The Quick-Fix Illusion

Does your mind ever play tricks on you? Do you unwittingly look for the easiest path through a challenge or problem? I think we all do, if we’re being honest. It’s mostly a normal thing to do. In today’s show, we’ll explore the “quick-fix” illusion and what you can do about it.

📌Key Points in This Episode
04:37  Fad Weight Loss Programs
12:11  Taking weight loss meds? Consider this...
13:08  The Dangers of taking Diabetic Weight Loss meds as a non- Diabetic
15:37  The Real Solution for Weight Loss

Connect with Dr Brian Brown, the Moody Brain Expert
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🧬Find more information about genetics, epigenetics and how they impact your overall health and performance🧬 in Dr Brian's FREE Master Class on Gene Hacking https://drbriangbrown.com/genehack/bootcamp

Transcript

 The Quick-Fix Illusion 1/5/23

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

GLP-1, medications, weight loss, eat, agonist, non-diabetic, body, receptor agonist, diabetic patients, diabetic, metabolism, weight, sedentary, illusion, cannibalism, deplete, reimbursement, talking, fad diet

Dr Brian G Brown  00:17

The mission is simple: to help high achievers naturally eliminate emotional and physical obstacles so they can optimize their life for higher achievement. 

Welcome, to the Genesis Zone. Good day, good day and Happy New Year. Welcome to the Genesis zone show. This is Dr. Brian Brown. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us this Thursday. First Thursday in the new year. 

 Does your mind ever play tricks on you? 

Do you unwittingly look for the easiest path to navigate through a challenge or a problem? 

 I think we all do if we're being honest. It's mostly a normal human thing to do. Well, in today's show, we're going to explore the quick-fix illusion that pops up in health care all the time, and what you can do about it now, I don't talk about this very much. 

But those who recently started listening to me may not know that I've struggled with weight issues most of my life. I was electrocuted at age five and to make a long story short, that electrocution immediately caused me to start having heart issues that made my heart stop multiple times every night now, this was not caught until I was 45 years old, believe it or not. But we now know that went all the way back to age five after the electrocution. Now, the electrocution caused my body to have the heart condition where my heart stopped, and as a result, my adrenal glands would release massive amounts of adrenaline into my bloodstream to jumpstart my heart back. 

The secondary result or side effect of having too much adrenaline in your system is depression, anxiety, brain fog, obesity. The list goes on and on and on. But I struggled with depression, anxiety and obesity and sleep issues as a result of all of that. 

Now, recently, I looked at my pediatric medical records, I was going through some old boxes, and I was like, these are my old pediatric records. This is crazy. And I saw that up until age five, I was actually a scrawny kid. If you can imagine that. I'm six two now and about 240 pounds, some big guy, but at that time, I was a scrawny little kid actually on the low end of the growth curve, a little almost underweight. 

But by age seven, just two years after that electrocution, I was classified by today's standards as an obese child. Now at my highest weight well into my adult years, I gained up to 390 pounds. And that's not something that I'm proud of, but it happened. 

Webster's Dictionary defines illusion as a thing that is or is likely to be, wrongly perceived or interpreted by the senses. Now for years, I was under the illusion that I could do the next best, greatest latest weight loss, bad cure, whatever you want to call it, and get rid of my excess weight once and for all. 

Boy was I wrong? What I discovered was that for every weight loss fad that I participated in; actually let me back that up, for every weight loss fad that I subjected my body to, I gained all of my weight back plus. And I know you know people who have been there, that have done fad weight loss things and putting all of their weight back plus, you probably even know people that have had bariatric surgery or weight loss surgery, and 2, 3, 4 or five years later, they put all of their weight back on and even more what's up with that?

It wasn't until I'd been in private practice about 10 years that I discovered what was going on. As with anything regarding weight loss. The foundation of weight loss is clean eating, good hydration, and a combination of cardiovascular and strength training. That's critical. But what happens when you subject yourself to fad weight loss programs is that you deplete your body of the very nutrients that it needs, because it's basically starvation. 

Okay, so if you're doing amphetamines, weight loss drugs and those types of things,  you're starving yourself of one of the nutrients you need most to survive, and that's protein and your body turns on itself. It cannibalizes itself. The technical medical term is cannibalism, but that's where we get the word cannibalism from it means to turn on yourself. And you see the body turn on its own muscle to get the protein. 

