The Livy Method Podcast - Let's Talk 4 Main Reasons Why Your Weight Might be Slower to Move with Dr. Paul Hrkal, ND - Spring/Summer 2024

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

In this live guest expert segment, Gina chats about the 4 main reasons why your weight might be slower to move with Naturopathic Doctor Paul Hrkal.If you are in the Spring/Summer 2024 Support Group, you can check out the full video here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodspringsummer2024Topics covered:Introducing Dr. Paul HrkalWorking with a naturopath - getting to the root cause of underlying issuesReasons why your weight may be slower to move, there is no one-size-fits-allIntroducing the 4 Main Reasons Why Your Weight Might Be Slower to MoveGive yourself an honest assessment - are you following the program and the plan to the fullest?The importance of prioritizing sleep and managing your stress, the impact of stress on your gutEvaluate your current state – identify your obstacle!Inflammation – what it is and how it shows up in the bodyHow to manage your inflammation – identifying your symptoms, getting tested and working with a health care provider   How following The Program addresses inflammationFood Sensitivities – think about what you’re eating and how you’re feeling from itHow to identify and address food sensitivitiesGut Dysbiosis – what it is, symptoms and identifying if you have itUnderstanding and addressing the gutHormonal Health – the key hormones related to stress, different types of testingThe connections between inflammation, food sensitivities, gut dysbiosis and hormonal healthKnowledge is power! Take your goals to the next level and enjoy the journey!To learn more about the Livy Method, visit www.ginalivy.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livy and welcome to the Livy Method podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams from my 91 day weight loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the morning live? Want to re-listen to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place. This podcast is hosted on Acast, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple,

and Amazon Music. You're going to have this ability to now reframe. Allow yourself time throughout the day to stress the fuck out. The thoughts and the feelings and the behavior cycle can start changing. If you find yourself doing everything you can to move the dial on that scale and lose weight, but you just feel everything you are doing isn't working. Could there be some underlying reasons why? Spoiler alert, yes, there are, and here to discuss them today is one of my favorite guests, Dr. Paul Hercule. Hello, good morning. Good morning, Gina. It's so nice to be back. Ah, it's so nice to see you. So we've had this conversation before. It never gets old. Every time I chat with you, I learn something new.

We do have thousands of new people joining us with our spring summer program. So maybe just a bit of an introduction for them on who you are and why you're so amazing. Yeah, I don't know about that. But I can tell you a little bit of who I am. Yeah, so I'm a naturopathic doctor. I practice in the Toronto area. I'm very close to where you live, Gina. And my focus in my practice is helping people understand the root cause of their health issues. And that's really the crux of naturopathic medicine is that it's really a philosophy in terms of understanding health and helping people use diet, nutrition, nutrients, hormones, and many other modalities, really trying to do everything possible without going down the drug route to help and maintain wellness. And so over

the last, you know, six or seven years and working together, we've really had a chance to work with a lot of people that have been part of the program. I also do a lot of work in brain health and chronic pain. So that's another big area of focus for me. So I kind of come from a diversity of backgrounds, but really focused on what we're going to be discussing today. Yeah. Can we get into that root cause? Just chat a little bit more. Like what exactly does that mean when you are trying to get to the root cause or what's the difference between someone going to their doctor and saying, Hey, you know, I'm trying all these things. I can't lose weight as opposed to maybe going to see someone like you and being like, I'm, you know, I'm trying all these things, I can't lose weight, as opposed to maybe going to see someone like you and being like, I'm, you know, I'm doing all these things, I can't lose

weight, what's going on? Yeah, I love that you asked that question, because it really is an important differentiation. Because I think most of the time, if you ask any doctor, Gina, they would say, of course, I want to get to the root cause. The problem is that most of the time, most doctors in the current kind of healthcare system, the modern healthcare system, it's not really built to set up, set themselves up to actually address that root cause to even identify it. The visits are so short. I've had patients come to me even recently saying like, my doctor just said, as soon as I was going to ask a second question, they said, can't ask anymore. So I think that's part of the issue is that we spend a lot of time with patients. I'll spend an hour in my initial consultation.

I'll spend maybe 45 minutes or a half hour on follow-ups. And we allow the opportunity to ask questions, to dig deeper into some of those reasons. People are extremely intelligent, Gina. They know a lot about their health. I know that that's a huge part of what I like about the program is we talk about empowering people and taking control of their health instead of just allowing themselves to be consumer of health. And I think that's the key difference is that when we get, want to get to the root cause, the answers are there. It's just that oftentimes we don't ask

the right questions and our doctors don't ask the right questions. And that's kind of what I try to do. Well, again, this is like you said, this is what I love about the program is really about empowering people to be aware and in tune with what's going on in their bodies and what they need to focus on. So when they do go to their doctors, they've already done a lot of that work and they really understand sort of what's going on, where they're at, and maybe at a bit of a loss as to, okay, well, I'm following this amazing program. I'm eating all this nutrient rich foods. I'm drinking water. Maybe I've added in some supplements, omega-3, vitamin D, some magnesium. I'm moving my body. I'm doing all of the things. And yet my weight isn't moving. Now I know that you have met with people from our program who

that is exactly what's going on with them. Sort of, this is how we kind of came up with this list as well, because we've had members who are doing all the things and then they're like, okay, I'm going to go see Dr. Paul. He seems super knowledgeable. He can help me out. And this is kind of how this list evolved. I do want to preface though. And I think it's important to point out because it's still early in the program or five weeks in for new people. It's still normal, I say for their weight not to move. But at some point, I think this is a good point to start talking about it and investigating. So what do you have to say about that? You know what people are doing on the program. Maybe just some wise

words of wisdom for them before we get into this. I don't want them to feel too overwhelmed. Yeah, I really like to maintain kind of a positive tone to what we're discussing, because a lot of times you've asked this question now and we're talking about it, but people have talked about this internally to themselves probably much earlier. They're like, why am I losing weight? I'm seeing all these other people lose weight. I'm hearing all these amazing stories. Why me? And so that's where these four things, and again, these are the four main things. There could be other things. And that's really one of my key core beliefs is ultimately personalized medicine. I think the

