Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Dr. Spencer Nadolsky on Improving Thyroid Health and Function

Episode Date: July 24, 2020

Pity our poor thyroid. This small gland is blamed for countless weight loss frustrations and is a consistent scapegoat for people who encounter fat loss plateaus. And that’s understandable. The thyroid affects metabolism and hypothyroidism (suppressed thyroid function) can slow the basal metabolic rate and reduce fat loss if you don’t adjust your diet or get treated.  I hear from many people who have thyroid issues asking for advice on how to lose weight, how to adjust their diets, and how to improve their overall health. This isn’t a subject I’ve touched on directly, so I decided to bring on a true thyroid expert, Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, to elucidate this little gland’s function and how it relates to fitness and health. In this interview, Dr. Nadolsky discusses …   - What is the thyroid, what does it do, and what are hypo- and hyperthyroidism? - How big of an effect can impaired thyroid function have on metabolism? - T3, T4, and TSH hormones - Goitrogenic foods and whether they should be avoided - The role of iodine, stress, and carbs in thyroid function - Signs you may have a thyroid issue - Hypothyroidism misdiagnosis - And more …   In case you’re not familiar with Dr. Nadolsky, he’s a Board Certified Family Medicine Physician, author of “The Fat Loss Prescription,” and a Diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine. He’s also a member of Legion Athletics’ Scientific Advisory Board and a certified “meme-ologist” on instagram. :)   So, if you want to learn about all things thyroid, listen to this episode! 12:36 - What are your thoughts on how the US approached the lockdown versus what Sweden did? Do you think we should have made adjustments? 16:00 - What function does the thyroid have? How does the thyroid affect weight loss? 17:42 - What are the hormones involved in thyroid regulation? 19:05 - How much of an impact can the thyroid have on basal metabolic rate?  24:03 - Does hyperthyroidism mirror the effects of hypothyroidism or is there a significant difference?  26:57 - What are some signs of a thyroid issue? 29:08 - Are there natural remedies that can help with hyperthyroidism? 37:19 - How does iodine play into thyroid function? 49:22 - How long will it take to start seeing thyroid effects from dieting? 52:36 - Does stress cause thyroid problems? 1:01:55 - Where can people find you and your work? --- Mentioned on The Show: Dr. Spencer Nadolsky's Website: http://drspencer.com/ RP Health: https://rphealth.com/ Dr. Spencer Nadolsky's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drnadolsky/ Dr. Spencer Nadolsky's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiYVuCJsA1GZyGgIZJqV64w Legion VIP One-on-One Coaching: https://legionathletics.com/coaching/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click HERE: https://www.legionathletics.com/signup/

Hi, and welcome to Muscle for Life. I'm Mike Matthews. Thank you for taking some time out of your day to listen to this episode, which is on thyroid health and function. And you know, I feel bad for all the thyroids out there. I pity these poor little glands who are blamed for countless weight loss failures and frustrations and who are the go-to scapegoat for people who encounter weight loss plateaus or inexplicable weight gain. Now that said, I do understand why many people blame their thyroid or think that their thyroid may be to blame for their inability to control their body composition, for their inability to lose fat or to keep fat off. The thyroid does affect the metabolism. And if you have suppressed thyroid

function, it can slow down your metabolic rate. And of course, the fewer calories you burn every day, the harder it is to lose fat consistently and to keep the fat off to maintain the body fat level that you want to maintain. But how great are the effects of hypo, so suppressed thyroid function, hypothyroidism, and how much can they get in the way of your fitness goals? And how do you know if you actually have a low functioning thyroid or if that's not the problem at all, if the reason you are not losing weight or gaining weight is something else altogether, like maybe accidentally overeating. That would be the most common reason why people hit weight loss plateaus or start gaining weight without realizing why. And as I haven't written or spoken much about the thyroid at all. And as I would not consider myself an

expert on the thyroid, I went and found one for you. And this person is Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, who is a buddy of mine and who is on the scientific advisory board of my sports supplement company, Legion. And I wanted to talk to Spencer about this in particular because he has spent a lot of time in the thyroid literature. He has dealt with thyroid issues himself, and he has a lot of clinical experience helping patients fix broken thyroids, and in some cases, realize that their thyroids were totally fine and that the source of the problem, usually related to weight loss and weight gain, is elsewhere. And in this interview, Spencer and I touch on every aspect of thyroid function and hypothyroidism I could think of. We talk about, of course, what the thyroid is and what it does. And clinically speaking,

medically speaking, what is hypothyroidism? What is hyperthyroidism? How big of an effect can these conditions have on not just thyroid function, but metabolism, metabolic rate, calorie burning? Talk about thyroid hormones, the three different thyroid hormones and what they do in the body. We talk about foods that apparently impair thyroid function. That's a big thing out on Instagram. If you want a healthy thyroid, never eat these foods. I would talk about iodine, stress, carbs, how these relate to thyroid function and more. So if you've ever wondered if you have a healthy thyroid or if you suspect that you have a thyroid problem and that it might be getting in the way of getting the body you really want, or if you know that you

have a healthy thyroid or you suspect you have a healthy thyroid and you want to know how to stay that way, this episode's for you. Also, if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, definitely check out my VIP one-on-one coaching service because my team and I have helped people of all ages and all circumstances lose fat, build muscle, and get into the best shape of their life faster than they ever thought possible. And we can do the same for you. We make getting fitter, leaner, and stronger paint by numbers simple by carefully managing every aspect of your training and your diet for you. Basically, we take out all of the guesswork. So all you have to do is follow the plan and watch your body change day after day,

week after week, and month after month. What's more, we've found that people are often missing just one or two crucial pieces of the puzzle. And I'd bet a shiny shekel it's the same with you. You're probably doing a lot of things right, but dollars to donuts, there's something you're not doing correctly or at all that's giving you the most grief. Maybe it's your calories or your macros. Maybe it's your exercise selection. Maybe it's your food choices. Maybe you're not progressively overloading your muscles or maybe it's something else. And whatever it is, here's what's important.

Once you identify those one or two things you're missing, once you figure it out, that's when everything finally clicks. That's when you start making serious progress. And that's exactly what we do for our clients. To learn more, head over to www.buylegion.com. That's B-U-Y-L-E-G-I-O-N.com slash VIP and schedule your free consultation call, which by the way, is not a high pressure sales call. It's really just a discovery call where we get to know you better and see if you're

a good fit for the service. And if you're not for any reason, we will be able to share resources that'll point you in the right direction. So again, if you appreciate my work and if you want to see more of it, and if you also want to finally stop spinning your wheels and make more progress in the next few months than you did in the last few years, check out my VIP coaching service at www.buylegion.com slash VIP. Dr. Spencer, Nadolski, we made it. We're here. We did it. We've been going back and forth for like a month now. We had previously recorded a podcast on the coronavirus, which is almost irrelevant at this point, according to the media.

