The Truth About Insulin Sensitivity & Muscle Growth | Mind Pump 2822

Key Takeaway

Building lean muscle mass through strength training is one of the most powerful levers for improving metabolic health and insulin sensitivity. Unlike cardio, which burns more calories during exercise, resistance training creates lasting metabolic improvements by changing body composition—even without weight loss. The key to sustainable health isn't just what you eat, but creating a structured routine that makes your brain feel safe. Whether it's going to bed at the same time each night or maintaining consistent exercise habits, your limbic system recognizes routine as safety, which helps regulate stress hormones and glucose variability.

Episode Overview

Dr. Rhett Bergeron, who runs Thrive Medicine in Houston, shares his journey from anesthesiologist to metabolic health specialist. After struggling with his own health issues—including poor sleep, brain fog, and being 'puffy fit' despite hitting the gym twice daily—he discovered the power of continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) and behavioral modification. The conversation explores how metabolic dysfunction underlies most chronic diseases, the surprising impact of stress on blood sugar, and why strength training outperforms cardio for insulin sensitivity. Key themes include the importance of sleep routine, the individualized nature of glucose responses, and how routine creates psychological safety that helps regulate metabolic function.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Truth About Insulin Sensitivity & Muscle Growth | Mind Pump 2822 from Mind Pump Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Welcome to the show, Rhett. Thanks for having me. Yeah. So, tell us a little bit about what you do, your background, um, so the audience can kind of know where you're coming from. coming from. coming from. Yeah. So, primarily I run a clinic in Houston, Texas. It's called Thrive Medicine. And we specialize in metabolic health, sexual health, you know, I'm boarded in anesthesia and pain medicine. That's my traditional training. Okay. And then I spent the last seven years after Dr. Training really learning how to actually, you know, make people well.

well. well. Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, Um, Um, explain metabolic health and what that cuz that's you hear that a lot now. Like this is like a big thing now in medicine or in treatment or in the wellness space like what is that exactly? exactly? exactly? Yeah. Yeah. So, when you go on this crusade to try to help people and you look at, let's just say, this large list of symptoms that people have, whether it's, you know, and I I break it down into like two large factions.

There's sick people and there's people with problems that may not be determined as sick by the medical community, right? So, sick people could be like, hey, I have cancer, dementia, uh sexual dysfunction, cardiovascular disease, and then over here is this, you know, esoteric, not otherwise specified. I have fatigue, brain fog, um I have, you know, skin inflammation, uh sleep disorder, etc., mood liability. When you look at all of that stuff, the really at the bottom of that rabbit hole is the is the term metabolic dysfunction, right?

And real simple definition of that is the physi the physiologic um processes in the body are not functioning properly right and it starts with looking at glucose glucose glucose looking at fat and then that translates into worse things like cardiovascular disease like we said sexual dysfunction issues with the brain so on and so forth. Okay. So, it's essentially the you're looking at taking um what you consume and turning it into energy in that process. Although I just simplified it, it's a very like complex process. We're talking about met the metabolism.

There's a lot of things that are happening. are happening. are happening. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I mean, if I said to you like, "Hey, food is fuel." You'd say, "Okay, cool. Podcast, bro. Great." But but essentially, you know, that's what it is. We're talking about like exchanging oxygen to CO2. taking in stuff, stuff, stuff, um, having your body utilize that appropriately and making sure that that physiologic process is dialed in. How much can this really affect someone's ability to build muscle or burn body fat efficiently?

I mean, in our experience training tons of people, uh, I've experienced this where, you know, you know, you've got them on a good diet, uh, you're exercising correctly and then their body is just not responding and it's not adding up. And many times there's other root causes. So, like how significantly can it impact that ability to build muscle or burn body fat? Yeah, I think I think it's it's a huge impact, right? So it has a very very large impact if you and and honestly you know bodybuilders get this right they utilize insulin also to put on muscle right and they also know like I even saw you know of course the algorithm has has control of me but I saw the other day one guy was touting he's like hey if you're if you're fat already or if you can't see your abs don't try to put on muscle so they're already catching on to the fact that it's not just calories in calories out you know that you know how much we eat and what we eat is really really important but when we look at what's going on underneath the surface.

It has a huge effect on our performance, whether we're putting on holding on to fat or adding that to muscle and then all the other problems that come from that process not being dialed in. Now, doesn't exercise uh um applied appropriately and diet improve uh the metabolic um health of somebody? Like those are also methods that can help with that, right? Yeah, a thousand%. I mean even so I would say like that's I hate to get to the point but that's the overarching theme right um lifestyle modification and if you look at so you're going to hear me talk about these studies a lot but some of the really really large behavioral modification studies one of them was diabetes pre prevention program the look ahead trial those were behavioral modification those studies were RCTs right and uh we're talking 5,000 people showing that behavioral modification most likely beat out other interventions, right?

And what was that? That was looking at calorie intake, looking at physical activity, right? And then the other major thing here, the major thing, especially when we're talking about CGMs or what we do in our clinic is they had a structured program. So they put these people through a structured program, right? You just can't give someone data or tell them like, "Hey, eat more, move less." Like cool. You have to spend time with these people and teach them and uh you know modify that as you go along.

So what made you move from so you were you an anesthesiologist or trained as one? Did you practice? No. Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean I I still do some anesthesia. some anesthesia. some anesthesia. Okay. So what made you move from there to to this space? is so different uh in in the sense that like you know in anesthesia uh you're you know you're titrating people's um anesthesia making sure everything's okay during surgery that's what you do now you're like cool let's look at your whole life let's look at your lifestyle let's look at your diet like what made you move into that space was there something that happened often times I talk to doctors who do that like they either had their own health issue or a family health is right was it something like that yeah I mean you know to answer the question first and then back up and tell the story.

It was subtle and I think people relate to this. I thought I was healthy and felt bad and didn't know that, right? that, right? that, right? And you know, maybe you guys can relate. I was like, I was 90s fit, bro. Right? So, I was, this was prior to my awakening where awakening where awakening where I thought I was doing a bunch of stuff. was going to the gym twice a day, you know, and back in the day, maybe you can relate, was ino explode, muscle mill, good time, good time, good time, cell tech.

cell tech. cell tech. Yeah, we're all the same age. I'm dating myself, right? We're all the same age. Uh, you know, Men's Health magazine was my bible my bible my bible and you know, at that time, don't judge me, this was like dialup, so checking the sources was not a thing, right? So, if Men's Health told me like, "Hey, tequila, tequila stimulates metabolism," like, "All right, cool." Like tequila, right? right? right? Um, you know, calming your nervous system or mental fitness was two drinks, lie in bed, negative feedback loop, right?

Like, you suck, bro. Like, that's that's how I was taught. That's how we grew up. Um, and then, you know, choosing the wrong relationships, right? So it wasn't until and again, you know, let's just I'll stop joking just for a second. So going through doctor school and doctors get hazed a lot a lot about like, oh, it's not appropriate training or it's out of context and and I will totally say on this podcast that there's an indoctrination in every professional school, right? school, right? school, right?

However, doctor school broke my ass to be a really, really badass doctor, right? Like it will turn you into a warrior. And when you do procedural medicine like anesthesia, you h you you have to you do one, you suck. You do 10,000, you're badass. Right? And I don't say that arrogantly, but you know, back to the story, like when I met my wife, she was like, "Hey, you know, are those dark circles under your eyes? Is that like a birthark?" And I was like, "No, that's probably something else that's really, really bad." Right?

I was irritable, moody. Um, and because of Dr. school like I knew how to sleep 4 hours and get it all done, right? Drink late at night to help myself go to sleep. Wake up at 6:00 and I can handle it all, right? So, that was just a wakeup call, right? I was like, "Okay, I feel good. Um, but something else is going on." I was hitting the gym twice a day and I had I was puffy fit. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. You guys probably can relate that to I was like puffy fit, right?

