The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Dr. Colleen Cutcliffe On How To Naturally Boost GLP-1, Stop Cravings, Fix Bloating, & The Truth About Gut Health

Episode Date: May 15, 2026

#971: Join us as we sit down with Dr. Colleen Cutcliffe – a leading gut microbiome scientist with over 25 years of experience across academia, biotechnology, and pharmaceuticals. As Co-Founder and CEO of Pendulum, she is a trusted voice in gut microbiome science known for translating complex research into clear, actionable insights. In this episode, Dr. Colleen breaks down the latest science behind gut health and its impact on the body – from bloating and metabolic dysfunction to neurological conditions. She also unpacks the risks of counterfeit supplements, what to look for in high-quality products, and how the gut microbiome influences the body's natural GLP-1 production to regulate metabolism, reduce cravings, and support overall health.   To Watch the Show click HERE   For Detailed Show Notes visit TheBossticks.com   To connect with Pendulum click HERE   To connect with Dr. Colleen Cutcliffe click HERE   To connect with Lauryn Bosstick click HERE   To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE   Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE   Head to our ShopMy page HERE and LTK page HERE to find all of the products mentioned in each episode.   Get your burning questions featured on the show! Leave the Him & Her Show a voicemail at [phone].   This episode is sponsored by Pendulum Visit http://pendulumlife.com/skinny and use code SKINNY for 20% off your first purchase.    This episode is sponsored by ISWMP Visit http://istandwithmypack.org to support I Stand With My Pack's (ISWMP) mission by donating or adopting. Every contribution helps!   This episode is sponsored by The Skinny Confidential Upgrade your daily routine with clean beauty and wellness essentials that actually work. Shop now at https://shopskinnyconfidential.com.    This episode is sponsored by Kindred Bravely Go to http://kindredbravely.com/SKINNY for 20% off your first order. Exclusion apply.    This episode is sponsored by HERS Visit http://forhers.com/skinny to get personalized, affordable care that gets you.   This episode is sponsored by PVOLVE Head to http://pvolve.com/skinny and use code SKINNY for 15% off sitewide, or on class packs at a Pvolve studio near you.   This episode is sponsored by Woo More Play To learn more about Woo More Play visit https://woomoreplay.com/discount/skinny and use code SKINNY for 20% off.  Produced by Dear Media

Welcome to the Bostics, starring Lauren Bostic and Michael Bostick. Together, they are the Bostics. We've got a scientist and a gut microbiome expert on the show today. Please welcome Dr. Colleen Cutcliffe. She has 25 years of experience advancing biology and human health. She's a badass. Wow. On this episode, I learned so much about the gut. I was blown away. She breaks it down in a really clear, credible way, and it's a way that really makes sense. We also talk about some really interesting topics like what stimulates the body's natural gLP1 hormone. And we even talk about improving the metabolism and reducing food cravings. I found this episode fascinating.

I know you will too. With that, let's welcome Dr. Colleen Cutcliffe to the show. We prep for all these things. And a lot of the feedback from the team is like, people are just terrified. They don't know what to do. There's so many illnesses. There's so many new cancers. There's so many things happening as it relates to gut.

And people, I mean, you know this. There's a lot of information out of there and people don't know where to turn. They don't know what to do. They don't know what's real. What's not? So I guess to start, how did you get involved in this space to begin with and how did you get interested in the gut? So I totally agree.

It is a really noisy space. Everyone knows, oh, gut health is really important for me. But now what? What do I do? What's actionable from this? and what is going to help me personally and what's going to help, you know, that person may not be the same thing. And so for me, I actually didn't really know anything about supplements or probiotics and things like that. I did all of my research. I have a PhD in biochemistry from Johns Hopkins.

I did a pretty traditional postdoc at Northwestern. Then I worked as a scientist and a pharma company. We were developing drugs for Parkinson's disease. Then I worked in a DNA sequencing company doing biology. And so I've had a really hardcore basic science background. And when I learned about the microbiome, I was like, wow, this is an entirely new part of our body that we didn't really understand before. So I came at it from purely a science and almost pharmaceutical kind of an angle and then realized there's a lot of natural things that are happening here and natural ways that we can fix our bodies. And so we ended up putting our products out as probiotics as opposed to drugs.

But I came to it purely from like a science and clinical and data standpoint. Someone who doesn't have your credentials or your experience, we hear a lot of times like gut information is emerging. Like we're learning more about the gut as and from a medical perspective. We're learning how many things like how new is this study around the gut and the things that we're learning from someone with your background? Well, in the grand scheme of science and our knowledge about the body, it's pretty new. So we only started really understanding the gut in like the early 2000. So this is like a 25 year old science. Things like probiotics and yogurts have been on the shelves for a long, long time, but those aren't really grounded in what we're calling, you know, gut science or microbiome science.

They're really things that people could culture. There's a lot of things that we've done historically in our culture like, you know, ferment foods and things like that without really it being grounded in science. And so the science of gut microbiome is like 25 years old. Why is everyone so bloated? Oh my gosh. great question. I think that there are a few different reasons one might be bloated. Some of it can be hormonally driven. But a lot of what happens when we eat certain foods is that it creates gas in our stomach that isn't really able to get metabolize and escape the body. And so it's just sort of sitting there

and all of a sudden you've got like an expanded or extended belly. And so one of the things that can really help with bloating is to give your body back certain probiotics or certain microbes that are missing because there's this whole set. Think about your microbiome, like this big manufacturing floor. And you have all these different departments that each have a different job. And there is a department that is responsible for metabolizing all of these gases and helping to get them out of the body. And so if you're low or missing those, you don't have a way to get those gases out.

