Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome my outside the box thinkers to the Anti Aging Unraveled podcast where I.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Am your host, Dr. Lori Gerber. In this podcast, we will explore the fascinating world of personalized anti aging medicine that considers the whole person inside and out and how all systems are interconnected to each other. In today's world of modern medicine, we often find ourselves like just another number in a system that prioritizes quick fixes over sustainable and more natural solutions.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Well, let's get ready for a paradigm.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Shift in health and beauty. We look far beyond treating symptoms and aim to get to the root cause of our health and cosmetic issues. This podcast is your go to source for all things natural, outside the box, and innovative in integrative medicine and cosmetic dermatology. So sit back, relax, and get ready to dive deep into the world of functional medicine and aesthetics with me, Dr. Lori Gerber.
Let's take a trip down the real skin revolution pathway together.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: All right, welcome back everyone. It is another episode of Anti Aging Unraveled. I'm so glad to be here today. It's a new year. We all love to talk about weight loss and getting healthy and leaning out and being the best versions of ourselves. And I'm really excited to bring this topic. But I'm not going to just talk about losing weight. I think that that gets a little played out, a little tired, although we all want to do it, including myself. But I want to talk about some of the blockades that keep you from losing weight. And the topic of this podcast is the hidden detox pathways blocking weight loss and hormone production so that your body doesn't work appropriately. So I really want to focus on detoxing and getting your cells and your body to work the way it should.
And detox isn't just about buzzword, right? It is on Instagram. And you know, today we're going to talk about a different way than Instagram talks about detox. This is not about juice cleanses, not about starving your body, and it's not about really even resetting with air quotes, but rather cleaning out the body and rebooting. We're taking real medical physiology and systems that your body already has in place and hormones and inflammation and these toxins and what happens to all of those things and when those systems get overwhelmed, what happens? And as I'm sure you can suspect from our topic here, it prevents you from losing weight and making hormones the way you should. So here's the key idea I want you to hold onto throughout this podcast. If your body cannot safely process toxins and hormones it will not allow weight loss. So let me say that again. If your body can't safely process toxins and hormones, it will not allow weight loss.
Weight gain is not failure. It's a form of protection.
Okay? Your body thinks it actually needs to store these things in the body fat. So the next topic is why the body stores fat when we detox fails and when you can't detoxify appropriately. And from a metabolic standpoint, fat tissue is very metabolically active. Fat cells store toxins, they produce inflammatory signals, they interact with estrogens and cortisol, they protect your vital organs. And when detox pathways are overloade it, your brain receives signals again and again that the environment is unsafe and that triggers higher cortisol or stress hormones, puts on belly fat, lower thyroid conversion into active hormone, thyroid becomes less active, puts on weight, insulin resistance. Again, the higher glucose and sugars, puts on weight and subsequent increased fat storage because your body feels like it needs to store these toxins and things in fat cells. So this is why people feel like, I'm eating less, I'm exercising more, I'm gaining weight. And your body is responding appropriately to perceived danger, right? So it's actually trying to protect you instead of helping you lose the weight that you've been desperately trying to do. So let's talk about the first organ that I think is of gross importance, and that is the liver. The liver is ground zero. Your liver is responsible for detoxing estrogens, progesterone, testosterone, clearing cortisol after stress responses happen, converting that thyroid hormone into activated thyroid hormone, processing medications and environmental chemicals. If you guys have listened to my podcast enough, you'll know that I talk about buckets. And these buckets get full from environmental toxins and toxic exposures, and it actually produces the bile for fat digestion and breakdown, an elimination of things in the stool.
So again, if we can't get this liver to work appropriately, we are going to store some of these toxins and things, and we were not going to produce our hormones appropriately.
So there's two phases that the liver has to do. Phase one uses enzymes, small little, basically chemical reactions essentially, to break down toxins into very small pieces.
