Peptides, Faith, and the Truth About Weight Loss

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For any questions or assistance, email our customer service team at cs at IntegratedPeptides dot com or text us at 4437325272. Your support helps keep this podcast going strong. Thank you, Integrative Peptides. Now let's jump into today's conversation. Like when you talk about the media and what the medium's onto, I think you're a hundred percent correct. When you talked about social media too, social is something that people tend to treat as, as like a photo album. Mike, when we were young, people put photo albums out on their table and they weren't, they were just the highlights.

of life, right?

Dave Knappu2019s Obesity and Diabetes Journey 1:14

It's birthdays, it's all these things like you don't typically, you know, open a photo album to see how people struggled in life. And so social media is kind of the same way. So you get a lot of really positive stories. I lost 300 pounds and two years, whatever. Welcome to the Peptides and Longevity podcast. Each week, we'll dive into groundbreaking science, innovative therapies, and the future of health and longevity. Alongside visionary physicians and experts, We'll explore how peptides, cutting edge medicine and lifestyle strategies can redefine the way we age.

Get ready to transform your health, optimize your vitality, And unlock the secrets to a longer, healthier life. Let's get started. Hey everybody, I want to welcome you back to the Peptides and Bioregulator Summit. I have joining with me today a super husband, super dad, a man of God, an incredible podcaster. The list goes on and on, and the man, the myth, legend himself, Dave Knapp. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks for the warm intro, man. I appreciate it. It's nice to meet you. And as a fan of what integrative peptides does, I've been eager to have this conversation for a while.

So I'm so excited. We share a lot in common when it comes to the health journey. peptides when it comes to issues like type 2 diabetes or even just weight loss in general and the struggle that is really like the American plague, I feel like is we're all just fighting that daily because we are bombarded with this system of food and lifestyle that just caters to you know, increased body weight and lethargy and stuff that just turns into chronic illness, but it creeps up on us. And before you knew it, we're hit with something.

You know with me, it was cardiovascular issues and I was in the emergency room and it's a wake up call to sobriety and just different things that I had to take that journey to the next level. I know that you have similar stories too, so I'm excited to connect, man. It's awesome. Yeah, likewise. I feel like you just started to tell my own story. So looking forward to finding all the connecting points because like, you said, there's a lot there. To that, yeah. Why don't you get started with that? I've, I felt like our audience would love to hear your story and how you got to be the man of the peptide kingdom.

The man on the Majaro. Well, okay. So we've got 25 minutes here. For me, a podcaster that loves to talk, you're going to have to keep me corralled here, but here's my story in a nutshell. I've struggled with obesity my entire life. Obesity and diabetes is rampant on my mother's side. It's funny, if you look at me and you'd look my siblings, I don't look anything like my sibling, and I look exactly like cousins on mother side, So very dominant in the genetics from my mother's side of the family. And there's, there is type two diabetes there.

There's obesity there, but the whole gamut, cardiovascular issues, et cetera. So I've struggled with obesity from, you know, I'd say high school, high-school age is when I really started to realize that, that I had a propensity to be overweight. and, uh, definitely where I started a pack, some of pounds on. You know, it's funny. Like I've always been into radio, talk radio specifically. I just grew up, I know this is going to cause, you know certain people to cringe, but like I grew a Rush baby.

And I listened to Rush Limbaugh from the town. It's like in the cradle. Until the time that I got my like driver's license. and I remember just driving around and listening to talk, radio. So I started to develop this passion for talk at a young age. Then as I kind of got older, uh, always worked in restaurants. And so fast food like became like, you know, just kind of like what I leaned on for food, because I was working in fast-food. I got all this access to free food. Always had money in my pocket, cause I always working from like the time I 14. And I've always been kind a foodie too.

So this is high school. Started to pack on the weight a little bit. Fast forward to, like we're glossing over a lot of life. Married my high-school sweetheart, had four kids. but ended up at a very high weight, 319 pounds in 2021 on a five foot 10 frame. So OB, morbidly obese as they would say. And I was just feeling bad, went into the doctor and he's like, yeah, you're probably feeling because your A1C is a seven nine, which is pretty high. I know I always tell my wife, I don't mean to sound crass, but I either have cancer and I'm dying or something is very wrong to the Doctor.

You know, sort of fresh off of the COVID era and I was just skeptical of everything. Just really, it's, and even today, It's just so hard to parse what is real, what Is true, What is trustworthy. And so anyways, the doctor said, well, do you want to do Dave? And I'm like, no, I don't want To be on medicine. I'll tell you that much. and he's like well all right, then you're going to Do keto. I'm happy to do it. I understand the science behind it, I know I'll keep my blood sugars low, but I've stopped losing weight on it because I yo-yo'd on for like 20 years in my adult life.

