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Dr. Jessica Hehmeyer discusses Weight Loss Mastery with Dr. Ben Weitz.
[If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]
Podcast Highlights
1:37 Some of the biggest challenges that clients have when trying to lose weight include the fact that people were born into a psychological force field that doesn't serve them. By force field, Dr. Hehmeyer is referring to a series of conversations and perspectives that are not a good match for the outcomes that people want to happen. The first problematic conversation that people have is that what you eat or not is a moral decision--that food is good or bad or that if you cheated on your diet, you did something bad, and this can lock people into a cycle of shame. It would be better to see what we eat or not and whether we exercise or not will simply produce certain outcomes and this is not a moral situation. If we want different outcomes, we need to make the necessary changes.
3:50 People have different motivations for eating and for what they eat. Losing weight is not easy and that is why these new weight loss drugs like Ozempic are being used by so many patients that can afford them.
4:50 As we dig into the science of these GLP-1 agonist drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy, we can find many natural alternatives that can produce the same effects as these drugs have, such as fiber and berberine and eating healthy fats, without the potentially horrible side effects of these drugs, such as intestinal paralysis or obstruction, which can lead to death, or gall stones or pancreatitis.
8:11 Obstacles to weight loss.
19:24 Dietary approach to weight loss.
Dr. Jessica Hehmeyer is the founder of Well Empowered, where she practices data-driven, outcome oriented Functional Medicine. She is a Doctor of Chiropractic, an IFM certified practitioner, a Licensed Dietician Nutritionist and a Certified Nutrition Specialist. She is also an expert in the fitness industry. Her website is Wellempowered.com.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure. Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.
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Dr. Ben Weitz discusses the Implications of a new paper on Centenarians and Biomarkers and in particular whether having higher levels of cholesterol are better for longevity.
[If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]
Podcast Highlights
The paper that is discussed in this podcast episode is Blood biomarker profiles and exceptional longevity: comparison of centenarians and non-centenarians in a 35-year follow-up of the Swedish AMORIS cohort, published in Geroscience in September, 2023.
1:09 While it is difficult to conduct randomized trials using humans to test strategies to improve longevity, is that humans live a long time, so you would have to do a 100 year study, another way to get ideas about longevity is to study centenarians to see how they made it to 100. This new study on centenarians and blood biomarkers cited above resulted in some results that were expected, including that centenarians had higher lower levels of glucose, which is not surprising, since higher levels of glucose are associated with diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver, poor metabolic health, insulin resistance, and more inflammation. But a few of the results seem to be surprising, including that centenarians had higher levels of cholesterol and of iron.
3:37 A popular health podcaster--Mike Mutzel on his High Intensity Health podcast--recently remarked (published Sept 29, 2023 on YouTube as Low Glucose, High Cholesterol & Living to 100 Years Old) that this paper demonstrates that higher levels of cholesterol are associated with better health and longevity. I disagree that that is the right conclusion to draw from this study.
4:26 This study looked at total cholesterol levels, which is not the best way to assess your risk of cholesterol causing heart disease. It would be better to look at LDL-C and even better to look at LDL particle number or ApoB or oxidized LDL or small, dense LDL.
5:52 Cholesterol. When we look at the charts supplied in the paper about cholesterol levels we see that to begin with, the difference in levels of cholesterol were very slight as compared to differences in glucose and other parameters. Second, we see that for men aged 64-74 they actually had slightly lower levels of cholesterol, while men aged 75-84 had slightly higher levels of total cholesterol. It might be more appropriate to conclude that having lower levels of cholesterol are beneficial in that they will likely result in lower levels of heart disease, but that once you hit your 80s it probably doesn't matter as much, since developing heart disease likely takes decades of build up. Also as you get older, lower cholesterol levels can be an indicator of poor overall diet and of vitality, and in the 80s and 90s sarcopenia and frailty can be bigger causes of mortality due to falls and weaker immunity making you more vulnerable to not being able to fight off viruses or pneumonia.
