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(0:00) Introduction to Health Decoded and the importance of change (1:26) Exclusive offer for Health Decoded listeners (2:04) Understanding hormones and their impact on vitality and health (7:00) Daily stressors and their impact on health (10:27) Pillars of core restoration before hormone therapy (15:56) Comprehensive functional testing explained by Dr. Alessi (20:25) In-depth look at therapeutic testosterone and hormone replacement therapy (30:08) Bio identical hormones explained (32:32) The importance of data in optimizing health (33:12) Normal vs. optimized health and resources for listeners (34:09) Listener engagement and how to submit Q&A (34:20) Closing remarks and gratitude00:00:00
So then if you don't do it, you're choosing to stay where you are.
00:00:03
And that's really the the the kind of message for everyone is, like, if you don't make a
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decision to change, you will stay where you are, and that's a choice too.
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So, you know, it's all about, like, analyzing what is it that you're trying to achieve, how
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do we get there, if we can get there naturally, fantastic.
00:00:19
If not, how do we do it in the safest, most appropriate way?
00:00:24
Welcome to Health Decoded, your number one source for real health information with your
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host, doctor Alessi and Matt Tack.
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Hey, Health Decoded listeners.
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Doctor Alessi here.
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Let me ask you a serious question.
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Welcome back to another episode of Health Decoded.
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I'm your host, doctor Alessi.
00:02:10
Your cohost, Matt Tack.
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And we're doing something cool today.
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We haven't been in the same room for a podcast in a while, man.
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So this is It's been a minute.
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This is nice.
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You know, we're a little bit leg to leg here, but I, I don't mind.
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Well, thank you for joining us today.
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If you're tuning in, this is gonna be a fun episode, something that we've been really
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trying to push towards within our clinic and within what we're doing to help people and is
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really the topic of hormones and hormone imbalance, hormone dysfunction, whatever you
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want to call it, is it's almost like becoming the new normal, right?
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To find a patient who comes in and runs blood work with us or runs any type of labs and has
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perfect hormones is actually more rare than the other way around.
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So, really important because if you're not aware, hormones are basically the vitality,
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right?
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Especially the androgens, things like testosterone and estrogen.
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These are what give us energy, what give us life.
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And then other things like cortisol is very important to have within check as well because
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that can steal from other hormones too.
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I was just going through this the other day as I was training with one of our interns about
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like the way that hormones kind of go through the cascade.
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Your body uses things to synthesize them, cholesterol, vitamin D, right?
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And it creates these hormones, but then they go through this cascade, right?
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It creates the first hormones and then says, okay, I've got enough of that.
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I'm gonna go into now what's needed next.
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But when we're in a heightened stress state all the time, our body's gonna prioritize shifting
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all of that towards cortisol to keep us alert and attentive and in that sympathetic
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dominance.
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And it'll take from other hormones.
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And so, there's also cases where people will have more like progesterone or pregnenolone or
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estradiol versus testosterone.
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And the body's just shifting to what it needs for that.
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So when we're out of balance or dysregulated, the hormones will be as well.
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And then that's just a snowball, right?
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So it's kind of a double edged sword.
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So, you know, the topic or the point of what we wanted to get into today is, let's talk a
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little bit about why are hormones off?
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I kind of got into it a bit there, but then we'll talk about what we're doing and kind of
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how we're approaching this you know, naturally but also holistically, but as well as
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incorporating some of the replacement medication that we do as well.
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So, yeah, let's get right into it.
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So, you know, the reality is, like I said, it is the new normal nowadays to see people with
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these dysfunctional hormone rhythms or imbalances.
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And the reason isn't necessarily that our biology is different.
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Our biology is the same as it's been for the last hundred years.
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But why do we have half the testosterone of our grandfathers?
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Right?
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And the difference is the environment.
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Right?
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I think you would agree is we live in a plastic world.
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Everything is plastic, coated in plastic, plastics in the food and the water.
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Endocrine disruptors are basically in everything.
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Right?
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I mean, essentially we're wearing plastic right now, which I try to wear cotton as much as
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possible.
