Ep. 564 Exploring the Link Between Weight Gain and Sexual Health

Podcast Introduction and Episode Overview 0:00

Welcome to the Health Fix Podcast, where health junkies get their weekly fix of tips, tools, and techniques to have limitless energy, sharp minds, fit physiques, or life. Hey, health junkies. Welcome to another episode of the Health Fix podcast. On this episode, you get me. And today I'm going to be talking about two things that are kind of, let's say a little bit controversial, but also like hot topics when it comes to getting older. One, weight loss and why I think that weight gain in particular isn't so random.

I'll explain here in a bit because I have quite the story. Now, the other is sexual health. Not something that a lot of people want to talk about, keeps getting brought up over and over again in my office. And I'm really starting to realize that I need to focus on this a little bit with folks because it is such a quality of life thing. So we're going to dive into two subjects that you may not think go together, but have a lot to do with each other. Let's get into the podcast. Now, how do weight gain and sexual health go together?

Well, when we gain weight, we change our circulation in our body. And we also tend to feel a little more, let's say, not so confident about our bodies anymore. So, of course, libido might go down if you're like, I don't feel comfortable naked, or things are hanging over in places where they didn't before. Or I've got little fat pockets on my arms, I'm talking about myself, that I never had before and it's super weird. Or there's like little saddlebags on the hips that weren't there before. My belly is a little bit bigger and its hanging over and I am really self-conscious.

Of course that's going to affect your libido and your sexual health. Same thing goes for guys, too. We both, men and women, have the same concerns. I hear it on both sides, like, hey, I don't look like I used to. Hey, circulation isn't what it used be. And so these things are related to health, and they're related weight. Now, I just had a couple podcasts ago, Dr. Anne Truong on, and we talked all about male sexual health, but it's really the same for females. And so, what am I seeing? I'm seeing vaginal dryness in ladies.

I am seeing longer times to orgasm in the ladies, difficulty even getting into it for the lady. For guys, erectile dysfunction. I'm seeing, in particular, either premature ejaculation or taking longer to ejackulate or getting soft halfway through and having no idea why.

How Weight Gain Affects Sexual Health 2:25

These are all signs that our blood flow is changing, things are shifting. If we gain weight, we are going to see some changes with how blood circulates in our body. Now, 10 to 20 pounds, probably not a big deal, but if we start going upwards of 50 plus, this can make a huge difference, especially if the weight is in the front half of your body, because that is really weighing down on your organs. And the more visceral fat that's there, the most it's cardiovascularly not healthy for you. What's your body gonna do?

It's gonna go on protect mode. So, you know, it is one of those things that I don't want anybody to necessarily give up on their sexual health and just say, I'm getting older, forget about it, because it such a good release for many people. It is a connection. I kind of believe that a lot of people get divorced in their later years, midlife and beyond, because there are some disconnects in the bedroom. And a of it's, from what I see in my practice, things that we haven't said, feeling embarrassed about our bodies, feel embarrassed, about changes, and not wanting to talk with our partner about it.

Let's face it, we're all getting older. And chances are, if you're experiencing symptoms, your partner might be too. If they're not willing to sit down and talk with you about it well, then I don't know what to say. But the truth is, is that I think most people would be willing, to talk it through. So, let's take a turn for a second. We'll come back to sexual health and let' talk a little bit about why I'm beginning to think that weight gain isn't so random, when it comes to age. When it come to life.

So here's the thing, I've found that as we get older, life gets busier, we change habits, We change routines,we develop new routines. This kind of stuff sneaks up on us over time and some of these habits create imbalances within the body. And what these imbalanced can cause is weight gain. These imbalance can also cause trouble with sexual health. What have I seen to be the overarching thing to help both of those? Chinese medicine. And for years and years, I kind of looked at Chinese herbs as being something really great to have around, but never really dove into them as much as I have lately.

And what kind got me into it is working on my own health. I'm getting older. At the time of this recording, I am going to be 47 in a month exactly. And hey, things are changing. Definitely in the last year I've seen my body change quite a bit with more fat pockets developing. You want to look at your health and be like, I'm eating clean. I am doing all the right things. But what's happening in your life to throw energetics out of bounds? Now, in Chinese medicine, there's a couple of different terms that go along with weight gain and reasons for why we gain weight.

One of them in particular is something called damp accumulation. Damp is that like puffy weight gain, not necessarily fat gain but like puffy, we can get puffy. Say you went out to dinner and you had a really rich dinner, and the next morning you notice that your rings are tighter, right? And maybe you didn't have a whole bunch of sugar, but you have had, a little fattier meal that had little more, maybe they used in the sauce and, the meat was maybe a lot fatter. That kind of thing is hard for your digestive system to break down.