Well, everything we talked about is basically like, we have so much more information now that it's like, well, that would have been obsolete anyway, so. No, actually, if you think back to it it it would have been still a relevant discussion that's still good i think to the current situation which is basically that it's not nearly as dangerous as we were being told at that time which is something we discussed where we were hearing these death rates of these predicted death rates of anywhere from three to 8% here in America. And yeah, not so much. Latest CDC data is among confirmed cases point, what is it? 0.26%, I believe among confirmed cases. Yeah, it's interesting. There's a whole,

these epidemiologists and statisticians, I follow all of them on Twitter trying to get the bottom line here, but it's probably going to end up being around 0.5. And like you said, really it's in the elderly and those with comorbidities. So like, you know, I saw another statistic of 46% of the deaths occurred in nursing homes, which again, that's not to trivialize that at all. It's terrible, the amount of people, but it puts things more in perspective. It's a bit sobering considering again, the doomsday scenarios. We were being fed by the media just, what, a month or so ago, four or six weeks ago. Yeah, I think it can at least alleviate fears for those who are probably listening to this,

who are very healthy. And young-ish even, not even young, just young-ish. Right, yeah. And of course, you'll see the reports. I get texts from my doctor friends of a 25-year-old who's on a ventilator now. And those things do happen. You see those things kind of happen with even the flu. that personally, I'm not concerned about the virus. Now, I don't want to give it to others who, regardless of their age, I'd prefer not to give it to others, period. But personally, I could care less about it because the statistics make that clear. If I'm going to worry about that, then I should worry about driving my car 10 to 100 miles a day. I should worry about going and walking around Washington, D.C., a busy city, for a few hours. The chances of the virus knocking me on my ass, putting me in the hospital, or killing me are so low that they don't even warrant consideration.

If they do happen, it's like some final destination shit. I guess that's it. That's the way I was meant to go. Yeah. I think for myself, too. I mean, I think we were all feeling a little bit anxious at the beginning, and we didn't know what was going on. And now we have a situation and having risk mitigation strategies with whatever we're doing, hygiene and staying away from people and masks and whatever. I mean, of course, there's nuance there.

But in getting back to as much as we can, we're going to see a second wave that's going to probably come here at some point. But I think as long as we can keep it at bay somewhat, and then just understand our risks. I know for myself, I was feeling anxious, like I said, but then as more data came out, it's like, okay, I think I don't want it, of course, I don't want to get this virus. And like you said, not spread it to other people. But at least I can rest assured that if I do get it, probably fine. We don't know long-term sequelae from it. We don't know if there's long-term lung and that's another thing that we'll probably know in the future. But I think at least it's good to know that I probably will not be dying from it.

Knock on wood, if this comes out and I'm gone. I would say I'll stick up for you. For the people who are going to jeer at you post-dumas, I'll stick up for you. For the people who are going to jeer at you, post-tumor, I'll stick up for you. I'll say, look, he got unlucky. What he said was not wrong. I joke about it myself. I'm like, if this shit kills me, just remember this. These are still my final words is that I got unlucky. Put that on my tombstone. How about that? And so I'm friends with a lot of doctors too, and they're taking care of these patients. And so we don't want to belittle the risk and those who are affected. It is very important. These other mental health effects of being quarantined, those things are worth discussing. Real. Yeah, yeah. And they can be quantified somewhat, right? In terms of the actual effects.

There are a lot of unintended... unintended i mean we're basically doing the covid podcast we were talking about no i know but i want to keep it going just because we'll do a hard shift here in a minute but i think this is good you know these things can't be quantified necessarily but there are unintentional consequences like the biggest thing we wanted to flatten the curve you know everybody's hashtag to which many people didn't understand that doesn't mean that the virus isn't going to spread like we we can't stop that now. It was just to prevent it from spreading at such a rapid rate that it would collapse our healthcare system, right? Because the thought was like, okay, if this many people were going to get the virus and be

hospitalized, there's still the same amount of people that are going to be coming to the hospital for heart attacks, strokes, GI bleeds, pancreatitis, all these little things. And what was interesting, I was literally every day texting with my doctor friends in New York, and they're like, our ICUs are filled, you know, the media, whatever. They were telling me their ICUs were filled. But what they said was weird was the people that had heart attacks all the time before and all these things it's usually a stable rate they stopped coming in which means they were scared of coming in so now

an unintentional side effect was that these people may have died at home which may have increased the excess deaths we've never gone through this you know we had nine suicides have been up as well right alcoholism i know from personal and friends the home life you know you're stuck home with kids and your family and you know if you're not used to that things can get a little bit tense and people don't want to be around each other if they're not used to it as much as you love your kids and family. So I know that was an issue. And again, if it's needed, because, you know, Ebola is breaking out, and you have a very high chance of dying from it, regardless. Yeah, it is what it is then. But when you start looking at this, and there were people arguing this back and forth, we just didn't know. It was scary. And now I think

it's still, you know, not something we want to spread to everybody. But I think personally, I, again, don't want it, but I think personally my risk, I'll take certain risks and do the things I like to do while I'm not going to be going out to dinner anytime soon, and that's fine. I like to do it, but I'm not willing to take that risk, but I am willing to go out to the beach and try to stay away from people and stuff like that. Last question regarding the virus, and then we'll move on. What are your thoughts? And again,

this is something that people have been asking me, and not that I'm an expert on this whatsoever, not even close, but whatever. I've been asked, you know more about this stuff than I do, which is why I want to ask you. So what are your thoughts? Just quickly, and we'll move on. Now, knowing what we know on the, I guess the word is severity of the lockdown, looking back, do you think it would have made more sense to consider something maybe in between what we did and what Sweden did, which I guess is not much of anything and just kind of asked people to follow some simple guidelines, but didn't get involved too much? Yeah, hard for me i want to justify what we did i would say that it would have been nice to start a little bit stricter right in the beginning yeah but we just

didn't have that it's hard when you don't have the data so when you're doing hindsight and then you're getting just awful data from literally china and i mean like fake like actually fake data it's really fresh i mean that whole thing was frustrating because it starts coming out. And I'm a proponent of like the WHO and CDC. I think these are good organizations. But, you know, it's tough when they're getting all sorts of different data and making announcements and then it turns out to be something else. And so it kind of the trust in science probably in America has gone down to all these

things. So I would say, look, I think it was justified at the time, hindsight's 20-20. I think, honestly, if we knew what we knew now, I wouldn't have done a complete shutdown. I would have, ideally would have had the personal protective equipment for our doctors. We would have had plenty of ICU space to increase the threshold for a surge. And that would have been the ideal situation that we were prepared for this. And we wouldn't have had to do a complete quarantine, unfortunately. And maybe in the future, this will prevent that from happening. But again, hindsight is 20-20. And hopefully, if we do see another wave, it's not met with the same measures. don't think it will be but yeah i

