The Hidden Cost of Reality Weight Loss: What The Biggest Loser Got Wrong—and What We Know Now with Ashley Palu

This week, I’m sharing a powerful interview I was invited to be part of on the Plus SideZ podcast with hosts Kim Carlos and Kat Carter. We spoke with Ashley Palu, a contestant from Season 9 of The Biggest Loser, for a behind-the-scenes look at the show that shaped so many of our early beliefs about weight loss.

I was 16 when the show first aired, and as a kid who had always been overweight, I watched it thinking this is the answer: work out nonstop, eat barely anything, track everything. I bought the books. I bought in. If you’ve ever done Weight Watchers or followed diet culture trends, chances are this show influenced you too—before we fully understood the harm it caused.

In this conversation, Ashley opens up about it all: applying for the show, the emotional impact of public weigh-ins, the pressure of filming, what was real vs. produced, and what happened after the cameras stopped—including weight regain and eventually starting a GLP-1. She also shares the shockingly low number of calories contestants were expected to eat, giving us a sobering look at just how extreme the process really was.

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Audio Stamps

00:00:30 - Dr. Rentea shares how The Biggest Loser shaped her early views on weight loss and introduces her chat on The Plus SideZ podcast with former Biggest Loser contestant, Ashley Palu.

00:18:56 - The extreme calorie restriction Ashley followed on the show, how it impacted her physically and emotionally, and why it remains her biggest regret.

00:23:11 - What Ashley learned about weight loss from doing the show and the mental strength she gained through the experience.

00:29:53 - How rapid weight loss on the show led to muscle loss and a declining basal metabolic rate.

00:35:40 - We find out about the weekly rest day, which included a high-calorie “cheat day,” fueling food obsession from extreme restriction.

00:38:44 - Before, food noise was constant. Now, GLP-1 meds have brought peace, with lasting change rooted in mental healing.

00:46:16 - Ashley reflects on the shame and isolation that can come with weight regain, especially after being in the public eye.

00:50:35 - Dr. Rentea explains that weight regain is common because the body resists weight loss through powerful hormonal and metabolic changes, not a lack of willpowe

