The Health Pyramid with Doug Lucas

So it can be a challenge to work in this space because sometimes one of the, some of the stuff that we like to use becomes no longer available. It's not because there was anything wrong with it. It was because somebody made a, you know, a scrupulous claim about what it could do when they shouldn't have done that.

Welcome to the Next Level Income show where it's our goal to take your income, your investments and your life to the next level. I'm your host, Chris Larsen. If you haven't yet, get a copy of our book for free at our website, nextlevelincome.com. that's www.nextlevel levelincome.com. just click on the book link and I'll even send you a copy if you put your address in. On today's show, we welcome back Dr. Doug Lucas. Dr. Lucas and his practice, Optimal Human Health MD specializes in metabolic health, hormone optimization for both men and women, osteoporosis and longevity. Dr. Doug aims to address the underlying causes of chronic disease to improve both health span, but more importantly lifespan. And you may be wondering if you've been following the show, Chris, why are we talking about health? This is Next Level Income. The bottom line is if you don't have your health, you don't have anything. And you would trade money to get your health. So today we're going to talk about some of the things that you can do to improve it. Dr. Lucas, welcome back to the show.

Chris, great to be here, man.

Yeah, yeah, it's, you've, you've joined the elite few who have come back on the show repeatedly and we're going to make this a regular occurrence. I think the next episode we're going to do an ask me anything session that we, that we do for you. For those listeners who are interested, you can go back and listen to episode 133 where Dr. Lucas came on and talked a little bit about his background and his practice. But real quick, catch us up a little bit. Dr. Lucas, if you would, on your background because you're going to talk about your, your business and your current practice, but you, this isn't always what you did in a prior life. You were an orthopedic surgeon.

Yeah. Well, we could go all the way back to when I was a ballet dancer, but I guess that's a conversation for another day. So my, my professional career started in orthopedics and that my dream coming out of medical school. But I very quickly realized after, you know, finishing residency and fellowship and going into practice, I Felt like I was just chasing my tail with my patients and that even though we were doing cool surgeries and we had cool equipment and the operating room was a lot of fun, I felt like patients were me too late, and that if I could just educate them in the way that I feel like they were looking for with the information that I already knew because of my interest in health and nutrition and that I could prevent a lot of what I was already doing. And then my wife also proved this to me with her weight loss business, and she was reversing diabetes and helping people get rid of medications. And it just continued to push and push me until I realized that there was a space for me outside of that that I really needed to push into.

Yeah, One thing that really surprised me was when I started working with, you know, working in this space. And, you know, I've been, as I mentioned in the first episode that we talked about, seven years I've been doing personalized medicine, what you and your practice does. And I'd like you to kind of describe that. But it shocked me because I thought I was eating healthy, and I had my genetics tested, and my doctor gave me a diet plan. I went through it, and I moved some things around, and I actually added coconut, coconut oil, coconut butter to my diet because I wasn't supposed to eat a lot of saturated fat, like meat. That sort of thing. Well, kind of blew over my head, but coconut is saturated. And I go. I go back in for my quarterly blood work and my triglycerides, my cholesterol just went through the roof. And the nurse looked at me and she scolded me, and I was like, I'm doing what you guys are telling me. And when I broke it down, she said, no, Chris, you can't eat coconut. Like, you shouldn't eat coconut, in addition to amazing things like bacon. So it really. It really shocked me. And, you know, I. I describe it as saying, you know, getting blood work done or going to the doctor. It's like. It's like seeing where you are on a map. But having your genetics done is like having the map with the best route laid out. So what. What exactly does your practice do, Dr. Lucas?