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But chronic stress, right?
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Exposure to toxins in the air and in the environment, depleted nutrition.
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So, our food, we talked about this in the episode a long time ago, man.
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The food has half the nutrients in it that it did, you know, a hundred years ago, fifty years
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ago because things are just so heavily processed and mono cropped that it's starting
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to now disrupt the endocrine system from the inside.
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So, you know, again hormones aren't, they're not the bad guys.
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Even when there's too much of one, it's not that that's the issue.
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It is that those are messengers that are then being, telling your body to do something the
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wrong way.
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Or they're telling the wrong message, right, at their inappropriate time.
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So, again, modern drivers of these dysfunctions are going to be chronic stress.
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So, we'll get that cortisol dysregulation.
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Toxins can often lead to things like estrogen dominance.
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Sleep deprivation is a huge one, right?
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Men who are chronically low on sleep are not going to have enough testosterone growth
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hormone.
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And then poor diet, we know.
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So, again, there was a study out of the journal of endocrinology and metabolism.
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This was done in 2022.
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Said that environmental and behavioral factors are now the dominant contributors to hormone
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decline before the age of 50.
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So, kind of a massive stat there, basically telling us that, you know, in a good way,
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you're in control, Right?
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You can control your environment.
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You can control your behavior.
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And so, if those are the things leading to this broken system, then it's kind of in our hands
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or your hands, right?
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Whoever the person is to take action.
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And so, you know, that's where we always talk about like, what is the first step is is also,
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like, data.
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So I'll let you talk a bit about, like, the data side, right, and and kind of how we
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approach that or how you've approached that in your experience too.
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Yeah.
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I'll just taking a step back though for just a quick minute.
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I think it is you know, I always like putting it in the very specific examples of how these
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daily daily things interrupt our life because we need to be cognizant of how we approach each
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day and we're, you know, we always talk about habits.
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Right?
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And what is the structure of that?
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What is chronic stress?
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Right?
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We say chronic stress.
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So like and when you're in that elevated system of like your cortisol levels are constantly
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being tapped out throughout the day, what does that actually look like?
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And a lot of times it it comes from stemming from we're not actually getting the sleep that
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we need to.
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And usually, we're waking up with kids in our face, right?
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And me as a parent, I'm waking up with a kid in my face and heightened stress right away, Get
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out of my bed, or something like that, right?
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So that could be number one, right?
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I'm not giving up before my kids, and therefore I have have elevated stress.
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Get out the door, we're already running five to ten minutes late, right?
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I'm late for work, right?
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Those are elevated cortisol stressors, right?
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When you're going into an environment, you're strained, right?
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Your central nervous system is so tightly wound, even before you get into work.
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So that's an example of a stressor, right?
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Then the next thing you're doing is like, I need that cup of coffee, right?
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I need caffeine in my system, Before you're even hydrating yourself with something that is
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going to get you in the parasympathetic state of just, Hey, I need to decompress for a
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minute.
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I just need to hydrate my body.
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You naturally go into another elevated cortisol level of, Hey, I need to decompress these,
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interfere these sleep receptors, and heightened with caffeine, right?
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And so then you're caffeinating yourself throughout the day.
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So all these different things are building up throughout the day.
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Hey, I don't have enough time to work out today, right?
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Then you cannot recapture that, right?
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Get yourself decompressed a little bit, get those cortisol levels down, get again back into
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the parasympathetic state.
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So all these things then are a dictation of the chronic stress load that you're just bringing
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down as oxidative stress loads on your body, and that's where things really interfere,
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right?
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I don't have as good a judgment as I need to when I'm eating that at that point.
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And so then I'm putting highly inflamed substances into my body.
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I'm not staying hydrated throughout the day.
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Very basic principles then that are elevating these stress loads, because the whole goal is
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really to eliminate more stress and to bring in more of this parasympathetic state where then I
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I'm not woo sah throughout the day, that's not what we're trying to get at.
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The point is to ebb and flow with it so it's not all oxidative stress 100% of the time every
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single day.
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And so those are really important things to really understand of what is actually
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interfering, right?
