The Weight Loss Secret: Why Lifestyle Changes Beat Diets Every Time

Doctor Talks Intro 0:00

Welcome to Doctor Talks, the podcast where every episode leads to a healthier you. Join us as we navigate the world of optimal health, uncovering groundbreaking strategies to conquer chronic disease. In each episode, we'll bring you the latest insights from leading health experts, medical innovators, and wellness warriors. If you're seeking to transform your health journey, or if you're looking for answers to burning questions, you've come to the right place. Get ready to unlock the secrets of lifelong health and vitality.

This is Doctor Talks. Real talk from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most. Hi, this is pharmacist Ray Solano with your Healthy Choices Minute. This is our podcast that we're going to be doing often and we're going to have some great topics for you. I'm joined today by Dr. Mary Ann Pinkston, who is really pioneered weight loss because she's an expert in herself personally and has an amazing practice here in Texas. And we're going to convince everyone today why it's so important to make those tough lifestyle choices.

And so we're gonna start out with today's segment as to the reason why it's so important to make these changes. Dr. Pinkston, welcome to Healthy Choices today. Hello there, Ray. Nice to see you again, my friend. I'm excited to be on.

Why Obesity Requires Lifestyle Change 1:23

This is wonderful. This is going to be a great platform for everybody to sign on and be able to educate and see it over and over again. And, you know, we're going to do this in a quick 30 minute session, you know, on your your podcast. that we do for for over two years now it's been the same and you know you get a lot of compliments of people to say you know what they finally convinced me to do something and that's what that's what we're going to do today is give people the reason why and so as we start out today One more time, maybe you can just lay it out as to the data that's out there, the conditions that are all related to obesity, all the conditions, the chronic health conditions, and all the illnesses people can look forward to if they don't make that change.

I was out in Las Vegas this last week and you start looking around and you're going, Wow, somebody has to change and it's, it's not in Europe, but it is here. Right? Right. Right. Absolutely. I think we've had this idea of weight loss for maybe, you know, the past 30 years or so that, well, I've gained a little weight. You know, I just want to change my diet up, exercise a little bit, and I'll just pull it right off. But something changed. really back in the 90s and 2000s where we can't do that anymore.

Your body doesn't respond anymore. So you can't just change up your diet and exercise a little bit. And I know because I lived this, you know, 13 years I spent obese and I was 300 pounds. I'm now 120. So I worked very hard over eight years to get that done. And so I learned what I did not learn in medical school. That's your problem. You go to your doctor and your doctor doesn't really know what to tell you, just tells you to lose weight, but doesn't give you a plan of any sort. So now people are out on the internet searching for answers and there's so many myths and misdirection, especially with these new medications that are out.

And so people need to back up and understand why they need to do this not as a quick fix, but as a slow progressive lifestyle change because heart disease, diabetes, dementia, and Alzheimer's, you know, the strokes that go with heart disease are just, we are going to be, I think, the first generation that dies earlier than our parents. Did and grandparents did and our children are going to die even younger than that men are you know young guys in their 20s are losing their testosterone completely instead of you know being 60 or 70. They're losing them in their, you know, late twenties and thirties.

So this is a massive wide scale problem. Like you mentioned, you know, we had, you know, out in Las Vegas, you noticed a big difference in, in, you know, every, almost every single person is overweight. Almost every single person. I noticed when I was at the airport getting ready for my honeymoon to take off that every single person was. When I got overseas, a completely different story. Isn't that amazing? It is, but it's starting to be pervasive over there, too. So it's time to back up as a society and get our act together, so to speak, and change our mind about this quick fix, you know, and look at things from a lifestyle, look at what the food industry has done to us over the past 20 years.

You know, one of the things that, you know, we try to get people motivated and and sometimes people get the guilt trip. Well, I don't think that works because they, you know, maybe they if they get a mirror, they can. But let's take it one time, one step further. We are inundated by over 25 percent of our media in talks about retirement. It talks about people saving for retirement. It starts, you know, they want everybody to save for their kids college, and then they want everybody to save for their retirement.

