Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1887: Why You Shouldn’t Ask Your Doctor About Diet & Exercise

Episode Date: August 25, 2022

 In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin cover five reasons why you doctor is likely not the ideal person to ask for diet and exercise advice. Some of the WORST advice that clients would bring about diet & exercise would come from their DOCTORS! (2:39) The importance of consulting and asking for clearance from your doctor. (5:33) In the defense of ‘good’ doctors. (7:13)   Five Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Ask Your Doctor About Diet and Exercise.   #1 - Their education is largely specialized (almost none on training or diet). (9:38) #2 - They have no experience coaching people through the process. (18:52) #3 - Their tool kit is great for acute issues or symptom relief (not chronic issues). (25:11) #4 - They have a drug for that. (32:36) #5 - They don’t have time to walk you through it. (37:58) Related Links/Products Mentioned Visit Chili Sleep for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! August Special: MAPS STARTER value $97 or PRIME PRO BUNDLE value $197 you get it for HALF OFF!!! **Promo Code AUGUST50 at checkout** Mind Pump #1835: Why Resistance Training Is The Best Form Of Exercise For Fat Loss And Overall Health Vitamin D and its role in psoriasis: An overview of the … – PubMed MP Holistic Health Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources People Mentioned Dr. Becky Campbell (@drbeckycampbell)  Instagram Dr. Stephen Cabral (@stephencabral)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind, hop, mind, hop with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Puppering. In today's episode, we talk about why you probably shouldn't ask your doctor about specifics when it comes to diet and exercise. I know that sounds crazy, but we explain it all in this episode and I promise you it's all going to make sense. This episode is brought to you by one of our sponsors, Chilly Sleep.

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Some of the worst advice that clients would bring to me when it came to diet and exercise actually came from their doctors, real doctors. And it was also some of the most challenging ones to overcome. You guys remember encountering some of this stuff? You just been trying to start fighting the issues. No, I mean, we'll look through the horusness. No, this is true. And it was, so a couple of things. Very frustrating. Yeah, I would get clients who get really, really bad advice from their doctors.

Like, I'm gonna do this HCG diet. That was one where they went $500 lifting because it's gonna hurt your back. Yeah, or don't squat anymore, don't move anymore, don't do this thing anymore. I actually had clients, many times coming to me with these liquid diets that their client, that their doctors would put them on where they would just have shakes to lose weight. And it was so hard to overcome or to talk through because I'm countering their doctor. Yeah.

And there's two challenges to that. One is you have to be very careful because the way regulations work, if you don't wanna say something that, you never wanna say anything that'll hurt somebody, but if you say something that counters a doctor, you could be quite liable, regardless of what that is. And number two, because doctors are held to such a high standard, for some very justifiable reasons, the ultimate authority. If you tell your client, no, I don't think you should just

have powder liquid calories for the next 30 days to lose weight. It was hard to overcome because they're like, well, it's my doctor. This is my doctor. They know what they're talking about. They've gone to a lot of school. You know, I've been seeing them for a long time. It's like, well, how do I, how do I overcome this?

Yeah, this was really hard for me, especially considering I don't think I have a silver tongue like you do. So I think I struggle with this for most of my career because they already put in that authority position and unless you can articulate your argument better than the doctor can, it's a really, really tough one to overcome. Even if you know better, right, I would know better about the advice they're given and you give a perfect example of, you know, oh, do these shakes for the next 30 days and that, that, that became a thing for a second.

You guys remember that? It was super common. Yeah. Well, because what happened is like, okay, you get, you get clients and there's exceptions to this rule, right? And I understand where it came from, right? If, if a client was so morbidly obese that, it was like an emergency.

Yeah, like, it's an emergency to get this weight off. Obviously, this person has struggled most of their life if not all their life with weight, and probably tried all kinds of different diets and weren't successful. So it was like, this is an emergency way to get weight off of them because it was a life or death matter.

So to me, there are exceptions to the rule where I understand where that logic came from, but that wasn't a majority of the people. That was not most of my clients. Most of my clients were in a manageable place. It wasn't life or death where they needed to get that weight off. But they did need to. I mean, it was life or death as far as, you know, they continued on this path. They were going to die, but it wasn't like if they didn't do, they didn't figure this out next week, they were going to die.