Well, the problem with that is, is that when we deplete our natural muscle reserves in our body, or we just decrease them by 10%, it can have a fourfold increase in our metabolism being lowered. 

Because our metabolism is dependent on a proper ratio between fat and protein in your body and I'm not talking about the fat and protein ratio that you consume when you eat. I'm talking about the fat to protein ratio, muscle fat to muscle ratio in your body on your skeletal muscle system and within your intestinal organ areas. The fat that lies in there, all of the fats included. We don't leave any fat out, but it's that proper ratio and when you decrease muscle mass, the fat is allowed to create more conditions like insulin resistance, therefore, your metabolism slows down to a snail's pace. 

So, when you do repeat fad diets over and over and over again. That's exactly what's happening. You're destroying your metabolism.

 And it took me forever to figure that out. Sadly, but once I did, I started doing things to make progress. Now, there's a new fad that's out and I want to talk specifically about this because it's really a hot button for me. And there are multiple reasons why and I'm gonna go over those. One of those I've just hit on just briefly right here, but we're gonna hit those as soon as we proceed for tonight. 

There's a class of medications called GLP-1 stands for Glucagon-like peptide-1. GLP1 receptor agonist, okay. Meaning that they at the receptor site for GLP-1, their agonist for that particular receptor, and as a result, 

They decrease appetite

They increase insulin resistance. 

They decrease blood sugar, so on so forth. 

So, they worked really well for diabetics, and that's what this class of medications was created for is created for diabetics. You may recognize some of the names that have been on the market under the generic name Semaglutide®or the trade name Ozempic®. We go Rybelsus®. Those are GLP-1 receptor agonist other GLP-1 receptor agonists are Liraglutide or Saxenda. Duroglutide or Trulicity and Tirazepatide, which is Mounjaro, it's the newest kid on the block. And Mounjaro actually, by the way, for diabetics that don't respond to the others. Mounjaro is actually one of the more potent and really, really good diabetes medication. It's a lifesaver for some time diabetics. 

Now as far as the GLP-1 receptor agonist go there are many issues that, let's say, how do I say this? There are many issues that internet influencers and Hollywood elites that are promoting the use of GLP-1 receptor agonist for weight loss that they're simply not talking about. And yes, GLP-1 receptor agonist are being used by non-diabetic people to promote weight loss now have some issues with it. Here's the number one issue that I had with

Dr Brian G Brown  09:05

people who truly are diabetic, like, unfortunately many of my clients and some of my family members that have struggled with diabetes in the past. They now have uncontrolled diabetes because guess what?

Supplies for these GLP-1 receptor agonist are depleted due to the off-label use for late loss. This is a huge problem because now when that diabetic patient goes to the pharmacy to pick up their prescription, they're told that it's on backorder and we'll let you know when it's in. I have some clients that have been on backorder for their diabetes medications for 12 weeks now, and they can't get it no matter what pharmacy they call in our area. They can't get it. And it's because it's being overused by people who have no business using it. 

And I've warned you this is going to be a hot topic of mine. Okay. So, we're talking about people that oh, well, I gained six pounds over the past few months, and I just can't get it off. I gotta call bullcrap on that, you know, you can't get it off or you don't want to do it. The right way. That's the question. So therefore, you're going to go on a GLP-1 agonist. 

Now, if you're pre diabetic, that's a whole different story. If you're trying to avoid bariatric surgery, because you have that much weight on you. That's a whole different story. Yeah, I agree with the use of these medications for that; but if you're doing it just for aesthetic reasons, because I want to lose five or 10 or 15 pounds for this wedding or this anniversary or this trip or whatever the case may be. That's not the right reason to do this. 

It is literally taking medication out of the hands of the people that need it the most. And I'll be honest with you while I'm on my soapbox, the people who could care less about it, or the pharmaceutical companies and the pharmacies to be quite honest with you. They hate to be crass, but they just want to make the sale. They don't care who they sell it to or how it gets sold. They just want to sell and to a degree, not with everybody, because I don't want the medical community coming after me with knives and forks. 

But to a degree some clinics are struggling with declining reimbursements from insurance companies in that day need people in the office. They need to generate revenue by seeing patients therefore, if they can prescribe a GLP-1 agonist or person that wants to lose weight, that's an office visit for them certain generates revenue for the office. 