That's one of the big opportunities for reducing bloating. So does it just sit in your body as gas or does it form as something else? It's like sitting in your body as gas and it doesn't have a way to like, exit. It's kind of gross. It's kind of grits. What are the signs that you see as a scientist when someone has something wrong with their gut? And I would love for you to get granular. Like, is it a certain rash? Is it, is it something with their nails? What are the signs where you're like, oh my God, there's something wrong with the gut? Traditionally, you know there's something wrong with your gut if you've got GI issues. So you have diarrhea or constipation. Some people kind of battle both

of them at different times bloating. But now we know there's other things that could be an that there's something wrong with your gut. So it's not just diarrhea and constipation and bloating. It's also if your metabolism is slowing down, if you have food cravings, like, oh my God, I want to eat so much chocolate or this whole bag of potato chips, and I know it's not good for me. So if your metabolism is slowing down, food cravings, skin issues, even acne and rosacea and atopic dermatitis are all being linked to the gut microbiome, allergies, asthma. And even now people are looking at Parkinson's disease and autism as places where we're, nutrition's out of his brain issues, but they're tied to the gut.

I think the reason that people find this so overwhelming is like you just listed a ton of symptoms that, you know, like it'd be rare to find somebody that has none of those symptoms, right? Especially this day and age. And I think this is where the overwhelm comes in. It's like, okay, I've got this. I've got the gut issues. I've got all these symptoms. What do I do?

Who do I turn to? How do I fix it? And people are just being crippled with information online and everywhere else. So I guess with all that, where do you even begin to start? Yeah, well, I think the thing to realize about the gut is that the reason it's tied to all these different things is because we traditionally think of as our body as having 11 different systems. And the gut is tied to all 11 of those. And that's why it's tied to our immunology, our inflammatory response, our metabolism. And so it's at the core of all that.

And so I think about, I don't know if you guys remember when at some point in fitness and exercise, people realize like, oh, my gosh, if you had a strong core, you could like run a marathon. You could swim forever. You could lift weights. But if you really needed a strong core, and if you didn't have a strong core, all those exercises were actually harder for you. Well, the gut microbiome, literally the core of your body is the same thing. So if it's deficient, you have all these kind of problems across the board. And so when you think about, okay, how do I tackle this problem?

One of the biggest challenges people have is that traditional medicine and doctors and all that training that people get in medical school doesn't really cover this. Like the microbiome is new enough. There's no chapter called microbiome and how to handle gut. health. And so I always recommend for people, if you want to get someone who is a professional health care practitioner who can really help you, you've got to start looking towards, if you have an internal medicine doc that really understands integrative and functional medicine, get yourself a registered dietitian, get yourself a nutritionist. Chiropractors actually know a lot

about this stuff too. And so you have to step outside the traditional realms and start looking for doctors that really have this new knowledge about thinking about the body in a more whole way and not thinking about just drugs as the answer to everything that's wrong with us. That's really interesting that you say that because Michael and I were getting cranial sacral work done. And she told us both that our Atlas was out. And we both were like, oh, you mean like chiropractor? We need to go see a chiropractor. She said, no, there's a doctor who adjust only the Atlas.

And his theory is that with a chiropractor, you keep coming back and back and back. And when you actually fix the alignment, then your Atlas is even. And you don't need to keep coming back. So what he does is he takes you in. He x-rays you. For me, I was to my right side. I had 20 pounds extra weight in my right foot. And he did a couple of adjustments.

Well, not like you weren't actually physically heavier on your right side, but you were putting 20 pounds more pressure. Yeah. So he does a couple of little touches to your neck and moves some certain things around. It doesn't hurt. And then you take another x-ray and you're perfectly aligned and you weigh yourself and it's even. and I could not believe how much better I felt. And that is something that I think is,

it's not something that a doctor would prescribe you, but it made such a difference. By the way, Dr. Gates is his name in Austin, and it's called Atlas. But the point is, like, you're right. We do need to look for other things outside just drugs. We also have our friend, Dr. Daryl Joffrey's functional medicine doctor, and when he always starts with the gut.

That's like the place with you, if you're inflamed, if you have symptoms, you have headaches, like he always begins there. You do a gut test. And then he works with you to get the gut in order before he can treat you for the rest of the things. Yeah, and I think that's pretty common approach for these people who are thinking about, you know, your body and all the different parts. But I was going to ask you, you know, when you got that, when you, after you finished with the Atlas physician and you got fixed, did you, did you feel benefits in kind of unexpected ways like better energy, better sustained energy? Like what did you get?

Immediately I felt like the fog was washed off the windshield. Like if there was a bunch of fog on the windshield wipers, it felt washed off. I had immediate more energy. I felt my posture immediately changed could breathe deeper. I noticed for me like I had pressure almost in my right leg from all that weight. and it was relieved immediately. And he said that what happens is you almost get like that dopamine from being in alignment. Who knows how long I've been.

