Episode 523: Ashley Koff, RD: GLP-1, Weight Loss and the Mistakes That Create Rebound

I got this Tony Robbins you're listening to Habitson Hustle, Crush It. In this episode of Habitson Hustle, I sit down with dietician, author and friend of mine, Ashley Koff, to unpack why weight loss has quietly become the wrong goal for so many people and how chasing thinner without addressing health is leading to burnout and rebound weight gain. This conversation cuts through the hype and focuses on what actually holds up once the shortcut stops working. We break down why GLP1's don't automatically make you healthy, how the real problem isn't the medication but how people are using it and why not eating on these medications is a major mistake. Okay guys, my friend is back, my friend's back in town. Her name is Ashley Koff, she is a dietician but she's not just any dietician, she's probably one of the smartest dieticians I've ever met and anybody who knows you, her, would agree seriously because she's a very knowledgeable and she has a new book coming, actually her new book is out now and it's called Your Best Shot and it's called the Personalized System for Optimal Weight Health and it's all about the GLP1 epidemic you guys which by the way, can I just say one comment and then we're going to take these magic mind shots? If you walk around LA or anywhere at this point everyone is thin now. It's like I feel like is it just the fact that we're living in a pseudo reality but like everybody I feel is on one form or another of a GLP1, have you not noticed this? You know it was really interesting, the person I had coffee with this morning said the same thing and she's in a different dress, she's 70 and she was like all my six-year-old and seven-year-old friends. Like skinny. But it's funny like because some of them are so happy because they are actually healthy and some of them are skinny and unhealthy or unhealthy or and nobody's acknowledging the difference like because she was like a lot of people do not look good. You know I said one thing, I'm 52, I do not want to lose weight and like in my face or you get like and it's like we don't get to choose where we lose weight from. You know. No I agree to that. Yeah. That's a very good point because that is very true just because you're skinny. Yeah. Doesn't mean you look better. Like a lot of the people I see wandering around is it yeah they're thinner, skinnier but they're just look exactly the same of how they look before just a smaller version of themselves. They don't look tone, they don't look healthier, their face looks more gaunt. So I really am, I want to talk to you about the major craze of what's happening but because I don't know about you but I've had a really hectic crazy couple weeks and so my focus is all over the place which is why I love these little shots. This is caffeine-free. Sure it's going to help us. Thank goodness it's caffeine-free because you know I'm so slow. I did a metabolizer caffeine. I know. Oh my gosh. Well this is it. Well this is actually a mental performance shot with zero caffeine you guys. I love it and it actually does the trick. It kind of keeps you on point. You know it's a rare day that I'll just take anything but you happen to have introduced me to these and so. Really? Yes. The delicious. I take them every day and that's not because you know they're a sponsor it's because they are delicious and that's why they are a sponsor actually. But okay now we're going to be locked in. Are you ready? Got to be delicious. Got to be delicious. All right. Oh are you okay? I'm super focused. I'm like I just felt like form of it's like a superpower thing. It is exactly. Okay. So let me first by ask this question are like like everything in the world right thing has become super like trendy and there's a fat and the pendulum swings one direction. Like that's my concern with these GLP ones. I think that people are using it more as a correction not as a tool. Hmm. What is your perspective on this? Yeah. Well first let's unpack that these GLP ones are doing something super important. Okay. They are teaching doctors, dieticians and hopefully and this is why I wrote this book right. Individuals about our actual human anatomy. So the body is designed with weight health hormones GLP one is one of them GIP, PYY, CCK, we can go on and these hormones are the first domino in a line of things that need to happen in our body for us to be weight healthy and we'll get into that. Okay. So what the medications are is they are this version of the medication not new ones that are coming out but this version of the medication. They are a bio similar hormone replacement. So what do I mean by that? You hear bio identical when it comes like estrogen or testosterone insulin. If it was bio identical it would be the exact same made in a lab but your body uses it in the same way. They're bio similar in that the body uses it in the same way. So when these hormones come to the receptor sites the body says I know what to do with GLP one. The difference is our own body hormones stay on for two to five minutes. These stay on for 24 hours. The first version was for 24 hours. Now it's 24 hours for seven days. So what you want to think of is they are like an amped up version of our own hormone, right? Basically when our body gets the hormone from the shot they get it in a way that keeps us in this metabolically active telling our hormones to go to work state. That has a lot of advantage. It may in our brain calm us down from thinking about appetite. It might calm us from thinking about food. It might make us break up with daily alcohol or other things because it shifts how we're thinking about things. But it also does things in our gut as an example where if we're delaying gastric emptying for two to five minutes now think about we're delaying gastric emptying to some extent for 24 hours for seven days. That's going to have consequences. If we're stuck in a metabolically active phase, if we're telling insulin to go to work then our body is going to turn around and not be in the recovery mode. So what I see people is they're fatigued or their heart rate variability which will measure it and is a measure of the body's ability to be in a relaxed state. That is tanking. That's going down. So what we have to look at is the medications are working exactly as they're intended to, but we have to understand the considerations. I don't necessarily think it's cons, but I think it's considerations. Now anyone taking a medication to lose weight or a doctor prescribing it to lose weight is actually in an old system and creating problems for people. We do not want to lose weight. We want to address why the body is putting X is creating excess fat, why it might be putting fat around or in our organs, why our bone is breaking down instead of being re formed, why we're struggling with muscle mass, why we're struggling with cravings. We want to get to the root causes of those. If you think of the medication as a solution alone, that's a big problem. If you use it as a tool, so I love what you picked up on. That's exactly it. If you use it as a tool and you understand how it's working in that person's body and you optimize around it, it can be a very effective tool. Okay, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that people who should not be doing it are doing it. That's the first part. What's this medication for diabetics? Okay, so let's unpack a couple of things. It's really interesting to me. I grew up with a lot of weight challenges and I was always told you're healthy, but from the time I stopped being cute and chubby at around 10 and became fat and fat, fat, fat girl and teased and the doctors were like, okay, there's nothing wrong with you. You're just like just eat less, Ashley. I was actually really active. Some would tell me to like, so they didn't tell me I needed to be active, but they would say you just need to eat less. Why don't you stop eating when you're full? I'm like, cool. I just keep eating because I never felt full. I'm like, all right. Me too. Nobody was unpacking the fact that I was on antibiotics from basically the time that I was born multiple, almost monthly because of your infections and throat infections. Even when they ultimately looked at that at 19 and they're like, okay, you need to stop having these year-and-throwed infections, they took out my tonsils. The answer is that there's a problem with your tonsils. Nobody was ever looking at the root cause in there. The root cause of my fat was that my digestive system did not work better, right? It took me doing a horrible goat's milk cleanse and being in a bar and meeting a weird gastroenterologist who suddenly said to me, it's not what you're eating or what you're not eating. Your digestive system doesn't have what it needs to run better. Why am I saying this to you right now? When you said people are using that medication that shouldn't, I totally take issue with that. There are so many people taking statins or proton pump inhibitor medications that I feel as a clinician who does this, I probably could be helping them honor off those medications. But nobody is judging someone for taking a proton pump inhibitor and saying, you shouldn't be suppressing acid. You should just be eating and exercising differently and so the acid production in your body is different. We have so much bias around weight and we turn around and we say, I could look at you the woman that I was with this morning has no extra fat on her body and she said to me, my doctors are telling me that I should go on this medication and I'm thinking like, are they trying to tell me I'm fat? And I said, no, what they're trying to tell you is there's applications for these medications that your appearance isn't what doesn't tell me anything. You know, the same thing that people say, you could be healthy at every size. Like, you know, why are we judging somebody who's obese or, you know, who has excess fat or whatever? I don't care what your size is. I look inside of you. I want to know, are you healthy inside of you? And so I'm not going to judge someone and say, is it inappropriate for you to be using the medication because I have people who have eating disorders and disorder eating. I have people who have blood sugar dysregulation. I have people who have cognitive impairment like other reasons where I'm like, oh, this might be a part, a tool that could be useful for us, right? For a time period or maybe ongoing. The second part of your point, though, is really valid. If somebody uses this medication and they just think that all I need to do is use this medication, they're not fixing anything. And that part of it is going to mean that that's why you would, A, would have to stay on it and B, in using it, you may, you