Episode 141: The Easiest Way to Maintain a High Quality of Life
Apr 15, 2024Episode 141
Jenni
Ever felt like the advice you're getting for your back pain is just a Band-Aid solution? We tackle this head-on as Dr. Jake Berman and I, Jenny Berman, PA, dissect the all-too-common issue of back pain and the hidden culprits that could be to blame. Say goodbye to ineffective treatment plans as we emphasize the importance of targeting the true root of the problem—like those glutes that might be slacking off on the job. Hear the inspiring story of a triathlete who, against all odds, chose to question his diagnosis and seek out functional recovery, proving that with the right expertise, giving up doesn't have to be an option.
In the realm of health and wellness, the scale doesn't always tell the whole story. Join us as we challenge the focus on weight loss and redirect that spotlight onto the significance of body composition for your health and longevity. We'll unpack why fasting might not be the golden ticket to sustainable health outcomes and reveal how muscle mass fits into your personal health equation. You're not just a number on a scale or a case file in an insurance database; you're a unique individual, and we'll show you why personalized, expert advice can be a game-changer on your journey to well-being. Reflect on the guidance you've received through the years and join us as we empower you to take control of your health narrative, today and every day.
Ever felt like the advice you're getting for your back pain is just a Band-Aid solution? We tackle this head-on as Dr. Jake Berman and I, Jenny Berman, PA, dissect the all-too-common issue of back pain and the hidden culprits that could be to blame. Say goodbye to ineffective treatment plans as we emphasize the importance of targeting the true root of the problem—like those glutes that might be slacking off on the job. Hear the inspiring story of a triathlete who, against all odds, chose to question his diagnosis and seek out functional recovery, proving that with the right expertise, giving up doesn't have to be an option.
In the realm of health and wellness, the scale doesn't always tell the whole story. Join us as we challenge the focus on weight loss and redirect that spotlight onto the significance of body composition for your health and longevity. We'll unpack why fasting might not be the golden ticket to sustainable health outcomes and reveal how muscle mass fits into your personal health equation. You're not just a number on a scale or a case file in an insurance database; you're a unique individual, and we'll show you why personalized, expert advice can be a game-changer on your journey to well-being. Reflect on the guidance you've received through the years and join us as we empower you to take control of your health narrative, today and every day.
This is the Berman Method podcast, featuring Dr Jake Berman and physician assistant Jenny Berman. We are here to treat problems and not symptoms. Disclaimer this podcast is for entertainment purposes only and not to treat anyone or to give medical advice. If you are interested in any information that we are giving and would like to use this for yourself, we recommend that you contact your primary care physician or reach out to us and ask us questions about yourself specifically. Enjoy.
Speaker 2:
The Berman Method Podcast, treating problems and not symptoms.
Speaker 1:
Beautiful, was it? That was a good pitch. Did you?
Speaker 2:
love it.
Speaker 1:
I did, I always do Nothing new.
Speaker 2:
All right, all right, all right, changing it up on you, dr Berman, here with my co-host.
Speaker 1:
Jenny Berman, physician assistant. What was changing it up? My intro wasn't exactly the same as any other intro. I don't think any of them are exactly the same, but they're all in the same container, so I need to go into left field.
Speaker 2:
Are we in right field?
Speaker 1:
right now. If you want it to be totally different, that was just not different, oh my goodness Jeez Louise.
Speaker 2:
Anyways Happy.
Speaker 1:
Monday.
Speaker 2:
Here we are, we're back.
Speaker 1:
Treating problems and not symptoms.
Speaker 2:
What's an example of that?
Speaker 1:
Well, so we're talking about back pain. Is it really your back, or is it that your glutes aren't firing, that your butt muscles aren't working and activating appropriately? Probably not really your back that's causing the pain. So what's the problem?
Speaker 2:
What's really causing this? Not that herniated disc, that degeneration or bone on bone. It's something else.
Speaker 1:
In my world not being able to lose weight. It might not just be the calories in calories out issue. Let's actually find the problem of with your metabolism, of your body not metabolizing food efficiently. And why is it not metabolizing efficiently?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, cholesterol. Your cholesterol is high. Instead of taking a cholesterol medication. What's causing the cholesterol to be high?
Speaker 1:
Correct. That's another great example.
