How Glucose Problems Start, Why It Persists, and What You Can Do Today

Blood sugar shouldn’t feel like a roller coaster. We sat down with functional medicine expert Dr. Kevin Smith to unpack how metabolism really works —across hormones, immune function, gut health, and brain — and why so many people feel hungry, foggy, and exhausted even while “doing everything right.” Dr. Smith explains insulin resistance in plain language, how cells make ATP, and the hidden ways stress and sleep shape glucose levels. He also challenges old grazing advice and shows how intermittent fasting and smart macronutrients can re-sensitize insulin, stabilize energy, and support autophagy for cellular cleanup.

Chapters

• 0:00
• Setting The Stage: Metabolism Defined
• 3:35
• The 13 Body Systems Overview
• 20:53
• Signs Your Metabolic System Is Off
• 23:05
• Diets Compared: Keto, AIP, And More
• 26:06
• Glucose 101: Insulin And ATP
• 29:02
• The Blood Sugar Roller Coaster
• 31:05
• TBI, Hormones, And Type 3 Diabetes
• 34:03
• Intermittent Fasting Versus Grazing

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage: Metabolism Defined
• 1:48 Meet Dr. Smith And His Approach
• 3:35 The 13 Body Systems Overview
• 6:18 Why Functional Medicine Digs Deeper
• 9:35 Insurance Limits And Polypharmacy Risks
• 13:40 Pharmacists, Side Effects, And Advocacy
• 18:11 Adventure Story: A Hidden Hypoglycemia Crisis
• 20:53 Signs Your Metabolic System Is Off
• 23:05 Diets Compared: Keto, AIP, And More
• 26:06 Glucose 101: Insulin And ATP
• 29:02 The Blood Sugar Roller Coaster
• 31:05 TBI, Hormones, And Type 3 Diabetes
• 34:03 Intermittent Fasting Versus Grazing
• 37:14 Autophagy, Sports Fueling, And Macros
• 40:05 Sponsor: Ready Hour Adventure Fuel
• 41:01 How To Advocate And Fire A Doctor
• 45:20 Working With Dr. Smith: Step By Step
• 48:26 Free Discovery Call And Contact
• 49:36 Closing, Reviews, And Magnesium Spotlight

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Um the metabolic system loosely defines a bunch of different systems of the body. So, like the endocrine system uh that regulates your blood sugar levels. Um if you have a problem with um with with your GI, if you're having any kind of uh food allergies or chemical sensitivities or problems with your immune system. That's generally speaking, about that, that's that's where what I refer to as the metabolic.