00:10:00
They're all interferences, but how am I building the baseline and the disciplines to
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just be like, hey, look, how can I just breathe for a minute?
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And so, where do we go with this then of like, what's first, right?
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And healing that system through HRT.
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And that's really hormone, we call it hormone optimization therapy, hormone replacement
00:10:25
therapy.
00:10:27
We can dive into all of it, but the reality is this, in functional medicine, we always start
00:10:33
with the restoration before the replacement.
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And you can't build hormone balance on a broken foundation.
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And that's where I go back to what I just prefaced, right?
00:10:43
So what are the core restoration pillars?
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And that, at the end of the day, blood sugar regulation, I think is a really important thing
00:10:53
to look at.
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Number one, low glycemic meals, protein every four to six hours.
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That's something that I build in on a daily basis.
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If it doesn't have 30 to 40 grams of protein in my main meal group, you probably shouldn't eat
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it.
00:11:08
So intermittent fasting when appropriate is highly beneficial.
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I like actually bleeding that from my nightly routine into the morning is the best way to do
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that.
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For intermittent fasting, you usually easily can get fourteen to sixteen hours, of
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intermittent fasting when you when you take when you stop at a certain time each night and
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bleed that into the next day.
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Number two, gut health.
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So, health is really important because that is under the secretion of our food is really
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showing the body how it's going entertain a lot of these chemicals that are then released, you
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have hormones that are then dictated by our food supply.
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That's a really big component of that.
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Our gut secretes that and then disperses that.
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So are you getting vitamin D as something?
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Vitamin D isn't actually a supplement, it's a hormone.
00:12:00
So, you're secreting vitamin D to elevate sleep, to elevate performance throughout the
00:12:06
day, to alertness.
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It's actually going to dictate how the body goes in and out of sleep.
00:12:13
So like if you have high vitamin C supply, it actually can secrete the melatonin that you
00:12:18
need when you go into a dark environment to actually get deeper sleep so that you're
00:12:22
properly going through stages one through three and your deep slow wave cycles.
00:12:27
So those are things to think about, right?
00:12:29
So you want to remove inflammatory foods, gluten, dairy, seed oils.
00:12:36
These are some of the things that you just want to monitor, right?
00:12:39
It's not saying you have to fully eliminate, but you do have to monitor them and the
00:12:42
exposure of them or whole foods.
00:12:46
With probiotics, glutamine.
00:12:48
And then zinc is another form that you want to build some of these supplements that we just
00:12:55
naturally cater to through our protocols that we built here in clinic, right?
00:13:02
So, we have these supplements that we actually build on, they're extremely valuable.
00:13:06
But this is the way to incorporate some basis, baseline of building the system back to really
00:13:15
get proper hormone levels.
00:13:17
So, hormone optimization therapy, this is the baseline, the foundation of it all.
00:13:21
Stress reset, breath work, cold therapy, heat therapy is another thing that I use on a weekly
00:13:28
basis, two to three times a week getting in the sauna.
00:13:31
Sleep optimization is another thing as far as how you're preparing for sleep.
00:13:36
And then when you go to sleep, are you consistently going to sleep in the general
00:13:40
thirty to forty five minute timeframe every single night?
00:13:44
Studies have shown proof that that is a significant impact to your overall longevity.
00:13:51
And what we say longevity is your health span, right?
00:13:54
Not your lifespan, but your health span.
00:13:57
And so thinking of that.
00:13:59
And then number five, toxic reduction.
00:14:01
You definitely want to look at that in terms of what toxins are you putting into your body.
00:14:08
Those are anythings or polyphenols that eliminate the BPA, supporting detox.
00:14:16
This is one of the major things that we do, is that the reality is you're not going to just
00:14:22
get rid of all the toxins that you have, right?
00:14:25
They're hitting you, you know, these five gs factors are hitting you nonstop, and you have
00:14:31
PMF, you have to support WiFi and all these things in your house to just operate on a daily
00:14:37
basis if you're working.
00:14:39
So oh, you have to eliminate everything.