But nobody is talking about saving money for their health care. So we're hopefully that there's going to be tax incentives that will make them save for their health care. But people don't realize the cost. It will be, let's say you're in your 60s, the cost of ill health.

Health Costs and Hidden Risks 5:55

Because let's take it one step at a time. Your life insurance policies, if you have them or if you're trying to get them, will be higher. That's number one, right? You're going to have to save for somebody that's maybe in elder care in their 70s or 80s. And the elder care, because we do know the facts that the chances of having a debilitated chronic condition, the biggest concern we have now is dementia, Alzheimer's, and any of these cardiovascular diseases. And it's going to require a third party care.

Right. And the cost of these third party cares is many times people don't realize it's not covered by Medicare in many cases. It's not covered by Medicaid. So many times it's private pay. And not only is it not available in many parts of the country, the cost will eat up your savings so fast that it'll be just gone. Absolutely. And so what people maybe, I don't know, maybe we can explain it to dollars and cents. You know, you won't be able to make enough money to be able to afford ill health. How's that?

Absolutely. Absolutely. We're going to break it down to make it really super simple on some of these things that you can make these lifestyle changes. Like the old saying is, if you just start raising the temperature of the water or small bits at a time, you don't realize that it's scalding at the end. So we're going to make small changes for people because in your practice, you've been practicing as a physician, an integrated physician for years. You've seen the drastic changes in people's labs over the years, haven't you?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think it's something that people don't understand. So you go to your doctor and you get your lab work. Your docs, first of all, they don't do the right type of lab work, right? And you sit down with your doc to go over the results if they don't just call you on the phone and say everything was normal. And they do quantify a lot of your labs, like your sugar and your cholesterol and triglycerides as normal. But really what those reference ranges are on that page is a population average.

So you are normal according to the average sick population. And so the real reference ranges are not listed on that page. So your doctor says your sugar is normal, yet you've got a fasting sugar of 110, that's not normal. But a lot of times I think your medical care and your providers don't really understand what they're reading to you. First of all, they don't really know what to check. So that's the first major thing is to know what the numbers should be. And who knows that out there? You're supposed to trust your doctor, right?

Your medical provider practitioner. That's who you're supposed to go by. But yeah, a lot of people will go off on their own now. Go to the internet, you know, chat now for their medical care. I'm seeing that more and more and more and trying to find what normal is. So, you know, we've got to start with a definition of where are you supposed to be in the first place. Right. And BMI, if BMI is a way of, you know, knowing what your appropriate weight and it should be for your height, that is another place where the government is like 20 years behind on their, you know, their quantifications of where we should be.

And, you know, let's let's pick a few. OK, people, of course, they they they look at they go on the Internet, of course, and they see what normal thinking, what normal is. But what we start is what we want people to look at is. This is I guess the European model you think about is they start with blood pressure. They look at hypertension in a model. They are very, very drastic changes in people's lifestyles because of blood pressure starts to rise. And here we tolerate blood pressure, I would say.

Would you agree? Well, very well said. We do. We tolerate high blood pressure. And what we do is we give blood pressure medication for blood pressure. And so then it becomes normal. So that's the first step. What is their blood pressure without medication? Right? Right. And in the second one, what is their blood sugar levels?

Reading Labs and Knowing Your Numbers 10:43

without medication and what is their fasting levels. And this is the thing that people may not realize is that what their norm is, what they think about is so much higher than what it should be. So maybe that gets their attention is what their blood sugar levels should be, what it used to be. And then they then they would look at their their waist. I guess it's, you know, their hip to weight ratio. That's what a tape measure it's, you know, but doesn't look right. There's there you have inflammation going on.

Absolutely. Three things you can look at and go where you're on course for a body that's going to start to degrade. Right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think the waist circumference is the best of all. Everybody wants to lose that belly. That's right. But women didn't have bellies in the 30s or 40s. I mean, just look at the movies. And when you go to different countries, you see different shapes of bodies. And so this is really, if you look at it as something that's inflamed, something that's not right, is a way to maybe get some motivation.

