The Livy Method Podcast - Let's Talk Secondary Supplements with Dr. Paul Hrkal, ND - Fall 2024

Episode Date: October 17, 2024

In this segment, Gina continues her discussion with Dr. Paul Hrkal, ND, about the main reasons why someone's weight might be slow to move and the secondary supplements that can help support your weight loss journey and level up your health.If you are in the Fall 2024 Support Group, you can check out the full video here:https://www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodfall2024Topics covered:Continuing the conversation: More reasons your weight might be slower to move. Changing our relationship to stress - focusing on the positive aspects and building resilience. Overstressed or Under-recovered? How giving the body what it needs in nutrients, movement, and sleep are healthy ways to recover. Healthy sleep habits builds resilience and is a foundational way to improve overall well-being. Be sure to check out the primary supplements in the program first before adding in the secondary supplements. Hormones and weight loss: Insulin, Leptin, and Ghrelin. The impact of emotional eating. Reviewing your diet and health history as a way to dig deeper into your patterns. GLP-1 and Ozempic: Are there natural supplements to address appetite? Some effects of Ozempic are worth considering. What you can do to offset lean muscle loss. Why making protein and healthy fats a priority is not about the amount but the quality spread out over a day. Types of inflammation and their impact on health. Quick-fix dieting versus sustainable and maintainable weight loss that may take longer. Collagen: positive effects for connective tissues. L-Theanine: a calming effect to put the brakes on stress. Adaptogens: classes of herbs to help heal from chronic stress. Creatine: one of the most studied supplements known to help with energy and recovery. Turmeric: a secondary supplement with anti-inflammatory effects. CoQ10: an antioxidant that provides cellular support for the mitochondria. MCT Oil: a functional food that helps energy production in the body and brain. Dr. Paul's 3-Part Approach: Primary Supplements as foundational, Secondary Supplements to enhance, work with a Naturopathic Doctor to audit your efforts. Final thoughts: Take a wholistic perspective to your health while being patient with the unlearning and relearning process. Doing whatever it's going to take to reach your Finally and Forever because it is WORTH IT! www.paulhrkalnd.com@drpaulhrklTo 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,

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Keep believing in yourself and keep trusting the process. Just be patient. Do you feel like you're doing all of the things yet you're having a hard time moving the dial on the scale? That was the start of the conversation I had with my guest today, Dr. Paul Herkel. We talked about four main reasons why your weight might be slower to move. Inflammation, food sensitivities, gut issues, gut dysbiosis, and hormones. So today we are back to continue that conversation. We want to touch on hormones a little bit more. We also want to get into some supplements that might be beneficial or help you address some of these issues. If you haven't had an opportunity to listen to the first part on Tuesday, it is stored in the guides in the support group and also available on our Living Method podcast.

Hello. Hi. Hey, good morning, Gina. How are you? Good. I love this little like quick back to back. Before it was like, you know, there was like two or three weeks between each conversation. And I feel like we now get to have like a more fulminant, deeper conversation about, I think probably one of the most important topics to people that are part of your program. So I'm, I'm, I'm ecstatic to be here kind of in quick succession. Well, I'm excited you're here too. Frank, quite frankly, I could have you on every day, back to back to back all day, every day.

You get bored of me. I think people would be like, get that guy out of here. We need some fresh blood, but it's nice to be here so thoughts after our conversation i do walk away after conversations and been like oh like you know the the members need to know this the members need to know that like what are your thoughts after our conversation uh tuesday you know i have to say you know i think we've been working with each other since you know 2020 so it's been a while and after every single one of our conversations, I do kind of like a little mental debrief. Sometimes chat about my wife who also listens along as well. Or I have a lot of patients, like I can't tell you how many people like I get off the call and they're like, I just saw you, I could see Dr. Paul twice. And they hear me and see

me in the mornings with you. And then they come in and see me for their visit. But generally, always amazing feedback, first of all. And one thing that I always think about is that there's always something, Gina, that we talk about that even I would say maybe is off topic, maybe off script a little bit, but it's very motivating. I think we really always give somebody, people some takeaway information. And to the point that it actually really keeps me engaged too, because we're able to have just a conversation rather than being like, Dr. Paul, give me like MCTO, CoQ10. Like we just don't like rip those things off. Even though like when you touch on all them, I feel like it's a conversation that people can really chew into and then think about.

And then they take it away in their own reflections and be like, yeah, you know what? I'm doing all the things, but that stress that is hanging over me, that uncontrollable stress is really holding back here. And so my goal, my hope is that everyone walks away with one of those little aha moments. Well, you mentioned stress. I would imagine stress just makes inflammation worse. It makes your digestive issues worse. It makes your hormones, everything that you're dealing with. Stress just adds an extra layer of everything on top of everything. And then further to the conversation we had a couple of weeks ago, if you're not sleeping, that can really mess you up as well. It's hard to have the conversation we had a couple of weeks ago, if you're not sleeping, that can really mess you up as well.

It's hard to have the conversation because it's such a big conversation to have. You know, and somehow we managed to do it. And I hope that people listening are feeling the same way. Because I think, I don't know about you, Gina, but I think that we kind of do a pretty good job of kind of nailing it. Maybe we're just kind of pumping our own tires, but I feel like you asked some great questions and I'm able to give responses. I hope that people really see us real and authentic and they're totally informed by the years I've spent with practice and with patients in real time. So, I mean, maybe let's start off as we were kind of talking before the show.

Let's just start off talking about that concept of stress. And I left off people with the idea that stress is a huge factor, but I don't want it to be something that people think like, well, I can't change the stress. Like I'm in this like, you know, stressful job. Like I can't get out of it or I'm in a relationship. Like, so what do I do guys? Okay. Well, we have to, we have to really change our relationship with stress. We have to fully understand it. First of all, stress is always perceived as a bad thing.

And that I think is a, is a disservice because like, think about it. Like if you, we know that doing cold plungers, they're all a rage now, you know, go to a cold plunge or do sauna. These are stressors. They're like heat is a stressor. Cold is a stressor. When you exercise, this is a stressor, Gina. When you fast, there's a stress aspect of it. If you look at it, almost every single health intervention that is kind of on a lifestyle level has some aspect of I'm trying to build your resilience. And that's what I really try to get across to patients and to people listening is that stress does not have to be negative. There is something called distress

and then eustress. We've totally like thrown out the positive aspect of stress. So much of our life is focused on the negative aspects of stress because we seem like we're inundated by it. But you mentioned sleep, and I love that you said that. It's normal to be exposed to stress on a daily basis, but then our bodies are meant to recover from that stress. And one of the ways through sleep, one of the ways we do that is by feeding ourselves properly and fueling ourselves with whole foods. Another way that we do that is by having some sort of positive family time, social interaction. These are all, this is a psychological, a positive effector. So I want people to get out of the mentality of I'm in stress and it's all bad

because that's not, that's not the truth. It's uncontrollable, chronic, negative stress. That really is the problem. It's chronic inflammation. That's a problem, not inflammation in general. You need it to heal Gina. Yes. You know, I'm always thinking and understanding what we're trying to do here and help our members specifically focus on weight loss. And I'm trying to understand sort of where they've come from to understand what they need to do and focus on to move forward. And you say things like, you know, like I'm thinking of someone doing a diet where they got stress happening and then they're, they're starving and depriving themselves. Right. And then they're not paying attention to their sleep or they're avoiding social situations. We just had Thanksgiving

on the weekend. We're talking about you. Let's be able to learn how to navigate that, that stress. You don't want to avoid social situations. And I'm just thinking of like how detrimental when we talk about dieting, how detrimental it is, man, it goes pretty deep. It goes deep. And then you add that stress on top. And it's just, I would imagine your, your body's just constantly reacting to the stress and never has a minute to calm down or recover from the stress. It's really, it's not the stress. It's how we're recovering from the stress is what I'm hearing. Yes. Yes. Put that on a poster right there. It's not about the stress. It's about the recovery. So everyone, everyone thinks it's like I'm overstressed or you can think about the other side of the coin. I'm under recovered. So then I think one of the first takeaways I want to share with everyone is put down on a list all the stressors that you have in your life.

