From Mr. USA to Medicine: How Dr. Ivan Rusilko Redefines Men’s Health & Vitality

Introduction to Emotional Health and Lifestyle Medicine 0:00

And the emotional aspect could be something as having sex twice a week as opposed to once a week, you know, for a couple who's been together for 30 years. You know, I mean, like the amount of goodness I guess you get from the health you get from that is it does better than any peptide, any hormone I could give you is that emotional. Wow, I feel good. That feeling right here. And a lot of people don't realize that. And, you know, myself, and again, I know you're from here, so I think me and you, of you know, drank ourselves pretty heavily back in the day.

You know, the whole aspect of drinking, the social aspect of having one or two drinks when you're out, that emotional health of fitting in and being camaraderie outweighs personally to me any detriment that two glasses of wine or two shots can do to you. When it gets to an excess, that's completely different. This is Doctor Talks. Real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. Hi everyone, welcome back to the Integrative Health Podcast with Dr. Jen. Today we have Dr. Ivan Rusulko, D-O-C-S-N-P-T.

He is an accomplished weight loss, wellness, physical enhancement, and sexual health physician in Miami Beach, where he currently practices international concierge medicine, and is the medical director and co-founder of Club Asinia, a cutting edge medical retreat facility, specializing in luxury medicine. He's a certified sports nutritionist, champion bodybuilder, international male fitness model, and a former Mr. USA 2008 and 2010. So Dr. Ivan, he graduated from Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2010. He was just a few years behind me, which was so cool.

So we're so excited to talk to him. He has written books. He uses peptides. He works a lot with hormones. So it's going to be such a great conversation and guest. Welcome, Dr. Ivan. Rock and roll. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. So tell us about your story from Leecom just graduating medical school and being Mr. USA. Like, how did that happen? It's been kind of a fun, fun road. I grew up in Meadville, Pennsylvania, which is about 30 miles south of Erie. And my brother's kind of the actual doctor in the family.

I just kind of became a doctor on accident, if you could say that. He was accepted to Gannon. He was the first student to get accepted into the accelerated program. So he was there for three years, skipped a year, accepted medical school. So of course, being the younger brother, I had to kind of do the same thing. And I went through Mercyhurst. So I went to Mercyhurst College, which is also in Erie, Pennsylvania.

Dr. Ivan Rusulko's Path from Medicine to Wellness 2:25

I was the first student that was accepted to their accelerated program. So it was kind of the situations to where, you know, I was almost destined to go there and my father had made sure that destiny pointed me that direction. But it was nice though. So during that time, I grew up playing hockey in Meadville. I was accepted to play professional hockey out of high school as well. I eventually obviously went to medical school. So I got to play hockey at Mercyhurst, which turned into bodybuilding, which then turned into the Mr.

USA. And during that time, I had won my first Mr. USA during medical school. So I had to take a full year off, thankfully. Let me take that time off, travel the world, did all kinds of really unique things. That kind of built my idea of what the wellness industry could be in medicine. That's where you find that everybody, I don't care how rich they are, how well-off they are, how famous they are, they all have the same problems as anybody does, which is being tired, sexual dysfunction, not being able to sleep, everything under the sun.

So as I was traveling, the Oscars, Formula Ones, all these fashion shows and whatnot, you would kind of sit there and start talking to these people and be like, I think I could kind of figure this out, you know, kind of, you know, as a doctor once I graduated. And that's what kind of sparked my interest into the actual wellness. Back then, it didn't really have a name back in 2011. And then what happened from that, I kind of, I was accepted to PM&R, which is a physical medicine rehabilitation at U.M.' 's allopathic program.

I got into my Rotate internship. I said, you know what? I don't need five more years to do what I want to do. I backed out of it. And thankfully the program director saw what I wanted to do and he didn't, you know, blackball me. So I went through, did that. I did my Rotate internship. And then from there, I kind of just opened up my own, my own practice. I started the Four Seasons in Miami, and then I went to Club Accentia, which is at the Dillon Hotel. Then from that I graduated to International Concierge, which was in Ukraine and all kinds of other unique places.

And then I was accepted, I was asked to open a clinic in Argentina. So I opened the first anti-aging wellness, whatever you want to call it in Argentina. They're a Recoleta region, which is like their premier spot. We also open in Uruguay as well. And then I've kind of had my practice now here in the beach, lifestyle medicine is what I call it. And it's been here since 2000, I'd say 13. So it's been kind of a very interesting, long-winded aspect of where and how I've got to be here from Medieval, Pennsylvania, where I grew up.

milking cows, baling hay and shoveling. Yeah, love it. Well, that's amazing. I mean, I love how your passion, you know, the Mr. USA, just like talking to all these people, you're like, everyone has these problems, even people with unlimited resources. Like, everyone kind of feels tired and, you know, is looking for ways to optimize their health. And I guess it comes down to like cellular health, right? And like, what is cellular health and why is it important? That's kind of one of the main things you tackle for anti-aging.

