Latest / Tone It Down / Be the CEO of Your Own Health: Ways2Well CCO Danese Rexroad on Labs, HRT & Longevity

Transcript

Be the CEO of Your Own Health: Ways2Well CCO Danese Rexroad on Labs, HRT & Longevity · Tone It Down

• 0:00
  I want to be the 85-year-old in the gym having sex whenever I want to.
• 0:04
  This is your weekly girlfriend chat, the kind that we all crave, where we can show up exactly as we are, laugh until we cry, get honest about the things we're navigating, and all the private girl talk that we need more of.
• 0:17
  No pressure, no perfection, just real women like us sharing real stories with real connections.
• 0:23
  Over the years of Tonidab, I've learned that the most transformative moments don't always happen in a workout.
• 0:29
  They happen in those conversations before and after.
• 0:33
  when we realize we're all going through something, when we feel seen.
• 0:37
  And that's what Tone It Down is built on.
• 0:40
  My intention is simple, to help you tune back into yourself, to quiet the noise, and to remind you that you're allowed to evolve.
• 0:49
  This is Tone It Down.
• 0:55
  Welcome back to Tone It Down.
• 0:57
  I'm your host and your friend, Karina Dawn.
• 0:59
  Today's episode, I've personally, in preparation for it, been looking so forward and excited for it.
• 1:07
  We're talking hormones, blood work, peptides, HRT, and some of the newest things happening in health and longevity.
• 1:14
  Thank you.
• 1:15
  Why it's so personal?
• 1:16
  This one hits close home to me because I just did my big blood work about two months ago where we talk about it on this podcast too, but how when you go to your GP, they maybe do 10 to 15 biomarkers, but I did over 100 because...
• 1:35
  If you listen to follow me and listen to the podcast, you know, I went into perimenopause very early menopause, pretty young, and I had no clue the entire time that I was going through this.
• 1:46
  And I just started HRT, hormone replacement therapy.
• 1:51
  this week when I'm recording this.
• 1:54
  So I am very excited to see what happens.
• 1:57
  I'm like, am I not gonna be angry at the world all the time?
• 2:01
  Bobby, am I gonna sleep through the night?
• 2:04
  Is my anxiety going to go down?
• 2:07
  Because when I hit Perry and didn't even know it,
• 2:10
  Hello, anxiety attacks.
• 2:12
  Okay.
• 2:13
  Hello, all of this anxiety.
• 2:15
  I'm like heart problems where I literally went to the doctors like I'm dying and did an EKG and I was fine.
• 2:20
  So I had to learn how to manage my anxiety, which I'll pause there on that topic.
• 2:25
  make sure you hit that subscribe button right now because next week's episode is a solo episode called Good Morning Anxiety, How I Start My Day Safe.
• 2:37
  So take a moment here, click subscribe if you don't want to miss that one.
• 2:42
  But anyways, I wanted to bring you an expert because I had so many personal questions.
• 2:47
  I read your DMs, listened to your voicemails at kareenadon.com slash message, and you are going to get all the answers you're asking for that we question our 30s, our 40s, and beyond.
• 2:59
  So today's guest, drumroll the amazing.
• 3:03
  Denise Rexroad.
• 3:04
  She is a family nurse practitioner and functional medicine expert at Ways Too Well.
• 3:10
  We have a Ways Too Well in Austin and there's also one in Houston, but they are also online.
• 3:16
  She started in the ER and trauma, then plastic and reconstructive surgery before she moved into prevention and health optimization.
• 3:25
  And you may have seen her work.
• 3:26
  She's a clinician who worked with Jelly Roll on his incredible health transformation.
• 3:31
  And we talk about Jelly Roll's transformation and how incredible that was and how anyone can do this.
• 3:38
  And he did it without a GLP-1.
• 3:41
  Quick disclaimer, quick but important.
• 3:45
  Before we start, this episode is for educational and informational purposes only.
• 3:50
  It is not medical advice.
• 3:51
  Everybody's body is different.
• 3:53
  So please talk to your own doctor or healthcare provider before starting, stopping, or changing any medication, hormone, supplement, or treatment.
• 4:01
  And before we dive right in, the fall challenge is coming October 12th.
• 4:06
  It is fall back to the beach.
• 4:08
  21 days to change your ways.
• 4:10
  OG Tone It Up gals, this one's for you.
• 4:14
  It's a homecoming.
• 4:15
  And if you're new to Tone It Up, this one is a great welcome.
• 4:19
  So make sure you download the Tone It Up app.
• 4:21
  And because you listen to Tone It Down podcast, you can go to toneitup.com.
• 4:26
  You have to do it through the website.
• 4:29
  It won't work on Apple.
• 4:31
  And you enter code TID20, T-I-D-2-0 at checkout for 20% off your annual subscription.
• 4:40
  So make sure you join us.
• 4:42
  I also, there's OG, there's Beach Babe and other beach workouts.
• 4:46
  And I even threw in a few that we just filmed at Sandals in St. Vincent.
• 4:52
  The fall nutrition plan is coming out.
• 4:55
  The recipes you're going to love.
• 4:56
  I just made, I taste tested before I put in there the new pumpkin pie protein balls.
• 5:03
  I just made some other recipes for Bobby and he's been loving, loving, loving them.
• 5:08
  Yeah, and it's the perfect reset for the holidays.
• 5:11
  We're about to dive into the holidays and what better way to come together, work out, move our body.
• 5:17
  It's something, it's great to have like a rhythm because summer's gone and we're all in these new schedules for the holidays.
• 5:24
  And we want to go into January.
• 5:26
  feeling amazing.
• 5:27
  So head over to ToneItUp.com to sign up for the challenge.
• 5:31
  Make sure you enter your email address if you're already an app member because you want to make sure to get all of your emails for the challenge.
• 5:38
  And then if you're new, go join us.
• 5:40
  I cannot wait.
• 5:43
  Danise, welcome to Tone It Down.
• 5:47
  I am so happy you're here.
• 5:48
  The OG Chief Medical Officer at
• 5:53
  I call myself the OG because I've been there since the very beginning.
• 5:57
  Like I said, it was Brigham's idea.
• 5:59
  And he's like, let's change health care.
• 6:01
  Yeah, I want to dive so deep into this.
• 6:03
  I have been a ways to well in Austin and through my friend Jen, who introduced us.
• 6:09
  But your background, you came from a trauma ER nurse, right?
• 6:13
  Yeah, trauma is my background.
• 6:14
  I spent the first 15 years of my career around trauma, surgery, ER, and I started paying attention to, it's hard to explain, but when people come in and they have an injury or an illness, you think about what is their health status first, or at least that's where my thought was.
• 6:32
  How healthy are you to begin with?
• 6:33
  How did you get here?
• 6:34
  Yeah.
• 6:34
  And I started really paying attention to that.
• 6:37
  And I had a true defining moment.
• 6:39
  One night, we had these two kids that shot each other in the trauma unit.
• 6:43
  And we were doing our CPR, life-saving stuff, running back and forth.
• 6:48
  And I sat down with my attending and I was like...
• 6:50
  how come this one lived and this one didn't?
• 6:54
  And I was just devastated because we couldn't do, I mean, we were running and doing everything that we could.
• 6:58
  And these kids were young.
• 7:00
  And he looked at me and he said, Denise, it's baseline health.
• 7:03
  How healthy was this kid when he came in?
• 7:06
  His body wasn't able to handle anything.
• 7:08
  the trauma.
• 7:09
  And I thought, okay, even if a traumatic accident happens, your baseline health dictates your outcome there too.
• 7:15
  How old were the kids?
• 7:17
  20 and 21.
• 7:18
  20 and 21.
• 7:19
  Okay.
• 7:19
  Because you've said before that based on how you live your lifestyle in your 30s and 40s determines whether you're
• 7:25
  At the gym or in a nursing home at 80.
• 7:27
  Right.
• 7:28
  I would say that trauma experience in the ER probably had you start thinking, like, how do I help people when they're younger to live better lives when you're older?
• 7:37
  And I started seeing these little ladies, they would fall and break a hip.
• 7:41
  And they were weak to begin with.
• 7:44
  And I pay attention to that.
• 7:46
  I'm like, I don't want to be that way.
• 7:47
  I don't want to lose my muscle.
• 7:48
  I don't want to be so weak that the slightest little thing, I trip and fall and break my bones.
• 7:54
  And then I started looking as to why.
• 7:56
  You know, I'm a nerd.
• 7:57
  I'm always looking, scratching the surface, you know, trying to figure out the why of everything.
• 8:03
  That's kind of what sparked all my interest into getting into the preventative health side of it.
• 8:09
  How long have you been in preventative?
• 8:11
  Ten years.
• 8:11
  Ten years.
• 8:12
  How long has Wastewell been?
• 8:13
  Nine years.
• 8:14
  Nine years.
• 8:14
  Okay.
• 8:15
  See, I'm like, oh, it's this brand new place in Austin.
• 8:18
  But they started in Houston.
• 8:19
  Yes.
• 8:19
  We started in 2017 in Houston.
• 8:22
  Yeah.
• 8:22
  And then I think it was four years ago.
• 8:25
  We moved over four or five years ago.
• 8:26
  We moved up to Austin and we opened our Austin location.
• 8:30
  And you've been able to visit our fun longevity lab.
• 8:35
  It's amazing.
• 8:36
  I have.
• 8:36
  Yes.
• 8:37
  There's a lot of companies now who have telehealth and blood work online.
• 8:42
  What is different about Ways to Elf, besides being like an OG in the space?
• 8:46
  This has come up several times.
• 8:47
  Like, what makes this different?
• 8:48
  And I make a joke that we don't have competition.
• 8:51
  A rising tide lifts all boats.
• 8:52
  So anyone that is in this space that is trying to
• 8:56
  meet the person where they are and trying to change their health and change their health trajectory.
• 9:00
  I want to high five.
• 9:01
  Yes, we're all on the same page.
• 9:03
  I think what makes us different is we take a whole person approach.
• 9:06
  So I was allopathically trained, as all of us, and my short stint in primary care was just not very long.
• 9:14
  I couldn't do it.
• 9:15
  But there's a high blood pressure in room 12.
• 9:18
  There's a low back pain in room nine.
• 9:19
  And I'm like, okay, what's the patient's name?
• 9:22
  Why is the blood pressure elevated?
• 9:24
  Why do they have back pain?
• 9:25
  I'm constantly asking why.
• 9:27
  I wanted to shift the focus.
• 9:29
  So what we do different is when I meet you as a patient, I assess all of you.
• 9:34
  You as a person, you as a wife, you as a dog mom, you as an influencer, all the things that you have, what affects your sleep?
• 9:41
  What affects your nutrition?
• 9:42
  What affects your hormones?
• 9:43
  You know, like, happy birthday.
• 9:45
  Welcome to perimenopause.
• 9:46
  I'm your tour guide.
• 9:47
  So there's more of a,
• 9:49
  It's a whole person approach.
• 9:50
  And, you know, we have all of our fun longevity lab activities.
• 9:54
  And yes, they contribute to overall health experience.
• 9:57
  But if you're not at the root cause, putting good fuel in, allowing your body to rest and recover, getting good deep sleep, having great relationships, it's hard to build on that as a health model.
• 10:08
  That's such a foundational aspect of health.
• 10:11
  So using that as our primary goal, like get you healthy first and then do all the fun things.
• 10:16
  So what's the difference where getting your blood work done is used a lot?
• 10:20
  You're like, oh, I just went to my GP, got my blood work done.
• 10:23
  I remember three years ago, I went to actually might have been four years ago.
• 10:27
  Now I went to my OBGYN and did blood work.
• 10:30
  And I was like, I think I've been perimenopause like for three years.
• 10:33
  And she's like, let's test it.
• 10:34
  And she's like, no, you're not.
• 10:35
  You're just fine.
• 10:36
  And I was like.
