Episode 523: Ashley Koff, RD: GLP-1, Weight Loss and the Mistakes That Create Rebound

Weight loss has become a race to get smaller, even when the body is clearly breaking down in the process. The surprise is that a lot of people lose weight and end up more fatigued, under muscled, and metabolically worse off than when they started. We dive deeper into this topic in the latest Habits & Hustle episode with Ashley Koff. We also chat about why GLP-1s make people skinny but not necessarily healthy, why weight often comes back after stopping GLP-1s, and why not eating enough while on these medications is one of the biggest mistakes people make. Ashley Koff, RD is a registered dietitian, founder of The Better Nutrition Program, and a clinician with over 25 years of experience in personalized nutrition. She is the USA Today bestselling author of Your Best Shot https://thebetternutritionprogram.com/your-best-shot/#Order (HarperOne) and founder of The Better Nutrition Program https://thebetternutritionprogram.com/ (BNP), and has been recognized as one of CNN's Top 100 Health Makers. What We Discuss: (00:00) Why weight loss has become the wrong goal and how "thinner" replaced healthier(03:12) GLP-1s explained and why they make people skinny without making them healthy(07:08) The real issue with GLP-1s and why misuse creates rebound weight gain(12:41) What actually happens when appetite returns after stopping GLP-1s(17:56) Why not eating enough on GLP-1s leads to muscle loss and metabolic slowdown(22:38) Food noise, hormones, and why appetite is not a willpower problem(34:27) The biggest "just eat less" lie and how it backfires long term(40:03) Fasting, under-fueling, and why trendy restriction worsens outcomes for some people Thank you to our sponsors: Prolon: Get 30% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program! Just visit https://prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN and use code JENNIFERCOHEN to claim your discount and your bonus gift. Therasage: Head over to therasage.com http://therasage.com/ and use code Be Bold for 15% off Air Doctor: Go to airdoctorpro.com http://airdoctorpro.com/ and use promo code HUSTLE40 for up to $300 off and a 3-year warranty on air purifiers. Magic Mind: Head over to www http://www/.magicmind.com http://magicmind.com//jen and use code Jen at checkout. Momentous: Shop this link https://www.livemomentous.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorDUIZz3psr1Qsq_n1yE8_6JTq_QUFabOO9lH65HDEXCIoJOPLj and use code Jen for 20% off Manna Vitality: Visit mannavitality.com and use code JENNIFER20 for 20% off your order Amp fit is the perfect balance of tech and training, designed for people who do it all and still want to feel strong doing it. Check it out at joinamp.com/jen https://www.joinamp.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=in-stream&utm_campaign=jen Rho Nutrition: Try Rho Nutrition today and experience the difference of Liposomal Technology. Use code JEN20for 20% OFF everything at https://rhonutrition.com/ https://rhonutrition.com/discount/jen20discount/jen20 https://rhonutrition.com/discount/jen20. Find more from Jen: Website: https:// https://shadezahrai.comjennifercohen.com https://www.jennifercohen.com/ Instagram: @therealjencohen https://www.instagram.com/therealjencohen/ Books: https:// https://shadezahrai.comjennifercohen.com/books https://www.jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: https:// https://shadezahrai.comjennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement https://www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement Find more from Ashley Koff: Website: http://thebetternutritionprogram.com https://thebetternutritionprogram.com/ Instagram: @ashleykoffapproved https://www.instagram.com/ashleykoffapproved/ Ashley's Upcoming Book: ORDER HERE https://thebetternutritionprogram.com/your-best-shot/#Order

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, this is Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:07Jen Cohen?

  In this episode of Habits and Hustle, I sit down with dietitian, author, and friend of mine, Ashley Koff, to unpack why weight loss has quietly become the wrong goal for so many people, and how chasing thinner without addressing health is leading to burnout and a rebound weight gain. This conversation cuts through the hype and focuses on what actually holds up once the shortcut stops working. We break down why GLP-1s don't automatically make you healthy, how the real problem isn't the medication, but how people are using it, and why not eating on these medications is a major mistake.

• 0:50Jen Cohen?

  Okay guys, we have, my friend is back. My friend's back in town. Her name is Ashley Koff. She is a dietitian, but she's not just any dietitian. She's probably one of the smartest dietitians I've ever met, and anybody who knows you, her, would agree, seriously, because she's very knowledgeable, and she has a new book coming, actually, her new book is out now, and it's called Your Best Shot, and it's called A Personalized System for Optimal Weight Health, and it's all about the GLP-1 epidemic, you guys, which, by the way, can I just say one comment, and then we're going to take these magic mind shots? If you walk around LA, or anywhere at this point, everyone is thin now. It's

• 1:32Jen Cohen?

  like, I feel like, is it just the fact that we're living in a pseudo-reality, but like, everybody, I feel, is on one form or another of a GLP-1. Have you not noticed this?

• 1:41Speaker 02

  You know, it was really interesting. The person I had coffee with this morning said the same thing, and she's in a different, she's 70, and she was like, all my 60-year-old and 70-year-old friends-

• 1:49Jen Cohen?

  I was skinny.

• 1:50Speaker 02

  But it's funny, like, because some of them are so happy because they are actually healthy, and some of them are skinny and unhealthy or unhealthy-er, and nobody's acknowledging the difference, like, because she was like, a lot of people do not look good. You know, I said one thing, it's like, I'm 52, like, I do not want to lose weight and like-

• 2:09Jen Cohen?

  Your face.

• 2:10Speaker 02

  In my face or you can like, and it's like, we don't get to choose where we lose weight from, you know?

• 2:13Jen Cohen?

  No, I agree. That's actually a very good point because that is very true. Just because you're skinny.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:18Jen Cohen?

  Doesn't mean you look better. Like a lot of the people I see wandering around is that, yeah, they're, they're thinner, skinnier, but they just look exactly the same of how they looked before, just a smaller version of themselves. They don't look toned. They don't look healthier. Their face looks more gaunt. So I really am, I want to talk to you about the major craze of what's happening, but because I've had, I don't know about you, but I've had a really hectic, crazy couple of weeks. And so my focus is all over the place, which is why I love these little shots. This is caffeine free.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  So it's going to help us. Thank goodness it's caffeine free because you know, I'm such a slow metabolizer of caffeine. Like, oh my gosh.

• 2:56Jen Cohen?

  Well, this is, well, this is actually a mental performance shot with zero caffeine, you guys. I love it. And it, it actually does the trick. It kind of keeps you on point.

• 3:05Speaker 02

  You know, it's a rare day that I'll just take anything, but you happen to have introduced me to these. And so

• 3:09Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 3:09Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:09Jen Cohen?

  They're delicious. I take them every day and that's not because, you know, they're a sponsor. It's because they are delicious and that's why they are a sponsor actually. But okay, now we're going to be locked in. Are you ready?

• 3:19Speaker 02

  Got to be delicious.

• 3:20Jen Cohen?

  Got to be delicious.

• 3:21Speaker 02

  All right.

• 3:21Jen Cohen?

  Oh, are you okay?

• 3:22Speaker 02

  I'm super focused. I'm like, I just felt like form of, it's like a superpower thing.

• 3:26Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Good.

• 3:28Jen Cohen?

  Okay. So let me first by ask this question. Are like, like everything in the world, right? Things become super like trendy and there's a fad and the pendulum swings one direction. Like that's my concern with these GLP ones. I think that people are using it more as a crutch, not as a tool.

• 3:43Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 3:44Jen Cohen?

  What is your perspective on this?

• 3:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, first let's unpack that these GLP ones are doing something super important.

• 3:50Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  They are teaching doctors, dietitians, and hopefully, and this is why I wrote this book.

• 3:55Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 3:55Speaker 02

  Individuals about our actual human anatomy. So the body is designed with weight health hormones. GLP one is one of them. GIP, PYY, CCK, we can go on. And these hormones are the first domino in a line of things that need to happen in our body for us to be weight healthy. And we'll, we'll get into that.

• 4:14Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 4:15Speaker 02

  So what the medications are, is they are this version of the medication, not new ones that are Coming out, but this version of the medication, they are a biosimilar hormone replacement. So what do I mean by that? You hear bio identical when it comes to like estrogen or testosterone, insulin, if it was bio identical, it would be the exact same made in a lab, but your body uses it in the same way. They're biosimilar in that the body uses it in the same way. So when these hormones come to the receptor sites, the body says, I know what to do with GLP one. The difference is our own body hormones stay on for two to five minutes. These stay on for 24 hours. The first version was for 24 hours. Now it's 24 hours for seven days.

• 4:57Speaker 02

  So what you want to think of is they are like an amped up version of our own hormone, right? They're basically when our body gets the hormone from the shot, they get it in a way that keeps us in this metabolically active, telling our hormones to go to work state. That has a lot of advantage. It may in our brain calm us down from thinking about appetite. It might calm us from thinking about food. It might make us break up with daily alcohol or, you know, other things. Cause we're, it shifts how we're thinking about things. But it also does things in like our gut as an example, where if we're delaying gastric emptying for two to five minutes, now think about we're delaying gastric emptying to some extent for 24 hours for seven days. That's going to have consequences.

• 5:40Speaker 02

  If we're stuck in a metabolically active phase, if we're telling insulin to go to work, then our body is going to turn around and not be in the recovery mode. So what I see people is they're fatigued or their heart rate variability, which will measure and is a measure of the body's ability to be in a relaxed state, that is tanking, that's going down. So what we have to look at is the medications are working exactly as they're intended to, but we have to understand the considerations. I don't necessarily think it's cons, but I think it's considerations. Now, anyone taking a medication to lose weight or a doctor prescribing it to lose weight is actually in an old system and creating problems for people. We do not want to lose weight.

• 6:25Speaker 02

  We want to address why the body is putting X is creating excess. Fat, why it might be putting fat around or in our organs, why our bone is, you know, breaking down instead of being reformed, why we're struggling with muscle mass, why we're struggling with cravings. We want to get to the root causes of those. So if you think of the medication as a solution alone, that's a big problem. But if you use it as a tool, so I love what you picked up on. That's exactly it. If you use it as a tool and you understand how it's working in that person's body and you optimize around it, it can be a very effective tool.

• 7:00Jen Cohen?

  Okay, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that people who should not be doing it are doing it. So that's the first part, right? And wasn't this medication for diabetics?

• 7:13Speaker 02

  Okay, so let's unpack a couple of things. It's really interesting to me. So I grew up with a lot of weight challenges and I was always told you're healthy, but from the time I stopped being cute and chubby at around 10 and became fat and like fat, like a fat girl and teased. And the doctors were like, okay, there's nothing wrong with you. You're just like, just eat less, Ashley. I was actually really active. Some would tell me to like, so they didn't tell me I needed to be active, but they would say like, you just need to eat less. And some would say like, eat, why don't you stop eating when you're full? And I'm like, cool. Like, I can just keep eating because I like never felt full. You know, I'm like, all right, you know?

• 7:46Jen Cohen?