future of medicine is personalized precision medicine, meaning like what's the issue for you. And I think too much of what we're doing in modern medicine is like a one size fits all, like this is the right medication for everyone. This is the dose for everyone. But what's right for me? Because I've had some people have major side effects being on certain medications. And the same thing applies to weight loss. So that's the conversation I want to have today is that we want to look at some of these underlying issues. However, I want to also maintain a disposition of positivity because we want to empower you with information to be able to try to understand some of these issues. Part of it is going to be patient. Part of this could be that it's going to take

longer for you to lose weight. You just have to keep doing the things that you're doing. And so there's a degree of kind of staying the course and really being not self-critical, but being mindful about your health journey. I have the saying that sometimes we want things right now and we want it yesterday. And instead of realizing how long did it take you to get to your current state? So if it's been years of you not really paying attention to your body cues, not really focusing on your health, Gina, is it reasonable for you to expect that within a couple of weeks I'm going to, you know, all of a sudden transform my life? Maybe that would be amazing. And that does happen.

However, there are some people that it kind of takes months for that to happen. So for kind of I have this rough benchmark for every year of kind of dysfunction, it roughly takes about a month for kind of like recovery, assuming you're doing all the things that are necessary. So it's very crude, very rough, but it's just gives people perspective. So if you've been kind of ignoring your body for a decade, well, think about that, that might take kind of 10 months for you to resolve. And that's not just weight. That could be a chronic health issue. That could be a hormonal dysfunction, but it takes time for these organ systems to heal. And that's where it comes from. Understanding that tissues and cells, you know, they take months and weeks to recover. It's not just like I changed my diet. All of a sudden, you know, bingo, bingo, everything's perfect.

Yes. But the thing is, is that you caningo, bingo, everything's perfect. Yes. But the thing is, is that you can change. Your body can change physically. You can change mentally. I love what you said about there's no one size fits all. I mean, I do say the living method, you know, it will work for everybody, but you have to figure out what you need. This is what we're teaching you to do is personalize it.

Do you need to focus on your stress more or your sleep more or move more or getting into the topics we're going to talk about today. So let's get into them. The four main reasons why your weight again might be slower. It's move. Not that it's not going to move, but there might be something to it is the inflammation, which is a big conversation. Um, food sensitivities having to go there. Uh. I know that's not a fun topic for people because they're just like, I love my cheese. I love my whatever. Gut dysbiosis. I know you and I talked last time we had this conversation, we talked a lot about the microbiome. I'm just hearing that everywhere right now. And hormonal health, obviously that's a big topic as well. So what I have learned is sort of all these things lead to

inflammation and all of them, you know, have to do with your microbiome, but where do we start with this conversation? Well, the first I actually was thinking about this morning and the first place I want to start with this conversation is if you're sitting there listening to this and you're saying, I'm not getting the results I was expecting that I'm seeing around me. What's the first kind of thought that should be crossed your mind? And I think that the program's already kind of addressed this even before we talk about these four things, because inherently, if you if you're sitting there and asking that question, then you are probably thinking what's wrong with me? Is there something that's going on? Right?

And I want to reiterate, there may nothing, there may be nothing that's wrong with me? Is there something that's going on? Right. And I want to reiterate, there may nothing, there may be nothing that's wrong with you. In terms of dysfunction, these four things may not be applicable to you. Because I have a lot of patients that come in Gina, and they say, Dr. Paul, I heard you talk and for sure I have tons of inflammation 100% I have to be inflamed. And in some cases they are Gina, because we do testing. You can actually assess for that. However, that doesn't mean that just because you're not losing weight, you have all four of these things or right. So the first thing I always say is that, are you following the plan and program to its fullest? That's the first step. So you have the, I think it's 20 questions, right? You, we walk people through, um, go over those 20 questions. Look at, are you doing those things?

And most of the time there is three, four, five of those that you're probably, if you really were honest with yourself, you're probably going to say, you know what? I'm not doing that as well as I should be. Yeah. Um is a big one. Sleep. We had our big sleep conversation with Dr. Beverly, the psychology behind sleep, you know, some sleep habits with Alana, sleep hygiene, and Dr. Olenka, we got into how not having sleep really affects your health. And that's, I think people don't really factor in how important sleep is, managing your stress. And those things will factor into the conversation we're having today. Exactly, which is why leading up to this conversation, I said to people, if you really are doing all the things you're really doing the groundwork to even start kind of digging into

these issues. But I think a lot of people, they just underestimate how important managing stress and sleep is. And I just kind of blow that off because I hear people say, well, I'm, I'm doing everything. I'm eating all the food and drinking the water. And I'm like, well, that's the max. And then they'll tell, they come in and they're like, but this is wrong. And I got dealing with this. And then I'll, I'm like, okay, so let's think about this for a second. Take a step back. What signals are your body cells receiving from your brain, from your thought process, from your gut? I just lectured up in Valencia about the gut microbiome axis, gut brain microbiome axis. And what's very clear, we still don't know a lot.

This is a brave new world when it comes to medicine, a new frontier. However, what we do know is that when you're under stress, your intestinal lining becomes more permeable, more inflammation is let into your body. There is a direct impact between your thought process, your anxiety, and the rest of your body via the gut. So probiotics, for example, which are one of the core supplements we'll talk about tomorrow, they, one of their main things, they're touted to do a lot of things, the research shows they do some of those things, but one of the main things they do do is that they help decrease that negative impact of stress in humans. Okay. So the more that I kind of understand, the more I think researchers need to find out and

ask more questions. However, what we do know is that there's this very powerful impact of stress. So if we take a step back, is it realistic for you to think that your body cells are going to start releasing all that fat and melting all that off while you're still on a ton of stress while you still have that? I think that probably is where you need to focus. So first step, first thing, first takeaway is I want everyone to walk away from this conversation as being like, I need to just evaluate my current state and look at it through those 20 questions lens. It's like, where is up to now? Where do you think my obstacle is? And is it that I'm not following all the diet? Well, am I not moving my body in any way, shape or form? And so that's, that's how I walk through

cases with my patients is I actually look at their history, I look at what were they like in their teens? What were they like in their 20s and 30s? Because you talk about like, what's their ideal weight? You should be kind of at the weight when you're in your 20s. You know, okay, so what was your state at that time? Other than, you know, you're now 20 years older. But they're, well, I was like exercising all the time. And I was like active and I was having fun.