And in a time in a day and age where I was talking to a chiropractor friend last night, he's taken a 30% hit in and reimbursement from insurance over the past several years. Before I got out of psychiatry and quit billing insurance and got into functional medicine, I took a 40% reduction in reimbursement over a three-year period. 

So, it's happening across all disciplines. So, I understand why health professional peers feel the need to be able to get people in seats in those waiting room chairs so that they can actually generate revenue from those visits. It still doesn't make it right, but it is what it is. It's the fact of where we live. 

Now the second thing that kind of nags at me, niggles at me, as the British would say, a little bit is what I've already previously explained. When you do a fad diet, where it restricts appetite like embedded means are now the GLP-1 receptor agonist. It's inducing starvation. And we're creating that cannibalism or that cannibalism state in the body, where the body turns on its own muscle and destroys your metabolism in the long run. And when you come off of these medications, you're gaining your weight back plus some and then you're gonna want to do the next fat diet. That's not the answer. 

And lastly, once you take the GLP-1 agonist medication, by the way, it's an injection. It's given weekly. It's  in your system. There's nothing you can do to get that medication out of your system. So, if you're having side effects, guess what? You're just going to have seven days, maybe 10 days of side effects. 

And the other thing about this is we really don't have long term study data on using the GLP-1 agonist in people who are non-diabetics for the purpose of weight loss. 

We don't have the studies to back up what are the long-term effects? 

Are we creating receptors in the body that are now dependent on that type of stimulation? 

Therefore, are we setting these people up, down the road for type two diabetes? 

No one knows because the research has not been done. And many non-diabetic people who take these medications, it's really interesting. diabetic people who take the medications will have some side effects, but they're really not that bad. But your nondiabetic people typically have the worst side effects. 

They have severe indigestion and when I say severe, I'm talking about painful esophageal type pain because the indigestion is so mad and painful upper sphincter stomach, the upper sphincter in the stomach, that there's so much pressure on that, that it's painful, and people complain of that all the time. 

They complain of nausea to varying degrees, 

they complain of vomiting to varying degrees, sometimes very severe. 

They complain of diarrhea,

They complain of weakness because they've got low blood sugar. 

They complain of headaches for the same reason. 

And the list of symptoms goes on and on; but those are some of the most common. 

Now as you can tell, I am not a fan of using GLP-1 class medications for weight loss. They are a lifesaver for many diabetic patients. And pre-diabetic patients for that matter. Until we have more data on the safety and non-diabetic patients. We shouldn't, I don't think we should use it. We've got to have the data, show me the studies. And I'll get on board with it. But I've never been an early adopter of new medications, period. And I've never been an early adopter of off-label medication use, especially with something that really even with diabetic patients, we don't have a lot of long-term data on. 

So that's kind of all I'm gonna say about that. So, the question then becomes, so Brian, what do we do? You've already mentioned that staying well hydrated, eating clean and exercising. Having that good balance between cardiovascular and strength training is a critical foundation and it is a critical foundation.

But I think one of the things you can do from a mindset standpoint, is to stay in the present moment because what I find is when we have this quick-fix illusion mindset or we're enamored by the illusion of a quick fix. That's probably a better way to say it. 

When we're enamored by that quick fix solution. 

We have to stop ourselves and ask, why am I having these feelings?

Why do I feel the need to do this right now? 

And we need to stop and get in the present moment.

Because when we're focused on a quick fix, for me, it's very immediate future focus. You're wanting your goal. Now you don't want it three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now. You want it like in the next 90 days or the next 30 days. I've had people come in and say I've got a wedding to go to in two weeks and I need to be put on this medication. And I say I'm sorry, I'm not gonna prescribe it. 

 1)    Because I don't prescribe it.

 2)    Because it takes six to 12 weeks to really get in your system and do anything. 

 So, the two weeks is not going to do any good. But ask yourself, stop yourself, get present in the present moment. Be mindful of where you are, what you're thinking, what you're feeling, what your base emotion is. What's behind this that's driving this desire to want this and then do a gut check with yourself. 

Ask yourself, am I trying to just find the easy path? 