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

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Transcript

0:28

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today is a really exciting episode because I was invited to be part of a fireside chat where we got to speak to a previous Biggest Loser contestant. And I don't know if any of you listening to this podcast, if you were a big fan of this show. I think the show aired initially in 2004. I looked it up, I think I was 16 years old at the time when it aired, and I talk a little bit in this conversation that you're gonna hear about this, but it was a really formative show for me in the sense that being a kid that had always been overweight, I really thought, well, this is the answer that I go somewhere and I work out so many hours a day and I eat so little and I wear a tracking device, I really thought this is the answer, and I watched this show with admiration and I bought the books and it was a whole thing, I can assume that a lot of you listening. Just like you might have done Weight Watchers or things like that in the past, this might have really been part of a cultural moment that you partook in and then again, we learned a lot of things later, how detrimental it was. But this is something that I've always been curious about. And so I was really excited to be part of this conversation So this is on the Plus Sides podcast, and the co-hosts of this podcast are Kim Carlos and Kat Carter, and then I was on it obviously, and the main guest that they had on was Ashley Pelu. She was on season nine of The Biggest Loser. This is a long interview, okay. But I would listen to the whole thing because we go through. Okay. What was it like applying for the show? What was it like once once you were on the cast, what did you feel like? Was it motivating? Was it humiliating to get weighed publicly? What was it like with filming? Did it feel empowering? Was there more of just a storyline being told or was it real to what was happening? And what happened after the show was their support. She talks about her weight loss during it, the regain after then now being on a GLP one. It's a really nice. Full journey to hear behind the scenes of these shows what it's actually like. And I think nowadays we have a bigger understanding of how produced these things are and we have more perspective on things, but I, I just feel like when reality TV was getting going back in the day, we didn't know all of this or at least I couldn't have, I couldn't have been the only one that didn't know. So I think you're all gonna think, this is really interesting. I want you to listen out for certain moments to hear. How few calories she was told to eat. I'm just gonna give it away here. Okay I'm sorry. This is the moment that just, it killed me, that the physician had told her eat 1,400 calories and Jillian Michaels had said, no, eat 800 calories and they were working out eight hours a day. Okay. And then that they didn't disclose on the show that we were only seeing the days when they were filming, but there were days when they didn't because, you know, the crew needed time to rest. And those were actually days when they would. Eat all the things. And guys they never aired that. So we never knew a lot of those things. And again, there's tons of other gems listen to this. It's just shocking because I just feel we didn't know a lot of this, and I know I shouldn't be shocked. I know that everyone's lying. I know that everything isn't disclosed yet. It's still. It's still shocking to me, so I hope that you enjoy this interview. Ashley is absolutely phenomenal. We will link in the show notes to everybody's social and channels, and I think that everybody on here is really understanding and compassionate, and I think the exploration in this conversation is really worth listening to. I hope that you enjoy this podcast episode. If you're loving these please go ahead and share this with a friend if you think that they would like it and leave us a review wherever you're listening. That really helps the podcast to continue to grow and to reach other people that need this help. Alright, enjoy this episode. Welcome to the Plus Sides. What we do here is we talk about obesity and we talk about diet culture, and we talk about all the things that have to do with weight and not even weight loss. Honestly, health gain, right? And so we talk a lot about GLP one medications. Okay. Let's invite in our guest, Dr. And hi. Hi. Show regular and Ashley, how are you? Welcome, welcome. Hi. Good. We're so glad to have you for today's discussion I wanted to kinda share with everybody like we did before we started, but this is gonna be more of a fireside chat kind of conversation. So if you're in corporate America, you know what I mean? But ultimately it's just more like a round table where we discuss, things that have happened in terms of shows that, we're gonna talk about The Biggest Loser today'cause Ashley was on it. and what that was like, and talk about the experience and things that she realized in those moments and maybe things that she's realized after the fact and discuss how we move forward. I think that's really important in the media today, or how we feel represented as a community that deal with obesity, whether it's online or with TLC shows or whatever it is. Do we need a GLP one TLC show? Yes. Is the answer. No, I'm kidding. But regardless, I think it's important that we do talk about what do we want that to look like? Because we are this community and this is a problem, and this isn't a cure. These are just treatments. So let's just have some revelations and have a nice discussion and see how we move forward. I do wanna have people and introduce, Dr. Rania. I always ask her, tell us a little bit about who you are and how you help people. Thank you so much for having me back. I am, first of all, I'm, I was such a fan of Biggest Loser growing up. I looked it up, I was 16 years old when it aired, no wonder the minute you talked to me, I was like, I have to come on, I have to be part of this. If anyone isn't familiar with me, I'm Dr. Inia. I'm an internal medicine and obesity medicine board certified physician, and I own and operate the TIA metabolic Clinic. And it's a full spectrum, obesity medicine care practice for Indiana and Illinois. I really enjoy this area and really providing compassionate care. Love it. And she's been on our show many times. Yay. And then Ashley, tell us a little bit about you. Hi. And then we'll kind of go and start talking about your story a little perfect. I am Ashley Johnson poll. I was on season nine of the Biggest Loser many moons ago now. It's been, I believe like 12 or 13 years. Wow. And I have since, had since gained all my weight back and I have lost now 139 pounds while using GLP one as a tool. Oh my gosh. Since February of 2024. Wow. So a little over a year. How much did you lose on the show? I lost 163 pounds. Wow. In seven months. Wow. So that's how long it went on. Always in my head. I'm wondering how long they go on. So years, seven months. Yeah. Wow. That sounds rigorous. Like it was. Yeah. It was extreme. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean that's what, that's, that's what it's about. What it's, that's what they do in media. Everything is about the extremes. Right, right. But ultimately I think there are different perspectives. With the show. And I wanna go around and we can kind of talk about what it is. And I'd love to talk about. How you made that decision, how you came about deciding to go on it and stuff like that, and what your thought process was. I'll tell you, I don't watch any of those shows. I don't watch 300 pound sisters or any, I'm being disrespectful. I really need to know the name of the name of it. Not being rude, but like, I really don't. 1000 Pound Sisters. Sisters, okay, yes. That sure. There's there's all these variances of them now and I don't watch them. And the reason I don't is because I have always been like this. I always saw that as a, that's as bad as it gets. That's what I would think. I never watched it. Right. And that's me. So that's how I saw it. Right. And I will never get, I. Better. I can't lose, but I've tried. Mm-hmm. Like, and so I can't watch that because it's just too, it's too close to home. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. But I think there's a different perspective to consider. Like Dr. CIA said. So you were 16 when the show was on and you liked it. Right. And tell me what you, how you felt then about it when you watched it. Well, it's, it's interesting. I thought, oh, this is the way that I'm gonna have to go somewhere. A hundred percent have dedication to it that because I never had success either. Like I'd lose, I don't know, 10, 20 pounds over a summer and then I would gain it right back. And I was always like, literally since kindergarten, overweight. And so I thought, oh, well if nothing I've done has ever worked,'cause then imagine that went into my twenties watching it, right? Yeah. And I thought, well, that has to be the way because me in college and none of this stuff is working and nothing I'm ever doing is lasting. I thought it was so inspirational. Like, oh, the motivation, the hard work. And so I, over time I've grown to a different understanding, but to me it was really formative and I bought all the books. I was really, there were books. Yeah. I bought one of Bob's books, like recipe books, everything. Yeah. It was a whole franchise. I mean, it was a whole thing. It was like merch and all the things, huh? Yeah. Wow. See. And I just ignored it I was well into my twenties, way twenties I think it was 2004. Yeah. Yeah. And then my roommate, now this is like, um, God, that's a long time ago. I had, by 2004, I had lost and gained a lot of weight. That was my first Weight Watchers, for it. And I watched it, that and Extreme Makeover, the. The health, ver health version. Yeah. Um, where they, and then they also had the plastic surgery, show my roommate and I, we were, we were hooked on it. We were something a lot, lot, it was like make over, like weight loss edition or something. There was the weight loss edition, but then there was, it was like something Swan, or am I making that up? The swan? That's what we wanted. Yeah. It was like a reveal would happen at the end. They would like go away and then they would come back. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But there was like a certain point where I got with the Biggest Loser. I was like, um, you can't watch it anymore. Yeah, yeah. It, it turned after, however 10 times a week. What are they doing to these people? We'll find out. Um, you'll find out whatcha doing the pressure? I think what threw me the, the last time I watched it was when they made them, when they were all, when they all went home and they all made them run a marathon. I was like. I ran a half marathon in oh five. That was intense for me. I'm like wait a minute. You have people who were like four or 500 pounds maybe. I I was like, that kind of turned me off. I was like, they're pushing them too hard. And I was like, eh, of course you're gonna lose weight. Find out how long they made you work out every day. Yeah. Like a pro athlete, huh? I'm curious, let's talk about that a little bit more. So I would love to know what made you decide to go on the show? Yeah. What was your thought process? Where were you like in terms of weight and your, journey in general? And then how did it all go about, lay it out for us, like behind the curtain? Yeah. So I have always struggled with my way from a young age. Um, and then I just decided one day I, I was a fan of the show. I watched it for years. Mm-hmm. I found it inspirational'cause I'm like, that's what I need to do. I gotta get on there because that's apparently a fix, right? Like I've gotta do it. So I just looked it up one night and then I decided I'm doing this and I did all the steps you have to film at home videos. I took a video camera, because not the big ones. Okay. I'm not that old, but little digital ones, I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah. And I took it like everywhere, everywhere. Took the mountains. Like I had done a hike and I almost died on this hike I tried to do,'cause I was like 300, I was a four, I was 400 pounds at the time. And so I took it there and I talked about doing the hike and how I almost died. And I took it and put it on, put my C pap on. And I was, and my dog was in the bed with me and I was like, I'd rather have a man in the bed with me, like all this stuff, you know? Oh, I get that. And so I made this video and I made my mom do it with me because I was like, I need a partner. She did not wanna do it. But she did for me, of course. And we just submitted it and. I got a call and it was just one step after the other. One interview after the other. And they, how long did it take you interviews? It's a couple of months of just interviews. Once it starts happening though, it does start picking up really quick. Okay. Um, because they're ready to film, you know? Yeah, yeah. Once they fly you to LA they put you in a hotel and then you go and interview live in front of the producers and Yeah. You just, and from there we, we made it on. Okay. Wow. So do you go back and get ready and then come back? Or do they, when by the time you're interviewing, do they know that you're gonna be on it? So I think they have a group in mind who they want.'cause they see that dynamic of also it's a TV show, so they want a little conflict and stuff. Yeah. But they also want like the inspirational side. So they, after we interviewed, we got the final call. We did go home and then we were on, they called us of course, but we already had a film camera in our house, like a camera crew in our house. Wow. So we kind of knew, yeah, we were going on and then they were like, you're on the pink team or whatever, and they film everything at home. So we do the at home filming. Okay. Where the hardest part I think for me was I had to get in front of my peers downtown and I had to take my shirt off and have on just a sports bra and shorts. Wow. I remember seeing that. That was probably the one of the hardest things. To do. Yeah. So yeah, I would've been, yeah. Yeah. So that was the start