don't think well i guess we're gonna see but who knows we'll see right i don't think so but i could be wrong all right well let's talk about something else let's talk about something that will help our listeners get into better shape and better health. And I guess that discussion is actually relevant to health. Maybe some people, if they were concerned about the economy opening back up and what should they do, maybe that's given them a little bit of consolation that if they're not in an at-risk group, they can go look at the information themselves and make their own decision. They don't have to just follow what the TV says and hyperventilate because they're told to hyperventilate. But let's talk about thyroid function. I think to give some context to you and why I thought this

would be a good discussion is what I'm often asked about, and of course, you're going to address more than just this, but I'd say probably the most common question I get about thyroid function is, and I'm sure it's the same for you, in relation to weight loss, right? So many people think that because they're struggling to lose weight, they have a low functioning thyroid. And sometimes they've done some form of, they've received some kind of diagnosis. Maybe it was like muscle testing from a chiropractor or they haven't gotten like medically diagnosed as a hypothyroid, but they've been told that, oh, it might just be your thyroid. And oftentimes they're trying to do weird diets and cleanses and eating specific foods and so forth. And so let's definitely address that.

But I think a good place to start the discussion would just be, why don't we just talk about, can you just explain what the thyroid is and what does it do and how does it then relate to the metabolism and why is thyroid function and weight loss, why are these things connected? Yeah, the thyroid's that little gland, you know, this is so cliche because it's like every blog that starts off with this, but it's a butterfly-shaped gland right at the kind of the front lower part of your neck. gland right at the kind of the front lower part of your neck. And it basically makes thyroid hormone, which helps regulate your body's metabolism. And that's all the different little metabolic processes you go through, whether it's muscle growth or bone turnover, or recycling your cholesterol, all these different things are controlled by your thyroid or have some control from your thyroid. And so when people get a lower thyroid or hypothyroidism, hyper is high thyroid

levels. These metabolic processes with hypothyroid and low thyroid, these metabolic processes slow down. So that's why you see like people with hypothyroidism, they start getting a little bit colder. They get a little bit of constipation. Their hair gets a little bit coarse. Their skin gets a little bit drier. Their cholesterol starts going up and those types of things. Their heart rate goes lower and they feel a little bit tired. Whereas like hyperthyroid, they have too much thyroid and then you kind of see the opposite. Their heart rate's up a little bit. You can see higher bone turnover. You might even see a slightly lower cholesterol. Your body weight goes down and that type of thing.

That's kind of the gist of it. It controls our metabolic processes in our body. And there's a lot of them. And that makes up, you know, when you talk about the basal metabolic rate that we have, how many calories we're burning at baseline, the thyroid can affect that. And can you talk a little bit more about the hormones themselves? Because I'm sure people have heard T3, T4, TSH, what are these things? Yeah, so we have this kind of homeostatic regulation of our thyroid. First signal kind of comes from our brains. We have a hypothalamus up in our brain, and then we have

the pituitary gland. The hypothalamus talks to the pituitary brain and we have the pituitary gland the hypothalamus talks to pituitary gland and then the pituitary gland looks like a little drop droplet of some sort in the middle of your brain a little p yeah a little p sends a signal to your thyroid so the signal from the pituitary gland is something called tsh thyroid stimulating hormone and that basically tells your thyroid gland to then make thyroid hormone and there's a few different thyroid hormones the main ones are thyroxine or t4 and then leothyronine or t3 but mostly t4 and then in the body when it goes around circulates around that it usually gets more converted into the t3 your thyroid only makes a small little bit of that T3. The T3 is the active thyroid hormone. So the T4 is kind of like a, some people call it a pro-hormone. I

don't think I would call it that exactly because it does have some effect, but you get kind of a more stable T4 that doesn't have as much of a function. It gets converted into T3 in the cells. And then that has the most pronounced effect on our metabolic functions. And how much of an effect are we talking about here in terms of hypo and hyperthyroidism? How big of an impact can it have if you're on, and I've looked at some research, it's been some time, so there's probably even more research and you'll do a better job explaining it. But in terms of maybe even calories per day or percentage increase or decrease of basal metabolic rate based on thyroid function. Yeah. So it kind of depends on just how hypothyroid you are. So if you get your thyroid removed, that'll have a much bigger effect than when

you're in the beginning stages of what's called Hashimoto's thyroiditis, where your thyroid is just starting to slowly be destroyed. So it kind of depends on just exactly how hypothyroid you are. But in general, for most people who have Hashimoto's thyroiditis, autoimmune thyroiditis, that's the most common cause in the United States for hypothyroidism you generally see like i said it can vary because some people can get their thyroid destroyed very quickly versus slow in fact i have hypothyroidism i have a hashimoto's which makes this a little bit more interesting i found it out in in medical school so your basal metabolic rate can change by what like it's going to be around like that 10% or so, and then can go back to normal

once you're treated. And what's interesting is that the weight that you gain, a lot of it's actually fluid, and people think it's all fat. So you gain a lot of fluid. And so you're kind of feel puffy, but it's not necessarily fat tissue. Obviously, if you if it goes untreated for a long time, you slowly gain fat because your basal metabolic rate has decreased over over time but in general you know the five to ten pounds you gained in the beginning a lot of it's just water or fluid that's an important point too because that is also going to be probably impossible to lose right unless you treat the condition yeah so because i've heard from people who they experienced just that or they had had experienced just that and it was

extra baffling to them because they understood energy balance and they were keeping track of their calories they knew what they were doing but they're like you just said there was just this layer of what they thought was fat that they just couldn't seem to lose since they started having thyroid problems yeah exactly i think that's really important to understand because everybody's like oh my god i gained 60 pounds yeah but that can't be explained by just a 10 even for a 15 reduction when you look at again the the calories of it that would take a very long time i don't even have to run. I mean, it may never even be able to happen. Yeah. That's why, again, it's mostly fluid. And you know, I have, every time I make a post on Instagram, you know, I get people that are

very angry with me because they're just like, no, I know I was in a deficit and I didn't lose any weight because of my hypothyroidism. And I'm like, well, technically you were in a deficit then, but you know, yeah, your basal metabolic rate did go down. You're probably tired. The most important thing though, is if you're feeling tired, like when are you going to want to move your total daily energy expenditure? And also you're, you're probably going to eat a bit more than you quote unquote should, of course, because when you're tired, you naturally just want to eat more food. It sucks. Yeah, I understand. Yeah, I mean, right, exactly. All those little things go out the door. So it's important to understand this. Now, there are a lot of people that get treated for their hypothyroidism, though, in general, most doctors

give Synthroid. And there's a lot of discussion on the internet, you see, you know, basically, the internet is a big selection bias, because the people that aren't feeling well go to the internet for answers right so the people that aren't feeling well despite being on thyroid medicine or t4 the synthroids t4 synthetic t4 they go on the internet like why do i still feel bad my labs look normal now but i still feel bad and so then you go into these forums and you see that people are on combination therapy, which I actually prescribe for my patients. You can give a combination of T4 and T3 synthetically, or you can give natural desiccated thyroid. And there's multiple brands out there, but it kind of comes with a more fixed ratio of