And so, I knew I had to do something. I was like, "Okay, well, this isn't working." Um, Sarah, my wife, kind of jolted me into action like, "Hey, you don't look good either." I was like, "Well, I don't know. I'm hitting the gym twice a day. It's great." And I realized all my other friends who were doctors also had no idea how to take care of themselves, right? So, to put put it back into context with doctor school, like, you know, if your arm fell off, I was your guy.

You know, if you got impaled by a fence, I'm your guy. Right? If you have an anaphylactic reaction, I can help you. Fatigue, my penis doesn't work. you know, hey, my have some skin inflammation and brain fog. No idea. So, that kind of took me on the course of like, okay, well, we need to figure this out, right? I've got to do something different because I spent all of my life trying to become this thing and we need great doctors and I can save a life for sure, but can I save a life on the other end?

We have a brand new workout program bundle called the spring bundle. Map Symmetry, Maps Prime, and the Advanced Train Techniques Guide. All of that together, 147. It's over 50% off. Head over to mapsmar.com. Back to the show. What I really appreciate uh when doctors move into the space because you you guys have the some of the best training I've ever seen on how to go through and decipher through studies, data, how this you're trained that way. You're trained to look at things in that way. And so when you get pointed in the right direction, um some of the best in my experience working with uh doctors doing what you do, uh some of the best results happen because you've got that training.

Where was the first place you looked or what were the first things you did for yourself uh to kind of move things in a different direction? direction? direction? Yeah, for me it was, you know, just personal was it was sleep, right? So um sleep is a superpower. I thought that five hours of sleep was just what we did. did. did. Yep. Yep. Yep. Right. And honestly, um after I decided like, hey, this is something I need to work on or at least give myself a sleep window, like it's all a sudden like my brain woke up.

Um but the other thing that I started looking into is like, okay, well, what am I eating? You know, who are the people in my life? All of the things that seem really, really basic to, you know, if I said them on the podcast, they're like, "Yeah, of course." Like that's how you fix yourself. yourself. yourself. But you have to understand and apply into your life and then do it over a long period of time. Right? So at the time when I was this period of discovery, I was literally just looking at stuff and then I would dive back right in.

That's how I got connected to Neutri Sense. Right? If you really want me to tell that story, I was at the time Neutriense was new. And now that I'm even telling the story, it was really new because I was like, "Hey, you know what are these CGMs?" And in fact, full disclosure, I was like, metabolic dysfunction was not taught to me in medical school, that term. And I don't even know. I mean, I've been through a lot of stuff, even war, so I'm not sure if even someone even said it.

But at the time that I was trying to get healthy, it had just started to become popular, at least in my world. And so I was like, "Okay, well, you know, what is this CGM? You know, what is this company Neutriense?" So I called the company. Oh, so you called them. I called them. Oh, wow. And that's how I did everything else. house. I mean, that's how I learned about peptides and that's how I learned about I would just find something and call the person. Okay?

Okay? Okay? And at the time it was new. So, usually uh I would get the person on the phone. So, when I called Neutra Sense, I was like, "Hey, I'm interested. I'm a doctor and this guy Dan jumped on. He talks faster than I do." And so, he's like, "Yeah, I own the company." I was like, "Well, where where do I get more information?" He's like, "I own the company." company." company." me. me. me. He's like, He's like, He's like, "Did you not hear what I said?" So, anyways, that's how and again, that's how I learned.

I would just find something that I was interested in, figure out if it was going to have an impact in health, and then just dove right in. right in. right in. Well, tell me more about that process with Dan and like asking him. So, you you get him, you start asking questions. Are you instantly like, "Oh, I believe in this or it's like what starts what piqus your interest in it? Do you order one and start testing it yourself?" like tell me about the evolution of that and how that unfolds for you.

Yeah. Well, even that first conversation was like an hour conversation of us just talking about, you know, whatever business life and how the CGM impacts people's lives. And you know, I'm going to be honest, when it first came out, there was a lot of heat like, oh yeah, it's just a gimmick and blah blah blah. Yep. Yep. Yep. And so, of course, I was also trying to start my clinic. And mind you, this was I don't know, it was it was late 2019 and like right before COVID hit, so there's a lot of other stuff going on.

But I started uh I was like, "Okay, let me order a few of these." I had a few clients, right? And I was like, "Oh, this is it. I'm going to put everybody on this CGM. We're going to start learning about metabolic health." And by the way, I'm also going to learn about metabolic health, right? So I started trying it. Um and the app was new. But the biggest difference even for me and I'll I have no problem saying this as a doctor is as I was learning as I went but also talking with the dietitians, right?

And so and at the time my wife was my wife's a dietitian. So she was in her residency finishing dietetics. dietetics. dietetics. So just even getting on the even getting on the a call or a zoom with these dietitians and I was I was special. I like hey I want to talk to your dietitians. I was constantly wanting to talk to these people like teach me teach me what do you do here? What do you do there? So for me it was an awesome period of discovery and I could tell that that this was a different tool because it was helping me understand how to change my behavior.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, I love like some there's been some cool CGM stories like or CG when you do you remember the first like aha or like well that's weird because I've seen times where you see somebody who one person eats a food and they react a certain way and then another person eats that food reacts completely different. Do you remember the first time you had kind of like that for yourself or for a client? client? client? Yeah, absolutely. And again, like I said, we're just going to get raw on this podcast.

around the time it was carnivore was really really popular, right? So, of course, I'm trying to learn. I'm like, "Oh, carnivore, this has to be it." Like, let's let's let's let's try this. And it was the same time that I was doing the CGM. So, you're eating just me and you put on a glucose monitor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're expecting zero spike. Yeah. But I I mean, even me, like it's you know, my wife knows how extreme I am. I'm like, I'm going to be flat, dude.

I'm just trying. We We want no glucose spikes, right? Let's be as flat as possible. as possible. as possible. Can we pause for a second? Your wife's in in residency as a dietitian and she knows you're just going to eat meat. They're like They're like They're like about carnivore diet. What was that? What was that like at home? home? home? I am dying cuz when she hears this, she's going to be like he he knows. He knows cuz I would be like, "No, no, nope. That's it." I would hear something be like that's it.

Plants are going to kill you. She's like you're dumb. I'm not doing any plants. She's like dumb. And of course, it's fine for me telling that because you have to you have to do this stuff to figure it out, right? So, yes, I went through a carnivore phase and I was like, "Yeah, that was dumb." dumb." dumb." Um, Um, Um, but no, yeah, she I mean, but the expectation is I I I'm eating no gluc. I'm having no carbs, no sugars. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No fiber, No fiber, No fiber, right?

right? right? And so, I should have flat Yeah. What you actually see though? Yeah. What you see is and the and the longer again, you know, I don't recommend carnivore. The longer you take it out, the more variability potentially you have. you have. you have. Right. Right. Right. So, even eating protein, you're going to have an insulin response. That's right. That's right. That's right. And so, of course, think about me. You know, I'm trying to teach people and learn and I'm like, "Okay, this is not making sense.

making sense. making sense. Maybe I should eat some plants." And she's like, "Yeah, you're dumb." Yeah. So explain uh some because my favorite aspect of the of CGMs and now that they're more popular is just something that we noticed as trainers. Now we couldn't I couldn't put um I couldn't give you um you know a a blood marker or measurement, but I just trained enough people to know like everybody responds different. It's really weird. She could eat this for in the morning and then this guy eats the same thing and it's appropriate calories.

macros are, you know, appropriate, but he just feels like crap when he eats the same thing that she does. And you just see this enough times as a trainer to go, there's a big individual variance. I can't explain it. I didn't even know how to I didn't even know how to explain it uh back then, but then you get CGMs that confirm, oh yeah, like this guy eats a potato, she eats a potato, he has a crazy response, she seems to be okay. Explain why do we think that happens?

