Your Symptoms are NOT in Your Head with Dr. Efrat LaMandre

Today on Midlife conversations, I've got Dr. E. Dr. Efrat Lamondre. Did I pronounce that right? Efrat Lamondre. I was nervous about it.

That's perfect. You can't pronounce it wrong.

Okay, perfect. And I noticed that people call you Dr. E on social media, and I'm assuming that's why I've been following your videos for a while. I love how you deep dive so many different topics and especially in relation to midlife. Like, I love your post about cancer, about fibromyalgia, about different diagnosis. You're talking about all things that really resonate with our group here. And I really wanted to bring you on because you've got a really unique spin on this idea of things being in our heads and where we're told they are and where they maybe are not all the things. So thank you so much for being here today.

It's an honor. I appreciate it so much.

So let's go back a little bit. First of all, how did you even get into this field? Specifically, how did you end up wanting to treat patients? How did this happen?

Okay, this is a really important question because I am guilty of all the things I'm going to tell you never ever to accept. So my first practice is called EG Healthcare. It's primary care practice. So think of your doctor's office. And I practice everything I learned in school and I thought I did great. And we have 25,000 patients. And I had people coming over and over saying, hey, I don't feel good. Or when I ran the labs and everything was fine and I said, you're fine. I'll see you. See you next year. Everything's fine. But then it hit home and my wife got sick. And you will notice that people in the functional medicine, either they themselves have gotten sick or someone that they love got sick. And in functional medicine, most of us are providers of some sort prior to going to functional. And we hit a wall and we realized, okay, conventional medicine is really awesome, but it's also super limited. And so when we hit the wall with my wife's autoimmunity, we started searching. And this was before the Internet is what it is now. So we were like really searching and we discovered functional medicine. And I was convinced it would not work because I learned nothing about nutrition in school.

It's so crazy to me that that's the case, you know, because that's like, that's so much of everything. And that's. I hear this over and over again.

Oh, my God, yeah. And. And so not only that, but for those of you who are listening, who may be like, who may feel that your nutrition's on point. We thought our nutrition was on point. We, you know, visually thin women. Not that the weight matters, but just to draw a picture. Athletic. We ate well. We thought we were the pinnacle of health. So the thought that our nutrition could be causing autoimmunity was. It was just insane.

Yeah.

So both on a personal level, on a professional level, it made no sense, but we had nothing to lose, so we jumped in. It saved my wife's life, literally. And then I started diving in and bringing it back to my patients until eventually I do this full time.

So if she hadn't gotten sick, you probably would have never gone down this path?

100%. I would not have, because everything was fine. I did everything correctly. And all those people who didn't fit the mold and it. They didn't put them all. It never occurred to me that there was another option.

So a lot of people listening right now are really, in traditional Western functional medicine, like, that's. That's all they know. That's the whole thing that they understand. That's what they know. For those people, what do you want them to understand the difference is or can be?

Yes. Okay. So I would say that functional medicine takes Western medicine or conventional medicine to the next level. It's not. It's not an either or so Western rest and conventional. And I still practice it, and it's wonderful, and it's necessary, but it's designed to find a sickness and then to find the treatment. So find the disease and then treatment. If you do not fit the definition or parameters of disease, there's nothing wrong with you. There is no other tools for you in Western medicine. So if you're unwell, let's just take your time all the time. And you checked your anemia, you're fine. We checked your thyroid. You're fine. There's no other cause for fatigue. And conventional medicine, have a nice day, but you are still exhausted. Conventional medicine can no longer help because you don't have a pathology. Functional medicine says, okay, wait, the symptom means something. Maybe we need to dig a little deeper. And it has more tools, different tools to try to get to the cause of your symptoms before they become a disease. Wow. I would say that it's an extension. It's. It's Western medicine done, too.

Yes.

What is supposed to be done?

What. It feels so frustrating to me sometimes, and I hear this with so many women, is they they just take their doctor's initial word for it if they're not practicing that whole functional side. Like, so they say, well, I went to the doctor and they said it's fine. Or they said it's in my head. Or they said, it's just my age. Or they said, they said these things and they just sort of accept that as their truth. And they're missing, to me, this whole other area.

Yeah. So it's so funny because I think prior to starting we alluded to my book, the name of my book called, is called it's not in your head. So what will happen is when you go to the doctor's office or nurse practitioner or pa, you know, everyone's well meaning and they're showing you black and white that you're fine. So who are you to question that? Right. Who are you? You didn't go to med school. You're a lawyer, you're a teacher, you're a mom, you didn't, you don't have the tools to question. Question that. So I understand why they're not questioning. They're like, look, everything's normal. Everything is in the. So it's disempowering. So I would, I would say this, you know, and, and it's hard to question because you're like, well, I know I kind of read it on Google, but you don't want to be that person to come to the doctor's office. Google researches.