And one of the biggest things I see happening as we get older is that our digestive systems do struggle to break down food. And I myself started to notice that I felt bloated after meals. Like within, you know, 30 minutes to an hour after meal, I feel like there was a food baby, like a rock sitting in my stomach. I was like I guess maybe I need some digestive enzymes. So here and there I would use them, but most of time I'd forget them because I'm human too. You know I realized that on the times that periods where I would forget my digestive enzymes for longer periods, I will be more puffy.

And I may not have the digestive system working like I wanted it to. Most of my life I've had a little bit of gut issues, if you've listened to my previous podcast, you heard me mention that.

Chinese Medicine View of Damp Accumulation 6:30

But I started to notice that in the last year or so, my gut was all over the place. I would have a series of looser mouths and then I'd have series being a little, let's say, backed up. Never for more than a day, but still annoying. And what I started to think about was like, wait a minute, what am I doing to cause trouble with my digestion? Well, one, I was eating on the go, right? I wasn't sitting down to eat. I kind of was standing at the counter trying to run out the door, contrary to some of the advice I give.

But I caught myself doing it every so often and being like what the heck are you doing here? You know better than that. So little things that happen, maybe not every day, but you're seeing little tweaks. On top of that, what I was also finding is that Iwas rushing to try to get meals in because my day wasn't scheduled well, where I would be seeing people right at when I should be eating a meal. And I had to change that around. because trying to get in a meal and chew, you know, like I want to, 20, 25 bites per meal.

I needed time to do that and I was rushing. So I wanted you guys to think about that a little bit. Like if you think anyway, are you rushing with meals? Have you been? by any chance, you know, eating on the go. The other biggie is gravitating towards easy-to-make foods like smoothies with frozen vegetables or frozen fruit in it. Really cold, hard on a digestive system. You don't see in Asian cultures them eating too many raw foods or too much dairy kind of foods, or to many cold types. of foods.

Another biggie that came in in the last couple years because I moved to Wisconsin. Dairy state. What do we have here? Cobius amounts of cheese. We have sour cream. You have all these lovely, lovely delicious things that have to do with dairy and I found organic raw places to get them from. So I created myself a new little habit of running by a particular place to grab all this stuff when I wasn't eating these things before. So pair that with not having my digestive enzymes as regularly noticing that I'm eating a little bit more dairy, which is damp according to Chinese medicine.

Anything dairy anything cold, anything that is harder to digest has the potential for accumulation of damp. So think fat, think rich foods, things of that nature. All of is related to damp accumulation. And I think what a lot of us don't realize is that life's turns are our changes in environment, our schedules, all of these things kind of little like switches, but they can have big impacts on our life and our day to day of how we eat. And this can create the imbalance within the digestive system.

So damp accumulation can also happen when we go on vacation and it's a warm place and we start eating popsicles or fresh fruit, a lot of it, because it is delicious, and drinking like margaritas that are frozen or cold. Think about that kind of stuff. A lot people will say they have a harder time getting back on balance or back track after vacation. Well, even in a week's time, you can throw your balance off in your body. Same thing goes with getting an illness. This last past year, there was quite a gut thing going around.

And I also caught that actually in the beginning of 2024 in January, my dad and I got really, really sick with this gut bug. I never quite got back in balance from that. Then from there is when the gut kind of shifted. And then it shifted again after I got back from the Cayman Islands. And well, what did I have in the cayman islands? I'm definitely gonna have a few rum drinks because they're good. Then, you know, eating richer meals because we're eating out more and then also eating ice cream while gelato at this Italian place.

That's amazing. But also all cold things. Yes, in a warm environment, but on a gut that you're only there for two weeks. It's a shift and I went in February to March. I want you to think about this a little bit, how damp accumulation can get you feeling puffy, sluggish, just weighed down, food not moving well. One of the big signs is that your tongue turns a bit whiter. Things to look at. Rings feeling tighter. Now, when dampness turns into something called phlegm accumulation, this is when the fat starts to build up on the body a This is cellulite, this is fat gain, so belly fat.

What a lot of women will have this time in life will be a little bit more of that belly-fat gain that we get annoyed with. But what if this was happening because of an imbalance going from damp accumulation to phlegm? And don't worry, I'm going to tell you what kind of herbs I use to shift these things because right now I am in the thick of helping a lots of people with this and myself trying to get these thing moving. What happens with phlegm accumulation long term? For a lot of us, let's put it this way, at least me, and I know a lotta people in my age range, we were kinda taught that fat was evil.

