Chiropractors Discussing Metabolic Syndrome | El Paso, TX (2021)

Introduction

In today’s podcast, Dr. Alex Jimenez and Dr. Mario Ruja discuss what metabolic syndrome is and the risk factors that associate with metabolic syndrome.

Discussion

Dr. Alex Jimenez introduces the podcast with Dr. Mario Ruja about metabolic syndrome.

[00:00:09] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*:  All right, guys, we’re here at our podcast, and Dr. Mario Ruja and myself, Dr. Alex Jimenez, we’re going to be discussing metabolic syndrome today. Today it’s an important day because metabolic syndrome affects so many people in our little town, no longer the 19th largest city in the United States. So very proud of that. And what we’re going to do is we’re going to be pointing out some issues regarding metabolic syndrome and how it affects many people in our communities’ lives. Dr. Ruja is going to cover some points. I’m going to cover some points, and we will try to mix it up as we go through the process now. If you like what we talk about and it becomes something essential, or if you want us to write about something or speak about something particular, reach down, right down the bottom and hit that little button and click it to subscribe. And then also, if you can hit the little bell so that you’ll be the first to know exactly when we go live, and we can have interaction as we go through these weeks of podcasting. Well, one of the first things we’re going to do is define metabolic syndrome? Metabolic syndrome has been known as a disorder that affects about 25 to 30 percent of the population. Some studies are presenting it at 23. We, in our office here in El Paso, noticed that the numbers are high. The disorder is classified as having belly fat that is making your belly pretty big. Standards have been used to come up with that, as well as increasing high blood pressure. It is the disorder that makes you feel crummy. Metabolic disorders affect us as the Latino population, and we have a very mixed population, but it’s heavy in the Latin American population. But having said that, it affects everyone across the board. Another point that it has is high triglycerides. High triglycerides have been noted in the blood work of individuals. So not only do you have high fat around the belly, but you also have high blood pressure, triglycerides are high, and an increased blood glucose level or standard blood or fasting blood glucose in your metabolic or even in your blood panels. The other thing is is that we also notice a lower HDL evaluation. And in this process, what we notice is is that we can see that the HDL, which is the good one, is low in the process. Now, Mario, can you go ahead and talk a bit about what you have also noted in the issues of metabolic disorders?

[00:02:43] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yeah, Alex, again, thank you. Listeners hit the like button, hit the Subscribe button, get involved, get with the program. And because this is your show, not ours. What we’re here to do is empower you with knowledge. But at the same time, I would say, let’s make it fun and interactive because some of these topics get boring quickly. But in reality, I would tell you; these are critical issues that we’re going to look at. First of all, what I would say is let’s look at high blood pressure. These are things that, number one, high blood pressure, anything over 140 or 180, are high-risk factors. So let’s take it seriously. 140 higher than 90. That means the big number and the small number. Everybody understands that you know, like 120, over 80, you’re talking about 140 over 90 and higher very, very high risk or one, 180, over 120. So again, this is what the American Heart Association has had these stats to look at. We need to take these things seriously. The other component that I would say, just like Alex talked about, is that studies are coming out right now again, metabolic syndrome, clinical and policy implications of the new silent killer. This is for real, guys, and this is not just I need to lose 10 pounds or 20 pounds. We’re looking at two risk factors. Number one, we’re looking at belly fat, or in this case, they’re talking about truncal obesity; it’s a fancy word for, you know what my gut is over my belt. OK, yes, that’s it. And the other factor is insulin resistance, which that means in common language, Alex and listeners. The bottom line is I’m feeling tired, I’m feeling weak, and I keep eating. I mean, I cannot stop eating, and I’m still tired. So those two factors in themselves again, metabolic syndrome, the word syndrome, when we’re talking about medicine, you’re talking about two-three, four-five issues together. OK, so this is what we’re talking about. Number one, we’re talking about again, high blood pressure. That’s number one. Number two, belly fat. Number three sugar issues. Number four. High triglycerides. And the other one is low healthy again, high-density lipids. Exactly. So. So those are, again, the things that we’re looking at. And Alex, the silent killer that we’re dealing with today, wants to motivate people to engage. So this is not passive listening. This is interactive. We’re going to give our listeners not only the problem. We’re going to engage them in the solution and implementation.

Metabolic Syndrome

Dr. Alex Jimenez and Dr. Mario Ruja explain what metabolic syndrome does to the body.