So I did it. I was like, doc, I'll do it if I'm going to live longer. So for a full year, 2021 fall to fall of 2022, just hardcore keto, pricking my finger, testing my ketones, DGM, the gamut, right? I get to the end of that year. My A1C is down under six, so like a 5.4. so I just completely controlled my A 1C, but my weight went from 319 to 312. I shed that,

Discovering GLP-1s and On The Pen 7:01

you know, seven pounds of water weight that everybody does when they cut out the carbohydrates. But I didn't lose any weight. And it wasn't surprising to me, but it was incredibly defeating because I'd never worked harder. The keto diet is a very hard lifestyle change to keep long term. I mean, there's lots of studies on it. Not knocking people who do it, to maintain it if you've done it for any period of time, how hard it is, especially with the food environment that we live in. So he said at that time, he's like, well, we didn't get your weight down, but you're probably a candidate for bariatric surgery.

And I was like whatever is gonna make me live longer for my kids. My dad died at 54 from a massive heart attack. Now I'm like not even 40 years old, I got type two diabetes. I know all of the associated comorbidities and risks and the fact that that right out of that gate means I'll probably live a shorter life by the numbers, all that, right? So I look on my formulary and I don't have coverage for obesity surgery, metabolic surgery And so in hindsight was probably like a blessing, right? But he says, well, there's these medications that really are mimicking hormonally what bariatric surgery does.

And he explains to me, you know, bariatric surgery, really everybody thinks that it just works by reducing the amount of food that you take in. He goes, that is true, but how it does it is what people don't understand. It does by rebalancing these hormones that are stimulated when you eat and these Uh, are all sorts of dysregulated in people with diabetes and obesity. And there's this regulation that comes back into play and these drugs are helping people to accomplish that. So I set out to learn everything there was to.

Learn about these medications and there is no good information online about them other than people who are like, yeah, I'm on. I was epic and I lost 50 pounds. A lot of that content, but nothing about like what are they, where'd they come from? How do they work? And that's especially kind of fresh off the COVID era and not like really super trusting a lot of the information that was out there. I just wasn't going to accept something on surface level. So I really dug into it and started sharing it.

And, that would ultimately sort of turn into this thing we call On The Pen, which is now an obesity medicine news platform where we're just constantly sharing the data that is dropping about these medications. that we're sharing about the future of these medications. Accessibility is a huge thing because all of a sudden you have these peptides that are absolutely seem to be the antidote to the standard American diet and what that's doing to us metabolically. And so accessibility really like you could have the biggest breakthrough in the world, but if people can't get access to it, what good is it?

That's the kind of stuff we cover and really have just kind been known or become known in industry for covering that type of and a trusted place for patients to come to to get information. Wow. That's incredible. What a journey. Take a big breath now. Okay. So I told you, I talk, for a living. No, you're like me. I'm a professional yapper is usually what I tell people because I do it for living, yeah. Maybe not at your level, but I mean, they're educating doctors on peptides or I am playing music on stage or in a ministry capacity talking to people about healing the soul.

My daily walk is It's filled with conversation. And my dad always told me that if you're great at conversation and you got wit and charm, there's literally nothing that you can't do and no place you cant go with those two qualities. So it's a blessing to talk to someone with the same skill set. I used to tell my patients, my superhero origin story is I had two traumatic brain injuries back to back, one when I was 12 and one I when was 13. One practicing fake kick in the theater class. I myself am a five, nine man with six, three brothers.

God made me more compact, but he gave me a different skill set. And he gave me better hairline than them and a better beard and some different qualities when it comes to charm. And so practicing fake kick, I hit the back of my head on a metal podium corner. I cracked the front of forehead open on linoleum floor, rushed to the emergency room, a $20,000 bill. with no help a diagnosis of post-concussive syndrome and then that was basically it. A year later I was in a random drive-by, I got shot out three times in the face, nicked my left ear, left brain injury and got up and was pretty much mute with learning disabilities.

I had ate myself into being a type 2 diabetic and I went up developing Tourette syndrome in dropping out of high school when I Sorry, escalated really fat. It went from here to, you know, and so I was completely debilitated, basically had body dysmorphia. I kind of the opposite of you, I like Syndrome X, skinny fat, so you I rocking like an A cup chest on a very, very small frame of like 120 pounds. And I couldn't gain weight, but my blood sugars were still super high. And that's another kind of, the other side of the piece of a puzzle when it comes to, you know, how we're hit with metabolic conditions, it doesn't always manifest the same body to body.