9:40 Iron. The other marker that was somewhat surprising was iron, where overall slightly higher levels of iron were associated with longevity. But this is similar to the cholesterol story. Those men and women in the 85-99 year old group had slightly higher levels of iron, though those in the younger groups had the same of lower levels of iron. High levels of iron above what is needed to produce hemoglobin to produce red blood cells are generally associated with higher levels of oxidative stress and negative health consequences. On the other hand, higher levels of iron at the oldest decades may be associated with higher levels of nutritional status and less frailty. Those 90 year olds with greater vitality and greater muscle mass and bone mass are likely to live longer because they are less likely to fall and break a hip.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure. Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.
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Kim Shapira discusses How to Improve Your Health and Lose Weight with Dr. Ben Weitz.
[If you enjoy this podcast, please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, so more people will find The Rational Wellness Podcast. Also check out the video version on my WeitzChiro YouTube page.]
Podcast Highlights
1:26 Some of the biggest challenges that clients have when trying to lose weight include that they do not listen to what's going on inside their own body. You need to be mindful and use your rational mind, which knows that food is fuel. Our irrational mind thinks food is comfort, joy, entertainment, the enemy, fun.
6:08 In order to figure out which foods are good for us, Kim likes to run the Everywell Food Sensitivity panel, which is done by pricking your own finger at home and sending it in and this test is reasonably priced.
10:56 Kim has six rules for eating and the first one is to only eat when you're hungry. And she also recommends the 15 minute rule so that you learn to eat slowly and that is to only eat no more than half of your food in 15 minutes by putting half as much food on your fork or spoon, put your fork down between bites, and chew your food many more times than you are used to, and eating slowly. It takes about 15 minutes from the time we start eating for the hormone leptin to be secreted that helps tell us that we are satiated. After 15 minutes you can check in with yourself and see if you are satisfied or not yet. Many of us today are eating so quickly and frequently and so much that we don't really know what being hungry is. We are hard wired to be afraid of being hungry, since this means that our survival is at risk. But in the modern world where food is readily available, we should get used to being hungry and it is important to be hungry every 2 to 4 hours. If you are not hungry every 2 to 4 hours, your body fat is too high or you overate your last meal.
18:40 Emotional triggers. Early in our lives we tend to develop our own individual emotional triggers, which take us out of our rational mind into your irrational mind. This leads to emotional eating. We flip from from thinking about food as fuel to food as comfort or food as fun. When we have a thought that food is a good idea, which should scan our body and take some deep breaths and figure out if we're really hungry or just wanting to eat for an emotional reason.
20:19 Hormones. There are a number of hormones that play a role in regulating appetite, including ghrelin, leptin, insulin, and cortisol. When our tank actually gets a little low, ghrelin sends a signal to the brain telling us it is time to start focusing on the next meal. When we eat slowly, we give leptin a chance to tell our brain that we're satisfied. When we respond to stress incorrectly, such as the stress from either lack of sleep, too much sleep, alcohol, or food choices that are inflaming your body, the way that your nervous system is responds can cause our cortisol, our sex hormones, and our blood sugar to get out of whack. This is when we tend to store excess energy as fat. We need to work on meditation and mindfulness and long walks and listening to high vibration music and singing and humming and having more joy in our life, so we can relax our nervous system so we can say to our body, "We're actually safe. We're safe right now. You are safe to carry on. We do not need to store that way."
24:24 Exercise. When it comes to exercise, Kim recommends getting 10,000 steps per day, which is common recommendation. We need to work on muscle strength, muscle endurance, and balance.
Kim Shapira is a dietician with a BA in Kinesiology from Tulane and a Masters degree in Human Metabolism and Clinical Nutrition from Boston University and author of This is What You’re Really Hungry For: Six Simple Rules to Transform Your Relationship with Food to Become your Healthiest Self. Her website is KimShapiraMethod.com.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure. Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111. Dr. Weitz is also available for video or phone consultations.