So we talked about money, right? Right. And then we're going to look at looks. OK. All right. And then you can sometimes you can just look at people's faces. Right. Can't you see inflammation in people's faces? I mean, what are some of the telltale signs you look at when you see somebody's face, whether they're inflamed or not? You know what, first of all, they just have a puffy face. We have normalized being overweight. If you look at the commercials now, the diabetes commercial shows an overweight lady dancing in the street.

My aim is under control and I'm good. the store and all the clothes are getting bigger and bigger and bigger but that's okay you know we've normalized it but as far as the face goes you know there the under the eyes you can see the puffiness that comes under the eyes the bags we used to say it was allergies now we just say it's general inflammation Also tell the whites of their eyes aren't very white anymore. And, you know, even, even a little watery and teary and most of the time they're losing hair.

And I mean, there's so many things that you can do when you look at somebody and say, this is not a healthy body. We are not going in the right direction. Absolutely looks. and their tongue, right? The indentations on the side of their tongue, there's a vitamin deficiency. So in five minutes, a good practitioner like yourself, you're looking at people, you don't even need a lab test. Right? Absolutely. You're looking at their nails, you're looking at their face, you're looking at their color. And these are so in a skilled practitioner, they can feel they can see so much.

And, you know, we were always and I keep on going back to it is that people are trying to trying to spend their whole life working hard, they're traveling, they have their job, and their body is going to be left in shambles. Well, what we do, we want to retire and travel and, you know, live the fruits of our labor. But instead, you know, we end the age where you retire is getting later and later and later. And now you just become a burden on your children because you can't afford it. Social Security certainly doesn't cover enough.

You said, you know, Medicare, not everybody can get Medicaid. So know the cost falls on your kids then you don't ever want to be a burden not that you're that's how you feel right on your children so yeah. Yeah, well, hopefully we get people's attention to the reason why they have to do it. Yes, absolutely. It is it has nothing to do with what I guess looks as one is one part of it. And we want people to realize that, but it doesn't seem to work. Right? Absolutely. Let's see, the tremendous amount of cost that is going to be on your health care and just the lack of, I said, quality of life.

Lack of quality. And that's what you want people to be able to do is be active. So we think that we can maybe get some people some of their attention. Absolutely. I think we're about out of time for today, but I want to preempt what we're going to do in the second part of this series of the weight loss is that One of the things that we have been very good at is be able to give people things that they can do today. We want to be able to come up with three things that they can do on day one and they'll be painless.

Okay. They can't be painful because they can't do it. We refuse to use the word exercise. We'll say movement and we'll say, we won't say the word diet. We'll say, uh, uh, life or, food choices. Okay. This third thing, and there won't be any guilt as to, well, how much weight you're supposed to be losing. We're not going to even talk through that at all. So that's going to be what we're going to talk about for our second session. What do you think? Do you want to add anything else to that? No, I think that's, that's great.

I think people need to understand they need to make small changes that this is not going to happen overnight. And so it's overwhelming. Let's not make it overwhelming for people. It was overwhelming for me and I'm a physician. So, right. So yeah, we want to do that. Excellent. Right.

Body Clues: Inflammation and Appearance 16:48

Okay. Well, great. Well, again, this is our first edition of Dr. Talks, and we're here with Dr. Mary Ann Pinkson. I'm Ray Solano, a pharmacist with Prescription Dispensing Labs and Laval Performance Health. And we'll see you next time on our next show of Dr. Talks. Hi, this is Ray Solano, pharmacist and owner of Prescription Dispensing Labs and host of Healthy Choices podcast. And this is the second part of our weight loss series. And I'm joined today by Dr. Mary Ann Pinkston. I can consider her an expert in weight loss because, you know, she's done it herself and she spends her entire time explaining to people how easy it is to make it to go to the next level.

And that's what we're going to talk about today. is the things you can do today to get started. And we're going to make it easy and painless for people. So what do you think, Dr. Pinkston? Do you think that's a good place to start? Absolutely. I think weight loss and the thought of losing all that you've put on over so many years is so overwhelming. Too much bad information. You really want to put the turbo and the gas on it. and it's too overwhelming. We need to start it at the very beginning, really.