Speaker 2:
I like that one too. Yeah, we can just keep going on, and on, and on.
Speaker 1:
Well, that's what we do.
Speaker 2:
It's actually one of the things that we wanted to talk about today is bringing back some more explicit examples on who you're taking advice from and letting that advice radically change the direction of your life, right?
Speaker 1:
Right, right. So give me an example.
Speaker 2:
Just this past weekend talking with another friend about his back issues and this is a guy that used to be a multi, multi, multi triathlete and back to back Ironmans or I'm not sure if I'm saying the language right, but this guy was just active, insanely active. Back started bothering him and went down the corporate medicine rabbit hole. Went to the first orthopedic surgeon yeah, you got to have surgery, you got to give up your sport. Goes to the second one same thing surgery or give up your sport. Third one surgery or give up your sport. There's nothing surgery or give up your sport. There's nothing that you can do to keep doing your sport. So you either have surgery or you quit doing your sport. So he ultimately quits running, quits Ironman and quits triathleting and doesn't do anything now.
Speaker 1:
So we went from exercising five to seven days a week, hours at a time, to not doing any exercise, and that was his outlet, probably was being able to exercise, and now he's being told he can't, so nothing. How does that affect your quality of life?
Speaker 2:
The thing that blows my mind, though, is I didn't know any of this, any of this history at all, and I've known this guy for a few years now. We're not close friends, but we're in the same friend group, so we see each other occasionally when we go to the same place on the beach and different social events. We see each other occasionally, and I would never, ever ever, look at this guy and say he's got back issues right, just by the way he moves, walks yes, he's very agile active, not fragile at all.
Speaker 2:
There's nothing about this guy that is guarded. And when he told me that, I was kind of looking at them in disbelief, going really, they told you that your back is so shot that you can't get back to doing the things that you love to do. And this is a perfect example of you've got to be careful who you are taking advice from. This particular gentleman is taking advice from world-renowned orthopedic surgeons who specialize in surgery. Right right. They do not specialize in getting you back to functionality.
Speaker 1:
Right Rehabilitation, regenerative, getting muscles working. It's not their specialty, it's so important to realize this.
Speaker 2:
And again, I'm not foo-fooing or crapping on orthopedic surgeons or doctors of any sort. I'm just saying they are experts at performing surgery. I am not. I'm not Like I'm not an expert at performing surgery. I'm an expert at helping you avoid surgery or recover from surgery. So I'd never, ever, ever try to give you advice on surgery.
Speaker 1:
Right, and not to say that there wasn't something occurring that could have been surgical, but was there something that could be done to at least allow him to be able to go out for a short run, to be able to get on a bike, to be able to go swim, to do some sort of activity that he likes doing, even if it's not doing a full triathlon or a full Ironman?
Speaker 2:
I love it, love it, love it, love it. Because exactly what you just said made me really think about the details of it. When we're having this conversation and I'm going here's the reason why you get this diagnosis and let it change the course of your life is you've got these pictures, these x-rays and MRIs that say this is what's going on with your spine. It's not good at all, it's disgusting, it's ugly, it's surgical, there's no recovery from this. So you've got these pictures that say this recovery from this. So you've got these pictures that say this. Then you've got some cookie cutter physical therapist that's asking you to do things that are way too advanced for the level that you should be at. So if you go with a simple level of zero to 10, and this translates across everything this translates into your world, jenny. This translates into everything. Everything is scaled on zero to 10, meaning rate a squat.
Speaker 1:
A nine.
Speaker 2:
It is a simple squat that personal trainers are taking people through all day, every day in the gym and people are doing on their own and people are putting weight on their back and doing squats. This is a level nine out of 10 to do it perfectly.
Speaker 1:
And yet we're just doing it Right. Right, and that's where the pain comes in is from doing these things incorrectly. And so then you have an MRI that shows you have a bulging disc and you're having pain when you do these exercises. Then certainly have surgery.
Speaker 2:
Exactly Running. What? Would you scale that at Zero to 10?
Speaker 1:
Probably also a nine.
Speaker 2:
I would put it at a 10 because with a squat you get support from both legs to give you stability. With running, you're relying on one leg to give yourself stability, because the definition of running is there's at least both feet in the air at one time.
Speaker 1:
Right, right Correct. So it's challenging because then when you're on the one foot transitioning to the other foot, you have to have the push off, the right form.