No, yeah, for sure. And again, I tell everybody there's certain wrongs when it comes to wellness medicine. You know, peptides and hormones are kind of on the upper scale. I always believe that cellular health is obviously probably the first one. This is your mitochondrial health. This is your, you know, the senescent cells in your system. So you want to clear things like that out as well as your and the reason I term my practice lifestyle medicine is because how you lead your life dictates more than any type of hormone could ever do it.

because your lifestyle dictates how your hormones act. So things like diet, nutrition, hydration, sleep, and stress reduction, all things that we control on our own, we don't need a physician to do that, are what really influence who we are. So that's why I made a big point. I brought my whole aspect of being a certified nutritionist, former personal trainer, all that. I brought that into this industry. And then I would sit there and say, you know, you have to lead by example, and you can't take weight loss advice from a fat doctor.

straight out you know I mean like so the aspect is I try to exemplify what this industry is which is wellness which is regeneration which is health and that's what I think is probably my practice kind of you know it's got me so so well because both me and my staff really try to exemplify what root cause medicine is and can be through lifestyle cellular health. And then, of course, you pack on hormones, you pack on peptides, hyperbarics, ketamine, stem cells, exosomes, all the other unique icings on the cake, I guess you could say, that, again, I tell everybody, those things are amazing, but if your core foundation is polluted and it's not right, all that stuff you're just creating very expensive toilet water with.

So we really focus on, I mean, we provide everything in lifestyle, but everything you can possibly think of is probably the most advanced clinics you'll find, but we always start with the basics, which is cellular health, senescence cells as well. Yeah, I think that's really important, especially with peptides. It's so trendy now, peptides, everyone's talking about them, even though we've all been using them for a decade or more, right? In some cases. That's for sure. But they work better when you have those foundations.

I have a peptide course up where I talk about peptide prep. You shouldn't just jump into peptides, and my patients know, won't just suggest peptides right off the bat. It's a tool in my toolbox, but we have to focus on, like you said, the basics like cellular health first. Say people have the cellular health down, what for a man coming to you that is done having kids, what are your favorite? Because that's important because if you're still- Very good. Yeah. That's another thing actually maybe you should talk about that too.

Cellular Health, Diagnostics, and Root Cause Medicine 7:18

I feel like we've only been talking about females on my podcast a lot. Let's do a little for the men. Diving to the boys. Yeah. What would you do for a man coming in that, that is struggling, getting a dad bod, aging, and what would you do different, I guess, for someone still maybe having kids thinking about it or one that maybe has a vasectomy or is done having kids? No, for the first, and again, the biggest thing about my practice is you want to listen. So my biggest thing is, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen Nip Tuck.

That's part of the reason I became a meal. I wish you went through being a doctor or was like, tell me what you don't like about yourself. What's that? Weren't they in Miami? Yeah, they were. I think that's why I'm here. I mean, like, this is the whole Christian tree. But the biggest thing is I always ask my patients, give me three things that you want to change about yourself. And that's kind of the most important thing because I can direct a body to do anything. You want to gain 10 pounds of muscle, we'll do it.

You want to burn fat, you know, have better sex, you have better sleep. Us as physicians have a very unique superpower, which is being able to direct a body to do a specific thing in somebody else, which I think is fascinating. So anybody who comes to me almost more important than diagnostic testing is the actual aspect of what do they want to do with it? And I tell everybody, if you're just, if you're just here to get healthier, that's just masturbation. There's no end product to it. You know what I mean?

Like you need to have a goal. So if your main goal is to run a marathon, great. We're going to train every which way through it. We're going to get your foundation proper. And it all starts with diagnostic testing for me. So the aspect is, a man especially, testosterone, DHEA, IGF-1, cortisol, estrogen, progesterone, all these different hormones, thyroid, that go into what makes you feel a certain way, your body react a certain way. Then you have to couple it with toxins that you've actually brought into your body, whether it's pathogens, whether it's a chronic EBV, CMV, Lyme disease, or it's heavy metals, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, lead, all these different things.

So my main focus is, number one is, I wanna know more about the patient than God does. That gives me the ability to sit there and be like, okay, he's mercury toxic, maybe that's why he has ED. Or maybe he has a chronic EBV, that's why he's always tired all the time. So I combine hormones with a lot of different things that a lot of physicians don't check, because I can sit there and fix testosterone all day. If they have mercury at 25, I'm pissing in the wind. So the big part about that is it's all about number one, upfront, seeing all the diagnostic testing and then matching it to the patient.

