Muscle Loss Is the Hidden GLP-1 Risk - Metabolic Healing, with Dr. Liz: Episode 393

GLP-1 weight loss shots are everywhere right now, but the part most people aren’t talking about is what happens to your muscle, your metabolism, and your long-term health once the “easy loss” phase ends. We sit down with Dr. Liz, a chiropractor and metabolic health and weight loss specialist, to unpack why quick fixes often backfire and why so many people feel stuck even when they’re doing “all the right things.”

We get specific about real-life scenarios, including weight regain, bloating, and nutrient gaps after bariatric surgery like gastric sleeve and lap band. Dr. Liz explains how the body adapts to eating less, why nutritional deficiency can drive the body to store more, and how a sustainable plan has to go beyond a permanent low-calorie approach. She also shares why her work is highly individualized, especially for people with physical restrictions, fear around the scale, menopause changes, or a long history of dieting.

Then we tackle GLP-1 agonists head-on: the muscle loss numbers, how muscle supports healthy blood sugar and aging, why losing muscle can increase future type 2 diabetes risk, and what concerns she’s watching in the research and real-world reports. We also connect the dots between the nervous system, chiropractic care, digestion, and healing, and we end with a practical strategy you can use today: read ingredient labels, choose real food, and change one habit at a time.

If you care about metabolic health, sustainable weight loss, gut health, and keeping the weight off without wrecking your body, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s considering GLP-1s, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway.

To reach Dr. Liz - https://www.back2realfood.com

©2022-2026 Soul Healer17:77, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Any copying of this poetry and audio in whole or part is prohibited. *I do not own the rights to the royalty free music*

Have a lovely day and stay blessed

Transcript

Welcome And Meet Dr. Liz

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome back, listeners. I'm Robin Black and this is It's All About the Healing Podcast. Today we have Dr. Liz with us. She is a metabolic health profession, professional, and also a weight loss specialist. So she's going to tell us a little bit about herself, and then we're going to get into that later. So Liz, tell us a little bit about you.

SPEAKER_01 0:21

Absolutely. So I kind of accidentally ended up getting into doing weight loss and focusing on metabolic health, partly my own health journey, but it really cascaded from I'm a chiropractor and I chose chiropractic as a profession because it is focused on healing the body from the inside out. So rather than assuming the body breaks down and it needs something from the outside to fix it, chiropractors look at the body holistically. How do we get the body to heal better from the inside out? And the nutrition and the weight loss was part of my own story, my own journey that I always had an interest in. And then applying it through those chiropractic lenses of how to get the body to heal, how to get weight to come off naturally was just God-inspired, you know, trajectory of where I am right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Awesome. So did you have to go on your own weight loss journey as well? I did.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

I struggled with my weight, starting kind of, you know, how we are as teenagers. You know, we think we have weight to lose, and we look back and we're like, I didn't really need to lose weight then. But I would say it really started, I started to struggle in college. You know, I got the freshman 15, and then after college, I got another 15. And I, you know, went to chiropractic school and I learned all this stuff about health and science and physiology. And, you know, even with all I knew as a doctor, it took some time to really figure out like, why do the normal things not work for everybody? And that's how back to real food was born.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Okay. So,

Sleeve Surgery, Bloating, And Nutrition Gaps

SPEAKER_00 1:50

because I actually have a couple of questions because I lost weight myself with the gastric sleeve surgery. However, I'm it'll be two years in December. So there's certain things I know you say with metabolic health, the things that I eat, because I can't really eat that much anymore. However, certain things that I eat will still cause bloating. It'll still cause me, it feels like I'm tacking some weight back on. So, what is it that I need to kind of focus on? Or is each person, is it more individualized, or how exactly does that work?

