Ep 37 - Balancing Travel and Training Solo Podcast

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Life Updates
01:01 Travel Challenges and Social Media Issues
03:00 Utah Trip and Elevation Training
05:36 Hiking Zion National Park
07:19 Training While Traveling
09:25 Upcoming Marathons and Training Strategies
10:26 Growth of Vital Medical Practice
12:16 Misconceptions About Functional Medicine
13:45 Favorite Aspects of Practice Ownership
14:39 Patient Outcomes and Transformations
15:09 Dog Updates and Health Challenges
17:24 Balancing Family, Faith, and Business
19:11 Living with Forward Planning
20:13 Introducing the B3 Event
21:13 Event Details and Speakers
23:47 Favorite Recovery Tools and Routines
25:06 Favorite Places to Run
25:36 Surprising Facts About Megan
26:34 Closing Remarks and Event Promotion

Follow & Connect

🎧 Podcast: @btwc
👩‍⚕️ Hosts: @megan_delcorral | @injectorchacha_np 

Hue Aesthetics: https://huemedspa.com/

Vidal Medical: https://vidalmed.com/?fbp=fb.1.1772297993691.763284198923359903

📚 Integrative Medical Peptide Course:
🔗https://www.metabolicmentor.com/peptides-integrative-medical-coaching/

Beauty, Biology & Beyond B3 Event September 18 & 19th

https://beautybiologyandbeyond.ticketspice.com/beauty-biology-beyond#get-tickets-now

