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The Truth About Why Your Metabolism Is Stalling

Episode 67 · 25 March 2026 · 1 hr 0 min

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Insulin Resistance and a Stalled Metabolism: Dr. Jen Pfleghaar on What Actually Works

Insulin resistance is the main driver of chronic disease, says integrative and emergency physician Dr. Jen Pfleghaar. She tells Randy Lorensen, Dr. John Oberg and Anthony Marino why standard health advice can stress your body into a stalled metabolism, and what to do instead.

Why conventional "health" advice often fails, and how to actually align your biology for long-term vitality.

If you’ve been following the standard health playbooks—intermittent fasting, high-intensity workouts, and calorie restriction—but still feel fatigued and "stuck," you might be accidentally stressing your body into metabolic gridlock. In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Jen Pfleghaar, a double board-certified emergency and integrative medicine physician, to dismantle the "Abundance Blockers" in modern wellness. We dive deep into the hidden drivers of chronic disease, starting with why insulin resistance is the silent epidemic damaging American health.

Dr. Jen explains the delicate dance of the adrenal glands and why chronic cortisol spikes from "biohacking" can lead to exhaustion rather than energy. We also explore the controversial benefits of raw milk, the truth about GLP-1s (Ozempic) and muscle loss, and why women must stop eating and exercising like men—especially during perimenopause.

Before the interview, hosts John Oberg, Randy Lorensen, and Anthony Marino discuss the future of autonomous flying cars and the "depth vs. width" crisis in our social media-driven connection economy.

Adrenal Fatigue, Cycle Syncing, Raw Milk Benefits and the Perimenopause Reset

What you'll discover:

  • Why insulin resistance and inflammation drive so much chronic disease
  • Adrenal fatigue, and what happens when your body stays in "fight or flight"
  • Cycle syncing, and why women may need to eat and train differently
  • The raw milk debate, and pay now or pay later: insurance-based vs. integrative medicine
  • Intermittent fasting, DHEA, biohacking and the GLP-1 "quick fix" trap
  • The Perimenopause Reset, and why this stage of life affects every marriage

This episode is for educational purposes only and isn't medical advice.

Timestamps

  • [00:00] Flying cars and the future of autonomous AI safety
  • [03:19] Width vs. depth: is social media stealing real connection?
  • [06:36] The skill of intimacy: navigating the 7 levels of connection
  • [09:37] Break — Sponsor: AG1
  • [10:28] Dr. Jen Pfleghaar: why the conventional medical system is broken
  • [16:05] From emergency medicine to outpatient integrative care
  • [16:28] The main driver of chronic disease: insulin resistance and inflammation
  • [18:12] Adrenal fatigue: what happens when your body stays in "fight or flight"
  • [20:58] Cycle-syncing: why women may change their diet with their menstrual cycle
  • [23:25] The raw milk debate: pathogens, enzymes and digestive health
  • [30:16] Pay now or pay later: insurance-based vs. integrative medicine
  • [36:24] Raising kids with a healthy relationship with food
  • [41:11] Is intermittent fasting stressing your body? The DHEA connection
  • [44:28] Biohacking 101: cold plunges, vibration plates and red light therapy
  • [50:03] The "quick fix" trap: GLP-1s, muscle loss and sarcopenia
  • [53:53] The Perimenopause Reset: why this stage of life affects every marriage

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About Dr. Jen Pfleghaar

Dr. Jen Pfleghaar is a physician board-certified in emergency and integrative medicine (her own bio says so; the episode page calls her double board-certified). She is the author of The Perimenopause Reset, which she discusses in the episode.

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Related episodes

Meet the hosts: Randy Lorensen · Dr. John Oberg · Anthony Marino

Transcript

A full transcript is below. It was generated automatically from the episode audio, so expect some spelling errors in names and terms.

[00:13] Abundance. Flying cars. Let's just start right off with the Jetsons, right? We watch Jetsons and Jetsons told us we were going to have flying cars and they were supposed to be here by now, as well as a robot made named Rosie and everything else. Well, we kind of have flying cars. John, I know you had some experience with this last week at South by Southwest, which was just recently here in Austin. So, uh, take listeners through that a little bit. — Yeah, there's there's several companies evidently that are working on these kind of autonomous vehicles that are flying autonomous vehicles where you can take one kind of like an Uber, you know, in the sky. And, uh, I think there's a lot of great implications for like short hall movement. My understanding is the military purchased a number of these for use in the battlefield to like get wounded soldiers out. And I had a friend who actually went and took a ride in one and they taught him how to pilot it. And the the AI kind of kept him from moving outside of a certain geoped zone or doing anything that could actually be harmful. And they had like I don't know the number 12 or 16 rotor blades on the thing and it carried one person and just super interesting like an ultralight you know aerial vehicle. I just I really wonder what it's going to do for like traffic. I wonder what it's going to do for the FAA. I like I have so many questions. I'm so interested by this, but they're coming. I hope to, you know, I what I want to believe is that these things are going to be safer than cars, safer than helicopters, safer than the rest of it because the computers are so good at reading things. I mean, you know, on on the day that we're recording this, there was a a a plane accident on the ground where a plane ran into a fire truck or some some piece of fire equipment that killed some people just recently. And I don't know if they know what caused it yet, but I bet we're going to find it was human error of some case. And um I my my hope is that that computers are making this a safer environment. Probably not perfect, but safer for sure. Uh LA has said they want to be the air taxi capital of the world and they're planning a huge roll out before the 2028 Olympics uh and that they're going to you know have things all over at Sofi Stadium or the Coliseum or the airport where people can move back and forth which you know would certainly be you know it'd be incredibly cool and I don't worry about the safety so much. I mean, after driving a Tesla or having a Tesla drive me for the last couple of years, I I I can't tell you how much more faith I have in that car than I do the human drivers around me.