And once those small pieces enter the bloodstream, they're actually more toxic than they were to begin with. So they're more reactive temporarily. So that's the key, right, is that we can't have all of these toxins sitting around the bloodstream that need to be excreted. If the body isn't working appropriately, that'll Actually make us not feel well and we'll feel sick.
Phase two actually neutralizes those toxins. It binds them up to molecules like glutathione, glycine sulfate, methyl groups. All these things we hear about on honestly Instagram, other and other places which are people are trying to give you ways to neutralize the toxins and get rid of them.
But initially they're stored in the fat and they actually need to be taken out of the fat through phase one and broken down into smaller pieces. But if phase two is slow or under resourced, what happens? Those toxins just recirculate. They just become part of your body, and they recirculate over and over and over again, and they damage mitochondria, they increase inflammation, and they interfere with your hormone receptors. So they can actually look like estrogens. So we can, we cause them, they can be very estrogenic and other things. So this is why people can have normal air quote labs, right? But symptoms like bloating and weight gain and headaches and estrogen dominance and all of these things that look like hormone problems, but they're technically toxic waste products. Right? They're toxic problems. They're, they're poor detox pathways. So again, they can mimic each other. But in general, the liver has to be optimized to get the fat cells cleaned out for clearance and get those toxins out of the system, because you will get stuck. Your body knows that it has to put those toxins somewhere. So we'll hold onto that body fat. What else affects weight loss? When we talk about the gut and when we talk about detox, it's estrogen recycling. So all of our estrogen recycling is done in the gut. And I have a whole lecture on estrogen recycling in the gut. So if you want to learn more about it, I encourage you to listen to that. But your gut decides whether estrogen leaves your body or stays. It can get reused. And when estrogen is processed by the liver, it's sent to the gut in bile, right? And healthy gut bacteria helps to escort it out into the stool. So we can eliminate estrogen very simply. But if our liver is in our bile and our processes aren't working appropriately, then we can't get rid of it. And you actually can get extra estrogen symptoms, which we just talked about, some of that bloating and emotionality and things that look like maybe menopausal symptoms, and they can be exacerbated by dysbiosis, chronic constipation, leaky gut, inflamed Gut of any kind. And there's an enzyme that helps, that becomes overactive when these things happen. When we get these gut issues called beta glucuronidase, when that becomes overactive, it actually unbinds the estrogen from being excreted and sends it back to circulation.
So it's almost like when we get this leaky gut, or we have food sensitivities, or we have chronic constipation, ibs, all these things that in our culture we consider normal. We have enzymes that don't work appropriately called beta glucuronidase. And then estrogen starts to actually build up in our system and get sent back into our circulation. And that again leads to estrogen dominant symptoms, pms, weight gain, breast tenderness, emotionality, migraines, fibroids, mood swings and more. I mean, anything that you can consider to be really an estrogen dominant state is what this can look like. And honestly, this is why bowel movements matter so much. They don't matter so much really, because we care that you just go to the bathroom regularly. It's more because this is one of our detox pathways. And from a medical standpoint, no stool equals no hormone detox or no hormone clean out. And other toxins for that matter, it doesn't help to get them out of the body.
So that's how hormones are affected, or how hormones can be affected by gut disruption. But the mitochondria are affected as well, which is the powerhouses of our cell. And we actually can get a complete metabolic shutdown. Why? The mitochondria are responsible for our energy production and our metabolism pretty simply. So they're not just energy factories. They sense toxins, they respond to oxidative stress. So stress in the environment, that's damaging it. They regulate cell death or cell survival, which is apoptosis. They control the actual burning of fat.
So when mitochondria detect danger, they shift into an energy conservation mode. And it's almost again, that's when we talk about peptides flipping these switches.