He said it could have happened at birth. So to be put back in the right alignment and it's not chiropractic, there's no cracking, was crazy. And a normal doctor wouldn't tell you to go get your Atlas fixed. So I thought that was interesting. Yeah, definitely. And I think similar things happen when people get their microbiome or their gut fixed too where they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't really.

that I was actually tired all the time, or I didn't realize that I had this brain fog, and all of a sudden, it's like all this stuff has lifted, and you're feeling better overall. And I think one of the reasons why these doctors start with the gut is because there are so many reasons why our guts are depleted. So if you've ever been on an antibiotic, your gut got depleted. If you have ever changed your diet, you've gone from being, you know, an omnivore to a vegetarian or anything like that that changes your gut. If you, as we age, our microbiome becomes depleted. When we go through periods of intense stress, our microbiome becomes depleted. When our circadian rhythm is different. So every time, think about the last time you traveled and day became night and night became day, you, your microbiome

become depleted. I've never heard that before. It was interesting. And hormonal shifts, like when women go through menopause, our microbiome becomes depleted. And so there's all these things kind of that are just, some of them are under your control, most of them are not, that cause you become depleted. And so by the time, you know, you're 25, probably you've experienced all of those things and you are now missing things that you used to have when you were 15. And so I think that's why usually people start with the gut as a source of some of these problems. How do we get superior microbiome? What are the steps? Well, I think the first thing is to try to understand, you know, really, I think, bring awareness to what are the things about my body that have changed? Because

you want to be able to track whether those things are improving as you're improving the microbiome. And so if it's your, oh, I don't poop as regularly as I used to, that's one of the most common things. Fatigue, you know, energy is a big one. You know, metabolism and food cravings is another really big one. So if people can bring awareness to, okay, what are the things that I remember, everyone can remember a time where you could eat or drink whatever you wanted to and it did not matter at all? And so if you think back to that time, how did that feel versus how do you feel now? And then you can start tackling it because if you don't know if you're going to, better or worse, you don't really know if the things you're doing are helping or not.

So I always say like start with what you think could be better and then as you start to make improvements to your gut, you'll know if those are working and whether you're getting better or not. And one of the keys to a healthy gut microbiome is diversity. And so the more diverse your foods are, so things like when you think about the produce section of your grocery stores, you want to be eating like all those fruits and veggies, those are really high in fibers and polyphenols, the spice section, you want lots of different spices are really great for your microbiome, teas. So all of these things that can help increase the diversity of your microbiome are all things that are helpful. Because when we talk about, okay, as you go through these different things in life,

the problem is your microbiome is becoming depleted. And so you're trying to give all that stuff back. That makes sense. On that note, with everything you've learned, what are the worst things we can do for? You mentioned stress. I'm assuming certain food, certain alcohol. What are the things that you've discovered to be the worst for our microbiome? I think the worst thing for microbiome is if you have a singular diet,

like you really don't have diversity in your food. And so, you know, if you only eat bread and cheese, that's not great. You really want to have diverse fibers and diverse polyphenols in your diet. And so that's the thing we have the most control over that is probably the biggest problem for us. And the other thing is that if you have to go on an antibiotic because you've got a bacterial and like I'm not an anti-antibioticer. But if you're going and asking your doctor for an antibiotic and they haven't said you have a bacterial infection, like you should not do that. Our parents come from the generation, like you get a sniffle or a cold and you're on a Z-pack.

Oh, yeah. My parents, I mean, I am studying microbiome for a living and my parents will literally call me and be like, well, your mom was sick. And so luckily we got a Z-pack. I'm like, I don't know how to explain this a thousand time. That's not a luckily. It's insane. No, it's like that generation, they love those Z-packs. They do. Yeah. It's like a quick fix. It's unbelievable.

So what, okay, on that note, for people that are listening that love the Z-Pack, what is that Z-Pack doing if you maybe don't need it? He's going to send this clip to his parents. Well, yeah, because I- Send it to mine too. Yeah, no, I think, you know, sure, maybe you feel symptom relief a little faster, but what are you ultimately doing if you could just heal naturally on your own? Let it rip on the Z-pack. Or antibiotics in general, I guess. Well, I will tell you that one of the reasons I started this company is very personal to me, and it's about antibiotics and my daughter. So my first daughter was born almost two months prematurely. She was four and a half pounds. She spent the first month of her life in intensive care. She was hooked up to all these machines and monitors and receiving multiple doses of antibiotics. Not because she had an infection, but because that's what they do with preemies because they're like, well, if they get an infection, this is going to be a disaster. So we give them antibiotics prophylactically. So my kids are, kid got the, this is before I knew anything about the microbiome, and we left the hospital with

what we thought was a healthy kid. And as she started to get older, we realized she had food sensitivities that the rest of us didn't have. So she would be the kid in Baskin-Robbins asking how much dairy was in the sherbet. And she, just none of us had any of these other issues. And this paper came out from this professor at NYU. And he showed that kids, babies who are under six months old, if they're on a lot of antibiotics, later on in life, they're more prone to obesity. and diabetes. And the Mayo Clinic actually repeated that study. And if you're under two years old and you're on a lot of antibiotics later on in life, you're more prone to obesity, diabetes, ADHD, allergies, asthma, celiac disease. And what you've done is effectively taken a nuclear bomb to the

microbiome at the very first most precious time of life when you need to be seeding and growing your microbiome. And some people get over it, but a fair number of people don't. And they're never able to replenish what they lost in those first days. And that was my kid. And so I was like, holy shit, we could make products, could help millions of people, including my own daughter. Like, we got to go figure out what's going on here. That is the long-term repercussions of lots of antibiotic use is that you are depleting your body and your microbiome in a way that it may never be able to get it back without the right kind of gut treatment and supplementation. I mean, the beautiful thing about the microbiome is once you're focused on it, you can actually change

it's not like your genes where you kind of get what you get and you're like oh man I have that mutation now what with the microbiome you can actually always change it and improve it and so there's never a moment where you're like well I can't do anything about this so whatever you've done in your past whatever's happened to you today is a moment where you can change your microbiome and have a bright future I want to know though what that was like for you as a mother to have to to you thought you're doing the right thing with putting her I mean she had to be at the hospital but then you find out she's on antibiotics. What was that like when you read that paper? Did you immediately want to turn that pain that you had into purpose? Were you, did you beat yourself up about it? Did you, what did you do?