T3 and T4. And the T3 is actually a little bit higher in these to start off with. So I generally don't start with those, but yeah. So once you get treated, your basal metabolic rate should be normal. And in general, it's normal, even if you're taking T4 only, but there may be a select few of people that at a cellular level, they're not converting that T4 to T3, and maybe they're still having some struggles. So then on the hyper side of things, just for people wondering, I haven't heard from too many of those people personally. How I usually hear about them is people who say they

know this person, why can this person seem to eat so much food? And you can never know if this is a case of hyperthyroidism or not, but are the effects, do they kind of mirror the hypo situation where what you commonly see is in a legitimate case of hyperthyroidism, you have like a 10% faster metabolism or BMR than just measured in that sense than average? Yeah. I mean, it can kind of depend on, again, the amount of hyper, I mean, some people are just having. Sure, but the average case. Yeah, I'd have to look at the exact research on that. But yeah, you can expect, you know, 10, maybe 20% increase.

I'd have to look it up specifically. But yeah, you see that increase. And so what's interesting, what's really interesting when they get treated, and they didn't know they had it for maybe a year or so once they get treated they end up gaining a lot of weight and they're like you screwed up my thyroid and it's like no no you you were just eating so much more and your thyroid was keeping your weight at bay now you have a normal normal metabolic rate and you're gaining the weight now just eating too much yeah and so it's it's like the college athlete who is used to eating you know because they're on average exercising three to five

hours a day or whatever it is eating so much food and then it's that typical case right and then they they graduate now they have a desk job they didn't realize it and they're like how the hell did i gain 30 pounds when i have some i mean i wrestled in college right so my friends cut weight they they were ripped they were jacked going into the to a match you know i've seen pictures of them i haven't seen them in person i see pictures of some of them and i'm like oh my god you gain like 50 pounds you're somewhat little of a guy and they just you know kind of you're used to eating so much and you're training so much and then if you stop it and you continue eating that much, yeah, same kind of thing. And unfortunately, when you stop the training, your appetite doesn't just naturally shrink proportionately, right? It's still, I mean, it probably, I haven't

experienced this personally. I started playing sports when I was, I don't know, maybe 10 and then it was always doing something that got into weightlifting. So I've always been kind of active and my calories have been in the same range for a long time. But from what I've seen in people and also in the literature, your activity level can go down quite a bit. And unfortunately, your appetite doesn't necessarily mirror it. It just, it can stay quite high. Yeah. I mean, I've seen it. So the other thing is some of these people have been restricting themselves for so long to where like that may also play a role there so uh it's really interesting athletes that just stop

if you like what i'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere definitely check out my vip one-on-one coaching service because my team and i have helped people of all ages and circumstances lose fat, build muscle, and get into the best shape of their life faster than they ever thought possible. And we can do the same for you. So now let's talk about how can people, what are some of the signs that you may have a legitimate thyroid issue you've already mentioned holding on to extra water weight i'm assuming that's one but what else for people who are wondering if they may have a condition whether it's hypo or hyper yeah so yeah the most common things when you know a medical school exam test someone comes in with 10 pounds or 15 pounds of weight gain and they're struggling they're tired they're constipated and their skin's dry their hair is a little bit coarse that's like classic

like oh you better check their thyroid it doesn't actually always happen like that and there's you know the other thing is there's a lot of overlap with hypothyroid symptoms with other things and so everybody comes in, it must be my thyroid. It must be my thyroid. Something's wrong with my thyroid. And you can screen them. And sometimes it is, of course, but a lot of things mimic the thyroid. So that's what makes it kind of tough too, especially when somebody actually does get diagnosed with hypothyroidism like me. I think I blame everything on my thyroid. You know what crap?

I'm like, it's got to be my thyroid. But after a while, I just kept checking levels. And it was like, this is normal. I would change a few lifestyle things. And that was it. So it can be difficult. There's a lot of overlap with depression. And actually those people, for some reason,

those with hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's thyroiditis have higher incidences of depression. So you don't want to just say you're just depressed, it's not your thyroid. You definitely want to take them seriously and adjust medicines if possible and whatever. But unfortunately, there's such an overlap that you've really got to hone in on what the heck is going on with these people. You know, with someone with hyperthyroidism, symptoms are, you can get tremors if there's a lot of thyroid there. You get a little bit of extra sweating, maybe increased body heat, maybe some diarrhea.

And obviously they can start losing some weight. If it's really bad, like I said, you hold their hands out and they can be tremors. And obviously you can kind of see this, the proptosis you see those with Graves' disease, their eyes can kind of stick out, but that's not from the actual thyroid. It's part of the Graves disease process. And are there natural things you can do to, I mean, there's a point where there's nothing you're going to be able to do naturally to correct.

Again, we can just focus on probably hypothyroidism here and probably for the next few questions I have, because that's the more common concern, obviously. But what are your thoughts in terms of natural interventions? And then if that's just a no-go across the board, like even if you don't have a bad case of it, there's really nothing you're going to be able to do naturally to prevent your body from or your thyroid from continuing to decline. And then if that's the answer to that, okay. And then my question is, are there natural things that can be done to at least support thyroid health and try to prevent any sort of condition from developing? Yeah. So, the most common cause of hypothyroidism,

like I said before, is this Hashimoto's thyroiditis. That's an autoimmune disease where your body starts attacking your thyroid. So, you know, the question is, if you develop these antibodies before your thyroid's destroyed, like mine's destroyed, I take a whopping dose of it now. I didn't have to at the beginning 10 years ago or whatever it was. The thought is maybe if there's something... You've lost your thyroid privilege. If there's something in your diet that's, it's thought that maybe there's some dietary components that can increase your risk of autoimmune diseases, this hasn't really been teased out to the point where we have definitive answer for this. It's a little bit nebulous right now. A lot of people try all sorts of these anecdotal autoimmune protocols, if you will.

Do you want to comment on some of those? Because I think it'd be relevant to people listening who are at that point you know yeah so these autoimmune protocols i think they're worth a shot of looking at that like maybe there is something in your diet that you're just not tolerating and you start going through it's it's just so hard to determine whether there is something that's increasing your antibody production and it's simply because your body it's not that if you get some sort of other molecule in your body your body says oh this is an invader and makes some sort of antibody whatever it causes your body to make antibodies towards your thyroid and starts attacking it because of something you ate or

some other environmental exposure it's like rheumatoid. It's like arthritis, but you were talking about the thyroid here. Yeah, like anything. Yeah, anything. There's all sorts of autoimmune diseases. It's just, I don't know. I've tried it myself. I tried everything in the beginning.