So you mentioned something very important, which is, you know, when it comes to, you know, still fertile or they're still trying to have children, you have to manage that properly. You can't just start giving somebody HCG or testosterone. You'll eventually castrate them. You know what I mean? So the aspect is you got to sit there and pay attention to things like enclomaphen or things that simulate the pituitary to produce LH, which is luteinizing hormone, much more efficiently. Okay? So that way it preserves the whole negative feedback loops of what testosterone is.

Or if it's IGF-1, you have things like surmorin, tessamorin, CJC, all these different things that simulate the natural process of actually producing growth hormone naturally, which then turns into IGF-1. So understanding how things work is more important than just dumping peptides into somebody. You're like, Oh, here's BPC. You'll feel like Wolverine. No, you won't. You know what I mean? Like if your IGF is completely crap, if your nutrition's in the toilet, if you have more metal in your body than Ironman, it's not going to work properly.

It might work a little bit, but for what do you have to pay for it? It just doesn't make sense anymore. So our biggest thing is root cause medicine diagnosed by diagnostic testing, and then find out what the patient's goals are, which I think is the most important. Yeah, I love that. So when you ask people, are they surprised when they're like, oh, what do I not like about myself? What do I want to change? Well, it's funny. Some people sit there and it's like kind of scratchy. Like, what do you mean?

I was like, I'm Santa Claus. What do you want to change about you physically, mentally, or emotionally? And it's something like anything I'm like, give it to me. And it's funny thing is everybody mentioned sleep. This day and age, it'll be number one or number three. It's never number two. You know what I mean? Like, but I was like, and you know what? I could sleep better. And I think that's kind of one of the real epidemics in this country is just bad sleep. And you know, I tell everybody I'm 41. I've slept 13 and a half years of my life.

theoretically, you look at eight hours a night. So the aspect is when you take a look at how important sleep is and how many people don't do sleep effectively or can't sleep effectively, whether it's all through all the stages like alpha sleep, theta REM, delta sleep, or they just have consistently getting woken up for nonsensical reasons. I think, you know, our biggest thing that we see here now, it's not so much give me a six pack or give me a better, you know, sex life. It's actually, yo, can I just sleep better?

And it's kind of fun to give somebody better sleep because then all of a sudden they're sleeping better and they attribute it to you, which is awesome. Yeah, that is great. Well, sleep, who? Well, residency, bad. Motherhood, motherhood, bad. But now, now like, I mean, my sleep, unless I'm out of town or I have more than one drink of alcohol, which isn't a lot. I mean, my sleep is solid. So sometimes when I have patients, like, yes, I agree. Like sometimes sleep is like the last thing that like comes together it is really hard and challenging for patients but sometimes for me I'm like I can't relate to it because I sleep really well so I think that's kind of funny because I'm like oh like I don't know how it feels but but oh you know what I did do I worked night shift like most of my er career Well, now I'll work a night shift occasionally.

Well, in Tennessee, I still have to get back to the ERs. I've been procrastinating, but I'll work a night shift and the next day I'm like, oh my gosh, I aged like two years overnight. I'm like, should I even be doing that? Yeah. So, so what, what do you tell your patients with sleep? I'm sure you focus on habits first because they probably have that. Habits is number one. I mean, the phone is the most, that's the real virus in this country is your phone because I mean, not only does it keep amping you up exactly, I mean, the blue light, what it does to the pineal gland right before bed is just detrimental to it.

You can't produce the correct amount of melatonin, which is terrible to not be able to produce. But also temperature, what you eat before bed, what you do stretching, exercise-wise, things like that.

Sleep Optimization and Peptide Strategies 13:11

Sleep is the most complex thing that we do. When everybody's like, it's sleep. It is so, it's like literally charging your battery. You know what I mean? So if you're able to sleep effectively, it's amazing. Optimizing your sleep should start with the choices you make going to bed. What time you eat was a huge one. So you don't want to go bed with a, with a, with a huge stomach. Maybe, I mean, if you're, if you're building muscle, wherever it could be some casein powder or some casein protein, whatever it is to help basically that slow release throughout, or if you're in an anabolic cycle, I mean, like a lot of people will wake up in the middle of the night, not because of anything else, but their body's looking for food.