[00:06:01] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Correct. That’s what we’re going to be talking about. One of the ways that we assess this blood glucose is do doing a metabolic panel. Any of your doctors can do this. And one of the problems was that before you even do a metabolic panel, you can even determine this by yourself if you feel like you have a spike in sugar. You sometimes feel after you eat sometimes and your pancreas produces the insulin. The first symptom is you fall asleep. Insulin is the body. The body produces. Some of the pancreases fires off the insulin, lowering the blood glucose and overshoots and putting you to sleep. That’s one sign the belly fat is also high blood pressure. When people have high blood pressure, they feel it. But if you’re doing lab work, you can see the triglycerides and the lower HDL are in the process. In this process, we noticed that people often think cholesterol has a lot to do with that because we didn’t speak about it. But cholesterol is, according to the studies, is not a factor in metabolic disorders in metabolic syndrome, per se. It’s the lower HDL process that comes in and makes the issue happen. Now, in the process of it, two main components affect people’s lives in a metabolic syndrome that we have to put under control, which is the premise of everything we’re going to be talking about. And it’s going to be inflammation and blood sugar changes. So what we do this is inflammation. Inflammation is like swollen, toxic foods. The blood sugar issue is insulin sensitivity. The pancreas is just swinging at it, trying to figure out what to do with it. And we’re going to come up with good ways. One of the things that you’ve also noticed is when someone should notice Mario? When do they typically see that they have metabolic syndrome?

[00:07:49] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Well, Alex, again, let’s deal with reality number one in our community and society overall. And these are real factors in being mindful and aware is a very sedentary lifestyle. Yeah, OK. That’s number one. And this automatically rolls over into a lack of exercise. And then, when you’re very sedentary, you have a huge stress pattern. OK, colossal stress pattern. And again, with that, what I have seen working with our patients and clients and in life coaching that I do is that your stress pattern is overloaded with a sedentary lifestyle, then it affects your sleep pattern. So now you’re not sleeping well, and then to function during the day, you have a huge high-carb diet. I mean, we’re talking about eating chips, eating Snickers, sugar, processed foods, and all of that together, Alex. Again, at the end of the day, how do most of us or most of the people, the people that we want to help are deal with their stress. They’re going out to have a couple of cold ones. You know, wine drinks, mixed drinks at the end of the day so they can unwind, and a large majority of them are smoking simultaneously. Those again, let’s look at science now. If we connect this to the risk factors again here, you can see it in our panel. Furthermore, lifestyle factors, the two most dangerous ones, Alex, that I’ve seen again are number one, smoking and heavy drinking together. Yes. Create a very high ratio for men but for women. And it almost triples or quadruples.

[00:09:56] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yeah, the research shows it is way higher in the women.

[00:09:58] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: It’s huge. So again, looking at that right there, that’s a point. This is an area for women right here. Yes, sir. Four-point four. And then it goes lower than that again. Poor diet and heavy drinking and smoking, and physical inactivity. Those are factors, too. But the major one, the star, is the one dealing with smoking and heavy drinking simultaneously. And so that’s what I’d like to share. In terms of what are the significant points that to metabolic? Yeah. I mean, so so again, yes, we do motivate and inspire the, you know, our listeners to go and get lab work and go and get the these, you know, the data, you know, the fasting blood sugar, A1C, all of those. We want to do that. But again, if you just look at your lifestyle. Just be real. Be objective. Ask yourself, am I drinking every day? Am I smoking every day? Am I very sedentary? So I drive and then go to work and sit down for six to eight hours. Then I drive again. You’re sitting down, then you go home, and you watch TV, and then you’re eating a lot of carbs. Right? A lot of slices of bread, a lot of processed foods, or on your way home, you stop to go through the Drive-Thru to get a happy meal. I would say it is a killer meal. Right. With fries again, high oils processed inside all of that, and then you’re eating it in your car while you’re sitting to go home. And now you’re crashing, right? So obviously, you’re not going to go work out. Yes, you’re not because you’re insulin just crashing. It is peaking, and then you are going to get tired. So so that’s what I see.

[00:12:00] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: What I’ve noticed is that I use examples when I tell my patients. And a good example says, Hey, if you would go to McDonald’s and you eat about a 20 piece of chicken nuggets and then coke, and you did this three times a day, and you did this for 20 years. And ultimately, you made some terrible habits like a lot of drinking and alcohol. And then you just really started gaining some weight over some time. You’re going to notice as Mario was sitting, it was mentioned right there that the sedentary lifestyle makes you gain five pounds a year after some time. Now, as you notice, with this increase in body weight, you’re going to find out that you’re going to end up in metabolic syndrome from just the mere fact of not having activity. Just eight people who sit over eight hours a day have 400 times the chance of heart disease risk. So these are the things. So inactivity is a big one, as you noticed, and that’s one of the things that I try to tell everyone that.