Write them down. Think of it like a journal exercise. But then in the column beside it, I want you to put in all the things that you do to recover on a daily basis, as small as things can be. For example, you know, I try to pray every single day. To me, that's like one of the positive evidence-based ways of helping a person recovery, meditation, deep breathing. It can be five minutes of that. I would put down fueling yourself today in a proper way. One of the things I love about a program like this is that it's not just about take this shake and you're going to lose weight after three months or or yeah or starve yourself but you know we say that

from like a tongue-in-cheek type of perspective but at the end of the day there's no shortcuts to properly getting to good health if you lose weight at five pounds a week or three pounds a week, the research is super clear. You will gain it back. It's too fast in most cases. Now, I'm not saying that's impossible, but I'm saying that there are things that we do that are too stressful. Diets, crash diving, yo-yo diving is a stressor, a huge stressor. And one of the things that was really attracted to your program right from the beginning, when we started working together, when my wife went through the program, is that it wasn't a super restrictive starvation-based program, where it actually ended up fueling yourself properly. That was the first thing that kind

of caught my attention because I've, you know, was in practice for many years before then. And I kind of was like, oh, you know, there's a lot of like gimmicks and junk out there. And I totally just like wrote off every single thing. Watchers, Jenny Craig, herbal, like you go down the list, all of it. I wrote it all off and I kind of was doing my own thing. But then when this kind of came along, I was like, this actually helps nourish your body because the diet that, that people are going through the program that people are going through as part of the Libby Method, was very similar to my adrenal recovery diet that I was giving. Very similar, which is like, don't skip meals. Eat immediately on waking.

Focus on high proteins and good fats. If you eat a diet that's high in refined foods, it's a type of stressor. It's a metabolic stressor. It's going to stressor. It's going to stress your insulin. You're going to be like a little ping pong ball going up and down where now you have like smooth, regular energy without these big dips because you're fueling yourself the right way. So when you were having like, you know, having a snack, if you need to, these are people that are going through adrenal dysfunction, which is, um is kind of a physical manifestation of being in

chronic stress and under recovery for a long time, their blood sugar becomes dysregulated, Gina. Their blood pressure becomes dysregulated. There are systems that we normally are invisibly always in control. Our body's doing this for us. They start decompensating because finally it's having that pressure psychologically. That stress is now decompensating because finally it's having that pressure psychologically that stress is now decompensating our internal homeostatic systems i love that you mentioned all this because it's really important for people to understand they're already doing so much with the basic changes you've made on the living method now i know some people are already freaking out because they've lost more than five pounds in a week with the program. Dr. Paul is talking about those starvation diets

where you lose that huge chunk real fast in the beginning, and then you can't lose any more, no matter how much less you eat, how much more you exercise, and then you gain it all back. Or, which is why it's also totally normal and expected that if you do lose a larger chunk with the Libby method in a shorter period of time, chances are you will have a plateau. It's an equal and opposite reaction. You can lose large amounts of weight, but then you are also probably going to have a longer plateau because you need your body to adjust to the weight that you have lost. This is why how you lose your weight is so important. How you lose your weight is so important. You know, it just occurred to me, we've had this conversation, um, inflammation, uh,

food sensitivities, gut dysbiosis, hormonal health. Those are the four reasons why your weight might be slower to move. But then you, we also have to add stress and sleep on top of that. Really? Yeah. Okay. And we kind of like cover that in the, in the hormonal section. And we identified that even our last conversations were because there's so much to talk about in those first three topics you just mentioned, but the time we get to stress, it's like, Oh shoot, there's 10 minutes left in our conversation. And we always get it like this afterthought. And, and I like that.

We're kind of now doing this. I think this is the second session that we kind of are doing this like two parter where now we're able to have that conversation um you know the information on the supplements is there so if you want to go and look at that there's a lot of great resources you can do but i'd rather people understand the rationale behind some of these things because i believe knowledge is empowering and therefore you would be able to further understand, okay, so why do I have to take an adoption? Well, that makes sense. It's helping my body

deal with some of the metabolic aspects of being resilient. It's helping me be more resilient. And then also sleeping is helping me more resilient. And so I look at all these things as a really profound act of self-care, of self-love, if we want to really look at it. That's really cool because ultimately that's what's going to heal a person in the deepest type of way. And I know it's hard because we think about it, we get home and we're exhausted. We have kids to deal with, stuff to get done. And then all we want to do is we want to check out. We want to watch something on then all we want to do is we want to check out. We want to watch something on Netflix. We want to do something that's just going to kind of not allow us to face

the feelings that were kind of overwhelming all day. And really one of the things that the program is asking people to do is actually be more mindful instead of being less mindful. Doing that checkout feels good in the moment, but then it's actually a step in the less mindful direction. So while it's tough to be like, okay, I'm just going to read something instead of watching something because it's less pleasurable in the moment,

less of a dopamine hit. But now write that down in that secondary column where it's like, this is actually an act of resilience. This is an act of improving my recovery. Healthy sleep habits are a positive thing that are counterbalancing some of the stressors. And eventually, just like when you start being a good habit with your diet or exercise, you'll start feeling the benefits of that. You're going to be like, wow, I've been missing this the whole time. And you also have to get used to not feeding into that dopamine hit and that uncomfortable feeling that is going to make you feel more resilient when you are not feeding into those

dopamine hits as uncomfortable as it is. It will overall lead you to being more calm and needing less dopamine hits as well. Okay. I do want to, you mentioned the secondary supplements. So with the, we, all the information on, I do want to talk about how, if people are having a hard time getting the scale to move and you are not looking into the first set of supplements, that's probably where you're going to start because you can take all the MCT oil and whatever, but if you're not getting enough magnesium, you know, your vitamin D levels are low, that's going to be more problematic. We also have the secondary supplement post going into the group today, also in your app. So if you want to read more on these supplements, all that information is there. Before I get into talking about these supplements, what about hormones? We're going to talk to Dr.

