Functional Medicine & Fitness with Dr. Julie Foucher – Ep. 207

In today’s episode, Dr. Jade welcomes Dr. Julie Foucher. They discuss the many benefits of functional medicine, the differences between conventional medicine and functional medicine, and what people can expect by treating symptoms with this modern and more integrative approach. Dr. Julie explains that functional medicine aims for restoring balance in the body by addressing the root cause of the symptoms.

This approach and the treatment are based on lifestyle changes. The diagnosis itself is also based on asking the patients more about their daily lives. Dr. Julie also talks about nutrition (and how it is a key aspect when it comes to changing body composition), supplements, and the importance of a healthy diet. Tips for weight loss, for example, include resistance training, protein intake, and tracking macronutrients. Tune in!

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Connect with Dr. Julie

Website: www.wildhealth.com (DISCOUNT CODE: TETA20)

Instagram: @juliefoucher

Podcast: Pursuing Health

Connect with Dr. Jade Teta

Website: www.jadeteta.com

Instagram: @jadeteta

TRANSCRIPTION:

Next Level Human

Episode 207- Functional Medicine & Fitness

Host: Dr. Jade Teta

Guest: Dr. Julie Foucher

Podcast Intro: [00:14] welcome to the Next Level Human Podcast. As a human, you have a job to do. In fact, you have four jobs; to earn and manage money, to attain and maintain health and fitness, to build and sustain personal relationships, to find meaning and make a difference. None of these jobs are taught in school and that is what this podcast is designed to do. To educate us all on living our most fulfilled lives through the mastery of these four jobs. I'm your host, Dr. Jade Teta and I believe we are here living this life for three reasons and three reasons only; to learn, to teach and to love. In this podcast, I will be learning, teaching, and loving right along with you. I'm grateful to have your company; here is to our next level.

Jade 1:18 

Welcome to the show everyone. I have a really cool guest on the show today. So this is Julie Foucher and Julie is really interesting. We were just getting to know each other a little bit before we came on live. And she has a really interesting background. This sort of dovetails into mine actually oftentimes say I am all about mind muscle and metabolism. And so is Julie and we were kind of laughing because I don't know this necessarily about her but one of my closest friends before we came on, I was telling him Oh yeah, I'm talking to this really cool girl, this Dr. Julie and he goes oh my god, she's like the CrossFit girl. I love her right so known in this really cool bad ass. I mean, apparently you went to the games and all that which is sort of like the Super Bowl of fitness. But you also combined, Julie, which makes you really interesting. You also combine, you know this integrative functional, holistic medicine aspect of you, you are a physician, a doctor. And so you have that aspect along with this sort of elite, athlete sort of background. And then I also learned about that you are also very much into mindset and psychology and philosophy like I am and so why don't we start you're super interesting person to talk to I just want to hear your story and let the listeners hear like how did Julie, get into all this work? Give us an idea of how all this started for you.

Julie   2:46 

Oh, thank you. So it could be it could be a longer short story, but I'll give you the highlights. And then we can dig in wherever you want to. I I've always been into sports, I think I you know, I did gymnastics growing up, I did track and field in high school. And then like most people when they finish their formal sports, whether it's high school or college, I didn't really know what to do with myself. And so I found myself in college, feeling like, I really wanted to be able to use my body, I really loved fitness. But I didn't really know how to do that. And I found myself on a lot of machines, you know, reading my biochemistry notes on the elliptical machine trying to burn as many calories as I could. And I was like, There's got to be something more to this. So it was the summer of 2009 that I first heard about CrossFit. And that was pretty early on before it was as widely known as it is now. But I found myself in a CrossFit gym and Arbor, Michigan, and it just felt like home it you know, I walked in, it felt like some of the old gymnastics gyms I had been in growing up, I had a coach I had people to work out with, we were learning new skills, we were trying different things, I was challenging myself and it immediately what I think I noticed was it really changed my relationship with my body. So instead of this period of focus on how many calories can I burn, you know, how can I burn off everything I ate today, which I think consumes a lot of people in that kind of college age, especially women. Now it became what can my body do? Can I set a new PR? Can I back squat more than I did last month? Can I run faster? And can I feel my body in order to be able to continue improving with those physical tasks. And so for first for me, it was just about fitness. And it was about health and really, you know, changing my body image. And then one thing led to another I joined some local competitions in Michigan and next thing I know I'm at the CrossFit Games in 2010. And that was very early on in the CrossFit Games. And so there you know there it was just there was no sponsors. You know the fitness level of all the competitors there was very You're much less than it is today, we were all just starting from the beginning. And each, I was really grateful that I started at that time, because each following year, I think I was able to grow a lot with my fellow competitors, and push the envelope, who each really increased our fitness overall and pushed each other. And I competed then from 2010 through 2015. And during that time, I also was in the process of applying to med school. So I ended up applying going to start medical school in Cleveland. And it's been, you know, there's a lot of steps along the way things that happened. But ultimately, I ended up finding myself in primary care largely because of CrossFit. Because I realized how much our society is suffering from chronic disease, and how much of the disease that we have is preventable and treatable with lifestyle. And so I really wanted to be on the front end of things, as opposed to being there in the hospital when people are very sick. And, and along that, that process, I also was exposed to things like functional medicine, and integrative medicine and direct primary care. And it just became clear to me pretty early on that I wasn't cut out to be practicing in a traditional primary care, conventional setting 15 minute appointments and feeling like I wasn't really helping people. So I'm really grateful now that I'm able to practice in a way that is consistent with my values, and use a lot of those principles that I've learned through CrossFit.

