What Helped An Olympic Hopeful Perform At His Best

Welcome to Integrative Medicine with Dr. Leland Stillman. This show is for men and women who are exhausted, inflamed, living with brain fog, gut or skin issues, and who won't settle for answers like your labs are normal or just take this pill. Here we focus on the root causes of disease and on what I call repair deficit, the gap between what your body needs for optimal health and performance and what it's actually getting. This podcast is not personal medical advice. It is education to help you ask better questions so you can make better decisions about your health. Thank you for joining us and welcome to today's episode. Hello everyone. Dr. Stillman here today. I'm excited to share another Stories of Hope, Stories of Healing story. We're joined today by Kellor Norland, a patient at the practice who's graciously agreed to share his story of hope, story of healing. He started with us about a year ago as he was continuing to train for the Olympics, which he's going to tell us all about. Keller, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you. Thank you for having me.

So I like to start by asking everybody who they are and where they're from.

Well, my name's Keller. I'm from Corvallis, Oregon, and I'm a professional triathlete.

How did you become a professional triathlete?

It's kind of been a lifelong dream of mine. Uh, my mom was a triathlete when I was growing up and I thought it was really cool, so she kind of got me into it. And outta high school, I was fortunate enough to make the Olympic development team called Project Podium. And so I, I'm currently still I'm still on that team. It's been 5 years and I was living down in Arizona training with them full-time. And I just recently moved back home to Oregon last week actually. And so I'm kind of going remote from them, but still a part of the team there. And yeah, it's pretty amazing. I just get to train and travel and race with all my best friends. So pretty awesome life.

Yeah, you better make the most of that. Really enjoy every minute. Cause everyone listening to this who's working a job or, you know, running a small business or whatever is thinking, wow, that level of freedom. And fun. Such an amazing season of life for you. So I'm happy for you. You came to see us about a year ago. What brought you to seek our care?

So last season, so not this, before the season before I started working with you, I was having a lot of issues staying healthy, especially when I was traveling. I would get sick pretty much every single time I would fly, and it was really detrimental to my performance because I travel across the world to a race and then get sick immediately when I got there, get sick on the plane going there. And that was part of it. And then another part of it, I was having a lot of digestive issues. I had a parasite earlier in the year before I started working with you, but it kind of was still lingering and causing some gut issues. So those were both really affecting my performance, both in racing and training. So I found you. And started to explore that. And then here we are doing better now.

Here we are. What were you concerned that these issues, the sickness while traveling, the gut issues would turn into if they weren't treated? And what were you worried would happen to your racing career?

I was worried it wasn't gonna stop and it would eventually lead me to just not being able to perform, like trying to race a triathlon race, an hour-long, 2-hour-long race as hard as you can while being sick. Whether that's stomach issues or respiratory issues, is significantly harder and you can't get the most outta yourself when you're not feeling good, you know? So I was really struggling with trying to perform while under that amount of stress from the sickness and everything. And I was really just trying to find some way that I could perform, race healthy, and get to where I needed to be and not have to jump over these hurdles every single race. And every single time I've traveled.

Did you feel like with the symptom burden you had, you were in danger of losing your spot on the team?

Not losing my spot on the team. I've, that wasn't really in question for me. It was more whether or not I was gonna be able to make the team for the, the Olympic team for LA in 2028. Got it. It's for triathlon. It's a very, a very long process to get to the Olympics. It's. A 2-year, so the Olympic qualification period just opened this month. So it's a 2-year period where you have to race really consistently in order to make the team, unlike swimming or track where it's a 1-day trials.

Really?

Yeah.

So I had no idea.

Already starting this year, I have to get, I think, 6 races this year and 6 races next year that qualify points to rank me in the top 3 Americans. To hopefully get on the team. So top how many you said? Top 6 or top 3 Americans. I need 6 races per year.

Wait, how many Americans do we send to the Olympics for the triathlon?

Maximum of 3.

Wow.

Most 2. Uh, but since we're hosting, we'll probably get 3.

I had no idea it was that competitive.

Yes, it's very, very cutthroat. Yeah. It's a battle. You get in there, but Yeah. That's what I've, I've dedicated my life towards. So I'm trying to do everything I can to get there.

And then I recall you had some back pain as well. I don't remember if that was from an injury. Do you recall?

Yeah. Yeah. I, um, bulged a disc in my lower back. I was doing a deadlift with a little too much weight and that was causing me a lot of pain. Well, not pain, but numbness going down my right leg. And I actually figured that out the, uh, The light patches that you had me working with really helped with that. Yes. Almost immediately, actually.

Yes.

And that was really game-changing cuz it allowed me to go on much longer rides, longer runs without having my leg go numb and having to stop halfway through. So that was huge.