Lincoln next week, hormones involved in weight loss, like We are, we're going to talk to Dr. Lincoln next week, hormones involved in weight loss, like hormones 101. We're going to talk about menopause, perimenopause, you know, we're gonna have that conversation. But what do you think are the hormones that, you know, are messing with people when it comes to weight loss? I know that's a loaded question. Yeah, I mean, we touched on this a little bit, Gina, and I believe the answer I gave is like, you know, the conversation is how many hours do you want? Because like, think about it this way, we just break it down. So there's the insulin and then these kind of like GI hormones, we'll call them, that

are really, really on an hour by hour basis, regulating our metabolism, regulating our blood sugar. So I'm going to mention a couple of them. One of them is insulin. I talked about that last time. So refer back to that conversation. Really important when it comes to regulating our blood sugar. We want to have low levels of insulin and we want to use every possible tool by eating foods that are low in sugar, low in glycemic load to not spike a large amount of insulin big insulin spikes are a problem for

the body they lead to more inflammation gm okay secondly uh we want to also look at a hormone called leptin uh i'm sure i don't know if you how much you cover have having the how many conversations you have around leptin in the group but leptin is that i'm full hormone. And so just like insulin, if you continue to override the full response, i.e. binge eating, overeating, emotional eating, then our bodies and our brain specifically receptors for this hormone leptin become desensitized. So you can actually get leptin intolerance, uh, or, um, go ahead, you know, when I talk about, so we're getting into portions last week, we did downsizing next week. We're going to do it again and keep talking about people are, they're getting used to what you're eating. You get used to the amounts of food that you are consuming. So it's not necessarily

that you need that amount of food is that that is what your body has gotten used to. And this kind of fits in with this conversation. Correct. Yeah. So, um, a really, really important, uh, hormone after insulin is this leptin. So we don't want to have leptin resistance. Uh, one of the ways we overcome that is by increasing fat and protein, which again, you're already doing. So I think that's a big plus for a lot of people, but understand that there are, uh, there's a history of people's habits that have to be overcome. Just like if a person's on the road to diabetes, it takes a while for their metabolism to readjust. So good fats increase your leptin satiety signaling. Okay. Yes. These are the adjustments your body is making. This is when we're building the foundation and giving the body the resources it needs and getting in tune with

that. That's why this shit can take a lot longer than you like, because it takes time to your, for your body to recover and react and adjust to the changes that you're making. Cause like you're, you're, you're not just fighting the physiology. It's not a formula. If I just put the right food in my body, my weight's going to melt off. That's not only that, Gina. It is also this really complex mix of psychology and our stress responses and our neurotransmitters. We touched on dopamine. This is huge here.

A lot of times people are driven by emotions when they eat. I would say it's probably one of the biggest historical factors for being overweight that I see with my patients over and over when I do a review of their past is like, yep, things were great in my twenties. I got into a stressful marriage, got into a divorce, had kids, kids had issues. And all of a sudden i started uh everything went off the rails and we started digging into that you start looking at okay yeah i was i was trying to eat to feel good i was trying to eat to not be sad and that is unfortunately a negative we all know that emotionally and that's not a good thing but that is a pattern that has to be

reprogrammed in a sense we need to use our our neuroplastic changes in our brain in a positive way. So that sometimes takes longer for people, Gina. Yeah. I mean, this is why I suggest that people, because this is what I do with my clients. I've never sat down in front of a client whose weight issue stems from just eating all the wrong foods. I started their whole history. What happened in your life? What was going on there? There's always like these sort of traumatic things that have happened to them that they can tie their weight into it, whether that's physical, mental, whatever it is. This is why I suggest, and I love that we're having this conversation to our members before they even start. And if you haven't done it yet, take time to map out your history. When did your weight issues start? What was going on in your

life? What is your, what is your weight story? What were you doing when you're successful? What happened afterwards? What happened when you were not successful? Like what, how did you get to where you are at now? Not just physically, but also mentally. I love this conversation. Okay. And, and that's exactly what I do with my patients as, as my patients as I walk through each one of those. And back to your point about hormones, almost that each one of these, we'll call them like these obstacles or these kind of little hiccups that people have. It's about how did they manage that? How do they deal with that? And most of the time you can look back, Gina, and people actually didn't deal with stuff. They dealt with it in a kind of unproductive way uh they turned to alcohol

and food to cope with that rather than being like hey i'm going to um i'm gonna go and get some therapy or i'm gonna get some professional help to deal with the emotional reasons i'm doing that or um i got injured and okay so what happened after that well Well, I gained 50 pounds. All right, so you went from being a really athletic, super active person to not? Well, I mean, that's a huge part of the issue. Your genetics, your history is built on, predicated on the fact that you move your body every day. And now you went from that to nothing.

COVID went from, I moved around, went to my office to I sit at home. I go from my room to my office. I can at home. I go from my, from my room to my office. I can't tell you how many people put on weight during, during that, just the lack of movement. So when you identify that, that aha moments start happening and people are like, well, I never really thought about it that way. You know, I was, you know, I need to like do the things that I was doing before. And then your metabolism will respond in a positive way. So this is like, as part of like the bigger looking at obstacles in weight, part of this takeaway, I think maybe takeaway number two is,

look back at your health history, look back at your weight history, and look at what happened when it started coming on. What changed? What did you do differently? I guarantee you there is one or two things in the psychological or physical realm that is going to be an obstacle there. And a lot of times it can be hormonal. And so, you know, after a woman gives birth, for example, it could be after. And So that's a huge stressor. So your adrenal hormones, cortisol is elevated. Are you dealing with that? No, not really, I haven't. So you have unresolved grief that we have to look at, right? So there's hormonal implications, Gina, at each one of these levels.

And then Dr. Olenka is going to talk about menopausal hormones a lot. So I think that's a huge obstacle. So I mentioned insulin, I mentioned leptin. I mean, a whole nother conversation is like the ozempic GLP-1 agonist thing. And those are, that's another hormone. That's like a gut hormone produced, probably not, you know, again, probably not part of this conversation today, because it's just so unique. But I have a lot of things to say about that. Uh, it was going to be my next question. Okay, fine. Let's talk about it. Okay. Um, what do you want to know, Gina?

Well, because you mentioned leptin, right? And then there's ghrelin. Ghrelin is like your hunger hormone. So your leptin is like, you're, you're feeling full and satisfied. Where does the GLP-1 come in? Yeah. So, and is there supplements that we can take? Like, could we see all of these, like, don't take, don't take, you know, Zempik or, you know, some L-Gutide, whatever. Take, take, take this natural supplement. Is there a natural supplement that can help with your GLP-1? Like GLP-1 floods when you, after you eat your food, makes you feel satisfied for a few minutes. When people are shooting these things in, it makes them feel full for like a whole week, obviously. I mean, there's a lot more to it than that, but is there something that we can do

or something we can do to take or support our own GLP-1 production? Yeah, that's a, it's a, it's a great question. I think that's the, that's the billion dollar question that I think a lot of people are trying to solve right now. Can we create that? Let's create that together. Yeah, let's think about this for a second. There are, I'll say this right now, there are natural health product companies that are trying to mimic it, for sure. But let's just look at and take a step back. increases uh ghrelin what increases this glp1 glucuron like peptide uh and it is eating more frequently so every time you eat there is a little bit so already the livi program is starting to like rehab that glp1 pathway in your body number one number two uh when we eat uh, especially that have bitter principles.

So this has been a naturopathic thing for a long time. Bitters are part of like the primary supplements. So I think that this also helps stimulate, again, ghrelin. It'll help stimulate GLP-1 to a degree. Now, not all bitters are the same. So if you just take the Canadian bitters, a lot of people do, you're not going to just, it's not the same as the GLP-1 agonist. That is a for sure thing. I will say that. Most of the time, these bitters will help you digest foods better. They'll help improve the efficiency of your digestive system. They help remove

some of the symptoms that might be related to indigestion, so like gas, bloating. It will help restore your body's own ability to increase stomach acid, increase pancreatic enzyme juices. These are all really, really, really, really important things. There are, on the bitter topic, there are certain compounds that have the ability to increase GLP-1 and companies are trying to do this. For example, there's a hops compound out of Australia that's trying to do this that claim that they increased GLP-1. Probiotics possibly could certain very specific strains are now being looked at. So this is actually one of the big things that I'm working on is I'm really trying to understand this. And I would say it's still in process. I haven't,

I can't say I have like, it's so brand new. There's like lightning fast research being published all the time. So it's hard to stay on top of everything, but there isn't anything natural right now to my knowledge. That's like, yeah, it's the same as taking some of the tide that's that,

that doesn't exist right now. You know, the one thing that I'll just say just to have the other side of the coin because i think i've just kind of put a very positive spin on is like i know there's a lot of people out there that are that are taking ozempic or another type of you know medication that's in that class and i have to say in my clinical practice it it does work um i do notice that people will lose weight and their appetite goes down. There is, I would say, the majority, 75% of people that seem to tolerate it pretty well. But then there's that 25% of people, and I guess I'm just guesstimating that just based on my own practice, that just don't respond well to it.