[00:13:03] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: And let me say this because this is a trend. This is a trend. Sitting is the new smoking. Yeah, sitting is the new smoking. So if you go back 20, 30 years ago and the big deal was smoking tobacco, you know, again, all of those ramifications in terms of health, destruction of your system and then paying, paying for your health later and waking up to it now. Now it’s even more prevalent when we’re talking about obesity all the way, from childhood obesity to, you know, youth and adult obesity. There’s a lot of sedentary. So I want to stress that as you mentioned, Alex, you know, we want to make our conversation real, practical, informative, and motivational today. So in terms of that, sedentary sitting down is the new smoking.

[00:14:04] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yes, it is. Absolutely. It causes so many problems, not only from the lack of movement, from the circulation. The bottom line is we got to get moving, and if we get moving, we start breaking down these products. But we do end up having a large amount of collection of toxins in our body, which is the second part of it, such as carbohydrates. It’s inflammation. So the carbohydrates affect the insulin issue, but the inflammation occurring in the body also has to be tended to be worked with. And a lot of the foods, a lot of the processed foods, the oils that we have are the things that affect. Stress levels. Today, we have a lot of stress. If a person is in sleep, you can’t process your body can’t detoxify at night. So we need to work with stress issues. Another issue is going to be exercise. How much do we exercise? Well, we don’t go. We certainly don’t. To both the world of living like Arnold and pushing weights and doing those kinds of things that hurt our joints. But we do have to do cardio. Cardio is essential in the process of restoring normal motion. The body’s smart. It knows how to fix it. So we just got to stop refining it with too many carbohydrates and too many inflammatory foods. So don’t you think?

Inflammation

Dr. Mario Ruja discusses how inflammation affects the body.

[00:15:17] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Absolutely. Another area that I’d like to share with our listeners and viewers is a simple transition from a high inflammatory system? And again, inflammation. Think about this when you get injured, Alex. When you get injured, let’s say you twist your ankle. And I played college soccer, and I played again after that. And I know you’re an athlete, and our children are athletes. When you have an injury, the first thing that the body does is protect itself, and you get inflammation. OK, that’s trauma. So now we’re dealing with biomechanical trauma. But the trauma that we’re talking about today and in metabolic syndrome is a systemic metabolic trauma. So the way that our bodies react to this trauma, that’s induced. So what that means is it’s not used to our bodies, our genetic makeup, and what we’re looking at optimal function. It is not used to low grade foods, processed foods, OK. And we are made for walking and running where bipeds? OK. So the minute we. Go against our genetic makeup in our system, our bodies, and our metabolism fight back, and the way it fights back creates inflammation. And this is why we see the signature sign of the metabolic syndrome. It doesn’t mean that everyone has it, Alex. Just because you have a large abdomen and or again, a large gut, it doesn’t mean that you have metabolic syndrome, but it does mean that you need to start thinking about it because that is inflammation and that is high stress on your body and the things that we’re looking at. Again, let’s convert that. So whatever creates the problem, let’s invert it. OK, and let’s do the opposite. Absolutely. So, so if we’re talking about high, high processed foods, let’s go to raw. Let’s go to juicing. Let’s go to two unprocessed foods. Yes, that’s so. So it’s straightforward. You know you don’t have to have a Ph.D., a master’s in nutrition, and all of these things. Let’s get down to it. So if fried foods are wrong, then what happens? Whole Foods, raw foods juicing are excellent.

[00:17:47] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Let me ask you, Mario, because I’ve noticed that when people that we’ve been taught about fats and oils, you know, a lot of times we’ve been told that certain oils are the best. Certain oils are the worst. The three oils that are the best are coconut oil. It’s going to be one of those. I love coconut oil. Yeah, you have olive oil. OK. Yeah. And you have avocado oil. Those are the only ones that I recommend. The corn oil, the safflower, the sesame seeds oil. These oils are oils that cause inflammation. So when you use that, one of the first things is to cook with different oils. We got to stop the carbohydrates, and we got to stop the inflammation. When we deal with this thing, we increase the ability of the body to recover. The arteries will recover, the heart recovers. We can prevent strokes from actually happening. Heart disease is a process that takes years to develop, but we can reverse it with these oils and help the person analyze their lifestyle. You mentioned sleep apnea. Correct. Sleep apnea is one of those things that when you have a big belly, and you can’t find a comfortable position, you don’t rest, and you don’t detoxify. If you don’t, that stuff starts building up in the body. And before you know it, we start getting sick.