So it's a situation where sometimes having a little bit of a food in your stomach could be a good thing, whether it's amino acids, you know, making sure you're not having too much water before bed. So you're getting up to actually urinate. But I think one of the biggest things I got, I think was one of the best things I got a couple was a four or five months ago was the bed jet. You can sit there and put that thing at like, you know, 68 degrees. It blows air in there and you get that because your body has to drop a certain amount of degrees to fall asleep and then raise a couple degrees to wake up.

So, you know, there are a lot of things that go to sleep. that can be controlled very easily just by anybody doing simple research online. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. What are your favorite peptides for sleep? What are you using for that? Oh, that's good. So again, I'm a huge fan of, again, if you need better IGF levels, which I'm finding everybody does this day and age, it's kind of a sad thing. You know, things like CJCI permorlin sermorlin is one of the trophies I came up with and what we do to add to it.

So it's those three peptides which help stimulate the pituitary to release growth hormone naturally, usually during delta sleep. Then we put in, I put in, and this is my own little trick, which I think everybody might like, is oxytocin. That helps you get through the stages of falling asleep better, the alpha stages. And then to get into the delta sleep, which is your deep sleep, which is the Cialis, very, very low dose. I'm not talking about the sex dose, but it actually helps decreasing the amount of times you have to get up at night to actually urinate.

So you actually are able to stay in delta and get more cycles of delta sleep throughout your night, because it's not just one cycle. You have about six, seven, eight cycles depending on who you are. So the more times you can get into delta sleep, you recharge that battery even deeper. Delta sleep charges the body. REM theta charges the mind. So you want to go through, you know, cycles that actually make sense. And I think that little trophy does very, very well for me. DSIP, Delta Sleep Inducing Peptide, is one of my favorite things to use as well.

It's on the market, it's off the market, it's on the market. It's hard to figure out these peptides, but DSIP, if you've got a great source, it's amazing. It's actually probably my favorite, DSIP. I used to use that for everything. Just because, again, Delta Sleep, I think, is the most precious thing that people aren't getting this day and age. Now, with your trochee, your patients aren't waking up in the middle of the night, like, aroused, like, disrupting sleep, are they? No, I mean, they're waking up in the middle of the night.

They're waking up a little bit. Well, hey, I mean, a lot of people come in for that. So they're just like, the whole psychosomatic thing is like, hey, I didn't get sleep enough, but hey, me and my wife got it on. That was great. Which is also, again, a lot of people don't realize you have the mental and the physical aspects of health. And then there's the emotional aspect. And the emotional aspect could be something as having sex twice a week as opposed to once a week, you know, for a couple who's been together for 30 years.

You know what I mean? Goodness, I guess you get from our healthy get from that is it does better than any peptide any hormone I could give you is that emotional? Wow, I feel good that that feeling right here and a lot of people don't realize that and you know myself and again I you know, I know you're familiar so I think me and you you know drank ourselves pretty heavily back in the day. The whole aspect of drinking, the social aspect of having one or two drinks when you're out, that emotional health of fitting in and being camaraderie outweighs personally to me any detriment that two glasses of wine or two shots can do to you.

When it gets to an excess, that's completely different. But I think a lot of people are going to start paying attention more to the emotional health of what people could be, which might be indulgent in certain things, sex, alcohol, everything else, that a lot of physicians and a lot of people bastardize because, you know, we are human, we are animals, we have indulgences, we like certain things, we all have different kinks. And I think the aspect of somebody wakes up a man for the first time in 20 years with an erection, that his program will go 10 times better no matter what, because now he's like, I got an erection, I'm good now.

And then that energy that flows through you is just astronomical. Same thing with a woman. Being sexually aroused as a woman, especially, I mean, you're the guru in this in your perimenopausal years. It's not easy sometimes to get into it. And if all of a sudden you're like, wow, okay, that's a different feeling. That right there is better medicine than anything else you could possibly take. Yeah. So I'm more interested in this trochee. So are you dosing it the five nights on two nights off because it's five nights on.

And again, I tell people five nights on two nights off every week, no matter what, if you're going to drink on a Thursday night, take that night off and make up for it. I don't want you wasting a trochee on it. And I know that might, you know, or some physicians be like, well, it's gotta be every night. you know again yeah i mean we're dealing with science that's science you know i mean so yeah so it's five nights on two nights off usually what i'll do is we'll cycle that for about six to seven months depending we'll check the igf levels throughout it i also like looking at dha and cortisol as well because you know i always like using dha cortisol and igf as my back-assward way of diagnosing sleep, I guess you could say.