No, I mean, I, um, I did not beat myself up about it. Not that you should. You didn't know. Yeah. I mean, for me, it was a, um, a light bulb went off immediately. I was like, this is my kid. That's kind of what I mean. And the beginning of, you know, having issues with metabolizing food is that you have food sensitivities. So for me, it felt like, oh my gosh, this is it. This is what's happening. And so why did she have weird food sensitivities that the rest of us didn't have? Like, that was kind of confusing to me. And so for me, it was a light bulb went off. This was the problem. And I have like a background where I could try to solve it. So you seem very solution oriented. Yeah. I mean, I don't think anybody was trying to harm her. Certainly not.

It's just their protocol. Yeah, certainly not the parents and not the physicians. The premise is they're so fragile that if they get an infection, they're kind of doomed. So what's the answer? Is the answer to not put them on an antibiotic or is it to do less? What do you think if you could go back and do it all over? What's the answer? Oh, I would refuse it.

In fact, my co-founder, after we started the company, and he knows our whole story, they had a baby prematurely at UCSF, a great hospital, world-renowned, and they had to, they turned down antibiotics. And they had to sign all these papers, talk with the doctors, all the stuff to like turn down that so-called treatment. I wouldn't, I would say no. I remember being postpartum and just remember thinking this is not easy. If you are like me, you're nursing, you're pumping, there's a whole mix of things going on.

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Shop skinnyconfidential.com. We have three children. And as we've gone on, you learn a lot more. And it's true. The first one, we had no idea. We were scared. We, everything we were told, we followed right to a T. We're doing what we're. Parents really, especially new parents need to understand that they can advocate for themselves. And yes, the doctors and the nurses, they're well intentioned, but they can be scary and they put a pressure on you that like almost like you have to and you're forced to. And you don't have to. You can opt out. You can sign the papers. I mean, even this last, on the third kid we had, I was like, we're going home. I said basically like, you got to. You got to. You got to. You got to. You got to. You got to. You got. You got. You got. I mean, I said basically. You got. You got. I said basically. You got. You got. I was. I said, you. I said, you. I to get these tests done. And I know where to keep you overnight. I said, okay, like, that's fine, but I'm leaving at this time. And so if the tests are done, great. And if they're not, see ya. And they got the test done in time because they wanted to clear me. But the point is, is the only thing that would have happened if I wouldn't have advocated, we just stayed there

another night out of the comfort of our own home. I don't want the nurses and doctors listening this to think that I don't think they're doing a good job. But the point is, is we had a pediatrician, we knew we were going to see him. We knew the doctor was going to be there. We didn't need to just follow this strict scheduling protocol that they wanted to do. And in the past, we would have been terrified. I think, like, you know, we're going to be arrested if we leave early or we're going to something's going to happen. And so the point is, is that I do think that you have to use your personal intuition and do what's right for you and your family. A hundred percent. And I did the same thing when I had my second daughter. I was like, she's healthy. I'm getting the fuck out of here.

The fuck stick around with the skin. I'm not doing a test. They're not taking blood. We're not doing anything. I'm believing. Yes. Question the protocols. And I will just say to, I mean, my husband's a physician. So like, I don't know, slam doctors. But it's, but you, but everyone should be aware that when these protocols exist and these things that you're being told, it's actually not just, you know, it's, it's not the latest and greatest medicine. It's traditional medicine that's had decades to be able to get into the system of the protocol. It is insurance companies trying to make sure that they're getting theirs. It is lawyers and legal risk that's all being evaluated. All of that is part of the decision making that goes into like, what is step one, two, three. And you are, you know,

I don't know where you fall in there, but all those things may not be things that you care about. And so I think that's important to know that you're not defying your doctor or your nurse. You're defying an old school protocol that maybe isn't right for you. And I think that's perfectly fine. And to defend the doctors and nurses, they are also stuck in that structure of that hospital protocol with those insurance companies and those lawyers. And they're only, and they have to kind of, it's just like anything else. They have to work within what the company sets forth. And there's a lot of, I firmly believe that you don't get.

into medicine in the first place unless you want to help people. I think like the of course you want to make a living, but I think the majority of people that get into healing they don't even make that much. Yeah, but you know what I mean? Like I feel like the intention is because you want to be helpful, especially nowadays. You just have to be aware of these systems and how big these systems have gone. And to your point, the gut 20 years of studying, like how it outdated some of these systems are. Absolutely. And we talk about like why would a regular doctor not send you or prescribe you things that are outside of certain systems, it's because what they're taught in school are about drugs and diagnostic tests. And they're taught those things because those are the

things that are approved by the FDA here in the United States. And so the FDA, for example, will not approve anything that is not formally considered a drug or a diagnostic test. And so if the FDA doesn't approve things, by the way, your insurance company will not cover it. So insurance companies come in and say, I only cover things that are approved by the FDA. And the FDA says, well, I'll only approve things that have gone through pharmaceutical companies and diagnostic companies. And so there's this closed circle here in the U.S., which is the regulatory environment, the coverage environment, and the hospitals. And if you're anything outside of that, you're not going to get covered and you're not going to make your

way into protocols. So that includes things as fundamental as going to the gym. Gym memberships are not typically covered. This is anything else. I mean, a lot of people don't even get their chiropractor covered, massages. any kind of supplement, vitamins, organic foods, like all these things that we know are really good for us, you will not get them covered under those, you know, big coverage systems because that's the closed-loop system we work in. Why, when you refuse something, and I'll use myself as an example, I refused the blood test for my baby when he was born, is there the same energy all around? Are they trained to like make you feel uncomfortable that you say no? I think they are trained to follow a protocol that has had a lot of committees come together to write those protocols and to generate them.