[02:43] As I as I as the car drives me down the road, I look around and I see people texting while they're driving and everything else and not paying attention and uh you know, the car just doesn't do that. It doesn't get sick, etc. So, I I got to believe that there's going to be, you know, the flying space is is going to be that or, you know, will be safe as well. I don't think they're talking about having them fly at 10,000 ft. — I think a little bit of irony that Ry's wearing the Boring Company t-shirt today, which was all about changing congestion by going underground, and here we are talking about going above the ground. So, with that interesting irony, maybe we go to the next topic. — All right. Um, so there's a recent world happiness report um and for for Reuters reports on this from 2026 and the headline is social media may be stealing real connection. John, your your eye rolling response — like this is news like it's possible that the sun is hot. I mean it's like you know it's interest social media helps us get connected I think to lots of people and stay connected at a very surface level. I think we, you know, my view on connection is there's layers of depth of connection. And so there's people that I'm connected with, you know, more now than I was in high school seemingly because we're still like the Facebook, you know, whatever Instagram connections, but you know, the depth of those connections, the the closeness of those connections, I think people confuse uh width with depth, and that's where we bump into problems. And so, um, without without the depth of connections, we're we're just as susceptible to loneliness or isolation as ever before. And so, while it makes it possible for that that touch point, I think, you know, it's important for us to lean into the depth of connections with people and that's harder to do.

[04:38] Takes a different set of skills. — Well, it's genuine connection, right? I mean the problem on social media is people are talking and but I don't know I don't know how genuine it is for the average person — well I think it's genuine at a certain level I mean — well it's you know we talk about abundance and how whether it's AI robotics flying cars mapping the genome all these different things we've talked about how they can give us longevity and a better life and an easier life um but you know the logical ical conclusion to this as you keep going AI gets better, robotics get better, screens get better is there is an option for people to go into the matrix at some point like and I don't think we're that awfully far away, right? I mean, I don't know if it's months, but I don't think it's decades. And you know what happens? Like in right now, we walk around staring at our phone like and basically staring at our hand all day, right? Like people walk down the street, you know? Yeah, I mean Ready Player One might be a better might might be the better kind of sci-fi analog that I mean the Matrix maybe, but Ready Player One — really when you kind of look at the the the real world society versus the online society, I think that some people may be kind of already there. Although Meta just Meta just pulled their what did they what was their their kind of alternate with the metaverse? They just pulled the plug on this. So maybe there's some hope.

[06:05] — Yeah. Yeah, but I I just heard the other day, and we're talking about abundance blockers here, by the way, but I think it's important to acknowledge these things are out there. Um, the number of young people that already have like an AI girlfriend or boyfriend. I mean, I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was pretty shocking to me. And a couple of them when asked about it were literally saying something like, "Well, why not? What's wrong with it? What's the problem?" Right? They just they saw no need to have the human connection. that I think we all need. That's a I mean, John, this is you've been talking about this as long as I've known you, this trying to connect people and loneliness and especially amongst men. I think this study points out that it's a bigger problem for girls um than boys. And you know, but either way, I mean, it's — Yeah, I think look, I think I think that, you know, I I try to get the the young ones in my family, the kids, to really lean into being um emotionally intelligent around what, you know, being able to name their feelings, right? And so, I think Matthew Kelly talked about romantic relationships in the seven levels of intimacy, but those levels are true for most relationships. You go from cliche to facts to opinions to hopes and dreams to, you know, feelings to fears and failures and you metriculate down into that those layers of depth with people and you get real lived shared experience with people and you you practice acceptance of one another. You practice appropriate vulnerability and naming your feelings and processing them and and and the joy it brings to life when you do those things. the the sense of connection is much deeper than connected on Facebook and that fast dopamine hit. It's real genuine belonging, caring and you know um like felial love or you know kind of universal love rather than erotic love.

[07:56] So I think that's the it's a skill set that I think is worth developing for every adult. I think it's worth developing from a very early age and my encouragement would be to develop those skills to navigate those layers of closeness so you can have really great relationships and shared experiences over long periods of time. — Let's let's wrap this up with what habits can people like what can people actually do with daily concrete habits to protect this and keep that social interaction and therefore circling back we want people to be more happy. That's a part of abundance, right? So, what what are daily habits people can partake — Yeah. Spend time with people for sure. Like in real life, like go go go have shared experiences like, you know, I used to I used to choose to not do things that weren't immediately gratifying. And then when I wanted to learn to grow relationships, I just to chose to say yes to everything, say yes to anybody who asked me to do something with them, were my friends. And by saying yes, it was now I truly enjoy doing almost anything with my friends. And it was a function of learning to say yes and to spend time and have shared experiences with people. And so that's what I'd say to start with. And then go volunteer. Like the other thing I'd say go go be a mentor for Big Brothers Big Sisters. Like go through their program.

[09:11] Like that type of experience that's highly structured that shows you how to do it. Like do it today. Don't call tomorrow. Don't call like do something highly structured in that system. If you don't know how to give back, go go find a a program that does it for you. And and it'll it'll give you more than you give it. That's for sure. So, all right. Well, let's we are going to be back after the break with Dr. Jen, uh, integrative doctor, and she's got a lot of great information. I think you guys are really going to enjoy this. Here at Tales of Abundance, we know that fitness is just as important as money or milestones. It's one of our fives. For lots of other, taking care of my body while I build my life is one of the more timeconsuming and difficult goals to chase. That's why we're partnering with AG1. It's a daily drinkable habit. less than a minute that's formulated with 75 plus vitamins and nutrients and designed to support energy, digestion, and immune defense. It even has a few grams of protein uh that we're all chasing these days. And if you want to try it with our affiliate link, you'll also receive a free AG1 flavor sampler plus vitamin D3 plus K2 with your welcome kit when you first subscribe. $72 value. Go to shop.dripe.com. three eg1.comtails.