  Me too.

• 7:46Speaker 02

  And, and nobody, nobody was unpacking the fact that I was on antibiotics from basically the time that I was born multiple, like almost monthly because of ear infections and throat infections. And even when they ultimately looked at that, like at 19, and they're like, okay, you need to stop having these ear and throat infections, they took out my tonsils. They're like, the answer is that there's a problem with your tonsils. It wasn't, nobody was ever looking at the root cause in there. And so the root cause of my fat was that my digestive system did not work better. Right? And it took me doing a horrible goat's milk cleanse and being in a bar and meeting a weird gastroenterologist who suddenly said to me, it's not what you're eating or what you're not eating. Your digestive system doesn't have what it needs to run better.

• 8:29Speaker 02

  Why am I saying this to you right now? When you said people are using that medication that shouldn't, I totally take issue with that. I take issue with a society that, like, there are so People taking statins or proton pump inhibitor medications that I feel as a clinician who does this, I probably could be helping them on or off those medications. But nobody is judging someone for taking a proton pump inhibitor and saying like, you shouldn't be suppressing acid. You should just be, you know, diet eating and exercising differently. And so the acid production in your body is different. And we have so much bias around weight and we turn around and we say like, I could look at you, the woman that I was with this morning has no extra fat on her body. And she said to me, my doctors are telling me that I should go on this medication.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  And I'm thinking like, are they trying to tell me I'm fat? And I said, no, what they're trying to tell you is there's applications for these medications that your appearance isn't what doesn't tell me anything. You know, the same thing that people say you could be healthy at every size. Like, you know, why are we judging somebody who's obese and or, you know, who has excess fat or whatever? I don't care what your size is. I look inside of you. I want to know, are you healthy inside of you? And so I'm not going to judge someone and say, is it inappropriate for you to be using the medication? Because I have people who have eating disorders and disordered eating. I have people who have blood sugar dysregulation. I have people who have cognitive impairment, like other reasons where I'm like, oh, this might be a part, a tool that could be useful for us, right? For a time period or maybe ongoing.

• 9:59Speaker 02

  The second part of your point, though, is really valid. If somebody uses this medication and they just think that all I need to do is use this medication, they're not fixing anything. And that part of it is going to mean that that's why you A would have to stay on it. And B, in using it, you may, you actually may be missing that you could be making other things worse. And I think that's what you're picking up on too.

• 10:19Jen Cohen?

  What can you make worse?

• 10:21Speaker 02

  Well, you can make your sleep worse. You can, your sleep could already not be better. You could make your heart rate variability, which is a measure of your body not being in the relaxed state. You know, we're in, we have this yin yang in our body, right? We have our sympathetic and our parasympathetic. And if we aren't careful and we keep our body in a stressed out state too much, then that can cause us to just, you know, sort of burn through things. If we keep pushing our body to be producing insulin and sending insulin out, that could be an issue for our insulin production. And there are other factors. And certainly if we create a space where we're not hungry all day and so we don't eat all day long, like we could take somebody who is already nutrient insufficient and we could make us more nutrient insufficient. And the one that I think you would spark to is, you know, if somebody's

• 11:04Speaker 02

  too tired to exercise and or their muscle, you know, they're not building muscle or they're not able to actually make muscle because they're not taking in enough of the nutrition that could help the body build muscle, then yeah, you might lose weight, but you're actually more metabolically disadvantaged by being fat without with lower muscle mass, you know, on that part.

• 11:25Jen Cohen?

  Right. But, you know, you know, we've been doing this a long time, right? This business, we met, by the way, everyone, we did a weight loss show together eons ago called shedding for the wedding. I was the fitness trainer and Ashley was the dietitian. And that's how we became friends. And so this is, this goes back a long, long time, right? And, you know, there is something to be said for behavior modification.

• 11:49Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 11:50Jen Cohen?

  And, I mean, you can say whatever you'd like, but I think a lot of people, you know, are not modifying their behavior and they're relying on this medication. And what's happening, what I've seen in real time is people acclimate to the medication and then their appetites come back. And then when they get, they, they either have to stay on this medication forever, or, right? And then keep on adjusting it to go up, or they start gaining weight back. And when they get off of it, and I've seen this probably six to eight times in the last year, they gain all their weight back and more.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:28Jen Cohen?

  Because they actually lost muscle mass and they didn't lose the actual, they didn't lose fat because you're losing both muscle mass and fat. And their appetite comes back with the vengeance.

• 12:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:40Jen Cohen?

  Which is not great.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  So, okay, so let's, let's say this. So why blame a medication for somebody who isn't using it right?

• 12:48Jen Cohen?

  Okay, let me, let me say something. Okay, so I got this. The second part of it is I hear a lot of people talk about microdosing it for inflammation, cognition, all these things.

• 13:00Jen Cohen?

  But yet, there's not really any hard research to prove that it helps with inflammation. It helps with, you know, your cognitive abilities. I find that when people want to do something, they'll, they can, they can think of a hundred reasons to do it. If they don't want to do something, then they can think of a hundred reasons not to, right? That's how our brains work, right? So there's not enough feedback on it. And so there has to be something to the fact that calling a spade a spade,

• 13:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:30Jen Cohen?

  which is people, this bullshit of like body positivity, where, where, where? That left because people now could be thin. They're like, body positivity, what? Like, that's not even in the conversation anymore because everybody's taking it because they want to be thin.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  If you can afford it. So I heard recently, like, people who, you know, like, if you can afford it. So let's go back to behavior modification.

• 13:52Jen Cohen?

  Let me say this, one more thing.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:53Jen Cohen?

  So what they're doing is compounding it.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 13:56Jen Cohen?

  And that's a little bit cheaper.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 13:57Jen Cohen?

  Okay, anyway, that's, I, I, that's my rant for the minute.

• 14:02Speaker 02

  So let's unpack a couple of different things.

• 14:03Jen Cohen?

  You love that word, unpack.

• 14:04Speaker 02

  Behavior, yeah, well, there's like, I think it's important because here, like, it's probably the best word to use here, which is there is an argument for everything you say on either side, right? And at the end of the day, like, I just say, and like, it's probably my ego, like, at this point, I'm 52 years old. I've helped thousands of people. You know, if you're coming to me as a patient and you want to get better, I am going to help you. Like, I do not have a crystal ball about how your life is going to go. I also don't even have a crystal ball for the recommendations that I'm going to make. I can't say, hey, Jen, if you take this supplement, this is what's going to happen to you. I can say, I strongly think this is what we should do. And then we do an experiment and then we have you do that and we see, we get the data from it and did it work? And did your body show us that it likes it? And then we move on from there.

• 14:48Speaker 02

  So the one thing that I would say to anyone listening is if you're not taking that approach, you're doing it wrong. If you are listening to anyone, I don't care how brilliant or how they look or like any of that. I don't care who the biohacker is, like, any of that piece. If you're following what somebody else did for themselves and you're expecting the same outcome, you are to blame. Like, that's, it's just bad on that part. Now, the other part- About behavior modification for the first 20, 25 years of my life. And then I would say like also as perimenopause reared like maybe around like 45 to 50. I have tried every behavior modification under the sun. Like I have like free based fiber. I like, I definitely have had, you know, like 30 grams of fiber before a meal and these like nasty crackers. So that like I would feel full because I didn't feel full.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  I've slammed 120 ounces of water. I've given up drinking. I was a macrobiotic vegan who was like hanging upside down in yoga. I didn't drink, I like, you name it. Like this is not for not trying like, so I want to be really clear there. And when you look at my genetics, I used to think that I was designed to be obese. That was like the messages that my genetics showed me. When I was able to sit down with somebody who like said, there's another way of looking at this. Like your body is like, you were designed to survive. Like your body hangs on to everything because you are an endurance athlete who is designed to hit it hard. And not and survive if resources were not available. I'm like, well, that's really cool. Not great for modern day, but you know, it's, it's cool.

• 16:18Speaker 02

  You know, it like outside of that. So I had to reframe everything. And for me, what I would say is the, what we're not doing enough of is we're not understanding where the rubber meets the road. And this is why I think as a dietitian, I am uniquely positioned to have this kind of conversation rather than a physician. Because I think there is a myth of a non-compliant patient. Sure, we can have somebody that's just like, I'm not going to get out of bed and exercise. But when I start to unpack, why are you not getting out of bed and exercising? You slept crappy, you, your digestive system was off, your blood sugar is impaired, you know? So when we start to work on those things, can we get you to a place where you can get out of bed and exercise? Right?

• 17:00Speaker 02

  It isn't about just telling someone to exercise and then they're not exercising. And now we just deem them a failure, you know? Because I've been deemed a failure like across the board. You know what I mean? It was like, I was the one that ate three containers of a Jenny Craig meal because I was like, okay, well, one just didn't fill me up. You know, and I'm like, why am I not losing weight? You know, I was like,

• 17:20Jen Cohen?

  You know, yeah.

• 17:21Speaker 02

  But those were before I became a dietitian.

• 17:23Jen Cohen?

  Okay, okay.

• 17:24Speaker 02

  So let's be clear. Yeah.

• 17:24Jen Cohen?

  But it was funny. We all go into the career that we think we we struggle with, right?

• 17:28Speaker 02

  That we struggle with. Yeah, totally.

• 17:30Jen Cohen?

  It's so funny. It's like always the way that it was.

• 17:33Speaker 02

  But yeah.

• 17:33Jen Cohen?

  So are you on a GLP one now?

• 17:36Speaker 02

  So I like for me, and I get asked, I love that I get asked that question too, because I had gained weight as perimenopause and perimen, like, so what I will say is, as a kid that struggled with my, with my belly, it was always my belly. And I was like, how do I lose my belly? And it really led me down dark paths, like it, you know, really like a lot of just negative. Like I was such like a happy, like in every other aspect of my life, like successful, fun, et cetera. And then I was this diet failure and I just tried to hide it. I tried to like drink and be the fun one. I tried to like, you know, dye my hair blonde. It turned orange, like with sun in, you know what I mean? Like I tried everything to like not be me, right? Cause I thought my belly was this failure.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  So when at 45, I started to gain my belly back again, like, and it was incremental. It was slow. And then, and I, there were some things to point to. I'd been through breakups, you know, we like, for me, it was like pandemic time, you know, for all of us, it was the pandemic time. It was other stuff. But I'm like, okay, let me go to my toolkit and try to figure out, you know, how I can heal myself. And I knew I needed to like focus a little bit more on my digest, on like tuning up my digestion. And it was the world of fasting and like fast like a girl, you know, I love Mindy's work and stuff. So I started fasting. So I just like fasting, AKA not eating. Like I was just like, I got down to like where I wasn't like eating for like four hours in a day. And then I decided to train for an endurance event.

• 18:55Jen Cohen?

  Hold on, you weren't, you weren't eating for four hours?