And there are a lot of data is underlying those protocols that are not bad and they're not malintentioned. But they are there to follow that protocol and they're there to advocate for those protocols. So anytime you're asking for how do I deviate from that, there's going to be pushback on, well, this is the protocol that we've all been taught and given. and so we don't really want you to deviate from it. It's the same energy like all around. It's so interesting. I also think that like for a large part, most of society is a bunch of like rule followers and, you know, line follower trained that in school.

You know, you get in line, you do what you're told. You know, this is the way it works. And so I think in general, many people are very uncomfortable with people that kind of buck the system or push back or do things in their own way. And I think it's something that's ingrained in a lot of people where they, if they see somebody saying, I'm not going to do what everyone else does, I'm doing in my way. It's almost like a, it's, it's almost like you're disrespecting not only the system, but like the societal structure. Yeah.

And they get uncomfortable with it. I see it all the time even like doing what I do in media and social. If you don't quote unquote follow the unspoken rules in media, you're allowed to talk to these people. We're not allowed to talk to these people. We're allowed to do this, that. And you don't and you also don't care that you don't. People get strange about it. They like things to be organized.

Yeah. I mean, I think generally speaking, we stay with the herd because that's what helps. has survived, you know, in the old days. But I think in this case, when it comes to the medical profession, there's an additional factor, which is liability. So like if you said, oh, I don't want to get those blood tests done, and they're like, that's cool. Then later you could be like, well, but no one ever informed me, like, why should I have gotten them done? They just said, that's fine. And I'm not a doctor. And so I think we live in a world where people are suing people all the time. And hospitals and doctors are some of the most sued people. And so I think

that's another reason why we get pushback. Talk to us. about the Amazon supplements. What is going on with these fakers? Well, I think one of the kind of myths out there is that if something is on Amazon, it's legit. So many people think like, oh, well, I didn't see it on Amazon, so it's probably not legit. Oh, I found it on Amazon. So that is a complete myth. Because Amazon is a marketplace that allows anybody to put anything on there and sell it. And so that is the most egregious when it comes to supplements. And so, I had never really thought very deeply about it until we experienced this ourselves at our company. So we put a product out. We called it acromancea. It's a next generation strain. It's probably the

most important strain in your gut that no one's ever heard of. And we have done not just us, but around the world, people have done research on this strain. There's over 3,000 peer-viewed publication. It plays a really important role in your gut lining. And it's actually one of only two strains that can directly stimulate your body's natural GLP1 hormone. We can get to that in a second. So one of places we sell our products on is Amazon. And it literally is a clean bottle that just says acromancea on it. It's really clear. Like it's just this ingredient that you're buying. We started to see all these copycats about six to 12 months later putting acromancea on Amazon. And I was like, how are these people? It's actually a really hard strain to manufacture. We built a manufacturing plant because no one could

actually grow it. I was like, how are they doing? This is crazy. I was saying earlier, I just got off the phone with one of our collaborators at Cornell, he basically bought a bunch of these acrimancies off Amazon. He DNA sequenced them, and he called me up and he was like, Colleen, the only product that actually has acromancy in it is pendulums. And so we call the other ones fakeomancia, but this is just a really important buyer beware that just because it's on Amazon does not mean it's legitimate. And you still, unfortunately, have to do the homework of, is that a legitimate company and look it up and make sure that they're doing real stuff. So if someone's buying pendulums, do you recommend and they're doing on Amazon, they go to like your pendulum Amazon

page and buy from there. They don't just search, obviously, the product named pendulum acrimand. Like you've got to get it from your storefront. They can buy it off Amazon. There are some copycats that are literally like using our same label. So, but when you, if you're, if you're careful when you go into Amazon and you can see where the vendor, the vendor is, you'll be able to see like, okay, the vendor is pendulum or some like random company in China. They need to look for the pendulum as the, as the seller. Yeah, as the seller. Or you can buy it directly from our website, which definitely you're getting from us.

Someone did this to me, a bunch of people did this to me with mouth tape. I saw mouth tape on Amazon. This is obviously different because it's not a supplement, but there's different toxins in the adhesive. So all of a sudden I started seeing my mouth tape copied because it's in a shape of pink lips. And I saw it everywhere copied and you have to be careful of what adhesive you're buying. What I always tell people as it relates to supplements, like one, all the things you're saying. and go to the company, but this is not the area where you want to look for deep discounts.

Exactly. I look at it in the same way, it's like you don't go to a tattoo artist and say, who's the cheapest guy in here? You know what I mean? And I think if it's going in your body, again, you have to be really thoughtful and you don't want the cheapest version of that because likely it's either it's not real or it's low quality or it's completely fake.

I totally agree. I mean, you're putting something in your body. It's not the time to get cheap. And it's not the time to try to look for the, I mean, there's so many flyby-nighters in the supplements industry. They'll pop up. It's like a game of whackamol. And then they'll go away. And then they'll pop back up again with a slightly different name. And part of the issue with Amazon is that, and I don't know if you experienced this, but you tell Amazon, like, these are not real.

And they're like, okay. We've had the same experience. Yeah. We wanted to have you on the show, because initially, because we heard that Pendulum provides. the perfect natural alternative to GLP-1s. First of all, let's unpack that. Yes, let's do unpack that. Because I want to be real clear, it's not like the drugs.

And so maybe we'll start with like, what is GLP-1 and like what is it supposed to be doing? I think we all know GLP-1. Oh, it's an injection or now a pill that helps you lose weight. But underlying that is actually what's happening in your body. So what is supposed to be happening in your body is you eat a meal. it goes into this big manufacturing factory of your microbiome, and one of those departments in there says, okay, we just ate a meal, we need to stimulate our GLP1 hormone. It's actually a hormone. And so it stimulates your natural GLP1 hormone. And so now you get GLP1 in your bloodstream. And that GLP1 does two really important things.