SPEAKER_02: 0:30

Imagine your body losing control of its blood sugar, spiraling into dangerous highs or lows that could change your life forever. This is glucose dysregulation, a hidden struggle where insulin, the key to balancing your sugar level, fails due to damage to your metabolic system or even a brain injury, disrupting vital hormones. Today, our new normal big life functional medicine expert, Dr. Kevin Smith, founder of Chronic Conditions Center, reveals his groundbreaking approach to fixing your metabolic system. With over 20 years transforming lives battling chronic conditions, Dr. Smith will unlock the secrets of your metabolism, warning you about the risk of neglect and empowering you with the knowledge to take care of your health like never before. Hi friends, welcome to the New Normal Big Life Podcast. We bring you natural news and stories about nature that we hope will inspire you to get outside an adventure, along with a step-by-step plan to help you practice what you've learned and create your own new normal and live the biggest life you can dream. I'm your host, Antoinette Lee, the wellness warrior. So let's talk about the body in general before we get more specific. There are 13 major systems working together to keep your body healthy and active. Today in this two-part series, first we're talking about the metabolic system. Part two, we'll talk about the musculatal system. We're talking with functional medicine expert Dr. Kevin Smith about the metabolic system, what it does, what air of the body it impacts, and what it looks like when it's not working properly and how to heal it. So whether you're recovering from an illness or injury, or just want to feel your best, understanding how to naturally enhance your body's function is important to your good health. So let's look at how the systems of the body work together by briefly discussing the 13 major systems of the body. First up is the nervous system, it controls and coordinates all body activities through electrical and chemical signals. It's composed of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves. The circulatory system transports nutrients, oxygen, and waste products around the body. It includes the heart, blood vessels, and blood. The respiratory system facilitates gas exchange. Oxygen enters the body, and carbon dioxide leaves the body. Key components are the lungs, trachea, bronchi, and diaphragm. The digestive system breaks down food into nutrients that the body can absorb and eliminates waste. The components of the digestive system include the mouth, esophagus, stomach, intestines, liver, pancreas, and gallbladder. The skeletal system provides support and structure. It protects organs and aids in movement along with the muscles. The skeletal system is made up of bones, cartilage, ligaments, and tendons. The muscular system enables movement, it maintains posture and generates heat. The muscular system includes all muscles of the body. And recent longevity research shows the amount of muscle and muscle strength, especially grip strength, is a good predictor of your health and longevity. That means how long you might live. But it's not just about living longer. The goal is to live longer, healthier, active, independent lives. The endocrine system regulates body functions through hormones. Key glands include the pituitary, thyroid, adrenals, pancreas, and gonads, ovaries in women, testicles in men. The immune system defends the body against disease by identifying and neutralizing pathogens and other harmful agents. The immune system is made up of white blood cells, the lymphatic system, the spleen, the thymus, and bone marrow. The urinary system filters blood to remove waste and excess substances leading to urine production. The urinary system includes kidneys, ureters, bladder, and urethra. The interguminatory system provides external protection, regulates body temperature, and synthesizes or makes vitamin D from natural sunlight. It consists of skin, hair, nails, and associated glands. If you want to learn more about natural ways to improve these systems, subscribe to our newsletter at nnbl.blog. Only subscribers get access to free downloadable content like natural ways to improve your body's major systems that you can use to shop from and download so that you can plan to implement what you've learned in your daily life. The reproductive system is responsible for sexual reproduction. In males, it includes testicles, penis, and accessory glands. In females, it contains ovaries, fallopian tubes, uterus, and vagina. The lymphatic system returns fluid from tissues to the blood, absorbs fat from the digestive system, and aids in immune response. The lymphatic system includes lymph nodes, vessels, thymus, and spleen. A poorly functioning lymphatic system can cause fluid to back up in your body and increase weight gain and chronic widespread inflammation. And inflammation is one of those terrible building blocks to future illness and of your major organs, like your heart and brain, for example. Finally, there's a metabolic system. The human body's metabolic system encompasses all biochemical processes that sustain life, involving the conversion of food into energy, building blocks for tissues, and waste elimination. Today, our guest, functional medicine expert, Dr. Kevin Smith, will help you understand how your metabolic system works, what it looks like when it's not working properly, how to diagnose problems with your metabolic system, like metabolic syndrome, for example, and what you can do to improve your metabolic health. Dr. Kevin Smith is a functional medicine practitioner from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He's the founder and clinic director of metabolic solutions, and he specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of chronic health problems that have failed with traditional medical approaches. Dr. Smith has been in practice since 2001. And in that time, he's seen thousands of people regain their function, restore their health, overcome imbalances, preserve their independence, and decrease their reliance on medications. Many people have commented that he has a gift of being able to distill complicated medical information and communicate it in a way that the average person can understand. He prides himself on being the doctor who will actively listen and tailors treatment specifically to people's needs. He takes the time to educate people about their condition and their treatment plan. Dr. Smith's philosophy is about developing a trusting long-term relationship and genuinely caring about people's well-being. And that's why he's a friend of this show. So let's dive into today's topic with Dr. Kevin Smith. Welcome, friend of the show, Dr. Kevin Smith. Good morning, Dr. Smith.

SPEAKER_00: 7:26

Good morning, Antoinette. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here back.

SPEAKER_02: 7:29

Always excited to have you here. Let's talk about the metabolic system. Tell us what it is and what it controls.

SPEAKER_00: 7:38

So the metabolic system loosely defines a bunch of different systems of the body. So, like the endocrine system that regulates your blood sugar levels, your and if you have a problem with your GI, if you're having any kind of food allergies or chemical sensitivities or problems with your immune system, that's generally speaking about that. That's what's where what I refer to as the metabolic. People have the right to have more than one problem. So, you know, people can have low blood sugar, they can have autoimmunity issues, they can have chronic inflammation. And so my job as a functional medicine doctor is to kind of peel back layers of the onion to find out what part of their pro of their physiology is being affected.

SPEAKER_02: 8:29

And how do you do that? Because I know when you when I've gone to the doctor with a metabolic problem, and we can talk about that in a moment, they run some blood tests, and then they say, You have this problem, and here's this pill. And we never get to the why. Why do I have that problem? We just sort of mask the symptoms. How is it diagnosed by a functional medicine doctor?