There's a lot of side effects. It does slow down your digestive system. And so the side effect of that is exactly what you hear nausea and then the worst case scenario is like the gastric paralysis that everyone's heard about as the worst case yeah and people gain it back but what i love that you talked about when you're talking about that doesn't fix the issues that you have with insulin it doesn't fix the issues that you have with leptin it doesn't emotional eating doesn't fix that it doesn't help your it doesn't how you utilize food with coat how you utilize food in terms of coping for things it doesn't address a lot of things which

this is why like i am totally not against people taking ozempic i think it can be a probably a game changer and a lifesaver for people also people talk about it it's that food noise but that food noise is there because you have issues that you have to work through that. That's, that's because your, your association, um, you have issues with food that probably go way back. And the reason why you're having those dialogues is because you have some shit that you got to work through. So none of that is happening while you're just, you know, you're taking any kind of medication to address the issue. But make no mistake, I'm not again, we I know we have people doing the program who are taking Ozempic, I'm all for it. But I love this conversation, because I think it really highlights how beneficial doing the Libby method is, whether you're taking medications, not taking medications, it's just such a complex conversation, You have to address it from a variety of different angles and just by showing up and following the program, again, you are already doing so much. It is a lifetime medication, Gina. If you stop taking the effects, it is a band-aid solution.

Like, as you said, just to make sure people are very clear on that it's not going to solve the underlying issues now it will solve what it what it does is that it helps people lose weight uh it is a positive thing because we know adipose tissue is inflammatory back to our conversation on tuesday oh and so obviously helping to reduce that kind of inflammatory burden for sure uh could it maybe uh be used as kind of like a a crutch in getting people into better habits, possibly. But along Gina, this is my biggest problem with Ozempic is that along with losing weight, it also loses lean muscle mass. And here's the huge, huge, huge long term problem. Because it's a lifestyle medication, studies have been done for currently, you know, like six months a year, but we don't know what it's going to be like if you're on it for 10 years so that that those that that does the data does not exist and so because a lot of people will

lose fat but then also 40 or up to 50 some some doctors claim it's more of the weight that you lose is actually muscle mass. The problem here is now that's your metabolically active tissue, Gina. And so when you exercise, you're trying to increase your muscle mass. The biggest predictor of like long-term health as a person gets into their 60s, 70s and 80s is muscle mass because it prevents things like falling and fractures that come along with that. So it's like kind of like a short term solution, but it could pose a long term problem. So I've talked to a couple PhD students, PhD doctors that are researching muscle metabolism, and they're really concerned about the

long term effects of this. Okay, so we can we can balance that though we i i i don't want to leave people on like this like cliffhanger there are things that we can do to offset that that's a great conversation to have you their naturopathic doctor that you can kind of minimize that to a degree but um you know protein i would say is your best friend when it comes to that physical exercise it should be mandatory if you're on on Ozempic, you have to be resistance training. It is a must. Okay. But let's, let's also, okay. That's again, we can, probably we could talk for hours on Ozempic.

Let's talk about people who have a history of dieting, starving and depriving and the muscle mass that is, has been lost there because there's a big difference between fat loss and weight loss. The muscle mass that has been lost there, because there's a big difference between fat loss and weight loss, the muscle mass that has been lost there, would you add lack of muscle mass to a reason why your weight might be slower to move? And I'm not talking about the exercise and burning off the calories. I'm talking about the starting point and the lack of muscle mass in your body. Totally. I agree. And I think crash dieting, starvation dieting, it's as bad, if not worse, than ozempic in terms of the risk when it comes to this lean muscle mass loss.

It's like your lean muscle mass is your metabolism. We talk about metabolism all the time. And you're basically losing weight so your scale is going down but you're also losing your furnace that's able to burn fat you're that's able to utilize that and the long-term problem of that is is is massive um and we and i think researchers don't fully understand all the other possible effects of that down the line as well uh it kind of when it comes to brain health when it comes to osteoporosis, it's another massive one. So I think that my takeaway here is that if you are on it or considering it, hopefully

this conversation's had some insight for you, but definitely optimizing protein. Gina, do you talk about the amount of protein people should be eating? Do you get that granular in terms of like actually like grams per kilogram body weight? Do we ever get to that? No, we don't. And I'll tell you why, because overeating more protein than you need also isn't beneficial. And so people are prioritizing protein at breakfast and eating it to feel satisfied. Eventually with fruit snack, they can bump up and add protein to that. Protein is prioritized at lunch. You can add protein and fat to your vegetable snack in the afternoon.

Nuts and seeds, protein and protein obviously prioritized at dinner as well. And so if you are making sure, from what I've learned, it's not about how much you're getting in at one specific meal. It's how much you're getting in throughout the day, overall throughout the day, that is more important. And so I don't want to mess people up with like, am I getting enough? Am I not getting enough? As long as they are making it a priority and they're getting it in with their meals and snacks and they're eating those meals and snacks to satisfaction, right? Chances are they're getting more quality protein than they ever have before just by eating more nutrient rich foods. Um, I think that if someone is like into like hardcore working out, they're on a massive

mission to build that muscle mass. They might want to sort of look more into that, but that's more, I mean, we're focused on weight loss at the end of the day and losing weight in a healthy way, not necessarily building up muscle or the amounts of protein that would be good for that. And the reason I bring it up. Yeah. Do you feel like the baseline is important? Yeah. I mean, the reason I bring it up is because we just had this conversation about lean muscle mass and specifically with Zempic so again i i i i like the approach of not getting bogged down by let's weigh our foods and let's like what's your macros like i like that because it is a great introduction

for the majority of people to really eating healthier and so that's what i think the program is all about you are getting a lot more protein if you're making that a priority you are getting more good fats uh but there are some cases where, and this is maybe a perfect opportunity for the people that are like wondering, I am trying to exercise more, or maybe I am on one of these semi-glutide type of medications. Maybe I should have that conversation with my naturopath to figure out, okay, so can I be more specific with the amount of protein? There's also different types of protein that work better.

There's actually different types of amino acids that actually help improve muscle growth more. So I like that maybe that conversation is had on a personal level, and that's why personalized medicine is huge. So I think we're on the same page there. Yeah, I think it's great that you brought that up because for some people that can be an issue. And this is where you might want to make sure you are getting like really make sure above and beyond that you are getting the amount that you need. If you're looking for flexible workouts, Peloton's got you covered. Summer runs or playoff season meditations, whatever your vibe, Peloton has thousands of classes built to push you.

