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The Fitness Disruption Podcast with Dr. Ted Vickey
The Disruptive Fitness Podcast is a podcast for personal trainers who want to grow their business and work smarter, not harder, by using technology.
The guests will be my industry friends from my White House days, the people you need to know.
The Fitness Disruption Podcast with Dr. Ted Vickey
Podcast 203: Unveiling Obesity: Dr. Renee Rogers on Fitness Tech, Weight Loss Medications, and Empathy in Treatment
Obesity research meets fitness technology in a compelling discussion with Dr. Renee Rogers from the University of Kansas. Ever wondered how a professional dancer transitions into a leading obesity researcher? Dr. Rogers takes us on her remarkable journey, shedding light on the role of technology in translating complex scientific studies into practical tools for fitness professionals. Her personal story of overcoming early body weight struggles and shifting from physical therapy to medical fitness offers invaluable insights into the multifaceted nature of obesity, emphasizing the power of education in addressing this pressing issue.
In the latter half of our conversation, we navigate the nuanced landscape of obesity treatment, from medical interventions like Ozempic to the indispensable role of lifestyle changes. The rapid adoption of weight loss medications sparks a discussion on balancing medical and lifestyle approaches, the potential for collaboration between fitness professionals and obesity specialists, and the importance of empathy. We also address the financial and accessibility barriers to these medications, aiming to foster a supportive and inclusive environment for those living with obesity. Stay tuned for an episode packed with the latest research, personal anecdotes, and practical advice on fitness and obesity management.
Welcome to the Fitness Disruption Podcast with Dr Ted Vicki. From presidential push-ups to wearable wonders and award-winning academics, he's been called the most connected man in fitness. We will explore the intersection of fitness and technology, from cutting-edge apps to the latest in powerful prompts. This is your go-to source for staying ahead of the fitness tech curve. Spend just 30 minutes with us and we guarantee you'll learn something new, no matter if you're a new personal trainer or an established fitness brand. Ted and his guests have insights and tips for you to use today. Ready to be disruptive, it's time for the Fitness Disruption Podcast. Here's your host, dr Ted Vicki.
Speaker 2:Hi, welcome to the Fitness Disruption Podcast. I am here with my good friend Dr Renee Rogers from University of Kansas. I've known Renee for a while. We saw each other at ACSM Idea in the spring. Renee, how are you?
Speaker 3:I'm good Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate it. Now. You are, in my mind, the go-to person when it comes to obesity research.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much for saying that.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it Before we go down that road. You know, I ask the question of everybody on the podcast, which is if there's one piece of technology that you wish the fitness industry would adopt so it would leave more time for the trainers to work with their clients, what might?
Speaker 3:that look like.
Speaker 3:Well, you know I think it's the one thing you know as I do research.
Speaker 3:I was a practitioner for many years too, and still you know, work with patients at a certain level and in the fitness industry and do more now training trainers right In this space.
Speaker 3:You know it's so critically important that we stay up in the evidence, and I think that the one of the biggest things is if technology could help get more of the research in the hands of fitness professionals and help to summarize it, cause you know sometimes if you're you're not writing the research, if you're not reading the research every day, if those stats classes are far from your mind, or if you didn't even some of us didn't have all those stats classes right. That that to really understand what's ready for prime time in terms of research versus what is very early stage, small sample, signal kinds of things. Cause what I noticed in our industry is sometimes people see one small thing and grab it and it becomes a headline. The media does it all the time. So I think it makes it really hard for fitness pros to stay up with the research but also be able to evaluate it the right way. So that's where I'd love to see that technology be, you know, key for us there.
Speaker 2:Well, I think my next prompt will be that for you, so we can upload a file, some of your research, and we'll say summarize this, uh, in an easy to understand language and we'll see what look. What it looks like, but one of the reasons I like having a podcast. I can speak pittsburgh east to her. I just got back from the creek. I had to write up my office and pulled out my can of pop before the interview.
Speaker 3:She knows exactly what I'm talking about too much to, but you know that's how hands roll.
Speaker 2:where we're from, you know Absolutely so give us a quick little synopsis of how you started, what got you into the industry and why obesity.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So you know, interestingly, I was my career like I would say career one, career two, but if you go back in my time I won't say how many years. It'll date myself way too much. But I was going to be a professional dancer and a performer. That was my trajectory path. I did it when I was in middle school. I started actually performing professionally, so the idea of not doing that for the rest of my life was something that it was what it was. I loved movement, I love dance, I love performance, all those different kinds of things. It's really blessed to travel the country early on.