• 18:57Speaker 02

  I was only eating for four hours in a day. I created such a small window. I mean, yeah, I know. And also really not fun to be around. It took me longer to break up with alcohol too, but then I started endurance athlete training. And so I would do these long zone twos instead of intense weightlet, like what works better for my body, you know, hits, hit and strength training. So I tell all this stuff because like I had a great toolkit. You know, I have like, yeah, I did pro line. I did like all these other things. I'm like, I'm still gaining weight. I'm still gaining weight. And so at that point, and GLP, the GLP ones weren't like popular slash accessible, you know, at that space. So I slowly, I gave up alcohol. I leaned into my digestive health. I start after my endurance event, I went back to strength training. I went back to increasing my protein. And but then at

• 19:41Speaker 02

  that point, I was like, okay, I'm like in trouble because all those things, I'm still just breaking even. And I was carrying 20 pounds in my belly. And I just was like, like, I can keep getting stronger, but I like, I've got 20 extra pounds in my belly. So that was a very like, dark moment for me. And at that point, I met a doctor who said to me, I had been working with GLP-1s for like, ages at this point. She had worked with the original leerglutide. And she said to me, I want you to know, like, this is an option for you. Like, here's this, don't feel badly about yourself. And I was like, okay, I'm excited about that. And I was like, all right, I'm gonna try this. Your point of like, low dose, I met Tina Moore, and she's like, there's a difference between microdosing and low dose. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna start

• 20:24Speaker 02

  on a low dose. I try a low dose. And what happened to me on a low dose? I stopped pooping. And let me be really clear, as somebody whose entire life was about constipation, if you make me not poop, like, I can't handle it. And I tried everything. I tried magnesium, I tried this other stuff. So I would say it was maybe about like, two months, like, somewhere in the range of like, two to two and a half months. This is what I will tell you. From the moment that I gave myself my first injection, and this was like, 10, like, I guess it's like 10 units, like, the smallest amount from a compounding, we'll talk about that in a second. I had a different brain chemistry than I had ever had. I was like, oh, my gosh, like, I might not like, be thinking about food. Like, I didn't realize how much I

• 21:06Speaker 02

  wasn't eating a lot. I just didn't realize how much I was always thinking about food, right? And like, all of these other things. Anyway, after about two, two and a half months in, I'm like, my digestion, like, I can't handle this. I'm not gonna use it. And I had also at the time, randomly, because of the work that I do, met the folks from New Zealand who make Amerisate, the, which is a compound from hops, and it's a, what one might call like, a natural or a GLP-1 activator. So I started using that. And I was like, okay, I actually like this. And it's not turning off my system in the same way, because it only works for four Hours and it doesn't, it's not working at thousands percent higher. It's, you know, it's modestly. But I found that I really liked it for my appetite and my cravings. In the midst of all of this, I saw a doctor and she's like,

• 21:51Speaker 02

  you have a massive fibroid, like your uterus is four or five times the size. This is what's going on. This is why you're cramping, why you're bleeding, what, like all this other stuff. So I ended up having a hysterectomy. Like, nobody here needs to know my whole personal medical story.

• 22:04Jen Cohen?

  But you're telling it, so go on.

• 22:06Speaker 02

  But well, I'm gonna stop, but like, here's the story. You asked me a question of the agonist, like, would I use the agonist? And I still have it at my house. And I'm like, if I have no idea how actual menopause is gonna hit me, especially now that I have had a hysterectomy, if I need it, I would have no problem using it because I know how, I would know how to use it for my body. But the issue that I have in here is, everybody, because I took off 20 pounds, the only question everybody wants to know is like, are you using an agonist? And I was like, I just told you like a whole story here. Like, I climb mountains now. I fix my digestion. I started eating again. By the way, I eat within an hour and a half of waking or game off. Like, I have to have food.

• 22:43Jen Cohen?

  Anymore.

• 22:44Speaker 02

  No, I don't fast anymore.

• 22:45Jen Cohen?

  So that's why you just, you said, oh, I love this, I love Mindy, fasted girl, blah, blah, blah.

• 22:50Speaker 02

  And then it didn't work for me.

• 22:51Jen Cohen?

  I love Mindy too. Hello, Mindy. However, you know, Mindy's been on this show many times. First of all, I can't fast to save my life. The only, only kind of fast I can do, and that was even very difficult, was that prologue, five day fast, fast mimicking, because at least you're eating something.

• 23:07Speaker 02

  And it works beautiful for me, but I lose muscle on it, so I get pissed.

• 23:11Jen Cohen?

  Oh, really?

• 23:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, totally.

• 23:12Jen Cohen?

  In five days?

• 23:13Speaker 02

  In five days, but like the end.

• 23:14Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so think about that. If you're losing muscle in five days,

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:18Jen Cohen?

  What do you, like, how can you talk about, of course, like, if people are not eating

• 23:23Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:23Jen Cohen?

  for like months on end, how can you say a GLP-1 can be good for somebody?

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Because I don't, I don't want them to. I don't want them to use it. So if somebody's using a GLP-1 and they're not eating, they're using too much of it and they're using it wrong.

• 23:36Jen Cohen?

  Okay, but the microdosing.

• 23:38Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:38Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so, yeah, I know, okay, now I understand your story.

• 23:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:42Jen Cohen?

  So would you, do you think that microdosing is good or bad?

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Great. So if we apply Dr. Tina Moore's and what I believe in as the true Term of microdosing. So we have totally lost the marketing conversation. But a true microdose is a microscopic amount. You don't use that for weight health. Do I think using a low dose and a lower dose and use and using it to to and all the other tools is better in most instances? Absolutely. I think people are and doctors in particular are just saying, start at this low dose and go higher and higher because that's the research that pharma did because and they want us to go higher. So I think using a lower dose is oftentimes smarter on that part.

• 24:30Jen Cohen?

  Today's episode is powered by AMP. You know, those days when you're just done. I mean, the meetings, the kids, the to do list, and you still want to move your body, but the gym feels a million miles away. That's exactly why I love my AMP. AMP is a smart AI powered strength training device that sits right in your home. It's super sleek, literally looks like you got it at the Apple Store, and it also counts your reps, adjusts your weights for you, and you're always training under the perfect amount of tension. So whether you've got 15 minutes or 45, AMP adapts in real time to make every workout simple, effective, and completely

• 25:11Jen Cohen?

  personal. And the app is super cool, too. It has hundreds of different workouts, strength, Pilates, mobility, recovery, and it's so easy to use. It's literally been a game changer for me. I don't have to plan my workouts or wonder what I'm going to do. I just turn on my AMP and it takes care of the rest. And as a mom and a business owner and a podcaster, that convenience means I stay consistent and you know, strength training, especially for women, is so key for my hormone balance, longevity, and of course, confidence. So you can see why I'm obsessed. Go to joinamp.com/gen to learn more. That's joinamp.com/gen because strength should fit your life.

• 26:06Jen Cohen?

  Is a compound version as effective as a pharma version?

• 26:10Speaker 02

  The compounding has changed. I'm concerned about compounding now. So what happened was the compounding that was available when, when I, that was what I had gotten was a, it was a different compounding pharmacy. There's A and B. And so at that time, it was because there was a shortage of the ingredient and the compounding pharmacy, it was held towards the regulations of the FDA and saying that this is, we are only using that ingredient. The compounding pharmacy that, that the ones that are regulated now are regulated at the state level and through a pharmaceutical association and they may not be the exact same ingredient. And so the real question is, I don't know. I don't know what somebody is using. If somebody is getting semi-glutide or they're getting terzepatide, I like that.

• 26:53Speaker 02

  There are some now that they've added like B12 to, because everybody's like, well, because more B12.

• 26:58Jen Cohen?

  That's what they're doing now. They add B12, especially in California.

• 27:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:01Jen Cohen?

  That's not good?

• 27:02Speaker 02

  Well, it depends. So first of all, it depends, is your B12 low? Like, and also I have some people that are doing that and they're going into these longevity centers and they're getting a B12 injection on top of it. And they're also taking a methylcobalamin in their supplement.

• 27:16Jen Cohen?

  What's that?

• 27:16Speaker 02

  And no, that's B12. And nobody's looking at it, right? And I was like, hey, you're just getting too much B12. More B12 is not the answer on that part. Now, could somebody be, could have, they have a benefit of getting B12 in with the GLP-1 because they weren't getting B12 in before? And is that helpful to them? Yes. But B12 works in the body with B6 and with folate. And that creates, helps you, when you have the right amount, it helps to reduce homocysteine. So if I just give you B12 and I don't optimize your B6 and your folate, I could also be creating a cardiovascular problem, not solving one. So it's important for us to, to pay attention to.

• 27:52Jen Cohen?

  This is what I'm saying. See, this is why I don't love, is that like, people are not taking into account, once you do one thing.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:58Jen Cohen?

  It will offset something else.

• 28:00Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:00Jen Cohen?

  There's a lot of this happening. So people think just like more is more, like, oh, I need to lose weight, so I'll do this. Or they're ordering it from China, or they're ordering, no one knows where they're getting their stuff from.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 28:11Jen Cohen?

  Now, let's, I'm curious. Suppose something with GLP-1s. I've always been curious, like trisepotide, semiglutide. There's new, a new one now.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  Retrotrutide.

• 28:20Jen Cohen?

  Retrotrutide. Are they all just, they're all GLP-1s, but they diff, there are some that work on more receptors to make it more effective?

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Great question. So, semiglutide is a single agonist. It is an agonist. So agonist versus antagonist.

• 28:36Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 28:37Speaker 02

  A statin and a PPI are antagonist. They work against the way that the body is working. An agonist by definition means that it's doing what your body would normally do.

• 28:46Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  Semiglutide is a single agonist. It is an agonist for GLP-1. That's one of your weight health hormones. Then trisepotide, even though it sounds like it's a three one, trisepotide is a dual agonist. It is GLP-1 and GIP. Retrotrutide, I don't even think I can pronounce it, is a triple agonist. It is for GLP-1 and GIP, and then it's going in and it's working on glucose, on a different glucose hormone. Then, there's this whole new class of medications coming out called small molecule non-peptide. And that's important because they are not bio-identical. So when, or, oh my gosh, you're going to kill me with these names.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  But I think it's O4-glipron or some, something like that, that's going to come on the market this next year. Everybody's really excited about that one because it's oral and it's also, but, and it's called a GLP-1 agonist. But when you have the receptor site in the body, there are two pockets to the receptor, as we know. So when you have a GLP-1 agonist, it comes in, it hits that first pocket, it's kind of like pool. When it hits, or, or pinball, when it hits that first pocket, it opens up the next pocket and it lands into the second pocket. This, this one, the non-peptide one, is just a lab, a chemistry lab project. And it jumps over that first pocket and it lands in the second pocket. So I don't know how that is going to work in your body. And that has me very concerned about, you know, if you skip over something.

• 30:12Speaker 02

  I've seen plenty of medications, COX2 inhibitors and others that are doing something that is kind of like what the body does, but also different. I don't know what that means. So that is very different to me. But that explains to you how leerglutide, semiglutide, trisepotide, retrotrutide.