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. You talked about inflammation and I just want to, it occurred to me, we didn't specifically point out that by carrying excess fat in your body, you're dealing with inflammation. Yes. The research is very clear that adipose tissue is an organ of itself. It is an inflammation producing organ. So it's unfortunately like this like negative feedback loop that, you know, you're eating foods that are more highly refined, which are inflammatory and they are turned into adipose tissue and then the adipose tissue creates more inflammation. But then on the flip side, you know, when you reverse that,

it's like a positive snowball where it's like, now I'm eating healthier foods, I'm losing weight, I'm lowering inflammation and this antioxidant, anti-inflammatory molecules of these foods are lowering inflammation. So it's like, if it snowballs, it's snowballing all in the negative direction. If it's positive, it's snowballing all in the positive direction. So, you know, then that, I guess, if I'm reading between the lines here on this question,

and I'm trying to like think about a person listening to this is saying, so what's the lesser of two evils? Do I get on Ozempic and lose that weight as quickly as possible because it's high in inflammation, right? And it's doing that. Or do I just like stay the course? And am I happy with like, you know, half a pound, pound a week, weight loss. So I mean, that's an interesting, I would say, like, conversation that we could have about, you know, what's what's better.

Well, I think for some people who by the time they get around to needing Ozempic, there's some major health issues that are happening, like that there's a reason why they need to get on and lose the weight. Same thing with gastric. There are people who don't actually have the time to put into this kind of losing your weight in a healthy way because they need to lose weight fast because literally their life depends on it. When we talk about inflammation, it occurred to me because some of the other day was like, oh, well, what about if I have arthritis and the inflammation? Is that stopping my body from focusing on fat? I'm like, well, at the end of the day, even with your health issues, your body doesn't

want the fat any more than you do. It's not this thing that makes you super healthy. It's quite the opposite. So if you have health issues that you're dealing with, naturally, the body is not interested in storing excess fat because excess fat itself is causing issues with inflammation. So in a sense, would you say everyone storing excess fat is dealing fat itself is causing issues with inflammation. So in a sense, would you say everyone storing excess fat is dealing with some form of inflammation? Well, I think to answer this lady's question, if you have osteoarthritis, that doesn't mean you have inflammation throughout your whole body. That's very localized and degenerative. So that's

important. And that is not an obstacle to weight loss directly because of inflammation. It is an obstacle to weight loss because osteoarthritis is painful and it really impacts people's quality of life and impacts the person's ability to move and do things that are healthy. OK, so that's important distinction. Things like rheumatoid arthritis, that's now a more systemic type of inflammation. That's an autoimmune inflammation. There's other types of inflammation that's more systemic, they can now have other it's affecting much more your metabolism can be impacted much, they can have mother, larger effects on that. And then, you know, I think majority of people, I've noticed that like, if a person's not in a good, healthy state, they're not eating well, they're not sleeping well. And they're, I've noticed that like, if a person's not in a good, healthy state,

they're not eating well, they're not sleeping well. And they're, I would say, a little bit overweight to obese, their inflammation markers are not sky high, but they're kind of like in that like mild to moderate, like, as a naturopathic doctor, I get kind of concerned and focused on that where their family doctors like, yeah, but I see a lot of people like that. And they're all like you, so don't worry about it. And so I think I get a lot of that kind of like gaslighting happening from like a family doctor on that front. So that type of inflammation, I would consider what we know as maybe metabolic inflammation. So it's like a combination of like what I'm eating, not taking care of myself, I'm overweight. You know, you don't have to be necessarily obese.

I see a lot of people that are, you know, moving down the Ozempic pathway because they just don't want to do the work, Gina, unfortunately. And like things like gastric, that's like a big intervention for a lot of people. And usually people think long and hard about that. Ozempic more and more, people are thinking about, yeah, well, you know what? I tried one Libby program and I didn't lose weight. So Dr. Paul, should I be on Ozepic? I get that question a lot. So I hope this conversation, if people are listening out there,

we want the best for you. And so I think that that's where like, if you haven't done all the things, if you haven't done those 20 things, if you haven't looked at the obstacles that we've shared on Tuesday and today, don't go down the quick fix path yet. That is, I think, kind of like you've done everything else. Well, you can understand, first of all, why doctors might be, I don't want to use the word dismissive, but this is a massive conversation. This is like such a big conversation

to try to explain to anybody. And then if people aren't inclined to, you know, do the kind of work that they need to do in this program, that's a very difficult conversation for doctors to have. And Lord knows they're already stretched thin and don't even have enough time to have those conversations with us. And I think when people are like, they're looking for that quick fix, I think they're looking at their history of dieting and feeling like truly they've done it all. Like that's the thing. A lot of people. And then when they get into the Libby method, that's my hope for people is that is all these awareness conversations. There is so much you can do and it sucks that it can take longer

than you want, but it is so worth doing because you're just going to find yourself back to where you started. Eventually, if you take the, if you take that route, like gastric, I've had so many clients who've done gastric after they've done gastric. And so when I was at the Canadian obesity summit, one thing they know for sure with any medical intervention is they don't have a fix for people gaining it back. They don't have a solution for that. They don't. Nobody is debating that those methods will not help you lose weight. They'll help you lose weight. It's not about that. It's about making the changes that you need to make in order to lose your weight in a way that you can sustain and maintain.

Okay. I love us in this conversation. Let's talk. I want to say so much more. Please. I'm like, I can't go at you. Fine. All right.

Let's talk about collagen right let's let's talk about collagen for a second um because we didn't really touch on that too much in our conversation last time um the benefits of collagen i have my two faves here i do fish i like the uh within us and the deep marine yeah canadian companies you get what you pay for for sure when it comes to collagen um a lot of talk about within us in the deep Marine Canadian companies, you get what you pay for, for sure. When it comes to collagen, um, a lot of talk about this too, in the menopause space as well, uh, collagen is, is becoming really popular. Why would someone take collagen to help them lose weight? Uh, collagen is actually not going to make you lose weight per se. It's going to help, uh, support your body's tissues. So connected issues tissues. So all of our like, skin, you know, things that like wrinkles, for example, our tendons, our subcutaneous tissue relies on this

string of amino acids called collagen. And collagen is made up of a whole bunch of amino acids, and also requires vitamin C to be properly made. And so collagen is going to help you look younger, feel more mobile, have less pain, improve like quality of connected tissues. So think of things like skin health. You know, there's lots of different types of collagen. There's bovine collagen, there's fish based collagen, there's different types of collagen, there's actually four different types of collagen. They all have kind of like a specific propensity to go to different tissues. So you can buy a collagen that is more joint specific. You can buy a collagen that's more bone specific. But most collagen that you're talking about, Gina,

this is collagen that's going to help us with just general connective tissue. So the other thing that it's also rich in amino acid called glycine. Andcine is, you know, we've heard about magnesium glycinate. That's the same thing. Glycine in its own right has a ton of therapeutic effects. It helps with actually sleep and anxiety. So I think it has a very nice complementary effect to magnesium. It's the dose. If you could take glycine by itself, the dose that you get in collagen is a little bit lower, but I still think it's going to have this kind of general calming effect. But it's not going to be as noticeable as L-theanine, which we're going to talk about, and also as magnesium. But overall, I think it's a good supportive nutrient. Let's talk about L-theanine.

It's one of my faves, but I am out of it. I keep it at my bed and I just practically down the bottle all day, every day. I just ordered some more right before this segment. I'm like, oh, shit, I'm out of it. I keep it at my bed and I just, I'm just practically down the bottle all day, every day. I just ordered, I just ordered some more right before this segment. I'm like, Oh shit, I'm out. Let's talk about L-theanine.