Yeah, well, it's a great segue into this concept of personalized medicine. Another way to say it is precision health. And one of the biggest things that I found that was missing is I would watch patients, my own patients, when I was in my surgical practice, and they would. They would go out and try to find good information, and inevitably, they would end up in their primary care doctor's office or their internist or whomever. And they would get sort of the, the blanket general recommendation, you know, restrict saturated fat restrictions, salt and, you know, eat less fat and eat more carbs. And, and they, they didn't feel good eating that diet because that diet doesn't work for most people. And they would try to find other providers that had both medical knowledge that could help them with their medical problems, but also had nutrition knowledge, also had maybe knowledge in the functional medicine. And it was a very difficult connect for them because they couldn't find any way to bridge the gap. And that's what I wanted to do, was to help bridge that gap. So what we created is a form where we can do personalized medicine and we can do precision medicine. And the foundation of that is really genetics. So getting a genetic panel on people, you had. And it's funny, what I've learned over the last few years of doing this is not everybody even wants to know. There's a lot of fear around genetics. Or there's thought that, oh my gosh, it's not there yet and it's going to give me bad information. And I'll say that I just had a patient. This is a great story where this guy who has, he's basically diabetic, he has terrible hearty heart risk factors. Cardiovascular risk factors. And he doesn't want to know his genetics. And I would really like to apoe status on him because it would really help us to determine, hey, you know what, what kind of saturated fat intake should you be looking at now? We can work without that. But it's just a funny, you know, he's just so, he's so opposed to this tool that we're not going to get it, which is fine, we can do without it. But it was more than more than that because I found that the, the percent health is cool and it does help to direct people. But for most people, and you might be an exception to this, but for most people, if you just give them a recipe, this is what's best for you. Here's your roadmap. Follow this line. They're going to struggle because there are so many inputs and so many variables that they might start out well, but oftentimes they're not going to stick to it. So I knew that we needed to have a coaching platform where we could help people, we could keep them accountable for their changes, give them a platform to ask both the coach and their physician questions, you know, to have that kind of concierge access and then also help them get the stuff. When we lay out a program, it's got a bunch of different things in it. So how do you get all the things? And so we needed to help find a way to help people do that. So that's what we ended up creating in the original form, which is called Optimal Human Health. And that's really our goal, is to help people to optimize their health and improve their health span.

Well, for those that don't know, you are my personal doctor and I've gone through this program and I know it works. And it's, it's really, it's, you know, you and I both spent a lot of time in the traditional healthcare system and it's, it's amazing in a lot of ways. We have tremendous technology, we have tremendous training, we have tremendous doctors, surgeons, but like you said, we don't have this accountability and we don't have really a structure set up where, you know, people can, patients can work to avoid sickness in the future. And I'm really excited for you to share with the audience what you've been, what you've been working on here called the health Triangle. So we're really going to go through that today in depth here on the podcast.

Yeah, and, and I, I wanted to talk about this because people ask me often, you know, what is it that you do? And it's sort of like, I don't have a great pitch for that. You know, I have one, but it's, it's difficult to put it all in, in a 30 second spiel. But what I wanted to impart to your listeners and what I try to tell people when they, when they ask me, you know, passing by on the street is how can you take this information of this platform that we've built and this in your own world? Because this is what I think most people are missing is how do I put together all of these different inputs of this guy that I like on YouTube or this person that I'm listening to on Instagram, plus what my doctor is saying. Like, like I just like, how do I put this together? And what I see, where I see most of the errors are people leaning on cool technology, the newest supplement, the newest longevity hack, the newest, you know, David Sinclair thing. And while those things are all great, if you start there, you're going to probably be missing a really big piece of the foundation. So I was, I was chatting this out with somebody and we came up with the triangle or the pyramid, I don't know what the right term for it is, but basically it's. It's something that, that looks like a triangle and it has five layers. And when I lay this out to people, we spend of our time talking about, but also in practice, most of our time treating that bottom layer. So that foundational layer. And of that foundational layer, it has five pillars. So five layers, five pillars. We can draw this out. And so of the five pillars in the foundational layer, these are the basic things that we talk about, right? So this is exercise, this is nutrition, this is stress mitigation, is what we call it. Sleep, probably the first one. And then most recently, I've added spiritual health. I've continued to work with patients in, especially in our age group. You know, men and women in our age group that are really struggling to find the mean of what they're doing that really impacts their health overall. And we can dial in all the biomarkers in the world, but if you don't, if you don't know what your purpose is, if you don't understand why you're doing what you're doing, you're not going to be happy about any of it. And so much of what we're going for is the energy, the drive, the stamina, like, all of these things are so built into our conscious mind that if you don't understand, you don't have a good, a good understanding of why you're doing what you're doing, what that spiritual side is up to, then none of it really matters. So that was a recent addition to that foundational part.