actually may be missing that you could be making other things worse. And I think that's what you're picking up on to. What can you make worse? I just want to make sure. Well, you can make your sleep worse. You can, your sleep could already not be better. You could make your heart rate variability, which is a measure of your body not being in the relaxed state. You know, we're in, we have this young in our body, right? We have our sympathetic and our parasympathetic. And if we aren't careful and we put, keep our body in a stressed out state too much, then that can cause us to just, you know, sort of burn through things. If we keep pushing our body to be put producing insulin and sending insulin out, that could be an issue for our insulin production and there are other factors. And certainly if we create a space where we're not hungry all day and so we don't eat all day long, like we could take somebody who is already nutrient insufficient and we could make us more nutrient insufficient. And the one that I think you would spark too is, you know, if somebody is too tired to exercise or they're muscle, you know, they're not building muscle or they're not able to actually make muscle because they're not taking in enough of the nutrition that could help the body build muscle, then yeah, you might lose weight, but you're actually more metabolically disadvantaged by being fat without, with lower muscle mass, you know, on that part. Right. But, you know, you know, we've been doing this a long time, right? This business, we met by the way, everyone, we did a weight loss show together. Eons ago called shedding for the wedding. I was the fitness trainer and Ashley was the dietician. That's how he became friends. And so this goes back a long time, right? And you know, there is something to be said for behavior modification. Totally. And I mean, you can say whatever you'd like, but I think a lot of people, you know, are not modifying their behavior and the relying on this medication and what's happening, what I've seen in real time is people acclimate to the medication. And then their appetite's come back. And then when they get, they either have to stay on this medication forever or, right? And keep on adjusting it to go up or they start gaining weight back. And when they get off of it and I've seen this probably six to eight times in the last year, they gain all their weight back and more because they actually lost muscle mass. And they didn't lose the actual, they didn't lose fat because you're losing both muscle mass and fat and their appetite comes back with adengeons, which is not great. So okay. So let's, let's say this. So why blame a medication for somebody who isn't using it right? Okay. Let me say something. Okay. So what I'm going to say is that the most important part of it is I hear a lot of people talk about microdosing it for inflammation, cognition, all these things. But yet there's not really any hard research to prove that it helps with inflammation, it helps with, you know, your cognitive abilities. I find that when people want to do something, they can, they can think of a hundred reasons to do it. If they don't want to do something that they can think of a hundred reasons not to, right? That's how our brain to work, right? So there's not enough feedback on it. And so there has to be something to the fact that calling a spade a spade, which is people, this bullshit of like body positivity, where are we? That left because people now could be thin. They're like body positivity. What? Like that's not even in the conversation anymore because everybody's taking it because they want to be thin. If you can afford it. So I heard recently, like people, you know, like if you can afford it. So let's go back to behavior modification. Let me see this more. Yeah. So what they're doing is compounding it. And that's a little bit cheaper. Okay. Anyway, that's, that's my rant for. Okay. So let's unpack a couple of different things. You love that word on that. Yeah. Well, there's like, I think it's important because here, like, it's probably the best word to use here, which is there is an argument for everything you say on either side, right? And at the end of the day, like, I just say, and like, it's probably my ego, like at this point, it's 52 years old. I've helped thousands of people, you know, if you're coming to me as a patient and you want to get better, I am going to help you. Like, I do not have a crystal ball about how your life is going to go. I also don't even have a crystal ball for the recommendations that I'm going to make. I can't say, Hey, Jen, if you take this supplement, this is what's going to happen to you. I can say, I strongly think this is what we should do. And then we do an experiment. And then we have you do that. And we see, we get the data from it and did it work and did your body show us that it likes it. And then we move on from there. So the one thing that I would say to anyone listening is if you're not taking that approach, you're doing it wrong. If you are listening to anyone, I don't care how brilliant or how they look or like any of that, I don't care who the biohacker is, like any of that piece. If you're following what somebody else did for themself and you're expecting the same outcome, you are to blame. Like that's just bad on that part. Now the other part about behavior modification for the first 20, 25 years of my life. And then I would say like also as Pyramenipa is reared like maybe around like 45 to 50, I have tried every behavior modification under the sun. Like I have like free based fiber. I like I definitely have had like 30 grams of fiber before a meal in these like nasty crackers so that like I would feel full because I didn't feel full. I've slammed 120 ounces of water. I've given up drinking. I was a macrobiotic vegan who was like hanging upside down in yoga. I didn't drink. I like you name it like this is not for not trying like so I want to be really clear there. And when you look at my genetics, I used to think that I was designed to be obese. That was like the messages that my genetics showed me when I was able to sit down with somebody who like said, there's another way of looking at this. Like your body is like you are designed to survive. Like your body hangs on to everything because you are an endurance athlete who is designed to hit it hard and not and survive if resources were not available. I'm like, well, that's really cool. Not great for modern day, but you know, it's cool. You know, like outside of that. So I had to reframe everything. And for me, what I would say is the what we're not doing enough of is we're not understanding where the rubber meets the road. And this is why I think as a dietician, I am uniquely positioned to have this kind of conversation rather than a physician. Because I think there is a myth of a non-compliant patient. Sure. We can have somebody that's just like, I'm not going to get out of bed and exercise. But when I start to unpack, why are you not getting out of bed and exercising? You slept crappy. Your digestive system was off. Your blood sugar is impaired. You know, so when we start to work on those things, can we get you to a place where you can get out of bed and exercise, right? It isn't about just telling someone to exercise and then they're not exercising and now we just deemed them a failure. You know, because I've been deemed a failure across the board. You know what I mean? I was the one that ate three containers of a Jenny Craig meal because I was like, okay, well, one just didn't fill me up. You know, and I'm like, why am I not losing weight? You know, I was like, here is your decision. Yeah. But these were before I became a dietician. Okay. So that's my clear. Yeah. But in this way, we all go into the career that we think we struggle with, right? Yeah, we struggle with. Yeah. It's all to blame. It's so funny. Yeah. So are you on a GLP one meal? Yeah. So I like for me, and I get asked, I love that I get asked that question too because I had gained weight as perimenopause and pyramid. Like, so what I will say is as a kid that struggled with my, with my belly, it was always my belly. And I was like, how do I lose my belly? And it really led me down dark past. Like it really like a lot of just negative. Like I was such like a happy like in every other aspect of my life, like successful, fun, et cetera. And then I was this diet failure. And I just tried to hide it. I tried to like drink and be the fun one. I tried to like, you know, die my hair blonde. It turned orange like with sun in you know, I mean, like I tried everything to like not be me, right? Because I thought my belly was this failure. So when at 45, I started to gain my belly back again, like, and it was incremental. It was slow. And then, and I, there were some things to point to. I'd been through breakups. You know, we, like, for me, it was like pandemic time. You know, for all of us, it was the pandemic time. It was other stuff. But I'm like, okay, let me go to my toolkit and try to figure out, you know, how I can heal myself. And I knew I needed to like, focus a little bit more on my dig on like, tuning up my digestion. And it was the world of fasting and like fast, like a girl, you know, I love Mindy's work and stuff. So I started fasting. I just like fasting, aka not eating. Like, I was just like, I got down to like where I wasn't like eating for like four hours in a day. And then I decided to train for an endurance event. Well, you weren't eating for four hours. I was only eating for four hours in a day. I created such a small window. I mean, yeah, I know. And also really not fun to be around. It took me longer to break up with alcohol too, but then I started endurance athlete training. And so I would do these long zone twos instead of intense weight, like what works better for my body, you know, hits it, hit and strength training. So I tell all this stuff because like I had a great toolkit, you know, I've like, yeah, I did pro long. I did like all these other things. I'm like, I'm still gaining weight. I'm still gaining weight. And so at that point, and the GLP ones weren't like popular slash accessible, you know, at that space. I slowly, I gave up alcohol. I leaned into my digestive health. I start after my endurance event. I went back to strength training. I went back to increasing my protein. And but then at that point, I was like, okay, I'm like in trouble because all those things, I'm still just breaking even. And I was carrying 20 pounds in my belly. And I just was like, like, I can keep getting stronger, but I like, I've got 20 extra pounds in my belly. So that was a very like dark moment for me. And at that point, I met a doctor who said to me, I've been working with GLP ones for like ages at this point. She