You know there's people out there struggling with skinny fat syndrome, there are people struggling out with weight loss and obesity and so I found a functional medicine doctor and a funk neuro-chiropractor and they took me from totally debilitated to fully healed in three years. and I made that my expertise. Knowledge that you don't regurgitate from forced education becomes a superpower because we apply it to ourselves. Just like your story, you're the walking testimony of what happens when you You know, use a GLP-1 correctly when you couple it with something maybe like sobriety and you stop consuming alcohol or reduce your alcohol consumption.

When you balance out a diet that doesn't yo-yo and it becomes balanced, all those are like the sweet spots that just push you into a healthier and healthier state. So I wanted becoming an integrative health coach. I went to working inside clinics and I've dedicated my life to empowering people on a healing journey to inspire hope, which I know you do probably every time on the pen. You're, you know, helping people, to have hope in this. And I don't think there's anything, I tell people my healing duration could have been cut in half if I had peptides back then.

That was 18 years ago. I didn't know what a peptide was. And now I'm glad that we have access to them because I feel like they shorten the duration with little to no side effects and it makes it easier for patients to see the results they want. It's a less hefty thing like having a procedure, like, they were offering you. Just to fill in the gap there, I'm like, it's cool that we both used to be a type G diabetic. We're both believers. You both have had quite a journey and, you know, look at us now.

Where we're helping educate others and inspire people on their journey. It's pretty awesome. Yeah, it's a huge blessing to be able to find something that you I mean, I worked for years and years in restaurants and I remember how, you know, worked up people would get in that industry. It's very stressful industry to work in. And I'd always try to remind people like, Hey, we're serving spaghetti and meatballs here. Like it. rocket science, we don't have to stress, you know, and so I worked many years in a job that was, much less fulfilling.

You always try to find the meaning as a believer, You're always trying to finding the meeting in what you're doing and why God has you and maybe seasons of life that you don' understand or you feel like you are in this endless loop, like God keeps bringing you back to these moments where it's like, okay, Jokes over, like, what are you trying to teach me here so we can move on and level up here? But it's such a blessing to be able to wake up and do something that you love and are passionate about.

True that. Amen to that all day long. So I'm curious on your GLP-1 experience, did you start with traditionals like Ozempic and all of it? Did you move through the gambit of trying find the one that had the least amount of side effects with the most benefits? I wish that I would have. Actually, I was introduced right off the bat to Manjaro, which is, you know, for those who are listening. I don't know how educated you all are on GLP-1 specifically, but Manjarro currently is the king of the hill in terms of, we call them, incretin therapies.

Now, Incretins are a class of hormones in your body. Not telling you this, But for, those, who, are new to this. Anchortins are nutrient-stimulated hormones and your body just makes them when you eat. They're hugely dysregulated in people with especially type 2 diabetes because your gut bacteria is all sorts of out of whack, right? And the byproduct of this bad gut bacterium is something called DPP4. And it destroys these nutrients, stimulated hormones. That's like what it exists to do. And so actually the first class of medicines that predates GLP ones were just DPP for inhibitors, right?

Instead of like getting to the root cause of why is your gut bacteria so screwed up? We're just like, let's kill off what these bacteria are producing. Right? before inhibitors came along and they just kind of destroyed this byproduct of gut bacteria to let your naturally occurring, you know, incremented hormones thrive. Well, then they found a way to sort of wrap, to mimic these hormones with peptides and wrap them in a fat molecule so they'd just last a long time in your body. And Menjaro and ZetBound actually mimics two hormones not just GLP-1, but also this other hormone called GIP, and it's actually five times stronger a G.I.P.

medicine than GLp-I, so when people call Mengeron's upbound a GL p-one, it actually kind of a little bit of an incorrect couching of what it is. It's more so a g.i.p. meditation. I found this first and currently it the king of the hill both in controlling type 2 diabetes and controlling obesity in terms of weight. Wow, that's incredible. And I'm curious because I've never been on a GLP-1 myself. But what's the feeling when you got started with Manjaro? I feel like the media either propagates scarcity around side effects for people who overdose.

Or they tout amazing benefits.

Mounjaro Experience and Alcoholu2019s Impact 16:48

It's the answer to everything you've been looking for. And I've never really heard someone kind of balance out the, you know, in between what's, the actual reality of when you start, what do you feel like? What's it working on growling, leptin? It gets rid of hunger noise. You know kind, of what what your experience with all that? Yeah, so I think my experience probably a bit more reflective of what people experience in the real world en masse. Like, I feel like my story has been a little bit even keel.