00:14:42
The reality is you need to go through a proper detox.
00:14:46
So what is that detox?
00:14:47
Well, sometimes it's eliminating social, right?
00:14:49
That's a detox of social.
00:14:51
But then it's also actually a detox that we implement, which is our repair and clear detox
00:14:56
of really getting in and just cleaning out the liver, the gut, all those systems, I would say
00:15:03
as much as two times a year, but for sure annually, that you need to go through a really
00:15:10
clean gut detox.
00:15:12
Those help in just reducing those level of toxins.
00:15:15
I'll leave you with this.
00:15:18
The American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine in 2021 said, Lifestyle and nutritional
00:15:23
interventions remain the first line of therapy for the endocrine restoration before
00:15:29
pharmacological treatment.
00:15:32
And what that means is pills aren't a plan.
00:15:35
We have a billboard right now, and that's the reality.
00:15:38
Pills are not always the plan, right?
00:15:41
But proper supplements through whole food sources and supplementation are a really big
00:15:48
component of this.
00:15:49
If your hormones are off, fixing your gut, stress, sleep does more than any prescription
00:15:54
ever can.
00:15:56
Yeah, agree with that, man.
00:15:57
That's good.
00:15:58
It's interesting.
00:15:59
The first study we talked about said that the environment and behavior are the biggest
00:16:04
factors contributing to hormone disruption.
00:16:06
And then in the second study, you said environment, lifestyle and nutrition remain the
00:16:11
first line in therapy.
00:16:12
So it's like, what's breaking it is also the fix, right?
00:16:15
It's pretty cut and dry with that.
00:16:17
You also touched on the cold exposure thing.
00:16:20
I know we've done cold plunge and a lot of people are doing that and it's kind of like do
00:16:24
the first thing, the first hard thing in the morning.
00:16:27
Of sets up that stress resilience for the rest of the day.
00:16:30
I think there's validity to that, you know, but without overdoing it to create more stress,
00:16:34
right?
00:16:34
So there's a dose dependency as well.
00:16:38
So, you know, again, all really good stuff.
00:16:41
We touch on hormone replacement therapy and that's something we do within our clinics, but
00:16:46
it's never the first thing we do.
00:16:48
I'm always like, Okay, how can we turn the needle or how can we move the needle in the
00:16:51
right direction naturally with our lifestyle, with nutrition, with supplementation?
00:16:56
Things that are not going to mess internally with systems because medication does.
00:17:01
But when it's necessary, it's necessary, right?
00:17:04
If it's impacting someone's life to the point that they can't function, then it's like, Hey,
00:17:08
you've gotten to this point.
00:17:09
We need to do something a little bit more intense at that point.
00:17:13
So, we always take a strategic approach, functional testing.
00:17:18
Okay?
00:17:18
So, we run comprehensive blood work.
00:17:20
If you've been to the clinic, you understand the concept of what comprehensive means versus
00:17:25
like my standard check-in, right, with conventional doc.
00:17:30
They run a cholesterol, they run maybe a couple thyroid hormones and your blood sugar and they
00:17:35
say you're good, right?
00:17:36
And that's like, that's such a myopic view.
00:17:39
It's so like small versus like the comprehensive nature of what we test for with
00:17:45
the free total testosterone, estrogen, progesterone, DHEA, sex hormone binding
00:17:50
globulin, fasting insulin, cortisol, full thyroid panel with the antibodies associated.
00:17:55
It's such a deep dive that And then we take it a step further and we educate all our patients
00:18:01
on like, Hey, what are we looking at here?
00:18:03
That way you know what's going on inside your body, not just me telling you your numbers are
00:18:07
here.
00:18:07
People are like, What does that mean?
00:18:09
So, I would say that that's like my favorite part of what we do is when people leave here
00:18:14
like, wow, now I actually understand what like my biology is doing.
00:18:18
Because most people don't remember high school biology and anatomy, right?
00:18:23
They don't remember the biophysiology and they haven't studied it at a level that they can
00:18:26
really comprehend blood work.