Yeah. Now, I want to be clear. I have tremendous respect for physicians and doctors. I have a lot of friends that are doctors at one point, I trained a lot. Now I want to be clear, I have tremendous respect for physicians and doctors. I have a lot of friends that are doctors. At one point, I trained a lot. And I always ask for clearance. And I would always consult with doctors because what they do know, they know very, very well. And you need some of that information. So that's really, really important. But when it came to exercise and nutrition, general exercise and nutrition, aside from

their specialties, their advice was typically not that great. And it could cause a lot of problems because there's such high positions of authority. So I would get clients that would come to me either with these prescription diet pills or they'd be on, or the doctor would say something like, don't squat anymore. Now, if it wasn't coming from their osteopath

or someone who specifies in that, you know, it was specific in that particular field, I'd be like, what do you mean your general practitioner told you not to squat anymore? Because your knee hurts and I say, well, I think, I know, I think I know why your knee hurts. You have this dysfunction here, we can work on that. Yeah, yeah, but they said,

I shouldn't do any lower body exercises. Then you're putting a really tough position because as a trainer, you require doctors clearance. So I would actually, this happened quite twice to me. I'd get on the phone with a doctor and I'd have to explain myself and say, well, here's why we're gonna squat, here's how we're gonna squat, here's what's gonna happen.

And thankfully, through the conversation, the doctor said, okay, you know what you're doing. I trust you. But it was intimidating. Well, and it's addressing the symptom. I mean, it's like, it's an easy way for them to avoid the pain of the symptom of the pain, but we're not addressing anything, you know, going into the future in terms of strengthening and supporting the body to bring it back to, you know, alleviate completely. So before we get into hammering doctors right now, I want to defend, defend them

also because I think in their defense, there are probably more bad trainers. You could make the case. There's more bad trainers than there are bad doctors. And if you're a doctor and you hear your client is training with some young trainer and your knees hurt. You are probably gonna lean on the... Great point. You know, I'm gonna be, I don't know who this kid is. He doesn't know who Adam is training a client.

And then probably have experience with their patients getting hurt from crappy. Right, and so listen, don't listen to this young kid who's telling you you need to squat all this way. That's great, yeah, good point. You've got to heal completely. Right, so in their defense, and remember, we were a part of the real big wave of training, like the popularity of trainers.

We were on the front end of the beginning of that wave, I would say, and through a majority of that, and of course, still doing that in our career today. And so early on, trainers were not as knowledgeable and as skillless they are today. And so, you know, early on, trainers were not as knowledgeable and as skill as they are today. I mean, I watched that evolution happen in my career, like where trainers became very, very knowledgeable. Yeah, it started out with just trainers were just people who trained themselves and were fit. Yeah. And it's right. You didn't mean the certification courses were not what they are now. Yeah, my very first certification was IFPA. So this is before even 24-hour fitness,

I was already looking into becoming a trainer and the national Cert that I had, which was nationally recognized, was IFPA. It was literally a take home test that I could fill out and send in. Oh, well, so you literally could look up all the answers, fill it out, and then I was I was technically a certified personal trainer after that. So that's what I think and so you got to know that doctors a little trainer after that. So that's what I think. So you got to know that doctors saw that, remembered that, felt that, and probably experienced that. And so I do want to defend that.

Now, I also think that we're in a totally different era now. Trainers now, and this is, again, an over-generalization would be to say that they're all great, because there's just as many probably bad ones today. But the education level of trainers, because there's more money there now that that wasn't a that wasn't a career path 20 something years ago. You didn't hear kids in junior high going like when I grow up I want to be a personal trainer one day like that wasn't a thing until later on. Now it's a legitimate career path. It's more it's more competitive. So you need to be better to do what you do. There's better information. I know that's a really, really really good point And you know, I have really good relationship with a lot of doctors

You know, I've said many times at one point I trained quite a few Physicians and doctors and one thing that struck me was First off, we all know that doctors are highly educated becoming a doctor Especially in a spec especially when you're specialized or you're a surgeon It's a tremendous amount of formal education especially when you're specialized or you're a surgeon. It's a tremendous amount of formal education and it weeds out a lot of people that just can't hack it. It's a very challenging job.

They're also extremely intelligent. I was surprised to see the hobbies that a lot of these doctors had were, like I couldn't believe they had first off hobbies because if you look at the hours of like the typical surgery or where do they fit that in? It's crazy. But they'd be like, oh yeah, I'm also a classically trained pianist

and I do that on the side. Or, oh yeah, I learn Latin or whatever. I'm like, okay, these are. I'm a pilot. Yeah, I'm a pilot. Really, really intelligent people. And then also, I had this perception of doctors as a kid that, oh, these are people that make a lot of money.

So maybe people go into this field to make money. That's not true. Now, the only time I kind of encountered that little bit was when I trained plastic surgery. But the other doctors, they were all passion driven, totally passion driven. They loved what they did, many have volunteered their time on the side to help and that kind of stuff. So tremendously intelligent, very educated, smart, you know, people, but very specialized. This is what people need to realize is that they're very, very specialized. And their education, when it comes to exercises zero, and when it comes to nutrition, I believe is a semester

or a course. I think it's one course semester. Now, so this is largely just in Western medicine, right? Because in Eastern medicine, they look at medicine differently, more holistically than we do. And so I think because of our advancements and how good we are at handling acute issues, we've become very specialized, which is unique to our country, right?