And so for most of my, probably into my early 20s, I didn't eat much fat because I was fat-phobic because of all the propaganda from being younger. Now, I personally now I'm like, oh, macadamia nuts. If you've listened to previous podcasts, you heard me say I am part squirrel. This is what's going on there. I love nuts, they're easy. You can stick your hand in the bag and eat them and you don't have to cook them. Convenience. A lot of the things we eat for convenience can cause trouble down the road because we don t realize the compounded effect of eating macradamian nuts every day plus butter plus maybe avocado.

All my favorite things. Cheese, sour cream, good stuff there. But think about it. You know, throughout the course of the day, if you've never wrote down, like, how many grams of fat you eat in a day. How many of protein, and how much of carbohydrates you ate in one day? I highly encourage it, because you gotta know where you're at for a baseline. Because if don't, then you have no idea what you are working with and then how to tweak it from where your at. When I finally wrote how fat I was eating in that day I kind of horrified.

It was like 150 to almost 200 grams a fat a fat. It was because I had my hand in like the pecan bag or the macadamia nut bag and I wasn't really paying attention to how much because i was like fat's good i just eat don't want to eat that many carbs today pitfalls and for a lot of people like me included i didn't wanna realize that holy cow i was causing my own issue so the more fat you eat that your body is having trouble to digest meaning not having the digestive enzymes and the amount of food being over

Phlegm, Stress, and Digestive Deficiency 13:00

consumed this creates a digestive deficiency and when this happens in the chinese world we are looking at phlegm accumulation. This is where fat goes onto the body. Now, we could take this to other degrees. I'm not going to get super complicated with the whole damp heat, this and that. And just going with damp and phlem. We're going get the basics here. You want more Chinese medicine? Hit me up, make comments, let me know, I will give more. I'm gonna keep it simple for this podcast. Now, another thing that we throw into weight gain, and it's not so random, is back to the stress.

We, as humans, have more stress in our lives right now, just in general. There's very many people on this planet that can tell me that they have no stress, And if they say they've no stresses, they're still like, okay, but your body's showing me something. So what is this? In Chinese medicine, we call stress liver cheese stagnation. Your liver is what processes your hormones, but it also processes, your emotions. And when we're stressed, we will slow the liver down. The Chinese see the livers, the big circulation organ.

So stress can attack your digestive system, meaning overact on your digest system back up your gut and cause liver and even gallbladder issues. What is happening here? Well, if we are stressed we put blood into our arms and legs. We're not going to put as much blood as we could into a digestive systems to break down foods. foods sit longer so that can create damp. They don't transform, meaning they don�t get digested fully, so you don �t your nutrients. Your body holds on to the weight because it thinks you're not getting nutrients even though you�re overfed and undernourished.

The other thing with stress is where often triggered to overeat or binge eat or stress eat. This beats up your digestive chi, your digest energy, making it harder for your digestion system to break down food. So we've got stress on the liver. We've what we call liver-chi stagnation there. And then we have something called digestive deficiencies. In the Chinese world, it's called spleen-chee deficiency. The longer you beat up on your gut by overeating, stress eating, eating too much of fats or things of that nature that you don't have the resources to digest, meaning the enzymes to digest or the energy per se, because your digestive system is weak.

The weaker it's going to become, the more you're going build up damp or phlegm. So this might sound kind of crazy, but it is not random weight gain. There are habits that we are engaging in that are creating imbalance that is causing the weight to come on. And so for folks who are really struggling with their weight, one of the things I've overlooked, and I fully, fully admit not to not putting it together and I don't know why, why wouldn't I look at the digestive system? Why wouldn' t I Iook at it in terms of its energies and take it to the Chinese medicine side of things?

Because Chinese herbs are put together to help put you back into balance. You gain weight because you lose balance within the energetics of how you digest food, what goes on with your liver, What goes with on your gallbladder, yes your microbiome, but also the energy in the digestion system. And last but not least, I've got to talk about the energy in the digestive system. So we can have blood deficiency, we kind of yang, which is the fiery energy is gone. This is a gut that's like chronically having diarrhea.

It's someone that is going to be weak, fatigued. Really, carbohydrates, sugars, those kind of foods just sound good. They sound better. Oftentimes, it's someone who's really depleted on their estrogen, maybe even testosterone because the energy is so down that they're having trouble getting out of bed. This kind-of weight gain situation is kind like a revolving door of trouble because you're so fatigued, of course you are not going to work out. You're not able to get out of bed. Of course, you're going to like have extra energy to work out because your body's not getting the nutrients into the system for you to have the energy in the first place.