• 10:37
  Like I never had my period again.
• 10:40
  I was in perimenopause for three years prior.
• 10:42
  I didn't know it because I was pretty young.
• 10:45
  I think I started late 30s.
• 10:48
  And the night sweats, the anxiety, insomnia, all the things, the weight gain.
• 10:54
  But my GP also was like, no, you're fine.
• 10:57
  I'm like, I'm literally...
• 10:59
  Not.
• 11:00
  But then I got a larger lab done and I was.
• 11:03
  So can you explain the difference of blood work from, say, a waste well versus your GP?
• 11:08
  Yeah.
• 11:08
  So we look at things specifically the difference between normal versus optimal.
• 11:12
  So when I was joking about it, I get animated.
• 11:14
  I'm like, normal range is huge.
• 11:16
  It's the entire population.
• 11:17
  Optimal range is a much smaller.
• 11:20
  This is the range where there's pre-disease, pre-problem, running like a well-oiled machine.
• 11:24
  And so I do use it as a guide.
• 11:26
  Yes.
• 11:27
  If your symptoms match your blood work, we have our answer.
• 11:30
  Sometimes I'm like, you're not quite there yet because in the optimal range, you're just outside of optimal.
• 11:35
  We're not there yet.
• 11:36
  We're cruising the wrong way down a one-way street.
• 11:37
  So we're going to do some correction.
• 11:39
  So I love meeting with someone that's in their 30s or 35 and they're not quite there yet.
• 11:43
  And I'm like, okay, these are the things that we can do to protect your hormones and also kind of give you a baseline.
• 11:49
  This is where you're starting at 35 so that when we meet again at 37 or 39, we can watch those changes to your hormones and jump in and help.
• 12:00
  What's the major difference in your hormones when you are like going into perimenopause?
• 12:04
  What should you look for in your blood work?
• 12:07
  Usually the first thing that drops is progesterone.
• 12:09
  Now, everybody's a little different.
• 12:11
  Every time I meet with somebody, I'm like, okay, well, your testosterone went first.
• 12:14
  You know, so I'm a little surprised.
• 12:16
  But on the usual, women after 35 lose their progesterone first.
• 12:22
  And then their testosterone starts to fade.
• 12:24
  And then estrogen is 10%.
• 12:25
  It tends to be last.
• 12:26
  It doesn't always fall that way, but symptoms are everything.
• 12:30
  So I ask people, how are you sleeping?
• 12:32
  How's your libido?
• 12:33
  And, you know, I get a little heat online because I'm like, you're not horny.
• 12:35
  You're not healthy.
• 12:36
  That's my little catchphrase.
• 12:39
  I kind of use that as like, you know, the very tip top of the health pyramid.
• 12:43
  If you reach there, then fundamental needs are met.
• 12:46
  So I ask and I make that conversation.
• 12:48
  I call it out.
• 12:49
  I'm like an elephant in the room.
• 12:51
  Are you having sex?
• 12:52
  And that is something important to talk about, too, if you aren't horny, aren't healthy, because also let's talk about in marriages and relationships when husbands and wives don't understand what their partner is going through and they may just think that their partner is unattracted to them.
• 13:06
  And really, it's the hormones.
• 13:08
  It is.
• 13:09
  And we can't control it.
• 13:10
  And we tend to have more male patients than female patients.
• 13:14
  And I wish I could explain why.
• 13:16
  Our influence audience, maybe men are paying attention to it.
• 13:21
  Testosterone definitely gets more attention.
• 13:23
  Well, yeah.
• 13:23
  I mean, men have gotten more attention in health care over time.
• 13:26
  Exactly.
• 13:27
  But every time I would meet with someone, I'm like, OK, your testosterone is low.
• 13:30
  We're going to adjust this.
• 13:31
  We're going to send me your wife.
• 13:32
  Like I would end the visit with send me your wife because I'm going to need to fix her too.
• 13:36
  And, you know, I would get this like, well, I don't know if she's going to want to come.
• 13:40
  I'm like, trust me, when your energy is popping, when you're chasing her around the house and you're losing weight, send me your wife.
• 13:48
  And so that was kind of like for a few years I had that catchphrase.
• 13:51
  Send me your wife.
• 13:51
  Let me take care of your wife too.
• 13:53
  You know, I was telling Jen on the way up here, I was like, you know, it has changed.
• 13:56
  We're talking about estrogen patches specifically and that there's a national shortage.
• 14:00
  And I'm like, she's like, well, you know, there's a big shift.
• 14:02
  I'm like, there's a big shift because we as women started advocating for ourselves.
• 14:07
  When you're like, hey, what do your labs look like?
• 14:10
  Labs can look completely normal and not give a flag.
• 14:14
  But your symptoms are the biggest thing that I pay attention to.
• 14:19
  So sometimes I look at labs, I'm like, you know, it's okay.
• 14:21
  But if someone's telling me I'm not sleeping, I feel anxious.
• 14:25
  My hair is thinning.
• 14:26
  I'm not myself.
• 14:27
  Something is wrong.
• 14:28
  I'm gaining weight.
• 14:29
  I'm doing all the right things.
• 14:31
  I make a joke too, the menopause is coming for all of us.
• 14:33
  So even if we do all the right things, it's still coming.
• 14:35
  But now we've advocated for ourselves.
• 14:38
  We're like, hey, this is a problem.
• 14:39
  I don't want to look like this, feel like this.
• 14:41
  I don't want to live like this anymore.
• 14:42
  What can I do?
• 14:43
  And the black box warning was removed off of estrogen.
• 14:46
  All of a sudden, whoops.
• 14:48
  Medical establishment says estrogen is not a cause of cancer.
• 14:53
  I was going to ask that about HRT and that, is it a myth or a fact about HRT causing cancer?
• 15:00
  That is absolutely a myth.
• 15:02
  Yeah.
• 15:02
  And I give the visual too of if hormones caused cancer, we would have a whole bunch of 14-year-olds walking around with prostate cancer, breast cancer, uterine cancer.
• 15:12
  If you've ever been around a teenager, they smell of hormones.
• 15:15
  And on the flip side, during pregnancy, we would have this huge surge of cancer.
• 15:19
  So there was one study that was done that really just wrecked hormonal care for a whole generation.
• 15:26
  What that study was about was putting two synthetic hormones together.
• 15:30
  And yes, there was an increase in breast cancer with that study.
• 15:34
  Well, that's what they found in the study.
• 15:35
  But it was using two synthetic hormones that were put together.
• 15:39
  Our body is not meant for that.
• 15:40
  We're meant for the bioidentical match, the perfect match.
• 15:44
  And that's the other thing.
• 15:45
  Whenever you go to your GP, they're not necessarily going to test the testosterone.
• 15:51
  Why is that?
• 15:53
  And I didn't mean they're probably going to test, right?
• 15:55
  Oh, they're probably only going to test maybe the estrogen.
• 15:57
  Yeah.
• 15:58
  When I have people that bring their outside labs, they're like, oh, I have a TSH, a CMP, and an estrogen.
• 16:03
  I have a complete set of labs.
• 16:04
  And I'm like, oh, well, you're missing like 80% of the important things.
• 16:07
  What's your progesterone?
• 16:08
  Where's your testosterone?
• 16:09
  Your free testosterone?
• 16:09
  What's your insulin?
• 16:10
  Where's your thyroid?
• 16:11
  You know, I'm looking at all these things.
• 16:12
  Where's your DHEA?
• 16:13
  That's a big clue for me.
• 16:14
  And people overlook that lab.
• 16:17
  Insulin is also a big test for me.
• 16:19
  People overlook that lab.
• 16:21
  I hate to say, like, I want to keep it in the optimal range.
• 16:24
  I prioritize symptoms.
• 16:26
  I use that range as a goal and high five when we get there as long as symptoms match.
• 16:32
  So, and I'll use testosterone as an example.
• 16:34
  So you asked, why aren't we taught that?
• 16:37
  We are actually taught that testosterone is a man's hormone.
• 16:40
  No, seriously.
• 16:41
  I came home from when I was with Dr. Juliette Wastewell, and she was talking to us, and she brought up testosterone.
• 16:46
  And I literally, this was just a few weeks ago, and I literally was like, I never even knew like when testosterone mattered for women.
• 16:52
  And I came home and told Bobby, and he's like, women...
• 16:55
  get testosterone?
• 16:56
  I was like, I don't know.
• 16:57
  I'm learning.
• 16:58
  This is why I love having these conversations because I'm 45 years old and I'm learning so much.
• 17:02
  I mean, I literally just went on HRT on Monday.
• 17:05
  So I'll get back to you on that.
• 17:07
  Yes.
• 17:09
  Well, testosterone is a pro-hormone.
• 17:11
  It actually turns into two different hormones.
• 17:14
  Estradiol, which ironically, men need that too.
• 17:18
  We've always been taught, and I say always,
• 17:20
  I started school in 1996.
• 17:22
  So I'm like, hold on, I'm going to date myself there.
• 17:26
  We learned that testosterone is a male hormone and estrogen is a female hormone.
• 17:30
  In the broad scheme, yeah, that's true.
• 17:32
  We need more estrogen, but we also need testosterone.
• 17:35
  Men need more testosterone and they also need estrogen.
• 17:38
  It's just the ratio and, you know, having a higher value of each one.
• 17:42
  But testosterone converts into dihydrotestosterone or estradiol.
• 17:46
  So the DHT, men have a higher conversion, and that's where they get the muscles and, you know, the thicker skin and the atoms, all the growth that happens with that.
• 17:55
  We have a higher conversion over to estradiol.
• 17:57
  Okay, so women, listen, if you have to get testosterone, you're not going to grow a beard and get big muscles.
• 18:04
  No, no.
• 18:05
  It's kind of like if you lift heavy weights, you're not going to you got to work really hard.
• 18:09
  Yes.
• 18:09
  I have people that ask me that all the time.
• 18:11
  I'll prescribe testosterone or tell them that they need it.
• 18:13
  And they're like, oh, wait, I don't want to get bulky.
• 18:15
  And I'm like, doesn't work that way.
• 18:18
  Just giving you something that your body is needing and craving doesn't suddenly change your physique.
• 18:23
  And I also say, oh, I'm giving you a lady dose.
• 18:25
  Yeah, it also helps.
• 18:26
  So if you decide to go on HR team, how long does it take to see the symptoms?
• 18:33
  I'll say why I went on was I want to sleep better.
• 18:36
  I want to like half of the month.
• 18:39
  I was like energy high, creative, pop in second half.
• 18:43
  I call it slow and sad.
• 18:45
  And so I wanted to balance all that out because it's just and I'm like, I don't menstruate, obviously, but there's still hormones.
• 18:53
  Yeah, there's still a balance.
• 18:55
  So progesterone, usually you start to see a difference within a few days to your sleep.
• 18:59
  Peeking around that two to six week mark is usually when I have people like, oh, yeah.
• 19:04
  That's nice.
• 19:05
  I'm asking for Bobby.
• 19:06
  He's wondering when I'm going to stop being mad at him all the time.
• 19:10
  Progesterone is the, I call that one the happy hormone.
• 19:13
  I call estrogen the pretty hormone and testosterone the fun hormone.
• 19:17
  And this is my personal opinion on those.
• 19:19
  But estrogen and testosterone, I usually see their peak improvements at about week 12.
• 19:24
  This is hard because everybody wants to take something and immediately get better.
• 19:28
  So there's a big difference between a serum level and a tissue saturation.
• 19:32
  So what I see in your bloodstream doesn't necessarily reflect what's needed in your brain, in your heart, your bones, your muscle.
• 19:37
  So there's a level of tissue saturation that has to happen and restoration everywhere else before I'll see a big shift in the serum value.
• 19:45
  But I have people all the time that I'll get these sweet messages.
• 19:49
  I was meeting with a lady yesterday and it was almost a tearful moment.