I love it. So once we started working together, I'll just share that what I was very struck by is the degree to which your labs showed what I call depletion. You know, and it, it isn't that you weren't eating a healthy diet. You were certainly eating enough. You're at the peak of your training, which means you're working with some of the top coaches, experts in the medical care of triathletes in the world. It's not that you didn't know all that stuff. It's a combination of lack of absorption or incorporation and retention in tissues. Some of which is just, it's very demanding, not just in a general sense, but in a very specific sense. It requires a lot of nutrients, hormones, vitamins. Let alone calories to do what you're doing. So I was struck by how depleted you were. And it seemed to me like you felt it. You felt like you were depleted. You weren't really operating at your full potential. Specifically, you know, your body would get sick on you after these stressful events, flying, traveling, right? Is that, is that what you recall?

Yeah. Yeah. 100%.

So what did we do when you came to see us at first?

At first we started with the, uh, I know I did the vitamin C detox.

Yep.

As well as I tried some different digestive enzymes.

Yes.

And some of those worked and then others didn't. I remember some of 'em made me feel really bad in the GP3. Yes.

That's an interesting comment because sometimes people will notice they feel worse on them and we sort of can't figure out why. And sometimes, you know, people will feel worse on them and they're clearly eliminating something. That their body is needing to get rid of. So yeah, we have to adjust in those cases.

Yeah, it was, yeah, the GV3 did not do me very well. Yeah. But yeah, the vitamin C was pretty cool. I still do it every morning. Yep. Take a lot.

Yeah, it's an amazing supplement.

Yeah.

I really like it.

What else? We did, like you said, all the different blood work and really dove into that and then got me on the mineral balancing supplement.

That's right.

And that, I remember you, you explained to me how my minerals looked. It was like you said there was really big peaks and really big valleys. And so I would feel, you said that's how my emotions would feel is I would have be on a high and then go down into a pretty low, low.

Yes.

And that's really honestly how I was feeling until I started taking those supplements and then it kind of all evened out. Mm-hmm. And yes. It wasn't immediate. It wasn't like a one day, take it once and you're good, you know? Nope.

But it's a process.

It took a couple months. I think I started with you maybe in, I wanna say May, maybe March.

That's right.

Of last year. And in August I won the first race of my career. So it, it went from probably one of the worst seasons I've had to a very good season that summer.

I don't even think I realized that.

Yeah, I don't know if I told you actually.

You know, it's funny you mentioned that because I actually am very passionate about running a membership-based practice because I realized at some point, I don't know where this came from, but I had this sort of paranoia of like, well, if I don't hear back from the patients, how do I know if what I'm doing is working or not? They can't give me feedback. If I don't have feedback, I can't get any better. And so I, I realized I actually really disliked the conventional model of like, you see patients one at a time and they may never come back and see you again. I wanted to have feedback, right? So like for example, right. We had a member decide to leave the practice. He wasn't clear on why. I said, well, I want to— and he didn't say it was, he was unhappy. He just said, you know, I got a, I got something came up. And so I, you know, want to reach out to him. Like, I'm deeply curious, you know, like, is everything okay? Anything we can do for you before you leave? And, you know, wish him well, make sure he gets good care wherever he's going. But the ability to get feedback allows us to improve our systems and our processes. It allows us to get rid of things that do not work and better select therapies for patients. So that they can get better outcomes. And that's where that balance piece is so interesting. You know, it's not about just dumping nutrients into the body. If patients got results proportionate to the amount of, you know, credit card bills they got for supplements, then I think I would just, I don't know, set up a roadside stand or run a retail shop. But the reality is that what we see overwhelmingly is patients have already tried a lot of things. They've taken a ton of supplements. I was just talking to a woman Friday. She's on $1,000 of supplements a month. And I just said, look, I think we can get you better results if we pare that back to $300 to $500. And it's Not that she's not on good supplements. Sometimes they're very good supplements. It's just that there is a certain capacity of the body to absorb and retain nutrients and respond to therapeutics. And it is very interesting to see how you can do more sometimes and get worse results. So that balance is really key. Quick pause. If you're listening to this and thinking, he's talking about me, I'm tired, foggy, inflamed, and it feels like no one can figure out why, then your next step is not another random program. Protocol. It's a structured assessment with myself or a member of my team. Go to stillmanmd.com and click book a call. Pick a time that works for you and add it to your calendar. On that call, we'll look at your story in more detail and see whether our framework is a good fit for your situation. If it is, we'll outline what a realistic path forward could look like for you. This is not emergency care and it's not a promise of cure. It's a calm, structured way to stop guessing and see whether our approach is right for you. We have a limited number of these appointments each month. If this conversation is hitting close to home, visit stillmanmd.com now and book a call with myself or a member of my team. Thank you for listening. Now back to the episode. What else do you remember that we tried that had an impact? Did you like the MSM protocol?