I'm not trying to avoid doing the things that I that I know work in order to get a shortcut in case you don't know, there are not many shortcuts in life. They're just really hard. I'm 53 years old and I learned that early on those shortcuts. I didn't learn it about the weight loss thing, obviously, until that you know, 15 years ago, but

Dr Brian G Brown  18:19

I learned early on and other areas of life, that there really aren't any shortcuts. 

Sometimes the path that you have to take is the path that few people take because few people want to do the work and when it comes to weight loss, nobody wants to hear, this is not a popular message. It's certainly not a popular message for gaining new clients. Okay. And that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to be an advocate for healthy responses in your mind and healthy outcomes for your body and 

The best thing you can do for your mind and for your body is to do things the right way. 

·         Hire a personal trainer if you've got the finances to be able to do that. 

·         If you don't, get a gym membership 

·         And if you can't even afford to go to a gym, you can walk on the sidewalk or on your road in front of your house or at the local high school track or the local park.

·         There's somewhere you can walk, get out there and walk, go hiking. 

 ·         There are a lot of things you can do for free. 

·         Ride a bicycle for goodness sake. This is one of the greatest exercises. 

·         There's plenty of things you can do to move your body.

We are a sedentary society we stay put now. And it's been even worse since the pandemic and the lock downs where we were forced to work from home or those that weren't fortunate enough to be able to work from home and just didn't have a job during that time. They sat at home, and we became a more sedentary society. It's no it's no wonder that we've seen an increase an uptick in cardiovascular disease and strokes and diabetes and hypertension, and the list goes on and on and on.

In the past few years because we've become more sedentary where we need to move. 

These bodies were built, you look at the anatomical structure of a body and it was built to move!

Get out there and move your body!

Keep your body hydrated!

One of the best things you can do for your mental clarity or focus. Even the research is there to show that it treats depression and anxiety. Stay hydrated. And I'm talking about women need to drink at least two to three liters of water per day. Guys need to drink at least three to four liters of water per day. And you may think well it's wintertime I'm not as thirsty in the wintertime I need to dial back on that. I don't agree with that. If you live in an area of the country where you require heating to heat your home, in the wintertime, you are more dehydrated in the wintertime typically than you are in the summertime. 

So, drink water, drink plenty of water, drink clean water. Try to use filtered water if you can try to avoid water that comes in plastic bottles if you can, but if that's the only way you can measure it, that's fine. I always tell people either get a glass bottle or stainless-steel bottle that you can put filtered water in from your own filtration system; whether it be the filter in your refrigerator that comes out of the water comes out of the door or its filter system you have attached to your sink. That's what we have. We have a filter system attached to our sink. We drink hydrogenated water. That's super, super filtered. And actually, our system is programmable with different electrical frequencies where we can electrically charge that water for certain Healing frequencies. A whole other story for another day. 

But start drinking water stay hydrated and as far as eating clean green. I always tell people to follow their instincts push them to follow the instincts for basic program but push the envelope on things that you haven't tried before. You know, if you're one of those people say I don't like green vegetables, find a way to get green vegetables in you. Even if you had to buy a complete green supplement that you put in a smoothie. Find a way to get greens in, it’s critically important. 

Find a way to eat healthy servings of fruits per day. I always recommend things that end in berry because they have a low glycemic impact. Especially if you're trying to lose weight. Apples work pretty darn good too. But apples and anything that ends in Berry is a really good go to when you're talking about fruit if you just gotta have something sweet. 

And then good, lean organic proteins are excellent. But I think the key here is just the mindfulness. Become a mindful person. Become a mindful person about your breath. Become a mindful person about your thoughts. become mindful person about why am I doing this? Why do I even want to do this? Become a mindful person about what you put in your mouth? Be mindful as you're putting it in your mouth. Sometimes we rush when we eat. We don't think we're distracted. We're writing a paper, we're sending effects. We're on social media. We're watching TV get away from all that. 

Go outside. 

Eat outside, you need for God's sake, here's a concept. 

Eat at your kitchen table. You know but be mindful about your eating. 

Take care of yourself. 

There's only one you and I ventured yes there are quite a few people in your life that want you around. And we don't need some experimental treatment that's not really been researched, injected into your body causing who knows what, from a long-term health consequence standpoint. 

So that's all I got today. No, nothing else actually. 

Most informed, most trusted, most grateful that you spent this time with us today. Until next time, I'm Dr. Brown. Stay in the zone.