Like what's going on there? there? there? Yeah. Yeah, I mean when you look at variability and you know when I'm working with clients the number one thing people do is they say okay well I had a potato and then I have this response or let's say they have a response like oh yeah it was definitely the potato and I was like well let's think about it let's look at all these data points because you're a human you have a you know complex uh complex question complex answer right so instead of just saying like hey you had the potato let's look at what happened the last five days was your sleep Did you get in a couple of arguments with your significant other?

How was your hydration? your hydration? your hydration? Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Did you work out that day? Right? So, even looking at lifestyle and also looking at the physiology of the human, right? How much fat are you carrying? Right? Um what what else are you eating with the potato around the time of the potato? potato? potato? So, it it it helps us kind of decipher what what else we're as individualized as it can get. And even more importantly, and I think the bigger conversation here is and that I remember unlocking this with clients was like cuz one might say, well, who cares?

Who cares if it's got this risk? Who cares? cares? cares? It gets a little bit if it's the same amount of calories and I stay within my calories. calories. calories. But what I started to connect the dots to is when you see that how difficult it is for the client to fight off cravings and other things when when you see these huge swings. And that to me is the important conversation is that you know because that's where someone well if I just follow the calories who cares if these foods make me go up or down but when you talk about behavior modification and how important that is in this whole process if you didn't realize it that you have this reaction to a certain food it makes it that much more difficult for you to stay on track.

So talk a little bit about that because I think that's the bigger conversation more so than the variability of a client spiking or not spiking. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I I think honestly that that's the take-home message is when you are a good practitioner or trainer or doctor or whatever, if you want to make an impact in someone's life, it's going to be behavioral modification. And there's randomized control trials that show that, right? So, it's easy for me. This is an amazing tool because when someone looks at a glucose spike and they say, "Who cares?" For me, I can put it in context.

I could say, okay, well, you know, you're a busy executive and we know that glucose variability is going to have an impact on uh cognitive function or executive function, right? When someone when a client comes to me and they're like, "Hey, uh when I say, "Okay, what are your goals?" They go, "I want to feel better." And I'm like, "Okay, well, when you unpack that, yeah, it's it's mental resiliency." So, cool. Like, you want to feel better in your body or no, you want to be James Bond, right?

I want to make a right? I want to make a decision and then have a plan to kill everybody in the room. Right? So So that's executive function. If I said, "Hey, who cares?" But also when when you're having all these spikes all day, it's going to lower it's going to lower your executive function, your ability to make decisions, right? The highest form of thinking is thinking about what you're thinking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cognition. Cognition. Cognition. Yeah. So it puts it in a different context for that client.

And hopefully and again, you have to work on that over time. So, not just like having one instance with the client, let's work it work on it over 300 days or 600 days, right? right? right? How hard or easy was this transition for you? Because um coming from someone who's um a doctor, so you you you you're one of the you're probably the kind of guy that's like, I'm going to make a change. I'm just going to do it. I'm just going to decide. I'm just going to do it.

do it. do it. Then you also work in the medical system, which is like uh you know, you show up, someone has something wrong, do this, do that, and you're gone. Now you're working with people on behavior change. Uh do you ever get frustrated because it's really hard to change behaviors? behaviors? behaviors? Yeah. Yeah. I mean what I would say is it wasn't as hard for me because that's what I like to do, right? That I mean I was in the military so if you tell me like hey you suck do more.

I'm like okay sir yes sir. Like cool. That's how I respond right? I want someone to tell me and and again you know your circle is the collection of you are the collection of the five people you hang out with right so in in fact that's where I shine and and everybody at the end of the day the best doctors they become a coach the good ones become a life coach on top of taking the data on top of prescribing the medicine right you sit down with the patient and you over and over again but it was awesome perspective cuz I would go over here and try to make someone well right and train them on doing XY XYZ and then go over here to conventional medicine where people are dying and yes save some lives.

But having that dichotomy helped me understand like hey if you don't change you're going to get to this side of the of the of the I had uh I had some really interesting experiences early on as a trainer. uh that really just uh just defied my my knowledge of blood sugar and all that stuff just cuz you know I knew I had I understood very basic things but I remember once I had a client was pre-diabetic so we had to test his his blood sugar often and I'll never forget we had a really hard leg workout and his diet at this point was good because he was trying to get out of pre-diabetic diabetic stage and he went home and he calls me up like dude my blood sugar's through the roof I'm like we just worked out that doesn't make any sense it was the first time I understood how stress could cause a dramatic rise, just cause your liver to dump a bunch of, you know, glucose into your system.

I remember when I first got that call, I can't be right. Test yourself again. He's like, "No, dude. It's real high." And I'm like, "Uhoh." Like, "What do we do wrong?" And I just had no idea that stress could cause that. Yeah. Yeah. That's um that's actually one of my platforms, you know? It's like 2026, right? You can't just be a husband, you can't be a father and have a 9 to5. You got to now have a 5 to9 like a 10 to two. You got to know how to day trade crypto.

So like all day we are literally in fight or flight. Okay. So and everyone understands like that there's a reason there is a reason physiological reason for that. Right? Blue light hits your eyes, cortisol rises, you wake up and you hunt or gather, right? Again, that's a simplistic term. simplistic term. simplistic term. We it gets towards the night, lowers, you go to bed. Staying in that all day is a problem. and and teaching clients that like, hey, I can make your labs look beautiful. We can make your body composition look beautiful.

And also, I would argue that that's going to help you be more resilient. But if you if you stay in this uh high nervous system activity state, it is going to kill you. Um, and we even see that in in glucose, right? One of the interesting studies that I like to talk about with the clients is like you might not see even with stress, you might not see that cortisol effect with fasting glucose. And when you go to a conventional doctor's office, they're going to check a fasting glucose, right?

But we do see it in postprandial. So we see it after you eat. And I always reference this one study where they they artificially created like a stress test. It was like a social stress test cuz this is straight nightmare fuel and I'm saying this as I'm sitting in front of three people, but they would have you eat. So you eat your oatmeal and then within the hour you immediately go to another room and you have a mock panel job interview and so then they would measure like the glucose, right?

Or the other option is you would eat and then you would go into a live audience and do math equations, right? If you messed up, you had to start over, start over, start over, right? right? right? So I mean and think about that, right? You might have, again, you got to close deals, right? It's business, but you're having your meal in a high stress situation. Not to mention all the other other stuff that we have to deal with in today's world. today's world. today's world. And I always tell her clients, I'm like, you get what you practice.

And I'm not immune to this stuff, right? My my wife, the best thing she ever said to me was, uh, you love putting yourself in a constant state of [ __ ] your pants. And I was like, thank you. It's like despite your best efforts, that's something really cool. You know, I'm not immune to this stuff, like we I deal with stress all the time. I'm a business owner. It is like this all day. And then we're expected to come home and lower our nervous system. But that's slowly killing you, right?

And so the CGM is a good way to show people like, hey, if you do this, this is not good. So, we need to do something to help. help. help. Along those lines, what are some of the practices you've you've applied with with clients to help them uh with that part of it? Yeah. By the way, this episode is brought to you by Neutra. So, they have continual glucose monitors. You wear these on your arm and they measure in real time your blood sugar. So, you can modify your diet, your training, your lifestyle to maximize insulin sensitivity.

And because of this episode, if you go to nutriense.io/mindpump, you'll get two of their sensors for $99. That would normally cost you $249. So 99 bucks you get two sensors if you go to neutraense.iomindpump. Now the sponsor of this episode is Crisp Power. These are high protein pretzel snacks. They're delicious. Over 25 grams of protein per bag. Way better than potato chips. Way better than other snacks. Sit down, watch a movie, and have a high protein snack. And they taste delicious. Many different flavors. Go check them out.

