Podcast: Understanding Metabolic Syndrome

In the following podcast, Dr. Alex Jimenez, a chiropractor in El Paso, TX, and Dr. Mario Ruja, a chiropractor in El Paso, TX, discusses what metabolic syndrome is more in-depth. Metabolic syndrome is a collection of conditions that can ultimately increase the risk of developing various other health issues, including diabetes, stroke, and heart disease. According to the American Heart Association (AHA), a person may be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome if they have at least three of the following five risk factors, including abdominal obesity of more than 40 inches in men and more than 35 inches in women, fasting blood glucose levels of 100 mg/dL or above, blood pressure of 130/85 mm/Hg or above, blood triglycerides levels of 150 mg/dL or higher, and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol levels of 40 mg/dL or less for men and 50 mg/dL or less for women. Having three or more of these risk factors can ultimately increase the risk of developing various health issues, including diabetes, stroke, and heart disease. Dr. Alex Jimenez and Dr. Mario Ruja discuss in more detail how eating a lot of carbohydrates and sugar is ultimately associated with the risk factors of metabolic syndrome. – Podcast Insight

[00:00:08] All right, guys, we’re here at our podcast and Dr. Mario Ruja and myself, Dr. Alex Jimenez. We’re gonna be discussing metabolic syndrome today. Today it’s an important day because metabolic syndrome affects so many people in our little town, which actually we’re the 19th largest city in the United States. So very proud of that. And what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna 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’re going to try to make it up as we go through the process. Now, if you like what we talk about and it becomes something important and or if you want us to write about something or speak about something particular, just 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 actually go live, and we can actually have interaction as we go through these weeks of podcasting. Well, one of the first things we’re gonna do is we’re going to define what metabolic syndrome is. Metabolic syndrome has been known as a disorder affecting about 25 to 30 percent of the population. Some studies are actually presenting it at 23. We actually, in our office here in El Paso, noticed that the numbers are really high. The disorder is classified by having belly fat. That is making your belly pretty big. Standards have been used to come up with that as well as increasing in high blood pressure. It really is the disorder that makes you feel really 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 cross-board. Another point that it has is actually high triglycerides. 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 you have an increased blood glucose level or a fasting blood glucose in your metabolic panels or even your blood panels. The other thing is that we also notice a lower HDL evaluation. And in this process, what we notice is that we can see that the HDL, which is the good one, is actually low in the process. Now, Mario, can you go ahead and talk a little bit about what you have also learned in the issues of metabolic disorders? Yeah.

[00:02:32] Alex, thank you again. 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 really 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 really boring quickly. But in reality, I would say to 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. Those are high-risk factors. So. So let’s take it seriously. 140, higher than 90. That means the big number, 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 180 over 120. So, again, the American Heart Association has 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 this. I mean, studies are coming out right now. Again, metabolic syndrome, clinical and policy implications of the new silent killer. This is for real, guys. This is for real. This is not just. I just 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 funny, fancy word for; you know what? My gut is over my belt. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That’s it. And the other factor is insulin resistance.

[00:04:37] What that mean 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 can not stop eating, and I’m still tired.

[00:04:49] Yeah, so. 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…

[00:05:20] Healthy, again, high-density lipoproteins. Yeah, exactly. Mario, so those are, again, the things that we’re looking at.

[00:05:31] And Alex, the silent killer that we’re dealing with today, that we just want to motivate people to engage in. So this is not passive listening. This is interactive. We’re gonna give our listeners not only the problem, but we’re also gonna engage them in the solution and implementation. Correct.