[10:28] — Listeners, welcome back. As promised, we are here with Dr. Jen Flegar. Uh Jen, welcome to the show. — Hi, thank you. Appreciate it. — Yeah, I got to tell Dr. Jen, I'm going to start with something crazy, probably way out of left field. My wife and I just watched season one of The Pit. Real or not real? — I I don't watch a lot of TV, honestly. I have been told to watch The Pit and then I saw that that Saturday Night Live skit. Did you guys see that with RFK? — I haven't seen that one yet. No. — Well, it was like a a like a pick at like natural people. They were like, you know, give them raw milk, you know, stat. And it was it was really funny. So, I'm like, I think I need to watch the pit. I don't know. I I'm used to we watch Grey's Anatomy, you know, and that — Yeah. Yeah. Some of it's, you know, there's a lot of drama. I don't know. What's the pit like? Tell me a little. — Seems pretty realistic to me. Like I I didn't go to medical school, so, you know, I'm a behavioral health guy, not a physician, so I don't, but but it seemed it seemed pretty realistic. And people say it's really realistic. And I love raw milk stat. That's like right in the center of all the ven diagrams of your world, like emergency medicine, integrative medicine. Like I mean, that really is the two furthest sides of the uh of the spectrum, isn't it?

[11:45] — Yeah. you know, and I guess I'll have to watch the pit, but I will say like emergency medicine, uh, working shift work, being under those lights, having that constant stress and adrenaline, it is not healthy and it's not good and life expectancy and longevity in ER doctors and nurses. No bueno, right? So, I more work in the ER now. We call it, you know, perdm. my pickup as needed. And I've kind of said to myself, I'm not going to be working night shift anymore because even we just moved to Tennessee from Ohio and I was purely nocturnal when I would pick up shifts. So meaning they'd only be night shifts. But it's it's so hard because you know like it is kind like at night it's a different kind of stress because there's not these administrators running around that are not helpful and they don't care about the patients, doctors or nurses at all. So they're not running around because as I got older and older in medicine and I just don't hold back.

[12:48] I tell administration like what I think about how they treat their staff and the patients and so it's probably not wellreceived because they only care about money. So there's that. I'm very outspoken. But night shift also it's just like the camaraderie between everyone working night shift is just so cool. And we really kind of are on our own. There's not as many resources. There's always more psych patients, more drama, um more drunk people. So anyway, I I'm gonna miss that, but working night shift is actually a carcinogen. It's — Well, you got I mean, you've got like so I think about it like so because you're double board certified integrative medicine and emergency medicine. And when I think about emergency medicine, like you see everything like surgical trauma to like acute things that happen because of chronic like chronic disease. Like that's that's a lot to kind of keep your brain wrapped around all the time. — Yeah, I love it. You know, we're kind of a jack of all trades in that aspect. And I think that I I thank the Lord that I got into emergency medicine and then I saw how broken the conventional system was. These people were doing the things that they were told in follow-up and they still had chronic illness and disease. And when we think of the ER, we think it's only emergencies. But most of these emergencies, they are from chronic diseases, right? So, so say a heart attack. Well, that person had diabetes for 10 years and then it was an emergency. We should have got them, you know, before they developed diabetes.

[14:24] So, that's why I went back into integrative medicine. And and I mean like last night I my husband was working on our mini farm and got a puncture wound in his leg and it was just oozing. So I put a stitch in it. Right. So I I mean it's it's such a beautiful like I just loved my training because I love procedures. I I do like helping people in an emergency but it's also trained me to think of worst case scenario. So even when I see my integrative patients, I'm like, well, we have to rule out some of this bad stuff and then we can do the other things, you know, and I think that's where it gets made fun of more holistic medicine is that people joke that it's all, you know, essential oils and raw milk and steak and, you know, like with this whole movement and it's like, yeah, if you go to someone that doesn't isn't trained in all of it, that can't rule out the bad stuff because there are things that we need to rule out still. Even if you're, you know, presenting just with fatigue and it might be hormone problems, well, sometimes we have to rule out an adrenal tumor if they have the right symptoms.

[15:36] So, um, yeah, super grateful for my training. Um, doctors, actual DOS and MDs, we have 15,000 hours, clinical hours of training. So, it's it was it was robust. But but honestly, um raising kids is harder than emergency medicine res. So anyone that's a parent out there, — yeah, raising kids has got to like that's more than a full-time job for anybody for sure. Well, let me — I do want to transition into parenthood. I want to go into but I first I want to talk about the jump from emergency medicine into kind of the outpatient clinical medicine you do on the integrative medicine side. across those two, is there anything that like is most common that you see like like the most common problems? — Yeah. So, I would say maybe tied for two, but they're interconnected. I would say like insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is really damaging America's health. Okay? And we can get insulin resistance from something else being out of whack of our hormones, right? So say we have hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's so our metabolism is sluggish and we gain weight and then we get metabolic resistance and you know I mean it it's so many things stress so say you um you know behaviorally wise you would know this um an ACE score a high adverse childhood event happened well that is leading to just your body not feeling safe and releasing cortisol which is going to lead to metabolic you know insulin resistance.

[17:13] So everything kind of goes back to that, but there's a lot of different ways to attack that and really it's it's personalized. So I I think that I would say that that is one of the main drivers of disease because it can cause so much inflammation and then disease comes from a question about uh about first- time — No, no, no. I'm good. Go. Keep going. keep going. — So when you see first-time patients, I mean we talk about uh anything that's chronic metabolic disease, we always are talking about those pillars, right? So we talk about medicine, we talk about movement, we talk about food, we talk about stress uh and and then we talk about, you know, sleep and sex as they impact stress and how that you know all those things impact your sleep. You've got a really great uh paradigm that you talk about in your practice. You also have a similar set of things. You talk about food, you talk about stress, you really get into adrenal fatigue. — Tell us about that.