SPEAKER_01 2:24

So I would definitely say I work one-on-one. So I do very much individualized, specialized stuff, but there's definitely some general things that I expect to see with different situations. So somebody like you, specific that you've had some medical intervention, you've had surgery, whether it's the sleeve or the lap band or the balloon or bypasses a little bit in the different process, but there is a little bit of overlap. The challenge tends to be that because the space is smaller, you can't get enough food. And so your body still needs nutrition, but it's hard to get the amount of nutrition, nutrition that you need. So what happens oftentimes that I find in that population is because immediately after surgery, you can't eat any, you know, it's hard to eat anything, you lose a lot of weight really quickly, but then the body adapts. The body adapts to living on less. And then the body is still in this now nutritionally deficient kind of a situation. And so it it's it's worry, it's packing, you know, it tries to store more of what you're eating because now it's like there's not enough nutrition in our environment. So it's trying to, you know, regain some of the weight. And so when I'm working with somebody that has had that physical change, obviously I'm not going to go in and undo that. That's part of it. That's there. But I've worked with a lot, especially women that have had the sleeve or the lap band or some different things like that. And what I find is what I do for weight loss works really well for them because you don't have to eat a lot during the weight loss part. Yeah. But what's different is what's different in my approach to healing the metabolism and fixing the real root of weight gain and weight loss for people is that you can't just live on a low calorie diet forever. So the first part I do work with people on a lower calorie, but then the second part of what I do to get their body really well stabilized and to lock in the weight they've lost, I do a high calorie. I train the body, I train the brain and the body to be able to eat more than what you need and not gain weight back. And with my lap band or my leave people, this is what's really unique, is it's gonna be hard for you to do that. You wouldn't necessarily intuitively know how to do that naturally. And even with me, I've been doing this for a decade and a half now. I have to get really creative because you know, an average framed female, I don't know if anybody on here or you have counted calories before. I try to not talk about counting calories because sometimes that's overwhelming for people. But, you know, excuse me, a small to medium frame woman would probably need about 1300 calories, a larger frame woman might need 18 or 1900 calories. But while I'm stabilizing the body, I actually like to get them about four or five, six hundred calories over what their body needs to teach the body that you're not living in starvation, that you're not, you know, I always joke, you're not dropped in a third-world country where there's no food. And so during that time when I'm working with somebody that has physical restrictions, we have to just get kind of creative. How do we get these calories in where you're not regurgitating or feeling sick all day or things like that? So I do, you know, it's very, you know, I do kind of more creative stuff. And again, this is where it's one-on-one because, you know, I've got people who are scared to step on the scale. I've got people who physically have a restriction like what you're describing. I've had people that, you know, have been up and down on the weight loss drugs. I've got people that, you know, never struggled and then menopause hit. And now they're like, I don't even know how to diet, I don't know where to start. So I always, you know, say, well, let's let's get to the root of the problem first. But I do focus on this, not just what do you do to lose the weight, but the habits and changing the physiology so that the weight loss is something that is going to be sustainable. It doesn't matter how much weight you lose, if you can't keep it off, it's a waste of time, money, and energy.

SPEAKER_00 6:24

Right. And

Sustainable Weight Loss Beyond Low Calories

SPEAKER_00 6:25

so, because that's what it seems like a lot of doctors, I hate to say it, a lot of doctors are kind of moving towards is the moment you start packing that weight back on, they're like, okay, well, let's put you on fitramine and adepegs, let's put you on the GLPN, let's put you on this. Like, what is what are your thoughts on that? Because I know you said it's the holistic melonic weight loss, but how do you feel about being on the weight loss drugs?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Yeah, so you know, there's a time and place for any any drug or any surgery. There's a time and place for it. But I find that a lot of times people resort to that because they don't know there's other options. Right. And so if you don't get to the root of the problem, you're gonna be, you're gonna keep chasing those symptoms. I am not a huge fan of that being a first resort or what you go to. And you know, I always defend, I always defend our doctors. You know, I don't there's very few doctors that I know that went into medicine because it was just about the money. Right. Most doctors are healers. Most doctors got into it because they want to help people. My father, my grandfather was an amazing pediatrician. He practiced a lot differently than how I practice. Right. But I know his heart and he always did what was best. Now, one of the limits in traditional medicine in the wrestling world where we are, is that it is very much based around when something goes wrong, let's grab a drug. When something goes wrong, let's have a surgery, versus, you know, Eastern medicine, which is more looking at, okay, what's some of these underlying causes? I will say the majority of chronic disease in America is from our food. Okay. Dead series. It's from our food. We spend about 30 30% of our, I think it's 30% of our income on food, but we spend like 60% on health care. Versus a lot of European countries, they spend 60% on food and 30% on healthcare. It's kind of flip-flop. So we've made it very easy for people not to go hungry in this country, which is wonderful. But what we've changed in the food supply and in convenience is creating a lot of the health problems. So processed food, ultra-processed foods, things like that, you're not getting nutrition. So, I mean, again, back to back to your story. You know, you physically can't eat very much. I know you're eating a low calorie diet, no matter what you're doing. Right. But you're putting on weight. Yeah. Because nutritionally, there's some holes with what your body needs. And that's the same thing that's happened in our pediatric population, in our adolescents, where we're dealing with obesity at younger and younger ages. They had to change the name from adult onset diabetes to type two because now we have so many kids and so many youth that are type two diabetic, and these are lifestyle things.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:20