So it holds on to everything. All of these conditions, damp, phlegm, liver cheese stagnation, blood and young deficiency types of conditions for the gut mean we need to help the guy do its job. Does this mean eat more probiotics, take more enzymes and work on eating copious amounts of ginger and turmeric? It could, but like I said, different types of Chinese herbals can actually help with these patterns. So I had mentioned for a weak digestive system, especially one that is causing fluid retention, so puffiness, there is a Chinese herbal formula that's been around for thousands of years called Gui Pei Tong.

It's a great one for puffiness, just a weak gut, meaning like you eat something but you don't feel like it's going anywhere. Would I pair this with digestive enzymes? Absolutely. And when I say digestive enzyme, what do I mean? Two things we got to be thinking about. One, do you have enough hydrochloric acid to break down things when it gets to the stomach? So hydrocloric acid is stomach acid. You can test this using something called the HCL challenge. What is this? This is hydrochloric acid, so betaine hydrocloric acid from beets.

And you can get a betane HCl supplement and you take one capsule with each meal and literally, let me say that a little differently, one with the first meal, two with a second, three with third, until you get burn. If you a burn in the stomach with one meal. By the way, you got to have at least 10 grams of protein in that meal you don't need any more stomach acid. It's like a $22 trial here and you can use THORN, BETAIN, HCL and I'll give you that in the podcast notes at drjcrossnd.com. But here's the thing, if you do that and don't have a burn and go to two capsules with a meal and no burn, three capsule with the meal, you go up to five capsiles with meal with no low stomach acid.

So digestive enzyme with hydrochloric acid would be highly indicated. I love HCL Guard by Steven Wright. He's the owner of the company. It's healthy good. And I pair it oftentimes with these holozymes, which are the pancreatic enzymes. Say you don't need a stomach asset, like you took one, you didn't eat any more stomach. You took 1 capsule, had it with your meal. you're like burning, you had to take some baking soda to quell it. Okay, great. You don't need that, but you may need pancreatic enzymes.

And they just changed their names of their digestive enzymes. So forgive me, I am not even going to try to confuse you. I will put in my podcast notes at drjcrossnd.com as to what they are, because I'm not going try and confuse your guys at this moment. And unfortunately, didn't write them down. If you need, say, pancreatic enzymes and the stomach acid, what's going happen? Usually, if you more stomach acids, you're going feel food sitting in your stomach. for anywhere from like a half an hour to an after meal, you can feel it's still there.

That means you need stomach acid, especially if the meat or the fats feel like they're sitting like rock. Now, for pancreatic enzymes, this is more where you have more bloating, where have just more problems with your digestive system two to three plus hours after your meal. Then you're looking at maybe I need some pancreatic enzymes. What's really cool is, like I mentioned, Steven Wright's products from Healthy Gut can help the HDL guard and the holozymes paired, or you could do both together in something called Enzymex Pro from Apex.

That's a great well-rounded blend of digestive enzymes. So something to think about, and especially if you have gallbladder issues, you want something that's got ox bile in it. to help you to break down fats just a little bit more. If you don't have a gallbladder, you want ox bile to helps you out. Now, all right, I'm saying you, everyone wants it. You got to test this all out and see if it works for you. But it's indicated to people, let's put it that way. And from what I've seen, having oxbile really does help anyone that doesn't So, enzymes like I've mentioned with guai pitong,

Herbal and Enzyme Support for Digestion 21:00

if you're having that like puffy, your digestive system doesn't really work but you feel puff in the morning, you are not gaining cellulite but just feeling just a little overweight in that your digestion system isn't so great, and you prone to diarrhea, looser stools. That's guay piton. Now, also, I will have all this on my podcast notes, too, for you guys at drjcrossnd.com. Now another one that helps us to break down fat is Shan Sha, sometimes can't say these ones very good. Shan sha xian xipian.

Oh my goodness. This one is one you can find with a company called Active Herb, and it helps to breakdown fat. in your gut. It also helps you if you have the phlegm type of digestive deficiency imbalance going on, meaning you are gaining fat. You can actually see the cellulite, you can you, have fat deposits. I will tend to use this one paired with digestive enzymes to help fire up the digestive system and get it going. Now, another Chinese formula I use is Long Dan Shi Gan Wan. This is for what's known as damp heat in the liver and liver cheese stagnation.This one is constipation, it goes with acid reflux, It goes like with Bernie's stomach not feeling so great, someone that doesn't want stomach acid in their stomach but maybe would do okay with digestive enzymes.

this one's really good for constepation bloating and acid reflex when they all kind of come together. It is for liver damp heat and damp heats in the body. So I love this one, especially if you had a gut bug and you couldn't quite clear it. This one's great for that one too, just kind of cleaning everything up. Now for those who are feeling just weak, and the digestive system isn't necessarily moving so well. Maybe there's diarrhea, maybe there are no bowels gone, like it's constipation. But nevertheless, there is the component of fatigue, so wiped out, lacking motivation, not feeling hungry.