had worked with the original Lierglutide. And she said to me, I want you to know like this is an option for you. Like here's this don't feel badly about yourself. And I was like, okay, I'm excited about that. And I was like, all right, I'm going to try this. Your point of like low dose, I met Tina Moore. And she's like, there's a difference between micro dosing and low dose. So I was like, okay, I'm going to start on a low dose. I try a low dose and what happened to me on a low dose. I stop pooping and let me be really clear. As somebody whose entire life was about constipation, if you make me not poop, like I can't handle it. And I tried everything. I tried magnesium. I tried this other stuff. So I would say it was maybe about like two months, like somewhere in the range of like two to two and a half months. This is what I will tell you from the moment that I gave myself my first injection. And this was like 10, like, I guess it's like 10 units like this, this is the smallest amount from a compounding. We'll talk about that in a second. I had a different brain chemistry than I had ever had. I was like, oh my gosh, like I might not like be thinking about food. Like I didn't realize how much I wasn't eating a lot. I just didn't realize how much I was always thinking about food, right? And like all of these other things. Anyway, after about two to a half months in, I'm like, my digestion, like I can't handle this. I'm not going to use it. And I had also at the time randomly because of the work that I do met the folks from New Zealand who make a marisate, which is a compound from hops. And it's a one might call like a natural or a GLP one activator. So I started using that. And I was like, okay, I actually like this. And it's not turning off my system in the same way because it only works for four hours. And it doesn't, it's not working at thousands percent higher. It's, you know, it's modestly. But I found that I really liked it for my appetite and my cravings. In the midst of all of this, I saw a doctor. And she's like, you have a massive fibroid. Like your uterus is four or five times the size. This is what's going on. This is why you're cramping, why you're bleeding, what like all this other stuff. So I ended up having a hysterectomy. Like nobody here needs to know my whole personal medical story. Like Sally, it's a go on. I mean, stop. But like here's the story. Were you asking me a question of the agonist? Like, it would I use the agonist? And I still have it at my house. And I'm like, if I have no idea how actual menopause is going to hit me, especially now that I have had a hysterectomy, if I need it, I would have no problem. I'm using it because I know how I would know how to use it for my body. But the issue that I have in here is everybody because I took up 20 pounds. The only question everybody wants to know is like, are you using an agonist? And I was like, I just told you like a whole story here. Like I climb mountains now. I fix my digestion. I started eating again. By the way, I eat within an hour and a half of waking or game off. Like I have to have food. So you don't fast anymore? No, I don't fast anymore. So that's why you just be using it. I love this. I love Mindy fastening girl. Look at the time and then it didn't work for me. I love Mindy too. Hello Mindy. However, Mindy's been on this show many times. First of all, I can't fast the same in my life. The only kind of fast I can do, and that was even very difficult. Was that prolonged? The prolonged. Five day fastening fast mimicking. Because at least you're eating something. It's just that it works. It's beautiful for me, but I lose muscle on it. So I get pissed. Oh, really? Yeah, totally. In five days. But like the only thing. So think about that. If you're using muscle in five days. Yeah. How can you talk about that? If people are not eating for months on end, how can you say a GLP1 can be good for somebody? Because I don't want them to use it. So if somebody's using a GLP1 and they're not eating, they're using too much of it. And they're using it wrong. Okay, but the microdosing. Yes. Okay. So I know I can now I understand your story. Yeah. So would you think that microdosing is good or bad? Great. So we apply Dr. Tina Moore's and what I believe in as the true term of microdosing. So we have totally lost the marketing conversation. But a true microdose is a microscopic amount. You don't use that for weight health. Do I think using a low dose and a lower dose and using it to and all the other tools is better in most instances? Absolutely. I think people are and doctors in particular are just saying started this low dose and go higher and higher. Because that's the research that Farma did because and they want us to go higher. So I think using a lower dose is oftentimes smarter on that part. Today's episode is powered by AMP. You know those days when you're just done. I mean the meetings, the kids, the to-do list and you still want to move your body but the gym feels a million miles away. That's exactly why I love my AMP. AMP is a smart AI powered strength training device that sits right in your home. It's super sleek. Literally looks like you got it at the Apple store and it also counts your reps. It just your weights for you and you're always training under the perfect amount of tension. 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So what happened was the compounding that was available when when I that was what I had gotten was a it was a different compounding pharmacy. There's a and B. And so at that time it was because there was a shortage of the ingredient and the compounding pharmacy. It was held towards the regulations of the FDA and saying that this is we are only using that ingredient. The compounding pharmacy that the ones that are regulated now are regulated at the state level and through a pharmaceutical association and they may not be the exact same ingredient. And so the real question is I don't know. I don't know what somebody is using. If somebody is getting semi-glutite or they're getting teazepatide, I like that. There are some now that they've added like B12 to because everybody's like, well, because more B12. That's what they're doing now. Yeah, but I'm like, especially in California. Yeah. That's not good. Well, it depends. So first of all, it depends is your B12 low. And also I have some people that are doing that and they're going into these longevity centers and they're getting a B12 injection on top of it. And they're also taking a methylcobalamin in their supplement. What's that? And that's B12. And nobody's looking at it, right? And I was like, hey, you're just getting too much B12. More B12 is not the answer on that part. Now could somebody be a could have they have a benefit of getting B12 in with the GLP one because they weren't getting B12 in before and is that helpful to them? But B12 works in the body with B6 and with folate. And that creates helps you when you have the right amount. It helps to reduce home assisting. So if I just give you B12 and I don't optimize your B6 and your folate, I could also be creating a cardiovascular problem, not solving one. So it's important for us to pay attention to. This is what I'm saying. Yeah. So this is what I don't love. Is that like people are not taking to account. Once you do one thing, yeah, it will offset something else. Right. There's a lot of this happening. I think just like more is more like, oh, I need to lose weight. So do this or they're ordering it from China or they're ordering that no one knows where they're getting their stuff from. Now I'm curious about something with GLP ones. I've always been curious. Like Trezepotide, semi-glutide, there's a new one now. Retro-try. Retro-try. Are they all just they're all GLP ones, but they diff, they're some that work on more receptors to make it more effective? Great question. So semi-glutide is a single agonist. It is an agonist. So agonist versus antagonist. A statin and a PPI are antagonist. They work against the way that the body is working. An agonist by definition means that it's doing what your body would normally do. semi-glutide is a single agonist. It is an agonist for GLP one. That's one of your weight health hormones. Then Trezepotide, even though it sounds like it's a three one, Trezepotide is a dual agonist. It is GLP one and GIP. Retro-try. I don't even think I can pronounce it. It is a triple agonist. It is for GLP one and GIP and then it's going in and it's working on glucose on a different glucose hormone. Then there's this whole new class of medications coming out called small molecule non-peptide. And that's important because they are not bioidentical. So when, oh my gosh, you're going to kill me with these names, but I think it's O4 glypron or something like that that's going to come on the market this next year. Everybody's really excited about that one because it's oral and it's also, but and it's called a GLP one agonist. But when you have the receptor site in the body, there are two pockets to the receptor as we know. So when you have a GLP one agonist, it comes in, it hits that first pocket. It's kind of like pool when it hits or pinball when it hits that first pocket, it opens up the next pocket and it lands into the second pocket. Because this one, the non-peptide one is just a lab, a chemistry lab project and it jumps over that first pocket and it lands in the second pocket. So I don't know how that is going to work in your body and that has me very concerned about, you know, if you skip over something, I've seen plenty of medications, cox to inhibitors and others that are doing something that is kind of like what the body does, but also different. I don't know what that means. So that is very different to me. So that explains to you how lear gluteide, semi-gluteide, tersepatide, retortuteide. So more receptors, I would imagine different receptors. Or dual receptors or different receptors. Well, because semi-gluteide, I feel like OZAMPIC is like old school. Yeah, it is. It was DOG. Right, OG. But people get way better benefits on tersepatide or tersepatide. So you know what's interesting? This is where the data is really interesting. The quote unquote better benefits are number one. And some of the research it was shown that they lost weight faster or they lost weight. Right. Okay, you and I have a strong agreement. I don't want you to lose weight faster and I don't want to just mark whether or not you've lost weight. Okay, no, no, no. Let's take away the weight problem. Yeah, okay. So what's happening is not getting as tired. Yeah, has not been my patient experience. So I have had so many people that I've taken off of tersepatide as a part of working with their practitioner, taken off of tersepatide and we're using semi-gluteide. I