So the drugs are not my favorite first course. Now, is there a time and place? Absolutely. If somebody doesn't want to, isn't going to change their lifestyle and they're going to end up dead or in a coma because of the way they're eating, I can see a time and place for those drugs. But I don't think it should be this first resort. And unfortunately, I think again, we rely so much on Western medicine and going to the doctor to tell us when something's wrong. And then medicine's best solution for weight loss is not educating a patient on nutrition and lifestyle because those doctors are busy like keeping people out of crisis and not having heart attacks. So they've been trained very well that when the person is obese, it's these risk factors. Here's a drug, take this drug, you won't eat as much, but it's not lasting. Right. So that's where I really like to empower people to, you know, think about this. Like type 2 diabetes, you can change your lifestyle and you don't have to live with type 2 diabetes. You know, high cholesterol, heart disease, so many of these things that people chronic pain, so many of these things are related to inflammation from the way we're eating from different things like that. So I feel like the doctors, their hands are tied in some cases where if they don't get the drug from that doctor, they're just gonna go up the street to another doctor or a clinic. I mean, honestly, GOPs are getting handed out like MMs at Halloween. Like balls, it's kind of like take the MM, hit fat, and then okay, here's a drug, take that, get skinny, okay, get off the drug, get fat. Like it literally, like, I mean, like if you take a step back and you think about like what we're doing and how we're managing weight right now, like we understand it's not, doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Right. And that's why I was kind of confused because I kind of look at different countries and I I definitely see that America, you know, we definitely struggle with obesity. Um, and like you said, some of the things is just what's in our food versus other countries, it's like they don't struggle with obesity. Why is it only America that is struggling with that? And like you say, we're putting it out there like MMs, like just oh, okay, just go ahead and take the shot.

GLP-1 Drugs And The Muscle Loss Trap

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Go ahead and take the shot. But then now it's like I'm seeing that a lot of people who take the shot like have that sunken face, they're losing all of that muscle.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