• 19:52
  She's like, you saved my marriage.
• 19:53
  You saved my life.
• 19:54
  You saved my career.
• 19:55
  I didn't know I had an option because her gynecologist told her, 50 years old, this is the best I can do for you is antidepressant.
• 20:05
  See, yeah, that's what I'm so excited to like give this a try.
• 20:09
  I think it's really important, my non-professional opinion, but because now that I hear it takes that long, because I was like, oh, maybe a couple of weeks, but it's good to know, like wait it out.
• 20:19
  And then when you feel better, just know that you got to keep going.
• 20:23
  You got to keep going.
• 20:24
  So is this something then once you get on HRT, you stay on it for the rest of your life, but then adjust it because you keep getting blood work every six months or something?
• 20:31
  Yeah.
• 20:32
  Right.
• 20:32
  You have to adjust to need.
• 20:34
  And I have people that are like, oh, I have to do this for life.
• 20:37
  And I go, hold on.
• 20:38
  You have to do this for life.
• 20:40
  And I want to change your mindset because it's not a, yeah, we have to eat every day.
• 20:46
  You have to get up and exercise every day.
• 20:48
  You have to go to bed every day.
• 20:50
  So yeah, you have to take care of your hormones because your hormones are going to take care of the rest of your body.
• 20:54
  So yeah.
• 20:55
  I don't want to be the crinkled up.
• 20:56
  I mean, life is meant to be lived.
• 20:58
  And it's when you said something a little bit ago, but just how a lot of women were like, well, this is just how it's going to be the rest of my life.
• 21:04
  And I felt that, too.
• 21:05
  And part of the Tone It Up community, I get so many DMs.
• 21:08
  They're like, you seem so vibrant.
• 21:09
  I'm like, that's because I'm not going to come on and be like, I'm having a really shitty day today.
• 21:15
  But the one thing is.
• 21:17
  there's an answer.
• 21:18
  And I'm not saying that HRT is for everyone.
• 21:20
  It's a personal choice.
• 21:21
  And again, I don't know because I just started, but I do know that outside of hormones taking care of your body, you must get up and work out every day, even when you don't want to.
• 21:31
  Immediate hormone and mood shift.
• 21:34
  You must sleep.
• 21:35
  There's all of these things.
• 21:36
  I always say, make sure you're working out, make sure you're sleeping, make sure you're staying hydrated.
• 21:40
  There's just, yeah, you want to live a vibrant life and you deserve it.
• 21:43
  Exactly.
• 21:44
  You wouldn't, I mean, I hate to use the car analogy, but you wouldn't put gas in your car one time and expect it to run forever.
• 21:51
  You know, like we change the oil, we change the spark plugs, we do all these things to keep it running.
• 21:56
  Why would we not do that to our body?
• 21:58
  Yeah.
• 21:58
  especially, and the reason why, I've got to say this too, until you felt that way, until you felt like the way you felt in perimenopause and menopause, no one really understands what that feels like.
• 22:09
  No.
• 22:10
  And even me, myself, I've been doing this for 10 years on this side of it.
• 22:14
  10 years ago, I was not in perimenopause.
• 22:17
  But when it hit me, I was like, what?
• 22:20
  I hold on.
• 22:21
  Well, you knew, though.
• 22:22
  You knew, like, the symptoms.
• 22:24
  Like, a lot of people don't.
• 22:25
  And you're just lost and confused.
• 22:28
  Knowing it and hearing it and talking about it versus feeling it, I have a whole new appreciation for it.
• 22:35
  I want to de-stigmatize menopause because for so long it was like a bad word.
• 22:40
  And I think there's such beauty in it because it means you're still here, you're kicking, and it's your body that's transforming in a different way.
• 22:48
  It's kind of like when we start our periods when we're kids, our body is going through another phase.
• 22:54
  And now we're here and our body is working for us the way that it needs to.
• 22:57
  And...
• 22:59
  I actually think it's a miracle.
• 23:03
  One of my friends calls it cougar puberty.
• 23:05
  Yeah.
• 23:07
  Also, I had someone say when I said I was going on or that my estrogen and progesterone were like so low.
• 23:14
  I was like, wow, no wonder.
• 23:16
  And they were like, well, what's wrong that that happened?
• 23:21
  Like, what's wrong with you that that happened?
• 23:23
  And I'm like, nothing.
• 23:25
  I'm a woman.
• 23:26
  Yeah.
• 23:27
  Happy birthday?
• 23:28
  This is staged?
• 23:29
  Yeah.
• 23:30
  Some people also feel like menopause is a destination.
• 23:33
  Like when you get there, you made it.
• 23:35
  You're going to live like this.
• 23:36
  Sucks to be you.
• 23:37
  If you go to the OBGYN, that's kind of what you get.
• 23:39
  It's like, you know, I'm going to give you an antidepressant.
• 23:42
  I'm going to give you something for your blood pressure.
• 23:44
  I'm going to give you something because welcome to type 2 diabetes.
• 23:47
  And now you're in this trifecta of high cholesterol, high blood pressure.
• 23:51
  you know, metabolic disease, no one ever addressed the elephant in the room.
• 23:55
  Something went missing.
• 23:56
  If you weren't that way before, something is missing.
• 23:59
  There's which hormone is it?
• 24:01
  You've got a lot of clues as to who done it first.
• 24:05
  And then you start addressing those.
• 24:06
  Then you don't need, I love when I meet with people, I'm like, oh, you don't need your cholesterol medicine anymore.
• 24:10
  You don't need the blood pressure medicine anymore.
• 24:12
  And they're a little taken back.
• 24:13
  But I'm in menopause.
• 24:15
  This is the assignment that comes with it.
• 24:16
  And I'm like, not always.
• 24:19
  Menopause, I look at it like a journey instead of a destination.
• 24:22
  In this journey, we're going to have some ups and downs and dips and some fun things along the way.
• 24:28
  But it's not, hey, get here and just learn to live with all the symptoms for the rest of your life.
• 24:33
  You mentioned type 2 diabetes.
• 24:34
  Is that something that is more common in menopause?
• 24:36
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 24:38
  Insulin resistance starts to go up.
• 24:39
  You start to see women that are experiencing belly fat.
• 24:42
  It's like, wait a minute, I eat well, I do this, I do this, I do this.
• 24:47
  And how come the belly fat is coming?
• 24:49
  And I kind of giggle when I meet people.
• 24:50
  I'm like, well, your body is trying to make the estrogen.
• 24:53
  So we're going to store some body fat so that we can make that estrogen because your brain needs it, your bones, your heart.
• 24:59
  We need it.
• 25:00
  So we're going to try to find a way.
• 25:02
  If the ovaries gave up, we're going to make it in the adrenal glands and we're going to try to, this is how we're going to do it, storing that fat.
• 25:07
  That happened.
• 25:08
  When I went through it, I gained over 40 pounds.
• 25:11
  I was working out.
• 25:12
  Obviously, I know how to work out and how to eat.
• 25:14
  And I was like, I just gave up.
• 25:15
  I was like, okay, this is life.
• 25:17
  But I've since lost all of that belly fat.
• 25:20
  Well, most of them.
• 25:21
  But it was just such a, yeah, it was for a lot of women.
• 25:25
  It's like what you feel like you're losing control of your body.
• 25:30
  For me, the first symptom was frozen shoulder.
• 25:32
  Really?
• 25:33
  And I've heard of that.
• 25:34
  I knew it.
• 25:35
  But when you live it, it's a little different.
• 25:37
  I'm like, oh, man.
• 25:38
  Yeah.
• 25:38
  Explain more of what that is.
• 25:39
  I don't know what I did with my shoulder.
• 25:41
  It just started hurting.
• 25:42
  Well, the loss of estrogen is a loss of fluid in the joint.
• 25:45
  And so the joint basically just locks in.
• 25:49
  And every movement was just so painful.
• 25:52
  And I went to a chiropractor a bunch of times.
• 25:55
  I could not figure out what was going on with my shoulders.
• 25:58
  And I did my blood work because it was time.
• 26:00
  And for full disclosure, I checked my own labs frequently.
• 26:04
  And I was tracking it.
• 26:05
  That was just my first symptom.
• 26:07
  So I was cruising right along with my estrogen.
• 26:09
  And then all of a sudden, in four months, it just tanked.
• 26:13
  And I had been dealing with that with my shoulder for about a year.
• 26:17
  So it didn't line up with my blood work.
• 26:19
  And that's why I'm so pro-symptoms.
• 26:21
  If I had talked to somebody and said, these are all my symptoms, instead of trying to figure it out myself, somebody would have said, well, welcome to perimenopause.
• 26:29
  I'm looking at the labs only.
• 26:30
  I'm looking at my own labs going, well, I'm not there yet, not there yet, not there yet.
• 26:34
  But clearly I was.
• 26:35
  That was my first symptom.
• 26:36
  Okay, so what are the rest of the symptoms that we all need to look for?
• 26:40
  Like I said, the frozen shoulder was my first one.
• 26:42
  Insomnia is the biggest one.
• 26:44
  When people stop sleeping well, that does shift your gut health.
• 26:48
  It shifts your metabolism.
• 26:50
  It shifts your mood.
• 26:50
  It shifts your focus and your brain fog.
• 26:53
  All those are kind of a cascade connected to that.
• 26:56
  Body aches.
• 26:57
  I have women that are just like,
• 26:58
  I have joints or like what kind of body aches?
• 27:01
  Joint, like new onset arthritis.
• 27:03
  They're like, you know, I have arthritis in all my joints.
• 27:06
  I'm like, that's not how it works.
• 27:07
  Your estrogen dropped and you don't have enough fluid to support that vaginal dryness.
• 27:12
  All of a sudden, sex becomes painful.
• 27:14
  Vision changes.
• 27:16
  And sometimes it's just one or two symptoms that are vague and they'll go to the primary care doctor and they're like, oh, well, you know, you're getting older, you know, it's 45, here's your readers and here's your antidepressant.
• 27:28
  I keep saying that because I meet all these women and they come with all these antidepressants and I'm like, were you depressed before?
• 27:33
  No, what was it?
• 27:34
  I didn't, I didn't need that until I turned 45 or I didn't need that until I turned 42.
• 27:38
  And I'm like,
• 27:39
  If you didn't need it before, probably don't need it now.
• 27:42
  I just need to address what's missing.
• 27:44
  And again, that's the progesterone.
• 27:45
  That's our happy hormone.
• 27:47
  So start to address the missing elements and redirect.
• 27:51
  You know, I get animated about this one too.
• 27:53
  Whenever our stress hormones are elevated, our cortisol is elevated, there's a lot going on.
• 27:58
  We stop that production.
• 27:59
  That DHEA stops converting and we shift it to cortisol.
• 28:04
  And that cortisol excess also increases the belly fat.
• 28:08
  Girl, tell me about it.
• 28:10
  So, you know, I have people that are like, I am gaining weight.
• 28:13
  I've got this.
• 28:14
  Sometimes the symptoms are subtle and sometimes it's like, you know, we're going to navigate through.
• 28:18
  Let me support you with let's shift your sleep schedule.
• 28:22
  I met with a woman this week and she's like, well, I like to stay up with my kids late at night.
• 28:25
  And I was like, why?
• 28:27
  She's like, that's my time with the kids.
• 28:28
  I'm like, let's have everybody shift their bedtime.
• 28:30
  Let's do everybody's bedtime before 1 a.m. because they're all miserable right now.
• 28:35
  And they go to bed at 1 a.m.
• 28:37
  I'm like, that circadian rhythm is off, you know, and so that adjusts your gut, that adjusts your mood and your, you know, your sleep the next day.
• 28:47
  So I'm like, let's make that little bit of an adjustment.
• 28:49
  My kids laugh at me because we have a bedtime.
• 28:52
  Like, we go to bed.
• 28:53
  I have a bedtime.
• 28:53
  It's 10 p.m. Get in bed by 9.45.