when you found out you were cast, I can't even imagine what that would be like. Were you excited? Were you terrified? What was going through your mind? Good question. I feel like because once I get laser focused on something, like I want it, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. So at that point, I wasn't scared. I was probably nervous. I remember feeling nervous, oh my gosh, I'm leaving my life for all these months and I'm doing this, and yeah. Can I do it? I'm gonna be able to cash this check my mouth has written out, I've actually gotta go and do it. I was nervous, but I think I was more just like feeling hopeful that I was gonna finally get over this struggle with weight for the first time in my life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember what kind of questions they asked you in terms of qualifying you? Do you think you remember oh, that's a weird question, or that's what they're looking for? Could you tell I think they, there's a lot of crying in the process. They really wanna know, they want, they dig deep, they wanna know the emotional side and they wanna know if you're gonna open up.'cause that's what the show is, right? You have to be open with your struggle. And so it was a lot of questions. My father had passed away when I was 16 and for my mom and myself, that of course was very, trauma and tragic. And so we, there was a lot of digging into that and that was very difficult, but also started a healing process at the same time. Yeah, because it started like unbury stuff that have buried with food. I get that. When you were starting this, did they have already right from the beginning, a doctor involved anything mental health related? Was that part of the screening?'cause I, I don't even know what it looks like later, but that was part of initially. Oh for sure. You have to pass like a psych evaluation for sure. That long test of all these questions, you probably know what it is. I don't remember what it's called, but yes, you have to pass that'cause they want to know if you're, mentally stable to do something like this. So, yes. And then Dr. Higa, he's a doctor in Beverly Hills. He was our doctor from the get, so they did also give us a full physical to make sure we weren't gonna, kill out on the, on the gym floor.'cause they do push you. And there were people that I think were in the final running and I remember the dad was older and they actually got sent home because the dad did not pass. The physical part. The physical part. Like they thought if they pushed from you, it was gonna have a heart attack or something like that. Well, I can imagine there were like stress tests involved and stuff. Stress tests. So how like if your heart can't handle it, you can tell these things. Yes. We did stress tests. They did EKGs, they ultrasound our arteries. They wanted to make sure we didn't have clogged arteries and stuff like that. Or how much they were clogged. Yeah. And DEXA scans and all, all kinds. I mean like interesting. Even then DEXA scan everything. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Everything medically that you could do to test. They did. We did it all. Yeah. Why do you think they did that in terms of having you go and be on a scale and have hardly anything on, I mean obviously it's quite the spectacle, right? Right. Like I'm, I don't know. Part of me, I think a lot of times about the military and how they strip you down to build you back up. Yeah. And I'm wondering if that was sort of the drama of it all. I think they want to always look back. They use that for at the end, here she is looking, at this, at the start, and now look at her. You know? So it's kind of like the beginning of the before and after kind of thing, I suppose. And looking back, I don't feel bad about it. It almost kickstarted the shedding for me. Like I had hidden, for like years. I didn't show my body. I was very self-conscious. Mm-hmm. I, mm-hmm. So for me, I could have looked at it as that was terrible of you. But I also, I actually just chose to look at it as healing that I'm not gonna look like this anymore and I'm gonna shed this like off of my body, you know? Yeah. I get that. Totally. Just chose to look at it as like a freeing kind of thing. Yeah. So when you're there for the seven months that you were there, and what I mean by there is are they filming this and you're going to a studio every day and you're living at home? Or are you living in a hotel? Oh no, we're living on the Gilette Ranch. That's in, in Calabasas. Wow. Is it still called the Gillette Ranch? The Gillette Ranch? Gillette. Like the pavers. Yeah. It's such, it's an old, oh, it's beautiful. But it's very old and they did have like several bedrooms, a kitchen. There was a part of the building that we weren't really allowed to go to. It was very beautiful. It's very old. I believe so. Yeah, it was beautiful. They built a gym on the property where we filmed all the workouts and stuff. Had a pool. It was nice. Did you get like break time or work time? What was that like? Yes, we got dark days. So there were days where we weren't filming'cause the crew obviously needs time off too. And so we would just hang around the house and of course work out. We were never not, I mean there was very little time that we weren't walking or swimming. We weren't always in the gym, but we were always moving our bodies at all times. Did you guys get control over what was in the fridge? Or was that predetermined? How did that work? No, so we could make a grocery list and some items that people would ask for were not approved. But yeah, I don't know. I never, I just went with what they told me. I was like, yes, I will eat that. But we ate so much orange, ruffy and asparagus. I just can't be the orange ruffy ever again in my life. Oh God. I can imagine. I'm not a big fish person to begin with. So I'd be like, oh, it's like a very low calorie fish. Yeah. So they let us help, like we could pick what we wanted for the most part, and they would shop for it and put it in the fridge for us and stuff. But we cooked all of our own meals. We didn't have anyone ever cooking for us. That's good. Really. Okay. So you cooked your own meals too? We cooked our own meals. It was up to us to count our own calories to do everything. So if you weren't gonna eat right then you probably weren't. It's gonna make it long. You know? That's very interesting that they gave you that freedom. I would suspect, like in my brain, bias wise, I would be like, ah, nah. They put'em on a diet and they tell me, eat this. And then of course they're gonna do that because they tell'em exactly what date and then they're moving and they have nothing else or else to worry about. That's what I was thinking in my brain. So I think that like really, I think maybe the ultimate, I guess kinda speaking for you, would it be like, is it the motivating to stay on calorie restriction is the weigh in on television? I bet that kept you in line, so to speak? Oh, yes. Calorie counting my calories. I was very religious. I would count a stick of gum Wow. Into my calories. I became a little obsessive. Interesting. Yeah. But I, we use the body bag. I don't know if you guys remember those or not. They like went on your arm and they track. It's like the original tracker. Honestly, we all have Apple watches now. I remember. Because I thought I need one. I thought I need to have that little thing that tells me how many calories I'm burning. Oh my gosh. It's basically an Apple watch. It was like the first calorie tracking burn, it was a tracking device and it was like one of the first in, in its time I guess. I wore that on my arm and then I would come at the end of the day or during the day several times to the computer.'cause we weren't allowed TV or anything like that. We literally had a computer that just had the body bug and I'd sit and like type in my calories and yeah. So I was religious about it, but I could also calculate my burn to my calories and get a good idea of how much weight I was gonna lose that week. So I wasn't ever that shocked. Interesting. Who was setting the calorie numbers? Who was, like, who was telling you what to eat, all of that. That's a kind worm. Dr. Hi wanted me to eat 1,450, I think is what he asked me to eat at first. Who asked you to do that? The doctor. Dr. Higa. Yeah. Doctors are always ambitious about the calorie restriction. So Jillian came to me and said, do not eat that you're eating 800 calories. And so I said, okay. Oh my gosh. I'm so, I, I, I'm sorry I can't, I'm face calling right now. It's one of my biggest regrets on the show ever. I work out nine hours a day on 800 calories and half of my hair fell out. I was cold, like had no hair at the end of it. If you go and watch the finale, I have no hair. It's crazy. And I with a lot of hair would be like, did you faint during your workouts? I would've fainted. Yeah. How could you? Every time we did spin, we used to go to, Bob taught a spin class, at a gym in la So on dark days we would go do his spin class and I would, every time I'd get off the bike and I'd have to hold on and close my eyes'cause it would go dark. I was about to pass out. Yeah. Yeah. So did you ever disclose that to the doctor there? Was there anyone where you were like, Hey, I'm about to pass out. Were there, did you ever say it? Did people ask you was that aspect No. Wow. I don't think I said it, it just became like. Normal. Isn't that terrible? No, it's, I get it probably was with everyone standing, it was everyone that was, everyone was having a lunch time. No, not everyone did that. My husband Coley, who was on the show with me, he did not eat that low of calories.'cause he was like, I'm not doing that. He was always like the rumble though. He is like, I'm not doing that. You know? And I was always like, yes ma'am, I'll do whatever you say. Yeah. And so there were people that did not eat that low. But, yeah, that is probably my biggest regret. And I think since Jillian has come on and said that she does not agree with that low calorie anymore and that she once believed that was the fix and now she knows that it's not. Oh. Um, but it made it impossible for me to maintain once I got off. You can't maintain that. No. So biggest regret is eating 800 calories. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I get that,'cause you don't wanna be embarrassed and at the end you wanna be like, it's all worth it and you wanna be in the small body and you wanna solve this problem. Just sort of the carrot of it all in general, of having everybody look at you and all the things. You don't wanna be a fool. You don't wanna be voted off the shore. How, I don't know how it goes, voted or not. I think it's more you could be, you're in this, they keep you in a bubble. There's no news, no tv, no. You're literally there to work out, be filmed, do these crazy challenges and then you just become really weird. I felt like when I first got off, I turned in the hotel when I first came home. Like I turned my back to the corner of the wall to change because I was so used to having camera in my room. Oh my gosh. And so it was just like, oh, but I'm in a hotel now. It's weird. You're like in this weird bubble, yeah, I don't know that I felt like it was too low. I just knew that's what she told me to do and I was like, I'm doing it. And it was working clearly for me. Yeah, it was working. That must be right. Yeah. So I just went with it. Calories. Did you feel like you learned anything when you were there that you didn't know before? Like all the times you had tried to lose weight before? Oh my gosh, so much. Really? So much. I think the biggest thing that I learned, it's not really, I literally knew nothing about losing weight before I went on. I had tried like every diet out there, everything. I was even vegan for nine months. Like I tried everything. I read that book, skinny Bitch, and I thought it was to be a skinny bitch, but it was to be vegan, that's why. So I was vegan I tried everything. So when I went on, I just kind of, I don't know, I just was like, this is it for me. You know? I'm going to do this. Do you think that the show was authentic the way it happened? Or was it really produced?'cause I felt, oh, well who cares? My feelings? What do you think? Our season, I will say they did try to push us for more drama, but we all, for the most part, excluding a team or two, we all got along really well. And so I remember this m and m challenge where whoever ate the m first got to be in control of everyone's workout that week or whatever, their teams or something. And it was the very beginning and my mom like, ate the m and m and everybody was so mad'cause they're like, we're not doing that to each other. And they, the producers weren't happy. They're like, yeah, no, somebody's eating an m and m. Like, so we, our season was really good. We honestly, for the most part, all got along. There wasn't a lot of drama and backstabbing kind of stuff going on. So I feel like the producers tried to kind of push it a little bit from, but when I watch it back, I do genuinely feel like they captured what was really happening for the most part. That's nice. You know? Yeah. Didn't really feel too forced. The only thing that was like this one producer, and I still think about this, he was one of the head producers and he would always come to me at the end of a work, like when we're filming the way in, we do interviews right after for them to get our perspective on who's going home and all this stuff. And he would always be like, do you feel like you did enough? Do you think you did enough this week? And I'm like, Jesus Christ. Like, yeah. I, I mean, I guess that I'm not, like, it just would always like, and it just. Just because the way they're asking it, right? It's not, how do you feel about this week? Like do you feel like you lost it? Like it, it's literally trying to make you feel not enough. They're trying to get a ride outta on camera. It wasn't ever film like Yeah, it wasn't filmed. It was just him coming to me on his own time and asking me as I'm like walking to record a que, you know, like just to fucking an interview. Yeah. Just to make me like push harder or something. I'm like, dude, how much harder can I literally push? Yeah. Literally. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's like a, it's like a tactic, right? A strategy like to get in your head and I'm, and sure may hopefully that you'll do some kind of something on camera or push yourself a little harder and look at it on camera. In my opinion. Big fat opinion. Like, I like that. No, I agree. I think you're right. For sure. Yeah. And you do push yourself. It's like I pushed myself so hard I would throw up, like when you were pushing'cause I know I've had many of those times in my life when I was doing these things what was that like? What was the driver of that? I'm wondering like men, like mentally then what were you thinking? And then, looking back, do you have a perspective on it? I think in the beginning, the first day we got there, I was blown away of how hard it was. Mm-hmm. And I was, I told my mom, I fell off the treadmill. The very first workout, Julian had me at like a three incline at like a 3.5 speed. I'll never forget. Oh my God. I remember those scenes. I'm like, I'm so frightened of them. Oh my God. And I crashed out. My heart was beating so fast and I was like, I'm gonna have a heart attack. I cannot keep going. They're like, you're gonna keep going. And I was like, I can't. And I just fell off and smashed into the wall. And they showed that scene like a million times throughout the whole season. I feel like, I don't know, like I just, I, it's gross. Yeah. That's not a good feeling. That's not how you do it. You don't take people to that limit of. Feeling like they can't, I don't know, I think, but when I first went on, I felt like I couldn't do it. And I told my mom that day, I said, I am going home. And she was like, what? And I was like, I cannot do this. I got kicked out of the, Jillian kicked me outta the gym. She used it as like a mental thing, she's good at the mental side. So then she comes outside to me and is like you're gonna do that. That she use it as like a mental step at prep you for her little talk that she's gonna do with you after. Mm-hmm. And she's like, you're gonna come back in here tomorrow and you're gonna do it and you're not gonna fall off. And I was like, oh my God. And so that night I went home and I told my mom or went back to the, to the ranch and I was like, I can't do it. And she like this famous line in this interview that everybody has loved so much. And she looks at me and she's like, but what if you can't. And so it kind of did flip a mental thing for me, where in the beginning I did really struggle with pushing myself. I just couldn't get there. But I will say the biggest thing I feel like I gained from the show is being able to tap into this place, or almost like this person, I call her like a different person, which I know I'm the, I'm her, but it feels different sometimes where I can like, push myself through a lot of pain and stuff during workouts now, where before I couldn't even be inconvenient. I was like, oh, it's too hard. I can't do it, you know? But now, like I'm, I was at a Zumba class one day and I'm a big girl, and this lady was like, how are you doing this? I don't know. I can, I've been abused. Will through pain. Yeah. Maybe in a messed way, but like, honestly, it is super helpful these days. So yeah. I mean, honestly, I saw a video that you did where you were like, just, I think it was in your stories. I like, I like your stuff. Um, and, uh, you just kind of said that you were having a day and you were like, I, I had this moment. And I was like, you were kinda like, I don't even know what you said, but here's what I heard. I'm a tough bitch. Like I can do, so, you know what I mean? And I, and I, and I felt that in you. And Kat has it too, because I see it in her time. I don't, but like Kat does, and she's like that, like she's very physically fit and into all things and you know, she just teaches me strength training, I think that it's interesting you can, that piece does exist, like I say, a lot of times that. I do feel like people with obesity have the most grit because we just have to continue to scale and make it back up. And then get back up. And they get back up. Right. Right. Like every time we regain and we feel like trash and we're like all, we're up again today and we're gonna try again. Like that's what we did. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like we're always trying very sel, empowering, you know? Yeah. I get that. They can. And I feel I've tapped into a place where I don't always like, feel I have to push myself to the extreme in an unhealthy way. That's nice. But if I'm weightlifting and I know that I can go a little more but it burn, it's like burning or whatever it is, then I can tap into something where I'm just like, you're a badass bitch. You got this. And I can just keep going. I get that. So I think that's one of the best things I gained from the show other than my husband. That is like the best strength that I gained. That's fun. Mental strength. You have any other friends that you're still in touch with from there? Yeah, I still talk to Michael who won my season dars, who is on my season, Dre. There's a lot of people are on it when you started. I can't, I don't even know. Oh my gosh. She was, there's team, so probably like 15, 12. Wow. Yeah. 12. And then somebody goes home every week. Week. Yes. It's not like we film a little longer than one. Like in one. I bet. Yeah. Seven days sometimes. It just depends on dark days and stuff going on with production. But it is typically about a week time. Sometimes it's a little longer just depending, but yes. People you get voted off once a week. Okay. Wow. What is voted? Like who's voting? We are voting, so some of the, we're voting for or against each other. Yeah. Yeah, this is like the most mind manipulation I ever, I should, I didn't even read ahead. It's a game show. It's a game show in the end. You win money, you know, win money, okay? You don't just lose weight. You win money. How much money do you want? Did runner ups get money? And yes, I won 50,000. That's a lot. Awesome. Yeah, my husband won a hundred thousand. He was the at home, winner. Then Michael won. He got eliminated at the last vote, so he would've won. He lost a ton of weight. He had the highest percentage, but he did not get the vote from America. America gets to vote at the end, who's gonna be in the top three to be the final winner or whatever, and he did not get it. I was like, don't vote for him. I knew he would beat me. So I was on my social media like, don't vote for Coley. Wow. So Darius won the vote, but Coley would've won the whole show, but, so he won the at home prize of a hundred thousand. And then Michael, who won the show, who beat me by four pounds Wow. Won 250,000. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wait, I don't remember the details. At the end it was pounds and it was not percent body weight or it was, it was per percent. It was by percentage of body weight. Oh, okay. But the percentage of body weight, which is why the one thing that I wish that I'm really into now is like lifting weights.'cause we know that muscle burns more and you maintain better when you have more muscle. Right. They did not want you to lift a lot of weights. And we did weight lifting there, but not like in a way where you're trying to, gain a ton of muscle because it's a body percentage game. That's one thing I wish I had clearly done more is like you can maintain better when you have muscle. I'm just so curious from a medical standpoint, like these are the things I've always wanted to know at the end. Did they recheck a dexa to see what was going on or They did. So they, that often, not often, but every couple of months or weeks we would go to the doctor, what is it where you blow into the thing Med? You were doing the basal metabolic rate. Right. Metabolic. So we did that a lot. We did the BOD pod a lot throughout the whole thing. And then we did do a final DEXA scan. Mine is crazy. I wish I had it to show like my before and after. DEXA scan is crazy. In a good way. In a great way, yeah.'cause at the beginning you see all the fat and stuff surrounding all your arteries and all this stuff and in the end you can see that gone. So it was a cool metaphor. Wow. I bet that is cool. I would get, I would be excited about that too. Be like all day. And I would wait and be like. Yeah and when I went on I was diabetic, like I had found out that I didn't know, I was diabetic or pre-diabetic I think, or I was on the cusp. They use that too to like film like you're diabetic. And I was like, no. So I don't even lie the way you're explaining, it's like these I did, I, I was crying and I was like, and now when I went to get my shot, I was diabetic by 0.1 and I was like, yes, I get insurance that they hope for that. Yeah. Yeah. And people who do have diabetes too, I have friends that, not by a point or whatever, like they, whenever they hear people say that, they're just many of them are like so offended by it because they know how like bad type two is and all the things that come with it. And, but they, I guess like we don't wanna be there. Many people have said that, I've prayed for that. I've prayed for my A1C to go. It's not terrible just because the medication is so expensive, it's so hard to obtain here. So true. Yeah. So 0.1 I got in by 0.1. So Dr. Rania, can you tell us about those things that she was talking about? What is that thing she's blowing into and what is, what are all these things? What is it? Nowadays I think we would use much more like body composition testing and things like that. But there are ways that you can tell the basal metabolic rate based so I'm assuming that's why they kept testing you guys. Yeah, it was like how many, what is now your, like what's your calorie burn at rest? What's your full day calorie burn is what it is. Yeah. So they, they look at it to see like now that you've lost, of course when you lose weight, you don't burn as much, just being less heavy. Right. So that, that was just seeing what our overall. Is that right? When it, well, so yeah, so one thing I'm super curious about, right? So when you were having this test, they were testing the basal metabolic rate. If you don't lose weight in the way in which you guys lost it, you technically, a lot of my patients like, because we're not trying to lose super quick and we're watching things, they actually maintain it we make sure you're getting enough strength training and protein and all those kind of things. And so were you seeing that it was like declining, declining, declining as,'cause I would imagine you had to be having some rapid muscle loss just based on how quickly you guys were losing. Yes, it was dec decline, definitely declining because like I said, I was very rigid on my calorie counting and stuff, so it was very I knew what I was gonna burn throughout the day and how many, how many hours I needed to work out to achieve, how many pounds, you know? So yes, it was declining. Yeah. How many hours a day did you guys normally work out? Probably about eight. Um, gym for the Olympics. Yeah. I mean I ran a marathon. Yeah I did. I ran a marathon. You guys were Olympic, you guys were athletes? Yeah. Did you guys never rest? Like you didn't have a rest day or recovery? We did have a rest. We have one rest day a week. Sundays usually were our rest day and we had what we called. And this I do think is very unhealthy. We had high calorie day where we would just had a cheat day. Yes. Oh you did? Okay. We would eat, yeah, eat. And Michael, he was our Italian die on the show. He always made this, we call it victory pasta salad. And he made this big pasta salad with like cheese and all this stuff. Homemade pizzas. We made homemade pizzas and stuff with the dough from Trader Joe's. And we would just eat and eat. And then on Monday though, back down to 800 calories. Wow. Wow. I think, did I see that episode? See, everything started to be a blur to me after a certain, I don't remember. Did they show that on the show? Because I feel like I remember these gorging challenges. Oh, did okay. Right. That were ridiculous. Was that it? Or you? They were, no, this is dark. On dark days when we weren't filming. That's so deceptive. Yeah. It's on dark day. Oh my god. And I think that they did it. I know Jillian wanted us to eat more on those days too. It was like a reset for your body. So kick back into, technically is there science into that or is that just trash? No, I think that, I think there is some science with, there is some science too. But I want, because I wanna tell, recommend it though. I don't think it's help. It's clearly not. No one does healthy cycling thing unless if you're a binge. Yeah. If you struggle with binge eating disorder, it's not the best practice. But yeah. Most weightlifters and bodybuilders, yeah, they're like trying to cycle. They do a high calorie day. Yeah. I don't do that anymore. I don't do high calorie days. I can't. How did You'all feel about that? That they didn't share that on the show? Like that was something that was happening but wasn't being disclosed publicly? I don't think at the time I thought anything of it, honestly.'cause I didn't know. Also, we don't know what's happening. They don't show us anything. So I didn't know they were sharing it or not. Afterwards, I don't think, I didn't think about it in a way as like they weren't, they were being deceptive, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. And if I had been asked, I would've shared, I would've shared, I didn't feel like it was a secretive thing. It was just high calorie day, rest day. It just was very normal. And I still to this day, do not work out on Sundays. It's weird. It's ingrained in my brain. I don't work out on Sundays at all. I get it. Yeah. Wow. Interesting. I'm wondering, I feel like this is a really good, like ease into GOP, right? Yeah. Because ultimately if it was me, like I I, my food noise would've never turned off. I don't care. Especially if I was restricting to that level. I would've been thinking about food constantly and I would've been drinking water and walk, walking or roofing, whatever it is I had to do to just try to keep my mind off of it. Right. I would always, oh, I was hungry myself. Feel whole. Yeah, I bet you were. So, like, I feel like you would have to be right. Like I feel, and I, and I've had some, I've seen some like tiktoks of people being like. When you are in extreme restriction, like there are gym bros and stuff, or they're going to wait, I, I call'em Gem Bros, but plenty of them are very reputable. I I don't mean it in a bad way. Yeah. But you know, like, they're like going to a competition and they wanna get cut for a certain way and they will restrict so much that that's all they think about. And they're like, feel like they're going and saying with food noise all the time. And I'm like, welcome to our world. But I'm wondering like, when you're there, how are you getting through that and knowing that perspective, right? Of what maybe food noise might have been like before going in, what it was like when you were there and what it's like now that you're on a GLP one. How do you see that? So before I always had food noise. I didn't realize it, but I was constantly thinking about food. I was constantly, before the biggest loser, like just filling my body with just fast food, with alcohol, with a big party girl. I was drinking yeager bombs, just treating my body like a literal dumpster. And during the show, of course I don't know. I just, I, I found perspective in that. And then coming off the show, I did gain my weight back, but I didn't do it the same way. Like I wasn't just crushing fast food and do, I gained it back of course'cause I wasn't working out nine hours a day and I wasn't eating, nine, 800 calories, you know? Yeah. Just saying that at all. He can't. I did start gaining back my weight, but in just like a completely different way. So the food noise was clearly there. During the show I would drink tea, dandelion tea. It's also natural diuretic, so it would like, we know all the ins and outs when you're on that show. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Weight off. I would drink dandelion tea at night and then sometimes I would just have to go to bed'cause I was so hungry. I Wow. Um, after the show, I mean, food noise is always there. It was always there for me. And I remember feeling guilty for eating these like protein bars after the show. Once I was at home, they were like protein bars, but they were like candy bars. And that was like my like, oh, I remember those. Yeah. Yeah. It started with a ZI don't remember what they were called, but they were delicious and I felt guilty about that. I was always having food noises or I would order Chinese food and I'd be like, it's for me and three other people. It was for me, you know? So I still clearly was struggling with that. So now being on a GLP one, which has completely saved my life, I will say, saved my mental health, my happiness, it is hands down been a miracle for me and using it as a tool, to seriously change my life. But I don't have food noise anymore at all. Mm. And it feels so freeing. Yeah. I feel normal. I'm like, this is what the normal people get to feel like. Yeah. How nice. How soon was it that you felt that when you took a GLP one, was it like low dose or did you have to go? I started, I didn't feel it too much. Low dose, I feel like at 2.5. Yeah. And I did not know anything when I started it hardly at all. I had watched some tiktoks and stuff and I knew I really wanted to do it. But I ate like a medium pizza the day I took my first shot and I died. That doesn't shock me. I about literally died. I was like really? Three in the morning with my food sloshing around in my stomach. Oh yeah. And I called my mom and I was like, I have gastroparesis. I was like, I'm done. Oh my God. And so the purple galore. I was happiest. My god, so bad. I have since learned not to do that, but it didn't start for me in the beginning. I feel like probably around, I. Five milligrams was the next step up. I started feeling less of that. Yeah. And, but I still told, I kept telling my husband, I still want to eat. Like the mental part was still there. I still wanted, I get it more. Mm-hmm. But I knew I couldn't, so I was still struggling with that. But now being on it for this long, I stayed for the last probably five or six months. I just, I told Coley, I said, it's not a thing for me anymore. I don't want it. Mm-hmm. And it's so amazing. I finally feel like I've cured something within me. And I feel like maybe if I were to go off the medication, which I don't ever plan to that maybe I could maintain still because I feel like it's fixed something in my brain almost. I get that. I don't know if it's permanent. It kind of feels like it's permanent now because like now it's become more of just habit or something, but it feels much better. Yeah. So food noise, I don't have it. I'm curious, like when you came back and this, and you had like sort of those feelings of like sort of guilt and shame clearly regained began to happen'cause there's just no way, you know what I mean? I think we all know like scientifically now. No way. And I believe, and I think Cat puts study on it, that most people have regained their week, their weight and their metabolism took or not kind of ruined, ding, it's ruined. But then how do we explain like some of the people, I remember it was a couple of years after their episode, some of the people did keep it off. Yeah. Some people have, but I feel like they also started, they're one of the people who started a little smaller mm-hmm. On this show. And then also they've either. Become fitness instructor. That's what I was gonna say. I'm so glad you're talking about athlete. I was like, all of them became trainers. Were working out all day long. And I'm like, you're if you can keep that up. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And nothing against them. I have a lot of friends that were on the show who have kept their weight off. Hannah, Olivia, like they're wonderful and they have kept their weight off. But I know Olivia went to spin. She is, they're great, but they have conquered the weight battle, for the most part. I think, I don't, I'm not saying they don't struggle, but, I think with weight as we know, it's not just physical. It's so mental. Yeah. There's, it's about trauma and stuff from our past and stuff We carry deep inside. And so to think that seven months of being on a show and yes. Un digging, like a lot of the mental stuff I did, like I did a lot of mental work. Yeah. But in seven months, I can't un dig. 30 years of trauma and different things that I've held onto. So when I came off the show, I probably should have gotten a psychologist, honestly. Yeah. I was struggling with just, like the mental side. Yes. And clearly I would gain back the'cause of physically I wasn't doing correctly. Yeah. I, it's gonna be hard to maintain, but mentally was probably the hardest part for me. And I had so much more work to do on the mental side that I was just like, well, I'm fixed. I've done it. And I just wasn't. So, yeah, I get that. I mean, I'll, I'll say like, listen, full disclosure, anybody that's still here haven't been around me for a while. Um, I, I, uh, I say this is way more of a mental journey than does a physical one. The physical almost takes care of itself, to be honest. Other than like me and CAD doing the strength training now, but I, it almost does, and then, but the mental, especially if you've been in an obese body for a long time and in this society and all those different things, and I was losing weight very publicly as well, and I'm not was on our show or anything, I was just on TikTok. Right. But I will tell you there were many times, like when Weight Watchers got in the game, I just vomited my trauma all over TikTok. And I should have probably just called a friend or gone to my therapist, but I didn't, and that's okay. I'm learning. But there's a lot of like learnings that I've had through this journey because it is such, I'm just gonna say it. My dad's gonna get mad. Mind fuck. It's a mind fuck. Like this whole thing. When the food joint just turns off like that. We went through therapy. I always say that we went through therapy the last couple years publicly. I didn't realize how much I was doing, but yeah. Yeah, I think it's so important. Weight coming, putting on weight is mental, like it's a total mental thing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And then with it coming off, I have experienced things coming up that I thought weren't gonna come up anymore with it coming off and reaching certain milestones and being like, oh my gosh, this is bringing up stuff. Because it's almost been a protection layer, right? I've protected myself in certain ways, subconsciously in gaining this weight, and now it's coming off and I'm taking that off. Yeah. Let me ask you this then, so we're talking about like the mental, aspect of it. You got extremely slim, very publicly. So I am sure you went through, that transformation where people were so much more nicer to you. How much more would, was, would you call it like devastating or just, angering. What? What, yeah. What, I dunno, that angry about it. I was more just like, oh, now you like me. You know what I mean? Especially I was single at the time, yes, Colleen and I met on this show, but there was a little in-between period we were deciding if we wanted to be together. And so I was home, like dating and meeting guys and I'm like, I've known you for years and now you like me. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? So it was a little like I don't know, angry, but all just kind of like, okay. Yeah. Hurtful. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Hurtful. And was it, did you see actually, was there changes in like perhaps like the staff producers or people that you interacted with on the show? Did they start to, did it, did they change? Did their behavior towards you change? I would say no. Okay. The people you guys don't see the cameramen, the audio people, the. Producers.'cause there's big producers and there's like many producers. And the many producers, were like, fr they, a lot of'em became like friends and they're genuinely cared for us and would cry with, when we're crying, they're also behind the camera crying with us. So they do become this family of people that were supporting you. Or they put the camera down and be like, Hey, get you got this. Like, you know, like, they'd be like, get up. So it was very nice experience. So they did not change. We, I did not find that. And still some of them are still on my Facebook and will be like, hi. So how did it feel when you started to regain publicly? Did you know, were friends and family noticed? What was that? Because I had lap band surgery and this was not public, right? I had lap band surgery, I lost weight. And when I started to regain and then, and then, and then, and then, and then even more, I felt like such a piece of garbage. So I can't imagine. And then after we do that, I wanna talk with Dr. Reti about why people regain scientifically. That probably was one of the hardest things is regaining after being so public and people say stuff like, sure. they like are like, wow, you put on some weight, or you're starting to gain, or whatever it is. And not if we don't already feel like complete fit for gaining and then it almost becomes this thing like, I hid for years, I didn't wanna leave my house. I know.'cause people recognized me and it became this terrible thing and I moved to California to be with my husband and gained quite a bit of weight while living in Sonoma County wine country just. Oh wow. You lived in so lucky m Knoxville wine connoisseur. Lucky not the bad end of the stick there, but, so now we live in Knoxville, but I gained a ton of weight and I didn't wanna fly home and see my family. I didn't wanna fly home and see like friends or people. I remember those days didn't really recognize me much there, but they recognized me in my hometown, just out in restaurants and stuff. And I came back, I think for a funeral and we were in a restaurant and I could see people being like, oh look at her now. Oh. And it just is terrible. You can't blame, I mean, we put it out there like, I'm not mad at people for no, I get it noticing or anything, but it's very hard. I did not wanna leave my house, so it's hard. And I know I'm not the only biggest loser that felt like that. My husband felt like that. A lot of our friends felt like that. It's just when you regain, you feel so much shame. It's very shameful. I've had to let a lot of that go through this current journey of losing weight. Yeah. Is just trying to not feel ashamed of gaining. Yeah, I get that. Yeah. Yeah. I, I even have felt that, I've gained some weight, since I got to my lowest, um, I started, I cut my gallbladder out and I swear it just like whatever happened, just right into perimenopause, I immediately was having hot flashes. It's, I don't know. I I am almost 46, it's not rocket science, but like I did and I gained weight and I'm like, what is happening? I'm not doing anything different. I'm doing nothing different. But I did start strength training with CAT and now I'm losing inches, which is cool. But regardless, one thing I did sort of learn is like the body's not static. Like it's sort of ridiculous to think that. We think that we would apply this medicine to a body that's very complicated, that is obese for many different reasons. And that it would just like, we would just stay this way. Right? And I think like it would be so cool from like a scientific perspective, and maybe this would help you a little bit if you've gone to a place of healing or as you're going through, or our audience to understand why people regain and Dr. Tia and also why people maybe even regain some when they're on the medicine. What's going on with our body that's like causing that to happen from a like metabolic PERS disease perspective. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna say a few points here, but just know our body is so complicated that if we knew all of the things, we would've solved it. Right? And one of the problems with the disease of obesity is that we're so complex when we hit one lever. You know, like we're decreasing calories in the body's like, haha, I'm gonna do these other things. So one of the things when you're losing weight. Your body wants to compensate to get you to regain. So forget GLP ones for a minute, we're just gonna talk. You're losing 10, 15, 20% on your own, which is incredibly rare that people can lose it and keep it off. When you lose the weight, your ghrelin hunger hormone level goes up. That's the one that says, Hey, you're hungry. Start eating. So you are baseline more hungry. People will come in and they're like, I'm not eating any different, but the weight's coming back on. It's like, yeah, because your body that you know, that's happening. And then as your weight is down, your leptin level starts to go down because fat is really, uh, should be in line with what the leptin level is, right? Well, when you're overweight, you're resistant to it. So you have a bunch of leptin, but you're not answering to it. Well, now leptin goes down, leptin's one that says you're satisfied. So your satiety down, your hunger's up, and those are just two of'em, so it makes sense that it gets harder and harder and harder as you lose weight. To not only keep it off, but to not regain because it's like compensatory in the other direction. And then, and there's a lot of other factors at play, in addition to, you know, um, it's incredibly hard for people to lose weight and not lose a lot of muscle. I mean, we, we can try to, we know a lot more nowadays than we did before, but mm-hmm. People not losing anything incredibly tough, as far as skeletal muscle mass as you go down. And so you have all these factors against you, and so that's why. When we've had, these type of GLP one medications, we're able to actually get to some of that brain hunger. We all think it's a control thing. It's not, you actually have signaling in your body that's saying, you're hungry. Start eating. And it's beyond our conscious control. I think this is the narrative that's always been perpetuated, we just need to have some motivation and, hold on harder. And it's no I always say every time I'm on, I say the same thing where it's like a hurricane is going on. I'm like, just walk across the street and it's dangerous. Like you could die, right? Yeah. And so there's a lot that's at play there and the physiology is literally fighting us and it's not the same for everyone. It really angers me when people that don't have this as a disease, they say, well, these are the things that you just need to do. It's like, but you don't have any of the signaling that's driving you to go in a different direction, right? Yes. So anyway, hopefully that explains it. But I just thought the biggest Loser data was fascinating in the sense that. People did not recover then it, what we would expect. When you looked at other cohorts, you said, okay, these people recovered. And then you looked at what happened with Biggest Loser data and there was something about it where people could not get back to that, the baseline compared to someone else in the same time period. And I've always been fascinated by that what was happening there, that that was the case. And I don't know that they even had the answers, the study that came out with this. Do you feel like I think a lot of it was, I remember Dr. Hega, who was our doctor in la we were at a wedding of somebody that was on the show and he was sitting next to me at the dinner and I told him, I was like, I work out. I'm not eating like I did before and I'm gaining weight. Yeah. And he is like, you have trained your body now to eat 800 calories and workout nine hours a day. You have trained your body at such a high cardio level that if you can't keep that level, then your body's not gonna respond. Yeah. It becomes more and more efficient. And so that's the problem. Everyone thinks it's this equal, it's this equal math equation. Like, eat this much less and move that much more. And that's really the old school version of thinking about it. But the body, the way I describe, it's like, it can kind of like slow down the metabolism.'cause it's like, look you're chronically giving me nothing to eat and exercising me eight hours a day, I'm gonna slow down.'cause it's self preservation. Yeah. And whenever people say, well, if you don't eat anything, yeah. You'll lose weight. It's like to a point. But then there's a point where your survival goes down. Yeah. Yeah. Your body like survives without whatever you do. It just wants to survive. Right. Goes like, it just survive. Do you feel like weightlifting can alter that? I feel like it can help you keep muscle, things like that, but I think it makes weight loss hard, harder. Um, in the sense that sometimes we've talked about this, where right in the acute phase you hold onto more water, more glycogen. That's like you're,'cause you're breaking down the muscle, you're having the food stored. Glycogen is wanting to replace it. And I find people that exercise a lot. By the way, I love strength training. Okay. So like, everyone hear me when I say this, sometimes the hunger really goes up compensatory. You're doing more exercise and then you're more hungry. That's why these medications really help break that cycle.'cause you don't see people lose more than 3% body weight when you just focus on exercise. So much of it is the nutrition in the other side. But I think it helps keep your muscle, I think it helps with longevity, stability. There's so many other things besides just our weight that I think everyone should be strength training. Yeah. Agility, mobility, what is it? And no dementia. Well, not no dementia, but like reduce, right? Like we don't really have very many pills and things, although we got some GLP ones, right? Dementia. But exercising is a huge thing for brain health. Yeah, there's a great, podcast I am like obsessed with. I've listened to it like three times by Dr. Vonda Wright. Yes, she's awesome. She's about strength training and how important it is for the longevity of your life. So not just to gain muscle and be healthy, but really to keep you alive longer and keep you mobile longer. So if you fall at 70, you're not gonna die from breaking a hip. Yeah. So that's why I really started it more. Yeah, I do think that there's a comment and it's not, I'm like, I for sure have felt this way, but when I was first losing and I was getting so greedy for that every week number like that, I was like, no, I don't wanna strength pain because if I have muscle, the scale will be up. It won't be down as much. Like I thought that way I did. Because I've been dealing with diet culture for as long as I can remember, and that's what I cared about until I realized that it was such trash, I had to stop it, but you don't realize that. I think some people, I would say everybody finds that figure that on the journey, there are some people that. There are definitely, I'm gonna be honest, that narrative of, of what actual health has only started to get pushed a year or two ago. Yeah. So like, I think it was, uh, 2022, right? Manjaro came out. Yeah. We were at coupon card, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And the reality is there was a year when people were just, I'm losing and yay, 30 pounds a month. And like it was, all this stuff was highlighted and then I think a few of us physicians were like, but the body composition. Yeah. And we were trying to talk about these things and I think now it's really understood. M that health matters more than just the number. I don't think in the beginning that was really highlighted. No, I don't think so. Oh, no, not at all. At all. I mean, for sure it wasn't in our community, but I think we were just so fricking thrilled to have anything that worked at all. Plus we were all sort of just like amazed, we were here creating, and we were doing diet culture and shot days and weigh in days and accountability partners. No offense to the county field partner who I like and I had in the show. That's what we were doing because that's what we know that's diet culture. It's typical biggest loser, right? You are in control and you are other things. This is what we're gonna do. We've got this together. And then all of a sudden the food was turned off and we were like. Are you guys feeling this shit? Are you guys, do you guys not want food at all? Like, are you guys having a hard time eating anything? Like, and we would have lives about it and I'm writing a book about all this and have videos about it. And we would just all be talking and that was how our community started to grow because people were like watching that sort of drama unfold of the mental, of all of this as opposed to just sort of like the spectacle, which is what people are usually watching for, which is the big person that ends up in a small body, right? Mm-hmm. Uh, but the thing is, is when this would happen, that honestly. A lot of us don't end up in small bodies. You know, we end up in smaller bodies, but not skinny bodies, you know, especially ones that started very large or we need longer to get there. More than just a year to get to goal weight, we need three years, we need five years, whatever it is. And so Luke, we're learning all that together, but as this was going on, some naysayers started to pop up. I would say and be like, wait a minute, exactly what Dr. Andia is saying. Like body composition is a thing and it was worth a conversation. But I think that what, what a lot of us heard was that ha we were thinking, well that happens with any weight loss journey or we were thinking, I mean, it's all just toxic thinking, but it's, it's all ignorance and we're trying to learn. So we don't think that way anymore. Right. But like, I think we were also thinking things also you don't need as much muscle as you've had'cause you were carrying a big body and now you're in a smaller body, so it's okay to lose some muscle. And I think that it was a little lost because that came from the more of the na or the naysayers were sort of the loudest, right? There were totally AA scan and all that. I feel like that's been. Learning along the way. I know I've been recently trying to build like a keynote on this'cause people have asked me to speak places and one of the ladies that was asking me when I was talking about it, she's like, but you know, a keynote can't be advocacy. What is the point? And I go, it's not about weight loss. And she was like, I was like, that's, that's the point. It's not, it's not about weight loss, it's about health gain. Right. And of all the things. And that's been huge for me because all I've been doing my whole life is trying to lose weight. Yeah. I've always been losing or gaining. So eventually when I got to a place where I wasn't doing anything, I was like, what do I do? Right. Preach girl. This is all exactly how I feel too. Preach. Yes. Yeah. But do you still sometimes feel like also because I, I, I experience this as, as well, probably almost every day. I'm not eating little enough. Or it's still diet culture creeping in, right? Like, oh, you know what? I ate that whole thing and could I have left it Like every day? I'm like, that's, you're, you're not doing it. I, I feel like it's impossible not to feel that way. That's the majority of our lives. It's impossible to just be cured, right? Yeah. But I think that this is where conversations like this one and people who are, come on, like Ashley to share their story right, can help us steer. What that conversation needs to look like when we start to think these ways. We've had on Dr. Lots of people really come on sort of like the cognitive behavioral piece of this, which is Yeah, because this goes deep. This goes into social programming, equating your size with worth, and I mean, it goes really deep, really fast and it layers, it's very heavy, honestly, when you start to talk about the origins of all of this. And so that too is how many things can we unpack on top of like already being a marginalized community? And so sometimes, I'm not shocked that these thoughts always, am I having enough? Too little, all of that, this questioning ourselves, right? Yeah. And I think in those moments, like you have to give yourself grace and be like, it's okay that I'm feeling this way, right? Mm-hmm. However, I know more now. So let's do, let's look at this differently, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And the beat, the self beat up, it has diminished significantly. Oh, it has? Mm-hmm. Yes. What's that like? It has, but I have also focused on mental, the mental health side for myself, because I knew it was great the first time losing that I, it was touched on, we did have a psychologist that would come and meet us, but it was literally like once a month for an hour. Like, you know, and he was great, but it wasn't clearly enough for people who have struggled and yeah. So this go around, I truly have used it as a tool in all aspects. Mm-hmm. A mental health tool, a physical tool, like to also pair it with high, higher protein, water, all that stuff. But also with like a spiritual kind of journey too, where I've worked on healing my dialogue with myself. Yeah. I no longer, and one of the questions you had sent me was about what did I gain the most from GLP one? Yeah. And I think it is, and I'm not saying that I don't ever have self beat up. Yeah. But I would wake up before wake, uh, in my body that I was very ashamed of. And that ached honestly, when I got out of bed in the morning, I would hurt just to walk to the bathroom, like my feet, my ankles, my back. I was always just hurting. And it would start the moment I opened my eyes in the morning like, Ugh, you're just so fat. You're all these things like so bad. And I will honestly say, I'm not saying that it never happens, but it is almost gone. Yeah. And I think focusing on that through to anyone who's on a weight loss journey, whether it be GLP one or not. Yeah. To focus on the mental side of that, because what we tell ourselves every day becomes our reality. Yeah. So, very big case. Yeah. We all, Mel Robin's hands in here. I think she's great. I love Mel. So she was talking to somebody who doesn't like their appearance. She was on their podcast. That's actually when she says the best stuff. She was on their podcast and although she did a excellent episode on GLP ones with Dr. Ali Waylan, it was excellent. She asked all the questions, she said all the things. It was such a good episode. But back to the thing, so she was talking to the sky and he wasn't like into his face and she was like, look, do this. When you go into the mirror in the morning when you see yourself, just look at yourself and don't say anything out loud and give yourself a high five. And he was like, well, why? And she was like,'cause I know that you don't like the way that you look, but at the end of the day, that's the birth person in the body that you're going through life with, and automatically you've given people high five in life all the time, right? So you're just switching the way that you think about things, you're going, good job. That's what you're doing to people. So when you do that to yourself, you're starting to change how you see yourself. Mm-hmm. And I love tips like that, right? I'm gonna do it tomorrow. And I think that, I think it's so important like to, to be able to stretch your mind in this way. And I think why we're able to do it is because we're not constantly obsessed with our food. And constantly obsessed with calories and losing and feeling less than, and also not plagued with food noise. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I, so I think being able to implement things like that and then of course, talk to your friends and talk to your, I for sure, mental health care, like you should be everywhere. Honestly. Every telehealth should offer it. Because yeah, it is such. It's so insane to like, have this happen. It's life changing. It's earth shattering when this, when the food noise turns off and when you realize, wait a minute, it kinda doesn't really matter necessarily how I got here. What matters is that it was significantly out of my control. And most of what's happening when it comes to weight regulation is happening in my brain and is outta my control. Oh, I know. I was gonna ask you, Dr. Andia, I saw this video of this woman who's a dietician, and she said that your body is always working against you to, to, like you were talking about, to regain weight. And she said that will literally brain, your brain will kick your legs at night to try to wake you up to disrupt your sleep patterns. So your rate gets messed up. Is that not nuts? Because it's trying to make you regain weight, like it's messing with your sleep patterns? Is that true? I have not heard of that. I mean, everything's a possibility. I've not heard of that. Really interesting. I think we need to dig into it, you know? I will say this, I do think regains are part of a weight journey, and I really think that, I know it's depressing, so we don't talk about it a lot, but, I was literally just talking to a friend the other day and I said, listen, I've just done this too long. Where I, when people say, you know, I haven't binged in, in three years. I'm just like, I can't hear this. The goal is not a zero. It's okay if weight comes back on and you'll make quicker actions in the opposite direction. But to just think that like, like Kim, what you were talking about with perimenopause and menopause, it's real. What happens with when the hormones go down, the insulin resistance goes up, this is not made up in our mind. I think to understand there's a flux to this. You might have a baby, women have a really hard time losing that weight. Not everyone just had breastfed and it's gone. There's fluctuations and I think that's actually part of what defines the disease. I'm still grateful for people that can lose the weight and keep it off, but, but 99% of my patients, you know, they've had a bariatric surgery in the past. They struggle now. They get some success Three years later, they have another thing pop up and part of it's total acceptance that you can figure it out. And I don't think we had as many tools, but it's just not a static line is the problem. And you know what Doc, Dr. Nti,'cause remember you were a fan of watching The Biggest Loser. There were several people on the show that had had, that had had bariatric surgery and gained it back and were on the, on the show as well. Yeah, so true. Yeah. I mean that's very common. It's like 50% or something crazy, right? That people that have surgery regained. Oh, it's more than that. I mean it's, that's what they're considering success, not gaining back 50% of the weight by 10 years. Wow. But I'll say like 60, 70% of my practice have had bariatric surgery 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago. It's very common because it fixed a physical thing. It didn't fix the barriers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think too with the GLP one, the mental side improves when you start finally losing weight and it feeling, for me, I can speak for myself, I finally started losing weight after actually doing all the right things, like the right things, you know what I mean? That I was doing before but couldn't lose. And it was always the back and forth that it has made so much more easy for me is like not having the food noise, not having,'cause the inflammation thing is real with GLP one. Yeah. Not having the aches in my knees and stuff and in my body to be able to go to the gym and feel good. And every time I go and do a workout, now I do almost like the high five thing, but just more get it girl, you did that. So my high five. Yeah. My whole thinking, I'm like, who's this? Who is she? I keep saying, who is this girl? So I think the more that we continue to use it as a tool, pair it with mental health, pair it with exercise and strength training, like you start to heal like this inner dialogue. Yeah. And I feel like I do think this sort of regained peace that I've had and then losing like I, I've lost and then regaining and I'm also reshaping, I think'cause doing the strength training and stuff and I think that's been a big lesson for me because I did immediately be like, wow, I'm just a piece of crap. I can't even keep it off with this medicine. Immediately I said that and then I was like, Kim. You've been interviewing doctors for two years and better stop it. And I was like, oh yeah, you know better. Okay. I'll notice people that start on the journey with me recently started making content about how they regained like between five and 10 pounds and the, and these are actually people that are in smaller bodies than myself. And I was like, that is a very validating to me because I really thought, right? Yeah, it is validating. It's, didn't we talk about phase three up to 20% regain Yes. Yeah. It's, and that makes sense, right? Because. Because your body's fighting you. And I do think that things happen. And this is all, again, this is crowdsource Kim. I'm not a doctor, when I look at people who are like, they'll get back on, I'll hear them like they've kind of fallen off TikTok for a while or off the journey or off the, they'll say off, I'm off the train. What do they call that? Off track? Off the off the tracks or off the wagon. Yeah. Get back off the wagon. Gonna get back on the train and they'll come in and be like, I'm gonna this, and I'm uncountable and they're doing it all over again. And so myself goes, oh man, I just really want them to know that's the disease. Like I just want them to understand that they didn't get off track because they're lazy. They got off track because their body is, their brain is fucked up and it's literally telling them. You can have a little more of that. You could do a little more of that. You can skip the gym because it's trying to get you to regain weight. Can we have a moment, especially with online,'cause it's a very altered universe online, right? Everyone just hear us when we say that. It's not real little clips of thing. So eating disorders, which we could consider obesity, being a, a form of disordered eating like we could, we could consider this stuff. Yeah. It thrives in shame and secrecy. Yes. And so the minute that things aren't going right, we, we turn inward, get offline, you know? Right. And it makes things actually a lot worse. I know with me, I have a really hard time getting online and making videos if I feel like I've been out of integrity with what I recommend. If I've had a, like some overeating, I'm like, I can't make a video. Like I Right. Because, and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, but this is, everyone's going through this. But in my mind I couldn't possibly get out there if that had happened. And so I think that that, that, that's one of the problems too, you're not seeing the full story, you don't have Absolutely. Yeah. I think that's true. And I, um, I would say I struggle with that a little bit, but it's interesting'cause when I go on live and people are like, well do you do this? I'm like, no girl. I eat meatball sandwiches. I just don't only do it once a month now instead of once a week. That's why I'm not a coach, because I would never be able to look at you and be like, I many meatball sandwich. But no one's perfect. But that's what I think is normal. I think it's okay. You're right, Ashley. Like it's normal. Eat a meatball sandwich. That's why I went to, I had my birthday a couple weeks ago. I went and had pizza and I don't feel bad about it at all. No, I'm not eating pizza every single night. I'm not crushing a large pizza. Yeah. But I just feel like we have to stop beating ourselves up about stuff. Same pre that's the old way of thinking. I feel it's like the way I sometimes doesn't it though? It's like, oh, I shouldn't have it. You pick yourself up for eating something that normal people probably eat every once in a while too. I, that's the diet culture. Once my niece made this incredible Reese's peanut butter cupcake because we're a family of bakers. And my sister was like, do you wanna cut that slice in half? Absolutely not. Nope. I'm gonna sit here and eat this whole, because my niece can, can really cook. So, yep, yep. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think, I think that's something too I've really worked on is the beating up of eating normal food. Yeah. Especially after Biggest Loser. Oh my gosh. Because the shame of eating normal foods after the biggest loser was really real. I say, porny and asparagus in public, like, did you feel like people are gonna pull out their phones and record you? Yeah, I feel like that all the time. Yeah. I feel like I, and I'm not even anything, but I worry people like that girl, she sells net cream on TikTok and fill a video of me, she's a weight loss influencer and she's a meatball sandwich and I'm be like, bitch, that's right. Here's two. That's what I mean. But that's what normal people do. And I, that's why I feel like I've started to share more. I don't just share like my healthy eating stuff. Like I share, I did a TikTok on my birthday where I was eating pizza and I was like, yeah, I can go eat a pizza now. Have a couple slices, enjoy myself maybe with a glass of wine, and I'm not gonna just blow it all out the aste tomorrow and be like, I'm a failure. I can't go to the gym. I don't do that anymore. I feel like that beat up part I have worked on. I'm not saying I don't ever feel guilty about stuff I've eaten, but I don't know. I feel like we need to stop doing that to ourselves. Yeah. I And be like, hell yeah, that was good. And now I gonna be great tomorrow too. You know? Yeah. I remember when I was first on this journey, Ashley, and I remember. I was diet or could die cold, drink the shit out of it. And I went to dinner with my family to Red Lobster and the Cheddar Bay biscuits got me good. Wow. And I came home and felt like stray trash. And I was like, I feel so bad about this, blah, blah, blah. And I went, and instead of beating myself up and going to bed and shaming myself, I'd made a different behavior and for choice. And I remember being able to Yeah, that's good. Being able to make that choice. Yeah. And I reached out to somebody that I had connected with in the community and I said something bad tonight. I ate bad food tonight. I made bad choices. I said, I really think that, and this is a pivotal moment for me. There are no, it's hard for me'cause all this stuff, right? But like, there are no good foods or bad foods. They're just foods. Right? And I was like, yeah. I mean they really are just fuel. Like they all get you where you're going. You just have premium and then you have not premium. But ultimately it was really hard for me. I. But like I thought to myself, that's so true. We assign this morality to food. Mm-hmm. We assign this morality to thinness and we've really gotta get away from that because ultimately food's just food and thinness usually does not have to do with moral worth. Ultimately, it's usually biologically driven. Think about all the, I say this all the time, think about how many people we know that can eat like trash pandas and like never gain a pound. Yeah. Right. That, that happens all the time. Why can't the opposite be true? Why can't we accept that some boies are just metabolically sound and others are not? Because scientifically we know that to be true now. Right? We're just built for the famine. I just, yeah. We're built for the gatherers, right? Yeah. When we were hunter gatherers, we were more efficient. Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. We were more efficient at craving more of that bone marrow to suck outta this craving more of the bone marrow. That's the only thing I took, I took a lot of anthropology and a lot of in college, and I remember reading about like bipeds, we were studying evolution. Yes, I studied evolution. But anyway, bipeds, bipeds, how they survive was they suck marrow. What? Okay. They suck marrow. You had to use, you had to kill and eat the entire place. Well because it's fatty, right? Like it's a lot of fat, I would think. Yeah. So the marrow, but actually people still eat marrow in other countries anyways, so this is a full spectrum education today, right? Like all the way. So when we were hairy bipeds back to evolution. But I mean, I think that's something true to consider and something I do try to tell people is like when it comes to like your body and I've had, I've had doc we had several doctors come on, but. Something Dr. Rosen did say is talking about that famine and that sort of thing. We're talking about millions of years of evolution here. And ultimately your weight is ultimately really controlled by your brain more than anything else. And a level of acceptance of that I think will help us as we move forward, I think that understanding that you are in charge of this much, right? Which is basically your nutrition, your movement, and how you choose to perceive things. Like those are the things and everything else that is up to your body that is somebody else's job, so that's all you can do is just show up for yourself and give yourself a high five and try to just reframe things as we move through this and have a community, build a community, reach out to people. Don't feel ashamed to talk about this if you want to, but you also, I don't think have to either, right? Like you don't have to put all over the internet like we do. It's really nobody's damn business because this is about health. It's not about weight. Yeah. Back to keynote. I have another question for you, Ashley. Oh yeah. Post show. How do you feel about doing like Jillian and Bob workouts, and second, how do you feel about this Ozempic, fight She's fighting, if you want to answer that question. Oh. Um, oh no, I'll answer. And I will first say I do love her, like she was my person. Mm-hmm. So I don't agree with everything that she, well, I don't agree with, we don't agree a lot on a lot of things, but, I still love her. She helped me so much. And she's really nice and I, I feel like know you're fine. I feel like now if I were to email her still, she would respond and be willing to help me. She is a good person. She does say some stuff that I'm just like, what? Girl. No. So I don't always agree with her anymore. I loved her workouts Back in the day I had all of her DVDs and stuff, dvd. I'm aging myself again. All of her DVD and I would do them religiously. Even after the show I did'em.'cause I was like, I've gotta gotta keep going, you know? I think she probably still has a couple good ones that are, if you wanna do'em at home, I don't have a problem with it. I don't think they were too extreme. And she has different levels and stuff. I think I'm actually in one of them, which was kind of cool. Now we're gonna go looking. Is it the one where you fall down? Because I feel No, no. A workout video where I was in the background. Oh, okay. Good. In that aspect, like I, I don't think there's anything wrong with them. I think the old version of what they were teaching then is not healthy, you know? Of course. And I think they have new perspectives as we all kind of do. Where they disagree with the whole low calories just. Yeah, kill yourself in the gym kind of thing. I feel like that's very old school now. And I hope people realize that's very old school and that they aren't still trying to achieve that. And yeah, I wanted to say like we have to be able to let people evolve over time because I know if you look back to five, six years ago, what I said, I think it's very different than what I say now. And people have to be able to learn and change. I know we were shocked when we heard what some of the things you went through, but I think they thought they were doing the best for you. That they thought, I agree at the time, so we do as good as we can at the moment. I think that was the knowledge they had in the time. And they knew that this calorie thing had worked for people in the past and she wanted me to win. I was her girl. Like she wanted me to win the show. I'll be honest, I don't follow her anymore just because I found that I. You know, we disagree on a lot, Adam. So for my own mental health, I stopped following, so I didn't know that. I guess I didn't really realize she was like fighting the ozempic battle. Was she saying that it's not good? Oh yeah. Yeah. I can see that she wants She's probably the one of the loudest ones in the room. Yeah. Grit down and get it done, right? Yes. Is that what it is? Yeah. Well, it's, you don't have a GLP one deficiency. You just need to eat better food. You just need to eat less. Exercise. Exercise. That's her whole, it's the same. I know, same kind of thing. She's always touted, but like that's you, you even revolve or you're gonna double down when you're in these kinds of situations. And if you whole life has been in this way right then I can see why it would be very difficult to pivot that when you, especially when you publicly Well, it's her whole brand. It's her, yeah, I was gonna say polarizing is a decision. Yeah. That's her, that's her moneymaker. It's her brand. But at the same time, you know, you could still do I, you could still do, I agree. You could still do both. You know? Yeah, I agree. I didn't know she was fighting. I'm very disappointed to hear that, honestly, because it has been life changing for me, and I feel like everyone she's worked with, we all could benefit from it. Honestly, if you're on the biggest loser, I feel like yeah, we have a disease. You don't get to that weight without having a disease. I wish that she believed differently. I think it's a shame when you hear people like, because there is so much data, like, like so many years of data, like it's not like they act like it's brand new. I'm like, this isn't brand new. No, no. Like I think that has gone off patent 20 years later. Yeah. I mean, legitimately like that's how far in we and those people hang on to those patents like crazy. We're about to have iMac on the show, by the way, he's like fighting against that. That's gonna be a great show. But, I think that it's, that's how long, because they hold, they like when they do patents for these things, they like patent the pin and the needle and all the things to try to keep you from going toner for a long time. And we went generic last year for liraglutide. I think that it's, don't get me wrong, we don't know. 50 years from now. But like I do know what's gonna happen to me if I continue my obesity 50 years from now. I probably won't be here if I'm lucky with it, so I think that's where people get is they get in the spot. And I get wanting, but I like this whole narrative right now of. Let me like get people's food and exercise in them so they never become obese and all those different things. That sounds great, but ultimately you're still associating the fact that exercise and food is the only thing that's gonna prevent obesity. And that's just not true. That's great things to do and hopefully prevent, or at least reduce or all of those different things, but there's just so much more to it than that. And I just think we have to quit looking at it like, it's so simple, right? And everybody needs to understand, like people need combine therapies, people need surgery, they need Wellbutrin, they need whatever, right? As you go through life and your body continues to like evolve, you know? So I just, I'm just, I feel like too, if you've never struggled, you'll never get it. Yeah. And like I know that she claims, and I'm not trying to talk trash about her. I do love her, but don't feel like she truly ever understands the struggle. And I guess the disappointing part is watching, myself struggle. All of my cont you know, people that were on the show struggle and her still not give any kind of empathy to the fact that this is a disease and that it's not cured by exercise and food. I think this is the part where it starts to feel volitional. When I feel like years ago when these meds started to become more mainstream, people really didn't know, they didn't know the data, they didn't understand all this. Yeah. But as you learn more and more, you are choosing to actively go in the opposite direction. You're picking that at some point because now it's very mainstream. A lot of this data, we are understanding it more. We know a lot more. And at any point you could decide I was wrong. Let me change my views on some of this, but it's not happening. No, not disappointing. Just, it was just disappointing. That's a very good word. I don't have any problem with ignorance. I, I'm ignorant a lot of things like, but I do think that like willful ignorance is an issue. When you look at it all and you go, no, it's just the food and exercise. It's just not, it's just not. So I also don't get why everybody's interviewing her and calling on her for things like that. What I She's very loud. The noise. It's, it's the, uh, it's the, uh, controversy, right? Like it's still, it's, yeah. So she's, it's the spectacle. She's carved out. She's wanting to stay relevant. Right. But I always wonder who are her main followers now? Are are pe is it people that are all thin? Is that who she's catering to? Because I, I mean, you have, you've ostracized everyone that has the disease of obesity. C yes. So many people downplay us. You have marginalized this worse than anyone. That was something, to be honest, that. Gutted me when she started to talk in this way because I thought, wow, I spent all these years and I read your books and all this stuff. And then for you to just completely invalidate the whole experience and just continually, to be honest, it wasn't like a one-time comment, a one-time interview.'cause I'm very forgiving with these things. I can't even fathom all the things I've said, but to continue to be at the horn about it. Yeah I think now she's completely flipped then who her main people are because there's no way that I can see anyone that's ever been in a larger body being okay with what she's doing. I feel like a lot of people she went through a couple years ago, people were mass and following her'cause they're like, we're sick of your diet culture. Bs like, yeah, eat less, work out more. And honestly, that's kind of when I did too.'cause I was like, yeah, but I'm out. You know? And it, she really does drive that. I mean, I get it. She dead set thinks that is. The, the answer to obesity. Yeah. And I'm like, no, we are, we're past that. Now let's move forward. Yeah with compassion and understanding and Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's a, I think something to consider about, uh, sort of about that, that piece, right? Is that we are oftentimes like an algorithm land, like as creators, we actually land get pretty protected for the most part. Our stuff is getting fed to people who are like-minded or in bodies, right? And then every now and then we'll get a troll, right? But I have gone on post of hers and other people that are in jim, bro, diet, culture, peptide like world, or fitness in general, man fi, the disordered eating comments. But if you go to those comments, they are full. And I think it's probably for two reasons, right? Reasons like one, I think ignorance, right? Two, three, maybe even two. Like not being able to consider a different perspective because you've been doing something so long and it's ingrained in a part of you. Like some things that you and I have talked about right on the show today. But I think also if you can't get it, if you don't have the money to get it, I have had people that either don't have the money to get it or they've had a bad reaction to it or they can't, you know, like they've tried it and it didn't work for them. Those people are salty af. And those people will definitely follow someone like Jillian, who's like at the horn. Right? So you shift in the type of support and people that you're into and, oh no, I can do it because Jillian told me that I can do it. Right. And I, I think that's like what happens because I do think that we just don't see how bad it is.'cause when I do, if I do go viral and something happens, oh I know it's gross. I think energy attracts energy too. So she's in the energy of that is not how it goes. This is how you do it. These people are cheating this they're taking the easy way out. Whatever people say about it. I feel like that energy and that attracts that same vibe from Yeah. What the tracks like, especially internet life attracts like, so I feel like she's probably attracting, of course, people that agree. Sure. Yeah. And people that also did it on their own. They did it on their own. They've never really struggled well this has been a lovely conversation. Well, Ashley, tell people where they can follow you with your GLP one journey, the things that you do and the content you share so that they can do that. And I'll put it in the show notes as well. Thank you. So I am on, TikTok. I'm like, I love TikTok. Out of all the platforms, I feel like I can truly be my pure self. I don't have to hold back. It really trickles down when I get on Facebook, I'm like, I can't really say that. I can't be like that. I am on TikTok. It's Ashley, Paul. And then of course Instagram is linked there. So come to my Instagram and I'm thinking about doing a YouTube channel just because I wanna do longer. I have a lot to say and I wanna, yeah. So I think I'm gonna start that soon too. Fantastic. When you do, send me an update and I'll put in the show notes. Thank you. I love talking to you girls. This has been so fun. I think I found you because when I, before I started taking my shot, I started following you because I wanted the meds and I wanted to learn and absorb things and how do I do it? How do I do it, right? What are all the secrets and stuff? So thank you for being a person and a place to come where people can actually gain knowledge and understanding and community. So thank you. I thank you for saying that. I appreciate that so much. I keep it up. Thank you. And Dr. Tia, um, if you need a doctor, in which states again, tell me again. Nebraska, Indiana and Illinois. Illinois. Wow. Wow. Okay. Lemme tell you, Dr. The Midwest is so hard for most people. Have you noticed that like. You could see the south, the west coast. But is because of hot, is that what it is?'cause it's a hot dish. People used to always say, aren't you from Kansas? No, I'm from Nebraska. Yeah, but I When you said, I was like, Rania, Indiana. Indiana, yeah. It's the Midwest. People struggle with it like Sure, yeah. Yeah. That's where I'm like, sure. Over there. And in that area, people who are not from the us, like just forget it. Like where is Ohio? Is this Ohio? Is that Ohio? Just enough. Stop. I don't understand. I'll some links to your clinic and your socialist in there too. So you can follow Dr. Andia. Wonderful. I promise. Go follow. And she's in Indiana, in Illinois. Indiana. In Illinois. But you can still learn from her even if you don't go see her as a doctor. No. Yeah.'cause you follow her on TikTok. Awesome. Thank you so much ladies. I appreciate the conversation and your contribution to our movement. Bye bye.