This one helps you restore your young energy and helps to just energize yourself, but also will revitalize some of that blood deficiency I was mentioning. By the way, what is blood deficiencies? It's not getting your nutrients across. into the digestive system, into your bloodstream. So from digestive systems to the blood stream. That can help there. Then another one that's very fascinating is something called Lui Wei Di Huang Guan. This is a staple Chinese herbal for perimenopause and menopaus.

It has a lot to do with when you have constipation, but you also have low libido. You have just feeling inflamed, you just don't feel great. You have dryness in the body, you have vaginal dry-ness. This all can be helped with Lui Wei Di Huang Wan. And so that one's one of my favorites to pair. If I see someone that's got some of the perimenopause symptoms but also some other gut stuff, I will pair that with digestive enzymes or stomach enzymes depending on Stomach acids are depending on what we need to do there.

And by the way, when I say stomach acid, I'm meaning betaine hydrochloric acid which is basically what the stomach is making there, but instead of like actual stomach acids that we're throwing at it, this is betane hydrocloric acid from beets. That's what supplements are coming from. Beets! So what does this tell us about beats? eat beets. Also, to help boost our digestion, you could sip on ginger tea to boost your digestion. You can watch how much raw food you eat because a lot of women will tell me, raw foods, I struggle with this as I get older.

I just feel like I don't digest it well. Yeah. That's a huge clue your digestive system's weak. Huge clue. That is probably one of the bounces that happen along the way while you gain weight. Same thing goes with over drinking of iced drinks. If you find that one, you're not like drawn towards ice drinks and you want hotter drinks, that's the clue, it's big clue watch your preferences of what you prefer hot, cool food versus cool, food or cold food, or raw food. Now, the Chinese definitely will eat according to seasons in terms of temperatures.

Like cold weather, you are eating warm foods. Hot, hot weather like in the 80s, 90s plus, that's cooler foods that make sense. But if you have digestive imbalances that are showing dampness or phlegm accumulation, You probably want to lay off the foods, That would be cold. That will be damp. that would damaging to your digestive system. So, something to think about there. Now, how does this tie into sexual health and energy flow? Well, when your liver chi is not moving well, so that stuck liver you're inflamed, you are tired, your sexual house can take a backseat because your body's in survival mode.

It's like trying to figure things out. Same thing goes with like damp accumulation, flum accumulation. If your gut's weak, You are not getting your nutrients to where they need to be. You need nutrients. circulating in your blood, including iron, who carry oxygen. You need oxygen and good circulation to get to your sexual organs to have, one, a pleasurable time, but two, for the guy to an erection and the lady to also. Our clitoris is like four inches long, ladies. That fills with blood. If it's not filling with blood, and here's the thing, it takes us longer to fill with the blood.

That's why orgasms do take longer. It does take long to get in the mood for us as we get older. So guys, gotta help us out. Help a sister out here. And ladies, teach your men how to help you out! It's like it was in our 20s when we were ready to go. a little play around here which is where I bring in some of my fun discussion today. Now, Foria is a company, it's a sexual wellness company and they have this great intimacy oil with CBD in it. Now, before you're like, CBD never works for me. Okay, great.

There's no THC above 0.03% in any of these products because that's the legal amount. So there's not high amounts of THCs where you are going to get your vagina high or any that stuff or your sexual organs high. It's just like calming, let's say that, for your system. But the intimacy oil is coconut oil. CBD and they also have one that's got a little bit of peppermint and a Little bit Of mint menthol in there along with a, little cinnamon essential oil now before you're like, oh my god What is going on isn't it's not a crazy like fire and ice experience if anyone's ever seen fire And ice on the market this is not toxic by the way it is essential oils it can be put on topically and it's suspended in coconut oil so you have a buffer of oil there.

But the tingly sensations can help with circulation. That's what mentally mint kind of stuff does and that's with cinnamon does. It brings blood flow to the area so I wouldn't be afraid of these things. all. And so since I was turned on to, totally pun intended, Fourier from Susan Bratton, oh gosh, we did a podcast probably almost a year and a half ago, have used Fourier at home and recommended it to a lot of patients. And nobody has said that they have not liked it. Everyone's like, yeah, things are going better at home.