[00:19:09] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: You know, when you’re talking about detoxifying a lot of people, and I want just to share this, and we can talk about it even more on later shows. We are going to have other shows, correct, Alex.

[00:19:22] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Mario, we’re just beginning. 

[00:19:23] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: OK, I want to make sure because you know how I feel.

[00:19:27] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Mario, each one of these sections that we are talking about, we need to expand upon whether it’s carbohydrate intake, metabolic processes, ketogenic diet, any sort of fasting. We’re going to open up the forum on each one of these, and we’re going to discuss it in.

[00:19:40] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yeah, I feel the reason I say that, and I’m sure our listeners are thinking about it as we’re trying to swallow an elephant. OK? This is a beast, and it’s like an octopus, and it has tentacles everywhere. So what I look at when you’re talking about detoxifying, most people think about detox like their colon detox, you know, everyone’s like, oh, I’m doing a colon detox. And the other one is, you know, again, the organs of filtration, the important ones are the liver. And now, when we’re talking about metabolic syndrome, this is where you have that fatty liver, Alex fatty liver right there.

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver

Dr. Alex Jimenez gives us insight into what this disorder does to the body.

[00:20:23] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: So there’s that nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. A whole new disorder that had did not exist.

[00:20:28] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Whole new diagnoses, and this is like a new kid on the block that’s causing havoc. The other one is the fatty pancreas.

[00:20:39] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: How can children have cirrhosis of the liver? Come on, and they have it with nonalcoholic fatty liver, and it’s the processed sugar and the processed food.

[00:20:49] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Exactly. And this is why our show is real, and we’re going to talk about real things. Number one, whatever the adults are eating, the children are also eating correctly? So who is going? Who’s going shopping? You don’t have a ten-year-old going shopping, driving himself and going down aisle three, you know, and picking up carbs, like lettuce, Froot Loops, and all that. They’re not doing that. You know what, mom was driving, so we got to deal with Mama. Do you know who’s cooking? So again, those are issues that you are perfectly on point tip of the spear, Alex. Yes, the children are getting crushed, and this is where they’re not able to do ten push-ups to save their life. Even in high school, I do sports physicals to many high schools and middle schools simultaneously. So you’re talking about fatty non-alcohol liver, OK, fatty pancreas. So all of a sudden, that visceral fat that fat around the organs becomes another organ. It produces Alex. It’s its own hormones. Absolutely. That’s like another being inside of you.

[00:22:09] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: It’s so bad, Mario, that what happens is the produced cortisol. The fat creates hormone imbalances, and the fat controls our metabolic processes and runs havoc. The fat infiltrates the pancreas. As you said, the fat enters the liver, and the fat enters the muscle. It sits in between the abdomen, in between the muscles. Yes, above it and beyond it. The first, by the time that we notice it, it’s the belly fat. So by that time, we’ve seen a situation where the body has become immense in a specific area. Their waist was once the 30 to 34. Now it’s above a 40, and they don’t know why that fat is causing so much stress. We got to bring it down, which gives us an understanding because we want to live an extraordinary life and understand how the body’s metabolism works. We have to trust the body, and the body can recover in this process. If you give it the right tools, it will be able to recover. One of the things that I’ve noticed is that if you put a person on a food eating process, and we’re going to discuss right now a little bit is the ketogenic diet. Along with a time-limiting eating window, we can prevent and reverse the whole process. Mario got some numbers up here, and if we take a look at them. We can see what is defined as.

[00:23:34] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: You know, I, you know, when you’re talking about, you know, again, abdominal fat, Alex, I want to show some, some stats. This is what we’re talking about. Let’s give our listeners and viewers beneficial objectives to like something that they can go home and go, “Whoa.”

[00:23:54] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yeah, like blood pressure.

[00:23:55] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yeah, blood pressure. Yeah, this is easy, OK? Number one, this is what we’re talking about for men. Anything over 40 inches in terms of your belt? Not good. For women, anything over 35. OK. Thirty-six. Thirty-five. So those are markers that that that I would like to share. Again, this is data. So we would like to share ideas and back them up with diagnostic data of abdominal values.