think at the end of the day, the side effects are for, they're not even side effects. If you have pre-existing digestive issues, they are going to get worse on this medication. So if nobody assessed and helped you optimize or resolve those digestive issues and then they put you on this medication, it is going to exacerbate those. If you have those, you're also going to see the higher and the quicker that you go, like more dose and the higher amounts, et cetera, it's just going to keep getting worse on that part. So I think the consideration for the medication choices, likely number one, what's your insurance going to pay for or number two, what do you have access to? But what we really want to understand is in any medication, how do we keep it from being too difficult on your body, which is where the side effects become pronounced? Okay, so are you four against? Because I'm still confused. Don't put me there. I'm agnostic. That's my point. I think you're talking to you. I'm just your book. Yeah. I still don't know. Do you like them? Yeah, so I did, because you were on it and you said it changed your brain chemistry and it was great, but then you're not on it. Yeah. You did fiber and you do endurance. Yeah. I'm confused. Do you like it? Yeah, why are you not on it if you still have to have the straight effects? So at the end of the day, you just told me you lost 20 pounds. Yeah, I did, because I had 20 pounds, like so my fiber. Oh, the fiber. No, but not even the fiber. My whole system, so psychologically, I was in a bad place, physiologically, I needed to do work. I love that we're trying to put you, you can't put me in a box. People want an RU pro or con. I am a healthcare practitioner. I'm not a friend of mine. I did. You know what the book is? No, the book is. No, the book is. Okay, so the book is, and it says they're GLP1 shot or not. I don't care. So at the end of the day, the answer to the book is, I can help you get weight healthy, whether you're using the shot or not. Of course, there are people who are going to benefit from using the shot. I have no issue with that. For people who are going to benefit from using it for a short period of time, there are people who are going to benefit from using it ongoing. There are people who are going to benefit from using a higher amount of it. There are people that are going to benefit from a lower amount of it. Here's my opinion. Don't use the medication unless you do what you do in this book. And what you do in this book is you optimize your own weight health and your own weight health hormones. No one gets to go on this medication and it is not a pass for doing all the other work. Okay, so what do you think? Okay, so let's move on from GLP1 second. Perfect. So what are the other ways in your opinion? Because you have to have one. If you're on this podcast, you're crying out loud. You have to be an opinion. Yeah, I'll give you the opinion. I'll give you the opinion. I'll give you the opinion. Don't Trump on both sides. No, no, no, but I think you're wrong there, Jen. And I'm going to hold you to this. Take it. You were trying to get me to create a one size fits all an opinion that somebody wants me to have. Okay. And the opinion is it has to be personalized. Okay. So let's talk about this. Yeah. Because I think things are real that people cycle a lot. I think the psychological effects are big. Who knows? That's a big one. Yeah. The cravings, like, you know, kind of curbing those. Psychologically, I think... Optimizing blood sugar. Optimizing blood sugar. Optimizing blood sugar. All the things. So let's say if you're on it, we're not on it. Yeah, we're not on it. Not on it. Whatever. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. What are some other key ways we can optimize our health that will take us to our goal? Great. And the analogy of making a pizza. So everybody gets a pizza. There's a crust, their sauce, their cheese, and their toppings. Have you ever had a really crappy pizza, but there were a couple of great toppings? Like the topping was delicious, but the rest of the pizza was crappy. The cheese, the sauce, the crust, not great, but the topping was like delicious on that part. Or if you ever chose a pizza, okay, I won't even ask you. Anyway, the reality is the crust is digestion and hydration. You cannot have any health outcome, any health outcome. You can't stop hair loss. You can't make muscle. You can't optimize your cholesterol. You can't prevent all times. You can't do anything that you want to do if your digestion is suboptimal. And I include hydration in digestion because hydration is not about drinking water. Hydration has multiple is about your body's ability for water to do all the things that's supposed to do in the body. And one of those is to help it absorb nutrients in that part. Fun fact, one of your weight health hormones, PYY, helps to regulate hydration in the colon. So when I talk about repairing your weight health hormones as not optional, you want the opinion for me? Optimizing your weight health hormones is not optional. GOP1 shot is optional. Supplements are optional, but we have to optimize our digestion and hydration. Okay, the sauce is better nutrition. It's four pillars, quantity, quality, timing, and balance. You know how I told you that I can't fast in the morning? I don't want people choosing a caloric window like 12 to 8 p.m. meaning where they start eating at 12 and they finish at 8 p.m. And saying like, I'm doing an eight hour window. For most of us, that eight hour window works much better. If we start at 10 a.m. or if we start at 8 a.m. and we finish at 5 or we finish at 6 p.m. Right? I also want you pit-stopping regularly throughout the day. I was just on a panel with one of your favorites with Mark. And we were having a whole conversation about Mark's daily apple. I am I forgetting Mark's on. Yes, and he's like, well, I just don't need if I'm not hungry. And I said, you know, so hunger, that like there's a hunger piece to this, but we actually, your body is designed like a race car. We actually need to pit-stop pretty regularly to fuel it, to give it what it needs, whether that's water, whether that's nutrition, you know, on that part. The cheese are your lifestyle choices. Stress, breathing, joy. You know, we want to make sure that we're moving our bodies. So like what's some of the like dumbest so chapter four is shit to unlearn. No things we have to unlearn is how dumb our recommendations are. One of our recommendations is to exercise for 30 minutes in a day. You know, when I say that to someone, you know what they think? Great. I can sit on my butt for 24 and a half hours. Like, no, your body needs to be moving like probably about every three hours. And it matters what type of exercise you do. Sometimes you need to be hitting it hard. Sometimes you need to relax. You need to move your fascia. You know, open up your fascia. When we come over to the lifestyle choices, those are your cheese. So your crust, digestion and hydration, the pillars of better nutrition is your sauce. And then the cheese or the pillars of the lifestyle choices on that part. That's good. No shot or not. No shot or not. Yeah. Okay, let me say a couple of things. I think one of the best things you can do for your digestion is actually exercise. Is exercise. Yes. Is moving more? Yes. People are ever. Okay. Here's the however. When you work out before, when you hit it really hard, right, I've tried keeping up to work out sometimes I kept it. Not. You're good. You're good. So as we're in that part, we have to recognize that the act of exercising at that pace is stressful on the body. So it turns attention away from digestion in the moment. With my pro athletes, with anyone who's hitting it hard, we then, once you finish exercising, we then have to get you to relax. We have to turn off that stress response. If we don't do that, and this is one of the reasons I like to use continuous glucose monitors is because I also will call someone out. They'll tell me I had a guy who ran five miles every day and he's like, actually, I run hills and I run hard and he's like, I just don't know why I'm not seeing body composition changes and this other stuff. And I looked at his continuous glucose monitor. You know what? His body thought of his run. What? His body was like, meh, like you could do that in your sleep, dude. I'm actually doing it in my sleep. I went back to him and his trainer and I said, you need to do hip workouts. You need to do things that are like, this is not my skill set. This is your skill set. But I am telling you, your continuous glucose monitor is telling me your body isn't stressed enough when you're exercising. And so for him, we actually use that information to help pivot and that's what changed his weight health. He did not need a GLP on agonist, but he was really struggling to make muscle and to see body composition changes. Special endurance. I find that a lot of people who are high endurance athletes, your body acclimates to that too. So like, okay, now you're running five, six, ten hours. Now what? Like that becomes like, that becomes like, you know, a walk around the box. Like anything else. Like, your body does acclimate, but I'm talking from a place of just digestive because I think that is a big one. I agree with you. It is. Midsection movement. I mean, we've been at hotels. We've seen, you know, stayed near each other. Stay, I've stayed here. Like, I will roll over. Like, if my midsection after a flight is not working, I'm going to roll over on like whatever ball you have. Like I literally am going to lay on it and roll it around or I'm going to do chair twists on the airplane. You know, I'm going to move like to move it right into move the midsection, right? Our body, like the muscles in there, like we have to move, you know, that football field, we have to move it, you know, on that part. Yeah. That's interesting because I feel like I never thought about that part. Yeah. What I think about is that's why I don't like spin class or cycling because we sit all the all day anyway, right? So like I believe it should be vertical and like upright as much as possible. Yeah. Like I'm a big believer that movement. Yeah. I don't even like the word exercise. Yeah. Same. Like I've seen if it's between movement or exercise, move because that 100%. We'll help with your digestion. Yeah. Yeah. Your your your brain, your cognitive abilities. Yeah. Like if you're running around after like like put me with my five and seven year old niece and nephew and I'm like exhausted after three hours because we are moving like most of the time, we are moving the entire time. So don't turn around and tell a mom or caregiver and aunt or somebody else like on top of that, you now have to exercise. No. For that person, they may need to actually go stretch. They may need an Epsom Salt bath. They may need like they may need to turn off their stress, you know, as as a reaction to that. So I think it is we've inappropriately we've given these like these mantras of like making things really simple, you know what I mean? And it's just we've so screwed up like when people say like eat like five servings of fruits and vegetables, everyone hears fruits and not vegetables because first of all fruit is delicious and it's sugar. It's like, okay, that's true. I love fruit. Yes. You know my thing in fruit. Right. And it's like and we can't stop right? You know, in that. Yep. So I think that we like so much of this also with our weight health hormones is eating what's delicious to us and using our body the way that it was meant to be used to your point of we've got to move more. Yeah. So you so a couple other things. Yes. Are we eating too much protein? So there's no we. So the question mark is are you kidding? Are you kidding? Are you getting as I'm saying? So the way is that so there are two different sides because I'm too much. Hold on because that I wouldn't ask about it for eating too much protein. Yeah. Because we're talking about digestive issues. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Bing, Bing, Bing. You're so smart. Yeah. I didn't just fall off the truck yesterday. You didn't. Yeah. I love that. A couple of months ago about that and I think it's I'm so glad we're paying attention to it. So first of all, one of the things that does not help us is when we give an amount of protein for in the day, like and we base it off of our weight. So if you're like, especially if you're weight is above 150 pounds, this whole idea of one gram per pound, like when you get to 200 and 300 pounds, like somebody should not be eating that much protein. The question often that I'm faced with is, are you getting, are you giving your body enough protein in a moment that it helps to to resource the body with what it needs protein for, but also that it's stabilizing blood sugar, right? So that's usually for most people, you don't want to go lower than 15 grams at an eating occasion. And that's really important because remember all those bars like that were like eight, like they come out and they'd be like, I'm a high protein bar and it was like eight grams, you know, because things used to be four grams, you know, before. So we do have to have a baseline minimum. The question of at any time do you go above 30 or 40 grams at a sitting, you have to have optimal digestion. I will also look at your blood sugar because excess protein can negatively impact your blood sugar. The other piece of it is, is your digestion able to break down the protein that you're currently getting in. So sometimes as an example, after a really intense workout, the reason that I might use liquid nutrition that is higher protein there is somebody may not be able to break down and absorb the and like have the digestion has been turned off. So eating a steak at that moment might not be a better idea, but having something in the liquid form or having cottage cheese or something else, it's a little bit easier, you know, might might be easier for them at that. But when we look at too much, the signs of too much are do I have like, do I have bad gas, do I have acne, do I have bloating, do I or things going the wrong way, do I have reflux, do I have constipation, you know, so digestive issues. And then we really have to look at from an amino acid standpoint, maybe you're having the same, maybe you're having eggs and chicken and eggs and chicken and eggs and chicken, and we need to get some other amino acids in there to help you. So it's not always about more protein, but we should be assessing somebody's protein rather than just coming in and then saying like eat more protein. But here's the final one that I find the kicker. What food in nature is protein? I mean, I'm going to say it differently. I mean, I'm going to say it differently. Because I set you up there. What food in nature is only protein? Well, you have fish that has a lot of protein. Only protein. Nothing, the answer, nothing. Nothing, okay. Nature dip, there's a total trick question. Nature of salmon has fats, nope, they have fats in there. Their fats are actually some carbohydrates, there's some antioxidants, etc. So the dumb advice is start your meal with protein. Like no, like start your meal with a food that contains protein, but I need to know like there's a difference between maybe having lentils which contain protein versus having steak at the start of your meal or there might be a difference for you between having hemp seeds and having wild salmon, you know, even though they have a very similar essential fatty acid profile. Okay. So are most people, no, you said we don't like the we eat, but in general, now that proteins become so popular and trendy in terms of like people are I think a little bit over protein and themselves. You don't think you think that that can't, that is happening. I definitely think it's happening and it's happening because the advice is to eat protein. I think what's happening is number one, people are making choices that they don't realize maybe how much fat they're also getting in or they're getting rid of all carbohydrate and just feeling like I'm only going to choose protein and fat and not have the others. And as a result, they're not getting the right balance of nutrients on that part and they are band-aiding their digestive issues. I mean, you see like people who are free-basing magnesium, you have people who are like free-basing, you said it twice now. Oh, I like that term when it's like, what like magnesium? On limited to drug terms. So this is why you don't know, like on your free-basing cocaine. Exactly. So literally we've gone from a society that free-bases cocaine to a society that free-bases magnesium. People are like, I have people who have literally told me that they are taking magnesium with every single meal because otherwise they're constipated. Like, you know, I mean, that's an important thing to recognize that, you know, maybe we need digestive enzymes. Like maybe we, you know, just need to eat less at a particular meal on that part. So people actually free-based magnesium because they're constipated. Yes, yeah. Okay. And so like, I was actually going to... Instead of moving their belly. I said moving their belly. Yeah. So like going on a Swiss ball or something, you know, just like moving around. But what about digestive enzymes? Yeah. If we ate, if we took a couple of those supplements, do we take it before we eat or after we eat? So digestive enzymes are different than proteolytics than other enzymes. Okay. They do have to be taken. They should be taken typically right before or right with the start of your meal because the body produces digestive enzymes and it produces them in response along with their weight health hormones in response to signals that we are getting in food, right? So it is like, it's a personal assistant for your digestive tract. So number one, when you optimize your digestion, you might not need digestive enzymes because in that optimization, you may help your own body produce enough digestive enzymes. During that process of optimization, we may use digestive enzymes as a supplement to help you. And then the other side of it is there are times where you might just benefit from using a digestive enzyme. As an example, maybe you're eating different food from what you normally eat or for me, I travel so much and traveling like especially on a long flight or a long car ride because I'm not used to being sedentary and the air pressure, it will negatively impact my digestion. So I use digestive enzymes to help me. It's like a personal assistant that I use for my digestion in those moments too. So do the digestive enzymes do the same thing for your digestive system, for your digestion that magnesium will? No, different. Okay. So magnesium is a mineral is designed to, and it works in opposition to calcium and it's one of our electrolytes and it is designed to relax. Like it exists in our cells to kick out calcium to turn off the stress response. So it is allowing relaxation. So why it's helpful for things like constipation is if your constipation is motility related and I do a whole deep dive on magnesium and how to choose the right magnesium from food and from supplements in the book, when we're looking at that and you come in and you say, like, okay, so if your motility is slowing down, if you follow classic recommendations for constipation and you eat more fiber, you're just going to have a slowed down system with a snowball of fiber in there and it's going to be more painful. So we need to do is we need to encourage the motility and that's where an optimal amount of magnesium can be helpful. Digestive enzymes are different. Digestive enzymes are in your body and they're like forks and knives. So maybe we didn't chew our food optimally, but just think about like instead of cutting your food into one or two pieces, now think about cutting it into 30 pieces. And what we're trying to do is have it be absorbed better. So that's the job that it does. So it breaks down the food. It breaks it down the food. So it's in breakdown. One of the chapters of the book, I talk about how we're not having breakdowns often enough. We are not breaking down our food. So we're giving people like society gives people a lot of credit for what we're eating, like kale and salmon. And we're like, oh, those are healthy foods. Your body doesn't give you credit until it is broken down into nutrients and in the cells and able to be used by the cells. And then it high fives you. And then it's like, I'm going to grow here. I'm going to give you energy. I'm going to do whatever. Right. That's a really good point. So I think that's important because I think what I found out was I'm not even absorbing the nutrients. Right. So here I am eating all these like healthy foods that are not great when I'm not even absorbing them. Yes. So how do people even find out if they are absorbing? If they're absorbing. Yeah. So one of the things, because I always want us to be able to do this personally. So I've created the first ever weight health hormone assessment and included in there is an assessment of absorption. We also can use better quality tests like, you know, there are a variety of different digestive like poop tests. You know, we can test for that part. However, your body is going to tell you like if you are not, you know, if you are having any of the digestive issues, then we have to work on absorption and we have to remember that hydration is a part of absorption. So hydration brings water and nutrients into the cells. So if you