I love that. And I think, look, I've seen it. Like you and I are both wearing aura rings. So I love technology. That's the engineer, that's a nerd in me. But what I've seen is when I come back from, like a retreat with my wife, where we've been doing this, this deep introspective work, I watch my HRV climb, I watch the mental side of things affect the physical side. And life is an energy game. And I think, you know, if you, if, if you don't, if you don't have that piece like you're mentioning on the spiritual side, then there's going to be something lurking that's sitting in the back that's going to be eating away. And I think, you know, we've talked about this before on the podcast where, you know, you, you go through life, you are achieving what feels like success materially. You have the car, you have the house, you have the family, you have the career, but you're not happy and you don't know why that is. And I think that's. That's fairly unique in what you're looking at. But, you know, to, to deny that it affects our, our body, our health in general. The spiritual side is key.

Yeah, yeah, no, I know. We, we've had some deep, deep conversations about retreats that I've had as well. And I was that exact person you just described. Right. You know, fellowship at Stanford, dream practice, you know, success, busy building a new house, got the car that I always wanted. I was miserable. Miserable. And, you know, it wasn't until I really found purpose with an understanding of what my. What my professional role should be, where I like, I enjoy what I do. It's still work, of course, but I enjoy this mission. I enjoy the role that I play for my family, with my kids and with my wife. Once I put all of those in place, man, like, I hop out of bed in the morning, ready to go, let's go.

Yeah.

You know, so, yeah, so I think that's a huge thing because the next layers, none of those matter if you don't nail all of those pillars of the foundation.

I love that. So then the foundation, and I think I like the pyramid. So the foundation of the pyramid or the triangle, as you mentioned then. So you get those pieces in place. What's the next level?

Yeah, yeah. So once the foundation is in place, then the next layer, I like to consider this, the supplement layer. And I was an Instagram live with somebody and all these questions were about supplements, supplements, supplements. And supplements can be important because it's just, I think, impossible at this point to get all the nutrients we need out of our food, even if you ate the best diet in the world. So I think it's important to identify what supplements you need and then really target your supplements based on biomarkers where you can, and then based on good philosophy and principles where you can't, because there are some things we just can't measure. And so picking a stack that is tolerable, something that you're going to continue to take, and something that is that you could potentially retest to make sure you're taking the right stuff. So that's the supplement layer. So that's the layer up.

And what I like is I. I get this from, from your practice. I have the supplements that are based upon my genetics, that are based. Based upon my blood work. And then they show up. They show up. So I don't have to go, and I don't have to go to the. I don't even know the Vitamin Shop. What was the. It was called the Vitamin Shop.

Yeah, there's. Back in the day.

Yeah, yeah.

Gnc.

Yeah, gnc. You know, you have to go and do those. And yeah, it makes, it makes a big difference when all these pieces are turnkey, for sure.

No, and that's what I, that's part of that consistency is, you know, things. People will run out of supplements and they like, oh, I'll order this, and then somebody throws away the bottle. I forget what it was. You know, it's just like all these little things that just get in the way. So that's what we're trying to do is just make it as easy as possible.

Yeah. All right, so build the foundation, add on supplements, and then the next layers.

There'S three more layers. So we don't usually use the third layer very much. But so the, the third layer up is hormonization. And so this is replacement for some people, this is optimization for others. And this is a, it's a really interesting conversation because we have a full of. Of age patients, so we have people in their teens and we have people in their 80s. And so this layer means something very different for all those people. But there are options for all of that age group. And so without optimized sex hormones, it's really difficult to get some of the other things in line, like your sex hormones, your thyroid hormone, your immune system, they're all very intrinsically tied together. And so while it's easy to just replace hormones, sometimes, sometimes you need to actually fix the other things first before you replace those things. And we find that if we can get to that root cause, it's kind of the functional medicine perspective. But if you get to that root cause and sometimes you optimize the hormones without replacing them, and then they come back on their own. So you don't always necessarily need to go down that route.