And we talked about mindset last time, so now we're gonna give them something to do. given something to do and you know we're inundated with commercials of many of the different pharmaceuticals that are out there. And be honest with you, they make it a little bit easier than it used to be. There's less drastic side effects than it used to be. We see rapid weight loss that we really haven't seen in some time. However, We're seeing a lot of sometimes consequences for this. We do know that a rapid weight loss can be sometimes very damaging to the body.

It requires many times significant intervention. So this is not something we want people to do. However, We look at moderation tools and be able to use a complete composition of many different tool sets that make it individual for the person. Right. Because you didn't get there overnight. We're not going to be there overnight as well, because if you do make too much rapid changes in your body composition, we're finding that sometimes we let all the skeletons out, we have some negative consequences because it's so important.

The reason why we found out that the reason why diets don't work is because when you go on a restricted food therapy, we'll call it therapy, we said we won't use the diet word, the body starts to use muscle, right? To replenish those need for proteins and for amino acids. And so that degradation of the most important thing for the burning of your metabolic state is muscle, right? Absolutely. So you give that away and then all of a sudden you then your body lowers its reset is metabolic rate because it doesn't have that core muscle.

So this is the reason why people just gain everything back when they're finished. See, when I have patients, I do my weight loss clinic and done it for two years. And I think the primary problem is everybody wants that tool because they want to just drop weight, usually for an event coming up, you know, wedding, a holiday or something. So they just want to shed weight really quickly. I wind up not understanding that it's not about the tool they're using. It's about the changes that they're making in diet and exercise yet.

I'll sit down with somebody and say, OK, have you started moving? We're a good three months into weight loss. Have you started moving? No, I really don't have time. But I've lost 20 pounds now, so I feel fine about that. And I'm like, that's not our goal. That's good, but that's not our goal. It's probably muscle now that you've lost. It's going to get harder to lose it as you go if you're dropping all your muscle. People need to be careful.

Previewing Practical Weight Loss Steps 21:08

That's right. And so there, it's, it requires people to just to understand that. This is the, when we, so we're going to talk about changing the fuel. Okay. How's that sound? Absolutely. absolutely yeah and people most people have an education of what foods good foods are about a sixth grade education nobody's really teaching you the only the only way people understand what to eat is what they see on television media and and what's what's considered fast foods and you know somebody that we know very close to us.

Jim LaValle says all the time, you know, I haven't seen any broccoli shops along the way. And you think about it. How about some specially sauteed broccoli? How about that? Does that sound pretty good? I'd go for it. But maybe this is the reason why all of our Asian friends are definitely a lot healthier than we are.

Starting the Weight Loss Series 22:18

People need to learn how to read a label. So the labeling has changes slower than what we know food, you know, what good food is. But most people really don't know how to break down a label on the back of a can or a container package, you know, some sort. We go for the quick and easy, but we don't know how to read what we're putting in our bodies, right? So, we like to make the guest part of our show we said we said we wanted to make it simple and some things you could do now. So, if it wasn't around 100 years ago.

Right. You probably shouldn't have it. How's that make it simple. If your grandparents didn't have it. Just don't don't have it. If you don't know what's in it. Don't eat it. Right. All right. We can't read the words in minutes to figure out the word. Probably not. And you haven't you haven't you don't see what's in the food in its natural state. Probably don't have it. OK. Yes. And so we're also finding if it is a processed food, then it's probably not good for you. Absolutely. So I think that's it makes it really simple.

And that you know, you get into the core when people say, well, what else is there to eat? Right? Well, they say stay on the perimeter of the store, right? Right. The beef counter chicken counter, all that is on one side, the produce side is on this side and vegetables. Yes. And right. So we the other thing that we want people to realize is that the consumption of sugar used to be for only for nobility. Yes. And because it was rare and it was it was not available. And that's why the rich got very fat.