Jade  6:29 

Yeah, you know, I think this is a really good place for you. And I Julie, to educate people, we were talking before we came on live, you and I about the idea that a lot of people don't quite understand exactly what people like you. And I mean, when we talk about integrative and or functional medicine, so if you don't mind, I would love to sort of get into this a little bit. And I'll kind of just prompt you with a couple statements. And then I want to see if you see this the same way I see it because what's interesting for you listeners, if you're listening to Julie and I, we've kind of come from different backgrounds. So you're an MD correct medical doctor, MD degree, which is more of a traditional route, and then she's moved more towards, you know, sort of the middle functional medicine, integrative medicine now I came from the naturopathic world and sort of then moved more to functional medicine. So moved further to where Julie is. And so the two of us came from sort of two different worlds and came and sort of met in the middle. And from my perspective, an integrative physician, functional medicine doctor uses the best of both worlds. So it was really, you know, I could kind of tell in the language that you were using it sort of like, you know, I have never me personally have never been anti conventional medicine. And I I'm a little bit weary about a bias on either side. Like I think it's dangerous to be biased in a conventional way. I think it's dangerous to be biased in a natural medicine way. But evidence based lifestyle medicine is what I would describe as functional medicine is sort of using the things that you're already talking about Julissa even before you became an MD, you know, you're in the gym, you're eating right, you're working out. This, to me is the foundation of sort of integrative and functional medicine. And then the one thing I'll say, and then I want to see if you sort of agree, and what you want to add is that for the listeners, I think one of the things that people like Julie and I are interested in, and if you listen to what she was saying, you know, in that sort of story of hers, we're interested in what happens prior to disease, right? So you could kind of, I could kind of sense that from you, Julie, where you're sort of talking about like, you know, maybe I'm in the wrong place, if I'm meeting people at the end, you know, they've already got diabetes, they already got heart disease, you know, they're going in for surgery, or, you know, sort of this kind of thing, I want to meet them, you know, when they have dysfunction, but not disease. And to me, this is the realm of functional medicine. So I'm curious how you sort of see that and then I'm curious how your practice has looked? Have you made that switch for more than a traditional model to this functional model?

Julie   9:06 

It's a great question. And yes, I think that we are very aligned on that and finding sort of the middle the best of both worlds and using all the tools. You know, there are so many tools that we have at our fingertips now. And there are incredible things about conventional modern medicine, especially if you're really sick. And you know, there are life saving tools that we have, and we can't kind of throw the baby out with the bathwater there. But I think for me, as I started in medical school, I was very naive. So I didn't realize you know, what a mess our healthcare system is or really how much chronic disease there was. But as I'm learning about this in the classroom, I also started to you know, I was spending a lot of time in CrossFit affiliates, and I'm seeing people there really dramatically change their lives there. They are coming off their medications, they're reversing their chronic disease. They're gaining a new sense of self confidence in a way that I just didn't see happening in the doctor's offices I was spending time and and so I knew I started to gather like I knew there's certain things that are really important for creating health, like this movement is really important. Nutrition is really important. meaning and purpose is really important. Finding ways to down regulate or, you know, manage stress is really important. Sleep is really important, but I, I didn't quite know how to package those or how to how to, you know, communicate that in a way that would make sense to the patient and also on a system level would be something that that would be, you know, transferable. And so I remember very vividly the day that I learned about functional medicine, I was doing my school at the Cleveland Clinic. And at that time, the Cleveland Clinic opened the first center for functional medicine in an academic setting. I didn't know this was happening, but I saw an advertisement for a talk about functional medicine by Dr. Mark Hyman. And I didn't know who he was, I think I had heard functional medicine, the term thrown around a little bit, but I was like, Well, I just feel like I need to go and learn about this. So I went. And it wasn't just a talk about functional medicine, it was announcing, you know, bringing this center to the Cleveland Clinic. And there were a lot of you know, the, the CEO of the hospital was there, a lot of department heads were there, and it really caught my attention. But sitting there listening to Mark Hyman describe the foundation of what functional medicine was, which is systems medicine, which is root cause medicine, where you are looking at what are all the symptoms that patient in front of you has and then asking the question why and trying to resolve them at the root, as opposed to, you know, referring out to a GI specialist for GI symptoms and neurologist for, you know, headaches, a dermatologist for skin rashes, it's saying, okay, all these these symptoms may be coming from a similar root cause or a collection of root causes, let's address that instead of treating all the symptoms with medications. And I think that to me, you know, is the is really what makes sense. And once I saw that, I couldn't unsee it. And I knew that that's how I wanted to practice medicine moving forward, I knew that that was how I wanted to take care of my patients. And I think that so often these terms, just like CrossFit gets thrown around, and people have very strong opinions one way or another based on their previous experiences with CrossFit. I think the same thing happens with terms like functional medicine, or integrative medicine, or precision medicine is there these terms, but what's really important is the common thread of truth through all of them, which to me is helping to restore health, helping to restore balance to the body, helping to address the root cause of symptoms. And so much of that lies in our lifestyle, and just like you mentioned your pillars, which is health and fitness, you know, nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress management, community, you know, our relationships and our meaning and purpose. And when we have all those in alignment, oftentimes the symptoms will resolve themselves.