One, it tells your body, we just had sugar. Almost every meal you have has sugars. So like let's metabolize that sugar. So it stimulates your insulin pathway and helps you metabolize that sugar. And the second thing is it tells your brain, we just ate so we don't need to eat anymore. We're full. And so that happens. And then that hormone gets metabolized. Like every other hormone in our body gets metabolizing and goes away. And then you'll get hungry again. And then it comes back up. And so that you're supposed to be on a natural cycle of your GLP1 hormone. Now, as pharmaceutical companies do, they realize, wow, this hormone is really great because it helps you metabolize your sugars and tells you your body you're full. Can we make a drug that looks like it? And so all the GLP ones out there that people

familiar with, OZempex, semi-glutide, these are chemicals that are made to mimic your body's natural GLP-1 hormone. And because they're chemicals, they don't go through this cycle. You're basically injecting this GLP-1 hormone and it doesn't get metabolized. It just stays at really high levels at all times. And the reason why that may be problematic is like if I was talking to you through like one of those megaphones, you would definitely hear me better. But after a time, if I'm talking to you through that megaphone, you're going to go deaf. And the body actually literally works the same way. Your body can become deaf to these things. So one of the things that happens for people on insulin is they have to have higher and higher doses as time goes on because their body is not reacting

to that insulin anymore. It's turning deaf to it. And so one of the things that is likely to happen that we're all going to find out is that when you're having these high levels of GLP1 and all the time for long periods of time, your body's going to stop responding to it the way that you really wanted to. So even these people that are saying, oh, I'm just doing a microdose over time. That dose is going to have to increase for them to get the effect. It is. It is. And that's because you're really, you're kind of keeping it at this high level. So even a microdose is still like this instead of like the cycle you're supposed to be on. So I think GLP-1s are an awesome invention. I think all of those drugs are really helping people

in important and massive ways that we need. But my suggestion to anybody who's thinking, if that works for you, that probably means that your body's natural GLP-1 system was out of whack. for all the reasons we talked about, about your gut health and your gut diversity being gone. So if you're missing those strains, you're not getting your normal GLP1 cycle. So if the drug is working for you, that's awesome. Why not also help your body make its own natural GLP1 hormone?

Here's what my fear is with these GLP ones. I agree with you. I think it's an incredible technology. I think many people have benefited huge lifestyle changes to the positive effect by incorporating them. What my concern is, is that the direction we're moving into is that instead of trying to get your GLP1 production back on the right track naturally, we are no longer even going to try. We are just going to

jump to a drug because humans are lazy and we want the easiest path and we want the least amount of work. And the problem, the way that plays out long term, I think could become problematic for individuals and for society. And what I tell people that maybe that come to me privately, that maybe don't are not necessarily like, I don't want to say real candidates, but a typical candidate, maybe you're not obese or you don't have these issues, you're just trying to lose a little weight. I would say, like, let's first try to get the natural process firing again and do what you need to do there first before you jump. But I think, again, a lot of people are just going to take the easier path, which is get on the drug, disregard that. But again, like, what this

looks like in 20, 30 years, I think we're going to find out. So tell us about what the natural alternative, what does it do exactly? It is, it's basically stimulating your body's natural GLP 1. It's the same thing because your body, but your body's able to do it in a natural way, the way it's designed to do it. The way it's designed to do it. And so then what happens is the repercussions of your GLP 1 being back to what it's supposed to be, having your natural GLP 1 stimulated, is that you will not have these weird random food cravings when like you're not fit to have. Like some people will, actually many, many people will say, you know, if I get a chocolate bar, once I open that chocolate bar, I'm eating that whole thing.

Like I'm not going to eat a piece, wrap it up and put it away. And even though halfway through, you're probably full or whatever, a couple squares in, you're full, your body is continuing to make you think that you're still hungry. So you have all these unwanted food cravings. Your metabolism is slowing down. You're eating sugars, but your body isn't actually metabolizing it. You're eating carbs, but your body isn't actually metabolizing well. So when you get your real natural GLP1 hormone back in sync, all of those things will start to go away.

You'll have less food cravings, less food noise. Your metabolism will be back in sync. And to the point about like, well, gee, that sounds like a lot of work to try to get my natural GLP1 back. It probably involves dietary changes, supplementation. Why don't I just go on the drug? Instead, I would offer for people that if that's the way that you can jumpstart getting onto into a healthy frame of mind, I'm all for it. But then just consider if you're not wanting to be on that for the rest of your life to then try to add in these things after you've gotten, you know, into a good place. And we have a lot of practitioners that do that. They'll start someone on a drug. And then they'll be like, great, now we want to reduce your dose or now we want to do an on-off regimen. And so what are you doing the off? You got to get your natural GOP one working.

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their mission, which is to help dogs with major medical needs that are often not seen by adopters or other rescuers. Check them out. I Standwithmypack.org. This episode is brought to you by Woo MorePlay. All right, if you're out west, this one's for you. Woomore Play just launched with fascinations, the one-stop shop for adult toys, lingerie, wellness, and more. If you're a listener in Arizona and Colorado, you can visit their local fascination store to pick up the full line of Woomore Play.