Go to crisp power.com/mindpump. power.com/mindpump. power.com/mindpump. The code mind pump will get you 10% off. Yeah. Well, and and what's interesting too is when I ask them like, "Hey, what do you do for stress?" They'll say something like, "Okay, well, uh, I listen to music." And I'll push them a little harder. I'm like, "No, no, no." which it's fine if music helps you, but what do you do to lower your nervous system activity? Lower your heart rate, lower the sympathetic activity, you know, uh, and one of the biggest takes takeaways I have for stress I learned while I was in the military, you know, I was deployed for a year in Afghanistan with special forces and you have that constant high level of stress of I don't know, whatever getting blown up and I learned it from special forces.

So, you know, where's this coming from? Our lyic system, right? Lyic system wants us to be safe. Routine. A routine. Your brain notices routine as safe. Yeah. So, even in even in war, what do we do? We clean our weapon. We go get a haircut. We make our beds, right? We prepare whatever your the bullets, right? So, sticking to a routine will make your brain feel safe. And that's why some people think like, oh well that's a very boring lifestyle. But actually the brain does like routine.

Was that strategically put in by the military military military for that reason? Absolutely. Did you know that while you were going through it? Like were you aware of that or is this you reflecting and knowing? No. No. I was like I told you I was just a fitness bro like okay cool. This is what we do you know. But also and I don't mean this to sound arrogant. I didn't my mind was not constantly on you know whether a rocket was going to come over and hit us especially when one of them hit your friend you know.

Um, I was just, it was a very peaceful time surprisingly cuz we had one place to eat, one place to get a haircut. There was also just one haircut. You didn't have to tell them what haircut you're going to get. One place to work out, uh, you know, and one job to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, that routine, you know, I I would go as far as to say there's times where I'm experiencing more stress in this chaotic environment than I did on deployment. Interesting. What are some of the um the the practices that you've noticed that have the biggest impact on somebody's uh measurements variability?

Yeah. Is it is it exercise? If so, what type of exercise? Is it the diet? Probably sleep routine, sleep, like what are the ones that you notice most? notice most? notice most? Yeah. I mean, the obvious ones uh are sleep, you know, sleep is a super superpower. We've I think you guys have talked about the studies on those, but even if you look at studies on sleep independent of obesity, having a regular sleep schedule is going to make your your glucose more stable, right? right? right?

Going to bed at the same time, that's another one I had to learn, right? Because I don't know you guys, and my wife's probably going to kill me, but she goes to bed late. I go to bed. I'm Grandpa Langley, right? I go to I try to go to bed between 9 and 10. 10. 10. She's more after midnight. And so, of course, I want to spend time with her when I when that even if I get an 8 hour window and I try to go to bed at midnight or 1, I feel like [ __ ] the next day.

day. day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. You jet lag yourself. Yeah. Um I mean obviously body composition. So what I what I tell my clients, clients, clients, I understand when they leave the clinic, you know, our our overlords have set up the a system that's going to attack you, right? Toxic people, toxic water, toxic air, toxic foods, etc. So we work on making the body more resilient and that's lean mass to fat mass. So obviously the lever there is resistance training. Yes, you should do some cardio but trying to get that fat level down, right?

Change your body composition. I I love uh you know years ago I did research on um uh insulin sensitivity and and how exercise different modes of exercise affect insulin sensitivity. And um now this is what I thought I would see, but to see the studies back it up and and just how much it was pretty cool to see that uh strength training of all the forms of extra, you know, it's doesn't burn a ton of traditional strength training doesn't burn a ton of calories. You'll burn way more calories doing Zumba or running than you will lifting weights for the same time.

But the the insulin sensitivity was like in gaining lean body mass was huge. I remember reading one study with obese individuals who lost no weight. They just gained a little bit of muscle. Yep. and they saw these huge improvements in insulin sensitivity. What's happening there? Why is it such a big uh gamecher? Why is it not just burn calories? What is it about building muscle that does this? Yeah. So, if you look at those studies, for every I think it was for every 4% in lean mass, it was a 4% decrease in hemoglobin A1C, which is obviously a conventional test they use to check blood sugar, then uh 6% decrease in fasting glucose.

The idea is that muscle is your biggest sink for glucose, right? So 80% of that the glucose that's circulating is going to go into muscle and be stored as glycogen or be utilized, right? So that's step one. And then also muscle is a neuroindocrine organ. So it's going to also secrete u myoc brain power, right? Allowing you to make better decisions um but also just make you feel better in general. Yeah. I there was one study I read out of I want to say it was Australia where they were looking at the impact of exercise on Alzheimer's uh and they were they were looking at the beta amalloid plaque and plaque and plaque and y y y and that strength training was the only intervention they found to halt the progression and might have even looked like it was starting to reverse um and they they compared it to other forms of exercise and um my theory is it had to do with the insulin sensitivity because um you know cognitive decline Alzheimer's dementia Some researchers will call it type three diabetes.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. So yeah. So talk about the brain health benefits of Yeah. having improve, you know, improved sensitivity to insulin. Yeah. Thousand%. We just talked about more time above range or let's say glucose variability, less executive functioning, but when you take that out over time, obviously Alzheimer's and or dementia has a metabolic component. And the other thing other association I'll make is when you have metabolic disease, you have vascular disease. vascular disease. vascular disease. So one of the issues with the brain is highly sensitive to changes in energy, right?

Glucose requires a lot of energy, right? I think they're clocking the optic nerve as one of the levels that requires the most oxygen. So requires a lot of oxygen and energy glucose very sensitive. Um if you look at people who have insulin resistance, you're going to increase your risk of dementia by almost 70%. And then vascular in dementia is higher than that, right? that, right? that, right? And for me, you know, this is my personal sentiment, but if you look at all these uh problems that humans have, one component is always going to be blood flow, right?

That's how the body talks. That's how it brings in oxygen. That's how it brings in nutrients. And that's how it takes out toxins, you know? So dementia's on the rise, Alzheimer's on the d the rise and that pathophysiology is very very very similar. The whole point of this talk is like how can I take a look at someone who's sick who's sick who's sick and try to not do stuff to get to that point, point, point, right? So someone who has dementia, I mean that there's nothing worse than losing your mind, especially if you're able-bodied.

able-bodied. able-bodied. So those are very very very um those correlate strongly. I always found it interesting when people would uh debate or question whether or not um cognitive decline decline decline uh was a result of metabolic dysfunction when we've had studies been around for a long time. We've known this for a long time that if you put a person with Alzheimer's or dementia on a ketogenic diet, diet, diet, we see improvements in cognitive function. Not that that's a cure, but obviously, obviously, obviously, yeah, yeah, yeah, something's going on there because we're switching energy sources and suddenly their scores their scores their scores uh move in the opposite direction of where they've been moving for the last, you know, 10 years.

So, to me, that seems like a very obvious like there's something metabolically going on here. Yeah. And you see how also the how sensitive the brain is to neuroinflammation, right? Yeah. So when you have impaired glucose, you have impaired fat deposition and that those that sugar that's circ circulating around the brain is going to cause inflammatory products and you can even have acute cognitive changes while sugar is high. Well, I'm curious um to ask you about uh with the rise of GLP1s and like what you found uh you know in your own practice or if you prescribe or you know if you've combined that with um these glucose monitors and like what kind of data and results you've seen from that?

Yeah, I uh you know, when something gains popularity, gains popularity, gains popularity, we all win because we everyone starts using it, especially if they can make money on it off of it, right? Then we all get all these studies and we see how safe it is and all the other stuff it can do. We use G J G J G J G J GLP ones and I was using JLP ones for a long time before it kind of got popular. Um and so I love them.

I think they have profoundly positive effects and I'll tell you the context of how you need to use them. But it does two things. And I talked about those behavioral studies where people were watching what they ate and they had a structured program. So the way I look at GLP1s is it is chemical boot camp, right? So when you put this in your body, it's going to be really hard. And I tell the clients like it is really hard to eat poorly because you get really sick, right?

That's what I've seen in my clinic, right? And what do I mean? mean? mean? Well, if you have two glasses of wine and a piece of pizza and some ice cream, you're going to have a bad night. Yeah. And so it becomes chemical boot camp, right? So even if I can't be with them there there there and I'll even tell them I'm like, "Hey, you're going to get sick. Not that I want you to get sick, but you won't do it again, right?" And so that medication has really really two b two large benefits.