[00:24:34] Dr. Alex Jimenex DC*: The ones I just marked. We would get it from blood work, and we could easily do it in a blood assay. And blood assessment can see that. So what we can see is that when you visit blood glucose of greater than 100 fasting and typically fasting means eight hours before eating to 12 hours optimally, your body will balance it out to the organ that balances out your blood sugar. Not only is it in combination with your liver and your pancreas, but your cellular metabolism typically establishes less than 100, which is optimal for the triglycerides. This one can go up very quickly and significantly, very, very suddenly. You eat a lot of fats, and that number skyrockets. So by taking a diet that is, let’s say, a ketogenic diet, you avoid carbohydrates to the extent that you should think about your carbohydrates. If you think about your carbohydrates, you start taking control of this. Here’s the bottom line when I’ve realized that you have to know why you’re eating the carbohydrate. You got to know you got to be mindful of the carbohydrate, pick the carbohydrate out, and say, this is what I do not want to eat. Ultimately, your body will start learning to work with the fats and proteins and eliminate eliminating the causes of insulin resistance. So regular exercise, regular exercise is another thing. You’ve noticed some other things, Mario, you know, as you’ve picked up on some good concepts.

[00:26:00] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yeah. And this is where we have some really powerful tools. OK. So yeah, we’re talking about some particular areas that are again negative. Let’s focus on a positive end.

[00:26:13] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: OK, what can we do? So how do we fix it?

A Positive Mindset

Dr. Mario Ruja explains how to develop a positive mind.

[00:26:15] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Exactly. At the end of the day, I mean, let’s talk about what we can, what we are responsible for, and what we can control again in life. There are many things you can’t control. You can’t. You just can’t control your genetics. You can’t maintain your environment as much as we want to. OK. So the things that we can control are something that you mentioned. I love the word mindful. Mindful means that you are aware, conscious, responsible, and responsive, proactive instead of reactive to your own daily life. So you wake up every morning with a purpose. So these are things that I would say. Positive actions create positive outcomes. Number one, get up in the morning before six o’clock. I prefer to say around 4:35 A.M. OK, why? Because that will give you time to focus on exercising in the peak performance time when your testosterone is the highest. And some of the areas you know you’re priming your body or your metabolism. You’re creating this engine, and you’re warming it up; you’re getting it ready. So then you burn calories throughout the day. OK, don’t work out two hours before you’re going to sleep. OK, so that’s number one. That one, you can do it. Number two, start to eat more non processed foods, raw, steamed vegetables, Mediterranean, which means a huge portion of salads, a small amount of meats, and a very, very small portion of carbs. Yeah, OK. It’s the carbs. 

[00:27:57] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*:  We got to stop the carbs. Study after study, no matter who the doctor is, Dr. Houston, who’s developed an understanding of new methods that put the whole cardio medicine arena on its head. It’s limited to carbohydrates, and the limits of carbohydrates as causing a tremendous amount of damage to our arteries or veins. And if we can limit that and be mindful of the type of carbohydrates we have and limit the amount we have, we’re on the right track.

[00:28:24] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yeah, carbs as we call them in the sports world. Carbo Loading. Furthermore, you mentioned earlier, Alex, carbo-loading has to have a purpose. So if you’re running a marathon tomorrow and loading up on the carbs? Yeah, you’re not going to make it. You’re going to crash and burn. Again, my question is, are you jogging to work tomorrow? No, you’re not. You’re sitting in your car. So again, please discontinue minimizing the carbs. The other thing is that we want to educate our listeners and our viewers as we know and again. Carbs turn into sugars. Yep, OK, sugars. So it’s like eating again. I inform the clients, the patients, the people around me, even athletes. OK, five grams of sugar is equal to one teaspoon of sugar. It’s like white sugar. You might as well just take a teaspoon put it in your mouth. So if you’re talking about when you read the label, start reading the label. If you see 20 grams of sugar, and you go, wow, now that is five teaspoons of sugar in your mouth. Yeah, that’s crazy. So again, we need to be mindful. It’s a lot of sugar. Get a bag and start eating it. But again, we need to put it in perspective because we are not mindful, so we drink that drink. And it says, Oh, it only has 16 grams of sugar. OK, 16 grams is a lot.

[00:30:13] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: So here’s the take that I’m getting from this Mario. The carbohydrates are good, but how can the body kind of eliminate them? That’s a question.

[00:30:23] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: No, they’re not good carbs.