SPEAKER_00: 8:55

Well, the workup, first of all, that's a great question. So the the workup of problems when it's done by a functional medicine practitioner is very similar to what goes on in traditional medicine. The difference is in how deep that the doctor digs into the problem. So, for example, an allopathic medical doctor, which is what most MDs are, what they do is you go in their office, you fill out a little bit of paperwork, you do a little consultation, you speak with the medical assistant for a while, then the doctor comes in and he discusses, you know, what's going on with you. The doctor is going to spend about seven minutes of face-to-face time with you, and then he's gone. Whereas the meta uh functional medicine practitioner is gonna spend upwards of an hour or two with you. So it's a much more deep experience. We we have to dig in a lot to figure out what's going on, what's the what's the issue here? And I have my own theories of why that occurs.

SPEAKER_02: 9:59

I'm interested in knowing that. I think our listeners would be too.

SPEAKER_00: 10:02

So I think that a lot of this has a lot to do with what's going on with the insurance companies. So that's the reason why when you go to the medical doctor and he orders a very small amount of lab tests, and then he follows up with a consultation and then gives you a pill. In other words, he's gonna do exactly whatever the insurance company dictates that they'll pay for and nothing else. And you know, for some people that works great, they they're very satisfied. For other people, they're not satisfied, they feel like it's like a superficial, glossy overview of the problem without really digging in deep and figuring out what could be contributing to my problem and what's going on with my diet and what's going on with my my overall wellness. When people today are taking seven, eight, nine medications every day, we have we it's cause for concern. And we live in a drug-fueled society, we live in a drug culture. And I think that the biggest part of that is because of the insurance companies. And the medical doctors that I'm friends with that I've talked to, they're very frustrated by this. They want to dig in, they want to do a better job, but they can't because of limitations of what the insurance will pay.

SPEAKER_02: 11:22

So, in the spirit of helping people become better healthcare consumers, if you're one of those people who can take what happened to me, which was 20 medications at one time, if you're one of those people whose body can handle that without breaking down and you like the simple, simple in air quotes lifestyle of just give me a pill so that I can forget about this issue and I don't have to do the hard work of lifestyle changes or exercise, better nutrition, whatever. Some people do fine with that. There are other people who, like myself, the more chemicals I put in my body, the sicker I become till I almost died. So, what can people like me who just can't handle all of those chemicals in our system do to be better equipped as healthcare consumers to find the answers?

SPEAKER_00: 12:18

Well, I think that the first thing that has to occur is that the you have to be honest with yourself. And people need to get a really close understanding about what is going on, how many medications that they're taking, and what are the possible side effects of the medications that they're taking, and then link the side effects, the possible side effects to potential future problems. When you take one drug, if you're taking one single drug, that drug has been researched and it's been analyzed, and they've done 13 years of intense scrutiny. They've published the data in peer-reviewed medical journals and had other authors take a look at this and experiment and see what's going on. Then it has to go through three different levels of FDA approval in order to release that drug to the market. So it's very robust. But what happens when you take drug one and drug two? When you take drug one and drug two together, you're in the now in the world of polypharmia, which means that you're taking multiple drugs. And how much data exists to show side effects when with with two different drugs? The answer is none. Zero. There's no data out there that shows the side effects that happens. They theorize that this may happen, but there's no actual experimentation done. Now, what happens when you take drug one, drug two, drug three, drug four, drug five, drug six, and drug seven? So that's very common. When people come to see me, they bring their drug list. And so they want to show me what their medication is that they're taking. So it's very common for people to take like a cholesterol pill and they take like a statin and they'll take a high blood pressure medication, and there's another drug for their to to thin their blood, and there's another drug out there for migraines, and there's another drug out there for their colitis, and it goes on and on. The most I've ever seen in my practice, a guy came in with his drug list, it was a page and a half single space typed, and it blew my mind that he was still able to stand upright. And all of these medications were have been prescribed by well-meaning medical doctors that are just trying to help, but clearly they're not talking to each other to find out all the different things that are going on, or they're just dismissing it as no big deal. I want to I want your listeners to understand that I'm not anti-drug, I'm not anti-physician. I believe that there's a time and a place for all healing. So, medical doctors that are trained in the United States are the best in the entire world at fixing acute problems or new problems or problems that require a heroic measure to save a life, like a heart attack or a stroke, or a gunshot wound, or a broken bone, or some major issue. They're phenomenal. But they are they do not have a good track record at at curing chronic problems. And chronic problems are defined as problems that have been around for about six months or more. So that would be that would include things like low thyroid disease, reactive hypoglycemia, migraine headaches, high blood pressure, things like that. They're just they don't have a good track record at all. And so really what it comes down to is what can you do to try to help with this problem without resorting to medications? And that's where the the lifestyle thing that we talked about comes in.