I tell you that everywhere. It is, but if you work with like an Eastern medicine specialist, they will work with nutrition differently in movement differently. It's a very different practice. They tend to focus more on, it's holistic and more on kind of root cause type of stuff. I'm not saying it's superior. I think in some cases it is. I think in many other cases it's not. But Western medicine doctors are very, very specialized in what they do. And if you look at the required courses that they take in nutrition, it's small. It's very small. It's like, I think it's a semester if I'm not mistaken, in most cases.

And it would have come to an exercise or is none. I've had a few doctors that have, you know, had his clients that were saying that they just breeze through the nutrition section. And typically it was like the general practitioner is because you get so many patients every day and it's like it became kind of this thing, like this pattern of like how much information can you really relate to each patient and then what was most effective with that. And so, you know, nutrition was very brief, like even if they

bring it up as an option. So it's totally brief and what they tend to communicate or what they would communicate to clients of mine was more of what you hear when you go online about losing weight. So they would say things like, oh, you just eat less and just move more. It would be their typical advice or go sign up for a class, you know, workout class or I would have, I would have clients come back. Well, my doctor said cut carbs and I say, cut carbs and cut carbs and the doctor and I will yeah it worked really well for him So that's what he told me to do. I'm like okay. Well you're getting advice

That's a little bit maybe you're from a smarter more educated person the average person but the average but the advice is coming across the same and Because again they have such a that authority it was really hard to counter it. In fact, oftentimes I would not counter it. I'd let it run its course. You okay, you're just told. No, how to, you kind of had to sometimes. I mean, at the end of the day, we're still in a service business

and these people are hiring and paying you. And then if you're sitting there arguing with them and fighting with their doctor the whole time. So you a lot of time, they'll lose. Yeah, you'd have to submit. A lot of times you'd submit, say, okay, we'll do it your way first. And then, as we go through, I'll explain to you why this is time, it'll lose. Yeah, you'd have to submit. A lot of times you just submit, say, okay, we'll do it your way first. And then as we go through, I'll explain to you

why this is happening, what that's happening and why we're not seeing the results that you wanna see. So, you know, what was really illuminating was when I would train a lot of these doctors when I first started getting, so I would train one and then they started referring to each other. And so then I started training quite a bit,

is that they would come to me, I would do my assessment, like I would always do with anyone. And because they know anatomy much more than the average person and they understand the terminology, I would be able to speak to them in a particular way. And then they would inevitably say something like, I can't do any squatting or I can't bend my knee below more than 45 degrees, no ever had pressing for me.

And they would tell me why, you know, I tore my infraspinatus, I have some AC joint problems, I had it resected a few years ago, or yeah, I can't squat below 45 degrees because I have congemalatia, and they would have all the reasons why, tell me why they can't do it.

And it was very illuminating to me because I'd hear this, and I'd know, because I've worked with many, many people in this situation. I know like, well, we'll see, we'll see how your movement works and through strengthening the body, it's very likely you'll be able to do more than you think. And I would tell them that it's very likely, but we'll take it very slow and we'll see what's happened with your body. And they would be blown away. I remember one lady in particular, she's like, I can't squat below 45 degrees. I got all these problems and she listed her issues. I mean, six months later, we're doing

full squats. And she was like blown away. But it was good about this is that they started sending me their patients because they saw like, Oh, it's, there's much more to this than I thought. Well, a lot of the, you have to think it's probably like the national certifications, right? So when you get it, I remember that having this moment too, where you had gone through multiple national certifications and then a lot of the stuff that they were teaching as far as form and technique was stopping at 90 degrees and not going below parallel on your squatting and nothing behind your neck, like all these kind of basic rules that like I feel are not true. But the reason why they do that is because

obviously the risk of someone potentially hurting themselves, they may be liable for teaching that. So I imagine doctors are held to the same standard where it's like, you tell your doctor, oh, my knees hurt or this bother me and I'm getting ready to hire this personal trainer. What can I can't do? They're going to go like, uh, don't squat, don't do this, don't do that because if they say, oh, you should squat, it's really good for you, or you should deadlift, it's gonna be really good for you. And then they go do those movements,

and then end up getting hurt. I imagine that they're held liable for that. And so that's probably another reason why they push that so hard. Yeah, and also when you go and you get a procedure done, like a surgery of some type, they, you'll get the standard answers. Like, okay, now that we've repaired your ACL,

no more lateral movement or no more whatever, you know, no stopping quickly or, and, you know, and we know as trainers that if you don't rehab and strengthen, that's true. Okay, that's good advice. However, you're gonna lose the ability when you never practice that and you're just gonna decline even faster. And I do to say by the way that it's it's changing quite a bit

Yeah, I'm starting to see the advice for to change a little bit like the reluctance to have people use a cane or a walker that didn't happen Early in my career. It was like oh you fell use a walker now I you know now I'm hearing people say my doctors trying to prevent me from going on my walker because once I do Then I'm going to change my movement patterns. It's going to be stuck on it type of deal. Yeah, you see there is a bit of a shift and you see some more integrative type of approaches and holistic type of approaches and functional medicine is a thing now that wasn't really when we were trainers way back when.