Jade  13:00 

Yeah, yeah. And actually, for you, listeners, I'll give you an example of kind of what Julie and I sort of deal with, and we'll see what Julie thinks about this as well. But one of the things that you'll see, so one of the things Julie and I will do, if we're working with someone, we can like, let's take diabetes, for example, if if we measure a fasting blood sugar on you, you listeners, and we measure a fasting blood sugar of 126, at two separate occasions, you are basically diagnosed diabetic, however long before you get to that point, you're going to have blood sugar dysregulation, and we call that a lot of things, but we don't necessarily know what to call it. It's blood sugar dysregulation pre diabetes, you know, there's different things that we call it, but we are not really technically yet. A diagnosis or although I guess pre diabetes now is but functional medicine really deals with this. And then if you're listening to what you know, Julie's saying, not only do we sort of look and try to catch her, you before you get to that diagnosis of diabetes, and we look at what's going on functionally, we're also looking underneath the hood and saying, What is going on? What is the cause of this is this something for example, that is, you know, some inflammatory mechanism, some stress mechanism, something going on with the gut bacteria, because you were on antibiotics, you know, when you were younger and created, you know, issues there. And then we also look at you and say, you know, you're an individual. So you have a unique, you know, physiology, psychology, personal preferences and practical circumstances. And then we look at all of this and try to determine a way to sort of bring you back to health and so it's very holistic. If you're listening to what Julie's saying. It's also very individualized, you know, form of medicine, which again, conventional medicine is wonderful in what it does, but this is perhaps the aspect that it falls a little bit short in and You know, Julian, I probably tell you for good reason, you know, when we when we come up with diagnoses so that we can study these conditions so that we can standardize treatments and things like that. However, research is a tool for averages not necessarily for individuals and so functional medicine starts getting into this individual aspect of things and what I'm really interested in Julie is why don't we bring them through so if someone were going to come and see you right and work with you directly, let's try to give them a sense of what you know this would look like so let's say I come and I say, you know, Dr. Foucher um I'm feeling you know, lethargic you know, my memories going a little bit I'm a little bit foggy headed, I'm having all these sort of symptoms and all my doctors are telling me quote, you know, normal you know, so how do you begin to you know, sort of look at this situation and say, you know, obviously your symptoms and the fact that you're feeling so fatigue Jade and the fact that you're foggy headed and you know, all these kinds of symptoms and maybe I'm having cold intolerance, etc. This means you're not normal, regardless of what your labs say. So I'm curious just for the listeners sake, how would you begin to sort of unpack this on an on an individual level like how do you triage I'm sure you're probably gonna be like, Jade, what are you doing with your movement? How's your sleep like all these things, I'm interested in the beginning of this and then what sort of prescriptions you might you know, sort of be giving me from a lifestyle point of view

Julie   22:48 

Sure. So right now I work for a practice called Wild Health, which is a precision medicine practice. It's all virtual. And we take that approach precision medicine really means as you said, looking at the individual in front of you and customizing your plan based on that person based on their unique you know, data, their DNA, their labs, but also their specific goals and what their lifestyle looks like. And so each patient that I see would come in with a full DNA analysis with a really extensive lab panel, so much more than you would expect to get at a at a regular primary care visit. And already having had at least one visit with their health coach. So talking about some of these basics, these lifestyle behaviors, getting a sense of where they stand. And so the first visit where I see them, we go through a really extensive health report. So this pulls in using our algorithms, the patient's DNA, their labs, questionnaire data about their past history and their goals. And it outlines recommendations and each of the foundational lifestyle areas so nutrition, exercise, sleep, and neural behavioral, and then also looks at disease prevention. So we do a deep dive on cardiovascular risk, Alzheimer's risk, insulin resistance, inflammation and longevity. And for this patient that you're describing, I'll just make up what I what I might expect to see but this person might have quote unquote, normal labs and they go see their doctor, you know, maybe their thyroid looks normal, their CVC is normal. Their electrolytes look normal, their hemoglobin a one C is 5.4. So no concerns. And they are you know, they're said, Well, you check out everything looks good, and nothing to offer you here. But when I see this patient, we're gonna start we're gonna go through each of those lifestyle areas. So, you know, just starting with nutrition. It's very possible that either they are or they have some early signs of insulin resistance that are not reflected by the human live anyone see, so maybe their fasting insulin is quite elevated which often is going to happen before we We see that reflected in blood sugar levels, or hemoglobin a one C level. So if that's the case, then we might ask them to wear a continuous glucose monitor and get some personal data to look at how, what they're eating, and their behaviors are impacting their blood sugar. And if they're having these, you know, fluctuations in blood sugar throughout the day that could really contribute to fatigue and brain fog. And based on that data, they're going to work with their health coach, and they're going to optimize their nutrition. So making sure they're getting enough protein every day and making sure that they have balanced macronutrients with their meals or not eating just empty carbohydrates, which are slugging or which are spiking their blood sugars, making sure that they're getting enough sleep, making sure that they're exercising, especially around those heavier meals to minimize blood sugar response. So that might be one thing that we find. In addition, maybe we do, we actually do a pretty extensive workup of genetic risk for gluten sensitivity. So maybe this is someone who doesn't have typical GI symptoms, like someone who has celiac disease, but maybe based on their polygenic risk score. So looking at a number of different genetic variations that are associated with gluten sensitivity, they have a very high risk. In addition, they're telling us they're having some symptoms of brain fog and low energy. And maybe their high sensitivity. CRP, which we checked is also mildly elevated. And so there's some evidence that they may have inflammation contributing to their symptoms. So then we might recommend doing also an elimination diet and eliminating gluten for 30 days and observing their symptoms and adding it back in very strategically to see how that impacts their symptoms. So those are some things that we might start with nutrition wise, that typically aren't going to be picked up in a conventional setting. And then of course, we're going to, we're going to deep dive on sleep, we're going to make sure that we're not missing something big, like sleep apnea that could be contributing, we may use a sleep tracker so that we get some really good data, maybe they're in bed for eight hours, but maybe they're not really getting good quality sleep. And we may need to try some things to improve sleep quality, we're going to make sure they're moving and exercising, we look at different types of exercise that they may respond best to based on their genetics. And then we're also going to look at stress. So you know, we all are exposed to stress, and part of our job is to help make sure that our patients have a way to downregulate to turn off that sympathetic nervous system and get into more of a parasympathetic state, whether that's breathwork, whether that's journaling, prayer, meditation, spending time in nature, spending time with loved ones, there's a lot of different things, tools that we can use there. But, but that's going to be a really important piece of the puzzle as well.