• 30:29Jen Cohen?

  So more receptors, I would imagine.

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Different receptors.

• 30:33Jen Cohen?

  Or dual receptors.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  Different receptors.

• 30:35Jen Cohen?

  Well, because semaglutide, I feel like Ozempic is like old school.

• 30:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is. It was the OG.

• 30:40Jen Cohen?

  Right, OG.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:42Jen Cohen?

  But people get way better benefits on trisepotide.

• 30:44Speaker 02

  Ah, so you know what's interesting? This is where the data is really interesting. The, the quote unquote, better benefits are number one, in some of the research, it was shown that they lost weight faster or they lost more weight. Okay, you and I have a strong agreement. I don't want you to lose weight faster and I don't want to just mark whether or not you've lost weight.

• 31:04Jen Cohen?

  Okay, none of it.

• 31:05Speaker 02

  I want to know.

• 31:05Jen Cohen?

  Let's take away the weight problem.

• 31:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay. So with trisepotide.

• 31:08Jen Cohen?

  You're not getting as nauseous, you're not getting as tired.

• 31:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, has not been my patient experience. So I have had so many people that I've taken off of trisepit as a part of working with their practitioner, taken off of trisepotide and were using semaglutide. I think at the end of the day, the side effects are for, they're not even side effects. If you have pre-existing digestive issues, they are going to get worse on this medication. So if nobody assessed and helped you optimize or resolve those digestive issues, and then they put you on this medication, it is going to exacerbate those. If you have those, you, you're also going to see the higher and the quicker that you go, the like more dose and the higher amounts, et cetera. It's just going to keep getting worse on that part. So to me, the, the consideration for the medication choices, likely number one, what's your insurance going to pay for?

• 31:55Speaker 02

  Or number two, what do you have access to? But what we really want to understand is in any medication, how do we keep it from being too difficult on your body? Which is where the side effects become pronounced.

• 32:07Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so are you for or against? Cause I'm still confused.

• 32:10Speaker 02

  Don't put me there. I'm, I'm agnostic.

• 32:11Jen Cohen?

  That's my point.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  I like to use an impatience.

• 32:14Jen Cohen?

  I'm talking to you, I'm with your book.

• 32:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:16Jen Cohen?

  I still don't know, are you, do you like them? Do you not like them?

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I.

• 32:19Jen Cohen?

  Did you, because you were on it and you said it changed your brain chemistry and it was great. But then you're, then you're not on it. Cause you did fiber and you do endurance.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:26Jen Cohen?

  I'm confused.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:27Jen Cohen?

  Do you like it?

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:28Jen Cohen?

  Are you on it? Why are you not on it if you still?

• 32:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, because I don't need it. So at the end of the day.

• 32:33Jen Cohen?

  You just told me you lost 20 pounds.

• 32:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, I did because I had 20 pounds, like, so my body.

• 32:37Jen Cohen?

  Oh, the fibroid.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  My, no, but not even the fibroid. My whole system. So psychologically, I like, I was in a bad place. Physiologically, I needed to do work. So I love that we're trying to put people. You can't put me in a box. People want to know, are you pro or con? I am a healthcare practitioner.

• 32:52Jen Cohen?

  You wrote a book on this.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  I did.

• 32:54Jen Cohen?

  Is your book pro or con?

• 32:56Speaker 02

  The, okay, so the book is, and it says there, GLP-1 shot or not? I don't care. So at the end of the day, the answer to the book is, I can help you get weight healthy, whether you're using the shot or not. For, there are people who are going to benefit from using the shot. I have no issue with that. There are people who are going to benefit from using it for a short period of time. There are people who are going to benefit from using it ongoing. There are people who are going to benefit from using a higher amount of it. There are people that are going to benefit from a lower amount.

• 33:24Jen Cohen?

  And you don't have an opinion if people.

• 33:24Speaker 02

  Here's my opinion. Don't use the medication unless you do what you do in this book. And what you do in this book is you optimize your own weight health and your own weight health hormones. No one gets to go on this medication and it is not a pass for doing all the other work. That's the key piece.

• 33:40Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so let's move on from a GLP-1 for one second.

• 33:42Speaker 02

  Perfect, yeah.

• 33:42Jen Cohen?

  All right. So what are the other ways? In your opinion, because you have to have one. If you're on this podcast, for crying out loud, give me an opinion.

• 33:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll give you the opinion.

• 33:51Jen Cohen?

  My God, it's like talking from, talking to Donald Trump on both sides of his.

• 33:54Speaker 02

  No, no, no, but I, I think you're wrong there, Jen, and I'm going to hold you to this.

• 33:58Jen Cohen?

  Okay, go hold me to it.

• 33:58Speaker 02

  Which is, you were trying to get me to create a one size fits all, an opinion that somebody wants me to have. And the opinion is, it has to be personalized.

• 34:06Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:06Jen Cohen?

  So let's talk about this.

• 34:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:08Jen Cohen?

  Because I think things are real, that people, I think the psychological effects are big. Food noise, you can't, that's, that's a big one.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:16Jen Cohen?

  Curbing, you know, the cravings, like, you know, kind of curbing those. Psychologically, I think.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Optimizing blood sugar.

• 34:23Jen Cohen?

  Optimizing blood, optimizing blood sugar, all the things. So let's say if you're on it, not on it, wanna be on it, not be on it, whatever.

• 34:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:33Jen Cohen?

  What are some other key ways we can optimize our health?

• 34:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 34:38Jen Cohen?

  That will take us to our goal.

• 34:40Speaker 02

  Great. So I use the analogy of making a pizza. So everybody gets a pizza.

• 34:44Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  There's a crust, there's sauce, there's cheese, and there's toppings.

• 34:47Jen Cohen?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:48Speaker 02

  Have you ever had a really crappy pizza, but there were a couple of great toppings? Like, the topping was delicious, but the rest of the pizza was crappy. The cheese, the sauce, the crust, not great, but the topping was, like, delicious on that part. Or have you ever chosen a pizza? Okay, I won't even ask you. Anyway, the reality is, the crust is digestion and hydration. You cannot have any health outcome, any health outcome. You can't stop hair loss, you can't make muscle, you can't optimize your cholesterol, you can't prevent Alzheimer's, you can't do anything that you want to do if your digestion is suboptimal. And I include hydration in digestion because hydration is not about drinking water. Hydration has multiple, is about your body's ability for water to do all the things it's supposed to do in the body.

• 35:31Speaker 02

  And one of those is to help it absorb nutrients in that part. Fun fact, one of your weight health hormones, PYY, helps to regulate hydration in the colon. So when I talk about repairing your weight health hormones as not optional, you want the opinion from me? Optimizing your weight health hormones is not optional. GLP-1 shot is optional. Supplements are optional, but we have to optimize our digestion and hydration. Okay, the sauce is better nutrition. It's four pillars: quantity, quality, timing, and balance. You know how I told you that I can't fast in the morning? I don't want people choosing a caloric window, like 12 to 8 p.m., meaning where they start eating at 12 and they finish at 8 p.m., and saying, like, "I'm doing an eight-hour window."

• 36:16Speaker 02

  For most of us, that eight-hour window works much better. If we start at 10 a.m., or if we start at 8 a.m. and we finish at 5, or we finish at 6 p.m., right? I also want you pit-stopping regularly throughout the day. I was just on a panel with one of your favorites with Mark, and we were... We're having a whole conversation about Mark's Daily Apple. Why am I forgetting?

• 36:36Jen Cohen?

  Oh, Mark's this on.

• 36:37Speaker 02

  Yes, this is. And he's like, well, I just don't eat if I'm not hungry. And I said, you know, so hunger, that like, there's a hunger piece to this, but we actually, your body is designed like a race car. We actually need to pit stop pretty regularly to fuel it, to give it what it needs, whether that's water, whether that's nutrition, you know, on that part. The cheese are your lifestyle choices. Stress, breathing, joy. You know, we want to make sure that we're moving our bodies. So like, what's some of the like dumbest? So chapter four is shit to unlearn. One of the things we have to unlearn is how dumb our recommendations are. One of our recommendations is to exercise for 30 minutes in a day. You know, when I say that to someone, you know what they think? Great. I can sit on my butt for 24 and 23 and a half hours. Like, no, your body needs to be moving,

• 37:20Speaker 02

  like probably about every three hours. And it matters what type of exercise you do. Sometimes you need to be hitting it hard. Sometimes you need to relax. You need to move your fascia. You need, you know, open up your fascia. So when we come over to the lifestyle choices, tho- those are your cheese. So your crust, digestion and hydration. The pillars of better nutrition is your sauce. And then the cheese are the pillars of the lifestyle choices on that part.

• 37:43Jen Cohen?

  That's good. I like that.

• 37:43Speaker 02

  No shot or not.

• 37:44Jen Cohen?

  No shot or not. Okay. I'm gonna say a couple of things. I think one of the best, the best things you can do for your digestion is actually exercise.

• 37:51Speaker 02

  Is exercise. Yes.

• 37:52Jen Cohen?

  Is moving more.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  Yes. However.

• 37:54Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 37:54Speaker 02

  Here's the however. When you move more, or when you hit it really hard, because I've seen you work out before. When you hit it really hard, right? I've tried keeping up to work out. Sometimes I kept up. Not, not, it is, right?

• 38:04Jen Cohen?

  You're good. You're good. You're good.

• 38:05Speaker 02

  So as we're in that part, we have to recognize that the act of exercising at that pace is stressful on the body. So it turns attention away from digestion in the moment. With my pro athletes, with anyone who's hitting it hard, we then, once you finish exercising, we then have to get you to relax. We have to turn off that stress response. If we don't do that, and this is one of the reasons I like to use continuous glucose monitors, is because I also will call someone out. They'll tell me, I had a guy who ran five miles every day. And he's like, Ashley, I run hills and I run hard. And he's like, I just don't know why I'm not seeing body composition changes and this other stuff. And I looked at his continuous glucose monitor. You know what his body thought of his run?

• 38:46Jen Cohen?

  What?

• 38:46Speaker 02

  His body was like meh, like you could do that in your sleep, dude. I'm actually doing it in my sleep. I went back to him and his trainer and I said, you need to do HIIT workouts. You need to do things that are like, this is not my skillset. This is your skillset, but I am telling you, your, your continuous glucose monitor is telling me your body isn't stressed enough. When you're exercising. And so for him, we actually use that information to help, you know, pivot and, and that's what changed his weight health. He did not need a GLP one agonist, but he was really struggling to make muscle and, and to see body composition changes.

• 39:15Jen Cohen?

  Especially with endurance. I find that a lot of people who are high endurance athletes, your body acclimates to that too. And so like, okay, now you're running five, six, 10 hours. Now what? Like that becomes like, that's becomes like, you know, a, a walk around the block. Like anything else, like your body does acclimate, but I'm talking from a place of just digestive because I think that is a big one.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  It is.

• 39:38Jen Cohen?