SPEAKER_02: 16:18

Yeah, when you talk about drug interactions and doctors being well-meaning, I have a background in pharmacology. So when I go to a doctor, I always ask about the drugs, I ask about potential side effects, and I read the label, the insert labels online before I agree to using a medication. And when I talk with five doctors about the different drugs that they were recommending that all are known to cause kidney damage, they all told me, young lady, basically, it's actually use those words. I've been doing this a long time. I can tell you that you are perfectly safe taking all of these five drugs. I'm aware that you're on the other medications, and they are all at very low dose. You don't have anything to worry about until I went into kidney failure.

SPEAKER_00: 17:09

Unfortunately, that kind of a story is very, very common. A lot of a lot of medical doctors, unfortunate, but they can berate their patients for daring to ask a question. And one of the things that I think that is a very, very good idea that I do all the time is to rely on pharmacists because the pharmacists don't have a dog in that fight. They're not a paid consultant by the pharmaceutical companies. And they'll give you the honest opinion. That's all they deal with all day long. And so they are a great source of information for people to pick their brain and find out what is the mechanism of action of this drug and are the what are the known side effects? What does the medical literature say about that? And when you say that, they're like, holy cow, this guy knows what he's talking about. So it's it's they they like it because you know you're kind of like in appealing to their intellectual vanity a little bit. But I I know what you're saying about being being scolded by medical doctors. That's that's unfortunate.

SPEAKER_02: 18:11

Before we cover the next topic in this episode, I want to introduce you to the adventure sports lifestyle with what I call a micro story about an adventure that I've had. The adventure sports lifestyle and my deep connection to nature is essential to my good health. So here's the story. One day I was having the best whitewater kayaking paddling experience of my life. I had practiced so hard in a heated pool all winter in Colorado to be able to whitewater kayak the filter plant run, the Cache-Lapuda River near Fort Collins, Colorado, northern Colorado, at flood conditions or near flood conditions. That was my goal. I was reading and running the river with expertise that day. I was using great paddle strokes. I was having the time of my life. You could hear people on the river cheering me as I made it through rapids that had been flipping one boat after another after another. I was in the zone. And then suddenly I could not take another paddle stroke. Coming into a very dangerous rapid. I saw an Eddie calm water. I signaled to Matt, who was watching my back as always. I signaled to him that I needed to catch the next Eddie. He could already tell that I was in trouble by the way that I was not paddling and not reacting to the water. I was essentially totally controlling the boat with just hip movements, kind of like hula dancing inside my boat, because I didn't have the energy to take another paddle stroke. I mustered up the energy. I got a couple of paddle strokes in, but I thought that day I was just nervous about going to the final rapid, but it turned out that I was having a life threatening medical emergency and I didn't know it. Later, I was diagnosed with chronic. Chronically low blood sugar. And on that day, I was likely experiencing a chronic low blood sugar event as a result of my traumatic brain injury. So I want to say this to you, all of you athletes and weekend warriors out there. It's important to listen to your body. I know that sometimes you can think that it's just jitters or you didn't eat enough, but investigate whether or not those jitters, the anxiety or that constant hunger feeling is more than just some simple fix like what I just described. It could be a chronic or life-threatening medical condition. I hope this inspires you to get outside an adventure alone with friends or the people you love most. But more importantly, I hope that it causes you to take your medical symptoms very seriously. So let's talk about what the metabolic system looks like when it's not working properly. How might we feel? What might we notice? What kind of symptoms could we experience?

SPEAKER_00: 21:03

So one of the things that people can can notice is that they can have weight gain. They can have low energy. Maybe they have adrenal fatigue. Maybe they have too much cortisol. That's a that's a stress hormone that's produced by the adrenal glands. Maybe they have an allergic reaction to some kind of a food, or I would say a immune reaction to certain foods that you're eating that could be zapping your energy. Or it could be due to a chemical cleaner, like a chemical cleaner that you use to clean your house that you think is perfectly fine, but your body has a high amount of reactivity to it. So your energy levels need to be monitored. And if you feel that you're not experiencing enough energy, or if you're experiencing weight gain, even with a diet and exercise, those are two signals that something's not right. And you really do need to pay close attention to what's going on. People are different. Some person can eat a donut and not gain a pound, whereas the another person will eat fresh produce and not be able to lose weight whatsoever. So the one thing that I want to make mention is that when it comes to diet, we talked about this before a little bit. When it comes to diet and nutrition, there is no one size fits all. One type of an approach that works for one guy may not work for a different person. So let's say, for example, that this one patient tries a Mediterranean diet and they no red meat and lots of fish and lots of vegetables and lots of olive oil and that's that kind of thing works great for that person. But another person may be better off by using a ketogenic diet. Maybe if they have reactive hypoglycemia, they need to monitor their glucose levels and make sure that it's in with within normal ranges so it's not too high and it's not too low. It's just an even keel.