Do you do any of those things now? Oh, no, sorry, I don't do that anymore. Well, you know what, let's just, all of a sudden, it Oh, no, sorry, I don't do that anymore. Well, well, you know what, let's just all of a sudden, it's like, bing, the light bulb goes on. And you realize, huh, okay, well, maybe I need to re-evaluate my expectations here. So the program is a foundation. But then I look at that as a springboard to you looking at your health in all these really more mindful ways, Gina. And so that's the first step that I want to talk about with patients. Now we can get into things like inflammation. Springboard. I love that. Yeah. I love that. It's a springboard for leveling up your health and wellness. Okay. So let's start

with inflammation. What is it? Yeah, I know. It's like this fun word that everyone wants to throw around and say, Oh, I got inflammation, Dr. Paul. I got inflammation, Gina. It's a, it's a simply said, it's a signal the body is producing to help promote healing or some sort of resolution. So for example, when you are sick with a flu, you're going to feel tired and sluggish. You're going to be achy. That is a form of inflammation. That is a signal that the body is trying to do something to repair itself. So your muscles are achy because actually the signal is that they're breaking down to feed your immune system, literally feed them. And so that's why we, things like chicken soup and things that have some good protein in it is

going to be helpful. Now, the same thing applies in a chronic situation where unfortunately the flu comes and goes we most people recover but in cases of things like joint pain in cases of other sort of more chronic forms of inflammation that resolution doesn't happen and that's the issue is that this is kind of like this smoldering signal that the body's always producing these low-grade inflammatory signals and what that does is that tells the body's metabolism, I'm under stress. It's a form of stress, Gina. Inflammation is a form of stress if it doesn't resolve, if it doesn't get better. So acute inflammation, good. I bought my knee. It swells up. It resolves

because it's meant to heal. But if that knee continues to be swollen, always red, now that's a problem. It doesn't resolve. And that has many different influences that control that. And so for example, one thing I did lecture on again recently is the influence of stress on inflammation. Yes. So hormones, you've heard of the hormone cortisol. I'm going to do a little sneak peek into what we're going to talk about in just a second. Cortisol is our master anti-inflammatory hormone.

It helps us deal with stress. Some of you might've gone to the doctor. If you've had a sore shoulder or sore knee or sore hip, you've gone to a cortisone injection, right? So that's an anti-inflammatory. But if the person's under a lot of stress all the time, their cortisol is no longer at the right level. It sometimes might be too low. And so you're missing that inflammation. It might be too high at certain times and too low at certain times. So what does that mean? That means that our hormones imbalanced are going to lead to more inflammation. As one example, I've already talked about the gut. If you are under stress, for example, if your gut is a dysbiotic, which we'll talk about what that means in a moment, you're going to create more inflammation.

So it's a signal that is messing up the proper metabolic signals to help lose weight and to optimize cellular function. That's probably the simplest definition. Woo. Yes. Okay. I know. What do we do about it?

So I think I, my, I've got inflammation going on and I love the stress added element. I'm hugely stressed right now. My stomach is a mess. The two go hand in hand. Okay. I know that. What do I do about it? Yeah. So I think the first step in managing inflammation is to get it assessed because there are multiple types of inflammation. So I've talked about this with you in the past and it's worth mentioning again. So there's the typical type of inflammation that I just talked about with acute issues. So I have an issue needs to be resolved, it goes away. Now, what about in situations that it doesn't resolve? So for example, one that comes to mind is joint pain, so things like autoimmunity. So that's a type of inflammation, Gina. So for example, Hashimoto's thyroiditis,

which is an actual autoimmune attack of your thyroid, which is right here, which is why I'm pointing there, that is an inflammatory condition that is damaging your thyroid. And therefore, your thyroid levels go down and your thyroid is responsible for your body's metabolism and set point. So you're not going to be able to lose weight, you're going to be tired, you might be losing hair, you might be more constipated. These are all the classic signs of low thyroid function. Another type of autoimmunity could be affecting your joints. So this type of autoimmunity, Gina, luckily, we can test for. Unfortunately, a lot of times people will just kind of generally feel crummy. They might have sore joints in the morning.

They might realize that they're kind of like tired. They have brain fog. These are all very general symptoms. They're not very specific. But if any of the things I've so far mentioned to you, I think that its first step is we do a lot of blood work to make sure it's not one of these autoimmune types of inflammation. Okay. These are like kind of the more big diagnoses. So like lupus would be one of them, for example. It's rare, but it's always important to rule out. Then there's something that's related to allergic inflammation. So if,

and this is a perfect dovetail into the conversation around food sensitivity. So if we're eating foods or if we're exposed to things like allergies, whether it's environmental, or whether it's food related, you're going to be creating more inflammation gene in your body, your body has to deal with that extra signaling. And so the body's metabolism, again, is not focused on weight loss, it's now switching to how do we manage inflammation and survive. So that's one of the that's another type of inflammation that happens. And then there's another type, which is kind of what's called a metabolic inflammation. So for example, people that have blood sugar issues, pre-diabetes, we now know that the