One, it's going to lower appetite and and lower gastric emptying. So people are going to eat less caloric restriction. And then boom, it's gonna fix insulin sensitivity or let's say enhance insulin sensitivity. And so you even see like the FDA has now approved it for cardiovascular risk, right? Less hospital admissions hospital admissions hospital admissions um lower cardiovascular events and then even kidney protection. So chronic kidney disease, they're using it's FDA approved. And kidney disease is a vascular disease. Right. Right. Those go hand in hand. Is this is are are we seeing uh improvements in insulin sensitivity from GLP-1s independent exclusively of the weight loss?

Like are you like if like someone who has a CGM uses a GLP1 before they lose weight? lose weight? lose weight? How do you tease that out? You'd see it right away. I guess you would use it and you'd see Well, essentially you also Yeah, you can see that away right away in the CGM, but they have studied the medication. They know the mechanism of action, right? So even before we're again remember they're using this in diabetics before it got popular 20 plus years it's been around.

been around. been around. So we already know that the it makes the periphery more sensitive to insulin or improves you know glucose control within the body. So side question, maybe you don't know the answer to this, but I'm I'm now seeing a lot of talk around PD5 inhibitors like Scialis. Uh not for what you typically would prescribe for, which is erectile dysfunction, but for longevity. Uh they're showing now that it's there's reductions in stroke and heart disease. Uh do you see any different when people use a CGM?

Do you see a red do you see an improvement in insulin uh response or blood sugar response from it? S are you asking me for a script of Just subtle way. Just kidding. Yeah. And and honestly, that's how we use it, too. And you know, a lot of guys in the gym use it for performance. They've been doing that since we were all kids. Whether that helps for performance or not, that's what they're using it for. So, and I can easily relate this to stuff that kills you.

So, the end product of phosphodiaserase inhibitor is nitric oxide. nitric oxide. nitric oxide. Right? Right? Right? Nitric oxide. Your body makes nitric oxide and you need nitric oxide for auto regulation which is just a fancy term for the blood vessels relaxing and squeezing squeezing squeezing in relation to the amount of oxygen you need right so yeah absolutely like we're they're using it on the regular to improve blood flow and as I told you like for me the whole discovery of me becoming this wellness doctor is realizing like I'm a blood flow doctor when organs died is blood flow and that's what people die of is cardiovascular heart attack and stroke, right?

You don't die of diabetes. It's the same thing with sexual dysfunction, right? The same vessels in your penis or vagina are the same vessels in your heart and they work the same way. Yeah. And so we see if somebody uses a PD5 inhibitor, do we automatically are you seeing immediate like changes in their CGM readings? Is it is it showing up in that way or does it take longer? Yeah, the the context the Yeah, the context for me is more of uh blood flow. Okay. Right.

So, it's more of improving blood flow to organs. Sure. Right. Okay. Yeah. Exercise is the essentially the vascular system relaxing, contracting, contracting, contracting, keeping the endothelial. Yes. Uh and and also when you have uh metabolic dysfunction, the biggest issue is vascular dysfunction, right? Vascular inflammation, right? that process, that cascade of you've heard that that term where I've heard a couple people say like the difference between a sick person and a healthy person is a teaspoon of sugar in your blood. The major insult is insult to the endothelium, the inner that glycoalix, that slimy layer of the vessel, right?

And you know, even if you look at, let's just talk about like sexual dysfunction in men. Um, across the general population, it's like 25%, which I think is still kind of ridiculous, right? That's one in four. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When you look at someone with metabolic resistance, that jumps to like 50%. It's like half. like half. like half. So So So clearly that's a vascular issue. Clearly heart attack and stroke is a vascular issue, right? That's the problem. So, and and when you have hyper or diabetes, you have high blood pressure, right?

The diabetes is causing the high blood pressure. pressure. pressure. What What percentage of your clients that you're helping uh battle with sexual dysfunction? sexual dysfunction? sexual dysfunction? I mean, anecdotally, like in my opinion, it's an epidemic. It's a lot. I mean, probably half of my clinic is sexual dysfunction. And this is also this is also jaw-dropping. This is this is this is going to rock your world. the people with metabolic res or excuse me when you have obesity up to a 13-fold increase in hypogonatism and I'm not saying sexual dysfunction is just testosterone testosterone testosterone right right right it's blood flow it's multiffactorial you know know know it's all connected yeah if a guy comes to me and he's like hey I hate my wife and you know she insults me and I don't get an erection I'm not going to say hey it's your metabolic health right our brain is our biggest sexual organ right so we're going to unpack that a little bit but I'm going to say like hey let's look at some labs Let's check the physiology.

But I I think it is an epidemic. Like it is not only on the rise, but it's ridiculous. And the other thing I'll talk about real quick is women. The And this this shocked me. The percentage of women across the population that have sexual dysfunction is 43%. General population. What? What? What? Yeah. So that how do they measure sexual dysfunction for women? Because you're not measuring erectile. erectile. erectile. Yeah. Yeah. And and that that's a good question because question because question because yeah that's a good question because path pathophysiology is the same.

It's still blood flow to the sexual organs. So desire, desire, desire, dryness, dryness, dryness, pain, right? Um libido, orgasm, right? Mhm. Um and then and one interesting connection I will make from that obser the behavioral modification the look ahead trial such a prolific trial that they had these spin-off studies and one of them was women's sexual dysfunction. And so in that trial of the people who had metabolic resistance or had obesity 50% had sexual dysfunction with the modification or this structured program 30% went into remission.

So again, you know, that statistic is shocking. 43%. It's higher with people of in women, but it's, you know, we see a man, we're like, "Okay, I can't get an erection. It's obviously a vascular issue." Right. Right. But women struggle with this, too. too. too. Interesting. How How are CGMs being used now for behavioral modification? Because CGMs measure your glucose in real time. How do you combine that with uh coaching or you know behavior to like what are you looking at and how are you using that as a tool to help somebody?

Yeah. I'd like you to take me through a week one I just signed up with you. I've got metabolic dysfunction. Yeah. What do you do you just let me eat what I normally eat and monitor me first? Do you give me stuff like tell me what a week looks like when we we get together. together. together. Yeah. Well, I also you know again I operate out of the clinic operate out of the clinic too. So I have the benefit of taking comprehensive labs. comprehensive labs. comprehensive labs.

So we it's even even more interesting when I can show them the labs and then show them the CGM which is this beatto beat look at their glucose and then give them the context of like hey if you don't do this these are the problems. But week one is really just what I want to do is I want to get their baseline baseline baseline right so do your thing. I'm like, don't because you know what people do. You guys are in the space, right? You know, and even when you ask that, you know, the 90% clean bros, right?

right? right? I eat 90% clean, right? I'm like, "Okay, well, let's like test it." And and and that's also like the biggest takeaway is I get clowned sometimes by clients. I'm like, "Hey, you should you should figure how's your sleep?" "Oh, sleep hygiene." They're like, "Yeah, don't even go. I know that. I do it." I'm like, "Okay, well, let's unpack that." Well, there's eight or nine steps to sleep hygiene. What you find out is they're maybe doing two 40% of the time and three 10% of the time, right?

right? right? It's the same thing with all of the other lifestyle modifications. They're doing some of it, not all the time. So, week one, I'm like, don't change anything. And they still will, right? right? right? I actually have to make it a point to like, listen, if you ever occasionally have a Snickers and let have that I want you to do that thing. Yeah. You got to be Give me a week. And that's that's also the problem with other companies that don't have that one-on-one dietitian contact or even in my clinic.