That's why they're so important to get working on the mitochondria early and often. So you'll have less fat oxidation, less muscle synthesis, more inflammation, more fatigue. So all that hard work that you're doing, workouts stop working, Recovery slows down, you're not recovering from your workouts as quickly. The muscle gains become slow and sluggish and difficult and weight loss just stalls. So the mitochondria play a very crucial role in your metabolism and detoxing your body. When they can't do that. We start to get problems with energy levels and metabolic recovery and weight loss. So we can test labs like organic acid testing. We can see oxidative stress markers, so markers that your body is not reversing this damage very efficiently. We can see an impaired Krebs cycle, which would be a metabolic marker as well. And we can also see glutathione depletion, which is one of the detoxification pathways that we need to have working optimally in order to get phase two conjugation, phase two of the liver cleanout working appropriately.
So when these mitochondria sense danger, they're gonna go into protection mode, and that's when all of this stops working. And so your body's not lazy. It's really just protecting your cells and protecting you against your exposures. Same thing with the immune system.
All right, so again, if you've listened to me a bunch, you know, I like to talk about gut, immune, brain, right? Gut, leaky, irritated, activates the immune system. The immune system gets inflamed and overactive, and new food sensitivities, again, it's another bucket that we need to clean out. And then all the other membranes in the body get inflamed, including the brain. So immune activation, eventually from gut disruption, causes brain on fire and chronic toxin overload states essentially activates that immune system. The immune system thinks it needs to help. It's almost like it thinks there's a bug there.
So what does it do? It goes into overdrive and it starts to release cytokines, which are cells that are attracted, basically attracted. Signaling cells are attracted to the area which are intended to help heal and repair.
But you're also going to get blood, brain barrier inflammation, altered serotonin and dopamine, the brain signaling molecules. So now you're not only are you not losing weight and you're having emotional problems and all these other issues from the hormone problems, but now your brain is on fire, and you have anxiety, you have brain fog, you have poor motivation, sleep disruption, emotional eating, and all the things. So now our brain's on fire, our gut's disrupted, our immune system's underactive, we have increased levels of toxins, and we're not making our hormones appropriately.
So this is why weight loss is not just physical, right? We know that when we lose weight, everything starts to feel better, including our brains, neurological. And it's not just because we make serotonin, which is good for our. Our brain in general, and our feel good hormones. Our feel good part of our brain but it's also because we're decreasing the inflammation in the brain when we start to get rid of this toxic exposures. So, all right, we know now we know how we clean it out. But what are the mechanisms by which we excrete toxins or get them out of our system? We talked about the liver a little bit and we talked about the stool a little bit. But what about lymph?
We hear a lot about lymphatic massage, lymphatic drainage. What about sweat, what about urine?
And so this is why the exit strategy matters. And this is why people that don't sweat, we tell them, you know, we need to get you sweating. Same thing with lymphatic movement, lymphatic drainage. And this is the other reason why we don't do a lot of lymphatic movement when someone has cancers, because we don't want to circulate waste or debris or cancer cells. The lymphatic system specifically clears inflammatory debris. So the lymphatic system clears cellular waste, it clears inflammatory debris. And it has no pump. It relies on you moving.
So it relies on, I always say, pedal pump or the feet.
So the more you walk, the more you move, the more you pump your feet, the more you get massage.
Right. It will help to circulate toxins and get them out of your system. Stagnant lymph is stagnant. Weight loss things need to move. So if you're not moving, even just, you know, if you're getting up and standing up every half hour to an hour from your desk, if you're using a standing desk, pedaling your feet, things like that will help the lymph to move.
Sweating, I can't emphasize the sweating part enough. We remove a lot of fat soluble toxins through our sweat, which is why we know that sauna works so well for people when done correctly. But they are medical tools. The more you sweat, the better detoxing you are. So I have a really good example. My husband is a, is a big sweater and he has like no toxic buildup on his labs where I am a very poor sweater and we're in the same household all day, but I have a buildup of toxic exposures and chemicals and pesticides and he does not.
So interestingly, he just, he just sweats things out so much more efficiently and effectively. Hence why I have asana now to try to get these out of my system.