And so there's definitely been a big shift in the medical community to start kind of incorporating some of these practices and getting in touch with the physical therapists and training and kind of creating that opportunity to send their patients in that direction, which is, so I see glimmers of hope. Yeah, also because it's such a highly regulated field,

so medicine is extremely, it's very, very highly regulated and I, of course, understand why. A lot of the information that they get is through the regulatory process, right? So doctors were advocating low fat, for example, for a long time, when low fat was the official, like this is the cause of obesity, it's too much fat, right? They were advocating for the use of vegetable oils

instead of traditional or natural oils for a very, very long time, because these are, this is the official guidelines. They would not advocate for strength training for a long time, because strength training didn't have any studies to support its benefits, mainly because there were no studies that were done on strength training for longevity have any studies to support its benefits, mainly because there were no studies that were done on strength training for longevity. So the forms of exercise, so I'd

get clients that were obese that their doctor would send me and the client would say, my doctor said, I need to focus on cardiovascular activity. And that strength training. Yeah, I don't need to do strength training. I need to focus on cardiovascular activity. Well, that's because that's the official narrative. And that's the information they get through their channels through the regulatory process. So, you can be behind, you basically can be behind on what's actually happening and working. Like, when I'm training people, I see what's happening, what's working with my experience.

So I know like, oh, this method's actually far more effective than the official narrative. Well, I mean, that brings to your next point of that, they just lack that experience. It's the same thing that when I see these online coaches and trainers who have never coached somebody in person and there's just, you can have all the knowledge, you know, you could read all the books and even understand that it actually gone through the nutrition and certifications, but until you go out there and you actually apply it to clients and help

them through that process, I mean, that's not, it takes that before it comes full circle for you on the ability to communicate because the books don't address like all the behavior stuff. No. And we know that that's the bulk of it. The bulk of it is adherence.

Can I even get this person to do X, Y, and Z? Even if I know scientifically, this is the best answer for them or what they should do. The reality is if what they should do, if you know, because you've actually gone and coached enough people that the the fail rate on that is 90%. Well, then it's no longer the most ideal thing we should do. Because yes, it's backed by sciences the best answer for that

situation. But if 90% of the people that attempt that best answer and fail at it, it's not successful. So I have to think of other ways to get them to that same desire. Well, when you're working with diet and exercise, it's not just plugging in numbers. Like, okay, calories, proteins, fats, carbs, here's your workout, here you go and go do it. If it was that easy, we'd have no obesity issue at all

because the answers are out there. What it is is the coaching process and working with people through that process and helping them develop behaviors and helping them change the relationships with their bodies, change their relationships with nutrition. So they don't reach for food, for comfort or to numb themselves or they understand the real values of food and they change how they perceive it, how they enjoy it, or they don't enjoy it, and with exercise the same thing. This is a long process.

It's not here, follow, look, as a trainer, that's what I did early days. Early days as a trainer, I just did meal plans and gave people workouts. Here's, oh, your calories. Here's your calories, because I know how many you need to lose weight. Here's the workout, just follow this.

Well, that fails. It doesn't work out, so it's a conversation that takes time in coaching and doctors don't have the time to do that and they don't have the training to do that. You know, who's more qualified, I'll tell you something right now. You could take two years of nutrition education, two years like specialized nutrition education or you could go and learn two years of therapy

and become a therapist. You know, it's gonna be more qualified to coach someone to lose weight, therapist, for sure. Because it's behavior, it's not the calories and the macros that make the biggest difference in terms of long-term success. Well, and also too, I imagine there's a bit of doctors out there that are jaded because of patients

and clients coming in that maybe they do spend a little bit of time trying to describe how to eat healthier Like you know move and add exercise into the mix and they just don't hear it They want to just get the pill they want to just get the the answer that's like easy and it's going to solve their issues To where you know enough times I feel like you know it might be in a place where it's like, well, I'm not even going to bring it up. Going back to the psychology of what you were saying, it's how we do diets with people today, right? So, early on as a trainer, I made the same mistake.

This client is this big, they want to lose this much weight. This is their macro breakdown. This is the calorie restriction I'm putting them on. Here's a list of the foods they say they like to eat or don't eat. Here's your meal plan. Yeah. And go follow it. And that is all backed by science.