• 28:57
  It's important.
• 28:58
  You're setting that circadian rhythm, which also shifts what your body's doing with that cortisol and your melatonin in your brain, your serotonin.
• 29:07
  All the other neurotransmitters need time to build up and break down.
• 29:11
  And when it gets fall, I start turning the lights down a little bit.
• 29:15
  Once it gets dark at 5 p.m., forget it.
• 29:19
  So melatonin, what are your thoughts on taking a melatonin at night before you go to bed?
• 29:24
  I have mixed thoughts on it.
• 29:26
  If you really need it to sleep and you're not producing enough of it, yes, it's great as an adjunct or a bridge.
• 29:32
  But my bigger thing is, okay, why aren't you making it?
• 29:36
  Then I start thinking about sleep hygiene.
• 29:38
  What's your environment like?
• 29:40
  Are you breathing in air that's contaminated?
• 29:42
  Are you sleeping on a pillow that's uncomfortable?
• 29:44
  Is room too warm?
• 29:45
  Is your partner snoring?
• 29:46
  So all these things that adjust your sleep.
• 29:49
  I would rather melatonin over Benadryl.
• 29:52
  I do take melatonin sometimes, but I don't take Benadryl.
• 29:55
  Yeah, people that are like, I've been on it for 10 years and I'm like, ah.
• 29:58
  Or like a Tylenol PM type thing.
• 30:02
  I did it in my 20s, but...
• 30:04
  Yeah.
• 30:04
  For a short period of time, it's okay.
• 30:06
  Like if you're sick or if you just need to get through something, it's okay.
• 30:09
  But as you build your progesterone, you're probably not going to need as much.
• 30:13
  Can't wait.
• 30:14
  Literally, I'm just like, come on, 12 weeks.
• 30:17
  Yes.
• 30:18
  So you mentioned that mostly men come to get their blood work and you've worked with Jelly Roll, which I think is really cool because he has been so inspirational to watch and a transformation.
• 30:34
  Is it true that he did this without a GLP one?
• 30:36
  It is true.
• 30:37
  I did not prescribe one for him.
• 30:40
  We did.
• 30:42
  We've talked about this.
• 30:42
  I'm not sharing his person.
• 30:44
  We did the men's health.
• 30:45
  We've done.
• 30:45
  I read men's health and all the things he was on, like, 27 prescriptions or something.
• 30:50
  Twenty seven medications.
• 30:52
  And most of the medications were meant to combat the side effects of other medications.
• 30:56
  And he was also on a ton of supplements that were just absolutely wrecking his gut.
• 31:01
  He has a nutritionist.
• 31:02
  So he and I met, we went through what to eat.
• 31:05
  And the nutritionist is phenomenal.
• 31:07
  His chef nutritionist is phenomenal.
• 31:09
  So he made food taste good and desirable.
• 31:11
  So he didn't feel like I'm starving and it was a difficult choice.
• 31:17
  So we made food accessible, healthy, meet all the nutritional needs.
• 31:22
  And then I just took out all the junk that he didn't need.
• 31:25
  And when we finalized everything, we were on three medications.
• 31:28
  Yeah, I mean, if you need testosterone, we're going to do testosterone.
• 31:31
  He was not shy about that.
• 31:33
  And I have him on a multivitamin just to capture anything in between.
• 31:37
  But he did it with just grit, grind, dedication.
• 31:42
  And we check his blood levels and monitor his insulin.
• 31:46
  And targeting the insulin resistance with even timed fasting, like certain fasting sessions, timing of the meals, that did adjust his insulin.
• 31:54
  So as insulin is starting to fall and as testosterone came back up,
• 31:58
  And this is totally silly, but I compare insulin resistance and low testosterone to if you've ever seen The Lion King, whenever Simba goes away and Scar takes over and the Pride Lands are destroyed and then Simba comes back and everything is green and lush.
• 32:13
  That's kind of how I look at the role of testosterone and insulin together.
• 32:16
  You have to have the good and evil, but you want more of the good stuff.
• 32:19
  You have to have that balance.
• 32:21
  It sounds silly, but I talk in visuals and analogies all the time.
• 32:24
  So mostly women are, well, let's say all 99% of women listen to this podcast.
• 32:30
  So with Jelly Roll's story, if a woman's listening, what can she take from this story and to inspire her if she wants to make that change?
• 32:38
  Because that's a lot of weight to lose and dedication.
• 32:42
  And it's a real deep, like in your soul, in your gut, literally, that you want to make a change.
• 32:48
  I say start with your comprehensive labs because you don't know what you don't know until you know it.
• 32:53
  And I say that lovingly because with women, it could be our thyroid.
• 32:56
  It could be estrogen, progesterone, testosterone.
• 32:58
  It could be insulin resistance.
• 33:00
  It could be something completely different.
• 33:02
  Every now and then I'll catch something and I'm like, oh, we have to work on this autoimmune disease.
• 33:06
  We have to fix this.
• 33:08
  First of all, getting a baseline, seeing where you start, especially with that insulin and thyroid.
• 33:12
  Let's see where you are.
• 33:14
  And then, yes, it's doable.
• 33:16
  It's fixable.
• 33:17
  You don't have to stay there.
• 33:19
  Be the CEO of your own health.
• 33:21
  Advocate for yourself.
• 33:22
  Ask the questions.
• 33:24
  The reason why we spend so much time with our patients is,
• 33:26
  I want my patient to understand if I'm recommending something, if I tell you, you need progesterone, I need you to know your progesterone was here.
• 33:34
  We need it to be here.
• 33:35
  But here are all the 12 symptoms that go with that, that I'm trying to eliminate these symptoms so that instead of, hey, I have to take this pill every night.
• 33:43
  I think it's for my hormones.
• 33:44
  You know, it's probably going to help me sleep.
• 33:46
  I want you to be so informed that you know exactly what I'm looking for, what I'm expecting out of that progesterone.
• 33:51
  And women are so amazing at that.
• 33:54
  I love educating women because they'll take it and they're like, oh, no, I'm not supposed to have this after 9 p.m. because I know it shifts my metabolism.
• 34:01
  And they're amazing at it.
• 34:03
  Men are not so good at that.
• 34:04
  You have to kind of give a little more instruction.
• 34:09
  But women are like, no, I'm going to write this down.
• 34:10
  I'm going to do it exactly the way you say it.
• 34:12
  I want to be in charge of my health.
• 34:16
  Let's talk anxiety.
• 34:17
  I will say one of the big things in Perry is all of a sudden panic attacks.
• 34:20
  I'm like, what is happening to me?
• 34:22
  I go to the doctor.
• 34:23
  I do an EKG.
• 34:24
  They're like, you're fine.
• 34:25
  Just meditate.
• 34:26
  It's like, I do.
• 34:29
  I will say doing your blood work, too, kind of takes a little bit of anxiety away.
• 34:34
  I've talked to Bobby and his dad suddenly within less than a year, say eight months from diagnosis to death last year.
• 34:43
  And now a lot of fear of death becomes to Bobby.
• 34:47
  He won't mind me sharing this, but I'm like, go get your blood work done.
• 34:51
  Cause there's a lot of anxiety, like that a lot is wrong with you, but you can see what you need to improve if anything, or you can be like, Oh my gosh, I'm actually healthy or not, not so bad.
• 35:02
  Okay.
• 35:04
  So women, is there a time of your cycle that you should get your blood work done?
• 35:10
  We prefer day 21 or around day 21 of your cycle, just because that's when your estrogen and your progesterone are going to be at their peak.
• 35:17
  So we have these natural undulations that happen with our hormones and catching it at different times can be different things.
• 35:25
  And I tell people to like, just tell us if you didn't make it on day 21.
• 35:29
  And, you know, I met with a lady.
• 35:30
  What is it?
• 35:31
  Thursday, I met with a lady on Monday.
• 35:33
  She was like, I was on day three of my cycle because there's no way I was waiting that long to get my blood work done.
• 35:38
  I was like, OK, well, here's your hormones at this stage.
• 35:40
  She's like, no, I've got this symptom and this symptom.
• 35:43
  We went through 21 symptoms.
• 35:45
  And I'm like, well, this is probably related to your progesterone.
• 35:49
  The numbers are irrelevant at this point.
• 35:51
  I'm still going to treat you anyway.
• 35:53
  her age, her symptoms, everything tracked.
• 35:56
  And so I saw her on Monday.
• 35:58
  She picked up her prescription Monday afternoon because she's local to the Houston area.
• 36:03
  And so she stopped by the pharmacy and picked it up.
• 36:05
  I got a sweet message on my way here this morning.
• 36:08
  And she's like, finally slept.
• 36:11
  This is great.
• 36:12
  And it sounds silly, but just getting a good night's sleep changes the trajectory of everything.
• 36:17
  Everything changes.
• 36:19
  I know when I don't sleep, I am grumpy.
• 36:22
  I can't get all my thoughts out.
• 36:24
  Yeah.
• 36:25
  It's years ago, if you got enough sleep, it was almost as if, you know, it was that hustle culture.
• 36:31
  It's like, oh, I get up at 3 a.m. and I'm at the gym.
• 36:33
  And I'm like, no, no, no.
• 36:34
  I need that.
• 36:35
  And for me, obviously, with my hormones so depleted, I somehow power through everything because that's what I do.
• 36:42
  Even when I'm too tired, I got stuff to do and I power through that.
• 36:44
  So I'm so excited to do.
• 36:46
  See a change.
• 36:47
  But, okay, so if you're cycling 21 days in, what about if you're in menopause?
• 36:53
  And you don't know, just... Just whatever.
• 36:54
  Yeah, just whenever.
• 36:55
  Whenever.
• 36:56
  Yeah.
• 36:56
  And at what age do you suggest starting to get your blood work done?
• 37:00
  Today.
• 37:00
  Today.
• 37:01
  Just today.
• 37:02
  And the reason why, you know, getting a baseline...
• 37:04
  I love this one.
• 37:05
  My women, they're like, can you see my daughter?
• 37:07
  She turns 18 next week.
• 37:08
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 37:08
  Let's get her in.
• 37:09
  Let's see where her levels are now.
• 37:11
  Because things like vitamin D or magnesium or your B vitamins, these are things that will influence your energy, your mood, your hormone production.
• 37:18
  I call them ingredients.
• 37:19
  If those are off, then you've already set that trajectory.
• 37:23
  If we can improve those, and it doesn't necessarily mean you have to have the supplements.
• 37:26
  If you need magnesium, here are five magnesium-rich foods.
• 37:29
  Make sure you get these in your diet.
• 37:31
  And you can just change that trajectory just by teaching them.
• 37:35
  And I want to eventually, my pipe dream is to get into the schools and start teaching these kids how to eat, how to nourish your body, how to put the good ingredients in to get the outcome.
• 37:47
  But I say, do it now.
• 37:49
  Even if you're 18 and you're like, I think everything is fine.
• 37:51
  Great.
• 37:52
  Get that thumbs up.
• 37:53
  I agree.
• 37:53
  I mean, I was 45, did it for the first time.
• 37:56
  And that's, well, I'm not like the first like full panel.
• 37:59
  Gone to my GP.
• 37:59
  And let's talk about fasting because I've had my blood work done in the past where I didn't know I was going for a regular checkup.
• 38:04
  They're like, oh, let's take your blood work.
• 38:06
  And in my head, I'm like, well, I ate breakfast this morning.
• 38:08
  How does fasting and not fasting affect your blood work?
• 38:13
  Your insulin and your glucose.
• 38:15
  So if you're not fasting and you eat breakfast or anything before you go have your blood work done, even a sip of orange juice or a piece of candy, that will make your blood sugar and insulin elevated.
• 38:25
  And it gives us a false reading on if you have a problem.
• 38:28
  And so we tell people to go fasting so we can see at the lowest level.
• 38:32
  And if you're fasting for eight hours and your insulin is still an optimal range for insulin is very low.