  I agree with you.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Midsection movement. I mean, you, we've, we've been at hotels, we've seen, you know, stayed near each other, stay, I've stayed here, like I will roll over. Like if my midsection after a flight is not working, I'm going to roll over on like whatever ball you have. Like I literally am going to lay on it and roll it around, or I'm going to do chair twists on the airplane. You know, I'm going to move like

• 39:57Jen Cohen?

  To move around.

• 39:57Speaker 02

  And to move the midsection, right? Our body, like the muscles in there, like we have to move, you know, that football field, we have to move it, you know, on, on that part.

• 40:06Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, that's interesting because I feel like, I never thought about that part.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:11Jen Cohen?

  I, my, what I think about is that's why I don't like spin class or cycling because we sit all, all day anyway, right? So like, I believe you should be vertical and like upright as much as possible.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:24Jen Cohen?

  Like I'm a big believer that movement is, I, I don't even like the word exercise.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, same.

• 40:30Jen Cohen?

  Like I think if it's between movement or exercise, move.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  Move.

• 40:32Jen Cohen?

  Because that

• 40:33Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 40:34Jen Cohen?

  Will help with your digestion, your, your, your, your, your brain, your cognitive abilities.

• 40:40Speaker 02

  Like if you're running around after like, like, put me with my five and seven year old niece and nephew, and I'm like exhausted after three hours. Because we are moving, like most of the time, we are moving the entire time. So don't turn around. And tell a mom or a caregiver, an aunt or somebody else like on top of that, you now have to exercise. No, for that person, they may need to actually go stretch. They may need an Epsom salt bath. They may need like, they may need to turn off their stress, you know, as, as a reaction to that. So I think it is, we've inappropriately, we've given these like, these mantras of like, making things really simple. You know what I mean? And it's just, we've so screwed up. Like, when people say like, eat like, five servings of fruits and vegetables, everyone hears fruits and not vegetables. Cause first of all, fruit's delicious and it's sugar. It's like, okay.

• 41:23Jen Cohen?

  That's true.

• 41:24Speaker 02

  You know, on that part.

• 41:25Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  Or, you know.

• 41:26Jen Cohen?

  You know my thing in fruit.

• 41:27Speaker 02

  Right. And it's like, and then we can't stop, right? You know, in that part?

• 41:29Jen Cohen?

  Yep.

• 41:30Speaker 02

  So I think that we, like, so much of this also with our weight health hormones is eating what's delicious to us and using our body the way that it was meant to be used. To your point of, we've got to move more.

• 41:43Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. Do you, so a couple of other things.

• 41:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 41:45Jen Cohen?

  Uh, are we eating too much protein?

• 41:48Speaker 02

  So, there's no we. So the question mark is, are you Jen?

• 41:51Jen Cohen?

  Are I eating?

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Are you eating too much protein? So the ways that, so there are two different sides of too much.

• 41:57Jen Cohen?

  Hold on, because that, I want to ask about if we're eating too much protein.

• 42:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 42:00Jen Cohen?

  Because we're talking about digestive issues.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 42:03Jen Cohen?

  And that can be a problem.

• 42:04Speaker 02

  Bing, bing, bing. You're so smart. Yeah.

• 42:06Jen Cohen?

  And I was like, I didn't just fall off the truck yesterday.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  You didn't.

• 42:09Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  I love that. And I saw your recent podcast, um, a couple of months ago about that. And I think it's, I'm so glad we're paying attention to it. So first of all, with the, one of the things that does not help us is when we give an amount of protein for, um, in the day, like, and we base it off of our weight. So if you're like, especially if your weight is above 150 pounds, this whole idea of one gram per pound, like, when you get to 200 and 300 pounds, like, somebody should not be eating that much protein. The question often that I'm faced with is, are you getting, are you giving your body enough protein in a moment that it helps to, to resource the body with what it needs protein for, but also that it's stabilizing blood sugar, right? So that's usually for most people, you don't want to go lower than 15 grams at an eating occasion. And that's really important because, remember all those bars, like, that

• 42:54Speaker 02

  were like eight, like, they'd come out and they'd be like, I'm a high protein bar. And it was like eight grams, you know?

• 42:58Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I know.

• 42:58Speaker 02

  Because things used to be four grams, you know, before. So we do have to have a baseline The question of at any time, do you go above 30 or 40 grams at a sitting? You have to have optimal digestion. I will also look at your blood sugar because excess protein can negatively impact your blood sugar. The other piece of it is, is your digestion able to break down the protein that you're currently getting in? So sometimes, as an example, after a really intense workout, the reason that I might use liquid nutrition that is higher protein there is somebody may not be able to break down and absorb the, and like have the digestion has been turned off. So eating a steak at that moment might not be a better idea, but having something in the liquid form or having cottage cheese

• 43:41Speaker 02

  or something else that's a little bit easier, you know, might, might be easier for them at that. But when we look at too much, the signs of too much are, do I have, like, do I have bad gas? Do I have acne? Do I have bloating? Do I, are things going the wrong way? Do I have reflux? Do I have constipation, you know, so digestive issues? And then we really have to look at, from an amino acid standpoint, maybe you're having like, you're having the same, maybe you're having eggs and chicken and eggs and chicken and eggs and chicken. And we, we need to get some other amino acids in there to help you. So it's not always about more protein, but we should be assessing somebody's protein rather than just coming in and then saying like, eat more protein. But here's the final one that I find the kicker. What food in nature is protein?

• 44:26Jen Cohen?

  I mean.

• 44:28Speaker 02

  I'm going to say it differently. No, I'm going to say it differently because I set you up there. What food in nature is only protein?

• 44:34Jen Cohen?

  Well, you have fish that has a lot of.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Only protein. Nothing, the answer, nothing.

• 44:39Jen Cohen?

  Nothing, okay.

• 44:40Speaker 02

  Nature dip did not correct. There, there's a total trick question, right? So salmon has fats. Nope, they had fats in there.

• 44:45Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Their fats are actually some carbohydrates. There are some antioxidants, et cetera. So the dumb advice is start your meal with protein. Like, no, like, start your meal with a food that contains protein, but I need to know, like, there's a difference between maybe having lentils, which contain protein versus having steak at the start of your meal. Or there might be a difference for you between having hemp seeds and having wild salmon, you know, even though they have a very similar essential fatty acid profile.

• 45:12Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so are, are most people, not, you said we don't like the weed, but. In general, now that proteins become so popular and trendy in terms of like, people are, I think, a little bit over protein themselves. You don't think, you think that that can, that is happening?

• 45:29Speaker 02

  I definitely think it's happening and it's happening because the advice is, is to eat protein. I think what's happening is number one, people are making choices that they don't realize maybe how much fat they're also getting in, or they're getting rid of all carbohydrate and just feeling like I'm only going to choose protein and fat, like and not have the others. And as a result, they're not getting the right balance of nutrients on that part. And they are band-aiding their digestive issues. I mean, you see like people who are freebasing magnesium, you have people who are like-

• 45:57Jen Cohen?

  What do you mean freebait? You said it twice now.

• 45:59Speaker 02

  I like that term.

• 46:00Jen Cohen?

  Freebasing magnesium?

• 46:02Speaker 02

  It's a drug term, so this is why you don't know it.

• 46:03Jen Cohen?

  Freebasing cocaine I hear all the time, but magnesium.

• 46:07Speaker 02

  So literally we've gone from a society that freebases cocaine to a society that freebases magnesium. People are, I have people who have literally told me that they are taking magnesium with every single meal because otherwise they're constipated. Like, you know, I mean, that like, that's an important thing to recognize that, you know, maybe we need digestive enzymes, like maybe we, you know, just need to eat less at a particular meal on that part.

• 46:29Jen Cohen?

  So people actually freebase magnesium because they're constipated?

• 46:32Speaker 02

  Yes, yeah.

• 46:33Jen Cohen?

  Okay, and so like, I was actually gonna-

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Instead of moving their belly.

• 46:37Jen Cohen?

  Instead of moving their belly. So like going on a Swiss ball or those, you know, and just like moving around?

• 46:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:41Jen Cohen?

  But what about digestive enzymes?

• 46:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 46:44Jen Cohen?

  If we ate, if we, if we took a couple of those supplements, do we take it before we eat or after we eat?

• 46:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, so digestive enzymes are different than proteolytic, than other enzymes. Since they do have to be taken, they should be taken typically right before or right with the start of your meal because the body produces digestive enzymes and it produces them in response, along with our weight health hormones, in response to signals that we are getting in food, right? So it is like, it's a personal assistant for your digestive tract. So number one, when you optimize your digestion, you might not need digestive enzymes because in that optimization, you may help your own body produce enough digestive enzymes. During that process of optimization, we may use digestive enzymes as- A supplement to help you. And then the other side of it is there are times where you might

• 47:31Speaker 02

  just benefit from using a digestive enzyme. As an example, maybe you're eating different food from what you normally eat, or for me, I travel so much and traveling, like especially on a long flight or a long car ride because I'm not used to being sedentary and the air pressure, it will negatively impact my digestion. So I use digestive enzymes to help me. It's like a personal assistant that I use, you know, for my digestion in those moments, too.

• 47:54Jen Cohen?

  So does do the digestive enzymes do the same thing for your digestive system for your digestion? That magnesium would?

• 48:01Speaker 02

  No, different. Okay. So magnesium is a mineral is designed to, and it works in opposition to calcium, and it's one of our electrolytes, and it is designed to relax, like it exists in our cells to kick out calcium, to turn off the stress response. So it is allowing relaxation. So why it's helpful for things like constipation is if if your constipation is motility related, and I do a whole deep dive on magnesium and how to choose the right magnesium from food and from supplements in the book. When we're looking at that, you come in and you say like, okay, so if your motility is slowing down, if you follow classic recommendations for constipation and you eat more fiber, you're just going to have a slowed down system with a snowball of fiber in there and it's going to be more painful. So what we need to do is

• 48:46Speaker 02

  we need to encourage the motility and that's where an optimal amount of magnesium can be helpful. Digestive enzymes are different. Digestive enzymes are in your body and they're like forks and knives. So, you know, maybe we didn't chew our food optimally, but just think about like, instead of cutting your food into one or two pieces, now think about cutting it into 30 pieces. And what we're trying to do is have it be absorbed better. So that's the job that it does.

• 49:08Jen Cohen?

  So it breaks down the food?

• 49:09Speaker 02

  It breaks it down the food. So it's in breakdown. I, one of the chapters of the book, I talk about how we're not having breakdowns often enough. We are not breaking down our food. So we're giving people, like, society gives people a lot of credit for what we're eating, like kale and salmon. We're like, oh, those are healthy foods.

• 49:23Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  Your body doesn't give you credit until it is broken down into nutrients and in the cells and able to be used by the cells. And then it high fives you. And then it's like, I'm going to grow hair. I'm going to give you energy. I'm going to do whatever, right?

• 49:36Jen Cohen?