SPEAKER_02: 23:23

I don't know how familiar people are with the phrase ketogenic diet. Could you explain what that is a little?

SPEAKER_00: 23:30

So a lot of diets out there, they they try to modulate how many macronutrients that you're getting in each category. So macronutrients would include carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. They're not all created equal, and we have to be very careful about how much of an intake we're we're consuming. So a ketogenic diet would have a high amount of healthy fats, a moderate amount of healthy proteins, and a very small amount of carbohydrates. And the purpose of that is to use fats as the primary fuel source for the body, for your body and your brain also. It does extremely well in that. That is a preferred diet for diabetics because it's very, very you're you're you're using fats as the primary constituent to fuel your body. An autoimmune paleo diet, which is what I will start a lot of people off on, uses moderate levels of quality, healthy fats, a high amount of quality, healthy proteins, and a low amount of fat carbohydrates. So again, it's it's using low low carbs, and but it's instead of high fats, it's moderate fats. Instead of low moderate protein, it's higher proteins. And most people do very well on that. There's there's all kinds of different diets. There's a there's the DASH diet, there's the rainbow diet, there's all kinds of different things. And so unfortunately, there's no shortcuts. We got to figure out which one works best for your body. And it's very, very challenging because a lot of people will go to their medical doctors that don't have any training at all in nutrition. And because of that, they oftentimes will give really incorrect advice for people. And so the the purpose is just to get in front of the right type of doctor that can give you the right type of advice and help you as an individual.

SPEAKER_02: 25:35

If you need help listeners, finding the right doctor and with advocating for yourself without being labeled a patient that's hysterical or combative, then you want to check out the episode of How to Survive Your Hospital Stay with Dr. Julie Seymours on New Normal Big Life Podcast. She gives you some great insights on managing even being gaslit by your doctor. So, Dr. Smith, let's talk about the umbrella title of glucose dysregulation. Because I think a lot of people don't really understand that. Even though they may have been diagnosed with hyperglycemia, high blood sugar, or hypoglycemia, low blood sugar, they may not have had a thorough explanation from their doctors. So, can you tell us about the these two types of dysregulation and what they might be doing to aggravate their problem rather than help themselves?

SPEAKER_00: 26:37

So, first of all, glucose or sugar is the primary fuel that most people will use. They when you eat any type of food, so you eat proteins or you eat fats, the body tries to convert that into glucose or glycogen. And then the glucose mixes with oxygen and in your cells, in the mitochondria of your cells, and that produces energy, the energy that it produces because it's called ATP or adenosine triphosphate. So you have to have a proper amount of fuel in your cells to make uh enough energy for work and for play. So if you have a problem with shuttling glucose into the cell, that is called insulin resistance. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas, and its job is to take glucose molecules in out of the bloodstream and push them into the cells where it can make that ATP energy. If the if the cell does not want to allow the insulin to do its job, that's called insulin resistance. And that's the that's the starting point of glucose dysregulation. If if the glucose can't get into the cell, then what happens is that the glucose lingers in the bloodstream for a long time and starts to build and build and build and build, and then it develops type 2 diabetes. And people that have unsteady glucose levels, there instead of the glucose being on a steady stream throughout the day, it goes up, it goes down, it goes up, it goes down, it goes up, it goes down. And along with that, it causes a problem with your cortisol levels. That is a hormone but that controls your fight or flight response or your autonomic nervous system. Cortisol has an inverse relationship with glucose. So when glucose is going up, a cortisol is going down. When cortisol is going or when insulin is going down, cortisol is going up. So when you're when you have a roller coaster ride of insulin, it's going up and down, your cortisol is also going up and down. I'll give you an example. A person wakes up in the morning, they feel hungry, so they eat something sweet. And what happens is that their glucose levels or their insulin levels starts to rise because the insulin is secreted to take that sugar out of the bloodstream and push it into the cells to make energy. So it goes up. And then after a while, it comes back down again. Then it goes below the baseline, starts to dip a bit. Then you have a hypoglycemia. And then what happens is that you feel hungry again. So you eat another thing, maybe something more sweet. So then it comes back up again, and then it goes back down again, then it goes up again, then it goes down again. So these people are always hungry, they're always they they could be, they could just eat in a meal and they're they're just always always hungry because they're eating the wrong types of foods and it's causing this roller coaster ride. And with people that have chronic hypoglycemia hyperglycemia or diabetes, they're also going to have it dip below the normal level and have low blood sugar. And what the strategy would be to try to get it back to an even keel throughout the day. And that is that the the key to that is managing your your intake of certain types of foods and also exercise. Exercise is known to resensitize insulin on the cellular levels. And if you do both, you have the best shot of correcting this.