Urine is going to work on your water soluble toxins. Again, very important to make sure we're getting very well hydrated and having a good mineral balance to be able to clear those soluble toxins and urinating relatively regularly. Obviously we don't want it too frequently, but that will help to clear some of these toxins as well. And of course stool, we talked about stool a little bit already, but it is a file exit for bile bound toxins from the liver. So daily elimination really is essential to help those toxins from not building up in the system.
So when we detox, we want to go slow, we want to go very cautiously, and that's critical. And aggressive detox can make symptoms worse. You're going to mobilize those toxins again into that at the end of phase one, where it's just sitting around and your liver isn't strong enough or working well enough to get them out fast, then you're going to feel sick. Inflammation will rise and actually weight can temporarily increase, especially because your body thinks it needs to put fat on to get those toxins back into a fat cell and protect you. Hormones will start to destabilize. So it's really important why you go slow, supportive, sustainable and a very easy liver detox or detox in general. Not punishing your body. If you start to punish your body, what you're going to find is you're going to feel worse and you're not going to stick with it. So here's what I want you to remember. Weight loss resistance is not a willpower problem. It's a hormone imbalance. It's a liver stagnant toxin problem.
It is an immune system and a gut problem. It's not necessarily all willpower. Of course, some of it is willpower, but it's not just a willpower problem and it's not personal failure. It's often a detox and signaling problem. When detox pathways open, hormones communicate better, inflammation calms down, metabolism responds, weight starts to release and decrease naturally. So you will find that when you do these programs that we offer that you will start to lose weight more efficiently and whatever time you are putting in beforehand will actually be amplified for that weight loss.
Your body isn't broken, it's asking for support, it's asking for help. And you know, I think that we should really understand that and understand that everybody is different. Like I talked about my husband versus myself, I don't have the capability to sweat very much. So even when I work out, the only thing that really gets me sweating significantly is hiit or running. So I need to work really hard to sweat. It's really important that I start to either Eliminate my toxic exposure. Or so I watch what I put in my mouth, obviously, and what I'm exposed to, but also help what it's always already built up in our system, which stays for decades, guys. So in the fat cells, fat soluble toxins can stay forever. So that's why it's so important to work hard to get rid of them.
So everything we talked about, liver detox, gut elimination, mitochondrial support, lymphatic flow, like I said, you don't have to do extreme cleanses or deprivation. Gentle, consistent support is what works best best. We use very specific evidence based tools to help you open your detox pathway safely, especially when weight loss and hormones feel stuck. So if you're looking for additional support, we're currently offering several of the products that we use clinically. I'll briefly explain how each fits into our detox picture, but we're offering them at a discount. 15% off with our code. Our code is detox Lori 15. So D E T O X L O R I 15 at checkout on mydrlori.com to get 15% off of these products. So the first and really easy products are called Toxybind. Toxy bind is an activated charcoal based binder to help your body to capture the toxins in the gut so they don't get reabsorbed. So in the case where they might be sitting in the gut and recirculating or they're getting stuck from phase one to phase two, this is especially helpful also if you're dealing with bloating or hormone recycling or inflammatory symptoms. It will help escort these toxins through the stool. Toxy bind is taken twice a day, it's one capsule twice a day, very, very well tolerated. And we often combine that with something called Hepato pure, which no pun intended, it helps to purify your liver.
And it contains bergamot and aged garlic, which not only are going to help your cholesterol, but it's also gonna help with inflammation, balance, and particularly helpful in cleaning out the liver and improving that metabolic support.
So again, that one is actually taking two in the morning and they can be taken together. I do really like them as a combination product.
The other two add ons, I would say are both for more mitochondrial and cellular detoxification pathways. The first one is glutathione and we offer that as a capsule, it's called celluclear and as a liquid called glutathione. And both of those are excellent products. And it's an antioxidant, guys It's a master antioxidant and a key player in detoxification and protecting the mitochondria. It actually is going to help the body clear that and use that phase two detox and get them out of your system. Helps the immune balance mitochondrial repair and recovery, especially with fatigue, inflammation, a toxic exposure obviously is present. And last but not least, let's give you some energy to go along with that. And again, our mitochondria are responsible for ATP production and we use something called NAD to help our mitochondrial energy production. So we have an NAD plus liquid that is wonderful for helping mitochondrial energy repair because we want to repair while we're detoxing and healthy aging. So it's going to support that healthy cellular energy level while you're doing this detoxific.