brain is susceptible to some of these things. So for example, researchers have now identified that cognitive dysfunction and brain fog and even pre dementia is actually a type of diabetes of the brain. So this is a metabolic issue. So that is another way that cells and tissues and blood vessels, they get damaged. So those are three kind of main types of hidden or not so obvious forms of inflammation that you can actually test for, Gina. And when we get the blood work back, we can have a better idea of saying, okay, is inflammation a concern for that person? And then we can take steps to address that. Okay. So, I mean, what I love again about the program is that people are already on the most basic levels addressing and doing the things that they need to do, right? Because I'm thinking, you know, thyroid issues, you know, someone having diabetes. I mean, then I got into my head. I'm like, well, all health issues really could lead to inflammation. And then what about deficiencies that people have? Would deficiencies

lead to inflammation as well? If someone was low in iron or their B's or magnesium, does that have anything to do with that? Some of what you mentioned, yes. So for example, if you have a deficiency in cortisol, for example, I mentioned that as a hormone, you're going to have propensity to create more inflammation. If you have a deficiency in vitamin D or magnesium, both of those have been strongly linked to metabolic inflammation. So in that case, yes, iron is a little bit different because iron helps transport oxygen. So in an indirect sense, the reason people feel tired is because they lack the basic building blocks for you to produce energy, which is oxygen is kind of

like the rate limiting step. So you need you need fuel and you need oxygen just like a fire to create this energy, these energy molecules. So that's why people feel very tired with iron. So it's not so much directly inflammation with iron. But all the other things you mentioned, absolutely, yes, you can create more inflammation, your body. Another way of saying it is the body can't eliminate inflammation if it's missing those things. Okay. You know, one of the key things is that people might be thinking, okay, wow, everything Dr. Paul so far said is like a check, check, check, check, check. Those are all things that kind of like I've struggled with in the past, or I think I might have my screwed. Do I, you know, what do I do about this? No,

the first step is making sure you, like you said, having enough of the key building blocks to regulate inflammation. We all have inflammation, everybody. Newsflash. We're not going to avoid it. If you exercise, you have inflammation. If you live in this world, you have inflammation by all the things that are trying to address you. Getting red after being out in the sun is a form of inflammation. However, the beautiful part about your body is that it has built in anti-inflammatory pathways. So to your point, Gina, if you're following the plan and you're doing the things that the nutrition, the healthy plant-based foods are offering to your body. If you're taking those in your body will start regulating inflammation better. So the best thing you can do right now

to address inflammation is to really double down on the program and to really follow it as best as possible, because I can't tell you how many cases I'm sure you've heard thousands yourself. People come in and they say, I've had headaches. I had joint pain. I had gut issues. I got on the plan and you know what? All those went away. Oh yeah. There's thought about that. Well, that's actually a form of inflammation that you're addressing just by giving your body the building blocks that properly needs to function because it will regulate inflammation itself in most cases. What I'm talking about in these kind of more stronger conditions, this is now where the body's own regulatory system is not able to handle it. So this is the rare, the exception.

This is not the most common thing. I want to make sure people understand that. Yeah, well, there is that rare, that exception. And then there is that sort of general, okay, this is what's going on in your body, probably. But then the exciting thing for people who are dealing with that is they are already addressing it by following the program. Okay, so food sensitivities, because this is where if you have food sensitivities, it can lead to inflammation. This is a big one because people are just so resistant to wanting to go there. So, you know, there's a couple things going on.

People know every time they have dairy or they have gluten or they have whatever, they don't feel great. And then but then they're like, but I like cheese and I like whatever. And then you have people who do go get tested. They're allergic to everything. So, I mean, where do people start with this well we I've alluded to this because it's hard to have a conversation about inflammation without talking about forms of inflammation and sources of inflammation so the in I want to say my general philosophy Gina is that I believe all whole foods have a healthy role to play in in person's diet. But here's that personalized component.

This is super important. Not every single food based on a person's upbringing, based on their microbiome, based on their genetics is going to be good for you. So some people are born with a lactase deficiency. This is a enzyme that breaks down lactose. Now you might sit there and be like, oh, I'm so pissed off and I still want to eat dairy. And I'll tell you, there's a lot of people that they eat and will pick on dairy because that's the obvious one. And everyone's heard about lactose-free milk, for example. They're still going to eat dairy. Oh, you know, I don't eat it too much.

I just have cheese once in a while. It's not too bad. But then they're like, well, yeah, I'm gas and loaded. And I'm not really losing weight. This is an example of, you know, something is not agreeing with your body, yet the body has to then deal with the consequences of that. So your body's brain and our cravings and our pleasure centers in our brain are overriding the signals that our rest of our metabolism is giving us. So one of the most important things I emphasize with people that are going through the Livvy program is that really once you get through learning the basic foundations, I believe it's a mindfulness approach to health, to wellness, and to diet. Because I think what

your people really start seeing the beauty and the depth of the program is when they start reflecting and being more aware of what their body is telling them. Because going into the program before the program, most people are taught to do the exact opposite. Look at every single program that's out there that tells you, hey, this is your little box. This is your meal plans. We're going to literally send you the meal plans. And you can't think for yourself and you need to actually just eat what we tell you. And it's bars and shakes. Think of the program that people have gone into. It's the polar opposite of actually thinking about what you're eating. How do I feel when I'm eating it halfway am i full am i not all these other psychological factors that are influencing what i eat why i want to eat it these are this is this is deep

psychology gina and i'm not saying people need to master this right off the bat but my point is is that we're calling people to a higher state of well-being, not just simply being followers of instructions, but actually taking your own health into your own hands. So my point is, is that most of the time, Gina, when I just ask the right questions, people will tell me what they don't feel well on. And that will become maybe more clear after the first or two, the first or second session of the program when they're like, yeah, you know what? I don't feel good after I drink alcohol, for example, or, and so my point is, is the body's trying to tell us. And so there are certain immune reactions that happen when we eat certain foods.