[00:05:50] Correct. That’s what we’re going to be talking about. One of the ways that we actually assess this blood glucose is by doing a metabolic panel. Any of your doctors can do this. And one of the problems was that you could even determine this by yourself before even doing a metabolic panel. If you just feel like you have spikes in sugar. You sometimes feel after you eat sometimes and your pancreas produces the insulin. The first symptom is you fall asleep. The insulin, the body produces some in the pancreas, fires off the insulin, lowers the blood glucose, and overshoots and puts you to sleep. That’s one sign. The belly fat, high blood pressure. When people have high blood pressure, they feel it. But if you’re gonna do lab work, you’re going to actually see the triglycerides and the lower HDLs in the process. In this process, we noticed that many times people 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 and metabolic syndrome per se. It’s actually the lower HDL process that actually comes in and makes the issue happen. Now, in the process of it, what? Two main components affect people’s lives in a metabolic syndrome that we have to put under control: the premise of everything we’re going to be talking about. And it’s going to be inflammation, inflammation, and blood sugar changes. Inflammation is like swollen, toxic foods. The blood sugar issue is insulin sensitivity. The pancreas is just winging at it, trying to figure out what to do with it. And we’re going to come up with good ways with that. One of the things that you’ve also noticed is when someone should notice Mario? When do they typically notice that they have metabolic syndrome?

[00:07:37] Well, Alex, again, let’s deal with reality number one in our community and our society overall. And these are real factors in being mindful and aware is a very sedentary lifestyle. Yeah. Okay. That’s number one. And this automatically rolls over into a lack of exercise, obviously. And then, when you’re very sedentary, you have a huge stress pattern. Okay. Huge stress pattern. And again, with that, what I have seen working with our patients and clients and in life coaching that I do, is this your stress pattern is overloaded with a sedentary lifestyle.

[00:08:24] 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, snickers, sugar, processed foods, and all of that together. Alex, again, at the end of the day, how do most of us, or most people, the people we want to help deal with their stress?

[00:08:58] 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 at the same time. Those, again, let’s look at science now if we connect this to the risk factors again here. And you can see it in our panel. Again, 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 in women, it almost triples or quadruples. Yeah, that sure is way higher in the women. Huge, huge. So again, looking at that right there, that’s a point. This is an area for women right here. Yes. 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.

[00:10:08] But the major one, the star, is the one that’s dealing with smoking and heavy drinking at the same time.

[00:10:18] And so that’s what I’d like to share. Yeah. In terms of what are the major points that affect metabolic syndrome.

[00:10:25] Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean so again, yes, we do really motivate and inspire the, you know, our listeners to go and get lab work and go and get the, you know, the data, you know, the fasting blood sugar, A1C, all of those. We definitely 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?

[00:10:58] So I drive, and then I go to work, and I’m sitting down for six to eight hours. Then I drive again. You’re sitting down, and you go home, and you watch TV, and then you’re eating a lot of carbs. Right? A lot of bread, a lot of processed foods. Or on your way home, you stop to go through the drive-through to get what, a happy meal? I would say it is a killer meal.

[00:11:22] Right. With fries again. High oils, processed, fried, all of that, and then you’re eating it in your car while you’re sitting, and you go home. And now you’re crashing. Right. So obviously, you’re not going to go work out. Yes, you’re not. Because your insulin is just crashing, it is peaking, and then you are gonna get tired. So what? So that’s what I see.

[00:11:48] What I’ve noticed is that what I tell my patients, I use examples. And a good example says, hey, if you would go to McDonald’s and you eat about a…

[00:12:00] Let’s say a chicken nugget order of 20. And then a coke. And you did this three times a day, and you did this for 20 years. And ultimately, you made some nasty habits, like a lot of drinking and alcohol. And then you just really started gaining some weight over a period of time. You’re going to notice, as Mario was mentioning right there is that the sedentary lifestyle after a period of time makes you gain five pounds a year. Now, as you notice, with this increase in body weight, you’re going to find out that you will end up in metabolic syndrome from just the mere fact of not having activity. Just people who sit over eight hours a day have 400 times the chance of having a risk of heart disease. 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.

[00:12:52] 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 for your health later and waking up to it.