I mean, as a type 2 diabetic, you tend to respond from a weight loss perspective less so than people who aren't diabetic because it's addressing some other metabolic underlying issues that you don't have to address if people aren' t diabetic. But my experience was kind of profound at first because I started to feel full and the feeling of fullness, the. Of eating a certain amount of food and then having your body go to was like, it was foreign. Like I remember telling people when I would get online and talk about it, I was.

I feel like a normal person. I feels like what it must feel for most people who sit down in front of a meal and they consume the meal, and then they don't feel they're already thinking about what am I going to eat next because this isn't doing it for me. Especially in settings with other people where you don' want to be the guy that's going back. You know, this obviously overweight that's like going back for a second helping or something like that. So the feeling of fullness to me was like foreign and such a welcome and exciting feeling over time.

It faded, you know? I actually got up to the highest dose, 15 milligrams very quickly within like four months. Now there's, like, I can't remember how many doses, 2.5, 5, 10, 12.52. There's six different doses till you get to high dose. I had to skip a couple of those doses because they just weren't available. They weren' around. So many people were on the medication and they weren''t manufacturing a ton of it at the time. And you could get it like basically free with a savings card there and you didn'''t even have to have diabetes.

It was a quick titration up. I got to the 15 really fast and it peaked from a weight loss perspective and like what it was going to do from satiety standpoint pretty quick. And so I lost that, you know, I went from like 2, 3, 12 down to I think at my lowest weight within the first like five months I got down 2.76 and then that was like within four months and so this is early 2023. So from early 2023 to about May of this year 2025, It was just like a yo-yo between that 276 and like all the way back up to 299. So I actually gained weight on the 15 milligram dose.

I even went off this and tried Ozempic for a little while. then ultimately came back to, to Majaro. But yeah, just kind of like the same old story. I yo-yoed. And I never got back up to where I was, you know, which my high of 319, I've never actually got over 300 pounds, but it was just this yo yoing and that's how much you want to get into it or how time we have left. Ultimately led me to like a medical event that put me in a hospital this year. without getting into the weeds on what it was. It was like a cardiac thing for me too.

They thought that I might've been in heart failure. And so I just said to God in the hospital room and to my wife, I basically just repented of the ways that God was bringing to mind in that moment that wasn't taking care of myself, that it wasn' doing the extra thing. The last two and a half years building this bike, basically startup company, when you think about it, just like being in startup mode and I let myself rely too much on alcohol in terms of like, that was just what I fell back to, to relax at night and to turn my brain off.

And in that time, since in, in the moment I basically told God, I told my wife, it's like I'm done with alcohol. God's brought that to mind. I'm done with it. So since May, I haven't drank and it's like that flipped a metabolic switch for me and opened up my body to being just able to shed the weight a lot easier. People might say, what's the calories in alcohol? I'd cut out alcohol for you know a week or two weeks or even up to I think six weeks at a time I would cut it out to see if I'd lose weight and I never did but it like after I hit about three months off of it it's like there was a light switch that went off in my body my blood sugars it' like I'm not diabetic anymore honestly like my bludgeon I realize I am on you medication but like they just don't spike like the used to maybe go upto like 120 if i eat carbs So it's just like a metabolic switch.

And then I do love the integrated peptides products. I've used can't wait off and on this helped me, but like I got back on the can wait like two or three weeks ago and, and it helped to break past that. Like it got down to two 72 and I was like, then it was kind of waffling going back up. They can't wait again. And now I think today when I weighed in, I was like 268. Wow, that's awesome. So it's just like at that added level of appetite suppression. That's a lot of information. Man, what a powerful story.

I can completely resonate with that because I had been like a skinny short guy most of my life and I got to the point where I using alcohol to nurse anxiety. Honestly, it was to run away from the pain of unforgiveness and the pains of things I didn't feel like facing. And I started to feel I was living a double life. I'm like a Christian man who's hiding alcoholism. The stories weren't coinciding and it led to a cardiac incident for myself. C. diff bacteria infection. I went sepsis and I was in sinus tachycardia.

My heart rate is 200 beats per minute. my hands and feet were atrophying. It was Halloween night. There'll be three years, October 31st. The very clear message was don't hold on to unforgiveness and no more alcohol the rest of your life. And when I did that, similar to you, because alcohol shifts your biological terrain in such a negative way, it messes with your liver. It messs with with digestion. it actually creates an acidic environment for bacteria and pathogens to overwhelm your digestive system.