So as far as long-term being on that, is that really suggested, or would you that so that is the biggest like TSA I've been given to all my patients and anybody that will listen to me is that these GLP one agonist drugs have a consequence and a major danger, major danger, a couple of them actually. So, what you're seeing, what you're describing, the muscle loss in the sunken in face, is that your body's losing the structural fat from your face because it's literally run out of calories. The muscle mass, average muscle loss on a GLP one is 33% of the weight loss. So if somebody loses 30 pounds, the average loss of muscle is 10 pounds of muscle. Oh my goodness. So as we age, we have less hormones helping us build muscle. We have less growth hormone, we have less testosterone, we have less things to help us build muscle. And one of the dangerous things of aging is sarcopedia, which is muscle loss, where we can't care for ourselves because we can't lift ourselves out of bed, we can't lift ourselves on and off the toilet. And so losing muscle mass at an earlier stage is predisposing you to some of these health conditions as you get older. Also, muscle is the tissue that is best at metabolizing glucose. So if you eat carbohydrates, if you eat sugar, which you were meant to eat, I'm not, I'm not like, don't ever eat a carb. I love good, healthy carbs, like I love my potatoes, I love, you know, I love real food. It's not the carbs are the enemy, it's the what we've done to a lot of the carbs. But when you lose muscle, your body becomes less metabolically healthy because when you eat carbohydrates, the first place your body wants to put glucose or glycogen when it's in the blood is it wants to store it in the muscle. When it runs out of muscle to store glycogen, when you have elevated blood sugar, that's where it starts storing it in the liver. That is fatty liver, that is visceral fat, that is leading to type 2 diabetes. So you have less muscle, you're on the drug, you're not eating, you're not retaining healthy tissue, you're losing muscle mass, you go off the drug, and now you gain weight back. Guess what? You are more likely to become a type 2 diabetic because you probably lost five, 10, 15, maybe 20 or 30 pounds of muscle, depending on how much muscle you lost during that process. So when I look long term, I see these drugs, yeah, they're reducing your weight in the short term, but they're increasing your risk of becoming a type 2 diabetic exponentially just from a math equation. Just from a math equation of muscle, you know, stores glycogen for the next time you're active. And if you have less muscle, it goes in the liver, that leads to fatty liver, that builds up around the pancreas, that leads to type 2 diabetes. Right. That's one problem. Another problem is in the animal trials and also even leading up to what we're seeing in people right now. It's so early, it's hard to see how many case studies we're gonna have of people having side effects, but there is a very strong correlation of thyroid cancer with those drugs. And I don't understand the full mechanism is why. I just know that's what the statistics show. And then also the thing that scares me is the neurological component. We're seeing, we're hearing a lot of people having like gastroparesis where they're losing the peristolis or the the you know muscle contraction of their intestinal organs.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

And then we're seeing a few people reporting like eyesight, blindness, some things like that. So there seems to be some sort of neurological component that I don't even understand with the mechanism of what the drug is, other than it's happening enough, it's hitting the news if you're looking for it. And that scares me for people that again, if it's medically necessary, if you're at risk for being in a coma because you won't you won't change what you're eating, it makes sense. But for somebody that's trying to lose five, 10, 15, 30 pounds that really just needs some help with right, how do I change what I'm eating? I think it's a bigger risk than it's worth.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

Right. Because I kind of feel like for those who were kind of in my case, because I I started off pretty heavy. And if you're trying all these different drugs, you're trying the GLPN, you're trying Adepact, you're trying all those, and like you stated, it causes that fatty liver. You before you can even have the surgery, you have to shrink that fatty liver. And that is not that is far from easy. So it's like it kind of puts you in a disadvantage if you if you're on that and then you say, Hey, I want to get on this until I can actually get a certain weight for the surgery. You're still putting yourself at risk of not being able to have that surgery because of the fatty liver.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

So it kind of well, as if you're going straight from the GLP to surgery, I would worry less about the fatty liver. It's more when you go off of it and regain the weight because your body doesn't have anywhere to okay the stuff. But another concern going into surgery, I mean, your heart's a muscle. You're going under anesthesia. Oh, I mean, the muscle, when I say you're losing 33% of your muscle mass, it's not only isolated to the muscles you can see. Your heart's a muscle, your lungs are a muscle, your diaphragm's a muscle, your skeletal system has muscle attachments to be able to be upright. So it's it's again, I think it's riskier than it outweighs. And again, like if somebody's willing to do the work leading up to surgery, that's a lot of work. Yeah. I mean, that's you, you know, there there are ways to get that to work better. And if somebody's willing to do all that work, that's what breaks my heart when I don't get to people before when they put all that work in. I'm like, oh, we could approach that differently. If you're willing to do that amount of work, because it is, it's then what you under a certain weight, and then after surgery, you have to push yourself full of the protein shakes and the different things because what they're trying to prevent is muscle loss because they know if you don't eat, the the tissue your body's gonna cannibalize is your muscle. Like that's literally what's happening. When you don't eat, your body's looking for energy. It's not gonna get that much energy from your fat cells. It will use your fat cells, it will break that down to use that for energy, but it also needs something it can work with to build new parts. It will pull your muscle to keep your organs going. And that's what's happening when you starve yourself. And it doesn't matter if it's pentermine, if it's weight loss surgery, if it's GLP1, when you starve yourself, your body's gonna cannibalize the good tissue to keep the vital organs going.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Wow, that was that was a lot. Like just said that you're like your muscle, your heart is a muscle. It was just like, wow, that was a slap in the face. Like that was huge because I don't think I know me myself, I never even looked at it that way. So I can only imagine how others are feeling. Like that is wow.