I'm that person. I've got to say, no, I am. They're like, don't look on Google.

I actually don't mind it at all. So what you, you know, I tell my patients this every. Like, if you are getting a house project done and you have a plumber there, you're not going to ask your plumber to do electric. So if the plumber says, I don't know why your light's not working, you were like, okay, cool, just fix my pipes. Right. And you would move on. So it's the same thing with the doctor, the docs, like, I don't know why you're not fatigue. Don't get frustrated. They're amazing people. They went to school, they want to help you, but they have no more tools and you now need to. Instead of saying, okay, I guess you're right, say you could be like, all right, great, thanks for all your tools. Let me find someone else that has tools. And I want to caution women in our age group. I'm 51 years old. I think you are as well. Yep. I want to caution that if there is, if you're walking out of there saying, wow, I really don't feel well, they're saying, right. And if there's any kind of passive aggressive mention that's like, well, what do you expect at your age? Maybe you're stressed, maybe if you just lost some weight, maybe if you exercise more, maybe if you, you know, maybe if you, what do you expect your postmenopausal. These are all variations of. It's in your head.

Yes. Oh, gosh, I'm so glad you just said that because people justify with everything you just said, but to me it is, it's almost gaslighting and just like.

Like it's unintentional gaslighting because again, there's no malice and these people really think that they've done the best for you. And so without frustration, you know, that's, that's the piece. The piece is not to get frustrated because we're going to need your PCP all over the country now. So we're going to need those PCP because I can't prescribe or anything in your, in your state. So we're going to need them. They need to be part of our team and we can't expect them to go past it. So if they say it's in your head, say thank you so much and then functional medicine, but never skip the step of going to your PCP either, because.

Yes.

Want to make sense. Yeah.

So this is a very, this comes very near and dear to my heart, like this whole topic because I especially went, what I went through this year personally. I had had with my regular doctor some high blood sugar which just felt super out of character for me, especially with how I eat and everything. And my insulin, my blood sugar, everything was high all of a sudden. So doing the traditional path went to endocrinologist. He taught, you know, the whole path of like, let's go on metformin, blah, blah. I wasn't okay with those answers. Digging deeper. I actually had no issues with my blood. What I had was gut, a massive leaky gut problem and a parasite which was creating blood sugar. But had I not asked those questions, like what you're talking about and just said thank you and gone deeper, I would have just taken it as, oh, I'm pre diabetic. Oh, I need to go on metformin. Here's, here's the answer. So to me, this is such an important topic because my story is just one of so many stories I hear of where we just hear this initial thing and it maybe doesn't resonate or sound right. And we are not going deeper enough.

Yeah. And in that respect, it's kind of patient driven. Like, I know we really get frustrated with our medical providers, but it's patient driven because there are plenty of women who would have received the diagnosis and said, thanks for the Metformin, see you in three months. And they would be happy with it. And there's nothing wrong with that. But if you're not happy with it, you need to push the envelope. And if that person you're with doesn't have the tools, keep asking, because there are people like me out here. We're ready for you. We're ready to work on it.

I love that. I love it. So let's talk about this whole, especially this hormonal state of we're going transitioning, perimenopause, menopause, maybe post menopause. And these things are happening. And so many doctors are saying those things that you said, it's your age. Just accept it. You know, it's just, you know, this is what happens. Can you speak into that?

Yes, absolutely. And I also. And I also want to speak to. It's your hormones. What do you expect? So, of course there are hormonal changes in our age. We can't deny that. But a lot of the symptoms that we have are actually not hormonal, including hot flashes. Like you would think. Hot flashes. Must be the kid.

Oh, speaking to that. Yeah. Because I thought that was all hormonal.

So what else was causing that? Oh, my goodness. What you eat. So I'll give you a classic example. You know, classically, in our age group, we like to have dinner. We go out for pasta, nice glass of wine. We're really good at our wines. At this age, we kind of know. And, you know, and then we go to sleep, and then we have hot flashes. And we're sure it's perimenopause, and it's because of the wine that you just had and the carbs that you just had, and you actually just became hypoglycemic at night, and so you're sweating. So before. And by the way, I'm a huge fan of hormone replacement therapy, but before you go down the hormone road, you really want to kind of drive down and make sure that your symptoms are truly all hormonal, because I will see, my patients will have flashes. We will clean up their nutrition, and the hot flashes go away.