And that's why, you know, I think this is where you're so much different. Your practice is so much different than traditional medicine. First off, you go to a doctor and you test for, like, say, vitamin D. What's a. What's a normal range for vitamin D according to an average doctor? Doctor, are you ready to gain new tools, close more deals, and network with the highest level real estate investors in the business? Join me at Mfincon 2023 in Charlotte, North Carolina, June 12th through the 14th. I'm excited to be speaking again this year alongside Dr. Robert Cialdini, Mark King of Taco Bell, Joe Fairless, and over 75 other real estate experts. Sharpen your knowledge on capital raising strategies, asset management, alternative asset classes, underwriting, and so much more. This event will include everything you need to define your goals, improve your mindset, and find the right connections to succeed. The networking opportunities at mfincon are not to be missed. If you're serious about apartment syndication investing, real estate investing in general, or just commercial real estate, mfincon is for you. And you can use our special promo code, next level, all caps, to get $200 off your ticket. Learn more and reserve your seat by clicking the link below. That's M f I n C-O-N.com www.mfincon.com.com hope to see you there.

According to who. So the, the RD I think is, the RDA would be 30. 30. I think it's picograms per deciliter or something.

But yeah, whereas optimum is more like what, 60 to 80?

I. I put since between 80 and 100. Generally.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But we're, so, we're testing. So just as a quick caveat. So if you're thinking, I'm gonna go do that, we're also looking for kinds of vitamin D being too high. So for people that aren't regularly testing all of the other things, I would say aiming for around 60 is probably safe.

Gotcha. Yeah, but that's, I think that's an important point. I think traditional medicine isn't testing for optimization. They're testing for, you know, really a level that's, that's low and it's going to create a problem.

They're looking for biomarkers that will, if you can meet those minimums, then you are going to prevent acute illness, like acute disease. We look at this in like the protein recommendations, right? Like the traditional protein recommendations of 0.8 grams per kilogram is to prevent acute protein malnutrition. And then people will take that and be like, oh, well, if you eat more than that, it's better for your kidneys. Well, no, it's not. You know, the upper limits of protein intake is more like 3 grams per pound. So you're talking like whatever that is. 6.6 grams per kilogram. Right. So that is, I mean, the magnitude greater. And that would be for me, like 600 grams of protein in a day. So I can't even begin to eat that much. So I'm not worried about my kidneys. But that's how big that difference is between, okay, what's dangerous, what's optimal, and, and then what's recommended.

Yeah, I had a.

Do.

I had a professor in college tell me that you didn't need more than like a. A small hamburger patty worth of protein a day. And I said, And I raised my hand and, you know, this is how I. I got to be so popular in my classes. And he said. I said, wait a minute. I was like, is that. What's that? Like, for what? Like, what are you. What are you referencing? And he said, oh, that's like, for survival. And I was like, does anybody in here just want to survive? And, like, everybody looked at me and shook their heads. And I said. I said to the professor, I said, no. I said, yeah, but if you want to be, you know. And then he was, you know, he had. His arms were about as, you know, as big around as my son's arm. So the guy obviously didn't lift weights or do deadlifts, as Nassim Taleb would say. But I said, don't. I mean, we're here. We're in college. We're studying. Like, we're trying to optimize, you know, our outcomes for life. And I said, what's that number? And he didn't have an answer. So I think that's really important one that you have to. You have to ask, like, what is the reference that we're measuring to? And then, sure, you know, what. You know, what are we measuring for? Are we. Are we. And how are we going to get there? So what I mean is there, you know, you said you work with teenagers, you work with. I know you work with elderly people. You even have a part of your practice that's focused specifically on bone health, which we can dive into later. But it. At what ages do people really. Or do you see in your patients start to have issues with. With hormones and really start to need. Need this man.

I. At all. I mean, of course, I've biased a view because they're coming to me with problems. But, you know, even in patients who. They think that they're, you know, they. They come in, they say, well, I just want to optimize you. We have some athletes say, I just want to, like, I want to be the best that I can be. We're like, cool. So we get the same labs that we get in everybody. And then functional testing is always dependent on the patient. I've never been somebody that had adequate levels of everything.

Wow.