Yeah. L-theanine. Also an amino acid. Like if there's like an L in front of it, like L-glycine, for example, or L-theanine, it's an amino acid.

This amino acid is not an essential amino acid. Like glycine, it's not going to be found in like your steak or protein but it is found in plants specifically green tea or any tea highest in green tea and it's naturally occurring and what's really unique about this amino acid Gina is that it has this really nice general non-addictive non-sedating calming effect so it does it by working on a number of neurotransmitters one of the main ones is called the GABA G-A-B-A GABA pathway and that's like kind of like the break in the brain so if you feel like your brain is going a million miles a minute like you're just slamming

on the gas all the time yeah put your hand up I definitely get periods of time in my day like that theanine is like the counterbalance of that. GABA is the break that counterbalances the gas. Uh, and most of our lifestyles are kind of like, go, go, go. We all say it. We say the words. It's like, I'm just like burning the candle at both ends or I'm go, go, go. It's like always, uh, or my, I have a hamster wheel in my brain when I wake up at three o'clock in the morning. Uh, we don't have enough GABA. And, and I think there's a lot of things that are kind of conspiring and to override that break. And one of them that we can help supplement with is L-theanine,

because that is a very immediate effect. And finally, my favorite part about L-theanine is that it's super safe. It's been studied in kids with ADHD. It's been studied with all ages. It really is well tolerated with medications. Obviously, talk to your naturopathic doctor about if it's right for you, because there always is exceptions to that. But in general, it's very safe and well tolerated and non-addictive. Yeah. With anything that we mentioned, pass it by your healthcare provider. I'm smiling because lately I'm like, my face hurts. By the end of the day, I am so, my mind is racing. Today I woke up, my brain was going a mile a minute.

And then I know I've had conversations with you in the past, specifically about L-theanine. How do you know it's working for you? And then you've mentioned, well, when you stop taking it, you'll realize how much it was factoring in. So this is like, I'm like, okay. Oh, that's what's going on with me. There you go, yeah. So should we go? So that'll help with stress.

It will help with stress for sure. And it's more like an immediate stress. Another reason I think why you like it and why I really love it, it's one of the most common things I use with my patients is because we want to start to break the cycle of stress. And immediately when people come in and you're like, I just feel like I'm just on that rat race, on that hamster wheel. How do we kind of get our brain out of that spiral? And L-theanine can be used to kind of cut in to do that. Maybe complement that with magnesium.

I think that would be a great combination. And it works very quickly. What's problematic about other supplements? It's like it's hard to know if it works long-term. Like if somebody takes B vitamins, unless you're really deficient, a lot of people are like, I don't really notice a difference, but that's, it doesn't mean that's not doing anything. It's just kind of complimenting your neurotransmitter production, your metabolism, your detox pathways. These are all amazing things, but with L-theanine, Gina, you know,

right away, if you, if it works and you take the right dose you can't just take one oh that's my little tip uh you want to take a little bit more than that don't take the bottle obviously follow the label I don't have any left yeah I'm sure I as soon as I said I'm like oh no people are gonna like take that out of context obviously talk to your doctor about the dosage and follow the label. Yeah. Okay. We have to say it out loud though. We do like adaptogens, ashwagandha. There's like, you know, there's complexes of the maids. Yeah. I got a couple here in my desk that I have all the time. So like I have rhodiola, which is right here, and I have something called coriolis, which is a mushroom extract.

And I know that you list a whole bunch of them in the document, the information that's being released now. Adaptogens is not, there's not a specific supplement. It is a class of supplements. It's a class of actually herbs. Majority of them are herbs. And what's amazing about these herbs is that they've been used for thousands of years, Gina. So we know that they work. Now the research is actually catching up to all the old school naturopathic traditional Chinese medicine doctors that have been using it for hundreds and thousands of years to help people heal from illness, to help people get back from stress, to help people deal with the effects of

chronic stress. So, I mean, we're not going to go into each one of them. You know, for example, like rhodiola is a herb that's found primarily in Asia, and it has the ability to improve mental focus. It's been studied with like aircraft controllers, people, pilots, military personnel that have had to like sustain focus for a long period of time. Each adaptogen has its body of research and it's kind of more specific effect. So I'm in the process of creating a little bit more information about this for people as part of the program. And I'm going to give people a little bit more information about each one of these adaptogens so people know what to look program. And I'm going to give people a little bit more information about each one of

these adoptions. So people know what to look for, but generally speaking, most people will find products available in like a combination where it has, you know, rodeo and ashwagandha and Luther caucus and all these herbs all mixed in together. And the idea is that let's just have kind of more general stress coping effect. Yeah. Like the adrenal smart, adrenal smart.

For example, yeah. Talk to your, you know, talk to your pharmacist, talk to your, go to your health food store, talk to someone knowledgeable, talk to your healthcare provider. I'm smiling because it just occurred to me, there was this whole pseudoscience craziness era. I'm so happy that the research is finally being done. And, you know, a lot of people

are just eating their words out there who thought, you know, insulin and all the conversations, pseudoscience, you know, yes, I do understand that people like threw out words like adrenal fatigue, which wasn't a thing, but it was a word that kind of just encapsulated the conversation. I agree. I agree. And there's like five years ago, there was a whole bunch kind of just encapsulated the conversation. I agree. I agree. And there's like five years ago, there was a whole bunch of pseudoscience talk and there is so much truth. And now research and science behind supplements. Now I'm just like, I'm just so happy that's calmed down because it was just fucking craziness.

There's still always will be skeptics. And I'm sure there are people listening to this conversation right now, Gina, they're like, yeah, well, this is not real science. This is kind of like, you know, and real science is defined. If like my family doctor said this real, then it's got to be real. Let's put this into perspective. I love family doctors. I have an amazing family doctor. I work, I work in the same practice as medical doctors. I believe in integrative medicine. There's, but I also know you got to know your, you know, know your game staying type of thing, you know, like medical doctors are not taught about nutrition. So if you bring up the Libby program, they're going to say, okay, you know, or they'll say,

oh, that's nonsense. Or they'll say they just have no idea. And the same thing applies to supplements, Gina. So if they actually take the time to look at the evidence that has been published, it's no longer the case, as you said, that there's nothing there. There has been lots of research. It's just that they've never looked at it. And oftentimes, the kind of arrogant default response is because I didn't look at it and I don't know about it means it doesn't exist. That's changing because they are eating their words. And I think in a lot of ways, COVID sped some of this stuff up because there was a lot of interest in these types of herbs and nutrients because people were looking for solutions because there was no solution

for any of these immune things. Oh, by the way, these adaptogens are great at doing immune support these for example coriolis has been used in japan as an immune supportive medication and supplement for decades well now it's finally getting out now here in north america so yes very evidence-based and it's no longer quack science at all research and evidence-based Creatine is one of the most researched supplements. Everyone talking about creatine. It's actually not in my notes because... It's new. New.

It's new, yeah. And you know what? We adapt, Gina. Like the adaptogens, we adapt and we look at what's there and we throw out raspberry ketones and we include things like creatine. Yeah, so creatine has been around for a long time, really helps people that especially that are doing resistance training. It helps them. There's some evidence to show, especially over the age of 50, it will help people lose body fat and actually lose weight when it's combined with resistance exercise.