And for some people it's almonds and for some people it's foods. And for some people it's almonds and for some people it's peanuts and for other people it's dairy products and other people it's, it's breads and pastas. And there are multi faceted reasons why each one of those things might be negatively impacting you. But the first step is understanding and appreciating that you have a unique set of food sensitivities. Some people have very little and some people have more. And the first step is trying to be mindful about recognizing that. And then there's additional blood testing or elimination reintroduction diets that if you still feel confused, that's where you can get help to address that.

Okay. And the last thing I'll say is that ultimately, all these things that your body has to process, it's going to make your metabolism not focused on being optimal in health and losing weight, but more focused on just dealing with low grade inflammation. And that's the main underlying reasons why for some people, not everyone, but for some people, food sensitivities are an obstacle to weight loss. I mean, this is why I'm saying like what we're trying to do in the program is create space,

help the body to be able to specifically focus on fat loss when it has all these other things to focus on. It's exactly what I'm talking about. Okay. Um, how would someone know? Like, so we tell people to track like their food, their, their, their, you know, they're taking off, they have their protein and their whatever, you know, keeping a food diary, you know, we're not counting, weighing, measuring, but you know, would we know if we have a sensitivity because how we feel right after, or is there delayed effects? Because I think some people think, well, I eat cheese and I poop myself or have diarrhea and that's the once it passes it passes but actually there's like there's an inflammatory effect that happens afterwards so it's not just the immediate after and then they're like well my weight is up and then I can't drop like your weight someone's weight could be up

not just because they overindulge but because they've eaten foods that are causing inflammation, correct? Correct. Yeah. I mean, you can, most people will probably tell you if they've had a hard night of drinking, they feel puffy and inflamed the next day. I think everyone listening is probably like knows that. So that's a very obvious one that is just going to drive home the point that what we eat has a direct effect on our body's metabolism right away. Now, alcohol is in excess is unfortunately a really tough one on the body to process because it affects multiple different pathways. But now think about what if there's other things other than alcohol? What if there is, you know, other food proteins? And it really is the proteins that are creating this immune response.

The trouble, Gina, is that a lot of people are meant, as you pointed out, they're kind of programmed to think about, well, if I don't have, if I don't poop myself after I eat, after I eat a certain thing, then I'm probably okay. Well, the reality is, is that there's many different, there's a number of different types of immune systems in your body. Some of them are immediate, like, you know, I eat a peach and my tongue swells up. That's an IgG immune response. That's the typical thing that people are anaphylactic to. But then there's also a low grade, slow onset immune reaction. That's an IgG. Again, I'm not getting into the deep immunology,

but my point being is that sometimes there's a carryover for multiple days after we eat a certain meal or eat certain food. For example, if I eat pizza, my gut might be off for two or three days. I might feel my joints are a little bit more swollen. These are little small, subtle signs. And those, those little signs, Gina, are really hard to pick up if a person's not already following a diet like the Libby plan. Because if you're eating sugary things, if you're eating what are called ultra processed foods, your body signaling system is so distorted. You have no idea what is what.

Because it could literally just be that you drank that can of pop right after. And then sugar is just like the ultimate amplifier of all symptoms. Like I've had people, Gina, that have had gut issues. I just had a patient just yesterday that ate ice cream every single day, 18-year-old girl. And she was having gas and bloating and a lot of gut issues, diarrhea, we just cut out the sugar, we didn't really change anything else. I didn't tell her to go gluten free or no nothing. And her symptoms went away by over 50%, just by cleaning up the basic things. And she was still eating ice cream two or three times a

week, just by cutting back. So my point is, is that there's a lot of foods that people are used to eating that are distortive to their perception. So first step, live your plan, clean things up. Majority of people get massive benefits right away. Second step is being more mindful about the influence of certain meals. So if you're recording, okay, I'm eating this on this day. If you're suspecting these food sensitivities, my suggestion would be is start taking a good journal. This can be done. I think, can this be done on the app, Gina? Can you follow? Yeah, it's done on the app. You can just say, how do I feel that day? You know what? I had loose stools. I had gut issues or I was really sluggish. I was tired. Sometimes food sensitivity reactions and inflammation, it's not just gut.

It could be headaches. We all know migraines are triggered by certain foods. So be mindful of your entire health symptom presentation, not just your gut. And that's going to help you be more understanding of your food sensitivities. Okay, I love it. Again, bringing awareness. That's what this is about, right? And then if you feel

like you've got some things going on, go seek some, you know, a professional and help you get to the bottom of what is going on. But what I love about this conversation, because I was just, someone would say, well, I'm eating anti-inflammatory foods. My weight still isn't dropping. I'm like, well, but that could be due to like anti-inflammatory foods. Okay. That's great. But if you're still eating foods that you're sensitive to, if your stress levels are out of control, if you're not getting sleep, then, you know, it's like, it's not like to fix this isn't just like do this. It very much is a holistic approach because everything is really, it's how it all works

together at the end of the day. And I just want to make a comment about the point that like a lot of people are like, well, how could I, how could these foods be a problem if I'm eating all these good things? And I think one of the key principles about medicine is that first you need to remove the underlying issue, the one that's causing problems before I'm going to start putting medicine on top. So think of anti-inflammatory foods. Like for example, I lectured on blueberries. So eating two cups of blueberries a day is beneficial for brain function. The research generally says that. But if you're still eating

a food that's causing you food sensitivities and inflammation, you can eat all the blueberries you want in the world, but you're still going to have that inflammation happening. It's not going to be like it cancels each other out. It's not like that. It's kind of like I got to get the rock out of my shoe before I can put the Band-Aid on. You can't put the Band-Aid over the rock. It's just not going to work that way. So I'm glad you brought that up because I think that's probably one of the key thought process that people are thinking.

Well, I'm eating all these great things. I have to be generally doing a good thing for myself. Yes, it's good. But we also first have to look at what do I need to maybe remove that is holding me back. Okay. What's the difference between food sensitivities and gut dysbiosis? What, what's going on there? What's the difference? I love this conversation. This is by, by is by far my favorite conversation because everything we talked about today, Gina, just like just dovetails into each other's. Oh, well, so like inflammation and then one of the sources of inflammation, food sensitivities. And then one of the things that food sensitivities influence is your gut function.