Wow.

That doesn't mean we're not going to do hormone replacement therapy. Your heart and your bones and all that stuff. But it's not necessarily hot. Flash is not necessarily from that. What you eat at dinner is going to fully impact your insomnia, your night sweats, all of it.

Okay.

Yeah. So, in fact, I won't take on a patient and do hormone replacement therapy unless we do the work first. There are some people who just. Not a problem. Let's do the test. That's awesome. But we do the work first, because what I want to do is let's clear everything out and let's see what symptoms are actually left to contend with once we ruled out nutrition and other causes for it. So if at the end of this, you're. We're 30 days in, we're 60 days in, your nutrition is on point. You know, I'm not saying never have alcohol, but now you know all things like you're in control of it, and then you still have the hot flashes. Now is the time for your hormones.

So I love this because so many. I love what you just shared because this is the standard. You walk in, you say, I have hot flashes. They say, check you're 50 years old. Check you're in menopause or perimenopause. Here's your. Here's your HRT or here's your bioidentical or here, whatever. That's not even asking the questions about what you just said.

Yeah, so. So nutrition. So you have the. So on the one side, you have people who have symptoms, and you're assuming it's hormones, and it may not be. And that's. And that's a problem too, because have you addressed their brain fog? And maybe it's nothing to do with that. Maybe they're exposed to mold, and now you're thinking they just need more testosterone. So you have the symptomatic patient that may be getting hormones when they don't need it, and then you have the asymptomatic patient who has absolutely no hot flashes. Everything is fine. But are you just letting them go out into the. You know, into potentially getting osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease? Because you're not protecting them. Estrogen and progesterone. So it. There's. There's more to the hormone game on both sides, and just being brushed off in either direction is not a great idea. So, I mean, that I prescribe hr, BHRT to bioidentical hormone placement therapy who have no symptoms whatsoever. But we're doing it to protect their brain, protect their bones, protect their heart. So going back to that question, you know, just kind of being written off for hormones is a problem because it's so much more complex than that.

Sure.

And just in general also being saying, oh, you're stressed. Who isn't stressed? I was stressed. Why is it suddenly at 50, it's my stress. Right.

And it's always the same answer. You're stressed, breathe better and do yoga. Like I need more than that.

Yeah. And the other thing that's really important, I want to empower your listeners is that if you have adrenal fatigue, especially phase three adrenal fatigue and that could be tested. That really sage advice of if you just exercise, you'll feel better is actually counterproductive for you. If you're a stage three adrenal fatigue, you will exercise and you will need to recover for the next three days. You will be wiped out. So everyone else is feeling great and energized and you're like, what the heck just happened to me? I got hit by a bus. And so you'll try again. You try again and you're like, wow, I must be lazy. Wow, there's something wrong. Wow, I really am the worst. And all this negative talk, which we do not need any more of us women in society. And so now you're just on top of everything. So if you're phase three adrenal fatigue, all these women people trying to get you to the gym are actually worsening your fatigue.

Can you explain that a little bit more? Like how do you explain adrenal fatigue? Because I've heard so many different things on this. I've heard it's in our heads about adrenal fatigue. That's a big one. We hear is in our heads. And then I didn't know there was different phases of it. So what is that and how do you even test for adrenal fatigue?

Excellent question. So it is a. You can test for it in saliva. That's the best way.

Okay.

And it is a full day test. You test between four to six points through the day from the moment you wake up at lunch, after lunch, dinner. And that's an important piece because if you just go to your doctor, they will do a one time once a day cortisol blood test.

Okay.

So you want an all day saliva test. And it's supposed to be very high during the day and like a gradual decline getting you into sleep. But how varied your cortisol that meaning? Okay, because I guess cortisol is your stress hormone, but it's also your wake up hormone. So your wake up hormone should be high in the Morning, feeling energized, getting stuff done. And then your wake up hormone should gradually, without any quick declines, go lower and lower, lower. Getting you ready for bedtime when melatonin takes over. Kind of like a crescent shape.

Yeah.

How varied you are from that is your phases. Like there's a phase one, which means you're a little varied. Phase two, we're suboptimal in the phase three space region. Fatigue has nothing in that am. Their AM and their PM looks the same. They're like flatliners. They never produce enough cortisol. So these people wake up, they could sleep for 12 hours. They're exhausted. They're exhausted all day. They're dragging. Every thing that they need to do is exhausting. Now you take someone like that who basically has no gas to get through the day, and you say, hey, come CrossFit with me. The 0 reserve that they have, they've just given to this CrossFit class. They come back super depleted. They need to recover. They are not energized from this move. So before we give that advice of hey, just come join us class and me, this will help you. We really need to know that. And that is really empowering for my patients when they get that result back and they're like, oh my God, I thought I was lazy. You know, my husband, my partner, my friends all thought like, like, why don't I exercise? This is why. Like, there's this moment and there's tears in these moments where they realize, like, I'm not crazy.