What creatine does is that it's a fuel source, Gina, that our muscles use when they're doing fast, really fast and no oxygen exercise. So think of like I'm doing squats or I'm doing like a HIIT class. That's where creatine is used as energy. You and I are sitting here, we're just using oxygen. But as you start getting out of breath and you really like sprint up the stairs, you can't use oxygen anymore. So you have to switch to these other kind of faster energy sources. And creatine levels, as you get older, those levels fall. If you've ever done veganism or did like one of these vegetarian stints, majorly deficient in that population, really need extra levels of creatine. Creatine in my world, I do a lot, as you know, when people

with brain injuries and concussions, it's one of my go-to supplements for acute after an injury, because it helps people's neurons actually be fueled after they're hurt. And so there's lots of evidence in various different categories. And I think really right now, social media is blowing up creatine because there's some influencers that have kind of gone on record saying creatine should be a much more widely used supplement when before it was just reserved for the gym rats and the people that were really just focused on resistance. So I think it applies now to more people than it did before. It doesn't damage people's kidneys. Like people thought that that's all like been, been totally debunked. So I think it's one of those things that I just told the person this week, I said,

listen, you can try it. Cause they asked me about creatine. Try it. See how you feel in terms of your energy levels because it can improve your brain energy levels after about a month or so or two months after trying it. Very safe. It's not going to harm you. And just we'll report back and reevaluate. And some people will notice that, you know what, I do feel like my energy levels are better. So I'm generally a fan, but it's not like a weight loss panacea where it's going to like, you know, make the weight melt off. It helps you do your exercise better. None of these are, none of these are, but in combination with all the work that you're putting into can level up again. That's like, if you are not losing weight, nothing is happening.

You haven't looked at that first set of supplements. That's where I would start there. Then I would go back and listen to the conversation we had on Tuesday and then I would revisit this one. We have put in interactions. There are some people who do have to be mindful about adding these types of things in. So I do want to say that we don't have all, we would need hours to really talk about every single detail. These again, just a highlighting of something we talk about, you're like, Hmm, but this is all in the supplement notes as well. And we've added in any notable interactions, but again, talk to your healthcare provider. Okay. I've got turmeric. I've got a CoQ10 and MCT oil left. Okay. So turmeric is an easy one because again, one of the most studied natural products in the world, even now, like family doctors and neurologists are talking about turmeric in terms of its anti-inflammatory effect.

It's been used in culinary worlds in Eastern Asia and India for many, many thousands of years. And it does have a potent anti-inflammatory effect, especially when it comes to like things like joint pain. Now it's not going to help necessarily with migraines. It doesn't work with all types of pain, as I might've mentioned last time, but I think it's a great herb to help lower inflammation, but it's not just about joint pain, Gina. Inflammation is also your blood vessels. There's a ton of research on turmeric for heart health, for example, because we know that inflammation influences many things. In my world, again, brain health. Turmeric is one of my go-tos because it has anti-inflammatory effects to

protect our nerves, to protect our brain from going down the degenerative dementia pathways. There's research groups around the world. One that comes to mind is out of UCLA that they're trying to find a way to get turmeric into the brain by combining it with a fat. So there's researchers and high-level research being done about turmeric, really because it's one of the most promising

natural health products available. And it does just so many different things. It's affordable. It is affordable, for sure. There's also, I'll make a note, people ask me this all the time. You know, there's, there's a turmeric, which is generally the spice in a more and they what's they call, they standardize it. And so that is kind of like, it's set to a certain level of active ingredient. But then now in the last 10 years, there's been even more active

or more what's called bioavailable types of turmeric. So that's where you can see like some of them are $30 and then some of them are $80. And you're like, how's there a huge difference? And a lot of that has to do with that, the latest kind of like technology in the nutraceutical world is combine that turmeric with a fat to help it get into the muscle or get into the brain better or at least that's the claim so that's maybe why

people are noticing a huge difference between what they can see on the shelves you know people can listen to this conversation read the notes go order something i just ordered some alfina off amazon you can do that but if you're you're dealing with some chronic issues here this is where you know a trip to your naturopathic doctor can be worth the investment really if you find a good one worth the investment um we'll understand even if you if finances are an issue that will work with you on that and you know do what's necessary to help you get to the bottom of what you're dealing with some people do need that sort of you know prescribed for lack of a better word supplement um you get what you pay for well they also you know, prescribed for lack of a better word, supplement, you get what you

pay for. Well, they also, you know, might be looking at this list and being like, I can't take, you know, 15 different things. And, you know, they all seem really good. What working with a naturopath is very helpful as being okay, so what are the five things or the three things that I can afford? Which ones are the most bang for my buck. And sometimes it's just really hard to tell what, which one those are just from listening to us or reading over the notes. So it's like, okay, so that's where, you know, I look at a case and say, okay, let's personalize this to you and be like, okay, so I think you really are dealing with stress. We're going to do the adaptions. We're going to do the new magnesium. Those are your three right there. Uh, let's say for example, so that's where I think in the long run, instead of being like, I'm going to buy all these things,

uh, it is, it is expensive. It can add up. Maybe it's better to take two or three, but take the two or three right ones at the right dose. I think you're going to notice much more benefits out of that. If you feel like there needs to be a course on this you know it's like there needs to be i'm thinking of that doctors go they learn all this stuff well why can't we learn it why can't we take a course on figuring out what's going to be beneficial um no doubt dr paul may or may not be working on something like that okay i have exhausted your time today i have uh coq10 and you have a couple more minutes, Gina, so I can finish up. Yeah. I have a couple more minutes right now. So if you have a moment, I can finish it. CoQ10 and MCT oil, go.

Yeah. So let's go with CoQ10 since we're on the topic of inflammation. CoQ10 is something that our cells specifically use to help produce energy. So there's these little power plants in our cells called mitochondria, and they help produce the thing called ATP. This is the energy currency in our cells. If you don't have ATP, you do not live. And so CoQ10 is very helpful at helping this process. Now there's many other things, magnesium, B vitamins, obviously fuels like, you know, glucose, certain types of fats can be oxidized here. And so if you're deficient in CoQ10, which a lot of people can become deficient, especially if they're taking the most common and most commonly prescribed class of medications called statin medications, these cholesterol lowering drugs, profoundly lower CoQ10. Some people get the worst

case scenario, Gina, where they actually start these medications, and they get these like, really, really painful muscles and joints. That's because they're literally depleting their muscles of CoQ10. That's the that's kind of the nth degree. But you can, you can still get depletion if you're on these medications, but you just maybe don't notice it in such an acute way, but a person's energy may go down over a while. So CoQ10 specifically really helps with that energy side of things. It's also prescribed often by neurologists for migraines. So think of it for people that have headaches and migraines and think of it

for energy. That is, I think, very complimentary to to helping a person lose weight. Is it applicable to absolutely everybody? Maybe not. But definitely, if you're looking to improve your energy, your heart health, and to reduce migraines. Okay. Finally, MCT oil.