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You can use code skinny, both in store and online at Fascinations. Of course, you can also shop my favorite vibrator and lube at WooMorplay.com. That's woo moreplay.com. This episode is brought to you by Lauren Bostick for P-Volve. That's right. I have launched a kit with P-Veeval. I designed every single aspect of this kit with the P-Volve team and it is gorgeous, as you can see. We have 8 pound weights, 12-pound weights, 15-pound weights because I am so passionate about getting

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Lauren Bostick for P-Volve has all of the things. Like I said, this is a limited edition kit. It's called Strength Evolved, and once it's gone, it's gone. If you're looking for low-impact but intense workouts, check out P-Volve. Head to P-Volve.com slash Skinny and use code Skinny for 15% off site-wide or on class packs at a P-Volve studio near you. And definitely grab this kit, you guys, because like I said, once it's gone, it's gone. Lauren Bostick for P-Volve. some doctors, and you're the perfect person, ask this, say that once you start with these drugs,

not off your doctor, but some, say that you'll need to be on this for life. And how do you, if you don't want to be on these medications for life and you want to get on a natural path again, like, how are you able to do that and get off in a healthy way so that you don't have to be on these medications for forever? I mean, I think any practitioner who says once you start GLP once you have to be on the first year of life, like, should be disbarred. Like, that's insanity. That is a complete lie. That's not. not true. I mean, we know that even if you have actually type 2 diabetes, there are so many studies that are showing that if you can improve, I mean, nutrition is one of the biggest things,

nutrition and exercise, you can reverse your own diabetes even without drugs. I mean, there are companies that are premised on this. There's a company called Verta Health. They can reduce diabetes and A1C and all that stuff as good as drugs, and their whole regimen doesn't involve a single drug. And so I think that is maybe more psychological. So, yeah, once you're on drug, it's an easy fix. Maybe you never want to go off of it again, but you certainly can. They'll frame it as like, oh, you'll likely need to be on this for the, like, and again, I don't want to say that for every doctor, but there's definitely some people that come to mind that say once you get on these things, it's likely you're going to be on it for forever. And I

think that is concerning. Yeah, I would say so. How many of your natural alternative do you take a day? Is it one? Is it 10? How many pills? Oh. Or supplements, I should say. just take the one pendulum supplement, which is... But is it just one? Yeah. The product that I take is called pendulum glucose control. Okay.

As its name suggests, it's to help you with glucose control. So it's a formulation of five different strains. They work together as a team in order to help you stimulate your body's natural GLP1. They work together as a team to help you with your gut lining. And so I take, those are two pills a day. So I take two in the morning and kick my day off with... And you like it in the morning? I do it in the morning because that's when I have, I have like a more.

morning routine usually involves coffee. I never miss my coffee, so I never miss my supplements. By the time I get to the end of the day, like, it's hard for me to routine. So I always tell people like, whenever you've got your routine, just slot it in there. And you also take your other probiotic, I'm going to flub the name. Say the name. Is it acromancea? Acromancea. Yeah, that's the strain name. It sounds like arachnophobia. Sounds like you're casting a spell. Yeah, it sounds like you sneezed. Yes, Harry Potter or something. Hallie Berry is an equity owner. That's cool. How did she get involved? Yeah, Hallie, Barry, a lot of people don't realize she actually has diabetes.

Right. And so she, and you might imagine, she gets pitched all kinds of products all the time to try to help her. She tells, and this is kind of what she has said, is that she learned about pendulum from the Cleveland Clinic. And we have physicians there that have been using our products almost since day one. And so she had somebody from the Cleveland Clinic call her up and say, like, hey, have you heard about this company Pendulum? I think you should try it out. And so she tried it. And it's the only thing she's ever,

a supplement she's ever taken that lowered her A1C, like in a meaningful way and in a sustainable way. And so she's like, what is this company? And so I got a invite that said, Hallie Barry would like to talk to you. And I was like, okay, that's hilarious. Sure. But it was in fact, Hallie Barry wanted to talk to us.

And she was, she's like the nicest person. We get on this Zoom call. And she says, I love your product. I really want to figure out how I can help you. what can I do? It's like a dream call for anybody who's trying to build a business. And so, that's a good call. Yeah, it's a good call. It's a good call. And then she and I on a personal level have really bonded. And we have, you know, kids the same age and some of our personalities are kind of similar to each other. And so she became an investor in the company. She is our, she has it,

she took on a title, which is chief communications officer, which isn't just like a gimmee title, a bullshit title. She really felt like the way she could help our brand. brand is by helping us communicate better what it does and why it's different from all the other supplements out there. And one of the first things she did was she made us change the bottle. So if you look at old school pendulum bottles, they're like these very almost medicine-y-looking issues. She was like, this is terrible. This feels like old-school stuff. If we have innovation on the inside, we have to be communicating that in all the different ways that people experience the product, including the packaging. Yes, Tally. Yeah. And so I'll tell you.

you this, like we went through a whole exercise of like building a whole new packaging and bottle. And the bottle design we came up with was actually inspired by a petri dish. So it was like almost like a disc shape, if you remember back to like seventh grade biology, a petri dish. And you would open it up like this and all your pills would be inside. We're like, oh my gosh, this is so cool. We built a bunch of them. We had, we started selling them. And she did all these, you know, posts about them. And what we found is that was only us, like, it was like me and her and some other women in the company who'd been opening it. All the guys are like, I can't, this thing is so tiny. I open it up and everything spills everywhere. It was kind of a little bit of a disaster. So this is like kind of a crazy moment because I had to go back and tell Hallie Berry, like this thing that we designed together, it's not working. And, you know, she's not from this startup environment. She is from film. You don't put a movie out and you're like, well, people don't like it. We got to go back and redo it. It's out there. It's done. And so I didn't know how she was going to take this phone call of like, it's not working. We have to pull it.

What did Catwoman say? Catwoman said, okay, well, if that's what our customers are saying, we got to listen to the people. We got to listen to the people. She did a pivot. She did a pivot. We took the whole thing. So you can't, that's like a historic thing. If you happen to have one, you should hold on to it because no more of those are being made. And then we move to the current bottle, you see.