Yeah. I still take the MSM every morning.

That's a really good one.

I don't know. Yeah. I don't know if I felt a huge, like, noticeable difference.

Hmm.

Like, I don't wanna say it was like super game-changing. Yes. But I do know it's, I think it does something, so I still do it, but it can be very subtle. Yeah. You said that it's good for like my, uh, I think you said my tendons and like joints and stuff.

It really helps with flexibility.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

And with, uh, recovery of joints after significant impact. Like I was just reading a book about, uh, John Wooden. One of my heroes, and he's writing about his, one of his star players, Bill Walton, who had really apparently bad knee issues even in college. And I'm just sitting there thinking, I wish I could have given this guy the vitamin C and the MSM because people with joint issues often respond very beautifully to these two things. So yeah, yeah, that would be why I would use it in you. And then the other reason is MSM is I'll see it improve sleep, recovery, reduce inflammation. It's one of my absolute favorite supplements. But again, the result can often be, or the, it's hard to measure sometimes the benefit. The older the patient is, the more they tend to notice the difference.

Right.

Interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. I like it. I think it helps.

Did you try the iodine protocol? Remind me.

I tried it, but it really, I tried it for a little bit, but it was not working. I can't remember. I think it was—

it would've had side effects. It's a detox reaction.

Yeah.

Yeah. We see that a lot. So yeah. Anyway.

Yeah. It was, I forget what it was doing to me.

Usually it manifests with worse sleep, anxiety.

Yeah.

Bad mood sometimes, like myalgias or like muscle aches and pains, flu-like symptoms.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, racing thoughts sometimes. It's, it runs the gamut, but yeah.

Mm-hmm.

And then you got more into the light therapy patches and I think we spoke recently and you were mentioning how much more you were noticing them improve your performance.

Yeah. Yeah. You suggested doing a combination of them when I race with the X49 and the energy enhancer ones.

Yep.

For racing.

Yes.

And the first time I tried it, I had like the race of my life in China about a month ago. Love it. Pretty awesome. It's been fun to like experiment with those and try 'em in workouts and on travel days and just see how they can benefit me in different areas of my life and training and recovery and everything.

And you mentioned to me that they were improving your recovery after certain training regimens, right?

Yeah. I think they definitely help recovery and I would say even more than after training, I would say after travel, like I started wearing 'em on the plane. So like I'd fly to Asia, wear them on the plane. And I still have lingering effects from my disc in my back. Like when I sit down for periods of time, my leg goes numb sometimes. And those have helped calm that down a bit. And I've noticed get to my destination, I have to do a shakeout run or whatever. When I get there, I feel significantly better than I have in the past. Like I'm able to go out and do my shakeout stuff without feeling like, oh my gosh, I just flew across the world for 2 days, you know?

Yes.

Yes. Somehow just makes me feel a lot more fresh and ready to go. Yeah.

We also have a jet lag protocol for that, which I'm sure we've shared with you.

Yeah.

So if 0 is where you were when we started and 10 is where you'd like to be, where are you now?

I'd say I'm pretty close to being up there, like an 8 or a 9. We've done a lot. Like I haven't gotten sick pretty much all year, which is huge.

Yeah.

We started, we recently started the vitamin D protocol.

Yes.

So taking high dosage vitamin D, which I, that has actually been really game changing.

Really?

Forgot about that. Yeah. So we, I had a race in China one week. It was, this was 2 months ago, not the race that I did well at. Race in China. And then the next weekend I had a race in Mississippi. So we had flew to China and then the day of the race we flew back to the US and it was about a 50-hour travel day, 2 overnight flights to get to Mississippi. A bunch of the guys on my team got sick and like were feeling bad. And that's like recipe for me getting sick every time. Something like that, I would get sick, but I felt no symptoms, nothing felt great. And that was about 2 weeks or so after I started doing that vitamin D protocol. And I think that that really helped me not get sick from that travel. I think I 100% would've gotten sick if I wasn't doing that stuff.

That fits. And I'll be really curious how you, what you notice in your performance the next couple of months, because vitamin D is one of those things that doesn't work right away. You really have to wait with vitamin D, DHEA, any kind of hormone, I would argue vitamin A, many other things, you've gotta wait 12 weeks to see the full effect. And I think that's part of why people get so turned around thinking something does or does not work because it is just not this switch you flip. It's something that has to saturate the body, permeate its cells and tissues, be present at a stable, significant dose for a long period of time before you really see what it's doing. And that's, I think, one of the challenges for patients who are on their own is, you know, how can I figure out what's working and what's not working when I only have myself to get feedback from and track and monitor. So I'm glad that's working well for you.