[00:13:22] Now, it’s even more prevalent when we’re talking about obesity all the way from childhood obesity too, you know, youth and adult obesity. There’s a lot of sedentary. So I really want to stress that, as you mentioned, Alex, you know, we want to make our conversation today real, practical, informative, and motivational. So in terms of that sedentary, sitting down is the new smoking. Yes, it is, absolutely.

[00:13:54] It causes so many problems, not only from the lack of movement, from the circulation. The bottom line is we’ve 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 that is actually occurring in the body, that also has 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 it, stress levels, stress level. Today we have a lot of stress. If a person doesn’t sleep, you can’t process, you know, 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? 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 really, really, really smart. It knows how to fix itself. We just got to stop toxifying it with too many carbohydrates and too many inflammatory foods. Don’t you think, Mario?

[00:15:06] Absolutely. Another.

[00:15:08] Another area that I’d like to share with our listeners and viewers is that the transition, 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. Our children are athletes. The thing is this, when you have an injury, the first thing that the body does is it protects 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 are our genetic makeup and what we are looking at, optimal function. It is not used to low-grade foods, processed foods. OK. And we are made for walking and running. We’re Bipeds. OK. So the minute we go against our genetic makeup in our system, our bodies and our metabolism fight back, and in the way, it fights back. It creates inflammation. And this is why we see the signature sign, OK, of 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 if we’re talking about highly processed foods, let’s go to raw. Let’s go to juicing. Let’s go to two unprocessed foods. Yes, that’s it. So it’s straightforward. You know you don’t have to have a Ph.D. and a Masters in nutrition and all of these things. Let’s get down to it.

[00:17:26] So if fried foods are bad, then what happens?

[00:17:32] Whole foods, raw foods, juicing is excellent.

[00:17:36] Let me ask you, Mario because I’ve noticed that when people, 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. Yeah, you have olive oil. OK. Yeah. And you have avocado oil. Those are the only ones that are recommended.

[00:18:03] The corn oil, the sunflower, the sesame seed oil. These oils cause inflammation. So the first thing is to cook with different types of oils. We got to stop the carbohydrates. We got to stop the inflammation. When we deal with this thing, we actually 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 were mentioning sleep apnea. Correct. Sleep apnea is one thing that happens when you have a big belly and can’t find a comfortable position; you don’t rest. You don’t detoxify. That stuff starts building up in the body. And before you know it, we start getting really, really sick.

[00:18:58] The brain, 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. And we are going to have other shows, correct, Alex? Mario, we’re just beginning. OK. I just want to make sure.

[00:19:16] Each of these sections that we are talking about needs to expand upon, whether it’s carbohydrate intake, metabolic processes, ketogenic diet, or any sort of fasting. We’re going to open up the forum on each of these, and we’re going to discuss it.

[00:19:29] Yeah, I feel the reason I say that, and I’m sure our listeners are thinking about it is we’re trying to swallow an elephant. Okay. This is a beast. OK. It’s like an octopus that has tentacles everywhere. So what I look at when you’re talking about detoxifying, most people think about detox like that colon detox. You know, everyone’s like, well, I’m doing a colon detox. And the other is, you know, again, the organs of filtration, you know, the ones that really are important are what, liver? Right. And now, when we’re talking about metabolic syndrome, this is where you have that fatty liver, Alex. Fatty liver.

[00:20:11] There’s that nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Exactly. A disorder that did not exist. A whole new disease, a new diagnosis. This is like a new kid on the block that’s causing havoc. The other one is the fatty pancreas.

[00:20:27] How can children have cirrhosis of the liver? Come on. They have it with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Yeah. How do they do it? But the problem is sugar. The sugar, the processed food.

[00:20:38] 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. Correct. So who’s going shopping? You don’t have a 10-year-old going shopping and driving himself and going down all three, you know, and picking up carbs, you know, like Fruit Loops and all that. They’re not doing that. You know what? Mom was driving. So we got a deal with momma. 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 10 pushups to save their life. Even in high school, even in high school. I’ll do sports physicals to many high schools and middle schools at the same time. So you’re talking about fatty nonalcohol, liver, OK, fatty pancreas. So all of a sudden, that visceral fat, that fat around the organs, becomes another organ. It produces Alex, its own hormones. Absolutely. That’s like another being inside of you.

