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Double Bonus: Can You Ever Completely Repair a Broken Metabolism?


Jonathan: Hey everyone, welcome back to another legendary episode of Living the Smarter Science of Slim. I am Jonathan Bailor.

Carrie: Carrie Brown.

Cathy: I am Dr. Cathy Britell.

Jonathan: That means we are doing support group questions which if you haven’t seen it, we have got a free support group at smarterscienceofslim.com/community and it is awesome, because there is no sniping and everyone is supported. Even when people come in with some negativity, they are greeted with open arms, cheeks are turned, people are embraced, sanity is celebrated, and eccentricity reigns supreme. So, thank you to our wonderful support group.

Cathy: One person that I really want to thank, her screen name is mbuna, she asked the question. She just told us about her history which has been horrendous. She had life-threatening complications of a severe auto accident a couple of years ago where she broke many bones, she had a necrotizing fasciitis, nearly died, had to be on antibiotics, was in a wheelchair. So, she is wondering whether if one can completely repair broken metabolism, because she feels that, and rightly so, I think, that this accident just really set her back so significantly.

Jonathan: The simple answer is I don’t know, no one knows. The only way to test this in a clinical setting would be almost an impossible question to answer definitively; so the best estimation I can give you is we know we can reverse, we can stop and reverse lot of these things, we know that to be true, that has been demonstrated. The other this we know is how the human body works in other instances. For example, if you break a bone repeatedly, I think we have talked about this analogy before, but in the absence of conclusive clinical data, which we can’t have, there will never be a study that proves or disproves whether or not our entire metabolic system can be completely reset to a previous point in time because we have to have data from the previous point of time which we would never have in a clinical situation. The point is, we look at other areas of the body, like let’s look at what happens with our lungs if we smoke for a long time. Can we fully reverse the damage that’s been done in that instance? No. If we break a leg, can we fully reverse the damage that’s been done there? Depending on the break, basically yes, like if you have broken a leg and break it when you are young, it can heal. Now, if you break your leg when you are 60, it doesn’t necessarily heal all the way. So, I do apologize that I cannot give you a definitive answer, but I am encouraged by the fact that we know you can make improvement and may be take some solace in the fact that regardless of whether or not you can completely reverse the damage that has been done or not, you can get better. That is unambiguous, and that is very clear. So, let’s strive for that because really that’s all we can control in the first place. Even if you could fully reverse it, may be it would take so much effort that no human being would ever want to do that. Give it your all, exercise smarter, eat smarter, besides it is clear that you can get better. Can you reverse it completely? I don’t know, and I don’t know if we will ever know. Thinking of a model of medical rehabilitation, it is a wonderful model because if you are in a hospital, and all you do is rehabilitation, you are obviously going to become rehabilitated faster than if it is something that you do kind of when you have some time. The more you are dialed in to it, the faster you will get results. We should keep that in mind because it is Smarter Science of Slim what we are always talking about. It is not about perfection, it is not about this, it is not about that. Do keep that in mind in terms of pacing that the more you put in the faster you get stuff out, and in terms of complete reversal, I thought of two other models. We talked about bones. Cathy talked about some of her experiences. I talked about lungs, but we also have models around diabetes and gut problems. So we have even seen people, members of our community that have been on diabetes medication, and then are no longer. If you define diabetes as a condition under which you need to take medication or else bad things happen, and you define the absence of diabetes as not needing that medication anymore, then in those individuals they reversed it. And same thing with these leaky gut conditions, we have seen numerous SANE type Paleolithic diets, completely, when we say completely I mean removing all symptoms. Might there still be something going on? Yes, but the symptoms are no longer noticeable. We have seen many, many documented cases of that reverse itself.

Cathy: We all need to give Tina a big virtual hug here.

Jonathan: Thank you, Tina. We very much appreciate that, and keep going. I think it is so encouraging to see even just this past, as of the recording date of this podcast, the week prior there was a brand new research that came out of Belgium, around gut flora and how important gut flora is to the homeostatic regulation of weight we call the set-point and how literally by taking the gut flora from a lean mouse and transplanting it into an obese mouse, the obese mouse would slim down without any change in activity level or without any change in the quantity or quality of food consumed, of course because it’s body then is homeostatically regulating on the lower set-point, burning more calories unconsciously. The reason I mentioned that is, as we started eating sanely and exercising eccentrically, things are going to happen in our body that we are only beginning to understand and there is also things going on in our body, being destroyed in our body when eat these edible products, we are only starting to understand. So, the good news is food that which is available to all of us, is the best medicine. So, keep at it and I think you will be happy with the results.

Cathy: Great, another question. Kids and exercise came up. When is it safe to begin weight training?

Jonathan: Cathy, I am not being an expert here, not being a 30-year practicing physician in this space and not having any kids of my own, it sounds like … because also when we talk about resistance training here, we are talking about very intense eccentric training and often times sometimes the resistance training you see kids, when I says kids I even mean kids in middle school and high school, they often do this kind of explosive power lifting. It sounds like there is a level of resistance training. For example, even if I was like 5 or 6 years old doing like a wall squat, where it is almost like a normal … I just want to make sure folks understand that what we are talking about is, your child… one there is children, like children, children people under 10 and then there are teenagers, and it seems like as you approach closer and closer to adulthood, you gradually move from doing things that are basically just everyday movements; like a wall squat is just like sitting on a chair and holding that position. You graduate from that to doing something like a weighted squat with weight on your back like you might want a weight … the more it is, let’s say an unnatural thing; the more it is like an unnatural thing, the longer you are going to want to wait, but that in now way means avoid anything that is resistance bearing until you are 18. I like it. We are done. We have no more questions left. Carrie Brown how are you doing?

Carrie: I am still here. I am not napping or anything.

Jonathan: Are you just getting “edumacated?”

Carrie: Yes, that plus cats. I have cats. I don’t have kids.

Jonathan: Do your cats do any resistance training of any sorts?

Carrie: No.

Jonathan: I do have to tell the folks, hopefully, would you be willing to share this, rumor has it that you’ve been making ice-cream?

Carrie: I have.

Jonathan: SANE ice-cream.

Cathy: She has got an amazing recipe for peanut butter ice-cream. Her website right now marmaladeandmileposts.com.

Carrie: carriebrown.com is easier, easier to remember, easier to type.

Jonathan: I love it, carriebrown.com. Catherine Britell, M.D. and Jonathan Bailor in the house, eating smarter, exercising smarter, living better.

Carrie: …and having fun.

Jonathan: We will be back next week.

Cathy: Sure, so long.

Jonathan: Bye-bye.

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– Can you ever completely repair a broken metabolism?
– Should kids resistance train?