That's what I like to hear. And so bringing in these things to your home environment can really help you to not have to take one for the team or feel like it's sandpaper down there. You don't want pain, not cool. So, Fourier is something that I highly recommend and they even have little melts that you can insert like suppositories to help and get it going a little

Libido, Circulation, and Nervous System Support 28:30

bit sooner than time in the bedroom. So something to think about. And along the same lines, the company has some really cool stuff for period cramps and pain. They have a kava product and a mint oral like soothing product for cramping. Super cool. I highly recommend looking into them and the way you contest it is they have something called the Quickie Kit. Totally funny. It's a kit where you can test out the Intimacy products or you could test the PMS Crampy products too. I'll put the link in the podcast notes at drjcraftsnd.com.

Cool stuff. So, that all being said, how does this bring us back into Chinese medicine? Well, if the digestive system, like I said is depleted, we don't get nutrients to where they need to be in our body and we can impede blood flow. Why? Because we're not getting iron from the meat or the vegetables that have iron in them. We need this stuff to help us out. The other big thing is if we are super stressed out, we will have a heck of a time thinking about libido because the body thinks there is some bear after you.

Same thing goes if the body is completely deficient in yin. Yin energy is our cooling, it's our circulating, our very calm, chill energy. If we're way over here with like so much yang and fire, we are not and we just burning that out. Guess what's going to happen? Our body, young energy is like fire in the body. It goes up to the heart. The heart is an emotional center. But not only that, it is the organ that goes with fire. Your kidneys are your batteries. These guys are connected with water. Our kidneys our foundation.

They're also our libido because the adrenal glands sit on there too, where all of our fight or flight hormones come from. That being your water element and your fire element being up here, and this is all fiery and yang and heated energy going upwards, if we don't have enough cooling water to put out fires, we are not going to have anything but fire in the body. And when we have a lot of fire like that in our body, then we can't perform like we want to. we're spinning in so many different directions.

We're anxious, we are on fire, let's call it that. So this is where the nervous system really needs some chill to help with libido but also weight. My favorite favorite thing I talk about a lot is something called positional parasympathetic breathing where you lay down, you put your legs up and you just breathe. Now, want to make a bonus point to it, you stick your thumbs in your ear sear. There's an ear hole and then there's that ridge above. You stick you thumbs there and you press backwards. I call it moose ears.

you can wiggle your moos ears, I'm doing it if you're looking at the video right now. Laying down, legs up like that, that will bring your heart rate down. It'll help you to chill. Some people just need to be in a little bit more chill safe mode. And by that I mean feeling safe in their body, feeling in safe their environment before the libido comes back. If you've had any sexual trauma, if you had anything where even your partner is great but sex hurt, of course you're not going to want it. And so the libido is going to tank because the body's going be like, if it's gonna hurt again, this isn't that much fun.

I really don't want to do it. And I'm already stressed. Of course, think about these things. Now, another really big thing that I've been getting into lately and, and highly, highly recommend is using the benefits of Chinese medicines, Tai Chi and Qi Gong. These are circulation movers and in particular Qi gong, because Qi Gong was designed to move energy within the, body locally and throughout the entire body. And there are some really great exercises with Qigong of moving energy towards your pelvis.

Moving energy toward your core. You can see me with my hands I'm kind of bringing them together like in a ball. In this world of Chinese medicine we often think about energy being between our hands in the ball I want you guys to take your hands up for a second. As long as you're not driving. Take your hand and pretend you've got a Ball between them. Like a smaller size ball but like maybe something like a double size softball. and feel your energy between your hands. Feel your fingers kind of trying to pull towards each other.

You can take this ball of energy and put it right over your pelvis and do that same thing and hold it there. And you can move it up and you could move back down. and breathe into it and imagining the area below the belly button, the pelvis. There are even types of Qigong sessions you can do following people on YouTube. Acupuncture is another really great thing that can help you in this case as well. And even with weight loss. Now, is it like you put the needles and you lose weight tomorrow? Heck no.

It's not like that. I wish. We have the ability to access certain points within the ear that correlate with craving, with overeating, With stress eating. Super cool. But we can also access points Within the Ear to help boost our ability To break down the food that we eat. and I used to have this little, well I still have it, I just don't use it as much, this electrical point finder that would be like beep, beep beep and it beeped faster when there was a point that was out of balance. And I would go around and put little ear seeds on those points that were out-of-balance for folks and they'd press them throughout the day, throughout, they were good for about three to five days in terms of these little ears seeds and then they would press on them and a lot of people would swear that it helped with cravings, that helped quite a bit with their desire to overeat, with the craving for certain foods, And let's face it, when we go into perimenopause or andropause for guys, and we're losing testosterone, we are losing estrogen, We will be craving sugars and sweets like we never did before.