• 38:37
  So, I mean, it's very limited.
• 38:38
  It's two to five.
• 38:39
  So if you're fasting for 8, 10 hours and your insulin comes back at 11, we're going to have a talk about that.
• 38:45
  It hasn't come all the way down yet.
• 38:47
  We've got to work on timing of your meals.
• 38:50
  Now, fasting and menopause is a little different.
• 38:52
  Oh, tell me.
• 38:53
  Okay.
• 38:54
  Fasting is stressful in perimenopause and menopause.
• 38:58
  Our body says, oh, I'm not getting enough nutrients.
• 39:00
  I'm going to shift.
• 39:01
  We're going to power down.
• 39:01
  And I give people this visual of everything powering down.
• 39:04
  I wear an Apple Watch and whenever, if the battery is running low, it'll say, we're going to go in power reserve mode and you're only going to get your text messages.
• 39:10
  You don't have to acknowledge or whatever.
• 39:12
  I imagine our metabolism is doing the same thing.
• 39:14
  We're only going to survive.
• 39:16
  And now I don't have enough estrogen.
• 39:18
  So we're going to store the belly fat.
• 39:19
  So you get all these signals and triggers to shift your metabolism.
• 39:24
  accentuates that.
• 39:26
  And so, yes, I fast.
• 39:28
  I do it two days a week.
• 39:29
  It's usually Tuesdays and Thursdays, just because that's when I remember.
• 39:33
  Sometimes I shift it.
• 39:35
  But the whole point of intermittent fasting is to be intermittent about it.
• 39:39
  Like, surprise!
• 39:40
  You're not like a daily thing.
• 39:41
  Yeah.
• 39:46
  that they're going to have their best outcome.
• 39:48
  And it's men, yes.
• 39:49
  And certain ages, yes, I can align with that.
• 39:52
  Every person is different.
• 39:54
  That's why I like to get that baseline insulin, baseline cholesterol levels.
• 39:58
  And then I'll tell people, okay, let's eat a really big breakfast first thing in the morning and then stop eating at 6 p.m. if you go to bed at 9.
• 40:05
  So you want those few hours.
• 40:07
  Then we start shifting the window and flexing it up and down.
• 40:09
  And that metabolic confusion is really when you're going to get your best results.
• 40:13
  So your Tuesdays and Thursdays, what does that look like for you?
• 40:17
  I'll just eat my first meal around one or two o'clock.
• 40:20
  I'm big into peptides.
• 40:22
  So I have my peptides.
• 40:23
  Oh, we're getting there.
• 40:23
  Don't you worry.
• 40:25
  That's coming up next.
• 40:26
  I have my peptides.
• 40:27
  Let's segue right into that, actually, because I don't know much about peptides.
• 40:30
  Again, when I went to that talk was like the first time I learned a little bit with Dr. Julie.
• 40:35
  And everyone's curious about it.
• 40:37
  And I think there's also when people say peptides, everyone thinks, oh, GLP-1.
• 40:43
  And so much beyond that.
• 40:44
  So just take it away.
• 40:46
  What is the most common one prescribed by you?
• 40:49
  I would say I probably have seven most common because I want to start with peptides are a short chain of amino acids.
• 40:54
  And I want you to think of a peptide like a text message.
• 40:57
  And the way I explain it, if I sent my husband a text message, three words, we need milk.
• 41:02
  I don't have to tell him anything else.
• 41:03
  He understands that he needs to get his wallet, get in the car, go to the grocery store, walk into the grocery store, get milk, pay for milk, come home.
• 41:10
  He understands all the steps in between.
• 41:12
  He just needed the instruction.
• 41:14
  So that's how our bodies are.
• 41:15
  We just need that instruction to heal.
• 41:18
  to repair whatever we're aiming for with the peptides.
• 41:21
  There's been a little stigma about the gray market and what's available at the pharmacy and FDA approvals.
• 41:25
  And we're challenging the FDA on making it not just, it's not about legal or illegal, just having a governance over the quality, the purity, the concentration of the peptides that are available.
• 41:37
  We had it and then they took it away.
• 41:39
  And that's when everyone went to the gray market.
• 41:41
  The first time hearing gray market was a few weeks ago.
• 41:43
  I'm like, what's the gray market?
• 41:45
  Yeah, it's the influencers, the Chinese peptides, things that you can buy online that have been untested.
• 41:50
  Okay.
• 41:50
  And as a clinician, if I prescribe something for you, like I can pull from the pharmacy the quality.
• 41:58
  I have a way to guarantee that what I'm giving you is exactly what I think I'm giving you versus...
• 42:03
  May the odds be in your favor on whatever you buy online.
• 42:06
  And people say they throw out these big words and these fancy peptides.
• 42:10
  They're like, oh, I'm going to put this combo together.
• 42:12
  And then when you actually test that, it's either a different concentration of what you think you're getting.
• 42:17
  There's something else in there.
• 42:18
  It's watered down.
• 42:20
  It is scary.
• 42:21
  That's been the hot topic around peptides.
• 42:23
  But peptides, when used correctly, they're safe.
• 42:27
  They're wonderful.
• 42:29
  Our most famous peptide is insulin.
• 42:31
  Really?
• 42:32
  Yes.
• 42:33
  Insulin is a peptide.
• 42:34
  We have over 4,000 peptides.
• 42:36
  So why would someone get a peptide of insulin?
• 42:39
  If they're not making enough insulin, type 1 diabetes, they're going to get insulin that way.
• 42:45
  And the GLP-1 is another famous peptide.
• 42:47
  I would say probably my most, I'm going to start with BPC-157.
• 42:51
  Everyone's saying, I'm on BPC-157.
• 42:54
  I'm like, what?
• 42:55
  Everyone, I'm like, I got to look this up.
• 42:56
  What is this?
• 42:57
  BPC-157 is naturally occurring in your body.
• 43:00
  You make it in your stomach lining and your gastric juices.
• 43:02
  And now when we make it in the pharmacy, it's that same combo of amino acids.
• 43:08
  The visual I give people is the reason why we can eat a juicy steak and digest that but not digest your stomach is because of that protective layer and the ability to repair those cells really quickly.
• 43:18
  That's one of the roles of BPC on that part.
• 43:20
  So when you use it outside the stomach, like you do an injectable, we have oral formulation too.
• 43:26
  But that helps.
• 43:28
  We're using it outside the body.
• 43:29
  It helps with tissue repair.
• 43:31
  And angiogenesis is one of the things that new blood vessel growth.
• 43:34
  It stimulates repair and reduces inflammation.
• 43:38
  So athletes, I use it a lot with my athletes.
• 43:40
  I love using it in perimenopause because things hurt.
• 43:44
  Inflammation is there.
• 43:46
  One of the markers that I do for inflammation is C-reactive protein, high sensitivity C-reactive protein.
• 43:51
  If I see that number starting to creep up, I'm like, well, until we figure out the source of your inflammation, let's drive that down.
• 43:57
  Because you can have some other changes when you—blood pressure changes, tissue changes, whenever inflammation is not addressed.
• 44:05
  girlfriend talk about my favorite is GH copper peptide.
• 44:09
  Okay.
• 44:10
  GH copper peptide.
• 44:11
  GH copper peptide.
• 44:13
  I have my non-negotiable stack for myself.
• 44:16
  I don't expect anyone else to do this, but GH copper peptide.
• 44:18
  And what does that do?
• 44:19
  That one is...
• 44:20
  Helps with, it's most commonly known for skin repair.
• 44:25
  Your skin glows.
• 44:26
  The cells are more plump, but it goes back.
• 44:28
  It's at the root cause.
• 44:29
  You do have great skin.
• 44:30
  I'm like, circling 50.
• 44:32
  I'm like, I got to make sure I don't want to look like that.
• 44:37
  But it makes the cells more plump and healthy.
• 44:39
  I mean, I can go in the deep science side of it.
• 44:41
  But what we're looking at is you see the health benefits of it.
• 44:44
  You see the cellular benefits of it.
• 44:47
  On the flip side, inflammation is down.
• 44:50
  Joints are less painful.
• 44:52
  It's like a cascade of improvement whenever you're addressing the inflammation.
• 44:56
  Now, GH copper peptide comes in a few formulations.
• 44:59
  I like the pill form personally.
• 45:01
  That's my favorite.
• 45:03
  I have a question too.
• 45:04
  You mentioned athletes.
• 45:05
  And again, I'm educating myself.
• 45:06
  It might sound like a silly question, but is it okay for athletes to take all these different peptides?
• 45:12
  It increases their performance.
• 45:14
  None of these are performance enhancing.
• 45:16
  They're all about repair.
• 45:18
  It's all about meeting the needs.
• 45:20
  So the reason why I gave you the message about we need milk, I didn't say go by the grocery store.
• 45:25
  I'm going to get the essentials.
• 45:26
  I'm going to get the things that I need.
• 45:28
  And a lot of people are confused about that because even USADA and WADA, they're like, oh, we can't make our athletes...
• 45:34
  We can't increase their performance.
• 45:36
  I'm like, it doesn't work that way.
• 45:37
  I'm not going to make you perform any faster or harder.
• 45:40
  I'm going to make you recover better.
• 45:42
  And that recovery, I work a lot with the UFC athletes, UFC fighters.
• 45:47
  Like if they're not fighting, no one's making money.
• 45:49
  Like we want to take care of these athletes.
• 45:51
  They're putting their body through so much.
• 45:54
  And all I'm doing is just stimulating that repair.
• 45:58
  So what are a few more?
• 45:59
  Because there were seven of your faves.
• 46:01
  What are a few more of your faves?
• 46:02
  So it really depends on the symptoms.
• 46:05
  I like dihexa a lot.
• 46:06
  I have people that struggle with brain fog and they're struggling with, you know, finding their words, high stress situations, high stress people struggle to... Menopause.
• 46:17
  Menopause.
• 46:17
  I'm like, why am I walking in this room?
• 46:20
  Yes, that's part of it.
• 46:22
  Dihexa is one of my favorites.
• 46:24
  Thymus and beta.
• 46:25
  Thymus.
• 46:25
  That's also for tissue repair.
• 46:27
  It's actually naturally occurring.
• 46:28
  Your thymus gland makes it.
• 46:30
  We have thymus and alpha, which is another one that I use for all my autoimmune patients.
• 46:34
  I love to use thymus and alpha.
• 46:37
  I'm not saying it's a guarantee that if you have an autoimmune disease, you're eligible for it.
• 46:41
  But with autoimmune diseases, there's a lot of immune confusion.
• 46:46
  And the thymus and alpha is like sending in your super soldiers that say, hey, no, no, no, this is your thyroid.
• 46:51
  This is not the enemy.
• 46:53
  We're not going to attack the thyroid anymore.
• 46:54
  Let's calm it down.
• 46:55
  I'd love to use that one a lot.
• 46:56
  Actually, I use it quite a bit.
• 46:58
  Yeah.
• 46:58
  And what is one of the biggest misconceptions of peptides?
• 47:02
  That they cause cancer.
• 47:03
  I mean, that's the biggest thing.
• 47:05
  It's like, you can't have it because it causes cancer.
• 47:07
  I'm like, I only have access to my own data.
• 47:10
  So I have my own retrospective cohort.
• 47:13
  I can tell you that we're starting to pull information and we have almost a million doses under our belt for the last 10 years.
• 47:22
  We've had four reported side effects.
• 47:25
  Four patients have said, I've had side effects.
• 47:27
  There is no other medication that we can find that has had almost no side effects.
• 47:34
  What were the side effects?
• 47:34
  Yeah.
• 47:35
  Three of them were injection site reaction.
• 47:37
  Okay.
• 47:37
  And one of them, the gentleman that reported it said he got sick, but to quote him, everyone at the wedding got sick.
• 47:44
  Okay.