They gorge themselves and the the peasants didn't they were always were starving but they didn't have sugar and spices and salt and things like that but anyway so I think it's important to realize that sugar is not a health food. It's not there to give you energy and it has really no place in your diet. If you're having one of these, if you're not at your ideal weight because of your health, probably the first thing you can do is get rid of the sugar. Absolutely. And so we. Most people we say we were we're at this stage right now.

We call the Super Bowl of Sugar, which starts in October and goes to the Valentine's Day Valentine's Day.

Changing Food Choices and Cutting Sugar 24:58

I think the average person a year consumes 160 pounds of sugar. And so in that in that time period where we're talking about from halloween to valentine's day the average person consumes 80 pounds of sugar that's insane so if you look at it at that time frame that's a lot of sugar 80 pounds yes sugar so So to start out with, completely step away from the diet sodas and the sugary sodas. So just take away those and introduce yourself to water. And you can put lemons in there. You can put any other fruit if you wanted to give a different flavor and just become addicted to that.

And you'll find green tea is something that you can get excited about to be able to start to reach for those things. Again, Monday through Friday. And on the weekend, you can go do what you want, because then they will feel very sick on Monday in real life that they'll get back to. A little swing and swing and you go, oh, You get a little shaky, but it goes away in a couple of days. So Monday through Friday, we're going to say we're not going to do the sugar. OK, you're going to make it simple to try to prepare your meals for the whole week.

Right. OK. Yes. A little bit of planning doesn't have to be expensive. There's lots of different ways to start. And if something that is freshly freshly cooked that you can refrigerate, freeze and meal meal prep ahead of time. And by the way, just don't tell anybody, but you'll save a bunch of money. that this is you and if you anticipate that you know you're going to be out and you're going to be tempted by what you see out there or something somebody to the office if you plan the snacks and keep them with you ahead of time then you probably won't indulge in what somebody else is bringing because this is the time where they bring donuts and cookies and and I know it's you know many many workplaces ban many of these these foods and I wish and because it is I I when we break down and see somebody's does something a celebration for somebody's a special event I just back and just watch how long it takes for that to go away.

And it's amazing how much how much people will completely indulge because it's really is quite addictive. It really is. So don't have it in your house. Right. Right. clear, it's not available in your house at all. So that's the first temptation because when it's a long day and it's late at night or other temptations, it will be consumed at two o'clock in the morning. It sure will. If it's there. So not having it. And then the second influence is people don't realize that alcohol has a huge increases in blood sugar levels.

I don't care what kind it is, but the way alcohol is metabolized will spike your blood sugar levels. It will increase your weight and will increase your blood sugar levels and cravings as well. Again, we're going to do it Monday through Friday, okay? And then you will use it in moderation when you want to for celebrations. After a while, it won't give you the same excitement that you had before. People, if they spend five days away from processed foods, their mind clears up, their energy rises, they feel better and don't realize how bad they felt consuming what they've been consuming, you feel so much better.

That's right. We give people a pause and they start to feel better and they go, okay, what did I just do? We didn't use the word diet, just changes in foods. Anybody can do this from five days and men have a better willpower than women, mainly because hormone fluctuations can be devastating. And so it's important that we acknowledge that, but that's why it's all part of the total health package that we want people to do. We don't want things that tempt increased, I guess, indulgences and high amounts of sweets, high amounts of carbohydrates, sugary foods, alcohol, all make that very difficult and virtually impossible.

Absolutely. Okay. So I think that's a good. And then there's that movement exercise, that movement. Go to the mailbox three times a day. Yes. Okay, go out, make sure if you have a newspaper, go out and go outside and see if it's still there twice. I don't know. Make up little games for yourself. Right, right. That makes you move to do something. Use the stairs. all the time. Yes. Park as far as you can when you're parking. So you walk to somewhere. So these are the kind of things that you do.

Movement, Accountability, and Stress Management 30:48

There's many wearable devices. Get up to 10,000 steps a day. Yes. Stand up instead of sitting down. And then all of a sudden, you start to realize that you enjoy it. Right. and take a walk to the end of the street. Yes. Eventually it'll be around the block. You just every day you add or every week even just add just a little bit more. A little bit more. Yes. Because work is something that people say, well, I'm active at work. I'm a teacher. I'm on my feet all day. I'm a nurse. I'm on my feet all day.