Jade  27:44 

Yeah. And if you if you all this, I love you, Julie, you're just you're freaking this is, this is what I love about this. It's really demonstrative. For the listener, if you if you listen to Julie and what she's saying, notice how you didn't hear her talking about a bunch of supplements right away, you certainly didn't hear her talking about a bunch of drugs right away. What you heard her talking about is gathering data based on the individual. And then you heard her talking about lifestyle solutions, right. And this is very, very different than your average Doctor, I'm sure most of you listening can relate to this when typically when you go in to see a doctor, and by the way, let's this wouldn't doesn't matter if it's an MD or an MD, typically what's going to happen is you're going to have a little bit of time, they're going to ask you a few questions. And then they're going to either give you a drug or a bunch of supplements. So notice how Julie's focusing in a very particular way of let's gather all this data, right? We're going to gather data based on Jade's symptoms, and what's going on with him, not just his symptoms, though, not just the way his metabolism is expressing biofeedback, we're also going to go in and look at data in his genetics, we're going to look at his blood labs. And then what's really interesting is then Julie's talking about oh, let's break out some other techniques like a continuous glucose monitor. So we can see what's happening with Jade's blood sugar meal to meal at night during the day, how he responds to stress, what happens when he doesn't work out all of these kinds of things. Maybe he's reacting to a particular food, and that is forms the base of Julie's sort of treatment plan. She's gathering all this data. And then on top of the lifestyle changes, which is what she covered, right. What I think is just beautiful about this Julie's it just illustrates such a difference in the way you and I might practice because you haven't said one word about supplements and or drugs yet, it's all just gathering data, putting in the lifestyle factors. And that to me is very, very different.

Julie   29:48 

Yes, I guess that is a great point. And I think that's the value of having so much data is that we can then it I'm not saying that I don't recommend supplements for patients but we want to dial in the basics first. And then when we make supplement recommendations, we're making them in a very targeted way, with some data to track our outcome. So if I'm going to prescribe or recommend vitamin D, we're going to recheck vitamin D levels to make sure it's working. If I'm going to recommend, you know, B vitamins, we're going to recheck the vitamin levels and methylation to see if that is actually doing what we intended to do. So rarely Am I making supplement recommendations without having an outcome marker to track, whether it's a symptom that we're looking at, or whether it's a lab marker, or, you know, a wearable mark or something like that.