Speaker 3:Interestingly, though, as I got older, I started to struggle with my body weight and if you know anything about the performance world space, it's it's tough and it's it's cutthroat, and so I became fascinated with trying to understand that and, you know, after a series of injuries and really realizing the space, I wanted to move on and wanted to go back and be educated. My grandfather was a biology professor and always loved science, and we used to talk science. So here's me like walking away from an artsy, professional dance career but thinking like maybe science stumbled across exercise. Science completely stumbled across exercise. Science completely stumbled across exercise science like walking through my rec center trying to find the gym and was like this is interesting. And after talking to some really great people, realized that I had deep down a passion for movement and I could actually learn about the connection between movement and science. Exercise science major completely fell in love with the idea of that exercises medicine, was very interested in body weight regulation, went on to do research as an undergrad very lucky, I was at Youngstown State University, which is where I grew up, just over the line in Ohio yeah, just over the line and then started to do.
Speaker 3:I was actually in physical therapy school for about three years and really loved the clinical aspect, the post-surgical aspects of it, but found myself missing that unique creativity Right, because I was a dancer.
Speaker 3:I want to be creative and think about unique approaches to helping people and helping them fall in love with exercise. And when we get into PT right, it can be very regimented, very reimbursement structured. So I kind of walked away from that before I got in too deep and started to work in a medical fitness space where I was starting to work with a lot of physician referrals for patients with obesity and worked with a behavioral psychologist and a dietician and very quickly learned that my undergrad degree was not enough to help me understand obesity and that it was way more complex than what I thought it was. It's not just calories in, calories out and from there. That's when I made the jump to the University of Pittsburgh to get my further education and my PhD in obesity and behavior change strategy. So that is what my primary focus has been for the last 20 plus years. I'll say so I don't give away my age too much.
Speaker 2:You mean 10 plus years? Yeah right, you know, being in the industry for a little bit longer than you, with maybe a three in front of a zero, I don't know. I've always thought that both men and women that get into the fitness space really struggle sometimes with their own body image Because unfortunately, you know, we're kind of put up on these pedestals and if you don't look the part of a personal trainer, people are saying, well, why would I work with you? Do you see the same thing? Absolutely. You see the same thing Absolutely.
Speaker 3:And I think that you know I myself have had many situations where, you know, I stand in front of fitness professionals and think to myself, oh my gosh, they're probably looking at me and saying she's not the pinnacle of fitness, she's not the pinnacle of this, she's not the and she's talking about body weight regulation. And I do think it's true. I think our unique interests come to play and I'm sure most people that are listening they're either like I've always loved it and I've always been that person, and then there's those people that say I've struggled with this and I've become this person because I care and I want to learn, and both are great. We need all those people in the industry to feed and collaborate with one another. That's how we continue to innovate, I think.
Speaker 2:You know, I had something similar when I was in Ireland. I was giving a talk on fitness and the Irish tend to have this quick wit, ask for questions, and the guy in the back raises his hand and said you know why would I want you as a personal trainer? You don't look fit. It was my biggest fear ever and I stopped for a moment and I said you know, fitness is more than how a person looks, and I think you would want someone like me to be your trainer, because I can empathize with you. I know the things that you're going through and I somehow just started to roll off my tongue for about a minute. I got a standing ovation from the rest of the people of what I said. It was so freeing.
Speaker 2:And now you still worry about it getting up on stage, but it's like you don't know what medications are lying. You don't know my family history, so I think we're all in this. But that leads into what I really want to talk about, and that is this newfound, I dare say, love of things like Ozempic. Yeah, and I know one of the things that you and I talked about, that that I was happy to see, is science and and fitness. The practitioners, the gyms haven't always kind of come together, but now I'm seeing like gyms are having personal training for people that are on ozempic, yeah, and doing that sort of behavior change. In addition to so, from a academic perspective, what do you think about ozempic and fitness?
Speaker 3:oh, man, that's a big conversation and and, as you know, like a lot of my research right now is currently in this space, studying both the behavioral side of patient perspectives how they feel about exercise, and, you know, lifestyle in general, now that they're taking medications like Ozambic, which is treat, the real names, semaglutide, and then there's triseptide, the Zep bounds of the world of the Manjaros, but and also the biological side in terms of body composition. So this is a space I'm super passionate about and super focused in on. So, oh, I could talk to you for hours. I know we don't have all that though, but you know it's one of those things that I have mixed feelings about it, and it's it's not anything, for I always say my personal disclosure is, first off, that I am a believer in obesity treatment access for everyone, and that includes everything from lifestyle support, dietary support, exercise support, to medication, pharmacotherapy, if it's right for you and your provider decide on it, or bariatric surgery, if that is right for you. We need to provide as many options as possible for access to obesity care to help with our you know obesity epidemic that we have. You know it's real. So that's you know. I'll put my bias out there so that everyone knows that.