[18:15] — Yeah, stress um can really be hard on our adrenal glands. So, we need our our adrenal glands to live. We need cortisol. We can't have no be without cortisol. That would not be good. The problem is — tell our listeners real quick about the adrenal gland and cortisol who aren't kind of working in healthcare. — Yeah, of course. So, so cortisol is what we we were designed with to run from a bear in emergency. So, it's that fight or flight, you know, it's our EP our adrenaline goes. Um, our cortisol rises, our blood sugar rises to get to our muscles so we can run from a bear so we can lift a car up. You know, we see this when people have superhuman strength, you know, to save their child or their baby or something like that. The the problem is we're not meant to stay in fight or flight all the time. We're not meant to be chronically stressed. So if we're chronically stressed all the time, then that means our adrenal glands which produce these these precursors to cortisol. So pregnnolone and DHEA are produced by the adrenal glands. Um you know and cholesterol is needed for that too. Then if we're doing that all the time, then we get in this place where we're flattening out like we can't even spike a good response. And we see that kind of like this adrenal fatigue and then we have adrenal exhaustion and it could lead to stuff. The good news is is that we can repair those things by focusing, you know, on prayer, meditation, restorative things, grounding, taking care of, you know, illnesses that are stressing us out.

[19:52] Like a lot of people, there's internal stressors, you know, or environmental stressors. There's a lot of things that can stress us out. I will say working with so many pmenopausal women, they are so stressed. I mean, they have so much on their plate. they are, you know, doing a hundred things at once, they're not prioritizing this time to be in that rest and digest state. And then because they're not in that rest and digest state, they're getting these chronic diseases and illnesses, you know, their thyroids affected, their gut health is affected, and then they end up, you know, just feeling like crap. And and I would say if you do feel fatigue in general, like if you just don't have energy, um, and you've tried, you know, to fix your diet and you just still don't have energy, well, you're probably having some sort of adrenal fatigue, you know, we can call it going on and and you need to go back and not just relax, but do strategic things to help your adrenals When people come in, there's like I think probably a lot of common misconceptions about food and exercise and treatment plans and drugs. What are some of the big the big things you have to correct with people when they see you early in the early goings?

[21:12] Yeah, with women in particular, I like to have them look at their menstrual cycle and change their diet around their menstrual cycle because a lot of them come to me and they're doing chronic intermittent fasting or they they were like, "Oh, I heard carnivore could fix everything or one meal a day coined as OMAD, you know, all these things. They're just trying trying everything, but they're not going back to their their menstrual cycle where women were different every day. I mean, men, you guys can all say that, you know, women are different, men are the same. And so, the first half of the cycle, that is where you could do more lower carb and try the fasting, try those fat diets. But the ludal phase, women are chronically overeing or under, sorry, undereating in the ludal phase. So they're not getting enough nutrients because the body is preparing to host a fertilized egg. So there progesterone is what's shining in that ludal phase and really our body in general demands more calories there. It's it's burning more calories and a little bit more carbs here too. And women will try to undercut their calories and eat less throughout the whole cycle. And then that could actually stress their body out, drop their progesterone during that ludial phase and increase their cortisol because they're stressing their body.

[22:39] And then they're going to actually have the opposite effect of what they wanted and gain weight. So that's one Um, another one is just like not eating enough protein. So protein is really important. It's going to help us feel satisfied. Pairing that with weightlifting is going to just help your body be more metabolically flexible. So if you do want to, you know, have a piece of cake with your kid on their birthdays, you know, like do these other things, you have more wiggle room. So I feel like the biggest mistakes are, yeah, not eating for your cycle for women and then not lifting weights and getting muscle. So you can be more flexible and have more metabolic — You mentioned raw milk kind of jokingly earlier. What's the story with raw milk? Like what's the big deal? — Oh, raw milk. Yeah. So, well, I joke because I was doing some advocacy with the American Osteopathic Association and they were like, "All raw milk bad." No. And I like spoke about I'm like, "It's actually not all bad.

[23:46] It's actually legal in, get this, California out of all places. You know, there raw milk's on the grocery shelf. So, it's not that raw milk is bad. It's the fear is because there have been pathogens from raw milk that can cause disease. So, then everything was pasteurized, meaning killing off all the bacteria. Okay. and then homogenized. Also, the the milk was, you know, um it's not all bad. There are bad batches of raw milk. There can be bacteria in there, but there's also a lot of good bacteria in there. So, some farms, um one we found in Tennessee is nice. They do low tempmp pasteurization, so it's not just blasting out everything, right? because some of the the microbes, you know, are not so bad. And there's digestive enzymes, there's in the raw milk that help us digest the dairy better and actually is supportive for health and allergies. There was like a study that kids that had like attopic diseases, you know, allergenic diseases, like allergies basically, that when they had raw milk, it helped their symptoms because they were getting like that good stuff in there. So milk, it's it's so crazy because it's like if we just made it legalized raw milk and then all the places that sold raw milk, all of these farms, they would get visited. the facilities would be checked, you know, and in Ohio, we had a great place to get raw milk. And they were they were registered, you know, to do a herd share for raw milk. They invited people to their farm to let them know, you know, how they clean the utters before the raw milk, how it was all sterile, going right into the jug. They did batch testing to make sure there weren't pathogens. So for me, I just let think of things logically instead of um being dramatic. So I feel like there's a lot of drama with raw milk and it's like we could do this correctly or incorrectly like we have been. I mean people are getting this, you know, in the back of people's vans now, you know, in Tennessee because it's it's not legal for her. Yeah. I mean, it's so funny.

[26:07] It's like it doesn't have to be this way. But that's why I love education things like podcasts when I had the chance to tell doctors like look come on it's legal in California and they're like really interesting some of their policies like we don't need to be scared of this we just need to do it do it the right way. Yeah, I this is a sample of one. So I know a really really great scientific study here, but I will tell you six months ago or so, somebody was talking about raw milk and that they had it had it had solved all their problems with milk. And I hadn't drank cow's milk in 20 years probably. But I used to drink tons of in fact I grew up on a farm where my dad would milk a cow. I mean it couldn't get more raw, right? I mean we were drinking it hour or two later. And so I went found some raw milk, bought it at a local farmers market, — drank a gallon the first week, zero — right? I mean, I I thought I was lactose intolerant. And then I got up just because this is how I'm wired. I couldn't just stick with one. I you know, I'd start getting two gallons at a time. And you know, it was like I was trying to find out where the limit was.