So what we know about the gut is that there's a heck of a lot we don't know. And so we really are looking at some of the few things that we do understand. And so one of the key things that has recently come out in the research is that we always think about similar to like more blueberries cancels out the food sensitivities. We always think like, well, we can cover over all the gut issues by, I take a probiotic. Of course, that's going to like work itself out.

Let's put things in a context. We have 10 times the amount of bacteria in our guts, then we have cells in our body, and we have trillions of cells in our body. We have a nervous system all of its own in our gut. All the things out of all the things that are in our bloodstream, 40% of those things that are floating around our bloodstream are made by gut bacteria. So we are more bacteria than we are actually human in many ways. So the gut bacteria, the balance of gut bacteria influences our health. And there are certain situations where that balance becomes imbalanced. So for example, the obvious one for most people is that when you take antibiotics, for some people,

they will notice that they have gut issues after they might notice that they have diarrhea, they might have upset stomach. Now, luckily, for most people that goes away, Gina, as you probably experienced, but there are a small percentage of people that it doesn't go away. And that, that term gut dysbiosis is describing the influence that is imbalanced, the normal happy medium that's in your gut. So think of it in an imbalanced gut microbiome. Now your gut microbiome, Gina, might be very different than my gut microbiome. And now the research is showing that there's an extreme amount of personalization. So there isn't one perfect gut balance.

But there is one that is good for you, and there's one that's imbalanced. So I think in relation to being an obstacle to weight loss, I think probably out of all the things we talked about, the gut is probably the most influential on people's weight. My suspicion is, and I think the research is just trying to understand this, is that one of the main obstacles after you've checked off two or three things, including hormones, that is holding people's weight loss back is something to do with the gut. And I don't think we fully understand it. We don't. And, but the point being is that happy gut equals less inflammation equals more chance that you're going to be able to lose weight. I think that's probably the safest, most general assumption we can make. Now, if your guts is feeling good, you don't have symptoms, no gas and bloating, you have regular healthy bowel movements, the chances are that your gut is doing well. And so for those people, we can put a little checkbox beside it. Okay. So we don't want to make something out of nothing and say, well, you know what, I can't lose weight for sure. My gut's messed up. And then I start asking questions and they're like, no, you know what, I feel, I feel good. I don't have any reflux or any of the symptoms. So the first step in terms of thinking about your gut is how's it functioning? Do you have any of the symptoms I

just mentioned? If you don't, then that's a pretty good sign that you most likely don't have this term that's on the screen, which is called gut dysbiosis. Okay. So when, you know, I think when people think the gut and food, they think like bowel movements, right? Well, I poop fine. Well, what about like heartburn, bloating? Like I'm not talking like just like a little bit of gas, but that bloating, that acid reflux. Like what, like how do we know when it's like, what are, how do we know? Yeah. How do we know that it's off?

Well, I think you mentioned some of the symptoms. And so I'm glad you brought up reflux because in the gut, there's three separate areas. There's your stomach, there's your small intestine, which majority of the absorption of your nutrients happen. And then there's your large intestine. Now your stools all get kind of processed food that gets broken down and it's kind of like made in the large intestine and then it's released. But if you have reflux, that could be a sign that you have an imbalance of your gut microbiome higher in the gut. Now it's nothing new with your stools particularly. So for example, you've heard of the bacteria called H. pylori. It's the most common things that causes reflux. And that is a

perfect example of this dysbiosis term. That is normally in your stomach, we don't have many bacteria. We don't. However, if things like medications influence the stomach acid that's in your stomach, and if that stomach acid goes down, meaning that we have less acid in our stomach, now all the upper digestive food breakdown doesn't happen as well. Think of anybody that's on acid blockers. Think a lot of medications, certain foods, highly processed foods will influence the acidity in your stomach.

And so when your stomach is not adequately acidified, then you're not going to break down food. It's going to lead to the gas and bloating. It's also going to allow bacteria from your large intestine to start creeping up into the small intestine. This is another example of what's called SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. Maybe some people have heard about this. These are more complex terms. I don't want to get into the weeds on each one of these because that's really meant to be for your gastroenterologist or your naturopathic doctor to help you deal with.

But if you have symptoms from burping, reflux from the upper, kind of like I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach, I can't break down certain foods. Fatty foods really are troubling for me. That might be that you're deficient in bile. It might be your deficient digestive enzymes. You have a lot of gas, bloating. Sometimes even your brain fog starts getting worse. Your fatigue is getting worse. This is possibly a sign that you have an imbalance in your small intestine. And then obviously diarrhea, constipation, alternating between the two. This could be influencing your small or large intestine. So there's many different things that can influence this balance. And it's not going to be just resolved by taking probiotics. In fact,

taking probiotics, Gina, is a really important way that we might be able to actually further define what might be affecting you. So for example, if you feel worse after probiotics, that tells us that you probably don't need more probiotics in there. That's a sign of dysbiosis. Right. What about people with their, I'm just thinking about people with their, who've had gallbladder issues and lead to have their gallbladder removed. And then you have, so then you have like stress on top of that and then a food sensitivity on top of that. Well, I think what you're alluding to with this question is that some people can have multiple things going on. And how do you kind of tease those apart?