And these are subtle little things that a lot of people who ate like super impeccable before are like, I don't know why I had don' have willpower anymore. This is what's happening. It happened to me to the point where I was literally I never do this in my life. I would drive to store just to get chocolate. What the hell? Like I felt like in the last probably three years, a lot of my wiring around healthy and healthy living like went out the window because my brain would be like overriding on me.

And it's embarrassing to admit it. But at the same time, I had to do this podcast to talk to people about like, wait, we blame so much weight gain on hormones, hormones hormones. Freaking truth is, it's the little habits and the things that happen as our hormones are going out of balance that get us to where we're at. It's energetic stuff, like digestive system imbalances, stress imbalanced, that stuff. We have to be thinking about weight loss holistically, not just like, let's use ozempics and semaglutides and terzepatides.

Ozempic and somagglutide are the same thing. But anyway, forgive me, I'm a naturopath, that's my excuse, but do I prescribe these things? Absolutely. But the thing is, is we have to be thinking holistically. And this is something that I haven't done as much because let's face it, a lot of people are burnt out on trying to get healthy and do the healthy routines. They want the quick fix. I get it. Believe me, now that I'm seeing changes in my body, I've also been like, oh my God, make it stop. Where's the liposuction?

But we have to think about where's is the root? It is an imbalance that starts the whole cascade and it's little things that we are not picking up on. And if we can catch them and be honest with ourselves about them, then we're like that's what happened. So many women, I'm noticing, at this stage of life end up with diverticulitis. What is diverticeulitus? It is the bowels not moving effectively. We're ending up constipation over and over again, or we have bouts of diarrhea, constepation, and we're just not getting enough fiber because we rush, rush.

Go, go, Probably for a lot of women, it's popcorn dinners. Popcorn's one of the biggest things that can mess with diverticulitis. Seeds can too, but chances are most people, its popcorn and quick foods and constipation. This is a liver-cheese stagnation issue, and it is damp heat issue as much as it a phlegm accumulation issue. It's multiple things, that sent the digestive system out of balance. And the way to go after it, is sequentially, like I was talking about, with pairing the enzymes with the Chinese herbs and working on,

Qigong, Acupuncture, and Craving Control 36:30

yes, diet, of course, but these are little things that happen in response to life stressors. We got to look back at our habits, routines, behaviors. What threw us off? How can we regain balance? So skipping meals, eating, one of the biggest things, these, are one really big habits that we have to looks at. I used to skip meals because I'd be like, I'm fasting, and I would fast. And I was like a champion faster because it was easier to fast than cook. It sounds so stupid, but what did that do to me?

It slowed my metabolism down and messed with me. Now, am I saying don't fast? No, I think 14 to 16 hours between dinner and breakfast, actually good. Once we go over that, it can get a little bit wonky. I'm not a fan of one meal a day unless you're someone that's not going to overload your gut, because what I see in the one-meal-a-day situation is people are overloading their gut causing digestive deficiency and creating a problem for imbalance that is going lead to weight gain. and then they're going to be upset that the fasting didn't work for them.

It wasn't that fasting did not work, it caused you to overeat and beat up your digestive system. And for many women, this is our problem, its mine, I will fully tell you I stress ate over and over again for years. I still catch myself. It's not as bad as it used to be, but I'm catching myself now. That beats your digestive system up. So same with too much cold foods. Same with eating too fast, eating stress. All of these things beat your digest system over time and it can only take so much. Then pair it with your hormones declining, your digestion enzymes declining over A pattern here.

Alright, another big thing is sugar and caffeine reliance. This definitely, sugar's the number one drug for a reason. Caffeine's number two. It's America's best laxative. I mean, we've got things that we're addicted to that create more stress on the body. Too much sugar? In excessive amount, of course, leads to diabetes, right? What is diabetes in Chinese medicine? It is damp accumulation and phlegm accumulation, depending on how severe the diabetes is. So basically, the beginning stages are weight gain and all that.

The end stages end up being digestive deficiencies that go too far. Spleen, yang, spleen, you know, I could go into different trajectories here. I'm simplifying it so if someone is an herbalist, then As to study all this, I'm simplifying it here, but this digestive deficiencies are what cause diabetes. And it happens because of food choices and stress. Staying up too late, eating too, late also hard on the gut. Why? Because if you're already stressed and you eat too later and your liver is trying to process all that overnight.