are dehydrated, if you're peeing all the time and you're drinking water, then it's going to tell me that you're not absorbing nutrients into the cells. So absorption, you know, and if you drink alcohol, if you are on non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, you can ibuprofen a Tylenol. If you've used hormones, if you are on certain medications, if you experience stress ever, if you eat things that your body is intolerant to. So if you find out you're gluten intolerant or you find out, and no, by the way, if you have any exposure to any environmental toxins, all of those things are affecting the lining of the digestive tract. And that's where our absorption is occurring. So the majority of people that I see attune up of your absorption is warranted on a regular basis. It is not something we do once in our lives. Like I didn't do it at age 20 and boom, I've had weight health the rest of my life because of something we have to do, I recommend on a quarterly basis. Wow. Those poop tests are super popular. They're different kinds now. So there was a like poop in tubes, you know, and take those tubes and go and we'd look at those and those provided us with a lot of information. But now with the introduction of a more full spectrum genetic test, we can also poop, wipe ourselves and swipe, you know, and like do I know I love your face, but all you have to do is swipe that kind of like we would do a COVID test in our nose. You send it in and you get all of this information and what I work about yourself and what are you doing? You just like you take the Q tip or whatever on your poop. So it's a lot better than having to like stuff your poop into tubes and do that. But it's great. It can give us great insights. However, if you do one of those tests and you buy one of those tests online and you get the AI report and it says you're low in this and you're high in this and you just start to go take, you know, whatever you're low in, I'm going to start taking and whatever I'm high in, I'm going to avoid. No, that's not the way that it works. You need a clinician who's trained in the test. You need, you still need somebody to interpret it and say like, but why is this happening? And in most of my patients case, it's insufficient intake of glutamine, which is an important amino acid. And it's also lifestyle behaviors that are not, and nutrition choices that are not optimizing absorption. Like what? Like as an example, every time we need an antibiotic, it's going to a negatively affect the lining of our digestive tract. And one of the reasons I broke up with alcohol was because just one of the reasons was because I was tired of what I call washing my floor with dirty shoes. Like I'm working so hard on my weight health and on my belly. And then you're sitting there and you're like, okay, every time I have a drink, it's eroding my digestive lining and my liver's ability to work better at it. And I was just like, honestly, it's not that worth it to me on that part. You were well ahead of the game on that part. Yeah. I think thinking is like the absolute worst thing you can do for any type of weight loss program or any health program. Or just being healthy. You feel bloated. Yeah. It keeps weight on. Yeah. You feel gross. Sluggish. I never understood it. Thank God I don't like the taste of it because that I love the taste. I love the taste. And what I found for me too, it was a social coping mechanism. And so I would find that I would drink because I either didn't want to be there very bluntly. And so then I was like, well, if I drink, maybe I'll enjoy myself. And you know, I was like, no. And I also stayed longer. And then I also, you know, your budget or whatever. But I also found that it negatively, like I was like, it would help me lean into other behaviors that I don't like. It made it harder for me to feel present. Or honestly, to be to choose who I wanted to have in my life, you know, versus like the people I told me to have in my life. Right, right, right. You know what I mean? It's like a lubricant for like social. Totally. Yeah. So like, you end up being with whoever it's around you. That's right. Yeah, that totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let me share my daily routine game changer with you. It's the momentous three. I've been using their protein, their creatine and omega three combo for months now. And the results are undeniable. These nutrients are key for long term health and performance. But hard to get enough of through diet alone. The creatine boost both physical and your mental performance. The grass fed weight tastes great with no weird aftertaste. And the omega three is a must for recovery. Since adding these, my energy, my recovery and my overall well-being has really improved. So if you want better performance, this is the way to go. Visit livemomentis.com and use my code Gen. For 35% off your first subscription, that's livemomentis.com code Gen. For 35% off your first subscription. Trust me, you'll be happy you did. 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I wanted to ask you about something that recently I was kind of, I've been like playing around with because I had someone on the podcast and he was actually the medical medium. He was very, very polarizing. But I will tell you one thing about that guy. As polarizing and as kooky as some people may think he is, when I posted him and put him on my stuff, the amount of people who were like, oh my god, he changed my life, oh my god, he was right or accurate about that. So listen, if it's working for someone, I think it was fascinating. He did say something that I thought was interesting. He said that your immune system is in your blood system, is in your blood, in your blood, not in your gut. What do you think about that? I think he's right and wrong. Okay. You hate this. Like what's the position? Remind us never to have that kind of problem. Never gonna have this again. Okay. I mean, it's just like we can't, in the opinion. Okay, so I'm going to tell you, you can't ignore that your immune system is in the lining of your gut. So he is physiologically wrong on that. But you also can't ignore is that we, when, so I don't actually think we have an immune system. All right, you want my full opinion on this? Yes. We don't have an immune system. We have a body. It is an ecosystem. It is so dumb for us to talk about a digestive system, an immune system, a nervous system, an endocrine system. Like that was like a convenient way for us to teach people about the body and to create a healthcare system that is not working well for us because it segments where we send people. Like you have a heart problem, you see a cardiologist when really you should be working with me on your gut. Or you should be working with you on your fitness or whatever, like in all of that. So what he's doing is number one, being dramatic, which always gets you likes and shares. But number two is saying, like, how could the blood not be part of the immune system? But why does he have to say that the digestive system isn't, that your digestive system isn't? Let me tell you, let me tell you, that's key. Okay. Yeah. He made a good point. He said that people are getting way too much blood draws, right? They're getting a lot of blood. Yeah. And when people are sick, and then they go to the doctor and they're like, okay, I'm going to be like, okay, let's take your blood again. Yeah. And the more and more blood that you're getting taken, the sicker you're becoming because they're like stripping your immune system. So why I'm bringing this up is because, you know, people say, like even your, a lot of everyone says, you need to, a lot of people, not everyone, that you need to get your biomarkers checked, that's a quarterly, right? Talk about that. Okay. I didn't say you need to get your biomarkers out of that. I'm not saying you're digestion. Okay. I'm talking about other people. I've had one of one person on the show. Okay. But I think you're making me your second guy. That's true. That's true. I mean, all right. Cool. What I was going to say is that more and more, I'm noticing that people started with 80 biomarkers, you're getting checked. 100 biomarkers, you're getting checked for. Now someone's coming to my house. Yes. So for this, this really elaborate program, and they're doing 500 biomarker testing. When it is enough is enough. And like, when I go see my doctor, he's like, listen, there's only so many things we can like check. Like, you can test for a thousand things. I think functional health now is going to do a thousand or someone else is going to do a thousand biomarkers because they need a point of differentiation to market themselves. For marketing purposes. Yeah. But is that, isn't that just becoming too excessive? Okay. So two different things to think about. The first thing, because then we also have, you know, like you can go get total plasma exchange where people are like giving their entire blood and like bringing new, new plasma in that. Yeah. So when we talk about being sick or like, so is there such a thing as too much? Yes. And also, I want to acknowledge I don't think doctors are the best suited to help people optimize their nutrient levels because the way that doctors are taught and we're in a doctor society that I'm trying to break open. Doctors are taught to look at biomarkers almost exclusively and diagnose you. So they might look at a CBC like you're the one that you're insurance that old one. Remember, like 10 markers, right? And they might say your, your iron is low. And you know what they'll then tell you to do is to go take an iron supplement. I can tell you I'm not going to do it right now, but I can tell you 15 reasons your iron could be low. One of them could be your testosterone. They haven't even tested your test, testosterone in that part. So when we, when we make, when we look at blood markers and we use those, so this society of like, I need more blood markers and I need more blood markers. And I'm going to tell you something funny about this one that you're about to have done. Like I'm going to get more and more and more tested at the end of the day. If you're not absorbing your nutrients, nothing is going to improve in any of those markers. So like, I don't need, I don't need you to do that. I don't need you to do a poop test. If you come in and you tell me that you're farting and it smells really badly or that you feel like you're five months pregnant or you're putting on weight and you don't know why or and I ask you questions. My entire book is these are the whole chunk of is a playbook. These are the questions you need to be asking and only one part of the assessment, only one part in there are 10 labs to look at. Now that doesn't mean that there aren't really valuable