I've tried it. I've had a few hundred patients that have had Hashimoto's. They kind of come to me because I have it and I understand the symptoms and why you should get your dosing and everything right so you feel good. So I get a lot of patience with it. And I tell you, I've tried everything, and there hasn't really been anything that's been successful. Again, we'd have to do a randomized trial to kind of tease out all the different little aspects of it. But I haven't seen anything.

There's a lot of gurus out there. You'll see them, the thyroid pharmacist or some other. I've seen a few of these books that have been written. I always get them. I'm like, what kind of secrets do they say? It's always, we know what your doctor doesn't know. I'm going to fix your thyroid without medicine. And I always read it and I'm always like, gosh, this is so disappointing because they just make up stuff. There's no randomized trials or trials that show this works. I've tried everything, even anecdotal stuff with patients. Hydroxychloroquine, did you try that? No, not hydroxychloroquine, but even low-dose naltrexone and some of these other immune modulators that have been purported to have an effect.

And the thing is, you can lower your antibody levels too, but it doesn't necessarily mean it will change the path of destruction, the time course of destruction of your thyroid. So that's another thing. It's like, really? You know, if you have antibodies, you're going to be at risk. It doesn't mean you're going to have hypothyroidism.

But if you have antibodies and you have hypothyroidism, it's basically impossible to reverse it. Again, there's gurus on Instagram that say they do it. Do you want to talk quickly about, this is one, goitrogens, right? That's something that gets,

I think I'm pronouncing that right, G-O-I-T. That's one of the guru things, right? Like, oh, well, it's, anyway, it's like. Yeah, that's why it's using, so like, it's raw cruciferous vegetables and some of these other things. So you see case studies of people that eat like a few pounds of raw bok choy, and you can get hypothyroid acutely because these things block your thyroid from producing thyroid hormones. So some of those things, even if you don't have Hashimoto's, if you eat large enough doses of them, they can have an effect. But if you have hypothyroidism, it doesn't mean you should avoid those goitrogen foods.

It just means you should make sure you're on a dose of thyroid that is stable and you eat the same consistency all the time. You don't want to go, all right, I'm going to go on a raw cruciferous vegetable diet now and because if you do you're really going to want to monitor your thyroid levels so that does have an effect it's more of these other foods that sorry just to interject before we move away from that just for anybody wondering maybe they don't have any any thyroid issues or maybe they do but they're now wondering okay what are some of these other foods if it is at least a semi-legitimate thing now you mentioned eating a shitload and is that the case or can you have negative effects can you negatively impact your thyroid function following a reasonable diet

that somebody would actually want to follow so you're saying can you impact your thyroid function just with these goitrogenic foods like Like, is there any real, real life applicable to somebody listening way to do that? Just for people wondering like, well, you know, okay. So they've probably heard it. Some like cruciferous vegetables, like you said, I think strawberries are on the list, right? Red wine, peanuts. And so is it possible in a real world setting to eat enough of these foods to negatively, to make an actual significant impact?

It's possible. It's just not likely. Okay. Unless, again, unless you're just, you're eating pounds of it. Okay. So for someone listening who, let's say they just eat a good, balanced, omnivorous diet. let's say they just eat a a good balanced omnivorous diet they're eating a few servings of a couple servings of fruit a few servings of vegetables per day and maybe those vegetables are goitrogenic maybe they are cruciferous vegetables and maybe there is they're on their

fruits they have some strawberries and whatever those people should be fine yeah yeah it's it's really if anybody wants to google bok choy case study hypothyroidism it's kind of interesting i mean they they ate a lot of it so i just wouldn't go okay and really what i want to address is just there's a claim that like well if you want to and this is not even for people who have a condition but if you want to have a healthy thyroid avoid these foods right that's That's BS. Such bunk. I can't stand that, actually. Very frustrating.

Yeah. Okay, good. Just want to make sure that that was clear. You were going to move on, though, to you were going to say something else about foods in particular. Yeah. So the other thought is, are there foods that irritate your gut that cause, you know, what they call leaky gut, basically increasing the permeability of your gut, which then, like I said, kind of, you start absorbing into your bloodstream things that aren't supposed to be there. That's one of the hypotheses that I haven't seen any data to really

conclude that that's actually. Like it's a real condition, right? Some people do, they do have this issue, but the question is. It's not a true diagnosis, but it does happen, if that makes sense. There is increased gut permeability with certain foods. What we don't know is like, all right, is this pathological in some people and not others? There's probably something there, and it probably depends on... It's also interesting because based on our body fat levels and all sorts of things, our gut permeability and exercise can change. Everything can have an effect on us. So I think the gurus will glom on to one little aspect and make some sort of e-book that's $100 and then they'll cherry pick studies to basically fit there. Or a best-selling New York Times top diet book or something.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. You'll see that. There's a few of those gurus out there, but again, they're cherry picking stuff and it's really not good science. So again, I've tried all this stuff myself, tried it with my patients. Studies don't really suggest that there's probably anything there, but yeah, maybe more data needs to be done. That's what I'll say.

Okay. And how does iodine play into this? Because if anybody's been poking around about thyroid function online, they're going to hear about iodine. And if you have an iodine deficiency, that can be bad for your thyroid. Yeah. Iodine deficiency is another common, it used to be the most common cause of hypothyroidism. Then we got iodized salt, so we should be getting enough iodine in our diet. Iodine is used in the production of our thyroid hormones in our thyroid. So if you don't have enough iodine in our diet. Iodine is used in the production of our thyroid hormones in our thyroid. So if you don't have enough iodine in your diet, you can develop a goiter and hypothyroidism. Most people take in enough, but if you don't eat seaweed, who eats seaweed, but if you don't eat a lot of eggs and you use sea salt instead of

regular salt i have seen this and there are some case studies out there i've seen it in some of my uber quote clean unquote eaters again the whole idea of clean eating whatever i'm sure you've done episodes on that but they get so infatuated with eating a certain way that they just they start things with sea salt instead of regular salt which i don't think is a bad thing but if you're not getting any iodine then you can develop a slight hypothyroidism which does happen and then we'll do all the tests it's like oh my god you don't have any thyroid antibodies that's interesting we can do a thyroid ultrasound which is not commonly done with hypothyroidism it's usually only done for like hyperthyroidism and looking

for nodules and things like that. But if there's no antibodies, there are a small portion of people that have Hashimoto's with negative antibodies. And then there's kind of this presentation on the ultrasound that your thyroid looks like. So I sometimes do that when I think that they have Hashimoto's and their antibodies aren't positive. And sometimes it's like, well, that's negative. Well, tell me more about your diet. You like, do you not get any iodized salt or any of this stuff? And just for, just to interject quick for people wondering the amount of iodine that you need to be getting to maintain healthy function is, what is it?