Yeah. Yeah. Me too.

If you had to divvy up the credit for your improvement in terms of percentages, what gets the credit and why?

I think a large percent would have to go to all of the like blood work stuff and dialing in my levels of everything.

So the Personalized Mineral Supplement Protocols?

Yeah. Yeah.

What proportion?

I think that I'd say maybe 30% or so.

Okay.

I would say that, and then another, I would say 20 to 25% is probably the patches. I really like those patches.

We're at 55%.

And then recently I think 15% is the vitamin D. That's a really recent addition, but I think it's really helped.

We're at 70%. We got 30% more.

And then, yeah, I've been liking the MSM. I think that's probably another 5%. I've had no problems with injuries or anything. Anything since I've started that. And okay. The vitamin C, I think also helps maybe about 10%. That's, I take that every morning. It helps, you know, with energy and immunity and everything.

I think we're at about 85% now. We got 15 more. Where's it going? I think we're running out of things.

Yeah, we are running out of things. I think I started too small.

But I think people can get the idea, right? Is it's like, and I'll be honest with you, I ask this question anytime someone tells me they're doing much better because I want to get the feedback. I want that. I want to hear in their own words what gets the credit. Because I'll be honest with you, one of the things I'm looking forward to doing is taking the transcripts of the visits is looking at and looking at the number of times people say it was this, it was that, because I'd love to share that with people. Here's what people say worked, right? And this is the percent that they gave it, right? So people usually say something along the lines of what you said, which is there's something like 30, maybe 40% to the personalized mineral supplement protocols, mineral and vitamin supplement protocols. There's anywhere from. 5 to 25, 30% to vitamin C, MSM, iodine. They'll often mention Dr. Stillman's detox powder. They'll often mention light therapy, light therapy patches. They'll often mention the sauna or other lifestyle recommendations we've made to them, which we didn't talk about. I don't think you did because you didn't have time. Yeah.

That's the red light glasses. Totally space that. Oh, love it. Those game-changing. Yeah.

Okay, great. Great. So that's the We'll give that the last 15%.

Yeah.

That we were trying to figure out where it goes.

Yeah. Yeah.

And so it's, it's this interesting phenomenon that I, and this is part of why I'm so excited and thankful to have people like you come on the podcast because I see so much happening in the space of, you know, you just got to take this supplement or this detox protocol or that thing. And I just see so much room for personalization and listening to the story and coming up with a treatment plan that's specific to the individual. And not being overly aggressive, but also being aggressive enough to get great results. Because I just see people spinning their wheels and wasting time and money and suffering, and I just want them to hear from people who actually have gotten great results. What did you do? How did you do it? And you know, what did it take? Because that I think is the way out of the current mess our healthcare system is in.

Yeah, for sure. 100%.

What would you say to somebody who's skeptical of, or just on the fence about either joining the practice or doing something like this?

I would say give it a shot. For sure. I think it really helps. It really helped me, but you have to give it some time. Like it's not, like you said, it's not gonna be an overnight thing, but I think it's really, really awesome. I've learned a lot about myself, like with all the tests that we've done and different things that we've tried, I've been able to learn about myself and about what I need and everything. And I think it's really cool. It, I wasn't super sick. I didn't have like a huge problem. It was more just dialing stuff in for me, but I really saw a lot of results from it. So I really like it. I think you should give it a shot.

Absolutely. Thank you. What do you think it's done for your chances of, uh, medaling?

I think it's helped them for sure. Awesome. It's gonna be, it's gonna be a tough road to get there, but we're gonna try, give it my best shot for sure.

We're here for you. We wanna see you, uh, on top of the podium. So thanks again for coming on the podcast and anything we mentioned here, there'll be links below. Keller, again, thanks for joining me.

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Thank you for listening to Integrative Medicine with Dr. Leland Stillman. If this conversation felt uncomfortably familiar and you're ready for someone to take your story seriously, your next step is to book a call with myself or a member of my team. Go to stillmanmd.com and click book a call. Choose a time that works for you and confirm it. On that call, we'll look at your story in more detail and see whether our framework is a good fit for your situation. If it is, will outline what a realistic path forward could look like for you. This is not emergency care and it's not a guarantee of results. It's a calm, structured assessment where we'll create a plan to help you achieve your health goals. We have a limited number of calls available each month. So if you see a time that fits your schedule, book it right away. Again, the link is stillmanmd.com. If you find this podcast helpful, subscribe, leave a review, or share this episode with a friend or family member who needs help getting their health back. I'm Dr. Leland Stillman. Thank you for listening. And until next time, be well.