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, live from Instagram. It's up and running and we are recording. So welcome back to another episode of Beyond the White Coat Podcast. I'm your solo host today. I don't have Charia with me. As you can see, we are not in my kitchen. Um, and instead I'm in this lovely hotel here in St. George, Utah. And it's been two weeks since we've had a podcast because we've both been traveling and there's just been a lot of life stuff going on. So I wanted to give the people what they want and at least jump in. Um I've got a little Q ⁇ A queued up and kind of just catch everyone up on life and the B3 event, which we're so excited about. But let me tell you, I think planning a wedding in Italy was easier. But shout out to Olivia, Libby, and Erin who have just been helping us so much with getting the event up and running and yeah, all the things. So super happy to be here. On Instagram, if you're noticing, and for those of you listening on the podcast, if you are trying to find me on Instagram, you will see that that's a little challenging right now because Meta disabled my account yesterday. I have no idea why. I just to be honest, I've never had a violation. I've never had like, I don't know, you see, like people have those posts where it's like it's blurred out and it's like, you know, this content is sensitive. I've never I don't post anything crazy. I mean, just to be honest, and consider myself pretty naive in the world of social media. So um we're a little confused. So Erin, God bless her, has been working really hard back and forth. She's like, I keep talking to an agent, and then the conversation cuts out. So we are trying to get my Instagram back up and running, or at least understand what I did wrong, so that way you know I can pivot, make a new profile, and obviously not do whatever it is that I did. I mean, just to be honest, too, if you saw like my search feed, you guys would just dye. It's all hair tutorials because I don't know how to do my hair. So, like Dyson Air Wrap, um, heatless curlers, tons and tons and tons of dog AI videos. I mean, that is my jam. I watch it all the time, I think they're hilarious, and Pilates. So I don't know what's wrong with any of that. So I'm just interested if anyone has any insight of what I can do to get my social media back, please let me know. Be super pumped. But otherwise, we'll move into other exciting topics. And it's so funny. So I'm in the hotel, obviously, and trying to get set up. I don't have my audio equipment, so I'm so sorry if this quality probably isn't what it usually is. I'm just literally recording off my laptop, which I had to prop up on like a little travel case that David uses inside of his briefcase, and then I've got my phone resting on a mirror that I put flat against a TV. So we're just like trying to make it work, but we're here, we're doing the thing. What's been really cool lately is being in Utah. So we are here for what's called the Western Thoracic Association meeting, I think that's the name of it, WTSA, which so David's here for work for um his research fellows are giving some talks on their research in thoracic surgery and obviously congel heart surgery. We came out early, so I'm recording this on a Friday. We came out last Thursday and we went to Park City because our really good friend lives in Salt Lake, and so we wanted to spend some time with him and his son and just see Park City. So that was awesome. And I will say it was really fun because as someone who lives at sea level, I never get to run at elevation, and Park City is at 7,000 feet, so that was exhausting but awesome. I went out, um, I literally told myself, I'm like, okay, you're not acclimated to elevation, like, just do what you can. So I went out and went up doing 10 miles the first day, just and I had to like research the pacing. So they say it's about 30 to 40 seconds slower, which was on par for just like an easy zone to run. My average heart rate was I think like 142, so pretty good, pretty conservative, no speed chasing. And I did that a couple times, and the weather in Salt Lake, the thing that was really cool. Hi Chacha. Um, the thing that was really cool with the weather in Park City versus where I am now, which I'll get into, is you know, during the day it's mid-70s, maybe. I mean gets a little warm, maybe low 80s, but at night it was in the 50s. It was lovely, like just such great weather. And then where the meeting is, we drove down to um St. George, Utah, which is blisteringly hot. It's a hundred, yeah, 106 degrees right now, according to my Garmin Watch. It is so hot, and the UV rays are so strong. So I, of course, already texted Chacha and was like, I need to get a peel when I get back because I've been slathering sunscreen on constantly, but the UV rays are so strong, I'm getting like sunspots, and I need her to peel them all off essentially, so that I don't look haggard when we get back. But um, we went and hiked Zion National Park, which I was saying, so it was so beautiful. We wound up doing eight and a half miles, which I still don't understand with the GPS. So obviously, one, there isn't any cell service, so I'm thinking that's why the miles were a little messed up. And when you're hiking, we hiked the narrows, which is mostly water, like you're actually hiking through water and like slippery rocks, and you have to wear these specific shoes and socks, and it's like a whole thing. So we went out five miles and literally turned around. We're like, okay, we'll do another five back. Because it takes a while because you're not you're not moving fast, you're not killing it. But somehow it only got to eight and a half miles. So I don't know where that other 1.5 miles got lost in the GPS ethos, or if I don't know the way back is shorter somehow, even though it was a point-to-point, but either way, beautiful. And then I have been training on the treadmill while we're here because it's just too hot and I'm I'm not acclimated. I thought about going out one morning. I got up at like 5 30, but even then it was over 80 degrees, and