Your body gets used to that, and that's not really exercise. So you do have to do something over and above as, you know, a true form of exercise. And just if you would do it, just start out twice a week, even twice a week. And then you can build on that as you as you go slowly. As you go slowly. Exactly. And if you have the means, maybe hire a trainer. Do something different because after a while you don't have the willpower yourself. But it's not just exercise that does this. It is a whole lifestyle change.

If you'll let me speak to the trainer thing for just a moment because that was the key to my weight loss success was the accountability because I couldn't muster it myself. It's like get up and go work out in the morning. I'm laying there thinking, yeah, right. I'd rather lay here. I'm very tired. I work very hard. I don't have time for exercise. When I made time and I put somebody in that I knew was going to show up at the crack of dawn, I get them out of bed You bet I'm going to move and go. That was the greatest decision I ever made and the cost of it was offset by giving up a lot of alcohol and foods and fast foods and things like that.

So yes, I could afford it. So don't let those excuses keep you tied down. Absolutely a big good. It helps you accountable. You paid for it. You have, you know, it's a combination of letting somebody down. That's a good point. Somebody else is there. So why not and do it. do it for a month okay and see if you're able to do it in small increments. Get a buddy maybe somebody else that wants to get started because they're going to show up and if you don't you let them down again right so accountability system is very important.

And sometimes people say, you know, I'm not really healthy enough to do all of this. Okay. This is where an integrated physician like yourself, uh, to be able to make that, that phone call, to get that, that, that first step that maybe, you know, we, we can tweak, uh, some at hormone abnormalities, uh, that maybe, uh, levels. of hormone levels, adrenal levels, thyroid levels, or digestion issues that people are not sleeping at night. Absolutely. That's holding them back. So it's important to team with a practitioner that understands that.

And is that something that's going to break your your wallet, but somebody that listens and says, you know what, you want somebody to give you some pointers to help you get started, especially if you're taking a lot of different medications. Many of these medications make it worse. Right, vitamin deficiencies. They have electrolyte deficiencies because they can't even bend because many of their muscles are so atrophied or they're calcified. So we want people to understand there are some limitations, but you just invest 15 minutes a day on something positive in your life because stress is the other thing that causes this to be a big problem.

Everybody goes, oh, I have no stress. And then there's the other thing, oh, I live on stress. I'm better than that. Well, your body doesn't do well on stress. Absolutely. Especially if you work shift work, right? Overwork, overnight hours, then going against your adrenal system. It just doesn't fix. So maybe you can give us, you've seen this before and we're all victims, we're stressaholics, okay? So maybe you can give some people an understanding of how stress increases cortisol levels. It causes cholesterol deficiencies.

It causes so many drastic events. Maybe you can give people a little bit of pointers of how to reduce the stress or to be able to manage it. Absolutely. Cause you can't get rid of it. You got to go to work. You've got to do these things. You've got to take the kids where they need to go. What you don't understand is that mindset of take care of everybody first before yourself is something that you have to begin to deal with. I know I'm a mom, I'm a doctor, I own my own business. Believe me, I've been there, but the few things that I have learned to do exercise is a great way to diminish stress.

If you are tired and you can't muster your energy to get up and do that, then I have told people, and always check with your doctor first, but I've told people to take a good adrenal vitamin formulation. Those are things that help you sleep much better. When you sleep much better, your body functions much better. It loses weight. Much better also take time out during the day walk away from the computer Jim Jim Laval Loves the box breathing method and you can look that up online box breathing it takes just a few seconds just a minute and that is another way to even out your cortisol levels and just again, you know invest in your practices of meditation or religion whatever is important to you and do those things either first thing in the morning.