And really a lot of these GLP-1 medications or even things like can't wait. with using DNF 10, they're modifying the terrain from a digestion perspective. So it's sort of like you can cancel it out. You can be taking the medication or in our case, the supplement, but you could be doing things that's allowing it to not be as effective as it could. And I was in a similar situation to you. I repent of things this double life led to. When I got out of it for the first two weeks, I had so much mental clarity on the journey of how God was going to use me that I was like, okay, this is what clarity feels like for first time of my life.

I mean, started drinking in my 20s and it became part of the culture, the whiskey bearded ginger man culture. that I felt like I had to have because I was living in identity and those substances were making me feel like i had a flush out and so I just resonate with that so much because i like the fact that you're holding yourself accountable inside your lifestyle so you are not just relying on peptides or these medications to be the hundred percent answer. And that's where I feel like if you're working with integrative health coaches or a good functional medicine doctor, someone who has your back, they're going to look at your body as a whole terrain.

They're gonna use these things to push you into healthy habits, drink more water, exercise, you know, do the things that really will shift your body into a positive direction and then it makes it easier. I feel like when you're on those things, even things like can't wait, as food noise gets turned down, As your digestion improves, inflammation comes down. It's easier to get out and exercise. it's easy to do things that you want to with your kids or with you wife. I'm glad that we have those little things that can nudge us in the right direction, but they don't become like the identity again of some, you have to have it your whole life.

And it's sort of a balancing act between lifestyle and terrain and these medications or supplements to help you come into homeostasis. That's what I would always tell patients for a long time, like, let this be the nudge you need to get you in the position to do things that you want to again. And really, I feel like we are, our bodies are a temple. So we're called to use this to the glory of God, you know, for an example to other people. I'm just proud of your journey. It's incredible, Dave. You're freaking crushing it.

I love that you're adding in a supplement alongside Manjaro because I think sometimes people don't think they can combine that. And I found a huge success rate with patients using whatever GLP-1 they like, Retrutatide, Trezipatid, they kind of find the one that fits them. Then using Can't Wait on top, it's almost like double the benefits with a lot less side effects. We will get right back to the episode, but first a quick thank you to our sponsor, Integrative Peptides. If you are enjoying today's conversation and want to support your health and longevity, visit integrativepeptides dot com and use the code PODLIFE for an exclusive listener discount.

That's integratvepep-tides-dot-com. Code P.O.D.L.I.F.E. Now back the the I feel like the can't wait so it's kind of interesting how I discovered it but I I Discovered it looking when I was looking at the pharmaceutical

Peptides, Gut Health, and Root Causes 26:18

industry and I looking a peptides There's this whole you know like thread that we could pull at all day about how do you even patent a Peptide that mimics something your body makes and there's a whole like literally I just recorded my podcast this morning spent a good bit of time talking about it, but i was Looking at Why do we even have to, why don't we just bring peptides to market as supplements that can help with these things like food noise? And that ultimately led me to discover DNF10. And then when I was looking, I've learned a lot about the CGMP and manufacturing these in really controlled environments and the safety and quality of all this stuff.

So I found you could get DNf10 from other sources. but oftentimes the source was sketchy. And then also the quantity of the DNF10 that you get and like something you buy off Amazon is lacking like quite a bit if you compare the amount of DNf10. So obviously another peptide that helps to work on things like leptin and ghrelin, these hormones that are, I firmly believe this is where I get off and the medical community starts to label me a wackadoo. But, you know, our standard American diet, I firmly believe, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and I do believe sometimes intentionally, is designed to destroy that which God has created your body to handle naturally, right?

So that you become reliant, similarly to the way that we become relyant on pharmaceuticals, since you've become relying on that food product, they find workarounds from these hormones that God has given you to control satiety and they literally attack those hormones. And so you get all this dysregulation that there needs to be some sort of antidote for. When you talk about obesity, a lot of people struggle with the idea of obesity as a disease, but when you actually look at obesity First of all, there's genetic factors.

You look through a family lineage and you can kind of pull that thread a little bit. There's lots of studies done on that. But then when you get into the hormonal dysregulation, and like even we were talking about earlier, the DPP4 that destroys these incretin hormones, There are things happening biologically that need to be addressed to level the metabolic playing field to allow your body to do what it does naturally. And that is, you know, to reach this homeostasis, which includes, your ideal weight.