00:18:28
So, you know, that educational piece is vital for them to then be able to take that
00:18:32
information, make sound decisions for themselves and their family.
00:18:36
Right?
00:18:37
Like, think all the time, like, hey, like, my kids are growing up in this plastic world that
00:18:41
is like, we were kind of at the cusp of it, right?
00:18:44
Like, as millennials, like, we were the first to really be exposed to I just saw a status,
00:18:48
like, we were the first to live without the technology that it is now and the social media
00:18:53
and with it, right?
00:18:55
As we like grew up as teenagers and in college and stuff.
00:18:57
And so it's like, our kids are not going to know that world before where it was like the
00:19:02
boredom of like having to like be bored for a little bit and come up with ideas and go
00:19:06
outside and play.
00:19:07
That's something we have to be very proponent of or else they're going to just be a product
00:19:13
of the system of technology and social media and stuff.
00:19:15
And we know the downfalls of that.
00:19:18
So, also look at, you know, we do urine tests like a Dutch test or even like an organic acids
00:19:23
test for metabolism and metabolites, as well as nutrient panels and inflammation and toxicity
00:19:29
testing too.
00:19:30
I like how you talked about doing like a structured detox, like our six week program,
00:19:35
the Repair and Clear, like once or twice a year.
00:19:37
But detox is something we should be doing daily as well, right?
00:19:41
Social detoxing from like social media, even from like people sometimes, Getting some space,
00:19:49
detoxing from food as well.
00:19:51
So, some level of supplementation to support daily detox.
00:19:55
Your body's doing it all the time.
00:19:56
So, it's not like you just say, Oh, once a year, I'm going to clean the attic, right?
00:19:59
Or I'm going clean the garage.
00:20:00
But if you threw trash away regularly, right?
00:20:02
You kind of get ahead of that.
00:20:03
So it helps.
00:20:05
And then, you know, when it comes to therapeutic testosterone, therapeutic hormones
00:20:10
or HRT, HOT, whatever we want to call it.
00:20:13
Again, the approach we use is like, okay, someone comes in and just we'll use an example.
00:20:19
Say they have a low free and total testosterone, right?
00:20:23
The numbers are one thing.
00:20:25
The symptoms and the effect on their life is kind of more important to be honest.
00:20:29
But say they're experiencing mild symptoms of brain fog, energy is low, they're feeling kind
00:20:36
of fatigued.
00:20:37
Okay, your testosterone is low, how can we bump these numbers and your health naturally first?
00:20:43
Let's try that, right?
00:20:43
So, we'll do more than likely a detox, again, like reset, kind of clean things out.
00:20:48
Then we start using certain herbs, adaptogens and supplements to, and peptides even to kind
00:20:54
of boost this on more of a natural approach.
00:20:57
And then retest.
00:20:58
Some people, we see that they get great change over maybe a couple 100 points on the score,
00:21:04
the numbers of the testosterone or whatever hormone and they feel better.
00:21:08
And then it's like, all right, that's a win, right?
00:21:09
Let's maintain this now.
00:21:11
Some people, they don't respond like that and it's like, hey, the natural approach maybe
00:21:16
would have worked five years ago if we got ahead of this, but it's at a point now where
00:21:20
you've gotten to a bit of depletion where we need to go into more of a hormone optimization
00:21:25
therapy.
00:21:26
And that's where we work with the providers within our clinics to support that.
00:21:32
So basically, everybody's gonna do some type of natural approach.
00:21:36
Not everybody's gonna do the hormonal approach, but everybody who does a hormonal approach like
00:21:41
replacement does a natural approach too.
00:21:43
And so that's what we call supportive therapy.
00:21:45
So it's like getting on hormones, but also adaptogens to make sure that we're in balance
00:21:50
as well and we are managing the stress so that we're not just know, band aiding it, right?
00:21:56
Because we can get stuck in band aid approach as well.
00:21:58
And it's all about like, what is the cause?
00:22:01
If I give someone hormones to replace hormones, but I don't fix, help them fix the stress in
00:22:05
their life, it's kind of a miss, right?
00:22:07
Because then it's just gonna be, again, a band aid.