Jade  30:38 

Yeah, so I want to I want to throw some magic Julie and see what you what you think about this. So one of the things that I always tell people as I go, you know, we're all we're all very different, right? So in my from my perspective, you know, we're each metabolically different. We're different in our, in our physiology, psychology, we each have different personal preferences. I mean, I'm Italian, I love red wine. I love cheese, I love pasta, right? My practical circumstances. I mean, I have a whole foods right down the street from me, I have the resources, I'm not living in a food desert. So to me, all these things kind of matter. And from my perspective, and this is, this is just to see, I want to see your perspective on this. And you might completely disagree with me, which is totally cool. But from my perspective, I go okay, if I have a patient sitting in front of me, and they're biofeedback, right sensations, what I call sleep, hunger, mood, energy and cravings. SHMEC is what I call this. It's a funny, sleep hunger mood if your SHMEC is in check, right sleep, hunger, mood, energy and cravings. That's one aspect of feedback for you. And then of course, you can go well, let me look at my body composition, am I maintaining optimal body composition? Or am I achieving an optimal body composition attaining or maintaining? Right and then I go well, what about my blood labs, all the stuff, you know, blood labs and vitals, all the other stuff that Julie sort of educated all of us on, and I go, Well, if my biofeedback, sensations, sleep, hunger, mood, energy, cravings, exercise, performance, exercise, recovery, libido, digestive function, all of this signs and symptoms of all that's good, and attaining or maintaining optimal body composition, and my blood labs and vitals are all moving in optimal directions. Then, from my perspective, whatever diet the person is eating, whether it be vegan or vegetarian, whether it be paleo or primal, whether it be intermittent fasting, whether it be keto, I'm, like good for you, you've obviously found out what works for you. And I'm not necessarily going to change that, because I'm like, Look, your blood, your vitals, your Yeah, right. So I'm just wondering how you see this, because from talking to you, I already kind of can guess that you and I are probably in alignment on this, but I'm asking the question for the listener, because a lot of practitioners will see this very differently. And they'll be like, you need intermittent fasting, or you need keto, or you need this or that. And from my perspective, I go, I don't know what you need, your body is going to tell us what you need, and whatever diet, you know, sort of regime works for you. I'm fine with and if those three things are true, then it's obviously working. And I'm happy as your clinician, and I want to see how you do that as well. Because you and I both know, we live in a world right now, where nutrition practices and exercise practices have become like religion and politics. And how you see this discussion?

Julie   33:34 

Well, you bring up a great point. And I definitely agree, I think that this is the beauty of using a data driven approach is that our what we're chasing is health in the patient, right. So whatever method it takes to get there in that patient in front of us is the right method. And this is where I think learning about using genomics has been really insightful for me, because we do look at the genes of all of our patients. But regardless of what the genes say, our outcome is not to make recommendations based off of those genes. It's to use those genes to guide us to help make hypotheses about what we think might work best. But then we have to actually test it in the patient. And if it results in improved symptoms, as you say, improved SHMEC and labs and all their numbers, then great, we're moving in the right direction. But if they're, you know, if I have someone who has perfect labs, and they feel great, they don't have symptoms, and they come in and their genes suggest that they have a really high saturated fat intolerance. And they're eating, you know, a keto diet with a good amount of saturated fat, but their labs look good, they feel great. Their energy is great. Everything's pointing in the right direction. I'm not necessarily going to tell them they need to change anything, right. I think it's something that we want to keep in the back of our mind if we notice numbers trending worse or if they want to try some different experiments. We can use those Genes to try different experiments and see, maybe they can feel even better. But at the end of the day, it's all about the data and not getting distracted, because each person is different. And each person probably does respond best to a slightly different diet and lifestyle. And what we know about genetics is helpful. But it's also very early, there's so much more that we're just beginning to learn and so many things that we probably aren't, aren't seeing based on the current science.

Jade  35:26 

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And one of the things that you're bringing up for me with genetic testing is a lot of that stuff, right? A lot of the research in general has been done on strictly cardiovascular exercise if, for example, right, so a lot of the genes, of course, are going to be tailored to that recommendation, because not as much has been done in the realm of resistance training and its effect on gene. So we are kind of limited right now, from my perspective with the genetics simply because we haven't tested a lot of the lifestyles on different genetics. And I agree with a powerful tool, I use it as well, but you have to look at it in context. And one of the things I want to ask you, Julie, since I Well, you had something to say on that it sounds like

Julie   36:09 

I was just gonna say I think the value is two things. One, I think it helps cut down on the number of no one experiments you have to do to help someone find their optimal, because you're making more educated guesses as opposed to Okay, let's try every diet before we get to, to what's right. And then number two, it's actually a really great tool for motivation and behavior change in patients, I've found, when you have data that shows it's personal to them, they're much more likely to be willing to make those behavior changes versus, you know, gluten is a great example, there are so many, I think everyone would benefit from doing a gluten elimination to see how they feel. But for someone who doesn't see the value in it, maybe they don't have severe symptoms, they don't have a strong reason to try that elimination. Now, if they see they have a high genetic risk, they're much more willing, I found to be able to try that experiment. And so I think it can be a really useful behavioral change tool, because there's things that we know in general are probably going to be good for everybody when it comes to these lifestyle recommendations. But when it's personal to you, I think there's a lot more buy in,