Yeah, I agree. I've been adding in... I don't know if you've ever tried it, Dave, but Integrative Peptides makes another product called Gut Feeling. And Gut feeling has... There you go. Of course you got it. But I love mixing can't wait with gut feeling, especially if someone wants to start on like the supplemental side of... weight loss and they're not quite ready to run into the Manjaro camp or those types of those medication. And I would have patients come back and in a healthy steady way month over month, they notice less inches, a couple pounds.

It was a steady, slow and steady wins the race, but they improve their digestion. They went to pooping two or three times a day. They had more energy. they felt more mental clarity. And I love the synergy between them because in Can't Wait, you're working on ghrelin and leptin reducing food noise. But in Gut Feeling, that arcmancia has been found as a keystone probiotic in patients of a healthy weight. So you literally start to shift the terrain of your digestion to tell it, let's be one of those healthy patients.

And it's just, it makes huge gains in the journey of weight loss for any one my patient. When you look at the pharmaceutical landscape, everything is focused on the gut and the hormones that are made in a gut, because that's ultimately where all of these hormones, that signaling satiety in your brain, they're originating in you gut. And so, like I said earlier, you know, pharmaceuticals answer is to sort of just kind of band-aid what is wrong. So we'll increase, through a. through a peptide that mimics your natural hormone.

We'll just make one that lasts forever and can't be destroyed by what's wrong with your body. What's Wrong is DPP4. what is wrong is your gut health. So I think it's important for anyone who is looking at these pharmaceutical therapies to also be looking what are the root causes of this. I talked about my podcast today, you know, a company called Fractal Health that's looking at a procedure to maintain your weight once you lose it with the GLP-1 or however you loose it. But the surface of the duodenum, which is the first part of your gut after your stomach, you know, God has designed your duodinum So that the mucosal lining of your duodenum has cells in it that sense the nutrients that you just ate, and then it sets off a cascade of release of these hormones.

Well, what have they found at Fractal? They've found that, the standard American diet, obesity and diabetes destroys that mUCosA lining. And if they can go in and do like an ablation, kind of like a face peel of the surface of you duodinum, those cells regenerate and the stimulation of those hormones is restored. You're just always looking at ways that you can address the underlying thing. And that's where I look at something like a gut feeling. That's going to actually help to bring gut health back to you so that your body can get back.

To making these hormones and creating an environment that is, is where your bodies supposed to be. Like in addition to people who are really metabolically sick, I think that where it kind of like you get into like the conversation, the maha movement and everything where that conversations miss misses it is that there are people. Who are very metabolical. 100%. Right. So let's address that. And maybe, you know, a good bit of those people will need pharmaceutical stuff to get there. But once you get their, how do you maintain?

How do restore health? Because these aren't restoring health as much as they're helping your body create an environment to to a proper weight. You know the same foods. are in our environment still, the toxins, and the alcohol, all of that is going to work to bring you back to where you were. So finding that optimal health, it's a 360 degree way of looking at it. And I feel like it is so cool Dave to hear a man talk about these subjects because I would say 99% of the patient base, at least at the clinic I used to worked at, they are all women and children.

And it was like the wife was always trying to force the husband to come see me because she knew if he changed, it would be easier for the whole family to change. So I'm thankful for you to voice it out there because I feel like sometimes men are starved for information like this. And the only thing you're bombarded with on social media is people who are a thousand times fitter than you, screaming at you for not doing enough in the gym. you know, obese, and it almost brings guilt and shame to a situation that's way more complex than, you now, they're built with these perfect genetics, not like you and I who are predisposed to cardiovascular issues, diabetes, heart disease, all these different things, so I feel like it's nice to have a voice of the people.

You know, on a man-to-man level of saying like, hey, this is a tough journey, but you know there's solutions and there are ways to get to hit your goals so that you're the best man that can be for your family, for you community. And I just appreciate that because I feel like there is resurgence of men taking their health seriously. And it's going to be empowering to the women and children. And we're sort of seeing like a transition over here. So I just like to create a different social network, a social scape of things that people can look at, watch.

It's not just the same narrative of a gym bro yelling at you for not doing seven hours of cardio every morning fasted while drinking 40 bottles of some elixir they've created in their closet. That type of stuff is old school news. And so do things with intelligence. May this conversation launch you on a hope journey that, you know, can bring balance to you, whether you're going to use Manjaro or something like it. Maybe you start with something, like DNF 10 and can't wait or gut feeling, but whatever it is, let it be.