Well, the first step is most of the symptoms that a person is experiencing will give us a clue. It's not a guarantee, but it will give us a clue. Then there are certain testing you can do. For example, you can go to your doctor and get a breath test and it will tell you, do you have H. pylori? Because if you have the certain set of symptoms like reflux and that pain in the upper stomach, and you might have kind of, that might get better or worse with food, that might be some of the symptoms that you need to have addressed. And so assessment and symptoms go together and then we can kind of tease out what might be some of the symptoms you that you need to have address. And so assessment and symptoms go together. And then we can kind of tease out what might be happening. So for example,

with a gallbladder issue, if you've had your gallbladder removed, for some people, no problem, all good. In fact, they feel a lot better. But then I have a whole other chunk of patients that they get their gallbladder out and their symptoms continue to get worse or they stay the same. And so that might mean that they need extra help breaking down fats. And part of the Libby plan, part of the diet I recommend to my patients when it comes to brain health is I ask them to eat a higher fat diet. And there's a whole host of reasons why, but if you're not having adequate gallbladder function, you're going to have trouble breaking that fat down. And so there are certain things like digestive bitters, digestive enzymes, certain foods that help

the breakdown of fat. And that is going to be necessary for those subset of people, Gina. Okay. I love this conversation. It's so good. It's like dense, but hopefully we've touched on a lot of things that people are like, yeah, okay, that makes sense. That's a connection there. You know, the gut is a complex thing. However, we're trying to make it simple. Start with a program. Most time, gut gets better. Eliminate highly processed foods.

Number two, get mindful about the type of symptoms that you're having. Be observant. Certain foods causing certain symptoms. You won't know that if you're eating a whole bunch of unprocessed, highly refined foods. That gets clearer as the program gets better. Okay. That's step number two. Step three, once you've identified certain foods, try to maybe eliminate them yourself. Do a little bit of your own DIY type of work. So, okay, I'm going to try to eliminate all wheat because when I eat pasta, I feel horribly bloated. Okay. So I've done that. And it's important. It's not a, well, I've minimized it. That's the biggest common pitfall I see is they're like, well, I don't eat dairy too much, but I'll eat a little

bit of cheese here and there. Your immune system is seeing that again and again, Gina, even though it's once a week, twice a week, there's a memory that lasts for three months, at least when it comes to food proteins. So if you're sensitive to something, you kind of need to be all in kind of like on the plan, you got to be all in or not. Trying to reduce it is a maintenance strategy. You don't want to do that when you're trying to figure things out. And once you do that, if you still have gut symptoms, that's when we can start talking dysbiosis. Did you try probiotic?

Did you try the digestive bitters? Have you tried apple cider vinegar? Have you tried prebiotics? These are all things, whether you work with them or not now you're able to tell um is the basic building blocks helpful and if not that's when i would go see my gastroenterologist through your family doctor or i'd go see a naturopathic doctor to help you really figure out what's happening there but that's kind of the three or four steps to make it really practical for your listeners of what we're doing i I love it. Okay. Hormonal health. I mean, just even saying it.

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're having Dr. Link on to talk about things from her perspective. I think that what I want to talk about is the key hormones in relation to when it comes to stress. And we'll leave the reproductive hormones to her, which I think that I think that's upper wheelhouse anyways. Okay, so I mentioned two of the most important ones already. Our body's hormones are signaling molecules to tell certain organs what to make and what not to make. And they are absolutely important for creating an environment for health and wellness inside of ourselves. If you're missing hormones, for example, for men, if they're missing testosterone, that can lead to depression, that can lead to inflammation, that can lead to sexual dysfunction, that can lead to fatigue, that can lead to cognitive dysfunction. It is has wide reaching effects. Okay. So when it comes to

weight, if you have a deficiency or an excess in thyroid hormone, adrenal hormones, which are mainly cortisol and DHEA, not DHA, which is the omega three. So focusing just on those two, if those are dysfunctional, people's energy will become, uh, dysfunctional. They have low energy. They might notice that they're, uh, maybe, uh, they're hangry. Their cravings are getting worse because their body's trying to prop up their energy with like, with, uh, with more sugary foods.

If you feel like if you skip a meal in the past, it totally, uh, ramped up your anxiety or ramped up your feeling of feeling lightheaded. That's a sign that blood sugar is not being regulated. That could be related to adrenals, Gina. So when it comes to hormones, the first step is understanding if you have any of the symptoms that I mentioned, especially if fatigue that is unexplained and you have fatigue that comes on at different parts of the day or it's there all the time that would be the first thing i'd be thinking about having a conversation with my family doctor be like can i check my thyroid now a point about that most of the time um there is a comprehensive testing that needs to be done to assess your adrenal and thyroid hormones.

And that unfortunately is often missed by most family doctors because good intentions, they really just want to make sure you don't keel over. That's their main goal. They're not really looking at, and they don't have time, not that they don't want to, but they're not really saying, Gina, I want you to thrive. I want you to be the best version of yourself. That doesn't ever come out of a family doctor's mouth. God bless them. They do their, they do good work, especially ones that really genuinely care about their patients and that are not rushing. But the reality is, is that they don't, they're not, they're not trained to think about optimizing wellness. And that's really where a naturopath comes in where we do additional tests to look at,

okay, so what might be the actual thyroid hormones doing? Are they being converted properly inside your body in at the level of the cells? Could there be that autoimmune process going on? When it comes to adrenals, I actually like saliva testing or urinary testing much better because I like to test cortisol at multiple points in the day. Cortisol is a really important hormone that actually dramatically changes. If you tested it in the morning, it's high. And as the day goes on, it gets lower.

But some people get a second wind later in the day and it spikes up before they want to go to bed. And that actually is a dysfunctional pattern of cortisol. So these are all, again, energy issues. Good first step to start thinking about these two hormonal systems, Gina. Because, I mean, this conversation is so important, because if you're if you're doing all the things, and not only is your weight not dropping, but you aren't feeling any kind of non scale victories, or, you know, change happening in the body this is going to signal that there's

something a little off and it all it all really is connected can you just kind of connect the dots on all of them inflammation food sensitivities gut dysbiosis hormonal health yeah so as i said all the things we talked about today they're rather than being kind of like in a straight line, they're like a web together. They interact together. They all influence each other. I started the conversation today by saying, if you are under a lot of stress, and generally when you're Gina, then your cortisol levels will be increased for a long time. And then the body can't keep up with that. And you might have peaks and valleys throughout the day when you should have a nice peak in the morning and then a slow dip and gradual decrease throughout the rest of the day. So all of this is interconnected. And a lot of it comes back to both psychological and physical stressors. A lot of people listening to

this have had that in the past, have had that currently. And it's going to increase hormonal production of some of the things I mentioned, it's going to decrease thyroid function. And that's going to influence our ability to lose weight, ability to exercise because we're low in energy. And it's going to influence our gut, it's going to maybe cause a little bit of imbalance in our gut. It's going to make food sensitivities more magnified. Each of us have a personalized, uh, kind of personalized characteristic of food sensitivities that is unique to you. And part of, uh, being mindful as part of a living program and, and really your own health development is to create space to do that, to look at that.