You know, if they follow it, they'll lose it. That's right. We can support this base off this. We have enough information now that we could figure out pretty close what that person should be eating from a macro and calorie perspective to get them to their goal. Problem is, I've done that so many times and have failed so many times, I realize that's not a winning strategy. Even though the science supports, that is the answer.

But what really ends up working way better is actually not worrying so much about all those things, assessing where their diet is and going like, oh, they're lacking in these things. So instead of me taking food away, even those clients want to lose 30, 40 pounds, I'm actually going to add something into their diet. Complete opposite of what anything would support scientifically. Because if you go, hey, this person needs to lose weight from what they're eating. Your coach and trainer says they want you to add something to diet. I would fail. I would not as far with that. I would not pass the scientific test on that.

But the truth is, that's what works. Is what we know is that when you have a client, you're playing with their psychology. You're not telling them they can't do something they can't have. I tell them I want them to add this into their diet. You know just by them focusing on that, naturally other things fall off there. Look, the answer to alcoholism to stop drinking alcohol.

The answer to a drug addiction is to stop doing the drug. Oh, you're poor, just make more money and save more money. Okay, that's great. Thank you very much. I appreciate your answer. Try harder. But that's not, that doesn't work. Why?

Because we're not robots. Okay. And the coaching process is where the value is. A really good trainer will tell you this. Somebody who's been training people for a long time will tell you that the real success, the long-term success comes through that process. Doctors have no experience in that.

So even if a doctor is educated in some of these things like nutrition and exercise, and even a trainer, even a new trainer who's got certifications and some of this stuff, they're not gonna be effective because are they gonna coach you through the process? When you fail, are you gonna show up and are they gonna say, oh, what will happen,

how's your relationship to food? I'm like, oh, just eat what I told you, right? So that's a big reason why doctors are gonna be ineffective or their advice is gonna be ineffective. Especially here's the other part, you have to consider where these are people that are highly disciplined when they wanna be. And when you're talking to somebody

who knows how to do that, sometimes they think you're the same way or it's easy. In other words, you can hear somebody say, just do it, just follow and just do it. Just grind your way through it. Most people don't work that way. I know some people do, but most people simply don't. I remember I had an issue with that

because I'm a fitness fanatic. So I thought, you know, we'll just get up and work out. Like what's the big deal? Just get up and do it. All you gotta do is just get up and do it. And it's like, okay, it's not working. Everybody's failing. Maybe the problem is me.

Maybe the problem's not them. So the other thing is that a doctor's toolkit, we're talking about Western medicine, is very, very good for acute issues. Like, Western medicine, okay, if you have an acute issue, that is the form of medicine you want. You're dying now, you want a Western medicine doctor. Something ruptures, like I'm going to the hospital.

Arm breaks. Yeah, yeah, something's happening now, I need medicine, I need, like, you want that now. Chronic issues, Western medicine, just because of the way it's organized, is terrible at dealing with chronic issues. If you have a skin condition, and the reason why you have a skin to condition

is because you don't get enough sunlight, you have a lot of stress, you don't get enough sleep, the diet that you're eating, there's a few food intolerances that you're not aware of. Yeah. And that's the answer. You ain't going to get that answer from Western medicine. What you're going to get from Western medicine is here, rub this cream on it that brings down the inflammation and it makes the symptom kind of disappear. And losing weight, changing your relationship to exercise,

becoming active for the rest of your life. This is not a an acute solution. This is a more of a chronic issue obesity chronic. It takes time So you have to deal with it in that way and their toolkit just isn't well why is why is it that Western medicine is so bad for something chronic is it because It what it will do is is mask The root cause and then it'll just manifest itself somewhere else. Is that, because if you're, if you're, if you're,

if you're dead, let's see your skin issue, and because I, for example, my psoriasis, and I went through this process, going through Western medicine. Here's the, here's the steroid shots. Here's the steroid creams. Put it on it. Oh, when I put it on it, it totally, totally tempts it down, relief. I don't itches bad, it doesn't look as bad,

but the inflars over here. Constantly having to do all that stuff, just to keep it down. And by the way, my body starts to adapt to those creams and then I have to rotate through other ones, same thing with the steroid stuff. I have to do a different. You might change it out and now you're gonna have

a different reaction from a different one of those creams. And so it's like a downstream effect. So if you're adding some kind of medication to address the symptom, now sometimes you might also have these other side effects that now you have to treat the side effects alongside the actual treatment. And then it just kind of compiles, which I think the chronic issues, that's where the problem is. Right.

Never once a conversation around what's my diet like, vitamin D, infrared light or sunlight, like none of that stuff was ever discussed. No lifestyle stuff. None. At all. It was literally, in fact, you probably, they probably laughed at me. I bet you asked. I did.