Yeah, if cortisol is tanked in the morning, they are not sleeping well. Exactly. Or even if it's stressed out, they're sleeping stressed. So it's a situation, I like that cortisol right in the middle. You know what I mean? Especially when I wake up. And so we'll do that. Then once we get to six, seven months, we'll switch them on to something different. Maybe test them on an hypermoral injectable. just for a little bit. Or if they're looking more for the physicality of like men or women who are trying to get more in shape and lose weight, I'll start them with Tessamorlin, I have Tessamorlin injectable, and then I'll give them the trochee of just the Tessamorlin, oxytocin and fill.

And we also use various supplements as well. I think supplementation is very unique. I think your supplementation before sleep is more important than your supplementation before exercise. pre-exercises and this, that and the other. Sleep is when you grow. Sleep is when you burn fat. Sleep is when you regenerate. So that's where it should be the most. Things like magnesium, ashwagandha, if you have an overactive mind, L-theanine, zinc, things like that. So we have specific supplements that I create.

A lot of my patients, when they come into the in-depth blood work, we actually customize a vitamin exactly for them. So it's kind of unique, but I think the sleep supplementation, the trochee for me, I developed that. I'd say probably eight years ago. And I have used that like religion and it doesn't fail. So it's just unique to sit there and like, once you start stacking things, you know, there's no one size fits all, you know what I mean? Like, so if you start stacking things that understand the science, which a lot of physicians don't understand, I mean, you, you do obviously that certain things dictate other things in the body.

It's not just urology. That's it. Cardiology. That's it. If you're talking, talking about sleep, sex, energy, fitness, fat loss, that's, that's a collaboration of everything, which is obviously the osteopathic, you know, since we're two osteopaths sitting here kind of That's the most important thing is everything works together. Yeah, yeah. You know what I love? I love the supplement DHHB. Do you use that at all for sleep? No, it's fantastic. Yeah, I love that one too. You know, it's hard to, so a lot of my patient population are women that are either like breastfeeding pregnant, trying to get pregnant.

So, you know, not using a lot of growth hormone secretagogues on them and You know, so it's different to also if you're listening out there and you're like, well, I can't do any of this right now because I'm breastfeeding. Well, you can do magnesium for sleep and L-theanine and camomile tea. So don't get frustrated because yeah, everything's a season, but like I'm in the stage right now where it's fun. I'm not pregnant or breastfeeding, which I had been for like the past like 14 years. So I can like experiment with stuff.

Like I'm excited. Welcome to party. like I can finally do stuff like I was like oh I can finally like take methylene blue and like you know but I've had so long to just work on the basics so that's good but yeah I love that and you also like you have a very large hyperbaric oxygen chamber at your facility so Could you touch on that a little bit? Like, do you use that for people just for, like, recovery and then all the way, you know, up to long haul COVID and those other sort of illnesses? Yeah, again, the answer is all of the above.

You know, hyperbaric oxygen, I mean, oxygen in general. So anything that increases oxygen, that's why I love methylene blue so much, you know, how it improves the actual oxygenation of the system. Those two together for me are just phenomenal. The hyperbaric chamber we have here, it's the largest one in South Florida. It's a total of five people. It's a gigantic one, two atmospheres. And we use it for a lot of things. You know, like I tell everybody, I started out with sun fun and bikinis and all of a sudden now I'm treating long COVID, I'm treating cancer, I'm treating Parkinson's, MS, all these different things, all of which are indicated for hyperbarics.

And it's really unique to see because I'll sit there and a patient will go into hyperbarics and then we'll stack an IV on top of it when they come out of it. And obviously everybody who goes on hyperbarics is usually on the program as well. So we'll, we'll stack specific IVs based on why are they here. And that's kind of one of the cool things. So if somebody comes in, they're doing a hyperbaric, then we'll hit them. If they're iron deficient, if they have cancer, if they have neurodegeneration, we'll stock them with something like a curcumin and a methylene blue IV when they come out of it.

So now you have all this oxygen in your system. Now you have all the different things that help with anti-inflammation, oxygen regeneration, all this really unique stuff. So the hyperbaric oxygen chamber for me started out as a, Hey, he's got a big hyperbaric chamber there. He must be important. I mean, I probably use it more than anybody.

Hyperbaric Oxygen, Exosomes, and Advanced Therapies 22:08

Um, but with the results we get, now we have people flying in, doing all kinds of unique, staying here for weeks and really just taking advantage of what that hyperbaric oxygen chamber is because it's so big. You're not claustrophobic. You know, you can be on your phone in it because it's so gigantic. And I found that the hyperbaric auction is probably one of my favorite things is actually, if it still is, I'm pretty sure in 2019, I believe Oxford actually identified the hyperbaric auction chambers.