uh just the quality of the air, I just wasn't comfortable, so it's fine. I mean, one week of treadmill training isn't bad. So I've been doing a lot of speed work in that just to try and keep my turnover pretty high. Been working during the day, just adjusting for the time zone change, and then at night doing a nice string session. So that's been super fun. But yeah, so Utah is as beautiful as you can imagine. It's so great. Loving being out here, but ready to go home. So that actually is one of the questions that I had was do you still train so much while you're traveling? Yes, for sure. I try to prioritize movement right now. I'm literally the very baby base of um getting ready for the two world major marathons that I have in the fall. But like I'm far out. This is really just the beginning. So I try not to make it a huge burden, especially on my husband and people that I'm traveling with. He knows that I'm going to work out, but I always tell myself, like, okay, if I had eight miles planned, but we only have time for five, that's fine. I'll just try and get something in. Or if I'm gonna take the day off because we're gonna go hiking through the narrows, that's totally fine as well. Um, and if I get strength training in, that's a bonus. And I have been able to, just the way it's worked out with like him having meetings and whatnot. Um, even one day I had work meetings and I just turned my camera off and did a bodyweight workout in our room. So I do try and at least keep moving and going. And you have to appreciate also, I mean, not just from a performance standpoint, but also from a mindset, it makes me feel a little bit better because what I can't control is especially the resort that we're at, they're literally three restaurants, and that's like you can't go anywhere else. So you know, limited with food. Um, obviously, we're having some adult beverages at night, and keeping that actually, to be honest, like pretty much to a minimum just to not commit too many sins here, but I do try and make it a priority. Um, what's your next big running bull goal? So currently I'm signed up for and am again in the beginning stages of training for the Berlin Marathon, which is September 27th. And then I also got super, super fortunate and I was able to secure a bib for the New York City marathon, which is November 1st. So it's a tight turnaround. I am not a good high, not a high volume athlete, but I guess yeah, not a good high volume athlete, that's how I call it anymore. I used to have more resilience when I was younger, so I'm pretty nervous. So I'll just to be completely transparent, I'm very conservative with my training right now. I am not pushing the volume quality over quantity. I'm doing a lot more speed sessions. Berlin is pretty flat, but New York is has a ton of uh incline elevation. So I've been hitting the hills at home as much as possible. And even here, when we were in Park City, um I went out into the mountains a couple times on my runs, which was great. And then at on the treadmill here, I'm doing incline quite a bit. So the average grade at New York, I'm pretty sure, is 4%. So that's always kind of like my threshold. So I've been trying to do some more intervals specifically on 4% or higher incline on the treadmill. Um, vital medical has grown so much it has. What do you think has been the biggest reason? Who well, I mean, if you asked me five years ago, I would have said, you know, I don't want to build another practice. And we've been open now almost three years. Just, you know, it is a ton of work to get a practice off the ground and get it to a place of stability, which I would say we definitely are now. Now it's a question of like, how do we optimize our return on investment? How do we optimize and capitalize on um generating income and generating quality and patient retention and whatnot? But we have such a strong following through the health coaches that we've collaborated with for so many years and all the thousands and thousands. I think we have over 6,500 patients now at this point. And, you know, it's constant where we see someone and then they want their sister to come or their husband to come or their daughter to come. And and that is a privilege. Like being a part of people's health is a privilege, and it's not something I take for granted or that I take lightly. So I think how we've been able to continue to grow is just staying, I know it sounds cliche, but we really stay true to that mission where it's patients first, as a leader and an owner in the practice, I have a big responsibility to my staff, which I've talked about on the podcast before, because that directly bleeds into patient care, right? So if my staff is happy with the work that they're doing, happy with their environment, they feel safe, they feel protected, they feel fulfilled in their job, then I know that that organically again is going to yield better patient outcomes. What's the biggest misconception about functional medicine? I would say that it's an either or or thing, where it's like you either have to be all functional and all woo-woo, or you have to be all Western medicine. And that's really not the truth. My philosophy is more like we can be both and we can be an and. So we use conventional medicine, let's take like thyroid prescription for optimization when appropriate while dialing in the pillars of health. So making sure that our patients have adequate nutrition, their hormones are optimized. We, you know, may choose to incorporate some selective peptide therapy prevention. I still talk to my patients about universal guidelines, cancer screening. You know, I would say we do a lot of serum blood work, Dutch testing, urinary testing, genetic testing, whatever it is. And just remember that great medicine isn't about picking sides, it's truly about helping the patient live, perform, and feel their best. What's your favorite part of owning a practice? Watching our team grow. So seeing my peers, the other providers and clinicians become more confident in the medicine that they're practicing, watching our coordinators really