You know I used to tell my patients, if you are investing in peptides, wether it's on the medication side or the supplement side, You know, may it be a reminder every time you take it to make a healthy decision for yourself. Drink water, go on a walk, take your dog on the walk. Go on walk with your kids. It does not have to be what the social terrain tells us it does. Like you do not to have be at the gym feeling ashamed or indifferent and just start slow, you know. And I would just add to that, it doesn't have to follow kind of the social terrain.

And it also doesn' have follow the political terrain because what I've found is the politcal debate in this country that has hijacked health. And it's in everything with politics becomes this either or like you have to be either this or that. And where, especially when the, with the topic of obesity and I'm talking clinical obesity, not just overweight here, but clinical. It's become this, either, or you to do it naturally. You have make lifestyle modifications, you, have do all these things.

Faith, Mindset, and Healing Perspective 35:48

If you just did these like I did, then you would lose the weight. No. But then you have this other camp that's like, it's only pharmaceuticals. And it is like why does everything have to be an either or? It's a both and for most people. You may need pharmaceutical therapy to address underlying metabolic dysfunction, but that is not at the expense of identifying things that you had agency over in your own life. It is it not that, you can't also include holistic natural supplementation or dietary changes to address those metabolic issues.

It's much more nuanced than the world wants to make it be. Agreed. I definitely agree. My dad, who's a pastor, he told me, Michael, there's this secret that Paul wrote in Philippians. He was like, if you can find this out, your life will be so much easier. And Paul said, whatever state he found himself to be in, and there he was content. So my dad was, like the secret to a good life is to content and so I feel like what kind of rips the political space away because that space is placating on division and false unification.

And it makes me so sick because people are torn in that camp mentally and really above that spiritually is to find contentment in your body. Find contentment in your routine. Find a way to be at peace where you're not having to told what to do. You're empowered as a sovereign citizen to make your own choice. Away from other people trying to tell you what goal for patients, clients that I've worked with in the past is like, I want you to be empowered. I wants you get out there and you make that positive change and that difference as a sovereign citizen.

And that way you sort of silence those outside voices from trying to influence you. And that's the part of the thing too, is I've started to like cut off the TV and cutoff the programming of what I'm seeing, the algorithms that are created from technology to influence our decision making. I have been getting in a quiet space and I feel like things that shift the mind completely take over the body. So, meditation and spiritual practices. Dave, I'm curious on this journey, how did your spiritual practice improve or influence the progress of how you made it to where you are today?

It's a great question. Everything I view or analyze in my own life is always through the lens of what does this mean to me as a follower of Jesus? What does it mean for me to be a creation of God? sort of the lens by which I view all things. I think at first, the hardest thing for me was accepting this idea that obesity is a disease because with a very religious upbringing, and I use the word religious intentionally, With a very religious upbringing, you are sort of taught that you a hundred percent of the time have agency over all the outcomes.

When it comes to the disease of obesity, I think we just have a lot to learn. And so like it was a learning experience, an educational experience for me at first, just to about the diseases of Obesity and learn that, Hey, there are metabolic factors at play here that are beyond your control. So I, think, sort wrestling with that for the first couple of years, which was You know, a hard thing to get my head around. I think I'm starting to, to give my hat around it in a better way now than I was maybe the first year or two that I.

Making content about this, but you know I, I often better at times than others, especially when I struggle, you I definitely fall back harder into the word of God and into time alone with God. And I'd say, in the last four months, like as I've sort of surrendered. the alcohol and sort of like let God, let that just be like, that was something that I held onto for a long time. Like I knew that it wasn't great for me. I mean, it's so ridiculous. So much of this like journey, you know, It makes sense like logically, right?

Duh, of course, if you take alcohol out of the situation, gone to be healthier, duh, You're going to lose weight because of calories. Like obviously on a logical and cerebral level, all of that makes sense. But alcohol was definitely one of those things that I think my spirit always fight it against giving up because it's like, I don't have a problem with it. I'm not drinking till get obliterated. In those moments, you tell yourself a lot of things and it really isn't until you really surrender it and just say, this is yours, God.

Like if you want me to have alcohol in my life, then you're gonna have to speak to me as clearly as you just did when you put me in the hospital and I thought I had heart failure at 30. Like that's a big wake up call. And I said that, you know, just surrendered it at that moment. Obviously, God, You're highlighting this specific area. Because I wasn't there because of the alcohol. I was there and I analyzing and identifying the things that weren't getting me to, as you said, the optimal version of myself so that I can show up the way that need to show as a father, a husband, believer, leader of a community.