Yeah.

Now do we need to get the exercise? Sure. But this is someone who maybe will walk around the block for months and then we'll walk around two blocks for months and we'll maybe. And 10 minutes might be too much and get graded exercises because if we fatigue them more. Right. And so we slowly have to build them up, of course, deal with other issues that they have. But this adrenal fatigue piece is so important because that's another thing. Like again, back to that doctor. Well, if you just exercise, lose five pounds, you'll be fine. Not so much, no.

And then they go into the self beat up, like you said about what's wrong with me. I'm not motivated, I can't stay motivated. I don't have any energy. And then I just. It keeps them in this cycle of that. And that's really a huge self beat.

Up right there, 100%. Don't beat yourself up.

You mentioned something earlier and it just triggered a question for me. You said something about mold and there's three things that I really noticed that traditional medicine does not test enough for. And it seems to be the root of a lot of things. Gut health, metals and mold.

Why are these.

Yeah. So help with this. Like why is this not talked about more?

It's not talked about because we don't have any medication for it.

Okay.

And I don't, I don't mean this in a conspiracy.

No, I just really want to understand this because I feel like this is the root of so many people's things. It comes like with me it was gut health. I didn't, I would have never guessed that. And then I learned that you can't heal gut health if you've got metal poisoning. And you can't heal that because it's like it all thrives in this messy terrain. So I'm thinking like, why on earth are we not checking for these three things?

There is no infrastructure around it in conventional medicines. For infrastructure to be around it, we would need to decide which tests are acceptable. Insurance and Medicare would have to accept these tests. Insurance will have to pay for the test. We would have to come up with some sort of pharmaceutical to, to manage it. Because pharmaceutical ultimately is what gives us the funding for everything. None of that exists.

Right.

So the treatment from all is actually a whole bunch of supplements.

And, and same with, with gut health, like all of it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So this is my forever frustration because I feel like this is, like this would help so many people and we can't, it's just, it's like mind boggling. But I guess you're explaining it to me.

This is help so many people. This, this is my biggest disconnect because I, I, I still work in conventional medicine. I teach it, I get it. I teach healthcare and then I practice functional medicine. And it's, and it's as two different worlds and if you don't have resources of functional medicine, it's really hard to access. There's nothing to do. Like testing is expensive and the supplements expensive.

And then you get discredited if you're not in traditional medicine too. So it's like you're like in this perfect hybrid. Because I get it. Like if you do both, it's like people just discredit.

Yeah, you get discredited. I get discredited anyway because I'm an, I'm an NP with a PhD. No matter what, you're going to get discredited for something. So just do what you have to do, listening, don't worry about discrediting. So, so because I got my PhD. And that's not enough because I'm not an MD, right. It never ends. And then I want to be an MD specific field.

And if you were an md, traditional md, and you weren't talking about the functional, you get discredited on that side. So, yes, you're right. You never win.

Yeah. So just. Just do. Just do what? Feel right. But mold is really big because a lot of the symptoms that are attributed to fibromyalgia are really. Are really mold. And so. So fibromyalgia is a diagnosis of exclusion. And a lot of the women who are listening, who might have been advised some form of. It's in your head. May have ultimately been escalated to a diagnosis of fibromyalgia. I want to be clear. The symptoms of fibromyalgia are very much real. But the way you get that diagnosis is after years and years of testing negative for everything else in conventional medicine, you will have gone to rheumatology, you will have gone to cardiology, went to endocrinology, you will have infectious disease, you will have gone everywhere, and every single one of those tests will be negative. And then you will be given the diagnosis of fibromyalgia. So it is real in the sense that your symptoms are real. They're quantified. There's a whole list of what's defined as that. But it's not an acceptable enough diagnosis. And I got a lot of pushback on this on TikTok. A lot of people were for it, a lot were against it. It's not acceptable. Not because I don't believe it's real. Because by accepting that diagnosis, the investigation ends, and it shouldn't end. It's. In my opinion, it's just they haven't discovered what it is. Now, I'm not saying every fibromyalgia is mold. Please don't take this out of context. But a lot of it is mold, because a lot of the symptoms, the brain fog, the random pains, the pots, the orthostatic hypertension with movement changes, a lot of it is identical to mold symptoms.