Like 150 micrograms a day or something around there? Yeah, I believe it's like 250. But let me, I can kind of confirm that that um require me i can just kind of i thought it was and then while you're checking that and you can correct me if i'm wrong about this too but i believe a teaspoon of iodized salt is about that right like an entire like a full teaspoon is about that amount yeah you were right 150 but it was sorry it was in uh i was just doing a book on pregnancy and breastfeeding. It's in the 200s for that. But yeah, and one teaspoon of... Then you'd only need about a, I think about a half of a teaspoon of salt to hit that. And that, of course, yeah, it's not much.

And there's also iodine and other stuff that people like, yeah, seaweed. We're not eating much seaweed unless we like to patronize our local sushi joint every night. But yogurt, right, is a source. Milk has some. You have some fortified foods that have it as well i think bread sometimes right most a lot of things have it so it's kind of hard to it's hard to do it yeah it's about a half of a teaspoon so you have to have a pretty extreme almost probably orthorexic type of diet to not get enough iodine, I'm assuming. Yeah. I mean, and again, I see it from time to time and it's like, ooh. That's interesting because they're avoiding a pretty long list of foods when you don't need that much. I'm guessing then these are people who aren't eating very many calories and I guess

only eating a few foods, I guess, right? So that's another good thing. It's a lot of times in my bikini prep patients, not guys, it's women. So they're already on like poverty calories. Yeah. So they're not eating much. They're not eating iodized salt. And so, yeah, that's where you can potentially see that. And then you got to mix in the fact that they're in an energy deficit, which can also have an effect on your thyroid levels as well. So. Yeah. I mean, if you cut for long enough, you've basically described like hypothyroidism, you've kind of described what it feels like after you've been in a deficit. I mean, that would probably take quite a bit. That'd be, if you're like a natural bodybuilder, you have definitely experienced that.

Yep. You see it in natural bodybuilders. You see see it i see it in a few patients who've lost like over 100 150 pounds and their levels are low that's kind of from the metabolic adaptations that can occur but it's certainly not common but yeah i mean you'd have to certainly have to avoid a lot of food or just not eat much of it to not get it. And as far as supporting natural function and supporting your thyroid health naturally, anything else to add there? I mean, there's the iodine. Is there anything else in the way of certain foods or supplements? If you're not getting enough of certain micronutrients in your diet,

probably also should throw out to you, sorry to keep on going, but I get asked about carbs as well. Like some people say, oh, a low carb diet is the way to go because carbs interfere with your thyroid function. Yeah, so carbohydrates in general. So generally actually higher carbohydrate diet may actually help with conversion of the T4 to T3.

You see this kind of lower T3 levels in those on lower carb diets, which is interesting. Whether they truly have, whether it's truly pathologic is hard to say because a lot of these people feel great on lower carbs, but I tend to not put my hypothyroid patients or questionable hypothyroid patients on low carb diets. I mean, of course, if they're taking whopping doses of T3 in their natural desiccated thyroid, it probably doesn't matter because then you're just getting it exodiously anyway. You don't worry about your own production of it. But these other natural supporting, you got to be

careful about supplementing with too much iodine. Just eat normal stuff. Just have a little bit of iodized salt. Just don't supplement with iodine unless you're iodine deficient. And don't do it unless you're under the care of a doctor, because then you can see there may be some risks with having excess iodine and autoimmune issues with your thyroid as well. Don't even mess with it. There are other supplements that you can take that says thyroid support. And a lot of these have like unregulated desiccated thyroid glands in them. That reminds me of quote-unquote natural testosterone boosters a lot of them out there spiked with low doses of pro-hormones that's fairly common for example that sounds about right that's actually hilarious and that would be a good podcast to do

i'm sure you've done some but yeah so don't mess around with these thyroid supplements i mean there are some case studies showing like oh wow and this up this one batch you had whopping doses of it and this other one there wasn't much so like you don't know what you're getting when these people put these together just stay away from it which by the way as far as testosterone boosters go what i was just talking about people listening the strategy what i've seen is to do a number of runs with the pro hormone to get word of mouth because people, yeah, you put enough of the right drug in these products and people are going to notice a difference. And so what you do is you generate hype and word of mouth where people, you know, guys are in the gym working out together. Hey, I started taking this supplement and

I definitely notice a difference. And then you continue producing the product but you leave the drug out and ride the wave that you've created and you're hoping that people just due to the placebo effect alone will be like oh yeah it's working but then if the fda ever comes around you can't be busted because the bottles that were spiked are long gone and the world of supplement c that's why they need to stick with a respectable brand such as Legion. The check, I was going to say, your check's in the mail, man. Come on. No, I am an advisor.

So that is a conflict of interest. But I am an advisor because I do know you guys do a good job with your stuff. So, yeah, don't mess around with thyroid supplements. Get tested done. We can talk about testing right now. You generally start with a thyroid stimulating hormone. There are a lot of people on the internet that go, look, that's not enough. Your thyroid stimulating hormone can be in the normal range, but you can have hypothyroidism.

And that's true. That can happen. But it's generally what's called a subclinical hypothyroidism where your actual thyroid hormone levels are normal, maybe in the low normal range, but your TSH, the thyroid stimulating hormone starts increasing. So the way you read your labs or thyroid stimulating hormone starts going up, basically because it's trying to yell at your thyroid to work. So it starts going up a little bit and you're maintaining a normal thyroid level, there becomes a point where thyroid stimulating is going up and up and up, and then your thyroid just can't keep up with it.

And then your free T4 levels become abnormally low. And that's where you start when the doctor puts you on thyroid medicine. Whether you should check everybody's antibodies, It's hard to say. I tend to do it. This isn't standard practice. I tend to, because I get a lot of patients that are dieting hard, I want to make sure that they have Hashimoto's because I just see this so often. They're just dieting so much and they're just not eating much. And their thyroid looks like it's teetering on that hypothyroid level. And I want to confirm that they actually have Hashimoto's. In fact, most of the patients that come to me for hypothyroidism, it's just because they're dieting so much. It's really interesting. That wasn't the way when I was in a regular clinic. Now that I'm on the internet and kind of social media guru guy, it's a selection.

Memeologist. Yeah, I'm a memeologist. People come to me for the memes and hormones. So, you know, so I get more of these dieters, but in the regular clinic when I was a few years back, most people it was Hashimoto's clear cut. Yeah. So you check the thyroid stimulating hormone starts going up. You check the free T4 levels. People wonder, what about the free T3 levels? That's the active hormone. So that's the most important. Well, they're not as stable as the TSH and the free T4 levels. And so it also doesn't tell you at a cellular level what's going on. Who cares what's in your serum? What we really care is at a cellular level. So free T3 levels, probably not as indicative of thyroid status as TSH and

free T4. You'll get a lot of pushback. I get pushback on that. It's like, whatever, here's a free T3 level two. What is most important is looking at your symptoms along with the levels too you don't just go oh your levels look like this you're you're normal you're not normal you really just take everything to account so it's similar testosterone in men right same thing as testosterone you know so the one thing is their patients was clearly their tsh is one or one and a half or even two. And their free T4 levels are stark normal. And, you know, their free T3 levels may be a little bit low. And the doctor goes, you need to go on thyroid hormone. So why are they putting on thyroid hormone?