And all, all, if you address one of these aspects, like for example, if you take steps to reduce your stress levels and to put in mindfulness approaches, you're going to notice that all these other things are going to get better. Get better. Yeah. So that's where it's like you pull on one of these strings, you sleep better, you're going to regulate your diet and eating consistently.

That's, by the way, one of the best things I like about the program. It's actually one of the reasons when I started first looking at your program before we even started working together, I was like, oh, you know, this is a good adrenal support program because it helps people eat consistently throughout the day where a lot of times before, people are eating at random times in the day, you know, when I when I

get a chance, or they override their hunger signals, and then they binge later, the body's going to get what it wants when it comes to calories, especially when there's higher stress, because a lot of our appetite is regulated by our emotions. So this is another way of creating stability, Gina, we're talking ultimately about creating metabolic stability by eliminating inflammation by eliminating food sensitivities, identifying those and balancing hormones. I think in a future session, we'll probably talk a little bit more about hormones, because that is one area that a lot of people are thinking, Okay, so Dr. Paul, so what do I do about it? Yes. And I think the simplest thing to say for the sake of our conversation today is that if you start doing

some of the stress reduction techniques that are talked about in the program that I've already been talking about some of the other guest experts, sleep is massively important. I already talked about eating regularly, putting in some mindful practices throughout the day. You are going to already be on the road to decreasing that hyper stimulation of the nervous system. And therefore the adrenal system is going to become less overburdened. And that's one of the key ways and key first step of addressing adrenal dysfunction and ultimately even thyroid dysfunction. Yeah.

Because if you're sitting here thinking, oh my gosh, this is a lot. Where do I do? Where do I start? You have already started in following the program and we really are just getting started. So it's all the things that you are doing, all the things that you're going to be doing, the routine of the program. Like Dr. Paul said, the body loves that routine. Then you can get into

understanding how your body's come to regulate itself. It's rewiring, reworking how your body's come to function physically, mentally, all of it. So systematically you are just by following the program going to be addressing these things. But this is where if you truly aren't seeing any movement on this scale and also not seeing any non-scale victories. Like your sleep isn't getting better. Your energy isn't getting better. I'm not just talking about your body changing. It could be an indication that there's something going on. It also is very early in the program. Still, we're having this conversation ahead of time, another couple of weeks. If you really aren't noticing something going on, definitely head to your healthcare provider

or seek out your, you know, naturopathic doctor. One more thing before I go, you mentioned the health, like doctors and the healthcare system. I recently was at a conference where I talked to a futurist from Deloitte in terms of healthcare and our healthcare system is overrun. I'm sure it's, you know, it's here in Canada. It is elsewhere. It's hard to have access for some of you to your health care providers. Again, why I love the program and our amazing guests who come on and share their knowledge. This truly is about empowering you to help you understand what's going on with you so that when you do get in front of your health care providers, you have a sense of what's going on. Rather than them having to dig into it. You've already dug into it. You

can say, this is what I'm doing. This is what, you know, this is what, this is how I'm feeling. You know, this is the supplements I'm taking and what I've learned and where I'm at. So Dr. Paul, thank you. Honestly, it, it, it's, it's a game changer. These conversations for people's health and wellness. I know you're going to be back. You're going to be back tomorrow. So I have a feeling we're going to build on the conversation we had today in terms of supplements that you can take for your adrenals and to help with these types of things. But final word on the conversation today. I think you had an amazing final word there is that, you know, I, we want people to walk away, not being overwhelmed by a ton of information we talked about because, um, you know, I really believe knowledge is power and what we're sharing with you today is knowledge. And ultimately it's not even the

absolute knowledge. It's a blueprint of you trying to find knowledge about yourself. And once you become self-aware, that's like really the crux of mindfulness, Gina, is when you become self-aware, you are going to be able to take your health, your weight loss, whatever your health goals to the next level. I really, really encourage people to look at, I know I get it's a weight loss program, but I often have to tell people, especially if you're frustrated, I tell people to take a step back and be like, what trajectory is your health on in general right now? Even if you're not seeing that scale dramatically decrease right away. Not everyone has the very rapid dramatic decrease in weight. Some of the most successful weight loss stories that I've worked with are people that didn't lose 30 pounds in the first

three weeks, because guess what? That, that weight is really hard to keep off if you don't stay on it. It's the slow, consistent, I got five pounds, but I did it over two programs. For example, one patient that comes to mind there that again, it's the consistency. And then it's the journey, Gina. Everyone is so goal oriented, but you are stuck in your body for the rest of your days on this earth. So I really want you to think about the journey that you're on. And I really think about this as a journey of self awareness and self discovery. And if you have it from that perspective, not just thinking about the scales important, but that is a symptom that is a that is a barometer that we can use of looking at where we are in our health. It's the same as if we

looked at heart rate variability on our watch is the same idea. So I really hope that people walk away from this conversation about helping them to be a little bit more self aware about those three or four underlying issues when it comes to weight loss. And ultimately that's going to serve you the best. You're not going to win this, uh, win this race in the next week or so. So think about this from that perspective. I love it. Thank you. Uh, Dr. Paul Herkel, you will be back with us tomorrow. I'm already looking forward to our conversation. Thanks for joining me today. And thanks for everyone who's joined us live. Thanks everyone. See ya.