  That's a really good point. So I think that's important because I think what I found out was I'm not even absorbing the nutrients.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  Right.

• 49:43Jen Cohen?

  That I'm even eating. So here I am, eating all these like healthy foods that are not great. When I'm not even absorbing them.

• 49:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 49:49Jen Cohen?

  So how do people even find out if they are absorbing?

• 49:52Speaker 02

  If they're absorbing, yeah. Yeah. So one of the things, because I always want us to be able to do this personally. So I've created the first ever weight health hormone assessment and included in there is an assessment of absorption. We also can use better quality tests, like, you know, there are a variety of different digestive, like poop tests, you know, and we can test for that part. However, your body's going to tell you, like, if you are not, you know, if you are having any of the digestive issues, then we have to work on absorption. And we have to remember that hydration is a part of absorption. So hydration brings water and nutrients into the cells. So if you are dehydrated, if you're peeing all the time and you're drinking water, then it's going to tell me that you're not absorbing nutrients into the cells. So

• 50:35Speaker 02

  absorption, you know, and if you drink alcohol, if you are on non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, like an ibuprofen, a Tylenol, if you've used hormones, if you are on certain medications, if you experience stress ever, if you eat things that your body is intolerant to. So if you find out you're gluten intolerant, or you find out, and oh, by the way, if you have any exposure to any environmental toxins, all of those things are affecting the lining of the digestive tract, and that's where our absorption is occurring. So the majority of people that I see, a tune-up of your absorption is warranted on a regular basis. It is not something we do once in our lives. Like, I didn't do it at age 20, and boom, I've had weight health the rest of my life. You know, it's something we have to do, I recommend on a quarterly basis.

• 51:15Jen Cohen?

  Wow.

• 51:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:16Jen Cohen?

  Those poop tests are super popular.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  They're very, they're different kinds now. So there was a, like, poop in tubes, you know, and take those tubes and go, and we'd look at those, and those provided us with a lot of information. But now with the introduction of a more full-spectrum genetic test, we can also poop, wipe ourselves, and swipe, you know, and like, I know, I love your face, but all you have to do is swipe that, kind of like we would do a COVID test in our nose, you send it in, and you get all of this information. And what I like about

• 51:44Jen Cohen?

  Wiping yourself and what are you doing?

• 51:45Speaker 02

  You just like, you take the Q-tip Whatever on that, you know, on your poop. So it's a lot better than having to like stuff your poop into tubes and do that. But it's great. It can give us great insights. However, if you do one of those tests and you buy one of those tests online and you get the AI report and it says you're low in this and you're high in this and you just start to go take, you know, whatever you're low in, I'm going to start taking whatever I'm high in, I'm going to avoid. No, that's not the way that it works. You need a clinician who's trained in the test. You need, you still need somebody to interpret it and say like, but why is this happening? And in most of my patients' cases, it's insufficient intake of glutamine, which is an important amino acid. And it's also lifestyle behaviors that are not, and nutrition choices that are not optimizing absorption.

• 52:26Jen Cohen?

  Like what?

• 52:26Speaker 02

  Like, as an example, every time we need an antibiotic, it's going to negatively affect the lining of our digestive tract. And one of the reasons I broke up with alcohol was because, just one of the reasons, was because I was tired of what I call washing my floor with dirty shoes. Like, I'm working so hard on my weight health and on my belly, and then you're sitting there and you're like, okay, every time I have a drink, it's eroding my digestive lining and my liver's ability to work better at it. And I was just like, honestly, it's not that worth it to me on that part. You were well ahead of the game on that part.

• 52:56Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I think drinking is like the absolute worst thing you can do for any type of weight, weight loss program, or any health program.

• 53:05Speaker 02

  Being healthy, period.

• 53:06Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, like you feel bloated, you're like, it keeps weight on, it's just, you feel gross, sluggish. I never understood it. Thank God I don't like the taste of it, because that,

• 53:15Speaker 02

  Oh, I love the, like, I loved the taste. What I found for me too, it was a social coping mechanism. And so I would find that I would drink because I either didn't want to be there, like, very bluntly. And so then I was like, well, if I drink, like, maybe I'll enjoy myself, you know? And, you know, no. And then like, and I also stayed longer. And it, you know, and then I also, you know, your budget or whatever. But I also found that it negatively, like, I was like, it would help me lean into other behaviors that I don't like. You know, it made it harder for me to feel present, or honestly, to be, to just, to choose who I wanted to have in my life, you know, versus like, the people I told me to have in my life.

• 53:54Jen Cohen?

  Right, right, right.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  You know what I mean?

• 53:55Jen Cohen?

  It's like a lubricant for like, so, yeah, so like, you end up being with whoever's around you, because I get that totally.

• 54:08Jen Cohen?

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• 54:50Jen Cohen?

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• 55:17Jen Cohen?

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• 56:02Jen Cohen?

  everywhere and all the time. It's small, it's affordable, it's portable, and it's really effective. Head over to therasage.com right now and use code BEBOLD for 15% off. This code will work site-wide. Again, head over to therasage, T-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E.com, and use code BEBOLD for 15% off any of their products.

• 56:38Jen Cohen?

  I wanted to ask you about something that recently I was kind of, I've been like playing around with. Because I had someone on the podcast and he was actually the medical medium. He was very, very like polarizing, he's super polarizing. And, but I will tell you one thing about that guy. As, you know, as polarizing and as kooky as some people may think he is. I will tell, when I posted him and like put him on my stuff. The amount of people who were like, oh my God, he changed my life. Oh my God. And he was right or accurate about that. So like, listen, if it's working for someone.

• 57:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 57:10Jen Cohen?

  I think it was fascinating. And he did say something that I thought was interesting. He said that your immune system is in your blood system. Is it in your blood, in your blood, not in your gut? What do you think about that?

• 57:22Speaker 02

  I think he's right and wrong.

• 57:23Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  You hate this. I'm like, what's the position?

• 57:26Jen Cohen?

  Remind us never to have her back on the podcast again. I mean, this is really like, we want an opinion.

• 57:31Speaker 02

  Okay. So I'm going to tell you, you can't ignore that your immune system is in the lining of your gut. Like that, so he is physiologically wrong on that. What you also can't ignore is that we, when, so I don't actually think we have an immune system. All right. You want my full opinion on this?

• 57:47Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 57:47Speaker 02

  We don't have an immune system. We have a body. It is an ecosystem. It is so dumb for us to talk about a digestive system, an immune system, a nervous system, an endocrine system. Like, that was like a convenient way for us to teach people about the body and to create a healthcare system that is not working well for us because it segments where we send people. Like you have a heart problem, you see a cardiologist when really you should be working with me on your gut. You know, or you should be working with you on your fitness or, you know, whatever, like in all of that. So what he's doing is number one, being dramatic, which always gets you likes and shares. Uh, but number two is saying like, how could the blood not be part of the immune system? But why does he have to say that the digestive system isn't, that your digestive system isn't?

• 58:27Jen Cohen?

  Let me tell you.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  So that's key.

• 58:28Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 58:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:29Jen Cohen?

  He made a good point. He said that people are getting way too much blood draws, right? They're getting a lot of blood. And when people are sick.

• 58:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:37Jen Cohen?

  And then they go to the doctor and they're like, okay, let's take your blood again.

• 58:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 58:41Jen Cohen?

  And the more and more blood that you're getting taken, the sicker you're becoming. Cause they're like. Stripping your immune system. So what I, why, why I'm bringing this up is because, you know, people say, like even your, a lot, everyone says, you need to, a lot of people, not everyone, that you need to get your biomarkers checked, let's say quarterly, right?

• 58:58Speaker 02

  Let's talk about that. Okay. I didn't say you need to get your biomarkers.

• 59:01Jen Cohen?

  I'm not saying you.

• 59:02Speaker 02

  That's your digestion. Okay, carry on.

• 59:03Jen Cohen?

  I'm talking about other people. I've had more than one person on this show.

• 59:06Speaker 02

  Yes, okay.

• 59:07Jen Cohen?

  But I will say.

• 59:07Speaker 02

  Thank you for making me your second guest. Yeah, carry on.

• 59:09Jen Cohen?

  You're welcome.

• 59:10Speaker 02

  That's right, maybe. All right, cool. Yeah.

• 59:12Jen Cohen?

  What I was gonna say is that more and more, I'm noticing that people, it started with 80 biomarkers you're getting checked, 100 biomarkers you're getting checked for. Now someone's coming to my house.

• 59:24Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 59:24Jen Cohen?

  So for this, this really elaborate program and they're doing 500 biomarker testing. When is enough is enough?

• 59:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:33Jen Cohen?

  And like, when I go see my doctor, he's like, listen, there's always so many things we can like check, like you can test for a thousand things. I think functional health now is gonna do a thousand, or someone else is gonna do a thousand biomarkers.

• 59:46Speaker 02

  Because they need a point of differentiation to market themselves.

• 59:49Jen Cohen?

  Right, for marketing purposes.

• 59:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:51Jen Cohen?

  But is that, isn't that just becoming too excessive?

• 59:54Speaker 02

  Okay, so two different things to think about. The first thing that, cause then we also have, you know, like you can go get total plasma exchange, where people are like giving their entire blood and like bringing whole new plasma in there.

• 1:00:06Jen Cohen?

  I was gonna ask, I was gonna talk about that too.

• 1:00:07Speaker 02

  So when we talk about being sick or like, so is there such a thing as too much? Yes. And also, I want to acknowledge, I don't think doctors are the best suited to help people optimize their nutrient levels. Because the way that doctors are taught, and we're in a doctor's society that I'm trying to break open, doctors are taught to look at biomarkers almost exclusively and diagnose you. So they might look at a CBC, like you're, the one that your insurance, that old one, remember? We were like 10 markers, right? And they might say your, your iron is low. And you know what they'll then tell you to do? Is to go take an iron supplement. I can tell you I'm not gonna do it right now, but I can tell you 15 reasons your iron could be low. One of them could be your testosterone. They haven't even tested your testosterone in that part.

• 1:00:52Speaker 02

  So when we, when we make, when we look at. Blood markers and we use those. So this society of like, I need more blood markers and I need more blood markers. And I'm gonna tell you something funny about this one that you're about to have done. Like I'm gonna get more and more and more tested. At the end of the day, if you're not absorbing your nutrients, nothing is going to improve in any of those markers. So like, I don't need, I don't need you to do that. I don't need you to do a poop test. If you come in and you tell me that you're farting and it smells really badly, or that you feel like you're five months, you know, you look like you're five months pregnant, or you're putting on weight and you don't know why, or, and I ask you questions. My entire book is, these are the whole chunk of, this is a playbook. These are the questions you need to be asking.