I've just never seen it. And it's because it's so difficult in our environment of stress, our environment of. Of poor food, just being surrounded by poor food choices. And it's so difficult to avoid. And then all of the other environmental toxins that we're just exposed to every day. You know, every time you pick up a receipt, every time you go outside and inhale the polluted air, like it's just everywhere. So I think potentially everybody has something that they can work on.

Yeah, and I think that's a great point. Like, we, we can't. We can, we could change our environment. We go live like a monk. But, you know, the bottom line is we're, we're in an environment. We're exposed to light, like the light from the computer screen right now. We're exposed to air pollution. We're exposed to, you know, carcinogens and different things that are out there. Plastics, you know, and in the packaging and all these different things. If we can't avoid all those things, we can create a robust body where we can, we can better deal with these stressors that we put under ourself or put onto ourself. So we build a foundation, we add supplements, potentially hormones. Where do we go from there?

Yeah. So the next step up then. I like to use the term peptides. Now, peptides can mean kind of different things, but when I talk peptides, I'm talking about prescription products that come from compounding pharmacies. And peptides are not made by drug companies, so they're not FDA reg. But they are used regularly in this space. So this is kind of a controversial field. But peptides are these cool signaling molecules that can really have an impact on different things. So, you know, some of the peptides you and I have talked about in the past would be things that are good for helping to build muscle. And so from my, my bone health population, these are. I love this for this group because they're really struggling. Even with resistance training and adequate protein and nutrition, they're still really struggling to put on muscle mass times because they, they, they're limited sometimes in what they can do on the hormone side. So peptides can really help to pull those levers harder. But then there are other categories that are great for cognition, great for sexual health, great for immune dysfunction and improving immune function. So we can really kind of just choose and stack these things as again, this extra layer. But one of the, one of the problems I see people do is that they'll go to a practitioner for peptides and given this crazy expensive stack of peptides and not had any discussion about all the other stuff. Right. And so people will say, well, I took peptides. They didn't work for Me, I'm like, ah, well, yeah, if you, if you ice a cake and there's no cake, it's not going to look like a cake.

You know, icing's really good though.

Icing's really good. By itself it is, but it's not.

But I'm not allowed. You don't allow me to eat. It's not on your list. No. In all seriousness, that is one thing I, I like about your perspective, which is, you know, life is meant to be lived. Like we're not here to be, like I mentioned earlier, to be monks and not do anything fun out there. Like we need to prepare and we need to have a good time and do that. But yeah, from what I read about peptides, you know, one of the benefits, and please correct me if I'm wrong here, is that they can be more specific than say like an anabolic steroid where you take it and has all these other effects that are negative on your body. Is that, is that accurate in general?

Yeah. So I'll give you a great example. So people, people listening probably have heard of growth hormone, right? So it's a really commonly used termination, um, not very commonly prescribed, but it does exist as a pharmaceutical hormone. Has a tremendous impact on your muscles, on your fat cells, on your organs, on everything. Because it is, it. It just has this really powerful growth as it would, the name would suggest growth impact on your body all over the place. There's a peptide called AOD 9604. AOD is a fragment of growth hormone. So you get some of the impact of growth hormone, but not all of it. So if somebody's looking to really kind of do the body comp thing, they're looking to increase muscle mass and potentially cut a little bit and decrease, and decrease visceral or, or even subcutaneous fat. AOD will help to turn on lipolysis, which is the burning of fat, helps to block energy being deposited into fat cells. But it can also help build muscle. So for that, you know, for people that are saying, oh, it's impossible to gain muscle and burn fat at the same time, that it's not entirely true, you can do it, it's still really hard. But these are these tools that we can use to sort of help to improve that, whereas giving growth hormone will also do that. But then you also run the risk of, of developing the growth hormone belly where your liver and you know, all your organs get really big.

You know, like bodybuilders and.

Right, right.

People. Interesting, interesting. No, it is, it is fascinating what, you know, what has changed here over the past, you know, 10, 20 years? I started racing my bike 30 years ago and you hear about all these different. Yes. Hahaha. You hear about all these, you know, different things that, you know, these drugs that, you know, athletes and cyclists were on and did these things and these, you know, the side effects you had. You had cyclists dying of heart attacks in the middle of the night because they were taking erythrocuitin and these sorts of things. But I started to really learn about peptides during COVID because I learned that there are certain peptides that can enhance your immune function. And you know, why would you take a drug or why would you subject your, your body to something where you can just upregulate, say your immune system and allow your immune system to fight off an infection and do these sorts of things? So it's really fascinating to me that, you know, technology and medicine is, is advancing in all these ways and most people, I would guess, that are listening today have never even heard of peptides or know these exist.