00:22:09
So, all about the natural approaches first and then hormone replacement when necessary and
00:22:17
then the combination of the two for more of a comprehensive fix.
00:22:21
And that's really what we do within our total care program is, you know, hey, what do you
00:22:26
need and what could help, right?
00:22:28
And so, labs tell us all the data we need.
00:22:32
Lifestyle, you know, we have people fill out a pretty comprehensive form that's like, what is
00:22:36
your lifestyle?
00:22:37
What do you do on a daily basis that's affecting this?
00:22:40
And then we guide them from there.
00:22:42
And then we really, really focus on the education so that you have a clear
00:22:46
understanding of your daily decisions.
00:22:48
Like Matt was talking about at the very beginning, like, are you waking up every single
00:22:52
morning, stressed to the nines, alarms blaring, kids are crazy, and then you're drinking coffee
00:22:57
and then you're out the door late running to work, stressed out for you're late to a
00:23:01
meeting, right?
00:23:02
That's a fantastic way to develop diabetes, insulin resistance, heart attack and all that
00:23:07
stuff, right?
00:23:07
That's what leads to that.
00:23:09
We've all seen those stories.
00:23:11
So again, it's dialing back on a lot of those things, focusing on the little things we can
00:23:16
implement daily, free things, right?
00:23:18
I can meditate, I can do breath work, I can get up earlier, right?
00:23:21
All these things are good.
00:23:23
And so again, like we don't want to use the hormones as a crutch, but as a tool.
00:23:27
And so, I mean, if you're cool with it, I mean, I'll share a little bit of how I use hormone
00:23:34
therapy, but you can talk a little bit about yours as well.
00:23:37
And I think we're both similar in that it's like we both use testosterone optimization
00:23:43
therapy, but we're not skimping on physical activity, exercise, eating healthy, protein,
00:23:49
supplementation, all of that.
00:23:51
So, if you want, man, share a little bit about, I guess, kind of how you use it because there's
00:23:56
a lot of listeners that are in a similar phase of life as us where they have young kids and
00:24:01
things like that.
00:24:01
Yeah, for sure.
00:24:02
So for me, I'm a little bit different.
00:24:04
I'm a little older than Alfred too.
00:24:06
So Doctor.
00:24:07
Alessi uses it for the purposes of definitely for optimization.
00:24:12
I use it out of necessity.
00:24:14
So for me, I'm 40 and I saw probably around 34, 35, I saw my testosterone levels essentially
00:24:23
plummet, right?
00:24:24
So I was operating in the 200s, severe brain fog, right?
00:24:28
And this is like what I thought was just me.
00:24:31
Right?
00:24:31
When you're in that scenario, you're like, man, is this am I just am I the only one on planet
00:24:37
Earth that's dealing with this?
00:24:38
And then like, come to find out, it's like, wow, so many people have that you had that same
00:24:43
story.
00:24:44
But by 03:00, I was out.
00:24:46
Like every day, like, I mean, I had just a fog over my eyes and I dealt with this for like a
00:24:52
number of years.
00:24:52
I mean, was something that you like push through, you're like, oh, this is something
00:24:56
that's like normal.
00:24:58
Not understanding that it's it's actually not normal and it's against like the biology of
00:25:04
time, right?
00:25:05
I should be operating more efficiently.
00:25:07
And so for me, I decided to dig into it.
00:25:10
I wanted to really dig in what was actually physically going on and exercise was a key
00:25:14
still part of my life.
00:25:15
It was something that I did, but like I did it really early in the morning.
00:25:19
So that actually catered to my depletion by actually 3PM.
00:25:22
It was working against me because I didn't have the energy to sustain testosterone levels to
00:25:28
get me through an entire day.
00:25:31
And so, once I dug into my blood work and really understood what was actually going on, I
00:25:41
I had to make a decision.
00:25:42
Right?
00:25:43
And for me, it was actually I I had a clean enough diet even at that time where I thought I
00:25:49
was getting everything through whole food sources.
00:25:52
I now that's know that's literally almost physically impossible, right?