[27:18] So again, sample of one. I realize not a big scientific study but I have not been able to drink cow's milk in years with raw milk I can drink it and — with no side effects no problem. So — that's amazing. So what was your limit? Two gallons a week for one person is — my my son was my son was drinking it too. I mean like like I don't really have any need for any more than a gallon a week is plenty for us. But — yeah, and I just forgot how delicious it was, to be honest. I mean, I — Oh, yeah. And the color of it, right? It's like golden and it like when it hits your lips. So, I'm still I I think I found someone in Tennessee that I can I can get it from. But it's so funny. It's like why does it have to be this — Used to be the milkman. — I'm I got a couple of questions if you don't mind. Um, move on moving off the raw milk thing. Um, you know, emergency medicine and then your current practice and we had a doctor on a week or two ago with um, you know, a longevity doctor.

[28:27] And I I imagine in order to properly treat a new patient, you have to spend a significant amount of time upfront interviewing them. Can you tell us a little a little bit more about that process? How long does it take? How do you approach it? Do you do they pre-prepare something before they come in and so forth? I think because it's it's a big deal. You know, my wife and I have both been uh since we lived in — you know, we've been on integrative medicine treatments, you know, we're both 69 now and um so we're very familiar with it. And the difference between practitioners and how much time they spend with you — um is is vastly different. you know, moving from California to here was very different. Took some time to find someone that was listening to us. — Yeah. And I think you nailed it. Listening, right? Um I do have to ask some questions to them. I do have a really long intake form that, you know, I've been practicing integrative medicine and longevity specifically for 10 years. And it's taken me, you know, I'm I'm a lot better at kind of knowing what's going on by, you know, all these questions like going through childhood home where you live to how many amalgams you have, root canals, any mold exposure, you know, we we go through all of it. Like another big question is just asking them when did you get sick? Okay.

[29:57] What happened like 3 to 5 years before that? And and sometimes that will really just like be like, oh wow. and and sometimes they they know exactly sometimes we have to dig more and we always discover stuff together but the big thing is listening now when you go through conventional medicine it is insurance-based and now we have all these private equity you know investors buying up hospitals and most family practice you know insurancebased models are at these hospitals so they are told you have five minutes with a patient while you're seeing them for well 5 10 minutes. You also have to be writing the perfect note so the insurance doesn't flag it and so we get paid. You know, we're going to get reimbursed like 50 bucks. You know, it's it's miserable. And we can't think of health care like car insurance. You know, car insurance doesn't pay for oil change, tire rotation, you know, all of that. Doesn't pay for gas. Why? It's an emergency. Car insurance is for emergencies. So why do we think health care is any different?

[31:05] So healthcare emergencies, big surgeries, use it for what you get for because you do pay those premiums, right? So I'll take my kids to the pediatrician once a year, but but then know that you need to put money and invest into your health because it's pay now or pay later. And I'm telling you, if you pay later, it's going to be so much more expensive. So yeah, I sit down with patients for a long time. I get to know them. I know what's going on with their family, their life because that matters too. What stresses stresses they're going through. Um my particular practice is virtual. I had a brick and mortar for 10 years and when we moved I just stayed virtual because I needed some more balance. I couldn't be managing a brick and mortar. It was a lot for me. And then also my my philosophy is faith-based. So I also draw things in, you know, from a faith perspective too and in peace, you know, with the patient. So it's I think it's the way medicine should be practiced. But do I think it's ever going to be like in the insurance model? No. And I've had patients, you know, go to the Cleveland Clinic's functional medicine thing and it's the same. It's just their protocols, but they're slapping a functional medicine, you know, front on it. But it it's not it's not how integrative medicine should be.

[32:26] — So many so many people at least the perception is that are you know part of the healthc care problem if you will or suffer from chronic disease um don't think they they don't have access to someone like yourself or they don't they don't know that someone like yourself um exists. And it's interesting you say that you're now virtual. Do you think um the cost of your type of uh services can come down and reach maybe uh population that living in food deserts having really difficult uh time with access to to intelligent health care advice. uh versus like as you're talking about the hospital and basically just wanting to see you flip you get some testing done and and prescribe some medications because it's all about how much money we can get from the insurance company. Do you see it changing? — Um I think that's a hard question because I know for a fact if you give someone a free gym membership, they don't really go. But if they pay $100 a month to belong to a gym, they're going to go and show up. And we've seen this a lot with functional and integrative medicine. If people are investing in it, they're going to make changes. And for for like a year, I took insurance at my brick and mortar. And I first firsthand noticed that the insurance patients of the few insuranceances I was taking, they did not get as good outcomes as the patients that paid cash to see me. And — Yeah. And and I, you know, I've been told this by business mentors, all that because we want good outcomes, right?

[34:17] And it's not that I don't think everyone should have access to integrative medicine, cuz I do. But I also know that for me, I invest so much more energy into my patients when I see them that I there's no way I could work 5 days a week. I only see patients two days a week. And then I spend time investigating hard cases, teaching. Um how I combat this too is I have so many free resources. Um you know, I've sent people copies of my book for free. You know, I I have a YouTube that's free. I teach and teach and teach on there on how people can be their own, you know, doctor or advocate in an insurance world. I just put a protocol up on my website for how to navigate PCOS within the conventional insurance model. These are the tests to ask for. This is what it means. you know, cuz I I had actually one of our old baby babysitters for my my kids reach out to me and ask me and I know she doesn't have money to see someone integrative or functional. The other flip side problem is there are so many people getting into the wellness space, charging as much money as I would charge with 10 years of experience, having no experience, having no functional or integrative training, having no mentors in the space, and then patients get burned, waste their money because they have really good marketing, and they're just stuck. So, it's it's a really hard hard industry right now because it goes back to, you know, people just trying to make money. And my goal is, you know, to mentor people in the space to continue teaching because I've had so many people come to me and they've spent like $10,000 seeming like, you know, like a chiropractor or health coach that promised they would fix everything and then they're just like right back to where they started. And that is what makes me like really mad actually. Like — So, Dr. Jen, what are the things you do with your We talked about family. What are the things you do with your kids to set them up for a healthy future? Like what are the things you talk about? How old are your kids? And what are the conversations you've been having with — Yes. So, 18. So, now an adult, which is crazy that just happened. 18, 13, 10, and six. I think the best thing is to just model and be consistent with them.