No. Well, your doctors aren't going to talk about them, right? Because they're not FDA regulated, they're not FDA approved. So doctors in general are going to shy away from them. Pretty common in the space that I'm in, we talk about peptides all the time. It's interesting, you mentioned Covid and immune system. There was one peptide in particular called thymosin alpha 1, which people used of course off label for everything. Right. Cause it's not FDA regulated. Um, but there was people that really relied on it that had chronic Lyme and other immune problems. And there were some claims made about thymos and alpha one in Covid treatment. And so the AA ripped it off the market. You couldn't, you can't find it, you still can't find it. Which was a big problem for a lot of people because their, their chronic immune dysfunction got worse. Right. And it's really unfortunate. There's this kind of back and forth between the FDA and compounding pharmacies because drug companies are interested in these molecules because they can't be patented. Right? So they're naturally occurring molecules, they can't be patented. So drug companies aren't going to waste their time producing a drug that is the same thing as these peptides because somebody could always just compound it instead. So it is kind of a, there's a tumultuous space around it and that will drive providers away. So it can be a challenge to work in this space because sometimes one of The. Some of the stuff that we like to use becomes no longer available. It's not because there was anything wrong with it. It's because somebody made a, you know, a scrupulous claim about what it could do when they shouldn't have done that.

Yeah. And I think the bottom line is, you know, you need to educate yourself. You need to work with a professional that understands this and still educate yourself, you know, after the fact. But don't rely on something you hear on YouTube or tick tock or that sort of thing and go, you know.

Unless it's on my YouTube channel. Absolutely. Yeah.

But yeah, it is and it is interesting. Obviously, I worked for Pfizer for a couple years. A large portion of, you know, the fda, a lot of these government agencies comes from, you know, the pharmaceutical industry, and there's, there's competing interest there. So, yeah, Covid really shone a light on, on a lot of those different things. And, you know, people, I think some people are starting to wake up and understand really, you know, what was happening out there. But I don't want to get too deep into the, into that. We may, may. May take a little bit of a detour there because we're getting close to the top of the pyramid here.

We're almost at the top of the pyramid. I know. Well, so actually that's a, That's a segue to the top of the pyramid. So the top of the pyramid is pharmaceuticals. And so, you know, we don't prescribe.

I didn't even know that, but there you go.

Yeah, yeah. So speaking of. No, but we, we. Pharmaceuticals for certain things, and patients, you know, we try to meet patients wherever they are. And so there are a number of areas we could potentially prescribe pharmaceuticals, but in general, it's to help improve something so that we can get them off of the drugs. You know, our goals for people that have high blood pressure is to help figure out what's the right blood pressure medicine, fix the underlying metabolic dysfunction, and get them off of blood pressure medicine. You know, the nice thing about working with a physician like group is that we have the ability to prescribe, and so we can, we can manipulate medications. Generally, we're trying to work with their, their other prescribing doctors, but their other prescribers are not always open to that, you know, so it can, it can be uncomfortable. But in general, we are using these drugs as tools to get people again back to the area where they don't need them. But people get, you know, I have patients that are really struggling because they have what's called polypharmacy. They just have so many drugs, the drugs, interacting drugs and they're taking drugs for the interactions of the drugs with the other drugs. You know, it's like, ah, what if we could just like get rid of all that? You know, and sometimes we can, sometimes we can't. You know, there's some things that aren't necessarily reversible, but a lot of times things are. And so that's, that's really our goal with our patients that are a little bit more sick and are on that pharmaceutical, you know, spiral.