I did. And they laughed at me. It was years later. It was actually not until we all got together. Was it you who sent me to the... I brought up a study. I said that vitamin D deficiency is very closely connected to psoriasis. It was years later, it was actually not until we all got together, was it you who sent me to. I brought up a study. I said that vitamin D deficiency is very closely connected to psoriasis.

And Adam's like, nobody ever told me, started taking vitamin D and it started to get better. Right away. Well, then we had, then we, we wouldn't get the test done because I hadn't even been, I never even thought to test for vitamin D. Didn't even, didn't even dawn on me that that might be an issue. Test for it, find out that I am really low. And I was really low even after taking 5,000 I use. So I ended up having to bump it up to 10,000

because I was so low. So, you know, and it didn't, it made a huge difference. So did the infrared, so did just getting out and getting sunlight. So did avoiding foods that my body was obviously intolerant to. So there was so many other things that actually could solve that problem that they weren't even speaking to, they're just going to constantly hammer the steroid cream.

Yeah, the reason why Western medicine is the way it is with chronic stuff is because Western medicine was extremely successful and was born out of solving acute issues, right? So when Western medicine really started taking hold, it was like, how do we solve bacterial infections that killed millions of people all the time? Boom, antibiotics, like what a breakthrough, right? How do we solve these viral infections that are poliole, for example? Oh, we have a vaccine, massive, massive breakthrough.

Surgery, oh my God, I'm bleeding. What do I'm gonna bleed out? What do I do, right? Anesthesia, surgeries, like repairing bones, repairing, you know, arteries after heart attacks. It was brilliant and it worked, but it was built around that model of solving this kind of emergency issue.

And so it was never baked into the system for this kind of, like, how do we solve, like if you look at the problems today that Western medicine is really struggling with, you have like degenerative disorders. Autoimmune. Autoimmune issues, right? Alzheimer's, dementia.

You have all the autoimmune issues, Crohn's disease, colitis, psoriasis, eczema, allergies, food allergies, which are going through heart disease, which is a chronic issue, diabetes. We have all these chronic issues, and Western medicine, just terrible at working with these. By the way, a lot of these, we already know the answers to. A lot of them require total lifestyle changes. Now, part of the challenge is lifestyle changes are hard, taking a pill is kind of easy.

But nonetheless, it's not organized in a way to work with those types of things. So if you go see your doctor, how long do you spend with them? 10, 15 minutes? What are your symptoms? What's going on? Let's do some tests. Here's a pill or here's a thing.

And I think we can take care of that. And we already know how difficult it is, even as a coach to extract the right amount of data from your client and ask the right questions to really peer into their actual lifestyle. Because we always present our best self. I mean, look at social media. We're always presenting our best self all the time,

which is not helpful, especially when you're coming in with an issue that you really need to dive in and And be transparent as possible. So I also think part of the challenge they have with with chronic issues Both everything from chronic pain to even like skin and diabetes and things like that is that it's so individualized So you get like think of it as a trainer like okay, I have a client who has a bad hip a bad hip could be caused The root cause could be a lot of different things It doesn't it could be something to do with their foot. It could be something to do with their knee It could be something to their little back like it could be a do it. It could be inflammation

Yeah, it could be a lot of different. They emotional right there could be a lot of different things that are causing that and they just They don't have the time and effort to really troubleshoot all those. It's not their training. Yeah. It's like, oh, you have, you have hit pain. Oh, here's a, here's a, here's a shot. Here's a shot or here's some pain messages. They're there to solve or maybe we'll get you surgery. Right. Which to them, it doesn't matter if the root cause came from your foot or came from inflammation or came from the fact that your right foot is one inch longer than your left foot. Like that, it's like, oh, you have pain in the area. This will dull the pain for sure. So it it so it unbrellas everybody, but the truth is if you want to get to the bottom of it and really

solve the problem with chronic anything, you've got to diagnose every individual because every individual could have, and they go like to psoriasis, my point. Psoriasis could be potentially caused for red meat or from asparagus for me. Or then it's dysbiosis. But then it's avocado and banana for somebody else, right? Or yeah, you have some sort of issue. So it could be so many different things that a doctor is not going to sit there and troubleshoot all

that. No, and another problem is they have a drug for most symptoms, right? Most symptoms, there's a drug that's been designed, most common symptoms, there's a drug that's designed to treat that, and drug companies have massive influence over our medical system. It's like the supplement industry and fitness, right?