SPEAKER_01 18:31

It's it's so trendy, it's so popular. Like when it first hit the market and all the celebrities were touting it, you know what I would tell my patients is you know what? They have the money when something goes wrong. Yeah, don't test this on yourself. Like when something goes wrong with a multi-million dollar, you know, superstar, yeah, they have the money to put into if they have gastroparesis or partial blindness or something like that. But the regular person who is just trying to lose some weight and get healthier, I mean, I can just see the trajectory of the health complications that could could spiral from it.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Right. And don't get me wrong, and I understand each person is is different, but if you could recommend for just you know the average person, I guess, what would be a recommendation of when to stop the well, those who actually aren't diabetic to stop the GLPN? Like what do they are they noticing something internal, external? What would you suggest?

SPEAKER_01 19:28

My personal opinion immediately. I mean, and this is where, I mean, this is where I, you know, I'm a big fan of free will. Like we've got to, you know, you know, I I want us to be able to have these choices to how we manage our health. I would say step one would be educate yourself on both sides. What are the risks? And then you've got to call make that call. For me, if it was, if it was me or somebody I had, you know, power of attorney over their health, I'd stop them immediately and I'd dial in their nutrition. But that's where it's not, it's not going to be the same for everybody. And I work with with people that I work with, I've worked with people that I've helped them lose, you know, 60 or 70 pounds. Um I have I have I have one gentleman and he well, it's it's I always say it's a man thing, but sometimes it's a man thing where he's like, I don't want to have to think about this. And and and and so he did go on a GLP and you know he lost some more, but then he got stuck. And so he reached back out and talked about some ways to um he had already transitioned off the GLP, but he was trying not to gain the weight back and he was trying to lose more weight, and so we we talked about what to do at that next step. So you know, I always say, I'm, you know, I'm I don't judge people for where they're at. I know every single person is given 100% with the day they're having. And sometimes your 100% looks like 110, and sometimes your 100% looks like a 10%, but it's literally the best you got in the day. Yeah. So, you know, if it was me, I would avoid them like the plague, but I also live my body live my life from the inside out of like your body deals from the inside out, and that's how that's the lens I live by. Yeah, um, not everybody's there. I've got a lot of people that you know grew up very heavily in the medical system. You know, I I I did too. I mean, I had tubes at you know, three years old because I had ear infections and antibiotics, sinus infections, all those different kinds of things. Yeah, but in my 20s, I got into chiropractic and understanding different ways of approaching health and realized, like, oh my gosh, like like digestive things can be healed with chiropractic and nutrition. Like, that's awesome. Sinus, I don't have I haven't had a sinus infection since I was 20 years old. I used to get them twice a year every year. Like we can get healthier. This body designed by God was meant to get healthier each year. What we see in this country is common to get sicker, but it's not normal. That's not the way God designed us. So that's the way I look at it.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Very good.

Chiropractic, The Nervous System, And Healing

SPEAKER_00 21:58

That is just so I love to hear that. That was beautiful. Beautiful. But yeah, how do they tie into each other, chiropractic and the metabolism? Like how good question.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah. So I think the first I, you know, once I explain what chiropractic is to people, they're like, I didn't know that. That makes perfect sense. So let me explain chiropractic, and then it probably all makes sense. So your brain controls everything in your body.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

And it sends messages through your spinal cloud out through your nerves. And that's how you're able to leave your hand in the air. That's how I'm able to see you. Is that the brain's talking to the body? Okay. So your spinal column, the bones in your spine, your skull and the bones in your spine are meant to protect the brain and the spinal cord because that's very soft, delicate tissue. Okay. What can happen? Slips and falls, bad posture, bad posture is one of the worst ones. You know what we do? We do we do this all day long. Right. Yeah. Awful for our necks. Slips and falls. I mean, even the birth process is very intense on a baby's spine and mama's spine. But lots of things can shift those vertebra vertebra out of the correct position. And so what happens is the brain still knows what to do to fix the body, but if it can't get the message down and out to the nerve, things don't work right. Right. So I've seen kiddos like my practice. I actually practiced them up in, I think you're in Chicago. Are you in Chicagoland?