Wow.

But you will not get tested for that in conventional medicine.

Wow. And it's.

Yeah, it's a very easy test, by the way. It's a urine test. The. The lab that I like is called Real Time Labs. I'm not affiliated. You do a urine test, you get the results, and then there's a really cool company called Immunolytics. Again, not affiliated. They will send you petri dishes that you can test in your home. To see that where it is, because you want, like, whatever comes up in your urine, you. To find the source in your home or your office.

So because you have to know where it's coming from.

You know where it's coming from. And then the treatment, it's not that it's easy because it takes a really long time. And sometimes the treatment is a tad, you know, can be debilitating if it's not done correctly. It's long, but you can get out of it. You can't get out of it. So fibromyalgia could also be undiagnosed Lyme, because Lyme disease is tested a certain way in conventional medicine. And then there's a lab called Igenics which tests it completely differently. It could be leaky gut, which you will never get tested for. No.

Unless you really. I have a dig for that one. That was exactly. Yeah.

Heavy metals, same thing. So there are at least four things just mentioned here that will never be tested that are very similar to fibromyalgia.

So it's really important because I. So I. If I'm hearing you correctly, fibromyalgia is kind of like the lump sum up of what could. Else. What else could be going on. And the reason you're. You're saying it's very real, but what you're saying is if you just settle with that diagnosis, you're never getting to the root, root, root. And I kind of feel like that's like a lot of autoimmunes, too. A lot of autoimmunes. There's a root, root, root causing the autoimmune. And unless we get. If we just take the autoimmune, as this is the problem and we don't keep fixing the other things, it can lead to more autoimmunes. I mean, I kind of. I see it sort of the same way.

In terms of root cause. They're the same way. So, like, fibromyalgia is not an autoimmune because it is excluded from autoimmune.

Sure.

By. By definition. But in terms of getting to the root cause. Yes. Because if you have rheumatoid arthritis.

Yeah.

If you have Hashimoto's, Your problem is not actually in your joints. Your problem is not actually in your thyroid. Your problem is somewhere else.

Yes.

Being expressed in your joints or in your thyroid or psoriasis on your skin. So if, you know, I'll do the skin one. Because it's easy. If you have psoriasis, you could put cream in all day. The flare up will go down and it'll come right back up. Why? Because the problem is not a lack of cream. The problem is why is this erupting in the first place? Right. Same thing with thyroid force. I'm going to take medication for it. I'm going to need Synthroid or something like that. But that's not the problem. The problem is, why did we have this attack to begin with? Shortcut. If you have Hashimoto's, you better be off of gluten.

Yeah, well, I would say. I mean, I'm certainly not a doctor or I don't have my PhD, but I would say most autoimmunes, you want to be off gluten. I mean, in general.

I mean, that's just going to keep gluten and dairy.

Yes, for sure. I'm a celiac, so I've been great. I've been off gluten for 20 years. But what I did learn, you know, is just. It's just how many other things are connected within one autoimmune. Like, just because you have one, if you don't manage that, you'll get others. It can keep triggering.

Sure. So let's just say it's gluten, Right? Because there's a whole world of non celiac gluten sensitivity and cgs. So if you're non celiac, but you're gluten sensitive and you keep eating gluten, thyroid might be your first thing. But after that, it's going to come, you know, rheumatoid arthritis or. Because you've never removed the gluten. Without question, if you don't get to the root cause this is why you get so many of them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow.

And so. And. And these tests that we just. And there's more. Right. But those biggies, lime mold, heavy metals, and leaky gut, they're never coming your way in conventional medicine.

Wow.

Never that.

And that's so frustrating. But I. What do you want people to know about that? Because, like, it's easy for me to speak out, but then I. I understand. I'm having compassion for people. They're like. They don't. They can't afford it. They don't have the. The means to go get some of these tests. Like, what. What should they know? Or what can they do? Because. And because I feel sometimes I feel so. I'm so blessed and grateful, like, I can go access some of this stuff, but there's a lot of people that can't.

Yeah. I appreciate that and recognizing our privilege in this conversation. Is important. So the reason I wrote the book, and it's like 20 bucks on Amazon and I think it's free on Kindle, is because precisely for this, precisely for the person who may be. Doesn't know where to start and maybe has limited resources. Do I test everything? Should I get Lyme? Should I get mold? Like, what should I do?

Right.