It's the money making part of that industry. Now, I'm not going to demonize the drug and pharmaceutical industry. And I know that a lot of people think it's popular to demonize them. Look, I'm going to, I mean, to be quite honest, the pharmaceutical industry has solved a lot of major issues. They spend a lot of money on research. Some of that research is brilliant and incredible, but they're an industry like anything else and there can always be things that are better. If something is not profitable, then it's very hard to fund the research that's needed. It's very hard to pass through regulations to make a drug even viable. So it's just, again, it's baked into the system. Then of course, you throw on top of it

that people run it. People can be greedy, they can be corrupt, they can be all those different things. So you mix that all together and you get a lot of problems. So, I mean, I'll give you guys, I was actually having this conversation with Jessica yesterday.

So my son, my youngest, he was having kind of like some, like real mild rashes, like in the back of his knee, his elbow, and his digestion seemed a little off. Like his, you know, when he would, when he would, his stool would be a little too soft or a little bit constipated. And, you know, obviously we're both in the wellness field. So we notice these things and so we tell the pediatrician

and we have a great pediatrician, okay. We have a really good pediatrician, but still, that's, again, the system is the way it is. And so she goes, oh, she goes, really good pediatrician, but still that's again the system is the way it is and so she goes oh she goes well Try putting this I'll get you some cortisone cream to put on the rash, right now Jessica and I are like look. I don't care about the rash as much first of all it's not that bad It's not like super bothering him, but also Why does he have the rash like okay? We put the cream on but what's causing the rash? So then we talked about the god and then you know, yeah, we put the cream on, but what's causing the rash?

So then we talked about the gut, and then he also had his breath was kind of smelling funny. So the doctor's like, well, you know what, we can try this antibiotic. So wait, we don't know if there's a bacterial infection. Like, let's not do that yet. So what I did is I actually had to go through our friend Becky Campbell, Dr. Beck Campbell,

it's a functional medicine practitioner, and they operate more holistically. So we did some testing, We saw some there was some dysbiosis in his gut. We did a low histamine diet, put them on some antimicrobials, which are natural, right? Some herbal stuff. And it's all going away. Now imagine if we were like the average parent, and just rubbed the cream on it, didn't change anything else, right? We would have never solved any of those issues. And then that led us to another conversation about antibiotics. Now they're different about antibiotics now because now we have more information. But when we led us to another conversation about antibiotics. Now they're different about antibiotics now,

because now we have more information. But when we were kids, you said throw it at everything. Anything, you were sick, any sneeze cough, it didn't matter, boom, throw antibiotics at it. Isn't that one of the prevailing theories on the explosion of autoimmune in our generation? They think that may play a role, because it really messes up with your microbiome

and your immune system. In fact, the microbiome, we knew we had bacteria in our body but we had no idea in the 80s when we were kids. They had no idea how it's integrated. It was, yeah. None. So they would throw antibiotics at everything. My siblings and I, I was able to do so many times.

Some doctors still do this. I know. It's still, I mean, we know do this. I know it's still I mean We know more information about it, but it's still calm. Luckily I have a really good pediatrician who's actually like Super we that's our last last resort we'd ever do But there's still some that like that's the first thing they do Yeah, I mean and you know that a majority for example like a large chunk of when people have like a chest infection is viral a large chunk of when people have like a chest infection is viral, not bacterial. So you're going to throw antibiotics at it, but that doesn't do anything, right?

And then people get better because they're going to get better anyway, so then they think it's. But nonetheless, this has led to antibiotic resistant bacteria. Now we know that this isn't so great. But man, when I was a kid, I must have taken antibiotics 15 different times, my siblings, so many different times. So, but now they're starting to kind of figure this out. But my point with that is, is they had a drug for a symptom, and it was like treat the symptom, throw the antibiotics at it,

which is not a really dealing with the necessarily the root cause, maybe they thought they were, but wasn't necessarily. And so that's what happens. So if you go, when you have pain, look, I tell you what, you go to your doctor and you tell them you have a lot of pain, they'll prescribe you a pain killer, you know?

And they want necessarily look at the root cause. You might have to go through a few specialists before that actually happens. Like my head hurts, here's a pain killer. Keeps happening, well maybe they'll spend you to send you to a specialist that works with the central nervous system or with the brain or whatever, but you got to go through a bunch of different challenges. Yeah, and I was experiencing that and just had headaches, just constant headaches and

had to go through a lot of specialists to finally figure out. It was like an underlying tumor that was creating these high blood pressure moments when I'd wake up and would give me this chronic headache headache pain, but to me I could treat it Right I could always just you know take some et cetera in and then you know I'd be fine for you know the rest of the day, but then you know what my kidneys my liver like everything else It's just like so you just got to consider like all the downstream the the long-term effects of like just are like all the downstream, the long-term effects of just focusing on the symptom. Yes, and the biggest point is this,

is that the way the system is designed, they don't have the time to walk you through and coach you and train you and handle and work with lifestyle issues. And it's funny when I, again, I trained a lot of doctors, we would talk about this. And I'd say, man, our medical system, some stuff that's really messed up, and they would agree. And I'd say, man, our medical system, some stuff that's really messed up,

and they would agree, and they'd say, but, tell. You know how hard it is to get people to take their medications? You guys know that it's like a huge percentage of people just forget to take their life-saving medications, like blood pressure medication. He goes, and you think I'm gonna tell someone to start exercising and eating right?