MCT oil, kind of like collagen, in my opinion, is like a functional food. So there's foods. Then there's supplements over here. And in the the middle there's called these things functional foods other things that might fall in that category would be like collagen uh mct oil protein powders greens powders like for example athletic greens would be another example so these are things that kind of like straddle that line mct oil medium chain triglycerides are unique they help the body produce something called ketones when you go when you eat lots of fats and you fast for example or you fast overnight your body goes into what's called ketosis and your body produces these

ketones to fuel itself well mct oil is a way that we can kind of help support that process without actually doing the ketogenic diet, which is bad for a whole bunch of reasons. For most people, not for everyone, can be helpful for some people, but for most people, it's not good. And it helps improve also your energy production in your brain. So some people will take it and be like, I'm just more clear thinking, I'm more focused. So again, that can have a lot of benefits on weight. Just taking MCD oil, there is some studies on weight that kind of like are equivocal, meaning that they have some benefit, but really mild and some studies show there's no benefit. So I think it's worth taking, definitely from like a functional food. So I always tell my patients, Gina, I want to improve

their good fat. So we think about nuts and seeds, we think about avocado, we think about some of the good fats that we that we talk about, you know, we can talk about grass fed butter, olive oil, but MCT oil, I think is can be put in that category. If complimented, I think absolutely can be helpful. A lot of people, this is a little clinical pearl here. A lot of people will tell me also that since they start taking the MCT oil along with that calm mag, their stools all of a sudden become regular. So if you're constipated, taking that extra little bit of oil can be very helpful. That kind of like elixir of like mag calm at night with MCT and coffee in the morning.

All of a sudden it's like go from constipation to moving your stools much better. So oils do have that kind of added benefit. Okay. Lastly, billion dollar question, trillion dollar question. I'm trying to lose weight. What are their top three supplements I should take? Okay. Well, first of all, you know, as we're taking a look now that we've, we've looked at all the supplements, we have the primary and we have the secondary supplements, the primary supplements, Gina, if you really look at them, they are the core things your body needs more of. If it's trying to do something good. It's the thing that your physiology, B vitamins, vitamin D, magnesium, these are what I would call orthomolecules or cofactors. Your body needs them all the time. It's almost hard to have a conversation around

which is better because you need the foundations. And then now in the secondary supplements, now, you know, we don't have a turmeric deficiency. We have a vitamin D deficiency, but we can use turmeric. We can use adaptions. We can use theanine to now have more of a impact and be more specific. So what I really want to leave people with is think of primary as like, these are the building blocks my body needs. Think of second areas. These are now actually going to help move the need along my specific area of need. Okay, so if I'm going to look at what's your top three, this is, I am kind of skirting the answer, but if your main issue is stress, then maybe look at list number one and look at list number two and be like, okay, so I need to make sure I have magnesium and D vitamins.

They help with my stress response. And then Dr. Paul and Gina just talked about adaptors and theni. Maybe those are your four top things that you take for stress. Or you know what? I have a lot of cardiovascular issues, and that's like a big family history for me, and I'm on a number of cardio medications. Okay, so magnesium is really important for cardiovascular health. CoQ10 is really important for cardiovascular health.

And I only have money for two or three of them. So I'm just going to focus in on those. And plus, I'm going to take my vitamin D. So that might be that person's. Or you're like, I'm ready to do all the things that Gina and Paul talk about. I'm going to take all of them and power to you if that's the case. There's a lot of information to go through it. And I can tell you, I have people opening up a little duffel bag when they get in my office and they line up all the things. And there are people that hang on every word that you say. And, and we'll say, they'll try to put all that in place. So for those people, you know, it makes sense if you're all in on the program, you're all in all the nutrients as

well. And then maybe in like session two, three, four, this is maybe where you start working with the naturopath. And you still be like, you know what, maybe I need to do an audit. So let's look at all the stuff I'm taking, like, what do I really need? What do I need to dial in on? What could I be missing? What testing should I do to make sure I need some of this stuff? That's, I think, the next level question that people should be asking. Yeah, yeah, more, more personalized. Not everybody needs all the things. Some people don't need any of the things. This is about figuring out what you need. My gosh. Thank you for your time today. Thank you for this. I mean, just wonderful conversation. I just enjoyed every second. recall like I think we like hit on some like maybe a bit more like touchier subjects which I think people are thinking about they're ready for it I I think so I think we've been kind of skirting around some of the stuff and we really dove in on that the stress conversation the ozempic

conversation we looked at hormones in a more kind of like complete way today I think this was fun this was good this was fun yeah and I hope people have fun with it. This is exciting. This is giving you insights. This is helping giving you knowledge. This is helping to empower you to just even at the most basic level, understand why you're doing some of the things that we are suggesting with the Livvy Method and starting to see how it really all works together, which is something that's difficult if you're a first-time member. It's really when you get to the end of the program,

you're able to look back and see it all in its entirety and how it works together where you're like, wow, you know, I did that. And you can really understand the depth to the program, the process, the conversations that we're having, and really at the end of the day, how hard you are working just by showing up and doing the things that you need to do. Absolutely. What should we leave everybody with? What should we leave everyone with? You tell me. Okay. First of all, I think this is like, like you just said, amazing conversation. I would go back and re-listen to this one. I think if people miss something here, I really hope if you're listening to this and you're like, you know what, I'm not losing the weight. Cause ultimately we started this conversation back full circle, like, you know, four reasons, five reasons, maybe there's eight reasons now. I don't know why we can't lose weight. There's many. It's not, it's not just,

it's not just those four things, but there are four big ones that are definitely in the metabolic realm. Yeah. Um, if we just look at every, every sort of, um, metric, um metric when it comes to health and we only focus in on weight, I think sometimes people can get really short-sighted about that. But I really, and I know that's important. I know that's why you're in this program for a lot of people. It's huge. We're not discounting that. However, in my experience, going, working with hundreds of people that have gone through the program and doing this here for the last five years, weight is a symptom of a person's metabolism and their overall health. talked about as metrics of you heading in the right direction, that's going to give you motivation and perspective to continue doing all the things and continuing on this journey. Even if you feel like you're not seeing the movement as much as you want, try to reevaluate and be like, what else

am I doing that's really helping me be healthy? Because all those things are not useless. Those are huge, important things too. And sometimes we, you don't know exactly what the reason why the scale is not moving and maybe it's just not the right time. And so there's this like idea of like, I want the results now because I'm doing this program. I've paid the 75 bucks or whatever it is to do it. And I'm not seeing the results. You are seeing the results. I think if you look at it from a bigger perspective, and I think that there needs to be a degree of patience to relearn, to unlearn, and to really build in a lot of these health changes that you're doing. And that is a body mind process, Gina. So I hope that that is kind of one of the things I

share with my patients. And I want to share with everybody today is that really look at your whole health as a journey route and weight is like a big symptom we're trying to address, but I'd rather not just focus on weight. Cause if you were just to lose weight, guys, you know, you can crash diet and lose weight real fast. And then you'll be in the same thing at the beginning. So why not? Let's do it right. Well, we're week five of the program.

I think at this point, we usually lose people who are here just focused on that. And again, like Dr. Paul said, it's our focus, helping you. We want you to lose your weight so badly. We want you to be done with it like yesterday, but we also really want you to understand what it truly takes. I think that's the theme of this week. I started a live the other day, I think after my conversation with you on Tuesday about what it's really going to take to really lose your weight finally and forever. It's probably going to be a lot more work than you thought or wanted to do,

but it is going to be so worth doing because everything that you were doing to lose weight is also helping you level up your health and wellness is truly going to have you living your best life. Yes. Yes. I agree. Totally. Dr. Paul, I adore you. I am so grateful for you. I'm appreciative for you. Also everyone who's still listening and joining us live for this conversation. Like he said, this is one to go back and listen to again. Thanks, everyone who joined us today. Thank you again, Dr. Paul. Dr. Paul is going to be back with us later on in the program. So we'll hear more from him. If you want to reach out to him, you can follow him

on Instagram, keep up with what he's doing, some secret projects, wink, wink, that he's working on, Dr. Paul Herkel, and the website is paulherkelnd.com. Thanks, everyone. Thanks, everyone. Have a great day. We'll see you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.