Jade  37:14 

it's time for one of our sponsors. And this sponsor is a very exciting one and a new one, timeline nutrition and their supplement. Mito pure. Now if I was going to ask you what is the most important aspect of metabolism, the mitochondria would have to be tops on your list. The mitochondria are the little energy producing factories inside every single one of your cells, they take the end products of the food we eat, they break them down into cellular ATP and provide energy for the entire metabolism. And these mitochondria, if they are healthy and acting appropriately can keep us looking good, feeling good, living longer and functioning better. However, when they are not at optimal function, when they are burning energy in a dirty fashion. When they are damaged. They actually speed cellular aging, they speed up the aging process, we end up suffering from things like fatigue, we end up having all manner of dysfunctions including weight loss resistance and other issues around weight loss. The mitochondria are the most important elements for the metabolism to function optimally lose weight, age appropriately, et cetera. In this compound, Mito pure that timeline Nutrition has developed there is a product called Euro lithium, a Euro lifting a is an interesting compound because it is a post biotic Now what does that mean? A post biotic is a compound that is made from the bacteria in the gut. And so when you eat things like pomegranates, strawberries, walnuts, things with polyphenols like this, they go into the digestive tract, your gut bacteria start working on them and they can create compounds you're living in a is one compound that is in the Mitel pure product. It comes from naturally occurs in nature from this bacteria in our gut that break down the polyphenols from primarily foods like pomegranate, strawberries, et cetera. And it can increase my top algae in mitochondria. So you might say what Jade what is my top algae? My topic today is the ability for mitochondria to repair and regenerate and recycle their proteins and to stay healthy and functional and D age. When we can stimulate my Tophet G we can keep our mitochondria functioning efficiently. We can decrease aging we can increase energy we can improve our ability to lose weight function optimally and stave off diseases of aging. This is what timeline Nutrition has done with their Mitel pure product and the euro lithium a that is in it. This is a very exciting area of research. We have not had the ability to support the mitochondria in the way that we do now with this particular product, you definitely are going to want to check this out. I've been taking the product for several months now, it is one of these products that I really, really strongly recommend to get the product Mito pure, all you have to do is go to timeline nutrition.com backslash next level timeline nutrition.com backslash next level. And let's get back to the show. Yeah, and actually, I can give you I can give the listeners a little bit of background on this. My brother Kyani is also a naturopathic doctor, he's a slightly older to me, he was getting his master's degree, while I was finishing up my undergrad degree but we went to bass deer University got our degrees together. And very early on in the genetic testing, I graduated, what in 2004, we graduated. So it's been it's been a while. But very early on the genetic testing, we did our genetic tests, and I came back with the sprinters gene, I came back as a fast oxidizer of coffee, I'm highlighting the things that were different between Tony and IB and brother, he was a slow oxidizer of caffeine. He also had the endurance gene. And one of the things that that did for us to your point, Julie is that I started going you know what, thank God, I'm not going to run long distances anymore, I'm going to do intervals like, like, I'm a guy who's built more for like very short, very intense bursts where my brother like, likes to run long distance. And what's interesting is once I started, you know, giving myself permission to, you know, do the things that my body likes guided by some of my genetic tests, it was far more motivational for me. So I gave myself a swag and I do still try to run long distance even though I look like a rhinoceros.

Julie   41:55 

We need all types of exercise.

Jade  41:58 

Yeah, exactly. But one of the things I want to ask you, because I'd be remiss having you on, people are gonna be mad if I don't ask you a little bit about how you see because you know, you have a vast experience in athletics, you also have a vast experience and knowledge base in medicine. And one of the things that that I am known for is metabolism, I spent a lot of time educating doctors, personal trainers and people in metabolism. And one of the things that people get confused about that I think you and I should talk about since you have such a athletic background at a high level, is this idea that people don't quite in my mind seem to get that if you're trying to lose weight, right? If you're trying to burn fat, there's a particular way to do that. And if you're trying to perform better, there's a particular way to do that, from my perspective, and they don't always necessarily overlap. So I'm going to give you just sort of my hypothesis and just see if you agree or disagree, because I want to learn from you, perhaps we seem like you and I agree on a lot of stuff. So far, so good. We also may not from my perspective, as an athlete, like if I was working with you, I would essentially say like back when you were doing CrossFit, if you came to me and you were saying, hey Jade, I want to lose weight, and I want to train for you know, the CrossFit Games. From my perspective, I'd be like, Look, if you want to lose weight, we're sort of more in the camp of, you know, looking at calories, letting your body fuel you. But when we are looking at performance, we're more on the idea of let our food fuel the performance. So from my perspective, I oftentimes talk about this idea, if you're going to be an athlete, you don't want to eat less and exercise more, you want to eat more and exercise more, and that this is going to fuel the movement, and you're going to have a better outcome. And if you're wanting to lose weight, you know, sort of you probably want to take one or two sort of approaches either an eat less exercise more approach for a short period of time, because we know the body compensates. But I like more of this eat less exercise less approach, where it's like lots of walking, you know, three to four times resistance training, and then really focusing on diet, you know, as the primary way to lose weight. And I'm just wondering sort of how you see this because I think people would want me to ask you about this. How do you deal with performance enhancing diet and exercise versus fat loss, diet and exercise? Is there a difference for you? Is there any truth to what I'm saying here? Or do you see it differently?