If someone puts something just the bias of checking, you're going to be living a lot better than you normally do. Right. So, you're going to be like, "Oh, I'm good. Perfect. Take this thing off and go back to what I'm doing." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so, that's what I told you. The biggest impact is this stuff is if I told you, hey, move more, eat less. You're like, "Cool podcast, bro." But you need to do that over a long period of time, all of these little nuances that add up.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How um have you gotten to the place where the more you look at the stuff you because I'm sure you get some of this push back like I got to plan my sleep. I got to do all these steps. I got to look at this that the other. Um it's Have you got to the place where you're like, well, I think the world is just designed to make us really unhealthy. So that's why we have to do all this because we weren't really supposed to.

supposed to. supposed to. Wait though. I want to I want cuz I know it doesn't end where take me step by because it links to what you're going where you're going right now like okay so the client here's my week and I'm assuming he's got similar advice like how we take someone it's not like do all these things these things these things right cuz I'm sure you've already learned that that doesn't work very well either when you give them the all the answers answers answers so so I do this week and you you see all this [ __ ] that jumps out at you and we and we look and so what what does it look like?

Do you choose one big rock? Do you like this is the first lever we're going to pull? Like how do you coach me through that after you get my [ __ ] labs and [ __ ] week that I give you? you? you? Because that's probably what it is for most people, right? Let's be honest. Yeah. Well, the first thing I do is set expectations. And I and I'll even say this, you know, I'm giving away all my little secrets, but I'll be like, "Look, you will know what I'm saying.

Don't believe me. Well, you you believe it when you see it, but you'll know what I'm saying is true you when you feel better." But I was like, "This is not going to change in 30 or 60 days. It may change in 300 or 400 days. and we are going to work through it step by step, right? And I will give, you know, our slogan at Thrive is called empowering your health. So I'll tell the client like here's what I think the biggest levers are and I'll give them a choice.

I'm like you should start with one of these three but only start with one at a time, right? because I want you to see on the CGM how what impact that has or the way you feel or you know the your behaviors you know inter and and that's also what the app will do is it gives you context when did you eat how are you feeling what did you do who did you talk to right cuz I told you people will automatically associate something I felt like [ __ ] today it's probably because I had the taco I was like well it's probably the taco and also the stress with your you know friend.

I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. You got to bring all that stuff into context. And what I also call it is your health circle. And again, I am not immune to this. As you say, like the the overlords have us all under this distraction and things that are killing us. So, I'm not immune to that. But when I'm feeling bad, I go and data check myself and go, "Oh, you know, I didn't take I didn't uh I was not on my sleep game, you know, or I changed my diet a little bit or something was off." And so then the client learns, put these pieces of the puzzle back into the place, they start feeling better.

How do you discern between what you know is the three biggest levers and then also what you've probably pieced together as the easiest for adherence. So this is something that over decades of coaching people um I sure have the the math equation to get this person in the great best shape of their life. But I also know and I know that this is the biggest lever but I also know too that could be a big step for a lot of people. And so sometimes I don't always advise the biggest lever or the best thing.

So how do you like first of all give me what those kind of levers are and then how do you discern where you go first with a client? Is it always the same or is do you notice based off of the the conversation like this guy's going to have struggle doing pulling this lever? this lever? this lever? Yeah. for well for me the biggest levers personally that I work with and clients are got to be they have to be resistance training followed by food right you know and specifically let's just say that you know for me I told you it's we want to make the body resilient right I want to get their body composition better to make them this welloiled machine and go out in the world and handle toxins whatever that is so we know that that's resistance training and also probably is going to be caloric deficit, which means we got to stick with protein.

I understand that that's going to overwhelm them, but I try to stick to something that's going to build trust. And generally, when people start losing weight and they feel maybe they have a little bit better better body image so that it puts them in a positive state of mind. You know, the one of the ways the brain works is error correction. So, everyone thinks like, okay, cool. um you know dopamine is a reward molecule and it is and it's all about anticipation but it's error correction.

So if you look at high performers, performers, performers, they are in this this range where it's not too hard and not too little, right? You don't want to make it too hard or too little, just right where you make a mistake, fix it, and the CGM can show you. you. you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, hey, you you did great all week, and then Friday you just, I don't know, you [ __ ] the bed, and then boom, you feel bad. feel bad. feel bad. Correct. And get back.

That that's you get dopamine in your brain. So that's that's how you actually rewrite your brain. It's so cool to hear you answer the in that that way coming from your profession and your angle because I feel like although we're in similar fields, we come at it at different angles. And those are the first two things that we tell people and it's it's get can I get them to the gym once or twice a week full body strength training routine and can I get them to eat high protein?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it and those two things are such big rocks and levers that it does tend to fix a lot of the other things. And if I can just get them to commit to that, then I could start to to build off of that. So to hear you say that from, you know, where you're standing and all the like that just shows how many people you've probably helped in your career because that's what we talk all about all the time. And people kind of mock or uh you know make fun of or scoff at that.

That's like what we we simplified down to. But it's like, man, those are such big rocks that if someone consistently consistently consistently hits high protein intake, we know that it's going to naturally start to modify their cravings and and their calories. And if they just do two full body workouts a week, the amount of muscle and strength that they can build and what that will do metabolically for them, strengthwise for them, and a lot of times it even improves some sleep and energy. So, it's it's cool to hear that that that's what you distilled it down to.

to. to. Yeah. And we've got the studies to prove that, right? You know, I I'll just to follow up on that. It's cool that you said that, too, because I think that having diagnostics and advanced medicine is great. It's awesome. You know, I studied in Texas Medical Center, MD Henderson, there's all this stuff, but I think what happens is we scoff at So, we have a bunch of advanced diagnostics and the treatment may still be very coarse, right? to make just tell the guy like the in the bottom of the boat like hey we need more coal you know or hey less coal less coal and people look at that and they're like it's basic dude like really that's what's going to change and it goes back to what I'm saying that if you did that and yes I'm not saying only that there are nuances for a long period of time you would win over time metabolically chronic illness etc what I find interesting about uh CGMs uh is that watching someone's glucose in real time, you can actually uh diagnose or at least it points you in a lot of different directions, not just food.

For example, example, example, uh how many times have you seen someone's uh CGM spike in the middle of the night and say, "Ah, you might have sleep apnnea." sleep apnnea." sleep apnnea." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's look at your sleep and see if you're snoring or what the deal is. It's interesting. It points to a lot of different things because a lot of things can cause a spike. Yep. And that's the the uh benefit of continuous data because before that how would you know? Yeah. You wouldn't know of anything that's going on.

And go ahead. How I was going to say how do you use this data then to to coach someone? Is it questions like hey we're noticing this and that. What's going on? What happened at that time? Yeah the I mean again the plat the platform that I like to use is let the client figure it out themsself with my guidance. Right. So it always starts with asking like hey you know one just the thought of them putting the CGM on they start taking more data points and you and check your own health journey like without the CGM you're maybe not thinking about like oh man I feel bad it must be you know again the this um you know whatever I ate in the morning it's probably a collection of stuff so with continuous data we can go back and look at it the other thing that Neutriense is doing right now is leveraging AI So they have this um Nora, right, that will put this stuff in front of your face.

So again, we know the best way to win with a client is touch points, right? You honestly just flood them with interaction. And so Nora will bring up trends trends trends um and bring up data, even data that's that looks the same across weeks or like when you're putting in inputs, it'll show you outputs, right? So, it bridges the gap between your meetings with either the physician or the dietitian. Any supplements uh that actually make a difference with uh what you see on the C CGM like bourberine.

I hear about bourberine all the time. Yeah, bourberine is great. Um there's bourberine, there's alpha lipoic acid uh and you'll actually see it. You'll be able to measure it. Yeah. The difference though is that just remember that the all in context. So, bourberine is not instantaneous, right? And that's because also bioavailability. So you need to take it over a long period of time. Um, another one is like myinositol. That one's awesome. So it's also used in like PCOS. So like, you know, that's a great one, but um or just working on basic deficiencies, iron, uh, vitamin D, magnesium, zinc.

magnesium, zinc. magnesium, zinc. Um, but yes, I mean, you know, again, it's complex answers, complex questions, right? You got to take bourberine for a long time. It's are hard to just say, hey, I took bourberine and then I saw the effect. the effect. the effect. Got it. What about the the GMO product that Ziotic makes in you'd be a great person to ask that. Yeah. So, um they made a product that uh this bacteria is modified to convert unused sugar into fiber. Acromancia. Acromancia. Acromancia. Uh good question.