SPEAKER_02: 30:30

So, what about people who are traumatic brain injury survivors who often can develop glucose dysregulation and a condition called post-traumatic hyperpituitarism? Let's talk about that because I know a lot of our listeners are veterans, and many veterans have traumatic brain injuries that they're managing. And this is yet another problem that they can experience. How does a brain injury cause glucose dysregulation?

SPEAKER_00: 31:01

Well, the mechanism of action of that is unclear for most doctors. I think that the bigger issue is just trying to manage the glucose levels as best you can because when you have high levels of blood sugar and you have unregulated type 2 diabetes, eventually it's going to turn into type 3 diabetes. Type 3 diabetes is also known as Alzheimer's disease. And that's in the medical literature. They they found that people that have high levels of blood sugar have high levels of inflammation in the brain. And the inflammation, the immune system, everything is interrelated. So the best way of correcting this problem is at its source to try to put healthy foods in your body, stay away from processed foods, stay away from fried foods or fast foods or convenience foods, just by focusing on green leafy vegetables, healthy animal proteins. And also one thing that that they that's different now than was 25 years ago. Do you remember 25 years ago they used to tell people to eat all the all day long to graze instead of gorge? And to constantly keep your blood sugar levels at a high level. Remember that? I do remember that. That's the fastest way to develop insulin resistance. Every time that you eat food, it doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter if it's glucose, I'm sorry, if it's carbohydrates, proteins, or fats. Every time that you eat, your body is going to secrete insulin every single time. So you eat something, you secrete insulin. You eat something, you secrete insulin. And after a while, you're secreting so much insulin that it develops insulin resistance at the cell level. One of the ways to combat this is by doing intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting is when you eat a healthy lunch, you eat a healthy dinner, and then you don't eat again until the next lunch, the next day. So you skip breakfast. So they found that when people do intermittent fasting and they go down to maybe two meals a day or one meal a day, or do like a longer fast, your body starts to resensitize that insulin signaling at the cell levels. And that's the best way, that's not the best way, it's one of the ways, one of the tools that they have of helping people that suffer with this problem.

SPEAKER_02: 33:36

That's pretty incredible because not only have doctors and dietitians told me as a person who has a TBI and developed glucose dysregulation that I should start eating like every two to three hours and have lots of small meals throughout the day. And now hearing you say that's not a good thing to do, I'm a little concerned that I've been getting really bad advice from multiple doctors and multiple dietitians.

SPEAKER_00: 34:09

Well, they're giving you information that was popular about 25 years ago. I'm giving you the current information. So if you want to you want to explore this on your own and do some research and look at intermittent fasting and also look for books written by Dr. Jason Fung, MD. And he's one of the world's leaders on of diabetes. And he talks about intermittent fasting and how that like a com a combination of intermittent fasting and also a ketogenic diet may be the solution that you're looking for.

SPEAKER_02: 34:44

And I find I already feel there's a level of credibility to what you said in my own body, because my normal sort of way of eating, just an innate ability, is that when I do intermittent fasting, and I've been a competitive athlete, a runner, a bodybuilder, a power lifter, lots of people will eat big meals, especially when I was a long distance runner. They'll eat a huge meal and they will compete full on a full stomach. If I compete on a full stomach, I never did well. I always competed more successfully when I had an empty stomach. And I've never been one of those people who feels good. My stomach doesn't feel good when I eat too often. So, like right now, following my dietitian's recommendations, eating more frequently, I feel horrible. My physical performance is poor. My brain seems like it is not functioning as well, and I just don't feel good. But when I was doing intermittent fasting, that's when I felt my best and it performed better.

SPEAKER_00: 35:56

You know, one of the things that happens with when you intermittent fast, you go about 14 hours or so, is that the body starts to develop or starts to do autophagy. And autophagy is where your body starts to clean up cells that are that are no longer needed in your body. Maybe they're dying off, or maybe they just need to be cleaned up. So the body starts to do this thing where it it goes through autophagy. And you want to research that a little bit more about how that you can be at your best. Sports nutrition is a science all by itself. They those guys know a lot about like when do you eat before an event, when do you carb load when with like endurance training, things like that. But for everyday people, I think that they want to learn a little bit more about intermittent fasting and also about how regulating your macronutrients, carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. And just remember, not all macronutrients are created equal. Like a Twinkie is a carb, right? And a broccoli is a carb, but they're not the same, right? One of them is better for you than the other.