labs. Like it doesn't mean that if I'm curious about your testosterone, I might want five labs drawn and that could be an important thing to do. But when we go in and we do all of these labs and then we give you an AI report that tells you like that doesn't know what you're doing or any of this other stuff and tells you, here's what I would do based on your labs. Honestly, you're the fool for following it. I mean, at the end of the day and so when he's saying you're just giving your, I think you're wasting your time, your money and your blood, if you're doing it inappropriately, that said, I also think what we have is a reaction to a society where we have had for too long to few blood markers and the wrong markers and we've been making decisions about that. So are there some blood markers that I would look at on a quarterly basis? Yes. And then I would look at every six months, absolutely. Did I use and do I use function health myself? Yes. Because without having a physician that I could turn to immediately when I was trapped, when I was moving, they could look at all of that. But you know what pissed me off? I went back for my, they're like, we include two blood draws in a year. Yeah. But they didn't include any other one in the second lab draw. It didn't include any of the ones that I needed to look at, right? It only included like their second set on that part. It wasn't that wasn't helpful to me. So then I ended up paying like if I had gone with them, I would have ended up paying another thousand dollars to get the ones that I actually wanted to get drawn. So they're the models of healthcare that are out there that are creating access and the ones that are telling us to do all of these things aren't better. And anyone that's coming over to your house, I love that they're coming to you and that's wonderful. But I just really have to question like, why do you need more blood drawn? We know you need to work on getting yourself to absorb more nutrients. So unless it's a follow up to that to see if you're now absorbing nutrients better, I think you're wasting your blood. Okay. And your money and your time. And then what are the 10 biomarkers that everyone should be looking at? Yeah. So in the book, I look at the ones that are going to give me information about your weight health hormones, right? I had to make a decision to include hemoglobin A1C and it really bothered me. Hemoglobin A1C is a 90 day average of our blood sugar. It is better than just having a fast and glucose. We prick our finger in the moment and we find out our blood sugar from a trend standpoint. But because it's an average, it doesn't give me really good information. But when I use that, it can give me a little bit of insight. And then I also like to use a continuous glucose monitor. So I did include A1C. I included vitamin D because I want to know about that one. I included LDL. I included your triglycerides. I also included in their fasting insulin if you have access to it. That one could be helpful. HSCRP. So A marker of inflammation, noting that it might not be the best marker of inflammation, but it gives me a little bit of information on that part. I forget what numbers I'm at at this point. There might be one or two. Your ALT and your AST because they're going to help me see if I should be looking at your liver as it relates to fatty liver. We haven't even talked about that. Why are we create what happens when the body, you could be a quote unquote healthy weight. But I see so many people where their AST and their ALT are elevated above where they should be. And that tells me that their liver is really struggling. And we want to, we need to optimize our liver on that part. So those give me, that's one part of weight health hormone assessment. So those labs can give me good directional information. In addition to answering questions about your lived experience, in addition to us measuring your breathing, your heart rate variability, in addition to us looking at your weight composition, not your total weight. I could care less what the total number is. And in addition to us asking about questions and assessing your digestion and hydration. Got it. Yeah. All right. So what are some ways that we can improve the way we absorb our nutrients? Great. So first of all, not giving our body too much at one time. So recognizing that when we give our body a good amount, that is actually better than giving it more because if it has too much work, it can't absorb it. The second one is optimizing hydration. So instead of pounding, say 60 ounces of water at one time, maybe it's 8, 10, 12 ounces, maybe your food is rich in electrolytes, maybe you're not also having alcohol or caffeine at the same time and we're not eliminating it. Maybe we need an electrolyte supplement, what's in that electrolyte supplement, depends, et cetera. The third one that I think is really interesting is you were talking about movement and being active. So actually, the body is not going to want to absorb nutrients when we are inactive because the body is going to be like, I just may as well store it as fat because I don't need to use it in that part. So part of absorption is getting that balance right between not, what do I give my body when I have been really active and then also what do I give my body when I'm not active? Got it. I like that. I think that a lot of women struggle with this whole thing. Yeah, big time. Also because so many women, we've been on one of the ones that I think for me was inappropriately, I was told to be on birth control for heavy periods. So birth control is one of the ones that's challenging to our body's absorption, the lining of our digestive tract, et cetera. Really? Yeah. So if you're on birth control pills, it can make you constipated? Not so much about the making. It could contribute to constipation, but it can also deplete nutrients that our body needs to be able to absorb nutrients. Oh, yeah, right. We're talking about that. I see my heart's tired. Yeah. Any more magic. I know. As you're magic, your magic was called a fake hour. I met more like nutrient absorption. Yes. And another one that we both like is one of the reasons I like acrimansia as a microbe, acrimansia, clostridium, bifidobacteria, but acrimansia is called, by name, is acrimansia mucinophilia. It's a probiotic. The mucinophilia means I like mucin and it means that it goes in and it chooses up the mucous in the lining of your digestive tract. And when it chooses it up, it's getting rid of the old and forcing the body to create new. So that's part of the repair work for the lining of the digestive tract. But didn't you tell me off camera that glutamine is really good for glutamine is great. Yeah, absorption. Yeah. And when we were taught nutrients, you know, but whenever we were learning about that, we were taught that glutamine because the body can make it is something that's called conditionally essential. And what I communicate to all of my patients and publicly is that existence in 2025, 26, 27 and beyond is making glutamine more of an essential nutrient. Yes, the body can make it, but we have increased our needs for it because of all of these other things that challenge muscle and challenge the lining of our digestive tract. So it is both helps us with building muscle and it also helps us with the repairing. It's the glue, if you will, for the lining of the digestive tract. So that's one that I feel that people don't talk about enough. Right. You hear a lot about vitamin D. You hear a lot about omega three. You hear a lot about the same creatine, of course, is really popular. The same supplements kind of keep on, you know, glutamine is one of my, I don't actually put people on other nutrients until typically it's either glutamine plus the others or I use glutamine for a time period. Then I add in other nutrients because if you're not going to be able to support the, be able to absorb it, why do I care if I'm putting it into your body, right? It's just going to be gone on that part. So I should start taking my glutamine again. Yeah, remember that. I remember. I used to be on that long ago. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good one. And I think also too, you know, it's another one is we've encouraged more, and I love plant-based eating. I'm not, and if you're plant monogamous, I love that part too, but you can get glutamine from different food sources. But if you're not eating animal protein, you're probably going to be getting a lot less glutamine. I think momentous has one. That's good. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, because you told me that it's good. That's that line now. Thank you. So momentum to the shadow. There's some people that have concerns. I think it's right. Dr. Russell Jaffe, who is the founder of Perk supplements, one of the, they're, I use their glutamine with a lot of patients. I take it myself. It's called Endura PAK. And I like that one because if you're, if your body recycles glutamine, there, there can be some downsides to it. I have people who are just so insufficient in it that I'm not concerned about that. But if you are somebody where it's come up that you have that concern, then Endura PAK is going to be an excellent one. I just wish they made it in a powder because I tried to not take as many capsules, but those are some of the capsules that I'll take more off. I remember that. Yeah. It actually gave me a really good tip. She says not to have as many capsules and have most things in liquid form because or powder or powder because of what the capsules are made from, right? Yeah. People will think about that. Right. Right. What are the actual capsules made from? There's, there are some now that are, they call it Pulein P-U-L-L-A-N, I think, or Pulein. And that had a big issue because it's naturally made from seaweed. And so people are like, that's got carajena, but they didn't understand natural versus not natural. You'll see in, I mean, one of the things that I use when I, you know, I've evaluated thousands and thousands of supplements is I'll actually look at what is the lining made. And maybe it's made from gelatin, maybe it's made from, you know, it's a, a lot of them will just say veggie capsules. Yeah. But that's kind of like vegetable oil, like buyer beware. Like what is your capsule actually made of? Is something you want to know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Is there any other kind of like interesting little things like that you can share with us? Yeah. Like what, what, when you're trying to pick something you need for? Well, no, I like that one about the capsules. Like that stuck in my head. The couple of things that you've told me before, the sponge versus the hose. Oh, the hose versus the sponge. Yeah. The hose. Yeah. Because I think