SPEAKER_00 23:16

No, I'm actually, no, I'm not. I'm actually in Indianapolis.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Oh, you are? Okay. I was gonna say, for some reason, I saw some of your podcasts mention like Chicagoland area. Well, kind of clock, kind of close enough. Um I I practiced up there. My practice, my practice, my all of my practices have always been about 30 or 40 percent PEDs, pediatrics. And kids, if their upper cervical spine is misaligned, they'll they're more likely to get ear infections. If their midback spine is misaligned, they're more likely to have asthma. So I've seen kettdos in my practice where like three to six adjustments, ear infections went away, asthma went away, like constipation, things like that. That that, you know, when the brain can't communicate, things don't work right. But same thing with with adults, you know, we're more likely to feel like neck pain or headaches, but those same nerves in our neck, they go to our heart, they go to our lungs, they go to our stomach. So misalignments in the spine can impact how the end organ is working and then what that response is back up to the brain. So chiropractic is about not treating neck and back pain, it's about restoring communication between the brain and the rest of the nervous system so the brain can fix the body. Yeah. So when I explain chiropractic it through those lenses, it probably makes sense. Well, food is another avenue of healing. Because if you're if if you're living, you know, do you remember that that movie documentary Super Size Me, where the guy went around and ate McDonald's for 30 days? Yeah, 30 days, healthy man became a sick man. Yeah. So what we put in our body is the building blocks our body has to work with. So if we're putting junk in, our body's not going to be healthy. So again, back through that chiropractic lenses of what's not working in our body. Well, we got to get the junk out and we got to get the good stuff in, and the body heals. That's simple. That's simple. I mean, I've seen women in my in my nutrition part of my practice, my weight loss practice, where infertile got pregnant. I've had three women that were like told they would never get pregnant naturally, get pregnant, just through changing what they were eating. Yeah. So you know, I've had like lots of lots of activities medics. You hear my dog. I'm like, we're not on Zoom because I don't have the background filter on.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

What was I gonna say? My thing is is like now one for like my mother and my stepfather, like I know what I'm getting them for their birthdays and kisses. Like they're getting chiropractic carriers. I didn't know it was that beneficial. Like that that is huge. Like that makes me want to definitely kind of dive more into that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

So like my mom started going to the chiropractor when I was in college. And I came home from college, and she's she's a retired teacher now, but she was teaching at the time. And normally, you know, four o'clock, you know, she got off work and she'd go take, you know, lay down on the couch, take a nap. That's what I was kind of used to in high school. In college, mom got home, she rested on the couch and you know, and then she got up and cooked dinner and did things around the house. And I came home to visit her from college, and here she is, she comes straight up from work and she's doing stuff and she wants to hang out.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

And I'm like, mom, what is going on?

SPEAKER_01 26:34

She's like, you know what? Ever since I've been getting chiropractic care, like I just feel so much better and I have so much more energy, and the tension in my shoulders doesn't bother me, and I don't need to go lay down on the couch after work. And I'm like, this is incredible. So when I have moms in front of me that they're like, oh, I can't spend the money on myself. You know how the moms are. They're like, I can't spend money on myself. Trust me, there is nothing worth more to me than my mom being able to be healthy because of how much she pours into the family. So, mamas, listen to that.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

And that's exactly what you're like, my parents need this. You're like, yeah, I want y'all to be healthy. Yes, absolutely. That's the very first thing where my mom where my mind went to is okay, my mom's getting that. So I'm definitely getting that for her. So, and where exactly are you located again? I'm in Dallas Fort Worth area. Oh, okay, nice. Okay, so you definitely see clients in person.