Speaker 3:But when I say that I'm torn about it, I'm torn because I'm thrilled to your point that the fitness industry is letting go of some of this lifestyle versus medical management and it's coming together. But I'm also slightly concerned about jumping the gun because there's so much research to be done and we have so much to still learn about these medications. I see often a lot of programs and promotion and, I'll say, claims out there, especially around the ideas of preserving muscle mass and the really negative things about the meds and what exercise can and can't do. And I'll tell you firsthand from reading and being in this literature every day. And some interesting stuff just came out from ADA this past week I can't wait to dive into. But we have a lot to learn and we haven't done the studies yet to really know those things. However, I love embracing and creating welcoming and inclusive spaces and if we're doing that, we're so we're winning as an industry.
Speaker 2:So if I were a fitness professional, I wanted to somehow start to have even conversations with my client. Well, first of all, the scope of practice. Right, you're never going to, as a trainer, go out and say, hey, I think you should take Ozempic, right, but is there a way that I could possibly create a business around personal training, health coaching and Ozempic like finding an obesity doctor to work with Is that possible?
Speaker 3:You know it's, it's honestly, it's my goal. It's my goal to create this piece of of connection between our American Board of Obesity Physicians that are specializing in obesity treatment care. They're out there and they want you. They want you to be their partners and if you're really keeping up on the literature, you're hearing those physicians and practitioners say this needs to be still rooted in lifestyle. This is not. This is a tool Ozembic. These medications are a tool to support your weight loss.
Speaker 3:Lifestyle's still the foundation and they're looking for those empathetic trainers that specialize in understanding obesity and staying on top of it and considering the human that's living with obesity and their needs. To your point that you made so wonderfully before is one not necessarily you don't have to be right or carry excess body weight to empathize, but you do understand it and you stop to put the human before the condition right and you work with them. That is what they're looking for and that's my hope for our fitness industry is that we can train more professionals with that obesity specialization that are taking time to learn about the hundred plus medications that are in the pipeline right now, that are keeping up with the literature, hopefully using their technology tools the right way and doing all of these things so that there's a great connection and you become in that pipeline. I know we're not quite to reimbursement yet, but how can we be setting ourselves up with the credential, with the certification, with the backing of what we need in the training, so we're ready when it's time?
Speaker 2:I was just doing some research before we got on and I read something that the actual cost to make the drug is like $30. But the pharmaceutical companies say you know, we spent so much time and effort and investment and create these drugs and out of the 10 drugs we put before the FDA, one hits. So we have to, we have to make money. On charging, I don't know. I've seen Ozempic for upwards of thousands of dollars a month. Yeah, and unfortunately what that does is it creates that imbalance like you were talking about, where it's only people. Well, first of all, if you can get your doctor to somehow prescribe it for you, if your insurance company will pay for it, and one of the things that has become popular, especially here in San Diego people going over the border and going to Costco and getting Ozempic over there, bringing it back. Have you heard any horror stories about not using insurance and possibly going, you know, kind of cut a corner?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know it's a tough space right now because you know when a drug we're also battling up right now drug shortages. So that's another layer of it right. So it's not just insurance, it's not just, you know, it's finding the drug, it's the shortage of the drug as well too. And the cost, the cost is high and I think you know, unfortunately, the way the United States is set up right now, while we have so many great things in our regulatory system. But you know our benefits provider managers in the middle are driving some of that cost and our transportation costs to get these expensive biologics across the country is not in favor as it is in other countries, right, so that adds to the cost that people experience. But on the other side of it you know these when a drug goes into shortage, compounding is actually something, and a compound medication is basically looking at taking the active ingredients but modifying them slightly to get a similar effect. Compounding is something that can occur when a drug's on the shortage list and that's what you're seeing a lot of right now and you're also seeing stories have recently come out. There's actually been a couple exposés recently about counterfeitfeit Ozembic Not the real thing, looking at lot numbers paying attention to that. So I encourage people. If it seems too good to be true, you might want to pause and say ooh, what's going on with this? And double check it. But you know, currently the FDA does warn against compound medications because you have to realize that while certified compounding pharmacies out there are doing this work, they're not using the same exact process that's being used. Those aren't released yet, they're not available. That's when you know a generic drug is available. There's a period of time on that patent before that happens, so they are not regulated by the FDA. So there has been a warning of time on that patent before that happens. So they are not regulated by the FDA. So there has been, you know, some a warning put out on that. Currently your major obesity organizations are, you know, telling you maybe that's not the best thing to do, it's, it's a tricky space, right, cause access is such a thing and you can get it cheaper. But there are some, you know reports of folks having worse side effects when they're taking a compound medication or overdosing. You know hypoglycemic episodes and more and more of them have been reported. This is because you know your Ozempics and your trade name drugs. Currently they're out there. They have the injectable pens that control the dose. Right, it's a turn click do versus getting some of these compounds and these other agents.