Julie   44:43 

It's a great question. So I think I don't think I see it as differently as you do. I think that one of the things about my experience in CrossFit and you know myself as an athlete, but also working with and seeing people who are doing CrossFit for their own to health and fitness is that generally form does follow function. And so it's just to a different degree. If you're training and competing as an athlete in your training much higher volumes and much more intensity, that means that your caloric intake is going to need to increase quite a bit to support that, and potentially, you know, depending on your specific metabolism and setup, potentially your carbohydrate intake might need to increase. I personally when I've when I was competing, I actually was in a very low carbohydrate intake state, I pretty much only ate things like sweet potatoes, quinoa, like occasionally oatmeal, but I was very, very low carb, and it did serve me well, my body adapted well to that. But I think for the average person who's trying to lose weight, I think that all types of exercise are important. And I think that, like you mentioned that resistance exercise, high intensity, high intensity intervals are really a great way to, you know, trigger your body to be in more of a fat burning or fat loss state. And so very much like a CrossFit exercise program where you're doing high intensity, functional movements, lots of variety. But then a nutrition, like you said, is a really key piece of that. And I think that's part of what people miss is just how important the nutrition piece is. And if the goal is body composition, nutrition really is late, that's what they say abs are made in the kitchen right now and in the gym. And so that's where I think it can be overlooked, oftentimes, and where the precision does come into play. So if your goal really is a specific body composition, then you may have to get really specific with your intake tracking your food, tracking your macronutrients, and finding what that optimal balance looks like for you. But I'm, I'm more of a fan of I think they differ more in degree than then, you know, specific approaches.

Jade  46:57 

Yeah. Love that. Yeah. So from my perspective, with, with metabolism in general, how do you when you're dealing with someone who is let's say, I just want to get like some basics from your, let's say, let's take two individuals and just say, um, you know, there's, you know, Jade, and let's say, I'm wanting to, you know, function better, I want to, I want to get ready for the CrossFit Games, right? Versus is Jade, who wants to lose weight? What would be like, just general difference in nutrition there? From your perspective, if you were like, hey, Jade, here's what I want you to eat, if you're going to be training CrossFit. And here's how much how many times a week, I want you training versus if you want to lose weight, here's a basic plan. And the reason I'm asking you this to like, I just think with your background, you know, it is really cool to be able to have someone like you who's lived this from both sides. And you know, because there's, there's this idea, just as an aside, like there's different experts, right? Some experts are just role models, you know, they do it. And so you can try to do what they do that rarely works. Others are results getters, you know, they're coaches, they get results. And then others are researchers. And every once in a while we get someone like you, who's a researcher a result together and a role model all at once. And those are the experts that I really like just to see how they think about this. So Jade, the Cross Fitter, what would be my initial, you know, sort of prescription and Jade, the fat guy who wants to lose weight? What would be my initial prescription?

Julie   48:31 

Sure. So the Jade who's trying to compete in the CrossFit Games would probably be training, I'm guessing. I mean, I don't know what the kids are doing these days, but I'm guessing probably five ish hours a day four to five hours a day in the gym. So it's a lot of volume. And I would, I would, you know titrate the nutrient intake appropriately based on your weight based on your activity level, and then adjust it based on your symptoms, I think there are still a lot of high level athletes that are probably under eating and are experiencing symptoms from overtraining and under eating. And I would start I would still start a general macronutrient intake somewhere around 4030 30 for that person, making sure they're getting enough protein like a high end of protein intake with the goals of muscle intake or muscle building, and making sure they're ideally getting quality calories. I still am a very strong believer in the quality of food regardless of how much you're taking in. I think sometimes we have to get creative, but I think processed foods, no matter. You know, it's garbage in, garbage out. And if you're an athlete, that the higher quality food that you can eat, the better that's going to be overall for your performance. If you're Jade whose average person looking to do CrossFit and lose some weight or become healthier, I'm thinking you're gonna go to a CrossFit affiliate. You're going to do an hour class five days a week, and in that hour class the the workout of intensity is probably The last thing somewhere between, you know, five and 30 minutes each time. And so I would still likely start off with a 4030 30 percentage depending on, you know, what your goals are, what your what your where you're starting from, if you have any insulin resistance or, or other factors to consider, protein intake will probably be a little bit less, but still, you know, still probably more than most people are getting. So I think at a minimum point seven grams of protein per pound of body weight is a good rule of thumb to start at, and then going up from there based on activity level, and then building, you know, the rest of the diet around that. And again, quality is really important, I think in both cases.

Jade  50:43 

Yeah, I love that. So if I'm hearing you, right, for the weight loss perspective, and yeah, how important one to ten is resistance training here, like, you know,

Julie   50:51 

extremely important.

Jade  50:52 

that's a big one. And then, well, how important one to 10 would be protein. From your perspective, obviously, you're drawing a big distinction there to make sure you have protein.

Julie   51:02 

I think it's very important. Yes, I think those are the two most important things. When we're trying to shift body composition and, and sleep and recovery. Of course, if you're, if you're doing all this, but you're sleeping five hours a night, you're just working against yourself, that's going to be very difficult to lose body fat.

Jade  51:17 

Yeah, I love that. And if you guys are listening, what's really interesting, right? So here we have someone who's very educated and very experienced in both these levels. And she's also saying 4030 30 40% carbohydrates, which a lot of people nowadays, would you say that's high carbohydrate, I'm actually in agreement with you on that as well, especially when you're outputting. Especially when you're doing something like CrossFit, you're going to you know, most people are going to need those, you know, those extra carbohydrates. So we're running up on time, and I want to be respectful of your time, Julie, but one of the things I do want to mention real quick for you listeners, is you notice that Julie talks about precision medicine, so wild health is who she does that through and they also are offering you all you listeners a discount so that discount code is Tita 20, right Julie? Teta24, for wild health, if you really want to, you know, sort of understand and work with someone like Julie or Julie herself through Wild Health to get this sort of precision medicine. And the final thing I want to ask you about Julie's just, I always just like to do this, because you're so knowledgeable here and obviously think about this stuff a lot. But as it pertains to the health and fitness industry, like I just want to get a little bit about what final question here like what is your sort of pet peeve and or things that you think we need to you know, things that you get passionate about and heated up. Jade, I wish this was a little different, or I really want people to know this, and pay attention to this, I'm just curious on the thing that you're most passionate about, or the thing that you really want to get out there for people to understand.