This is malpractice, what I would say. And I see it all the time because they charge cash and you keep going back and you feel like you did something for someone i don't really know why it's either they don't know what they're doing or they're just some people just don't care it's hard to know i'm not sure i'm not sure what it is it's really weird i'd like to sit some people down but these people don't have hypothyroidism if that's the case so this is what you know my brother's an endocrinologist i almost did endocrinology but i'm really thyroid, thyroidology because of my own thyroid levels.

If this is the case, if your TSH is one and a half and your free T4 levels are, you know, even if they're low normal and someone says you have hypothyroidism, what they're telling you then is that your pituitary gland isn't working because your TSH should be increasing as your thyroid levels go down. If it's not, then there's something wrong at the level of your brain. So I see this a lot like, oh, your TSH is stark normal. It's not even at like the high level, like high normal, like four, you know, three and a half, four range and higher.

It's like one or two. These people will diagnose them with hypothyroidism, which they'd never had is probably because they were dieting and their thyroid levels were a little bit off. And really, they just needed to stop dieting or it was something else was causing their symptoms. So, you know, of course, you could always check the antibodies, look at their diet. If you really need to, make sure they're eating iodine.

But that's another common thing I see, which I think is important for other people who are listening to know. How long, just for anybody wondering, are we talking about with dieting to where you can start seeing these kinds of effects just for people wondering like you know i've i've been in a deficit for for two months am i am i going to mess my thyroid up and tends to be these chronic dieters so physique competitors these people that do multiple contests per year. And it's long, it's long cuts, right? And they don't even take much of a diet break and they just keep going. And it's like...

And often they try to stay really lean just generally, right? Yeah. They don't ever stick to their maintenance level for like three to six months at a time. It's like, all right, it's contest prep time. And they're just always dieting and they're always trying to stay lean. And we all want to stay as lean as possible, but we have different and they're always trying to stay lean and we all want to stay as lean as possible but we have different thresholds some people can stay leaner unfortunately you know or fortunately for them unfortunately for other people who can't some people try to

get leaner and try to stick there their body fights them and again one of the ways it fights you is there you maybe have some decreased thyroid production so And just to put numbers on it, this is what I've seen if we're talking about the symptoms of it, but I'd be curious how it squares up with everything we're talking about here. Most guys can't maintain much under 10%, maybe nine, maybe eight, but we're talking about like right in that range. They can't be much leaner than that for a long period without starting to really notice negative side effects. And for most women, it's probably the range of, I don't know, 17, 18 to 20% or so. Yeah. I see that. And then you do it for, you know, whether it's months out of the year. Sure. Yeah. I mean, sure. You could do it for a month. I mean, I've done it myself and I generally don't have, and it's always been this

way for whatever reason. I generally didn't have many and don't have many body problems, quote unquote, but I noticed it the last time that I was, it was years ago when I had gotten really lean for a photo shoot, probably a legitimate, I don't know, 7% and stayed there for a bit. And the side effects weren't too severe, but I did notice some of the things that you were talking about. And the only solution was gaining some body fat back. It wasn't that I could play around with all my energy flux and just be more active so I can eat more food and then I can overcome it.

Nope. I just had to be a little bit fatter, period. Yeah, it's frustrating. So, and the other thing I want to make sure people know, you know, if you have like obesity, a lot of weight to lose, this isn't necessarily what happens to you unless you have tons of weight to lose and you lose a lot of it. It's more of these people that are relatively lean, just like you said, you know, that 10% or so for men who want to just stay leaner all year long and are continually dieting. The women, the 15 to 18%, and just want to continue

to stay there and just continue to diet. It's more for them. It's not for those who have like 20, 30, 40 or more pounds to lose. You can go for six months at a time. I tend to go for like three months at a time, take a diet break three months at a time. But you know, if you go six months at a time, even for a slower cut for if you have a lot of weight to lose, it's not going to be an issue for you. It's more of these other people. Yeah, that's a good point. And as for any other ways to naturally support our thyroid function, I'm guessing beyond that, it's just healthy living. It's what exercising and getting enough sleep and is stress much of a factor? If you have very high stress levels, can that negatively impact thyroid? Yeah yeah there can be some slight changes but that you know it's hard to then go all right is it the thyroid or is it

the stress that's causing your symptoms so like if there are thyroid changes and levels like you know really the underlying you just start you're probably not gonna be sleeping very well if you're very stressed so yeah so exactly so it's it it's the same thing when you see when people talk about they have like adrenal fatigue and you know that's a whole nother podcast. That'd be a good one. That should be our next one, actually. We get my brother on here. We could riff off and talk about adrenal function and everything.

But, you know, adrenal fatigue is a made up condition. And really, you do see adrenal function change when you have all sorts of lifestyle issues, stress, not sleeping, certain diets. But is it the cortisol differences in your body that are causing the symptoms? Or is it because of all your stress and issues? So same thing with the thyroid being off like that. But definitely, you know, if you have antibodies, your TSH is going up a little bit, your 3T4 levels are going down, you know, time to discuss taking medicine. Obviously, you can try those autoimmune protocols if you want. I don't think it's harmful necessarily, other than the harm would be restricting yourself when you didn't have to. So that's always the harm, getting into a mode of restriction and a certain dietary pattern that's not sustainable. That's really it.

Makes sense. And final question is, how do you create your memes man for people who want to learn the ways of the of the meme doctor what tips do you have you know there's lots of memes out there so usually there's meme templates someone does it first based on a certain picture and then what happens you see these kind of templates circulate and what i try to do is go okay this would work extremely well for this situation uh and you know i'm all into fitness and health so i i tend to go you know if it's like detox or whatever versus science-based diet so usually people listen to the they want to do the detox they jump at the detox whatever and they don't really want to listen to the science-based person. Anything like that.

I have a list of 10 topics that I talk about. Chloric deficit, multi-level marketing product. I love giving them crap. I just posted one today about that. It's just something I post about every few weeks. What was today's? I just posted one today about that. And it's just something I post about every few weeks. Cause it's just, what was today's? It was like,

be careful when you go out this summer, recognize the signs of different snakes. It shows three different types of snakes. And then the last box or one of the boxes is, Hey, it's a text message. Hey, do you want to learn how to make 2000 extra dollars a month?

Owning your own supplement business. I like that wording, owning. Yeah, because they say all the same things. So I'm basically calling them a snake, and then I talk about MLM. Anyway, so you find these memes. And then sometimes, once you get really good, and this is where I've started getting into, is there are times where I find instances where some news event and you take a screenshot of that and go, when such and such or whatever.