Sorry, this is another long-winded answer from a podcaster. always viewing things through the lens of what God is going to use with something and Surrendering even my platform to God. How will you use this because at the end of the day? I don't I care far less about people Discovering better healthier versions of themselves than I do people discovering Jesus And so just you know trying to figure out how that all works into it, too So it's always ever before me is how God might use something that we're doing here on the pen Man, I love that.

That's beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing, Dave. I've been talking a lot on this. And I feel like sometimes I'm the bridge of like a new age community and the Christian community, and I been kind of in the functional medicine and integrative world. They're kind all, you know, combining and, new-age people are coming back to Jesus and Jesus people realizing that new aged people weren't as crazy as they thought they were and they're tapped into something that was, biblically relevant, but they are not demonic.

All these different debates out there, but I find that I've been talking about a book from this guy named Bruce Lipton. It's called The Biology of Belief. And he literally shows how our cells are programmed by what we think and by we speak. So if you look at that from a biblical perspective, it says the tongue is the littlest member of your body, but it controls your entire outcome. And so if we can be hijacked in thinking in a way of ourselves negatively and speaking out about ourselves and others, then we're already on the road to misinformation, discord, feelings of shame and pain and different things.

And the one thing I've realized going on this alcohol-free journey, hitting my third year coming up this month, is that the way that I speak and the that way I think has completely shifted. I think positively about others. I'm able to let go of things easier. More apt to bless someone than to curse them. And I've just noticed that what's came back to me more, meaning not just in a body that feels good, but I realized that I am able uplift others by my voice. If God created the world with the sound of His voice, every day you are creating your reality by what you're speaking.

And so I feel like that's why platforms like this platforms, like your podcasts, whether we are talking about GLP ones or supplements, or at the core of it all, we're using how we created, which the voice that sounds like no other. to vibrate hope into the atmosphere. And I find that that's the most beautiful gift. I'm the son of a pastor. Watch my dad tell beautiful stories my entire life, inspire people on soul journeys, you know, be inspired to change ultimately and to be an unconditional loving version of Christ on earth.

It's just a beautiful, you know, I feel like we can represent and we support people at any spiritual level by giving what God has given us, which is a powerful voice. And so, Dave, thank you so much for joining me as a fellow believer in that journey. For me on this summit or maybe podcasts I've done in the past, it's exciting for that. And I feel like we, I'm sure you feel this too, it's coming from a place where in the New Age community they accept basically all forms of spirituality. So I am glad they accepted me as a Christian and I learning more how to unconditionally love into things I don't understand.

And so I no longer come from place of judgment or that negative thought pattern and learning how love deeper every single day. Yeah, and when you grow up in the religious world, that is something that I believe you have to intentionally fight against, right? And I think the more you grew up it and the intrinsic it is in who you are, the easier it to not lead from a place of love and lead like you just lived it,

How to Find Dave Knapp and Closing Remarks 44:48

it's ingrained in you. It's at a cellular level. You know God, you know the things of God. And it is very easy in your repulsion to things that are against God to lose sight of the message of love and acceptance that Jesus brought to this world, of, the narrative shattering acceptance of Jesus in terms of not in, terms accepting sin, but in in accepting people who weren't accepted by the religious and embracing them and calling them to a life of following him in a, life change itself. find myself in the same boat.

Let's go. Well, Dave, how can people find you? How can they reach out to you. I feel like that's probably like the most inspirational way we could leave an audience with beautiful words like. But yeah, How do they get connected to your network? Where can we find your podcast? Stuff like Yeah, probably the best gateway is just onthepen.com. That's our website. And then you're going to be able to find everything there. If you want to just like another thing that I set up this past week was OTP for on the pen otplinks.

com. Oh cool. But then otplinks is actually a really good like landing point for all of the. All of the, we're just all over the internet. So like wherever you hang out, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, We have a sub stack. It's just, it's all there. Cool. You're going to see me following you on molecular.mike on Instagram. When you catch me there, Dave, just know it to me and I'll support you in the pod. And I will support as a man of God. Hopefully one of these days we can hangout and just spend some time together.

That would be cool. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Thank you so much, David. Appreciate you. Before we wrap up, we want to thank our sponsor, Integrative Peptides, for supporting this episode. If you enjoyed today's conversation, visit integrativepeptides.com and use the code PODLIFE, P-O-D-L-I-F-E for a special listener discount. and unlock preferred pricing. For any questions, email cs at integrativepeptides.com or text 4437325272. Thanks again to Integrative Peptides and thank you for listening.

For more insights, resources, and updates, visit our website at www.holtorfmed.com. Together, let's embrace a future of health and vitality. Until next time, stay inspired and keep thriving.