It's got a lot to do because it's stressed out, it slow. So you might not process it all overnight. What happens? Stored as fat. That's what happens. Same thing with emotional reactivity and tension. Having hormones decline causes emotional activity. Low estrogen will have you dry at the drop of the hat. It will also have your feeling depressed, teary, all those things. Your claws come out. You are wanting to be left alone. Like agitation, anger, all come at that time frame. And so all of this messes with liver energy.

What does that do? It beats up on your digestive system. So if you have had none of the other stuff I've described, but you had emotional frustration, long-term anger totally beats on the digestive systems. These kind of imbalances are what are contributing to our weight gain. Yeah, processed food can be a problem. Yeah those things are there, but I think we've, you know, I just didn't realize how much the balance and how the Chinese principles really did make sense. So there you have it. Every single stressor on the body takes a toll on your gut, the liver, your gallbladder, and then your nervous system.

And they all play together and they can all snowball, just like I've described. So if you've been feeling like your body is working against you, you're just not feeling right in your, it is not betraying you. It's asking for help to get some balance back. And yes, microbiome is part of the picture here, but it's, there's so much more than just the microbiomes that we're not thinking about treating your gut. Yes. Your first brain, your brain's your second brain. You're nervous system, I guess you could say is your 2nd brain these need to be treated together.

and work together, and the liver and gallbladder just are part of it. And yes, we can go down the lymphatic system, all those things. Where does damp and phlegm accumulate in your lymphotic system and then spills over into your tissues to get the cellulite and weight gain? So we have to be thinking about aging and how it impacts our gut. Sure, We are prone to gain more weight as we go through perimenopause and amenopaus because the body knows if it stores fat, it's stores estrogen. But what happens when you supplement with hormones and you don't lose weight and gain instead?

We got an issue. We didn't deal with the beginning stuff, the gut, deliver, all of that. So if you're looking to personalize your herbal and nervous system support, you want to check out more of my podcast coming soon, where I'll talk more in depth on certain Chinese herbals, how these things can help what I'm seeing with clients. And soon I will have a vitality sleuth. This is my new new project coming out, membership where you can meet with me twice a year and we go over your labs. We can, we meet up to talk about the labs or what are we going to order?

What do we want to assess? what do want see? And then twice here we met up and review and get you a plan. That's my next thing. It's called Vitality Sleuth. They won't be coming up for another probably 30 to 60 days.

Holistic Weight Loss, GLP-1s, and Closing Thoughts 42:00

So stay tuned on that. Aging isn't about fighting your body. it's about understanding what it needs and what is out of balance and how to put things back in a balance as quick as possible to avoid issues down the road. And I really want to nail it down. If I haven't already, that libido seems mysterious. Where did it go? Gaining weight seems mysteries. Why does it happen? I think they're both really intricately connected when it comes down to digestive system, nutrients, and nervous system as well as what's going on with the liver and how it not only processes what you eat and all the chemicals and hormones and the different things, but also what it does with circulation and distribution of those items.

All of this is an intricate play, and oddly enough, I think we might be overcomplicating it. But at the same time, for all of the folks out there who are using GLP-1s and different medications to help them try to lose weight. I think we have an ability to be able to use these meds alongside of Chinese herbs, alongside digestive enzymes. Yeah, maybe some probiotics, but maybe fermented foods, even colostrum. We have the ability, to keep the progress going without having to go on these Meds for life.

And I believe we can do that for those of you who haven't. taking any of these meds to be able to get ahead of the imbalances, call yourself out on like, okay, this is what it seems and step in and try different herbal formulas and see how it goes for you. Everything I mentioned today, you can get online. You do not have to have an herbalist. You not need a naturopathic doctor who happens to also be a acupuncturist and Chinese herbalists. you can use your own intuition and trace it back. There's a company called active herb.

They have great formulas there too. So we have a lot of abilities to, to help ourselves out in this case. And I am happy to. Help as well. I have $49. Um, intro clarity session on my website, 15 minutes, 49 bucks. You tell me what you want to talk about. We get you some answers and quite possibly if you're struggling in this case, we could really nail down some directions for you in, in that timeframe. Whew, a lot of deep thoughts here. Hope you guys enjoyed this connection that I'm kind of starting to see.

And I look forward to carrying more info on this and bringing it to you as I really start to dive into how Chinese medicine can overlap and help people to regain balance in their body and helped with the weight, helped the libido, help with some of the things that go along with aging. All right, guys, well, you have survived another episode of The Health Fix Podcast. Until next time, Hey fellow health junkie, thanks for listening to the health fix podcast. If you enjoyed tuning in, please help support me to get the word out about the podcast, subscribe, rate and review and just get that word.

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