Speaker 3:Person needs to know how to titrate the syringe. Do the application. It's a little trickier, right? You're increasing the chance of error. So I we have to be really extraordinarily careful in this space. It's hard to say, not being a physician myself and scope of practice, but I think we want to be aware and I think for any professionals out there in the gym space I'd be really, really, really careful. I get messages all the time about people saying, hey, I can get Ozembic for your clients at your gym. You just need to subscribe to me and refer and we'll take care of the rest. And you really want to make sure that you're careful to not get involved in operations like that, because these medications are not just hey, access, go, no problem. There's a lot of medical management and blood screening and blood tests and different things that should happen around them. So proceed with caution.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, unfortunately it's kind of fallen into one of my pet peeves of these industries and you probably see it too. You know, follow me and I'll teach you how to make ten thousand dollars a month of being a personal trainer. So I'm sure we get some of these other things that are that are coming in and, uh, running out. I'm thinking back the last time that the really in my mind was a connection between a diet drug if it was fen-phen, and everyone was on board with fen-phen, and then it was like, oh my gosh, it does this this and this is? Is this different? Do we know more about ozempic? And and this isn't a fad, like that was?
Speaker 3:you know that's a wonderful question. Um, so the glp1 based drug drug goes back to liraglutide, duluglutide. These drugs have been around in research for almost 20 years now and they originally were. You know, ozembic itself is prescribed for type 2 diabetes. So these GLP-1 based that's not my favorite term. I like to go a little broader because of all the new things that are coming. I always try to think about positioning us for what's next, not where we're currently at. Everybody wants to call them GLP-1s, but there's so much more coming down the pike.
Speaker 3:But the GLP-1 base of these drugs which semaglutide, truzepatide, ozembic, wigovie, manjaro, zepounderol based on about 15 plus, I should say, at least years of research on these and managing patterns and understanding what's happening, I think the thing that is different now, why Ozempic is so popular, is, while we know a lot about loraglutide and it's been around a long time, we see double the weight loss with semaglutide. So what does that mean, you know, body compositionally, which is a lot of what we're researching and what effect will exercise really have and what are the downstream results of that? That's where this is a little bit newer now and I think folks need to understand too, because I do hear that a lot like oh, these drugs, you know, have been around or they haven't been around, it's brand new. But when you look at the phase one, the phase two, the phase three, testing and the years that have gone between these trials, it is quite a significant amount of time with multiple variations of trials. So at this point I think the profile is looking very favorable and in addition to that, the amount of conditions that we're seeing positive results on.
Speaker 3:There was just a study that was released last week about obstructive sleep apnea improvement, you know, coming out and again the question is is it directly acting on obstructive sleep apnea or is it a result of weight reduction? You know the select trial showed cardiovascular heart events coming down. We're seeing kidney disease improvement. So, just across the board, you start to name the different things that are coming out from it. There's a lot of research being done. So I think that, as we look at this, I think it's being taken seriously and there's a large investment in continuing to research it. So we're going to continue to learn more and more about it, but right now I think we're we're on a good track.
Speaker 2:Well, that's good to hear, and I'm happy to finally see that the medical and the fitness are coming together. My and I'm happy to finally see that the medical and the fitness are coming together. My goal has always been to keep these podcasts runnable moments. You know you can finish it under 30 minutes, so I want to end with this. Renee, if people want to get in contact with you and follow what you're doing and learn more about you, how can I do it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I recommend everybody to connect on LinkedIn. I'm not one of those people that doesn't connect with you. I love connecting and connecting with lots of people, so please reach out to me on there. I really am intentional about trying to not only post what I'm doing but, as I see, great content from you know, in the obesity space that's not necessarily fitness related, but there's a new medication, there's a new piece on weight stigma and bias you should be thinking about. There's, you know, a you know interesting, you know topic that we haven't been thinking about. I like to try to post those and share those, or let you know about other talks and webinars where you can get additional obesity training. That, I think, will really help to compliment you. So please connect with me on there and hopefully we can continue the conversation.
Speaker 2:I will put your LinkedIn profile URL in the show notes and to be totally transparent, that's. I mean, I've known you for years, but when I saw one of your posts on LinkedIn, it prompted me to say I need Renee on the podcast. Oh, I love it. I got you, Renee. Thanks for being here, Thanks so much and thanks for doing what you do. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a wrap for this episode of the Fitness Disruption Podcast with Dr Ted Vicki. Don't forget to connect with Ted on X, instagram and LinkedIn. If you love the mix of fitness and tech as much as we do, make sure to subscribe, write us a review and spread the word. Got a topic you want us to cover or a guest you'd love to hear? Let us know. Stay tuned for our next podcast for more tips, tricks and trends. Be disruptive, stay innovative and, most importantly, keep making waves.