fat burner.
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But at the same time, if you went into that caloric deficit with a proper balance where you had really good high quality protein, which does have a slightly more thermic effect
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So TEF, thermic effect of food. Protein has a little bit more to it. Now you can overeat protein 100%. We can get into the gluconeogenesis aspect where protein can absolutely be converted over into glucose, sores glucose. But if you have that balance and you have really good quality protein and a decent amount, an average amount of good high quality fats, you're staying away from the PUFAs.
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and you have a focus of carbohydrates on real food, vegetables, and some sweet potatoes, maybe even a little dark chocolate, then your body can utilize those macronutrients because they are in balance. They're not processed. You're not putting a bunch of chemicals into your body.
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then your body can utilize that food and yes, enjoy the caloric deficit to burn stored body fat so you can drop weight and not have a negative impact on your overall health and state of your body and how it uses food.
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So hopefully that makes sense. The breakdown of food, the macronutrient breakdown, absolutely 100% matters. It matters. Calories matter, but so does the type of food. That matters as well. Now we can go the other way and we can eat too little. And yes, the starvation mode that you heard about in the 90s is real. Right?
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I've known many people do completely destroy their metabolisms and it can take years to come back, years and years to come back. When we consistently eat too little calories, so I'm not talking about a 500 calorie deficit, a 200 calorie deficit. I'm talking about these people that go on the HCG diet or you were crazy like I was, although I never went into total starvation. I'm gonna say that.
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When we were competing, we definitely dropped our calories, but I knew some trainers that would put these girls on like 800 calories a day. It was insane. And they wonder why they gained 40 pounds after they stopped dieting for the show. After the show was done and they stepped off stage.
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I could literally see this in the gym. All of these girls that just competed and you're looking at them when they're doing the posing practice and they look so good and they're in their bikinis and you're like, oh, damn, I want to look like that. Ballooned up to become unrecognizable in three weeks after the show. I'm talking easily 30, 40 pounds on some of these girls.
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And the guys would be like 50 pounds heavier. So yes, that starvation mode that our body goes into when we starve ourselves, when we don't eat enough calories, that alone will shut down your metabolism. It's like it down-regulates the metabolism. So actually it could be argued that you're better off overeating because your body's metabolism will eventually ramp up.
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to whatever those calories are that you're taking in. So let's say you're taking in 2,500 calories, 3,000 calories, you might gain weight at first, but you'll eventually balance out provided that you have a good thyroid function to have a normal regulation of your metabolism. It'll eventually amp up to meet those calories that you're taking in. So your body's burning, the body's furnace will actually amp up a couple of notches.
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Same way it will drop down a few notches if you're not taking in enough calories. Starvation doesn't work. I know many of you try it because you're desperate, because you're in this state of, I can't do this anymore. There's nothing I can eat. That is going to come back to your thyroid and your hormones. That's what you need to get under control so that you don't have to starve yourself in a desperate attempt to lose weight.
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That is weight loss as a big overview. The all about weight loss overview. Like I said, we could nitpick and get into medications. We could get into, oh gosh, we could go down so many rabbit holes of different types of diet, food combining, genetics, right?
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But as an overview for most of you, I'm going to say 98% of you will fit into this episode, will resonate with this episode, will be able to check the boxes,
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of this episode and say, okay, I think I know what I'm doing right or wrong for my body. Now, of course we didn't get into, because I have other episodes on this. We didn't get into the importance of protein. We didn't get into the types of fat. There's a whole other episode on that and the PUFAs. We didn't get into the specific macronutrients.
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But I think in general, if we say eat real food, nothing boxed, get in decent amount of protein, one gram per pound of lean body mass. And you can figure that out by just saying, what do I want to weigh? What is my happy weight? That's probably around the grams of protein that you need to take in. Now, I get it if you're walking around at 250 and your happy weight is 200, but
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Okay, maybe dial that back to like 180. You might not need 200 grams of protein. But again, this is the in general rule. In general. In general, we are covering things that are all about weight. Now, the things that you can do, get your thyroid under control, get your testosterone optimized, get your insulin under control, use berberine for that. So I have blood sugar fixer.
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Help your liver process all things. Support your liver. Make sure your ferritin isn't in the tank. Make sure your basic nutrients and minerals aren't in the tank either. Because again, that's another rabbit hole that we could go down. I mean, we could make this episode four hours. We could go down so many scientific holes. It would drive everybody crazy. Yeah.