SPEAKER_01: 37:07

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SPEAKER_02: 38:06

So, Dr. Smith, what else should the consumer be aware of? And I'm talking healthcare consumer. What else should they be aware of in terms of advice and practices with their doctor that are not working for them? For example, I am very comfortable advocating for myself, seeing this doesn't work, or I don't want to try this until I've had time to research it. I do get a lot of pushback, and I and I think that I have been called in my medical records, because I've seen it once or twice, a combative patient. And the way that I'm talking to you now is the way that I talk to my healthcare provider. There is nothing combative about me. I'm just pushing back to say, let's pump the brakes because I want to do some research, or what you have recommended for me is not working. And one of the ways, and I recommend this to everyone listening, one of the ways that I know something is not rec is not working is because I keep a journal of what I eat, how I exercise, how I feel, heart rate, blood pressure. I even have an at-home EKG. I do all of the things. So when I go in blood uh oxygen level, when I go into my doctor, I will tell them this is what I did, this is how I felt, and this is what my body was communicating to me. And sometimes they still push back and say, You're wrong, right? So can you empower us with more tools to calmly advocate for ourselves without you know ticking off our doctors too much? But what advice can you give us?

SPEAKER_00: 39:46

Well, first of all, you work the the the doctor works for you. You don't work for the doctor, you're the boss. So you have the opportunity to fire your doctor anytime you that you're dissatisfied with them. If you feel that not listening to you if you feel that they're just brushing you for they're just writing notes like a combative patient whatever then you can say look i don't feel you don't even have to say anything you just leave you just find a different doctor there's there's a there they're a dime a dozen i think that uh people should be very very picky with who they go to and who they trust their health to and i say to people if you've already done this if you've already tried the drug approach and it's not worked to your satisfaction maybe we ought to take things in a different direction maybe what could it hurt you've already tried the drugs let's try something different now what i tell people like i have people that come to see me for say peripheral neuropathy and they say you know that my doctor has me on gabapentin or he has me on lyrica or he has me on cymbalta or some other drug and what I would whoever put the person on the drug has to be the person to take them off the drug that's just common courtesy so I tell people to have a the next time they're having a discussion with their doctor to say doctor I'm working with a natural healthcare practitioner from Pittsburgh he's working with me with my neuropathy and I'm doing much much better I have less symptoms my balance is better than the the pain is gone and I think that it's time that we had a discussion about either decreasing my dosage or getting me completely off this gabapentin. What are your thoughts sir? And you know if you my my thought is that if you approach people in a very polite way like that they're gonna be like yeah let me let's get you off this drug the doctor should not have a vested interest in keeping you on these drugs unless there's absolute medical necessity for this for the medications but if you tell the doctor look i'm I'm feeling better I I don't I don't feel that you know I really need this anymore or I think it's time that we have this conversation about decreasing the dosage or getting me off this drug entirely what are your thoughts and if there's still hard charging about the drug get rid of the doctor find find another doctor that will listen to you you have the you have the right to to advocate on your behalf or on a family member's behalf especially if it's you have like an older parent and you need to advocate on their behalf trust me those doctors know all about that and they they have to be very careful with how they how they phrase things but I think that if you if you approach them in that not combative but like a cooperative manner they should be perfectly fine with you.

SPEAKER_02: 42:53

I I wish I live in that world but I have not met a doctor with one exception who ever wanted to take you yes you but I have not met a doctor that has been my doctor who has ever wanted to take me off medications that they put me on. So for example and when I was out of the military and having a really difficult time with anxiety depression and agoraphobia when I was better and felt I did not need the medication and my therapist felt I no longer needed medication and when I talked to the psychiatrist about it very calmly hey I'm feeling better here are all the different ways that I'm doing better. I'd really like to come off this medication can you help me step down off of it her response was I'm going to put you on a 72 hour involuntary mental health hold in the hospital that was her reaction so unfortunately I think in the feedback that I get from more than 7,000 people who follow me on social media is that that is not a common experience. What you're suggesting is just having a calm rational discussion with your doctor and they would be cooperative with what you're asking that's not the experience that we're having.