• 47:44
  So maybe he did and he stopped taking it and maybe it was related and everyone else got sick.
• 47:49
  I don't know.
• 47:49
  I'm going to count it though because he reported it.
• 47:52
  But for the most part, you know, I tell people this, the worst thing that happens is that it didn't work the way I wanted it to.
• 47:58
  And a lot of people will try to take it and they want the BBC, thymus, and beta combo because they have back pain and they don't want to have surgery.
• 48:05
  So we're going to try to heal it with some peptides.
• 48:07
  And I'm like, yeah, there's still, you know, we had some structural problems or a tear or a bulge that the peptides are not going to be effective enough at that.
• 48:15
  Still needed surgery or still needed a stronger intervention.
• 48:18
  You can't peptide your way out of menopause either.
• 48:20
  No, I'm just on my way to...
• 48:25
  You got to move through it.
• 48:26
  Move through it.
• 48:28
  I have that question a lot.
• 48:29
  People are like, what peptides can I take to not go into menopause?
• 48:31
  I'm like, trust me.
• 48:32
  It doesn't work that way.
• 48:34
  So we've all heard GLP-1s you have to stay on for life.
• 48:37
  What about you, for example?
• 48:39
  If you stop taking the copper one that makes your skin beautiful, would there be reverse?
• 48:45
  What happens if you stop taking a peptide?
• 48:47
  I just start aging naturally.
• 48:49
  Okay.
• 48:49
  That's it.
• 48:49
  It's like if you start getting Botox.
• 48:51
  Right.
• 48:51
  Exactly.
• 48:52
  You just start moving the muscles again and start at that point.
• 48:56
  I get a lot of heat from my GLP ones because I tell people you have to earn it.
• 48:59
  So if you get a GLP from me, you have to earn it.
• 49:01
  We're doing resistance training.
• 49:03
  You're getting enough protein.
• 49:05
  We have aligned every other micronutrient in your body.
• 49:08
  And this is my best choice to help get you over that level.
• 49:12
  Yeah, that's always my concern, the GLP one, like a quick fix when you have to look at your lifestyle changes, what you're eating.
• 49:18
  Like maybe you need to go into therapy, figure out like just all of the lifestyle things that should.
• 49:23
  So that's good to hear.
• 49:24
  Because I feel like some people just hand those out.
• 49:28
  I have people that will message and they're like, I need to lose 10 pounds for this event.
• 49:31
  And I'm like, that's not how it works.
• 49:32
  Did you go to the gym?
• 49:34
  Yeah.
• 49:34
  Like, I can't participate in that because I know that is harmful.
• 49:38
  If I'm starving you to the point of losing that medically assisted starvation is that's terrible.
• 49:45
  Well, and with GLP ones, don't you lose muscle mass?
• 49:48
  And as we know, over 40, we start losing about 1% of our muscle mass a year.
• 49:53
  So we want to keep that muscle.
• 49:55
  And it's a lot harder to lose.
• 49:57
  to gain muscle.
• 49:58
  Yes.
• 49:59
  After 40-ish, that protein synthesis to make the muscle, it's significantly diminished.
• 50:05
  And so that's why I'm, how are you doing your resistance training?
• 50:09
  And, you know, if I make them tell me what they're doing, like, are you putting the effort in?
• 50:13
  So if you get a GLP one from me, you're...
• 50:16
  You've earned it.
• 50:17
  And then we're going to, I don't want anyone to be on it for life.
• 50:20
  I use it, I think of it like a bridge.
• 50:22
  Now, how long does that bridge need to be?
• 50:24
  Does it need to be a year or two years?
• 50:26
  And then I start tapering the dose down a little bit because now we've gotten into some better habits.
• 50:32
  We've had better choices.
• 50:33
  The food noise is gone.
• 50:34
  Yeah.
• 50:35
  The weight is gone.
• 50:36
  The inflammation is down.
• 50:37
  Now you have to maintain.
• 50:38
  And I have patients that I'm like, okay, let's come off for a little bit and see how well you do.
• 50:42
  And most of the time, they're like, I don't eat it anymore.
• 50:44
  It's great.
• 50:44
  Every now and then it's like, eh, the stress happened.
• 50:47
  And that also reveals like their psych side of it.
• 50:51
  If they seek food for that dopaminergic response, you know, so I can help them navigate through that.
• 50:57
  And we'll use this as a bridge to get through that phase.
• 50:59
  But it's never the intent of, hey, I'm going to give you a GLP-1.
• 51:03
  Eat anything you want.
• 51:04
  That's really special to have someone who actually cares because normally you go to a doctor, you got 15 minutes there.
• 51:09
  I had high blood pressure ones, and I did not get on anything, and I have great blood pressure now.
• 51:15
  But they were like, we can prescribe you medication.
• 51:18
  And this was three or four years ago, and I was like, no, I don't want it.
• 51:21
  They don't ask your lifestyle.
• 51:23
  This was during a time where I was going.
• 51:26
  I didn't know I was going through Perry.
• 51:28
  I was a caretaker for my mother until she passed, and I had a lot of stress in my life.
• 51:33
  I was just always crazy, and I had to be more aware of doing things that keep my cortisol down, you know, and my heart rate down.
• 51:42
  So that's, I didn't want to go on a medication for that.
• 51:45
  I want to talk about what the root cause is.
• 51:48
  That's what is missing right now.
• 51:50
  And like I said, I was allopathically trained.
• 51:54
  You memorize this set of things to do.
• 51:57
  If blood pressure is elevated, you start with this medication.
• 51:59
  If it stays elevated, you go to this medication.
• 52:01
  If it stays elevated, you add this one and this one.
• 52:03
  Oh, now they have side effects.
• 52:04
  Okay, so now we're going to add this medication.
• 52:06
  And if I get you on a cholesterol medication, I have to make sure I give you a CoQ10.
• 52:09
  So now we're on several things.
• 52:11
  Yeah.
• 52:12
  Nobody asked why.
• 52:13
  Well, and that was also that same time caretaker for mom, Perry.
• 52:18
  I was so busy.
• 52:18
  I was so, so slow and sad that I wasn't working out either.
• 52:23
  No, doctor wasn't like, are you working out, Karina?
• 52:26
  I put weight on what's going on.
• 52:28
  It's like, just take this pill.
• 52:30
  I have people that they'll say that they're like, well, I'm sad and slow and I don't feel like working out.
• 52:35
  I'm like, great, let's do it anyway.
• 52:36
  That's why you need to.
• 52:37
  That's why you need to.
• 52:37
  This is exactly we're going to release these endorphins.
• 52:40
  I'm not saying you have to go hit CrossFit and learn something new.
• 52:44
  In my office, I have a Basu ball that's in the background.
• 52:47
  And sometimes my days are just absolutely crazy.
• 52:49
  My kids have a lot of things.
• 52:50
  Life is just crazy right now.
• 52:52
  And I don't have a lot of time, but in between patients, I might have five or 10 minutes and I'm just going to push the limit on whatever squats or lunges or whatever I can do in those five minutes on my bossy ball.
• 53:03
  And I have some little weights and I'm like, I'm going to get the movement in.
• 53:06
  I call that a workout snack.
• 53:07
  Yes, exactly.
• 53:08
  Five, 10 minutes.
• 53:09
  And also anyone listening, if you are slow and sad and you're like, that's just too much, do a workout snack.
• 53:15
  Get yourself on a mat and say, I can commit to 10 minutes.
• 53:18
  Right.
• 53:18
  And see where that 10 minutes goes.
• 53:19
  And if it doesn't go past 10 minutes, you move for 10 minutes.
• 53:22
  And that's a huge accomplishment.
• 53:23
  Exactly.
• 53:24
  Or set a small goal.
• 53:26
  I'm going to do 10 pushups.
• 53:28
  I'm right there with you.
• 53:29
  Let's do it.
• 53:29
  I've been an athlete my whole life.
• 53:31
  So, I mean, I did have an advantage training so hard when I was young.
• 53:36
  You know, I was competing and doing all the things.
• 53:38
  I had a nutritionist and I reduced my high school hours so that I could compete.
• 53:43
  I know how effective exercise is.
• 53:46
  I know what to do.
• 53:48
  But even through all of that and where I am now, I have days and I'm like, I'm not doing that.
• 53:53
  Right.
• 53:53
  I have one of my, see you with the boasted ball in your office.
• 53:56
  That's good.
• 53:57
  I keep 10 pound weights like on my kitchen island or the stairs in my dining room.
• 54:02
  So if I'm walking by and I'm like, I'll just pick them up.
• 54:04
  I'll be like 10 curls, 10 presses throughout the day just to like keep moving.
• 54:08
  Or I'm sitting at my desk too long.
• 54:10
  There's a gem on the other side and I'll just go in there for like five minutes, jump on the trampoline, just like something just to, even if you're tired in the afternoon, just moving a little bit too.
• 54:20
  It helps.
• 54:21
  I have a very fat cat and I will pick him up.
• 54:24
  I think he's about 15 pounds and I squat with him on my basketball and he loves it.
• 54:28
  And he's like, this is our bonding time.
• 54:30
  And so just a burn as happy as he can be.
• 54:33
  And I want to talk about something that's, again, new for me, but like really new.
• 54:37
  Just heard about it a few weeks ago, too.
• 54:41
  regenerative medicine and muse cells.
• 54:45
  And this was intriguing.
• 54:46
  We just briefly touched on it at Ways to Well.
• 54:49
  I just want to know more about it because it's new to the U.S.
• 54:52
  It is.
• 54:53
  It's new to the U.S. Muse cells are a subset of cells that were naturally occurring in the Wharton's jelly.
• 55:01
  So the Wharton's jelly is,
• 55:02
  is the gooey stuff that's in the umbilical cord.
• 55:05
  From there, we extracted the mesenchymal cells.
• 55:07
  Sorry, I should have said, not just from the Wharton's jelly, from the mesenchymal cells themselves.
• 55:11
  There's a subset of those.
• 55:13
  So the visual I give with that is the entire U.S. military system versus the select Green Berets.
• 55:20
  Whenever you're treating someone with Wharton's jelly, you're going to get the mucel.
• 55:25
  There's going to be some in there.
• 55:26
  There's going to be mesenchymal cells.
• 55:27
  There's going to be growth factors and all the extracellular vesicles and all the goodies.
• 55:31
  What's available in the U.S. now is the extracted mucel.
• 55:35
  That one little super soldier cell has been expanded.
• 55:39
  Now, the other thing that's very important is, and I get really passionate about this part,
• 55:44
  When people expand their cells or they force the mitosis, they force that replication, they starve them of oxygen.
• 55:50
  So these cells replicate very quickly.
• 55:53
  And in my opinion, they're damaged.
• 55:55
  Now, I say that because I have two PhDs on, we have two PhDs that we employ and have all of this science, have all this data.
• 56:03
  So I'm not, I didn't make it up.
• 56:05
  But, and I give people the visual of if I tell you to move out of your house in two hours, you're going to forget something important.
• 56:12
  Right.
• 56:13
  So forced replication of those cells, there's going to be some broken mitochondrial pathway.
• 56:17
  There's going to be some broken sets of instructions.
• 56:21
  With the MUSE cells, they're not.
• 56:23
  MUSE stands for multi-lineage stress-enduring cells.
• 56:25
  So they can endure the stress of not having enough oxygen or not being in the right environment.
• 56:29
  But they're also just, they're going to replicate at their speed.
• 56:32
  They're going to replicate the way they should.
• 56:35
  We stop replication.
• 56:36
  I'm not the lab, so the products that I buy, they stop replication at the first or second generation.
• 56:43
  A lot of places that are outside of the U.S., they have been replicated to multiple, multiple generations.
• 56:50
  The other visual I give is if you ever print something from the printer and then you take that and then you put it on the copy machine and you copy that copy and that copy, that copy, that copy, it loses some of that clarity.
