Transcription:

RadioMD Presents:Healthy Talk | Original Air Date: May 1, 2015
Host: Michael Smith, MD

Living longer and staying healthier. It's Healthy Talk with Dr. Michael Smith, MD. Here's your host, Dr. Mike:

DR MIKE: It always seems after the holidays in January, February and then as you move closer to summer April, May, and June, there's always this focus on weight loss and that's fine. This time of the year, I always seem to come across so many new weight loss programs, so many new diets. I think recently, I just talked about the yogurt diet on another show which really isn't about yogurt. It's just that you're cutting your calories down like crazy. But this time of the year, there just seems to be an explosion of weight loss programs, the latest and greatest scientific weight loss.

All this kind of stuff and that's all fine. That's all good but I think we're missing something. Here's what we're missing. Why are we gaining weight in the first place? Isn't that really the question? I think the question we've been asking "How do I lose weight?" I think that's an okay question but I don't think it's the first question we should ask. I think the first question we should ask is "Why am I gaining weight to begin with?" I think that's a better question to ask as well.

And so, at Life Extension I worked with some of our doctors and I put together a free little e-book. It's about 30 or 40 pages called The Nine Pillars of Successful Weight Loss. And what it is, it's an e-book that is structured in a way that's similar to my Supplement Pyramid book, which is quizzes.

What we've done is, we've identified nine pillars and these pillars are really weight-gaining pillars and if you counteract them, then you're going to be able to finally be successful in losing weight on any diet program that you decide. So The Nine Pillars of Successful Weight Loss is not a diet program. It's not a diet product or anything like that. It's really asking the question "Why are you gaining weight in the first place?"

And it's pinpointing your weight gaining mechanisms and then, through a series of questions and nutrient suggestions, we're able to counteract the physiological reason you're gaining weight. I really do believe that it'll get you on the right start for successful weight loss. I'll put it to you this way. If you're on, I don't know Atkins, South Beach, Weight Watchers--whatever you're doing. If you don't manage or counteract the pillars, the mechanisms causing you to gain weight in the first place, it's just going to be an uphill battle. Let me just go through quickly these nine pillars of successful weight loss.

The first pillar is insulin resistance. A lifetime of eating sugar causes a lifetime of insulin overload in your body and it means that the cells in your body, especially the muscle cells, become very insensitive to insulin. If that happens, the sugar level builds in your bloodstream. It can lead to diabetes, for instance, but it also just means you don't manage the sugar very well.

You don't burn it as readily for energy and you store it as fat. People with insulin resistance or low insulin sensitivity tend to have more body fat. So, the first pillar has to do with sugar and insulin. We have to improve insulin sensitivity so if you go through my—it's about five to six questions, if you answer yes to three or more of them you probably do have an insulin issue and we need to get you on nutrients like chromium, magnesium, green tea extract. Those things help in reversing insulin resistance.

Pillar number two is hormone imbalance and for men and women the very first one you have to consider is low thyroid. You have to correct your thyroid hormone. It's your metabolic throttle and I offer suggestions for that in the e-book. Now, moving on to women, one of the most common reasons in women, especially in that perimenopausal and postmenopausal age group, one of the most common hormonal imbalances that cause weight gain is called "estrogen dominance". Even though estrogen and progesterone are both dropping, progesterone drops off at a far greater rate and it causes this dominance in the body and estrogen dominance puts on weight. If you don't correct that it's hard to lose weight.

For men, it's really about low testosterone, low DHA, low androgens and we've got to make those corrections before you're going to be able to be successful.

Pillar number three is excessive carbohydrate and starch absorption. What I mean by that, too, is even if you're controlling how much sugar you're eating, how many carbs you're eating, some of us just have really active digestive enzymes that break down those starches and carbs real easily and you just absorb tons of sugar. We want to control that process.

As you're trying to eat less sugar, as you're trying to eat more fiber, more complex carbs, we've still got to control how fast your body, your digestive system breaks down those carb sources, those simple sugar sources. I have some questions that you answer and if you answer "yes" to three or more, it probably means you do have a carb/starch absorption issue and I offer suggestions like chrysin. I'm sorry. Not chrysin but arabinose and white kidney bean extract and certain types of fibers which will be very helpful in slowing down how fast you absorb those carbs.

Pillar number four is muscle loss from low physical activity. You know, gaining lots of fat but losing muscle mass. Things like whey protein, pea protein supplements, the androgens like DHEA, even testosterone replacement can be very helpful there.

Pillar number five is low brain serotonin. Why is that important? Well serotonin is a neurotransmitter. The higher the level of serotonin in your brain you just feel good overall. As a matter of fact, low brain serotonin is really what causes depression but we also know that when we have low brain serotonin you tend to crave sugars more. So especially if you're a three in the afternoon type sugar craver. You know, stress kicks in from the work day and you've got to get that sweet whatever it is that you like to eat. If you crave that kind of stuff, that could be a serotonin issue and if you don't correct that it's going to be hard to lose weight so saffron and tryptophan are things I suggest in the e-book.

Pillar number six is slow resting metabolism which is when you simply just don't burn as many calories when you're at rest. When you're younger, you can just be sitting there watching TV and you're burning calories. That's why kids are skinny. Wouldn't that be nice? Watch TV, read a book and you burn some fat calories. That is awesome! And now, really all of us kind of deal with this. As you get older metabolism, slows down so we offer up some suggestions. Now I have about five or six questions you're going to answer in the e-book, if you answer "yes" to three or more of them, that tells us that maybe your metabolism is definitely too slow and we offer up suggestions like 7 Keto DHEA, the seaweed extracts like fucoxanthin or the hot pepper extracts like cayenne. Those all can be very helpful.

Pillar number seven this is a weird one. It's called abnormal fat cell signaling. Turns out, your fat cells talk to each other just like nerve cells talk to each other. That's how, like in your brain you have brain cells that communicate together and they form these connections. That's how you form memories and recall. Well, fat cells do the same thing. They talk to each other. Fat cells like to clump together and when they do that, they pass these chemicals back and forth that help them to grow and get bigger and fatter. Fat cells can actually get fatter. But we want skinny fat cells and in order to do that we have to correct some of those signaling molecules that they're using to stay fat. And so things like Irvingia, mangosteen and cyclodextrin these are compounds that will help to improve that fat cell signaling so you get skinny fat cells.

Pillar number eight is low AMPK activity. That's an enzyme in every cell of your body. When AMPK is at a higher level and working well, you manage sugar better and energy better, so we want to re-activate AMPK. That's pillar number eight.

Pillar number nine we call simply diet imbalances and we just talk about the importance of eating a well-balanced diet: fats, carbs, protein, mostly plant based. Like 80% plant based versus 20% lean meat. That's a good diet balance.

So, these are The Nine Pillars of Successful Weight Loss. If you want to learn more you can go to yourweightlossrx.com and download the e-book for free. Yourweightlossrx.com.

This is Healthy Talk on RadioMD, I'm Dr. Mike. Stay well.