Of course. This is. This is how it goes. Always start with a pcp, Take it to the fullest. Go to all the specialists that they tell you to do. Get all the MRIs, get all the scans, get all done. Always. Next, you must clean up your nutrition. You must fix your gut first. I'm not saying that everything is because of your gut, but if your gut's a mess, nothing else to work for you.

And by the way, I got to interrupt for a second here, because, I mean, here I have a whole fitness nutrition brand, and I'm would have been epitome of health, and I had one of the most severe leaky guts my doctor's ever seen. So just because you think you're eating clean and working out and all the things, there's a lot of reasons we can have leaky gut. So I wanted to throw that out there because a lot of people just assume they don't. I never would have thought you said.

I'm glad you said that, because again, as I said, my wife and I both nutritionally thought we were on point. And five years ago, while I was in the height of this, I still had H. Pylori, which I had.

Yeah, I have H. Pylori, too, from this.

Yeah. In the height of eating clean and doing everything and being on every podcast in America, I was diagnosed H. Pylori. So you might be good if you're still not feeling optimal. Something's off in your diet. And I want to say, I'm so happy you paused on this. Before we continue, is that sometimes what is healthy is not healthy for you. I have a patient we worked on for a long time. We. We made strides, but we kept hitting a wall. And that's when we did food sensitivity testing. And it turns out that for her, avocados. Yeah. And avocado is like a superfood. Who doesn't eat. Who doesn't tell you to eat an avocado. Once we removed avocados from her life, everything changed. So when we say nutrition, even for those of you listening who feel like you're on point, be open minded. There might be something still in there that's not 100%. So PCB nutrition. You gotta fix your nutrition and get your belly right. Your belly should not be bloated, should not be distended. You should not be running to the bathroom. You should not be constipated. Your belly should be fine.

And by the way, all my belly was actually completely fine. My only symptom was the blood sugar issue, but I dug deeper to figure out what was going on. But what you just said about food sensitivities too, I want to ask you about that in a second because I was, I was that person that didn't really believe in food sensitivity tests. I'm like, whatever, unless you have an actual allergy. I completely poo pooed it. But when I found out about the leaky gut, I did do, I did a KBMO food sensitivity test. That's the one that I did. And what came up for me was four foods that I eat all the flipping time. So I took it. It was ginger, salmon, eggs and whey. And I was like, what? So all four came out. But so. So I wanted to get your thoughts on that whole foods and sensitivity topic too, because I was that person that turned my nose up to those.

Yeah. So that's how we discovered it with my wife because at the time she was vegan and this was before like a lot of these options that we have now. So her entire life was corn and soy and those were the two top that she had to. So it tends to be foods that you've been eating for a really long time.

Is it because of that? Is it because we've been eating them? Or is it just like, what's the reason with that? Or are we craving them because we're chicken egg.

It's chicken egg, like, because if you don't have leaky gut, you would be fine eating that. Right. So gut and then developing a sensitivity, something you're probably eating all the time. So it's, it's a bit of a chicken like. But I see this all the time. Not only something you eat all the time, but something that you've classified in your mind as 100% healthy.

Oh yeah, like eggs. I thought ginger, Ginger's and everything. Yeah. Never guess that.

Yeah. So. So. So after you do the. Your food, your cleanup, your nutrition, you now have a plethora of testing to do. And the way I decide which test to do next and I empower my patients to the same is depending on what symptoms are left. So in your case, your issue with sugar was clearly GI related.

Yes.

Made sense to go to food sensitivity next. If not Stool testing that. There you go. If after you cleaned it up, what was left was, like a constantly swollen right joint, well, then I would start looking at Lyme.

Yes.

After what you had left was like these brain zaps and still brain fog and fatigue. I had a patient, we cleaned everything up, but the fatigue was insane. Mold. After everything we clean up, you're still sitting at your boardroom sweating while the AC is on. We're gonna go to hormones. So you clear out as many symptoms as you can nutritionally and then see what's left and then know what to turn, what to turn to.

So what I've learned through all this, and I'm sure your patients are learning this too, is a little bit of an, of an element of patience because, like, we're such a quick fix, like, world, right? You know, everything's quick, quick, quick. And I know for me, like, I want you go to the doctor, you get, here's the problem. Here's the answer. So I think we've all been trained to do that too. So what you're suggesting, and what I've learned, too, is, like, it, it does require some patience and really digging and taking some time with this to get to the root.