SPEAKER_00: 44:26

It patient care is very adversarial if I if I was working with a psychiatrist and the site and I I expressed my concern or that I I want to decrease my reliance on these medications and the the doctor's response to that was I want to put you on an involuntary psychiatric hold for 72 hours they would be fired. And then after that I would follow up by calling the medical board and you know report the actions because you know if it's happening to you I'm sure it's happening to other people and you're doing them a favor by you know having regulatory people investigate them. That's just not right. But the doctors should be able to explain to you this is what I feel this drug is going to do for you and this is what it's going to do for you there. And I really think that you need this level I mean when it comes to psychiatric medications a lot of those types of things cannot be based on lab testing they're based on symptoms they're based on uh subjective complaints but if you also say that I'm feeling better I don't feel that I need this as much anymore they should be cooperative with you.

SPEAKER_02: 45:45

Right. I I feel like a person who was agoraphobic, unable to leave their home for 18 months who's now a whitewater kayaker and leading other veterans on adventures is not someone who needs psychiatric medication. But that's where we found ourselves in and I did take appropriate actions to make sure that she did not do that to someone else. So as we're talking about advocacy I want to talk more about what it's like to work with someone like you who will listen and who will be what I call a teammate of your patients. And for those of you who are listening and if you don't live in the Pennsylvania area where Dr. Kevin Smith works, don't worry you could work with him over Zoom. So Dr. Smith tell us how you would approach someone who's experiencing glucose dysregulation or any other challenge.

SPEAKER_00: 46:45

Okay so the first thing I want to do is I want to gather information I want to gather like their medical history and look at all the medications that they've been taking all their all the different symptoms that they've been suffering with. And then we would have a consultation where I just ask them what are your goals? What would you like to try to achieve and what would make you happy and then from there then I want to get go into the world of objective data. If you're in the office we would do an exam if you're not in the office we could still do some lab testing maybe check your serum glucose levels or your hemoglobin A1c levels and find out where you are with that. And then also maybe take a look take a look at the a at a diet diary and see what you've been eating and maybe I can make some some observations from that and then from there I would just continue down the pathway of doing some objective testing to find out what's going on is there an is there an autoimmune issue at play is there chronic inflammation going on how are you making energy how are you metabolizing these carbohydrates proteins and fats in your body so that we can make sure that you're making proper ATP energy and also we want to take a look at your GI issues and see if you have any problems with eliminating waste products that's very very important. And if if I find any imbalances that are going on with any of these different subsystems we want to work on rebalancing them. We want to work on getting your blood sugar even throughout the day we want to work on making sure that your sex hormones are are proper that you're in you don't have any anemias you don't have any kind of stealth infections that could be contributing to this issue. We want to look at what's going on with you from the musculoskeletal point. You know do you have any kind of nerve compression is there anything that's going on inside you that's causing pain that causes a problem with your your your midbrain things like that. So we want to check you out neurologically and metabolically it's a very very my my approach is it's a very comprehensive approach and for people that are very tired of like the a glossy overview of what's going on what they get the the primary care physician's office if you've if you've done that and you're tired of it and you're not getting anywhere let's try something different.

SPEAKER_02: 49:19

And how will listeners get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_00: 49:21

They can go to metabolicsolutions.net that's my website and you can call me you can send me an email message whatever whatever's on your mind about this and that would be the best way to get a hold of me or best way the best first steps you can also read about things that I do and how I approach certain things but you don't don't go to metabolicsolutions.com go to metabolicsolutions.net that's my website and do you have any sort of discounts for initial visits or your initial consultation? Is there a a cost yeah so so for people for people that are listening to this the first the the the first thing that I would want to do is to do a discovery call and that's a completely free call you can get on the phone with me it's about a 10 to 15 minute informal phone conversation where we can just have a have a conversation about what you're going through what you've already tried what are your goals and then I'll make some recommendations from there. It's completely free.

SPEAKER_02: 50:28

That's amazing thank you so much for joining us Dr. Smith we'll have you back soon and next time let's talk about the musculoskeletal system.

SPEAKER_00: 50:36

That sounds great.

SPEAKER_02: 50:37

Until next time friends I'm Antoinette Lee your wellness warrior here at the New Normal Big Life podcast. I hope one day to see you on the river in the backcountry or in the horse vine living your best life struggling with health problems or seeking natural health solutions, we've got you covered. Don't miss our latest podcast episodes, exclusive blog posts and free ebooks packed with life-changing wellness tips. Be sure to help others find this great information by leaving us a star rating and a review wherever you get your podcasts.

SPEAKER_01: 51:09

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