00:25:57
That you can get everything through whole food sources.
00:26:00
I really don't believe that's the case.
00:26:02
I think you should get most of things through whole food sources, but not everything
00:26:06
naturally with our natural food supply and within our supply chain to get access to food
00:26:13
that you will get everything in a day's allowance to optimize what you call.
00:26:18
So, I had to restructure my habits in terms of like how I operated.
00:26:22
And then my narrative and my story, things completely shifted.
00:26:27
Two years ago when I decided to actually look and get deep into the gut, and then
00:26:34
specifically on the outside of that, going through a detox and then building in the proper
00:26:39
supplementation of increasing my vitamin D supply, which I since have, increasing omegas,
00:26:47
which I have.
00:26:48
Right?
00:26:48
And so I was naturally over time taking inflammation out of my body, which then
00:26:54
obviously repurposed things for HRT or HOT.
00:26:59
And that hormone replacement therapy allowed me then, I do bio identical.
00:27:04
So like I choose to do it subcutaneously.
00:27:07
I know that's not like the way everyone does it.
00:27:10
We have various forms that we can offer you here at the clinic.
00:27:13
But for me, I like SubQ.
00:27:15
I can manage it appropriately.
00:27:17
And I've actually now got to the point over the past two years is where I really dialed in my
00:27:22
supplementation, but now I actually microdose.
00:27:26
So I'm actually doing a daily supply of subcutaneous hormone replacement therapy.
00:27:33
And I won't name the units, but I do it in very small measurements that are very hyper focused
00:27:39
and detailed.
00:27:41
Whereas before, I was doing two to three times a week.
00:27:45
I think the more you actually do it and can implement that, it's actually the better.
00:27:51
So I guess I will say, because it doesn't really matter, I do about 12 on an insulin
00:27:58
syringe, and then every day that's subcutaneous either in the glutes or behind my arms.
00:28:04
And that actually has drastically helped me.
00:28:07
And again, what I love about it, it's bio identical to the bodice.
00:28:11
So they use coconut oils, MCT coconut, which is MCT, grape seed oils.
00:28:17
You can use sesame seed, which actually is the seed oil that I use for mine.
00:28:23
But these are just all things that you don't have to be scared of.
00:28:26
I think that a lot of people see it as like, Oh, this is steroid you're putting into your
00:28:32
body.
00:28:32
No, it's absolutely not.
00:28:34
It's bio identical to the body.
00:28:37
The body is delivering it just like it's its natural testosterone that you are actually
00:28:42
supplying it.
00:28:43
It's in aid of, right?
00:28:44
And then that's the level of optimization.
00:28:47
Why you might ask of why I do it on a daily basis and microdose loads?
00:28:51
Well, I'll tell you, one thing I learned from research too, and GLP-1s and peptides is that
00:28:58
daily use is always best, right?
00:29:00
In smaller increments, daily use is best.
00:29:03
And so, it's advised to three to obviously four times a week for hormone replacement therapy
00:29:10
and peptides.
00:29:12
But for me, I like doing very small dosage because then it's managed appropriately and
00:29:17
what I can consider, I can capture always the half life of it.
00:29:21
Testosterone has a half life, usually it ends twenty four to twenty seven hours, so then that
00:29:26
means when I have a daily dosage, I can capture the full half life of what that testosterone
00:29:32
actually has.
00:29:33
So that's why I do it that way.
00:29:36
Not everyone needs to do it that way.
00:29:38
There's number of different ways that we can build into the kind of the coaching side of
00:29:43
things of how it's appropriate for you and sustainable for you.
00:29:47
But you know, that's the nature of my story is that I saw significant effects to like how it
00:29:53
was detrimental to my health of not doing this.
00:29:57
Now that I have chosen to do this and I've gotten through about, five to six years of
00:30:02
this, it's completely, completely changed the way, I operate on a day to day basis.
00:30:08
Yeah, yeah, that's huge man.
00:30:10
And you touched on bio identical just to make sure people are aware, right?
00:30:14
Hormones, and we talked about this, they're messengers, so they're chemical messengers in
00:30:17
your body.