[00:21:58] It’s so bad, Mario, that what happens is the cortisols that are produced. The fat is producing hormone imbalances. And the fat is actually controlling our metabolic processes and really running havoc. The fat infiltrates the pancreas; as you said, the fat infiltrates the liver, the fat infiltrates the muscle. It sits in between the abdomen, in between the muscles. Yes. Above it and beyond it. By the time that we notice it, it’s actually belly fat. So by that time, we’ve noticed a situation where the body has become immense in a certain area. Their waist was once 32, 34. Now it’s above a 40. And they don’t know why that fat is actually causing so much stress. We got to bring it down, which really gives us an understanding, because if we want to live a great life and want to understand how the body’s metabolism works. We have to trust the body. The body can actually 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 style of food eating processes, and we’re going to discuss right now a little bit, is the ketogenic diet, along with time limiting eating window. We can actually prevent and reverse the whole process. Mario’s got some numbers up here. We take a look at we can actually see what it is defined as.

[00:23:22] You know, Alex, I just want to show some stats when you’re talking about abdominal fat. This is what we’re talking about. Let’s give our listeners and viewers objective, useful, like something that they can go home and go, whoa. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Blood pressure. This is easy. Okay. Number one, this is what we’re talking about. For men, anything over 40 inches in terms of your belt.

[00:23:58] Not good. No, no. Not good. For women. Anything over 35. Okay.

[00:24:05] Thirty-six. Thirty-five. So those are markers that I would like to share. Again, this is data. So we would like to share ideas.

[00:24:15] But also back it up with diagnostic data of abdominal values.

[00:24:22] The ones I just marked are ones that we would be getting from blood work, and we could easily do it. A blood assessment can actually see that. So what we can see is that when you see blood glucose of greater than 100 fastings. And typically, fasting means eight hours before eating to 12 hours. Optimally, your body will balance it out. Did the organ that balances out your blood sugar not only is in combination with your liver and your pancreas, but your cellular metabolism establishes typically less than 100, which is optimal, the triglycerides. This one can go up very quickly and very, very, very suddenly. You eat a lot of fats. And that number skyrockets. So by taking a diet that is in, let’s say, a ketogenic diet, which you avoid carbohydrates to the extent that you should really think about your carbohydrates. If you think about your carbohydrates, you really, really start taking control of this. Here’s the bottom line. When I’ve realized, you really have to know why you’re eating the carbohydrate. You gotta know, you gotta be mindful of the carbohydrate. Absolutely. If you pick the carbohydrate out. And you say, this is what I do not want to eat. Well, then ultimately, your body will start learning to work with the fats and the proteins and eliminating the causes of insulin resistance. So regular exercise, regular exercise is another thing. You notice some other things. You’ve picked up on some good concepts.

[00:25:48] Yeah. And this is where we have some real power tools. Okay. So yeah, we’re talking about some particular areas that are again negative. Let’s really focus on a positive end. Like what can we do? How can we fix it? Exactly. I mean, at the end of the day, let’s talk about what we can, what we are responsible and what we can control. Again in life, there are many things you can’t control. You can’t just control your genetics. You can’t control your environment as much as we want to. Okay. So the things that we can’t control are something that you mentioned. I love the word mindful. Mindful means that you are aware, conscious and responsible, responsive, proactive instead of reactive to your own life every day. 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 6 o’clock. I prefer to say around 4:30, 5:00. Okay. Why? Because that will give you time to focus, to exercise in the peak performance time when your testosterone is the highest and some of the areas, you know, you’re priming your body. Okay. Your metabolism, you’re creating this, you know, again, engine, you’re warming it up. You’re getting it ready. So then you burn calories throughout the day. Okay.