Speaker 2:
That's where you're going, yeah, it's just hard. So here we go. We're a triathlete and we're used to running, biking, swimming, right. We get all these negative pictures that show up and say how bad the spine is. Then we go to the cookie cutters are us and they have you do some BS, bridges and squats and everything, things that are level six or seven on what you should be doing, which is a level one. Can you actually activate your core and your glutes laying flat on your back, gravity minimized, right, right, like that's a level one. And I can honestly say on this podcast, right here, right now nobody has ever come into my office on day one with back pain and been able to pass level one well, even me or you I can't do it we're flared up, we are not passing those things either.
Speaker 1:
I mean, I might not pass them even when I'm not flared up getting my left glute and my left oblique to fire the right way.
Speaker 2:
It's just nuts. So if you, if nobody and I've worked with very high level athletes, I've worked with collegiate athletes and I've worked with weekend warriors if none of them can pass level one, what in the world makes you think that? Okay, that's not worth my time to perfect level one and I'm just going to skip to level seven, eight and nine.
Speaker 1:
Right, and then you wonder why your pain's not improving. Or it might get better for a week or two while you're not running or jumping, doing these exercises, and then you try to go back to doing your prior routine and the pain comes right back because we actually haven't fixed a problem.
Speaker 2:
Exactly so. This goes back full circle. You must be careful who you're taking advice from Us being young professionals I heard this a lot. I'm sure you've heard it just as much where you should never, ever ever take financial advice from somebody who is not better off than you are financially. Right. I mean that, just that makes clear sense right. Why would I take financial advice from somebody that is not doing better than me financially? Right. Right, I'm not going to do that Right. Right.
Speaker 2:
Right. So the same thing goes for this You're taking advice from somebody who is an expert in surgery, then you're going and taking advice from a cookie cutter, pt, who is bootstrapped by or not bootstrapped strangle, held by insurance, and they can only do X, y, z and you actually need ABC.
Speaker 1:
Right. Not only are they, they only can do X, can do XYZ based on insurance, but they also have to see multiple clients at one time to make productivity and a profit in the clinic, which is another story. But the point of that is is they're seeing three other clients at the same time that they're seeing you, as opposed to actually being able to put an hour into you and into your exercises and your regimen of what's best for you.
Speaker 2:
Exactly. Right.
Speaker 2:
So it's very simple, not easy, and we do the same exact methodology in the PT room as we do in the golf room and everything's based off of a scale. They have levels. You've got to master level one before we can go to level two. You've got to master level two before we can go to level three. You can't just go from level one to level seven Like it doesn't work. But that's what the rest of the country is doing, that's corporate medicine. Right there you go to the cookie cutters RS physical therapy. You go to the cookie cutters RS nutritionists and dieticians, the ones that take insurance at the hospital, and you see them once a month and they're skipping levels one through six Right and taking you straight to level seven, eight, nine and ten Right, and then you're like I wonder why I'm not getting better.
Speaker 1:
Right, right, or you know, in our world, those who may go to you know a nutritionist or dietitian and they're not evaluating the full picture. So they put them on some type of meal plan, they put you on intermittent fasting, they put you on a cleansing fast, they put you on a low calorie meal plan with B12 injections and you're seeing weight loss. Well, that's great, but what's actually going on inside of your body? Are you losing muscle mass? Are they checking your body composition to see the weight loss that you're having? Is it actually fat mass you're losing or is it muscle mass that you're losing?
Speaker 1:
What's happening to your strength, which the amount of muscle mass we have in our strength dictates our longevity Number one. Muscle mass we have in our strength dictates our longevity number one, dictates your metabolism long-term, but also is what keeps our body and our mind working forever. So that's something to know is what are they looking at as far as weight loss? Are they just looking at the number on the scale or actually looking at your body composition? What about your blood testing? What is your blood testing looking like with the type of meal plan or the intermittent fast or the cleanse that they're putting you on? How is that impacting your liver and your kidney functions? How is that impacting your cholesterol? Cholesterol is strictly inflammatory, so if you're on a meal plan that is stressing your body out or having foods that your body is sensitive to, long term this is not benefiting you from the inside out.