[36:48] Um, you know, not see them have like you being so restrictive and miserable. Um, my relationship with food, I mean, I tend, you know, I used to, you know, I I was born in ' 82, so think about the '9s, it was all about restriction, low fat, you know, cocaine skinny was in or heroin skinny, you know, all that stuff. So my relationship with food changed a lot, you know, after having kids. And, you know, they see balance. They see me us have movie night and make popcorn with with grass-fed butter and, you know, good good healthy salt on there. Um, you know, but they also see me not just like overeing. I try not to overeat or sometimes I will in my ludal phase, but then they know sometimes I I'm fasting. My my six-year-old's actually so funny because sometimes like we we're like, "Eat your steak, you know, finish your hamburger, like finish your protein." He's like, "I'm fasting right now. I can't." And I'm like, "You stinker." I'm like, "That's not cuz he hears me sometimes, you know, I'll be like, "I'm fasting. I'm skipping breakfast, you know, or whatever." It's so funny. Um, you know, like my 10-year-old, honestly, like he's a little overweight. He had a mold micotoxin exposure. Kind of got, you know, pans pandas type. Well, I, you know, diagnosed him with that. Um, so he's on a healing journey. Um, my 13-year-old is is a teenager. He, we found so many rappers of stuff he shouldn't have had in his room when we were cleaning out his room. So, and then my 18-year-old, she was so cool. She just told me this story last week. She was like, "My friend um my friend and her mom are starting intermittent fasting." She, you know, the mother went to the doctor, a conventional doctor, and they were like, "You know, you need to lose weight. Try some intermittent fasting." I'm sure they're not even checking her for hormones or dealing with her pmenopause or thyroid, whatever. Just told her just say, "Oh, just intermittent fast." Like, no. Come on. Like, the studies on intermittent fasting are mainly on men.

[38:57] The one on women that I could quote showed that intermittent fasting in women over eight weeks decrease DHEA, which is produced by the adrenals. Like, no, you can't just tell women to do this. So, but anyway, back to my daughter. She was like, I told her that she should only be doing this intermittent fasting during her follicular phase because it can be stressful during the ludal. And she just said, we're going to listen to the doctor. And I'm like, Anna, it's okay. Like, yeah. So, she she's getting like so much more in tune. Um, she still goes to Starbucks. I'm not going to guilt or shame her for that. Um, it's like a culture thing, sadly. Um, but it's I think it's about balance because what I wouldn't want to do is make my kids feel shame. Um, and give them like a distorted relationship with food. So, we give them good food. We try not to bring bad food into the house. We probably have a little bit too much processed food in our in my house to be honest, but we try 8020. I do cook most of the meals during the week at home. My family knows I hate eating out for the most part. I just don't I just don't. So, when we're eating out, they know that like I'm doing it for them because I love them or it's like a social situation. Um but but yeah, I think you know for the parents out there, I it's so hard. My kids range so much in age.

[40:24] It's so much easier when your kids are young or they're homeschooled and you can control it more. Um, but you know, don't judge the other kids. You just don't know, you know, and especially as the kids get older, they have their own cars, you know, you just you just have to realize it's not going to be perfect. — You know, a couple things jump out there for sure. One is, you know, giving people agency is such an important thing. It's like without judgment like just have all the information and then be deliberate about your decisions is great. I do want to go back to intermittent fasting for a second because this is like — one of the taboos is like it should be okay to talk about the differences not just between men and women but personto person. I get that question all the time like what's the right thing to do and the answer is well there's a toolkit and you got to figure out which screwdriver hammer nail works for you — and so let's talk like intermittent like my wife tried intermittent fasting. It was not a good experience for either one of us. Mostly not for her, but then not for me. Like it works great for me occasionally. I've done it for long periods of time. I've done it for short periods of time. But re especially for like I think there's some science around women doing intermittent fasting around menopause that really is kind of contraindicated. Is that am I recalling that correctly?

[41:37] — Yeah, that was that one study I talked about how pre and postmenopausal women eight weeks straight of intermittent fasting actually decreased DHEA. So I would say that that is because it was you know too too much of a stressor. So if we think about — So tell us what that means. DHEA. So for the people on the show that don't know what that means. — DHEA produced by the adrenal glands. So then it was the adrenal glands were suffering. It was stressful. Goes back to what I spoke about cortisol before. So it was stressful. So if we look at fasting in general, it is a type of hormatic stress. So hormesis is a stress on the body that is usually helpful and will make us stronger. Examples of hormesis would be like cold plunging, um infrared sauna, exercise. So these are all hormatic stressors on the body. So if we think of fasting as one of those hormatic stressors, you know, we still have to make sure we're doing it correctly. Um, I'm not going to cold plunge every day. If I'm going through a really stressful event, you know, if if something's going on, you know, I'm moving or selling my house or something, I'm not going to add on to the stress already. So, so intermittent fasting, if you, you know, talk about menopause, that transition can be stressful. So, that could be why maybe it wouldn't be the right thing. Or what you could do is just modify the intermittent fasting. Do it for a week, then take a break, you know, if you're not cycling. If you're cycling, you intermittent fast two weeks of the follicular phase, ludal phase, eat three meals a day or, you know, eat if you're hungry. So, so that that with intermittent fasting, we have to look at that. I actually had a post-menopausal patient was doing intermittent fasting and gained weight on it. So, we put a continuous glucose monitor on her arm.