[00:27:16] Don’t work out two hours before you’re going to sleep. Okay. So that’s number one. That one you can do. Number two, start to eat more non-processed foods, raw, steamed vegetables, Mediterranean, which means a huge portion of salads, a small portion of meats, and a very, very small portion of carbs.

[00:27:43] Yeah, okay. It’s the carbs. The carbs.

[00:27:46] We got to stop. It’s the carbs. Study after study, no matter who the doctor is. Dr. Houston developed an understanding of new methods that are actually putting the whole cardio medicine arena on its head. It’s limited to carbohydrates. The limits of carbohydrates are causing a huge 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 road.

[00:28:12] Yeah. And if you’re not again carbs, as we call them in this sports world, carbo-loading. Again, you mentioned earlier, Alex, carbo-loading has a purpose, so if you’re running a marathon tomorrow.

[00:28:30] You’re not going to make it. You’re gonna crash and burn. We need them.

[00:28:33] OK. Again, my question is, are you jogging to work tomorrow? No. No, you’re not. You’re sitting in your car. So, again, please discontinue minimizing the carbs. The other thing is, as we know and again, we want to educate our listeners, our viewers, carbs, turn in two sugars. OK, sugars. So it’s like eating again. I educate the clients, the patients, the people around me. Even athletes. OK. Five grams of sugar equals one teaspoon. OK. Of sugar. It’s like white sugar. You might as well just take a teaspoon and put it in your mouth. So if you’re talking about when you read the label, start reading the label.

[00:29:25] If you see 20, 20 grams of sugar and you go, wow, now that is five teaspoons of sugar in your mouth. That’s crazy. So again, we need to be mindful. It’s a lot of sugar. That’s a lot of sugar. Get a bag and start eating it, you know, 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. Okay. 16 grams is a lot.

[00:30:01] So here’s the take that I’m getting from this, Mario. Obviously, the carbohydrates are good, but. Well, how can the body kind of eliminate? That’s a question. No, they’re not good. The carbs are not good. They’re not good. Yeah, 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 greatest amount of research in the body’s ability for the body to recover. The ketogenic diet limits carbohydrates to actually the least possible denominator to the point where you’re on fats and proteins and good vegetables and good fiber; your body will restore its normal blood sugar. The liver kicks in and actually makes sure that it raises the blood glucose to the same levels that it should be to survive. We need to have it at 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 the food of 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 or a virgin of a fasting type, a diet, or a time-limited diet, we have the best tools that we need to lower the triglycerides and increase the HDL. There is no other diet that will increase your HDLs than a ketogenic diet. Ketogenic. Increases the immune system. It increases the metabolic processes in the brain. It stops dementia. It actually creates awareness. So realistically, between the two diets, which are the ketogenic diet and the fasting diet of different versions, we can basically help 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.

[00:32:04] Mario, what are the things that you’ve noticed that we can do in terms of helping understand how to recover from metabolic syndrome?

[00:32:13] Recovery. Recovery. Recovery. We are in a perpetual recovery system, Alex. Number one, sleep is our recovery powerhouse. OK. If you’re an athlete. Some of the athletes that I work with and that I consult with, they’re sleeping eight to 10 hours a day. Beautiful. 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. When I do life coaching and those areas dealing with mindset and beliefs, everything’s about recovery. 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 in, tuned in, and focus. The way to do that is through meditation. OK, take ten 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, baby? How many likes do you have? OK, and your Instagram and now your brain is just torched. It is 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.

[00:34:09] Alex. Okay. 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 a real alarm clock. I know they have become extinct. You may need to go to… You know what? Goodwill. Why don’t you go to Goodwill and Savers to get an alarm clock?

[00:34:32] Because I don’t think they make ’em anymore. Yeah, they yeah, they do. They’re kind of at the dollar store. Oh, my bad, the dollar store. It is OK. We’ll pick those stores, but there’s nothing wrong. You’ll find those.