The only thing that actually was able to reverse telomere or I'm sorry, Lincoln telomeres, which is theoretically anti-aging and I hate that word, but. age management, if you will. So it's kind of unique to have that actual modality here to kind of pull out with everything else we do from stem cells, exosomes, ketamine. I mean, you name it, Ibu, we're doing everything here. Yeah, I love that. And those things are really fun. And the only downside to those things I think are like costs, like some of the things that you just said, like exosomes, stem cells, like they're amazing.

Exosomes, so that I've had trouble trying to get like clean or good you know get it from a good source so you're you're finding good places and what are you treating right now with your exosomes? So I mean exosomes ranges from everything from hair skin and nails I mean we do intrasculp we do intravenous we do everywhere and finding the correct one so we have a lot of patients who do their research so a lot of exosomes now you have to be careful with especially with COVID vaccinations and all that kind of stuff too.

So we have a specific one that's pre-COVID. It's a banked one, it's called Chimera. They're probably the best known. A lot of people don't like them because it's banked. I love them because there's no COVID, there's zero. This is 2018, 19 is when they started banking this actual code. And exosomes are very basic if you think about it. It's actually the same technology that the COVID vaccine was, but it's not diabolical, if you will. So what it is, it's just the code that you put it in. And again, I tell everybody exosomes are expensive.

Stem cells are very expensive. If you're going to do something like that, take the two months to maximize your system. If you're going to drop exosomes or stem cells into a system that has poor IGF, imbalanced hormones, toxic heavy metals, pathogens, you're just wasting your money. You might get little like bounces and you might feel good in certain ways, but the overall aspect is for what you're paying, it's not worth it. So we always try to maximize everything before we do anything like that. So the exosomes especially, if you're going to do that, I don't do, I actually, I refuse to do it on patients who actually are on a program because I think word of mouth is the most important aspect of what a physician should promote themselves with.

And thankfully enough, we have super good word of mouth with people who are actually patients of ours. I want to keep that that way. Yeah, I think that's a really good point that you just like won't do it unless they're optimized or in a program with you. That's like really sweet of you actually, because you don't want them wasting their money. One bad, true review is it's, especially when. I'm lucky enough to treat, like I call them the button pushers in this world. I mean, people flying from all over the world.

I mean, I have some of the most unique people we ever meet and probably know half of them. But the aspect is if they run in such small circles, so if also like I went there, I spent $50,000 and didn't feel anything, I'm officially blackballed. You know what I mean? Like, so it's a situation where it's like, I don't want that. I'd rather have, I mean, I mean, if you're in Miami Beach and you see people who are in their 60s who look like they're 30s, they're more likely patients of mine. And it's the best business card in the world.

I don't need a million followers and all this other fake stuff you see in social media where You know, I'm on a private jet doing this when you're actually, you know, borrowing a jet from somebody who doesn't have one. Just nonsense. You know what I mean? Like, so our biggest thing is we want to make sure that everybody who comes to us gets what they pay for. And, you know, it is more expensive to come to me, but at the end of the day, you're going to get what you actually want as opposed to coming in and, you know, going for Groupon or whatever it could be.

And well, it didn't work. I mean, well, you got it at 75% off. So can you really justify that? Yeah, that's a great point, especially when you can get anything you want on the internet, you know, but you don't know when it's being sourced. You don't know the profiles. You don't have the gist at all. Yeah. And like, like you've been doing this so long and you have, you know, an actual medical degree behind you that you would know if something was off or, you know, like say they needed a colonoscopy or CT scan, you know, you would know that.

So, I mean it's it's really important that people like yes everything is available to everyone all the time but if you don't have someone that knows the proper steps or they have treated enough patients where they know red flags and then they also know how to get you grounded and your body ready for an actual peptide treatment or something else where they could be like okay you're ready now you know like you are saying optimize everything that that is really important. It's precision medicine. And that's why I harped so much on diagnostic testing.

I harped so much on intake forms. Like I said, I want to know more about you than, than God does. And that's, I'm not saying that a joke, I kind of am, but the more information I have about you, the more I can be your physician instead of just like guessing or being a, like a magician. Oh, I think you have adrenal pause. Let's do it. You know, I want to know exactly what you have, you know, and that's why, again, diagnostic testing should be the most expensive thing I think patients do. because it is the most important thing to actually get the program that's built for them.

We're human. We're unique. That's what makes us beautiful. You know what I mean? Like, why not know everything about us before we start injecting ourselves with all kinds of different hormones and peptides? What do you think about muscle testing? Just curious. I think it's great. I think being, being metabolic is the most important thing in the world. Your BMR, which is about 70 to 80% of your overall metabolism is dictated by muscle. You know what I mean? And lifting heavy, you know, I mean, is a good thing, especially for women.