00:30:18
It's all they are.
00:30:19
Your body produces them.
00:30:20
And so all that bio identical means is that it's same structure of molecules creating that
00:30:25
bio identical hormone than the one that your body produces.
00:30:29
So it's not synthetic, right?
00:30:30
Science has come a long way to be able to provide these things in a more natural form.
00:30:35
That being said, any time you put something exogenously into the body, it will disrupt your
00:30:42
internal cascade of how things are produced.
00:30:44
So, that's just to be understood.
00:30:47
But it's all about like what is the goal and what is it worth to people?
00:30:51
Know?
00:30:52
And so when I get pushback from men that are like, Oh, I don't know if I want to get onto
00:30:55
that or commit to that yet.
00:30:57
It's like, Hey man, you don't have to commit to anything you don't want to, but what do you
00:31:01
want?
00:31:01
Right?
00:31:01
And if you want energy and if you want to be high level of vitality and have that drive and
00:31:09
you can't get there naturally, then it's like, hey, that's your only option.
00:31:12
So then if you don't do it, you're choosing to stay where you are.
00:31:15
And that's really the kind of message for everyone is like if you don't make a decision
00:31:20
to change, you will stay where you are and that's a choice too.
00:31:22
So, you know, it's all about analyzing what is it that you're trying to achieve, how do we get
00:31:29
there, if we can get there naturally, fantastic.
00:31:31
If not, how do we do it in the safest, most appropriate way?
00:31:36
I also like that you do it on a daily cadence because I think that's something that you can
00:31:40
build in as a habit, right?
00:31:41
Versus like, I have to remember like, oh, I do it three times a week.
00:31:44
Okay, this is the day I set reminders, but even sometimes you miss those and then I'm a day
00:31:48
after.
00:31:48
And so, you know, daily is actually cool.
00:31:51
Actually like that.
00:31:52
And it's less, so it's, you know, it's less of the big kind of dose that you're putting in.
00:31:57
So there's also creams, people use creams and get great results.
00:32:01
Pellets, I don't love pellets, but that's an option as well.
00:32:04
So there's so many different ways to do it.
00:32:07
It's just a matter of number one, data, get data, where are you at?
00:32:10
Number two, like what does that data say about your symptoms that you're feeling or that?
00:32:14
And then number three, how do we approach it in a stepwise root cause focused way?
00:32:19
Not jumping straight to hormones, but focusing on the lifestyle things affecting the toxins,
00:32:24
all that, then appropriately addressing more of a medication type approach too.
00:32:29
So, that was great, man.
00:32:31
Thank you for sharing that.
00:32:32
And like you said, I do it more of an optimization type approach where when we talk
00:32:37
about optimizing things, it's like, again, that's based on the person too.
00:32:41
Do you want to be normal?
00:32:43
Right?
00:32:43
You go to your doctor and they say, Hey, your labs are normal.
00:32:45
Do you want to be normal?
00:32:46
I I look around and normal is actually pretty unhealthy lately, right?
00:32:51
So, the norm is And every ten years, they are lowering the standards too, right?
00:32:57
Like they're just like widening the gap of what's okay and people are just continually
00:33:01
getting unhealthier and unhealthier and more insulin resistant, more metabolically
00:33:05
unhealthy.
00:33:06
And so, I think to be normal is actually to be unhealthy.
00:33:09
To be optimized is now to be more normal, right?
00:33:12
And so, that's just the nature of it.
00:33:14
So if you're interested, if you're listening to this episode, you know somebody who needs to
00:33:19
hear this, please share it with them.
00:33:21
But if you'd like to learn more about how we do these things within our clinic, how we focus on
00:33:26
a functional hormone optimization approach, go to alessifunctionalhealth.com and look at some
00:33:32
of the resources that we have available.
00:33:34
And if you're interested, book an appointment.
00:33:36
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00:33:40
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00:33:43
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00:33:48
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00:33:54
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00:33:59
Maybe every couple months we do a Q and A where we drop some of those.
00:34:03
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00:34:06
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