And they're gonna do that. And I'd say, we don't have the time to deal with that kind of stuff. I'm'm gonna tell someone to start exercising and eating right. And they're gonna do that. And I say, we don't have the time to deal with that kind of stuff. I'm not gonna be able to sit there and coach them. So, this is the biggest reason why, now I think a doctor can tell you what not to do, especially if you've had surgeries or if you have a medical condition,

like if you have certain blood pressure issues or if you're on a beta blocker, I would need to know that as a trainer before checking your heart rate, you know, and doing certain exercises. But if a doctor says, yeah, you need to exercise in, in he right, that's good advice. That's fine. It's the what, like the specifics that I think you probably don't necessarily want to listen to.

Well, that's why, yeah, you got to kind of consider, you got to be advocate for yourself, advocate for your own health. So you're gonna go to a doctor, and especially if it's a general practitioner, to that point, they're not gonna have a whole lot of time to sit and discuss all those options and troubleshoot. And there are other options for you to go to from there. And other doctors, you can get second opinions from

and try to do some slew things, some work there, and some detective work to kind of dive a little bit deeper. Yeah, the most important part of this conversation, I really think is that people need to understand that there's a lot more you can do than what you may think based off of what you've heard from your doctor, right? Like, because to all these points that we're bringing up of why. That's true. And that's what, I mean, this is part of the motivation with the partnership that we have with Dr. Cabral and their team and why we've provided a free form where people have access

is a lot of clients in my experience just didn't know. Just were unaware because they're, again, Drcribideth, Dr. Tellzim, they just assumed that, oh, I went and saw him or her. It's like a sentence. They said, I have these issues. Here's the medication for it. Here's the steroid for it. Here's the shot for it.

Here's the prescription for it. And so therefore, that's what I do. There was never this conversation of, oh, there's other things we could also look into, you know? It's that, so they just are unaware that there is some sort of a root cause this conversation of, oh, there's other things we could also look into. So they just are unaware that there is some sort of a root cause that you could potentially either exercise and figure out or change your diet and figure out or do testing and figure out with your gut.

There's so many other things that you can potentially do. And I think that that's the most important part of this conversation. It's less about doctors or bad, trainers are great or it's not that. I understand the reasons why they do the things they do or they say some of the things that they say. As a consumer, you need to understand that there are a lot of times, there are a lot more options than you think there are just based off of all the different research that we know about chronic pain and chronic issues when it comes to both diet and movement,

there's a lot of stuff that you can do besides just take the pill or the shot. They're really, really good at what they're trained to do. Outside of that, it's similar to asking someone who has no training, it's very similar in that sense. Now, except you're dealing with probably a smart, a smarter, more intelligent type person, still they're really good at what they do.

It's like asking your mechanic to teach you how to race your car, you know? They might not know how to race a car, but they know how your car works. They have all the parts inside, so that's the big point and the specifics are where you gotta be careful. But other than that, I think you said you made this comment just and I think it's very important. You have to be your own advocate and you have to go and do the

reading, find more people, ask more people, and don't give up, especially if you have a chronic issue that doesn't, you can't seem to have a solution. And it can take some time. I know people took five years to figure out. That's the other two. It takes a long time. That's also the other challenge is, you know, when I went like using my psoriasis as an example, and I got the steroid shot in the cream,

the next day I saw a significant difference. And so there's this kind of feedback loop of, oh, this works or this is amazing. Where if I were to try and address the root cause of it, testing, teasing some foods out, changing the diet, maybe trying to get more sunlight, adding vitamin, I mean, there's all these things, and then even when I start doing those things, and being consistent, gotta be consistent

with it for a while for the body. So, you know, that's part of the challenge, but if you're listening to this and you battle with any sort of crime and you're not in our free forum, you have to take advantage of that. And we have doctors in there too. Right. No, we have doctors in there for that

and they're answering questions that get on there every week and do live stuff. So if you're not in that free forum, you're missing out. Which the name of that was MP Holistic Health. MP Holistic Health on Facebook. It's a free forum and it's run by Dr. Stephen Cabral, functional medicine practitioner and his team. So great place. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpfree.com

and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any health or fitness goal. You can also find us all on social media. So Justin is on Instagram at my pump Justin, Amazon Instagram, my pump Adam, and you can find me on Twitter at my pump. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance,

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