Yeah. I think what's interesting is, you know, you're talking about the, the tip of the pyramid with respect to pharmaceuticals. And most people that are listening would know if I go to the doctor, that's probably the first thing that the doctor is going to talk about. They're not going to sit down, they're not going to talk to you about your sleep, they're not going to analyze your ordering data, they're not going to, you know, ask you about your spiritual health and how things are going. But really everything is built on that. So tell the listeners a little bit about what it's like to work with you, how your practice is structured and ultimately how they can learn more if they're interested in working with you.

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's funny, as we were just talking about that, I was just thinking, you know, it's almost like if you were to take that pyramid, think of it as a big like pyramid shaped iceberg and then stick it in the water, what you see sticking out of the water, that's traditional medicine. What we need to focus on is everything under the water.

Yeah, that's so.

Yeah, if I could make like a little video on my homepage, that would be awesome. So what's it like to work with us? So our, our goal is to bring people on in, in a membership style. So people come join us. They're with us for a year. What that year gets you is two extensive lab panels. So we get blood work right out of the gate. You meet with a coach right out of the gate. Our two coaches are both registered dietitians and have master's degree level training and functional health and gut health. They talk about lifestyle early on. We get the initial blood panel and potentially functional testing, which is a whole different topic. But we'll say like the extra stuff if you need it, genetics if you want it. And then once we have all that data, then we compile that into a report called the report and Then you go over that with your physician. Right now, I'm seeing most of the patients on the platform. My other. My partner, Dr. Russell Van Mahle, is starting to see far more patients as we're kind of pulling him away from his other interests. So my goal is to be able to really bring him in and start seeing patients in other states, because we've been by that. And so then the physician goes over that with you, and then we step forward on this plan based off of that pyramid that we just described. The coaches will, from an accountability perspective, if you need to meet with them regularly, that's totally fine. And we have patients that do that, particularly patients that are trying to lose weight or gain weight or body comp. These things that take a lot of. A lot of back and forth. That's fine to meet with people as much as you need. We have that concierge ordering where we're getting all stuff basically just sent to your house with your approval. And then you do that for the next five months. We retest the blood labs, functional testing as needed. And then you meet with your physician again, we have to report, and you go for another five or six months. That's what the year looks like. And we are treating, again, people with all kinds of different problems, but everybody has the same goal of take me where I am and help me to elevate to where my goals are, and we make those goals really clear and really attainable, and we are knocking off whatever we can to get ourselves to that spot.

Yeah. I think some people might be listening, saying, Chris, you know, this is next level income. Like, why are we talking about health? But as I mentioned in the intro, your health, if you don't have it, that is all. That's. That's all that matters. So if you have money, I was with somebody here just last weekend, and the guy's worth 10 times what I am. And he. He was like, hey, what do you do? Like, how do you, you know, like, what do you work out? Who do you see?

What.

What are you doing? Because I'm trying to get into better health, and he's working out twice a day, and he's not making any headway. And I can tell you, you know, it's that foundational piece that he's lacking in, that accountability. Yeah. So if you're listening and you want to change some of those things in your life to help you access, you know, all these other areas in your life, the performance that is there, that is underlied, that is. That is the foundation is health just like your pyramid. You can reach out to Dr. Lucas. What is your website is optimal humanhealth.com Yep. Optimal humanhealth.com and on the first podcast we did a code next level and if you want to use that, what are they going to get? Dr. Lucas?

Yeah. So if you use that code next level when you talk to our team, they'll give you 50% off of any whether it be genetics, functional testing or whatever the coaches end up recommending. So that could be quite a bit depending on how deep you want to go.

Yeah, that's a heck of a deal. And we will have you back on here just like you're testing in about six months. We'll check in, we'll do another check in with Dr. Lucas. We'll do an ask me anything. So feel free to email us infoextlevell Email at next level income sorry.com email at next level info@next level income.com or you can reach out to either Dr. Lucas or I on social media and let us know what questions you have. Dr. Lucas, thanks again.

Yeah, much Chris. Appreciate it.

Hey Chris, here again. I hope you found this episode valuable. Now I have one more thing to gift you. We have a page for my coaching clients where you can get a free copy of my book as well as much more from previous guests on the show. Just check out nextlevelincome.com coaching to get a free copy of my book, audiobook and much more. I'll send you a copy of my book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for listening to the podcast. Also, please like share and take just 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple podcasts.