Which is beautiful. Which I think we're all very happy with. Where is your daughter now? On that note, not to just pick on your daughter, but for anyone that's maybe exhibited early gut issues or had a similar story or maybe they've done something where they've, you know, messed up their gut microbiome. I think a largest theme of this episode is being able to change that. Yeah. My daughter was definitely an early user of the product.

And I can say like she can eat anything now. And I remember there was one day she came home and she was like, mom, where are the pills? And because we had like, every one of my family is taking them. And I said, oh, I haven't reordered. We don't have any right now. And she was like, but we're going to go off her ice cream this weekend. And I was like, well, we should have a talk about how this isn't really an ice cream enabler.

But effectively she can eat anything. And how old does she know? She's 19. And how long did it take her from your perspective until that started to resolve itself until the gut got stronger? It was like less than 90 days. Oh, wow. So it happens quick. She was pretty, I mean, she was in, at that point, she was still in elementary school.

Colleen, now he's going to take all my supplements. I know you're going to go home. He's going to start looking through for the pendulum. If someone jumps into the pendulum protocol and they want to do this 90 day, like, is that what you guys recommend? And how do you recommend most seeable diet? in and start incorporating. I definitely recommend the first step is what do you feel like you're trying to fix? And like literally I say write it down. Like write down what you feel like these are all the things that I think could be improved in my life. And don't, nothing is out of scope here.

Everything is you write it down. How do I get my wife to stop yelling at me? Yeah, write it all down. Write it down. Fix your microbeyeam and then she won't be as irritated with you. Get ready your hairspray. The reason I say 90 days is because if you were to become a, if you were to change your diet, so let's say you're a vegetarian and you became a carnivore, within eight weeks, your microbiome will look totally different. So, you know, it takes about that amount of time to really introduce something new into your gut. Some people feel a difference in a matter of days and some people take six months. But on average, I give you, like, give it 90 days.

And the kind of things that can also bolster this are if you can start to increase the amount of fiber that's in your diet, That can be through foods or supplementation. That's the food for these strains. And so if you can feed them fibers and polyphenols and take the pills, within 90 days, go back to your list and just see, like, did anything get better? And just, would you just take one pendulum a day? Is that it? Just the one strain for day?

I always recommend for people to take pendulum metabolic daily. So I know we've talked a lot about acromancey. That's one of the strains. It's in metabolic daily, but metabolic daily has all the strains. Like I said, it's an ecosystem. So you think the metabolic daily by pendulum, that's the best place to start when you're just getting going with your company. That's the best place to get started. It's the best price performance. I mean, that's really your daily. Okay, cool. Before you go, we have a huge female audience. What is the menopause microbiome link?

Yes, this is actually really, really fresh information. I'll also caveat it by saying we're very early in research. Like we as a global community. But one of the things that happens during menopause, one of the biggest, things that happens during men's pause is your estrogen levels kind of go through this massive decline. The microbiome for women also has certain strains that you could literally overlay exactly that estrogen decline and they go down at the same rate. Maybe I'll take one step back, which is to say that if you're a woman and you're between puberty and menopause and you sent me your microbiome, I could tell you, are you a man or a woman? We actually, women's microbiomes look different from men's, until menopause.

Controversial statement these days, Colleen. Are ours like little hearts? Without getting into any of that. And I'll explain why, because it really is about hormones and about what you identify as. But once you get through menopause, our microbiomes look like men's. You can't tell anymore. Is this from a man or a woman?

That's interesting. That's so interesting. Yeah. Wow. And what it boils down to is this thing. So as our estrogen levels are declining, so are these very specific strains in our microbiome are also declining. And when you dig a little bit deeper,

those strains actually can increase your body's free estrogen. So your body naturally has a system that when you're between puberty, menopause, your whole body is regulated in you get increased of certain hormones, and then there's like a thing that decreases your hormones. So everything is really cyclical when it comes to hormones. And so estrogen has a system for increasing your estrogen, and it has all these systems for then decreasing your estrogen. And the microbiome plays a role in that decreasing of your free estrogen.

And so what happens is that we lose those strains that can put free estrogen back into our body. And so the idea is, the hypothesis is if you could give those strains that are like, especially, I think, during perimenopause when these cliffs can feel really dramatic, if you can give people back those strains that help kind of stabilize that free estrogen level, that you could maybe help to manage these symptoms that we go through and we go through menopause. But with that also in mind, is it potential to delay the onset? or not. No, no, that's right. That is actually the whole goal is that the whole goal is to actually try to target women before we're like in the throes of menopause. But as you're starting to feel all those symptoms, like women start to feel those symptoms, some like within their 30s. And you don't necessarily recognize it. But the whole idea here is to make it less dramatic and terrible. And by the way, there are also systems that do the same thing with testosterone.

Colleen, you're fascinating. You're welcome to come back on the show anytime. That was a great conversation. Tell us where we can find the brand. Yes, I would love for everybody to check us out at pendulumlife.com. There's a lot of information. There's a lot of stuff we talked about here today. There's a lot of information there. If you're a health care practitioner, we have a special section just for you that has all the papers and protocols written by your peers. Please come learn. Ask us questions. I think if you're just looking to boost your gut and metabolic health and you're looking for which product is right for me, metabolic daily is the one to go after. If you have diabetes, take pendulum glucose control. And again, if you can boost your nutrition with fibers and polyphenols,

that's all going to feed these guys and be great for your gut. You can go to pendulumlife.com slash skinny. They gave you a code skinny. You get 20% off your first purchase. Michael, keep your paws off my product. Go buy it. Use the code, Michael. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you for doing this.