hone in their craft and build patient relationships. Our onboarding team have so many wins on customer success. And then watching our patients transform their health and their life. We've really created a culture where people feel genuinely happy on the clinician side about coming to work or being present for work, and then on the patient side, having amazing patient outcomes. I will say it's probably something that I don't talk about enough, our patient outcomes, because as a licensed clinician, it always feels kind of icky, right? I don't want to share or like you know, see the huge before and after transformations, but it is life-changing. And what I can see even on telemedicine a lot of times is I'll watch their faces just like relax and debloat, and can hear it in their voice when they feel better, they're sleeping better, they have more energy, and nothing is more satisfying than that. All right, dogs. How are Gibbs and Nova? Um, well, they have an awesome dog sitter. I'll give her a huge shout out here. She's been just such a trooper. Nova is great. I mean, she's Looney as a bin super crazy, loving her exercise. Summer is challenging for her because it is warmer. So for our morning runs, I take both dogs for a one-mile walk in the morning. We drop Gibbs off, and then I usually take Nova for a run. And in the fall, winter, and spring, that run can be anywhere three to 14 miles, just depending on the day and what we have on dock for training. In the summer, what I've been doing a lot more is just taking her for two to three miles, and then I'll drop her off and finish my run just because the heat is too much. Gibbs has been struggling, so he is 14 years old. And when you look at him, I mean he looks great. Again, he walks his mile every day, he's super happy, he's been eating and drinking, you know, doing all the things. He sleeps a lot, but he's always slept a lot. He's a pit bull, and by nature they're just kind of lazy. But he has been diagnosed with um immune-mediated thrombocytopenia. And what that means is his immune system has attacked his platelets, so his platelets are very low. And we found this because he was having bloody stools, which have now cleared up. And we, you know, went back and forth and we finally decided to go for the million-dollar workup, and he got abdominal ultrasounds and a chest x-ray, and he had had an echocardiogram because he has a little bit of dilated cardiomyopathy, which we knew and he's been treated for. All that was clear, so very grateful that he has doesn't have cancer, he doesn't have a mass. However, he is so sensitive to medication. I mean, just so sensitive. And the treatment for the thrombocytopenia made him violently ill. I mean, he was throwing up all night. We stopped one of the two medications, and then when we've been in Utah again, our dog sitter's just been so amazing. She um just continued the prednisone, and his last dose was Tuesday again. It's now Friday. We finally stopped it because he's just having diarrhea constantly and like having it in the house, and I feel terrible for our dog sitter. I feel terrible for him. So we are going back to the vet next week. We've stopped the prednisone and just going to see what we can do for him. But he's hanging in there. We are looking for a third dog. Um, I just I mean, I'd have all the dogs. David even said last night, he's like, if you want four, just get four. I just think you know, they're so great and they bring so much positivity to our lives. So I put in an application for one um to adopt, and then we're kind of playing around with the idea of getting a puppy, which my goodness, I don't know how that's gonna happen, but um, so I put some feelers out to um a breeder in town. So we'll see. I do prefer to rescue dogs, so how do you balance everything? Well, I don't believe in perfect balance, and I don't know that things are ever balanced, but what I do is try to prioritize. So, you know, my family and my faith are first, probably say my fitness and my health are second, and then my business is is third. And I would put with family and faith my relationships with people, and even that I'm very conservative about how I expel that energy. And I what I mean by that is I if I don't feel that someone is positively contributing to my life, I don't necessarily cut them off, but I pretty much put them on a needs-only basis, and that can even be you know, people that I have to interact with, whether they're in my close-knit circle in my family, and my professional life, whatever it is. And I'm not rude um or nasty to them, but if I if I know that it's not a net positive relationship, I only give what I need to towards that so that way I can give more of myself to the people that are net contributing to my life. And always keeping in mind that the goal isn't perfection, it's about making the important things consistently important and giving that your best effort. I very much like the plan or the phrase forward thinking, backwards planning, which is how I live my life. So I think about what needs to get done, and I work backwards throughout the day. So this is a great example. I knew today that I wanted to record a podcast, I knew that I had patients in clinic, I knew that I wanted to run and if I could strength train, and I wanted to get caught up on work because I was like 35 emails deep, right? And so then I worked backwards, knowing that okay, the podcast is gonna be the last thing I do of the day, and I can do that sitting in my hotel room while David's engaged in his meeting, and then I just work backwards on everything that needs to get done, making sure that the priorities are going to be my patients I have to see in clinic, catching up on emails, and then making sure I get some training in. Alright, let's talk about the B3 event. And these were some questions we have around that. So let's talk about what it is. So Charia and I are hosting an event here in northern Kentucky called Beauty Biology and Beyond, which is where the B3 came from, and we are so pumped. Whenever you're putting on a party, even a dinner party, hosting