I'm not sure. Uh but I know that they modified the bacteria so it's their own patented whatever. Um that theoretically should make a difference, right? Because it goes from thousand%. thousand%. thousand%. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And I mean that' be a fun test then. Yeah. Be cool to give you something and see. Yeah. Yeah. And and again extend the study over time, right? Like you got to make it almost like a cut out all the other variables, same meals, same timing, same timing, same timing, course, course, course, but you know the gut also there neutrics they they do a gut microbiome test.

So we're understanding that gut is very complex. It's a great way that food interacts with the world and when the bacteria are in proper alignment, they can help your glucose, right? It's interesting you brought up myinostol because that's been promoted forever as an anti-anxiety an anti-anxiety an anti-anxiety supplement and and I'm wondering now if the anti-anxiety effect is from a regulating of uh blood sugar. Yeah. Well, and one of the things it does is it helps cellular movement. So like storage to the end of the cell to the nucleus.

So DNA basically enhances mitochondria. It's just like NAD anything anytime you enhance mitochondria you can have lower inflammation, lower anxiety, better sleep, etc. sleep, etc. sleep, etc. Creatine do you recommend creatine quite a bit? Million billion thousand% should be part of your daily stack um they even done have done studies that show so data that shows when paired with exercise uh can improve glucose sensitivity. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. So and then of course we know now that we're stacking it for brain effect too, right? You just have to do more.

I think brain absorption is a little less. So, pump your dose. Yeah. You uh brought up the alarming stat with women, the 43%. Anything else? And you're such a data driven guy. You got all this great all this great analytics that you can go back to. Anything else that was alarming to you like that you've come across that like surprised you or was like, man, in the data? Yeah. Yeah. just um yeah, there's another like another one that comes to mind and it's just deals with men.

It's prostate. So, as we're aging, a lot of people are having prostate issues, right? And I I mean, again, even me going up through the medical community, it's like just something that old guys had, right? They just went to pee five times a night. And so, you see that. So, now we're also starting to learn that's also a metabolic component. So the data is now showing that um with insulin resistance and there may it may be a dose response. So the worse it is the larger the prostate.

So it can increase your um risk of BPH hyper hypertrophy three-fold. three-fold. three-fold. So again if you talk about the impact on a man's life sleep if I'm having to get up five or six times to up five get up five or six times to sleep it's going to destroy everything else right else right else right effect. Yeah. So, we fix that in the clinic and it's life-changing. It's It's something that people overlook. I mean, a guy will come in and be like, "I'm only going to pee once a night." Changes his life.

his life. his life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Wow. Not to mention improved blood flow and sexual functions. sexual functions. sexual functions. What about um so you hear a lot now a lot in regards to cancer that um one of the driving the driving the driving forces behind cancer is metabolic dysfunction. Um are you are you up to date with some of this research? I know cancer is very complex, but Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, and that brings up a good point. So when you talk about metabolic dysfunction, everyone understands glucose, but the other flip of that coin is fat deposition, right?

So when you're when this system is impaired, you have a tendency to add fat and not just fat, it's bad fat, ectopic fat, visceral fat. That's the fat that kills us. And so if you look at the risk of someone having high visceral fat, it increases cancer risk by 44%. And I'm talking about talking about talking about colon cancer, pancreas cancer, like the stuff that can kill you, right? Um, and then the other really important statistic of just having visceral fat is increases your mortality twofold, right?

So, so we know there's a con connection between metabolic resistance and cancer. And yes, glucose has an effect, but I just want to point out that abnormal fat deposition, which is killing people, right? It's a big big makes you big risk factor. factor. factor. Uh when you look at um just studies and surveys on people that lose weight and the fail rate is so high, right? Uh something like 85% or 90% gain the weight back type of deal. Do you see greater success rates when people lose weight through using a CGM and a coach versus doing it on their own?

Uh what does that look like in comparison? Yeah. Um I wish I had some cool statistics on that. I can just tell you in reality and you guys are in the same space, right? space, right? space, right? And you know what I can point out is those the RCTs are those really really large trials as I told you of behavioral modification. modification. modification. What they were given was coaching. So they had behavioral groups. They were taught what macros are or they were taught and then they had followup and though and even the the effects of positive, you know, lowered depression, lowered anxiety and and how they thought they had a lower perceived stress of sticking to a plan.

So that take-home message is like, cool, you can get a CGM. Cool. You know, you have these companies where you can just go like, hey, I can order my labs. It needs context. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It needs followup. And even like you know as a physician like I can't do do it all you know so a whole team and that's how we work in my clinic as well. Yeah. Yeah. No I would have guessed that for sure just from from my experience. I think uh behavior change is hard and it takes some time and you need a coach there and then you need some grace and you're going to screw up and then Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But over time uh far better success rate. rate. rate. Tell me a little bit more about the the AI that Neutriense is is using. I haven't I haven't played with that in a while. And so like is it is it giving me like it starts to pick up on my patterns of like Saturdays I tend to do these Oh wow. And does it give you like a notification or something or positive and negative kind of trends? Yes. It puts it in your face, right?

That's kind of cool. And the other thing too is the more inputs, more outputs, right? So if you're saying, "Hey, I went to bed at this time. Hey, my day was stressful. Hey, I worked out. It's going to tell you last week you did this and this is what we saw. And so think about that when when when I can't sit there and harass you and it's it's, you know, harassing you to like think. like think. like think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what's so cool about that is one of the things that we I talk about a lot on the show is that a lot of what you do with good coaching is really just helping clients connect the dots.

the dots. the dots. Totally. you know, h half the time, uh, I mean, and we're all probably all in this room guilty of this at one point in our lives, you know, eating foods that totally didn't agree with us and just thought that your stool was normal. That's just you have a bad day. It was like like not going like, no, that's actually because you ate this thing, you felt that way. Also, your sleep was it's like it's just there we're so it's amazing to me how disconnected we are to how food affects us and how and just so a lot of it's connected to us.

So now having an AI tool that's monitoring you that's kind of giving you that feedback loop is incredible cuz it's like an ongoing coach who's just kind of reminding you like cuz then they start to connect it. I'm sure they go like oh [ __ ] that's the third time that I didn't get to bed at this time and I also know so one of my favorite things to talk about with uh the the glucose monitors that I noticed and it was that uh poor nights of sleep the cravings on the next day.

Yeah. What? Like that was mind-blowing to me. And literally just becoming aware of that made helped me combat it in the daytime. So it was just like if I knew I got up and it was like damn that was a poor night I slept. I know what I was in for that day. And because I was aware of that, it made me it made it easier for me to resist that. It was like why all of a sudden I'm craving this crappy food. I' I've been on my diet.

It's like oh that's right. I got that bad night of sleep. I think things like that, like people just don't realize how how much of what's going on with their sleep and their habits are connected to all these cravings and other in their moods and all this stuff. And so having an AI tool that is also giving you that feedback, that's that's rad. Yeah, it's huge. It's it's just like I talked about, you know, when when something happens, you correlate it with something that day or maybe the day before.

What if it you know, complex questions, complex what if it was seven days before? What if it was 15 days before? So aggregating that data really expands like whoa it's very thoughtprovoking right thoughtprovoking right thoughtprovoking right and even if you know so hey I had a bad night of sleep I know when I have bad a night of sleep I have cravings stick to your routine right you're like I am not going to even go over there where the ice cream is or whatever it is is your right yep yep yep how how well or how quickly is uh neutriense growing because they're one of the best at combining kind of coaching with monitoring is it a growing field in general Um, and how's Neutri Sense doing with it?