Julie   53:02 

I think one of my biggest pet peeves is processed food being portrayed as healthy. So like one example of this is the, you know, this trend of the vegan burgers like the I'm not gonna name specific names, but those are, are portrayed as very healthy, right, because they're quote unquote, vegan, but really, they're just cross a bunch of processed food. And so I think, you know, if we could all get on board, you can go no matter what diet you're talking about, we can all agree, I think that real food is going to be better for our bodies better for our health and processed food. And, and the claims that are made on so many of these products, I think could definitely raise my blood pressure a little bit.

Jade  53:52 

Yeah, and one thing I'll say here, that I think it's interesting to your point that I know it's frustrating for a lot of us, some of you listeners may not get this, but I'm sure it's frustrating for Julie, it is for me as well. One of the things that you all should know who are listening to this about nutritional research, it's very hard to do nutritional research, because it's hard to take humans and actually do randomized control trials over a long term, why we're controlling so many elements as the diet and one of the things I think you're speaking to here, Julie, that I also suspect is a huge issue is what we call long latency, diseases and or issues that pop up. And what we mean by that is that if you're getting improper nutrients now, we can't necessarily prove this because it's so difficult to do these long term studies. But some of us in the field and it sounds like Julie and I are aligned on this particular point. I do suspect that the lack of quality nutrients, the nutrient density of the diets being so low is creating long latency issues later on and that perhaps this is why so many people are eventually dealing with mood disorders or diabetes or libido issues or dementia or cancer or heart disease, that the nutrients that we take in are incredibly important. So one of the things Julie is saying here, and I agree with you, Julie, is that you really do want to pay attention to food quality, not just food, quantity, and that that's really important. And I guess the final thing was say, what, what would you say is the best way, you know, for people to sort of look at that for me, you know, obviously, it's eat whole foods, eat real foods as much as possible. From my perspective, I have this acronym that I use called Lean, that's basically like, try to eat lower calorie if possible. That's the L lower in energy. E is enough taste but not too much taste because if you eat too much highly palatable foods, you're going to crave more of those palate palatable foods. And then the next is a is appetite suppressant. And then the last one, and is what Julie's talking about nutrient density. And so you want to eat lean meals as much as possible. And from my perspective, that's all the essence soup, salad, scramble, shakes, stir fries, skillet meals, you know, these are like vegetables and lean meats, you know, and these foods are mainly what we should be eating, but I don't know if you would agree with that or not, Julie?

Julie   56:20 

That's right. I love all your acronyms. These are great. I Yes, I totally agree. I think it's it's vegetables and meats, and nuts and seeds. I mean, CrossFit does a great definition of this in their fitness and 100 words, it's eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar, and it's that simple. I don't think we have to make it more complicated than that.

Jade  56:43 

Yeah, I love it. Julie, thank you so much for being on any, any final words that you want to leave people with. And also I want to know, for the listeners, just make sure you tell them where they can find you. You're such a, an amazing source of knowledge and education for all of us. So any final things you want to say? And then just tell us where they can find you, obviously, Wild Health and don't forget the code Teta 20, for that, but any other things you want to say, and where can people find you?

Julie   57:10 

Oh, well, no, I've just really enjoyed speaking with you. And it's cool that we have so much in common and are so aligned on this, I hope that you know, more people embrace this and that we have systems, in our culture in our medical system in our food system that support this because I think that's what makes it so hard to implement. And so confusing for people is just how, how this is not the natural way to live. In the world that we have today. It's very easy to live in a in a way that does not support health. So I hope that you know, the more people understand this, the more that we can make it easy to live this way and more accessible. And to find me my Instagram is at Julie Foucher, I have a podcast called pursuing health. And then Wild Health of course is wildhealth.com. And there they have a podcast and Instagram is at Wild Health MD as well.

Jade  58:05 

Yeah, and it's just so you guys know it's FOUCHER Julie. Julie. I don't follow you on there, Julie, but I'll make sure I follow you. I really love this wild health.com as well. And Julie Foucher, thank you so much for your time. We so appreciate you.

Julie   58:23 

Thank you so much Jade, I appreciate it.

Jade  58:28 

You've been listening to the next level human podcast with Dr. Jade Teta. If you enjoyed this episode, please make sure you subscribe and consider leaving a review. You make the biggest difference when you pass on your lessons and inspire others. That's why reviews like this are so powerful. Your words may be the only ones that resonate for someone else. Please remember the information in this podcast is for educational purposes only. Always consult your personal Physician or Therapist. We're making any lifestyle changes. And finally, thank you for where you are in the world. And the difference you make.