friends for coffee, which is kind of how I think about a lot of things in my life, having a wedding or hosting, you know, a professional event, it's a reflection of who you are, and we are grinders. Like, shout out to Charia. She's out there hustling, trying to help make this event as successful as possible. But we're super pumped, and it's not just another medical conference. I'm thinking about that because I'm sitting at a medical conference right now that's great for a different reason, but it's very clinical. This is more like we're gonna catch up for brunch and talk about a lot of things that people are interested in. But it's specifically designed for women who want to understand their bodies and optimize not only their health, but how they look externally. Charia is gonna be talking a lot about aging and beauty with aging and medical aesthetics, as well as how we can feel better and perform better as we age. So we've got a great expert panel. We're gonna be talking about everything hormone optimization, longevity medicine, peptide therapy, medical aesthetics, nutrition, metabolic health, sexual wellness, fitness, performance. Our guest lineup or our speaker lineup thus far, outside of the two of us, um Vince Pitstick, who is a legendary uh functional. Health coach and he's also my business partner and my longtime friend. My other really good friend, Erica Lugo, will be there. She's a celebrity fitness trainer and just an overall amazing human being. Jason Theobold, who's an IFBB Pro competitor, he also owns a health coaching company called Scooby Prep. He also owns a medical practice called Advanced Vitality and a supplement company called New Ethics. So he's a wealth of knowledge in all things functional health. We also have a guest named Oshva. I'm blinking on her last name, but she's gonna be talking about business and female entrepreneurship. And then Dr. Susan Oakley will also be there. She's an amazing gynecologist. She's been on our podcast before, as well as Dr. Jeremy Watson, who is a holistic chiropractor in the Cleveland area. So really, really excited for everyone who's coming to attend. So who should attend? Honestly, anybody. I mean, men, David's gonna be there, my dad's gonna be there, men can benefit from this as well. But if you're thinking, I don't feel like myself anymore. My metabolism has changed. What worked for me in my 20s to help achieve the aesthetic goal that I wanted to is no longer working. I'm exhausted. I can sleep 10 hours a night, but I am so tired. I want to age proactively instead of reactively. Or someone who just wants to understand their biology more. I want to understand my hormones. What should I be looking for as I age? So whether you're in your teens, 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 100s, this is the event for you. Okay, some rapid fire. My favorite recovery tool, cold plunge. So this is a funny story, actually, because as we were hiking the narrows in Utah, so although it's 100 degrees outside, where that part of the national park is, so you're under you're they're in these like caves that are like 3,000 feet tall. It was actually quite cold. The water was pretty cold, and you're obviously I'm wearing clothes, right? And I was like, Oh my god, I'm freezing. And you're just all I can see is water, like we're getting through it. It's not like I'm getting in and I'm getting out kind of a thing. And David's like, Oh, but you cold plunge. I'm like, Yeah, I'm naked. I get in, I cold plunge, and I get out and dry myself off. I'm not trucking through cold water in my wet clothes, so but it is an awesome recovery tool. Coffee or tea, coffee. Morning or evening workout, morning. Now I do do a lot of two-a-days, I will say. So in the evening, I like to do more strength, mobility, go for a walk, but by and large, I like to get my uh workout done in the in the morning. Favorite peptide. Ooh, depends on the goal, but I'd probably say BPC157. It's the goat. Favorite place you've run. Oh my goodness. I would have to say Santa Rosa, California. So in 2016, I did the Santa Rosa, California Marathon. And you run through the DeLosh Vineyard, it's an extremely small marathon. Um, and it was my first Boston qualifier, and it was just so beautiful and so epic, and I don't know, I just loved everything about it. I'd say that or Boston. The Boston Marathon was pretty amazing. What's one thing people be surprised to know about you? I constantly want to learn. Like I always laugh and tell David we're a bunch of big nerds in our house, which we are, which is totally fine. I'm always like, even if I'm learning about something not clinical, right? Not medicine related, I want to know about different hair products. It's something I'm super interested and want to understand. I want to understand how to use my Dyson Airwrap better, how to use the little French tool like hook thing, I don't even know what it's called. Um, I want to learn how to put makeup on better. I want to learn about my dog. I wanted to learn about his condition. I want to learn about religion and faith, not just mine, but other people's. So I always think to myself when I'm like cooking or I'm vacuuming, I'm cleaning, I'm putting away laundry, I'm doing my hair, I always have something playing so that way I continue to stay stimulated. All right. I think those are all the questions for today. I know this is like a super short episode, but I feel like it was a good little chat, little catch-up. And I will put a plug for the B3 event and where you can buy tickets down in the description below. But I appreciate everyone's support. I appreciate everything you've done for us for all the of you who have already purchased tickets. Thank you so much. We are we are selling and we are excited. And you know, if you're interested in hormones, longevity, peptides, aesthetics, or simply becoming the healthiest version of yourself, we would love to see you at Beauty, Biology, and Beyond this September 18th and 19th at the Madison Event Center, which is in Covington, Kentucky. Thank you all for listening. Have a great day.