Yeah, Neutri Sense is is crushing it. I mean, you know, I don't I don't know of another company that utilizes coaching. And so, yeah, there are other CGM companies. companies. companies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But the coaching is where it's at or the one-on-one with dietitians, with experts. experts. experts. And so, people want that, right? I mean, I have a bunch of clients that come to me that are fallout from, you know, hey, I got my labs, no one helped me, right? Putting it in context. So, Neutri Sense is is blowing up in that sense.

Um, and so, yeah, it's really exciting. And then the other thing too is when, as I said, when something gains popularity, we get to study it. So, hopefully the the future forward is continuing to look at this data and then trying to get realworld stuff. for example, like they're looking at CGM and changes in arterial flow, which would lend itself to like, hey, what what's going to set you up for death? Cardiovascular disease, right? Right now, I can't say it's a diagnostic tool, but the more data, the more we can see.

The whole point of the talk is how do I not end up over there? One, how do I feel better? And two, how do I not end up sick or dead? dead? dead? What do you do for Neutri Sense exactly or with Neutri Sense? Yeah. So, I am so currently I'm the medical director. Um, and you know, these CGMs are being offered commercially, but if you were to get a CGM back in the day, it would come through me. You might see my name on it.

Yeah. I got a lot of phone calls in that day. Hey, Dr. Langley, I need another CGM. I was like, oh, talk to Neutriense. Um, but yeah, no, I mean, I work closely with the dietitians and the team at Neutriense. You know, my clinic handles stuff, complicated situations in a a much a larger conglomerate of stuff, but we work hand in hand. Our clinic, my clinic is very much like talking to people at Neutri Sense. We use the dietitians at Neutri Sense, etc. How did that how did that I mean, we you talked about how um that relationship started and you almost were like a customer first.

Yeah. How did that develop into the relationship you have now with him? Yeah. Well, like I said, um, and Dan's probably going to kill me for telling this story, but you know, Dan and I built a relationship cuz I was just interested. I wanted to know everything. Hey, let me talk to your dietitians. And at the time, I was doing stuff across country, right? So, I had all of these medical licenses. And um, once we built a relationship, he was like, "Hey, uh, because we we were having trouble getting the CGMs out." He's like, "Hey, I need a doctor who's willing, who's excited, who talks really fast like me and has some medical licenses." And I was like, "Cool.

I need a CEO that talks faster than me. Like, let's go." So, that's really it. Like, that really started the whole relationship. And a little bit of other truth here. I was more excited. I was like, "Hey, teach me. Let me use this stuff." And, you know, I'll be your medical director. No payment, nothing like that. That's so crazy. crazy. crazy. So that helped. But it did supercharge me into like building my own own clinic and learning more. Now, have you guys become friends or just business?

I mean, what's it? Have you guys I mean, imagine you're you're you're bugging him that much. He brought you in. You guys probably built somewhat of a relationship even. Yeah. Yeah, we're bros. Um, we're bros. He's always trying to get me to hang out and and I was telling him like, "Dude, I have a lot to do, but yes. Yes, we'll go to Burning Man at some point. I'm not having a CGM on when we do that though. Okay. though. Okay. though. Okay. How are peptides uh um showing up on CGMs?

Are you noticing any changes? I'm assuming the growth hormone releasing ones you'll probably see an impact. And are you seeing anything with like the like the BPC's and the Yeah, that's a good question. Um haven't specifically studied it, but you know, again, even with peptides, like in my opinion, very safe molecules. the longer you take them, the longer you have to understand what they do. So some of those growth hormone secrets, if you look at some of the studies, I think it's closer like a week 11 12 if you're on it, you may have some increase in IGF-1, which we know is going to change glucose a little bit.

So that's a good question. I haven't really looked at that yet, but honestly, another tool in the toolbox to show people. people. people. What about um hormone therapy? How is that improve? How is that changing or improving? So a guy comes in low testosterone, doesn't get doesn't rise from improving behaviors, you put them on testosterone, what do you see typically typically typically in their overall health? No, in their CGMs. Do we notice anything with with improvements downstream? For sure, because then they build muscle and then you see it.

Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. So, so again to me like having normal testosterone lowers cardiovascular risk. Why? We know it's going to burn visceral fat and that's the major killer. Two, it's going to help you add muscle. There's I've seen one study where it says it may may almost add up. Even without working out, you may have a change like seven to eight% really massive. That's wild. That's that's insane, right? I told you every 4% lowers your hemoglobin A1C like another 4%. So 4%. So 4%. So So you do see a downstream effect, right?

Um and then again having metabolic resistance is going to increase your your uh risk of hypogonaz gonadism up to 9 to 13fold which is like ridiculous right so it's an epidemic and there are certain things you would want better sleep better mood um and better body composition fix your testosterone now I know you haven't you haven't had your clinic for decades but have you noticed even in the short time you have uh the rise in like young men with like epidemic. epidemic. epidemic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Epidemic. And in fact, I forgot to say this, but so across the general population, let's say it's 24%. But a new study came out last year where they looked at 18 to 34 year olds and they gestured and this was a questionnaire questionnaire questionnaire 34% which is insane. And also I personally believe that it's under reportported, right? Because yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, you you're not you don't really want to tell someone at that age maybe you have problems. I know it's under reportported because we get DMs and messages from young men all the time that haven't even gone and seen their doctor and talked about it.

And so there's not not everybody's reporting it. reporting it. reporting it. Where it gets tricky is and you you know as a good clinician understands it's not an absolute number, right? You know, you may be low and not having symptoms. low or you may be normal and having symptoms, right? You have to look at the number bait and and talk to the client. Yeah. I would I would imagine that's due to poor health and probably pornography which is real common now in young men. A thousand%.

A thousand%. A thousand%. Yeah. It's probably a good combination of the two cuz I mean historically you would not see any sexual dysfunction in that age group. That's like when you don't have any. Yeah. And that's the other thing to point out. It's not all like I said it's not all metabolic health. If a guy comes in and says, "Hey, I'm looking at porn and I'm masturbating like 37 times a I'm going to be like, "Hey, let's unpack that a little bit. That's probably not healthy." healthy." healthy." Too much.

Too much. Too much. Jeez. Jeez. Jeez. Right. Right. Right. Justin 37 numbers, right? You're all getting sealis after the show. show. show. Well, good deal. Yeah, dude. Yeah, dude. Yeah, dude. Well, this has been great, man. Thanks for coming on. I appreciate you coming. Thanks for having me. Kind of breaking this down. I think uh the future of uh I think far more people now are becoming aware of the value of coaching. I think that uh GLP1s or GLPs have increased the awareness around it because yeah, you lose weight but you also lose muscle.

So now you know your typical doctor saying you might need to strength train. Um and so I think that this is all good. I think we're moving in a better direction um than we have in a long time. And you add a a you know a glucose monitor to that and you've got this wonder like we've never had tools like this like as a trainer a trainer a trainer it was just me and my client but if I had a you know glucose uh monitor and if I had a GLP1 working with some of my clients that stroke I think my success rate would have doubled for sure.

For sure. For sure. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we're going to see that for sure. for sure. for sure. We're going to see that. This is the future. future. future. Very close. I would just say, you know, if you're going to set up a clinic, you're going to have a program, you got to have good coaching. I don't care if you're a doctor, whatever you are. Agreed. Agreed. Agreed. You got to spend time with these people. Thanks for coming on, man. Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it. All right. I know you like that episode. If you did, check this one out. Walking. It's one of the best things you could do for your health, bar none. But there's a better way to approach it. Yes, you can just walk, but if you follow the right protocol, effective. Let's talk about walking. I can't wait to hear your walking protocol. walking protocol. walking protocol. Well, there is well, there is a protocol. So, and I'll start with the first thing, right? Because just first off, uh let me start with this.

One of the reasons why walking um is such a great form of just activity is because it's low risk of injury. Now some