• 57:00
  So going outside the U.S., you're going to get those copies inside the U.S. You're going to get it straight from the printer every time.
• 57:07
  Is it true that WasteWell is one of three places in the U.S. approved as of now to use MuCells or administer?
• 57:15
  But okay, so how do you know when someone needs it?
• 57:18
  Like, what does it do?
• 57:19
  Like, on a basic level?
• 57:21
  Yeah.
• 57:22
  I use it a lot for injuries and orthopedic side of it, you know, little tears, muscle strains, bulging discs, arthritis.
• 57:29
  I know I'm not saying I would choose Muse by themselves if there is arthritis.
• 57:34
  I have other products.
• 57:35
  We have a whole array of products that we use.
• 57:37
  I do like my Wharton's jelly.
• 57:39
  The gooey hyaluronic acid that's in it still has some used cells.
• 57:42
  It still has the mesenchymal cells, still has the growth factors.
• 57:45
  But you get an immediate cushioning benefit when you put that like in a knee joint or an elbow or a shoulder where there's a good bit of friction and pain.
• 57:54
  Now, as far as the anti-aging side of it, this is where it's fine.
• 57:57
  That's what we like to know.
• 58:00
  I can give them, I give them IV, the mu cells IV.
• 58:04
  And they are so smart.
• 58:05
  They will go exactly where your body tells them to go.
• 58:08
  It could be brain, liver, heart, lungs.
• 58:10
  They are small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier.
• 58:13
  They will help and restore the tissue that is damaged.
• 58:16
  And the way it works is they're called phagocytic cells.
• 58:18
  So they actually consume the damaged cells.
• 58:21
  Okay.
• 58:21
  And they take on the memory of that cell and become a new version of that.
• 58:26
  So if you have a damaged heart, damaged heart cells, something has happened, lung tissue, scar tissue, you've had an injury.
• 58:34
  The inflammatory cytokines that are going off that are signaling that there's a problem here, the mu cell will go to that damaged cell and consume it and take on the memory of that cell and the identity of that cell.
• 58:45
  So the mu cells are the true pluripotent cells because they can help with any type of tissue repair.
• 58:51
  It's a whole lot of fun.
• 58:52
  I need to like read up on that some more because this is so new to me.
• 58:56
  And then why is WasteWell one of three approved in the U.S.?
• 59:01
  Mostly because we have the patented Dazawa mucels.
• 59:04
  I think it's because of the way, you know, we were so particular on the labs.
• 59:10
  And this is not to knock anybody, but I have such a stringent that we only buy from a few places for a reason.
• 59:16
  They have to prove their certificate of analysis, their quality, their sterility.
• 59:20
  I have to see how many cells are still alive.
• 59:22
  They prove all of that to me before I'm going to inject it into a patient.
• 59:26
  I think because we've held that standard and we've held that we are only giving you the best of the best every single time, that reputation is there.
• 59:33
  I don't want to say it's an expensive product.
• 59:36
  The product itself is expensive, so the treatment is expensive.
• 59:40
  I think the more people become aware of it and the availability increases, that'll drive the price down too.
• 59:47
  I've been injecting different products for 25 years.
• 59:50
  So everything from bee venom to rooster cones to, we used to harvest fat cells and bone marrow.
• 59:57
  I've grown cartilage in the forearm, taken it from the ear, growing the forearm to try to get these cells to grow.
• 1:00:03
  I have had so much fun with this.
• 1:00:05
  You're like, what do you do for fun?
• 1:00:08
  I give an IV and I'm like, I can't wait for that phone call because you're going to feel so much better.
• 1:00:12
  And it's an odd place to be because in medicine, we have to say, oh, you know, I hope it works.
• 1:00:17
  This is, you know, I can't guarantee anything.
• 1:00:20
  And, you know, nothing is perfect.
• 1:00:22
  And I tell everybody, this is what I'm expecting it to do.
• 1:00:25
  But I've had so much fun because almost every time it's doing exactly what I'm expecting it to do.
• 1:00:30
  And I get these sweet messages and I'm like, yes, no pain.
• 1:00:33
  Yes.
• 1:00:33
  Inflammation is gone.
• 1:00:34
  Yeah.
• 1:00:35
  I need to talk to my dad, get him down here to Austin, come see you.
• 1:00:40
  Okay, so what are your three non-negotiables every day?
• 1:00:46
  Bedtime.
• 1:00:47
  I'm really set on a certain bedtime.
• 1:00:49
  I like to go lay down.
• 1:00:50
  I want to be in my bed by 9, between 9 and 9.15.
• 1:00:53
  I need to calm down and get rid of the day.
• 1:00:56
  That's when I pray, and that's when I reset at 9 o'clock.
• 1:01:00
  What about when winter hits?
• 1:01:02
  I try to stay up till 830.
• 1:01:04
  I'm like, you got it, Karina.
• 1:01:06
  I do.
• 1:01:07
  It does shift a little bit earlier.
• 1:01:09
  It's kind of last year unnoticed because my kids were trying to put themselves to bed at 730.
• 1:01:13
  And my husband was like, I guess we're going to bed, too.
• 1:01:15
  I'm like, I guess I'm going to take this.
• 1:01:19
  That's the other thing people feel like.
• 1:01:20
  I want to touch on this for a second because you mentioned that.
• 1:01:23
  Gotta get up early.
• 1:01:24
  Gotta do this and rush, rush, rush.
• 1:01:25
  Allow your body a chance to rest.
• 1:01:28
  I don't set an alarm anymore.
• 1:01:29
  And I try not, don't book anything before 10 a.m. if I can, because I don't set an alarm and I want to make sure I work out and do my sauna and plunge and have my morning and my meditation.
• 1:01:41
  It's very important to hold that time sacred.
• 1:01:44
  It is.
• 1:01:45
  Sleep and your time.
• 1:01:46
  Yeah.
• 1:01:47
  That's your reward.
• 1:01:47
  That is yours.
• 1:01:49
  We forget that.
• 1:01:50
  And especially as women, we show up for everyone else.
• 1:01:53
  So we'll sacrifice.
• 1:01:53
  We'll do a little early.
• 1:01:54
  We'll stay a little later.
• 1:01:56
  We're going to take care of everybody else.
• 1:01:57
  And then at the end of the day, it's like, oh, how much time do I have for myself?
• 1:02:02
  And there's a lot of women that will just stay up late scrolling on their phone or just having that just some mental time to themselves.
• 1:02:10
  If that's your time, make it purposeful.
• 1:02:11
  And don't feel guilty about it.
• 1:02:13
  And there's some, I mean, everyone has that to do list and like, oh, you know, I try to be done working by 536.
• 1:02:18
  There's always something to do.
• 1:02:21
  But it's like you have to take care of yourself.
• 1:02:24
  I mean, if I don't, I can't do good at anything else.
• 1:02:28
  Correct.
• 1:02:28
  You know, if we don't put our own mask, they tell us that on the airplane.
• 1:02:31
  If you don't put your own mask on, you can't put anybody else's on.
• 1:02:34
  So you have to take care of yourself.
• 1:02:36
  My second non-negotiable is my peptides.
• 1:02:39
  Like, I know what I eat.
• 1:02:41
  Yes, I already have the movement.
• 1:02:42
  So I feel like I've already kind of hit those marks on that side.
• 1:02:46
  I do have movement every day.
• 1:02:47
  It may not be enough.
• 1:02:49
  You know, it varies.
• 1:02:50
  And sometimes I just kill it.
• 1:02:52
  So my peptides are, that makes a big difference.
• 1:02:55
  With cell repair, it helps with my sleep and hormone optimizations.
• 1:03:01
  I'm in menopause now, and I had to go through a little rough patch of me trying to figure it out myself.
• 1:03:06
  And even though I knew.
• 1:03:07
  I know.
• 1:03:08
  Sometimes you get so frustrated because you know so much.
• 1:03:11
  Yes.
• 1:03:12
  But then living it, I'm like, oh, I didn't know it felt this bad.
• 1:03:16
  The body aches, just the things that everything is different.
• 1:03:20
  You don't feel like yourself.
• 1:03:22
  It's not something I'm going to give up.
• 1:03:25
  I'm not going to give up my peptides, and I'm not going to give up my sleep time.
• 1:03:28
  And then what's number three?
• 1:03:30
  Oh, that was number three.
• 1:03:32
  Hormones, peptides, and sleep.
• 1:03:35
  I didn't put food on there.
• 1:03:36
  I already know what I eat.
• 1:03:38
  A lot of what we do is centered around food.
• 1:03:39
  And so women think, oh, I can't eat this.
• 1:03:42
  And then it's kind of a punishment.
• 1:03:43
  Like, oh, I can't go with my friends because they're going to go to this restaurant.
• 1:03:46
  And there are so many ways around that.
• 1:03:48
  Let yourself enjoy.
• 1:03:50
  You can eat anywhere.
• 1:03:52
  You can eat anywhere.
• 1:03:53
  You can eat in moderation.
• 1:03:55
  Have some things that you enjoy.
• 1:03:56
  Yeah.
• 1:03:57
  I talk about that a lot too.
• 1:03:58
  Like if it's the birthday, eat the birthday cake.
• 1:04:00
  It's fine.
• 1:04:01
  The birthday cake comes around once a year.
• 1:04:03
  My 16-year-old just had a birthday and we had birthday cake and I enjoyed it.
• 1:04:06
  And my stomach hurt afterwards.
• 1:04:09
  I know.
• 1:04:09
  We were just in Bentonville, Arkansas with my family.
• 1:04:11
  And we were walking after dinner.
• 1:04:13
  I was like, ice cream.
• 1:04:14
  And I usually don't eat ice cream or crave sweets.
• 1:04:17
  It was like an old little diner.
• 1:04:18
  I was like, that's so cute.
• 1:04:19
  I want ice cream.
• 1:04:20
  I was craving it.
• 1:04:21
  So we got ice cream.
• 1:04:22
  Yeah.
• 1:04:22
  I won't eat a whole three scoops, you know.
• 1:04:25
  But if you want to have it.
• 1:04:26
  And yeah, sugar at nighttime was probably not my best move.
• 1:04:30
  But...
• 1:04:31
  You paid for it because, you know, that's what I say.
• 1:04:34
  You're like, there's a consequence to it.
• 1:04:36
  It's so worth it.
• 1:04:37
  You have to juggle that.
• 1:04:39
  So I'm going to ask you a couple rapid fires.
• 1:04:42
  But before we get there, can we say where everyone can find you and find WasteWell?
• 1:04:48
  So we have two physical locations.
• 1:04:49
  One is Houston and Austin.
• 1:04:51
  That's where we do all of our stem cell therapies, our IV.
• 1:04:54
  Our longevity lab is here in Austin.
• 1:04:56
  Yeah.
• 1:04:56
  And that's with like hyperbaric chamber.
• 1:04:57
  I went in that there.
• 1:05:00
  You guys have all, I don't even know what the step devices do.
• 1:05:04
  Yeah, we have IBU, which is the ozone blood treatment.
• 1:05:08
  We have plasmapheresis, where we actually take your blood out, separate it, give some of it back to you and replace it with plasma.
• 1:05:13
  What's the benefit of that?
• 1:05:15
  That one's interesting.
• 1:05:17
  When you're holding onto a lot of toxins, a lot of heavy metals and molds and just the junk, it's floating around in your bloodstream.
• 1:05:23
  I look at it like an oil change.
• 1:05:24
  Yeah.
• 1:05:25
  Some people are like, oh, you're dumbing it down a little bit.
• 1:05:26
  I'm like, think about it.
• 1:05:28
  I'm taking it out.
• 1:05:28
  I'm separating your red blood cells and white blood cells, pulling out all the plasma.
• 1:05:32
  So when that plasma is where all the junk is.
• 1:05:36
  And I'm replacing it with albumin.
• 1:05:37
  I'm not taking out everything.