It helps with bone density, helps with release growth hormone, especially doing your legs. And it, it makes you metabolic. I mean, this is probably my fifth shirt I've went through today because I mean, I'm a battery, you know, I have to, I think my BMR last time we checked was 3,200 calories, meaning I have to eat 3,200 calories to not lose weight. which is probably why the occasional drink here and there is good for me. What's your stack right now? Are you just burning that many calories because of muscle?

No, I am. Well, again, like I, yeah, pretty much, because again, I've always, when I got to the body building, I got into it. And if you do it a foundation, you always have the muscle there. I always make sure I manage my hormones. I'm always on some type of thing. That's going to enhance my cellular respiration, whether it's like a MOTC human in a slop, you can do five, I mean, when I'm Q, I mean the NAD variants, all those different things. I make sure that's always maximized. The way I exercise is unique.

It's not so much I'm doing like I'm not, I'm not the gym. We're lifting these heavy, heavy weights. It's more of a. Mixed between anaerobic and aerobic that I kind of came up with with the whole Mr. USA thing, which has worked out very well for me for the past, geez, 20 years. I'm really getting older, but it's, it's fun. And then like, you know, sleep is the biggest one. So I just, I do this gigantic test every, every three months, which I mean, it's the most in-depth test I think in the country, let alone the world right now.

And, you know, I always take a look at it and the, my, my immune system is something I've always struggled with because, because I, I, I, uh, atopia, you know, sub-areic dermatitis, all this stuff that I mean, I can't get rid of it because it's going to be,

Personal Optimization, Habits, and Rapid Fire 28:38

it's kind of inborn. So I'm always battling with that plus EBV and things like that. I do like the party. I'm human. I go out. My emotional health is great. You know what I mean? Like, so if I go off the rails, I travel a lot. You know, I'm doing all, I just got back from Uganda where Nina Silverback really got in a fight. I mean, all kinds of craziness, but you know, so my stress is always, it was always kind of high, even though I'm the most relaxed guy you ever meet. It's just like I travel a lot, I do a lot of things.

So right now my focus for the next two months is my actual immune system. So we're doing a lot of unique things like the thymusine alphas, a lot of unique IVs, the Ibu, curcumin, high dose vitamin C's, the methylene blues, just to really focus on the immune system. So I always pick out something every, you know, a couple of months that like, okay, let's get this back in check, get this back in check. And it works pretty well. I mean, like I'm 41, I think I'm in better shape than when I was playing, you know, hockey at a high level or even doing the Mr.

USX. Yeah, yeah, it's that wisdom that comes with age and you know your body well and you know what works and and then like you're optimizing things so then you can add in the other layers for fun and and I think that that's the fun part like I I don't know like when I my patients like practicing in Northwest Ohio, there wasn't a lot of integrative medicine doctors there. I was the only one. And so I would see just like lots of different people, but most of them just had things on fire, right? Like they had big problems.

So it's really nice when people come to me just to optimize or those patients that were on fire. And I'm like, well, now we can do the longevity stuff and the fun stuff. Yeah. And but not everyone wants to do that, but I don't know. I love when I meet a fellow like biohacker or, you know, just someone that wants to optimize their health. Like it's so fun to talk about it. Yeah. My only challenge is right now is fitting it in with like four kids in their schedule. So that's, that's something that I...

My goodness. I tell everybody, I have no children that I know of. So that stress level is low on me right now. Yeah. Well, you said you did, you did have your dogs that you have to go back to. I do have my dogs, but thankfully enough, I have an amazing dog walker. He's actually the grandfather. I actually had adopted one and I'm not a big fan of neutering a dog. You know what I mean? Like, you know, cause it messes with their metabolism. They turn it up like sausage looking dog. You know what I mean?

Like estrogen dominant dog. I mean, I guess you could say. And then, so I sat there and again, the guy's super good friend of mine. So I sent me and I get a frantic phone call. I just came home and Clyde was attached to one of my dogs. I'm like, Oh no. But she was attached to somebody else. First, I'm like, broffle over there, what's going on? So it was on Christmas and like, you know, the dog was doing, it was either my dog who had done it or my friend who's a chiropractor here. His dog was attached to, he was a husky.

And it was funny, like he sent me the video of the first puppy. I'm like, it's my dog, you know, there's no edge. So I have the father and then beautiful, beautiful dogs. But I tell you what, for the 10%, I love them. The other 90% is tough. I'll be honest, but they're amazing. They really are. I love them. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's fun. Yeah. I mean, we like, I'm watching like our guineas and our chickens like walking around in the yard and. But there's a lot of loss like when we free range because you know free ranging better eggs and they're happier.