How Dr. Liz Works With Clients

SPEAKER_01 27:26

I'm I'm mostly virtual. Even my local people, I'm mostly virtual. I have people all over the country. So I have patients up in Chicago, I've got patients in California, the Northeast, like I'm all over all time zones. I will say it's a little bit harder out of the country, but I've had a few people where they were traveling. And so we did stuff from Mexico or we did stuff from, I had one patient traveled to Africa. So we were like shipping stuff across there. So yeah, I work with anybody anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 27:57

Okay. And what is walk us through a little bit of like uh what your typical session would consist of.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

So I always start with a consultation because I do a lot of different things. I will say that weight loss and improving metabolic health is kind of my core thing that I'm known for or where people seek me out for. But I also have expanded the practice to do more functional health. But I will say no matter what, I always start with a one-on-one consultation to see what the person needs. So whether it's weight loss or they're trying to heal from an autoimmune condition or long haul COVID, a lot of people have that going on. I always start with that consultation to figure out what they actually need. And then based off of that, we talk about what that would look like because if it's just weight loss and brain health, that is typically, I work with people for about two months, structured, like a two-month structure. And most people in that two months are going to lose about 10% of their body weight. They're typically going to lose about two clothing sizes.

unknown 28:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

So this is also where when when people when when I say like I wish I could get to people before they did more extreme things, yeah, I get really good results in a short window of time. But my focus is also on helping improve the habits, making this something that's sustainable, being able to keep the weight off. And then at the end of that two months, if somebody's not at their goal weight, they have most of the tools they need to keep the momentum going, to keep losing weight. Because the whole two months I'm teaching them. You need enough protein, you need enough carbs, you need to know like how to read a label. Because I always joke, like, whatever's on the front of the label, it's lying to you. If it says it's like whatever it says on the front, like it's lying to you, probably, because that's marketing. You gotta turn it over and you gotta look at the ingredient label. And I don't care, I don't care about calories, I don't care about grams of sugar, grams of protein, I don't care about any of that. What I care about is the ingredients. Wow. Because they can change that serving size and they can make that Kit Kat bar look like it is a low sugar item because it's only got like 15 calories because it's half a bite. Right. We've got to read the ingredients because the ingredients is where nutrition lives. I just went to the farmer's market this morning. I have this little, this sweetest little woman that she makes the best sourdough bread I've ever had in my life. And she likes hand meals the flour like before she uses it, which makes it more nutritionally dense. But there's a difference with her bread that is five ingredients versus when you go to the grocery store. Turn over any bread in that grocery store. It's gonna have 20, 30, 40 ingredients.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Wow. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 30:46

You're gonna start reading labels now, aren't you? You're gonna just be curious. I always joke, like, you know, bread, five ingredients. You know, flour, water, yeast, salt, and a little bit of oil. That's it. Five ingredients. Most breads sit because bread that sits on the shelf, it doesn't rot. Doesn't rot because it has so many chemicals in it. Have you seen have you that makes me think of McDonald's again? Have you seen any of those uh pictures of like a five-year-old hamburger? Yeah, five-year-old happy meal. Yeah, think about that. Like the whole inside aisle of your grocery store, that's a McDonald's hamburger. That stuff is shelf stable because it has chemicals and preservatives, so it doesn't rot and decompose. Yeah, real food, it rots and decomposes.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

So what I teach is not hard. I say it's hard in the modern world because we're so used to the convenience of being able to buy bread and it got not going bad for you know a month. We're used to uh, you know, buying something really cheap that tastes delicious because it's all chemicals and additives. So, you know, we've gotten away from tasting what real food is and we're addicted to the chemicals and the additives. So that, you know, when when I'm working with people, I would say the biggest shift is you know, their habits are changing their physiology. So by choosing better choices, their taste buds taste real food better, and it doesn't want the chemicals and additives, their gut microbiome starts to change and shift. So many people today have gut dysbiosis, whether it's IBS or osteocolitis or gluten intolerance or corn or soy, whatever it is, bloating and you know, indigestion, constipation. And a lot of that is the gut microbiome. So a lot of these chemicals just rip up the gut. You don't know it until you know years later. And now you're like, oh, I bloat when I eat. That's not normal. Again, back. This is not where this is not how God designed us.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:41

Yeah, that's uh because it is, it's like almost everything I eat bloats. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

So your gut microbiome needs some help. Your gut microbiome needs some love.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 32:54

And again, that also makes sense with your history in the sense of you have a physical restriction, so you've learned to adapt from that, but your gut microbiome is suffering as a result of some of the nutrition that might be missing or some of the nutrition that's not happening the way it would have before. Because when there's less space, there's, you know, it's more frequent, smaller meals, which is a different game than regular meals. And, you know, as we age, we already have less digestive enzymes and things like that sometimes. So, you know, it's digestion changes slightly, and then you have something like that, and it complicates it. Right. So it's kind of unraveling those little little pieces for everybody. It's a little bit different.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Me, wow, that's a lot to unpack. So, Dr. Liz. So tell uh can you help tell the listeners how to reach you and get a hold of you should they want concessions?