If you're not ready to be patient, I won't sign on a patient unless they're ready to work for a year. I won't do 30, 60, 90 day. I'm not your girl. I have no, I have no protocol. I have no kit. I, I, I have nothing like that. I have a baseline starting point that I kind of sort of start up almost all my patients. And then where we go completely depends on what your body tells us. And not everyone wants that. Yeah, I've been approached a million times to offer supplements, like on my tiktoks, to be a sponsor. I won't do it because I am concerned that someone out there might say, oh, take probiotics. Let me take it.

Oh, wow.

Address the issues, because there. And I could probably make a lot more money if I let go of my high principles.

No, but I appreciate that about you. You're really saying, like, it's not a one size fits all, and you don't want to give false hope on that.

And it's not a supplement game. Like, supplements are important. Of course I do sell some supplements. Of course I. But it's not the game. That's 10 of the game. Like, if you're still eat. If you're still eating. If you were still eating whey and ginger, I can give you probiotics. And digestive enzymes until the cows come off.

Yeah, it's not going to work.

Yeah. If we remove that and then we add the supplements. Yeah, we're doing it. So I, So it's hard, right? Because that's the other thing that healthcare, totally healthcare got us. Like I have a five minute conversation with my doc, he writes me five prescription. Everything goes away. If it doesn't go away, something's wrong. So that's, that's another layer. The patience is a really big deal. To be able to be like, ah, this is not working. Okay, awesome. Yeah. That just means this wasn't the thing. Let's go to this thing. And it, it does take time. Doctor. Yeah, I left myself. It's going to take you four years to get unmes up.

I left my entire business of fat loss. I mean, that's what my bestselling books were on. I mean, this is what I did for years was I taught fat loss and I still stand by what I taught, but I literally left it because navigating what I'm navigating in midlife, it's changed my perspective on things and it's opened up this whole world of there's more to it than just following this regimen. There's more to it. So I see all that and I, I felt I personally was not the best person to represent it anym because I see this whole world of other topics like gut health, like what you do, like all of these things are so important in fat loss alone is not addressing that. So to me, I appreciate what you just said because I have navigated that same world and I need to, I want to be a voice for all women in general dealing with midlife. And I don't think there's just one method. There's just not, There's a lot there.

And I'm glad you brought up a fat loss in general because I have plenty of thin women who are not well and I have plenty of heavy women. After we fix nutrition, they may not be at whatever weight they have in mind, but they're feeling fantastic.

Yeah.

And so your symptoms are also not necessarily connected to your weight. That's the other thing. Like, hey, just lose weight. I promise you that if you just lose weight eating, you know, Weight Watchers brownies all day long, you still won't feel better.

That's true. That's true. Okay, I have a question that just came to me because you brought this up and it's, it's definitely on the controversial side, but I've got to ask It. Because I'm so curious your thoughts on it. I've got to ask about the semi glue tight or the. The.

What's that?

The weight loss. Okay, can you help? Because I. What. Tell me about this. All of a sudden, this is like the trendy thing. Everyone's doing it to me. It scares me. Like it's manipulating your insulin. What's the. What's the rebound effect? So can you share your thoughts on this?

I cannot stand them.

Okay, tell us why.

In my. And in my practice, I personally will not prescribe them. I will say refer to my colleagues who are fine with it. I just, I. Because, whoa.

People are passionate about this. That's why I need. I'm like, I want to understand it.

Because we're going back to the conversation because there's two things. First, this is not a weight loss conversation. Health is not a weight loss conversation. Yes, of course I want to help you get to whatever your goal weight is. But like I said, if I get you to your goal weight and you're still eating brownies every day, I've done nothing for your health. I've done nothing. So it is not in my world. Health is not. It's not a numbers game. It's not a scale game. Sure. So you're taking these medications, you're losing your ten pounds. What have you done for your health? Just right there, because you haven't really changed your relationship with food or started using food as medicine and removing the things that are irritating and putting on the good things. Right. So that's. That's number one. So, so, so one is that it's not a weight conversation. Right. And then number two, in order to win at this weight game, you have introduced a lot of chemicals. Chemicals are not benign. And you are like a classic victim of rebranding. Like, these pharmaceutical companies get licensing for X amount of years for, let's just say, type 2 diabetes. When they're about to lose the licensing, they rebrand a new usage for it, and now they could stay longer without offering generic. And you're just part of that experiment.

Wow. So what was this for before? I didn't know this. Oh, so, okay. So got it. So that's why. So it was originally only for diabetes, and now they're just rebranding it for this because we're like, okay, what's the next.

It's not off label anymore now.

Okay.

It used to be off label, like on the down low, your endocrinology. Now it's like, approved.