Speaker 2:
I love it. You hit the nail on the head two minutes ago when you said checking the numbers on the scale and making sure that we're looking at what is really happening, what's going on internally. Because muscle we all should know by now, 200 or 150 episodes into this thing that muscle weighs more than fat. So if you're trying to lose weight, that's one thing. However, if you're trying to get a better overall composition, body composition that's a completely another thing, meaning that the number on the scale might not change. However, the composition of fat going down and muscle mass going up could change dramatically and you look better, feel better, clothes are fitting better.
Speaker 1:
I mean, obviously everybody cares with how they look and how the clothes are fitting, which certainly is important, but it's also the longevity that comes with that, with having more muscle mass and less fat mass, as opposed to just getting on a program where you're on a fast, dropping weight immediately but you're probably losing muscle mass and water, which sure your clothes are going to fit better, and you're going losing muscle mass and water, which sure your clothes are going to fit better, and you're going to look trimmer in the mirror for the week or 10 days that you're doing the fast. But then, as soon as you try to go back to a quote unquote normal meal plan, that water weight's going to come back, the inflammation is going to come back, the weight's going to come back because you haven't really fixed a problem of getting your body to metabolize more efficiently.
Speaker 2:
Got it, so I guess it comes back. We could summarize everything with this, and we've been talking about this a lot for the past couple of weeks and Jenny was frustrated when I wanted to bring it up again. However, I think it's a good way to summarize this. It's going to cost you something. It's going to cost you time, it's going to cost you money. It might cost you time and money, and it's never, ever the best option when it's the cheapest option. So make sure you listen to who you're taking advice from and make sure that you're taking into consideration. What are they an expert in that you're taking into consideration? What are they an expert in? Are they an expert in what I'm trying to achieve here, or are they just an authority figure and I'm taking their advice because that's what the social norm is?
Speaker 1:
Right and, like we've talked about in the past, is If they are an expert in surgery, they're probably going to recommend surgery and may not understand what an out-of-network physical therapy, functional therapy clinic can do For those within network referring to in-network dieticians where you're not getting that consistent follow-up, you're not getting the deeper evaluation into your metabolism, You're not getting someone to look at your gut health and your inflammation and your vitamin levels, which ultimately is impacting your entire metabolism and your body's ability to burn fat or to stabilize your blood sugar and a lot of what we talk about we've said it many, many, many times on this podcast is being able to work outside of insurance is the most beneficial for us and our clients because we can actually evaluate the person and we're not dictated by what we can do, by what insurance company says is okay versus not okay.
Speaker 2:
Love it. What else are you want to wrap up there?
Speaker 1:
No, I think that's. That's good, it's. You know, what we wanted to talk about today is coming back to who you're listening to. What advice are you getting, and are they actually looking at the full picture? Are they looking internally? Are they looking at muscle activation? Are they looking at what's happening inside of your body, and is that the actual problem to your pain, or to your weight loss issue, or to your inflammation and your joint pain?
Speaker 2:
Is it customized to you or is it a one size fits most type of thing?
Speaker 1:
Exactly.
Speaker 2:
Good, Very good. Like and subscribe. Let us know what you thought about this podcast. Think about really think about who has given you advice in the past that has radically shaped the course of your life. It doesn't have to be negative or positive, it's just just think about it.
Speaker 1:
I like that.
Speaker 2:
Are you letting it happen again? And now it's a negative thing? Has a doctor, a surgeon or somebody told you that you've got to slow down? You're getting old and you're listening to them, versus the vast majority of our clients are speeding up. Right or they're not slowing down. They're not slowing down and they want to go faster. Right, they're not quitting. Age is just a number. No, hell, no, let's go, let's keep going.
Speaker 1:
I love that. Age is just a number, don't forget it.
Speaker 2:
Yes, share this with somebody that you know we love. You, guys, thank you for listening.
Speaker 1:
Ciao for now. Thank you for subscribing on your social media and podcast platforms to the Berman Method Dr Jake Berman with Berman Physical Therapy and Jenny Berman, physician Assistant, with Berman Health and Wellness. You can find more information on our website wwwbermanptcom for physical therapy, wwwbermanptcom forward slash wellness for the health and wellness. You can also find us on social media, facebook, instagram and on your podcast platform, so be sure to follow us, like us, subscribe to us and, if you would like any further information, definitely visit our website and reach out to us. You may also find our