It will help to enhance those weight loss pathways. Last but not least is our liver detox, our core Restore liver detox kit. I recommend one a year to everybody. This is, I've been doing this probably for about 10 years. It is one of my favorites. It is seven days of clean eating with recipes that are very specific to low residue, basically meaning they're low allergenic, very easy to process. The first two days, you actually don't eat any food at all. You just do a very low residue protein shake so that the body can eliminate one bucket for a week, essentially. Right? You want to take one of those three buckets and say, all right, I'm not going to give you any toxins from food this week. And give your liver a chance with some supplements that are included in the kit to upregulate phase one and phase two of that liver detoxification pathway. So it will start to clean out your liver while you're clean eating.
It's excellent, excellent, excellent to get things jump started. And in all honesty, if you want to know if it's working, try having a drink at the end of it and see how it affects you versus having a drink at the beginning. Because your liver is so clean and squeaky clean that you'll actually feel the alcohol much more quickly than you would if you hadn't done a liver clean out or a liver detox kit. It's a very easy system to follow, really affordable and you're not taking like 60 different supplements and pills to accomplish what you need to accomplish. I have tons of patients that actually stay on the powder and will do a very similar diet because it's more like an elimination diet. And they'll do that for a while because they feel so good on it. What happens too is they realize when they reintroduce certain food groups that they're very bothersome to them. So it actually gives them answers as well, and they know they need to eliminate those food groups. It's like an elimination diet and a liver detox in one. So I want you guys to take advantage if you're ready to go deeper. Honestly, there's peptide support for detox and weight loss as well. So as an add on for you guys for this special offer with the podcast, if you already done these things or you just want that next step, I really strongly recommend trying peptide therapy for mitochondrial repair. Improving body composition through growth hormone stimulation and decreasing inflammation and gut inflammation specifically by using a couple different peptides. AOD9604 helps to promote fat metabolism and breaking down of fat. Again, when you break that fat down, the toxins go into the body. So you do need to have some liver support to help that along, which is where those supplements come into play. With it. We can do something like a CJC 1295 with epamorelin or an epamorelin tessamorelin. Those are for growth hormone stimulation. Again, leaning out body composition, helping with sleep and metabolism. MOT C for your mitochondria. I strongly recommend doing this a couple times a year to help with mitochondrial signaling and help with metabolic efficiency. And then BPC157 with RTB500, which would be gut repair, decreasing inflammation and helping the immune system. And you can cycle these or stack these three months on, three months off. Mot C is only done for 21 days three times a year.
So take advantage of these peptides if you want to go a step further.
15% off on all the peptides that I mentioned as well, all month long. So for the month of January, if you put detox Lurie 15 on your order form, which is our little Jotform order form, or tell Jen when you order them that you heard the podcast and you have to follow our podcast and become a supporter. So please follow us and follow us on social media. Once we see that happen, you will get 15% off all of your peptides for metabolic support and detoxification. And I'd love to have you guys add those onto your regular regimens and I can help you obviously stack those.
So you know, as always, these products are meant to support your body and not replace individual medical care. So if there's something serious or chronic illness, please reach out to us directly so that we can help you move in the right direction. Right. So we want to make sure that you're getting the right ancillary care as well.
But these peptides, these hormones, these supplements will all help you to clean out the system in a way that really nothing else can do. I mean, unless you're doing a really good prolonged fasting on a regular basis with lots and lots of water, which will do a nice job, but is a very uncomfortable and a very aggressive way to clean out the system. So heal and regulate your hormones. Release weight naturally. Let us help your liver to work optimally. Remember, your body's not broken. It's communicating. It's telling you something. So thank you, guys.