• 1:01:35Speaker 02

  And only one part of the assessment, only one part in there are 10 labs to look at. Now that doesn't mean that there aren't really valuable labs. Like it doesn't mean that if I'm curious about your testosterone, I might want five labs drawn. And that could be an important thing to do. But when we go in and we do all of these labs and then we give you an AI report that tells you like, that doesn't know what you're doing or any of this other stuff and tells you, here's what I would do based on your labs. Honestly, you're the fool for following it. Like, I mean, at the end of the day. And so when he's saying you're just giving your, I think you're wasting your time, your money and your blood, if you're doing it inappropriately. That said, I also think what we have is a reaction to a society where we have had for too long,

• 1:02:19Speaker 02

  too few blood markers and the wrong markers. And we've been making decisions, you know, about that. So are there some blood markers that I would look at on a quarterly basis? Yes. Are there some that I would look at every six months? Absolutely. Did I use and do I use function health myself? Yes, because without having a physician that I could turn to immediately when I was trapped, when I was moving, that could look at all of that. But you know what pissed me off? I went back for my, they're like, we include two blood draws in a year. Yeah, but they didn't include any other one, in the second lab draw, it didn't include any of the ones that I needed to look at, right? It only included like their second set on that part. It wasn't, that wasn't helpful to me. So then I ended up paying like, if I had gone with them, I would have ended up paying another $1,000 to get the ones that I actually wanted to get drawn. So there, the models of healthcare.

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  That are out there that are creating access and the ones that are telling us to do all of these things aren't better. And anyone that's coming over to your house, I love that they're coming to you and that's wonderful. But I just really have to question, like, why do you need more blood drawn? We know you need to work on getting yourself to absorb more nutrients. So unless it's a follow up to that, to see if you're now absorbing nutrients better, I think you're wasting your blood and your money and your time.

• 1:03:28Jen Cohen?

  Okay, so then what are the 10 biomarkers that everyone should be looking at?

• 1:03:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, so in, so in the book, I look at the ones that are going to give me information about your weight health hormones, right? I had to make a decision to include hemoglobin A1C and it really bothered me. Hemoglobin A1C is a 90 day average of our blood sugar. It is better than just having a fasting glucose. We prick our finger in the moment and we find out our blood sugar for, from a trend standpoint, but because it's an average, it doesn't give me really good information. But when I use that, it can give me a little bit of insight and then I also like to use a continuous glucose monitor. So I did include A1C. I included vitamin D because I want to know about that one. I included LDL. I included your triglycerides. I also included in there fasting

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  insulin, if you have access to it, that that one could be helpful. HSCRp, so a marker of inflammation, noting that it might not be the best marker of inflammation, but it gives me a little bit of information on that part. I forget what numbers I'm at at this point, but I know there might be one or two. Oh, your ALT and your AST because they're going to help me see if I should be looking at your liver as it relates to fatty liver. We haven't even talked about that. Like, why are we create what, what happens when the body, like you could be a quote unquote healthy weight, but I see so many people where their AST and their ALT are elevated above where they should be. And that tells me that their liver is really struggling and we want to, you know, we need to optimize our liver on that part. So those give me in, that's one part of weight health hormone assessment. So those labs can give me good directional information in

• 1:05:00Speaker 02

  addition to you answering questions about your lived experience, in addition to us measuring your breathing, your heart rate variability, in addition to us looking at your weight composition, not your total weight. I could care less what the total number is. And in addition to us asking about questions and assessing your digestion and hydration.

• 1:05:15Jen Cohen?

  Got it.

• 1:05:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:16Jen Cohen?

  All right. So what are some ways that we can improve the way we absorb our nutrients?

• 1:05:22Speaker 02

  Great. So first of all, not giving our body too much at one time. So recognizing that when we give our body a good amount, that is actually better than giving it more. Because if it has too much work, it can't absorb it. The second one is optimizing hydration. So instead of pounding, you know, say 60 ounces of water at one time, maybe it's eight, 10, 12 ounces. Maybe your food is rich in electrolytes, maybe you're not also having alcohol or caffeine at the same time and we're not eliminating it. Maybe we need an electrolyte supplement. What's in that electrolyte supplement depends, et cetera. And then the third one that I think is really interesting is, you know, you were talking about movement and being active. Like, so actually, we, the body is not going to want to absorb nutrients when we are inactive.

• 1:06:06Speaker 02

  Because the body's going to be like, I just may as well store it as fat because I don't need to use it in that part. So part of absorption is getting that balance right between not, you know, what do I give my body when I have been really active? And then also, what do I give my body when I'm not active?

• 1:06:20Jen Cohen?

  Got it. I like that. I think that a lot of women struggle with this whole thing, right?

• 1:06:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, big time. Also, because so many women, we've been on, you know, one of the ones that I think for me was inappropriately was, you know, I was told to be on birth control for heavy periods. So birth control is one of the ones that's challenging to our body's absorption, the lining of our digestive tract, et cetera.

• 1:06:40Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 1:06:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:42Jen Cohen?

  So if you're on birth control pills, it can make you constipated?

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  Not so much about the making, it could contribute to constipation, but it can also deplete nutrients that our body needs to be able to absorb nutrients better.

• 1:06:52Jen Cohen?

  Oh, yeah, right. We talked about that. So you see how tired I am?

• 1:06:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:55Jen Cohen?

  I need more magic.

• 1:06:56Speaker 02

  I know. Has your magic, your magic was magic hour?

• 1:06:59Jen Cohen?

  I meant more like nutrient absorption.

• 1:07:02Speaker 02

  And another one that we both like is, one of the reasons I like Akkermansia as a microbe, Akkermansia clostridum bifidobacteria, but Akkermansia is called by name is Akkermansia muciniphila. It's a probiotic. The muciniphila means I like mucin. And it means that it goes in and it chews up the mucus in the lining of your digestive tract. And when it chews it up, it is, it's getting rid of the old. And bringing it and forcing the body to create new. So that's part of the repair work for the lining of the digestive tract.

• 1:07:31Jen Cohen?

  But didn't you told me off camera that glutamine is really good for

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  Glutamine is great. Yes. Yeah. And when we were taught nutrients, you know, but whenever we were learning about that, we were taught that glutamine, because the body can make it is something that's called conditionally essential. And what I communicate to all of my patients and publicly is that existence in 2025, 26, 27 and beyond is making glutamine more of an essential nutrient. Yes, the body can make it, but we have increased our needs for it because of all of these other things that challenge muscle and challenge the lining of our digestive tract. So it is both helps us with building muscle and it also helps us with the repairing. It's the glue, if you will, for the lining of the digestive tract.

• 1:08:14Jen Cohen?

  So that's one that I feel like people don't talk about enough, right? You hear a lot about vitamin D, you hear a lot about omega three, you hear a lot about the creatine, of course, is really popular. The same supplements kind of keep on, you know,

• 1:08:26Speaker 02

  Glutamine is one of my, I don't actually put people on other nutrients until typically it's either glutamine plus the others or I use glutamine for a time period, then I add in other nutrients. Because if you're not going to be able to support the, be able to absorb it, why do I care if I'm putting it into your body? Right? It's just going to be gone on that part.

• 1:08:46Jen Cohen?

  So I should start taking my glutamine again.

• 1:08:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, remember that?

• 1:08:48Jen Cohen?

  I remember. I used to be on that a long time ago.

• 1:08:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's a good one. Yeah. And I think also too, you know, it's another one as we've encouraged more, and I love plant based eating. I'm not, and if you're plant monogamous, I love that part too, but you can get glutamine from different food sources. But if you're not eating animal protein, you're probably going to be getting a lot less glutamine.

• 1:09:08Jen Cohen?

  I think Momentus has one. That's good.

• 1:09:11Speaker 02

  How would you know that one's good?

• 1:09:13Jen Cohen?

  Well, because you told me it was good.

• 1:09:19Speaker 02

  And there are some people that have concerns. I think it's right. Dr. Russell Jaffe, who is the founder of Perk Supplements, one of the, I use their glutamine with a lot of patients. I take it myself. It's called Endura Pak. And I like that one because if you're, if your body recites Glutamine, there are, there can be some downsides to it. I have people who are just so insufficient in it that I'm not concerned about that. But if you are somebody where it's come up that you have that concern, then Endurapack is going to be an excellent one. I just wish they made it in a powder because I try to not take as many capsules, but those are some of the capsules that I'll take more off.

• 1:09:54Jen Cohen?

  I remember that. Ashley gave me a really good tip. She says not to have as many capsules and have most things in liquid form because

• 1:10:01Speaker 02

  Or powder.

• 1:10:02Jen Cohen?

  Or powder because of what the capsules are made from, right?

• 1:10:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:10:06Jen Cohen?

  People will think about that.

• 1:10:07Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:10:07Jen Cohen?

  What are the actual capsules?

• 1:10:09Speaker 02

  It kind of depends. You know, there's, there are some now that are, they call it Puelan, P U L L A N, I think, or Puelane. And that had a big issue because it's naturally made from seaweed. And so people are like, that's got caragene in, but they didn't understand natural versus not natural. You'll see in, I mean, one of the things that I use when, you know, I've evaluated thousands and thousands of supplements is I'll actually look at what is lining made. And maybe it's made from gelatin, maybe it's made from, you know, it's a, a lot of them will just say veggie capsule.

• 1:10:36Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:37Speaker 02

  But that's kind of like vegetable oil, like buyer beware. Like what is your capsule actually made of is something you want to know. Yeah.

• 1:10:43Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, that's a good point. Is there any other kind of like interesting little things like that you can share with us?

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, like what, what, when you're trying to pick something, you mean?

• 1:10:51Jen Cohen?

  Well, no, I like that one about the capsules, like that, that stuck in my head. A couple of things that you've told me before, the sponge versus

• 1:10:58Speaker 02

  Oh, the hose versus a sponge. Yeah.

• 1:11:00Jen Cohen?

  The hose, because I think people do, they chug water.

• 1:11:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:11:04Jen Cohen?

  And then

• 1:11:04Speaker 02

  And pee it on out.

• 1:11:04Jen Cohen?

  And they put, and they basically they're not absorb, absorbing it because they're just, you're not, you're supposed to like drink slow.

• 1:11:10Speaker 02

  Right. Well, and you drink slow or fast, but what's interesting is there are three phases. And I go through this, once you figure out, are you a hose or a sponge with sponge being optimal? I go through looking at your water intake, how much, how often, what's type of water? And then the second thing I look at is your exposure to dehydrators, especially right around the time you're taking water, including stress, because stress is a dehydrator. Too much sugar, like added sugar is elevated sugar, blood sugar is a dehydrator.

• 1:11:36Jen Cohen?

  Stress is a dehydrator?

• 1:11:37Speaker 02

  Yes, yes. Hi Jen, I know. Hi Jen, I know.

• 1:11:41Jen Cohen?

  Oh my God. I didn't know stress is a dehydrator.