SPEAKER_01 33:53

Yes, absolutely. So my website is www.bacthenumber two realfood.com. Back to real food. My I'm like, I have to actually look up my handles because I'm also gonna be listing them in the show notes as well. That works even better. So on Facebook and Instagram, it's back to real food. There might be like a G Z for grapevine in there for TikTok. I am real health at dr liz because that's probably it's kind of the next trajectory. But my website typically is where I think most people find me. But yeah, I am on those other things. And on the other platforms, I do, you know, I do talk about little health tips and things like that.

Fasting Cycles, Label Reading, Small Steps

SPEAKER_01 34:36

I'll say probably the biggest benefit that people get from the GLP1 drugs that is not the drug, but it's a change in their habit, is they're learning to fast for the first time. Okay. So the benefits, like all those benefits they're seeing of like of you know, A1Cs or focus or stuff like that, that they're saying is so good, those same things happen when you're fasting in a healthy way. People can overfast and get it wrong and be back and starting themselves. I teach fasting and feasting cycles because it's good to be able to fast for a window that your body is adapted for. So, like one person, a fast, a 12-hour fast might be just perfect. For somebody else, that might be way too long. And for somebody else, that might be way too short to do anything. So I I talk a lot about that on some of the social media, just fasting and feasting cycles. I talk about real food. So lots of just kind of like general health tips in there.

SPEAKER_00 35:35

Yes. Thank you so much for that. And if there's one bit of advice that anyone can take home with them today, what would it be? Eat real food. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 35:44

Read the label, read the label, eat real food. That's it. Like, if you don't, if you don't know what the what if you don't know the ingredient, don't eat it. Put it back. Like, I'm dead serious. Like, that's it. That's that easy. That is one thing that will get you further, probably than like all the calories and macros you could learn to count. Like, literally, just turn over the label. And if there's chemicals and additives you don't know what they are, put it back and find something else.

unknown 36:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

I mean, like, and this is like this is where we are. Like, like food has become so convenient, but to make it convenient, it's gotta sit on the shelf, it's gotta be able to sit on the shelf for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 36:21

Yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

Just eat real food. Just eat real food. That's some one. Like when I have a patient that like they they need help on getting back on track, I'm like, don't overthink it. Don't think about calories and macros and being perfect. Like, literally, just eat real food. If you're if you if you're addicted to sugar, take out the refined sugar and eat fruit. At least with a fiber, you're gonna slow down those blood sugar spikes. Like, yeah, the way God made food is really meant to be biologically in sync with our bodies. The way we made food, yeah, short circuits the whole system.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

Yeah, you're right. Because that five model is the sugar. So yeah, that's gonna be hard to substitute. But yeah, that's definitely what I need to work on. And that's why I say just one step at a time, just a little bit at a time.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

So, like, you know, pick one habit and work on that, or pick one food item that you know is, you know, say that's always you have dessert after dinner, you always, you know, have the you know, crazy frappuccino, crazy surfey things. You know, just pick one thing. And once that one thing becomes easy, find a different habit for it. Once that becomes easy, then you can target another one. Yeah, you don't have to do 180 degrees, just do a little bit at a time.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Yeah, I agree with that. Thank you so much.

Final Takeaway And Closing

SPEAKER_00 37:35

It has just been a pleasure speaking to you. Very, very informative, and you are absolutely gorgeous, by the way. Oh, thank you. I definitely want to thank you for coming on and thank all my listeners again. This is Dr. Liz. I'm Robin Black, and this is It's All About Healing Podcast. Everyone, stay blessed.