[00:34:45] So get an alarm clock. Get away from the cell phone in the morning. Start to prime your brain, your mind, your attitude. Now you can. You’re not in this reactive phase to where the first thing you do out of bed, you’re rushing to rush to be late. And then you’re eating a burrito. You’re eating. You know what? Huevos con chorizo and you’re eating, you know, all these, you know, the drive-through two for one. You know, croissant 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 you call and we call intermittent fasting. So what that does is allows your metabolic process to reset. The word is reset and re function at the highest level. And that controls and has very positive statistics and research has shown all the way from John Hopkins to Harvard. Many other countries have shown that it has a positive effect on your hormones, a positive effect on cortisol, dopamine, on serotonin, on all of these. Very critical platforms of function. OK, and also, it has a very positive outcome on dementia.

[00:36:14] And Parkinson’s.

[00:36:16] 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?

[00:36:28] Alex? Food, food, food. As you mentioned that a lot. New studies indicate how a diet that is low in carbohydrates or intermittent fasting, or even the ketogenic diet, actually improves the function of the brain. How does it do that? Well, the question is, what’s the engine that actually makes things better at the cellular level? 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.

[00:36:58] It’s an amazing structure that basically will burn it all off and then rectify. Suppose we don’t let that mitochondria rest. It’s almost like you cut the grass, and you’ve got to come in, and as you walk inside, you have to rest, drink your lemonade, or whatever you’re gonna drink. And all of a sudden, the person tells you, cut it again. And then you come in after two hours real exhausted, and you kind of go in, and he tells you to cut it again and cut it again and cut it again. And before you know it, the body starts failing out. It needs time to rest and recover. That’s what intermittent fasting does.

[00:37:28] If you stop using carbohydrates for a period of time 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 at eight-hour window of only eating, you can work at the six hours.

[00:37:48] Typically, the body starts becoming really, really tuned and rectifies the brain function and rectifies all the things 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 an amazing process that actually you recover, but it seems like we want to have. Latinos love, and we all love to snack, and we all love the ability to kind of eat something. We all humans just nibble and nibble and nibble. Nibbling is basically pointing the finger back to the guy who cut the grass and says back to cutting the grass, back to cutting the grass. It needs time to rest. And that’s what you’re mentioning.

[00:38:26] Yeah. Yeah. You know, I personally. Because we have to be mentors and we have to, you know, point the way for me, I would say presently, two years ago, two and a half, three years ago, I changed and shifted myself because I was not the best of me.

[00:38:48] I wasn’t showing 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 know, he looked at me, and he goes, ah, that’s little Jimmy.

[00:39:14] Alex and then his big brother, Gabriel, he looks at it, and then he pokes at me like, yeah, that’s right. Metabolic syndrome. Yeah. So I go, you know. Yeah. So I looked, and I go, okay, that’s enough. This is enough. Enough is enough. My own 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 did. I started intermittent fasting. That’s it. The other thing that I did was I started to eat vegetarian. Okay? 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. Okay. And I’m mixing it sometimes. I mean, I don’t try to go to extremes. Right. But that created a very, very impactful. Neurofeedback to me, and when I did that, let me tell you the first eight hours. It was pure hell. I mean, I’m going to tell you. Yeah. It was like my body was screaming.

[00:40:27] All those fat cells attack. They basically start dumping hormones on you. I was like, what are you doing? Are you nuts?

[00:40:34] You’re gonna die. You are gonna die. That’s what. That’s right.

[00:40:41] And I said, no, I will not. I will not. I’m gonna push through. You know, sometimes you gotta get angry, Alex. You gotta get angry enough. Enough is enough. So I went through it. I went through 12 hours. And let me say this once you go through that first cycle.

[00:41:00] It is like going to the promised lands. Let me tell you. Your body resets, and I was in the zone. I was like, whoa, you know, in the zone. They have a name for this thing.

[00:41:12] When you go physiological when your body erupts, and all the cells go counter. They basically started. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Where’s my food? Where’remy carbohydrates. Well, you know, 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 really feel sick. Yes. And it sometimes lasts between 24 to 48 hours. But on the other side, you have nirvana.