So that's kind of whether it's politics, although people get really mad when I do. Even if I'm not talking about politics, it's like if I include Donald Trump. Oh, yeah. You can't say he who shall not be named. You can't say that. Right. I can't. And I'll not be named. You can't say that. Right. I can't. And I'll say, this isn't about politics.

It's literally just showing a funny picture of something. I don't get much in the way of hate mail or DMs or anything. But if I do, it is always about some sort of jab I made about something related to the culture or to the political situation. Yeah. something related to the culture or to the political situation yeah yeah that's people get really upset when i allude to anything political because honestly if you which is strange i don't i actually wonder i would be interested to educate myself a little bit on why that is i'm assuming it's i guess for some people they've wrapped up their identity heavily i guess in in a political party or a movement or something yeah

so that what they what they say they feel personally attacked which is odd for nutrition and health advice i don't want to learn i don't want to hear anything about your political i'm like look i didn't even say anything political it was just a funny picture or something you know talked about donald trump's weight because um that was a topic i mean everything related to him is a topic but he made a comment that he's morbidly obese and i said well oh i remember seeing this yeah i said look i want to use this as a educational time i go based on his physical the only data we have i'm pretty good at guesstimating how much people weigh based if i know how tall they are i can look at them or if i see them in, I'm pretty good at guesstimating how much people weigh based if I

know how tall they are, I can look at them. Or if I see them in person, I'm really good at guessing I wrestled, I'm very good at because I've everybody from different weight classes all the way up, I know how much each of these people weigh. So I'm pretty good at guessing. And, you know, based on Donald Trump's physical, he had what's called a class one obesity. And so the old term for the old term for class three, what's now known as class three obesity is morbid obesity. And we don't use that term as much anymore medically, if you're in the obesity world, and everything can change. And so I just try to use it as a teaching time to go look, hey, we don't use this term morbid obesity anymore, it would be class three obesity.

And you know what, based on the past physical, he wouldn't even have met the criteria anyway. So here's the different classes of obesity. Just try to understand this terminology. Man, people got so upset. They're like, you can't be a doctor because he's clearly morbidly obese. And I said, well, you know, it turns out I'm an obesity specialist i also wrestled i deal with guessing i see people's weights all the time like not even just as a doctor but through wrestling and based on his height uh he would have to be he would have to have been 320 pounds to have class 3 obesity which is the old term for or the new term for morbid obesity and so i was like look i don't think that is but that's not really the point here the point was i'm just which you look at a one look at him you're like yeah no no he's not 300 plus pounds i mean he's just not

anyway so people got upset i was like that's not the point the point was to teach the terminology but also i don't think you know whatever i mean this was my opinion i don't think nancy pelosi should have said that because in a way it's it it was kind of a zinger. And I know people, people like that because if they don't like Donald Trump, they, they like it when people zing them. And I'm just like, look, I'm not going to get into the actual politics of this, but honestly, from an obesity specialist standpoint, we try to take away the stigma of obesity going, oh, you're morbidly obese. Right. Yeah. It's the connotation of the word morbid, right? As if it's, yeah. Trying to get away from that because morbid just. right yeah it's the connotation of the word morbid right yeah as if it's yeah trying to get away from that because morbid just as if it's like grotesque

yes right so exactly so that's one of the reasons we're getting away from that it used to be it technically was a term so it was but then when she said it was kind of like well you know i don't unless she has information that we don't have and she knows that the physical was a lie. I mean, it was a lie, which, you know, what are we going to do? We have the data we have. Here's what it said. And here's technically where he would be based on the data. And people just lost their minds. They're like, you're an idiot.

You're not a good doctor because clearly he's morbidly obese. And I said, well, I don't use that term anymore. It's class three. And if you were class three, he would have to be based on his height. If you look at a BMI chart, you can do the calculations yourself. You'd have to be 300 plus pounds. I go, I don't think he is, but whatever. That wasn't the point I'm trying to give, you know.

Whatever racist. Yeah. I mean, basically it was, I mean, people were mad. I was like, you know, like, I'm just trying to like educate here. It was just because there are political figures in it. It wasn't meant to be like a, it wasn't meant to be like a it wasn't meant to be like political yeah and some people they get to a state as far as politics go and it usually extends to other aspects of the culture and obviously religion where facts don't matter they just don't matter no amount of facts will ever change their mind and i don't know have

you ever seen that video it's been on the internet for a while, although now it's making the rounds again, just given the current situation of the, I forget his name because it's a hard to pronounce Russian name, but he was a defector from the KGB. in America. And he breaks down a process whereby you basically demoralize and indoctrinate people to accept whatever you want them to accept and bring them to this point where they've lost all capability of critical thinking. No amount of facts will ever change their mind. They are just dyed in the wool. And he was talking about this in the context of communism. But if you haven't seen that video, anybody listening, it's an interesting, if you just Google, I'm sure KGB defector video, you'll find it. It's an interesting interview, whether that's what is still happening now. That was some time ago, who knows? But we definitely see something that mirrors the condition that he was talking about that the soviet propaganda machine was intending to create in people yeah amazing yeah that's interesting but that last question

was just for fun but um i figured i'd throw it in there because that's that's your instagram account right which people can go find you at what What's your handle again? Is it? I wanted to be at Dr. Spencer, but someone took that. I don't know who they are, but at Dr. Nadolski, D-R-N-A-D-O-L-S-K-Y. You know, so the other things, we have these hypothyroidism diet templates that we made with my website, RP Health, kind of my sister business with Renaissance Periodization. And so that there are bunch of people, actually, like doctors that are like, you can't have a diet for hypothyroidism. I'm like, look, look, look. All I did was changed some of the macronutrients and calories down a little bit

to make up for some of the metabolic rate differences that you see in some of these individuals who struggle with diet. So if you want to check those out, obviously, go to rphealth.com. Cool. And then is there anything else you want people to know about in terms of upcoming projects? Also, you're doing telemedicine, right? But I think you're fully booked, but might as well just let... Yeah, fully booked. Sorry.

But I am starting a YouTube channel. I'll probably have a hypothyroidism video. I might do it next week, but basically summing up what we've talked about today but yeah if you want to check out my youtube just dr spencer nadolski uh i don't have much there it's i just hired a videographer so maybe it'll grow quickly well it'll uh it'll be easy because you're talking about stuff you know about you just sit in front of the camera and do exactly what we did here so So, and help spread the good word, spread good information. Cool, man. Well, thanks as always for taking the time. I appreciate it. And I think we should do adrenal fatigue as the next one. I

think that would be at something that I might've written a little bit about it some time ago, but it was basic and I haven't spoken about it or written about it, I think since. So yeah, we could totally do that. Awesome. I look forward to it. Sounds good, buddy. All right. Well, that's it for this episode. I hope you enjoyed it and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did and you don't mind doing me a favor,

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