[00:30:25] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: They’re not good. And what happens is that we have to eliminate the window of time. So what we’ve learned about over the last, and you see it everywhere on YouTube, is the ketogenic diet. The ketogenic diet has the most significant amount of research on the body’s ability to recover. The ketogenic diet limits carbohydrates to the least possible denominator to the point where you’re on fats and proteins and good vegetables and fiber. Your body will restore its normal blood sugar. The liver kicks in and makes sure that it raises the blood glucose to the same levels that it should be to survive. We need to have about 100 milligrams per deciliter as a standard, and the liver is the organ that restores that. But it does need to turn itself on because it typically gets used to carbohydrates, and the insulin battle between the pancreas and the liver leads to metabolic syndrome. If we start with the ketogenic diet and stop with a version of a fasting type of diet or time-limited diet, we have the best tools to lower the triglycerides and increase the HDL. No other diet will increase your HDL other than a ketogenic diet. The ketogenic improves the immune system. It increases the metabolic processes in the brain. It stops dementia. It creates awareness. So realistically, between the two diets, which are the ketogenic diet and the fasting diet of different versions, we can help the process of metabolic syndrome. The body will restore itself if it’s given a chance. If not, we’re going to end up with a massive amount of disease, cardiac issues, heart problems, and many other physiological issues that we’re going to discuss right now. Mario, what are the things that you’ve noticed that we can do in terms of helping understand how to recover from a metabolic syndrome?

[00:32:24] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Recovery. We are in a perpetual recovery system, Alex. Number one is sleep as our recovery powerhouse. OK, if you’re an athlete, some of the athletes that I work with and consult with are sleeping eight to 10 hours a day.

[00:32:46] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Beautiful.

[00:32:47] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: OK. What’s happening is they sleep. They work out. They get up. And then they take another nap in midday. You’ve got to recover. Life is about recovery, OK? Everything is about healing when I do life coaching and those areas that deal with mindset and beliefs. Every time you fail, get up mentally, emotionally, physically; you’ve got to do that. So when we’re talking about metabolic syndrome, Alex, this is what I would say. Get your mind straight, get it dialed and tuned in and focus. The way to do that is through meditation. OK. Take 10 to five minutes a day. Turn off your cell phone. Stop waking up. And the first thing you see in the morning is your Facebook account. Who loves you? How many likes do you have? OK. And your Instagram, and now your brain is just torched. So that moment, you need to honor that first 30 minutes of your life. Begin it with positive energy. And what it means is be still be quiet. Be at peace. Love yourself. Visualize the best day of your life. Breathe. You’ve got to learn to breathe because in a state of metabolic syndrome or what I call stress, anxiety, depression, and high adrenals, Alex. OK, we’re not breathing. We are gasping. So at that point, I would say sleep is incredible. Put your cell phone in the kitchen, get it away from your body. Turn it off. Get an actual alarm clock. I know they have become extinct. Why don’t you go to Goodwill and Savers to get an alarm clock? Because I don’t think they make them anymore. 

[00:34:46] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: They do. They’re kind of there. The Dollar Store has them.

[00:34:48] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Oh my bad, Dollar Store has them then.

[00:34:53] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*:  Well, you’ll find those little watches.

[00:34:56] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*:  So get an alarm clock. Get away from a cell phone in the morning. Start to prime your brain, your mind, your attitude. You’re not in this reactive phase to where the first thing you do out of bed you’re rushing to be late, and then you’re eating a burrito, you’re eating huevos con chorizo, and you’re eating all these two for one drive-thru croissant sandwiches and all of these things. So now, all of a sudden, you allow yourself to be focused and not to eat until a 12 to 18 hour period, which we call intermittent fasting. So what that does is allow your metabolic process to reset. The word is reset and re-function at the highest level, which controls and is very positive. Statistics and research have shown from John Hopkins to Harvard, and many other ones in the world have shown that it has a positive effect on your hormones. Positive effects on cortisol, dopamine, serotonin, and all of these are very critical platforms of function. And also has a very positive outcome on dementia, Parkinson’s, anger management, and self-awareness. And what I call happiness. You have to be happy because if you’re not, you’re chasing a stimulant. And that stimulant in our society is what Alex food good food.

The Benefits of Fasting

Dr. Ruja explains the benefits of Fasting and gives insight into his experience with fasting.