people do the chug water and then tee it on them. And they put, and they basically they're not absorbed, absorbing it because they're just, you know, you're supposed to like drink slow. Right. Well, the thing is like that. And the thing is like that's slower fast. But what's interesting is there are three phases, and I go through this once you figure out, are you a hoser sponge with sponge being optimal? I go through looking at your water intake, how much, how often, what's type of water. And then the second thing I look at is your exposure to dehydrators, especially right around the time you're taking water, including stress, cause stress is a dehydrator. Too much sugar, like added sugar is elevated sugar. Blood sugar is a dehydrator. Stress is a dehydrated. Yes, yes, hi Jen. I know, hi Jen. I know. Oh my god. I didn't know stress is a dehydrated. Yes, and so when we look at these things, so then, and of course, like things like alcohol and caffeine, and by the way, I'm not in sugar. Like, I'm not saying we can't have any of these. We just have to recognize that they may be why we're not absorbing water. And then the third one that everyone's giving so much attention to is what are those hydrators? So those minerals that can help us to, you know, so magnesium, sodium, calcium, potassium, most of us do not get in enough potassium. Like, and we do not want to supplement high amounts of potassium, but we want to make sure we get it. But I have a lot of people who like, I had one doctor call me, she's a friend of ours. And she was like, all my patients heard the Heberman podcast and they're all taking two elementies a day and they're getting in like two grams of sodium. And I said, I know. I'm like, first of all, again, the listener who is doing this, like, you're the problem. I'm just going to, I'm just going to call you out on this. But you don't, you are not his size. You might not even be male. He went through his diet and figured out like, okay, for him, he sweats a ton. He exercises a ton and he realized I'm not getting salt in in other places. And this one works for me. You have to do that, that same thing. And I talk about that in the book. It's really important. I, I actually, I tease you because I, because of the whole like one size, not fit all. So true. People look at somebody on Instagram. And they're like, okay, if I do exactly what that person's going to do, I'm going to look like them. That's right. Like them. No, you're not. That's right. Like, first of all, not, uh, that doesn't work like that. I know that time that I tried spraying my hair to get your color. I ended up with orange. Like I literally looked like Ronald McDonald. I had orange curly hair. My mom made me cut it off. Like, I mean, I was like at a like a buzz cut for my six grade pictures because she was like, there's a zone embarrassing. So like, I think that's good. Like buyer beware on that part. The other thing that is this day on that sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and the sun and orange, and brown and like, yeah, and I applaud here. Like, yes, yes, you know, and like, I could sit there and try to eat what you eat, like and just be like, I'm going to eat what you eat so that I can look the way that you look and like, I mean, and you want to see the fastest way to me, like putting on 10 pounds, right? And like, even if I ate what you ate and exercise, the way that you did, like, it's not going to work for me. But the one thing I think that is what the reason that I wrote this book and the book has online resources, including access to health coaches. The reason I wrote the book is, it also sounds like it's so complicated. It sounds like it's not doable. It sounds like I wake up at like, and for everyone of my patients we're assessing all of these different things. And you know, like literally that your soul day job has to be your health on that part. And I don't want people to feel that way. I think that there are things like, you can bite into an apple, and if an apple does not taste sweet enough to you, we know that we need to look at your sweet taste buds and we need to work on that part. Giving you the tools to be able to do that, that's just like, that's the only thing that I then want you to focus on. I don't want you to do like all these other things. Now, it might illuminate for us that you actually have a digestive issue and we need to work on the digestive issue, but it also might just tell me that like, you're getting in, you're gonna use my free-basing. You're getting in, you're free-basing, monk fruit or stevia, and instead you should just be like eating whole foods and not like, you know, and reducing your amount of non-nutritious sweeteners or for God's sakes, having a little bit of sugar if you wanted to have something that was sweet on that part. I think what's making us all crazy and sick is the fact that we're all hyper-focused on health and living until 150, and this whole longevity trend is become like, it's overkill at this point. Like the stress that people avoid. Infobesity. Like, infobesity, right? 100% to be of fact, uninformation. Two are my whole nation. I can't take it anymore with all the different, people are wearing the glucose monitors and the sleep trackers and the beds that are cooling are not cooling and they're tracking answers. Or they feel like they can't be healthy because they can't afford that and their healthcare premiums just doubled and between that and paying for their kids to have shoes and they're sitting there feeling like, I'm like, I can't be healthy and that's totally inappropriate. So we have to intervene on that part and recognize, like, look, if you want to be entertained by nutrition and health, like great, but if you are obsessive, compulsive about it, it is not better for you than anything else on that part. And too often with all the different wearables and everything else that we're tracking, we're doing a great job of data collection but we're actually not doing a great job of healing and actually taking some data and being like, hey, can I, like, I can do as much with an apple as somebody can do with 27 hundred labs and all of these other things on that part. And I think that's where the rubber needs to meet the road. We really come back to this is why a quality dietician nutrition of somebody to work with who can help you put your plan together is going to be, in my opinion, better on that part. Agree. Yeah, I mean, I just think everything has just become overkill at this point. It has been. And I think that people just do a little bit in more than doing nothing. Progress is better than perfect. Like, could you agree to take glutamine for six weeks? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I can try. Before you get any labs, you're on. I know, five hundred. That's more because I was so curious and there were like, this program is super stealth and I was very, like, there's, there are like, the people that are doing it. Something's belong to be stealth. Yeah, I know. Very dialed in. Yeah, I know. It sounds very excessive. And like, I haven't actually gotten my blood done for a while. So, but I'm actually concerned kind of like, okay, but also let me, let me say this for anyone who is thinking about getting their blood worked on and spending the money and thinking about whether you're spending the money or not. If you know that you have just been through a period of a big health issue, a big stress issue, a big life change, like maybe you were just traveling a ton or anything else like that, give your body a month or two at minimum, a month of good recovery and taking your nutrition and doing those things. Otherwise, you, we know right now that your body does not have what it needs to run better because of everything one has been through. And all your lab tests, it's gonna be expensive and it's, as my medical medium said, you're gonna give away your immune system with that blood work and you're gonna come back and the recommendations are gonna be to do all of these things and it's because we haven't healed your body to a certain extent. So my advice always, before you invest in the lab test, whether it's the gut test, whether it's the, blood test, it's anything else, do that's why I put a 30 day tune up in here, do the 30 days in some degree, you don't have to do a perfect, better not perfect, and then get your labs done after that. So maybe take your glutamine for like four weeks and then do the blood. Oh no, I'm actually, yeah. Mementus, let's get it, they should send it to you. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna send it to both of us. I will, I'm gonna call that. Mementus, get on it. It's the best brand to make it. And by the way, it doesn't, like, I love them. Like, it does not have to be a Mementus in place like I think Sony Amazon, but it's a whole other story. But I will say I like Mementus for many reasons, but they're third party tested. Right, I really like, I know the guys there, their quality is, I think, bar and ounce though. Yeah, I use, I use from orthomolecular, I use from metagenics, I use from pure capsulations, I mentioned perk, like, it does not have to be one brand. And I like Mementus, what I would say about glutamine is wherever possible, I think you should use the powdered form rather than trying to do capsules on that perk. I'm gonna try to get that. Could you do four weeks before you get your blood work done? Well, I better start like four weeks ago. Yeah, exactly. Like, several days. All right, just, it's worth calling up and being like, hey, quick reschedule. I think that might happen. Yeah, okay. Ashley coughed my dear. I love her. She's great. She's a friend. She has no opinion. She's got zero opinion. She's like on the fence on everything. That's right. Her book is called your best shot. I'm on your friends. Yeah, I'm on your friends. Yeah. The book is called your best shot. Ashley is very wise, very smart. And like I said, I've spoken to a million dietitians. You are by far one of the most well-informed I've ever met. I also, you explain things very well. Thank you. Although I'm too. I'm too. I'm too. I mean, we couldn't just like make it a little more. Yeah, sure. I really wanted, I mean, I wanted to take you through the whole pathway on that. I appreciate it. But you know, always appreciate it. The over simplification can be, I get it. I'm not probably not designed for the modern age of 30-second clips. No, no, no. What are you talking about? They're a minute now. That's right. Oh, they're a minute 30 sometimes. I'm probably need a few more magic mics for that. Magic mics. Magic mics. Where's your, your mind in the gutter? I wish I would take him or Channing, whatever is it? Sorry. You know, it's right. All right, guys, have a good one. Thank you.