All the great leaders and great thinkers get up early and they do their prayer and meditation and plan for the day. And that is something that also helps. So those are a few things that people can do to try to manage the heavy, heavy, and say no more often. Just learn how to say it. It's something that helps a lot. Just say, no, I'm not good at that. And that is something that will help people. No, I can't go do this. I need time with my family. Time to exercise. No, I'm sorry. Next time. And you're planning your day.

Yes. I think we're meant to be up early, OK? That's our biological clock start. It's important, but also to retire early, OK? Because this is when your body, natural melatonin starts to produce as soon as the sun starts to go down. So your body has this biological clock. And it likes to eat. earlier it doesn't it likes to eat at seven o'clock no later than eight o'clock you finish so it is digestion so you have to work in sync with with your body and if you're not getting enough sleep you're not taking the trash out of your uh all your waste streams in your brain and to help you regenerate those neurotransmitters So sleeping or lying down with so that you're off your feet is a great methodology to get people to start.

So if you go to bed earlier, OK, and you get up earlier, then you actually will be more control. of your day so that reduces the stress even though you've got the same amount of activity but to be actually in control so try try those things and so I think what we and these are the things you could do today now we're coming up on a holiday season and it may be this time or some whatever time that you that it is one of these periods it's important if you have parties if you have a big dinner engagement that you sometimes eat before you go with good sources of protein and good, good foods, so you're not ravished when you go into these.

Exactly. And if you're ravaged, guess what?

Sleep, Social Planning, and Contact Info 39:28

You will eat anything, right? Yes, you will. And you'll make excuses. Well, that's just a little bit. Right. So eat before you go. Drink a lot of water before you go. That helps a lot, yes. Right? That helps a lot. It does. So you're kind of satisfied before you go. So you can spend time. And then you can always, if you're going to be the designated driver anyway, make excuses for it. It is so much easier for non-alcoholic beverages than ever before. The peer pressure was difficult, but now all types of sparkling waters with juices or garnishes is a great way to be still conversational because it's so important to connect with people as to release the stress is a perfect scenario.

Before it was weird, now it's not. Right. Peer pressure is social pressure, I should say. It's different than it used to be. And things you just look around, because everything will be a little bit different. I'd like to give out your website and also your podcast, because we really want people to be educated. So tell us how to get in contact with you, Dr. Pinkston. Absolutely. So it's very easy. A one stop shop. You can find it all. So drpbetterlife.com and you will find a lot of shows over the past three years, Ray, if you can believe that.

And Ray and I do a great show. He supports me once a month. And so you can find a lot of key factors, weight gain. I've spent a lot of time on, since this is something that's very near and dear and personal to me. And so plenty of information, more integrative, and it is made for the person, not the medical professional, but people who are just looking for some answers, drpbetterlife.com. That's the easiest way to go. And also check out our website, healthychoices.com, and our pharmacy, it's a nationally-based pharmacy, integrative pharmacy, has some of the most unique nutritionals and pharmaceuticals.

pdlabsrx.com, pdlabsrx.com. And if you want to join us at our clinic setting, it's Laval, L-A-V-A-L-L-E, performance.com, lavalperformance.com. If you want to consult to get started, we can get you, take those first steps in a common sense approach. So we look forward to having you. We're going to have this great series. Dr. Pinkson, we're going to have you back on again because But we are going to dedicate our time is to educate people on the, the things that common sense that they can do to change their lives.

I think we can win this war against it. We've got to make some differences somewhere. I'm glad we're taking this step. We're taking it. We just came back from the International Association, the A4M Association of Integrative Medicine. It was the largest event of attendees ever in the history. And what you have is smiling faces and the freedom to practice medicine. So there is a huge resurgence of choices and people taking charge of their health more than ever before. So I think you're going to see a radical change in what's going to happen and it's going to happen right now.

So we want people to, we don't want to be left out. So join the movement for people getting healthy. Absolutely. Wonderful organization where I got all of my education for the past 18 years and integrated. 18 years. Absolutely. We are taking over health care again. Yes. That's right. We'll join us next time. Again, this is another edition of Healthy Choices and another. We look forward to more on Doctor Talks. Thank you for tuning in to 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, real talks from real doctors on the issues that matter to you most.