[43:31] What the a continuous glucose monitor is is it tracks your glucose or your blood sugar all day. It's not just pricking a finger and getting one point in time. You get to see it all day. So, it looks like a really cool graph. Okay. Big spikes bad. Smoother and moderate spikes when you eat better. So, this patient, we put that on her because I'm like, "Oh, I think you're stressing your body out too much by fasting all the time." She got a big spike around 11 a.m. cuz she hadn't eaten all day and she wasn't going to eat until 1 or two. She got a big spike and that's why she was gaining all that belly weight. It was stressing her body out. — Yeah. Paying attention for what works for you in particular. Super super important. Yeah, that's great. Love Well, tell us about — So, let's put you on the spot a little bit if it's okay. — Love it. — It's fun to I'd love to go through um like a couple things. One one thing I'd like to hear from you on is, you know, when what what makes you want to scream at a patient when they come in and they're reasonably, you know, they're they're they're not in terrible shape, but they're doing certain things, you know, the fat things, the intermittent fasting. Um, so I get quick questions on thumbs up or thumbs down. Red light — Thumbs up. Cryo.

[44:56] — Oh yeah. — Cold plunge. — For listeners that aren't viewing, all thumbs up. — Yeah. I feel like I feel like cryo I was going to go like medium because it's so expensive and you could just put your shower on cold or do cold plunge, you know, but also if you're like I used to cold plunge every day. Um I felt really, you know, when we moved to Tennessee, moving is like one of the most stressful things you can do, you know, and four kids and a husband and a bunch of animals. We moved. So I still like finally now I told my husband, can you start putting my cold plunge together again because I finally feel more regulated. So those things, you know, you see all the Joe Rogan's and everyone doing cold plunging every day. They're men. Women are just a lot different like how we perceive and and Dr. John, I'm sure you you can agree with that. Women are just very different how we perceive and internalize stress. — How about vibration plates? That's the the latest thing. Okay. So, that's mid too. Um, they're good. What are we doing with vi vibration plates? Moving lymphatics. Correct. So, — if someone has an underlying issue going on and they are on their vibration plate and they're very itchy after you pro that's like histamine, right? And as we go through pmenopause, we get more susceptible almost to these to this histamine because progesterone is declining and that kind of keeps it in check. So, um it it kind of can almost be like a like a test for it, right? If you're on a vibration plate and you feel like total garbage using it, well, maybe you have mold going on. Maybe you need some hormonal support with pmenopause. So, I I think they're good. They're a little overhyped vibration plates, but — do rebound.

[46:51] — There's supposed to be some some osteoporosis uh impact too, right? Where you're you're doing something to load the muscles without resistance train. I I haven't I don't know the science in this space very well. — Um yeah, but I thought those studies were on lifting weights while on a vibration plate. That's very interesting. I — know what it was. — I will look into that because a vibration plate by itself helping with osteoporosis. I am not I actually am not sure, but now I want to look that up. — Yeah, not my area. And and by the way, we should say this for the listeners, like, hey, this show does not mean you're getting medical advice. You got to really try it out for yourself. Work with your provider. Like, I've heard of some things where like, you know, cold plunge is actually not a good idea for some people, heart conditions, whatever the case may be, or certain. So, so we're talking in generalizations here. Make sure that you're talking to a provider. And and just because you heard it from a doctor doesn't mean it's your doctor looking at your chart with your circumstances. You know, you want to make sure that you're doing smart things for you. And hopefully the doctor is giving you not generalized advice, but things that are working specifically for — You know, as you things change as you get older, like I you know, I'm a lot older than John and and Randy and um so our focus and my wife and I are the same age. Our focus is on inflammation, um, stable diet, you know, you know, to almost the total elimination of of processed foods. You know, like you, I don't like to go out to dinner. A, I always criticize it because it's never as good as I could have made the same thing at home.

[48:21] — That's I think you are better cook than most people. — Yeah. Well, I you know, we work at it. But um you know we have a vibration plate, we have a red light panel, you know, I do cryo, you know, and it all it you know, like anything, it's I think and I lift weights and I just came back from a four mile walk and all that. So you got to do all of those things. Um and I think people sometimes just pick want to pick one thing. Well, I'm going to go do cryo and that's going to solve this inflammation problem that I have, but it isn't that. It's it — it's hard work — to stay healthy and I don't I don't think people really recognize that and they've got to find someone like you — who's going to talk straight to them and give them good advice and move them along maybe slowly in the in the right way. And I think that's the big mistake. Everyone wakes up Monday morning wants to go on a diet and get healthy today. We're going to get healthy today is the day and it just doesn't work. — Yeah, it takes time. I actually right before this call I was talking to a patient and and I'm like you know it took you a really long time to get these symptoms and to be like this. So it's not going to be overnight cuz he was frustrated was like nothing's working right away even though he did have positive things happen but it's people have to realize that you have to stay the course. It's there's no easy fix.

[49:42] The internet lies. You're not going to melt off fat in 5 days. I mean this stuff just doesn't happen. So, I would say, you know, grace with yourself and your journey and that you just have to stay committed and and I know that's hard in a world that promises instant gratification. Doesn't work like that. — I mean, I imagine you you run into patients every day that say, "Why I want a Zmpic or I want, you know, Boi, you know, quick fix. That's the one thing that that must drive you nuts." Um — Um No, it doesn't. So, I actually I love when patients when they bring it up, they don't know it's in the back of my mind and it is a tool that we might use with them. I mean, I've been using GLP1s and peptides for for eight years before they were popular. So, it's always been a tool in my toolbox and I know that my patients can get that the next day from a med spa, which who knows where they're getting their their stuff from. That's sketchy, but I know they can get it. Anyone can get anything right now. So, it's I love when they bring it up to me.

[50:49] When they say, "Oh, I saw something on Tik Tok or Instagram." I like it when they do that because then we can talk about it and I could talk about the pros and cons. If it's something crazy, I had this patient talk about bee venom and I'm like, I've heard of it, but I haven't studied it for your condition. So, I'm like, I will study that. That's why I have days off to study and research things. And and then I came back to her with it. I would never like gaslight them or make them think that something isn't worth looking at because if it's important to them, it's important to me. So with the GLP1s, women especially and men, they're losing too much muscle. So highdosese GLP1s, you lose too much muscle. When you stop, you are going to gain back fat because we know it is hard to gain muscle. After age of 40, we lose 1 to 2% of our muscle mass per year leading to sarcopenia. So muscle itself is an endocrine organ. Our muscles excrete um chemicals called mitoines which can you know influence our body from like an endocrine standpoint. So it's pretty cool what muscle does. We don't want to lose it.