Yeah. I feel like it started in the biohacking world, a little bit. Like it started with the peptide, you know, like everyone's like this. And then all of a sudden it's like this whole big talked about thing. Like everyone's getting it as. Because I heard of it when I first heard of it, it was semi glutide is what people were calling it. And now it's a whole prescription name. So it's like, I've seen this evolution there.

Yeah, I mean, it is, it's. It's prescriptive. It's.

And what happens, okay, what happens when someone's not diabetic and they take it? Like, what happens to their body?

Not good things. Okay.

That's what I would wonder. Like, what happens when you stop?

What happens when you come off of it because you've not changed your relationship with food. I don't see any. I really don't see anything good about taking chemicals, you know, But I always, I always say that and then I always say, but I'm also not in your shoes. And some people are just so desperate not to be heavy and it's just all encompassing and it's all consuming for them. And if that is what they need. So their goal might not be health. Their goal might be like, I don't care what it cost me, I need weight loss. And if that is what they need, I would need to create room for that also. But it's not a health conversation. Then that number situation for you is just so important that you almost don't matter to you what the repercussions are. Like gastric sleeve people who get to that point, Listen, I clear people for that surgery all the time. Do I necessarily love it? No. But for the patient who's like, I am so utterly desperate, I'm willing to cut myself open for this. Makes sense, right? So I created so. So that is their space and that is what matters to them. But here in the functional medicine world, we're talking about autoimmunity and joints and longevity and brain. So it's not really a weight conversation. So there really is no room for that here.

That makes sense to me. Yeah, I guess that's where I've sort of landed on it is my friends, they're just trying to lose five or ten pounds. I think they're crazy. Like, why are you doing that? You're killing your health. And then, but then I, like you said, I can appreciate somebody that's got 100 plus pounds to lose and they're navigating heart problems. They've got all kinds of other things. So it's kind of like, what's the lesser evil at this point point? Like, I. And I can't. I've not been in their shoes. So again, it is a different situation. But I think I personally have landed on that. If you're just doing this to lose 5 or 10 pounds, to be super, like, that's, to me is crazy. Like, you're really messing with biology and your health and like, just all of it. It's just. It's just really scary to me. Okay.

What? Sorry, go ahead.

No, go ahead, go ahead.

I was gonna say it's ultimately always every decision is risk reward. So if you're £100 over and you've been five, ten years, and you're already, like you said, heart is an issue, diabetes is an issue, blood pressure is an issue, then the risk reward of taking this medication to get you off of three medications and out of more obesity or, you know, get you. Yes, the risk reward is this way. But like you said, for someone that's 5, 10 pounds, the risk reward is in the other direction, and it doesn't make sense.

Totally, totally. Okay, tell us about your book. Because you got a book out, it's not in your head. And I feel like everyone needs to go get this now, especially after listening to you today. What made you, like, tell us, like, what made you write this book? I mean, is it mostly because of what you experienced with your. With your. With your wife? What was. What was the thing like? What do you want people to know? Why do you want them to go get this?

I did it because I wanted to give people, like, a framework because there's so many tests out there. How. What do I do first? And so I really just. I kind of give a very, kind of macro overview of what the options are, where to start, what to do next, and when to consider testing. Because I have so many people come to me with like. Like whole, like, files of all the tests that they did when they haven't really figure out what to do. Or like we said, those are like, well, there's only so much money I could spend. Where do I go? Where should I spend it on? So I did it for that, to create. To create a bit of a roadmap to let people know where to start. And of course, there's a lot information about how to work with me, but ultimately it's not. Wasn't for that. It's just. That's because the people insisted I write that. And I actually hate that chapter in the book.

Really?

Yeah, because I, because I want it to be a standalone help you book without you come to work with me or not.

Yeah, but people are going to want to work with you when they read it and so you have to get. You have to. Otherwise they're going to. Then you leave them hanging and they're like, well, how do I find you?

So.

So I think it's good that you included that too. So if you're, if you're not doing this now, make sure you follow her on TikTok and on Instagram. TikTok is super informative. I mean I think you put a lot of similar ones on Instagram but it's the new method. Right? That's your, your screen name on there. The new method. And K N E W.

Because you always a better way.

I love it. I love it. Really informative, bite sized chunk videos. That's how I found you originally, which is amazing. And then make sure you get her book. Where can they get the book? Where do you want them to go to get it?

Amazon, Kindle, Any Amazon and Kindle.

All right, go there. No special website. You can just find it on Amazon or Kindle. Thank you so much for taking the time today. This is great. I can't wait to dive more into this book. I love your videos and thank you so much for sharing today.

Thank you. It was an honor to be here.