You have to be prepared to just like lose them. Like we just lost one yesterday a guinea fowl like I don't know where he went. He just peaced out. So we even like drove the four-wheelers around my five-year-old and I did the property to look for him and we didn't see him. So we don't we don't know if I'll come back. What? We never know. Yeah, we'll see. I'm trying. I'm not as emotional about it because I've had so many friends. They're like, if you have chickens, just be prepared for like to lose them.

Like don't even name them. And I'm like, okay. Yeah, for sure. So it's different. I grew up on a dairy farm. I hear you. I'm really good at keeping people alive, like farm animals. That's like a next level thing for me. All new blog. People are easy. Like people are easy, right? They'll like tell you things. Like animals do not. They're going to look at you then drop dead and be like, okay, what was that? You know what I mean? Right. Exactly. Well, okay. Anything else before you wrap up? I have some questions to ask you.

No, shoot fire away. Okay. Rapid fire. Okay. So Dr. Ivan, what would be the first career you almost chose instead of medicine? Professional hockey. Oh yeah, that's right. You did say that. Okay. It was a really unique thing. I was accepted to medical school early at Leecom and I was accepted two weeks later to play professional hockey in the OHL for the Erie Otters, go figure. Oh my God, the Otters! Yeah, my dad was just like, well, I'll support you both ways emotionally and one way financially.

If you get hurt, And that doggone dad never supported me financially the other way, that son of a bitch. But yeah, everything was good. All right. What's your favorite micro habit that rescues a tough day? Piano. So I teach myself a different instrument every year. So I've got the guitar, electric guitar, piano, and I'm working on harmonica. You could start your own band. Is that nice? I'm trying. I'm really like those weirdos on the street. After I get retired, I want to have the whole clapping monkeys and everything going.

It'd be great. There you go. There you go. I'll buy you your album. What is one wellness rule you happily break sometimes? Travel. No matter how I happily break, I would say alcohol. I mean, honestly, it's one of my favorite things to do. And again, I'm good at it. But I know how to do it correctly and I was real myself back in and I always know when it goes too far. My seborrheic dermatitis is the best gauge of if I need to stop drinking for a little bit. So it's a situation where it's like, but again, I'd say emotional health is just as important as physical and mental.

I really like that balance. And actually that comes up a lot for my patients when I talk to them about it. And I'm like, yeah, like, or I'm sure people ask you like, oh, you drink and they're surprised. And yeah, you got to have that. We're human. You know what I mean? Yeah. My husband got me really into like bourbon. So now we're talking. I like your husband. I have to meet him. Yes, with a big cube. But that's one thing. If you go to a restaurant and I'm like, if they don't have the big cube, I'm like, I'm out.

I can't do it. Exactly. That's not bourbon drinking if there's no big cube. Exactly. All right. Now, and last thing, what is one word you want listeners to carry into this week with? Sleep. most important thing you'll do. Sleep. Yeah. I love it. So Dr. Ivan, fellow Leacom grad, where can people find you if they can afford you? How can they be your patient? I tell everybody I'm a wealth of knowledge. I will talk all day about salting crackers or whatever you want me to. So I'm very easy, very approachable.

I also have my own podcast. It's called the Lifestyle Medicine Podcast. It's hosted by Axis Medical Labs. So you can check that out on Apple, on Spotify, Send to Care, we have all kinds of different things there. And then my personal is Dr. Ivan Rosilko app on Instagram. Be careful though, because you won't know I'm a doctor if you go to that one. If you go to Lifestyle Medicine on Instagram, then it's more medical. So it depends on what part of me you want to see. Oh yeah, there you go. So what, what part of your fantasy?

You want doctor, you want the weightlifter guy. Crazy jumping out of planes, doing all kinds of craziness. So actually I'm getting ready. I leave for Norway in a month. Watch, I go to a clinic in Bahrain, but then I go to Norway. I'm snorkeling with orcas and humpbacks under the Northern lights. So it should be an interesting one. Yeah, those will be good pictures to see. Well, Thank you so much for your time and your expertise and it was a great conversation and I'm sure the listeners listened a lot.

So go check out Dr. Ivan's podcast and his Instagram and all the things. So thank you. Thank you so much. It's been such a fun chat. Leecom all the way, right? Thank you for tuning into Doctor Talks. We hope today's episode has enlightened and inspired you on your path to optimal health. Each day is a new opportunity to make choices that empower your well-being. For more insights and strategies, subscribe to our podcast and visit our website, www.doctortalks.com. Stay connected, stay healthy, and join us next time on Doctor Talks.

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