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Maybe Huberman and I can do this, right? He's into like the two, three hour episodes, which I'm down with. I mean, Andrew, if you want to jam on this, let's do it. I wanted to keep this one short for you. Really nice and short. That's what these all about episodes are about so that you can just listen and go through your mind and check this box, check this box, check this box, check this box.
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Okay, maybe I'm not doing this one thing here. Maybe I'm not doing this over here. And that's why I'm stuck. Oh my gosh, I can't let you go without talking about exercise though. Movement, it kind of ties into calories, calories.
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And yet it doesn't. It kind of ties into the testosterone piece in the beginning, lean muscle mass, increasing your metabolism. Yes. So when we're talking about exercise, any form of movement is good. At the end of the day, I want you doing something that brings you joy.
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But, right, and there's always the but, there's always the flip side. If you're just walking, probably not going to change your body composition that much. Now, walking will lower insulin. Studies have shown that just taking a walk after dinner significantly improves your glucose control and lowers your insulin.
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That is fine. That is great. And physically, if that's all you're able to do, that's fine. If you are in a wheelchair and you can only do upper body movements, that's fine. But I would still argue, lift some weights, build that upper body muscle mass so that you are more metabolically active, so that you are changing your body composition. I would still argue that.
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Sometimes those basic things that we go, you know, kudos, you're at least moving and you're walking. You might need more than that. You might need more. You might need to gradually add in some weight training, even if it's hand weights, even if you're starting with the machines or a body pump class or simple body weight exercises like pushups or yoga, where you are activating exercise.
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your body, you're going down into a low pushup, even if that's on your knees to start and you're gradually building up that strength.
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My point is with movement, with exercise, yes, in a perfect world, I would have all of you lifting heavy shit to change that body composition. But we have to look at the abilities of everyone. So now if you're just walking as an excuse because you're not motivated enough to go pick up a weight or go to the gym or work out in your garage, then no, shame on you. Too bad, so sad. I have no pity. Okay.
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You need to be doing more, period. But if you're just walking because literally you have injuries and that's all you can do, I would still encourage you, let's do some PT if you haven't yet. Let's get a physical trainer. What do they call it? Physical therapist. Let's get a physical therapist or a personal trainer, either one, PT, PT, and
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to work with you to activate the muscles that maybe surround that injury so that we can reduce the pain. Let's work those muscles that are not around the injury so that you can build those up while maybe protecting the area that is injured.
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So if you have a low back injury, why can't you do upper body? Why can't you do some bicep curls, some shoulder presses, even some lat pulldowns, wear a brace, you know, get that shit fixed, throw in some stem cells, do some PRP. Let's get you better so that you can progress in your activity level because movement is life. Movement is life.
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So without that movement, we shrivel. Then we start breaking bones. Then we have more diseases stack on and pile on. Stay active, doing whatever you need to do to stay active.
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Get yourself up and going. And if you're injured, let's do something about it so that we can get some movement, get some activity in to increase the amount of calories that we're burning, to increase our muscle mass, our lean muscle mass, which is more metabolically active. And then that movement actually has an effect on our hormones, right?
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Because after you lift heavy, your testosterone increases, as does your growth hormone. That's going to come back and help you with weight loss. When we exercise, I already talked about going for a walk. Something as simple as that improves insulin sensitivity. Doing things like yoga and deep breathing not only activates muscle, but decreases cortisol and improves our body's stress response.
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So that's why movement is very, very key. Could be called the cornerstone, really. I don't know. Food though. Yeah. What we put in our mouth is way more important than movement, but it all ties together.
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There's a lot of equal weight here with movement and food and hormone balance. And that's why we have to check all the boxes when we're talking all about weight and weight loss. Hey, guys, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. I hope you loved it. And as always, if you would be so kind to leave a review, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts,
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That would be absolutely amazing. I read all of them. Also, anything that you hear on this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any kind of medical condition. So we always recommend that you check with your medical provider, your doctor, your nurse practitioner before implementing anything that you hear on this podcast.
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And if you want to find out more about working together, you can click the link below in the show notes to book a discovery call. And there you'll be talking to a member of my team. They are an extension of me. They're amazing. And you and I will talk after that. Once we get you all signed up and you and I get to work together. All right. I hope to see you soon.