[00:41:37] This is you know what? And the word that I like to use again, a lot of my patients and clients, is addiction. You’re addicted to sugar, right? You’re addicted. And studies have shown and in our next conversations, and you know, we’re gonna have next conversations. Alex. Okay. Let me tell you; we’re going to talk about sugar a lot. Sugar, OK? Sugar is more addictive than cocaine, baby. It is.

[00:42:05] Yes, it is. Yes, it is. It is. And when you come off of that. Oh, my God.

[00:42:11] You want to rip people’s heads off. Suppose you want to talk about anger management. Alex, let me tell you about anger management.

[00:42:21] You want. 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. Let me tell you about that addiction. Can you think clearly when you have the keto flu? Oh, come on. Keto flu. I call it a keto virus. Forget the flu, baby. I’m talking about. No, no, no, no. You’re too kind, Alex. This is addiction. Your brain. Everything feels like it’s going to explode, like a headache. It’s from Wonderland. Yes. I don’t know about Wonderland, but hell. Yeah. So this is where that whole thing again, and you see this in a lot of 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 satisfy you. It’s going to rip you. Because now that addiction, it’s like you’ve got to get that next hit of sugar. And so that’s that. I really want us to know; we got to talk more about that. Yeah.

[00:43:38] We’re going to talk a lot about it over the next couple of weeks. And there are systems out there. There are studies at the University of Southern California that are being forged today specializing 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 there.

[00:44:02] Jesus did it in the Bible. I mean, it’s everywhere. Fasting.

[00:44:07] It makes everything work better. It makes the brain clear. And yes, you can. 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.

[00:44:19] One, the big ones, and we’ll discuss it. A lot of it soon. It’s the Prolon system. The Prolon system actually goes into a ketogenic diet literally and is fast and is a system that they’ve noticed when you do this Prolon procedure. You ultimately end up having the same processes as fasting, and you change the body. The results are immense, decreasing diabetes, a decrease in cancers, and decreased neurodegenerative disorders. Amazing. It’s crazy. It’s amazing. But what’s the basis of causing all this drama? Well, carbohydrates. So when we eat carbohydrates. The carbohydrate has to be limited. That’s to be a very mindful attack on the carb. 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, then the muscle loses the fat. So that process, as it starts consuming the belly fat, you’ll start noticing changes in your body.

[00:45:28] The issues are far-reaching.

[00:45:30] There are a lot of bad 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, physiological, physical issues that actually happen, huh? Somebody morphic issues for males. Men get what? What do they get? Well, they sometimes get some extra. Yeah. Man. Boobs. Yeah.

[00:45:51] Bellies. Man boobs. Exactly. Saying that, there are many other areas that sag, Alex. There’s a lot of sagging going on. Okay. We need so; we need so.

[00:46:01] So this is the term that I’d like to. For us to kind of bring out and really, really drive home. In our closing in our what I call, you know, a button-up and focusing on action. It’s this; it’s all about lifestyle changes. You know this is not a miracle. This is not, you know, luck. 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 change and your journey to better health.

[00:46:47] I mean, it’s, we’re here, and we’re gonna make it happen. If what you like today was something you appreciated, you’ll see a little bell if it’s something that you guys reach down that little area a little bit right down there. 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. He’s got Rujahealth.com. You know, what we can do is we can actually 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 get us here in over this region over here. I just put it there. It’s on Vista Del Sol, we’re there, and we can come to help you. So our 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, 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, but we will talk to you guys in a few.

[00:47:59] And if there’s anything that you guys have, give us a call, and we will be able to assist you. God bless.

Neurotransmitter Assessment Form (NTAF)

The Neurotransmitter Assessment Form (NTAF) shown above can be filled out and presented to Dr. Alex Jimenez. The next symptoms listed on this form are not intended to be utilized as a diagnosis of any type of condition, disease, or syndrome, and any other type of health issue and complication.