[00:36:42] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You know, as you mentioned, there’s a lot of new studies indicating how a diet that is low in carbohydrates or intermittent fasting, or even the ketogenic diet improves the function of the brain. How does it do that? Well, the question is at the cellular level, what’s the engine that makes things better? Well, the engine that produces the most energy in the body is the mitochondria. The mitochondria are at the source of all the ability to rectify. It’s a fantastic structure that basically will burn it all off and then repair if we don’t let that mitochondria rest. It’s almost like you cut the grass, and you’ve got to come in. And as soon as you walk inside it to rest and drink your lemonade or whatever you’re going to drink. And the person tells you, cut it again and then come in after two hours, you are really exhausted, and you go in, and they tell you, cut it again many more times And before you know it, the body starts failing out. It needs time to rest and recover. That’s what intermittent fasting does. If you stop taking carbohydrates for a while and limit the food intake, do intermittent fasting and allow the window of time between you eat. You don’t eat and make the window smaller as you become more skill set in the ability to start, let’s say, an eight-hour window of only eating. You can work the six hours. Typically, the body starts becoming really, really tuned and also rectifies the brain function and also rectifies all the things that Mario mentioned. You will notice that when you have a ketogenic diet, it may seem counterintuitive that you won’t sleep, but you’re going to get the best sleep possible. It’s a fantastic process that you recover, but it seems like we want to have. We Latinos love to snack, and we all love the ability to eat something we all humans just nibble. Nibbling points the finger back to the guy who cut the grass and says back to cutting the grass. It needs time to rest. And that’s what you’re mentioning.

[00:38:37] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yeah. You know, I personally because we have to be mentors and we have to, you know, point the way. For myself, I would say approximately two years ago, two and a half, two and a half three years ago, I changed and shifted myself because I was not the best of me. I wasn’t shown up to the game in the clinic and front of my family in terms of my body. You know, my 10-year-old Cristiano was looking at me, and this was like a crazy story. You see, he looked at me, and he goes, Ah, that’s little Jimmy.

[00:39:21] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Did it look like you ate somebody?

[00:39:25] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yeah. Alex and then his big brother, Gabriel, look at it, and then he pokes at me like, Yeah, that’s right.

[00:39:34] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Metabolic syndrome?

[00:39:36] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yeah. So I looked, and I went, OK, that’s enough. This is enough. Enough is enough. My kids are ridiculing me, you know, and they’re athletes, and I was an athlete, so I shifted. And the one thing that I did immediately was this. I started intermittent fasting. That’s it. The other thing that I did was I began to eat vegetarian, OK? I was like, Right now, I’m in that shift of pescatarian vegetarian kind of shift. And again, most I would say 75 percent of what I eat is vegetarian. And I make it sometimes. I mean, I don’t try to go to extremes. But that created very impactful neurofeedback to me, and when I did that, let me tell you the first. The first eight hours. It was pure hell. I mean, I’m going to tell you it was like my body was screaming. 

[00:40:39] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Mario, all those fat cells attacked you, and they started to swap hormones on your body.

[00:40:42] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*:  I was like, What are you doing? Are you nuts? You’re going to die. Eat already.

[00:40:51]Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: That’s right. That is what intermediate fasting does to your body, and it makes you feel like you are dying.

[00:40:52] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yeah. And I said, No, I will not. I’m going to push through. You know, sometimes you got to get angry. Alex, you got to get angry enough. Enough is enough. So I went through it for 12 hours. And let me say this once you go through that first cycle. It is like going to the Promised Land. Let me tell you; it’s a body resets. And I was in the zone. I was like, “Whoa.”

[00:41:20] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*:  You know what, Mario? They have a name for this thing. When you go physiological, when your body erupts and all the cells go counter, they start going, Hey, where’s my food? Where are my carbohydrates? Well, it’s kind of interesting that the sound of the keto flu in today’s world is what you have. You have the keto flu. You feel sick. Yes. And it sometimes lasts between 24 to 48 hours. But on the other side, you have nirvana.

[00:41:49] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*:  And the word that I like to use again, a lot of my patients and clients, is addiction.

[00:41:58] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You’re addicted to sugar.

[00:42:00] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: You’re addicted, and studies have shown. And in our following conversations, and you know, we’re going to have next conversations, Alex, let me tell you, we’re going to talk about sugar a lot. Sugar is more addictive than cocaine, baby. It is. And when you come off of that, oh my God, you want to rip people’s heads off. If you’re going to talk about anger management, Alex, let me tell you about anger management if you wish. It’s like a pit bull. And you know what? You’re gnawing at the bone, and you’re looking for the steak, and someone just took the bone away from you, and you want to rip their arm off. 

[00:42:47] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Mario, can you think clearly when you have the keto flu?