• 1:05:38
  I'm giving a hard reset to your system to let your liver and kidneys get a little break so that as you're filtering the rest of that out later, it's much easier to do.
• 1:05:48
  I just think about it like a dirty fish tank.
• 1:05:49
  If you take out most of the water and you replace it with clean water, that filter, it's a little easier on the filter.
• 1:05:54
  So that's the visual I give.
• 1:05:55
  We've tested some patients before and after, and it is a little cost prohibitive.
• 1:06:00
  Some people are not going to pay the thousands and thousands of dollars before and after to test that.
• 1:06:05
  We've done it as an experiment.
• 1:06:06
  It's very interesting.
• 1:06:08
  The BPAs and molds and heavy metals, the things that you see floating around in there, it's like, yeah.
• 1:06:15
  Can anyone do it or do you prescribe them to do it?
• 1:06:18
  Yes, technically anyone can do it, but we have some parameters that we have to meet first.
• 1:06:24
  We do blood work first and make sure you're healthy enough that your veins can support it.
• 1:06:28
  There's a little bit of a workup that goes to it.
• 1:06:30
  It's not a come in and...
• 1:06:32
  day treatment there's a lot of planning that goes with it yeah but one of the things we have too is it's called a hockett okay did you get into the hockett is that the little heated yes no not opposed but i'm claustrophobic and like if i could like put my hands out like this but it doesn't it like it's just around your neck and your head your hands can't just like pop out that's my only thing
• 1:06:54
  So I cross my arms in it so that I don't feel so...
• 1:06:57
  But at least you're looking out a window.
• 1:06:58
  Yes, you are looking at it.
• 1:06:59
  The fan is blowing.
• 1:07:01
  The Hocket is probably my favorite.
• 1:07:03
  If all the...
• 1:07:04
  I hate to say it, a cheat hack.
• 1:07:06
  It's not that.
• 1:07:07
  It is so effective and it's so non-invasive.
• 1:07:10
  So you don't have to get stuck.
• 1:07:11
  We don't have to do blood work.
• 1:07:12
  You can come in and just do this rapid fire detox.
• 1:07:15
  But it is ozone, sauna, heat.
• 1:07:18
  There's a PMF plate that's in it.
• 1:07:20
  You're breathing oxygen all at the same time as we call it a 10-in-1 treatment.
• 1:07:25
  I hate it when I go through it.
• 1:07:27
  No, I'm not going to lie.
• 1:07:28
  How long do you have to sit in it?
• 1:07:29
  About 28 minutes.
• 1:07:30
  22 to 28 minutes.
• 1:07:31
  I was going to say, if it's five minutes, I'm so there.
• 1:07:33
  Maybe 10.
• 1:07:35
  It's pretty hot, too.
• 1:07:36
  And I keep it at its highest setting.
• 1:07:39
  What's the temp?
• 1:07:40
  It's 42 Celsius.
• 1:07:41
  So what's that in Fahrenheit?
• 1:07:42
  Fahrenheit, I think it's 116.
• 1:07:44
  Okay, well, I keep my sauna pretty hot.
• 1:07:46
  Yeah, I probably did my math wrong, so don't judge me on that one.
• 1:07:49
  But I don't stay in that long.
• 1:07:51
  It's different because it's a combo because you're getting the ozone too.
• 1:07:54
  It's ozone and steam.
• 1:07:56
  And so it's all of it at once.
• 1:07:58
  I sit in there for the full time at the highest temperature.
• 1:08:01
  I hate the last four minutes of it.
• 1:08:03
  And I'm, you know, it's like, gosh, I know I need to do this.
• 1:08:07
  But that night I sleep really well.
• 1:08:09
  The next day I feel like I'm eight years old again.
• 1:08:12
  It is the wildest thing.
• 1:08:13
  I kind of want to try now.
• 1:08:14
  You just have to know your skin's going to stink a little bit from the ozone.
• 1:08:17
  You're going to sweat and not shower for four hours.
• 1:08:20
  So I live so far away, I'm like, I time it.
• 1:08:23
  So then I leave.
• 1:08:23
  Four hour drive, we're good.
• 1:08:25
  Exactly.
• 1:08:26
  Your skin is your largest detoxing organ.
• 1:08:28
  So you're just dumping all of this out and you're absorbing all this ozone and oxygen.
• 1:08:33
  It's just a whole cellular reset.
• 1:08:36
  It feels so good.
• 1:08:37
  From there, you hop in the red light.
• 1:08:40
  Red light.
• 1:08:40
  Okay.
• 1:08:41
  Controversy.
• 1:08:41
  I love a red light.
• 1:08:44
  In my sauna, I have just the panel, but you have a red light bed.
• 1:08:47
  Does red light work and what does it do?
• 1:08:49
  Yes, it works.
• 1:08:51
  The importance is the wavelengths.
• 1:08:53
  You want to make sure that you have that dual wavelength and
• 1:08:56
  There are a lot of red light companies, red light beds and red light options.
• 1:09:00
  And I'm not going to say that anybody's doing it wrong.
• 1:09:03
  I don't think anybody's intentionally doing it wrong.
• 1:09:05
  And I think they probably mostly get it right.
• 1:09:07
  So that's my disclaimer on that one.
• 1:09:09
  But the red light, it helps increase your mitochondrial energy, that ATP formation.
• 1:09:14
  It's calming.
• 1:09:15
  Yeah.
• 1:09:15
  I heard it's great for your mental health.
• 1:09:17
  And if someone suffers from depression or slow and sad sometimes.
• 1:09:21
  Yes.
• 1:09:21
  The red light can help.
• 1:09:23
  It's one of the, if you're getting a good combo infrared and near infrared, it's very similar to what the sunlight does to your body.
• 1:09:29
  If you think about it, you go walk on the beach or walk on a lake where there's sand and water and the sun, you're getting this whole set of the reset.
• 1:09:39
  Yeah.
• 1:09:39
  But it's not always accessible.
• 1:09:42
  I can't get to the water.
• 1:09:44
  where I live.
• 1:09:44
  I can't get to the water every day, you know, but I can get a red light bed.
• 1:09:47
  Yeah.
• 1:09:48
  And it's going to be right in here for like a week.
• 1:09:52
  Make your own mud puddle outside.
• 1:09:54
  I know.
• 1:09:54
  All right.
• 1:09:55
  I want to do a few quick rapid fires here.
• 1:09:58
  Cold plunge or sauna?
• 1:10:00
  Sauna.
• 1:10:01
  Okay.
• 1:10:02
  I know I'm terrible at rapid fires, but I have to know why is sauna versus cold plunge?
• 1:10:05
  And do you believe that women should not be cold plunging?
• 1:10:08
  I do believe women should not be cold plunging, especially in perimenopause.
• 1:10:12
  It is so stressful to the body that it shifts your cortisol.
• 1:10:16
  We believe that it's releasing these cold shock proteins.
• 1:10:19
  And yes, we know that.
• 1:10:21
  It's great for men and inflammation.
• 1:10:23
  And if you have an acute something that's going on, you're sick, you have an injury.
• 1:10:26
  Yes, absolutely do it then.
• 1:10:28
  But some people are so ritualistic about it that it's shifted their cortisol response.
• 1:10:32
  And so you stay in this panic for so long afterwards.
• 1:10:36
  See, I love the cold plunge and I actually use it, especially in perimenopause.
• 1:10:41
  I would have awful anxiety that my stomach would get upset.
• 1:10:45
  And if I went in the cold plunge and just closed my eyes and breathe and kind of meditated in there, my anxiety would go away.
• 1:10:53
  Yeah.
• 1:10:54
  So I'm like, I like it.
• 1:10:56
  Well, your body went into a state of you flipped into a state of survival.
• 1:11:00
  So your threat mechanism shifted.
• 1:11:02
  Whatever was causing that anxiety or just anxiety in general, now you're a threat.
• 1:11:07
  Your body temperature is dropping.
• 1:11:08
  So everything, your body focuses on that.
• 1:11:10
  So attention shifted.
• 1:11:11
  And that actually works.
• 1:11:12
  That's true.
• 1:11:13
  That does help.
• 1:11:14
  It's just the women that are like, oh, I have to get a cold plunge because someone said I need to do it.
• 1:11:20
  If I ever recommend it, it's because I believe it's going to be beneficial to you.
• 1:11:24
  All right.
• 1:11:24
  Strength training or cardio?
• 1:11:26
  Strength training all the way.
• 1:11:28
  Texas BBQ or Tex-Vex?
• 1:11:29
  Tex-Vex.
• 1:11:30
  Oh, Tex-Mex.
• 1:11:32
  Yeah, me too.
• 1:11:34
  Magnesium or melatonin?
• 1:11:36
  Magnesium.
• 1:11:36
  Yeah.
• 1:11:37
  Because magnesium is responsible for over 300 coenzymatic functions throughout the body.
• 1:11:42
  So if you're low in magnesium, think about being low in over 300 things or that potential there.
• 1:11:48
  It makes a big difference on recovery too.
• 1:11:51
  Okay.
• 1:11:51
  Blood work or the scale?
• 1:11:53
  Which one tells you more?
• 1:11:54
  And blood work for sure.
• 1:11:54
  Of course.
• 1:11:55
  Yeah.
• 1:11:56
  Scale is just a number, girl.
• 1:11:58
  All right.
• 1:11:58
  And one myth or fact I want to ask, because I get this a lot from the community.
• 1:12:04
  You can't build muscle after 50.
• 1:12:06
  Oh, that's not true.
• 1:12:07
  We touched on it earlier, but if she's listening right now, because we say, you know, you lose 1% per year after 40, three things that she can do to build muscle.
• 1:12:17
  That statistic is based on non-hormonally optimized women too.
• 1:12:22
  So I just want to say that.
• 1:12:24
  We have a DEXA scan in our longevity lab and I have my patients do their DEXA scan.
• 1:12:28
  And I actually have a lady.
• 1:12:30
  I wish I could tell her story and her name because she's so wonderful.
• 1:12:33
  I just love her to death.
• 1:12:34
  She was in full osteoporosis, menopause set.
• 1:12:37
  She was 57 or 58 when we started.
• 1:12:41
  And we optimized her testosterone, her estrogen, progesterone.
• 1:12:44
  We re-scanned her and her bone mineral density increased.
• 1:12:47
  Her muscle mass increased significantly.
• 1:12:51
  She's chiseled.
• 1:12:51
  She looks amazing.
• 1:12:54
  This is going to sound bad, but she went from being a typical menopausal body shape, body habitus to looking like a 30-year-old right now.
• 1:13:01
  She is rocking.
• 1:13:02
  I'm moving in.
• 1:13:03
  And it's not, I'm not doing anything.
• 1:13:04
  Yeah.
• 1:13:05
  that I wouldn't, she's not on some high dose or anything.
• 1:13:08
  It's just dialed in.
• 1:13:10
  It's matched to what she needs.
• 1:13:11
  This is what we do for fun after 48.
• 1:13:15
  We took the Southern lift weights.
• 1:13:18
  We didn't get to how people can find you anyway.
• 1:13:20
  So we started going on a tangent about everything you can do there.
• 1:13:24
  The easiest way to get us is our website, ways2well.com, W-A-Y-S, the number 2, well.com.
• 1:13:30
  That has all of our contact information, our locations, what services we offer at each location.
• 1:13:35
  Our telemedicine, we're right now available in 47 states, should be 50 states very soon.
• 1:13:42
  Just trying to get some contracts in those states right now.
• 1:13:45
  So basically across the nation, definitely in Texas.
• 1:13:47
  Texas is probably our biggest market compared to California and Florida.
• 1:13:52
  That's the easiest way to find us.
• 1:13:54
  I love it.
• 1:13:54
  Thank you, Denise, for just talking with me this whole time and learned so much.
• 1:13:59
  And I appreciate you coming on.
• 1:14:01
  Of course.
• 1:14:01
  Thanks for having me.