[51:57] So I will put patients on GLP1s. I love to. I think they are a great tool. And I will also make sure that they are lifting weights. Sometimes I'll put them on a growth hormone secret peptide like So then they are, you know, metabolically building muscle and having support with the growth hormone. They're on creatine, you know, they're eating protein. So, it's it's really important to have that discussion with the patient on yes, it's important to lose weight and visceral fat, you know, and fat, but you're going to lose some muscle when you overall net lose weight. So, we need to make sure that you are maintaining and building muscle while you're losing weight. And I think that um sadly when big pharma really took over with all these GLP1s which is a peptide our body makes and actually fasting increases our natural GLP-1 but they really are just using it as a quick fix as a medication right like just take this med you know you and it's true we know with GLP1s morbidity and mortality all cause you know morbidity and mortality mortality for um stroke and cardiovascular disease. We call them maces, major adverse cardiovascular events. We know that that goes down, but at what cost? And this is like I know Anthony, it seems like you're super into longevity. So it's like if you you know, yes, you're not dying from a heart attack, but you're so weak you break your hip and then you're in the hospital and then you're in a nursing home. You know, that's not good either. So, it's all about balance with that kind of stuff. And I think it's so important.

[53:44] I'm glad you brought it up. — Tell us about the book and why you wrote the book. Sorry, Randy. — Oh, go ahead. This one more important. Go ahead. — Okay. Yeah. So, the Perry menopause reset. So, it is a guide for pmenopause women and their husbands, but really any woman that has hormones because I I talk about how the environment affects our hormones, how things we put in our body, on our body affect our hormones, how to detoxify estrogens properly. And then I also talk about the spiritual component. You know, we are what we watch. Um, you know, that's why I haven't watched the pit yet. like I don't watch a lot of TV but but we are what we watch the music we listen to who we surround ourselves by and I am a Christian and faith is really important as a part of my peace too and having peace you know without understanding even though I have crazy things going on in my life at all times but the book is really important for women to not know that they're not crazy because a lot of them have been told they're crazy so I've seen you know hundred Hundreds and hundreds of women in perry menopause, they feel like they're falling apart. They don't feel like themselves. Um, it can really affect their marriage, their friendships with their in their relationships with their kids. So, there's no need for that. They can feel better. They can get support. They can do some lifestyle changes to support them through pmenopause and then into menopause.

[55:17] — So, real talk, why is it important for men to read this book? I got to tell you, I've just started learning about this and I think I I think every man should read a book about menopause uh to understand what's going on without feeling like they need to go give the answer to their wife because I think that can be just as detrimental as not reading the book. — Yeah. And I would say reading it together for sure because the women need the information too. But you know when we look at like divorce and stress in marriages, it's usually in pmenopause and menopause. Um, you know, a woman might just have more mood swings because her hormones aren't balanced and then that can lead to intimacy problems in the bedroom, right? And the husband, you know, he thinks it's his fault or he thinks that she's not interested or, you know, that could just snowball into an argument, but, you know, we could be talking about it. instead blood sugar, you know, spikes and, you know, as the stress hormone changes, as the progesterone changes, you know, blood sugar imbalance. So that leads to mood disorders and problems. So that could come in as, you know, anxiety and progesterone going lower, that definitely causes anxiety. So this all just layers on each other. So the woman is snapping at the children, gaining weight, doesn't feel like she can have intimacy with her spouse. It just all compounds. Now, if the the husband knew what was going on and recognizes this, he would maybe give her a little more grace. He would know that this is going to pass, that they're going to get through it together, like everything else they've gotten through together.

[56:53] um you know just so many things and I've heard so many stories from my patients and it's it just doesn't need to be that way. It doesn't it's actually really a lovely time in a woman's life once their hormones are stable. Well, if they can go through it together and the guy recognizes that he's going to go through some changes, you know, in his 50s and both participate in therapy, if you will, the, you know, both psychological therapy and and hormone — then they're in it together and they're they're they're solving each other's problems. And you know, again, I'm a survey of one — and um you know, we we go back to the Suzanne Summers days of an alternative way to approach this, which at the time was, you know, poo pooed by a lot of people. There just a few special practitioners like yourself that um were leading the way. And I, you know, I I I thank God for that. um because we didn't go down uh we you know we've been down the um bio identical route for 20 years now uh almost 20 years. So um yeah I think the more the more people like yourself that get into this business for the right reasons the better for a lot for for a lot of us. So — I really respect what you do.

[58:21] — Yes. Yes. So — um Dr. Jen, where can people find you? Are you taking patients? So, you said you're you're online. Are you are you taking patients? Can they find you? Is there You mentioned you do a lot of training. Is there social media sites? Where do you want to send people? — Yeah. So, my website healthybyden.com And there you can, you know, find my book, my blog, my shops, how to work with me. I am taking new patients. I'm in four states, soon to be six, but Ohio, Michigan, Texas, and Tennessee right now. So, you do have to be in the state to see me. But I love I love working one-on-one with patients. But I also have a YouTube and an Instagram, Integrative Doctor Mom, and lots of free information there. And I have a podcast that's on my YouTube and just the Healthy by Dr. Jen podcast. So, lots of free information and places to find me and grab a copy of the book.

[59:23] — Perfect. Um, and we will put that in the show notes, but one more time, give people the website and then I don't know if that I even I cut it. What's the name of the book again? — The Perry Menopause Reset. So, it's on my my Instagram or sorry, my website, Healthy by Dr. Jen. — Perfect. Thank you so much. This has been this has been fantastic. uh and best of luck and uh our audience I know appreciates it and their journey toward abundance. So thank you Dr. — J. Guys — listen and subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcast. Click follow for more content like this or go to talesofabundance.com to join our community and get free tools.