[00:42:50] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Oh, come on, keto flu. I call it a keto virus. Forget the flu, baby. I’m talking about you’re being too kind, Alex. This is an addiction.

[00:43:02] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: You mean your brain feels like it will explode, and it’s like a headache from Wonderland.

[00:43:09] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yes. I don’t know about Wonderland, but it’s like flames. Yeah, so this is where that whole thing again. And you see this in many men and women, when their blood glucose drops, like in that hypoglycemic phase, they’re irritable. They’re nasty. It’s like, Whoa, you know that commercial snickers satisfy me. Wow. You know it doesn’t help you. It’s going to rip you. Because now that addiction, it’s like you got to get that next hit of sugar.

[00:43:43] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Exactly.

[00:43:44] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: So that’s why I want us to talk more about that.

[00:43:49] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yeah, we’re going to talk a lot about it over the next couple of weeks. And there are systems out there. Studies at the University of Southern California are being forged today that specialize in the art and the science of fasting. Fasting is one of those things that has been around since the beginning of time. The Egyptians did it all parochial people. Religious protocols require or have some sort of fasting in their practices.

[00:44:13] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Jesus did it in the Bible. I mean, it’s everywhere.

[00:44:18] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Fasting makes everything work better. It makes the brain clear. Yes, and it works out the issues in today’s world. There are very there are some products out there that are very good for fasting. One, the big ones, and we’ll discuss it at a lot of it soon. It’s the Pro Launch System. The Pro-Line System goes into a ketogenic diet, literally, and is a fast system they’ve noticed when you do this lengthy procedure. You ultimately end up having the same processes as fasting, and you change the body. The results are an immense decrease in diabetes, a reduction of cancers decreasing in neurodegenerative. Amazing.

[00:45:02] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: It’s crazy, and it’s impressive.

[00:45:03] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: But what’s the basis of causing all this drama? Well, the carbohydrates. So when we eat the carbohydrate. The carbohydrate has to be limited, and it has to be a very mindful attack on the carbo. Like, if you’re eating it, there’d better be a reason for it. And you’re going to notice that as you first start going through the ketogenic diet, your body starts pulling the blood sugar and the blood glucose down. When it’s down, then it pulls it out of the pancreas. The pancreas loses the fat, then the liver loses the fat, and after that, the muscle loses the fat so that process, as it starts consuming the belly fat, you’ll start noticing changes in your body that the issues are far-reaching. There are a lot of nasty diseases that happen from excessive carbohydrates and metabolic syndrome. So we’re here to kind of go over those things. There’s some, you know, physical, physiological issues that happen, huh? Some morphic body issues for males. Men get what? What do they get when they sometimes get some extra?

[00:46:00] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: Yeah, man boobs or something?

[00:46:02] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

[00:46:05] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: There are many other areas that sag, Alex. There’s a lot of sagging going on. OK.

[00:46:11] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: Yeah.

Conclusion

Dr. Alex Jimenez and Dr. Mario Ruja recap today’s podcast.

[00:46:12] Dr. Mario Ruja DC*: So this is the term that I’d like to for us to kind of bring out and drive home in our closing and our what I call, you know, a button-up and focusing ourselves on action is this it’s all about lifestyle changes. You know this is not a miracle, and this is not, you know, look, this is not for the rich and famous. It’s for everyone. It’s about lifestyle changes. We are here. Alex and I are here to motivate, educate, inspire and support your lifestyle changes.

[00:46:56] Dr. Alex Jimenez DC*: And your journey to better health. I mean, we’re here, and we’re going to make it happen. If what you like today is something that you appreciate, if there’s something that you to reach down that little area a little bit right down there, you’ll see a little bell. You’ll be able to notice it if you want to find my best buddy Mario over here. He’s got a clinic over here on the central side of town. It’s located at 2630 Montana. You got the phone number. And it’s at rujahealth.com. What we can do is we can assess this scenario where you can call us at any given time. You can also get a hold of me in this process, and you can reach us here in this region over here. I just put it there; we’re there, and we can come to help you with your goal. We’re located today at a wonderful facility. It’s one of the largest CrossFit centers in El Paso, and we’re fortunate to have this kind of facility and have the ability to help so many people and the changes that happen in their lives. So we also work out of here with Danny Alvarado, who’s one of the training health coaches, and he’s going to be part of our show regularly. So you got it from us, and we got to check out. As you can see, we’ll talk to you guys in a few minutes if there’s anything you guys have. Give us a call, and we will be able to assist you. God bless.

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