• 1:11:44Speaker 02

  Yes. And so when we look at these things, so And of course, like things like alcohol and caffeine. And by the way, I'm not in sugar. Like, I'm not saying we can't have any of these. We just have to recognize that they may be why we're not absorbing water. And then the third one that everyone's giving so much attention to is what are those hydrators? So those minerals that can help us to, you know, so magnesium, sodium, calcium, potassium. Most of us do not get in enough potassium, like, and we do not want to supplement high amounts of potassium, but we want to make sure we get it. But I have a lot of people who like, I had one doctor call me, which she's a friend of ours. And she was like, all my patients heard the Heberman podcast, and they're all taking two elemente's a day, and they're getting in like, two grams of sodium. And I said, I know, I'm like, first of all, again, the listener who is doing this, like, you're the problem. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna call you out on this.

• 1:12:29Speaker 02

  But you don't, you are not his size. You might not even be male. He went through his diet and figured out, like, okay, for him, he sweats a ton, he exercises a ton. And he realized, I'm not getting salt in in other places. And this one works for me.

• 1:12:42Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 1:12:42Speaker 02

  You have to do that, that same thing. And I talk about that in the book. It's really important.

• 1:12:46Jen Cohen?

  And I, I actually, I tease you because I, because of the whole, like, one size does not fit all. So true. People look at somebody on Instagram.

• 1:12:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:54Jen Cohen?

  And they're, they're like, okay, if I do exactly what that person's gonna do, I'm gonna look like them.

• 1:12:58Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:12:58Jen Cohen?

  Or I'm gonna be like them. No, you're not.

• 1:13:00Speaker 02

  That's right. That's right.

• 1:13:01Jen Cohen?

  First of all, nah, that doesn't work like that, you know?

• 1:13:04Speaker 02

  That time that I tried spraying my hair to get your color, and I ended up with orange. Like, I literally looked like Ronald McDonald. I had orange curly hair. My mom made me cut it off. Like, I mean, I was like, at a, like, a buzz cut for my sixth grade pictures, because she was like, this is so embarrassing. So like, I think that's good. Like, buyer beware on that part. The other thing, though, is-

• 1:13:21Jen Cohen?

  This day on that sun in for one thing, because I totally did the same thing.

• 1:13:24Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 1:13:25Jen Cohen?

  I wanted to look like this blonde girl named Jennifer Feldman.

• 1:13:28Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:13:28Jen Cohen?

  And I did the same thing. I put like, the blonde, the, the sun in my hair. I was, it was orange and gross. And I was like, why don't I have blonde hair like her?

• 1:13:37Speaker 02

  Yes. Yes. You know?

• 1:13:37Jen Cohen?

  So true.

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  And like, I could sit there and try to eat what you eat, like, and just be like, I'm gonna eat what you eat, so that I can look the way that you look. And, like, I mean, and you want to see the fastest way to me, like, putting on 10 pounds, right? And like, even if I ate what you ate and exercised the way that you did, like, it's not gonna work for me. But the one thing I Think that is what the reason that I wrote this book and the book has online resources, including access to health coaches. The reason I wrote the book is it also sounds like it's so complicated. It sounds like it's not doable. It sounds like I wake up at like for and for every one of my patients, we're assessing all of these different things. And you know, like literally that your your sole day job has to be your health on that part. And I don't want people to feel that way. I think that there are things like you can bite into an apple and if

• 1:14:23Speaker 02

  an apple does not taste sweet enough to you, we know that we need to look at your sweet taste buds and we need to work on that part. Giving you the tools to be able to do that. That's just like, that's the only thing that I then want you to focus on. I don't want you to do like all these other things. Now, it might illuminate for us that you actually have a digestive issue and we need to work on the digestive issue. But it also might just tell me that like you're getting in, you want me to use my freebasing? You're getting in, you're freebasing monk fruit or stevia, and instead you should just be like eating whole foods and not like, you know, and reducing your amount of non nutritive sweeteners, or for god's sakes, like having a little bit of sugar if you wanted to have something that was, you know, sweet on that part.

• 1:15:01Jen Cohen?

  I think what's making us all crazy and sick.

• 1:15:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:04Jen Cohen?

  Is the fact that we're all, we're all hyper focused on health and being and living until 150. And this whole longevity trend.

• 1:15:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:14Jen Cohen?

  Is become like it's overkill at this point.

• 1:15:17Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 1:15:17Jen Cohen?

  Like the stress that people.

• 1:15:19Speaker 02

  Infobesity.

• 1:15:20Jen Cohen?

  Like, yes.

• 1:15:21Speaker 02

  Infobesity, right. 100%.

• 1:15:24Jen Cohen?

  Too much.

• 1:15:24Speaker 02

  We are fat on information.

• 1:15:25Jen Cohen?

  We're too much information.

• 1:15:28Speaker 02

  Well, um.

• 1:15:28Jen Cohen?

  I can't take it anymore with all the different, people are wearing the glucose monitors and the sleep trackers and the, and they're like, and the beds that are cooling or not cooling and they're, they're tracking.

• 1:15:40Speaker 02

  Or they feel like they can't be healthy because they can't afford that and their healthcare premiums just doubled and they, between that and paying for their kids to have shoes and they're sitting there feeling like, I'm like, like, I can't be healthy. And that's totally inappropriate. So like, you know, we have to intervene on that part and recognize like, look, if you want to be entertained by nutrition and health, like, great. But if you are obsessive compulsive about it, it is not better. For you than like anything else on that part. And too often with all the different wearables and everything else that we're tracking, we're doing a great job of data collection, but we're actually not doing a great job of healing and actually taking some data and being like,

• 1:16:21Speaker 02

  hey, can I like, I can do as much with an apple as somebody can do with 2700 labs and all of these other things on that part. And I think that's where the rubber needs to meet the road. We really come back to this is why a quality dietitian, nutrition of somebody, you know, to work with, who can help you put your plan together is going to be, in my opinion, better on that part.

• 1:16:45Jen Cohen?

  Agreed. Yeah, I mean, I just think I think everything has just become overkill at this point.

• 1:16:50Speaker 02

  It has been.

• 1:16:51Jen Cohen?

  And if people just do a little bit, if they're than doing nothing.

• 1:16:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:16:54Jen Cohen?

  Progress is better than perfect.

• 1:16:56Speaker 02

  Could you agree to take glutamine for six weeks?

• 1:16:57Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I mean, I can try. I mean,

• 1:16:59Speaker 02

  Before you get any labs drawn?

• 1:17:00Jen Cohen?

  I know. Five hundred. That's more because I was so curious and this they're like, this program is super stealth. And yeah, I was very like, there's, there's, there are like the people that are doing it.

• 1:17:11Speaker 02

  Some things belong to be stealth.

• 1:17:12Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I know. Very dialed in. Yeah, I know. It sounds very excessive. And like, I haven't actually gotten my blood done for a while. So but I'm actually concerned and kind of like,

• 1:17:21Speaker 02

  Okay, but also let me, let me say this for anyone who is thinking about getting their blood work done and spending the money and thinking about whether you're spending the money or not. If you know that you have just been through a period of a big health issue, a big stress issue, a big life change, like maybe you were just traveling a ton or anything else like that, give your body a month or two, at minimum, a month of good recovery and taking your nutrition and doing those things. Otherwise, you, we, we know right now that your body does not have what it needs to run better because of everything one has been through. And all your lab tests, it's going to be expensive. And it's as my medical medium said, you're going to give away your immune system with that blood work. And you're going to come back and the recommendations

• 1:18:06Speaker 02

  are going to be do to do all of these things. And it's because we haven't healed your body to a certain extent. So my advice always before you invest in the lab test, whether it's the gut test, whether it's the, the Blood test, it's anything else. Do that. That's why I put a 30 day tune up in here. Do the 30 days in some degree. You don't have to do it perfect, better not perfect. And then get your labs done after that. So maybe take your glutamine for like four weeks.

• 1:18:30Jen Cohen?

  Send me the link. Oh, no, I'm actually, yeah.

• 1:18:32Speaker 02

  Momentous. Let's get it. They should send it to you.

• 1:18:34Jen Cohen?

  Okay, I'm gonna call Momentous.

• 1:18:36Speaker 02

  They should send it to both of us. Yeah. Momentous, get on it.

• 1:18:38Jen Cohen?

  It's the best brand. My favorite.

• 1:18:39Speaker 02

  Like, I love them. Like, it does not have to be a Momentous. And please go buy things on Amazon, but that's a whole other story.

• 1:18:45Jen Cohen?

  That's a whole other story. But I will say, I like Momentous for many reasons. But they're, they're third party tested.

• 1:18:50Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:18:51Jen Cohen?

  I really like, I like, I know, I know the guys there. Their quality is, I think, bar none.

• 1:18:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. I use, I use from Orthomolecular, I use from Metagenics, I use from Pure Capsulations. I mentioned Perk. Like, there, it does not have to be one brand. And, and I, and I like Momentous. What I would say about glutamine is, wherever possible, I think you should use the powdered form rather than trying to do capsules on that perk.

• 1:19:13Jen Cohen?

  I'm gonna try to get that.

• 1:19:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. Could you do four weeks before you get your blood work done?

• 1:19:17Jen Cohen?

  Well, I better start like four weeks ago.

• 1:19:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:19:21Jen Cohen?

  Next couple of days.

• 1:19:21Speaker 02

  All right. Just, it's worth, it's worth calling up and being like, hey, quick reschedule.

• 1:19:24Jen Cohen?

  Uh huh. I think that might have to happen. Okay.

• 1:19:26Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:19:27Jen Cohen?

  Ashley Koff, my dear, I love her. She's great. She's a friend. She's

• 1:19:31Speaker 02

  Has no opinion.

• 1:19:31Jen Cohen?

  She's got zero opinion. She's like on the fence on everything.

• 1:19:34Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 1:19:35Jen Cohen?

  Um, her book is called Your Best Shot.

• 1:19:37Speaker 02

  I'm on your fence.

• 1:19:37Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, exactly. You're on my fence. The book is called Your Best Shot. Ashley is very wise, very smart. And like I said, I've spoken to a million dietitians. You are by far one of the most well, like, informed I've ever met. And also, you, you explain things very well.

• 1:19:56Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:19:56Jen Cohen?

  Although, you explain things very well, but at length.

• 1:19:59Speaker 02

  At length.

• 1:19:59Jen Cohen?

  I mean, maybe we couldn't just like make it a little more concise.

• 1:20:01Speaker 02

  A little bit shorter. I really wanted, I mean, I wanted to take you through the, the whole

• 1:20:05Jen Cohen?

  I appreciate it. I always appreciate it.

• 1:20:07Speaker 02

  Simplification can be, I get it. I'm not, probably not designed for the modern age of 30 second clips.

• 1:20:13Jen Cohen?

  No, no, no. What are you talking about? They're a minute now.

• 1:20:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:20:18Jen Cohen?

  Minutes 30 sometimes.

• 1:20:19Speaker 02

  I probably need a few more Magic Mics for that.

• 1:20:21Jen Cohen?

  The Magic Minds. Magic Minds. Where's your, your minds in the gutter? I wish, I wish Tatum or Channing, whatever his name is, would be hanging out here. All right, guys. Have a good one.

• 1:20:31Speaker 02

  Thank you.